by Oli White
Lewis’s arrival was just the shot in the arm I needed. In fact, I felt a surge of reassurance wash over me the minute he stepped through the door. He looked kind of different from how I remembered: was his hair a tad shorter? His once scruffy stubble a bit neater? His tan definitely wasn’t as deep as I recalled. So he really had swapped sun and surf for a bit more time in front of the old computer!
‘How are you doing, Jack?’ he smiled, dropping his rucksack on the floor.
‘Oh, you know … been better.’
He put his arm around my shoulder. ‘Don’t sweat it, man, we’re going to sort this. Trust me.’
It was a stark contrast to the awkwardness of our first meeting; this time I was very happy to see him, and as we headed into the living room, Lewis looked around in awe.
‘Wow! This is a pretty nice place you’ve got here.’
‘Yeah, it’s a pretty nice place that I’m being thrown out of tomorrow,’ I said.
‘You’re kidding!’
‘It’s fine. I’ve booked a couple of rooms in a hotel,’ I said. ‘AJ knows I’m going to be here until then, so we won’t be disturbed. Do you want a drink before we get started? I must warn you, I haven’t got any herbal tea or any of that non-polluted gear you like to sip.’
Lewis laughed as he sat down on the couch. ‘OK, I guess I deserve that one.’
‘You do,’ I said. ‘And as for all this stuff about you turning from beach bum to technical genius overnight … I’m not quite sure I’m buying that, surfer boy!’
‘Oh no?’ he said, and I shook my head.
‘Pass me your phone, dude, and tell me … which games are you into at the moment?’
I opened one of my newer game apps and handed him my iPhone, sitting down on the couch next to him.
‘Level sixteen – pathetic,’ he mocked.
‘Oi!’ I laughed. ‘Have you tried getting past that level? It’s bloody impossible.’
‘Yeah, there’s a trick to it. Watch this,’ he said, tapping and swiping so fast I could hardly see what he was doing. In about ten seconds the screen refreshed, revealing a set of tasks and characters I’d never set eyes on before.
He handed the phone back. ‘There you go. Level twenty.’
I looked at the screen in awe. ‘Whoa! Dude, how did you do that?’
Lewis winked at me. ‘Are you still doubting my technical prowess?’
‘Absolutely not. That was amazing,’ I said. ‘Right. Let’s see if you can put those skills to use investigating our friend Ethan Harper!’
Within half an hour we’d shoved the coffee table in the living room out of the way and covered the rug with laptops, phones, notebooks, pens and Post-it notes. The two of us sat there, cross-legged, beavering away to uncover as much as we could about Ethan.
‘Now, we have to get to his private files. That’s a given, right?’ Lewis said. He was sipping the coffee I’d made him to help him stay awake after travelling most of the day. Clearly, his no-caffeine rule had also gone out the window.
I grinned. ‘I think between the two of us we can do that.’
Twenty minutes later, I was still struggling to find a way into Ethan’s accounts. Lewis, busy making notes on his laptop, looked up and over at me.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Yeah, it’s been a while,’ I said, my brow knitted. ‘Since I went legit, I haven’t had cause to do much of this kind of stuff.’
Lewis smiled and dragged my MacBook across the floor towards him. ‘Let me have a look.’ He peered at the screen, tilting his head to one side like that might somehow help him figure things out. ‘I feel like I’m trying to break into the vaults of some evil criminal mastermind,’ he said, narrowing his eyes.
‘I don’t suppose that’s too far from the truth,’ I said.
‘Hang on. Let me try something,’ he said.
I watched in awe as he started banging away at the keyboard, concentrating hard. It took a while, but …
‘There you go,’ he said finally, smiling. ‘We’re in.’
‘Dude, that was slick,’ I laughed.
‘I guess it’s like riding a bike,’ he said. ‘Now, what have we got?’
It didn’t take much poking around to uncover some stuff that made my jaw drop.
‘Lewis, take a look at this! It’s really, really weird.’ In a folder simply marked ‘G’, there was file upon file upon file of information about GenNext: documents, schedules, screenshots and footage. The more I searched, the more I found. ‘God, it looks like he’s been collecting information on us from the moment we started; like he’s been studying us.’ My mouth went dry. ‘Why the hell would he have all this stuff?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lewis said, frowning as we clicked through the files together. ‘It’s freaky.’
I carried on clicking open PDFs, JPEGs, and tons of movie files. ‘Look, this is Ava’s coming-out vlog. And here’s footage Sai put up of a kung fu tournament he competed in. And here are photos of Ava and Suki together. It’s like we were being watched all this time without knowing.’
We continued to unearth more and more files until a folder marked ‘F&P’ made it alarmingly clear what Ethan’s main obsession was. The F and P obviously stood for Foster and Penman, and in the folder there were dozens of photographs of Ella and me, taken from various social media: shots of us at events, screen grabs from our online shows, even intimate pictures of us holding hands or kissing. This was twisted even by Ethan’s standards, and as I took it all in, a shiver ran up my spine. It was like one of those movies where the police finally break into the creepy apartment of the prime suspect in a string of murders only to find a wall covered in pictures of the victims and newspaper articles about his crimes.
‘Anything else we can use?’ Lewis said, peering over my shoulder.
‘Just a few shots of Ethan and Ella on stage together at Total, which are making me feel sick,’ I said. ‘Hang on, what’s this?’
I opened a movie file called ‘Ethan GenNext’ and there he was, beaming that annoying smile, being filmed outside a venue where punters were just starting to pour out of a gig.
‘Hi, I’m Ethan Harper, outside the Charlie Puth gig in Camden, and I’m here to get some reactions from the crowd about what they thought of tonight’s show … exclusively for GenNext …’
I shut the clip down as fast as I’d opened it. ‘Exclusively for GenNext? What? That gig was months ago, and we were there ourselves, getting the crowd’s reaction.’
‘Well, so was he by the looks of it,’ Lewis said. ‘Didn’t you see him?’
I shook my head slowly, the thought of Ethan being there right under our noses, passing himself off as a member of GenNext making me go cold all over again. Then something else caught my eye – another photograph – and my heart felt like it had jumped up into my throat. I enlarged the image and stared at it in total disbelief.
‘No … no, surely not …’
Lewis caught my expression. ‘What is it, Jack? Do you know those two guys with him?’
I nodded slowly. It was the two guys from the fight on the first night of Total Festival, standing with Ethan. The guys who’d hassled Ella and then attacked me. They were all grinning and holding up bottles of Budweiser.
‘We got into a scrap in the hospitality enclosure at Total, but Ethan stepped in to save the day,’ I told Lewis, still staring at the photo, just to make doubly sure I wasn’t imagining this.
‘What, and he knows them?’ Lewis said.
‘This photo was taken outside a London bar, so obviously he does,’ I said. ‘God, do you think he arranged for them to beat me up just so he could look good? I mean, he did seem to appear from nowhere like bloody Spiderman.’
‘Man, after all we’ve seen here, nothing would surprise me,’ Lewis said, shaking his head. ‘It’s obvious that this guy is completely obsessed with you and GenNext. I mean, it’s all here, isn’t it?’
I knew Lewis was right, but it was still a huge amount for me to
get my head around. This vendetta went deep. We weren’t dealing with a mentally stable person here. This was dangerous, for Ella and my friends as well as for me.
‘The thing is … what do we do with all this stuff now?’ I said.
‘Let’s just show it to the others,’ Lewis said.
‘Yeah, we need to do that, of course,’ I said. ‘But we need something more airtight than that. At the moment, this is just me hacking into Ethan’s online drive and it leaves me open to all kinds of accusations. For all anyone else knows I could have just planted this stuff to get me out of a hole.’
Lewis thought for a moment. ‘Well, one idea I had was that I try to somehow get some time with Ethan. I mean, he doesn’t know me, right? None of your friends do.’
‘True …’
‘Tell me if this sounds mad, but what if I pretend to be some kind of journalist … and say that I want to interview him or something…’
‘Go on …’ I said, intrigued.
‘Well, I haven’t completely thought it through …’ Lewis said with a smile.
‘No, but it’s a good start,’ I said. ‘If you can appeal to his vanity: ingratiate yourself with him and then try to trip him up somehow, he might take his eye off the ball for a moment. That’s all we need. A moment.’ I could feel my heart pounding as we spoke, searching every corner of my mind for a spark … an idea …
Lewis nodded. ‘OK, but we need a plausible story. It has to be totally credible, and then you’ll have to point me in the direction of who I need to contact to get to the dude.’
‘OK, let’s get on it,’ I said. ‘Let’s make a plan.’
We spent the rest of that night searching and scheming, trying to figure out the best way to make use of everything we’d seen and everything we knew about Ethan. The following day, with a certain amount of sadness, I packed up my stuff. I still hadn’t seen Austin or Sai since the showdown, and although I knew they didn’t want to see me, I felt pretty low leaving the place that we’d all arrived at with such excitement for Emerge. Still, having Lewis around helped – it helped a lot.
We moved to the Hoxton Hotel in Shoreditch, which would be both a comfortable home and a headquarters for us to continue planning, and once we’d unpacked and got settled in our rooms, we wasted no time in diving straight back into it. Finally, later that evening, we closed our laptops and lay back on my already trashed hotel room floor – two fried heads – thinking that we just might have cracked a pretty decent plan to topple Ethan. And while it didn’t sound like the easiest thing in the world to execute, it was the only plan we had.
‘OK, man, I really need to eat before I pass out,’ Lewis said, looking at his watch. ‘Shall we get some room service?’
It was then that it dawned on me that we’d barely stopped for a drink all day, let alone any food.
‘No, let’s go out and grab something,’ I suggested. ‘I could do with getting some air anyway. I feel like I’ve done a hundred squats, kneeling down here on the floor for hours.’
‘Sounds good,’ Lewis said, jumping up.
‘I suppose we’ll have to find some organic, eco-friendly vegetarian café for you, right?’ I laughed, holding out my arm towards him.
Lewis gripped my hand and pulled me up off the floor, grinning widely. ‘Screw that, bro. Let’s go to Five Guys.’
THE TRUTH
It was just after midnight when my phone rang. At first the noise sounded like it was part of the disturbing dream I was having: Ethan’s leering face dancing round in my head as he whispered, ‘Don’t think I’m finished yet, Jack.’ But as the ringing carried on, I slowly came out of the deep sleep I’d fallen into an hour or so before. I grabbed the phone from the bedside table just as it went silent, and stared at it groggily. Seconds later it started up again; the call was from a London landline, but not one of my contacts and not one I recognised.
I picked up. ‘This had better be good,’ I croaked out.
‘Jack. It’s me.’ I sat bolt upright in bed. ‘It’s Ella.’
‘Ella! What—’
‘Just listen, please.’ She sounded weird: panicky, and on the verge of tears. ‘I’m at a Texaco petrol station somewhere near Old Street.’
‘What’s going on? Are you OK?’
‘No, I’m not. I haven’t got my phone or any money or cards with me, and … Look, would you please jump in an Uber and come pick me up, as soon as you can? I’ll tell you everything then.’
‘God, of course. I’m getting dressed and coming right now,’ I told her, jumping out of bed. I could hear her speaking to someone else in the background, asking for the address. ‘Jack, it’s 241 City Road. Did you get that?’
‘I did. I’ll be there as fast as I can. Be careful, OK? Stay inside the petrol station.’
I was up, dressed, out of the hotel and into an Uber in about six minutes, fuelled by a rush of pure adrenalin. It didn’t take me long to get to the petrol station, my heart racing at a hundred miles an hour as I urged the driver to go as fast as he could. When we pulled up on the forecourt, Ella ran out of the shop and got into the back of the car. For a split second we just stared at each other – then she threw herself into my arms.
‘I’m so, so sorry, Jack,’ she said, breathing hard. ‘I’m so sorry about everything.’
As good as it felt to hold her and to hear those words, I had to find out what was going on; I’d never seen her this rattled.
‘Ella, what’s happened? Are you all right? What are you doing on your own this late, with no phone and no money?’
‘Not yet. Wait until we get to the hotel,’ she said. ‘Just hold me for a minute, will you?’
Ten minutes later we were sitting side by side in a quiet red leather booth in the hotel bar, which was still open. By then Ella, shaken and angry, was ready to tell me what had happened.
‘It was after tonight’s episode of Emerge,’ she said, brushing a tear away with the back of her hand. ‘We all went out for a quick bite and then Ethan invited me round to his.’ I felt my whole body stiffen at her words, at the thought of Ella being alone with that psycho. ‘I only went because I was so upset about the situation with you, and I needed the company of a friend. Honestly, Jack, I would have just hung out with Ava, but she was off seeing Suki to try and sort things out between the two of them, and Ethan was being so kind about the whole thing …’
‘It’s OK, you don’t have to explain,’ I said softly, dreading what was coming next. ‘Go on.’
‘Anyway, when I got there, we were just talking about GenNext and Emerge and the US show for ages … and then I started talking about you, and how hard it was for me to accept all the stuff with Glen and that I didn’t know what to do next … And Ethan was all nice and understanding at first. But then he started saying stuff that made me feel a bit weird …’
‘What kind of stuff?’ I asked.
‘Stuff like how I needed to forget you and move on. He said that any association with you would jeopardise the show moving forward and that I needed to accept that you weren’t the person I thought you were …’
‘That’s rich coming from him,’ I said, thinking of all the creepy stuff that Lewis and I had found on Ethan’s online drive.
‘He just kept saying that he knew how hurt I must be, but that in time I’d be able to get over it,’ Ella said, looking down. ‘And then he … Oh God, it makes me so angry thinking about it.’
I noticed that she was shaking, but with fury rather than fear. ‘What, Ella? What did he do?’ Anger was rising inside me like mercury in a thermometer.
‘He tried to kiss me,’ Ella said. ‘I mean, it wasn’t that bad at first; we’d been sitting together on the sofa and he’d made it all very cosy and intimate, and I thought he’d just misjudged the situation – thinking it was something it wasn’t – so I politely set him straight.’
‘OK …’ I said, trying to clamp down on the horror I felt at the thought of Ethan trying to get cosy and intimate with Ella.
‘But then he did it again. He kept trying to kiss me, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. I don’t know if he thought I was just being coy or something; every time I said no, he just dismissed it with a laugh, saying that I didn’t mean it. I saw a side to him I hadn’t seen before … and I didn’t like it one bit.’
‘God, Ella, what a creep,’ I said, taking her hand. ‘That must have been really scary.’
‘I was more angry than scared at that point,’ she said. ‘I mean, how dare he? How dare he treat me with such a lack of respect? Anyway, when I told him categorically to back off, he got really worked up and then started saying some totally weird things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Things like I was just as bad as you and Glen,’ Ella said. ‘Like, why couldn’t I see that he and I would make an amazing team, that together we could take GenNext to the very top, and why was I so blind. That he would be a much better match for me than you ever were. He was shouting and his face was bright red and I’ve never seen anyone so furious … He just lost it, Jack. It was like a switch flipped. Then he started going on about how I was trying to ruin everything. Well, then I did feel scared, so I got out of there as fast as I could. I stupidly left my bag behind with everything in it, but by the time I realised that, there was no way in hell that I was going back.’
‘Jesus, Ella, I’m going to kill him,’ I said, jumping to my feet, but Ella grabbed my hand and pulled me down again.
‘Calm down, Batman,’ she smiled, wiping a final tear from the corner of her eye. ‘I’m fine, honestly, just a bit shell-shocked. It was all so horrible, and so completely unexpected; I never saw it coming. The worst part of all this is that I didn’t listen to you, and I feel terrible and really stupid. It’s obvious that Ethan concocted all this fraud stuff, and I can’t believe I ever thought otherwise. I am truly so, so sorry.’
