Thursday, 24th January 2019The problem, it turned out, wasn’t even getting the information. Jess’d got that. She had a pile of data that could, in the right hands, destroy Jonathon Campbell. He’d got his hands so dirty and in so very many pies that actually getting information was retively easy. Tying it to him in a comprehensive manner was a bit harder and relied somewhat on circumstantial things like times of meetings and locations coinciding, or deposits into bank accounts mere minutes before tabling of parliamentary amendments that benefited various backers.
It was painfully clear that Jonathon Campbell, MP, was avaible for the highest bidder. He also continued to spout unpleasant principles when interviewed which helped to make him even less likeable. Jess had tried to follow the money trail a bit further, but found that his buyers were either more careful or more competent than him.
Anyhow, she’d had the package she needed a few short hours after she’d started digging. If she wanted to, she could release it now. If she was careful she thought she could do it without implicating herself. But the problem was doing it now would create just another dirty-politician-is-dirty barely scandal. He might apologise, but probably wouldn’t resign. She could almost hear the mealy mouthed ptitudes and promises that he’d “Do better for his constituents in the future” wrapped up in a cosy interview on a BBC politics show. With the risks she was taking she didn’t want it to be a couple of news cycles and then lost in the noise; that wasn’t even worth it as a starter on taking these folks down.
So then it started to get messy.
It took a lot of luck, but timing just happened to be right and she managed to track a payment from start to finish. Careful theft of CCTV meant she knew exactly who, where, when, and how the instructions were sent. And with the who, she’d found her way into a network that linked seemingly separate organisations with everyone from civil servants to journalists, police officers, MPs and even the fucking church. Although, at that, Jess wasn’t entirely surprised.
Money was pouring through those links into the pockets of people who’d do whatever was asked. She began to suspect that she had entered the clutches of a conspiracy from which she might not escape if she did alert anyone.
She wondered afterwards whether she could have prevented her discovery, whether she’d become careless. She spent time analysing her system with it disconnected from the network, but there were clear signs that night that whilst she’ was exploring their usual haunts, someone was exploring her system. Her systems informed Jess that not only had they identified that someone had accessed their systems, but they also likely knew roughly where Jess was. She was willing to y pretty good odds that within a couple of days they’d know what building to search.
And then Charlie’d arrived home, wanting to have a ‘talk’. Jess’d known the talk was coming. Although she’d been fairly much immersed in her hacking, she’d realised recently that Charlie was getting pretty distant. Even more noticeable since Jess had been so wrapped up in this project that she’d barely been avaible anyway. And to top it off, she still wasn’t being honest with Charlie about the possible risks, or what she was doing.
But that evening, as they talked, Jess’ spiralling worry that whoever had broken the security on her computer was working on finding her came rapidly to a head. She needed them both out of the ft quickly and she wasn’t convinced Charlie’d come with her if she left. She’d never told Charlie about her safe houses…and if she did now? It would take too long.
This wasn’t a great pn. Hell, it wasn’t even a ‘good’ pn, but as she deliberately provoked Charlie, Jess hoped that if she survived, at some point ter Charlie’d work everything out, and maybe let her expin, and possibly, one day, even forgive her.
“Get. The. Fuck. Out.” Charlie finally screamed.
Jess’ heart shattered as she stood at the threshold with the few things she would be taking when she walked out the door. Outside the block of fts she waited and watched in the shadows. She knew Charlie’d head somewhere remote to get her head straight. She usually did when stressed enough. A few hours ter she was rewarded when Charlie left, heading in the direction of the railway station. She must have been really pissed off. She just had a messenger bag with her. Hadn’t even packed. Jess fired off a quick message to Charlie saying that she’d get someone to come pick up her stuff in the next couple of days. She waited for the response, and the gut punch when it came left her doubled up and wheezing.
Charlie: Take your fucking time. I’m going away for a week. Don’t call. I don’t want to see you when I get back.
Tears streamed down her face while Jess called in a succession of favours and had everything movable taken from the ft, all of it thrown carelessly into a van and driven away. Jess wasn’t entirely sure the favours would go so far as storage, or allow her to get the stuff back. Jess thought for a moment that Charlie’d kill her if it turned out she couldn’t get it back. But if there’s nothing in the ft, Jess thought, there’s nothing for them to find, and they’ll think I’ve gone. Charlie’ll be spectacurly pissed off too, which she can’t fake, so if they do come for her at some point, maybe they’ll just leave her alone.
Jess stared after the lights of the disappearing van for a moment before sloping into the darkness herself. Quietly walking away from the ft she mumbled, “Pn B, then,” and took a moment to contempte her current resources. Keys to a ft she couldn’t safely access, a ptop, a small set of tools, a few sketchy IDs with matching bank cards, a couple of changes of clothes, and a wig she’d thought to grab. Oh, and perhaps most importantly, a very few dubious mobile phones with an equally dubious selection of SIMs.
She’d called in a lot of favours to magic her disappearance or, at least, the disappearance of hers (and Charlie’s) stuff. She suspected that Charlie wouldn’t take that too kindly. The thoughts about how she might eventually fix the situation with Charlie weighed heavily on her and kept intruding on her attempts to pn her next steps.
“Bollocks. Should’ve thought ‘bout that more,” she grumbled. She furiously kicked a stone. It skittered into the gutter, but not before bouncing off a parked car, causing its arm to wail into the quiet of the night.
“Ahhh...Fuckit!” she yelped as she rapidly disappeared into an alley. Her pn B had failed to take into account one tiny little problem. The stuff she’d set up for just such an emergency was all hundreds of miles away. Granted it was sufficiently well hidden and separate from her that it was highly unlikely anyone would be able to pick out that it even existed, let alone belonged to her. Unfortunately, she also had to traverse hundreds of miles without getting caught. It was going to take a little bit of doing. Jess finally pulled her brain off the Charlie issue long enough to form a coherent pn and set off at a rapid pace.
Before she could properly run though, she needed to put a copy of the data in a pce where, if it became absolutely necessary, she could direct Charlie – her heart seemed to stop for a moment at the thought – or some other ally, to grab it. And for the pce she had in mind she needed a car. She walked down the street optimistically looking for something she had a hope of stealing with her limited knowledge. Everything she could find was too modern and probably had proper immobilisers and trackers. The kinds of things that were fine if she had time to research, but right now she was in a hurry. Finally, there on the corner, sat a ratty old Corsa which looked like it’d been on the wrong side of a fight with a hedge. She crept round, slotted the inftable pouch through the door frame and quietly nudged the door open enough to unlock it from the inside. “Thank fuck,” she muttered, worming into the seat, “At least it’s an automatic.” She quietly dug out the ignition barrel, got the car started and flew up the street. A couple of hours ter she dropped the car back with an apologetic note and a full tank of petrol, before slipping back into the darkness and hoping that no-one had seen her.
A couple of nights staying in student hostels using different IDs she kept lying around gave her the time she needed to line up the minimum of one person she needed for her pn to work. Not too obvious, she told herself, walking into the station. Just a gnce. The important thing is to give them just enough that they think you made a mistake. She already knew each of the cameras in the concourse, having spent a good deal of time using them for her own means. She gnced at the most recently pced one – just enough to give a few moments of a direct view of her face, then looked away.
She mentally steeled herself for the cameras on the train. It was vital that they believed she was on there all the way to Corrour. Or at least, that they thought she’d gone as far as Scotnd (and not come back). It’d give them somewhere to look that wasn’t where she would be. As the train cttered into the station, dipidated and with peeling, graffiti’d paint, one of those rare announcements borne of an inability to predict the random nature of events was spoken by an actual human.
Eventually, and given the context, Jess realised it was an apology for the extra level of crappiness of the train. As she climbed onboard she briefly wondered if she’d entered some kind of museum. Sm doors – she smiled recalling childhood trips. Real sm doors and windows that opened… The whole thing felt archaic and her relief at not having to hide from CCTV cameras was rapidly tempered by the realisation that there were no power sockets. No power sockets, no wi-fi, nothing useful. She colred a passing ticket inspector, who expined that the train was one that’d been withdrawn from service, but due to vandalism had been forced back into service for a few short weeks. He mumbled something which could possibly have been construed as an apology for its shabby condition, teness, or it and the rest of the rail network's decrepitude, but Jess didn’t really feel like his heart was in it.
She gnced around under the seats optimistically. 7 solid hours of no tech. Joy. Swearing quietly, she endeavoured to exude the ‘Don’t sit next to me’ vibe and waited out the train’s departure.
Hours ter, as they pulled into Gsgow, she prepared herself again. This time she was winging it, having never been to the station before. She prayed that they’d not realised she was missing yet. The whole pn, such as it was, hinged on them not looking for her until tomorrow. Despite worrying that she was building up the kind of level of social debt it might be hard to repay, she used a couple of phone calls to her contacts to find someone who looked sufficiently like her that she could pay to stay in the Loch Ossian youth hostel for a few nights. That had involved a lot of telephone calls from the train, and she hoped her selection of SIMs and the phone's software modifications would make the calls sufficiently difficult to trace. It also meant paying this random soul rather more than she’d like, and in cash. But still, it provided more bait for the ‘come find me’ deception.
From inside the train she mapped a few of the cameras. It was a careful bance. If they’d worked out she’d gone and were looking for her they might have realised she was on this train. If that was the case she didn’t want to give them too much in the way of footage to catch her now. But she wanted them to have enough to think they'd found her path ter.
Jess slunk out in the middle of the crowd, head down, and made for the departure boards. She slipped quietly from one crowd of people to another, meandering around the concourse, until she spotted a woman who looked kind of like her. Jess performed a quick pass. The woman was indeed wearing an ID badge on a nyard prociming her to be ‘Susan Headley’. Jess allowed herself a smile as she walked onward.
A brief phone call ter and a “Susan Headley” wandered into the toilets to be given an envelope containing rather more than the cost of 3 nights in the small hostel at the Loch, scribbled instructions, and a ticket to Corrour. Jess exited back into the concourse and made for the train. She fshed her face to a couple of the cameras she’d spotted and warily hid her face from other ones she’d identified.
Both Jess and her accomplice hopped onto the train separated by several minutes. Jess took a moment to corrupt the much shinier train's onboard CCTV. The pn really relied on whoever had identified her getting something from the video feeds. They'd need to see something other than the glitches it was currently recording. She quickly smeared a little vaseline across the lens. With no prying eyes, and a conveniently empty train, Jess upped the schedule and got them both ensconced in a corner. The person who clearly wasn’t Susan Headley handed Jess a bag containing clothing matching her current uniform.
Jess mumbled an apology, “No time to get matching clean stuff for you, sorry, it’ll just be this,” she waved her hand dismissively over the clothes she’d been wearing for the st day and a half.
By the time the train started to fill with passengers, Jess stopped feeding the cameras corruption, her script periodically adding short blocks of glitch for the rest of the journey. Jess and her double were sitting far apart on the train. Jess in her new clothes and sporting the ‘Susan Headley’ nyard and the former Susan at the far end of the carriage being Jess.
At Crianrich Jess stepped off the train and hoped that the risk the woman was taking was not going to cause her any harm. Jess pondered adjusting the pn – the hotel opposite looked very appealing. But what she needed was to get back to her emergency shelter. Computers, a bunch of local WiFi networks to leech off, and somewhere she could properly regroup. She waited for a few hours before boarding the train back to Gsgow, now sporting yet another set of clothes, and an electric blue bob wig.
