Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle by Matthew Blakstad Page A

– and everything?’
    Her last reserves of energy are leaving. After this conversation, she’ll find a cupboard to crawl into and black out behind some toner cartons.
    ‘I happen to care a great deal about that,’ says Sam. ‘But you need to let me do my job. Right now, and in time for the six o’clocks, I need clear lines on why this couldn’t have been caused by Parley and sorry, but everything you’ve given me so far is way too techy. I can tell you now, I’m briefing none of this in.’ Gesturing at his notes. ‘Not a word. They need something they can hook on simply. Something painless.’
    ‘Then they’re fucking idiots,’ she says. ‘I’ve told you the facts. They should report them.’
    ‘I don’t think even you believe that but it doesn’t matter. I need to do my job.’
    Her skin itches with an energy she can’t define. These idiotic questions. Christ sake, Parley isn’t rocket science. Sic_girl and thirty-five other software-generated Personas speak online, their words assembled from the screen-lives of thousands of people. Human fans flock around them, loving their fakeness and wishing for one of these sham personalities to hear them and speak back to them. Parley, d’uh.
    Sam takes a sip of juice and places the glass down with a careful toc . His lips are ribbed like a reptile’s back. That stormy look, crossing his horizontal brows, triggers a chemical reaction in her gut. There’s something wound between his shoulders. What would happen if he turned proper angry?
    Dani pours herself another slug of Mountain Dew Cherry-Citrus and tries again.
    ‘So is she covering something up?’ she says. ‘Bethany Lehrer? Did she really lie to Parliament about the hack?’
    Sam sighs and aligns his crimson Moleskine on the tabletop.
    ‘Bethany?’ he raises his eyebrow. ‘I used to think she was the real deal. The honest politician. But then I worked with her team – did you see the Take Gran Surfing campaign?’
    ‘Yes, I saw it. It was fucking idiotic.’
    ‘OK, listen,’ he says. ‘I realise I’ve never lived up to your intellectual standards but I know what I’m doing, all right?’
    Dani grips the sides of her seat. What did she say?
    ‘I know how to keep the press off your back,’ he says. ‘But you need to toss me a bone. One simple fact that says THIS IS NOT PARLEY ’ S FAULT. ’ He marks the words in the air. ‘I’ll do the rest. Your Personas may be fake, but so are most celebrities. Sic_girl and tvjoe are in the software A-List. Even LabelMabel and riotbaby. People already love them. It won’t be hard.’
    Dani is quiet. She has something. Sam is good at waiting.
    ‘So – OK,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t Parley who said this. It was the whole Internet. My team is mining a hundred gig of data right now to find out who originally posted this stuff about the hack. Because somewhere out there, somebody said it all before – maybe ten or fifty or a hundred people who each said a fragment of this thing. Because sic_girl doesn’t speak from nowhere. All she does is scrape up words other people already said and kludge them into something that sounds like reality. This shit about Bethany Lehrer? It came from somewhere but it didn’t come from us. If people want someone to blame, they can blame the Internet.’
    Sam’s broadening grin is such a reward, Dani is sick at herself. He’ll leave now.
    ‘Now that I like. Yes. Yes, I think that will do. I knew you had it in you.’
    He slaps his book shut: a professional wrap-up. He has what he wants. He’ll be off to have conversations that leave no trace but redirect the flow of words and change their meaning, between the lunchtime and the evening news. Dani does nothing to stop him. Why isn’t she the person who suggests a coffee, demands a date? People think she’s tough. She isn’t tough, she’s helpless.
    She stays in her chair as he packs up, already raising a new-model iPhone to his ear. He gives her shoulder a brief