Chapter 11

The following morning, Laura watched Callum Preston and a group of five teenagers head in the direction of the ESC training programme. She wondered who each of the kids were and, more importantly, why Daphne Gilchrist was singling them out for attention. As far as Laura was aware, no ESC training programme for non-employees had been announced publicly, so her suspicions were raised—particularly as she now knew the World Government was involved in other things the public knew nothing about.

At 3pm sharp, Laura was waiting for Callum in the disused room on Level Two. He bounded into the room right on time, but crashed straight into her. Laura staggered backwards and hit her arm on the table behind her.

‘Shit, sorry,’ Callum said quickly. ‘I didn’t think you’d be here already. I was trying to avoid the camera outside.’

She straightened up trying to ignore the pain in her arm. She rubbed it and grimaced.

‘Sorry,’ Callum repeated as a flush of red coloured his cheeks. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry,’ she said, waving her good hand at him. ‘It’s just a bruise. Did you find what I asked you to?’

‘Easily enough,’ Callum said, confidently.

‘How did you get into computers anyway?’ she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

‘Ever heard of H. Edward Roberts?’

Laura shook her head.

‘He was known as the “father of the personal computer”. Everything we have now stems from design in one era—the twentieth century.’

‘You’re quite young to know that.’ She smiled. ‘Kids your age are more into virtual tech.’

‘Well, here’s the thing. Virtual tech is interesting and all, but you can’t do very much with it other than interact, insert a bit of programming here or there, that sort of thing. What I like is the architecture behind computer programming. If you know how to get in there, you have full control.’ Callum produced a DPad from underneath his baggy ESC jacket. He handed it to Laura.

‘If anyone asks, you’re doing a project for your training programme,’ Laura said, turning the DPad round to face her. She quickly ran her index finger down a list of names that Callum had downloaded. ‘Please tell me you covered your tracks?’ she asked, glancing up at him.

He gave her a look that implied her question was unnecessary. ‘I wrote a short programme to disguise the content of the download. The computer thinks I was looking at the training schedule for the coming week. If anyone bothers to check, my timetable should pop up.’

Laura went through the downloaded material in more detail. It was a list of former World Government employees, the dates they stopped work for the government and the reasons for their dismissal. There were thousands of names, all people whose work contracts had been terminated within the last six months. She was surprised the list was so long. ‘How do I narrow the search?’

Callum peered over her shoulder. ‘What are you looking for exactly?’

‘Recently fired pilots, or those with a healthy grudge against the government will do.’

Callum took the DPad from her and with a few finger strokes, considerably narrowed the list. ‘There you go,’ he said, handing it back. Only ten names remained.

‘You’re pretty good at this,’ Laura said, smiling. Her own knowledge of DPads, other than the basics, was poor enough.

‘Narrowing a search is easy. There’s so much more to computers than interfaces and digital files. The data on one of these’—he pointed to the DPad—‘can be manipulated easily because it’s being sent from a remote location. Changing the original information into something else is where the real challenge lies because the sentient programmes control that part of it. But we can learn how to predict the behaviour of sentient programmes because they’re all modelled on us. We thrive on, and are defined by, patterns in our behaviour. The sentient programmes operate the same way. No matter how intelligent they seem to be, there’s always a pattern. We’ve been using programmes like this for years. It’s how the National Security Agency operated in the twenty-first century when it used semi-sentient programmes to scan emails and phone conversations.’

As Laura listened to this little speech, she had to keep reminding herself that Callum was just a teenager, and an impressive one at that. She checked the ten names on the list, most of whom had been fired for mundane enough reasons. Career change was top of the list. But she wasn’t looking for just anyone. She needed someone with a grievance against their employer and likely to have no objection to getting involved in something illegal.

One name stood out—there was no reason given for the pilot’s change of employment. Laura clicked on the link. The description said: Jenny Waterston. Grade 4 pilot. Date of birth: 02-11-2088 (75 yrs old). Twenty years service. Last employer: World Government subsidiary, Calypso Couriers. The pilot’s age and experience probably explained why she had been fired. Chances were her termination was not by mutual agreement. A smile formed on Laura’s lips.

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ Callum asked, peering over her shoulder.

Laura realised she had gone quiet. ‘Oh, yes! This is exactly it.’ Then she thought of something else—a possible solution to another problem. ‘You said before that you could fool a sentient into thinking it’s looking at something else entirely.’

‘Yeah, it’s quite simple really. You just—’

Laura put her hand up. ‘Don’t bother. I’m a user, not a programmer. The details are lost on me. I need you to do one other thing for me, if you’re up for it—strictly confidential, of course.’

The cocky teenager pretended none of it interested him, but the look on his face told Laura a different story. ‘I suppose—if I’ve nothing better to do,’ he said.

‘In a few days, my mother is going to take a turn for the worse.’

Callum’s eyes bugged.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to hurt her,’ Laura quickly added. ‘It’s just a trick.’

He visibly relaxed. ‘Oh, I see. Okay!’ he said, and laughed nervously.

‘Very soon I’ll be requesting time off to look after her, but the truth is, I’ll be somewhere else entirely. I need you to make it seem as if my mother’s injury is genuine, and to verify that I’m with her. I don’t want them sending someone out to her apartment only to see her moving about. Think you can do that for me?’

Callum thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Great! How long will you need to set it up?’ Laura asked.

‘Not long—a day or two. But I’ll need details, like a start date for the injury and an end date for your time off.’

Laura knew that sort of detail would be hard to pin down. She’d need to speak to Bill first. She arranged to meet Callum again at the end of the week, by which time she’d have more information for him.

She sent Callum out of the room first and waited to hear him enter the back door of the Energy Creation room before she left herself. She crept along the dark corridor and listened out for the distinctive low hum of the roving cameras. When she couldn’t hear anything, she stepped out of Corridor F and walked towards the same door. Suddenly she spotted a shiny orb in her peripheral vision, hovering, watching her.

Shit.

She tried to wipe the look of guilt off her face and exchange it for one of innocent naïvety. The shimmery golden orb moved from its stationary location and came towards her.

‘Attention! You in the running gear,’ its artificial voice clanged out. ‘You have been seen in this area a number of times. Explain yourself.’

Laura swallowed loudly and made big eyes at the camera. ‘I needed a walk. The Energy Creation room has been a little busy lately. I was feeling a little more claustrophobic than normal. Have I done something wrong?’

‘You have been significantly active in this area during the past week.’

‘I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Sometimes I need a change of scenery. I’ve no control over how I’m going to feel on any given day.’ Laura’s heart hammered loudly in her chest. She could feel a bead of sweat trickling down her back.

‘An intern called Callum Preston has also been flagged in this area. Do you know him?’

Laura thought about denying any knowledge of the boy, but they may have seen her talking to him somewhere else and already know the answer to that question. Keeping the kid safe became her only priority. She smiled as sweetly as she could and took advantage of the flush of red that flooded her cheeks while she lied. ‘He has a crush on me. You know how teenagers can get.’

‘How well do you know each other?’ The tone of the orb’s tinny voice was flat and matter-of-fact, but the question could so easily have been taken out of context.

Laura rushed a couple of replies through her head; which one would get her out of the situation faster? ‘What are you implying?’ she asked indignantly, frowning sternly at the camera.

It continued to hover, unfamiliar with the concept of double entendres and not sure how to answer her. ‘How well do you know each other?’ it repeated.

Laura kept the pretend look of shock on her face. ‘I refuse to answer that question!’

‘How well do you know each other? I won’t ask again.’

Clearly the nuances of speech were lost on the camera; it wasn’t about to give up. Laura rushed to think of a different tack to take. ‘Not very well, actually,’ she said eventually. ‘He’s a kid I see in the building sometimes and he seems to like me enough to follow me around.’

The camera moved in closer, Laura’s reflection growing large in its shimmery exterior. Idly she wondered if it was the same camera that had harassed her the day she was caught talking to Chris and Janine some time ago.

‘Look, just leave the kid alone,’ she added. ‘He did nothing wrong. Punish me, if you have to.’ She really hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.

The camera hovered around her head for a few seconds; when it spoke again, Laura thought she could detect a slight change in its tone: ‘Laura O’Halloran, we’re watching you. We know what you’ve been up to. We will be watching you even more closely from now on.’

The camera backed off just as another camera arrived on the scene. As the second one flew past, the one in front of her merely said, ‘You are in a restricted area. Get back to your workstation.’

Her eyes followed the two cameras as they whizzed out of sight together.

Shit, shit, shit. She ran back to the empty room and retrieved the DPad and communication device from their hiding place in the wall. She’d have to think of another place from which to call Bill.

Was the camera threatening her? So what if it was. She knew how to fake emotions for them. They just weren’t capable of understanding the more complex human emotions such as deceit. But the change in its tone worried her. It had been barely perceptible—maybe she’d imagined it—but it was also possible that someone was watching her in particular.