Networked: A gripping sci-fi thriller

by LK Chapman

  I was really getting into this. I’d found Interface’s weak spot. I’d threatened his research. He’d have to take me seriously now.

  INTERFACE: This is unfortunate. I wanted us to stay friends.

  DAWN: We were never your friends.

  INTERFACE: I’m sorry you feel that way. The thing is, if you start telling your story to journalists, we might become enemies.

  Dan laughed. ‘Bring it on,’ he said.

  I was a little more cautious. Interface was not saying this lightly, of that I was sure.

  DAWN: Is that a threat?

  INTERFACE: Yes. If you talk, I’ll make the two of you hurt Lily.

  Dan looked at me. ‘What does he mean?’ he asked, though from his expression I think he had quite a good idea what Interface meant. And so did I.

  INTERFACE: You might think that you would never be capable of it, but I can get inside your minds. And once I’m in control I could have the two of you do things to her that would have her begging and screaming for you to stop.

  ‘No,’ I moaned, ‘no, no, no.’

  I wanted to believe that nothing on earth would make me do the kinds of things to Lily that he was suggesting. But a few days ago I would have said nothing on earth would find me in a situation where I’d be pulling Dan and Lily apart to stop them having sex on the sofa in front of me.

  ‘We’d never...’ Dan said, ‘I could never...’

  INTERFACE: Please believe me, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to hurt any of you. But I hope the extremity of my threat shows how important the Network’s research is.

  I could hardly even pay attention; I was so consumed with the awful implications of what he’d just said. Because if he could enter my mind at will and make me do things, what’s to say he wouldn’t just do it on a whim anyway? What’s to say he wouldn’t just decide to “research” us assaulting Lily? What’s to say he wouldn’t decide to have us kill her?

  ‘I can’t do this,’ Dan said, ‘I can’t take any more of this.’

  DAWN: Please, let’s try to be reasonable. All this is between you, me and Dan. Leave Lily out of it. She doesn’t deserve all this, and she certainly doesn’t deserve to get hurt. If you want someone to suffer, then make me suffer. Not her.

  INTERFACE: I don’t want to hurt anybody, and nobody will get hurt, so long as you keep quiet about my research. That’s all I ask. You need not fear me, and please don’t be put off playing Affrayed. You are in no danger from me, not while you agree to this one demand. Do not tell anybody that you didn’t make Affrayed. Do not mention me or the Network’s research. Do not talk to the press. That is all I ask. Will you remain silent?

  DAWN: Yes.

  Chapter 26

  I worried all night about how to handle the new situation with Lily, but by morning my decision was made. I was appalled by the thought that Interface might make Dan and me harm her and part of me wanted to get her as far away from us as possible, but that simply wasn’t practical. Nothing would be helped by making an impulsive, emotional decision out of fear. What Interface had said was really very straightforward- it was a threat, nothing more, nothing less. If he really was interested in seeing us attack Lily he’d had ample opportunities to do it already and he hadn’t.

  Dan had also slept badly and we were both awake as Lily got ready for work. I tried to act as normally as I could, but while she stood making sandwiches in the kitchen she couldn’t help but notice how distracted I was as I tried to make myself some breakfast, or the way that Dan kept flicking his eyes towards her nervously from where he sat on the sofa, duvet still wrapped around his shoulders and his hair all sticking up.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said after a while, ‘I’m not going to have another breakdown like I did last night, you don’t have to watch me.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  Lily concentrated on spreading peanut butter while I stood beside her uncomfortably.

  ‘I’m sorry about how I upset I got over that comment,’ she said, ‘I feel embarrassed about it now. It was all very overwhelming, that’s all.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,’ I said.

  I glanced across at Dan, who fixed me with a look heavy with meaning.

  ‘Lily, Dan and I were talking last night,’ I said, ‘and we’ve decided that keeping silent is definitely the best thing to do.’

  ‘That’s already what we were doing, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I know, but I just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page. Don’t talk to anybody about Affrayed at work today. Not even if they say it’ll help or that it’s the right thing to do. And make sure mum doesn’t either.’

  Lily cut the sandwich in half and frowned at me. ‘Has something happened?’ she asked, ‘the two of you seem a bit strange this morning.’

  Lily looked across at Dan and I was sure he was on the verge of telling her.

  ‘Nothing’s happened,’ I said, ‘like I said, I want to make sure we’re all handling this the same way.’

  Lily nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘if you think it’s for the best.’

  Once Lily had left for work Dan couldn’t stay quiet any longer.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell her?’ he asked me.

  I sat down next to him and sighed.

  ‘Because if I did, none of the possible outcomes would be good,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t hide this from her! You know what Interface said he’d have us-’

  ‘Yes, I know. And what would it do to her if I told her that? If she realised there was a chance that her husband and her closest friend would hurt her like that? It would destroy her. Either she’d stay here and be frightened, she’d leave and be on her own-’

  ‘But she should have the choice, surely-’

  ‘or,’ I continued, ‘and I think this would be the most likely thing she would do, she’d realise that we wanted to tell the truth and it was only fear of hurting her that was stopping us, so she’d talk to the media herself and let herself get hurt.’

  I watched as Dan understood. ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘I didn’t consider that.’

  ‘Do you see now? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t trust Interface one bit, but I think he was telling the truth about this. If we don’t talk, he won’t have us hurt her. But if we tell Lily, she’ll feel like she has to make a choice, to weigh up whether her suffering is worth it so the truth can come out. And I don’t want to put her in that position. She has to believe we want silence and then she’ll be safe.’

  …

  Our course of action agreed, Dan and I fell back into our usual morbid pursuits of seeing what people were saying about us online and speculating uselessly about Interface’s motivations, but by mid-afternoon we were fed up of hanging around in the flat and decided to walk into town and maybe look in on Lily at Winterbourne Flowers. I wasn’t overly keen on the thought of seeing my mum, but Interface’s threats had made me worried about Lily, and even though I suppose the main danger to her was actually me I still wanted to keep her close.

  When we got into town it wasn’t long after all the kids had come out of school and the high street was full of teenagers chattering and laughing in the sunny afternoon. The florist shop was near the bottom of town and we wandered down towards it, both occupied with our own thoughts.

  The second we rounded the corner and I saw the florist I knew something was wrong. Mum was standing outside it looking up and down the street, one of her hands buried in her pale, fluffy hair, but when she caught sight of Dan and me she held a hand out in a sort of desperate plea for help that made us run across the road to her.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, ‘what’s happened? Where’s Lily?’

  Mum took a step backwards, knocking into a display of what looked to me like big pink daisies in various candy-coloured flower pots. ‘Nick, look, I’m not sure what happened to her. I tried to get her to sit down for a bit, take a few minutes to sort herself out, but she must have slipped out the back.’

 
‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’

  We went inside, where mum turned the sign on the door round to “closed” and sat down behind the counter. The air in the little shop seemed close, almost steamy in the summer heat and full of the grassy scent of plants and the heady smell of flowers. The phone started ringing and mum reached towards it, then let her hand drop down on the counter again, on top of a open A4 diary where I could see appointments jotted down in both her narrow slanted handwriting and Lily’s swirly lettering.

  ‘She was acting strangely,’ mum said, ‘we were with some customers and she seemed really distracted, like she was barely there at all, and she said some odd things.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘I don’t know, I can’t remember. About something being beautiful, I think. I tried to get her to take a break, I thought she was just tired, but she was walking around looking at the flowers, touching them, smelling them.’ Mum lowered her voice almost to a whisper. ‘It was like she’d taken something. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘then what?’

  ‘I persuaded her to go and get a glass of water and when I went to check on her a few minutes later she was gone.’

  I looked at Dan and something in our expressions must have betrayed how worried we were.

  ‘What is it?’ mum asked, ‘do you think she’s in trouble?’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly, ‘no. I’m sure it’s nothing. Me and Dan will go and look for her.’

  ‘Do you want me to help? I can close the shop for the rest of the day.’

  ‘No. It’s fine. I’ll call you when we’ve found her.’

  I opened the door and mum stood up.

  ‘What’s happening, Nick? Is it to do with all this... this...’ she couldn’t bring herself to say it and I knew she meant the scandal.

  ‘She’s stressed out,’ I said, ‘that’s all. She got a bit upset last night and she probably didn’t sleep very well.’

  I turned towards the door again.

  ‘Nick, tell Lily to stay home the rest of the week,’ mum said, ‘Kim and me will manage. I think she needs a break.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘thanks.’

  Dan and I split up to search the streets around the florist. He wandered down towards the bus station while I began to search the high street, running up and down looking through shop windows, but it was hopeless. It sounded like Lily was completely out of it, who knew where she could be. She might have gone inside a shop and I could search all day and struggle to find her. After a few minutes, Dan and I met up again near the florist and decided to check the direction neither of us had tried yet, down towards the cinema, gym and bowling alley. We still carried on glancing up and down the street as we walked, hoping every second to see Lily step out of a shop or suddenly be revealed behind a group of people. I looked towards a big group of teenagers standing in a circle outside the cinema, wondering if Lily could be sitting down on the bench behind them, but then Dan grabbed my arm.

  ‘She’s there,’ he said.

  To begin with I couldn’t see what he meant. The only person ahead of us was a dark-haired woman who looked like she was just coming back from a run- red faced, water bottle in hand, muscular thighs encased in black lycra shorts.

  Then I looked out into the car park and I saw Lily squeezing between the wing mirrors of a couple of parked cars, making her way towards us. She was smiling blissfully, walking in a long confident stride that was quite unlike her, her head held high, hair streaming down her back.

  ‘Lily,’ I said, running over to her, ‘what’s happened? Are you alright?’

  ‘Never better,’ she said as Dan caught up with us.

  ‘Mum said you were acting oddly-’

  Lily shrugged and smiled. ‘Who’s to say what’s odd,’ she said, ‘come with me, I want to show you something.’

  She turned her back and started walking away again, expecting us to follow.

  ‘Perhaps we should go home now,’ I suggested.

  She turned to look at us. ‘Don’t you want to see what I’ve got to show you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Is it to do with Interface?’

  She laughed and spread her arms wide. ‘Everything is to do with Interface,’ she declared. ‘Now come on!’

  She giggled before turning and running away from us, leaving us with no choice but to chase after her as she ran down through the car park and towards the big park at the edge of town where I could remember walking and playing as a kid. Finally, she paused where the path began to climb into the trees, stopping so abruptly that we almost collided with her. Then she spun round and stood looking at us.

  ‘I want to share this with you,’ she said.

  ‘Share what?’ I asked.

  ‘You won’t be disappointed,’ she said. ‘Life’s beautiful like this, and you’re the two people I love most in the world.’

  She held both her arms out, one hand stretched towards Dan, one towards me.

  ‘Take my hand,’ she said, ‘and then you can join me.’

  I didn’t like the idea that Interface was involved. But she was so insistent, and her gesture so irresistible. Dan started reaching out towards her, his fingertips just brushing hers. She looked at me with such love and excitement. She wanted it so much, her eyes wide and fiery in the dappled shade, her rosy lips parted just a little. When it came down to it, I couldn’t act in any way except the way I did. I took her hand.

  Chapter 27

  The first thing I felt was the Presence again, warm and caring and strong- so strong. It was bliss to be taken over, to let it in and forget for a while.

  I got the sense that my mind was still largely unfamiliar to it- that it wanted to explore me and know me. This was a little bit frightening, but the Presence seemed to understand my fear and it cooled it. My mind did not open out like it had before, I didn’t feel the existence of Lily and Dan in the periphery, only the sensation of that Presence spreading ever deeper into me with interest and kindness and curiosity.

  Suddenly, I felt excruciatingly self-conscious- my cheeks burned, and I felt so incredibly uncomfortable in my own skin that I almost wanted to claw my way out of it. But as suddenly as it began, it shut off entirely, as though somebody had reached in to the part of my mind that controlled it and removed it, or broke all connections to it. I’d never really struggled with self-consciousness anyway, not the way that Lily did, but entirely devoid of it- of all thought of myself, the world flooded in. And it was fascinating.

  Realising Dan and I had reached the point we needed to, Lily let go of us, and I looked around me as if I’d never seen any of this stuff before. I stared at the sky, bright white through luscious green leaves. I could feel the ground beneath the soles of my shoes- every ridge, every stick and stone. I ran my hand along the warm wooden fence on my right, aware of every place the rough grain touched my palm and I was at one with its solidity, it’s continuity, its grounding in the earth.

  Beyond the fence the ground dropped away to a trickling stream, and I wondered how it would feel to scramble barefoot down the bank through the brambles and jump into the water, feel the cold shock of it and the silt beneath my feet.

  I wanted to touch everything. Everything I saw I wanted to experience- the springy green moss growing up the earthy embankment that felt crunchy like salad leaves and made a soft rustling sound as I disturbed it, the earth beneath my feet that felt so solid and permanent yet coated my palm with brown dust.

  Up ahead the path opened out to a stretch of grassy hillocks cropped short by rabbits; a group of which we startled when we approached, then we watched as they scattered off into the gorse bushes.

  Lily turned to watch us, her face lit up with joy.

  ‘Now do you understand?’ she asked as we caught up with her. ‘And there’s more,’ she said, ‘there’s so much more.’

  She grabbed our hands again and ran up the hill until we reached a place where the town stretched out below us, clu
sters of red-roofed houses and a criss-cross of grey roads. I don’t know how it was that she knew what to do, or how she seemed to know what was coming, but as we stood on the brink of the hill she raised our arms to the sky, and then I really did see.

  Not that any of what I thought was really that new, as such. More that it suddenly became arranged in a way that was so much more profound, so much truer. I became aware that the same sky that was above us was above the whole world, that somebody thousands of miles away could look up and they’d essentially be looking at the same thing I was. I thought how Dan and Lily were here with me and as I thought this it seemed that perhaps they thought it too, because we all moved round so that instead of holding hands in a line with Lily in the middle, we stood in a circle, and I took Dan’s hand as well, to complete it.

  Then as soon as I took his hand, it was as though the Presence took this as signal to push things further, and with the most intense, overwhelming liberation my mind opened out again, let me sense them beside me not only physically, but mentally. I reached out for both of them, for Lily’s mind that was complicated yet incredibly beautiful- with pleasure and pain woven through it inextricably, then for Dan’s which was isolated, confused and disconnected. And this was a problem, not just for him, but for all of us. I knew that the Presence wanted to lift us higher, push us further, but Dan couldn’t seem to connect with us, something was holding him back.

  Lily pressed her body against mine, her lips against mine, and I realised it wasn’t me she should be showing affection to, it wasn’t even me I wanted her to be showing affection to, as pleasant as it was. I wanted Dan to feel it, for him to feel loved and included, for there to be no imbalance, so when she turned to him and their lips met I didn’t feel even the slightest bit jealous. I felt glad.

  He kissed her for a long time, one of his hands against the small of her back, the other cupped behind her head almost as though to stop her escaping and I watched them. I watched Lily’s long eyelashes, and the way they sometimes fluttered open revealing a sliver of her golden-orange irises. I watched as the way they kissed changed, sometimes deep and urgent, sometimes gentle, little more than a brush of his lips against hers.