“Damned Croakers’ve given us all a bad name....”
“Come off it Peter! That’s an urban fairy tale from the mists of time. It never happened. It was all made up by the underground so that we felt something, at least something minimal, was being done, that there was some kind of action....”
“I’ve never told anyone about this before, but I met a Croaker once, when I was at university in London. He was a writer and illustrator a real genius....”
“Bit of Arabic myth slipping in here, then? Demons and jinn strutting about in urban legends....”
“....Mmm, fits though, doesn’t it Alba my dear, a genius jinn with photographic and arts software. He seduced me one evening after I’d gone over the top on the brandy at the presentation of some cheap and nasty gay spy novel he’d written and illustrated the cover for. Didn’t get much from me, but he understood and so, when my head cleared enough in the morning we lay together in his double bed and he offloaded his, don’t know what it was really, guilt perhaps, frustration, more like, on me, the works. They’d sent his lover away to some camp or another in The Muslim Federation for TEET and he’d never seen him again till, quite by chance, someone had sent him the resultant files. That’s when he became a Croaker. Hey Cerebrum, pour me another beer my good lad....Thanks....
“....Quite by chance! I bet! How’d he get into that, How’d he make contact?”
“Didn’t Cerebrum, apparently....and never did. Worked on his own but said he picked up on clues online that there were about twenty or so Croakers working along similar lines to him in The Christian Alliance and some strange things were going down that bore the hallmarks all over the world. Where’d you first catch the word, Alba?”
“Graffiti. Started turning up all over the place ‘bout two thousand twelve....these damned traffic lights gonna stay red forever....I thought it was just some crazy death metal band, “The Croakers”.... So must the authorities, nothing subversive, death metal, adolescent dragon fantasies of the middle aged....“The Croakers”.... right, let’s go then, come on, ‘bout time....that’s a lot of letters to spray and escape from when the sirens approach....Never any concerts, nothing to download, nothing. Traditional English word, “croaker”, “killer” it means, according to that old dictionary over there behind your head, Peter, and as a verb, “croak”, “to croak it”....to die....neat sense of humour....”
“Don’t think he invented the term, think he appropriated it for his own twisted reasons my dear, the Contamination and Re-use of Objectives’ Archives for Key Enemy Renditions. That’s what he said it stood for, but it’s bloody ugly and definitely not very catchy. I got the feeling he just adored the word itself, a bit of bloody black humoured poetry....”
“How’d it work, this plot, then?....¡Joder!....”
“¿Estás bien?....¿Demasiado tráfico?”
“Nada, tío, no, demasiados baches....the plot?
“Well, Alba, a lot of it went straight over my head, I mean, I wasn’t in a particularly fit state, now was I, eh? Goes something like this, as far as I can remember, and I’m not going to be using the right computer jargon either, Cerebrum, so, lend a hand if it’ll make anything clearer for the little one....”
“All the same to me, Pete! I’m just a user, no idea of the mechanics, Cerebrum, better keep your mouth shut, just nod or shake your head if you think he doesn’t know what he’s on about....”
“Ha! Ha!....Right! ....More beer in the fridge, Pete?”
“Hope so, sunshine! Goes something like this....like the letters of the word “croaker”. He’d break into the objective’s computer and appropriate all the codes and data to allow himself to turn his portable into an exact copy, “shadow” was the word he used, of the original. Then he spent months just studying how the computer was used until he could, he became the shadow of original user, a copy and a perfect copy is the real thing! Most archives are stored in enormous banks of servers, not on the victim’s personal hard drives, big mistake; servers looked over by agents of the Department of Culture Equalization, he said, bored most of the time, stupid all of it, if you never ask a question you never find a reason, and they never found any reason to question what appeared to be normal private use of a computer by some mid level civil servant, too intent were they on their torture videos and death games. Anyway, Croaker adjusted bank balances, payments, receipts and inserted fake government forms and documents into archives well hidden from the user and the agents and their crap electronic and human security systems, but relatively easy for Special Alliance Department of Information Control hacks to uncover when he’d decided the time had come for the sacrifice....and got loads of wives, husbands, sons and daughters of middle ranking Alliance operatives rendered for Temporal and/or Terminal Education Exchange Treatment. Made them all into regular little video film stars, he did....”
“That’s impossible, no one’s gonna believe any of that information without an investigation, without a bit of digging around....Nah....don’t believe it....”
“Neither did I! But he insisted. Said the SADIC hacks were fanatics. They believed what they wanted to see and what they wanted to see was the elimination of threats to their beliefs, no questions asked, quick decisive action....hell, he’d joke that if you were carrying round a banner proclaiming god and all the prophets were an invention of The Born Again Priest, they would simply beat you to death because your shoes were dirty....”
“Bollocks....”
“That’s what I said, Cerebrum, but look, first decade of this century half the political and religious classes were making money or sex....”
“....Or both....”
“Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll....”
“.... in extracurricular activities, as it were, no? And leaking information landed lots of them in the fire in the frying pan, right? Anyone ever bother to verify where all that leaking information came from, if it was even true? Who cared? Came from vengeance! Back stabbing. In the public domain, public interest, take it on face value and get it shoved in your face, down your throat....Don’t think, react, the more closed off to thinking the more reaction you get, the less questions get asked, the easier it gets to slip in dodgy information, and I agree whole heartedly with Croaker on that analysis....”
“So this Croaker, in his roundabout way, sent off planeloads of beautiful people to be rendered into snuff videos, kind of collateral damage, right?....”
“Families of fanatics, he said turned out baby fanatics, little beasts, at least from the age of four up. Look at the religions, they always want to get their teeth into good young virgin blood, screw them up young and you’ve got ‘em screwed down for life....That’s my line, by the way, not his....cannon fodder and chattel....”
“Give me the child, I’ll give you the man, or some such....Who said that?....”
“Mmm....concerned citizens, Concerned Citizens groups to be sent fourth and multiply in the public interest and do the dirty on the unsuspecting and unwary, unsuspectingly finding the dirt being done on them....mmm, yes, neat idea....He said that he always saw them strung up screaming in pain, not so much in amazement at their situation, but screaming in jealousy, or envy, or whatever, at not being behind the controls themselves, behind the machines, transformers, cameras, sound equipment, mixing desks....Had quite a sense of humour did Croaker....”
“Sounds like you quite like the man. Seems a monster like all the rest to me, mate!....¡Mierda!....No hay ningún coche en millas y otro semáforo en rojo....”
“He’s dead....Liked, liked....I have to say I had a certain admiration for his work ethic....”
“....Do unto those as they would do unto yours, but get there first and fastest....”
“....and hardest....to an extent Alba, yes….but he committed suicide, drank himself to death, all above board, legal, tax paid on every bottle, drank himself to death in six months because he couldn’t rectify and somehow didn’t want to rectify all the pain he’d caused because, right to the end he felt it was all justified. Justice, Poetic justice....”
“Why then?....What happened?
EUCAUC/F758362100402/REND, Mortimer, Dawn Roxanne is what happened.
“She was different from the rest. She awoke a respect in me, an inescapable respect close to love. It became love. She made me feel profound sorrow which morphed into a paralyzing guilt at what I had caused to be done to her. I had become evil. In my carefully considered, thoughtful, detailed planning I had become more evil than the evil I presumed to be fighting against. This emotion, this guilt lay heavy on my shoulders. I had thought of myself as some kind of freedom fighter, a latter day Jesus, but she had dawned on me that I should, could never presume to bear the weight for some abstract idea of humanity on my shoulders. I had to die, not to carry off the burden of guilt for my fellow man, rather, I had to die simply because I couldn’t live with myself any longer, I couldn’t live with, with my memories, with the images, with the horrifying, concrete knowledge of all the pain I’d caused. Not to humanity, no, to her, her, rising above the crowds, her person, not the people. there was always a shadow of pessimism and defiance in those eyes, a sorrow in her gaze, in her tone of voice even when she laughed, especially when she smiled, that made her beauty so fragile and so perfect.
So I went about setting myself up for the fall. I downloaded and printed out and copied files of her old family videos and photos, a thirteen year old playing on a swing, then her Terminal Education Exchange Treatment, soundtracks, stills, high definition videos, you name it I possessed it, and it all came from the account I’d set her parents up with, illegal, all illegal, and I paid large sums into their bank accounts leaving an evident trail back to me that needn’t ever have existed. I printed out the receipts, had everything scattered round the flat and finally waited for Death to come knocking while her death screamed out from various monitors in pure surround sound clarity.
Death soon came knocking! Death smashed in the door, found me watching Beauty spit blood in the face of The Beast and Death and its henchmen kicked me off my reclining armchair and proceeded to kick me unconscious, just for the fun of it, perhaps I hadn’t polished my shoes enough. When I came round the computers and hard drives, the videos were all gone, as were the associated documents, though I later discovered a wastepaper bin full of ashes on the kitchen balcony. I’d had a visit from the vigilantes of The Concerned Citizens. Now, these guys, as my grandmother would have said, “Can’t see the wood for the trees!” All that illegally bought stuff can be sold on, black marketing, long as there’s no documentation to tie it to anyone and so, profits talk louder than....I was simply invisible, except, of course, to various pairs of military style boots that enjoyed themselves inflicting pain.
I’d given Death the front door to open, given it to them on a plate, as it were, and, in their stupid greed, they’d missed the whole point. Try to get yourself killed, sent to MF Treatment Center 18SA.T or wherever, to pay for your sins, and you get saved, born again, these days. Try to keep yourself safe, out of the way, and you end up as collateral damage, carry round a banner proclaiming god and all the prophets are an invention of The Born Again Priest, and they simply beat you to death because your shoes are dirty.
Mohammed A. , a Croaker in the Muslim Federation, went through much the same thing with a kid called Arun. Atonement. What can we do? I have no desire, we have no desire, to live with this unbearable emotion but that’s the sentence that’s been passed down in the prison of our thoughts.”
“Cerebrum, Big Man, ya gotta jump ship, lose yourself, pirate! I got a Concerned Citizens checkpoint up ahead and something I don’t like the look of ‘s just pulled out behind....”
“Joder, que mierda.... Good luck....”
“I love Jone, you know....”
“I know Alba. ¿Y El Grumo?”
And there is no answer to that you can put into words and Big Man can see that in my eyes. I cancel the hands free conference connection and Mr Cerebrum, with a thumbs up that fills the screen, vanishes from the monitor and I am suddenly all alone, and so I whisper to myself,
“I love you, Jone....”
“Stop the fucking car, shithead.”
“Contact off! Out of that car bitch.... Hands where we can see ‘em....”
And I think to myself,
“Jone, there was always a half hidden hint of defiant pessimism, defiance in your eyes, a pristine sorrow in your gaze, in your tone of voice, even when you laughed, especially when you smiled, that made your beauty so fragile and so perfect....”
“Hands over your head....Identification? Where, where is it cunt?”
“Inside pocket, here....”
And I moved my hand to take out the little electronic ID and the Concerned Citizen nearest me screamed at me not to move even an inch, to keep my hands over my head, to give him my papers, so I moved my hand again and he told me to keep the fuck still, like a statue, so I began to say it was in my pocket and he ordered me to shut the fuck up then hissed,
“Name?”
At that point I was wetting myself with nerves and, when I’m nervous I can’t stop myself laughing and the more I tried to suppress my laughter, the less able I was at it. That’s when he came over to me, standing there on the muddy edge of the road, and put his face an inch from mine and barked,
“Right dirty pair of shoes you got there, eh Slag? What you say?”
And that, Peter, was when the beating started and that was when I knew we were all safe.
