The Codex File (2012) (15 page)

“
Look, you better start talking soon or I’m calling the police,” Michael said as they reached the path, pulling a mobile phone from his jacket pocket.

“
Don’t use one of those. Never use one of those. In fact turn it off completely otherwise they’ll be triangulating your position,” the man said urgently, putting his hands up to stop Michael dialing. “They’re the easiest things for them to detect us on.”

A little non-plussed Michael put the phone away, sensing the man was finally ready to talk.

“
Do you know who killed my wife and daughter?” he demanded.

“
I have a fair idea,” the man replied.

Michael felt his pulse race, although realising he still had no idea who this man was.

“
Who? Tell me.”

“
I’ll come to that. But there are other things you need to know first. Things that put this into a much wider context. But you must turn your phone off. Now.”

Michael frowned but didn’t protest, fearing to alienate the man. And pulling his phone again from his pocket he turned the device off completely before turning back to the man.

“
The first thing you have to know and understand is that UKCitizensNet and SemComNet are a sham, from start to finish. Your wife and SW Technologies were putting together a bid to run the online state network. And a legitimate bid as well, I’m sure.”

“
She was Project Manager for it. Why, what are you getting at?”

“
David Langley at ACE Solutions was also his company’s project lead for the bid.”

Michael nodded slowly.

“
Did you ever ask yourself why the previous thriving internet was banned in this country? Why a supremely strong international network, allowing unprecedented freedom of speech and information sharing, should be replaced by a national state network?”

Michael thought back to when the government had banned internet access two years previously, trying to remember Dr Marcus McCoy’s parliamentary rhetoric.

“
They said they wanted to reward UK enterprise and that the internet was riddled with illegal web sites. And broadband was too slow and companies providing it were fixing the price or something.”

The man scoffed.

“
UK enterprise? What bollocks. Do you want to know the real reason that web technology companies and ISPs were put out of business in this country? Because essentially the internet was unregulated. They couldn’t control it. So what did they do? They tell everyone that the internet is illegal, unreliable and slow. That it’s got to go. How do they get away with this? Easy, they go in for a bit of patriotic yank bashing by slagging off US browsers, social media websites, online applications, search engines, you name it. Soon this spreads and before you know it the computer industries in North America, Asia and the rest of Europe are Satan-incarnate. And we all just love to believe that British is best, don’t we? It goes without saying then that a wholly British-run replacement, the ‘people’s network’, is the computing messiah this country’s been waiting for.”

“
But what has this got to do with my wife and daughter?” Michael pleaded.

The man ignored Michael’s question and continued.

“
The one message UKCitizensNet loves to preach is the greater freedom the people’s network gives the country. The intranet has linked the country like never before, providing us with more information than we’ve ever had. It’s empowered us. Or so they would have us believe. UKCitizensNet is a sham and fundamentally undemocratic with no genuine or complete freedom of speech or expression. Did you know that if you want to have your own blog or website on UKCitizensNet that your submission, which is by the way more complicated than completing an online self-assessment tax form, goes through three UKCitizensNet advisory committees before being approved? And that’s if you get approved. Eighty per cent of personal web site applications are now refused on the most tenuous of grounds. On the old internet any ISP would offer you web space to publish anything you wanted. Social media sites allowed genuine freedom of expression and online communities exist. All with pretty much no questions asked. But you can’t do that today. Did you know that?”

Michael didn’t know that.

“
And what about the fucking sham they call the UKCitizensNet social networks? Every single network on UKCitizensNet is moderated, and do you know how many networks there are on UKCitizensNet? Tens, if not hundreds of thousands. Every message that is created or shared within a group is meticulously vetted by sophisticated software that is continually scanning content looking for flagged terms or strings of related words that might be somehow subversive. We’re talking intelligence service-level of vetting of online chatter, just to scan the banality of people’s lives. And all of this monitoring and surveillance is overseen by nameless analysts working for SemComNet. And like personal web site submissions seventy per cent of social network messaging is vetoed and removed from UKCitizensNet within minutes of creation. And guess what? No-one can do a thing about it. How can they? They voted McCoy and his puritan manifesto of online change into power, and now there’s no alternative. Just goes to show that people should be careful what they wish for!”

The man paused for breath, wiping away a bead of sweat that had begun running down the left of his temple.

“
Does that sound like democracy to you? Is that your definition of online privacy? Do you still feel empowered?”

“
You said you knew something about my wife and daughter?” Michael said finally, attempting to absorb and rationalise what the anonymous man had told him and what it had to do with his family’s murders.

The man nodded, anxiously looking about him as if he expected to be arrested any moment.

“
Ask yourself this then. Do you think that a mere computer company like SemComNet, no matter how big, could impose such control over the information we are fed everyday without help from somewhere else?”

Michael looked back blankly at the man, not sure whether he was really expecting a reply.

“
SemComNet, and therefore UKCitizensNet, are in the government’s pocket. Maybe not openly in the corridors of power. But somewhere, from within the government, maybe even McCoy himself, this whole fucking state network project is being controlled.”

Michael looked incredulous.

“
By the government? You can’t be serious.”

“
It’s the only organisation big enough and powerful enough to run it. That’s why your wife and David Langley were killed. To remove any competition to SemComNet’s tender bid and to steal the project plans rival companies were developing.”

A thousand thoughts bombarded Michael’s troubled mind.

“
But why not just commission SemComNet to develop the network? Or just have a nationalised intranet?”

The nervy man’s expression became more sorrowful as his face sagged a little.

“
The whole ‘people’s network’ tender was a sham as well. If they’d just commissioned SemComNet then the rest of the industry would have protested, UKCitizensNet would have got bad publicity and the project would ultimately have been doomed to failure. If McCoy nationalised a state network he loses the opportunity to be jingoistic and stir up patriotism. Remember, this is what happened while the supposed tenders were being prepared. By creating the illusion of a tender the government ensures the other companies involved develop their web and IT R&D pipelines. Neither SemComNet nor the government had all the answers for this online technology. So what do they do? They kill the project leads and indulge in corporate espionage by stealing the rival companies’ information. Any other competitor is rendered impotent and SemComNet is the only company who can meet the state network tender requirements. Quite a technological coup d’etat, wouldn’t you say?”

“
No, it doesn’t make sense,” Michael said slowly. “I don’t believe the government killed my wife. Besides, Vincent Trevellion identified the man who attacked him, the man who killed my wife and daughter. His name is Wilkes, Davey Wilkes, an anti-net campaigner.”

The man scoffed again, looking all around him.

“
What? Those fucking illiterates? I don’t think so. What the fuck do they care about the internet? They’re just Green anti-road protesters. They were made scapegoats for the killings.”

A terrible thought began to form in Michael’s head. The nervy man sensed what he was thinking.

“
Who was it who identified Davey Wilkes? It was Vincent Trevellion. Who does Vincent Trevellion work for? SemComNet. Who benefited the most out of the deaths of your wife and David Langley? SemComNet.”

The man paused as Michael held his head in his hands.

“
SemComNet, Vincent Trevellion, or someone working for him, unquestionably murdered your wife and daughter.”

“
But why Clare? What did she have to do with the tender bid? She was only a child.”

The man looked down and shook his head slowly, for once not having an answer.

“
I don’t know why they killed your daughter. Maybe the death of a child was intended to totally condemn Davey Wilkes and the supposed anti-net campaigners in the eyes of the public.”

Michael looked up, suddenly aware one of bit of information was missing.

“
How do you know all this? And who the hell are you?”

The nervy man instantly became more anxious as Michael raised his voice, afraid that the arresting hordes were about to descend upon him.

“
Keep your voice down,” he hissed, sitting down on a nearby bench. “Me and some of my colleagues are what you might call internet patriots. We strive to keep the old internet alive in whatever way possible, even though the government has banned it. Across the country we’ve been re-establishing a communications structure for the old internet by starting up servers again, repairing routers, hubs and old broadband connections. We’re an online splinter group trying to reconnect to the old principles of an online network. The only problem is the government knows about us and our activities. To start with we just got arrested, roughed up a bit, had our hardware and kit stolen, and given a caution. But when they realised we were probing into the very workings of UKCitizensNet and all its clandestine advisory committees, things got nasty. Our houses were ransacked. Friends and family were threatened. Our bank accounts were frozen. We had to go into hiding. And for two years we’ve been in hiding, secretly communicating with a handful of opponents to UKCitizensNet, or Fuck-the-Citizens-Net as we like to call it. We’re always having to move the kit that connects us together and to the rest of the world to avoid detection from the authorities. Unfortunately, they’ve managed to seize a lot of our hardware. It’s put our plans of exposing them back by months.”

“
Why haven’t you gone to the police or the press?”

The man laughed dismissively.

“
We’d be picked up in a matter of hours. This is the government and intelligence services we’re talking about. They’re always looking for us, watching us. They could be watching us right now. They’re almost certainly watching you. If they think you know something about UKCitizensNet and its development, they’ll be watching you. Why do you think I was so careful about where we met?”

Michael didn’t hear the last sentence as an image of Colette’s folder of files and the meeting minutes Vera had given him flashed through his mind.

“
Can you prove who killed my wife and daughter?” Michael finally asked firmly.

“
Proof,” the man sneered. “There isn’t any concrete proof. They’re too clever for that. We only know what we know through hours of testing and probing UKCitizensNet, of being harassed by the police, of knowing that others like us are being sought by
them
for what they know.”

As the man’s disdain echoed in the cold air, Michael felt his anger begin to rise.

“
You’ve made me listen to this conspiracy theory rubbish, have made me relive the horror of discovering my wife’s mutilated body and having to identify my daughter’s corpse. All because of paranoid delusions that you can’t even prove? Delusions that are so preposterous I should have seen through them straight away.”

“
Michael, believe me, they’re not delusions. This is all real. Do I look like I’m fucking joking? Would I have been on the run for two years if this wasn’t happening?”

Michael rose from the bench, his face contorted in anger.

“
Do you want to know what I think? I think you’re some sort of sick voyeur who gets off on death and misery. I think you created this whole conspiracy in the hope I would reveal one detail about my wife and daughter’s death that wasn’t in the papers or on UKCitizensNet. A detail you could get off on. That’s what I think.”

The man shook his head fervently, agitated by the attention Michael was bringing to them both.

“
No, you must listen to me, it’s all…”

But he never completed the sentence as Michael angrily pushed past him and headed back in the direction of the steps leading onto Kingston Bridge.

Shaking his head he sighed and thought about what he would say to the others. He’d tried, but perhaps not surprisingly, Michael hadn’t wanted to hear his message.

But then he wouldn’t be the first.

5
^th
June 2009