Poster Boy, page 23
Oh, fuck. It was clearly an empty offer. “What?” I asked.
“Would you… well, it’s a little bit unusual, but would you…”
“Spit it out then.”
“Would you have a drink with my brother?”
What the fuck?
“I’m not into setups,” I said. “I’m sorry if your brother’s having a hard time getting laid, but when I said I owed you one I meant workwise.”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. I’d be there too.”
“That sounds even more dodgy.”
He sighed. “I’m not going about this very well. Let me start again. My brother, he’s a lot younger than me. Just turned twenty-three. He’s just finished his computing degree, and Dad talked him into taking the service tests.”
The service tests were aptitude tests anyone who wanted to work in the intelligence sector had to take. From PIDS, to military intelligence, to the secret service. They were designed to help assign recruits to the best branch of our family of public deceit organisations.
“Yeah, and? Did he fail? I can’t help him with that. You gotta wait six months and retake.” Trust me, I know.
“No. No he didn’t fail. He scored three hundred twenty-seven.”
I whistled. I’d got 245, on my second attempt. “Shit. That’s impressive. That’s—”
“Security level, I know.”
Security was the branch reserved for the most gifted. The best encrypters, hackers and programmers. They dealt with the highest level of secure information. Military information, the Grid, even the Ever Cloud.
“Okay, so your brother’s a genius. Must piss you off, but what has that got to do with me?”
“He doesn’t want to work in service.”
I shrugged. “Can’t blame him.”
“I know. It’s his life, right? I don’t care what he does. But Dad does… Jinks, my dad isn’t well. I don’t want to go into it but he’s only got a few months left. A year tops. He wants him to be settled, have a good job. He thinks service is the best path. It’d mean so much to him. He’s worried about him.”
“Why is he worried?”
“My brother, well, he’s a bit wayward. He’s a bit of a lefty, truth be told. Hates the establishment. It’s all just student day rebellion, if you ask me. But, well, he was a big supporter of Gridless.”
Now my interest was piqued.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, not now. Not after we’ve proved they’re terrorists. He’s not radical or anything. But you can see why Dad’s concerned about him. He wants me to get him on the straight and narrow, make him see sense. A job in security would set him up for life. But he keeps harping on about the ERP being fascist.”
Good man.
“I’m sorry, Greyson, I still don’t see what this has to do with me.”
“He thinks I’m a stiff. He can’t relate to me. But you, you’re more on his level.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, c’mon, Jinks. You know. You’re vibrant… attractive. You’re not some government yes man like he thinks we all are. You could make him see that you don’t have to be a sell-out to work in service. You can make it work for you, not the other way around.”
My mind was racing. A Gridless supporter with the chance to work in the highest level of national security? Okay, there were a million hurdles, but it seemed too good not to at least scope out.
“Fine,” I said. “Set up drinks. I’ll turn on the charm, see if I can get him onside. I can’t promise anything, though.”
15
ROSA
By the time I’d finished my fourth concoction, Ted had offered me a job, and a home.
Ted’s Bar was the kind of place where nobody cared who you were. Nobody asked about your life because they were all there for the same reason: to escape theirs.
By the time the regulars started drifting in through the door, Ted was almost as pissed as I was. We’d spent the afternoon drinking and talking. He didn’t ask me any of the usual questions – what was Jimmy like? How are you coping? – in fact, he didn’t ask me anything at all. Instead he talked about the bar, about his van that needed new suspension but was ‘Okay as long as you floor it’, about his brother’s band. All the small stuff. The type of inconsequential chatting for chatting’s sake that had been absent from my life for so long.
He didn’t ask but, after enough of his free-flowing drinks, I told. Eventually, somewhere in between his anecdotes of what seemed an idyllic, carefree existence my mouth started moving, and I couldn’t stop it.
I confessed it all. How trapped I felt by my brother’s memory, how awful things were at home, how alone I was, how unseen. He didn’t seem shocked, or even concerned. He just shrugged his shoulders, and poured another drink.
“Hey, I could use some help here if you’re looking for a change of scene. I can’t pay you properly, but there’s a room upstairs sitting empty. You could stay here. If you want to get away from all that crap for a while.”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t know anything about working in a bar.”
“Well, that makes two of us then. To be fair, this place pretty much runs itself. Think about it. Stay a while, meet the punters. Let me know what you decide. I’m easy either way.”
That’s the thing about Ted. He’s easy. So laid-back he’s practically comatose. I’d never met anyone quite like him before. On the surface it might seem odd, suspicious even, for someone to offer a near stranger a home and a job so quickly. But that’s just how Ted is. He lives in the moment, doesn’t think too hard about tomorrow. Doesn’t concern himself with consequence or convention. I admired that. Still do. I don’t blame him for anything. He was only ever living for the here and now.
And he wasn’t kidding when he said the bar ran itself. When I heard the door open, and the first patron arrived, I wondered how the hell he was going to manage his shift when he was so inebriated. It was simple. He didn’t. To start with he pulled the pints, but as the evening went on he just moved round the bar, chatting with the regulars. People helped themselves, pulling foamy pints and dumping their coins on the counter. It was always that way. If a barrel ran out, and nobody was sober enough to change it, everyone just made do with whatever was left. That was the kind of place it was. No airs, no graces. But most importantly, no judgment.
The clientele weren’t exactly sophisticated: an eclectic mix of unemployed layabouts, blue-collar alcoholics and illegals. But they were friendly and accepting. A couple of them recognised me, but were more concerned with what I was drinking than who my brother was. My mother would have had a fit if she’d seen me consorting with such types, which only made it seem more appealing.
By the time Big Mikey (a huge guy with a squeaky laugh who looked like an aging eighties rocker with a greasy mullet and tattooed knuckles) had set fire to his fifth Sambuca, I’d made my decision. I had never felt so free and easy before. Granted, with the exception of the night I threw my virginity away, I’d never been so drunk before either. But facing the reality of my choices sober wasn’t something I’d ever need to worry about at Ted’s.
“I wanna stay,” I said, handing Ted a badly poured pint in my drunken attempt to show him I was keen.
“Cool.” Ted smiled. He stood up and grabbed my hand, holding it aloft. “Hey, guys,” he yelled, and the whole bar settled to a dull roar to listen. “Let me introduce my new barmaid, Rosa. C’mon, let’s make her welcome.”
Everyone cheered. Glasses chinked, big burly guys clapped me on the back. I was the girl of the moment. And for once, the attention I was getting was nothing to do with Jimmy, or Soheila, or some PID arranged publicity. They were clapping for me… just me. I was enough.
I had found a new home.
Needless to say, Mum went bat shit when I rolled up with Ted, in his battered van, to collect my stuff the next afternoon. I think I was still a little drunk from the night before because I simply didn’t care. Something had shifted within me. Perhaps it was the euphoria of finally having a choice in my own destiny, albeit not a very glamorous or constructive one. She ranted and raved, calling me ungrateful and stupid. But her words no longer hurt me. I had seen another path, a different way to live. A way that didn’t include her. I didn’t have to stay here, didn’t have to be who she wanted me to be. Didn’t have to spend every waking moment of every fucking day surrounded by Jimmy’s distorted legacy. And that meant she had no power over me anymore. Even when she realised her venom wasn’t hitting its target, and switched to crocodile tears and pleading, I was unmoved. It was too late to pretend she understood me.
When I loaded the final bag into the van, she knew she’d lost the battle. But she couldn’t resist a parting shot.
“I wish it had been you, not Jimmy!” she yelled. Tears streaked down her face, leaving tracks of mascara.
I just smiled. “Tell me something I don’t know,” I yelled back.
At least she’d finally said it. I hope the neighbours heard.
My room above Ted’s consisted of a mattress on the floor and a broken cupboard, but I didn’t care. All the luxuries I had grown up with seemed tainted and poisonous to me now. They were simply products of a world that turned on lies and spin. The raw, minimal nature of my new surroundings was the antidote I needed. We shared a (filthy) bathroom, and Ted said I could watch TV in his room whenever I wanted. I never did.
The university had already suggested I defer my place for a year, given my notoriety and all I must be going through. I fully intended to take them up on it. A year seemed like forever back then. I thought when the time came I’d be stronger. A few months at Ted’s, and I could seek a better paid job somewhere else. I’d save up and get a student loan so I could live on campus and never have to go home. That was the plan.
The trouble with plans is it isn’t enough just to have them. You have to actually act on them. That was the bit that tripped me up.
I fell into the routine of waking around lunchtime, staggering down to the bar and helping Ted open up. The regulars poured in as the afternoon turned to evening, and Ted encouraged me to drink with them.
“People come here for the company, and the friendly staff,” he said. “Knowing someone will always be here to chill with. That’s our selling point.”
I wondered how he turned any profit, when he and I sank so much booze ourselves. It didn’t take too long to find out.
16
TERESA
Greg Greyson was nothing like his brother. So he had that going for him at least.
I got Kyle to do some digging. He was cautiously excited at the prospect of a potential supporter in Security, and wasted no time uncovering Greg’s online life. He had been a supporter, Greyson was right. Not just an armchair one, either. Once Kyle uncovered his BANtor alias, it was clear why his big brother was so embarrassed. He’d been the ringleader of several protests at his campus, and hacked their computer networks so that Gridless’ logo, and latest message, played whenever someone tried to boot up their PC. He’d applied several times, via the Dark Web, to join our team for real. But Daniel had declined his requests, saying we had enough hackers already. Greg (under the alias Hawkfish) had begged to be considered, should we ever need more.
But that was before Daniel was caught, before the PIDs painted us as mass murderers. Would he still feel that way now? I had to find out.
We’d arranged to meet in Floren’s, a cocktail bar in the West End. I’m not sure whether Greyson was trying to impress me with his choice of location, or suggest to his brother that a career in Services would give him the wealth to hang out in such exclusive places. Either way he failed. Neither of us are the type to be wooed by such bourgeois extravagance.
But that’s Greyson all over. Suited, booted, slick and groomed. The perfect cog for a corporate machine. If he hadn’t gone into the PIDs, he’d have made an excellent junior executive for some faceless conglomerate. Greg was the total opposite. He looked out of place, sitting on a white leather bar stool in ripped jeans and vest top. He hadn’t shaved for a few days, and his slouched stance showed he wasn’t concerned with ‘power posture’ like his brother was.
Greyson did the introductions, looking slightly embarrassed at his brother’s lack of effort.
“So, I hear you did really well on the entrance tests?” I didn’t waste time on pleasantries. If Greg was as smart as Greyson said he was, then he already knew there was an ulterior motive to our little get-together.
“Yeah, well.” Greg shrugged.
“Don’t be modest!” Greyson clapped his shoulder. “Smashed mine out of the park, didn’t you, bro?”
Greg and I both winced at his attempt to sound casual.
“So they got you lined up for Security?” I took a swig of the neon blue cocktail Greyson had bought me. “Pretty good deal.”
“Only if you want to spend your life propping up neo-fascists,” Greg said, “which I don’t. But brother dearest seems to think money is more important than principles.”
Greyson scowled. “I know you don’t see it, but that’s because you’re young. You don’t remember how it was before. The ERP have done more to make this country safe and—”
“Oh, spare me.” Greg rolled his eyes. “Guess you can only read the script so many times before you start to believe it, huh?”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “I don’t vote ERP.”
Greyson’s mouth fell open. I guess he’d always assumed that his PID colleagues were supporters of Cole’s agenda in private as well as on the job.
“What?” I asked. “It’s not a condition of employment y’know. Anyway, the point is you don’t have to eat cake to work in a bakery. The PIDs pay me well for my skills, I get plenty of perks, and I like the job. You gotta get your living from somewhere. Who cares who the boss is as long as the deal’s good?”
I was being deliberately provocative. I wanted to see if Greg would bite. He did.
“That makes you worse than him, as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “He believes in their crap. I fundamentally disagree with everything he stands for, but at least he’s standing for something. To help promote a regime you don’t even believe in? Just for money? That makes you a sell-out in my book.”
Greyson snapped at him and flushed red. But I smiled. The image of Rosa, mouthing off at me in her middle-class bedroom, flashed through my mind. He was just like her. A spoiled little rich kid with delusions of rebellion. No wonder they hit it off so well. But, unlike Rosa, this kid had skills I could use. Time to up the ante.
“I’m not saying I disagree with the ERP,” I said, “just that I didn’t vote for them. You’ve got to admire the way they’re dealing with threats like Gridless though…”
Greg laughed. Not a real laugh. One of those sarcastic, forced chuckles people give when they want to imply your argument is so stupid it’s actually funny.
“Threat? What fucking threat? You don’t actually believe your own hype, do you?”
“What’s not to believe?” I asked. “Gridless were going to blow up the Underground. I’ve seen the blueprints myself.”
“You don’t know how deep the rabbit hole goes, do you?” He was getting cocky now. “I actually pity you guys.”
“That’s enough!” Greyson snapped. “Jinks, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise he’d be such an arse.”
“No worries,” I said, downing my drink. The place was filling up. I glanced at the bar; it was ten deep. It’d take ages to get served. “I like a passionate debate.” I waved my empty glass at him. “Get me another, would you? I’ve got a thirst on now.”
He looked a bit put out, or perhaps worried about leaving me alone with the black sheep of his family. It’s hard to tell with Greyson. He mouthed something to his brother (probably telling him to be nice) and walked off to the bar, leaving me and Greg by ourselves.
“You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” I leaned across the table and hissed at him. “I know your type. Good at mouthing off, not so good at standing up. Got all the ideals, and the precious principles, but only from a distance. Don’t see you putting your arse on the line for your cause. Do you even have one?”
“I think that’s my business, not yours.”
“On the contrary, if you’re planning on consorting with terrorists, it’s absolutely my business.”
“Gridless were not terrorists!” He slammed his fist down on the table.
“You’re wrong,” I said, “but at least you’ve admitted you support them.”
“Yeah. You know what? Fuck it. I did support them. And I don’t believe all this crap you guys have been brainwashing the country with. No matter what you say.”
I stared at him. Could I take the risk? Kyle had cautioned me to play it safe, not give too much away. Even to a supporter. But he wasn’t witnessing his own decline. Every time I walked into that shitty little hideout I wondered what I’d find. The solitude, the fear, it was getting to him. Suggesting we throw in the towel? Kyle was losing it. Sometimes, taking a risk is less dangerous than sticking with the status quo.
“You misunderstood,” I said. “I said you were wrong, and you are.”
“Then we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Not when it comes to Gridless. You said, they ‘were not terrorists’, but I’m afraid the correct statement would be ‘we are not terrorists’.”
He sat back, staring at me. For an intelligent guy he didn’t seem to be getting the point as quickly as he should.
“Have you ever considered,” I said, “that the best way to take down a city is from within its walls?”
“Are you saying…?”
“Take. The. Fucking. Job,” I said. “If you want in, that is. Or you could just sit there watching BANtor, hoping for some glimpse of us that won’t ever come. Because without someone in Security, me and Kyle are pretty stuffed when it comes to communications.”
“Kyle?” he asked. “Kyle Redwood?”
“The same,” I said.
“Oh my fucking God! I don’t believe this. This is so exciting. How many are left? What are you planning?”
“Would you… well, it’s a little bit unusual, but would you…”
“Spit it out then.”
“Would you have a drink with my brother?”
What the fuck?
“I’m not into setups,” I said. “I’m sorry if your brother’s having a hard time getting laid, but when I said I owed you one I meant workwise.”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. I’d be there too.”
“That sounds even more dodgy.”
He sighed. “I’m not going about this very well. Let me start again. My brother, he’s a lot younger than me. Just turned twenty-three. He’s just finished his computing degree, and Dad talked him into taking the service tests.”
The service tests were aptitude tests anyone who wanted to work in the intelligence sector had to take. From PIDS, to military intelligence, to the secret service. They were designed to help assign recruits to the best branch of our family of public deceit organisations.
“Yeah, and? Did he fail? I can’t help him with that. You gotta wait six months and retake.” Trust me, I know.
“No. No he didn’t fail. He scored three hundred twenty-seven.”
I whistled. I’d got 245, on my second attempt. “Shit. That’s impressive. That’s—”
“Security level, I know.”
Security was the branch reserved for the most gifted. The best encrypters, hackers and programmers. They dealt with the highest level of secure information. Military information, the Grid, even the Ever Cloud.
“Okay, so your brother’s a genius. Must piss you off, but what has that got to do with me?”
“He doesn’t want to work in service.”
I shrugged. “Can’t blame him.”
“I know. It’s his life, right? I don’t care what he does. But Dad does… Jinks, my dad isn’t well. I don’t want to go into it but he’s only got a few months left. A year tops. He wants him to be settled, have a good job. He thinks service is the best path. It’d mean so much to him. He’s worried about him.”
“Why is he worried?”
“My brother, well, he’s a bit wayward. He’s a bit of a lefty, truth be told. Hates the establishment. It’s all just student day rebellion, if you ask me. But, well, he was a big supporter of Gridless.”
Now my interest was piqued.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, not now. Not after we’ve proved they’re terrorists. He’s not radical or anything. But you can see why Dad’s concerned about him. He wants me to get him on the straight and narrow, make him see sense. A job in security would set him up for life. But he keeps harping on about the ERP being fascist.”
Good man.
“I’m sorry, Greyson, I still don’t see what this has to do with me.”
“He thinks I’m a stiff. He can’t relate to me. But you, you’re more on his level.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, c’mon, Jinks. You know. You’re vibrant… attractive. You’re not some government yes man like he thinks we all are. You could make him see that you don’t have to be a sell-out to work in service. You can make it work for you, not the other way around.”
My mind was racing. A Gridless supporter with the chance to work in the highest level of national security? Okay, there were a million hurdles, but it seemed too good not to at least scope out.
“Fine,” I said. “Set up drinks. I’ll turn on the charm, see if I can get him onside. I can’t promise anything, though.”
15
ROSA
By the time I’d finished my fourth concoction, Ted had offered me a job, and a home.
Ted’s Bar was the kind of place where nobody cared who you were. Nobody asked about your life because they were all there for the same reason: to escape theirs.
By the time the regulars started drifting in through the door, Ted was almost as pissed as I was. We’d spent the afternoon drinking and talking. He didn’t ask me any of the usual questions – what was Jimmy like? How are you coping? – in fact, he didn’t ask me anything at all. Instead he talked about the bar, about his van that needed new suspension but was ‘Okay as long as you floor it’, about his brother’s band. All the small stuff. The type of inconsequential chatting for chatting’s sake that had been absent from my life for so long.
He didn’t ask but, after enough of his free-flowing drinks, I told. Eventually, somewhere in between his anecdotes of what seemed an idyllic, carefree existence my mouth started moving, and I couldn’t stop it.
I confessed it all. How trapped I felt by my brother’s memory, how awful things were at home, how alone I was, how unseen. He didn’t seem shocked, or even concerned. He just shrugged his shoulders, and poured another drink.
“Hey, I could use some help here if you’re looking for a change of scene. I can’t pay you properly, but there’s a room upstairs sitting empty. You could stay here. If you want to get away from all that crap for a while.”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t know anything about working in a bar.”
“Well, that makes two of us then. To be fair, this place pretty much runs itself. Think about it. Stay a while, meet the punters. Let me know what you decide. I’m easy either way.”
That’s the thing about Ted. He’s easy. So laid-back he’s practically comatose. I’d never met anyone quite like him before. On the surface it might seem odd, suspicious even, for someone to offer a near stranger a home and a job so quickly. But that’s just how Ted is. He lives in the moment, doesn’t think too hard about tomorrow. Doesn’t concern himself with consequence or convention. I admired that. Still do. I don’t blame him for anything. He was only ever living for the here and now.
And he wasn’t kidding when he said the bar ran itself. When I heard the door open, and the first patron arrived, I wondered how the hell he was going to manage his shift when he was so inebriated. It was simple. He didn’t. To start with he pulled the pints, but as the evening went on he just moved round the bar, chatting with the regulars. People helped themselves, pulling foamy pints and dumping their coins on the counter. It was always that way. If a barrel ran out, and nobody was sober enough to change it, everyone just made do with whatever was left. That was the kind of place it was. No airs, no graces. But most importantly, no judgment.
The clientele weren’t exactly sophisticated: an eclectic mix of unemployed layabouts, blue-collar alcoholics and illegals. But they were friendly and accepting. A couple of them recognised me, but were more concerned with what I was drinking than who my brother was. My mother would have had a fit if she’d seen me consorting with such types, which only made it seem more appealing.
By the time Big Mikey (a huge guy with a squeaky laugh who looked like an aging eighties rocker with a greasy mullet and tattooed knuckles) had set fire to his fifth Sambuca, I’d made my decision. I had never felt so free and easy before. Granted, with the exception of the night I threw my virginity away, I’d never been so drunk before either. But facing the reality of my choices sober wasn’t something I’d ever need to worry about at Ted’s.
“I wanna stay,” I said, handing Ted a badly poured pint in my drunken attempt to show him I was keen.
“Cool.” Ted smiled. He stood up and grabbed my hand, holding it aloft. “Hey, guys,” he yelled, and the whole bar settled to a dull roar to listen. “Let me introduce my new barmaid, Rosa. C’mon, let’s make her welcome.”
Everyone cheered. Glasses chinked, big burly guys clapped me on the back. I was the girl of the moment. And for once, the attention I was getting was nothing to do with Jimmy, or Soheila, or some PID arranged publicity. They were clapping for me… just me. I was enough.
I had found a new home.
Needless to say, Mum went bat shit when I rolled up with Ted, in his battered van, to collect my stuff the next afternoon. I think I was still a little drunk from the night before because I simply didn’t care. Something had shifted within me. Perhaps it was the euphoria of finally having a choice in my own destiny, albeit not a very glamorous or constructive one. She ranted and raved, calling me ungrateful and stupid. But her words no longer hurt me. I had seen another path, a different way to live. A way that didn’t include her. I didn’t have to stay here, didn’t have to be who she wanted me to be. Didn’t have to spend every waking moment of every fucking day surrounded by Jimmy’s distorted legacy. And that meant she had no power over me anymore. Even when she realised her venom wasn’t hitting its target, and switched to crocodile tears and pleading, I was unmoved. It was too late to pretend she understood me.
When I loaded the final bag into the van, she knew she’d lost the battle. But she couldn’t resist a parting shot.
“I wish it had been you, not Jimmy!” she yelled. Tears streaked down her face, leaving tracks of mascara.
I just smiled. “Tell me something I don’t know,” I yelled back.
At least she’d finally said it. I hope the neighbours heard.
My room above Ted’s consisted of a mattress on the floor and a broken cupboard, but I didn’t care. All the luxuries I had grown up with seemed tainted and poisonous to me now. They were simply products of a world that turned on lies and spin. The raw, minimal nature of my new surroundings was the antidote I needed. We shared a (filthy) bathroom, and Ted said I could watch TV in his room whenever I wanted. I never did.
The university had already suggested I defer my place for a year, given my notoriety and all I must be going through. I fully intended to take them up on it. A year seemed like forever back then. I thought when the time came I’d be stronger. A few months at Ted’s, and I could seek a better paid job somewhere else. I’d save up and get a student loan so I could live on campus and never have to go home. That was the plan.
The trouble with plans is it isn’t enough just to have them. You have to actually act on them. That was the bit that tripped me up.
I fell into the routine of waking around lunchtime, staggering down to the bar and helping Ted open up. The regulars poured in as the afternoon turned to evening, and Ted encouraged me to drink with them.
“People come here for the company, and the friendly staff,” he said. “Knowing someone will always be here to chill with. That’s our selling point.”
I wondered how he turned any profit, when he and I sank so much booze ourselves. It didn’t take too long to find out.
16
TERESA
Greg Greyson was nothing like his brother. So he had that going for him at least.
I got Kyle to do some digging. He was cautiously excited at the prospect of a potential supporter in Security, and wasted no time uncovering Greg’s online life. He had been a supporter, Greyson was right. Not just an armchair one, either. Once Kyle uncovered his BANtor alias, it was clear why his big brother was so embarrassed. He’d been the ringleader of several protests at his campus, and hacked their computer networks so that Gridless’ logo, and latest message, played whenever someone tried to boot up their PC. He’d applied several times, via the Dark Web, to join our team for real. But Daniel had declined his requests, saying we had enough hackers already. Greg (under the alias Hawkfish) had begged to be considered, should we ever need more.
But that was before Daniel was caught, before the PIDs painted us as mass murderers. Would he still feel that way now? I had to find out.
We’d arranged to meet in Floren’s, a cocktail bar in the West End. I’m not sure whether Greyson was trying to impress me with his choice of location, or suggest to his brother that a career in Services would give him the wealth to hang out in such exclusive places. Either way he failed. Neither of us are the type to be wooed by such bourgeois extravagance.
But that’s Greyson all over. Suited, booted, slick and groomed. The perfect cog for a corporate machine. If he hadn’t gone into the PIDs, he’d have made an excellent junior executive for some faceless conglomerate. Greg was the total opposite. He looked out of place, sitting on a white leather bar stool in ripped jeans and vest top. He hadn’t shaved for a few days, and his slouched stance showed he wasn’t concerned with ‘power posture’ like his brother was.
Greyson did the introductions, looking slightly embarrassed at his brother’s lack of effort.
“So, I hear you did really well on the entrance tests?” I didn’t waste time on pleasantries. If Greg was as smart as Greyson said he was, then he already knew there was an ulterior motive to our little get-together.
“Yeah, well.” Greg shrugged.
“Don’t be modest!” Greyson clapped his shoulder. “Smashed mine out of the park, didn’t you, bro?”
Greg and I both winced at his attempt to sound casual.
“So they got you lined up for Security?” I took a swig of the neon blue cocktail Greyson had bought me. “Pretty good deal.”
“Only if you want to spend your life propping up neo-fascists,” Greg said, “which I don’t. But brother dearest seems to think money is more important than principles.”
Greyson scowled. “I know you don’t see it, but that’s because you’re young. You don’t remember how it was before. The ERP have done more to make this country safe and—”
“Oh, spare me.” Greg rolled his eyes. “Guess you can only read the script so many times before you start to believe it, huh?”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “I don’t vote ERP.”
Greyson’s mouth fell open. I guess he’d always assumed that his PID colleagues were supporters of Cole’s agenda in private as well as on the job.
“What?” I asked. “It’s not a condition of employment y’know. Anyway, the point is you don’t have to eat cake to work in a bakery. The PIDs pay me well for my skills, I get plenty of perks, and I like the job. You gotta get your living from somewhere. Who cares who the boss is as long as the deal’s good?”
I was being deliberately provocative. I wanted to see if Greg would bite. He did.
“That makes you worse than him, as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “He believes in their crap. I fundamentally disagree with everything he stands for, but at least he’s standing for something. To help promote a regime you don’t even believe in? Just for money? That makes you a sell-out in my book.”
Greyson snapped at him and flushed red. But I smiled. The image of Rosa, mouthing off at me in her middle-class bedroom, flashed through my mind. He was just like her. A spoiled little rich kid with delusions of rebellion. No wonder they hit it off so well. But, unlike Rosa, this kid had skills I could use. Time to up the ante.
“I’m not saying I disagree with the ERP,” I said, “just that I didn’t vote for them. You’ve got to admire the way they’re dealing with threats like Gridless though…”
Greg laughed. Not a real laugh. One of those sarcastic, forced chuckles people give when they want to imply your argument is so stupid it’s actually funny.
“Threat? What fucking threat? You don’t actually believe your own hype, do you?”
“What’s not to believe?” I asked. “Gridless were going to blow up the Underground. I’ve seen the blueprints myself.”
“You don’t know how deep the rabbit hole goes, do you?” He was getting cocky now. “I actually pity you guys.”
“That’s enough!” Greyson snapped. “Jinks, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise he’d be such an arse.”
“No worries,” I said, downing my drink. The place was filling up. I glanced at the bar; it was ten deep. It’d take ages to get served. “I like a passionate debate.” I waved my empty glass at him. “Get me another, would you? I’ve got a thirst on now.”
He looked a bit put out, or perhaps worried about leaving me alone with the black sheep of his family. It’s hard to tell with Greyson. He mouthed something to his brother (probably telling him to be nice) and walked off to the bar, leaving me and Greg by ourselves.
“You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” I leaned across the table and hissed at him. “I know your type. Good at mouthing off, not so good at standing up. Got all the ideals, and the precious principles, but only from a distance. Don’t see you putting your arse on the line for your cause. Do you even have one?”
“I think that’s my business, not yours.”
“On the contrary, if you’re planning on consorting with terrorists, it’s absolutely my business.”
“Gridless were not terrorists!” He slammed his fist down on the table.
“You’re wrong,” I said, “but at least you’ve admitted you support them.”
“Yeah. You know what? Fuck it. I did support them. And I don’t believe all this crap you guys have been brainwashing the country with. No matter what you say.”
I stared at him. Could I take the risk? Kyle had cautioned me to play it safe, not give too much away. Even to a supporter. But he wasn’t witnessing his own decline. Every time I walked into that shitty little hideout I wondered what I’d find. The solitude, the fear, it was getting to him. Suggesting we throw in the towel? Kyle was losing it. Sometimes, taking a risk is less dangerous than sticking with the status quo.
“You misunderstood,” I said. “I said you were wrong, and you are.”
“Then we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Not when it comes to Gridless. You said, they ‘were not terrorists’, but I’m afraid the correct statement would be ‘we are not terrorists’.”
He sat back, staring at me. For an intelligent guy he didn’t seem to be getting the point as quickly as he should.
“Have you ever considered,” I said, “that the best way to take down a city is from within its walls?”
“Are you saying…?”
“Take. The. Fucking. Job,” I said. “If you want in, that is. Or you could just sit there watching BANtor, hoping for some glimpse of us that won’t ever come. Because without someone in Security, me and Kyle are pretty stuffed when it comes to communications.”
“Kyle?” he asked. “Kyle Redwood?”
“The same,” I said.
“Oh my fucking God! I don’t believe this. This is so exciting. How many are left? What are you planning?”
