The System (28 page)

‘I don’t know,’ Frankie said. ‘I haven’t heard from him.’

Evie considered this. ‘He’s a good person. Raffy, I mean. He deserves to find happiness,’ she said.

‘Then I hope he finds it,’ Frankie said, doing her best to keep her voice light. ‘Now listen, have you thought about doing something with your hair? You’re going to be seeing Lucas soon. And I’m going to be filming it for the whole world and … well … it’s an interesting look you’ve got going on, that’s all I’m saying.’

Evie smiled. ‘Lucas won’t care,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you can tell your watchers that I’m just working tunnel chic.’

Frankie stared at her in surprise. ‘Working tunnel chic?’ she asked, an eyebrow raised. ‘And where did a backwards City girl learn a phrase like that?’

‘I might have watched you a bit,’ Evie shrugged lightly. ‘Before I met you, I mean. I watched you all the time. You kept me sane. And actually I quite liked that pink dress you wore to the film premiere two weeks ago. It was pretty.’

Frankie’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘You watched me? You liked the dress? I thought fashion is a waste of time and, worse, a diversion away from the real pain and suffering that exists in the world? I thought that I was an Infotec Stooge who’s as much to blame for the cultural prison we’re in as Thomas or Milo?’

Evie shot her a sheepish grin. ‘Maybe I was a bit harsh,’ she admitted. ‘And, maybe a bit jealous.’ She bit her lip awkwardly.

‘I think I can probably forgive you,’ Frankie said, holding her gaze for a few seconds before winking. ‘Race you to the City?’ she suggested then, running off ahead quickly. ‘Winner gets a shower. You do have showers in the City, don’t you?’

‘Of course we have showers,’ Evie yelled, running after her. ‘Although I’m not sure that cheating Parisians get to use them. Anyway, you don’t even know the way.’

‘So show me!’ Frankie yelled back. ‘Show me your City, Evie. And show the world while you’re at it.’

As Evie got nearer the wall, she found herself slowing down. The gates were open; she could see people inside. Not swamps, but people, people she didn’t recognise, people she did. And then she saw a face and she stopped dead because it made no sense, because it was suddenly so real, that she was here, that things had changed, that she didn’t know the City anymore, that she didn’t know if Lucas was even alive.

‘Martha?’ The woman who had comforted her so many times ran towards her, embraced her, held her tightly. ‘Lucas,’ Evie gasped. ‘Where’s Lucas?’

‘Hi,’ she heard a voice say. ‘I’m Frankie.’

‘Frankie. My name is Martha.’ They were talking but Evie couldn’t hear them; she pulled away from Martha’s embrace, stared around at the people milling about, drinking soup, talking, moving things around.

‘Lucas,’ she said, then started to run again. ‘Lucas!’

She could hear Martha calling her back, could hear Frankie calling after her too, but she couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. ‘Lucas,’ she screamed. ‘Lucas!’

She ran through the crowds, stopping dead when she saw Maggie, an old friend from the Settlement, then shaking herself and running again, towards the centre, towards the place she hoped he’d be. ‘Lucas!’

Thomas stared at the screen. It was beautiful. Beyond beautiful. It was everything he’d ever dreamt of. He could see everyone, see where they were, what they were doing. But more than that, he could see what they were thinking. Or rather he could see how they were feeling. He could see anger and frustration, joy, tension, boredom, misery.

‘You did it,’ he breathed. ‘Linus, you actually did it. I didn’t think you would. I thought when I turned this on the screen would just go black, that you’d think somehow you could outwit me. But you didn’t. You built it. The original idea. It’s so much better than the one you built for the City. It’s incredible.’

‘It’s the dream,’ Linus shrugged, his eyes twinkling. ‘So you like it? Mind removing our hoods so we can see it too?’

Thomas nodded to the Inforcers to remove them. ‘Like it? It’s incredible,’ he gasped. The status updates of everyone flashed before his eyes in colours that told him whether they were truthful or not. ‘Loving this new job’, a lie in red that clearly showed the fear and anxiety the updater was feeling. ‘OMG this party is awesome’ in purple, the colour of loneliness. Another lie. Thomas rolled his eyes; people were pathetic, always trying to make out that their lives were better than they were, that they had more friends than they did, that they were better, richer, cleverer, more disciplined than they really were. People were pathetic, really. Pathetic, self-deluding peacocks.

But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he knew everything now. Everything. It was extraordinary. It was beyond his wildest dreams.

Milo cleared his throat. ‘Listen, sorry to interrupt but I’ve just had a message from Sweden. Apparently there’s some communication breakdown,’ he said.

‘Deal with it,’ Thomas growled. ‘I don’t care about Sweden. Not now. Don’t you realise what this is? What it means?’

Milo raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s great,’ he said.

Thomas looked at him pityingly. ‘The problem with you, Milo,’ he said, ‘is that you’ve never had any vision. You’ve never understood the whole picture, never been able to see the potential in things.’

‘No?’ Milo caught his eye; Thomas thought he saw something in it, hostility perhaps. Then, quickly, he turned back to the screen in front of him, saw for himself the colour of Milo’s thoughts. Black for anger, hatred. He would have to go. He would organise it later that day. Perhaps a tragic car accident. Possibly on the way to Sweden.

‘Thomas, I think you need to see this.’ Milo was talking again; Thomas barely glanced at him.

‘Milo, I am not interested. Whatever it is, I am not interested.’ He was staring at the screen in front of him, staring at the colours, the thousands of colours washing through it as he navigated through whole towns, cities, countries. Everywhere were emotions, thoughts. Everywhere he looked. And he found himself frowning because the colours were so dark, so flat. Unhappiness, loneliness, worry, hunger, fear, anxiety, pain. And it made no sense. People were happy. People loved the world he had created for them. They told him all the time, told him in their updates, their blogs. Why was there so much sadness? Why weren’t the colours bright, light? What was wrong with everyone?

‘Not interested in the entire operating system shutting down?’

Thomas frowned. Milo’s words had turned white. ‘What are you talking about?’

He couldn’t look away from the screen, couldn’t turn his head away from the blacks, the reds, the purples, the browns. It was as though everyone was shouting at him, crying, sobbing. It was too much; he wanted them to stop, needed them to stop, but they wouldn’t.

‘Enjoying your System, Thomas?’ Linus said, his voice low. ‘Enjoying seeing how people really feel?’

Thomas rounded on him. ‘You did this,’ he said angrily. ‘You have engineered it to suggest people are sad when they are happy. You think I can’t see through you?’

‘You think you have any idea how people miss freedom?’ Linus said softly. ‘How much they fear you? I thought that’s what you wanted.’

‘Thomas, you really have to see this,’ Milo was saying.

‘Turn this off,’ Thomas said to Linus, his voice icy. ‘Turn it off now.’

‘Turn it off? Oh, that’s impossible, Thomas. The genie’s out of the bottle. Can’t put it back in again.’

‘Turn it off,’ Thomas shouted. ‘Turn it off. Now …’

And then he stopped. Because in front of him, the screen changed. And in front of him was Frankie. She looked different, thinner, covered in mud, her hair matted, her clothes like something out of a war zone. But that wasn’t what made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It was where she was. He recognised it instantly.

‘This is the place Infotec didn’t want you to see. These are the people Infotec wanted you to think had died long ago in a nuclear attack that never happened. This is the experiment orchestrated by Thomas, our leader, to imprison us, to convince us to turn to him for protection, when the only thing we needed protection against was him. He started the Horrors, controlled them. He told us that the UK had imploded; told the survivors here that they were alone in the world. But now they are fighting back. Infotec didn’t want you to see me. They tried to kill me for asking questions about the UK. But I’m not dead. I chose to fight. And I ask you to do the same. Take out your chips. Take down your cameras. Say “no” to Infotec. Say “enough”.’

Thomas felt the blood drain from his face. ‘Turn it off,’ he growled. ‘Turn the channel off. Now!’

But Milo was shaking his head. ‘I can’t,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘She’s on every channel.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Thomas shouted. ‘Shut her down!’

‘I’m afraid you can’t shut her down,’ Linus said. ‘She’s beaming right out of the mainframe in Sweden.’

‘Then switch to the shadowframe,’ Thomas said, rounding on Milo. ‘Do it!’

‘I’ve tried.’ Milo stared at the screen as though transfixed. ‘Nothing’s happening. I can’t get in touch with Sweden. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.’

‘You can’t get in touch because the communications centre has been switched off,’ Linus said, a little smile playing on his lips. ‘See, we’ve got some friends in Sweden who switched from mainframe to shadowframe a few days ago, just long enough for Raffy here to hack into it, put in some code to make it disintegrate once the System went live. Then he gave Frankie the code so that when she started to film, it would be beamed around the world, the only thing anyone could watch. Right now, you’re hoping that the mainframe is fine, that you can get someone to flick a switch back again. Problem is, our friends unplugged it. They’re destroying it right now. They’re quite enjoying it apparently.’

Thomas shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, blood pumping around his body now. ‘No!’ He jumped up. ‘Milo, get guards out on the street. And you, Linus, you are going to regret this.’ He pulled out the gun he always carried with him, put it to Linus’s head. ‘You think you’re so clever,’ he seethed. ‘You have always been so sure of your superiority, but you will not get away with this. You will not!’

‘I think I already have.’ Linus smiled; Thomas immediately pulled the trigger. But instead of the explosion he was expecting, there was nothing; he pulled it again, then shook the gun. ‘Inforcers! Shoot him. Kill this man. It’s an order. Do it now!’ He was shrieking, his cheeks hot, his whole body sweating. ‘Kill him!’

But Milo pulled out a gun of his own and trained it on Thomas. ‘Put your weapons down,’ he ordered the Inforcers; Thomas, wide eyed, nodded for them to do as he said. ‘Don’t do this, Milo,’ he said, uncertainly. ‘Whatever you think you’re doing here, you’ll regret it.’

‘Maybe I will,’ Milo nodded. ‘But I won’t do your dirty work anymore, Thomas. You were going to kill her,’ he said. ‘You were really going to kill Frankie just because she wrote that blog. You lied to me, Thomas, and I believed you. I let you pull me into your dirty world because I believed in you, believed what you told me. But this was never about making the world a better place. This was about you controlling everyone. Including me. Including Frankie. But you couldn’t control her, could you?’

Thomas stared at him incredulously. ‘This is about a girl? About Frankie? Jesus, Milo, she was nothing. Nothing! And she’s going to die anyway now that she’s in the UK. They all are. Put the gun down. Let’s talk like adults, Milo. Put the gun down.’

But Milo was shaking his head ‘It’s not going to happen, Thomas. Not this time.’ He took Thomas’s gun, loaded it and gave it to Linus, and suggested that he keep it trained on the Inforcers, then he marched Thomas into the room next door, empty but for a chair, pushed him aside and locked the door.

‘You’d prepare for the consequences, Milo,’ Thomas shouted as Milo walked away. ‘I have called for more Inforcers. This isn’t going to end well for you. It isn’t going to end well for you at all.’

Jim watched the screen and felt the corners of his mouth turn upwards. ‘She did it,’ he breathed. ‘She actually did it.’

‘She sure did,’ Glen replied, his eyes dancing in spite of the sweat dripping down his face. ‘And so did we.’

Jim nodded slowly, his brain trying to comprehend what had happened, what they’d achieved. His arm was killing him; Glen had passed out a few times over the past twenty-four hours and Jim wasn’t sure how long his makeshift bandages would hold out. They’d been shot at several times; Glen’s leg was bleeding heavily. But his knowledge of the security codes had got them in and after that they had watched in wonder as Glen had shut everything down, locked doors, created so much confusion that no one seemed to know what to do. But they had done it. They had flicked the switch, destroyed the mainframe, and held off Infotec’s henchmen. They had opened up communication over the UK. And now … now they had closed down the communication centre, filling the airwaves with just one channel; just one image. Frankie was being beamed around the world. His friend. His friend, who had turned to him for help. And he’d helped. He was really part of this.

He looked back at Glen, and he saw tears in the big man’s eyes. Tears of happiness? Of sadness? Jim didn’t know. But he, like Glen, was transfixed by the images in front of them. Of people, of a city, with houses, and roads, of a whole civilisation that Thomas had denied, that Infotec had hidden, its dirty little secret. And then Frankie was going into a building, up stairs, following Evie and a tall, blond man whose arm was wrapped around her as though he would never let her go. And then he ran to a computer and moments later it was filled with a fuzzy recording of Thomas’s, describing how he had started the Horrors, how he had created the whole thing so that the man next to him would build the System.

And then Jim was crying too. Because of the lies. Because of the shame. Because it was over. And as he lost consciousness, he knew that it had all been worth it.

He knew that he had finally done something truly worthwhile.

Frankie shrugged apologetically at the nice-looking woman and ran after Evie, trying not to mow people down as she ducked around them, trying to keep up, trying not to stare. She turned the camera on herself. ‘Yes, people. This really is Frankie. Not dead, in spite of Infotec’s best efforts. In spite of Milo’s best efforts. Some boyfriend he turned out to be. So anyway, I’m sorry about my appearance. Tunnel chic, according to a good friend of mine. I’ve been crawling through a tunnel, you see. A tunnel that people used to travel through all the time. The Eurotunnel. Between France and the UK. Remember the UK? Remember it was destroyed, that everyone was killed, that it was a radioactive wasteland that no one could even visit? Well, I’m here folks. And as you can see, Infotec lied to us about everything.’