Room 404

Room 404 by Chris Green

Level 4 is strictly off-limits. I shouldn’t be in there, let alone in Room 404, and logged in to the server. Everything on the 4Server is Top Secret. No one at my pay grade is allowed to access classified documents. There must have been an oversight in staff rotas, because security on the base appears to be lax today. My access is down to the confusion over the fire drill. There was uncertainty about whether Level 4 was scheduled to be evacuated. At the last moment, it seems someone decided it was on the schedule. In the mix-up, I must have exited the lift on the wrong floor. But with access to Room 404. I can’t resist taking a peek inside.

I scan the document on the screen. IT appears to have messed up. Information this sensitive would normally be encrypted and password protected to fuck. Yet here is the controversial document on the screen in front of me. In English. In 12 point Palatino. I even have time to copy the file onto my flash drive, which inexplicably escaped the scanners at the gate this morning. It is an impulsive move and certainly a risky one.

But by the time the Fire Marshal comes around to check that Level 4 has been cleared, I am long gone. I speculate that perhaps only a handful of people will know what is being planned here. Ж, Ђ, the director of GCHQ, and a Minister or two. But, once you have seen something, you cannot un-see it. Having stumbled on the information in this way, though, what can I do with it? It would be foolhardy to think I can put something this big into the public domain. You only have to look at what had happened to other whistle-blowers who over the years have spilled the beans on sensitive issues far less sensitive than this. What I have been reading is shocking, heinous, apocalyptic. It would be suicidal to share it. There would be an immediate witch-hunt and it would not take long to discover where the leak came from. I will be on CCTV footage for Room 404. There is nothing I can do about that.

The question is, will it only come to light if they realise there has been a security breach in IT, or will they be alerted to my action, anyway? Hopefully, there will be no reason for anyone to check the cameras, so long as no one is aware that anything is wrong. But might they investigate the confusion over the fire drill? I agonise about this for the rest of the day. No one comes to apprehend me. But does this mean I am in the clear? Whether or not this is the case, the burden of knowing about the plan and not being able to tell feels like it will be a heavy one.

When I get home, I find Cheryl in a buoyant mood. She has had the day off and is playing her Donna Summer CD.

‘Good day at work, pet?’ she asks.

‘So-so,’ I say, hoping that I don’t seem too out of sorts.

‘Never mind, Nick,’ she says. ‘I’m going to cook samphire and lemon salmon linguine.’

‘Sounds good,’ I say, although I have no idea what linguine is. Or samphire.

‘I’m really looking forward to our holiday,’ she says ‘It’s not long now. It’s going to be hot in Sorrento. I’ve ordered some new sun-dresses from Seasalt. Would you like to have a look?’

How can I tell her that the dresses might not arrive or that we might not be going to Italy? I mutter something non-committal.

‘And later I might show you the new underwear I’ve bought,’ she says. ‘That is, if you are interested.’

I feel I should oblige. Making love to my beautiful wife can only help my fragile state of mind.

‘Perhaps we might do that now,’ I say.

…………………………………..

That night, while Cheryl is dreaming of sunnier climes, I lay awake wondering if the knock will come. Will burly men in dark coats bundle me into the back of an unmarked van and take me to a dank cellar for interrogation? While reason suggests that interrogators would need to be in on the secret and might themselves present a security risk, it does not stop the dark thoughts from coming. My interrogators will have been instructed to extract a confession by any means necessary. I try to recall what waterboarding involves. They could, of course, just take me out and have done with it. Given what is in the pipeline, it’s not as if there will be any consideration for propriety. Unless they think I have already passed the flash drive on or stored the information in cyberspace. Once they get rid of me, this would be more difficult to establish.

I try to take stock. If it has come to light at all that I have been in Room 404 and copied the files, there is no doubt I am toast. But my incursion may not have come to anyone’s notice. My prospects rest on whether anyone has taken a look at the security footage. I need to do something with the drive. There is no sense in simply destroying it. They will not believe that I have. Then there will be the waterboarding. There is no sense in wiping the drive. They will just assume I have copied it beforehand, which I would have been a fool not to have done, just in case.

I figure it might be best to see where I stand at the end of the day. Having weighed up the pros and cons, I decide to go in to work. At what point should I tell Cheryl, I wonder as I edge the Qashqai through the morning traffic? How much does she need to know? Who else should I tell and when? Might it be possible to trickle the information out little by little without being found out? Not that there is a great deal of detail. It would be all or nothing.

The document is marked Draft and does not yet have the Top Secret watermark on. There are gaps on some of the pages. This suggests there is some way to go in the planning. But while it is short on specifics, the intention is clear, and the project aim is chilling. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are to be wiped out through the contamination of water supplies. It is to be a synchronised operation with the bare minimum of administrators briefed at the last minute on a need to know basis. It will be over quickly. To avoid a major revolt, it is expedient to conduct the preparation in complete secrecy. Genocide is not the kind of thing you can be open about. Many have accepted that some adjustment to numbers is needed. The planet cannot support seven billion people. But no one has yet been willing to act on it. Reduction of numbers requires subterfuge, treachery, and callous indifference.

…………………………………..

I say hello to Dmitri, Lorenzo, and Ruth and nervously settle at my desk. Everything seems to be as I left it. There are no notes lurking there, and my laptop boots up as normal. There is nothing sinister in my inbox. I am breathing a sigh of relief when my phone rings. I look at it for several seconds, hoping this will somehow stop it ringing. Finally, I answer it. It is Jon Wood from Level 3.

‘Is that Nick?’ Why is he whispering?

‘Yes, it is,’ I say’

‘Can I run something past you?’ he says. ‘It won’t take a minute.’

‘Sure,’ I say, looking around to make sure none of my colleagues are listening. ‘Go ahead.’

I am surprised to hear from Jon, as over the years, I have had very little to do with him. He dresses like someone on his way to Glastonbury and I have not wanted to draw attention to my drugs arrest from years ago which I did not declare and security vetting did not pick up. At work, Jon keeps himself to himself and so do I.

‘I don’t know if you are aware that I am a writer in my spare time,’ he says. ‘Speculative fiction. I write under the name Milton Chance.’

I have vaguely heard of Milton Chance, but I have never made the connection with this fellow.

‘Look, Nick! ‘ he says. ‘This is a bit delicate. But bear with me. Yesterday I was editing one of my stories at my workstation. Yes, I know I shouldn’t use office computers for private matters. Anyway, in the middle of this, we had the fire drill. In my haste, I accidentally saved a draft of the file to 4Server. I shouldn’t even have been able to access Level 4. I only realised what I’d done once I was outside the building. I managed get back in to delete it later, and I was hoping no one had found out. But early this morning, while it was quiet, I sneaked a look at the CCTV footage for Level 4 and you came up on camera in Room 404. You might have seen the draft of my story. I just wanted you to realise what it was. A story. That’s all.’

‘No worries!’ I say. ‘I figured it must have been something like that. I mean, come on! This is the twenty-first century. No one is going to go around killing millions of innocent people, are they?’

Copyright © Chis Green, 2025: All rights reserved