Although I didn't exactly plan it that way, this week's #fridayflash story works as a reaction to the whole IAmSpartactus scandal on twitter. Coincidentally, I also owe the massed hivemind of twitter a debt of gratitude for helping me write this. You'd be amazed how many tweets you get back when you ask for a little advice on kidnapping...
You can say anything you want on the internet. That’s why Lydia loved it so much. She could say how her boss was a lazy bitch who always parked in the handicapped space because that meant less distance to carry her donuts, which she never shared with anyone else in the office, and which made her backside look increasingly like two hippos wrestling in a tent. Lydia could say this without compunction or any fear of redress because not only could you say anything you wanted on the internet – you could be anyone you wanted too.
Online, she was a completely different woman. She wasn’t meek, mild-mannered Lydia Charles, she was TheLady72: blogger, tweeter and social networker extraordinaire. With more than 4000 followers and over a hundred comments every time she posted, TheLady was witty, insightful and far more gregarious than her alter ego. Her opinions were sought and valued on a wide range of topics – from the perils of working for a tyrannical she-whale with moustache issues... to how to deal with a lazy slob of a husband who never emptied the dishwasher and thought clitoris was an island off the Greek mainland. She wished she could be TheLady all the time, in the real world as well as the virtual, but the consequences were far too grave to consider. Unemployment, divorce, children who hated her even more than her own kids did right now. She wasn’t sure she could do this without a safety net secret identity.
Recently though, she’d been spending more time online than ever before. She’d become a feedback junkie, only truly happy when replying to comments or savouring her retweets. She saw how her hits increased in direct correlation to controversy, and so became ever more outspoken, not just on her personal life (Barry wanted her to dress up as slave girl Leia every Saturday night; The Whale had hit the menopause – hot flushes and moodswings all over the sales office; Tess had been grounded after simulating fellatio with a giant Smarties tube during her best friend’s Sweet 16th) but also on the world outside her window. The government were condemning future generations to a student debt they could never repay… anyone who condoned torture ought to get water-boarded themselves and see how they liked it… who gave a toss about the Royal Wedding?
The more forthright she became, the more she rose up the google rankings, the more her addiction grew. She craved that attention now, it was all she thought about – at work, at home, in bed… whenever she was away from her computer, she hungered to get back online and indulge herself in the world of TheLady…
And then came the abduction. She was leaving the house when they grabbed her, late for work as always. Barry had already gone, taking Tess and Adam to the bus stop on his way. Tigger had coughed up a furball on the kitchen floor and Lydia had been tempted to just leave it, but she knew the kids would trample through it when they came in tonight, and it’d still be waiting when she got home herself. She hadn’t even wanted a cat. TheLady was much more a red setter kind of gal, she reckoned.
They came at her from behind, taking an arm each and pushing her forwards so her cheek grazed the garage wall. She heard the tearing of the tape and tried to scream as they slapped it over her mouth. They bound her wrists behind her back with cable ties. She tried to turn to see their faces but then the sack pulled over her head and she was dragged backwards, down the drive to the road. Where were all the neighbours, why did nobody help? How very typical of our look-the-other-way society – nobody wanted to get involved! She'd have something to say about that. A hand pushed down on the back of her head and she was bundled into a vehicle, some kind of enormous four wheel drive vehicle, she guessed. Suddenly she remembered the post she’d written about how all 4x4 drivers were selfish, planet-raping road hogs. This couldn’t have anything to do with that… could it?
“Mmm-mmm—mmm!?” she screamed through the masking tape. Who are you? “MMm-mm-mmm-mmmmmm-mmm?” Where are you taking me?
“Just shut up and enjoy the ride, lady. You’ll find out soon enough.” It was a man’s voice, from beside her on the back seat. He sounded all gruff and nasty, like Ray Winstone but without the accent. She remembered that post where she’d fantasised over Ray Winstone’s manly hands, concluding she couldn’t let them anywhere near her until he’d some kind of elocution lessons. A bit of rough on the side was one thing – but not if he sounded like a cockney barrow boy! She was a lady, maybe, but not a Chatterly.
Oh. Oh no. "Lady." That’s what he called her. Was it just an expression… or did he actually know? And if he knew… was that what this was about? Was it something she’d blogged? About how the police shouldn’t be allowed to use the sirens on their cars in a residential area unless it was a matter of life or death? How anyone who wore culottes should be hung, drawn and quartered in the street outside Dorothy Perkins? How every parent had a right to know that a sex offender was living anywhere in their town, not just if they moved in on the same street? Or was it something closer to home? Had The Whale been tracking her internet usage at work? Had Barry stumbled across her blog while searching for porn and put two and two together at last? No, no, this couldn’t be personal. Nobody she knew in real life would resort to tactics like these, no matter what she’d written. Her blog was only words… this was serious.
The journey lasted longer than Lydia expected. She could tell by the changing sound of the engine that they were on the motorway now. She didn’t think she’d ever been so frightened, but TheLady kept her from losing it. If I survive this, that voice said, if I come out the other end in one piece… what a story I’ll have to tell! This’ll make the news – the papers, the TV… and they’ll all have to mention my blog. My hits will go through the roof!
So her identity might be compromised in the process... that was OK. She wouldn’t need her stupid old job anymore – she’d be a full time professional blogger! Advertisers would be lining up. And if her family didn’t like it… well, they could either come with her on her bold new adventure or carry on without her. Screw the fear – it wasn’t Lydia Charles bound and gagged in the back of this petrol guzzling monster, it was TheLady72. And TheLady would not be silenced!
At last, the engine slowed and the vehicle pulled to a halt on crunching gravel. Cold air swept into the car and then Lydia was swept out. Her shoes slipped on wet tarmac but the arms held her steady and pushed her forward.
“Mmmmmmmmm!” she screamed through the gag.
“You’re wasting your time now, love,” said gruff Ray. “No one’s gonna help you here.”
A blast of air-conditioned heat came next and then she felt the sack being lifted from her head. She was inside, blinking under artificial lights: the reception of some huge office complex. A thin man with a dark suit and receding hairline stood before her, early 50s, Lydia thought, very official-looking. She turned to see the faces of the men who’d brought her here. The one on the left must be Ray, the other was just a boy. He was a bit of a hunk actually, Ray… though it wasn’t Lydia Charles thinking that. Lydia would have been too busy peeing her pants. The line between real and virtual was blurring more with every passing second.
“Mrs. Charles,” croaked the official, his voice as weedy as his physique, “good to meet you at last.” He waved a hand and Ray reached over to tear off the masking tape. The other man clipped at the cable tie to free her wrists.
“Owwch!” Lydia reached up to touch her smarting lips. Was that blood, or just the last traces of her Clarins Clementine?
“Welcome to HM ID HQ, Saffron Walden branch. I hope you’ll be very happy here.”
“Happy?” said Lydia. “I’ve been kidnapped, manhandled, bound, gagged, denied my civil liberties… and you work for the government?” A plaque on the wall spelled out the initials the man had spoken earlier. Her Majesty’s Internet Division. Knowing this was somehow official made her predicament both better and worse. Better to be up against sinister bureaucracy rather than some unhinged psychotics or terrorist splinter cell. Worse because when your adversary is officialdom, the law is generally on their side… and if it isn’t, what’s to stop them changing it? Still, she was TheLady now. She wasn’t going down without a fight. “I demand to see my solicitor!”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible just yet, Mrs. Charles," said the G-Man. "Or, perhaps, ever.” He led the way into an office with a huge windowed wall. Beyond lay an enormous, endless office - row after row of computer workstations, as far as the eye could see. The man took a seat and beckoned Lydia to do the same. “In the meantime, we need you to sign some papers regarding the terms of your new employment…”
“New employment?” Lydia was confused but TheLady was incensed. “What are you talking about? I’ve already got a job! Which, I might add, I’m already about two hours late for - thanks to you and your thugs.“
Out of the corner of her eye she caught Ray’s face. He looked almost hurt. She was about to take it back when the official started talking again.
“Don’t you worry about that,” he said, “your previous employer has been made fully aware of your change of circumstances.” He took a folder from his desk and began shuffling contracts.
“Just… just wait a minute,” said Lydia, staring through the window at the open plan office to infinity. Hundreds of heads, possibly even thousands, faces lost below the lines of their pc monitors, each and every one consumed by their work. “Just what are you talking about? What is this job? What am I supposed to…”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Charles, it’s a job for which you’ve shown yourself to be eminently qualified. I’m sure you won’t have any problem—“
“What – is – it!?”
“Why, you’ll be helping us produce online content, of course. You’ll be blogging, tweeting, Facebooking and tumblring – for a living. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”
“Well,” said Lydia, uncertain whether the flutter in her chest was excitement or terror, "I suppose..."
“The only difference being… from now on you’ll be writing only what we tell you to.”
Lydia felt her jaw drop, but the official had seen it all before. He continued before she had time to protest.
“Mrs. Charles, you seem to have been labouring under a misapprehension, as the public often does, that the world wide web is your own personal speaker’s corner. In fact, that couldn’t be farther from the truth… Here at HM ID HQ, we deal with information... we deal with disinformation... we deal in organised anarchy and carefully fabricated nonconformism. The one thing we don’t deal in… is freedom of speech. You can’t just say anything you want on the internet!”
