by AJ Kirby
As he quietly closed the front door behind him, a sense that he was not only literally closing a door, but symbolically closing the door rushed over him. For him, Leeds would always mean Cheryl. And even if the last night was supposed to be the full stop - the emotional goodbye - there would be a permanent question mark over her; the symbol which asked ‘what might have been’.
The only thing that was certain was that he would never see her again.
Cells
I am trapped in my own little cell from which I construct my own reality. I deal with email and IP addresses, mobile numbers, websites, instead of people. It becomes a game; how real do I want to make this seem? What can I do?
Hundreds of people must feel this way… I could lose my company millions of pounds with the click of a button, or I could make my company millions… A phone and a laptop are the only tools they allow me in my cell. I think I am making contact with the outside world but it may only be an illusion. My reality could be self-perpetuating.
My world comprises distinct cells, in which I play my game. There is my social circle, work, family, betting… Within the cells we can reinvent ourselves - become who we want to be. But this persona becomes lost in translation between data streams. In the old analogue reality, that sepia tinted world in which our bodies still exist, our part-machine new personas cannot be seen by the human eye. How do we stop ourselves becoming fragmented? How do we stop key parts of ourselves breaking off and floating off into hyperspace or being hi-jacked by a strong gust of wind and blown to some far off corner of the world where we cannot get it back.
I started to lose myself in this way when I entered into the world of work; the boundaries of my self-hood gradually slipped away, developing into a serious case of erosion. What do we have left? How can we hold back the slippage of the houses of our memories? They will all eventually fall into the comforting, nihilistic sea.
As there is no reason to leave the cells, we only realise too late that we are falling too… that we no longer live in an age of true consequence. After all we can simply press the off-button and we no longer have to contemplate the pain we cause.
I know what I’m doing; I’m trying to plead my case for if we are caught. I’ll plead technological insanity, schizophrenia brought on by too much e. Not e as in the drug; I mean electronics.
But I’m just making fucking excuses. I know very well that there are still consequences to my actions; I know very well that people might get hurt. I started to go to betting shops simply to feel the reality of handing the money over; to smell the money, dirtied by the grubby little hands of the feral inhabitants of the place. I go to pubs to try and break away. I still live in a real world of touch, taste and smell; it is not just sight.
I do feel as though I am behind a big screen though, being watched by somebody - who? Is there a God; is there somebody controlling our actions, our thoughts?
Even when I try and slip away from the cameras, I will still be a little red dot in an air traffic control tower - a plane crossing the seas to Mauritius. Then I’ll be the bit of data which says that I withdrew money at a cash machine, or else I’ll be the biometric information stored at an airport at my destination. And someone, somewhere will know what I’ve done. It’s a kind of artificial conscience which is the new religion. Right now, a satellite is tracking our van’s progress as Mark drives along the
Harrogate Road. Every mirror, signal, manoeuvre; every indicator is reflected in that great eye in the sky. Even if I’m not caught, I’ll be punished for what I do.
The Intertel Shift
Mark’s dreams were unhappy ones. He’d spent so long trying to ensure that all of the technical aspects of the plan worked to perfection that his mind seemed capable of only thinking of the systems and what could go wrong with them. He dreamed of the wire-cutters triggering the alarm at the perimeter fence despite the fact that the Intertel Shift was supposed to send all such alarms haywire for the night. He dreamed that the dummy system that he’d set up would suddenly stop working and they’d be exposed. Most of all, he dreamed about the moment that they’d have to enter the Precisioner unit. This was the moment that it could all go wrong. It was the one weak link in the whole plan and Mark’s unconscious thoughts reminded him of that fact over and over again.
The problem with the entry to the Precisioner unit was the fact that they would have to over-ride the door code. And every time Mark had rigged up a system to replicate this, the alarm had gone off when he’d over-ridden the code more than once in quick succession. And the problem with this was the fact that only somebody outside the site, working on the dummy system would be able to over-ride the code. Unless they managed to open the door at the exact moment it needed to be open, the rest of their plan would all be in vain.
Mark’s dreams therefore always seemed to comprise his reaching the door and finding it locked, or accidentally setting the alarm off. What happened next differed slightly from dream to dream, but generally involved either the big security guard, Callum Burr, catching them in the act and inflicting terrible violence, or else the blue-flashing lights of the police would appear on scene. No matter how many times he replayed it, the outcome was always the same. Somebody got hurt.
At about three am, Mark got up from his bed. He’d writhed and kicked so much in his sleep that the bedclothes were on the floor and the sheet was hanging off the side. He knew that he’d never be able to get back to sleep again. Now, he was in it for the long haul. When the dawn broke, it would be the start of the day in which he’d undertake a stupid, brave, desperate, heroic heist upon probably the best protected site in the north of England; a site he knew so well from countless maintenance visits to repair the very security systems he was now hoping to bypass.
Something would go wrong. Something was bound to go wrong. In nearly every heist film he’d ever seen, something always went wrong. The criminals can never be seen to get away with it, not unless they are unrealistically, film-star good-looking like Brad Pitt and George Clooney in the Oceans Eleven films. And Mark knew that he wasn’t film-star good-looking; Chris Parker, perhaps. But not him.
He dragged himself down into the kitchen and busied himself with making a cup of tea in his massive mug. He forced himself to look at the framed picture of his mother and father on the wall, just to remember why he was putting himself through such torment. In the picture, his mother and father were sharing some stupid joke. It was probably the one time in their whole shared lives that they’d laughed at the same time. And now his dad was gone; maybe it was the least he could do to try to put a smile back on his mam’s face.
He wished that he had more time to test the systems. He wished that he’d have been able to try a couple of other ways of over-riding the door code. But the Intertel Shift dictated that it had to be that night. The Intertel Shift into which they’d poured all of their hopes.
What if it doesn’t happen as we all expect it to? What if, just like the telecoms companies say, the changeover is simple and easy and everything works just as it is supposed to? What if Edison’s are already prepared for this kind of assault? After all, it’s not restricted information that the Intertel Shift will happen… This has become all too real, all too quickly.
The watched kettle finally boiled and Mark started to pour the steaming water into his mug. The argument carried on in his head. Perhaps God was back, playing his usual tricks.
But everybody’s talked-down the Intertel Shift so much that now it’s nothing but a joke, just like the Millennium Bug. Everybody remembers the story of the boy who cried wolf, and they’ve not bothered to worry about the consequences this time. And even if they have, it’s not as though that’s our only plan. We’ve got dummy systems, ways of over-riding the door locks. We’ve seen the goddamn plans for the site. We know exactly how everything will pan out. It will be like clock-work.
Mark’s clock did not appear to be working however. The second hand crawled over the face like it had run out of batteries. He turne
d his back on it and shuffled out of the kitchen. He climbed the stairs slowly and made for the box room and for the computer. His leg seemed to ache much more than it had done for a long time now. Perhaps it was an ache of warning, or of premonition. Mark had never really trusted to signs, but right then he felt like Danny Morris in his willingness to believe. Maybe it was time for a last attempt to make an on-line confession?
He clicked on his computer and waited for it to boot-up. As usual, it took far too long. He’d have to do something about cleaning up the disk and freeing up some space. It seemed to wheeze and moan like an old man, breathing heavily with the effort to attain fully working-order.
When the system was finally up and running, he immediately made for his email account. Not that he was expecting any emails, but it was habit. One of the new emails caught his eye straight away. It had been sent from that same email address that had sent him the vicious magpies videos. For a moment, he started to wonder whether the man that had sent them had anything to do with the heist that they were planning. Surely Danny wasn’t capable of coming up with a plan like that on his own…
He opened the email. There was no attachment this time, just a simple couple of lines of text. Quickly, he scanned it.
Mark,
Daniel Morris and Chris Parker are planning to double-cross you. They will make off with the money. You must stay with them, no matter how much you want to run away. And Mark; trust to the Intertel Shift; it will happen. Do not ask me how I know, but trust me on this. You need to do this one thing for your family and then the rest of your life can be lived in peace.
There as no email signatory. There was no indication of how the man knew about what they were going to undertake. But somehow, Mark convinced himself that he should not bring up the contents of the email with Danny and Chris. This was his secret. And if anything were to go wrong, he could always contact the sender and get his advice. The man seemed to want to help, after all, and who was he to question the motives of another person. Even God, it seemed, had a part to play in this; everyone had a stake or an opinion.
Callum Burr also received communication that night. It interrupted his enjoyment of the last few drops of his Highland Park whisky. He’d once set the bottle aside for a special occasion but since Hunter’s arrival on site and his continuous talk about giving up the booze, Burr had been driven to drink even more than he usually was. Over the past couple of days he’d managed to sink almost the full bottle.
‘Hello?’ he croaked, answering his mobile on the third ring.
‘Ah, Mr. Burr; I am very happy to speak to you. I speak to you with a warning. There is something that you should know. A way of putting your Mr. Hunter back in his place.’
‘Go on,’ said Callum, deciding that he’d better not have another swig of the drink until the conversation was over. He carefully placed his tumbler on his coffee table.
‘Tomorrow night is the Intertel Shift,’ said the voice.
‘I know that,’ said Callum, feeling superior. He knew all about the Shift. He’d bought a new digital telly and he could already get loads more channels.
‘So you know that tomorrow night, when there is a changeover, most security systems will cease to work properly; security systems such as the ones on your very site?’
‘Yeah,’ lied Callum, gruffly. He picked at some of the frayed ends of thread on the arm of his chair and waited for the voice to get on with telling him what he was supposed to already know.
‘Tomorrow night, you must be on your guard. Do not let Hunter investigate when the security systems start to go crazy. This is your final mission. If you distract Mr. Hunter, then our debt will be wiped clean. If you do not, then the debt will be bigger than you can possibly imagine.’
‘But what’s going to happen? Is somebody going to try to raid the site?’
‘That’s not your concern. Your concern is Hunter.’
‘But how will I distract him?’
‘Take his access badge again. Make up anything. Say that you will investigate any emergencies yourself. Say you want to go outside and call your wife. Lie, Callum Burr, lie. I’m sure that it comes easily to you.’
Callum Burr felt his face glow red. Part of it was embarrassment. Another part was excitement. If what this mysterious man was telling him was right, he’d certainly have one over on Hunter.
‘You can get rid of Hunter once and for all if you follow these instructions. Number one; take a bottle of whisky in to work. Plant it somewhere so it looks as though Hunter has been drinking on the job and that’s why he failed to interpret the Intertel Shift. Number two; make sure that you take his badge.’
‘Is that all?’ asked Burr.
‘That’s all. I am a man of my word, and once you have done that, your part in this story will come to an end.’
Callum Burr smiled. It was nice to have somebody batting on his team for once. It was nice that someone was looking out for him so much. Most of all, he had to admit it, it would be nice to be able to put a certain Jim Hunter in his place. And if Charlie Wade happened to come a-knocking, he’d be able to tell him yes sir, I know all about why the security systems have gone all-haywire. The dinosaur Jim Hunter doesn’t though. And look sir, what’s that bottle of whisky that he’s left lying around.
The Heist
That night was shrouded in the kind of darkness which can only really be appreciated in the countryside, away from the artificial lights of the city. It was as though someone had slid air-raid blackout covers over the whole area. The only illumination came from the distant Edison’s Printers panopticon, whose intermittent beams made it resemble an air traffic control tower or a lighthouse.
Mark had been pleasantly surprised on one of his dry-runs to site, when he had seen how little light there was at Edison’s. Of course, they had state-of-the-art Infra Red cameras which meant that they didn’t have to rely on certain levels of illumination for sight, but Mark always believed that light was a powerful deterrent; if people knew that they could be seen, they were always less tempted…
There was something comforting in darkness for the criminal; it became an extra layer in his disguise and also acted to strip down their idea of their actions to something more primal. If you are not being watched then only you know about the actions you are undertaking; you become your only judge.
Mark sat in judgment of himself that night; but it was not a moral evaluation, no; he knew that his technical expertise was being put to the ultimate test. He had to set up a dummy security control centre in the back of the van, running off the power of a diesel generator. He had to set up his system so that, at the exact moment of the Intertel Network Shift, his system would begin to intercept the alarm signals from the perimeter intruder system and from the door entry system on site. At that moment, his system would also project a still image of the Precisioner unit, firing this image back across the network so that the watchers in the Main Monitoring Centre and the Security Lodge would not notice anything out of the ordinary. All the staff watching their banks of monitors would see – hopefully - was a slight flicker in the image which would be put down to the seismic Intertel Shift.
Mark’s most difficult task had been the setting up of the images. He had attained the network address of the camera system from Danny’s original plans and tinkered around creating his dummy network, but he had then encountered an almost insurmountable problem. He knew that the MMC staff had to carry out frequent ‘guard tours’ of the entire site. This meant that they were trained to try and pan, tilt and zoom the cameras in order to survey the entire area surrounding each one, including any blind spots. If Mark’s dummy network had simply transmitted a still image, an image which didn’t change no matter how many times they attempted to shift the camera view, the MMC staff would immediately be alerted to the heist. Eventually, the only solution was for one of the trio to remain in the van and shadow the exact movements of the MMC staff’s joystick on their own dummy network; of course, there would be a small delay
in this, but there always was with systems such as that. Mark had therefore had to attain another network address; that of the cameras in the MMC itself; he planned to watch the watchers.
The revelation that one of them would have to remain in the van prompted a fierce debate amongst the heist team. Danny’s recent shambolic drunken performance of the days since Cheryl had left him seemed to count him out immediately in the eyes of the other two; Chris was simply not knowledgeable enough about the technology to be of much help; Mark was needed on the inside, as he knew the site better than anybody else. Danny had suggested drawing lots to make the decision, but the others didn’t like the sheer randomness of such an approach.
Eventually, Chris spoke up: ‘I don’t want to be the one left in the van. I can handle the stress and the adrenaline of the situation on site better than either of you two. I’m the one who has been on all those adventure holidays in Latin and South America. I’ve been in life or death situations before… I propose that Danny stays in the van; you know about CCTV, a bit about networks and, I’m sorry to say this mate, but you’ll cause less trouble shut away in there.’
Danny growled an angry, non-committal response to this, but was secretly pleased that he was out of the firing line.
An uneasy silence descended on the van as they slunk along
Harrogate Road. It was an evening which was typical of April; wet and windy. Above the insistent throb of the engine the ominous drumming of the rain on the roof could be heard, beating out warnings of imminent doom. The repetitive screeching of the windscreen wipers and the dull thuds of gear-changes provided eerie backing vocals to the otherworldly chorus. It was an unearthly night; like something out of a horror movie where the werewolf would suddenly leap out of the dense woodland which flanked the road and attack the vehicle. The malevolent trees seemed to be doing their best to hide the predatory night creatures; they shifted and swayed in the wind, creating long shadows and deep caverns of gloom. At certain intervals, they passed fallen trees at the side of the road which slumped like well-fed lions; their appetite sated, exhaustion setting in.
