Cold Courage

by Pekka Hiltunen

  Mari glanced at Lia.

  ‘That isn’t just thanks to Paddy,’ she said. ‘Don’t underestimate the rest of us.’

  ‘What stops them from running off and giving away the Studio?’

  ‘In theory, nothing,’ Mari said.

  But the employees had all signed a non-disclosure agreement, and they were paid well.

  ‘And I only choose people I trust.’

  The computer on the table beeped, and Mari was suddenly alert.

  ‘Do you mind if I glance at my messages?’ she asked, and Lia nodded, standing up and looking around.

  In the room’s large bookcase, behind the sheer fabric, was an impressive collection of non-fiction books and digital recordings about various subjects, including psychology, information technology, linguistics… A section of the shelves was also devoted to thick binders with numerical codes written on the spines.

  ‘The binders are all of our gigs,’ Mari said without looking up. ‘I like traditional files. Digital records lack a feeling of reality.’

  Lia noticed that the first ‘gig’ was packaged into seven binders, and case number twenty-four had taken up sixteen. The last number in the sequence was forty-one, and it had five binders.

  That can’t be the Matt Thomas job interview; they couldn’t have had time to archive that yet. What on earth is in all these binders?

  Then Lia realised why Mari was still interested in her email this late at night. She still had a job under way.

  Lia looked long and hard at Mari, who was completely focused on what she was reading. Even after a long day and a couple of glasses of wine, she still seemed steady and efficient.

  Lia noticed that it was already after ten o’clock.

  ‘I think I should be heading home for the day.’

  ‘OK,’ Mari said and stood up. ‘Will you come back tomorrow?’

  ‘What will be happening here?’

  ‘I was just thinking you might want to.’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll have to see.’

  At home in Hampstead, Lia would have had plenty to tell the statues in the park, more than ever before. But she was entirely too exhausted and crawled into bed.

  The day she had just experienced had changed everything. Her mind was racing, but luckily fatigue won out.

  12

  The next day, after work, Lia returned to Park Street. When Lia called Mari to open the door to the Studio, she seemed to be expecting her.

  A couple of other employees were still around as well.

  ‘Would you like to meet them?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Waiting in the kitchen were the woman Lia had seen onscreen, the actor Maggie Thornton, and a slightly older man who introduced himself as Berg.

  ‘How do you do?’ Maggie asked as she poured them tea. ‘You must still think our Studio is a bit peculiar.’

  ‘You could say that,’ Lia replied.

  Maggie laughed.

  ‘That will pass soon enough. It’s surprising how quickly this work starts to feel perfectly normal,’ she said.

  With an infectious forthrightness about her, she was dressed smartly in a bold red frock and a shawl folded over her upper arms, but she lacked the self-consciousness typical of actors. When she asked about Level, Lia realised that Maggie knew all about the magazine’s operations but wanted to hear Lia’s opinions about it.

  Of course. She’s done her homework.

  Berg was a real character. Because of his elegant interior design work, Lia had expected a Bohemian artist type. What she found was a portly man in big, sagging overalls.

  Berg laughed frequently in a deep, throaty guffaw. When Maggie teased him about the expansion of his waistline, Berg beamed as he presented his beer belly and asked Mari to pat it for good luck.

  Lia noted that Maggie and Berg were in no hurry to leave the Studio even at this late hour, seeming content to stay and chat.

  They enjoy their work – at least it looks that way.

  ‘I have a word for what you do here,’ Lia said to Mari when they sat down together again in her office. ‘Deception. You deceive people.’

  Mari smirked, not the least bit embarrassed, more amused than anything else.

  ‘Of course we deceive people. But I don’t see anything remarkable in that.’

  Mari sat lost in thought.

  ‘But deception makes it sound like this is something immoral. I find that a somewhat comical, outdated approach to morality though, the idea that a person should adhere strictly to the letter of the law. Laws and customs often tolerate horrible things.’

  The fire of opposition smouldering inside Lia died out. Talking about it as deception did feel stupid.

  ‘I’ve had dozens of jobs where deception would be a good word to describe what was happening. But deception only brings to mind unpleasant things. Usually our deceptions also result in good for people other than ourselves,’ Mari continued.

  ‘I still don’t know whether I want to take part in this sort of thing,’ Lia said.

  ‘Have I asked you to take part in anything?’

  ‘No, you haven’t. But you did that Matt Thomas thing for my benefit.’

  To Lia it was clear that one reason Mari had wanted her as a friend was to involve her in the Studio.

  A long silence followed. Mari was thinking hard.

  ‘I don’t have any intention of trying to draw you into anything you don’t want,’ she finally said. ‘I didn’t just want to meet you for… for my own benefit. We’re friends. Real friends.’

  The intensity of the feeling of relief that washed over Lia was surprising.

  ‘The Thomas interview was my way of helping a friend,’ Mari continued. ‘I have thought that you might want to join in on something here. But that’s your decision.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ Lia said.

  ‘It would also be good for you to know that I didn’t found the Studio just because I like duping people. What I like is being able to arrange things the way I want them to be.’

  Lia listened in silence. For once, Mari was speaking openly.

  ‘I grew up knowing what people were thinking but not having any way to do anything with that knowledge. I chose London six years ago because it was a better fit for what I wanted to do than my previous place of residence.’

  Mari related that after completing her psychology degree she had lived in the United States and Spain. She had done gigs on her own. After moving to London, she sought out a team to help her.

  ‘Only in the last few years have I been able to build up any steam. I have resources and space and great people to help me. My gift is being put to use. Instead of selling it to anyone, I use it to gain influence for myself and the people whose side I’m on.’

  Lia nodded.

  Mari is a natural leader. The sharpest person I’ve ever met. She knows so much, as if she spent every day just sitting and watching world events. And that strange gift of hers. Of course that would lead to something special.

  ‘What’s happening now?’ Lia asked.

  ‘How so? Do you mean between us or what?’

  ‘The Studio. What are you doing now?’

  Mari hesitated.

  ‘If I tell, you can’t talk about it to anyone. Just like everything else we do.’

  Now it was Lia’s turn to stop and think.

  If I say yes, I’m becoming part of this.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Good. Let’s go outside.’

  As they walked along Southwark Bridge Road, Mari told Lia what they were doing.

  ‘Did you hear about the Orpheus Telecom mess a little while ago?’

  Lia remembered the incident from the previous week, which had stayed at the top of the national headlines for several days. Orpheus, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the country, had announced it was dumping its cheapest mobile accounts because they were not generating enough profit. In their place, the company would be offering more expensive price plans.

>   This attracted resentment because, first, the company was making a profit and, second, the people who used the cheaper plans in question were the young, the elderly, the unemployed and the working poor.

  ‘Well, I didn’t like what they did. Or how they did it,’ Mari said.

  Orpheus had not expected to encounter any serious opposition. Because the company had the right to terminate the accounts, all the customers could do was try to protest or move to other providers. But they were not terribly likely to complain since they often lacked the tools to do so, such as their own computers and internet connections. According to reports, Orpheus had only received some hundred-odd complaints.

  ‘That is about to change,’ Mari told Lia as she led her into the courtyard at the back of a large block of flats.

  Opening the rear door of the building with her own keys, she marched in. Lia followed. Climbing to the second floor, they found a normal, slightly shabby office.

  No one else was present. Mari took them to a room in which around twenty small desks, each with a chair, stood in a row. On each desk was a set of headphones with a thin microphone attached.

  ‘Tomorrow fifteen students will come here and start making calls to Orpheus, beginning a campaign that hopefully will make the company change its mind,’ Mari said.

  Lia stared at her, not knowing what to say. This was all so strange again.

  ‘You’re trying to crusade against a huge telecoms company using a few students making phone calls?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Mari said with a smile. ‘We intend to do much more than that.’

  13

  Two days later, in the early evening, Lia was standing in the same office with a torrent of sound surrounding her.

  At the desks sat a dozen students talking into their microphones.

  ‘You are guilty of trampling on consumer rights, and I would like to lodge an official complaint…’

  ‘No, I have read the terms of the subscriber agreement, and I disagree.’

  Everyone was speaking calmly and purposefully. Refusing to listen to the opposing side’s replies, they interrupted politely and continued their complaints: they didn’t accept the cancellation of their budget plans. They expected their complaints to be recorded officially. They intended to raise the issue with the government consumer protection office. Just like all of their friends who had Orpheus contracts.

  After each call they rang back, presenting the same issue to another customer service representative. Each time they used a different name selected from an onscreen list, which had been collected from pedestrians around two London shopping centres who agreed to sign a petition opposing Orpheus. Canvassing for a second list of names was currently occurring elsewhere.

  Lia listened to the stream of calls, her head full of questions.

  How are they not getting caught? Do I want to be a part of this?

  Maggie Thornton entered the room, looking satisfied.

  ‘We’ve been keeping this pace all day!’

  Just today they had made more than two thousand calls.

  When one of the students took a break to get some coffee, she stopped to chat with Maggie. To the students she was not the actor Maggie Thornton but a campaign manager for the Consume with Care coalition.

  If I checked online, I would find Consume with Care and a campaign manager who looked like Maggie. They’ve thought of everything.

  In the other room, Lia found Mari on a computer monitoring the number of calls. Lia noticed that Mari didn’t show herself to the students.

  ‘I want you to see something,’ Mari said.

  Clicking a tab on her browser, she brought up a website with a logo that said AskIng at the top of the page.

  That same morning, an opinion poll had hit the media claiming that sixty-eight per cent of British residents disapproved of Orpheus’ decision to cancel their budget contracts and that fifty-seven per cent said this would prevent them from doing business with the company. AskIng, a small market research firm, had conducted the poll.

  AskIng had a website, a phone number and an employee whose assignment was to respond to enquiries regarding the polling data. During the day, six newspapers and one TV station had requested additional information. They were told that AskIng was unable to publish the entire study because it had also involved collecting information related to trade secrets. AskIng sent the newspapers and TV station a concise report showing that the poll had been conducted properly.

  A poll that doesn’t exist, a polling firm that doesn’t exist, and a consumer group that doesn’t exist. Fifteen students and a list of names. And they put this together in fewer than two weeks.

  ‘Tomorrow the real fun starts, with Rico taking the lead,’ Mari said.

  Rico had a computer program ready that would bombard Orpheus’ customer service with a continuous barrage of calls.

  The calls were supposed to begin slowly with the help of the students so no suspicions would be raised as to the genuineness of the complaints. Rico’s computers would call the customer service numbers thousands of times a day. When the Orpheus employees answered, the computer program would ring off. Sometimes the customer service representative would hear a customer begin an indignant complaint, and then the call would suddenly cut out. But the customers didn’t exist: the program used voice recordings featuring none other than Maggie Thornton, her voice digitally masked.

  ‘We’ll completely clog Orpheus’ lines,’ Mari said.

  Lia looked at her in wonder.

  ‘You’re setting up a theatrical performance and enjoying it.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘And what about real people’s calls? How will they get through when they have real problems with their phones?’

  ‘That’s a minor inconvenience. We want hundreds of thousands of people to get their phones back.’

  On the wall of the office, Lia noticed a pinboard covered with flyers. Mostly they were adverts for Consume with Care consumer action campaigns, mixed in with leaflets from other advocacy organisations. Included was a guide regarding phone worker’s rights.

  Some of them must be from real organisations. Berg probably collected some and then made the rest himself.

  The result was convincing. Some of the leaflets were yellowed as if they had been hanging on the noticeboard for ages.

  The AskIng poll fooled the news media, spawning online and print stories in the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and the Guardian. Level considered the topic in their editorial meeting, but decided to hold off for the time being.

  After the Orpheus telephone exchanges were clogged for two consecutive days, the story catapulted into the peaktime TV broadcasts. A few Members of Parliament seized the opportunity to score public approval points and demanded that Orpheus reinstate their budget connections.

  On the phone, Mari revelled in her team’s success.

  ‘We’re watching the situation in real time on Rico’s machine. In two days, Orpheus has received tens of thousands of calls. Even the Queen couldn’t get through if she wanted.’

  The congestion in the customer service centre and telephone exchange aroused irritation in others besides Orpheus customers. The executives and spokespersons who appeared on the news looked uncomfortable. They had not expected such robust opposition, the lead spokesman admitted.

  ‘Suddenly we’re in the crosshairs of the mainstream media even though this is a minor matter compared to the real problems facing the nation,’ he said to the BBC.

  ‘Not a terribly intelligent defence,’ Mari said to Lia.

  Soon news spread that consumer rights groups were also receiving complaints about Orpheus. Lia guessed that the Studio was also arranging these calls.

  ‘Did you hear that Orpheus has been receiving thousands of emails about the problem?’ Mari asked.

  ‘Where are they coming from?’

  ‘Real customers.’

  The counterfeit consumer uprising against Orpheus had prompted many of the company’s actual custom
ers to post written complaints, as the consumer groups recommended. Emails were also coming from other people condemning Orpheus’ actions. Criticising the company was becoming something people wanted to participate in just because consumer voices were being heard for once.

  Four days later Orpheus executives published a plea to their customers to allow them time to sort out the matter.

  ‘Given the current situation, responding to customer complaints is impossible,’ the appeal said.

  The Orpheus share price had fallen by one third in less than a week. When the appeal came out, the price fell by one half. The flood of calls and emails continued unabated.

  On the morning of the fifth day, The Times reported that the Orpheus board had held four emergency meetings during the past week. Three board members had announced their intent to resign if the decision to cancel budget calling plans was not reversed.

  At 2 p.m. Orpheus held a news briefing in which they announced that the need for budget mobile phones was real and the company was proud to be able to continue offering these services in the future.

  The Orpheus executives who appeared on television looked as though they had not slept for a week.

  Mari called Lia.

  ‘Can you come down to the Studio? It’s party time!’

  Lia finished her work for the day at Level and then hurried over to Bankside. The situation felt absurd.

  They’ve just brought one of the largest telecommunications companies in the country to its knees with an enormous, public farce. The whole thing will cost Orpheus tens of thousands of pounds, if not hundreds of thousands. And all with just a handful people.

  The party was still on in the Studio kitchen, but only Mari, Maggie and Berg remained – Rico and Paddy had already left. Maggie had popped the corks on several bottles of champagne with the students at the Consume with Care office earlier.