Philian Gregory

by Simon J. Stephens

  “I’ll have a beer, if I may.”, Gregory replied, “Although, as Mr Jackson no doubt told you, I can’t stay long.”

  “No, no, that’s fine. Humour an old man though. I don’t get too much company these days, what with the nature of my work, but I imagine that’s all to change?”

  “Believe me,”, Gregory drank slowly from the proffered bottle and winked as he replied, “when this thing hits the big time, you’ll be begging for a bit of peace and quiet.”

  “I can’t believe they’ve finally gone for it. Years it’s taken me to convince them. Now though, with all the madness that’s going on, I suppose the time is ripe. You will come and see me again, won’t you?”

  “I promise.”, Gregory replied, “But for now, can I have the disc?”

  “Of course, of course, how remiss of me. Tell Timmy that this is the final cut. He gave me some good ideas and I think it’s as perfect as it ever will be. You must watch it with him. I think you’ll like it. For my part, it’s my best ever. So real and so brutal. So very modern and so revolutionary too. It’s going to change things for us, don’t you think?”

  “I hope so.”, Gregory took the disc and prepared to leave, “It’s about time we saw some change, isn’t it? You’ve waited a long time for it, whilst I will reap the rewards for years. Your contribution is priceless. I’ll definitely be back.”

  With the implied future visit hanging as a temptation between them, Gregory was waved out of the apartment and sent on his way with just the slightest of taps to his backside as he went. That was a small price to pay for what he now had in his hand. That said, he couldn’t really foresee a return to Bottrell’s place in the near future. Certainly not under the circumstances that had seen the old fool drop his guard in anticipation of dropping his pants.

  “Home.”, Gregory said as he slipped into the passenger seat and let Carrington finish the last leg of their journey.

  “You got it?”

  “I’ve got it. But what it is, I’m still not sure. We’ll dump the car in Stafford and get the train back. I don’t know about you, but I’m shattered, and we need to get a crack on if we’re going to be in time to meet Walker.”

  “Chill out, buddy.”, Carrington tapped his friend on the knee, “We’ll be fine. You get your head down and I’ll get us to Stafford safely. I did well, didn’t I? Not a single bullet fired and you got the result. There may be hope for me yet.”

  ******

  “Ladies and gentlemen.”, the sharp-suited, pure-white-smiling host ran down the central staircase of the elaborate set and lapped up the applause, “Welcome, welcome indeed to the hottest, the latest, the most exciting and the most rewarding game show ever to hit your television screens. Welcome to ‘It’s Your Money’.”

  Gregory pointed the remote at the television and lowered the volume, wide awake now but certainly not in the mood for the sort of din that he was being offered. Carrington said nothing as he settled to watch the pilot show. He had the original script, which he had started to follow but would abandon soon as the final cut was so much more refined. It was that script that he had found in Jackson’s study, his notes scribbled all over it and numerous improvements suggested. The hunch that he and Bottrell were working together on the show had paid off. Bottrell had the reputation for the glitz and the glamour but the real contribution was from those who had told him what they wanted wrapping up in that showbiz costume.

  “We’ve had some tough times in this country, right?”, the host asked as the show rolled on, “Too many tough times. Am I right?”

  He waited for the audience to settle before continuing.

  “And some of those tough times have been made tougher by people just like us, but people who want to take a little more than they give. Am I right?”

  It was clear that there would be numerous breaks after that simplistic catchphrase.

  “In the old days, we used to think it was alright to be a little bit fly. To bend the rules for your own good. To grab an opportunity and put one over on ‘them above us’. Am I right? But now, we’re coming to our senses. We’re beginning to understand that those pennies all add up and someone has to pay the price. After all, are you ready, ‘It’s Your Money!’.”

  The audience stood to applaud the host who danced around the stage until they’d calmed down.

  “So, let’s begin the show. We roll the wheel and the lucky number that comes up is …Number 26…that’s Marjory Watkins of Preston. Marjory, are you ready to play?”

  The camera panned to a middle-aged woman in a floral dress waving her arm in the air before shouting, ‘I am.’.

  “Then come on down and let’s get some of your money back.”

  Carrington and Gregory watched transfixed as the woman ran down to the stage and was helped up onto it by a pair of stagehands.

  “Now, Marjory, you wrote to us about your neighbour. Do you want to tell us a little about that?”

  “Oh, yes, thank you. His name is Albert Appleton and we’ve been neighbours for over twenty years. My husband, God rest his soul, and I worked hard to buy our house, but Mr Appleton has never done a day’s work in his life. You see, he’s disabled. He gets the house paid for, a new car every couple of years and he gets paid more than I could ever earn.”

  “But if he’s disabled,”, the host quizzed her mischievously, “isn’t he entitled to those benefits?”

  “That’s why I wrote in,”, Marjorie was loving her fifteen minutes of fame, “you see. Because he claims he has a bad back and can’t even walk a few steps, but I’ve watched him build an extension to his house, pave his front garden and do things around the house that even I could never do myself. He’s a liar and a cheat.”

  “He is, is he?”, the host asked, turning to the audience, “What is he?”

  They chanted ‘liar and cheat’ until he calmed them.

  “Well, Marjorie, you did the right thing.”, the host put his arm around the lady and turned her to face the large screen that had come down from the ceiling, “But we need a bit of proof of what you say, don’t you think. Should we watch a clip of Mr Appleton?”

  The audience was hushed as the screen darkened and light-hearted music began to play. As the image cleared, a montage of secret footage of Albert Appleton doing things that for years he’d claimed were impossible for him to do, played out accompanied by humorous ditties and sound effects. The film lasted for five minutes but that was more than long enough to prove that Marjorie had a point.

  “Shall we ask Albert what he has to say?”, the audience roared at this question.

  They caught Albert in an embarrassingly compromising position as he watched a porn movie on the huge screen in his front room, which meant that a small technical break was needed as a team of researchers knocked on his door and told him what was happening. They let him get dressed before being interviewed.

  “Albert the Scrounger, everybody.”, the host pointed to the image of the dazed man on the screen, “What have you got to say for yourself Albert?”

  “I don’t know what’s happening?”, he pleaded.

  “Well, let’s fill you in. We’ll be right back after the break, during which, Albert will be shown our little montage. What will he have to say? We’ll be right back.”

  When the show resumed, Albert Appleton broke down in tears, confessed as much as he could bear to and was then escorted out of his home by police officers who simply left him with the few possessions he was allowed to grab sitting in the street.

  “And now, Marjorie, your reward.”, the host opened up an envelope that he’d been passed, “Thirty years of benefits, plus all the additional extras Albert claimed and that all adds up to…wait for it…his house! Congratulations Marjorie, you now own the house next door and…we’ll throw in his car as well!”

  The audience stood and roared their approval at the prize, hoping that their number would c
ome up next. Just the one contestant was enough for Carrington though, so he flicked the television off. Philian Gregory didn’t object. It would only be more of the same.

  “Well?”, he asked.

  “Brilliant!”, Carrington smiled as he replied, “Absolutely brilliant. Vulgar, crass, obscene, brutal and divisive, but brilliant nonetheless. You’ve got to hand it to them.”

  “So wrong, in so many ways,”, he continued, “but you simply can’t argue with the logic. You see someone dip a purse, you tell the police. You see someone getting into a car drunk, you tell the police. Why have other barriers surrounding certain crimes? And the best of it is, it polices itself. It explains Jackson’s contribution. He specialises in the psychology of self-interest. Or used to. That’s all I could make out from his work. He’s taken the psychological approach to altruism, reversed it, and turned it on its head. Evolution, survival of the fittest, self-interest. Like the show, you may not be comfortable with it, but it’s hard to argue against it.”

  “I need to get my head around it all.”, Gregory sighed, “I don’t see how it fits in to other stuff, but you’re right. You simply can’t fault it. Doesn’t make it any easier to watch though.”

  “We’ll talk more tomorrow.”, Carrington agreed, “Let’s get some sleep now. More stuff to do in the morning and, you’re right, we need to think about where this takes us. Eight o’clock alright for you?”

  “No problem, see you then, goodnight.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “We missed the critical point.”, Carrington woke his friend excitedly, placing a cup of tea next to his bed.

  “What do you mean?”, Philian Gregory struggled to process what was happening never having been particularly at waking up instantly.

  “I couldn’t sleep. Kept thinking about the game show. There was something there that we both missed. I went back to it and saw the connection straightaway. You heard of ‘22com’?”

  “Who hasn’t?”

  “Right. Well, the game show, or whatever you choose to call it, is sponsored by them. We only have the rough edit of the pilot, but the credits are all in place and their logo is prominent at the end. When it airs, I presume they’ll be a lot more promotion of their products and services woven in.”

  “I still don’t see where you’re leading.”, Philian Gregory had thrown on an old pair of jeans and a t-shirt, whilst his friend was talking, and was halfway through the brew that helped him begin to wake up.

  “Come and sit with me.”, Carrington beckoned Gregory to the dinette table, “I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll explain everything.”

  Gregory grabbed a breakfast snack bar and topped up his tea before joining Carrington.

  “You see,”, Carrington resumed, “I got it a bit wrong. Understandable, given the hectic schedule we’ve been working to, but inexcusable nonetheless. I had things upside down. The algorithms that I was feeding the computer had a place and a time and they yielded information that we could never have discovered. But, I was letting the cart lead the horse. Coming back here, settling into the peace and quiet of the waterways, helped me to see that. The computer was only a tool. It projected my thinking, but I let it excuse me from thinking. First off, the algorithm reflected me, then we let the computer do what it wanted to. The latter provided better results, but it didn’t mean that we could abdicate any responsibility for thinking ourselves. Last night, I realised this and went back through all the names and references that we have. I brought our thinking up to date and had to rely on my own inspiration, intuition and, well, my humanity. Look, this is what I came up with.”

  He laid out a single piece of paper on the table. It was dwarfed by the mountain of other papers that had been pushed to one side under the window.

  “This is the essence of all that other stuff.”, Carrington explained, indicating the other paperwork, “We’ll burn all that later on, but for now, you have to trust me. We started off with the initial clock-face. That’s it on the top over there, but it’s had its day now.”

  “You sure?”, Gregory asked, wary of destroying any of the precious details that had led them this far.

  “Absolutely. Let me go through it with you. Twelve general points before. Gradually, we’ve tackled the names linked to those points and worked our way through them. Health, well, we can strike off Patterson and Jackson there, plus a few others. The Media, Joan Beeston at The Haven, a freelance journalist, and then our friend Bottrell and his production company. Religion, the bishop, and possibly Atkinson. Transport, Fellows. Defence, Wilson and Goodwin. You with me so far?”

  “Keep going.”

  “Okay, the Economy was Farnham and Gabon. Sport, O’Connell. Welfare and Education, ticked off with Janet Jones. Remember her? Dexter’s prize discovery? Working in tandem with Mike Vincent on reducing social care and removing disabled access from social housing. Amongst other things. Falstaff and others in the Judiciary. Civil Liberties, well, that has to be The New Progressives. Which leaves science. And this is where it starts to get interesting. Sean Young of Sterax spans science and healthcare. Jackson and Patterson too. Markham in the Home Office spans the Judiciary and other areas. But, if we try and understand it, it all looks too confused. We asked the computer to thin it down for us and it came up with just the four salient sectors: Welfare, Defence, Science and the Economy. That’s fine and it helped us to fine-tune what we were doing, but the computer couldn’t see what only a person could. What was missing. We still have no link to the police. I can live with that as, in some ways, it makes sense, what with the police being the visible arm of law enforcement and open to public scrutiny. Of course, there will be people linked to The Circle, The Haven and The New Progressives in the force, but they’d know to stay quiet. You try and force change in an institution that has a sharp focus on anti-corruption and you run a big risk of being discovered. Better to use other means.”

  “I can accept that.”, Gregory agreed.

  “But gone now, are religion, sport, the judiciary, media, civil liberties, transport, education and health care. What do they have in common? I’ll tell you. They are all subsets of the larger. They’re the comforts of modern life and the means of managing the population. All of them are servants to the bigger sectors. And the police thing only reinforces that. If they’d been there, they would be out now as they’ve been usurped by events. Since the prison event, the military now acts as law enforcer. In one stroke, you neutralise the police, make a case for martial law as a defender of civil liberty and create a new, populist judiciary.”

  “But that implies that the prison event was no act of terror. That it was a central part of the whole thing.”

  “Exactly!”, Carrington slapped the table enthusiastically, “You see, when you strip away the logic circuits, you can begin to imagine the unimaginable. Religion, sport and the media. All of them subject to manipulation and nothing more than tools to drive a wider agenda. Which is why I’m putting my shirt on the sheet that’s in front of you. Four sectors, four names. We get through them and we find the locus.”

  “But what about 22com?”, Gregory asked as he studied the papers, “I don’t see them here?”

  “Harvey Truman.”, Carrington pointed to the name that was linked by a thin line to the Economy label.

  “I know Truman.”, Gregory replied, “We all do. But his fortune was built on insurance. What was he at last count? Third on the Rich List?”

  “Third, but going down a little every year.”, Carrington confirmed, “And you’re right. He made his money out of insurance. Money that he has now used to create 22com. Out of the blue. That’s why we’re all so much more aware of him now than we were before. In the space of just six weeks, and in defiance of all logic, Truman bursts onto the scene with a telecom’s offer that none of the established players can match. Everyone’s waiting for the launch of his new phone. It’s been one of the rays of sunshine that have
kept people’s spirits up in the face of all else that’s happening. You could even argue that it’s the single most important unifier of the nation just now. Celebs are buzzing about it, sports stars are talking it up and even the soft left civil libertarians are hailing it as a great breakthrough. And it launches next weekend. That gives us five days tops.”

  “To do what?”

  “To stop it.”, Carrington replied matter-of-factly, “Because everything that I can see, points to it being the next big event. One that will make the prisons seems small fry. Remember who told us that? Our friend Patterson, the heart surgeon. Look, see what you make of this.”

  He rummaged in the pile of papers and pulled out a thin document. It was one of the papers they’d retrieved from Patterson’s house. It’s title, longer than was perhaps necessary, but revealing for its candid nature was, ‘Pacemakers in a Technological World – Dangers to Artificial Life Support Mechanisms Presented by the Hidden Potentials in Cellular Transmission Devices.’

  “Okay,”, Gregory sighed, “I just about get the title. Don’t expect me to try and read and understand the paper.”

  “I’ve read it.”, Carrington reassured him, “The gist of it is that numerous health support devices are at risk from rogue frequencies being transmitted by mobile operators. The primary concern is that every generation of pacemaker is susceptible to interference. The secondary concern is the multiple effects that threaten life-support machinery in unscreened hospital wards.”

  “So, you’ve put two and two together,”, Gregory was sceptical about what he was hearing, “and you think that you’ve come up with four?”

  “Open your mind to the possibility.”, Carrington urged his friend to understand, “Take a radical leap and think the unthinkable. Consider that Reforgin was no accident. It was an engineered attack that hit the helpless and vulnerable. Then take the prison event, we know about that and that hit the helpless and vulnerable. Then move forward and take a mobile phone system that is too good to be true and at least allow yourself to consider that it might be a silent killer of those who rely on electronics to keep them alive. They too, the helpless and vulnerable. You see the link?”