Not featuring Sonic

Short story about Sonic the Hedgehog that I posted on tumblr after having a brief twitter conversation with games industry heavyweight, Leigh Alexander (@leighalexander)

————

“But we’ve already done the posters for your reboot!” came the burbled voice down the mobile phone. Sonic grimaced, rubbing his gloved hand underneath his unshaven chin, the whiskers scraping along the palm with a sound akin to tearing paper. His agent was trying to wrangle him into another reboot.

“So it’s the same old schtick?” Sonic replied with a terse tone, biting back a cough that threatened to hint at the empty cigarette box on the table next to him. The table looked massive with that sole, empty box sitting in the middle of it, half crumpled and hollow. Sonic exhaled in contemplation, glancing around the massive house that his previous success had bought him, filled with decor reminiscent of mid-nineties chic but wearing the wrinkles of age. Time had not been kind to Sonic’s sense of fashion, and he visibly winced as he appraised his surroundings.

“Well, yeah it is. But it’s what people like from you!” Sonic’s agent reassured, “If you just worked out a little, lost some of that middle and started being seen in public again, we could have you back in your glory days!” The agent’s voice perked up a lot, as though he’d been reciting the lines in his head, and his tone bouncing around haphazardly like an enthusiastic breakfast radio announcer.

“I gotta think about it” Sonic stated.

“What’s to think about? This is your comeback!”

“We’ve been down this road before, and it’s never worked out well”

“Only critically. I mean, the dollars were alright, weren’t they?” the agent offered.

“Yeah but only for those Olympic tie-ins with Mario!” Sonic spat back down his phone, his maw threatening to swallow the hinged handset whole. Sonic really had no quibble with Mario; he was a nice guy and they caught up semi-frequently. It was such a pity, but necessary at the time, for them to be billed as rivals.

“Woah, dude.” The agent recoiled, “Look, you’re still a big guy. You’ve got pulling power for audiences”

“Fuck audiences! All they tell me to do is run and jump. I put on this ‘attitude’, but it’s all fabricated bullshit.” Sonic felt his head squeeze, like a band had been placed around his temples. The room seemed to darken a little, “I didn’t get into the industry to be typecast like this.”

“I know, man. I know. You’re gifted and you’ve got range!” the agent offered again.

Sonic silently gnashed his teeth. His agent was trying to placate him again. This tactic had become so blatant now that Sonic felt insulted each time he heard it. He lowered the flip-phone from his ear and ended the call by closing the phone with a sharp clap. He loved that sound.
So satisfying.

He needed to get out and get some air to clear his thoughts. He knew that this reboot was just another tiny papercut in the ongoing death-of-a-thousand-cuts saga. Nothing good would come of it, and he’d again find himself in his giant, dissolving mansion, staring at the wall and dreaming of times gone by, remaining a critical punching bag. Amid all the success and flashing lights of the past, he’d lost sight of what his work was originally all about. He’d lost what he enjoyed doing. He had grown stale.

He needed a challenge.

Sonic kicked off his red sneakers and paced over to the wardrobe, gathering a pair of loafers. He reached up to the hook and found his overcoat which he had used at the height of his popularity to avoid attention. He began to pull it on and head toward the front door before Tails appeared before him. Tails had been treated well, post-career, with regular appearances at fan conferences and the odd panel for retro games. His eyes still managed to glow with unbridled joy at every happenstance, but the crows-feet had began to step into the corners of his eyes.

“Whatcha doing?” he chirped

“Going out” Sonic replied flatly.

“Can I come?”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t”

Tails blinked in surprise, his eyelids travelling over his massive orbs with such haste they threatened to clap his cheeks off, “But we always…”

“Not this time” Sonic interrupted, continuing the cold monotone as he pulled on the overcoat. The garment tickled over the spines on his back in a way that made Sonic feel comfortable, reassured and warm. He pulled the door open to feel the cool early-evening air swirl over his unkempt snout. Tails squeaked again behind Sonic, but he paid him no attention. Bracing against the sharp evening air, Sonic pulled the hood of his overcoat over the spikes on his scalp and over his eyes before stepping out of the house and into streets.

 

*******

 

Sonic marched down the lanes, kicking an empty, discarded can as he headed toward no real destination. The streets were filled with figures, each lost in their own worlds as they made the fastest beeline to their known destinations. It was the time of day where people were finishing work and the air carried a distinct atmosphere of relief as each shape stared down into their modern smartphone, smiling easily at whatever was being beamed into their eyeballs. Sonic kicked the can again.

Sonic pulled his own mobile phone from his pocket to regard it for a moment. It didn’t do many of the functions that these newer phones did, but he could browse the internet on it if he wanted to. He flipped the phone open for a moment and launched the browser. Sonic waited for the home page to load. He waited. He sighed. He waited some more. Eventually the Google home page staggered into view, the familiar search bar somehow appearing dated and clunky on the phone’s tiny screen. Sonic started punching out a search for news using the keypad, awkwardly cycling through the alphabet as he pressed the numerical keys. The phone beeped with protest at each stab. Sonic growled to himself, snapping the phone shut again.

He loved that feeling.

Sonic pocketed the phone and cast his eyes around to see if anyone were watching him. He thought for a moment that he would appear out of place, a large, cloaked figure holding a phone harking back to a simpler age, but no one around him paid him any mind.

His eyes then rested on a paper that was taped to a nearby telephone pole. It was one of those pages with tearaway tabs so people could contact the person who was showing the advert. Many tabs hung below the page, with only a couple being removed. The page stared at Sonic like an injured Cthulu, the tab-tendrils shimmering gently in the cool breeze of the evening.

“Casting call for indie game” the page read, “No experience necessary”

Sonic pinched a tab on the page and gave it an assertive tug. He called the number and made immediate arrangements for an interview.

“And the name?” came the voice through the speaker.

Sonic paused for a moment to consider, “… Steve…?” he offered, hoping the upward inflection didn’t sound too confused.

“And when would you like to come in?”

“Now. I’m a kinda guy who’s gotta go fast…”

Sonic cringed and kicked the can as far as he could.

 

****

 

Sonic stepped into the makeshift meeting room. The developer’s office was a far cry to what he was accustomed. The typical conference room he’d known in which he’d attended for script reads was a distant scenario for this room, which appeared to be a garage with a couple tables pushed together. Sonic could even see a rail on the walls from which a garage door probably travelled. Seated before him were three people – two women and a man. Each of them wore glasses, but of differing fashions; thick rimmed, square framed and Harry Potter. They each smiled at Sonic with enthusiastic grins, despite their clear lack of sleep. Their eyes were darkened, appearing to have almost recessed so far back into their skulls as to be staring at their own sinuses.

“Are you in character?” the woman with square-framed glasses asked with a polite smile, referring to Sonic’s still-hooded shape. She introduced herself as Tammy.

“I’d prefer to keep my hood on” Sonic replied, the empty pack of cigarettes from earlier evident in his voice.

“Well, we’d like to see who we’re working with” the woman with thick rimmed glasses offered, also offering a warm smile while tilting her head slightly to get a better look at Sonic. Her ponytail drifted behind her slowly. Her name was Adele.

“We’d like to see you” Harry Potter chimed in; Joshua.

With a defeated sigh, knowing that he had no further option, Sonic pulled back his cowl.

The three at the table physically recoiled as they saw who it was that had wandered into their garage. Sonic wasn’t sure if their reaction was shock at seeing him, or shock at seeing him in such an unkempt state. His muzzle had a week’s extra growth and his spines were spread haphazardly across him as though he’d just tumbled out of bed.

“Sonic?” Tammy asked incredulously.

“What are you doing here?” Adele included.

“I saw your advert and thought I’d come try out.”

The three on the panel looked at each other uneasily, “No, what are you doing here?” Joshua reiterated, “Shouldn’t you be on location in the Marble Zone for your next project?”

“Or are you trying out your new legs?” Tammy offered

Sonic shook his head, feeling his spines travel back and forth across the lowered hood on his back. He remembered those times of being on set in the Zone, and the constant need to work out in order to keep his jumping height perfectly right for some levels. If he slacked off for a day, he knew he wouldn’t make some of the later levels.

“I’m done with that crap” Sonic growled, “I want new challenges.”

The three on the panel looked at each other again with confused stares, clearly unsure what to make of the situation, “The thing is, “ Tammy began, “our game doesn’t have any jumping or running. It’s not a fast game. In fact, the protagonist is a teenage girl”

Adele turn to face Tammy “You did think about putting in some jumping, didn’t you?” she asked.

“It didn’t fit” Tammy replied casually.

Joshua shrugged, “It’d change a lot of our level design to include jumping now” he stated.

“I’m done with jumping and looping loops and collecting rings” Sonic bit back, “It’s time for reinvention for me. I can’t keep doing the same crap over and over again, or trying to keep up with the times. Change is good. Challenge is good.

“Just look at what Warcraft did. They went from strategy to online behemoth! And they’re still as relevant today as they were in the nineties!”

“But we’re not a big studio like Blizzard” Adele countered, “I don’t think we can give you what you’re after. Heck, we can’t pay you what you’re probably used to”

“I don’t care”

“You just don’t fit into the world” Tammy said, “and your inclusion would be seen as an ironic cameo”

“I’m not interested in parodying myself” Sonic returned.

“There’s no place for an anthropomorphic hedgehog in our script” Joshua said.

Sonic replied by pulling his hood back over his spines and seating himself. He lowered his head so that the light hit him in a way that hid all his features except for a trace of his unshaven face. He pushed his arms together so that his gloves disappeared into the sleeves of the opposite arm.

The panel leaned in and regarded Sonic’s darker, seated shape for a moment. Sonic could feel their eyes on him, evaluating. The panel turned to each other, but said nothing, seemingly communicating with their eyes and slight nods of their heads.

“There is a role” Adele began.

Sonic lifted his eyes up, blinking as the light peered back at him through his cowl.

“It’s not big billing” Tammy added.

“… and you will only appear sporadically throughout the game, menacing the protagonist as she travels on her journey. The unseen monster” Joshua said, “because the most menacing monsters are those which you do not actually see”

Sonic nodded, considering what they were saying. The game would be a totally different project to what he was accustomed.

“So, no molten lava levels?” He asked. The panel nodded.

“No pressure on me to pull an audience? No sassy dialogue that sounds forced? No throwbacks to my past at all?”

The panel nodded, “But you’ll need to drop that voice you’ve used in your games”

Sonic reached into his jacket pocket, finding a full packet of cigarettes. He smiles to the panel, a satisfied grin spreading slowly across his unshaven maw.

“Perfect”

#Infrage – a short story

Lacyy stared vacantly at the cubicle opposite her own. It was in its usual state of order, papers slotted awkwardly into various the pockets that adorned their workspace walls. There was nothing particularly remarkable about Marq’s workspace, apart from the empty desk which usually had her always-chipper colleague stood before it, tapping away at his notebook.

It had been a week since she heard the news that Marq had taken his own life. It was sudden and unexpected. Marq had been caught up in a whirlwind of activity recently as the project they were working on had hit a couple important milestones. Things were working smoothly, as they always did when Lacyy and Marq collaborated – her the negotiator, able to coordinate disparate people and make them work toward a common goal, and him the motivater and morale booster – but then he suddenly quit the company, only to take his own life a week after.

It was no secret that he loathed the organisation. They both did. But they relieved each other of their own grimaces by making their tiny workspaces a place where they could be themselves. Management did often frown at their frivolity, but that frown was often averted when they saw the results that Lacyy and Marq brought.

Results. The project they were working on was running to schedule. It was a fairly rudimentary waterways redirection to make space for a new shopping complex. The management did extend the courtesy to Lacyy that she take whatever time she needed to process Marq’s “departure”, as they put it in the tweet, but the addendum provided that the project deadline not be interrupted.

Companies like the one Lacyy worked for often communicated through tweets. Email was far too clunky and often led to convoluted messages that were overthought and had too flowery language. The succint nature of Twitter did sometimes lead to misunderstandings of tone, but they were often explained away by the :} emoticon – shorthand for “sorry if I offended”.

The one grace that Lacyy had in the office was the one window that stared out over the various ridges of buildings in the city. She worked in one of the higher skyscrapers, which meant that it had all the latest office fitments typical of a modern company in the year 2090; their cubicles were fairly cosy, sometimes featuring a small table between two of them so people could collaborate easily.

Laccy stepped to the stool that was seated between her and Marq’s cubicles, but was near the window. It was office policy that employees seat themselves once every two and a half hours to relieve themselves of the constant burden of standing at their cubicles. There was only one stool between her and Marq, so they had to share, which seemed to work well for them. She looked down at some of the smaller buildings, and remembered some of the stories she’d heard of offices with desks and chairs with “back support”. She chuckled to herself at such outrageous notions of the early 2000s. Back troubles had reduced sixty seven percent since the broader shift to desks at standing height, and the resulting saving on chairs allowed for a greater number of employees to fit in office floors.

A few vehicles flitted past her high level window. More executives on their way to a meeting, Lacyy surmised. She peered downward toward the street below, watching the orderly ebb and flow of the driverless cars as they flowed through the streets, narrowly avoiding each other. She had always admired the engineers who came up with the algorithm that allowed these vehicles to find the optimum path to destinations while still managing to avoid each other. Again, she remembered her history class where they spoke of rudimentary methods of traffic management, using the laughably prehistoric method of coloured lights to tell drivers when to proceed.

Apparently there were riots in the streets when driverless cars were mandated. Lacyy shook her head, unable to comprehend why anyone would prefer to manually drive themselves, with all the risks of crashes, the proven fact of peoples’ inability to share the road and how much more effective these newer cars were. Of course, if you were an executive or earned eight figures, you could afford one of the self flying cars, which took you even further away from the traffic down below.

Lacyy’s phone chirped with a notification, drawing her out of her daydream. She checked her media, suddenly remembering that Marq was no longer around to tease her about her constantly singing device.

It was the Department of Departures twitter account.

 

“Marq has nominated you as executor of his estate. Come to our vault at 0800 on 26 May 2090 :} #DepartNomination”

*****

 

Her and Marq were close colleagues, but it did strike her as odd that he had nominated her as the executor of his estate. He was an outgoing individual, who was quite loud in group situations. The Extroverts Extrovert, Lacyy had described him, which is what had caught her off guard about Marq’s sudden “departure”, a standard euphemism for passing away. Suicide didn’t seem to fit for a man who had such an enthusiasm for life. Maybe he had depression?

“You never know who is depressed”, Lacyy remembered from the awareness campaign for depression. It could be anyone who has the black dog visit.

She paced through the fresh morning at a brisk rate to shrug off the skeletal fingers of winter poking at her skin. Her boots crunched on partially melted frost. She glanced up momentarily as she noticed the flicker of the street lights as they changed from the overnight-power to the standard solar power.

As always, she imagined all the healthy people in the prison system sighing in relief as they climbed off their exercise bicycles that provided power for night time. That power had kept her house nice and warm during the night. Thank god for the 2049 amendment to the Cruel And Unusual Punishment laws that allowed the Justice system to sentence criminals to “kilowatts generated” as opposed to a length of time.

Of course, regular households were allowed to have their homes fitted with one of these power generating bicycles for a discount to their household electricity bill. This idea had been a great boon to curing the epidemic of obesity that had plagued the country in the 2020s. There were so many lives lost to disease, but that was quickly turned around with the introduction of the Pedal-Powa bikes.

Lacyy arrived at the Department of Departures right on time. She regarded the grand entrance for a moment, noting the massive pillars – meant to be a tribute to those people who had “departed” and how their lives had contributed to the strength/pillars of modern society. She steeled herself for an onslaught of paperwork and tape and entered the relatively small double doors. Small doors compared to the grand pillars on the facade.

 

The episode of gathering Marq’s items was without ceremony. A suited woman appeared before her at the counter of the small, cosy office space. The suit had hastily presented Lacyy with a sheet of paper to sign before thrusting forward a small box and key was offered, along with a slight nod before instructing Lacyy to pay the minimal processing fee and move along so as to not delay the customers behind her.

Efficient, Lacyy thought to herself, although considering that this business was tasked with the job of dealing with people grieving over the recently departed, there was a distinct lack of occasion. Again, her knowledge of history had not painted a complimentary picture of these services being done by public organisations in the past, however since the job was contracted to a funeral company some years ago, there had been fewer public complaints in the media about Government services. Everyone understood that a private company running the task would lead to less red tape, although a few little fees had clearly crept in. Lacyy had no problem with the fee, though. It was kinda expected these days, and it was only a small amount, so it wasn’t like she was going to be broke as a result. So the exhange for Marq’s items was brief, although it felt a little too brief.

“Sorry, a quick question…?” Lacyy began, wincing a little at the scornful look on the lady behind the counter. Lacyy quickly disregarded the sneer, “So, do I need to sign anything?”

The lady behind the counter did not change her facial expression, but turned to her computer screen. Her eyes scanned across the screen for a moment as she poked and prodded at the surface with her finger. She eventually found what she was looking for and recited, “No. There is no more for you to sign. We are sorry for you loss and hope you have a good day.”

She then leaned to the side and looked past Lacyy, as if to find the next customer. Lacyy stepped across her view, “So, Marq didn’t leave any other notes or instructions? Just this box?”

Counter lady sighed and returned back to her screen, poking at the touch surface for a few seconds before again replying with that simple monotone, “You have received all that the departed provided. That is all. We are sorry for you loss and hope you have a good day.”

Lacyy frowned, “So, that’s it? Where’s the sympathy here?”

Counter lady sighed yet again and began prodding at her screen, searching. She was reading from prepared scripts, Lacyy understood. Counter lady intoned, “Departed Inc understands that loss is terrible. Further sympathies should be sought from friends and family. We are sorry for you loss and hope you have a good day”

“You loss?” Lacyy asked, echoing the words she’d heard, “Is there a typo in your script?”

Counter lady again probed at the screen, her frown deepening. She swiped at the screen desperately like a cat batting around a rumpled ball of paper. She leaned back in her seat and again cast the line, “All feedback about Departed Inc can be submitted by tweet to @DepartedInc. We are sorry for you loss and hope you have a good day”

Lacyy rolled her eyes, picked up the box and strode from the office.

 

Lacyy stared at the box that was sitting in the middle of her table. She barely remembered much of the walk home at all, somehow travelling from the Departures Department to being seated at her table within a brief haze. She hadn’t expected Marq thought that much of her to leave her anything and she had only considered Marq to be a colleague only. Surely this kind of thing should have been given to his family or something? She vaguely recalled Marq telling her that he was searching for a long-term partner, but he never seemed to get much luck. It was odd to her, as confident guys like him usually drew others to them quite quickly and effectively, and his ability to keep morale up among the project workers was unparalleled in her experience.

What could he have possibly left for her in the box? A trinket? Surely not. Something for her apartment? He knew she had everything she ever needed, materially. She regularly updated her furniture, television, kitchen appliances and the like before the guarantee period expired. “It’s necessary to keep these things new. I’d hate to be without any of it when they break down” she remembered telling him. He had nodded in agreeance at the time.

Lacyy blinked herself out of her daydream and back to the box before her. The key felt warm in her hand.

With a slight click, she opened the box and peered inside.

A piece of paper, folded into thirds.

Curious, she opened the paper, and tried to make out the script it had been hiding. She saw scribbles. Scribbles that hadn’t been printed like normal, with toner from a printer, but instead marked with some kind of tool. The scribbles were even smudged a little, such is how brittle the markings were. It reminded her of some crude drawings she’d done on the pavement as a child, when she ripped some bark from a tree and grinded some shapes on the road.

She tried to make sense of the scribbles. They looked fairly familiar to her.

Words. These scribbles were words, written in regular, plain common language. She could recognise her own name, but the scribble was so haphazard and wonky, she could barely recognise the language. Had Marq done this? Why would he bother to scrawl language onto paper in this indecipherable way, when he could have just printed it off? At least then the lines would be straight and the lettering would be all nice and even. According to her history classes, no one had handwritten anything since 2030.

She strained her eyes to make out the rest of the document

 

Lacyy. they’re everywhere. they’re watching everything we do. I had won some money, but they knew about it, and they wanted it. they were going to expose me if I didnt give it to them. don’t trust Infra.

 

“Infra”

The corporation who had revolutionised the ways people communicated. Their technology had connected continents without the need of miles and miles of cables being run through oceans and without the need for junk orbiting the planet. If you needed to send something, there was no doubt that it has to pass through one of their gates.

What interest did they have in Marq to want money from him? They were going to “expose”him? Why? It wasn’t like they were short of any currency, with many mainstream news outlets reporting on Infra’s quarter after quarter of profits. Lacyy’s mind filled with the same question, on repeat, circling inside her skull as she tried to make sense of the idea that one of the largest corporations in the world took interest in a morale booster with a bit of money.

Lost for any other avenue, Lacyy pulled her phone from her pocket, snapped a photo and posted it on twitter.

 

My colleague gave me this after his suicide. #Infra

 

She sighed slightly as the words appeared in her feed, along with the dialog box to confirm the tweet was posted. She stared again at the photo she took, but her eyes immediately dropped to the picture of a fantastic looking pizza that user @Gourmettical had posted.

She hadn’t eaten for a while. She should probably get something to eat.

———–

Lacyy woke, refreshed, relaxed, and half sunken into the hydratherapeutic mattress. She stretched slowly, a smile also stretching across her facial features. The premium feel of the mattress certainly felt worth the extra thousand credits she had put down. “Maxximum relaxxedness” the advert and sales machines had assured her, and this morning she certainly had felt each hour of rest.

Pacing into the kitchen, her tablet winked at her from across the polished stone benchtop.

Thousands of them.

She blinked and raised a finger to her eye to dig out the relaxxedness from her orb. The memory of yesterday came back to her, after having distracted herself last night with pictures of her own meal, reading a number of tweets and watching her favourite comedy serial on Youtube before retiring on her Maxximum mattress.

Opening the tablet, she could see a great number of retweets of the photo of the note that Marq had left for her. Many of the replies were people asking what it was the note actually had scrawled onto it, but others had also recognised the primitive scratchings as words to be read. People were mentioning her, and tweeting to Infra to ask for an explanation, and offering to boycott Infra’s products until it was provided. There was even a new hashtag: Infrage.

A rather awkward portmanteau of Infra and Rage, Lacyy guessed.

Lacyy blinked again, realising that people actually couldn’t boycott Infra’s products without losing twitter or the myriad other ways to communicate.

There were number of abusive tweets back to her, which was surprising. She’d often witnessed a number of fanboy wars, marvelling at the innovative ways they could make a simple language seem so poisonous. She was affronted by a number of them, making lewd remarks about her personally, rather than the actual photo she posted.

How on earth did they extrapolate a photo of a note into some kind of conspiracy in where she was trying to bring down a revered, respected and celebrated company? However, as she flicked through the various tweets, she found herself becoming numbed, easily flicking past the abuse and venomous words, tweets becoming blurs amid her feed of food photos, twee expressions, quotes from classic musicians from the early 2000s and other self-affirmations.

Lacyy checked the number of followers and the number of near-followers and drew breath. Her numbers had grown by tens of thousands, with hundreds of people requesting to be her near-followers.

“Near Followers” was a twitter innovation of the 2020’s in where followers could be ranked by how close friends tweeters were.

People were asking to know more about the note and what she was planning to do with it.

She hadn’t actually considered what the fallout would be from posting the photo of the note. She figured that it was something that people should see, but the thought that she would be expected to do anything beyond the simple communique was a surprise to her.

She sighed and pressed the ‘sleep’ button on her PaperTablet before folding it up into it’s phone size.. This was something she’d need to deal with after she’d gotten home from work.

 

***

The journey to the office seemed fairly ordinary, with the exception of the occupants inside one nearby vehicle in the flow of automated traffic. They waved to her and smiled. They took a quick photo of her before giving a hearty “sky punch” – a show of encouragement.

Lacyy had smiled and carried on with her commute.

Upon arriving at the office, she noticed the atmosphere was palpably cooler. Some heads turned to face her as she strode between the cubicles and tables. A couple whispers and exchanges coughed out behind her as she passed. She grimaced quietly to herself, noting that this kind of scene wouldn’t be out of place in a classic “Platinum-era” Hollywood movie of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, an era dominated by indistinct romcoms, overly dramatised “true” stories and movie adaptations of television series.

She hadn’t been stood at her desk for any more than ten seconds before there was a tap on the partition that separated her workspace from the others in the office. Greeting her was the soft smile of the Director. Always dressed in a sharp manner, the Director was the pinnacle of professionalism to Lacyy. Always punctual. Always well kept. Everything done was honed to its ultimate point of efficiency. Even the ponytail and make up the Director wore seemed like it had been prepared with utmost efficiency having been pulled back to waste minimal time, but to still look professional.

Lacyy smoothed her own jacket to make herself look a little more respectable.

“Horrible thing about Marq…” The Director began, standing straight and formally, but with her hands holding each other, resting easily in front of her.

Lacyy nodded, “He was a good colleague”. She breathed out steadily but silently to settle her nerves at the sudden visit of an Executive.

“We saw the photo you posted on Twitter” the Director said flatly. Lacyy had heard stories of the Director’s forthright manner. So few pleasantries and always down to business with little fanfare. Lacyy felt a little taken aback, although somewhat flattered that the Director gave her the same treatment as some of the other corporate high-flyers with which she usually negotiated, “This isn’t going to become a problem, is it? We do have a good relationship with Infra, and they’ve been a good source of work for us. Having an activist…” the Director inflected the word as though it should be handled with care, “… may cause some trouble for some of our projects.”

Lacyy shook her head instinctively. She knew well of some of the contracts, although she had never been involved with the negotiations. She’d had little knowledge of just how much work the company did for Infra, although to warrant a visit from the Director, it must be important.

“Thank you, Lacyy” the Director turned, her hands clasped casually behind her back now, “Although I’ve taken the liberty of letting Infra know that you’re having a brief sabbatical from your projects while you bereave the loss of your close colleague”

“Director…!” Lacyy began, but the Director didn’t acknowledge that Lacyy was even there. She had begun striding off through the cubicles with the purposeful confidence of a leader. There were no further words uttered, nor even a dismissive wave. The Director had dealt with Lacyy and was efficiently moving to the next item on her agenda. As the Director neared the lifts, her assistant quickly scurried up to her with a PaperTablet, and some hurried muttering was heard.

Were they muttering about Lacyy? Her heart sank and her head tingled with probing digit of guilt. “Sabbatical” was a corporate euphemism for being relieved of duties. It wasn’t a complete termination, although the broader culture in the city enforced the notion that any downtime at all from work suggested laziness or implied that there was some underlying reason for the “sabbatical”.

Lacyy grabbed her few items of personal nature and walked from the office. If there were eyes on her from colleagues, she didn’t feel them.

Dismissal for just another photo she had posted. Nothing more. She’d posted other photos in the past, but none before had even gotten more than four retweets.

The lift chimed with an empty ding as she departed the building.

 

The walk home barely registered with Lacyy. Her mind swam with various emotions, most of them angry and livid with her casual dismissal, despite her many years of proven track record. Project after project completed on time, with positive outcomes that either met or exceeded projections.

Lacyy’s phone continued to flash and chime, her twitter followers sending her links to observations they had made about companies like Infra. Media companies. Phone companies. Governments. Even transport companies weren’t exempt from the fallout of Lacyy’s innocuous photo of scribble.

She breezed over the responses slowly, scrolling past each and every one and reading the links they attached. She could dismiss some as outrageous conspiracy theory spouting, but others seemed to ring true. Particularly when it came to Infra.

 

“I lost my brother to Infra and it was after he did work for them he never talked about the project it was secret i think #Infrage”

 

“My mother had everything to live for, but after a couple bills from Infra, she suddenly disappeared #Infrage”

 

“My best friend worked for infra. She became distant shortly after joining. I haven’t seen her for years now. Disappeared #Infra”

 

Infra started to sound like a vacuum, sucking in people everywhere and disposing of them. But no one seemed to come forward before Lacyy had posted Marq’s note. Why was that? Had people been silenced?

Lacyy felt her head heat from anger. It was because of Infra that she had lost her job, and now people were looking to her for action. She repeated that to herself, easing out the whisper in an lengthy exhale, “they’re looking to me”. But what could she do?

Another tweet popped up on her phone, “@LacyySayz Sure, Infra sucks. What u do about it?? #Infrage”

She again considered the question, as it had been raised a number of times before. What could she do?

She closed the door to her apartment, blinking out of another daydream. Had she really walked all the way home on autopilot? The journey was a fleeting memory of shop windows and the noises of passing vehicles. She instinctively pulled her PaperTablet from her pocket and unfolded it to tablet size. The screen glowed with more demands for her to consume, information being drip fed to her PaperTablet, all through the various veins of data set up by Infra.

Time to use Infra’s stuff against them, she thought defiantly to herself.

She opened the browser to an old blogging service that she had heard about some time ago. Standard blogging of the mid 2000’s had given way to micro blogging and image sharing (a picture tells a thousand words, after all). She quickly created an account on the blogging site and navigated her way around the archaic interface. She shook her head at some of the design decisions, probably a carry over from an era where it hadn’t considered tailoring interfaces to specific personality types. It looked like she had to learn some basic language to get it to work, but she shrugged. It seemed like a worthy reason to learn.

She chuckled as she clicked her way around the old web service, its features a clear carry over from times past, like those old people who wear their baggy pants down low just like they wore in the old days, she thought to herself.

She sat herself down on her recently purchased “thinkers sofa” and began her first post on her blog, recounting her memory of Marq and any observations she might have had about him. Marq hadn’t really seemed all that odd to Lacyy in the last few weeks of his life, but if she thought about it, he did start talking up his plans for the future a bit more. Like he was hoping for a better life outside the company that he and Lacyy had worked for. Planning with his winnings?

She inserted some of her conjecture into the blog post, leaving the questions linger at the bottom of each paragraph to emphasise their points. She reviewed the post, grimacing a little at how the rhetorical questions seemed to lead the reader. But maybe she wasn’t being rhetorical? Maybe?

She published the post, watching the progress bar achingly climb up to the “complete” point. All this modern infrastructure built by Infra didn’t seem to benefit the aging blogging platform very much, but Lacyy guessed that was the reason the service had become less relevant.

Once published, she posted the link on her twitter feed before contacting her job agent to see if there was other work for her.

 

*****

 

“Widespread Acknowledgement” was the term used for when something on the internet gets recognised and spread around quickly. The classic vernacular for this was “gone viral” but the media and marketers had usurped the term to point readers toward their sponsors.

When news outlets started indicating that some product’s advert had “gone viral” and when readers started realising that these “viral” campaigns were manufactured and self fulfilling, the term became inane and redundant. The truer definition was coined as “Widespread Acknowledgement” as it properly structured the level at which an item was recognised. To define the level of “Acknowledgement” there were prefixes of “Some”, “Notable”, and ultimately “Widespread”. Lacyy’s blog post fell into the category of “Notable”, accordingly to the Internet Service stat analysts.

This still amounted to her post getting noticed by hundreds of thousands of people, and many many followers joined her twitter.

The caveat of this notable acknowledgement meant that Lacyy found it difficult to find work suited to her professional history, although she did find some respite in people will to provide her with a little money to help her through the tough times. It certainly helped make her ends meet.

Lacyy continued updating her blog each and every day, while doing some research on the Infra company. There wasn’t a lot of information available readily, other than accounts from employees or families of employees to suggest that something was amiss with the company. Each and every anecdote was entered into Lacyy’s blog for others to look into. Lacyy marvelled at peoples’ resourcefulness, and it was with their help that she had began compiling quite a folio of damning anecdotes about Infra.

Lacyy had performed two interviews with a couple Internet channels. She was getting quote a lot of coverage, and as a result Infra wasn’t looking good in the public eye. However Infra remained silent on the issue. No denials. Not even an acknowledgement of Lacyy’s Notable Acknowledgement.

This did frustrate Lacyy. Surely Infra wouldn’t want her continuing this crusade against them?

Lacyy looked around her apartment. It had gotten a lot more cleaner since she began the ordeal against Infra. As she was home more frequently, she had more time to get her place in order. Her PaperTablet sat on a clean desk, awaiting her input for the next post.

 

It’s been four weeks since the #infrage tag started, and since then I have seen a great swell of support from everyone. It’s heartening to see, and gives me great confidence in the future. Together, we can help get to the truth behind Infra’s evil ways, and expose them for who they are; overbearing corporate dictators who exploit everyone else for the gain of the high flyers, who zoom above the rest of us, ignorant of us. Ignorant to the fact that we are people. People with stories. People who exist as a greater power than they could hope to dream, and a greater power than mere numbers in a spreadsheet.

 

The silence from Infra has been deafening

 

Lacyy considered the opening for the next paragraph, visibly wincing at the sentence. Really? She can write better than that.

 

The silence from Infra on this only speaks volumes

 

She stopped again. She rested her head on her hand.

 

A cursor appeared suddenly in the top right corner of the screen. That was usually a sign that another author, or someone she had selected to read her work had logged into the document, and was perusing the words.

But she hadn’t given anyone else access to the document. She checked the user’s credentials.

“Infringe” was their handle.

The curious cursor stepped gradually down the page to the paragraph with which she was struggling. A section of the sentence was then highlighted before being replaced.

 

The silence from Infra is perfectly acceptable

 

Lacyy opened her eyes widely in shock. She hit the “undo” button, but the sentence remained. She tried to highlight the section of the sentence and rewrite it, but the words only changed back to the edited line. No matter what she tried, that sentence stubbornly refused to budge, and that intruding cursor, Infringe, stayed on the screen, hovering above Lacyy’s own, like a guardsman in front of a prisoner’s cell.

Lacyy was prone, stuck, not knowing what to do.

The strange cursor began to move again, but instead of typing, it highlighted the first paragraph, and stayed there for a moment, waiting.

 

“Who are you?” Lacyy typed.

 

In reply, Infringe deleted the entire first paragraph Lacyy had written.

 

“What are you doing???” Lacyy typed on the screen.

 

Infringe’s cursor stayed on the screen, blinking steadily. Lacyy’s heart raced, pumping in her chest. She stared at Infringe’s cursor intently, waiting for it to move, to log out, to delete her question, anything. This must be Infra’s way of getting to her, Lacyy figured.

 

The cursor moved, a string of words trailing behind it, “You must stop, Lacyy.”

 

Lacyy blinked at the thinly veiled threat. Four words. Strict instructions. An attempt to silence her.

 

“Why? Are you scared?” Lacyy countered.

 

Again, Infringe’s cursor blinked steadily before beginning its march across the screen, leaving the footprint of words behind it, “It’s in your own best interest, Lacyy”

 

“A thin threat”, Lacyy punched into her keyboard, her nails clacking over the keys.

 

“Marq knew when he was beaten”, Infringe paced out.

 

Lacyy leaned back from the screen of her tablet. Beaten? What did Marq get himself involved in? He never seemed to be too much of a problem to anyone, she thought. He was polite, well mannered, easy on the eye and generally unremarkable. But Lacyy guessed that could’ve been a fantastic front.

 

“Why Marq?” Lacyy typed.

 

“He had something we wanted”, came the reply.

 

Lacyy frowned. What could a lowly individual like Marq have that Infringe wanted?

 

“What did he have?” She asked, “he was a regular guy.”

 

The cursor again stood still, at attention, but obviously considering the question carefully before replying.

 

“You understand that we can delete what we type here? Even if you take a photo of the text, or copy and paste it, we can delete it from any device you have? We are in everything, everywhere. You type it, photograph it, we have it.”

 

Infringe’s cursor quickly raced across the page as the words were spelled out.

 

Lacyy sighed. She didn’t doubt it. “Yes”, she replied. This also explained why Marq elected to scrawl his message out on an analogue platform such as paper and bark.

 

“Marq had money.”

 

The statement floored Lacyy. Infra was a wealthy company. It was one of the most valued properties on the planet, but here it was, leveraging money out of little folk like Marq. The cursor continued;

 

“Marq won the lottery. He had quite a bit of winnings there.”

 

“I knew that. But why would you be interested in his money?”

 

“Because it didn’t belong to us.”

 

“But you’re rich enough!”

 

“We always need more to keep investors happy.”

 

“Then innovate! Cut your expenses! Diversify!”

 

“We can no longer do that, Lacyy.” came the dry reply.

 

Lacyy frowned intensely, “Why not?”

 

“We’ve found every possible efficiency. We’ve diversified into every market. We found the optimal levels of fees and charges that people are willing to pay without getting angry. There are no more revenue streams to be found, but our shareholders demand ever-increasing profits and dividends.”

 

“So, now you go after the little guys to get money?”

 

“We have no choice.”

 

“Did Marq refuse to give you his money? Is that why you killed him?”

 

“We didn’t kill him. He committed suicide. You know that.”

 

“But you pushed him to it, didn’t you?”

 

“His suicide was an unfortunate event. All we did was show him some pictures he took of himself a few years ago. Some pictures he might regret in the public space.”

 

“So you tried to extort him, but you wash your hands of his death?”

 

Infringe’s cursor paused again, blinking, waiting. It resumed, “You are beaten, Lacyy. You must stop”

 

“No. I have followers!”

 

“Do you?”

 

“Yes! Hundreds of thousands!”

 

“But do they really follow you? Are they really dedicated to your cause, or are they only giving you lip service?”

 

“They’re dedicated!” Lacyy asserted, her fingers clacking over the keys as though she were yelling.

 

The cursor paused again for what felt like an aching eternity, but was probably only ten seconds. The cursor then resumed its move, “you would be surprised, Lacyy.”

 

Lacyy went to reply, but the cursor continued its march across her screen.

 

“Those interviews you did, all the articles that have been written about your cause have been done by us. All orchestrated to leverage your popularity and make us more revenue. You might be a figurehead, but we usurp the lion’s share of the revenue.

“This is what we do. We take what is popular and we monetise it. Look at how your name is spelled. Parents back in the 2000’s all gave their children uniquely spelled names to make them seem exotic. This was initially bad for those coffee mug companies who made those pre-named cups, as they could never get the right spelling. However, we made the personalised coffee mugs which allowed people to put whatever name they wanted on the mug.

“We can monetise any random behaviour.

“We can sway popular opinion in a moment as well. We have your history. But we already know that your followers are only rallying behind your cause because you’re the fashionable thing at the moment, and they just want to promote themselves. They want to be in your position – a small time celebrity.”

 

Lacyy’s frown descended further as she read the sudden block of text. She considered the various interactions she’d had over twitter the last few weeks, and she could barely remember the names of a single person. She’d gotten so distracted by the whole noise of the issue, that she had even forgotten about Marq’s passing. She realised that her own attention had been so flitting and chaotic, that she hadn’t been able to focus on any one thing. But that had always been the way with her; nothing held her attention for long enough. She was always travelling from project to project, managing each and every one, but never putting her whole effort into a singular task. She was always distracted by one thing or another.

 

She shook her head, awakening herself again from her self reflection.

 

“You haven’t beaten me”, she typed steadily.

 

“We have”, came the predictable reply, “we can tarnish your public image.”

 

“You can’t do that”, Lacyy interjected

 

“We know how you treated some of your exes”

 

“That was ages ago. It doesn’t matter what I did!”

 

“You’re a public face now. People think that kind of thing matters”

 

“What I did a couple years ago has no bearing on what I’m doing now!” Lacyy typed indignantly.

 

“Maybe. But people are stupid. We have done this many times to people more powerful than you. What makes you think you’re so different?”

 

“I’ll publish this story to expose you. My blog is huge!”

 

“It’s actually our blog”

 

“You can’t take my blog! I own it”

 

“We own it. Read the Terms and Conditions that you agreed to when you signed up.”

 

Lacyy couldn’t believe what she was reading. They had everything covered. She leaned back into her seat, her shoulders slumping. She started to feel dread burbling up within her and the sense of regret at having even started this mad crusade. She should have known better than to take on one of the most resourced and entrenched companies on the planet.

 

“You need to stop, Lacyy.” came the cursor again.

 

Lacyy leaned forward, her hands shaking a little. She never wanted this. She was thrust into this position without warning and without asking. Now she faced an enemy that no single person could hope to best. She briefly watched the twitter tab on her tablet flick past, with various messages from people, some of them sympathising with her cause, others linking to things that they had created, hoping for her to throw them a retweet… trying to ride on the popularity she had been thrust.

She gnashed her teeth at all the cynical ploys, starting to feel the anger rise within her. She never asked for this, so why were people constantly at her throat to do something? Why don’t they do something themselves? She was one person, so why should she be the mouthpiece for everyone else?

She looked at the final sentence that Infringe had written, the cursor still there, winking at her. Mockingly.

 

“You need to stop, Lacyy.”

 

She tapped rhythmically on the keyboard so that Infringe could see the intentionally determined pace of her reply

 

“Make me.”