‘It is important we protect you at the present time,’ said Officer Velasquez. Again, those lips, I barely heard what she said. ‘This recording is in the public domain. Already many millions of people will have heard it. There is even greater interest in you now, Mister Meckler.’ She stopped and smiled the most enchanting smile, this observation has to be balanced with what she actually said. ‘Not all of this interest has your good health as a primary objective.’
I nodded my vague understanding. Officer Velasquez stood up and clapped her hands together. ‘So, we will protect you here until we can find out exactly what it going on.’
She then turned to Nkoyo and spoke in Portuguese.
One of the very impressively large guards motioned for me to stand. Not once had I been touched or manhandled in any way. All instructions were communicated to me by gesture alone.
‘They have arranged to talk to Anne Hempstead,’ said Nkoyo as I started to leave. ‘She’s staying at the Weaver building here in Rio.’
I was shown into a perfectly pleasant room with a large window looking out over the city, the billions of lights spreading out in a square pattern as far as I could see. I was very high up. I’d had no idea where I was until that point. The guard left the room and a very substantial door closed behind her. Clearly, I wasn’t going anywhere for a while.
29
Inappropriate Image
When I woke up the following day, I initially had no idea where I was or more importantly, why I was where I was. I stared around at the strange room I found myself in. It wasn’t that big but it wasn’t like a prison cell as it had a window and plenty of furnishings. It was more like a mid-range hotel room, although there were plenty of clues I wasn’t in some obscure hotel outside Derby in 2011. It was the structure of the walls that gave a clue. They weren’t constructed out of flat sheet material by blokes wearing tool belts. There were no corners, no edges to the walls, floor or ceiling. Like most of the buildings I’d been in around the world in 2211 they looked like they’d been moulded out of one piece of material although I had no clear idea how. I pondered on the possible construction methods, a habit I’d been criticised for in the past by Beth. The room’s shape did seem somehow familiar, maybe something I’d seen in Beijing in the other 2211 I’d visited.
Something was going beep beside me, I rolled over and looked, it sounded like it was coming from a small grey square thing resting on the shelf beside the bed. I sat up and it beeped again so I picked it up. It was completely blank, a flat, blank grey square thing going beep. No markings, no buttons, no wires, nothing.
‘Gavin, you’re awake.’
It was Nkoyo’s voice, I momentarily looked around the room to see where she was. I was alone, I glanced back down at the square grey thing in my hand.
‘What, sorry?’ I mumbled.
‘Turn it over,’ she said. Again there was a beat as I had no idea what she was talking about, I finally twigged and turned the square blank thing over and there was Nkoyo’s face, crystal clear and looking magnificent as usual. She had her eyes tightly shut.
‘Oh blimey, I had it upside down,’ I said with a chuckle.
‘Thank you, now I’ve seen your penis,’ she said flatly. ‘Have you turned it over?’
‘What! Yes, oh my God!’
She opened her eyes and looked at me.
‘It is fitted with what you would know as a camera,’ she said. I glanced down, I was naked and I immediately realised what I’d done. The flat grey thing was a kind of phone and I had the camera pointing at my nethers, I pulled a bit of bedcover over myself quickly.
‘Sorry, sorry.’
‘It’s fine, don’t worry. I’m just glad Officer Velasquez wasn’t with me when I called you, things are bad enough already.’
‘Oh, right, I see. Except I don’t see,’ I said. ‘I have no idea what’s happening. What on earth is going on?’ The previous day’s events were flooding back to me in a nauseating wave of horror.
‘You certainly know how to make an impact, Gavin. This makes crashing your drone into a children’s play area in London look like a non-story. It seems everyone is talking about the secret patriarchy reinstatement agent-provocateur from the future.’
‘What. People think I’ve come from the future!’
‘It seems so, yes, the recording we heard yesterday, well, everyone on earth seems to have heard it now, everyone is talking about it. Of course today is the day the Senate are going to vote on the Weaver proposal so it’s obviously double newsworthy.’
I scratched my head for a while as I started to take in what was going on. I’d been used as a pawn in some weird political struggle I didn’t fully understand.
‘So people are believing that dreadful woman? She spins some cock and bull story to me about being a journalist, a worder or what ever, recorded me saying I wasn’t a rapist, edited the recording and released it the day before the Senate vote in the hope of steering events and ensuring the end of the male half of the species?’
There was a short pause before Nkoyo replied. ‘That would seem to be the case, although the reference to cocks and balls seems a bit unnecessary.’
‘No, cock as in cockerel!’ I protested. ‘A cockerel, a boy hen and bull, bull, as in male cow, as in a bull with horns. Blimey, it’s just an old saying meaning utter nonsense or lies or elaborate fabrications. Cock and bull, a cock and bull story is nothing to do with human genitalia. You lot are obsessed for goodness sake!’
I realised I was shouting, which with the technology I was using probably wasn’t necessary but it seemed everything I’d said was being deliberately misinterpreted. I glanced back at the screen and saw Nkoyo laughing.
‘What’s so funny? I’m up shit creek, no one is going to believe me, every woman on earth is going to hear that recording and think I’m scum.’
‘You have a funny face when you get angry, it makes me laugh.’
I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Well I’m happy for you.’
‘Listen, this will pass. It seems the Senate security people, that’s who turned up at the house last night, it seems they are pretty certain it’s a doctored recording.’
‘They are?’
‘Well, they’re sceptical, they were recording your voice patterns when you were being questioned last night, there are certain subtle anomalies in the Hempstead recording which they are investigating. They are currently talking to Anne Hempstead and a large group of Weaver women who are all, as you would no doubt expect, full of righteous indignation.’
‘Of course they are. Fuck they’re a nasty bunch of…’ I checked myself. I was going to say something sexist like cows or bitches or worse. I swallowed, ‘I don’t like them, is that okay to say that?’
‘Perfectly understandable.’
‘But she’s not going to admit she fiddled around with the recording is she?’
‘Doubtful.’
‘So how hard is that to do now? I know it would have been very possible in my era, I would have been able to download software that could edit a sound file.’
‘It is very easy to do now,’ said Nkoyo. ‘It is also very easy to make it impossible to tell if it has been doctored in any way. What would really help is if you could remember what you actually said.’
I rubbed my face with my free hand. ‘Blimey, can you remember word for word what you said three months ago?’
‘Yes.’
Her answer was so flat, just a simple statement of fact.
‘How?’
‘It’s easy, unless someone has used a blocker.’
‘So that’s what she really had. It blocks the signal from your kidonge?
‘Yes, this is essentially the hole in their plan. Officer Velasquez has checked Hempstead’s timeline too. She clearly has some very sophisticated technol
ogy at her disposal as at first glance there is no break in her timeline.’
‘What?’
‘No, her timeline indicates she was at the same location at the same time as you, but there appears to be no break in her timeline.’
‘What? Sorry, you’ve totally lost me.’
‘She made a tiny mistake, Gavin, that’s what it means. I’ve been in touch with London and they have checked their system, they are fairly certain there’s been some tampering. It’s a very complex and secure system, only someone with very high-level access could even attempt such a thing and there are so many safeguards and back-up systems it is effectively impossible to totally change your history. It’s caused quite a stir in London.’
‘So you’re saying there’s someone in a high-ranking position in London who has helped the horrible Hempstead woman?’
‘It’s beginning to look that way, there are not many illegal devices like the blocker in circulation, the device you describe sounds like something that is banned throughout the world, they have been for years. The only reason anyone would want one is to do something underhand. I’ve never seen one but we can tell from your timeline that something happened at the time you were in the Erotic Museum.’
I didn’t like the way Nkoyo said ‘Erotic Museum’, there was a scolding wife type of tone inherent in her delivery. A downtrodden wife who’s had to put up with her husband’s shenanigans for years and doesn’t like directly referring to the offending article.
‘Explain the timeline thing to me,’ I said, deciding to try and change the subject. ‘I couldn’t make out what you were looking at yesterday, it was all upside down.’
‘Security services like Senate Security or the Mayor’s security detail in London have unlimited access to anyone’s time line. It’s essentially a recording of everywhere an individual has been, what they said, who they connected with, everything.’
‘You are kidding,’ I said, my mouth hanging open.
‘I’m not sure what your reaction is meant to imply, it sounds like you are questioning the veracity of my previous statement. If so, then I want to assure you I am explaining exactly what happens.’
‘But, but…’ I was rendered temporarily speechless by the true horror of what she’d just told me. It was appalling. This supposedly benign, gentle, war free, technologically sustainable world I was living in was an Orwellian nightmare of intimate surveillance.
‘That’s so far beyond an invasion or privacy, that’s a pogrom of individual freedom. It’s a total nightmare.’
‘That was the original idea, yes.’
‘So that’s okay? Do you really think that’s okay? I mean, even this conversation we’re having now, someone could listen to it?’
‘Yes, of course, anyone who knows you or has repeated contact with you has access to it. Everyone does, everyone, everywhere all the time.’
Again the flat response like it should have been obvious.
‘But isn’t that a bit, I don’t know, doesn’t that mean that you have to watch what you say all the time?’
‘No.’
‘Well, it makes me nervous,’ I said. ‘I don’t want people hearing everything I say.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, it might be private. I don’t mind you hearing me if I’m talking to you. I know you, you understand the context in which I’m saying things, but as I’ve just experienced in a very horrible way if something you’ve said is taken out of context, adapted, changed, twisted, then for fuck’s sake, everything turns into a nightmare!’
Again Nkoyo was silent for a moment, I was wondering if there was some kind of delay on the line, she looked like she was thinking.
‘I think your current situation is an anomaly. The fact that we can’t go back and listen to exactly what you’ve said has caused the problems we’re having now.’
‘Listen, I don’t know much about information technology but we learned many years ago that however super secure and egalitarian any complex system is there’s always a way to mess it up. There’s always a workaround and the Hempstead woman found one. She messed the system up, which means the system is flawed.’
‘Indeed,’ said Nkoyo, calm as ever. ‘It certainly raises some very difficult questions. The systems we use are so embedded it would be next to impossible to remove them. This is why I was very anxious when I first heard what it sounded like you said.’ She paused for a moment. ‘If what you are telling me is true, if indeed you never said those dreadful things, then the Weavers have taken an enormous risk in fabricating this. If the truth comes out, if the recording is proven to be fake then in effect that is the end of the Weavers influence and no doubt the end of the movement itself.’
We sat in silence for a moment, the flat grey thing was resting on my lap which I eventually realised was probably giving Nkoyo a view up my nose. I held it up in front of me.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ I said eventually. ‘There’s plenty of things I’ve seen since I arrived that I don’t understand, but this whole lack of privacy thing? Jesus wept, what is supposed to be a ubiquitous and totally secure system is in fact riddled with security holes which means people can destroy each other’s lives on a whim.’
‘That’s why this is far more serious than the things you are supposed to have said. At present I think you should consider yourself lucky, Gavin,’ said Nkoyo with a serious look on her face. ‘Your isolation is probably the best thing at the moment. We’ve never had to deal with this kind of situation before. Indeed, as you say, it does throw the whole system into a new dimension. There are already reports that the Mayor of London has been detained for questioning, the Senate house is a seething mass of people, everyone is very anxious. I have a hell of a day ahead of me and all you have to do is stay there and keep quiet.’
‘I don’t even know where I am!’ I whined.
‘It’s not important, you are in a very secure location, I know where you are, that’s all that matters. I won’t leave you there, don’t worry. I will talk to you later on today after the vote. Wish me luck.’
That was it. The incredibly high definition image of Nkoyo’s face disappeared and was replaced with the most nondescript flat grey surface. I dropped the phone thing on the bed and crawled under the covers.
30
Officer Velasquez
The view out of my window was breathtaking. I was perched high above the city of Rio de Janeiro with a view to the West. I’m assuming this was the case because of the shadows; the sun was rising from behind me. I don’t know how far I could see, maybe fifty or sixty kilometres and there was no sign of the edge of the city. Unlike London, although it was built around large squares stretching to the horizon, they had also built this city on rolling hills. The centre of the squares looked like jungle, thick green vegetation abounded. I recalled looking out of the window the night before and seeing lights stretching off into the distance, in the morning the view looked different, I felt I could see much further.
About an hour after I spoke with Nkoyo, the door opened. Even to me, the door looked a little archaic, a door with hinges just seemed a little dated. The person who opened the door filled me with equal measures of delight and dread.
‘Good morning, Mister Meckler,’ said Officer Velasquez. ‘I hope that you slept okay.’
‘I slept a bit,’ I said. ‘I’ve been very worried though.’
‘You should have come and seen me,’ she said. ‘My office is just down the hall.’
‘But I thought I was…’
‘You thought what?’ her stare was absurdly captivating.
‘Well, I thought I was a prisoner, I thought I was locked in.’
She smiled at me which just made things worse. ‘That is very charming,’ she said. ‘I have read history, we don’t do that any more,’ she gestured to th
e door. ‘See, no locks.’
I felt like such a fool. She was right, there was a simple sprung ball catch on the door, the sort of thing you’d get on a kitchen cupboard. I could have left at any time. I hadn’t even tried to open the door.
‘You are free to move around as much as you want. The reason you are here is for your own protection, not from murder or physical harm as may have been the case in the dark times, it is more that you are protected from the rather heated attention you may receive on this day.’
‘I’m sorry, there are many things I don’t understand, the fact that I’m not a prisoner is just one of them.’
‘Have you had some breakfast?’
‘Nothing, I’ve just had a drink of water.’
Officer Velasquez looked genuinely surprised and concerned. ‘That is terrible, you poor man, come with me and we will get you something to eat.’
Thankfully by the time Velasquez had arrived I’d already donned my one piece so I was respectable, I followed her out of the room and into a huge area I had no memory of.
‘Wow, did we come through here last night?’ I asked as I scanned the vast hall we’d entered.
‘No, we moved you last night, your room is like a pod that can slide about on the outside of the building. We’re twenty floors higher up here.’
That explained why I was confused by the view from my window, it was a different view. ‘Wow, I didn’t feel the room move,’ I said.
‘It moves very slowly,’ she explained as she gestured toward a table set up in the middle of a hall, ‘Here, have some coffee and chipå. I will cut you some fruit.’
She extracted a rather savage looking knife from her belt and picked up a papaya. ‘You like?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded nervously and poured some coffee from a very recognisable coffee pot. The coffee was stunning, the papaya was delicious, the chipå, a kind of cake with some kind of cheese in the middle, well, I’ll stick with describing the fruit. Officer Velasquez seemed to delight in cutting fruit for me, she did it with expert hands and great skill, and guess what, I was transfixed.
News from the Squares Page 29
