by Scott Innes
‘Is it? It’s not.’
‘It is. Says right there on the label – Crisp ’n Dry.’
‘Oh. I thought that was just a brand name.’
‘It is,’ I sighed. ‘For vegetable oil.’
No, there was not a chance I was going in all smiles. If she really was the spy, there could be no mercy. I strode into the John Rudge Memorial Stadium with its Palangonia FC mural on the brickwork outside. It had been designed by me: a falcon swooping down and fighting a badger. I don’t exactly remember what my thinking was, but I had been eating an industrial amount of Laughing Cow cheese triangles at the time and had started to hallucinate. I suppose I do have a bit of an addictive personality sometimes – I remember as a younger man how I once passed out at a New Year party, absolutely off my face on Lilt. Mind you, I was in a bad place back then. Doncaster, specifically.
To my surprise, I bumped into Rodway on my way in – he had an empty kit bag under one arm.
‘All right, gaffer?’ he said brightly. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here. I’m just heading in to clear out my locker before they close us down for good.’
‘Aye,’ I said sombrely. ‘You do that, son.’
Trying to keep my eyes on the prize, I trotted nimbly up the stairs to the sixth floor and Gillian’s office. I glanced out of the windows in the stairwell at the empty pitch below and the lonely-looking stands. The place was like a ghost town. I hadn’t seen a football stadium so deserted since I agreed to let Graeme Le Saux use Wembley for his nineteenth-century Russian literature book club.
I heaved open the door to the fifth-floor staircase and walked right into Barrington12, who was wearing a kind of weird pinafore and brandishing a mop. He looked at me as I regained my balance and, despite being a robot with a head made of metal, his face seemed to soften slightly on recognising me.
‘HELLO, KEVIN KEEGAN,’ he said cheerfully. ‘WHAT A PLEASANT SURPRISE TO SEE YOU HERE.’
‘Aye, well,’ I muttered. ‘Until those gates clang shut for the final time, I’m still the gaffer round here.’
His eyes blanked for a second, a sure sign that he was scanning his memory banks for something.
‘ACCORDING TO CURRENT EMPLOYMENT STATUS RECORDS, YOUR POSITION WAS OFFICIALLY TERMINATED TWO DAYS AGO. THE CLUB REMAINS OPEN FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS WHILE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES ARE CONCLUDED. FURTHERMORE—’
‘I don’t give a buggery what the records say,’ I told him loftily. ‘Palangonia FC is Kevin Keegan. And I’ll be here until the day this club dies, make no mistake about that.’
‘THAT WILL BE TUESDAY,’ Barrington12 confirmed unhelpfully.
‘Any road, what have they got you doing?’ I asked. ‘You were brought in as a member of my coaching staff, not some kind of dogsbody. They’ll have you cleaning the bloody toilets next.’
‘ALL LAVATORIES ON THIS FLOOR HAVE BEEN CLEANED BY BARRINGTON12 AS OF 11:28AM,’ he announced. ‘IF YOU HAVE ANY COMPLAINTS AS TO THE QUALITY OF THE WORK, PLEASE DO—’
‘This is poor, it really is,’ I said sadly. ‘I’m going to have stern words with Gillian about this.’
The words froze on my lips as I remembered that I had other far more stern words to fire Gillian’s way.
‘BARRINGTON12 IS HAPPY TO ASSIST THE CLUB IN ALL MATTERS,’ he said, nodding his head enthusiastically. ‘I AM—’
He stopped as something clattered onto the stairwell behind him. I rolled my eyes and reached down to pick up the memory card which had jolted itself loose from its compartment in the small of his back in the course of his chores. The cards were effectively the brains of a Barrington model; there were five in there, between them storing everything from speech patterns to data logs, and Barrington12 was relentlessly careless with his. He could get by for a day or two without the full complement but it would eventually drain his battery at a greater speed than normal. I was guaranteed to find at least one of the cards dotted about the pitch at the end of every training session.
‘THANK YOU, KEVIN KEEGAN,’ he said gratefully. ‘FORGIVE MY CLUMSINESS. I HOPE IT WON’T REFLECT POORLY ON MY PERFORMANCE AS A CLEANER.’
‘Well, if all goes as planned today, we might well have you back on the touchline where you belong very soon,’ I assured him. It was funny – I’d always resented Barrington12’s presence, foisted on to me and Gerry against our will, not only because he was, frankly, a bit annoying, but also because it was symptomatic of the club’s corner-cutting approach. If we absolutely had to have a robot on the coaching staff, could we at least have bought one that had been designed this century? But suddenly, with things being as they were, I almost felt a burgeoning sort of affection for him. His unsolicited assistance on the spy hunt the day before had really touched me.
‘BARRINGTON12 IS AWARE OF NO PLAN,’ he said, sounding almost a little hurt by the idea of having been left out.
‘I promise I’ll fill you in on everything afterwards,’ I said, reaching up on tiptoes to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Then I hurried up the final flight of stairs to the sixth floor and pushed open the door at the top of the stairwell just as Barrington12’s voice floated up to me from below.
‘PLEASE, KEVIN KEEGAN,’ he said mournfully. ‘DON’T DO ANYTHING YOU WILL REGRET.’
I paused just for a moment. Sometimes that soft-headed robot would come out with things which sounded almost… I shook my head. The last thing I needed was a machine that had started to think it was flesh and blood. I wondered whether the whole spy saga had started to adversely affect my thinking – it was exhausting enough having to contend with the idea that my boss might be a spy, I didn’t have the energy to consider whether or not a robot might start to become human.
‘Don’t you worry about me, son,’ I assured him breezily. ‘I will continue to have the best time – hope you do the same.’
I pushed on through the door and found myself staring down a long, dimly lit carpeted corridor. At the far end was a nondescript door with the words GILLIAN ROUTLEDGE – CHAIR written on a small clear plastic sign.
This was it. Time to expose the worst act of treachery I had experienced since Shay Given referred to Status Quo as ‘just some old granddad music’.
No turning back now.
SOME KIND OF BAD DREAM
The sound of my footsteps padding on the carpet seemed to reverberate all along the eerily silent corridor. I suddenly felt oddly exposed – if Gillian came at me with a knife or tried to pistol-whip me, there’d be no one around to hear my cries for help. I mean, it might have sounded a bit unlikely, but she did have a handshake like a bloody vice; she probably wouldn’t even need a weapon to take me out. I opened the door to Gillian’s office and walked in – but there was no sign of her at her desk. For a moment I thought I’d missed her but then I saw her through the French windows out on the balcony overlooking the stadium. She turned round in fright at the sound of me coming in.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she called across the room to me, placing a hand on her chest to regain her composure. ‘Kevin, can you not knock?’
I felt mortified. Even given the circumstances, it was horrifically rude of me to just barge into the room uninvited. I was better than that.
‘I’m so sorry, Gillian,’ I said, backing hurriedly out of the room.
I stepped back into the corridor and closed the door. I waited five seconds or so, and then knocked gently. I heard Gillian sigh wearily from within.
‘Yes?’
‘Gillian? It’s Kevin. Kevin Keegan.’
‘Yeah, I know it’s— look, just come in, for heaven’s sake.’
I pushed the door open and stepped back inside. I walked across the room to the balcony and paused, hands in pockets. How exactly was I meant to broach this? I’ve never been good at accusing people of treason. It’s always been a real weak spot for me.
‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here today,’ Gillian said.
‘Enough small talk, Gillian,’ I said in what I hoped was a tough, no-nonsense voice. I didn’
t tend to go stern very often, but when I did, people knew I meant business. Like when I rollocked Geoff Horsfield for ruining that Sixth Sense film for me with his obnoxious spoilers. Mind you, I was still surprised by the ending. Who would’ve thought that Bruce Willis was the lad’s social worker all along?
‘You look like you have something on your mind,’ Gillian said perceptively. ‘I’m all ears. But please, Kevin, don’t ask me to do anything to resurrect the club because that’s beyond my power. While the spy is at large, everything stops. And there are certainly no guarantees it’ll come back after the fact, either. Leigh has indirectly found a way to shut us down – he won’t rescind that readily.’
‘I don’t know how you can stand there with a straight face and say all this,’ I muttered darkly, staring at her through my eyebrows. ‘Of all the bloody nerve.’
She looked perplexed – I had her full attention now.
‘I’m sorry?’ she said, a little sharply. ‘I’m not entirely sure I care for your tone. If you’ve got a bee in your bonnet about something, then come on, out with it.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said, trying to keep the emotion from my voice, ‘I’ve met some arrogant so-and-sos in my time, but this takes the biscuit.’
‘Kevin, where are you going with this?’
‘I’ll tell you where I’m going with this,’ I said, stepping out to join her on the balcony and pointing an accusatory finger in her face. ‘You’re going to jail!’
It didn’t come out quite as articulately as I’d hoped, to be fair.
‘What? Why? You’re not making any sense.’
‘Gillian, stop pretending. I know. We all know.’
‘Know what?!’ she snapped. I had never seen her this irate, not even when I spent a fifth of my annual budget on Panini football stickers.
‘It’s you,’ I said in as calm a voice as I could muster. ‘You are the Compound spy.’
Gillian turned white.
‘You cannot seriously believe—’
‘I didn’t want to,’ I said. ‘But the evidence is overwhelming.’
‘Come on then,’ she said, turning to face me. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘I’ve spent a bit of time at our friendly local library,’ I said, walking back into her office. She followed and raised a dubious eyebrow as I explained my theory about the spy using the library for research and how Gillian’s name had appeared in the charge history of several red-flagged titles.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she said. ‘Is that it? Talk about clutching at straws. Any court in the galaxy would throw you out for presenting that. And, for the record, I haven’t borrowed anything from the library. I’ve been far too busy for that, sadly.’
My arse.
‘It’s not just that,’ I went on. ‘We know the spy is a member of the Council.’
This wiped the smirk from Gillian’s face. I’d got her.
‘Are you serious?’ she asked, grasping my arm firmly. ‘If this is a joke or a trick, tell me now.’
‘No trick,’ I said, slightly shaken by her haunted reaction. ‘Gerry saw someone in one of the server data room things at the library – you can only get in there with—’
‘A Q7 Keycard,’ Gillian finished. ‘Good God. Oh no, this cannot be happening, this cannot…’
She looked completely traumatised by this revelation – surely a ploy to throw me off the scent.
‘A traitor on the Council… this is beyond even my worst fears,’ she said, her eyes darting about anxiously as she processed this information. ‘You think it’s me? That I’d do something this heinous?’
‘Well,’ I said ominously, ‘that’s the thing – the Keycard was yours. It was used just yesterday; it was right there on the user history panel, clear as day. I don’t know how you managed to overpower Gerry when he rumbled you, but nevertheless…’
‘This is just…’ she shook her head and trailed off. I was done mucking around. I grabbed the receiver of the phone on Gillian’s desk. Her eyes widened in horror.
‘I’m sorry, Gillian, but enough’s enough,’ I said.
‘No! Please!’ She grabbed my arm but I shook her loose and dialled the number for the Compound Guard emergency station inside Fort Emmeline.
‘Hello?’ came a tinny voice.
‘This is Kevin Keegan,’ I said as Gillian watched me with imploring eyes. ‘I’m in the office of Gillian Routledge at the John Rudge Memorial Stadium… What do you mean, “who”? He was Port Vale manager for nigh on two decades – let’s have a bit of respect, please. Listen, never mind all that – I need you to send over a couple of armed guards pronto. There’s an emergency situation here. I have something the General is going to be very interested in.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, this is Flix, the Compound cinema – would you like to book a ticket for a screening?’
With the wind taken out of my sails a little, I slammed the phone down, dialled the correct number and repeated my message.
‘I’ll dispatch a unit from Sentry Point D,’ the operator said. ‘They’ll be with you in three minutes.’
I put the phone down and stared at Gillian defiantly. She looked hollowed-out, crushed.
‘You can’t do this to me,’ she said, tears welling in her eyes. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong!’
‘That’s just what Robbie Elliott said to me once when I subbed him at half-time,’ I replied. ‘It didn’t work then, it won’t work now. You’re bang to rights, Gillian. It’s over.’
‘I believe in this Compound,’ she insisted, trying to compose herself. ‘It has to be a success. The sacrifices were too great to make it a reality and now it just feels like it’s all… slipping away. Kevin, I know what the L’zuhl are capable of. The things they can do. They won’t just raze this Compound to the ground. They’ll obliterate this entire planet and everything on it. Any survivors will be rounded up, tortured to within an inch of their lives and then, if they have breath left in their bodies, they’ll be doomed to a lifetime mining for phlebonium to keep the L’zuhl weapons and spacecraft fully stocked for millennia. That is what they do. Anything they can use, they take. Anything they can’t, they destroy. This place, Kevin, this Compound… it’s all we have left. I’d die before I saw it fall apart. You really have no idea. After all I’ve been through to get here, to still breathe air, to have survived when so many others…’
She trailed off, clamping a pale hand over her mouth to silence herself. My eyes followed hers to her desk, to the photographs, the smiling teenagers and the man who, again, was a bit of a dish. I shook my head – I couldn’t allow her to throw me off this easily. It all just made too much sense; little wonder she had stood idly by while my football club had been tossed in the bin! I’d been so naïve. Of course that was the first thing the L’zuhl were going to target – it was clearly the greatest asset the Compound had; just ask one of the thirty-odd fans who turned out every week to watch us (though understandably that figure would usually drop to single digits if there were extenuating circumstances, such as rain). Gillian, the L’zuhl master spy, had murdered Palangonia FC. Spying for a foreign power was one thing, but this, by any estimation, was beyond the pale. As for why she would do such a thing? Outside of her work she had few friends or connections within the Compound. She was ripe for radicalisation. A quiet life with the L’zuhl probably suited her down to the ground.
‘I wish I could believe you,’ I shook my head. ‘I really do.’
‘Right!’ Gillian said, wiping angrily at her eyes. ‘You want proof? Fine. I can scan my Keycard on my computer here and show you the list of all its previous uses – you’ll see there’s been no access to the library server room on there, then you’ll see… What the hell…?’
Gillian had produced a ring of keys and fobs from inside her jacket pocket and was sorting through them frantically.
‘Oh, come on, no…’ she muttered to herself. ‘Don’t do this to me.’
‘Problem?’
‘Oh god,’ she said, sla
mming the keys down onto the table. ‘This is like some kind of bad dream.’
‘Listen, Gillian,’ I said, ‘let’s not make this more difficult than it has to be. You made a mistake, got yourself mixed up with a bad element. I’m sure the General will be merciful – maybe they’ll just exile you to one of the Quxan colonies for the rest of your life. Manual labour probably isn’t as bad as they always make out.’
‘You don’t understand – my Keycard should be here,’ she said, as much to herself as to me. ‘I’d never take it off this ring, not ever. Someone’s stolen it.’
‘More like you dropped it when you were out on one of your espionage missions,’ I said, refusing to crack.
‘You have to listen to me,’ she said, walking up to me and looking me right in the eye. ‘I am not your spy. I don’t know why the library computer thinks I’ve borrowed those books, but I can assure you I haven’t. Whoever the actual spy is, they have got my Keycard. Even if they find the spy eventually, they’ll crucify me for this. I’ll be exiled from this nebula, I’ll be finished.’
Gillian stared at me, ashen-faced. I met her gaze but said nothing. Could it really be…?
‘Kevin,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘I need your help. I’m not the traitor, but whoever it is has my credentials. They’ll pin this on me and get away with it and someday soon the Compound will fall to the L’zuhl. We have to stop this. And we can, if you’ll just trust me.’
There was a commotion at the door behind me – there stood two Compound guards brandishing rifles, their black visors down over their eyes.
‘You Coogan?’ one of them barked, stepping forward.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well, no. It’s Keegan. But I’m the one who…’ I looked at the terrified Gillian and hesitated. ‘The one who called you in.’
The other guard cocked his gun and approached.
‘Dispatch said you had an emergency situation here,’ he said in an urgent voice. ‘Something the General would want to know about.’
I looked from the emotionless blank of their visors to Gillian. She cut an almost timid figure now, powerless and effectively at my mercy, a far cry from the Council bigwig who had overseen the demise of my beautiful football team. So long my adversary in the financial management of the club, she now seemed so small, so alone. So human.