Networked: A gripping sci-fi thriller

by LK Chapman

  ‘Is that really what you believe?’ I asked her, ‘that we’ve been talking to God?’

  ‘Well... not necessarily God like people talk about at the moment. But a god of some sort, maybe?’

  I shook my head. ‘Lily-’

  ‘Look, I know you’ve always been an atheist,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t mean I have to be.’

  I sighed. I wanted Lily to feel like when she was with me she could say whatever she wanted without it being criticised and I wanted her to stand up for herself, but of all the things for her to choose to believe, why did it have to be this?

  We’d been in the bath for ages. When I looked down at my hands my fingertips were wrinkly. Lily was now hugging her knees, her chin resting on top of them, her eyes reproachful.

  ‘Look,’ I said slowly, ‘obviously I’m not saying you have to think exactly the way I do. It’s just that if we were all to decide the Network was God, well, what then? We’d stop exploring any other alternatives. We wouldn’t even bother to try and work out what else it could be. Do you see what I mean?’

  Lily nodded. ‘I’m stupid,’ she said, ‘aren’t I? That’s what you think.’

  ‘No,’ I said firmly, ‘you’re not stupid. I’m glad you told me what you’re thinking and if that’s how you feel then it’s fine, but to me the Network being God just isn’t an answer.’

  Lily started to get out the bath, but as she reached across to the towel rail by the door she stopped and looked at me.

  ‘Don’t you ever think it would be nice to believe in something?’ she asked me, ‘to find meaning in the world?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Let me show you something,’ I said.

  She wrapped her towel around herself and knelt down on the bathmat, watching as I lowered my face to the water and then blew gently on it, making lots of tiny ripples that disappeared as they reached the sides of the bath.

  Lily laughed. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, ‘what am I supposed to be looking at?’

  ‘You saw all the little ripples when I blew on the water?’ I asked.

  She nodded, intrigued.

  ‘Well, that’s how waves start. Ocean waves, I mean. From the wind on the water.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Well, because waves are probably the closest thing I get to what you call a meaningful, spiritual experience.’

  Lily looked at me curiously. ‘You’re saying you believe in waves? I think everybody does, don’t they?’

  ‘I mean how they’re a transfer of energy,’ I explained, ‘and so are we.’

  Lily folded her arms on the side of the bath and watched me intently. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘so how does that work?’

  ‘Well, like I said, the energy of the wind makes the waves, and then the energy passes through the ocean until a wave breaks on the shore, and then the energy moves on again. So all through its life the wave has the energy- it starts small, it goes on its journey, and then it dies, essentially. And that’s just like us. We take energy from the world and use it to do whatever we want to do, and when our lives are over the energy dissipates back into the world again.’

  ‘Don’t you find that depressing?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s not depressing. It’s beautiful. The world lends us its energy and we live, and it reminds me that I should make the most of everything, try to understand things, experience things. And I’ve chosen to share all of my life and experience with you.’

  Lily smiled. ‘I guess,’ she said, ‘but... I don’t know. I think I like the comfort in thinking that something is watching over us, that things are more planned than random.’

  ‘Lily, are you frightened about what’s happening to us?’ I asked.

  I thought she’d say she was. But she had that faraway expression again, and I was sure she was thinking about the dream she’d had. ‘I was,’ she said, ‘but not anymore.’

  Chapter 30

  Dan arrived back in a very different mood to when he’d left.

  He was holding several sheets of paper which he threw on the desk before plonking himself down on the sofa. Lily was kneeling on the kitchen floor sorting washing into different piles, while I was idly scanning through business emails- opening very few, mainly just looking at the subject then ignoring them.

  I glanced over at the papers he’d just thrown on the desk, and saw they were all property details.

  ‘Were none of them any good?’ I asked him.

  ‘They were fine,’ he said, ‘I could live in any of them.’

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’

  He sighed and didn’t answer. I looked round at Lily, but she wasn’t paying a great deal of attention, she just carried on sorting the clothes out. There was something strange about the way she was doing it, though it took a moment to figure out quite what it was. She was just being so slow about it. She’d pick up a single sock, look at it for a while, then lay it on top of the appropriate pile, then pick up another, look at it, lay it down. It was as though she’d never done anything like it before.

  ‘Lily,’ I said, ‘Dan’s back.’

  She gave a little jump like I’d startled her, then she shook her head as if to clear it.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘hi Dan. Good day?’

  Dan looked across at me and inclined his head towards Lily in a kind of unspoken question. I shrugged.

  ‘Not so good,’ he said to her.

  ‘Oh,’ she said again, going back to her sorting. ‘That’s a shame.’

  Dan moved to the edge of the sofa and leant over the arm to whisper to me. ‘Is she alright?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said, ‘she’s been a bit like this all day. Tell me what’s happened with the flats though. I thought you were really keen.’

  ‘I was. I mean, I am, I guess.’

  ‘So...’ I said. I stopped checking my emails briefly to look at him and it was kind of a relief to take my mind off them for a second. The heat surrounding Affrayed was getting so intense and with Interface’s threat hanging over us I just didn’t have a clue what to say to anybody anymore.

  Dan rubbed his eyes wearily and I didn’t think he was going to answer. But suddenly he took a breath and said, ‘so, how am I supposed to find somewhere to live when I don’t know what the fuck is going on anymore? These places are all near you, but if you and me aren’t going to work together anymore I don’t need to live near you necessarily, do I? I’ll just need to move wherever I can get a job. It’s like... I want to move on, have some sense of progress, but how can I when everything’s so fucked up?’

  His raised voice was enough to shake Lily from her reverie, and we were both surprised when she spoke.

  ‘Why don’t you go and see your mum and Robyn tonight?’ she suggested. ‘Perhaps it would help if you talked things over with them.’

  As she spoke, another email came through, and I saw it was from the distribution site where we primarily sold our game, and it looked pretty serious. I opened it, and saw, with not that much surprise, that our game had been removed from their site.

  ‘Dan,’ I said, ‘look at this.’

  He read it and laughed without humour. ‘That’s just fucking great, isn’t it?’ he said, ‘they’ll never agree to work with us again. Nobody is ever going to want to work with us again.’

  I had to agree it was a serious blow. People could buy our games directly from our website, but that was responsible for only a tiny fraction of our sales. Admittedly, we had now achieved a level of notoriety that would keep our company and Affrayed in people’s minds for months, if not years, but without being able to put our games on a site where they’d be promoted to people who would otherwise not think to seek us out, we’d probably have a hard time in the future. If there even was a future for DAWN.

  Lily was curious what we were talking about, and came to read the email over my shoulder.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘let’s all just have a night off from... all this.’

 
‘All we’re ever doing is having time off from this,’ I said, ‘I can hardly remember the last time I did a day’s work.’

  ‘You know what I mean. All this stress. It’s not doing any of us any good.’

  ‘You know, maybe I will go and see mum and Robyn,’ Dan said at length.

  ‘I think that’s a good idea,’ Lily said, ‘and Nick, we’ll drop in on your parents. I want to apologise to your mum for all the weird stuff I did yesterday.’

  …

  Dan left almost immediately, but Lily and I had dinner before going round to my parents’ house, so by the time we arrived the sun had lost its heat, giving way to a hazy and humid summer evening. There was no answer when I knocked on the door, but I could hear the lawnmower, so we slipped round the side of the house, assuming my parents were out in the garden. Sure enough, Dad was in the far corner cutting the grass, while mum was leaning over one of the big, round rosebushes by the patio, a scarf tied around her wispy blonde hair to keep it away from her face, a pair of secateurs in her hand. She almost jumped out of her skin at our unexpected presence, and then ran over and hugged us both so tightly that it was as though she was overjoyed just to see us alive.

  ‘How are you Lily?’ she asked. ‘Are you feeling better? I assume Nick told you that you can have the rest of the week off.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lily said, ‘but are you sure you can cope? I don’t want to...’

  Mum waved away all her protests. ‘It’s absolutely fine,’ she said, ‘honestly. I don’t want you to worry about it. You just get some rest. In fact, you’re looking better already.’

  She was right. Lily did look a lot better. In fact, in the sunny garden with her hair loose and dressed in a little denim skirt and a crisp white t-shirt she looked radiant. Finally, the sound of the lawnmower stopped as Dad noticed us, and he started making his way over. Even from the way he walked, I could tell that worrying about me was weighing pretty heavily on him.

  ‘I wanted...’ Lily said to mum, ‘I wanted to apologise for how I behaved yesterday. I’m so sorry, and those people we were talking to about the funeral... I’ll phone them and apologise if you want?’

  Mum put her arm round Lily’s shoulders. ‘Don’t you worry about it,’ she said, ‘I’ve already spoken to them and explained that you were under a lot of pressure and it’s all sorted now.’

  ‘Good,’ Lily said, her voice unsteady, ‘I’m so glad. I thought maybe I’d scared them away, and that they might tell other people not to come to us...’

  She started crying just as Dad joined us, and mum led her away. I watched them as they sat down together at the big wooden table on the patio, and within a few seconds mum had Lily laughing through her tears.

  Dad was watching them too. ‘How are you holding up?’ he asked me.

  ‘I think DAWN Industries is finished,’ I said.

  He placed his hand reassuringly on my arm and I was surprised. He never normally touched me- he didn’t touch anyone, really, and I didn’t know what to say.

  When we joined Lily at the table, mum rushed off to return a few moments later with a large tray which she set down carefully in the middle of the table. On it were four wine glasses, a bottle of red wine and a newspaper.

  ‘I wasn’t sure whether to show you this,’ she said, as she picked it up, ‘I know you don’t read the local papers, so I thought you might not realise and I wasn’t sure whether you’d want to know, but...’ she unfolded it and placed it in front of me. ‘Your game made it onto the front page,’ she said.

  I barely had to read any of it to tell it was portraying our company, and the game, in a pretty poor light. For starters there was a god-awful, grainy picture of Dan and me from some show or event or other back in the days of DreamChase that could hardly have been less flattering, and then a load of stuff about all the recent controversy to hit “local business” DAWN Industries.

  ‘Not much else going on round here then, huh?’ I said.

  Lily slid the paper towards her and I tried to stop her. ‘Don’t waste your time on it, Lily,’ I said, ‘it’ll just be the same old crap.’

  Mum poured a generous amount of red wine into each glass, and placed one in front of each of us even though she must have realised I’d just driven to their house.

  ‘So, do you have any idea who made Affrayed yet?’ Dad asked.

  I looked at Lily, who was absorbed in reading the article. I didn’t like it when she did stuff like this. She knew it would only make her sad, but she did it anyway. All of a sudden she slammed her hand against the table so hard it made the wine glasses rattle and said, ‘this is such rubbish.’

  ‘I told you it would be,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, well according to this it sounds like before we know it everyone is going to be out doing... well, you know, just because they saw it in a game.’

  ‘Are you going to talk to the press about it?’ Dad asked.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘It seems like it wouldn’t hurt for you to maybe try and give your side,’ mum said, ‘at the moment, everyone is saying what they want about you. They’re saying you think... this kind of thing... is some sort of joke.’

  I noticed she’d already drunk getting on for half the wine in her glass, and that her hands were shaking a little.

  ‘Mum,’ I said, reaching across to her, ‘it’s alright.’

  ‘I don’t like people saying all these lies about you,’ she said, ‘I just wish I could do something.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  The conversation went round in circles and I soon began to feel it was doing more harm than good. Dad kept pressing me about the choices I was making, about why I wasn’t trying to tell the truth, why I wasn’t getting any legal advice, why I was letting it all carry on, and I was scared that if I didn’t get out of the situation soon I’d end up saying more than I should. The problem was, he knew me and he knew I was hiding things and while I could often get away with telling mum half-truths the same could not be said for him.

  Sure enough, as we were leaving he managed to exchange a few quiet words with me while mum and Lily were absorbed in a fresh wave of conversation.

  ‘Nick, I know there’s more to this,’ he said. I tried to argue but he held up one of his hands.

  ‘I’m not asking you to tell me,’ he said, ‘but just answer me one thing. Are you in real, serious trouble here?’

  I looked past him to mum and Lily, who were still chatting.

  ‘Lettuce has something in it that helps you sleep if you’re struggling,’ mum said to her, ‘I read about it just the other day. And lavender oil is good. The proper stuff. It’s expensive but...’

  ‘Of course I’m in trouble,’ I said, ‘my business is finished.’

  He waved my words away impatiently. ‘That’s not what I mean,’ he said, ‘I mean... this... whatever’s going on. I understand you want to handle it your way, but me and your mum, we’ll always do our best to help you. If you’re in trouble, whatever it is, we want you to know you can come to us.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘I appreciate it. But I don’t need any help.’

  Chapter 31

  If I thought things were getting tricky with my parents, it was nothing compared to the ongoing battle at Dan’s house. When he got back from seeing his mum and sister he was seriously wound up, probably in one of the worst states I’d even seen him in- and he’d crashed at our flat a lot after falling out with his family. He was pacing back and forth, seemingly unable to decide what to do with himself.

  ‘I wish I’d never gone there,’ he said, ‘I wish I’d never even bothered to go back to that fucking place. I hate it. I hate them.’

  ‘Dan,’ Lily said, ‘come on, why don’t you sit down or something?’

  She tried to take his arm and he shook her away, and Lily looked round at me helplessly for a second. Then she took hold of him again. ‘Tell me what happened,’ she said, ‘talk to us.’

  ‘Why?’ he exploded, ‘you have no fucking idea what
it’s like! With your perfect families and your perfect marriage and your flat and everything’s all just great, isn’t it?’

  ‘Dan, there’s no need for that,’ I said, ‘I know you’re having a rough time but it’s no excuse to take it out on Lily.’

  Dan looked at her and his expression softened. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I really... don’t listen to anything I say. I’m an absolute waste of space right now.’

  With that he sank down onto the sofa and stared at the floor.

  ‘Dan?’ Lily said, ‘can I sit with you?’

  He shrugged, so Lily joined him. ‘You don’t have to tell us anything about what happened if you don’t want to,’ she said, ‘but maybe it would help if we understood. What happened when you went there tonight? Did you talk to them about Affrayed, or getting your own flat?’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

  ‘Okay, so what did you talk about?’

  ‘Talk about? We don’t ever talk about anything. They just... scream and shout. All the time. I’d forgotten how fucking bad it gets. You know Robyn doesn’t even think twice about telling us she hates us or telling us to fuck off? She’s told me she wishes I’d die more than once. And mum. I got so used to it I barely noticed anymore when I lived there, but when I went back it was like I saw it all afresh again.’

  ‘Dan, I’m so sorry,’ Lily said.

  ‘It’s like, she’s just changed so much I’m not sure if there’s any of the old Robyn left. I feel like now there’s just this weird, spiteful person who I don’t even know anymore.’

  Lily reached out and gently put her hand over Dan’s. ‘I expect Nick felt like that with me,’ she said, ‘when I was ill. I could be very cruel. But I didn’t mean it, I just wasn’t well. Robyn... well, I think she’s having some problems with alcohol, isn’t she?’

  Dan nodded, and then all of a sudden he was crying.

  ‘Hey,’ Lily said, putting her arms around him, ‘hey, it’s okay.’

  I’d never seen him get upset like that before and it was very strange to watch him crying into Lily’s hair. I didn’t know where to look.