Dick was in the library later that day when Vera again accosted him. In recent days their relationship had changed. This hadn’t been, to his huge relief, in any sexual predatory way, but in how she treated him. Vera was still the boss but he had gone from being just an employee to being an employee slash confidante. Dick liked this new dynamic as it gave him small but valuable insights into the Party, but he was also conscious of the fact that the small whispered conversations in the office or corridors infuriated Benjamin. Not that Benjamin ever mentioned this, but Dick could see it in his face.
Benjamin was one of those people who obviously found it hard to conceal their emotions. Whenever he saw Dick and Vera talking, he looked like a man who’d seen Dick naked in a locker room; an expression of equal parts astonishment, jealously and anger. Before recent events, Dick had taken great satisfaction in riling Benjamin but given Benjamin’s threat to unmask him, he was now keen not to provoke him. Which is why he was glad Vera was sharing her confidences here in private.
‘Be on your guard’, she whispered in her low-but-definitely-not-sexy voice. ‘There is an infiltrator among us!’.
Dick dropped the book he was holding. It was quite a large book and the noise made a few library users look in his direction and frown, and a few others make a ‘shushing’ sound. This ‘shushing’ sound made a few other users turn and tut. The tutting in turn, caused others to glare and whisper ‘Be quiet!’, though not as quietly as some would have liked. After the shushing, tutting and ‘be quiet!’s had died down, Dick picked up his book and Vera continued.
‘You know that pen that was reported lost?’, she asked. Dick nodded.
‘Well it wasn’t just an ordinary fountain pen!’
‘I know’, Dick said, immediately wishing he hadn’t.
‘What do you mean?’, Vera enquired.
Dick responded with as much sincerity as he could muster, which to be frank, wasn’t that much at all. ‘Well, I, er, well that’s to say, I erm thought that no one would make an announcement about a lost pen unless there was something unusual about it’.
Vera nodded. ‘That’s very astute of you. Good thinking, Mr. Brunel’. Continuing in her low voice Vera added, ‘I’ve just heard that it was packed full of electronics and probably some sort of signalling device. There’s a very high likelihood that it belongs to a member of the resistance movement, someone who could well be working among us in this very building!’
Dick meant to say ‘No!’ with the appropriate degree of disbelief and innocent surprise but he was so worried by what Vera had just revealed that he said ‘Noooooooooo!’ quite loudly, the way you’d say it in slow motion in the movies as you threw yourself across a room trying to catch a fragile object as it plummets towards the floor. This time everyone in the library began shushing, tutting and yelling ‘be quiet!’ so Vera and Dick had to leave. In the elevator going back down to the office Vera told him that the Party were treating this issue with the utmost seriousness. This was a Code 2B alert; everyone in the building was considered a suspect.
‘Everyone? Even you?’, Dick asked, mopping his brow which had begun to perspire.
‘Yes. Even me. And even you!’.
Dick looked shocked and worried — mainly because he was.
Vera continued. ‘I know it’s preposterous to think that either of us are implicated in some way but nothing like this has ever happened before. The Party are extremely concerned at this breach in security. Frankly it’s beyond belief that it could have even happened’.
‘How will they find out who the pen belongs too?’ Dick asked, perspiring a little bit more.
‘Well, that’s the problem’, Vera explained. ‘They’ve already carried out stage one, a forensic examination. The pen was handled extensively by a security guard so it can’t be checked for fingerprints. It also looks like it had never been used and that means no one would have ink residue on their skin’.
‘So trying to trace the owner is going to be pretty much impossible?’, asked Dick optimistically.
‘Impossible? The Party doesn’t recognise the word ‘impossible’. They’ll just implement stage two of the investigation’.
The elevator stopped with a slight jolt and the door opened.
‘Stage two?’, Dick asked.
‘Yes’, Vera added. ‘Interrogating every single person in the building’.
Dick let out a slight fart but the sound of the elevator door closing with a dull ‘clang’ masked it.
‘Don’t be concerned’, Vera added cheerily as she strode towards the office. The interrogation will be but a minor inconvenience for people like us. You’ll have nothing to worry about’.
As they entered the office Vera turned to Dick and smiled, the smile of someone who has absolutely nothing to worry about. Dick returned the smile with slightly less confidence.
The next meeting at the Resistance headquarters had been well-timed. Or badly-timed, given the circumstances. It had been pre-arranged for a while and Dick had been collected by Edward that evening after work.
Dick sat in the middle of the lounge, the centre of attention. He leaned back in a comfortable chair, debriefing his colleagues on Project Gladstone and Benjamin’s recent veiled threats against him. Dick gave a full account of Jack from the initial acceptance of his proposal, the successful demonstration and the impending start of his mission. Taylor and Humphrey listened extra intently while Dick recounted his time at the Scientific Research Centre in case it gave any clues to the so-called secret weapon. As Dick spoke he could see his audience hanging on his every word. He was respected. Even revered. Grace, who was sitting at the back, even winked and pouted at him. Everything was going so well until he finished reporting on Jack and mentioned, almost in passing, the mislaid pen. Taylor frowned slightly and suggested that he and Dick retire to a private room to continue their discussion. Once behind closed doors Taylor’s demeanour changed and that’s when Dick understood the meaning of the word ‘apoplectic’.
‘You lost it! You lost it! What do you mean you bloody lost it?! How could you be so damn stupid? This can compromise the mission and us! You’re a bloody idiot, Dick! A bloody idiot pure and simple! How difficult is it not to lose a pen? All of our members have similar signalling devices and not one of them has lost them, nor even misplaced them for a short while! I’ve never met someone so utterly careless, cavalier or irresponsible!’
Dick had never seen Taylor angry like this. He wasn’t so much like a bear with a sore head as a bear with a sore head who’d accidentally caught his testicles in a rusty bear trap. Even though Taylor was enraged, his temper was tempered by the fact that in this polite New Victorian society strong expletives were limited to ‘damn, ‘ bloody’, ‘hell’, ‘hellfire’, ‘bastard’, ‘piss’ and ‘bugger’. That’s the reason Taylor didn’t call Dick a ‘motherfucking cocksucker’ even though he rightfully deserved this description.
Taylor continued ranting and every time Dick tried to apologise, he was just shouted down. After what seemed like ages (and in fact it was), Dick became aware of the refreshing sound of silence. Taylor had stopped shouting and was now staring at him, the stare you give an idiot or a young child while waiting for them to answer you.
‘Calm down’, Dick said, not very helpfully. Then, even more unhelpfully he added, ‘No one’s died’.
‘No, but you might, if the bloody pen is traced back to you!’, Taylor exclaimed. ‘And we’re all in jeopardy if the security checks make any sort of connection between us!’.
‘It’s not as if I had my initials monogrammed on to it, is it?’ Dick replied with a degree of sarcasm. ‘Or it carried a sticker that says, ‘If found please return to Jeremy Brunel’. How on earth will they know it’s mine?’
‘By interrogation, that’s how’, Taylor shouted.
‘Oh yes…’ Dick said quietly, remembering what Vera had told him.
After several long breaths and a slow count to twenty, Taylor was much calmer. The threat from Benjamin was serious enough but now the whole pen issue threatened to expose Dick and wipe out all of his successes to date. Now the prime short-term objective was to ensure Dick avoided detection in the interrogation which, Taylor told him, might involve a libido test in addition to being hooked up to a lie detector.
‘Why a libido test?’ asked Dick.
‘It’s the easiest test to do’, Taylor explained. ‘Show the suspect various erotic images and check changes in their blood pressure and body temperature. The monthly injections would normally suppress the body’s natural reactions’.
‘So reacting in a certain way means you’re avoiding the injections, and that indicates to the Party that you’re subversive?’, asked Dick.
‘Not necessarily’, explained Taylor. ‘It could mean you’re avoiding the injections or it could just indicate that the chemicals aren’t working. Either way though, it means there is cause for concern and a cue to investigate further’.
‘Can you help me pass these tests?’, asked Dick nervously.
‘I can’t give you a cast iron guarantee that you’ll pass’, said Taylor, ‘But we have methods that can greatly improve your chances’.
Taylor left the room but returned a short time later with a small fabric bag. From this he removed some yellow and red pills, a syringe and a bottle of colourless liquid. As Dick saw the syringe carefully being filled he rolled up his shirt sleeve and tensed his forearm. After dabbing a vein with an antiseptic sponge, Taylor gave Dick an injection.
‘That will help to negate any truth serum’, Taylor said, withdrawing the needle and placing a small sticking plaster over the puncture wound. ‘Take the two yellow pills tonight and the two red ones just before the test. They are very fast acting and work in conjunction with the injection’.
‘So I’ll be able to beat the lie detector?’, Dick asked with almost a pleading look in his eye.
‘You should be all right’.
‘Should be? That’s not very reassuring’, Dick commented.
‘Whether you pass or not ultimately depends on your will power’, Taylor explained. ‘And I can’t influence that’. He added, ‘As long as you convince yourself that you’re absolutely and completely innocent, you should pass’.
Dick heard that ‘should’ word again and didn’t like it. He took comfort however in the fact that you couldn’t be a world-famous porn star without being able to control your climax and if anything was a measure of will power, then that was it.
‘And what about the libido test?’ Dick asked, rolling his sleeve back down.
‘We can deal with this by another method’, said Taylor, rummaging in his bag again and removing an elasticated headband containing various sensors that was connected to a control device by two cables. The whole contraption was hooked up to some sort of small battery pack.
‘Stand up’, Taylor said.
Dick obliged and Taylor carefully placed the headband on Dick so that it sat just above his eyes. He unravelled the wires to the controller and stood in front of Dick.
‘You know how strong my libido is?’, asked Dick. ‘Are you sure this device will be able to suppress it?’
‘Temporarily, yes. The effect should last a couple of days’. Taylor clicked a switch and turned a dial on the controller. ‘Now, close your eyes tight. You’ll feel a short, sharp sensation’.
Dick closed his eyes as requested.
A second later he was doubled-up in pain. No, not pain. Agony. More agony than slamming your fingers in a car door. More agony than slamming your penis in car door — although why you might have your penis in close proximity to an open car door is anyone’s guess. Dick felt like he’d been kneed in the groin, which was precisely what had just happened. Taylor had done it with so much force that Dick felt that his testicles had re-ascended and were now introducing themselves to his tonsils. He collapsed to the ground, alternately screaming in pain and shouting insults at Taylor in a falsetto. After twitching and writhing on the ground like an epileptic fish thrown on to dry land Dick managed to compose himself and state the obvious.
‘You kneed me in the fucking balls!’, he groaned to Taylor through watering eyes. ‘What about the device. Why didn’t you use it?!’
‘This?’, asked Taylor, crouching down and removing the electrodes from Dick’s head. ‘This doesn’t do anything’.
Dick looked confused. In a horrendous amount of pain and confused. He groaned again.
‘But I thought it would control my libido so I’d pass the test?’
‘No. That’s what the knee in your balls was for’, Taylor said nonchalantly. ‘The device was just to distract you so I could get a clear aim’.
Dick looked even more confused.
‘Tests have shown that the most effective way to reduce your libido for 48 hours is a good old fashioned knee in the testicles. But I couldn’t very well expect you to stand perfectly still while I did it, could I?’
Dick had to agree that he could not. Taylor helped Dick up to his feet and removed a small ice pack from the bag to make him more comfortable.
‘You’ll be fine’, Taylor told him. ‘I’m sure the bruising will subside after a few days’. Packing up his bag Taylor opened the door and Edward entered.
‘Edward will take you back home’. Shaking Dick’s hand Taylor looked Dick straight in the eyes. ‘Good luck with the lie detector’.
‘And the libido test’, Dick groaned.
‘Oh that’, said Taylor, ‘I made that bit up’. With that, he gave what Dick was sure was a wry smile and left the room.
Dick travelled back to his apartment in silence, the welcome ice pack resting on his lap. Taylor was a sly bastard, he thought. A sly fucking bastard. As per the previous arrangements, Edward dropped Dick off a few blocks from his home. The streets were deserted at this time of night. There was no one to see a man with a pained expression slowly walking along the pavements, wincing from his bruised testicles every time he took a step. No one except a lone figure waiting in the shadows opposite Elm Grove Tower West.
Dick opened the door to the lobby, glanced around into the night, and then walked in. He hobbled slowly towards the elevator that would take him to his apartment. Only when the elevator doors had closed did Benjamin decide to step out of the shadows and begin his own way home.