The Blind Spot
Page 24
“I’m sorry.” The Eye fixed on her shining blades. “I can explain.”
Despite his size, Wrench could still move when he needed to. The power in his mechanical legs launched him, and he crashed into the Eye, both of them slamming down against the kitchen floor. Several more mugs, glasses, and plates smashed around them.
“Wait!” Marcie shouted, but no one listened to her over the commotion.
“Wait!”
Wrench punched the Eye and something cracked. Marcie ran to help him, but Jean blocked her path. Marcie backhanded her so hard her feet lifted from the ground. The bitch had had that coming since putting the fucking tag on her. As Wrench wound back to punch the Eye again, she closed the distance between them and caught his arm. Her heart pounded. “You have to hear me out, Dad.”
Click, whir.
Blood coated the bottom half of the Eye’s face. His nose leaked like a tap. He blinked as if trying to make sense of the world. As much strength in her arms as her dad had in his, Marcie held on, preventing Wrench from landing another blow. The struggle sent a shake running through her. “Please, Dad, back off and hear me out.”
The pause lasted an age, but her dad finally stood up away from the Eye and returned to his spot at their kitchen table.
After Marcie had helped the Eye into a seat, two obsoletes tended to him, one getting him water while the other dressed his wounds. Sal remained connected to her, the click, whir of his lungs registering his presence. “We don’t have to go to war.”
“What?” Jean said, her hair a mess from where Marcie had hit her, her tanned skin glowing from the impact on the side of her face. “What the hell are you talking about, child?”
The Jean she thought she knew didn’t exist. But she could deal with that another time. “The Eye has been helping me,” Marcie said. “I’ve been going out into the city a lot.”
“Even though I forbade it?” Wrench focused his rage on the Eye.
“Yep. If you had your way, I wouldn’t go anywhere. And you gave me freedom for my sixteenth birthday, remember? There were things only I could do because the rest of you were trapped in the Blind Spot. And Sal,” Marcie said, “I know you’re listening. This is what I’ve been hiding from you too.”
The room had fallen silent, so Marcie continued, “I tricked the Eye into helping me. I put on an anonymity mask and power suit and pretended to be from the city. After the transaction, I revealed he’d just dealt with Wrench’s daughter. I used that to blackmail him so he’d help me further. He wouldn’t have done any of this by choice.”
No need to mention Horace, and maybe Pierre suspected something, but Marcie refused to look at him. “The Eye helped me find out who the woman with the surveillance gear was. The one you killed, Dad. I got her fingerprints from her corpse while she was still strapped to the table. He tracked her through those. You were right, we checked later on, and there were no digital trails connecting her to the person who sent her in with the surveillance gear. But when I went to visit her house, I saw a woman who looked out of place. Not sad like the other mourners were. The Eye helped me find out who she was. She’s called Karla Jacobs. She was the key to all of this.”
“Is this story going somewhere?” Jean said. If anything, the mark on her face had grown redder.
“This was when I had to cut you off, Sal. I knew the top table wouldn’t let me do what I was doing because they would have thought it to be too dangerous. I didn’t want to put you in a situation where you had to hide things from your dad.”
Click, whir.
“Before you continue,” Wrench said, “know I will punish you like I’d punish anyone else if I see surveillance equipment in the Blind Spot again.”
Marcie acknowledged her dad’s threat with a nod. “I then made it my mission to find out as much as I could about Karla. When the attack happened on the cinema, I was there and I saw her. She got close enough to the place to nearly get blown up, but not so close she’d get hurt.”
Pierre rested his elbows on the table. “It could have been a coincidence.”
“It could have been,” Marcie said. “And I thought it was. I mean, if she knew anything about the attacks, why would she put herself in harm’s way? I didn’t feel certain of much at that point. Other than I’d seen her twice and something about the way she acted made me suspicious.”
“And that was when you first got caught on camera?” Wrench said.
“Regrettably, yes, but I got caught on camera so I could retrieve a gold bolt planted there. Me getting caught might have seemed to make things worse, but it prevented the city getting the damning evidence left for them to find. It bought us some more time. After I’d seen her at the cinema, the Eye found out more about her for me. A management consultant from the city, her most recent payments into her account came from a subsidiary of Wellbeing Incorporated.”
While only just slotting her blades back in, Shank shook her head. “So how would that make you suspect her?”
“Sorry,” Marcie said, “I’m trying to explain it as best I can. We knew that despite the city hating us, they want a war as little as we do.”
“But someone wants a war,” Pierre said.
“Right, and the question was, who? Of all the companies in the city, Wellbeing Incorporated would gain the most from taking us down. That’s when the Eye found their motivation. He discovered a proposal on their system for total CCTV surveillance in the city. They were putting it together for the government. They were offering to fund it.”
Wrench said, “But CCTV is useless in the city. It’s one of my proudest achievements. Why invest in visual surveillance when the anonymity masks exist? You’ll just get more citizens hiding.”
“If you wipe the Blind Spot out …” Marcie said.
Click, whir.
“… you wipe out the anonymity masks,” Shank finished for her.
“Exactly. If Wellbeing had total surveillance, it would make their app more profitable. If they had the entire city under their watch, they could make a killing from video as well as audio footage. They could gather so much data about the people, they’d even know the colour of their underwear. An advertiser’s dream, and they’d keep a hold of that power because not only would they have killed anonymity masks, but they’d eradicate the biggest threat to their business …”
“ … the Pandora hack,” Pierre said.
Marcie nodded. “Right.”
Everyone looked at the Eye, who turned a deeper shade of crimson than the mask of blood wrapped around the lower half of his face.
“But the only proof we had for all of this was from hacked information procured by the Blind Spot,” Marcie said. “If anyone from the Blind Spot tried to take this information to the city, chances are we’d be arrested on sight, and they wouldn’t believe us anyway.”
“My god, you’ve been busy,” the Monk said.
The second thing Marcie had ever heard come out of his mouth. “So we needed someone in the city who could take the information to the authorities on our behalf. We’d built a watertight case, but we needed someone they’d listen to. And someone who had a vested interest in them believing us. Karla—”
“The woman being paid by Wellbeing?” Wrench said.
“Yeah. She’d just split up with a sad sack of a man called Nick. She’d actually run off with his best friend.”
“What a bitch,” Shank said.
“The best friend was a hacker. They’d colluded to commit the terrorist attacks and start a war. Wellbeing has already transferred a lot of credits over to them, and I’m guessing they’re owed more. They’ve covered their tracks well, but some trails still lead back to them. I’m guessing they were banking on the Blind Spot wiping everything. They could take the final payment of credits on the other side and probably be set up for life. They’d be rich in a world where everyone else had been wiped out. While a small amount of evidence led to them, they’d set Nick up so most of it pointed at him. They could deny involvement. He couldn’
t. They made it look like he’d spent money in all the locations that were attacked, like he’d visited the Blind Spot frequently, like he’d bought the bombs.”
Pierre massaged his temples. “My head’s hurting.”
“Nick, like most people in the city, lives on the Wellbeing app. He loved to hear people talking about him and bought into the bullshit of it all. To him, the lifts were real. After losing his love and his best friend, his life went into chaos, and when he needed the lifts the most, we hacked into his app and slowly pulled them away until he didn’t get any. If we could get him onto the Pandora hack, we could get him to hear for himself what Karla and Bruce were planning. The Eye had already listened to their conversations through Pandora. They spoke freely, thinking anything they said would be buried by their client. And while it most probably was, the hack gathered it first. When Nick used it, he heard everything.”
A pause to give them a chance to ask questions, Marcie continued when they didn’t. “I also snuck into Karla and Bruce’s love nest and stole Karla’s diary.” Sal sniffed in her ear. They’d been more connected than ever in that moment, but she’d been there for an entirely different reason than romance.
“They were clearly trying to communicate without being heard. At least in the beginning. By the end, they didn’t seem to care. The Eye found the indentations from something that had been written in her diary on a now missing page. I made the words visible with wax, you know like when a kid does rock rubbings.” Her and her mum used to do it all the time, and from the pinch of her dad’s eyes, that painful memory hit him too.
“I got that sheet of her diary into Nick’s hands. I’m not proud of this, but we set Nick’s neighbour up as having connections to the terrorists. In the commotion outside Nick’s house, he left his door open. It allowed me to break in without setting off his alarm. It also reminded him about police brutality and what he stood to be on the receiving end of if the trail Bruce and Karla had laid came back to him. I left the sheet of paper in his kitchen. They’d written a list of the places that had been attacked and the next one they’d hit. When they hit the Apollo Tower like the sheet said they would, Nick finally used the Pandora hack. We’d starved him of lifts up until that point, and we knew he couldn’t go without hearing something for long. The revelation pushed him over the edge. Turns out Bruce and Karla did a lot of the work for us. They told him pretty much everything. It also turns out they were planning on hitting the justice department after the Apollo Tower, which we kept from Nick in case he got scared to tell the police this. Instead, we’ve included that in the evidence supplied to them. Hopefully, it will help in making them sit up and listen.”
Even Wrench scrunched his brow as he tried to keep up. When Marcie paused, he gave an impatient flick of his hands and said, “Carry on.”
“The Eye put all the evidence together to be taken to the authorities, and uploaded it onto a memory stick. I took it to Nick. I planned to leave it in his possession with a letter explaining everything we’d found, and to tell him that if he took the information to the authorities, it would clear his name and stop the war. He had to understand a city resident needed to deliver this information because they wouldn’t listen to the Blind Spot. We made it look like he’d pulled all the details from Karla’s computer, which she’d left in his possession. However—” she paused again and looked at all the gawking faces. Click, whir. “—when I got to Nick’s house, he’d hung himself.”
One of the engineers gasped.
“I had to bust in, cut him down, revive him, and wait to check he’d woken up. When he did, I left the information with him and came back here for the meeting last night. It was why I was late.”
“So,” Jean said, “if you did all this last night, where have you just been?”
“I went back to make sure Nick handed the memory stick into the authorities.”
Wrench shrugged. “So we could still go to war?”
The Eye spoke this time. “I don’t think so. As long as that information made it to the police, even if they do imprison Nick for a short while, it’s pretty clear who was responsible for the terror attacks. They want a war in the city as little as we do. We also cleared Nick’s neighbour of any wrongdoing.”
“If he hasn’t been turned into an obsolete already,” Pierre said.
As he turned to his old friend, Wrench said, “One obsolete would be a small price to pay to avoid a war.”
Pierre shrugged.
“And that won’t happen anyway,” the Eye said. “I messed with the police’s systems enough to delay his punishment. He’s still in a cell at the moment, waiting for official approval to be turned. They will never get that approval and will eventually send him home.”
While scratching his head, Wrench looked at Marcie. “I know you got seen, but how did you manage to do all of this in the city without being caught?”
“After the police chase, it became a lot harder.” Marcie pressed her cloaking device, and the room gasped again. She remained hidden. From her dad’s gawking face, he clearly hadn’t ever seen this technology. “Thankfully I had this at the end. Also, the Eye reprogrammed my tag to make it look like I was at home so I could put the last few pieces into place. We both had faith we could pull this off, but we knew no one at the top table would agree.”
“But that’s not how the top table works.”
“Which is why I’m meant to live in the city.” Even with how the police had treated her during their last encounter, it still seemed like a better place to live. She could hide the glow of her eyes, but she couldn’t live in the Blind Spot.
Although Wrench drew a breath to speak, he held on to his words.
“The most regrettable part of all was having to find out who worked with Karla and Bruce in the Blind Spot. We saw Wellbeing were sending credits in to someone, but we had to find out who it was the hard way. The Eye wouldn’t hack anyone here because of it being strictly forbidden.”
Wrench nodded at the Eye, who visibly relaxed.
“It was Jean telling me about how the engineers would do FGM for money that made me think they would probably make gold bolts if someone asked them.”
At that moment, one of the engineers—the one Marcie had seen Frankie visiting—made a slight whine.
“Shut up!” Jean shouted at him.
The room fell silent.
A look from the engineer, to Jean, and back to the engineer, Wrench said, “Go on.”
Pale and glistening with the slightest sheen of sweat, the engineer looked at Jean, who bared her teeth at him.
A sterner voice than before, Wrench said, “I said go on.”
“Um …” The engineer wrung his hands and stared at the floor. “I just did what she told me to do.”
“Which was?”
“To make more gold bolts for your legs. Just like the ones I made for you years ago. She paid me to do it and said it was a secret. A surprise for you.”
The room turned to look at her.
For once, Jean had nothing to say.
Chapter 65
His name was in the clear, he had a plan of action, and thank god he could come back into work again. So what if he had no sleep because of being in the police station last night? Nick strode into the office with a wide smile. Fake it ’til you make it. “Morning, everyone.”
Sure, they’d see straight through him, but at least he made the effort. That had to be worth something, right? A statement of intent at the very least. Things would get better. Normal service would resume.
Jane approached Nick first and took his hands, her eyes dropping to the scarf around his neck. She’d been right about him hanging himself. Not that he could tell her that. No one wanted to be a Pandora pariah. Besides, everyone spoke about other people behind their back, and if they had grievances, they had every right to air them without fear of being heard. If someone didn’t tell you to your face, then it was none of your business.
“How are you doing?” Jane finally asked.
Jane looked from side to side and nodded. “Good. I’m glad.” Before she went back to her desk, she looked at his scarf again. Had he tied it well enough to hide the cuts?
Despite removing his coat and throwing it over the back of his chair, Nick kept his scarf on. Graham watched him from the other side of the office. The boy smirked and winked. Nick nodded towards the coffee room. “Graham, a word, please.”
Because he’d gotten into the room first, Nick sat down. Before Graham could do the same, he said, “Someone once said to me that it was none of my business what other people thought about me. Unless they chose to share it with me, of course.”
“And I still stand by that,” Graham said.
“Had I not known what people thought of me, we’d be at war now.”
A hard frown, Graham clearly couldn’t make the connection in his simple mind. But he did latch onto one thing. “You’ve used the Pandora hack, haven’t you?”
If Stuart found out, he’d fire him in a heartbeat. The Pandora hack was as good as spying on your colleagues. If everyone had it, it would challenge freedom of speech in the city. They’d stamp it out in a heartbeat. “What are you talking about?”
“Just a hunch.”
“You don’t know what you’re on about.” And before Graham said anything else, Nick shook his head. “I’m afraid this isn’t working out. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to let you go with immediate effect.” He couldn’t have that kind of liability in the office with him.
At first Graham’s mouth fell loose. The young man then thrust his hand out for Nick to shake. When Nick took it, Graham squeezed hard. “If it’s easier for you to get rid of me than face the truth of your miserable existence, then you do that. I’ll find another shitty job with an insecure boss who wants everyone to love them when, in reality, no one does. But will you get rid of the Pandora hack now you have it?”