Anna was being tracked. She was being analysed, continuously. With every fresh movement she made she was being assessed, and the system was recalibrating, recalculating.

  ‘But it can’t—I’m not wearing—’

  She swallowed.

  ‘Dad?’

  Her voice felt very thin and wavery. The house was empty. But the house did not feel empty. The house itself was very present, and it was all around her.

  Anna had had her own walk-in unit in her apartment for years. She used it regularly enough. But it never felt like this. When she was in the machine at home, she was in and prepped and ready to go, and that was that. It was no more awkward than any other sort of travelling. But this permanent readiness: the constant crackle of analysis—

  Perhaps it would reject her. Perhaps, without the proper clothing, without the pale blue romper suit, it would register her presence, yes, but only as an object, not as a viable user. It would ignore her. It would regard her as mere furniture, albeit moving.

  Anna scribbled a quick message on the wad of paper by the cooker. And all the while the walls were watching her, reading over her shoulder. Then soundlessly she backstepped out of the house, pulling the front door very softly shut.

  Even in her own small sturdy truck Anna didn’t feel at ease. She leaned out of her window to reverse from the driveway before trundling, cautiously, quietly, through the still centre of the village and back out onto the main carriageway.

  The roads, as ever, were empty. But on the hills about her she could see now that new masts had been going up. Bright slender matchsticks poking into the sky, their rounded heads, nacreous and glistening, creating a network of points.

  Anna wound her window up tight as she gained more speed. She didn’t much like the taste of the air coming in.

  9. Cut Out

  ‘SAY AGAIN, Anji? There’s too much noise. Speak into the mouthpiece. Hold it closer.’

  ‘I said it’s fine, Ma. I’m at the port. I’m—just waiting. We’re all—[HISS]’

  ‘And was it good? Did you have fun? Did the others like it? The performance?’

  [INDISTINCT CHATTER—LAUGHING]

  ‘Anji?—Hallo? I—I can’t hear you properly.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, it was good, Ma. We’re just waiting. It’s taking so so long.’

  ‘Have you got a window yet? They should have given you a time slot by now.’

  ‘Yeah—No. It’s just like really busy. Miss Anders says it’s because they—[HISS]—and worse each year.’

  ‘But come direct, okay? You’ll do that? I hope you have your card. Look in your pockets. Please make sure they scan it properly. And you must must must double-check the address when they do. Always check it yourself.’

  ‘It’s gonna be so much easier when the—[OBSCURED BY CUSTOMER ANNOUNCEMENT]—around, really just so much better.’

  ‘Anji?—Say again?—I didn’t hear.’

  ‘When it goes cableless, Ma. When that’s all up and running it’ll be—[HISS]—especially for internationals. Then you can zip right over the ocean—pheww—just like that. Right from your—[HISS]—and so so quick.’

  ‘If I only knew when you’d be back, I could have your dinner ready.’

  ‘[HISS]—eaten. That’s one thing we—[INAUDIBLE]—really good here.’

  ‘Anji? It’s getting worse. What was so good?’

  ‘[LAUGHTER]—Yeah—It’s fine, Ma. Really. I’ll tell you everything tonight.’

  ‘Alright, but if you’re very late I might be out. I’m at your aunt’s from eight. Remember—from eight. Write it down.’

  ‘Okay, Ma. It’s all okay. I’ll be in—’

  [SUDDEN SILENCE]

  ‘Hallo?—Anji?’

  ¶

  ‘—no, there’s been no reported delay, nothing out of the—Of course, madam. Do you have the travelcard details?—Thank you—I’m sorry but nothing’s coming up on that code, do you perhaps have the—Yes, I can try a different search parameter on that if—Okay, and where was she travelling in from?—Yes, there were certainly no reported issues today. Ah no, wait, unless this is—Excuse me, sorry, may I put you on hold for a moment?—No, I’d just like to check something with my supervisor—Thank you.’

  [ELECTRONIC PIANO MUSIC]

  ‘Hello? Mrs Mulligan?—Yes, thank you for your patience—Yes, there’s no record of that on our system for today—No, not under that name—What I mean is, I’m afraid we can’t confirm such a transfer took place—No, I’m afraid that’s not showing—I’m very sorry but that information just isn’t available—I’m sorry, but—No, I’m afraid I can’t see any—Mrs Mulligan?’

  ¶

  ‘That’s true, perhaps, of course, but they will need proof. Honest reliable proof. I think we can be pretty sure they’re not going to take the case any further without something solid to go on.’

  ‘What about the teacher? She must count as a credible witness. Didn’t she say she saw the girl get into the travel bay? Actually into it?’

  ‘Let me see. Miss Anders, you mean? I think that’s—Yes, that’s what we’ve got here for the initial report. But when properly interviewed, when the full legal implications had been explained to her, well, then she couldn’t be so sure. After that she said she only thought she saw the Mulligan girl get in. There were so many other pupils, you see. She couldn’t monitor them all individually.’

  ‘What of the children themselves? The girl’s friends? Someone must have seen her go.’

  ‘No. You’d have thought so, but no. They’ve all been questioned. They’re all willing to swear they went through before her.’

  ‘Well, in any case, we can’t settle. We can’t be seen to. It’s tantamount to admitting we’re at fault. To admitting that something actually happened.’

  ‘I fully agree. And we did make an offer. A gesture. A rather substantial one in fact. Free travel. For her and nine others. Friends and family. A lifetime subscription for each of them.’

  ‘That does seem very generous. I hope she appreciates what that would amount to. In real money, I mean. How did she respond?’

  ‘Rather curious, actually. I have it here somewhere. Yes. She asked just how long we considered a lifetime to be.’

  ¶

  [She is on her hands and knees on the living-room floor. She is taking apart the unit with a screwdriver. Prising off the front plate and shining her torch in before delving further. She is pulling out the innards. The sparseness surprises her. How sturdy and sculpted the unit looks on the outside, but inside it’s just plastic and wiring. A couple of simple circuit boards. Some thin gold-plated contacts. Nothing to suggest its functional complexity. She takes pictures. She has two sets printed, one of which she takes to a newspaper with her story. They listen keenly. They write down all she says. They tell her they’ll be in touch once they’ve conducted an investigation, that they’ll want more from her: details of her daughter’s childhood, family portraits.]

  ¶

  ‘You see, Mrs Mulligan, technically the units are still company property, even when installed in a private residence. It’s illegal to tamper with them. And when the newspaper sent us your photographs, well, it was our duty to respond—’

  ‘Where’s my daughter? Where’s Anji?’

  ‘It’s very clear in the original purchase documentation. We have the forms right here. We have your signature—’

  ‘Was she still alive when you found her? Was she in pain?’

  ‘Not only can action such as yours incur heavy fines, it’s also very dangerous. For yourself, yes, and for the network as a whole—’

  ‘What did you do with her body?’

  ‘You have to understand, we have billions of users all over the world. Literally billions—’

  ‘Was she sent somewhere else? Somewhere she can’t get back from?’

  ‘Statistically, it is very much the safest way to travel. You only have to look at the figures—’

  ‘How many have gone missing?’

  ‘It’s a robust system, yes, very much so, but only in so far as it’s not interfered with. And we’re afraid your actions—’

  ‘Was she surrounded by strangers? Did you comfort her?’

  ‘On this occasion, however, due to your particular machine being a much older unit, we’d be happy to provide a replacement, a more recent model. At our expense, naturally—’

  ‘Did she understand what was happening to her?’

  ‘And when our new cableless system is rolled out nationwide then of course we will again provide the necessary upgrade—’

  ‘Did she call for me? My Anji. Did she cry out?’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Mulligan. Be assured we’ll be contacting you very soon regarding delivery and installation—’

  ¶

  ‘Oh, aye, she’d be there. Standing outside Parliament. All days. All weathers. With that big floppy placard of hers. And I did feel sorry for her. Well, you would. No one else was about, see. Empty streets and that. And even if they could have seen her from the windows, if they could see altogether that far, they ignored her. Everybody did. Aye, but not me. I went and stood right beside her. Just for a bit, mind. You know, in solidarity. Well, it seemed the proper thing to do. And I agreed with her. I honestly did. In a roundabout way. I always thought something was up. You know, something a bit suspect. Something being suppressed, you might say. And I don’t mean just with her own lass. Oh, no no no. I’m thinking a great deal wider than that. How many have been lost that we don’t even hear about, eh? I mean, they say it’s far safer than them old traditional forms of transport. But they would, wouldn’t they. And I’m not even thinking of just this country. What about abroad? In them poorer places. No doubt it’s all part of some government scheme. International, like. A kind of, you know, ethnic cleansing. That’s what they call it, right? Easy way to take care of so many. To sort out all that overpopulation. A few hundred thousand at a pinch. Gone. Just like that. So, well, I put it to her. My theory. I told her I was on her side. I’m not sure she really heard me. She was generally very quiet. Serene, you might say. Just stood there staring at the Parliament buildings. Propping up that bloody placard. And no, to be perfectly frank, I don’t think it’ll make any difference. The system’s far too ingrained. Nothing to be done now. But, you know, good on her, all the same. You’ve got to admire that kind of persistence. That resolve.’

  ¶

  [She is kneeling on the floor of her living room holding a large pair of scissors. Around her lie faded newspapers and fanned magazines. She is cutting out reports, essays, photographs. She places the strips and shreds into a shoebox. She doesn’t read the articles. She lingers a little over the pictures: their strange suggestion of reality for something no longer present. The television is on, its volume thinned to a needly whine. A panel of commentators and academics on a dimly-lit stage in front of a studio audience.]

  ‘—and yet if this person ceases to exist, just like that. I mean, really gone. How can we then prove she was ever there at all? What is our evidence?’

  ‘Or, if she has in fact become particles, and those particles can still be said, in and of themselves, to exist, is it even true to say she is really gone? Then again, under what rule can we say those particles qualify as being her?’

  ‘By which you mean she is not gone, as such, merely that she’s changed form? Become something else?’

  ‘Precisely. With the life we knew her as having, so to speak, being only one aspect of that existence. And perhaps, it could then be argued, not even her own existence.’

  ‘In that she was, or had been, in and of herself, merely the continuation of another’s? Or some other thing’s?’

  ‘Indeed, and that she has now moved on towards something else, some other plane of existence. You see, the tendency, as ever, is for us to consider the issue only from our own limited perspective, not from that of the elemental matter itself.’

  ‘But if what we call existence, if what we call living, beyond the existence of mere matter, if that is our existence, is, for want of a better word, life, then yes, I think it is fair to say, in our own terms, that she has indeed ceased to—’

  ‘Oh, but there is no mere about it. We must be careful not to let our personal concerns get in the way of the underlying truths. And what, after all, qualifies any one state, one mode of being, to outrank the other? To say that this is life but not that.’

  ‘And yet we are the ones talking. These are our words, our method of communication, and we, by dint of creating and using them, get to say what, if anything, those words actually mean. So, yes, if to us, to our selves, we then choose to say—’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that it’s a matter of semantics? Of reducing an argument to the mere meaning of words? To our empirical, as opposed to our radical, understanding of the matter? To what we may impose upon a set of letters? Upon a sound? To a point of view? An opinion?’

  ‘No, I believe that matters of truth still have to be, by their nature, communicable, and if you are to distort that manner of communication by taking it outside the realms of our own experience, if indeed you fail to communicate the reality of what you propose, then what, if anything, are you achieving in your—’

  [She is gazing at the screen. She watches without anger, without expression. Her cheeks feel heavy. The slow hard pulse of her heart makes her neck quiver. She turns the television off. Her fingers are trembling as she removes the batteries from the remote control. Like removing spent cartridges from a gun. She places the inactive device in the cupboard under the sink. She puts the batteries in the cutlery drawer.]

  ¶

  ‘I feel for her. I really do. I know it’s not the same but I do know how she feels. I lost my watch once. And that was my grandmother’s. She gave it to me on her deathbed. It was gold. Unique. It was the only memory I had of her. I wore it everywhere but when I got back from holiday it had gone. It must have been rejected by the system. These things happen. I cried for weeks but eventually I had to accept that I was never going to get it back, that there was nothing to be done.’

  ‘That’s awful, sure, but it’s no reason to give up. Something can always be done. Personally I say rip out all the machines. The whole damn lot of them. Rip them out at the roots and all their horrible wires worming through the world. Don’t use them. Just don’t. It’s so simple. Never use them again. Then it can’t happen. It simply can’t happen.’

  ‘I hear you. But you know they won’t. You know they’re never going to do that. It’s too late to change now. The roots go too deep. They don’t just run through the earth, they’ve woven their way right into society. I agree with you. I really do. And I wish it was so. There was a time when we didn’t need it, but now we have it, and because we have it we do need it, and folk won’t want that taken away. They wouldn’t stand for it. Everything would collapse. The whole state of society would fall apart.’

  ‘Would it though? I mean, really? If it were all ripped out, all the—whatever it’s called, all that infrastructure? Would it really be so impossible to continue? Are we so stupid we couldn’t get by?’

  ‘Yes. I think so. I’m sorry. I don’t like it any more than you, but yes. We’ve made the world what it is and we have to live with what we’ve made it. All the old trade routes are dead and rusting. We don’t think about that because it’s so dull, but there it is. They’re forgotten. Ignored. You can’t simply start them up again. Not just like that. And of course the whole world runs on trade, as we’re always told. We made that of it too.’

  ‘You know what I hate most, though? How they talk about her case being a freak statistic, a mere anomaly. A one-in-a-million chance, they say. But that’s not how it is at all. One in a million? No. Not for her. For her it’s one in one. You see? For her it’s everything. Her girl was her everything. And she’s lost. Gone forever. I wish people could understand that. I wish people could see that we aren’t just a lot of numbers bumbling through life and that a few lost here and there don’t matter.’

  ¶

  ‘—yes, it’s an important industry—yes, I accept that—no, that’s not what I’m proposing—no, of course not—what I’m proposing, if you’ll please let me—no, what I’m—no, that’s not the case at all—yes, and all methods of travel have their dangers, this can’t be ignored, just as all aspects of life have their dangers—no, it’s true, and just to live is to—just to live is to—well, if you really believe such a comment to be in the public interest—no, if I may be allowed to finish my point—it comes down to choice, yes, the choice of the individual—yes, real choice and—no, an informed choice—yes, no—it comes down to information, and if those users—if those users—if people who choose to use the system—yes, of course, everybody uses it, yes, that is the whole point—no, I believe they do have a choice—that we all—yes, even in the poorer countries—yes, we still do—no, if I may finish—if they can be informed of the inherent dangers—no, not a warning, if they can be informed of—well, I believe it is indeed a matter of education—yes, and the inherent dangers—the inherent dangers—the dangers implicit in such use—no, it is not scaremongering—the truth is that loss of life—no, the truth is—the truth is—indeed, that is the truth—and if that could be made evident—yes, an informed decision—that is exactly my point—and as such my proposal—’

  ¶

  [She has switched off everything, all the many devices in her home. She has turned them off at the wall, pulled out the plugs and left them dangling, and now she sits in silence, disconnected. And in that silence the hum coming from her new machine is even greater. There is no power switch on this model, no wiring she can get at. It is plumbed in. It is never off. It is never not working. And she sits by it. She leans her back against it and she listens to that hum. And she wonders what may be going round and round the network still: what might by some other freak occurrence come out of it. So long as there is still that hum. So long as there’s still power going through it.]

  ¶

  ‘Okay, and next on the agenda, the closing down of the old cabled system. What are we talking about here? Months? Years?—Okay, that’s not too bad, so long as all the masts are in place—Well, we need to be certain that everybody has completed their conversion—No, I really mean everybody. I don’t want anyone being left out on this. Not a single soul—Well, naturally, but if we don’t make that effort, if we don’t make that promise, then there’s gonna be complaints—Of course, and the preference is for an open system—Exactly, as opposed to a closed loop. That was always the intention—No, I think it’s unwise to have them running for too long in tandem, it could cause problems in the unforeseeable. So it’s best we press on as and when we—Yes, and how are things progressing with the travelsuits, with the tracker systems?—Do we have a full range of designs yet? Young and old? His and hers? Minis and maxis?—No, but I’ve seen preliminary sketches—Sure, I liked them—Well, yeah, from what I’ve seen—I agree. I think that alone could be a very profitable division. It’s what people want after all. It’s what they will want—Good, get on it right away. And get some big names involved. It shouldn’t be too hard—Oh, and what of the affair with the, uh—the Mulligan woman? How did that play out—No, I didn’t get round to reading the whole report. Something about, what, a power cut? Is that true? Could that really happen?—Well, I need more than best guesses here, I need—Right—I see—So what you’re really saying is you’ve no idea—Okay, well then say so—Good—But a power cut? I mean, I gotta say, that sounds pretty lame to me—Sure, fine, if you think that’s even conceivable. But why wasn’t this ever predicted? Seems fairly fundamental to the whole—You mean after transmission but before arrival? So, that’s got to be like, what, nanoseconds? That’s got to be speed-of-light stuff, no? And surely you’re not suggesting—Well, okay, if you think it’s really possible—Yes, that goes without saying. But, no matter how unlikely, I think it’s still crucial we—Excuse me, it’s a major concern if I say it’s a major concern, and frankly I don’t want to hear of that happening, ever. So, if there’s any chance, even remotely—Well, if that’s the main worry then how about switching to internal power, a battery or capacitor or some such, as soon as the route’s been locked in—Of course it could work. And if we’re only talking nanoseconds, well then all we need is nanoseconds—Good, that’s what I’m here for. But I want people working on it right away—Yes, I want to see designs, sketches—Okay, and what about the lady herself, is she still being a nuisance? Still bothering us?—Oh, and why not?—Well, did we settle? Did she accept?—Right, sure. I see—Oh, come on, you’re kidding, no?—Really?—Truly?—Oh, right. Huh—I hadn’t—I guess so—Well, you know, keep an eye on her. Whatever you do don’t go forgetting about her—No, I just mean it’s the quiet ones you’ve got to worry about. At least when they’re making a noise you know where you—Sure. And who can really say what she’s cooking up—Well, let me know—Okay, good—That’s good—What’s next?—’