Networked: A gripping sci-fi thriller

by LK Chapman

  But it was none of those things, and as I watched them, I gradually accepted it was none of those things. It was real.

  The feeling that came over me when I finally understood was so intense, so extraordinary, that I barely knew what I was doing; all I knew was that I wanted what was happening to stop. I tore them apart and I shouted into their startled faces, and I watched as they both sat up, fingers fumbling to do their jeans back up, faces flushed, their breathing short. They hadn’t actually been having sex, not full sex anyway, but the state they were in they clearly hadn’t been far off. They both seemed dazed and confused, as though they were in a trance, and as if I needed any further reminder of where his hand had just been Dan was holding it in front of him, looking at Lily’s moisture on his fingers like he had no idea what it was.

  I dragged him off the sofa by his other arm and practically threw him towards the door.

  ‘Get the fuck out of my house,’ I said.

  He stared back at me stupidly, then his eyes fixed on Lily who was still struggling to get her jeans done up and it was like he suddenly realised what he had done.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he said, ‘oh my God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Just get out,’ I said.

  He backed away a couple of steps and I turned my attention to Lily, who had already started to cry.

  ‘Well?’ I said to her.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what just happened.’

  I grabbed her shoulders to get her to look at me, digging my fingers into her skin hard enough that I was sure it must be hurting her.

  ‘I’ll tell you what happened, shall I?’ I said.

  ‘Nick,’ Dan said, suddenly at my side and trying to pull me away from her, ‘it wasn’t her fault. It was the game. It was like we were possessed or-’

  I spun round to face him. ‘Are you actually still here?’ I said.

  ‘Nick, listen to me-’

  ‘Get away from me, Dan.’

  ‘Nick, please-’ in his desperation to get me to listen to him he caught my arm and I pushed him away violently enough that I think he finally started to get the message. But he looked back at Lily before he left.

  ‘Are you going to be okay?’ he asked her.

  She nodded tearfully and I felt more angry at him than ever.

  ‘Of course she’s going to be okay,’ I said, ‘what the fuck sort of person do you think I am?’

  ‘I wish you’d just let me explain,’ he tried one more time, and his reasonable voice, the way he kept insisting on being right there in my face, finally made me completely lose it with him. I grabbed him, pulled him over to the door and shoved him through it so hard that he stumbled against the wall in the hallway and almost fell down the stairs, only stopping himself at the last second by snatching at the hand-rail.

  ‘I’m going,’ he said, his voice shaking, ‘I’m going. But... I don’t have my car keys.’

  Furiously, I strode back into the living room, found them on the TV stand and threw them down the stairs, watching as he scrambled down after them. For a second it felt so good I was tempted to throw all the rest of his stuff down the stairs as well, but instead I let him go, slamming the door behind him so hard it made the walls shake.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Lily sobbed when Dan had gone. ‘I don’t like it when you’re angry.’

  I watched through the kitchen window as Dan made his way across the car park to his Mini and for a moment I thought about going down there after him, dragging him out of his car and hurting him as much as he’d hurt me, but even in my rage I knew I didn’t really want to do that.

  ‘The game made us do it,’ Lily said, ‘we were playing and then something reached into our minds and made us... it made me...’

  I turned back to her and as soon as I saw the sofa I was reminded of her and Dan lying together on it, his mouth pressed over hers, their hands exploring each other, his fingers against her, inside her, and the feeling it gave me was unbearable.

  ‘Made you what, Lily?’ I demanded, ‘made you want to fuck somebody else? Made you want to fuck somebody else right in front of me?’

  ‘We weren’t... fucking,’ Lily said, her voice shaking.

  I strode back over to her. ‘No, but you were damn well near enough Lily. You... how could you do that to me? I can’t even look at you. You’re disgusting. I find you disgusting.’

  Even as I said the words I began to regret it. Her face crumpled. She bowed her head and her shoulders started to shake as she cried. I knew Lily and Dan hadn’t really meant to do this. I’d known from their reactions, from my own experiences in the game.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Lily said through her tears. ‘Do you want to hit me? You can, if you want to. I deserve it.’

  I sat down beside her. Part of me wanted to put my arm round her, but part of me still couldn’t shake the thought of what she’d just done.

  ‘I don’t want to hit you,’ I said, ‘just tell me, honestly, did you and Dan want to touch each other like that, or were your minds altered by the game?’

  ‘I told you,’ Lily said, ‘it was the game. I just forgot everything else, I didn’t know what I was doing.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Lily, is there anything going on between you and Dan?’

  Lily looked at me, her eyes bright gold and her makeup smudged. ‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘I’m in love with you. You’re my husband.’

  Her tears started again and I found that I could put my hand on her back to comfort her.

  ‘So what you’re saying, essentially, is that although you were fine with it while it was happening, you were somehow made to do this against your will.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lily said, ‘I think so. I don’t mean... I don’t mean that Dan made me, but my mind was all... it seemed larger, opened out, and then I felt very close to Dan- mentally I mean, emotionally, and then I started to want him, but- it wasn’t really real. It was, I don’t know.’

  ‘Okay, Lily.’

  ‘Do you still love me?’ she asked, ‘will you still want me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said vaguely, my mind racing.

  Lily clapped her hands over her mouth and her eyes brimmed over with tears and I realised it was my less than convincing answer that had done it.

  ‘Lily, I’m very confused right now,’ I said, ‘of course I still love you, but that was a big shock for me and I don’t understand any of what just happened.’

  ‘You said I’m disgusting,’ she said quietly, ‘is that what you think now?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Maybe I am, if that thing in my head could so easily make me do that.’ She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, but more spilled out to replace them. ‘How did all that stuff happen, Nick? How could something get in our heads?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I need to think about it.’

  Lily was so shaken up that she curled up in a ball on the sofa and stared blankly straight ahead of her. I made her a mug of sugary tea and she propped herself up on one elbow to sip at it, but she seemed barely able to move.

  ‘Dan is my friend,’ she said after a while, ‘but now we’ve... done things... we’re never going to be able to look at each other the same way again. I’ve lost my friend-’ her voice broke and a couple of drops of tea spilled onto the sofa, ‘-and I’ve lost my husband, because you’ll never look at me the same way again either.’

  She looked down at herself. ‘I hate my body,’ she said, ‘I am disgusting.’

  ‘This wasn’t your fault. Something happened to you that you didn’t want; I’m not going to hold that against you.’

  She fell silent and I sat next to her for a long time, thinking.

  ‘Where do you think Dan is?’ she asked me eventually, ‘do you think he’s driven home?’

  I felt a twinge of anger at hearing his name again.

  ‘I don’t care where he’s gone,’ I said.

  With an effort, Lily manoeuvred he
r body into a sitting position. ‘I understand you being mad at him,’ she said, ‘but he’s probably really upset. I don’t think he wanted to touch me anymore than I wanted him to do it.’

  Personally, I wasn’t quite so sure, and also, I really didn’t care if he was upset. I knew on a sort of factual level that I was still friends with him and that I’d forgive him, but right now, I was perfectly happy to carry on hating him.

  Lily got up and went to look out of the kitchen window.

  ‘He’s still outside,’ she said, as she held the beige blind out of the way with one hand to look down at the car park. ‘He’s just sitting in his car.’

  I wasn’t particularly keen to rush down and start talking to him, but I was kind of curious why he was still out there, I’d just assumed he would have driven back to his mum’s house. I suppose it was seriously late, in fact, the sky was just beginning to lighten towards dawn, but surely he wasn’t planning on sleeping in his car, and I didn’t think he’d be so pathetic as to just hang around waiting for me to come and speak to him.

  In the end, curiosity won out over my anger, and when Lily said she thought she should try to get some sleep, I decided I’d go down and see what the deal was with Dan.

  Chapter 17

  When I opened the car door, Dan was clearly frightened and studied my face as if to check whether I’d come to have another fight with him. Satisfied that I’d calmed down he said, ‘alright?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘mind if I join you?’

  He was one of these people that couldn’t help but store all kinds of crap inside his car and before I could sit down he had to shift a whole heap of what appeared to be rubbish- empty bottles, receipts, bags of crisps, and for some reason a pair of socks.

  ‘I thought you were going to hit me, back in the flat,’ he said.

  I looked at him but he wouldn’t meet my eye.

  ‘I watched you leave,’ I said, ‘I almost came after you.’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ he said. He was still refusing to turn and face me, but I thought I heard just a hint of a smile in his voice.

  ‘I didn’t need to,’ I said, ‘your life is miserable enough already.’

  He looked round at me sharply and I felt a little pang of guilt as I realised how much I’d hurt him.

  ‘Dan, I didn’t-’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s fine. You might as well say it like it is. It’s not like I don’t know I’m a total fuck-up.’

  I was struck by the way there seemed to be something a bit pathetic about him. Why wasn’t he arguing with me, trying to protest his innocence? I mean, he was the one in the wrong I guess, but where was his fight?

  The silence was awkward, then I noticed the radio in the car was on and tuned to a station but that it was completely silent.

  ‘Dan, are you listening to the radio on mute?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing good was on,’ he said.

  ‘So why not turn it off?’

  ‘Because I wanted to have the radio on. I didn’t just want to sit in the car in silence.’

  I raised an eyebrow. Ordinarily, what he’d just said would have made me laugh, but instead it just made me feel even worse about what he’d done and I felt sickeningly betrayed all over again. Then, as if he’d just understood my thought process, he turned to look at me.

  ‘Nick, I really am sorry about what you saw- about what happened between me and Lily. I swear on my life I didn’t know what I was doing. It was the game.’

  I nodded. ‘That’s what Lily said too.’

  ‘That’s because it’s true. Look, the game, it reached into my mind, it made it larger-’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  Dan looked at me closely. ‘It happened to you as well?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You stopped needing to use your hands to control the game?’ he asked me, ‘and then the game stopped being so important, there was just this strange sensation in your mind, like it was being explored?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Dan rubbed his forehead and frowned. ‘What’s happening to us?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you think it was Interface?’

  I watched through the windscreen as the sky changed, became streaky with early morning light through the clouds. Of course it was Interface. Everything was fucking Interface.

  The enormity of what had happened between him and Lily made being with Dan strange. It seemed difficult to just talk to him and we lapsed into silence again for a while, though as if to try and make me happy, he turned the radio off.

  ‘Dan, why are you here?’ I asked, ‘why didn’t you go back to your mum’s?’

  He took in a deep breath and I thought he was going to speak, but instead he stayed silent as though giving his answer careful consideration.

  ‘This isn’t the right time to talk about it,’ he said finally. ‘I just want to make things right with you and Lily.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘has something happened at home?’

  He sighed, and I knew he didn’t want to discuss it, but I’d left him no choice. ‘I don’t know what the hell is going on,’ he said wearily, ‘it’s just more of the same, really. But I can’t go back there at the moment.’

  Instead of explaining any further, he took out his phone and turned it on. Both of us had got into the habit of having our mobiles permanently turned off unless we actually wanted to use them so that we could ignore all the heat about Affrayed.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing the phone to me once he’d found what he was looking for. It was a text from his mum.

  if u want the stuff from ur room come and get it in the next few days or im chucking the lot

  I handed it back to him. I was shocked. I knew he had problems on and off with his mum and sister but he’d never told me things had got this bad.

  ‘Is she serious?’ I asked.

  ‘Nah,’ Dan said, ‘she just wanted me to come running straight back round there.’

  ‘When was it sent?’ I asked. I’d been so surprised by what it said that I’d forgotten to look.

  ‘Beginning of this week,’ he said, ‘on Monday. The day you and Lily said I should stay with you for a bit.’

  ‘That’s more than a few days ago,’ I said, ‘you’d better hope she’s not serious.’

  Dan shrugged. ‘Fuck it. Even if she does get rid of my stuff, I can buy it all again. It’s not like I can’t afford it now.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s not really the point, is it?’ I said, ‘and what about all your sketches and stuff?’

  The last time I’d been in Dan’s room, it had been absolutely full of sketches. He mostly liked to draw stuff to do with games, but he sometimes drew other things. I could always remember one almost haunting picture of his that I’d come across- an intricate portrait of a young woman sitting at a small table in front of a brick wall. Only, part of the brick wall had crumbled away and behind her was an immense cityscape, and the woman herself had “hair” formed partly out of complex geometric patterns that fell in two long straight curtains over her eyes and her bare breasts. When he’d caught me looking at it he’d seemed a bit embarrassed, even though it was really good.

  In answer to my question, Dan reached round to the back seat of the car, and picked up a carrier bag stuffed with sketchpads and loose sheets of paper, and I realised he’d gathered all his drawings up and brought them with him.

  ‘Dan, what’s going on?’ I asked him.

  ‘Robyn went AWOL again last weekend,’ he said, ‘she’s always doing it, just disappearing for a few days with her friends or her boyfriend. God, that guy,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘I told you about him, didn’t I?’

  ‘Is he the one who tried to sell you the brand new laptop that he claimed used to be his friends’ dads’ brother’s, or however it went?’

  Dan burst out laughing at the memory of it, ‘oh yeah! Oh man, that was fucking ridiculous, if that thing wasn’t stolen I...’ he trailed off and I understood wh
y. For a brief moment it had felt like we’d both moved on from what had happened, and that everything was like old times, but then he’d remembered again. Remembered that nothing was like old times.

  ‘So, yeah,’ Dan said, ‘Robyn goes off, she gets bored, she comes back again. But every time she does it mum goes spare. She’s even had me out looking for her once or twice. But Robyn always comes back when she runs out of money, or wants some proper food or whatever. But last Sunday she went off and I was with you and Lily, and mum was losing it because she couldn’t get hold of me. Anyway, long story short, we had a massive row when I showed up there on Monday so I told her I was moving out and I’d stay with you until I got my own place.’

  I stared at him, ‘were you going to mention that to us at some point?’

  Dan shrugged. ‘That’s why I kept this stuff in the car. I didn’t want it to look like I was moving in. I was going to explain the situation when it seemed like the right time, but now with what’s happened tonight... I’d understand if you didn’t feel comfortable having me in your flat.’

  The thing was, I knew he was sorry, but now I also realised why he was quite so keen to make sure I knew it. He wanted me to say it was fine, that he could stay with us, that I didn’t mind- and a part of me actually wanted to say it, but I couldn’t. Not quite. And Dan noticed that I couldn’t.

  ‘I’ll find somewhere else,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Dan-’

  ‘Hell, I could buy my own place now. So could you with the money we’ve made. In the meantime, I’ll figure something out.’

  ‘Look, I’m not saying you can’t stay with us,’ I said, ‘I just can’t give you an answer right this second. I mean, Christ, Dan, you and Lily were practically having sex on the sofa in front of me.’

  That said, we reached yet another silent impasse. Both of us wanted things to be normal, but how could they be? Lily was my wife and I’d have that image of her with Dan forever. But Dan was my closest friend, and he was telling me he hadn’t meant to do it, that he was sorry. On top of that, he needed my help. My mind was spinning. How had Interface done what he’d done? How could Lily and Dan have done what they’d done? How could I make it right again? I began to feel claustrophobic inside the car. I wanted to get outside, feel the fresh air.