Networked: A gripping sci-fi thriller

by LK Chapman

  At about eight-thirty they stopped to eat, but didn’t speak to me, and when they sat back down on the sofa and entered the game again, I saw that this time they were holding hands.

  When I went to bed, I was alone. When I got up, I was alone. Not that I really slept. I just went over and over everything that had happened, cursing myself for ever having released Affrayed, for ever having decided to make games at all. I wished that nobody had supported me, that my parents and Lily and everybody else had just told me not to do it, that it was a stupid idea, that I should just get a normal job like everybody else.

  But Lily and Dan had not just played right through the night, when I found them in the living room the next morning they’d both fallen asleep, their heads on opposite arms of the sofa, their legs all tangled up together in the middle. I stood next to Lily and stroked her hair, until she opened her eyes and said, ‘please, Nick. Won’t you just join us?’

  I knelt down so that I was at eye level with her.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘You have no idea how wonderful it feels, being Networked. It’s like when he links you and me and Dan, but on an even bigger scale, and we’re all working together to achieve something. It’s like... you just feel so valued, but at the same time, you’re not even aware of feeling that way, because you’re not aware of anything. It’s just this big, organic thing where everything you do is in harmony, and every other person is in harmony. There’s no time passing, nothing else to worry about, we’re all one, and there’s just the task, the goal, and our progress towards it.’

  ‘Lily, he’s going to make you kill yourself,’ I said.

  She looked pained. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I told you the other day. Nobody is dead. There is another way to live, and this is what it is. They’ve just taken a step to be like this all the time.’

  ‘What you’re talking about, this being at one with other people and with what you’re doing, this can’t be the first time you’ve felt that way. I often feel that way, when I’m programming and it’s going well, or when Dan and I are planning something out and we’re really on the same wavelength. I felt it with you when we made Cactustrophe, and when we do other things together.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lily said, ‘but there are always interruptions. It’s never completely pure.’

  She turned over so she was looking straight at me, and she rested her chin on the back of her hands. Her movement made Dan stir, but he didn’t wake up.

  ‘Lily, what you and Dan are doing is hurting me so deeply that I can barely even put it into words,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but since you refuse to join us, you must follow your own path to our destination, and this is it.’

  Chapter 43

  By mid-morning, I’d had it with being around them and I decided to go and scrub the graffiti from our front door. Dan was in the shower, and Lily was munching through a slice of toast spread thickly with chocolate spread, but it was clear what their plans for the day were, and quite frankly, I didn’t want to be in the flat to see them log in to Affrayed again.

  It was far from enjoyable, standing outside my house trying to wash the word “murderer” off my door, all the while surrounded by journalists and with neighbours coming and going and looking over curiously.

  Soon the soapy water in the washing-up bowl at my feet began to turn red, and as I scrubbed away at the door with a scouring pad, foamy pink bubbles coated my fingers and I thought about Dan and Lily back inside, probably just settling down to play Affrayed.

  Sure enough, when I went upstairs to get some clean water they were on the sofa again, immersed in the game. Slowly, I poured the scarlet water into the kitchen sink, washed my hands until the water from them ran clear, and then instead of refilling the washing-up bowl with water, I grabbed my wallet and went out.

  There were a couple of big DIY stores just outside our estate and I went straight for the nearest one, bought a hammer, and walked back to the flat again.

  Lily and Dan were still completely absorbed, so it was easy to scoop up the laptops from their laps. In fact, I had taken them into the kitchen, dropped them down on the floor and started smashing the things to hell before they even started to snap out of their trance.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Dan said, running into the kitchen amidst showers of shattering plastic and trying to drag me away.

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ I said, fighting him off in order to finish the job, ‘I’m stopping the two of you from playing that stupid game!’

  They both stared at me, horrified, and I began to feel a bit daft as I finished pulverising the laptops and put the hammer down on the dining table.

  ‘The game isn’t the point,’ Lily said quietly.

  ‘Then what is the point?’ I asked, ‘please, tell me. Because I’m finding it really fucking difficult to understand this. Do you want to die? Is that it?’

  Neither of them would tell me anything. Lily tried again to persuade me to play with them, told me that she loved me and that things would be so much simpler and less painful if I trusted her and Interface, but I wouldn’t give in.

  In defiance of me, they simply went over and played Affrayed together on my computer, and although I was tempted for a moment to smash that up too, I didn’t. Probably all they’d do would just be to go out and buy another computer.

  So I let them play while I cleaned the rest of the graffiti off the door. I let them play while I watched the news some more, and spent more time trawling through Affrayed’s forums- something which I now had to do on my phone because I’d destroyed my laptop. I let them play while I sat in the kitchen and ate a single slice of dry white toast for dinner, and I let them play while I spent an utterly miserable and hopeless evening in the same room as them, but completely alone.

  At midnight, I tried to get Lily to come to bed.

  ‘I don’t want you to sleep on the sofa again,’ I said. What I really meant was that I didn’t want her to spend another night sleeping next to Dan.

  ‘I know,’ she said vaguely, her eyes fixed on the screen, ‘but we’re still playing.’

  I clenched my left fist so hard that I could feel my nails digging into my palm, but I placed my other hand gently on her shoulder.

  ‘Okay, but when you’re done, I want you to come to bed,’ I said.

  Lily made a noncommittal noise.

  ‘Lily,’ I shook her shoulder, ‘promise me.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said.

  There barely seemed any point in me going to bed, but at some point I must have slept, because I dreamed. I dreamt of a cliff. A breezy, wild sort of place, with sandy soil and tufts of wispy grass. When I stood at the edge of the cliff, I saw there was a beach below, but beyond that, the huge expanse of ocean- a deep, radiant blue, with sunlight glittering across the surface. But when I looked closer, the little glittering patches changed, became code. As it spread across the ocean I realised it was code I recognised, that it looked just like script from the original Affrayed. I was so consumed with looking at the water that I realised I’d barely seen the sky, but when I looked up it was black, and I was terrified. I fell to my knees on the cliff top and looked straight up above me, but all the sky was black, and all of it was covered in code.

  When I woke up, I was drenched in sweat. There was a misty sort of half-light drifting in through the curtains and I was barely even surprised to find that Lily was not by my side. But when I went into the living room she was not on the sofa with Dan. In fact, Dan was nowhere to be seen either, and it didn’t take long to establish that neither of them were in the flat. On top of that, some of their stuff was missing. They’d taken their toothbrushes, some clothes, other little bits and bobs, and when I looked out the window Dan’s car was gone. I leant my forehead against the cool glass looking at his empty parking space for two or three seconds, letting the emotion that had begun seething inside me build, then with a cry of rage I turned towards my desk and just flew at it, throwing everything that wa
s on it onto the floor. I carried on until the only thing left was the pot of cacti, but instead of smashing it I picked it up and hugged it, dropping to my knees on the floor where broken bits of plastic from the computer screens dug into my knees.

  ‘Interface,’ I cried out inside my head, ‘Interface, interface, interface.’

  2007

  Chapter 44

  After our conversation at the train station, it was like Lily just switched off from the world. When I met up with her she was listless, in a state of such transfixing, consuming despair that it was like nothing else existed. She seemed to find talking an effort and would just turn her huge, tortured eyes to me as though she thought this would make me understand. When I phoned her, she wouldn’t answer, but she’d often call me and just hang on the end of the line in silence, as though she wanted to feel like I was near, but she simply couldn’t communicate with me anymore. Then, on a Sunday afternoon in early December, she sent me a text- short, but cruel.

  I know what you did with my pills. Discovered it yesterday. Don’t worry, I bought them all again

  I threw my phone down onto my desk so hard that the back flew off it and for a second I felt like I was going to completely lose it. But the feeling passed, and I put my phone back together, closed the work I was doing on my dissertation and decided that I really had to try and figure out what to do. I knew Lily understood she was depressed. At times she could be completely lucid about it, she’d understand that it might be a good idea to go to her GP, or to the university counselling service, or to talk to her friends. But it was as though she understood and then consciously made the decision not to, like she was deliberately setting out to harm herself at every turn. I don’t know whether she thought her situation was so hopeless that she was beyond help, whether she was too embarrassed or ashamed, or whether she just genuinely believed she deserved to suffer, but whatever it was, I couldn’t break through it.

  I’d spent a bit of time before reading about depression online, so I turned to the internet again and typed in a search for self-harm and suicide. I was so absorbed in reading that I didn’t hear Carl’s footsteps in the hall, and when he wandered into my room it gave me the fright of my life, and though I immediately closed what I was reading, I had no idea if he’d seen it.

  ‘Haven’t you heard of knocking?’ I said as he strolled over to my bed and sat down on the end of it. He was eating a sandwich, and seemed so laid back that I was convinced he couldn’t have seen.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘Jesus. Maybe you should shut your door if you want a bit of alone time.’

  ‘I had shut the door.’

  He took a bite of his sandwich. ‘It was ajar,’ he said.

  I almost laughed in relief. He hadn’t seen anything, he can’t have done. He was just bored and had decided to come in and hang around for a bit.

  ‘Did you want something?’ I asked him as he finished eating and brushed a load of crumbs onto the carpet.

  ‘I saw what you were reading,’ he said, ‘“understanding self-harm.”’

  My stomach felt like it flipped over and I spun round on my chair to face him.

  ‘Is that what Lily’s started doing now?’ he said.

  ‘Lily?’ I said unconvincingly.

  ‘Well, it’s not you doing it, is it?’

  I looked at him for a while. The need to keep it secret had become almost automatic, but now he’d found out anyway what was the point in holding back? Before I knew it, I found myself telling him everything about it. How she was so unhappy, how she’d talk about killing herself all the time, how she showed me all the injuries she’d done to herself, how she couldn’t do her work and was going to fail her degree. Carl sat and listened to the whole story without saying a word, until eventually I trailed off into silence.

  ‘You want my advice?’ he said, ‘you’re better off well out of it.’

  I stared at him, shocked. He’d never exactly been the most sympathetic and warm-hearted person, and there had always been something about him that struck me as a little insincere, sometimes even cruel. But hadn’t he listened to a word I’d just said?

  ‘I want to try to persuade her to get help,’ I said, ‘but she keeps going on about how she wants to get her degree and she won’t listen to me.’

  Carl shrugged. ‘It’s not your problem,’ he said. ‘Look. I know it sounds harsh. But when you met her she was, you know, normal. This isn’t what you signed up for.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s not like that-’

  ‘Come on, she hasn’t made you happy in a long time,’ he said. ‘You’ve been a right miserable bastard since you started getting serious with her.’

  ‘I’m worried about her!’

  ‘Yeah. And that’s what she wants. You might not be able to see it, but I can. All this cutting herself and saying she’s going to commit suicide, she’s got you right where she wants you.’

  ‘Lily is nothing like that,’ I said, ‘and besides, that’s not what hurting herself is about. It’s nothing to do with manipulating people, people do it when there’s something seriously wrong.’

  Carl was looking at me as though he couldn’t quite believe the words coming out of my mouth. ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘so maybe there is something wrong with her. It’s still not your responsibility. If she wants to get help she’ll get help. If she doesn’t...’ he paused. ‘Oh, I get it now,’ he said, ‘you think if you dump her she’s going to kill herself.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to break up with her. I just want her to not be ill anymore.’

  I was appalled by his attitude, and I wished like hell I’d never told him about any of it. I thought having someone else know might make it easier, but it had just made it even worse. How could he think Lily was like that? That she would say things just to trap me?

  ‘Seriously, you need to listen to me,’ Carl said, ‘I know Lily’s fit and everything, but I’m telling you, she’s not worth the hassle.’

  ‘It is not hassle,’ I said, ‘and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’

  In truth, I felt like I had no idea who he even was anymore, and since he didn’t seem like he was about to go anywhere, I got up and grabbed my jacket from the back of my desk chair.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked me.

  ‘To see Lily,’ I said.

  He spread his hands wide. ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘To check she’s okay.’

  He stared at me. ‘She’s making a complete fool of you,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, well, you’ve made it perfectly clear what you think about it,’ I said.

  Carl got up and followed me to the front door. ‘Come on, Nick, don’t go round there now,’ he said, ‘this is stupid.’

  I wouldn’t listen to him. In fact, partly what made me so keen to go and see her was the fact he said I shouldn’t.

  ‘Jesus, talk about over-reacting,’ he said, as I made my way down the front steps. I looked back at him where he stood in the doorway. Even now he seemed pretty casual and unconcerned, just leaning against the door frame and looking at me like I was being hysterical or something. But I didn’t care anymore. As far as I was concerned he and everybody else could just go to hell. Lily was my priority now.

  I was still fuming for most of the twenty minute walk to Lily’s, though I did eventually console myself by concluding that Carl must be jealous of the time I spent with Lily or something, and that if he spent his whole life being this much of a dick he’d probably end up on his own.

  The door to Lily’s house was answered by her housemate Sophie, who was talking on her mobile with one hand, while in the other she was holding a half-eaten mince pie. The hallway was festooned with gaudy decorations and she had a long piece of silver tinsel wound around her neck. I could hear loud Christmas music coming from somewhere down the hall.

  ‘Hold on a second,’ Sophie said into the phone, before holding it pressed against her jumper. As usual, she gave the impression of being li
ke a tightly coiled spring, filled with more energy than she knew what to do with. Even as she stood looking at me I could tell she was just bursting to get back to talking on the phone, eating the mince pie, and probably putting up decorations at the same time as well if she could find a way.

  She seemed a bit confused as to why I was there on the doorstep.

  ‘I thought Lily was with you,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘why, isn’t she in?’

  Sophie told whoever was on the phone that she’d call them back and then she used the corner of it to try and sweep some stray blonde hairs behind her ear.

  ‘I don’t think she’s in,’ she said, ‘I haven’t seen her since yesterday, and I’ve been here most of the day today.’

  There was a loud thud from the living room where the music was playing, followed by swearing and some laughter. Sophie looked round towards the sound. I could see she was eager to go and join them.

  ‘Do you mind if I just check,’ I said, ‘since I’m here.’

  I was pretty worried. Lily didn’t tend to go anywhere much anymore, and I was sure she must be in her room- but to have avoided seeing Sophie all day seemed like quite a feat.

  Sophie moved out the way of the door. ‘Go for it,’ she said. ‘Do you want a mince pie? We’ve got hundreds.’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly. I was sure something was badly wrong, and I didn’t want to waste any more time, but Sophie was looking at me curiously, so I smiled and said, ‘thanks, though.’