The System

by Gemma Malley

  But that was before she became … Well, before she became famous. Before she met Milo. Now, his smart little jokes and his sarcastic humour didn’t seem so funny. Now she resented the way he liked to think he knew what she was thinking, particularly because he got it so wrong these days. And he was so anti Infotec, so anti Milo. It was unfair. She’d never be rude about his girlfriend. If he ever got one. If he ever took his nose out of his screen long enough to notice there were girls around.

  The fact of the matter was that they moved in different worlds now, and Jim had to get with the programme. It would probably do him some good.

  ‘You know what, I’m kind of in the middle of something,’ she said with an apologetic shrug. ‘Maybe another time?’

  Jim raised an eyebrow. ‘I guess writing about parties does take some concentration,’ he said.

  Frankie’s eyes narrowed. ‘And writing your inciteful blogs for an audience of two must really take it out of you, too,’ she said archly. ‘No wonder you need coffee to keep yourself awake.’

  She stared at him, waiting for his comeback. They both knew that he was the brilliant one; he always had been. But it wasn’t her fault he’d failed spectacularly to make anything of himself. After school, he was headhunted by Infotec; they offered to put him through Oxford University (now situated in Lille) and guaranteed him an amazing job afterwards. But Jim being Jim, he turned them down, refused to take the funding, refused to consider working for them. To the surprise and dismay of all his teachers, he self-funded himself through a distance-learning degree, then set up a blog that aimed to awaken the world to all the terrible things going on. But the trouble was, there were no terrible things going on, not really, and other than a handful of equally nihilistic nerds, no one ever read his blog. What Jim failed to grasp was that things were okay. Better than okay. Infotec was a force for good. Then again, Frankie often thought to herself, if he had grasped that Infotec wasn’t the megalomaniac evil corporation he made it out to be, it just would have made him more depressed. Ultimately, Frankie had realised long ago, Jim didn’t want to be happy. And he didn’t want to write things that made people happy either. In a world where happiness was a big priority, that kind of made things difficult for him. But he didn’t seem to care; he just kept on writing his gloomy blog full of stories of poverty, of invasion of privacy, of fear and loathing for anything new, or anything that seemed to make Infotec yet more money. Milo called him ‘deranged’ and she totally saw why, but a bit of her was also jealous because he never pretended to be something he wasn’t, never seemed to care that no one was interested in Watching him or even reading his blog.

  She realised Jim wasn’t looking at her; he was looking over her shoulder at what she’d written. And he was smirking. Frankie moved herself in front of the screen.

  ‘I thought you were going for coffee,’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t you be going instead of reading my blog? Unless you want tips on how to get a few more Watchers, that is?’

  Jim shook his head wearily. ‘You know, Frankie, you used to be a really good writer. I just hate seeing all that promise go to waste.’

  Frankie turned around. ‘It isn’t going to waste,’ she said, angry now. ‘I have a zillion Watchers, in case you’d forgotten. And anyway, you should like this particular blog. I’m investigating just the sort of conspiracy theory that you love.’

  ‘Investigating? Is that what you call it?’

  Frankie felt herself flush. Why had she ever defended Jim? Why had she ever thought it was a good idea to be nice to him? ‘Yes, actually,’ she said. ‘Why, what would you call it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jim said, folding his arms. ‘But as far as I can see, you’re raising the question about a blackout over the UK and then answering it with Infotec spin. I mean I get why – this isn’t stuff anyone wants to read about, not least your boyfriend. It’s much more my territory. But if you’re not going to do it properly, why cover it at all?’

  ‘I am doing it properly …’ Frankie said irritably. ‘It’s a whole load of bullshit and I’m treating it as such.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Jim said. ‘Look, I really need some caffeine. I’ll see you around, okay?’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Frankie said stiffly, refusing to even turn around. She was incandescent with rage. How dare he? How dare Jim with his poxy little blog that no one cared about criticise her, when she was Watched by so many people? Sure, barely any of them subscribed to her blog, but she still had way more readers than him, even if the stats suggested that people clicked on her blog, read the first sentence then closed it down right away.

  The point was, she was no way going to be lectured by Jim. No way at all.

  She re-read her blog. It was fine. It was more than fine. It raised the questions the anonymous messager had posed about the UK, then it dismissed them all as complete nonsense. Quoting Milo, mainly. Or rather, quoting Milo and no one else. But that was okay. Milo was the spokesperson from Infotec.

  But as she read it again, she felt herself getting hot and bothered. Because Jim was right; what she’d written was pointless, meaningless. Maybe Milo was right; she should just stick to writing about the party she went to last night, the gossip currently doing the rounds. That’s what people wanted to read; that’s what would cheer them up.

  And yet she didn’t want to write about any more bloody parties. She wanted to be taken seriously. She wanted people to know there was more to her. She wanted to convince herself of the same thing.

  She felt someone walking towards her and swung round – to her surprise it was Jim again, two cups of coffee in his hand.

  ‘What?’ she barked.

  He put one of the coffees on her desk and pulled an apologetic face. ‘I’ve come to say I’m sorry,’ he said, crouching down next to her. ‘I was rude and patronising and insulting and I’m sorry. I have nothing to write about, no one reads anything I write anyway, and I let myself get bitter about the fact that I’m a total loser. But I shouldn’t have taken that out on you. Your blog is great. Please ignore everything I said before.’

  He stood up and started to walk away, but Frankie’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks.

  ‘Liar,’ she said, standing up. ‘This piece is a total load of rubbish and everything you said about it is right. But that doesn’t mean I will ever forgive you for being such a shit.’ She shot him a meaningful look.

  ‘Understood,’ Jim said.

  ‘Particularly since you could have stepped in just now to say it wasn’t actually that bad.’

  ‘Also understood,’ Jim nodded awkwardly. ‘And if it isn’t too late, I’d like to add that it really isn’t that a total load of rubbish at all.’

  ‘It is too late,’ Frankie said, then sighed. ‘So what do I need to do to it?’

  Jim took a slurp of coffee. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously,’ Frankie said, drinking some coffee then leaning forwards.

  Jim’s face changed, like it always did when he started talking seriously, when he allowed his sarcastic front to melt briefly. It reminded Frankie of when he used to help her with her maths homework. ‘Seriously, I think you should delete it. All of it. Write about something else instead.’

  Frankie looked at him indignantly. ‘Why? Because you think I should be writing about parties instead?’ she said, her tone cutting.

  ‘No,’ Jim said quickly. ‘Of course not. I just don’t think writing about this is a good idea. You start writing about information blackouts, even made-up ones, and you’re getting yourself into deep water. Infotec don’t like people writing about stuff like that.’

  Frankie raised an eyebrow. ‘I think I’ll be alright, Jim. They’ll be fine with it. And anyway, someone keeps sending me messages, asking questions about it. So I’m answering them.’

  ‘You’re writing this because some conspiracy nut wants you to?’ Jim asked incredulously. ‘Why aren’t they writing about it themselves? Just think about it, Frankie. Tread carefully.’
>
  Frankie stared at him uncertainly. ‘You’d write about it,’ she said. ‘If the lead had come to you.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Jim shrugged. ‘But maybe not. I don’t want the Inforcers banging on my door, thank you very much.’

  ‘They wouldn’t bang on your door,’ Frankie said immediately. ‘You’re not influential enough to cause them concern.’

  Jim caught her eye, saw the little smile playing on her lips, then looked down at his coffee cup. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘But still. You’re up for a prize today, aren’t you? Inspirational woman of the year, isn’t it? Or is it of the century?’

  Frankie kicked him. ‘Year,’ she said. ‘Stop taking the piss.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Jim said, quickly. ‘I’m trying to make you see sense. Things are good. Don’t go pissing people off for no reason.’

  Frankie looked at him thoughtfully. If Jim was trying to dissuade her, he was doing a very bad job. She knew full well she was winning the award for being pretty and going to parties, not for doing anything meaningful. ‘And if I decided to ignore your advice and publish the story? What would you say then? What do I need to do to make it better?’

  Jim took a deep breath, then looked her right in the eye. ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘I really want to know,’ Frankie nodded.

  ‘Okay,’ Jim said with a sigh. ‘Do the same thing you’d do for any other story. Question everything. Question the assumptions, question the questions, question the answers. That’s it, really. That’s all I’ve got. But think carefully, Frankie. Please think before you start writing this. It could get you into trouble.’

  Frankie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Thanks Jim,’ she said, looking at her watch then shooting him a little smile. ‘I think I’d better get back to work.’

  9

  Frankie sat down and started to type. The words flowed out of her, just like they always did when she was on a mission. It had been too long since she’d written like this, hunched over her keyboard, eyes staring at the screen, all her senses cut off from the world outside, unaware of sound, of movement, of anything but the words, sentences, interrupted only by an alert every fifteen minutes to update, which she did with a very perfunctory ‘writing’. And what she wrote, mainly, was questions. She didn’t have answers; every search she had made ended with a brick wall, with a dead end, with a polite dismissal. Just like Milo had dismissed her questions, she thought as she typed. Just as he had cleverly side-stepped them, put the focus back on her. But now it was time to demand proper answers. And thanks to Milo and her growing ‘social capital’, she had the platform to do it. He would be irritated, she knew that. But she’d be able to talk him round. He loved her; he would understand why she’d written what she had. He had a job to do, but so did she. She might have forgotten that recently, but not today.

  She read what she’d written, changed a few words, read it again, and then, before she could change her mind, pressed Publish.

  A message arrived, not even a second later, not even a nanosecond, and it sent a jolt of electricity through her. It was as though whoever had sent it could see her, even though that was impossible; even though the Library was the one place on earth they couldn’t see her, where visual images weren’t beamed out to the world. Unless the stranger was in the Library himself, of course, but that was impossible too. No one could see what she was writing and even if they could … No, it couldn’t be.

  Frankie looked around furtively, but there were only the usual suspects here, all bloggers. None of them would ever give her a lead or information; they’d be all over it themselves if they discovered something interesting. Scoops meant readers, who might become Watchers, and Watchers meant that life became easier. Much easier. They were friends, but friends in competition with each other; that’s why their smiles were rather more insincere now than they had been, before Frankie was so popular, before she was famous. She had been one of them; now, her celebrity made them feel self-conscious; now, her success made their achievements seem microscopic.

  One of them, a girl called Honey, met her eye and shot her a little raised eyebrow, code for ‘I’m stuck, too. Sucks, doesn’t it?’ At least that’s what Frankie had always assumed it meant. That’s what she always meant when she shot a raised eyebrow back. But today, she almost forgot the code, only remembered to offer a rueful smile when she noticed Honey’s face harden slightly. ‘She thinks she’s too good for us,’ was emblazoned across her face. Or was Frankie imagining it?

  She looked over at Jim, who was head-down, and felt a small lump appear in her throat. All the bloggers loved Jim. Because he was brilliant. Because he was funny, and warm and self-deprecating. Because he could be the most successful one of them, but chose not to be. Whereas she was the most successful one, but didn’t deserve to be.

  She wanted to tell him about the message she’d just got, the message from the stranger who had apparently already seen her blog seconds before she published it.

  But he was hard at work, headphones on. And anyway, he’d just tell her he’d told her so.

  She read the message again. ‘Well done. Nice start. But you’ve only just started. There are people here from the UK. Prisoners of Infotec. You need to keep asking questions.’

  Was this stranger watching her? How? Who was this person?

  She deleted the message; whoever had written it was obviously beyond help. People from the UK? Brought here as Infotec prisoners? It was a sea of radiation out there. No one could live there. It was impossible. And secondly, why on earth would Infotec keep them prisoner if they did get here? It was completely loopy.

  Her blog appeared suddenly, officially published. She re-read it, smiling as she got to the end: ‘What remains, though, are some unanswered questions that simply won’t go away until Infotec play by their own rules and open up their information to public scrutiny.’

  The stranger might be loopy, but they were right about it being a good blog, she thought triumphantly. It was the best thing she’d written in ages.

  She heard a little beep and moved her head; immediately she heard Milo’s voice. He wasn’t happy.

  ‘Are you mad? I told you. I warned you.’

  Frankie took a deep breath. ‘So you saw the blog then?’ She used her more coquettish voice, hoping it would mollify him before he could really get started. It didn’t work.

  ‘Of course I saw the bloody blog. I can’t believe you wrote it. What were you thinking?’

  ‘I—’ Frankie said, but Milo wasn’t finished.

  ‘You weren’t thinking,’ he said, speaking over her. ‘You weren’t in your right mind. You can’t have been. And that’s exactly what you’re going to say when you retract it.’

  ‘Retract it?’ Frankie’s eyes widened. ‘I’m not going to retract anything. It’s a good blog. I’ve already had great feedback.’

  ‘Oh yes you are,’ Milo said, his voice cutting, harsher than she’d ever heard it before. ‘You are going to retract it now. Say it was a joke. Say that someone hijacked your account. I don’t care what you say, but you do it right now.’

  People were looking at Frankie in irritation; the Library was supposed to be a place of work and she had broken the rules by talking. Pulling an apologetic face, Frankie turned to her keyboard instead.

  ‘Milo,’ she wrote, trying to stay calm and rational. ‘Milo, you may not like what I wrote in my blog, but it’s really no big deal.’

  ‘No big deal? You think it’s no big deal to suggest that Infotec is hiding things? That it’s involved in a major cover-up? Really, Frankie?’

  Frankie hesitated for a second, then steeled herself. ‘I think,’ she said carefully, ‘that I have a right to ask for answers. All Infotec needs to do is explain itself. Open up the files on the UK. It was a long time ago, Milo. People can handle it. And Infotec is so big on being open …’

  ‘You have five minutes to retract it, Frankie. Five minutes. After that, there’s nothing I can do,’ Milo cut in.

  �
��Milo,’ Frankie wrote pleadingly. ‘Milo, don’t be like this. Let’s talk about it later …’ But it was too late; he had disconnected. Frankie stared at their conversation for a few seconds; her head spinning, her mind whirring. Then, in a daze, she stood up.

  She could retract the blog; of course she could. But she didn’t want to. For the first time in a long time she actually felt proud of something she’d done. And she knew that she would never be happy if she did what Milo had asked. This wasn’t about the UK; wasn’t about some crazy conspiracy theories. This was about her, what she did, who she was and who she wasn’t.

  She looked at her watch. It was 1 p.m. Time to go home, get changed, prepare herself for the afternoon’s various events. Milo would get over it. He was going to have to.

  Picking up her bag and closing her screen, Frankie made her way uncertainly out of the Library.

  It took her about six minutes to get home; she walked straight there, only scanning through the first few of the thousands of messages she’d received whilst in the Library. None of them were about her blog; most were related to what she was wearing now, what she had worn the night before. One or two asked if they could come to the wedding if she and Milo got engaged; one of these was from a man living in India, she noted with a slight shake of the head.

  She got to her building and walked through the door, reminding herself to smile as a comment appeared in front of her ‘Hey, Frankie, looking stressed out. What’s wrong hun?’ It was from Budapest, a girl called Nia.

  ‘Hey, Nia,’ she said brightly. ‘I’m not stressed. Just, you know, excited about tonight!’

  She winked and immediately more comments flooded in. ‘Ahhh, Frankie. It’s so romantic!’ ‘Don’t think too hard – you’ll get wrinkles!’ ‘Wear the pink dress tonight! The one you wore the first time you went dancing with Milo. Pleeeeaaaaseeee!’