Replicate: Beneath the Steel City: Book 2 Page 9

  “So what happened?”

  “He provided me with a set of numbers. Numbers that meant nothing to me, but which he said would demonstrate to the government that the fraud was exposed. Force them to make a statement. To at least attempt to explain away what they’d done. He told me who to go to in the party – someone who was in on it. If the government acted sufficiently scared to persuade my publisher that this was for real, we’d give The Numbers Man what he was demanding.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “I went to the government contact, who claimed to know nothing about it. Didn’t seem worried. Didn’t respond in any way. My publisher shrugged and said so much for my source. It was time, he said, for me to move onto something else.”

  “And did you?”

  “I didn’t get the chance. On my way home that evening, my Skycar was somehow diverted. It wouldn’t respond to my commands, and wouldn’t switch into manual mode. My nav screen switched off, my computer was dead, none of my comms links worked. I was delivered to a military spaceport, put aboard a prison ship and taken to the Lunar Penal Colony.”

  “Directly?” I asked. “Nobody interrogated you first?”

  “Not until I got there,” said Simpson. “They told me the reason I’d been taken directly there was because they wanted to impress upon me the reality of my position. Either I gave them the name of my source or I would be spending the rest of my life there on a trumped-up mass-murder charge. There would be no appeal, no possibility of parole, just whole-life imprisonment. If I chose not to cooperate, arrangements would be made to explain my disappearance. I would, I was told, resign my job in dejection at the fact that my story hadn’t panned out. I would be spending time travelling. My family and friends would receive regular messages from me. They had the technology to fake video calls with me, I was told. Nobody would be suspicious. But my life would be over.”

  I gave her a direct look.

  “I know journalists believe in protecting their sources, some have even gone to jail over it. But were you really willing to spend the rest of your life there to protect your source?”

  Simpson swallowed.

  “No. Not the rest of my life. But I didn’t even know the identity of The Numbers Man. All I could give them were my mid-level sources, and I didn’t know what would happen to them. I determined to wait it out as long as I can, in the hope that The Numbers Man would contact someone else. That it would all go public, and that the world would then learn what had happened to me. If that didn’t happen, then eventually I would have told them what they wanted to know. But I wasn’t doing that easily or quickly.”

  I looked at her with a new respect. Having seen for myself the conditions in which she lived – if one could call that living – I’m not sure I could have endured it for more than a few days; Simpson had been there for more than a month.

  “Well,” I said, finally, “you now have the proof for your publisher.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You no longer exist. You never did exist. All official record of your life has been erased. When your publisher runs checks on you, it will quickly become apparent that only the government could have done that. I can also provide him with access to WorldPol, showing that you were convicted of a crime that never occurred. That ought to be sufficient proof for him to give The Numbers Man what he wants.”

  Simpson nodded.

  “It should. Now, you know my story – would you like to tell me yours?”

  “Off the record,” I said.

  She paused for a long time before replying.

  “I guess I owe you that.”

  I explained how we’d rescued her.

  “Wow,” she said. “You sure I can’t tell that story?”

  “Quite sure,” I said.

  “Damn.”

  “There’s one other thing we want to know,” I told her. “The identity of your benefactor. The person who engaged our services.”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “I don’t know anyone with the kind of inside track it would take–”

  She looked at me, then at Philippa. I looked at Philippa. We all three of us had reached the same conclusion at the same time: it was The Numbers Man. Whoever he was, he knew what had happened to Simpson, and he had the kind of access it would have taken. It made me feel better. Now we’d given him what he wanted, he should have no further need of our services. Maybe.

  “You want to contact your publisher now?” I asked.

  “There are two things I want first.”

  “Name them.”

  “A bath. And a cup of tea the size of one.”

  Chapter 27

  You always imagine the fall of a government to be a dramatic event, especially when it can be shown that it used fraud to get elected. The reality was anti-climactic.

  The ruling party resigned, and a coalition of the minority parties became the government. A number of party officials were convicted – some senior – but nobody could prove that the prime minister or any of the cabinet knew anything about it. They would survive to fight the next election.

  A public enquiry was convened into how the electoral safeguards were bypassed, and what steps were needed to ensure it could never happen again. The coalition continued most of the policies of the previous administration. Meet the new government: same as the old one.

  Emma Simpson became a person again; Philippa and I remained underground ones. The government may have changed, but the rules hadn’t. Our adventures would continue.

  Afterword

  I very much hope you’ve enjoyed the first two books in the series. If you have, I have one invitation, and one favour to ask.

  The invitation is to join my occasional mailing list at http://www.benlovejoyauthor.com. You’ll be the first to know about new books in the series, and will get access to special launch pricing.

  The favour is to review the book. Visibility on Amazon depends on both sales and the number of positive reviews (Amazon considers 4- and 5-star reviews to be positive). Some book promos also require a minimum number of positive reviews before a book can be accepted. If you review it in only one place, amazon.com is the most useful one, while amazon.co.uk and goodreads.com also help. If you liked the book enough to post your review in all three places, that would be fantastic!

  Thank you.

  Ben Lovejoy

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