by Liam Brown
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ I protested. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be thinking about. Surely sooner or later people are going to get bored of me thinking the same things day in and day out?’
Sarah snorted at this. ‘They watched your videos for long enough, didn’t they? Trust me, creating stimulating, dynamic content is the least of your worries.’
‘Ouch.’
‘All I mean is that people don’t watch MindCast for a deep, cultural experience. You’re a relatable everyman, David. That’s your biggest strength. You’re dependable. Inoffensive. You don’t have strong opinions or outlandish tastes. You’re a reassuring presence. And that’s a good thing. That’s what makes you so appealing to so many people. It’s why vloggers are so popular right now. Before that it was reality TV. And soap operas before that. People don’t want their stars to shine anymore. They want to watch lives that are just like theirs. It’s reassuring. It reinforces the idea that they’re normal. That they fit in. MindCast is just the next logical step. Now they get to see someone who thinks like them too. Someone who’s not embarrassed to fret about the little things in life. What to wear. What to eat. Don’t you see? Just being your usual, unexceptional self is precisely what makes you so special. It’s not about entertainment. At least not in the old-fashioned sense. We’re too old for bedtime stories. Besides, how could fiction possibly compete in a world this crazy? No. What we want is a comfort blanket. Something familiar we can throw over ourselves and huddle under on these cold, dark nights. That’s your job David. You’re keeping the world warm.’
Although Sarah sounded confident, I’m still not convinced. For one thing, the proliferation of unofficial fan-made ‘highlight’ videos that have started to crop up online recently suggests that people are becoming restless at watching my aimless thoughts crawl past in real-time – especially when the instant gratification of a punchily edited compilation video is only ever a click away. A single six-minute video entitled David’s Childhood Traumas has already eclipsed the figures for videos I’d made in my pre-MindCast days. Meanwhile, there are already several compilations of my dreams that have each chalked up over fifty million views. With figures like that, it’s hard not to envisage a time when people stop watching the show live altogether, and simply cut straight to the highlights.
Watching my dreams back is a strange, often underwhelming experience. While I’ve never been especially good at remembering them, I’ve always been struck by their cinematic nature, as if I spend my nights crafting surreal but basically coherent movies. Watching back my dreams on the tiny screen of my mobile phone however, I am forced to concede there is no evidence of a nocturnal auteur at work in my subconscious. Indeed, even in heavily edited form, there seems to be nothing beyond a jumble of random images and sounds shorn of all context. A surreal collage of vague visual associations, fleeting inconsequential moments from my past and present colliding to produce an incoherent art-house mess.
Still, there is nevertheless something compulsive about them. In fact, I have just opened the latest compilation when my doorbell rings.
I glance at my desktop clock, surprised. Even with the saturation of pizza takeaways in my neighbourhood, it’s an impressively quick response. As I sweep back my door however, I’m greeted not by a pizza delivery person, but by a sight so bizarre that I can’t immediately process it.
Standing in front of me, filling my entire doorway in fact, is a giant sheep.
Or at least, a person wearing a sheep costume.
For a brief moment I wonder if this might be some kind of elaborate promotion. An advert for a new spicy lamb topping perhaps? Then I glance down and see the gun the sheep has gripped in its hand. A gleaming, oversized revolver, like something from a cartoon. The whole scene is so preposterous I almost laugh. But then the sheep takes a step forwards and shoves me so hard in the chest that I almost topple over. Realising this is no joke, I move quickly to shut the door on my assailant. But I’m too late. The sheep has already forced its way into my apartment. Instinctively I reach for my phone, but in a flash, it is snatched from my hand and dashed against a wall, exploding in a burst of plastic, glass and microchips.
The sheep points the gun at my head.
‘Go inside and sit the fuck down,’ shouts a muffled male voice from behind the mask. ‘If you fucking try anything I will shoot you on the fucking spot. And stop fucking crying.’
‘I’m speaking to you live today from the home of David Callow …’
I’m sitting in my living room, my knees curled protectively to my chest. The sheep sits opposite me, the gun cradled in his lap. On the coffee table between us, is a laptop, the MindCast app open. In the bottom corner of the screen, the view counter shows fifty million people watching.
As the sheep starts speaking, I instinctively squeeze my eyes shut. ‘I swear, I haven’t seen your face, man. Just take what you want and don’t hurt me. Please. I won’t even think about you. I promise.’
Behind the mask, the sheep lets out a long sigh. ‘I want you to think about me. That’s the whole point.’
He points to his chest. For a moment I’m confused. Then I spot the tiny action camera pinned to his fleece, a steady red LED indicating that it’s recording.
I’m being filmed.
‘I’m here today with David Callow,’ he starts again. ‘In order to draw attention to the gross breach of human rights committed by the head of MindCast, and David’s paymaster, Xan Brinkley.’
At the mention of his name, Xan’s face materialises on the screen of the laptop. Though I can’t see his expression behind the mask, the sheep seems satisfied, his voice growing stronger, as if projecting from a stage.
‘Over the last five years, we have watched silently as the tentacles of mass surveillance have choked away the last shreds of dignity in our offices and workplaces around the globe. Brinkley, courtesy of his hideous OptimiZer handcuffs, has single-handedly facilitated the largest theft of our personal data the world has ever seen, ensuring large corporations now have more access to where we are and what we’re doing than ever before. Not content with this gross invasion, he has now taken a step towards steamrollering the last bastion of privacy that we, as a species, have left … our minds.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ I interrupt, unable to contain myself. ‘You’re here because you’re mad about MindCast? But that’s ridiculous. Xan isn’t trying to get into your mind, or anyone else’s. It’s just me. I’m the star of the show. And I’m here because I volunteered to be here. Nobody held a gun to my head.’
At this, the sheep seems to snap, levelling his revolver with my temple. ‘And you think it’s going to stay like that? Christ, you really are stupid. Don’t you remember when OptimiZer was first released? It was only celebrities who wore them back then. There was a waiting list. You had to be rich to get one. They were aspirational items. How long do you think it’ll be before MindCast goes mass market? Before it’s mandatory? Before we’re implanting chips at birth?’
On the laptop, a newborn baby appears, his head clamped in a surgical vice, a trail of wires snaking out from the back of his skull.
‘MindCast for babies? But that doesn’t make any … I mean, I don’t think people would want to watch that?’
‘Jesus! This isn’t about a fucking show. It’s about data. That’s all any of this has ever been about. Our lives are scraped and sifted and scrutinised more than any other generation who’ve ever lived on earth, including people born under the Stasi. Who you’re fucking. How long you’re sleeping. What brand of toothpaste you use. We’re just leaking that stuff. We’re oozing it. But all that’s nothing compared to you. You, my friend, are the golden goose. The final piece of the puzzle. Thanks to that thing you’ve got stuffed in the back of your head, there is literally nothing they won’t know. There’ll be nowhere left to hide.’
I glance at the screen. The baby has gone now, replaced by what looks like a man with an egg for a head. Humpty Dumpty, his skull c
racked open, the ground sticky with yolk.
‘Yeah, but so what? That’s the trade-off, isn’t it? I get the convenience of free email or knowing how many calories I’ve burned at the gym or whatever and they get to know me a bit better so they can show me more relevant advertising. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. Besides, I’m not a terrorist or a paedophile. Why should I care if I’m being … OW!’
The sheep leans forward and sends the barrel of the gun crashing into my jaw. My head snaps back. I taste blood. Through the smear of snot and tears I see the laptop screen has filled with a brilliant flash of white, the system overloaded by the intensity of my pain.
‘Why should you care?’ he shouts. ‘Why should you fucking care? We’re talking about intelligence gathering on an unprecedented scale. Forget data mining. This is mind rape. The end of privacy as we know it. It’s not about advertising, you idiot. It’s about power. Control. Sure, the marketing men might be the first to come knocking, but sooner or later this information is going to end up in the hands of agencies whose only interest is the total suppression of your freedom. In the whole of history, no system of mass surveillance has ever existed that hasn’t ended up being hijacked by malevolent forces. All it would take is one bad election, and suddenly your populist-fascist government has access to the thoughts of every single citizen in the country.’
On the screen, I see an army emerging from the white, hundreds of boots marching towards poor Humpty’s broken body, crushing his shell to a fine powder under their heels.
‘Resistance will be futile,’ the sheep continues. ‘Democracy, finished. That’s why someone’s got to do something now. To stop this madness before it goes any further.’
He stops talking and reaches into his bag. The gun is gone now, replaced by a bulky power tool.
A cordless drill.
He squeezes the trigger and a high-pitched metallic whine fills the room.
The laptop displays a picture: my own head in profile, my brain skewed by the steel drill bit, Xan’s chip torn from my skull in a flurry of blood and bone.
The view counter shows a hundred million viewers.
Two hundred million.
As he moves closer, he begins to speak again, his voice now eerily calm. ‘And now ladies and gentleman, streaming live around the world from a flat in London, the star of MindCast, and sworn enemy of freedom, justice and peace, David Callow …’
He squeezes the drill again, a wasp rasping in my ear.
On the screen, a message:
STREAMING ERROR CODE 322-1: MindCast is not responding at present. Please contact an administrator.
I scream, bite, punch, kick.
The sheep pays no attention to me, my blows bouncing off him. His hoof clamps around my shoulder, forcing me down.
‘I act now in the name of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, which states that no person shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home, or correspondence …’
I squirm, spit, thrash.
It’s hopeless though.
He’s too strong.
‘… in order to protect future generations from … buzzZZZZZZZ …’
I don’t hear him finish, his voice drowned out by the relentless squeal of the drill as he grabs me by the hair and forces my head forwards.
I close my eyes and wait for the end.
Everything is happening so quickly that it’s hard to make sense of what’s going on. For a split second the drill touches against the back of my head, a white-hot burn flashing through me, the world lost to the scream of ruptured flesh and twisting metal.
But then it stops.
I sense the drill being pulled away.
I open my eyes.
And to my amazement I’m still alive.
The sheep has let go of me. He has turned away, the drill hanging limply by his waist, his head cocked towards the door. I follow his gaze. And now I hear it.
THUMP THUMP THUMP
The sheep half turns back to me, hesitant, unsure whether to finish the job.
THUMP THUMP THUMP
I decide to take my chance.
Running on nothing but adrenaline, I lash out a foot at the sheep’s arm, sending the drill clattering to the floor. The sheep rounds on me, but at the same time my front door flies from its hinges as half a dozen armed police burst into my hallway, charging towards us.
The sheep lets go of me altogether now, diving for his bag.
Out comes the gun.
Someone starts shouting.
I dive for cover beneath the coffee table.
I bury my head in my hands as the world above me explodes into violence.
Blood and dust and smoke and noise.
At last everything falls silent. A brief pause in the carnage.
I take a chance and tilt my head, peaking between my fingers. Lying a few feet from me, I spot something familiar. The sheep’s camera. It must have been knocked loose in the battle. The red light is still glowing.
It’s still recording,
I move closer, picturing an unknown audience staring back at me.
Looking at me looking at them looking at me.
Hundreds. Millions.
I keep staring, squinting at the tiny gadget, until at last I am able to make myself out, a ghost reflected in the lens. Instinctively I move my hands, wiping at my tear streaked face, fixing my hair.
I take a deep breath.
Bite my lip.
And I can’t help myself.
I strike a pose.
PART THREE
‘So this is where you live now?’
Alice is early.
Alice is always early.
It’s eleven in the morning, a full ninety minutes before she’s due to be here. As ever though, she is utterly oblivious to either my irritation or the fact I am still in my dressing gown. She grins brightly, blinking as she stoops under my arm to let herself into my new apartment.
‘Woah. So this is where Bond villains stay when they’re in the city for the weekend,’ she says, glancing past the ultra-minimalist décor to take in the view from my twenty-fourth storey living room, a sweeping panorama of the city below.
I shrug. ‘It’s pretty nice, I guess.’
‘Pretty nice? It’s insane. It’s like Premier League footballer meets Russian oligarch. I thought the armed guards on reception were a nice touch by the way. Gives the place a real homely feel.’
There’s no denying that the place is a little flashy. Apparently it was one of Xan’s private residences when he first came to London. Even though I’ve been living here for almost a month now, I still haven’t really got used to it. It’s a ‘smart’ apartment, meaning literally everything is automated and connected to the Internet, from the shower, to the toaster, to my Bluetooth pillow – which dutifully sends a message to my phone each morning, informing me of just how little sleep I’m getting. ‘A show home for the future,’ Xan called it. Not that he’s had the time to show me around personally yet.
After I was discharged from the hospital – where I was treated for cuts, bruises and shock, as well as providing a statement to the police – Katya arrived to whisk me off to my new, high-security bolthole, having deemed it was no longer safe to return to my old place. She explained that Xan was once again unable to break away from his commitments overseas, although this time he was kind enough to send a short video message in which he apologised for his prolonged absence and introduced me to some of the more exotic features of the apartment, which it turned out could be controlled not just by my smartphone, but by MindCast too.
In practice this means that I can be vaguely thinking about making a cup of tea and the kettle will start boiling by itself. Or I might try to recall the name of an actor from an old TV show and the credits will flash up on the nearest screen, or rather wall, seeing how almost every surface in the entire apartment is capable of transforming instantly into high-definition, cinema-sized display.
While most
of these technological intrusions are welcome, there are occasions when they are less than helpful. Lights have a tendency to flicker on and off for no reason, especially at dusk, when I can’t decide if it’s too dark or too bright. Sometimes music blares from speakers at top volume, a single phrase or chorus repeated incessantly, mimicking a song that I wasn’t even conscious of being stuck in my head. Already I have managed to destroy two separate kettles after forgetting to fill them with water and then absentmindedly thinking about tea – though admittedly, free replacements have appeared at the door within minutes. Add to this the endless parade of free takeaways (which are delivered upstairs to me by one of the guards), as well as groceries, clothes, aftershave and various other goodies sent by publicity-hungry retailers, and I have found there is pretty much no reason to ever leave this three-thousand-square-foot paradise. Which partly explains why I haven’t been outside for weeks.
‘You know I’m just pleased that Xan was generous enough to set me up somewhere comfortable and safe. Especially in light of everything that happened.’
Alice’s smile evaporates. ‘Sure. I mean, that must have been a horrible experience. The footage I saw online was just …’ she trails off. ‘How are you holding up anyway?’
How am I holding up?
I’ve heard this question more times than I care to remember over the last month.
Ever since the sheep – who within thirty minutes of his arrest had been identified on social media as Edward Samuel Corvin Jr, a twenty-two-year-old, upper-middle-class ‘social activist’ – had taken it upon himself to break into my apartment and hold me hostage, there has been endless online speculation about my physical and mental wellbeing. Despite issuing a number of press releases, the rumours of my faltering health continue to swirl. Of course they do. Thanks to MindCast, the whole world has been privy to the avalanche of anxiety that has consumed my life over the last four weeks. The spasm of panic every time the door knocks or my phone rings. Not to mention the recurring sheep-based nightmares that haunt the rare nights when I can actually sleep, a compilation video of which has apparently already clocked up millions of views in its own right. Yet regardless of this, I still persist with the lie that everything is fine. Better than fine. That I’m having the time of my life.