The System (12 page)

‘Isn’t she?’ the man said gently. ‘Who are you, if not the messages you send and the picture everyone sees?’

Frankie’s face creased with irritation. ‘Who am I? I’m me. I’m the thoughts in my head. I’m this arm. This leg. Who are you, anyway? What is this place?’

The man held out his hand. The light was behind him, making his whole face shadowy. ‘My name is Sal,’ he said. ‘It’s very nice to meet you.’

Frankie hesitated, then shook his hand. She owed it to Jim to be civil at least; owed it to him to give this Sal person a chance.

‘I need to let everyone know what they’ve done, what Milo’s done. The men he sent round, this girl who looks like me. She’s an imposter. People have to be told. They have to know.’

‘But they have to know what?’ Sal said with a little smile, motioning for Frankie and Jim to sit. ‘That the flesh and blood of their favourite blogger has changed? If they are in the Yemen what do they care? What do they know of your flesh and blood anyway? They know your words, your images. These continue, therefore you continue, whether it is truly you or not. You see, that is what the world is now. We are interchangeable. We are no longer essential to anything.’

Frankie frowned. This man was beginning to irritate her. ‘This is not helping,’ she said, turning to Jim. ‘You said you knew people who could actually help me.’

Jim pulled a rueful face. ‘Frankie,’ he said slowly. ‘Frankie, what I was trying to tell you …’

He trailed off; Frankie looked at him in frustration. ‘What?’ she said. ‘What did you try to tell me? Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?’

‘This place,’ Sal said, ‘is the Safe House, the only place in Paris that is not logged, tagged, linked in.’

‘Except for the reader at the door,’ Frankie said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Sal nodded. ‘There is a reader, just as there has to be. But your chip has now left the café, and been taken by car into the centre of Paris. It will be updated every fifteen minutes and passed from person to person to make it as hard as possible for the Infotec thugs tasked with your murder to track you down. Eventually they will find your chip in a pile of rubbish and will start hunting for you, but by then you will be out of the country with a new identity.’

Frankie laughed. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I mean, you have to be joking. Because I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to get my apartment back. My blog back. My Watchers back.’ She stood up, marched to the door and tugged it open. ‘Thanks Jim, but this really isn’t what I had in mind. I’ll leave you conspiracy theorists to your little safe house if that’s okay. I’m going to …’

‘Here. Watch.’ Frankie heard a voice that sounded a great deal like hers and she turned. Sal was holding up a screen; on it Frankie could see herself. Only it wasn’t her. It was her doppelganger. The imposter. She was holding her award up in her arms. The award that Frankie was supposed to have got. There were tears in the imposter’s eyes. ‘This is just the best day of my life,’ she said. ‘And I couldn’t have done any of it without Milo. My true love.’ She turned and Milo was there, next to her, grinning proudly. ‘And I can’t believe that in a few months I’m going to be his wife!’ There was rapturous applause.

Frankie’s eyes widened and the blood drained from her face. He had proposed? At the prize-giving? Milo was marrying this imposter?

‘Tell us why you love Frankie so much,’ someone was saying.

Milo smiled. ‘That’s easy. There are many pretenders to Frankie’s throne, so many people who would love to be her. But Frankie’s the real deal. Frankie’s the only one who comes close.’ He smiled into the camera and Frankie felt her stomach turn.

‘He’s lying through his teeth,’ she whispered, stepping backwards and letting the door close again.

‘Yes,’ Sal said simply. ‘And you, Frankie, are in grave danger.’

‘You’re kidding me, right?’ Frankie looked at Jim uncertainly, forcing a smile, telling herself that there was some joke that she wasn’t getting, that maybe this whole thing was some weird set-up and any minute now someone was going to jump out and tell her it had all been engineered, for entertainment, for …

For what?

Jim’s face was deadly serious. And Jim wasn’t the sort of person to get involved in publicity stunts.

‘Frankie, you have to understand that everything has changed,’ he said.

Frankie nodded slowly, trying to suppress the bile that was coming up the back of her throat. She felt a huge urge to run, to get out of this place. But she knew, deep down, that there was nowhere to run to. And it made her more angry than she’d ever thought she was capable of feeling.

‘How do you even know about this place?’ she said eventually, her voice choked. She couldn’t look at the other guy. At Sal, the man who hid in the shadows. ‘How do you know all this … stuff?’

Jim exchanged a glance with Sal, who nodded what Frankie took to be his consent. ‘Some of us …’ Jim stopped, corrected himself. ‘There are people, of whom I am one, who find our current society oppressive and intrusive, who believe that Infotec’s hold over us is … unhealthy. It’s impossible to discuss with anyone because we’re being watched all the time, not just by other people but by Infotec themselves. If they hear something that alarms them, that they don’t want to hear, they move in, cut you off, reduce your credit rating, deny you access to places, to people. That’s what happened to me. And Sal found me. Sal and the … others. We meet here, sometimes. It’s a safe place. Our feeds are updated for us upstairs but here, downstairs, there are no cameras, no one watching, no one listening. Infotec doesn’t know it exists, otherwise they’d be in here like a shot.’

Frankie digested this. ‘So what, you come here to talk? To complain about Infotec?’

She sounded more patronising than she’d meant to; she could see the hurt in Jim’s eyes. But she needed to lash out at someone, and he was there. He was always there, she thought heavily.

‘To complain, yes,’ Jim said carefully. ‘But also to help others. To identify others like us. To eventually …’ He trailed off again. ‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are in deep trouble and we’re going to help you.’

Frankie exhaled loudly. ‘To eventually change things?’ she asked. ‘To show everyone what bastards Infotec really are?’

Jim didn’t say anything. There was a knock on the door; the waiter, Pierre, appeared.

‘I have this for you,’ he said, walking towards Frankie; she gave him her hand and watched silently as he inserted yet another new chip into her palm.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘They used me, didn’t they? I mean, that whole thing with Milo. It wasn’t real, none of it. He just wanted to turn me into a performing seal. He pretty much did. And I’d have married him too. I’m such a sap.’

She stared up at the tiny window, through which the faintest trace of sunlight could be seen. ‘And how about you?’ she said, turning to Sal suddenly. ‘You live here, right?’

Sal raised his eyebrows. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘The rowing machine,’ Frankie said with a shrug. ‘And it makes sense. You’re obviously the boss. So what, you started it up? This place? This … movement? Why? Did what happened to me happen to you?’

Sal smiled. ‘I’m not the boss,’ he said. ‘I’m just a communication midpoint. But yes, I live here.’ He moved a little and Frankie saw how pale his face was; she guessed he didn’t get out all that much, if at all. ‘And yes, I pretty much went through what you have. Not being made the most Watched person in the world, just the bit where the men turned up at your apartment and dragged you away.’

Frankie’s eyes narrowed. ‘So what happened then?’

Sal sighed heavily. ‘They took away my chip. That’s always the first thing they do. Your chip is your identity, it has every record, every message you’ve ever sent, all stored in it. Your number, all your contact details are on it; without it you can’t go anywhere, can’t contact anyone, and no one can get hold of you. Not the real you. Infotec put a stooge in my place too, just long enough to alienate all my friends, and to build a believable story about what had happened to me.’

‘They really do that?’ Frankie breathed. ‘I mean, a lot?’

‘When they want to,’ Sal shrugged. ‘Sometimes that’s enough. Losing your chip cuts you off, stops you talking to people, stops you getting into your home, your workplace, wherever. Stops you causing problems. They say that you did it yourself, that you’ve gone off the radar, that you’re dangerous and have committed some crime or other. Then they start to hunt you down, make you run, make you hide, make you steal to feed yourself, force you to accost family members, old friends, begging for help, looking and sounding like the crazed criminal they’ve made you out to be. That’s when you’re labelled highly dangerous, your image shown on every screen. Of course sometimes people are just taken away. If there’s nothing complicated about them, if no awkward questions are likely to be asked. But they can make mistakes. Your uncle was just taken away. And then your father started to dig for answers. That was a complication.’

Frankie’s eyes widened. ‘My father?’ she asked. ‘What do you know about my father? He died. He died of a heart condition.’

‘That’s what they told you?’ Sal shook his head. ‘Your father was a bright man. A tenacious one. But he was also naïve. He thought he had a right to ask questions, thought that Infotec would be grateful. He had no idea what he was up against.’

He studied Frankie’s face; Frankie shrank backwards. ‘He isn’t dead?’ she whispered.

‘He’s dead,’ Sal said gravely. ‘As is your uncle. But don’t go thinking that heart attacks had anything to do with it.’

Frankie blinked back more tears. She had seen those people, flashed onto her screen, hardened criminals that Infotec wanted to protect everyone from, renegade citizens who had taken out their chips and gone on the run. ‘They killed my father?’ she asked, her voice breaking as she spoke. ‘They killed my uncle and my father? Did Milo know that? Was he the one behind it?’

Sal was pacing around the sofa. ‘The final stage is when you go missing,’ he said quietly, ignoring her questions. ‘By then no one cares. Even your own family are relieved. You’re either dead, or you’ve escaped; either way, you’re not their problem anymore.’

Frankie cleared her throat, tried to look like she was listening, like she hadn’t been transported back to the apartment they’d lived in, the men in dark suits coming to tell her and her mother about her father’s fatal heart attack at work. ‘And what … you end up here?’

Sal laughed, a dry, dirty laugh. ‘The lucky ones do. The ones we can get to. The ones we know about. I ended up here, but that was because I was prepared. I had this place all ready for me just in case. Most people … don’t.’

‘My father,’ Frankie managed to say. ‘So where do … the others … where do they end up? What does Infotec do with them?’

‘Taken away to be disposed of discreetly,’ Sal shrugged. ‘Or there’s always the bottom of the Seine.’

Frankie’s eyes widened. ‘They jump?’

‘Sometimes. But more often they’re pushed.’

Frankie began to shake again. ‘Milo wants me dead,’ she whispered, ‘doesn’t he? This isn’t a punishment. This isn’t him showing off his muscle. He actually wants me dead. But why? Because of the blog? Because I didn’t do what he said?’

‘Because you struck a nerve. Because you reported on something that Infotec doesn’t want anyone knowing about. And I suspect he doesn’t want you dead quite yet. You’re a more complicated case. Too high-profile. So he got your replacement all ready; I suspect he’s had one waiting in the wings for a while now. But what he really wants is your contact, this person who put you in touch with us, sent us to help you. He’ll be hoping that they contact the new Frankie instead, that he can trace them. But after that, you’re just a loose end. And that is why you are in such grave danger. That’s why we’ve got to get you out of Paris as quickly as possible.’

Frankie stood up. ‘This is bullshit,’ she said angrily. ‘This is just bullshit. They can’t do this. Milo can’t do this. Who the hell does he think he is?’

‘He doesn’t think, he knows,’ Sal said seriously. ‘He’s the most powerful man in Paris. In Europe.’

Frankie shook her head. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘So this imposter. This girl. She knows what’s going on. All I have to do is get to her, make her tell the truth. I’m not leaving Paris. I’m going to let everyone know what an evil bastard he is. Show him that he can’t bloody well mess with me.’ She walked towards the door, opened it, then closed it again and turned around. ‘You have to help me,’ she said to Jim. ‘I can’t get in anywhere. I can’t even get into my apartment. You have to take me to Le Bon Pain tonight. That’s where we’re … that’s where Milo and this girl will be having dinner. We have to confront them. You have to get me in there. You have to … What? What are you looking at me like that for? Stop shaking your head. Stop looking at me like I’m stupid or something.’

Jim stood up. ‘You’re not stupid,’ he said gently. ‘But do you really think Milo’s going to let you anywhere near him or the new Frankie? He’ll have people everywhere looking out for you. The new Frankie will have been told that you’ve gone mad, or bad, that you’ve been corrupted by evil forces, that you need protection, that you’re dangerous.’

‘People will know it’s not me,’ Frankie said, her voice choking because she knew it wasn’t true. Her parents were dead; she had no close friends other than Jim. Had Milo known that? Had he chosen her knowing that one day he would dispose of her?

‘Anyone who suspects something will be strung a line too,’ Jim said, reaching out, holding her arms. ‘They’ll be kept at arm’s length, told you’re too busy. Maybe an argument will be initiated. Something. They control everything, Frankie. Every message. Every post, every image. No one has noticed have they? No one has noticed it’s not you.’

‘But they will eventually,’ Frankie insisted desperately. ‘This new girl can’t go to the Library or hang out with any of my real friends, can she?’

Jim looked at Sal; a silence hung in the air. ‘What?’ Frankie demanded. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’