The System (23 page)

Glen looked at his watch. Ten minutes until the train left. Had Jim been detained? Had they linked him and Frankie?

His eyes darted around the concourse, taking in every piece of information available, clocking what people were wearing, who was being watched on the myriad screens, which trains were leaving from which platforms at what times. He had spent years underground and he had learnt how to disappear, how to blend in to the landscape so that no one noticed him, no one remembered him. But he had also learnt that information was power, that you always had to be two or three steps ahead, that looking carefully at any situation would always eventually provide the route out of it.

He rubbed his eyes. It was morning and he hadn’t slept. He was cold, colder than he should be, colder than the weather demanded. He knew why: he was hungry. But there was no time to eat, and he couldn’t risk a problem with his chip if he tried to buy something. Maybe Jim would bring some food. He hadn’t thought to ask.

He looked around furtively, eyeing up each person on the concourse as possible Infotec Inforcers waiting for the right moment to move towards him. He wasn’t on any screens, but he knew they were still looking for him. Knew they would never stop looking.

He took a deep breath; tried to calm himself down. But he didn’t feel calm. What if the cameras had seen him? What if they had picked him up on the outskirts of Paris with Frankie and Evie? They’d been so careful, changing chips so many times, changing direction, using every trick Glen knew in order to confuse the cameras, in order to throw Infotec off the scent. But what if Infotec had found them anyway? What if they were, right now, opening the entrance to the tunnel, dragging Frankie and Evie out?

He felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped in the air, his heart racing now, ready to run, ready to charge through the station. But the hand held him down, a voice muttered in his ear. ‘It’s me. Come on, this way.’

Jim linked his arm through Glen’s and led him around the concourse, away from the platforms. His face was disfigured, nothing like the images Glen had seen of him. It was impressive; he had disguised himself well. ‘Here’s your stuff,’ he said, thrusting a bag into Glen’s hands. ‘I’ll wait here.’

Glen looked at him uncertainly. ‘Wait? You go now. I can’t thank you enough, but you should leave.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ Jim said then, his voice low but firm. ‘It’s not safe for me here anyway. Quick. The train leaves soon.’

Glen opened his mouth to protest, then realised there was no time and turned instead, keeping his head low as he ducked into the men’s, so as not to have the facial recognition cameras spot him. He went into a cubicle, clocked where the cameras were, angled himself away from them and got to work. The silicon slipped on easily and the wig was unobtrusive, thinning on top, realistic. He put on the shirt, flushed, and came out, allowing himself a quick glance in the mirror as he washed his hands. He looked like someone else.

He put his hands in his pockets and wandered out onto the concourse, more confident now, but his eyes still flickering, still noticing everything. He frowned as he looked around. There was no sign of Jim. No sign at all.

He turned, scanned the platform announcements. Platform 11 for Stockholm. It left in four minutes.

He walked towards Platform 11, up the escalator, towards the gate. But as he walked he felt his head begin to throb. Jim must have been apprehended. He was in danger. And all because Glen had asked for his help. Yet again, because of him, people were in danger, people’s lives were being ruined.

No, not because of him, he told himself firmly, ignoring the sweat on his palms, the anger welling up inside him. Because of Infotec. Because of Thomas.

He got to Platform 11, waved his wrist, and felt mild elation as he got through the checkpoint. He upped his pace as he got close to the train, then stopped as he heard footsteps behind him. Footsteps that were getting quicker. Glen braced himself. He would fight. He would run. He would find another route, but he would get to Sweden. He wouldn’t let them win, not now, not with so much at stake.

He turned, ready to throw himself at his pursuer, ready to hurl them aside and race away. Instead, he stopped dead.

‘I forgot to buy socks,’ Jim said, looking at him strangely. ‘You know it’s minus twenty degrees in Sweden right now? So, shall we get on the train?’

Milo’s door opened and Thomas walked in, unannounced, as was usual. But for once Milo struggled to shoot him his trademark smile. Instead, he turned, a little wearily. ‘Thomas. What can I do for you?’

Thomas was jumpy; Milo could tell from the way his eyes wouldn’t settle, instead wandering around the room; the way he paced around the room instead of standing still. ‘Found the body yet?’

Milo shook his head. He’d wanted to keep that particular piece of information to himself, but when all attempts at finding Evie’s body had failed, he’d been forced to tell his boss. ‘I just don’t get it,’ he said. ‘I can only think someone saw her fall and, for whatever reason, took the body.’

‘Took a dead body? From outside the Infotec building? Who would be so stupid?’ Thomas rounded on him, his eyes flashing angrily. ‘Who would get past our security? Who would be able to move her without being caught on camera? Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?’

Milo did his best to keep his expression neutral. ‘Then perhaps she disappeared into a puff of smoke,’ he said.

Thomas’s eyes narrowed. ‘So you’re reverting to sarcasm?’

Milo sighed. ‘Look, I’m on it,’ he said, diplomatically. ‘There must be some explanation and I will find it.’

‘Good,’ Thomas barked. ‘And I need some drones to be made available for next week. To travel to the UK. I want anthrax dropped to cover every inch of the land. Do it carefully; none can drift back across the channel.’

Milo frowned. ‘Anthrax?’

Thomas nodded dismissively. ‘It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while – the whole thing is a loose end, a vexation. We’ve kept everyone away with tales of radioactivity, but eventually someone is going to get over there and we can’t afford for our dirty little secret to get out. You know how quickly Anthrax kills people? How quickly it covers a large area? It’s ingenious, really. Problem solved within twenty-four hours or so. The bodies will decompose eventually and in the meantime, anyone who decides to go and see for themselves will be dead before they can report anything back home.’ He smiled. ‘I know. I’m brilliant. But we wait a week. If the System hasn’t been delivered, I’m going to make Linus and Raffy watch before they are flown over themselves and dropped by parachute. I want them to live long enough to know what’s about to happen to them.’

Milo nodded uneasily. Until recently Thomas had kept what Milo called his ‘dirty laundry’ a secret. The first time he’d confided in Milo was when he’d brought those people over from the UK. Now he talked about killing people pretty much every day and sometimes Milo just wanted to stick his fingers in his ears because this wasn’t what he bought into when he got this job. He wanted women, power, money. Not violence, torture and murder. ‘Anthrax. Sure.’

‘Good,’ Thomas said, evidently pleased with himself. ‘And find another girlfriend. Someone you can control. The world misses Frankie. We need to find someone new, and fast.’

Milo pulled a face. ‘You know she’s not actually dead?’ he said tentatively. ‘I mean, she’s still out there, somewhere.’

‘She’s as good as dead. Forget about her. You need to find someone else, and soon. Understood?’

‘Loud and clear,’ Milo said, clearing his throat as Thomas headed for the door. ‘I’ll get on it right away.’

He waited until Thomas was several feet away before turning back to his screen and typing in his code. He had to find Frankie. He had to find her now.

The Swedish outpost of Infotec was positioned in the north of the country, in an area twenty-five miles north-east of the Abisko National Park, far enough away to ensure that no one ever visited, that no one in fact really knew of its existence except for the hundred or so people, including five security guards, who worked there. All the employees had been recruited from Germany or Paris and were shipped up for a year at a time, a rite of passage for ambitious Infotec employees who were sworn to secrecy before leaving. No one knew exactly where they went and, on their return, no one ever breathed a word, but still stories abounded amongst younger employees of a training ground, a central hub, a place where truths were revealed, where the brilliant were able to excel. No one ever admitted on their return, particularly to themselves, that in actual fact they had spent a year being bored out of their minds in the middle of nowhere, monitoring the Infotec mainframe, ensuring that it was backed up every sixty seconds, and nothing more. It was less a rite of passage, they generally realised after a week or so of being there, and more like a penance or test; survive Sweden and your career would be on track. Try to leave, as some poor fools had done, and you’d never be seen or heard of again.

Jim knew all of this although he’d never been to Sweden before; he had written a blog about it years ago, when he was just a boy; had interviewed one brave woman who had just got back and who described a year of misery, of loneliness, or boredom that was eased only by bullying within the ranks, drinking and abuse often bordering on rape.

He’d been naïve back then, stupidly naïve. He’d wanted to be balanced, believed that there was a free press, free speech, just like they were told there was every day, just like they were told that the sharing of information meant that there could be no more lies, no more dark secrets, no more conflict. He’d believed it all, and he’d believed that he could make the world an even better place by shining a torch on things that others might have missed, to make them better, to make everything better.

So he’d gone to Infotec to get their viewpoint. Milo had met him at the Infotec offices. And just like Frankie, Jim had been warmly received, reassured, flattered. He hadn’t been flirted with, of course, but instead he’d been offered money for his studies and a job at the end of it. A very nice job that he’d been sorely tempted by. He’d very nearly accepted. Only Milo made a mistake. Or perhaps had simply been arrogant enough to think that he had Jim just where he wanted him. Either way, the woman, Jim’s source, had disappeared. Completely and utterly disappeared off the face of the planet, leaving no message, no trace. And she’d disappeared before Jim had accepted the Infotec money. That had been Milo’s mistake. Jim had been suspicious, suspicious enough to call Milo on it, to ask more questions, questions that Milo, it turned out, was not interested in answering. The choice was made clear to him: in or out, join us or take the consequences. Without his source, Jim now had no story, as Milo pointed out with a shrug. And anyway, she’d been troubled, mentally unstable; she was receiving treatment. A second mistake: having claimed no knowledge of the source, Milo then started to fabricate a whole web of lies about her mental health, about treatment that he couldn’t elaborate on, in a health centre he couldn’t name.

Jim never saw the woman again. And he didn’t take the money or the job. And now … Now he felt like he was coming full circle. Sweden had changed his life, changed his outlook, changed everything. He’d discovered that the ‘truth’ was whatever Infotec wanted people to believe, that transparency was a myth, that Infotec had the power to ruin lives if it saw fit. He had been a teenager with brilliant prospects but following his last meeting with Milo he was turned down for every degree course he applied for, and every job. He had never found the woman again; his Swedish story had evaporated and enough rumours started to circulate to make people suspicious of him, to not want to get too close to him, to ensure that his watcher numbers were always around the ‘embarrassingly low’ level.

And so he had slipped into being a second-rate blogger and part-time Infotec saboteur, doing anything and everything he could to help Glen, Sal and anyone else he met along the way. It meant he spent his days always looking over his shoulder, never trusting anyone, sometimes wondering whether he had made a huge mistake all those years ago but generally knowing that he hadn’t, that one day he’d get his own back, that one day he’d get his chance to tell the truth – not just about Sweden but about everything he now knew.

And now, that time had come.

Either that, or he and Glen would be caught, tortured and killed.

One of the two.

He guessed it was probably fifty-fifty which way this was going to go.

‘So,’ he said, a cup of cooling coffee cradled in his hands, leaning forwards so that only Glen could hear him as the train rocketed through Denmark. ‘Why exactly are we going to Sweden and what’s the plan when we get there?’

The journey to Stockholm took fifteen hours on the direct shuttle train. Every time the trolley wheeled towards them, Jim felt his stomach clench in fear; every time the train slowed or, worse, stopped, he braced himself for guards boarding and taking them away. But as the rainy landscape was replaced by snow and the world became more hushed, he felt himself relax, allowed his eyes to gaze out of the window, allowed his breath to become deeper as his head started to nod, and he found his eyes closing …

Suddenly he felt Glen tugging at his shoulder. ‘We’re here,’ he whispered.

Jim woke up with a start. It was dark on the train; the few people seated around them were all asleep or trying to be.

‘We are?’ he whispered back.

Glen nodded and motioned for him to put his coat on. Then he led him out of the carriage to the connecting passageway. The doors, like all shuttle train doors, were sealed shut; they would open only when the controller released the mechanism. But Glen either didn’t know that or didn’t care.

He moved towards the door, opened a panel and input a code; immediately the red light in the corner turned green and the door slowly slid open. ‘Ready to jump?’ Glen asked, a little smile playing on his lips.

Jim nodded apprehensively.

Glen winked. ‘The snow will break your fall. And you’re wearing a nice padded jacket. You’ll be fine.’