Auto

by David Wailing

  The conviction had meant closure for the family and friends of Roxanna Alden. And for Roxanna herself. Her auto had thanked Greg for finally seeing justice done. There’d been tears in Greg’s eyes as he responded to her messages. He knew it was only her unliving auto speaking to him, but it must have felt like he was hearing a girl he once knew so well, who didn’t deserve to die so young, so horribly.

  Joanna had bitten her tongue for a few weeks before suggesting that Greg push Roxanna to his outer Circle. Not too pleased that his old girlfriend’s auto still acted like she was close to him. They’d avenged her, put it right. But she was history now.

  The main thing, of course, was the colossal relief it brought to Greg. Ever since then he’s acted a lot more relaxed and boyish, making her laugh all the time. That’s attractive as hell to Joanna. He’s reminding her of what she’d been like before moving to London and taking on the role of serious-minded professional. Greg taps into the old Dublin lass she keeps inside, and nobody has done that for the eight years she’s been in the UK. Again, it’s so simple: he makes her happy.

  And the work continued. Which meant they kept each other secret.

  Once McKenzie was behind bars, Greg became Joanna’s sounding board on her secret investigation into the source of the blackware. Who else can she tell? Certainly not anyone at Global Investigations. She has a feeling there’s a reason why the police haven’t managed to locate the blackware source. In a word: backhanders. Whoever is creating this stuff obviously has tons of money behind them. And a policeman’s pension isn’t anything to write home about, is it? Since lots of people at Global Investigations have ties with the Met, she doesn’t want to risk tipping anyone off. So it’s off the books for now.

  Also… if she’s honest… it bugs her. That on the night of their first date, her auto made her see Greg as a killer. She’d tried to run from him! They might never have met! Ugh, the thought always makes her shiver. No, she needs to find out what went wrong with her auto, where the blackware is coming from, and put a stop to it. She just does. It’s personal for her now, personal for them both.

  And if she’s really, really honest…

  Jesus, it’s exciting!

  Before April, Joanna’s working days had started to bore her. All the normal routine work... data checks, timeline scans. Not what she’d hoped for, when she first started working in the investigations industry. She gets antsy, edgy, if her mind isn’t being occupied. She likes problems you have to think about all the time, every day, 24/7.

  But oh, putting Roxanna’s killer behind bars gave her a colossal buzz! That’s what she’s chasing. Working with Greg is what gets her out of bed in the morning. (Unless he’s still in the bed. This honeymoon period doesn’t seem to be tailing off yet.)

  So spending the weekend holed up with Greg is the best thing for Joanna. Not just because of him, either. It’s their base of operations now.

  Late on Sunday evening, they’re both in the spare bedroom, surrounded by the smartscreens, laptops and monitoring equipment she’s filled it with over the past few months. Joanna’s on a swivel chair that allows her to reach everything, while Greg sits on the beaten up two-seater sofa along one wall. Although Greg has an unusually good wardrobe for a man, with some very stylish suits and jackets, today he’s in baggy stonewashed jeans and a faded old Avatar 3 t-shirt that’s not quite big enough for his long, lean torso. He’s too tall to lay out fully on that sofa, and Joanna hopes he doesn’t, because then she’ll feel like climbing on top of him and she’s trying to work now. She needs to figure this out if she’s going to move on.

  They sit through all the newsfeed reports about famous author AB Foster announcing her second retirement. There’s an interview with John Crown, the critic, whose normal self-assurance seems to have deserted him as he stammers about how unexpected it was. Predictably, the Box Clever books now dominate the bestseller charts, with the all-new ieBook at number one.

  Greg leans forward with elbows on knees, idly stroking his goatee the way he always does when he’s concentrating. “So there never was an AB Foster?” he asks. “It was only ever an auto, even at the beginning?”

  She nods. “All made up.”

  He blows out an incredulous breath. “But that’s… how come? You’re saying Derek Thorpe’s old auto actually wrote all those new books itself, without him? How is that possible? It’s just an auto! That’s like saying... I dunno, my car entered itself in the Grand Prix. Bonkers!”

  Joanna accesses a specific set of video files. She holds her finger up at a certain point, freezing the image. Greg stares at the incongruous sight of a metal box in a plastic sheath, sitting on the dusty canvas of a boxing ring. Joanna’s widening hand zooms the image until he can read the serial number stamped into its front panel.

  “BBX4001 SB786. Does that mean something to… wait, hang on. That’s not the same as…?”

  Joanna is already bringing up a saved message on the other smartscreen.

  IP deep-search in progress...

  Source: BBX4001 SE886

  Registered: Infinet Hosting

  Solutions

  Greg catches his breath. “It is the same! Different serial number, but the same type, right?”

  “The same type,” says Joanna, “as the server my own auto was running on, when I first met you.”

  Back in April, Joanna had wasted no time trying to get to the bottom of what happened. She ran diagnostics on her own auto, checked its code, then ran a trace on where it was being hosted. The search tools identified the exact server her auto was being run from: BBX4001 SE886. Owned by her internet service provider, Infinet Hosting Solutions.

  She contacted them, explained who she worked for – that often opened doors, perhaps because people assumed a private investigations agency could probably unlock them anyway – and was told something interesting. The BBX4001 server had been supplied by a company called Visage Electronics Inc.. However that server was no longer part of their network. They had no more details than that.

  Joanna was tempted to break into Infinet’s data store and start rooting around. But that was risky, and she was far more interested in the supplier, Visage Electronics. Should be easy enough to track them down. And when she did, she planned on giving them...

  Search complete.

  Companies House... no match.

  European Business Register... no

  match.

  International Company

  Registry... no match.

  Google Business Search... no

  match.

  Visage Electronics Inc. not

  found.

  ...hell.

  Joanna had felt her throat tighten. What did this mean? Even if Visage Electronics had folded, there would still be some record. But no trace whatsoever?

  You can’t lie about your own name these days. Who can lie about an entire company?

  “So what does this mean?” Greg asks after a long minute of staring at the two screens, both displaying similar serial numbers. “What do we think, that the, um...”

  “I’ll tell you what I think, and you just sit there and look pretty, okay?”

  Greg breaks into a smile. Joanna knows why – she’s sounding more like her old self, and that’s what he’s been waiting for. He sweeps back thick chestnut-brown hair (that she’s slightly addicted to running her fingers through), licks a finger and smoothes his eyebrows. “Okay, I’m pretty. Go.”

  “We know someone sold a server to Infinet through a fake company, Visage Electronics, a company that has since been redacted completely, or maybe never even officially registered. Now, internet service providers like Infinet don’t buy servers individually, they buy them in the hundreds. But they only bought one BBX4001. Why? Because it was expensive? Or because it was special?”

  “Or because it was free?”

  “What?”

  “Maybe it was a trial?” shrugs Greg. “That’s a pretty standard marketing approach - try one of our products for free.”


  “Yes! That makes sense. They offered Infinet one free server as a test model.” She mock-scowls at him. “I thought I told you to just be pretty?”

  “Ooops.” Greg arches his back, purses his lips and tosses his head like he’s in a shampoo advert.

  Joanna swivels away, not wanting him to make her laugh. She’s on a roll. “So, someone at Infinet tries this one server. And when it goes wrong, they either send it back or quietly dispose of it.”

  Greg nods at the image of the boxing ring. “That’s not the same one though, is it? Different number.”

  “Right. Which means there’s more than one of these things out there.”

  “And they’re all dodgy.”

  “So it seems. Now we know that any autos being run on them malfunction, the way mine did. Well. More over-function. They do the same things they normally do but, like, turned up to eleven. Mine started incorporating software from Global, and probing you more aggressively than I would have.”

  “Not much more aggressively…”

  “Hush. And the AB Foster auto... that also over-functioned. Started repeating all the things Derek used it for, pretending to be a famous author, until it ended up writing its own books, based on the originals. Same type of server, same type of behaviour from the auto.”

  “Is that why someone put the AB Foster auto onto one of these BBX servers, then? To sell more books, make more money?”

  “That’s it.” Isn’t it? Yes, must be. “Derek couldn’t get royalties from the Box Clever books, because it was all linked to the AB Foster auto. There must be millions there by now. And whoever brought back AB Foster probably has it.”

  Is she trying to convince herself? It’s got to be about money, it always is. That must be it. Why else run AB Foster’s auto?

  Joanna stares at the paused video feed from Derek Thorpe’s Vades™: the server in the middle of the boxing ring. She doesn’t want to watch what happens after this point. This is where it should have stopped.

  She should have stopped it.

  “I’ll need to send Gordon a full case report,” Joanna mutters, almost to herself. “And tell the police. Make it official.”

  “I’m guessing you’re not going to mention that server in your report, though,” says Greg.

  “No chance,” she agrees. “I’m not going to be the lunatic who publically accuses a bestselling author of never having existed. Jesus, can you imagine? No, I’ll have to say... he accidentally sparked a fire that got out of control. An accident. Warehouse boilers were already leaking. The police’ll want to see my records, but those are easy enough to fake. But I’ll still have to report his...”

  Still can’t say the word.

  “...what happened to him.”

  “It’s my bloody life, you got that? This is my story, not yours, and I’m ending it! I’m ending her!”

  “Even if it’s a lie.”

  “Thank... thank you for your help, Ms O’Donnell. You can consider this case closed.”

  She blinks hard. “That doesn’t mean I can’t find the bastards that did this to him.”

  That’s right. Get angry. It’s not your fault. Someone else did this. It helps, to think of it like that. She grasps onto the idea: her versus the bad guys. Yes.

  Greg gives her a moment before asking “So are there any more leads?”

  Joanna spins round to find that he has left the sofa and is now on the carpeted floor. Lying on his front with his head resting on one hand, peering up at the screens like the biggest little boy in the world. A smile tugs at Joanna’s mouth – what is it with Greg and the floor? – but she turns away again before he can see it. “Oh yeah. I’ve got leads.”

  With a few spoken words, she calls up her encrypted case files. The results of some discreet online searches. Over the last couple of months, Joanna has been looking for evidence that what happened to her auto wasn’t some isolated glitch. Everything is part of a pattern, in some way or other, but you need distance to be able to see it.

  So she searched. Blogs and vlogs. Private messages and public posts. Forums and sim-rooms. Tweets, bleets, veets, xeets, the lot. Looking for mentions of unusual incidents, hidden away within people’s online chatter. Looking for particular keywords and phrases: Personal. Private. Secrets. Exposed. Disturbing. Scary. Knew too much. Went too far. Did it without me asking. Did it all by itself.

  And of course, the main keyword: Auto.

  It took weeks to filter out all the meaningless fluff which made up 95% of the results. There were only a few passing mentions of weird auto behaviour. She suspected most had been redacted by people thinking better of it. But the stories were out there. Stories that disturbed her.

  And that’s what she brings up now: a list of people who experienced something odd with their autos. Not proper leads yet, more like gossip and rumour, overheard from miles away. Just enough to convince her that she isn’t alone.

  Joseph Crane: initiated

  divorce proceedings but

  claims not to have done so

  Amy Pearce: multiple

  changes in relationship

  status with unconnected

  man from EU

  Sara Maizels: total privacy

  settings failure

  Rachel Stuart-Manning:

  bankrupted due to

  unauthorised donation of all

  property and funds to

  charity

  Larissa Brady: unusual auto

  migration between ISPs,

  plus

  traces of relationship with

  non-existent profile

  Leo Travis: total privacy

  settings failure

  Eleanor Ranklin: total

  privacy settings failure

  Fionnula O’Brannigan: total

  privacy settings failure

  Mitch Kogan: serving

  prison sentence, auto

  bypassed lockdown to

  manage daughter’s finances

  Ethan McIntyre: unusual

  integration of assistive

  technology via auto

  Janine Kinglake: mentions

  of unusual interaction with

  dead father’s unliving auto

  Sanjay Bannerjee: total

  privacy settings failure

  Gabrielle Anness: resigned

  CEO position and applied

  for new jobs, claiming no

  knowledge of doing so

  ...

  The list of case files roll down the screen, each with faces attached – the profile pictures of those involved. Nearly fifty in all.

  “We need to go see these people,” says Greg from down on the floor. “Talk to them properly. The more we know about their experiences, the better. Don’t you think?”

  Joanna can’t stop herself smiling any more. “It’s still ‘we’ then, is it?”

  “Of course it is! I always need a ‘we’. I’m dying for a we, bursting for a we!”

  She laughs. Damn it. Turns in her chair to look down at him. “Look, Greg, you’re right, but you don’t have to be involved any more, you know. I mean, if you don’t want to. And anyway, you’re not a licensed investigator like I am. I can use my credentials to get in places and speak to people, but you’re... well, you’re a management consultant.”

  “Marketing manager with a management consultancy,” he corrects her, smoothing another eyebrow. “We have special skills too, you know.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “We do! We can make anything look good. Proper skills, those.”

  “Skills with bullshit.”

  Reaching out, he grabs the leg of her chair and rattles it. “Jaysus, Oirish lass, you’re from the land of blarney, so y’are! You were born to bullshit!”

  Joanna giggles and switches to her Dublin accent, cranked up to maximum. She sounds like her Dad used to, before his educated daughters nagged him to speak properly. “Fer feck’s sake, will youse no stop talking shoite, ye bollix! Jaysus Mary and J
oseph, youse acting like a mad yolk!”

  “Thirty-three pints of your finest Guinness!” he says in terribly proper English.

  “Turty-tree points o’ the black stuff!” she says in outrageous Irish.

  Greg laughs so hard he has to muffle his face in the crook of his arm, and that sets Joanna off again. She feels something loosen inside her chest. Another big piece of herself slides back into place. There’s the urge to get right down on the floor with Greg, but she manages to resist it.

  “Listen,” he says eventually, looking up at her, “I might not be able to do everything you can, but I’m still going to help, all right? Share your toys?”

  “Share my toys,” she smiles.

  She feels his hand move up inside the leg of her jeans. Warm fingers stroke her bare ankle. Goosebumps.

  “Wherever you go, I go.”

  She nods, suddenly not trusting her voice. More goosebumps, spreading over every inch of skin, making her kind of shivery. How come he can do this to her? Bastard.

  “So are youse getting down here wi’ us or not?”

  Joanna slides out of the chair and gets down on the floor with her man.

  *

  From Vauxhall Underground Station, it’s only a ten minute walk until Joanna finds the street she’s looking for. Not that she has to do any actual searching. The route is mapped out for her, a glowing arrow overlaid onto the pavement. There’s no chance of getting lost while she’s wearing her Vades™.

  It’s almost 8pm on a chilly Friday evening. The streets are dotted with commuters returning home and party animals heading out to start their weekend. But Joanna’s still working, even though she left the office an hour ago. She’s going to see Amy Pearce, the first name on the list who actually responded to her calls.

  She should be tired. It’s been a long, tough week. There were so many reports to write for the Derek Thorpe case, and each one really took it out of her. She had to deliver an explanation to Gordon, her manager. He was very understanding, and assured her she shouldn’t blame herself for anything. She’s so lucky to have a boss like him – he’s a legend. The interviews with the Homicide Task Force were much more stressful. It felt like she was in the dock being cross-examined, instead of talking to a couple of plain clothes police officers over endless cups of coffee. She lied to them just as smoothly as she lied to everyone else.