The System

by Gemma Malley

  She took off her jacket and tied it around her waist, then walked quickly after Jim, suddenly not caring about the sweat dripping from her neck, down her back; she almost enjoyed the wet bodies brushing against her, the elated smiles, the shining eyes. She felt like she had died today; these people were alive, and their energy was infectious. She longed to join them, to lose herself in dancing, in the heavy beats, the strobe lighting. But she had to follow Jim, and he was walking towards the bar, where bottles of water stood waiting for whoever decided they needed to hydrate. He walked straight past it, over to the left, then down two steps and through a door that was invisible except for a small handle. Frankie ran to keep up with him; as soon as she’d walked through the door, it closed behind her and Jim locked it.

  ‘Down here,’ he said, walking down a narrow corridor with a stone floor and rough brick walls. They passed what looked like a store room, then a small kitchen, and finally reached another closed door. Jim was about to lift his hand to knock when Frankie stopped him.

  ‘What?’ he frowned.

  She looked at him intently. ‘How?’ she asked, her voice a whisper. ‘How do you know this place? And Sal? I had no idea. How did I have no idea?’

  He returned her gaze for a second or two, then his face crumpled into a half smile. ‘You didn’t need to,’ he said with a little shrug. ‘You were living the dream.’

  Frankie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘And anyway I was only with Milo for a few months. Seriously, Jim. All these people, chips, underground rooms …’

  Jim breathed out slowly. ‘You remember when I turned down the university funding from Infotec? The guaranteed job at the end of it?’

  Frankie nodded.

  ‘Not such a good idea as it turns out,’ Jim said, with a sort of half smile. ‘They don’t like to be turned down. Gets them suspicious. They started messing with me. I thought I was imagining it at first. Contacts would disappear, Watchers stopped following me, my grades were always lower than expected. Then, when I left university, my blogs were discredited, companies stopped giving me contracts.’

  Frankie stared at him. ‘You should have told me,’ she said, slightly hurt that he hadn’t.

  ‘I didn’t want you to worry. You were doing so well. Anyway, I didn’t need to. I got an approach. Turns out it wasn’t just Infotec who were interested in me. You make an enemy of Infotec and you make other friends. These friends. Come on, they’re expecting you. Glen’s expecting you …’ He took a deep breath. ‘He’s the guy. The one who started it all. He’s … he’s the most wanted man in France, possibly the world. He started all of this.’

  Frankie looked at Jim curiously, at the way his eyes were shining and darting around all over the place. ‘You like him,’ she said, quietly. She had totally underestimated Jim, she realised. Had made so many assumptions about him, so many judgements. Just because he didn’t broadcast his life to everyone like she did, she’d assumed he didn’t have one.

  Jim raised his eyebrows. ‘I’ve never met him,’ he said, looking slightly awkward suddenly. ‘Only a handful of people have. He moves every two days. Probably changes chips more often than you do.’ He grinned and Frankie managed a small laugh. ‘He … People like me don’t get to meet Glen.’

  He knocked on the door, then knocked again, a strange kind of rhythmic knock that Frankie knew she would never be able to replicate. Immediately the door opened. Jim turned to Frankie. ‘In you go,’ he said.

  Frankie frowned. ‘You’re coming in, right?’ she asked uncertainly.

  Jim shook his head. ‘I’m just the delivery boy.’ He forced a smile, a note of sadness in his eye. ‘Send my best to Glen.’

  ‘But …’ Frankie stared after him open-mouthed as he walked back down the corridor. ‘But …’

  ‘No buts,’ Jim said, turning briefly before unlocking the door in front of him and disappearing back into the club. Frankie took a deep breath, turned apprehensively and walked into the room in front of her.

  She didn’t know what she was expecting, but Glen, the number one enemy of Infotec had to be something special. Someone impressive, someone strong, dynamic, even tortured or strange; Frankie was prepared for all these things. What she wasn’t prepared for was the middle-aged man in a business suit sitting on a rather cheap-looking office chair.

  She smiled at him. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Frankie. I’m looking for someone called Glen.’

  The man looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You’ve found him,’ he said. ‘Please, sit down.’ His accent was American; his expression was one of vague impatience.

  He motioned towards another office chair, the swivel broken, the blue fabric stained with coffee in several places.

  Tentatively, Frankie sat down. ‘You’re Glen?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘Not what you were expecting?’

  She reddened; Glen laughed. ‘I rarely am,’ he said with a little shrug. ‘But then again, it’s rather useful not to meet anyone’s expectations. You see, Infotec relies on us being clichés, easy to categorise and group, easy to manage and package up. It can’t see everything, not even close, but if we all behave in expected ways, it doesn’t have to see everything, it just has to look at the right things at the right time. The unusual things. You know that your name gets an alert next to it when you change your brand of toothpaste? We’re creatures of habit; when we change something, there’s usually an underlying reason, a general dissatisfaction. Possibly with our toothpaste, but more often with our life. Infotec doesn’t like dissatisfaction, doesn’t like change. It’s a threat. You start thinking about your toothpaste enough to make a change, you’re probably going to look at other things too. So they watch you. Just in case.’

  Frankie opened her mouth to speak, but for the first time in her life she found that she had nothing to say.

  Glen laughed again.

  ‘Your mind has gone blank because you’re processing what I’m saying whilst taking in all the visual clues and trying to package it together into some kind of scene that you understand, that you can make sense of. But none of it makes sense; I don’t look like a hero, or a villain, or a damaged victim, or even a clever genius, and we’re in a shabby room with chairs that are supremely uncomfortable, and I look like a low-level white-collar worker who’s close to retirement and yet I’m in the back office of a just-legal trance club. You came here looking for answers and instead you’re feeling vaguely claustrophobic, very uncertain and possibly like you’ve made a big error of judgement. Or your friend Jim has. You’re wondering why he had to leave you here. Wondering whether I’ll let you walk out of this room; where you’d go if I did. Am I right so far?’

  Frankie stared at him blankly. Then she mentally kicked herself. She had to get it together.

  ‘I guess,’ she said. ‘About some of it. I’m not planning to leave. Not yet.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ Glen said warmly. ‘Would you like some wine? I’ve got a lovely Chateau Margeau I was planning to open tonight. And some delicious cheese to have with it. You like camembert?’

  ‘Of course,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Good.’ Glen clapped his hands together and pulled out an old rucksack that was standing against the wall, barely visible because of the coats piled on top of it. He shook his head ruefully. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘it’s a mess. But that’s what happens when you go offline. I need a filing system. And someone to file stuff. But I don’t have either, so … Ah, here we are.’

  He took out a bottle and two glasses, then walked over to the corner and took some cheese out of a bucket, shaking water off it and putting it on top of a small bureau.

  ‘Much better than a fridge,’ he said. ‘Bucket with cool water. Perfect for cheese. Allows it to ripen without becoming … de trop. You know? I don’t need much. But my friends are very generous. They keep me well fed wherever I am. Keeps the spirits up.’

  Frankie nodded, staring in wonderment, and Glen opened the bureau drawers to reveal plates, oat biscuits, fig
preserve. He poured her a glass of wine then carefully filled her plate and handed it to her with a knife. ‘Bon appétit.’ He smiled.

  Frankie ate hungrily but savoured the wine; her grandfather had been a traditional Frenchman and had ensured that wine was treated with respect by all his grandchildren. When her plate was empty, she looked up at Glen, who had eaten only a quarter of what was on his but appeared to be finished also.

  ‘So,’ he said, stretching his legs out. ‘How does it feel to be on the “wrong” side, Frankie? How does it feel to be hunted? Scary, huh?’

  Frankie shrugged noncommittally.

  ‘You can admit it,’ Glen said. ‘I was shit scared the day it happened to me. But then again, I kind of knew it was coming. Knew the enormity of it.’

  ‘The enormity of what?’ Frankie said, putting her plate down and doing her best to sit back against the broken chair.

  ‘Of what it means to be on the wrong side of Infotec,’ Glen said, moving his chair towards her and looking her right in the eye. ‘Of what it means to have crossed the line. Because you, Frankie, have crossed the line. And what you need to know, really know, is that there’s no going back.’

  The words hit Frankie like a blow to the head, although she didn’t know why because it wasn’t news. Except it was. Having someone else say it like that … She felt her head start to spin and gripped her glass of wine more tightly. Glen leant forwards.

  ‘I know,’ he said, his face full of concern. Frankie noticed his eyes suddenly; they were grey, clouded; they looked older than the rest of him somehow. ‘I know how you’re feeling, Frankie. Angry. Frustrated. Indignant. Disbelieving. You want to wake up from this horrible dream. You want me to tell you everything’s going to be fine. I can’t do that, Frankie. But I can tell you that you’re not alone. That you’ll be supported, helped. That we’re on your side. It won’t mean much now, but it will, I promise you.’

  ‘It does mean something,’ Frankie said, her voice brittle, higher than usual. ‘It does.’

  ‘Good.’ Glen pushed his chair back and finished his wine.

  Frankie took a sip from her glass, closed her eyes, then opened them again. ‘So tell me how you got here,’ she said then, partly because she wanted to know, but more because she needed to have him speak, needed to have something else to focus on, something to stop her brain from whirring, from panicking, from self-destructing.

  ‘Here?’ Glen smiled ruefully. ‘I came through the club just like you. Wearing the chip of a twentysomething accountant. You think I live here?’ He chuckled. ‘No. I’m not Sal. I choose to live above ground. But we have meeting points and this is one of them. But I’m being facetious. You wish to know why I am here, with you. What I did to anger Infotec. Why I am on this side instead of that?’

  Frankie nodded. ‘Then we are going to need more wine,’ Glen said, picking up the bottle and pouring himself a glass, then pouring some more into Frankie’s. ‘To understand all of this, you need to take yourself back eleven years.’

  14

  ‘Eleven years?’ Frankie asked, frowning. She was a child then. ‘What happened eleven years ago?’

  Glen pulled a face, like even now the memory was uncomfortable. ‘What happened,’ he said carefully, ‘was that I found something out. Something I wasn’t supposed to know. Something that …’ he hesitated. ‘That … caused me some uncertainty.’

  Frankie stared at him. ‘What was it?’ she asked, leaning forwards.

  Glen smiled. ‘You’re impatient, aren’t you?’ he said.

  Frankie raised her eyebrows. Then she stood up and moved towards Glen, leaning down so that their faces were just inches apart. Up close she could see that his forehead was covered in small beads of sweat from the heat of the room, could see that his hair was combed across his forehead to disguise a receding hairline. She moved her face so that her eyes were looking right into his. ‘Impatient?’ she asked, her voice low but firm. ‘I’ve been in a room all day with your friend Sal, hiding because the guy I thought was in love with me tried to kill me and had me replaced by some imposter. I have been cut off from everything and everyone, some girl is running around town marrying my pig of a boyfriend and my best friend Jim isn’t even allowed into this room with me. I also discovered that apparently my father didn’t have a heart attack; he was murdered by the same people who are now after me. So forgive me if I’m coming across as impatient. I just don’t want to waste any more time, if it’s all the same with you.’

  She stood up again, walked back to her chair and sat down, feeling much better for having asserted herself. And to her relief, Glen didn’t get angry and dismiss her or leave in disgust. He just nodded, slowly.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry. You want answers. I know that. The reason you’re not getting them right away …’ He hesitated. ‘There’s a lot to get to grips with. To understand. To … accept. People don’t usually accept major change without resisting it first, denying it, getting angry, getting depressed. We don’t have time for all that; but it has to come out so I’m hoping it’ll come out relatively quickly, whilst I’m telling you what lies ahead, what happened to me and what’s going to happen to you. But let me start by saying that I know what it feels like. Exactly what it feels like. You see, eleven years ago I was working for Infotec.’

  ‘You? Really?’ Frankie asked in surprise.

  Glen smiled. ‘Really,’ he said. ‘Actually I was a big player. I headed up the network department; I deputised for the chief executive. I was responsible for screen maintenance, for story selection. Everything you see walking around – the people being beamed out at you, that was me. And I believed in what I was doing, too. All of it – the low crime rates, the way the world was united, sharing everything, communicating everything. It was a buzz. We all felt it. We all wanted to do our bit.’

  ‘And then?’ Frankie asked, leaning forwards. ‘What did you find out? If I’m not being too impatient?’

  She shot him a sort of smile and he returned it. He cleared his throat. ‘I saw something very strange, that seemed almost unbelievable,’ he said. ‘But you’ll know all about that. You see, what happened was that one day I was reviewing the network and I saw something. A flicker of activity in a place there shouldn’t have been any.’

  Frankie felt her heart begin to thud more heavily in her chest. ‘The UK?’ she asked, her voice almost a whisper.

  ‘The UK.’ Glen nodded. ‘There was someone communicating with someone else, using old satellites to do it, but the signal passed across our networks. I saw it with my own eyes.’

  ‘And what did you do?’ Frankie asked.

  Glen raised an eyebrow. ‘I did what anyone would have done. I went to my boss. I was excited. I told him what I’d seen, waited for him to send out the search parties. I expected him to be amazed, just like I was.’

  ‘And instead he told you to forget about it?’ Frankie said, seething as she remembered the look on Milo’s face when she’d told him about her contact, that she’d been told there were people alive in the UK. He’d looked at her with pity that she’d been so gullible. He’d made out it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard, like saying there was a human colony on the moon.

  Glen nodded. ‘Ordered me to. Said it was a mistake.’

  ‘And you didn’t forget about it?’

  Glen breathed out slowly. ‘Actually I did. At least, I accepted what my boss had told me. He got it from Thomas. The guy in charge of everything. I figured he would know. He knew everything, after all, and he wanted the world to be a better place just like I did. That’s what I thought. That he would know best. Only I guess Thomas didn’t trust me to keep my mouth shut. Next day, what happened to you happened to me. The men, the van, the chip. I wasn’t replaced; that wouldn’t have worked. I was just discredited. Money appeared in my account to suggest that I’d become rich through illegal activity; it was announced that I’d disappeared, that I’d defrauded the company and gone on the run. I couldn’t g
et into my apartment, couldn’t get into a single bar. I went to my brother but he had already been warned by Infotec that I’d changed, that I was unwell, that I was paranoid and dangerous. He called the police whilst I was sitting in his front room trying to explain what had happened. I managed to escape and I went on the run. That was the last time I saw any of my friends or family. That was the last time anyone called me by my real name.’

  Frankie stared at him. It was like the rest of the room didn’t exist; there was a tunnel between her eyes and Glen’s face, with blackness all around. She felt sick. Felt like she was falling. Somewhere inside she’d convinced herself that this was all a blip, a story she’d be telling people in a few weeks’ time. That she’d prove herself, reveal the other Frankie as an imposter, get her life back. Now … now she was finding it hard to breathe.

  ‘Is that what happened to my father too?’ she asked, her voice barely audible.

  Glen nodded slowly. ‘Your uncle kept asking questions, got involved in groups who were questioning Infotec. There was lots of dissent in China, Korea, Japan, where they felt like their whole culture had been stolen, discredited, crushed. There are still lots of groups wanting change, although naturally Infotec is pretty good at wiping them out. Your uncle got involved with these groups. Wouldn’t give up. And one day he disappeared. Your father was a clever guy. He put two and two together, started to dig around a bit.’

  ‘So they killed him too,’ Frankie said, a lump the size of a golf ball blocking her throat.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Glen said. ‘I know you wanted reassurance, action, answers. And what I’m giving you is none of those things. But you have what I didn’t have. What your uncle didn’t have. Support networks. Places to go. I realised back then that I couldn’t be the only person this had happened to, that I wouldn’t be the last person either. So I set up my own network, hid it so carefully no one would be able to track it down. And I waited for people to contact me. Didn’t take long. Soon we had our own little community. A circle of trust that gradually grew, that started to attract the disaffected, the people who dared to question Infotec. I didn’t get to your uncle, I’m afraid, but we are continually monitoring the system to find sympathisers and people who need our help. There are over three thousand of us in Paris alone; more across Europe and all over the world, some of them like your friend Jim, helping to monitor, keeping their ears open; others are in powerful positions and can offer more strategic help. We can get people out of Europe, get them a new passport, another clean chip. The one you have right now you’re borrowing, you see. That’s how we do it, swap, swap swap so that by the time Infotec catches up and marks your chip it’s back where it belongs. But let’s say you go to Australia to start a new life. Once you’re there we’ll get you a permanent chip, a new, safe identity. We’ll fill your chip with work experiences and references, friends you can trust, all the help you need. And you can start again, build your Watcher numbers, be completely normal. You’ll be okay, Frankie. I promise you that. You won’t be famous anymore, but you’ll be fine.’ He looked at Frankie reassuringly, reached out to give her arm a squeeze. ‘So what do you think?’ he said.