Right Girl

by Ellie O'Neill

  An ice sculpture had fallen, and there was a flurry of activity as people brandishing mops and buckets shouted at each other to be careful. Nobody noticed me reappear. I walked back to my flowers. I slid my trolley out and grabbed the handle, focusing hard on my white knuckles. My whole body was shaking. I felt my stomach lurch. Never again, I thought. If I get away with this, never ever again.

  I ricocheted from my bed to the bathroom and back to my bed again. I had been throwing up all afternoon. Clearly my stomach could not handle a life of crime. In bed I pulled the covers over my head and shivered uncontrollably. I could not believe what I had done. I never would have thought I was capable of something like this. And yet it had been relatively easy. It was only my conscience that was proving to be a difficult beast to wrestle with. This better work. The house was silent. There were no guards at the door, no secret police in balaclavas being helicoptered in to arrest me. All was well.

  I needed to pick Granddad up in an hour. I threw a hoodie on and padded down to the kitchen. I flicked on the kettle. My phone made a twinkly noise, like the sound of glass dropping into a steel bucket. A review was in. I tapped into my profile and there it was: five stars from RealTime.

  Wonderful flowers, fresh, impeccably put together, first-rate service.

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. My phone started to buzz with likes and comments, and soon there would be orders. Soon I could have an empire. I thought I might throw up again. Did everybody else lead such a confusing life?

  A text buzzed in from Mam. Well????? How did it go?

  I started to text back: The house is incredible. I met Gordon Ryan there . . . And then I remembered what he’d said, about Dad and BBest and how it was a family matter and I decided to ring her, to see if she had any idea what he had been talking about.

  I relayed the encounter to her and she listened, but I could tell she was half distracted because she wanted me to talk more about the gold room and the type of food that was being delivered and the marble floors. She wanted a full peek into how the other half lives, even though it was not the other half, it was one person, one megalomaniac billionaire. I did my best to keep her on track.

  ‘Did you know this, Mam, that Dad was working for BBest?’

  ‘No, I had no idea. But I’ve never really had that much interest in your father’s career. I didn’t read his last three books. I’m not that interested in his theories – I lived with his theories for long enough.’

  ‘But to work at BBest, Mam, it just . . .’ I didn’t know what to say, I felt betrayed somehow.

  ‘Well, he believes in them, you know that.’

  ‘I suppose. What did Gordon Ryan mean about it being a family matter?’

  ‘Maybe he meant your dad’s your family, it’s your family matter.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that. It was like he knew something else. There’s nothing else is there, Mam? There’s nothing I’m missing out on?’

  ‘Well, if you’re missing it, I’m missing it too.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll ask Colin.’

  ‘Oh, not today, love. Mardi is starting counselling today. I’ve got the boys coming here in an hour. I really hope it straightens her out. They just can’t keep going like this.’

  We said our goodbyes. I poured some water into my tea cup, amazed at how calm I felt considering everything that was going on.

  I placed the flash drive, which had not left my hand, on the counter. I ran my fingertip around it. What information was on it? Was this just building the Luddites’ case? Feeding part of their armour? Did it have information that they could use to go through the courts and bring the system down brick by brick? Maybe that was what would happen, but it wouldn’t help me right now. The Luddites were chasing the cause; they had as good as told me they didn’t care about the individual. I, however, cared a lot about my own individual case.

  I was supposed to wait for Granddad before I looked at the drive, he was bringing over some super-duper blacked-out computer that was secret and encrypted. We were supposed to look at the information together under a cloak of secrecy.

  I held the drive up to the light and studied it. I wondered if it would fit into my laptop. It might, there was a port for it.

  I raced back to my room and pulled my laptop out. I sat on my bed, sinking into the duvet, and flipped it open. With a quick switch, I disabled the wifi. I didn’t think that would classify as a super-duper cloak of secrecy but it was all I had right now. I slotted the drive in. My computer blinked at me. The screen flashed on and off and then back on again. The wheel appeared and spun around. And then, as if by magic, up popped a list of folders. They were not my folders. I didn’t have folders labelled South Africa 18, Peru 24, Brussels. There were maybe fifty folders listed. Who knew what was in there? I only knew that I was looking for one thing: my name. I found a folder called Live Projects. Could it be that obvious? I clicked in and another fifty-odd folders fell out. But there, right at the top, alphabetically listed, was Ananke. Without a moment’s hesitation I opened it. Names appeared, one stacked on top of the other.

  And there I was, a third of the way down the screen. I took a deep breath, aware that my focus was razor sharp, I was on a knife’s edge. Where to start? I clicked on the first one. Profile. There was a list, very like what I’d seen in the bank that day, numbers showing that I was a first-preference user, my top line history with BBest. I scrolled through and the pages went into more and more detail. There were full lists of my choices going back four years. I could see what I’d had for lunch on the fourteenth of June, a book I bought, a holiday I explored but never took. There were copies of my text messages, stupid banter about some TV show. It was all there, and it wasn’t just for the fourteenth of June, it was for every day of the last four years. Pages and pages. I read down, saw my life in a series of clicks and half-hearted swipes. It was all here. They had this information on everyone. I was not that special, it was just because I was involved in this project. I reminded myself that that was why I was on RealTime’s phone. I closed the folder and spied another one called Future Forecasts. Was that like looking into a crystal ball? I double-clicked on one titled Candidacy. I wanted to know how I’d ended up on Project Ananke. How had I been plucked from the masses and chosen to be a RealTime puppet?

  There was a document pages and pages long. It looked to be a psychological report. I scanned through, catching phrases like inability to commit, disenfranchised youth, falling short of potential. I moved back to the beginning to see when this was written – it was dated twelve months ago. I kept going.

  Poor independent-decision maker, likely to adhere to mass-behaviour rules, law abiding, commitment phobia may be a direct result of parents’ separation, very close to brother (he is not a candidate).

  It was strange seeing those words that went on and on, all written about me. But who had done this, who had analysed me without my knowledge? Or could all these conclusions be drawn just as a result of my history? I hit the END key and watched the screen jump to the bottom of the document. I double blinked as I involuntarily flinched in shock.

  Michael Flannigan. Dad. Dad’s name was there, next to the box that said Referred by. What was it doing there?

  This didn’t make sense. I flicked back up to the previous page. There was a short paragraph, and I studied every word intently.

  In my opinion Freya is an ideal candidate for the Ananke project. She is a predictable first-preference user. However, her life to date has shown a distinct lack of direction and ambition. She has demonstrated an ability to work hard and seems to have a good relationship with money. She will benefit dramatically from guidance and direction, and is likely to follow her forecast. Her personality is such that, with the right tools in place, she could become very successful professionally and personally, which will lead her to be a Class-A citizen, and a near perfect case study.

  He did this.

  Dad put me into Project Ananke.

  44

  I didn�
�t have any time to waste. I needed to talk to Dad. I needed to see him face to face. To look into his eyes and understand this, because right now I understood nothing. I couldn’t do it here, not in this house, with Jay snoring upstairs and Cat likely to come in from work at any time. I couldn’t speak to him yet anyway, my voice might give me away. Give what away? What was happening? I sent him a text.

  Dad, meet me in the shop. I want to talk to you about something.

  He hadn’t been to the shop yet, he would probably be excited by the invite.

  He texted back.

  Great. Half an hour?

  Perfect. I yanked the drive out of my laptop. I knew the Luddites would be looking for this. We had agreed a drop-off point for later this evening. The clock was ticking.

  I pushed the drive into my pocket, and drove to the shop. I wanted to get there before Dad. I needed to feel anchored before we spoke. I didn’t know what I would say. I didn’t know where I would start. Dad was the person I had always trusted, but this was a betrayal. He had handed my life over to BBest. How could he?

  I had left the shop a few hours ago for RealTime’s house and I’d run out in such haste I’d left a mess behind me. There were flower stems littering the concrete floor, overturned buckets, misplaced wires. It was good, I was glad – this would keep me occupied until Dad arrived. I threw an apron on and grabbed a broom. I started to pound the floor, cleaning with intent. I swept, I filled the rubbish bins, I emptied black bags into the dumpster, I straightened vases and rinsed buckets. My back was stooped over and my arms began to ache, but my mind was gloriously free of any thoughts other than the task at hand.

  ‘Well, would you look at this.’

  Dad. He held his arms out in a glorious welcome, palms facing the ceiling, and spun around in a circle. His wide frame almost filled the room. He was beaming. And for a second I was caught off guard, for a second I was happy to see him, to show off my shop, to share my accomplishments, and then I remembered that they were not even my accomplishments and I was very, very angry with the man standing in front of me.

  I turned my back and busied myself at the sink, rinsing a vase, trying to level my breathing out.

  ‘I’ll be right there!’ I shouted.

  The accolades continued. ‘My goodness, this place is just magnificent. Even the smell – it smells like success. And I saw those reviews, Freya. Magnificent.’

  I wiped my hands on my apron and walked out to the front of the shop.

  ‘There she is, the success story.’ He didn’t skip a beat. He was on me, wrapping his arms around me, squeezing me up in a great bear hug, a hug that used to be the safest place in the world but at that moment it felt like a prison. I felt my body go rigid. He pulled back and put his hands on my shoulders, his face inches from mine, studying me intensely. His eyebrows were furrowed. Laughable really. ‘What’s the matter?’

  I took a few steps away from him. My arms automatically folded across my chest.

  ‘Dad.’ My voice was barely a whisper, my throat suddenly dry and croaky, my face expressionless. ‘The Ananke project.’

  His face fell. His hands found his pockets, and then came out again. He took a step towards me and then stopped. He tilted his head slightly, and licked his lips. ‘How do you know about that?’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘Does it matter?’

  He looked at his shoes and back to me. ‘No, no, I don’t suppose it does.’

  And then silence. A deathly, all-encompassing silence. Finally he walked across the shop, pulled out a wooden box and sat down on it. He rested his hands on his knees. I knew this position, I knew he was gathering his thoughts.

  ‘So, do you want to thank me?’

  ‘What?’ My voice was much louder than I would have liked it to be. It was panicked and shrill. It was almost a scream.

  ‘No, no, it doesn’t sound like it. You will, though, in time. I suppose it’s a bit of a shock initially, but ultimately you’ll thank me, when you understand what an opportunity you’ve been given.’ He nodded and I felt terribly confused.

  ‘What are you talking about, “opportunity”? You signed me up for this pilot project, for this test, you never even consulted me . . .’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t consult you, you couldn’t have knowledge of the project. That flies in the very ethos of Ananke. You must feel like you’re making these decisions yourself.’

  ‘But Dad–’

  ‘No. Don’t interrupt me, Freya. I have always done the best by you. Do not question my judgment,’ he snapped at me, his eyes glowing with righteousness. ‘Think back to where you were two years ago. Just think.’

  ‘I was living in the same house, I was waitressing, I was dating, I was having fun. Where are you going with this?’

  ‘You were drifting, your career had no direction – you didn’t have a career, let’s be honest. You had been refused a car loan – remember that? For a second-hand car. The banks wouldn’t even hand you a couple of grand. You dated a string of inappropriate men, nobody with any substance who was ever going to be a good match for you, a real prospect for a contented future. Your relationship with your family, me included, was awful, you were at loggerheads with us all the time. Your health, Freya. You were overweight, you weren’t capable of doing a five-kilometre jog. You were a complete mess. I had tried to step in and help you, but you are so stubborn, you wouldn’t listen, you wouldn’t take advice. Do you realise how difficult it is for a parent to watch their child throwing it all away? You had every opportunity at your fingertips and you were doing nothing with it.’

  This was the old Dad. This conversation stank of all the fights we’d had over and over again.

  ‘Look at you now, Freya, look at you now.’ He paused dramatically to emphasise his point. ‘You are on the brink of turning this business into a massive success. Banks are knocking down your door to give you money, you look fit and you are healthier than you’ve ever been, your relationship with your family and friends has never been closer or happier. There’s a wonderful man in your life, he’s a ninety-three per cent – that’s gold. Look. At. Your. Life. Now. Freya.’

  ‘But don’t you get it, Dad, it’s not my life. It wasn’t created by me. I had no say. You took away my free will!’ I screamed.

  He laughed. ‘Free will? Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no such thing as free will. It’s a social construct that we think we need to be free. Every decision you make is based on your previous decisions, your environment, your upbringing, your education; there’s no such thing as independent choice or independent thought. It’s all been put into your brain by a lifetime of experiences. Project Ananke just makes sure that the right information is put in front of you – it directs you, it steers you onto the right path.’

  ‘The right path according to who?’

  ‘Your problem is that you’re beginning to forget what life was like before BBest. The mind-numbing choices that were put in front of people on an hourly basis: five hundred channels on the television; hundreds of different cereal options every morning. What phone will I buy? Which holiday will I take? What will I work at? What will make me happy? Clinging to all of these choices has left us paralysed with anxiety, stress, depression. BBest alleviates all of that. It knows what is best for you.’

  ‘How? It’s not possible for an algorithm to know the real me.’

  ‘You’d be surprised, and that’s what so much of Project Ananke is about. BBest aims to build the platforms for a happy life.’ He said this in the most matter-of-fact way, as though it should be obvious. ‘The individual without direction leads to an aimless society, filled with crime, drug abuse, addiction, abandonment. The history of wars and brutality inflicted on humanity is a history of unhappy people making bad decisions. But starting with the individual, with direction from BBest, which has their best interests at heart, we will have something close to an enlightened society in twenty years.’ He looked at me proudly. ‘Project Ananke is at the beginning of this revolution. You should b
e delighted to be involved. Do you know how lucky you are?’

  ‘Lucky?’ I spat the word out. I don’t think he heard me. He was off talking now like I was in one of his lecture theatres.

  ‘It’s just in its infancy now, but in a few years there won’t be a second or third option on the app, it will just show the right option for you. The one hundred per cent. And with that, well, it’s phenomenal, really – we will guarantee that you will be able to live to eighty years of age. Guarantee. It’s a revolution, really, where we’re at. BBest will tell you the right choices to make, and your Waist Watch is able to monitor for early detection of so many diseases, plus the advances that are being made in antibiotics . . . We are this close to changing the destiny of the human race.’

  He looked taller somehow, his bragging adding inches to his height.

  ‘You can live into old age with the right mate, working at the right career for you, in happiness and security.’

  ‘You’re playing God.’

  ‘God? That’s just a social construct, too, to hold down the masses. And it’s not just me, I don’t work alone. There’s a panel. RealTime is clearly the . . . figurehead, let’s call him, and I am part of a council of experts, there’s fifteen of us, all at the top of our fields: philosophers, economists, analysts, mathematicians.’

  ‘Oh my God, you’re on the panel? You, Gordon Ryan, your friends? Those chest-beating academics and egomaniac so- called friends of yours? Are they in charge of our future?’

  He looked a little taken aback by my question, almost insulted. ‘You mean the greatest minds in Europe?’

  ‘You include yourself in that, do you?’ I said under my breath.

  ‘Freya, think about it, think about living in a society where the greatest minds, the most educated people, have mapped out the route to happiness. Indecision and worry will be a thing of the past. Wouldn’t you like to live in a community like that?’