Dick underwent the usual identity checks when he reported to the Party headquarters the following morning but before he was allowed past security, he was asked to sign an NDA. Dick thought this was a very unusual request. Sure, the Nude Disability Act of 2003 had been worthy legislation that made it illegal to discriminate against disabled porn stars, and which made it possible for actors like John ‘Limpy’ Large and ‘Paraplegic’ Tiffany Titts to forge niche careers for themselves, but Dick didn’t see why it was relevant to him or his new job. Then he realised what he was being asked to sign was in fact a Non Disclosure Agreement, and that made far more sense.
This declaration stated that he would not reveal his new responsibilities or any aspect of his job to anyone. The document was worded so strongly that Dick was intimidated just scanning the text and felt threatened at the turn of every page. Dick expected that these restrictions would last forever, but discovered they actually existed in perpetuity, and that was a very, very, very long time indeed. The document didn’t actually state what would happen if he did break his pledge and Dick didn’t ask as he knew it would almost certainly be something that involved a long, lingering, agonising death. Dick signed the NDA and waited in the lobby, looking up at the trees and counting the squirrels scampering about. He’d just got up to eighteen, although he was concerned he may have counted the same particularly energetic one three times, when he heard his name being called in a monotone.
‘Mr. Brunel?’
An unremarkable looking man in his late forties approached. ‘I’m Stanley Carrington. Welcome to the Party headquarters. I’ve been appointed as your mentor’.
Nearly everything about Stanley was dull; his voice, his clothes, his posture, his handshake – and especially his name. The only thing about him not dull was his moustache, a fanciful waxed effort which proved Dick’s unwritten ‘Law of Facial Hair’ that stated that the extent of extroverted facial hair was in inverse proportion to the personality of the wearer. Stanley escorted Dick to a glass elevator and pushed a button marked ‘ten’. The voice of the elevator announcing the floors as they ascended had more personality than Stanley.
‘So, the Ruling Council’s on the tenth floor?’, asked Dick.
‘No. It’s not on any floor’, Stanley said in his dull way. ‘The existence of the Ruling Council is a secret and so is its composition. Members are spread across the whole building. They all have different job titles as a cover for their real roles’.
‘So what’s my job going to be?’, enquired Dick.
‘Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Under Secretary for Legislative Administration Ratification’.
Dick was disappointed. He wanted the prestige of being able to tell people, especially girls, that he was a member of the Ruling Council. That would have been impressive. It was a job title, Dick felt, which would make doors open and knickers drop.
‘Why that particular position?’ Dick said, trying to hide the considerable disappointment in his voice.
‘Because it’s so bland and innocuous that no one will bother to ask further questions about your work’, Stanley explained.
As the doors to the elevator opened on to the tenth floor Dick knew he was right. He couldn’t foresee anyone who he told about his job ever saying to him, ‘Wow, that must be interesting’ or ‘No way! That’s my dream career!’
Stanley showed Dick his office in the Legislative Administrative Ratification Department and helped him settle in. It was an office well-suited to an Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Under Secretary. Not too big and not too small, with office furniture that was not too grand and not too functional. Sitting down for the fist time Dick found his chair wasn’t too hard and wasn’t too soft. It was, Dick thought, the office that Baby Bear would have loved — if the Three Bears had been corporate animals.
With the door closed to prevent their conversation being heard Stanley spent almost the whole day, including the lunch hour, giving Dick a comprehensive induction about the remit and politics of the Council, its history, all of its very many protocols and of course, its membership. Throughout, Dick wore a rictus grin which didn’t slip even when Stanley, who had been a member for two years, droned on in intricate detail about all office procedures including lunch breaks, tea breaks, dress code (including Formal Fridays), disciplinary procedures, holiday bookings, sickness reporting and all the complexities of stationery ordering with particular reference to the new forms HB5546b and 2B662289 that had just been introduced for the requisition of pencils. Dick was super keen to get started and wanted to meet his colleagues on the Council and begin making decisions. That’s why he was extremely disappointed to learn that the next Council meeting was half a day away, on Wednesday afternoon.
‘What do I do in the meantime?’, Dick asked, knowing that this society despised idleness and he wouldn’t be allowed to sit in his office throwing scrunched up paper into his waste bin or doing online Suduko (not that this was possible).
‘Each Council member belongs to one or two committees; usually areas they have a keen interest in’, Stanley explained. ‘These committees are tasked with reviewing specific issues and devising the proposals that the whole Council will then consider. I, myself, serve on the Technology Committee but here’s the entire list.’
Stanley handed Dick an alphabetical list of committees that Dick worked his way down: Agriculture, Architecture, The Arts, Bridges, Canals, Culture, Diet, Engineering, Education… He got bored at Housing and had all but lost interest at Museums. Dick yawned inwardly and scanned down the names to see if there was a committee on Secret Weapons. There wasn’t of course, but where it would have been on the list, another committee caught his eye. Security.
‘That’s the one’, Dick said with great conviction. ‘That’s the committee I was born to be on. Count me in!’
‘Really? That’s very good to hear’, said Stanley, adding in his inimitable dull way, ‘And you feel you can make a useful contribution to this committee?’
‘Yes. Definitely’, said Dick nodding enthusiastically, before giving his mentor an inquisitive look and asking ‘What exactly do they do?’
Stanley explained that the security committee dealt with threats against the State, from individuals or organisations, and how these could be identified and dealt with. Dick knew that combating the resistance movement must be a major part of that committee’s remit. Once Dick was in, he could find out exactly what they knew about the group and what steps they were planning to take against it.
‘I’ll inform the head of the committee of your interest and she’ll make contact with you’, Stanley advised. ‘Now’, he said, leaning conspiratorially towards Dick. There are some rather special fringe benefits in working here that I’m sure will interest you. Stanley handed Dick a sheet of paper containing another list.
‘What’s this?’, Dick sighed. ‘Sub-committees I have to choose from?’
‘No’, Stanley smiled. ‘Something more enjoyable and completely different. It’s a list of special evening classes offered free to senior Party members. Pastimes and hobbies to stimulate the mind and body or to help you relax and unwind. The current Leader introduced this concept when he came to power as a sort of compensation for the long hours, dedication and secrecy expected of us. A happy Party member, is, he says, a productive Party member’.
Dick continued to scan the paper. It might as well have been a list of diseases to infect yourself with. Compared to these extra curricular activities laid out before him he would have preferred beri-beri to ballroom dancing and cholera to callisthenics.
‘I’ll have to get back to you on this’, Dick sighed, pocketing the list. ‘Tell me Stanley, what floats your boat?’
Stanley frowned.
‘You know. What turns you on?’
No response. Dick sighed. ‘What leisure activity do you participate in?’
‘Brass rubbing’. Stanley’s eyes lit up at he told Dick about the joys of monumental brasses. He waxed lyrically about using a wax crayon to take tracings but Dick’s concentration had by now wandered. There were a number of types of rubbing that Dick enjoyed but brass definitely wasn’t one of them.
Early the next morning Dick met the head of the Security Committee, a jolly middle-aged matronly woman called Enid Sharpe who used words like ‘spiffing’ and ‘righty-oh’, and called him a ‘clever chap’. She was someone, Dick thought, more suited to serving on the Knitting and Embroidery Committee (if this existed) than on one dealing with the safety and protection of the Party and everything it stood for. Enid welcomed Dick on board and gave him a very brief overview of her group’s activities. She didn’t go into detail about individual projects as she said these would be reviewed at the Council meeting later, but she briefed him on his first task.
This was when Dick realised that serving on the security committee was not the thrilling, glamorous post he hoped it would be. In fact if his first assignment had been typical, the post would not be thrilling or glamorous by any stretch of the imagination. His task was to wade through reams and reams and reams of transcribed telephone calls from citizens who had been identified as potential anti-Party activists. The Party’s suspicions were solely based on certain phrases used in their telephone conversations that they believed might be code words for subversive activities. Dick learned that someone else on the Security Committee had begun devising this list of these phrases and his job was to investigate the patterns and look for incriminating evidence in these calls.
Dick couldn’t wait for Enid to leave his office so he could start. He wanted to see if any of these so-called anti-Party activists were resistance members he knew, but then he remembered he didn’t actually know the real names of anyone in the Resistance, so this was pointless. After a very short while Dick also identified something else that was pointless. The whole exercise. It soon became obvious that whoever had begun to identify these so-called suspect phrases was an over-zealous, paranoid idiot. It was extremely doubtful that the phrase ‘piano tuning’ was in any way ambiguous; it related to the tuning of pianos and was not a code for the kidnapping of senior Party members. Likewise, it was also very, very, very likely that ‘lawn tennis’ referred to a racquet game and was in no way related to a planned bombing of a police station. After several monotonous hours looking for evidence of anti-Party behaviour, Dick truly wished he were Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Under Secretary for Legislative Administration Ratification.
Mercifully, Wednesday afternoon soon came around, as did the opportunity for Dick to join his first Ruling Council meeting which took place in the Grand Room where he’d first met the Leader. All the Council members were seated around the large polished table with the Leader situated at the end, furthest from Dick. Carter, as usual, stood alert at his side.
‘Ladies and gentlemen’, the Leader said in his strong, rich voice. ‘Before I open the meeting today I’d first like to introduce the newest member of our Ruling Council, the man behind Jack, the destroyer of the rogue harlots’. All eyes turned to Dick and he felt himself blushing. ‘In his short time working at the Ministry of Information,’ the Leader continued, ‘He has demonstrated a commitment and allegiance to the Party second to none. But the fact of the matter is…’. At this point the Leader hesitated and looked directly at Dick, ‘He shouldn’t really be in this room at all’.
This was the cue for the audience to look confused and for Dick to turn a deeper shade of red, not from the praise, but from increased blood pressure. Was this the moment he was going to be exposed? After an uncomfortable silence the Leader continued. ‘And the reason he shouldn’t be here is purely a selfish one. I don’t want him tied up in bureaucracy. I want him developing the next “Jack”; another great invention that will assist the Party! Ladies and gentlemen, please give a very warm welcome to Jeremy Brunel!’
To Dick’s enormous relief the Leader started the applause and was immediately joined by his colleagues. After this warm welcome the other Council members introduced themselves one by one in the manner of a self-help group (‘Hello, my name is Ian. I’ve been advising the Leader on public architecture for three years…’). Dick’s colleagues were all very welcoming and friendly. It was a real mix of people, mainly men but a few women, with a wide spread of ages although it was evident that Dick was the youngest. The Council members came from all types of backgrounds and all sorts of careers. In fact there was actually little they had in common, apart from an overwhelming and overzealous desire to serve the Party.
The whole ambience of the meeting wasn’t one you’d associate with a gathering of influential representatives of a police state. There was tea and coffee, several plates of carefully arranged digestive biscuits placed at regular intervals along the table, and everyone had lined paper and a sharpened pencil. The meeting started with apologies for absence, a look at the agenda, the reading of minutes from the last session and then a summary of the agreed action points. Once this part of the meeting was successfully concluded each of the committee heads reviewed their current projects and initiatives.
Despite the amount of information being conveyed on a multitude of different subjects the Leader maintained a keen interest throughout, offering insightful comments from time to time. Since this was Dick’s first meeting, all the issues discussed were brand new to him. There was little of worth he could contribute but he made numerous notes in case there was anything of interest he could report back to Taylor.
Eventually it was Enid’s turn to report. She brought up the matter of the phone call analysis and said that it was inconclusive and that further investigation was needed. Dick moaned inwardly, thinking of yet more transcripts he’d have to analyse. What suspect words and phrases would he have to look for this time? ‘Picnic in the park’ or ‘Feeding the ducks’? Enid also updated everyone about a new recruitment campaign for the security forces, a review of interrogation techniques and the procurement and installation of additional CCTV cameras cunningly concealed within ornamental lampposts. These were all interesting to hear about, but not that significant. Then Enid mentioned something about ‘Operation Trojan Horse’.
‘Ah, yes’, the Leader enquired. ‘How is Mr. Parnell?’
The tea Dick was drinking at the time went down the wrong hole. Or both holes at once. He wasn’t sure but it didn’t matter; the effect was the same. He choked and spluttered simultaneously. With everyone staring at him, Dick wiped his watering eyes and apologised. As he took another sip to calm his nerves, Enid replied.
‘Very well. He reports that he’s about to be officially accepted into the Resistance. His blindfold comes off tonight’.
Dick’s next sip of tea also went down the wrong hole, but this time he didn’t cause as much of a scene; his spluttering was drowned out by the sound of the Council members loudly applauding.
‘Splendid!’, announced the Leader over the sounds of approval. ‘And is he quite certain his identity has not been compromised?’
‘Definitely’, Enid said proudly. ‘In all of his meetings with the Resistance leadership there has been absolutely no indication that they are aware of his true identity’. Enid turned to address the rest of the Council. ‘They seem to have accepted him and his fake background on face value from the very first time they noticed the news story we planted. There is a real eagerness, in fact, over-eagerness, to have him on board’.
‘And do we know where the Resistance operate from?’ asked a skinny, pale-looking man who headed the Cultural Committee.
‘No’, answered Enid. ‘As we thought, although the resistance movement is small it is surprisingly technologically proficient. From his initial meetings, Mr. Parnell learned they have various electronic counter-measures in place to avoid detection. Alerted to this fact, it was obvious that he would be unable to conceal any tracking devices on subsequent visits’.
‘Then how can we ever discover their headquarters?’, asked the skinny, pale-looking man. ‘How can we raid it, arrest the members and interrogate them?’
‘That is now not the prime objective’, answered the Leader before Enid had a chance to speak. ‘From even the few meetings he has had so far, Mr. Parnell has gleaned sufficient knowledge of the Resistance’s plans and capabilities. There is no more to learn; that means his mission has changed’.
Dick wondered what he meant by ‘sufficient knowledge’? Taylor had been a fool to even admit Parnell without sufficient checks but even he wouldn’t have told him all about the movement’s plans so soon… would he?
‘Why weren’t we told about the new mission?’ asked Stanley Carrington who up until now had been silent, and after asking this question, probably wished he’d remained that way.
The Leader crashed his fist down on the polished table with such force that every saucer simultaneously leapt off the table, every cup simultaneously leapt out of its saucer and the milk jug fell over. With this sudden, violent move, the Leader now had everyone’s rapt attention.
‘Because I changed the plan, Mr. Carrington, that is why!’, the Leader shouted. The way he shouted those ten words made everyone in the room fully aware of his unquestionable, supreme authority. ‘And do you have a problem with that?’, he enquired, slightly more calmly.
A nervous Stanley stammered out half an answer. ‘N-no, sir. I j-just thought…’
‘Well don’t!’ shouted the Leader. ‘Although we were unable to locate the actual headquarters Mr. Parnell gained considerable information from his incursions and he has been issued with new orders’. The Leader nodded towards Enid who continued on his behalf.
‘Mr. Parnell’s role has changed from being that of a spy to that of an assassin’, she said calmly.
Dick was too shocked to even fart. He knew Taylor had been wrong to take such a cavalier attitude towards the recruitment of Parnell. Ordinarily he’d take immense pleasure in knowing he’d been right. Now though, Dick was so shaken and scared he found himself temporarily devoid of any emotions.
As if he needed to justify his decision, which he really didn’t, the Leader explained the thinking behind his plan. ‘Groups like this traditionally have a top heavy chain of command with a very strong leader and usually just a couple of second lieutenants. Destroy the people at the very top and you destroy the whole group. Cut off the head and the tail will die!’.
‘How are you going to cut off their heads?’, asked an anonymous-looking woman seated three places to Dick’s left who had something or other to do with food production.
‘It’s a figure of speech’, sighed the Leader. ‘Mr. Parnell will use a prototype weapon to destroy the leadership; a miniature laser pistol that’s been fashioned out of a new ceramic material. We’re certain the Resistance scanners won’t be able to detect it’.
‘Ironically’, the Leader added, smiling, ‘Given Mr. Parnell’s training and the weapon’s firepower, the Resistance is unlikely to put up much resistance’.
What made this disturbing remark even more chilling was the fact that it was addressed directly at Dick. Or at least, that’s how it seemed. Dick gave a nervous laugh and smiled back. Taylor had been right. There was a secret weapon after all but it wasn’t a thing; it was a he. The rest of the Council meeting was a blur. Updates on hospital building, the proposed introduction of a new school syllabus, new social housing initiatives and public fundraising for a new wing of the Natural History Museum. All this information washed over Dick; he was too distracted to take any of it in. All he could think about was the impending deaths of his colleagues. He remembered the dream when he first arrived. Of trying to escape from infiltrators in his room and stumbling over the dead bodies of his colleagues lying in the corridor and in the lounge. Except this hadn’t just been a dream. It was a premonition. Dick was still lost in his thoughts about the impending slaughter of his colleagues at the hand of this trained killer when he became aware of someone addressing him loudly.
‘Mr. Brunel. Mr. Brunel!’.
Startled, Dick looked up to see Enid staring at him. ‘Are you all right? You were lost in your thoughts’.
Around him, Dick’s Ruling Council colleagues were packing their papers up and drifting out of the room. Dick looked at the end of the table but the Leader was nowhere to be seen.
‘I’m fine’, said Dick, lying in the same unconvincing way that a dwarf might say, ‘I’m tall’.
‘It’s just that I’m suffering a bit from information overload’, he told Enid.
‘I know’, she said, sympathetically. ‘I was just like you on my first day. So much to take in. News about this. News about that. Updates, reviews and proposals! I saw you taking lots of notes which is splendid! Let it all sink in. Mull it over and you’ll be able to make sense of it all!’
At this moment in time there was only one thing that Dick wanted to make sense of. ‘That ‘Operation Trojan Horse’’, Dick asked, ‘What a great idea. Did you think it up?’
‘Alas, no’, Enid commented. ‘It came from the Leader. Who else could think of such a cunning and ruthless plan?’
‘Who indeed?’, said Dick nodding. ‘And when do you think this Mr. Parnell will start his killing?’
‘Tonight, of course’, Enid answered. ‘After all, there’s no time like the present, is there?’.
‘I suppose not’, sighed Dick with an air of deep dismay and even deeper panic. He said goodbye to Enid and returned alone to his office to consider his next course of action. Glancing out of the window on the way back the grey overcast skies reflected his own sombre mood.