Day Zero

the country – was like a pot left too long on a lit hob. It hadn’t boiled over yet, but it wouldn’t be long.
He wasn’t looking forward to it. He’d been in nappies when things started unravelling, and it hadn’t gotten any better since. When it came time to divvy up the haves and the have-nots, he was definitely the latter. But when things got bad, it was always the have-nots who got the wrong end of the stick. Money was tight – and getting tighter.
Crappy as his job was, he was lucky to have it. Most of his peers couldn’t say the same. The ones who weren’t dealing for Clan Kelley or one of the smaller syndicates were working part time at the local chippie or on the dole.
He hopped the bike over a cracked kerb, scattering pedestrians. A courier-drone shot past him, waggling its fans in an almost taunting manner. He longed to catch up with it and knock it out of the air, but that would only attract the wrong type of attention, no matter how good it might feel. Then, it was that sort of thing that had gotten DedSec to notice him in the first place. Thankfully, they’d gotten to him before the police.
Sometimes, he wondered if there’d even been police on him – or if that was just what he’d been told. DedSec needed recruits, and they weren’t shy about playing dirty to get them. Maybe that was just the way of it. If you weren’t on one side, you were on the other. Whether you knew it or not. All in all, he preferred to be on his bike.
He took a turn, weaving along a cut-across. He was fairly certain he wasn’t being followed, but you could never be too careful. He’d been around long enough to know that sometimes the Filth let a suspect run to the end of their tether, hoping the little fish would lead them to the big ones. But none of his security programs were pinging. As far as the drones overhead were concerned, he was nothing special. Even so, that didn’t mean he wasn’t being watched.
He hopped a kerb and pedalled through a car park, weaving around the vehicles. He tapped the Optik and activated a mirror program. It would clone the GPS signals of the cars he passed, and substitute them for his own. It wouldn’t fool a dedicated trace for long, but it would make it harder for the casual observer to follow his trail.
Given what he was carrying, a bit of pre-emptive evasive action seemed only sensible. And Olly was nothing if not sensible, these days. He liked to think that he’d come a long way from the kid who’d cracked shelf-stacking bots, or made cash machines spit notes.
Only time would tell whether any of it mattered at all. When DedSec had offered him a way out, he’d taken it. A chance to purge his record, stay out of nick and maybe, just maybe, do something important for once. Even if he wasn’t sure what that was, just yet.
Oliver Soames. What is my favourite trainee up to today?
Olly blinked, startled. The voice in his ear was light, the accent smooth RP – like polished chrome. A newscaster or a telemarketer. Friendly, open and sociable.
“Heading home, Bagley,” he murmured. “Unless something’s up…?”
By home, I assume you mean Limehouse?
“Where else would I mean?”
Fair point. Do you have it?
“If I didn’t, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be coming home, now would I?”
Language, Oliver. I’m very sensitive. Besides, you never know who might be listening.
“Hopefully nobody,” Olly said, sharply. “This is a secure channel, right?”
Safe as houses. The channel has been piggybacked, cloned and reversed.
“None of that means anything.”
A silly question deserved a silly answer.
Olly bit back a retort. There was no use arguing with Bagley. You might as well argue with a toaster. His personality was a mirror – you saw what you expected. A pre-packaged rudimentary AI personal assistant, available to anyone who owned a Blume Optik.
I can hear you grinding your teeth, Oliver. Remember, life’s better with Bagley.
Olly grunted. The consumer model version of Bagley was only as smart as his parameters allowed him to be. DedSec had discovered a number of constraints on his programming, no doubt put in place by Blume. Removing those constraints had a few unfortunate side-effects. Standard Bagley was pleasant. DedSec Bagley was an annoying sod. If that was the original intent of the program’s creator, Olly considered him due a punch or three in the gob.
I recommend you take a short cut through Lister House.
“What?”
It’ll cut your time by five minutes. It might interest you to know that both it and Treves House were designed in 1956 by the architect, Count Ralph Smorczewski-
“Fine,” Olly interjected quickly. If anything went wrong, he could always just blame Bagley. He swept through the narrow footpaths of the council estate, moving quickly. His alerts were chiming, feeding him data on the crowd that was gathering in the common area.
Someone had set up a low stage and a microphone. Chairs had been set out, but not enough. He thought he spied Hannah Shah, next to a tall woman in professional attire, on the stage, along with representatives of the local council. Shah didn’t look happy. Then, given the mood of the crowd, she probably wished she was anywhere else. He skirted the edges of the crowd, trawling for faces and names, to be stored for later perusal.
Information was better than money, especially given the current exchange rate. Like the thing in his pocket. An envelope – she’d put it in an envelope. Who did that? You could buy signal blockers in any phone shop on the high street.
“Amateurs,” he muttered.
You’re one to talk. You still have training wheels on.
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about!”
I can crunch cryptocurrency algorithms and write a focus-grouped bestselling novel simultaneously. Extrapolating what you’re muttering about is child’s play. I – hang on.
“What is it?”
There’s something –
Olly didn’t