Chapters 9-10

Today Peter begins his new job at NSHQ, begins to learn about how life works there and receives an interesting invitation.

If you prefer to listen, the audio is here too.

Chapter Nine Autumn 2034 Peter Harrison

SSC was plagued by the dark net in its first year. Companies could sell likes and hits and could move people up rankings. But once money disappeared and the banks shut down, there was nothing to trade for likes and hits anymore: you can’t exactly trade a like for a like. Now the only way to succeed is to consume and share. There must be people out there who are so hooked on consumption that their popularity takes a back seat; but what must these people be like? Are they really like drug addicts strung out on heroin?

I think about trade because I am surprised to see that the office I’m currently sitting in contains a small array of personal affections. There are four paintings, one of which I recognise as a self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh. There is an abacus on the desk and something very surprising: there is a hardback book laid open as if someone is in the middle of actually reading it.

The office belongs to Miss Mary Hain. I have just arrived, having been collected at 7am from the place I will no longer call home by a NewState self-drive vehicle and two accompanying EEOs. My journey was silent and upon arrival I was brought directly to this office, with its four paintings, abacus, hardback book and window looking out over the valley. The room is situated high up the left-hand tower of the building, and so has a spectacular view of the city and its surrounding countryside. The view makes my small defiance seem minute, but then, surely, this view is not a defiance like mine – it is the office of Miss Mary Hain. Questions drift through my mind as the contradictions of the NewState elite continue to confuse me.

I hear a click behind me and turn to see Miss Mary Hain walk in. I stand to greet her, and she holds out her hand. I take it and feel a wave of desire come over me as the warmth of her hand flows into mine. She looks me in the eye saying nothing before she releases, takes a deep breath, sits and speaks,

‘Welcome, Peter. Welcome to your new home. It is good to see you again. Please, take your seat again. We have a great deal to discuss, and I am sure you are eager to begin your new work, and, indeed, to find out what your new work will be.’ I do as she says and take my seat opposite her. She must see my eyes flicker to the open book for she says,

‘Ah, yes, Frankenstein. A recent gift, and a fascinating read so far. Does it surprise you that I am reading this book?’

‘It surprises me that you are reading at all. I have not read a book for many years. It is not part of our culture anymore.’ Of course, I do not mention my recent visit to the old city library.

‘I think you are cleverer than that, Peter. Indeed, that is why you are here. You have noticed things are different here, I presume. What have you noticed, beyond my book?’

I do not know whether this is a trick question but can’t think of any answer to give apart from the truth.

‘You have paintings on your walls, and an abacus. And there is a communal eating area. Living quarters are not equipped with kitchens and staff do not wear emotivests, despite being around other people.’

‘Yes. And do you know why these differences exist?’ She looks at me like a teacher to a student.

‘No.’

‘Peter, you must be honest now. That is something that we must insist on. You may think your own thoughts and say your own sayings, but when asked a question by a ranked official, you must reply with honesty.’ She is firm, but not militaristic. ‘So, can you think of a reason that we adopt these differences?’

‘Well, forgive me, but is it not basic History that leaders allow themselves the luxuries they deny their people?’

‘And you would consider these variations luxuries, would you?’ There, a trap. She smiles,

‘Peter, it is okay. These are luxuries. Not everyone would consider them to be luxuries, but for some of us, they are. This is not a case of an elite denying the masses what they desire. We are not fascists Peter. We do not make our people poor whilst laying in a bed of riches ourselves. The people out there do not want these things.’ She waves her arm to indicate her possessions. ‘That is why NewState and SSC exist. We provide the luxuries that people desire. And the luxuries that the masses desire exist in SSC and the way of life that has evolved since NewState was elected to run this country. Do you see, Peter?’

I have to admit to myself that I am excited – I feel like I am learning some of the truth at last; but every revelation raises more questions.

‘But is it not a contradiction for the leaders of a culture not to adopt the culture they promote? Why are the leaders of NewState not the fiercest advocates of their policy?’

‘But, Peter, we are the fiercest advocates of SSC. We truly believe that we are giving the people what they want. And that, Peter, is a wonderful thing. When, in human history, can you think of a time where the people were so safe, so equal, and so blessed with luxury and prosperity? We are all here, working at NewStateHeadQuarters, because we understand the needs of the people. But to provide the people with SSC, we cannot fully desire it ourselves; to do so would take an extraordinary amount of selflessness that, I think, we can agree would not be sustainable.’

This is strange information. Miss Mary Hain is saying that the government don’t desire SSC for themselves as a matter of preference but believe that it is their political duty to provide it for everyone else.

‘So,’ I say tentatively, still trying to grasp the point. ‘You create and sustain a world you do not wish to live in, for people who do?’ Is NewState truly selfless after all? ‘And what do you get in return? If you are not motivated out of selflessness, what does motivate NewState?’

‘Ah, I think it would be unfair to say that selflessness does not motivate the party at all. Our Leader Day is different. She is truly motivated by selflessness. She has always been determined to create a safer, more equal world for everyone. She would, I believe, live inside if she could. But, as the greatest lover of SSC, she must stay outside to run it. This is not a contradiction. Unlike Our Leader Day, many of us who work here do so selfishly. We are here because we are able to apply our talents and intelligence in a world like the old world. We continue to play the roles of scientists, engineers, innovators, inventors, even diplomats. For us, the world has not changed. If we did not have these roles and were forced into a life of SSC, there would be open rebellion. Our Leader Day recognises this and allows us to live in a style that is both compatible with the old world and the new. She is different however: she must lead because she is the one selfless enough to recognise that the people must be allowed to live inside. Were I, or many others, given the chance to lead, would we be so selfless as to allow the people to have what they want? I do not know. But I do know that NewState, led by Our Leader Day, maintains a delicate and utopian social balance, the likes of which have never been seen before.’

She stops speaking, and the silence gives me time to process what she has said. Her argument fits with everything the party has ever promoted about giving the people what they want and providing the world with safer social structures. It all sounds so good, and yet I know that I am not happy. As if reading my mind, she says,

‘I know it is a lot to process for someone like you, Peter. You must have spent a long time hating NewState.’

My face must reveal panic. I do not know how to compose myself or how to respond. Am I here to be punished? Sensing my fear, she says,

‘Peter, it is okay. You have nothing to fear. You are not here because you managed to prove yourself a devout follower of SSC. As you may or may not have worked out, you are here because you are the least devout follower of SSC that we interviewed. The thing that will destabilise the regime is discontent. And you were discontent, Peter. But now you do not have to be. You are being rewarded, like everyone is rewarded in NewState, with a life that you will love. You will have a working purpose to satisfy your creative mind, and you will be able to rest easy that the work you do to satisfy your own needs, will be satisfying the needs of others, for you will be working hard to make SSC continue to evolve for the masses that so adore it. And so you see Peter, the harmony is maintained. And everyone is happy.’

She is right, this is a lot to take in. I am not here to be punished for hating NewState, but I am here to be given what I need to be happy. The only shift in perspective required is to accept that for those who want it NewState and SSC is a good thing. But is it not true that in a market where nothing else is available, we crave what is on offer, even if it is something that, in other circumstances, we would abhor? As if reading my mind again, she adds,

‘And don’t forget, Peter. It would be a fascist sort of arrogance to believe that one knows what is best for the people more than they do for themselves. The people are intelligent and autonomous enough to know that they want SSC and they have never been coerced into wanting it. Who are we to disagree with their desires? Unfortunately, Peter, you were one of the ones who slipped through the net, but we work hard at NewState to find people like you, people who are unhappy with SSC, and who do not realise that they do not have to be. That is why you are here, Peter – to begin your new life, as NewState would want you to live it: happy and fulfilled.’

If she’s telling the truth, then I should be willing to tell her about my fellow runners, about Janine, Eleanor and Henry and James. But it would be too soon to do that, far too dangerous. All I have is Miss Mary Hain’s word, and what is the word of someone you have spent a decade believing to be your enemy?

‘Now, Peter, I would like to give you your first assignment. Your performance during interview suggested that you understand what people want from NewStateMedia, especially in the short content. That is a skill not widely held here at NewStateHeadQuarters for obvious reasons.’ She observes the blank look on my face and clarifies. ‘You are unique, Peter: someone who does not enjoy instant media moments will struggle to get into the mind of someone who does; yet you seem able to conjure up content that you would presumably detest, whilst the people out there, I think, would adore. It is a skill perhaps assisted by the work you did in the old world - I have, in fact, read your PHD thesis in Sociology.’

I don’t know what to believe. I know I am not fickle enough to suddenly accept that SSC is perfect, simply because I have been offered a job that could fulfil the desires that I have been denied by living within it myself. But do people really want SSC? And if they do, is that okay? I think of what Janine said the last time we spoke. She told me to do whatever it takes. She told me to play their game, whatever that meant. She told me to gain their trust, to become one of them. And she told me to do it in clear conscience, knowing that it is the only way to work towards the greater good. The only problem is that Miss Mary Hain is blurring my understanding of what the greater good is.

But no. Unless I feel confident enough to hand over the names of my fellow runners, I cannot be confident enough to believe something as important as this.

‘Peter, it is ok. It will take time to adjust. But I have no doubt that in time you will feel comfortable in your new life here. Now, let me take you to meet your new team.’

Still lost in confused thought, she leads me out of her office and through the white lit corridors of my new home.

I lie awake. It has been nearly a month since I arrived here to begin my new work, and I cannot deny that it has been interesting. They have put me in charge of a small team of five. Every morning we are given the previous day’s data reports – the sort that just over a month ago I was producing. We analyse the trends and look for patterns to suggest what direction to take our creations in. The rough idea from the data is enough to get us thinking and we brainstorm. We’re creating very short media content – between five and sixty seconds – so it is important for us to work quickly. By midday we have between ten and twenty ideas and we send these over to the production teams who then bring them to life. By nineteen hundred hours our ideas are out there for general consumption. It’s a whirlwind process. Some of the ideas require actors, and some programmers, but either way, because the content is so short they get it made the same day. It really is an impressive process – we’re getting content to the consumer within twenty-four hours of requesting it (in a manner of speaking) and then it’s barely more than another twenty-four hours before the data reports we receive back reflect the content we’ve just put out there. This way people are getting content tweaked to their preferences in closer to real time than I could ever have imagined possible.

But at the end of every day we sit together in the cinema room where we watched the film about the man who walked into the wild. It is at these moments, without fail, every day, that I have to hold in the bile that rushes to my mouth and suppress the desire to smash the screens and run from the building. The problem is that the media I help to produce requires deep thinking about what appeals to people’s desires, but not a care for the integrity of those desires. Imagine eating sugary snacks all day long. Every bite tastes good, but by the end of the day you feel utterly foul. You feel depressed. And over time you become fat, riddled with ill-health and die young. Well, it’s the same with the work I am doing here. The moment I have to consume it myself I feel dirty, worthless and cheap.

And I’m not disgusted because I’m craving the superiority of some fine, pretentious art. It’s a physical reaction. I’m part of a shit making machine, and the shit tastes like heroin: fatally addictive; that makes it bad – surely that makes it bad!

The problem is because I hate myself so much in the evenings, I crave some purpose in the mornings, and that’s when we start crunching numbers, analysing graphs and creating content again.

I continue to lie awake, staring at the ceiling through the darkness. I long for my small defiance. I long to break a rule. But now I don’t know what breaking the rules means. I don’t live inside anymore. I decide to get up and cycle. I do not know if this is unusual behaviour. After all, I’m here because of my unusual behaviour. Surely they can’t argue with that.

I start slowly, easing my way into it, but soon I turn the setting to the fastest I think I can handle. I want to sweat out the dirt from under my skin and breathe until it hurts. As I peddle faster and faster, I close my eyes and try to imagine that I’m outside, under the stars, running in the cold winter air. I’m racing Henry, trying to catch James, I can hear Janine just behind me. I peddle faster and faster, sweat dripping from my brow. I’m just about to reach the top of the hill when I slow down and tap James on the shoulder. I’m about to say something, when he turns around and I feel my legs give way and I fall to blackness.

I come to slowly. I find myself on the floor next to my bike. I can’t have been out long, just the length of the fall. The shock still courses through me. When James turned round it was not his face I saw. It was the face of a soldier. He was pointing his finger at me saying ‘Your country needs you.’ I see the image again, and this time I do not hold the bile in. I turn over and throw up onto the floor.

I am walking down a long corridor, approaching a bend around which I cannot see, though I am excited at the prospect of rounding it. As my path bends, the white lit floor and walls extend out like a Roman road: long, straight and purposeful. I move forward, quickening my pace to a speed between a walk and a run. I look over my shoulder, but no-one is there. The end of the corridor is a small target getting larger and larger as I keep on moving. I set my sights on the door at the end and turn my jog into a run as I hear the unmistakable sound of marching feet from somewhere beyond the bend behind me. I begin to sweat and tire but do not slow. I reach out, push and my eyes are flooded with the all-consuming burning of the rising sun.

‘O Earth O Earth return!

Arise from out the dewy grass;’

And I awake, still lying crumpled on the floor beside my bike, the stench of my stagnant sick seeping through my nose and nauseating my mind.

Chapter Ten Autumn 2034 Peter Harrison

Today I work as usual. I am eager and excited to feel my mind being put to work after mild accusations of self-loathing and another night’s fears of decrepitude. The data is always slightly different and though the content it encourages may appear indistinguishable from one day to the next, even now, after little more than a month, a close observer could start to see a slight shift over time. I wonder how that shift will look after another month or a year. People get bored if they consume too much of the same thing for too long, so it is our job to keep things interesting. If we don’t, people might be liable to mistake the problem. Would they accuse the producer not the product? Well, that doesn’t matter because we are making sure that we fine tune the product to respond to and evolve the zeitgeist at all times.

Despite awakening today with a mild sense of self-loathing and fears of decrepitude, I am coping with my new role better now than I was at the start. Since my one-month review, I have been granted a change to my routine. I did not know what to expect when Miss Mary Hain invited me to her office to see how I was settling in, but I was pleasantly surprised.

‘Peter, reports suggest that you are taking to your work even more naturally than expected. Viewing figures of the content your team produces are up on all other teams and sub-minute content has experienced a three percent rise in just four weeks, an unprecedented achievement for a single department. Well done, Peter. And are you pleased to feel your mind adapting to the stimulus of your work?’

I felt capable neither to tell a complete lie or the complete truth.

‘It feels good to use my mind again.’

‘Well, that is good Peter. Now, to say thank you properly, I have a little something for you.’ She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a small parcel. She handed it to me and bid me open it out of its brown paper packaging. I untied the string and pulled apart the paper without tearing it and was stunned to see that she had presented me with a book. I turned it over in my hands to reveal the title. It was The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

‘I think you’ll like it, Peter. And I think it may help you to further understand what we do here. I look forward to discussing it with you when you have read it. Now, I wish I could talk with you for longer...’ She looked at me earnestly, before adopting a more managerial tone. ‘But there is much I have to do today. I will seek you out, however, sometime soon, if you do not object, and perhaps we could discuss your thoughts on that book and… other things.’ The managerial tone disappeared for a fraction of a moment when she said ‘other things’. And then I left.

This conversation raised all manner of questions in my mind, and I realised instantly that I had been neglecting to both find new questions, and, indeed, answer any of those I had already posed, having been so distracted by my daily cycle of excitement, satisfying exhaustion and self-loathing.

But here was a reminder that things at NewState follow a complex pattern. I have no doubt that nothing here is random, and if I dig deeply enough, at least in theory, I may discover the contours and shapes of the design. Questions: Why did she give me a book? Why did she pick The Picture of Dorian Gray? What did she mean by ‘other things’? ‘When will she ‘seek me out’ and why did I feel a thrill when she said it? I think I know the answer to the last question at least.

I have read the book, though it was perhaps twenty years ago, and I remember little more than the premise. I determined to read it as quickly as possible, and here I am two weeks later, having read it nearly three times and still waiting to hear from Miss Mary Hain. The reading has made my days more bearable, for I have been able to read eloquent and intelligent literature after the nineteen hundred hours screenings, and so I have not spent my entire nights obsessing over the content we make each day.

When I finally hear from Miss Mary Hain, I feel myself relax, and cherish the feeling, for it has been a long time since I have had anything worth waiting for. I have spent years realising that life is meaningless and fruitless if it does not aspire to be the very best story of them all. If art used to imitate life, then art has died a sorrowful death for our lives have become too sedentary to be interesting. So now I aspire for my life to imitate the art of old, for that was written when life was full of finery.

I am changing for the evening and preparing for the nineteen hundred hours screening when I see a note slip under my door. I walk over, reach down, pick it up and return to sit on my bed. I turn it over in my hand, allowing myself to consciously feel the texture of the paper, so unlike the smoothness of screens. I wonder when the last time I wrote something down on a piece of paper was, when I last held a pencil or pen. I open it up to reveal a neat message saying:

Peter, I would love to see you for dinner tonight. Seven. Cafeteria One. MH.

I read the note over again, wondering. I am eager to see her, to talk about the book I have now read three times, to hear her thoughts on it, to… to… When was I last asked out to dinner? A stupid thought, but it persists beneath the surface, along with lingering looks and dreams of falling down a hill.

When I arrive, the cafeteria is almost empty. We usually eat at six and are sat in the screening room by seven. But there are a few lingering faces dotted around the room that I do not recognise, people who must work in other departments doing other things, whatever they may be. I spot Miss Mary Hain, sat at a table way off in the far corner of the vaulted room. The height of the ceiling gives the impression of size and grandeur that the square footage of the room would not engender alone. As I walk towards her, it is the first time that I notice the walls and floor and ceiling here are not white and lit as they are everywhere else in the building. I notice something more natural about the walls and the silvery metallic of the stairs and railings leading to the mezzanine floor above.

When I am close enough to familiarise myself with her face, she looks up and smiles warmly at me. She is not wearing her usual overalls but a simple white tee-shirt and grey trousers. Her hair is not tied back but is hanging loose and long over her shoulders and across her chest. It is pulled round to one side, so I can see the length of her slender neck closest to me. Her chair scrapes back as she stands to greet me; it echoes throughout the near empty room.

‘Oh, sorry,’ she says, straightening the length of her top and smiling again. ‘The sound rather carries when the room is so empty. It is good to see you, Peter.’ She shakes my hand – not formally, as usual, but softly, almost tenderly.

‘I’ve never been here so late. It’s always so busy when I come down. I assumed they didn’t serve long after seven, seeing as everyone is scheduled to eat at six.’

‘They don’t. Not really. But I always eat once the crowds have dispersed and the cook is good enough to oblige the habit.’ I guess there have to be advantages to seniority, and I remark to myself that I had not thought about where she eats or thought about her absence from meal times. Come to think of it, I guess I thought the politicians and leaders would be elsewhere, but I hadn’t thought to pose the question of where elsewhere might be.

‘I see,’ I say. ‘I would usually be sat in the nineteen-hundred-hour screening now.’ I cannot avoid betraying a sense of disgust in my voice. Evidently she notices and says,

‘Yes, perhaps we could meet more often, and you could avoid it at least some of the time.’ She smiles knowingly. To my perplexed face she adds, ‘Well, of course you can’t stand to be there, Peter. It wouldn’t make sense if you could now would it.’

I fear that my mixture of ignorance and continued fear at betraying something to my… well, to my enemy, is making me appear unintelligent, but it is hard to put two and two together in a world where you have always assumed that the laws of physics work upside down.

‘Well,’ she continues. ‘Of course, you can’t stand the content you’re making. If you liked it, then you’d want to be consuming it, and that would mean you’d be back in your apartment, and you wouldn’t be here eating dinner with me.’

‘I see. So, I could avoid going if I wanted to, and no-one would mind?’

‘Well, I don’t think it would be wise to do so all the time.’ She pauses for a moment, thinking. ‘Oh, but not for any sinister reason, of course.’ She casually dismisses the thought before it had fully formed in my mind. ‘Oh no, it is just that if you don’t see the finished products of your work, you might lose your touch. But, I think, it is not necessary every day. Now,’ she says, changing the subject with a little excitement in her voice. ‘What did you think of the book? Had you read it before?’ She leans in, resting her chin on her hands, looking at me eagerly. She appears to be genuinely excited to hear my opinion. I notice a strand of her hair fall across her face, but she leaves it tickling her nose, which twitches involuntarily. I imagine reaching out and tucking it back behind her ear.

We talk for over an hour, and it isn’t until the chef brings out a bottle of – crikey, it’s whisky – that I notice what I’ve been eating. Caught up in this old art everything seemed so natural and normal. But now that I see the bottle of whisky I realise the absurdity of my blindness: I’ve just eaten a three-course meal – but of real food, not the typical prescription portions we’re usually served. This was like eating at a restaurant and it came back so naturally that I didn’t even notice that I was doing something I didn’t believe happened anymore – something I haven’t done since before the change with… with … with Janine. The thought of Janine suddenly pulls me away and I remember where I am, who I am with and why I am here; or a least how I do not know why I am here.

‘Peter?’ I feel Miss Mary Hain’s hand touch mine, and I return to the table. ‘What is it, Peter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Oh, was I going on a bit? I was going on a bit, wasn’t I? I was getting carried away. The truth is I’m having fun, and I do go on a bit when I get excited about something.’ She pauses, looking at me earnestly. The truth is, I do feel like I’ve seen a ghost, but the ghost is a living, breathing, beautiful thing, and it’s staring me in the face, smiling at me, kindly.

‘Sorry,’ I say, shaking my head in an over the top sort of way. ‘The whisky, it just surprised me. I don’t know when I last had any.’

‘Yes, I thought it fitting. Dorian would love it, I suppose. Or perhaps I should have asked for some gin.’ She picks up the bottle and pours us both a generous measure. Raising her glass, she says, ‘To Dorian Gray. May we never regret the exploits of our youth!’

The whisky is good. It hits the back of my throat hard and then I feel it seeping through me, pleasantly warming me as it moves down. I consider her toast and say,

‘But no-one around Dorian could stand him in the end. I mean, it’s an exciting idea, eternal youth, but, come on, he sold his soul to the devil. There can’t be anything worse than that can there?’

‘But there is no devil anymore, Peter. Hedonism is no longer dangerous in our new world and there is no devil in the bargain. Surely you are coming to see that there is no devil in the bargain, Peter.’ She touches my hands again and looks at me imploringly. I feel the whisky in my head, and I can’t make sense of what she has been saying. It really has been a long time since I drank alcohol. I smile.

‘No, perhaps not. Though maybe in themselves. I don’t know.’ And it is the truth. Right here, right now, in this very moment, after this pleasant hour, I don’t know where the devil is.

Back in my room I lie awake for a long time, thinking about the evening and everything we discussed. Miss Mary Hain’s earnestness has confused me. Is there really no question of morality anymore? Has the playing field changed so much that the fundamental rules don’t apply? Am I trying to score tries in a game of chess?

My thoughts eventually drift into restless dreams.

When I awake, I notice something on the floor by my door. I get up, feeling some of last night rising to my head. I pick up the piece of paper. It has been neatly folded in half and I unfold it quickly.

Peter, thank you for a lovely evening. I’ve left another book outside your room. Perhaps we could meet at the same time next week, if you’re able to read it in time. MH.

I pull the door open immediately and the book that had been propped up against it falls with a light thud to the floor. I take it into my room and turn it over. It is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I stare at the cover for a minute. There is a picture of a tyre swing hanging from a tree, and the dark silhouette of a mockingbird growing from the top left-hand corner and covering the page.

Suddenly I am fifteen again, sat at a desk in a classroom. I look around and I see rows of boys no different from me, identically dressed in the same school boy haircuts and the same looks of mild interest on their faces. We’re all holding the same book, open at the same page, our eyes scanning at the same speed, listening to someone in front of us read the words we are following. I hear the teacher read aloud in his fake Deep South American accent:

‘Before I can live with other folks, I’ve got to live with myself.’

I feel my younger self sit up, as if something profound is clicking into place. And it is: I remember now that right at this moment something distinctly profound was clicking into place. This was the moment I realised I was interested in people and the way they fit together, and it was the moment I realised that I was becoming someone who wanted to be like Atticus Finch – that was his name, the lawyer in the book – someone who stands up and fights even though he knows there’s a good chance he’ll lose.

I look around the room again through the eyes of my younger self and I smile at the view: my school was distinctly brown: the blazers we wore, the floor we walked on, the panelled walls, the colour of our hair, the colour of the coffee I could smell emanating from the teacher’s mug on the brown desk at the front of the room.

I like brown, I think. And I like autumn. I liked the excitement of spring, the joys of summer, the thoughtfulness of autumn and the hibernation of winter. I used to be a man of four seasons, different and yet the same through each year. And now? Well, now I am white and light all year round.

My consciousness drifts back into my room, where I am standing, looking at the picture of a black bird shrinking into the top left-hand corner of a page, until it is sitting on the branch of the tree, looking down at the tyre swing below.

I decide that I will try my luck and skip the nineteen hundred-hour hours screening this evening.

The book is brilliant. I finish it in only two days, and on the second was glad to have saved it’s healing balm to ease my heavy mind when I returned to my room once again weighed down by the filth of what I had spent another day creating. That said, no one has mentioned my absence from the screening two nights ago and I wonder how often I will have to attend in order to maintain such silence.

Things continue routinely for the rest of the remaining seven days until I see Miss Mary Hain again. We receive data every morning. We plan and write short content until midday. We send scripts off and we await the nineteen-hundred-hour screenings. I re-read the two books I have in my possession.

One thing changes however. It is Wednesday, and we have sent our scripts off for the day and have just had lunch. I am planning to return to my room to use my exercise bike – we are still required to stay healthy – when one of my colleagues invites me elsewhere. His name is Jonathan.

He’s younger than me and must be somewhere in his early twenties. Although I am in the swing of routine now with work, meal times, exercise and ignoring the horseshoe in my room, apart from my one dinner with Miss Mary Hain I have had no social interaction with anyone since I arrived. In truth, I remain confused and entirely unclear as to what my life is supposed (or permitted) to be here. Despite Miss Mary Hain’s intimations that the workers are not expected to embrace SSC in their personal time, given that it was little over a month ago that I was living a life of absolute secrecy and fear, I have continued to exercise the habit of caution.

Nonetheless, I have been gingerly becoming more adventurous in my daily activities. In the free time between lunch and dinner before the nineteen-hundred hours screening, I have wandered the corridors, fancying that I am taking an afternoon stroll. I have slept. I have re-read my books. And I have day dreamed endlessly. But I have had no indication of what I am expected to do with my free time. Initially, of course, I assumed that life would continue as it had done for many years: OCES, observe, consume, experience, share, but slowly I have stopped logging on and going in. Each day that I go in less and less I fear the arrival of an EEO at my door to ask awkward questions, but each day nothing happens. And so it is not until this very moment that I find out what we can actually do with our free time.

‘Peter.’ Jonathan calls my name as I am halfway to the canteen door. I turn to see him half running towards me.

‘Oh, hello, Jonathan.’

‘What’re you up to this afternoon?’ I look at him dumbly?

‘Well,’ he continues as if I’m behaving normally. ‘I’ve not seen you in the rec room since you arrived, unless you’re going to another one somewhere else in the building. But, anyway, some of the team are going now, so I thought I’d see if you wanted to join.’

A rec room? A month ago, I would have thought this a trap: there is no rec room; this is a test. But now my instinct knows that there is a rec room, that it is in regular use, and that I can, if I chose to, use it and continue to heal my decrepit mind. It is worth the risk to say yes.

‘Sure, Jonathan. I admit, I didn’t know there was a rec room.’

‘Ah, it’s amazing how little new people get told.’ We start walking. ‘But then again, new people usually mean groups of initiates in their late teens. There’s a whole programme for bringing them in and training them up. It’s not often that someone like you joins us, so, I guess, the routines are overlooked a bit. Easy to forget what it must be like in there’ – he points to my head – ‘when you can’t remember what it feels like to be out there.’ He indicates the world beyond the walls. ‘I mean, I sure can’t remember much. Things changed when I was young, around twelve I guess. I’d had a pretty good education up to that point, so I excelled in NewStateEducation and well, here I am.’

‘But you were part of the new generation. Weren’t you obsessed with social media and virtual reality like the rest?’ I know everyone’s different, but I saw it first hand as long as a decade before the change: people of all ages were being rewired by technology.

‘Nope. Let’s just say I grew up at the opera. Now that’s something you have to learn to like; no-one likes the opera their first time but when you get it, man it feels good. I have a few records if you’re ever interested.’ This is news. I have a couple of books, and Jonathan has some records. Who controls the distribution of these archaic artefacts? And if they’re readily available, why is Miss Mary Hain's office so sparsely populated and why am I waiting for her to give me books? If there was a library, she’d have told me, surely. Too much is still unclear to be too candid. I do not ask Jonathan where his records come from, or how one goes about getting more.

‘So, where is this rec room,’ I ask.

‘Just around this bend.’ We turn a corner from one white corridor to another and there it is, a door like any other, except for a plaque that reads ‘NSRecreationRoomOne’.

‘There are at least a dozen rooms like this around the building. I’ve been to a few others, but there’s no real reason to go to the others. This is the closest one to where we live and work.’

We go inside, and the sight almost brings tears to my eyes. It is a large room. Around the edges are armchairs and sofas, some clustered around small tables, and some on their own. In the centre of the room is a snooker table and a table tennis table and behind them – I can’t believe what I am seeing – there is a large bookcase filled, not with books, but with what appear to be board games. And now I notice the most startling thing of all: this room is not white. The arm chairs are red and green and brown and look comfortable. The tables and bookcases are made of oak and the walls are adorned with pictures in frames. I feel like I’ve been transported back to an old Oxford club house.

‘It’s a nice change, isn’t it,’ says Jonathan. ‘I mean, the rest of the building is fantastic, but there is something nice about this for a few hours a week.’

I am agog. We play snooker and table tennis and laugh for a couple of hours before people start to drift off. I want to stay, just to sit in one of the armchairs and think, but everyone’s movements remind me not to get too comfortable. I leave with the rest of the team and return to my room and the cycle I had postponed.

After I have cycled and showered, I sit on my bed to think. It felt good to laugh. It has felt good to read. And it has felt good to spend time with people. I look forward to meeting with Miss Mary Hain again. I pick up To Kill a Mockingbird and begin to read from the beginning.