‘No, no, no.’ I was shaking my head. ‘You were never elected by anyone. Nobody else agreed to this panel. Who says you know what’s best?’
‘Well, nobody made you sign up to BBest.’
‘I signed up to an app, I didn’t sign my life over.’
‘It was always your choice.’
‘But there was no choice. Don’t you get it, Dad?’
‘I don’t like your tone. You should be grateful, you know.’
‘Grateful? You gave me away. I was never your property to give.’
‘Oh, come on, the drama.’ He rolled his eyes at me. ‘I wish something like Ananke had existed when I was a young man. It took me years to find my true path, when I could have been working like this my whole life. I could have clocked up twenty more years if I’d found this career earlier. I could have made some amazing discoveries. I made so many mistakes. Your mother, for one – we were a terrible match. I was blinded by a good pair of legs. We’ve nothing in common, it was a bad marriage, we made each other miserable. I write books; your mother hasn’t read a book in twenty years. If only BBest had existed then. Because – don’t you get it? In the future there will be no divorce. Everyone will be paired off with their match, the person who is their equal intellectually, physically, socially, someone who displays similar projected patterns for the future.’
I thought of Mason, and what was missing between us. ‘And what about love?’
‘Another construct. Don’t you understand? Love fades, it disappears, it is not enough for a successful union.’
‘No, Dad you’re wrong. There has to be love. I am a ninety- three per cent match with Mason, but we are never going to fall in love. We are incompatible.’
I watched his face fall. ‘Well, that can’t be right. You’re a perfect match.’
It was all becoming clearer and clearer. ‘On paper, Dad. In reality, there’s nothing between us. Tell the truth, Dad, you found Mason, you picked that compatibility number out of thin air. You matched us.’
‘He’s stable, he’s got a good career, he’s reliable . . . even I can see he’s handsome.’
‘You marry him then.’
He looked flummoxed. ‘What else could you possibly want, Freya?’
‘Love, Dad. I want to be in love. And only I can choose that person, not some formula and definitely not you.’
‘You don’t need to be in love. I loved your mother at one time, but like I said, that was a mistake.’
‘A mistake that led to Colin and I. We would never have existed if the amazing BBest had been around all those years ago. Imagine that? Seriously, Dad, without love there’s nothing.’
‘Theoretically. I’m speaking theoretically, obviously I would never want that, but you understand what I’m saying, don’t you?’
‘Not really, Dad, no. There’s great beauty in mistakes, in human error. I’m one, obviously.’
He waved his hand at me dismissively. ‘This is the greatest opportunity of your life, Freya. I did it all for you.’
I was at a loss for words. My knees shook under me.
It was clear now, it was all so clear to me.
‘No, Dad, you did it all for you,’ I said, no longer speechless. ‘What are you going to do, write another book? Put me in an academic paper? I’m a person, Dad. I am not a number. You are wrong. BBest is wrong. You need to leave.’
He gave a heavy sigh as he stood up from the wooden crate, stretching out his long limbs. ‘Don’t overthink this, Freya. Life is wonderful.’ He turned and gazed around the shop. ‘Your life is wonderful.’ He raised his eyebrows expectantly at me, waiting for gratitude. He was not going to find it here. He walked out slowly, his shoulders stooped in disappointment.
I wanted to chase him, I wanted to shoo him like some kind of farmer scattering geese, shouting at him to ‘GET OUT, GET OUT, and take your stinking ideas with you!’
I collapsed onto a crate and hugged myself to stop the shaking. Dad. What are you doing? What have you done?
Dad was learned and smart, but he was not crazy. He was on a God trip. I hated that he was so involved. I hated that he had manipulated me and Colin completely, that not only did we not question BBest, we had never questioned him. We had been pawns in his game, test cases. I wanted to take a trip back in time to eighteen months ago and slap myself around the face, tell myself to wake up and figure out my life, not rely on apps and other people. To trust myself, because I would have got there eventually, it was me who made those flowers, it was me who worked hard, it was me who realised that Mason was not my soul mate, not an app.
I sighed heavily. Yes, I was hurt and mad and sad but right now, I didn’t have time to stop and think about it. Right now, Operation: The Two Idiots was in full swing, and there was a slim chance, a minute chance that we could stop this madness. The Luddites were expecting delivery of the flash drive in two and a half hours. I was supposed to drive to a secluded park, where there would be an empty beer can on a graffitied wall. I was to place the drive in the can. A hint of a smile crossed my lips. I had two and a half hours to unleash hell.
45
I checked the time, then I got in my van and drove to the bookstore. Granddad saw me pull up – he must have been waiting expectantly at the door, like a dog dying for a walk. He burst through and hopped into the front seat, defying his age and his smoky lungs. I left the engine running. He sat a bag on his knees, which I knew held his secret laptop.
‘You’re late,’ he said, annoyed.
‘I know, I know. Something came up.’
‘Are you ready for this?’ Granddad asked. ‘If you’re not, we can . . .’
‘I am, more than ever.’
I revved the engine loudly and reversed out of my spot with gusto. If life was a movie, right now my van would skid dramatically on the cobblestones and make an awesome screeching sound like a getaway car but it didn’t, it smoothly whirred down the street until it came to a stop at a red light.
As we drove, I explained to Granddad about Dad and what I had learned. Granddad grunted. I took my eyes off the road to look at him. He shrugged nonchalantly, as if he knew already, or at least suspected Dad’s involvement with BBest.
‘Happy families, hey?’ He patted me on the leg. And we couldn’t help ourselves, we laughed. It was great, the knot of tension in my stomach dissolved.
Back at my house I raced up the stairs to Jay’s bedroom. I was kind of surprised that he was asleep, but that was Jay, Mr Laidback. I was greeted by the smell of dusty carpets and smelly socks. Not for the first time the fleeting thought passed through my mind that, yes, the guy who lives like this and who smells like this is a multimillionaire.
Jay sat bolt upright in bed. I couldn’t help but look at his bare chest, which was pale with a sprinkling of blond hair. His eyes were slowly prying apart, and he moistened his dry lips.
‘What? Is there a fire? Who died? What?’
I marched purposefully up to his bed and grabbed a yellow T-shirt off the floor, throwing it at him.
‘Come on, Jay. Get up, we’ve got work to do.’
He straightened the T-shirt out, a hand finding an armhole. ‘I just closed my eyes for two minutes. I didn’t mean to fall asleep,’ he said into his T-shirt.
‘It’s grand, don’t worry about it. Granddad is downstairs, I’ll get the coffee on.’
Two minutes later I had three mugs of coffee made, and a quick rummage in the cupboard produced some custard cream biscuits. Granddad was propped on a stool at the island, laptop open, the light of the screen dancing off his face. Jay appeared, a little bleary eyed, barefoot and in tracksuit pants. Granddad went to stand and Jay ushered him back down. They shook hands like long-lost friends, which it turned out they were.
‘I can’t believe it’s you!’
‘Well, I can’t believe it’s you.’
‘How many years ago was it, Maurice?’
‘Three or four, I think, just after we leaked the information about those Chinese cyber
attacks.’
Jay looked at him proudly. ‘Good times.’
‘They were, Captain X.’ Granddad turned to me. ‘That was Jay’s name for that project. This man is a legend. But only about five people in the world know about him.’
Jay gestured towards me. ‘Make that six now.’
‘Don’t worry, Jay, we’re all in this together.’ My lips were sealed.
So it turned out these two went back a while. That night when Granddad and I had concocted our plan, he told me that there was only one person who had the expertise to help us, though Granddad wasn’t sure if he was still active or interested. Through a series of complex emails, texts and one coded phone call, he spoke to Jay and eventually the penny dropped as we realised that Jay was Jay.
Jay sat on a stool beside Granddad. ‘Prison was . . .?’
‘Fine.’ Granddad looked nonchalant. ‘Good to know the government look after geriatric inmates. I met some good people in there. Made some contacts.’
‘Good, good.’ Jay turned to me, still hovering near the kettle. ‘How did this morning go, Freya?’
I couldn’t believe it was only this morning that I was in RealTime’s house. I started telling Jay about what went on and then I stopped. I found it incredibly difficult to get the words out, to put everything into sequence. I saw his face go pale and his mouth hang open in disbelief, so I must have been saying something coherent, although it didn’t feel like it. I seemed to run off on tangents. I heard myself describe the gold room at RealTime’s house, which wasn’t relevant, and which was only taking up time, and the clock was ticking. I stuttered and stammered but eventually I came out with it.
‘This flash drive, I looked at it.’ I pursed my lips, waiting to be chastised. ‘I turned off my wifi. I figured that would be okay.’
They looked to each other, slightly annoyed, but said nothing.
I held the drive up. ‘This has all the information on the Ananke project, which came from RealTime’s phone.’
‘RealTime’s phone?’ Jay looked at me and shook his head slightly. ‘That’s not . . . let me take a look.’
He slid Granddad’s computer in front of him, slotting the drive into place.
Our plan was to anonymously contact everyone who was named on Project Ananke. All the information would be encrypted and bounced around space, into a black hole and back down again. There would be no way of knowing it had been released by us. We needed to let these people know what they had been signed up for and to give them their files. They needed to know what had happened in their lives. The hope was that it would cause shock and confusion and ultimately that Ananke would have to shut down. And the people assigned to it, like me, well, hopefully we would get our lives back; and most importantly to me, my ninety-three per cent score with Mason would disappear into thin air. Puff. Just like that.
I would deliver the drive to the Luddites. Even though they couldn’t help me right now, they were still working towards the greater good, and that was to bring down BBest.
Granddad squeezed my shoulder supportively.
‘Hang on, back up a minute.’ Jay closed his eyes and wagged his head from side to side. ‘You got this from RealTime’s phone? His phone was just lying around?’
I nodded energetically, feeling like he was going off the point slightly. ‘Yes, it was just there.’
‘And you looked at the information on it?’
‘Yes, but that’s not the point.’
‘It wasn’t password protected, no massive firewalls blocking your entry? You were just able to take one of the most powerful men in the world’s data? Just like that?’
Oh. I saw where he was going with this.
Jay looked at me in disbelief. ‘It wasn’t his phone, it couldn’t be.’
‘But it had all the BBest information on it. It had all that stuff about me and Project Ananke.’
Jay fanned his hands out in a gesture of surrender. ‘Think about it, Freya. It’s not his phone. And also . . .’ He paused dramatically. ‘Not many people know this, but RealTime doesn’t use any personal technology. He doesn’t have a phone or laptop. You can’t send him a text or an email. He leaves no footprint. He has no digital history. Nothing.’
‘What?’ Granddad looked as perplexed as me.
‘But he rated my flowers,’ I said, immediately thinking of myself.
‘He didn’t do that.’
I felt more than a little affronted.
‘RealTime knows that the only way, like, literally, the only way to maintain privacy in your business and in your personal life is to stay off the grid.’
‘That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, he’s practically a Luddite,’ I said.
Jay raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s the truth, which is why, whatever information you have here, it’s not from RealTime’s phone, because there is no such thing.’
I leaned over Jay and watched him push some keys, and we waited for information to pop up.
The files appeared and Jay started to navigate the folders, flicking in and out with speed. Then he started to do something else, his fingertips flying, double clicking and holding down keys. The screen changed and black and green writing appeared.
‘Told you.’ He pointed to the screen. ‘It’s not RealTime’s phone. It belongs to the bloody Garda commissioner, Gordon Ryan.’
‘Oh.’ I was disappointed. ‘I saw him race back to the room after I’d left. It is his phone. I didn’t get what the Luddites wanted. This wasn’t the plan.’
Jay peeked up over the screen. ‘I think they’ll be pretty happy with this.’ He pushed himself back from the computer as if he had just seen something startling, and raised his hands in the air. ‘There’s a lot here. Trust me, The Luddites are going to be over the moon.’
My head was spinning, I couldn’t think clearly.
Granddad stood and moved towards the laptop, pushing up his glasses, which had slipped down to the end of his nose. He peered at the screen.
Jay’s fingertips started to pound hard, tapping away with intent. He chewed his bottom lip. Granddad and I stared at him.
Granddad turned to me. ‘How many names are in the project?’
‘I saw just under a thousand, nine hundred and seventy- two, in fact.’ The number flashed in front of my mind’s eye.
Granddad shook his head. ‘And to think it was me who was arrested.’
‘Maybe after all this you might think about digitising the bookshop.’ I don’t know why I thought that now was a good time to make a joke, but I did – kind of.
‘I could do that in my sleep, it was the why that bothered me.’
‘You dark horse.’
Jay looked up, his blue eyes razor sharp. ‘Okay, there’s a way. It’s been a while since I’ve gone into these platforms, we’re lucky they’re still here. I can do it.’ His fingers clicked down onto the keyboard.
‘Do what exactly?’ Things seemed to be moving so fast, I felt I was clinging to a virtual thread.
‘I am going to encrypt these files, ping them around the galaxy and then send them as emails.’
Granddad winked. ‘It sounds like Space Invaders.’
Jay sighed heavily. ‘It is a game – BBest are the biggest game players of them all, they’ve just never explained the rules to us properly. That’s not fair, you know, you can’t take part unless you know the rules of the game.’
A few more clicks and he nodded. ‘It will take me a few minutes.’
Granddad looked down at his watch. ‘Get going. I have a friend, a journalist, who’s going to leak this. We’re going to put the facts out there, and people can make their own decisions about their lives.’ He pumped the air with his fist. ‘We’re going to force BBest’s hand, finally.’
‘What about me?’ I said, my voice sounding timid and not at all like my own.
Jointly, they replied, ‘Email.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll get an email too,’ Jay said.
‘Oh, I’ll ju
st be one of the members of the project. Of course.’
Granddad nodded enthusiastically. ‘It’ll be perfect. No one will ever know that this came from you.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it? Right?’ I looked at my partners in crime.
‘You will appear to be a victim too. Which you are, manipulated by a big company–’
‘Manipulated by my dad.’
Granddad rested his knuckles heavily on the kitchen island and sighed deeply. ‘Freya, I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve never been a fan of your father’s. I disagree with him on many, many things, and this is another of them, but I know he loves you. What he did, by putting you on that Ananke project, he absolutely believed was for your own good.’
It was hard for me to digest. ‘He’s going to sit on this council, and control people’s lives.’
Granddad shook his head slowly. ‘He believes he knows best. They all do, those eejits.’
‘Do you think this will stop them?’
‘People have to want this to stop, that’s the thing. All we’re going to do is put the information out. Everyone can make up their own minds then.’ Granddad had a steely look of determination on his face. ‘We’re doing the right thing.’
I looked around the kitchen, the vintage Quentin Tarantino movie poster on the wall, the half-drunk cup of coffee with a chip on the handle, the tiled kitchen floor that was a little bit sticky because we hadn’t washed it in ages. I was sitting in a hoodie that had a tea stain on it, my mascara was smudged under my eyes and my nail polish was chipped. Granddad was wearing his itchy woolly wine-coloured jumper with a blue stripe across the front and was caressing a packet of cigarettes, more focused on getting outside and sparking up than in taking down BBest. And Jay, who, as suspected, was more than a little bit of a tech whizz in a yellow T-shirt, a man bun and the makings of a shaggy beard, was humming what I thought was a Christmas song to himself. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was how a revolution started. Was this how the little people brought down the big evil corporation? Was this how truth and justice prevailed? Really? Did it all start like this, with the Three Stooges in a dirty kitchen?
Right Girl Page 28
