Red

Red by Chris Green

The best way to predict the future is to create it, Brett Doobie is fond of saying. It is a good line to come out with at dinner parties. Abraham Lincoln, he might add, after a suitable pause while fellow guests wonder who he is quoting. Brett could not possibly imagine how true this adage would prove to be. When one Thursday afternoon at his workstation at Hamilton Kleist, he clicks on the fatal red link. How could he be aware of what he was OK-ing? How could he suspect that selecting this outbound link would cause a global panic? How could something with such devastating consequences be just a click away? Hamilton Kleist markets mobile phones.

Brett should never have been given this option. He should not be logged in at this clearance level. Is he daydreaming again? His basic training will have covered HK’s colour- coded security levels. He is in on Red. Red is Top Tier. Only Curtis Hamilton has Red clearance. Only Curtis Hamilton would be allowed to authorise the release of HK’s radical new smart device. This is still awaiting government approval, and because of its deadly capabilities, the device is unlikely to get the go ahead at the present time. Curtis Hamilton, confident that government attitudes will change, has been holding back on the launch until the political climate is more favourable.

Employees are, of course, entitled to their holidays, but shouldn’t Kieran, HK’s IT Administrator, have closed up the vulnerability in the system that allowed Brett Doobie in on Red before he jetted off to the Seychelles with his new girlfriend, Sacha? Was Kieran too enamoured with his new flame to check the coding modifications that Tom Moon, his young programmer from the agency, has added? We have seen how even minor coding changes can cause major IT outages. If you were to see Sacha in the flesh, you might be tempted to suggest that Kieran was punching above his weight, but his being in such a responsible position, you might be tempted to suggest that it was remiss of him not to delay his flight.

The phrase Weapons of Mass Distraction was first coined when smartphones were launched, although these early devices were modest in their ambition. They were seen as a fun addition to everyday life. A helpful friend. They were not thought of in terms of their destructive potential. But they were only ever two letters away from becoming Weapons of Mass Destruction. It seemed a natural progression for them to one day join their atomic cousins to realise their deadly purpose.

Thanks to Brett Doobie’s intervention, the HK73 becomes available to purchase from HK’s online store, and is winging its way to retail outlets around the globe before Curtis Hamilton becomes aware of it. You cannot get the HK73 on contract, but you can purchase the entry model for just £373. Naturally enough for a revolutionary new product, the 73 generates enormous interest. The device is not much larger than a conventional smartphone, but has impressive destructive capabilities. It has powerful hacking software built-in, and with the ZAP app that comes with the top of the range model can eradicate a group of people over a distance of several hundred miles. No projectile needed, therefore, more convenient than a drone. Because of the demand, it quickly becomes impractical, if not impossible, to recall it. Plus, of course, the possibility that if HK were to withdraw it, Apple or Samsung might leap in and steal a march on them. It would be naïve to imagine that they, too, were not developing ZAP technology. And what about Miles Highman’s new startup, PurplePhones? Miles has announced it is his mission to change the function and focus of the phone. He is planning to change the very way we think of handheld mobile devices.

‘Look at this, Kieran,’ Sacha says, pulling up the peak on her sun-cap. She and Kieran are on a Beau Vallon beach on the north-west coast of Mahé in the Seychelles. Sacha has logged in on her phone for the first time in days. The signal on her network has been all but non-existent here in The Seychelles. But a new love affair is a beautiful thing, and being out of communication with the world has not bothered them greatly. And the temperatures have been in the high twenties all week.

‘Hamilton Kleist is under investigation for its new product range, she reads. ‘There have been incidents worldwide where people have used the powerful new ZAP software that comes with the new HK73 to murder people hundreds of miles away. What’s that all about? In some cases, groups of them. Planes have dropped out of the sky. ….. The HK73 range? Isn’t that the one you were working on?’

‘What!’

‘And major retailers, including Asda, Amazon, and Ikea, have had their computer systems hacked. This has led to global consumer chaos. They think this might be down to HK’s new device too. It goes on to say that Harry Champion, an opportunistic podcaster journalist, has discovered that one Brett Doobie, who works at Hamilton Kleist, may have clicked on the wrong coloured link and that this changed some critical coding. A change that triggered the launch of the HK73 that was responsible for upheaval. Neither Hamilton nor Kleist were available for comment. ……. The wrong link can cause all this mayhem? Is it really that simple, Kieran?’

‘Could you pass the bottle, Sacha? I think I might need a drink.’

‘At least they can’t blame it on you, can they, as you weren’t there?’

………………………………………………….

Despite the extravagant media reports, only a handful of remote killings have so far been confirmed, these mostly in war-torn areas. But the potential for this to escalate is there and must be nipped in the bud. Curtis Hamilton is eventually tracked down to his mountain retreat and told Hamilton Kleist must disable the ZAP software and withdraw the HK73 from service. Curtis claims that he had not planned to launch it so soon, but there had been an unforeseen glitch. But now that it is out there, he says, perhaps it should be given a chance. After all, with all the wars taking place around the world, thousands are killed every day, anyway. What’s the difference? Either the killing is all wrong or none of it is wrong. You can’t have it both ways. Besides, the world’s population is spiralling out of control. In this context, the HK73 should perhaps be seen as a blessing in disguise. Understandably, his view does not go down well. The world is not ready for any means of forced population control, let alone one in the hands of rich mobile phone users, Curtis’s refusal to co-operate leads to his arrest.

Brett Doobie, meanwhile, has just realised that he may have been responsible for unleashing what is being described as the greatest societal threat for decades. He remembers coming out once or twice with the Abraham Lincoln quote, ‘the best way to predict the future is to create it,’ and John Kennedy’s, ‘those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.’ He wasn’t talking about himself. He has never seen himself as creative, let alone a creator. He has never wanted to change anything. Quoting American presidents is a way to overcome his shyness, his English reserve, nothing more. To Brett, America represents confidence. America does not do introverts.

His wife, Betty, is trying to comfort him.

‘You didn’t like working at HK anyway,’ Betty says. ‘You were always coming home moaning about how you had lost your parking space or how terrible the food was in the canteen.’

‘I don’t think you realise how serious this is, Betty,’ Brett says. ‘Thousands of people have been killed. That’s not easy to sweep under the carpet.’

‘But just now you said it was probably Kieran’s fault.’

‘Yeah! Like he’s going to take responsibility. I wouldn’t put it past him to blame Tom Moon, the young guy we took on last month. Just out of college and very shy. But other than that, Kieran’s bound to bring up that it was me who made the fatal click.’

‘Hamilton has been arrested. Surely he is the one they are really after.’

‘That’s not how it works. When someone like Curtis Hamilton gets arrested, their expensive legal team gets to work on shifting accountability elsewhere. They will move Heaven and Earth to prove that their man is innocent.’

Feeling something is not right within the company, Frank Kleist is doing his own investigation. He feels he has taken a back seat for too long and now his livelihood is threatened, he is determined to get to the bottom of what’s been going on in his absence.

‘I know it looks like he was hardly out of school, but did anyone actually check Tom Moon’s background?’ he asks Mandy Clinker, HK’s HR Manager.

‘I was on holiday, so I can’t be sure how thorough this was,’ Mandy says. ‘But it seems all the boxes were ticked. Moon was only with us for a short time, so not really long enough to get to know him. He did not draw attention to himself and he stopped coming in right after the launch of HK73. With everything that was happening here, I thought I had better do a more proper check on him. It turns out that Sheringham University, where he got his qualifications, does not exist, and 66 Fakenham Road, the address he gave, does not exist either. The numbers only go up to 64. And Charlie Parker, who he mentions as a referee, is, or rather was, better known as a jazz saxophonist. It would seem Tom Moon is a fraud.’

‘And no one has seen or heard from Moon since?’

‘No! I sent a memo through to Mr Hamilton at the time highlighting his disappearance, but it appears he has not found time to look at it.’

‘Curtis has had a lot on his plate lately, what with that business with the Inland Revenue, his son’s bankruptcy, and his divorce from Hermione. I think he’s been hiding away. And who could blame him for making himself scarce? Doctor’s orders, I’d say. And then, out of the blue, he gets arrested for this. He didn’t even know the HK73 was on the market. We purchased the tech from the Chinese in anticipation of legislation for its use being relaxed and were biding our time. I imagine Apple and Samsung will have done the same, and Miles Highman would certainly have been looking at PurplePhones coming out with an All Singing, All Dancing new device. Anyway, Mandy, I had no idea that we had released the HK73. It was a complete surprise when the alleged killings started and cyberspace began to collapse, followed by the wild accusations. …….. But, don’t worry, I’m on it now. Now look! We need to get to the bottom of how it happened. What about Kieran Friend? What do we know about him?’

Curtis Hamilton, meanwhile, is trying his damnedest to disassociate himself from the launch. He might be CEO of Hamilton Kleist, but that is not an admittance of responsibility for something that took place within the company in his absence. His solicitor, Guy Golfer of Fricker Goole argues that it is clearly an internal matter, and the investigation should be focussed there. His client ought not to be charged.

In the final analysis, all journalism is political, and the first golden rule of political journalism is that as soon as bad news can be buried, it will be. In this post-internet world, no matter how big the news story seems, it rarely hangs around for long. The attention span of the masses is minimal. Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame barely lasts fifteen seconds. The global uncertainty in the wake of the HK73’s launch might be more like fifteen days, but as soon as a day passes with no new reports of remote killings and no word of further corporate hackings, the story is no longer deemed to be of interest, and is unceremoniously dropped from media outlets everywhere. It takes a while for people to discover that the disappearance of these stories is down to PurplePhones, if they even notice that these concerns have vanished from their lives. Miles Highman, angry at his rivals launching the technological breakthrough to the world before he had a chance to do so, has found a way to disable the HK73 technology. A virtual change, of course, of just two letters, but nevertheless a biggie. Within a matter of hours, you can buy the device on eBay for less than a hundred pounds.

Curtis Hamilton is released without charge and Frank Kleist goes to ground once more. But by now, people no longer care. Who wants yesterday’s papers? Next week, most won’t remember who Frank was, won’t remember Curtis’s name, or be remotely interested in what has become of Brett Doobie, Kieran Friend, or Tom Moon. Hamilton Kleist will be just another phone company, perhaps with reduced status, but nothing more. The focus will have shifted. A new narrative will have emerged. There will be a new kid on the block with villainous intent, a new threat to our survival, a new nightmare to give us sleepless nights. This will get blanket news coverage and deliver a new vehicle for misinformation, but, rest-assured, it will not stay around for long. It will be subject to the ever shrinking length of the product life cycle of a news story in the post-internet age. It will feed in to the low boredom threshold that the medium has created. Meanwhile, AI will be busy readying tomorrow’s agenda, creating a fake epidemic, a bogus uprising, or perhaps a virtual president for Brett Doobie to quote at dinner parties or bring to the attention of the prison chaplain while awaiting sentence.

Copyright © Chris Green, 2024: All Rights Reserved