The largest of the screens switched from a shot of the jurors to the most elderly of Passengers. He sported a head of thick, white hair, milky blue eyes and wore a relaxed expression. Colourful medals were pinned above his jacket pocket. The inside trim of his vehicle was plastic and contravision advertisements were spread across the windows, suggesting he was inside a taxi. He spotted himself on the dashboard monitor and cleared his throat.
‘Hello?’ he asked.
‘Good morning, sir,’ began the Hacker. ‘Can you tell us who you are?’
He sat up straight, leaned forwards and stared directly into the lens. ‘My name is Victor Patterson,’ he said slowly and a little louder than necessary. ‘That’s P.A.T.T.E.R.S.O.N.’
‘Can you tell us a little about yourself, Mr. Patterson?’ said the Hacker.
‘I’m seventy-five years old and a retired printer. I have three children and seven grandchildren. Who are you? Did my daughter give the car the wrong address?’
‘I see by your medals that you’ve served in the armed forces?’
‘Oh yes,’ Victor replied proudly. ‘29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery in The Falklands War then two tours of duty in Afghanistan before the landmine got me.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Can you tell me what happened?’
‘What do you think happens when a landmine gets you, son?’ he chuckled. ‘It blew my bloody arm and leg off.’ He tapped his right knee with his right hand and both made hollow thumps. ‘But there’s no use in complaining, is there? You just get on with it. And I enjoyed a good twenty years driving the buses before they got rid of us all.’
‘Who got rid of you all?’
‘The council did when they brought in the driverless ones. There was no need for the likes of me, was there?’
‘And where are you going today, Mr Patterson?’
‘Well, this taxi picked me up and was supposed to be taking me to a hospital appointment. And then I started hearing all these voices telling me about a car crash that hasn’t happened yet. So I’m a bit confused.’
‘What are you attending hospital for, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Radiotherapy, son. I have prostate cancer. The doctors tell me the treatment will give me another eight to ten years. That’ll be enough.’
Victor reminded Libby of her late grandfather, a man she had rarely seen without a smile on his face until the death of her brother. Soon after, he too had died. She could still remember him like he’d disappeared from her life only yesterday. It was the same for everyone she had loved and lost; it was as if she remembered the dead better than those they left behind. She pulled at the ring on her finger, this time revealing a tattoo underneath. ‘Nicky’ it read in a five-point font. She had a larger one across her left collarbone written in a bigger font, and the words ‘Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders.’
Suddenly, the camera left Victor’s face and switched to one outside the taxi, which appeared to be following his car along a busy city centre street.
‘Jack,’ said the Hacker calmly, ‘do you remember earlier when I told you that for every one of your actions, there will be a reaction from me? Well, when I ask you not to do something, such as touch my cameras, it is best that you listen.’
Without warning, Victor’s car suddenly exploded into a giant fireball, with huge plumes of black smoke and bright orange flames shooting high up into the morning sky.
Chapter 17
SOFIA BRADBURY
‘I’m quite impressed by the special effects,’ Sofia whispered to her dog Oscar. ‘It looks like they’ve invested some money into this show.’
She watched on her monitor with interest as Victor’s car ‘exploded’. She was relieved that one of her competitors in the reality TV programme she assumed she was a part of had exited so swiftly. She rolled her eyes as the other contestants reacted with loud screams and obscenities. ‘They’re a bit over the top, aren’t they?’ Her dog rolled from his side and on to his back, kicking her arm with his paw until she rubbed his belly. ‘I wonder if theystill pay the full fee even if you’ve been voted off after half an hour? Doesn’t seem fair if they don’t.’
Oscar let out a noxious odour, at which Sofia turned up her nose. ‘Sometimes you are a disgusting little beast,’ she muttered and went to press the button that wound the window down. Nothing happened. She rolled her eyes, remembering producers fromCelebs Against The Oddswere now in charge of everything. ‘It must be for the realism … making us feel like we’re trapped probably adds to the tension.’ She dipped into her handbag and removed an almost empty bottle of Chanel No 5, spraying it around the car.
‘What are they expecting of me now? Am I supposed to scream too, or do I sit here grinning to camera like a Cheshire cat until the car reaches the studio? This lighting is a little harsh, isn’t it?’
In an age when appointment television was a thing of the past and viewers watched what they wanted, when they wanted and how they wanted to,Celebs Against The Oddswas a phenomenon. It wiped the floor with the competition as celebrities were put through their paces in activities as varied as Formula 1 racing to assisting with a surgeon during an actual operation. None of it was faked. And most participants came out the other side with their reputations intact and their popularity soaring. Sofia was thrilled to be a part of it.
Her biggest adjustment would be growing acclimatised to being on camera twenty-four hours a day for the next week. Just minutes into it, she was already slipping, so she switched from her regular resting face and into a broad smile. She speculated as to how she looked on screen, as she no longer saw herself on the dashboard monitor. The only people to benefit from Ultra High Definition 8K Television were viewers and plastic surgeons, certainly not actors over a certain age like her.
Her focus returned to her competition, the other celebrity contestants. Try as she might, she was unable to put names to their faces. She assumed they either worked on soaps she didn’t watch or had been created on other reality TV shows – a genre whose bubble just wouldn’t burst, no matter how sharp the pin.
Sofia listened intently as they begged to be set free from their cars and shook her head. She doubted any of them had paid their dues like she had, or even knew their Pinters from their Pirandellos. ‘They’re appalling,’ she whispered to Oscar. ‘I don’t know where they were trained but they should be asking for refunds on their term fees.’
