40
Ms. Omid left immediately for the ground floor. In all her three years as proprietor of Infohogs nothing like this had ever happened; no one—friend or customer—had spoken to her with the force and urgency that young boy had used when he told her to take the memory drive. The culture she had labored to create was on at once devoted to secrecy and transparency—freedom to find the facts and the ability to do it without anyone ever knowing. It was an ideal that never truly existed for anyone, and she wondered if at this moment all her work towards that one end might be tumbling headlong into a crevasse.
The floors ticked fluidly down to zero. Her ears popped. The doors opened. She stepped out into the massive high ceiling foyer, all marbled and brightly lit. She sometimes forgot about the world outside the cafe, she left it so little, and when she did she always wanted to return quickly to her cloistered life of pure information. She went out through the front, walked outside the resident’s wall, hailed one of the queue of black cabs and gave the driver directions. She sat back and the car zoomed out onto the motorway that formed a ring connecting the outer five Villas.
The memory stick weighed so heavily on her mind that its physical weight seemed to increase with each passing thought. Was it really as dangerous as the boy had made it sound? Was it so precious and crucial to even warrant her attention? She felt as if she were being pranked, given some false body of unverified, unchecked, unimportant something and asked to show the world.
She sighed. The cab driver’s eyes flicked upward briefly into the rearview mirror and then returned to the road. The motorway was gargantuan, eight lanes going both ways, but in spite of its impressive stature it seemed relatively free of cars. A cliche that had once made the Londoners laugh, but now was just overdone: Villans don’t leave.
If there was someone to help her look into this matter, someone who could help decide on its validity, Dev was the man. She had told Jay she knew a few good journalists, but really she only could think of one.
She had herself done her overgrad in journalism at King’s College, and this was where she had met Devdan Paton, through a man friend who had had a passionate yet fleeting relationship with Dev. They’d met elsewhere, once or twice in meetings of a campus transparency advocacy group, and since then formed one of those distant friendships between two people who share the same ideals but very little else.
Dev worked at a company called Hier Media, which was the research arm of a larger conglomerate called the English Television Association. Two years had passed since they last corresponded, but she still hoped to find him in his old office in the city proper. As long as he took her urgency seriously, she would have access to the company’s extensive resources, and those, if used correctly, were enough to find any needle in any haystack. The trouble would not, she felt, be Dev—but rather navigating how best to deal with what they found. He was a quiet, almost submissive soul when it came to his personal life, but despite that she knew, unless things in the company had changed, that he was almost constantly at odds with the media cadres responsible for Old New Media’s sensationalism and distraction.
The cab ride took the better part of an hour, but finally she had paid the driver and stood on the street in the radiant sun of midday in front of the Hier Media building. It was, of course, very tall, probably fifty stories of reflective glass. Dev, she hoped she remembered correctly, had his office on the thirty fourth.
Entering through the revolving door, Ms. Omid was faced with a friendly but serious security guard. He was elderly, and his greying brow seemed to be merging with the hair on his temples. It furrowed in a comic tidal wave as she approached.
Here to see Mr. Paton,” she said.
Appointment?” The man’s hair was a scenic farmland, fields of wheat, filmed in black and white.
No, sorry. But it’s urgent—regarding a story.”
I’ll just ring up to make sure, your name Miss?”
Omid.”
Telling her it’d just be a moment, thank you kindly for waiting, he touched the screen on his desk. She could hear Dev’s voice. There was some rather heated discussion going on in the background of the microphone, although she could only make out that a woman was yelling. Dev sounded tired, or maybe exasperated, but when the security guard said her name, she heard his soft voice peak with curiosity.
Well, well. When it rains it pours,” he said. “Send her up, Eric.”
She had no way of knowing the maelstrom that had seized the office. As she walked through the double wide glass doors and through reception an angry woman’s voice thundered from down the corridor. She heard other voices rise feebly in protest, before the louder voice overran them again.
. . . You call yourselves journalists? I bring you the biggest story to hit the media in twenty years and so you tell me it’s too, what? Ill timed?!”
The voice was rich and deep, a distinctly African accent, and absolutely livid. Ms. Omid snuck closer, passing the offices of several people, who were also trying to listen in on this woman’s tantrum. Once more a small chorus of voices tried to plead their case. The unseen woman dashed them to bits again.
Don’t you dare tell me you are being sensitive ‘to other concerns.’” Her voice rose mockingly. “Don’t tell me that you don’t have all the facts of the matter!”
Ms. Omid finally reached the cracked door of the conference room and peeked inside naughtily. There she saw three very upset looking editors, facing a tall thin black woman with raging eyes and curly, explosive hair. In the middle of the editors there was a man wearing a pinstriped three-piece suit and to his right a middle-aged but very attractive woman with reddish hair. Both appeared as if they were debating whether or not they should call security. On their left, there was Dev, who looked to be taking the situation a little more lightly. His hand rested over his mouth and his eyes were smiling shrewdly. His eyes flicked over to the door.
Omid, please come in. Perhaps you can help us to sort out this mess.” She cursed under her breath, and heard the man whisper something about how all this was quite unorthodox.
Inside the room, the loud woman had fallen silent, and all eyes were turned to the door as she walked slowly inside. No one spoke for a second. The man and woman to Dev’s right looked at her with a mixture of curiosity, and dubious optimism. Was this woman really such a handful, and, if so, why hadn’t they simply called for security? Ms. Omid looked indirectly at the messy figure, who had donned a silent but nevertheless coldly aggressive glare, as if waiting to see if this newcomer would help or hinder her situation.
Shocking as it was, the woman’s appearance was not what most surprised Ms. Omid, it was when she saw the little white girl, clutching to the woman’s hand. For a brief moment she stood stock still, without words.
Please, sit.” Dev indicated to the chair at his side. “Omid, this is Grace Lowrie, our content director, and Ethan Edmonds, editor in chief.” He turned to the other guests. “And this is Nkiruka . . . And the angelic little girl here is Jess. We’re in the middle of a bit of a dilemma at the moment, and the sooner we resolve it, the sooner we can help you.”
Mr. Edmonds and Ms. Lowrie nodded formally. Jess didn’t even bat an eyelid but brought her other hand up to grab Nkiruka, who muttered quietly: “Dilemma, no dilemma . . .”
How, then, can I help Mr. Paton?” asked Ms. Omid—a veiled patronization that only he recognized. She was thanking him for pulling her into this quagmire. He returned it with a small smile.
Ms. Lowrie, would you mind summarizing the situation as you see it?” asked Dev.
Taking this as her cue, Grace Lowrie sat completely upright in her chair, pushing her breasts outward and looked squarely at Ms. Omid. Her voice was very tight, and her accent a very mild southern cavort.
Ms. Nkiruka has brought us a video of a very long series of events. These events include several . . . Questionable points of view, but we must nevertheless concede that they are relevant and even interesting and may therefore be used to form the basis of an investigation.” She stopped and took a deep break, avoiding Nkiruka’s drilling eyes. “However, I do not believe—and neither does Mr. Edmonds that now is an appropriate time to release these materials, because quite frankly, the main story of the day will override them.”
The main story of the day?” asked Ms. Omid.
Yes.”
Being . . .”
The opening ceremony for Villa 6, of course.” It was the first time Mr. Edmond had spoken.
Ms. Omid had not time to react before Nkiruka exploded in anger. She released the little girl’s hand, gesticulating wildly as she yelled. Words rolled over one another building into a tidal roar:
Today is always the day to tell people of murder! First you people turned the country against us, years ago, and now you want to ignore the struggles of the poor again! For what? So you don’t disturb the people signing your paychecks? Or, so you are not forced to work late or disturb the ratings cycle? Because you don’t know if the country cares about a black widow or her children? If it were only me, I would hide, as I have done before, but this time it is not! There are too many names behind this story to ignore it! Faraji, Jess, Billy, Jay, Rip, Alice, Graham, Ryan, Ruby, Gus! Sefu! Nkiruka! Is it that you don’t already know me? You must think I’m crazy, but I’m not, I’m angry. This tacit complicity with the ruling class must st . . “
Did you say Jay?” Ms. Omid interrupted.
Nkiruka nodded her head slowly. Dev, Mr. Edmond, and Ms. Lowrie now shifted their attention to her, each with very different expressions on their faces; Dev’s eyes narrowed in wait, while the other two seemed to solidify into polished ivory, nearly expressionless, the closest they would come to being outright hostile.
And you say he, too, has something to do with this? Can you tell me what he looks like, or where he might be now?”
He is a young man, just an adult. He is tall and thin and speaks English in an accent that is not English. I do not know where he is now. Perhaps I shouldn’t even say what I know, but I’ve heard he is in one of the Villas. You ask me this because you have met him? He is with my son.”
I think that I do. He is the reason why I am here.” She turned to Dev Paton and put the memory drive on the table in front of him.
Before we go any further, I think we should take a look at this.”