Chapter 22

Long stains spilled down the walls of the corridor. The carpet frayed and worn, with patches missing. Mould caked in every crevice. There were three doors. Sam knocked on one, hoping it was the right place. No number on the door, no indication who lived there. No answer. She walked to the next door, saw the red paint flaking off and collecting in chunks on the floor. The lights in the corridor buzzed incessantly. Another knock.

“Hello,” Sam said.

A shuffling noise from inside told her that at least someone lived there. She waited for a while, then finally the door unlatched and creaked open just a little. A bulging eye peered between the door and frame.

“Yes?”

“We talked online.”

The door opened and a man’s arm grabbed Sam by the wrist and dragged her inside, leaving her staring into a dingy, dim apartment. The door shut behind her.

“So, you’re the one poking into Calia?” the man asked.

Sam turned only to find him standing between her and the rest of the room, a small, boxy one filled with plastic crates and knick-knacks.

“Yes, you said you could help?”

“Help is one way to put it. Coffee?”

Sam nodded and her host showed her to a little round dining table with three mismatched chairs surrounding it. He swept some crumbs from it and pulled out a chair, gesturing for Sam to sit. She did, on a chair that had probably been comfortable a long time before. Now the cushioning was flattened and the wood chipped to the point she felt a splinter poke her thigh. The man wandered past a pile of books, stacked almost to the ceiling, and into a kitchenette off the main room. Sam looked around as the kettle boiled.

The room had no windows, illuminated by an old bulb, dangling from the ceiling with nothing to soften it. The table sat on one side of the room, beside a wall of books without a bookshelf. Just stacks upon stacks of dusty old paperbacks. From a quick glance, most of them were romance or erotica. On the other side of the room lay a cream-coloured couch that might have been white at some point, covered in brown stains. Strewn around it were plastic crates filled with ornaments and items that belonged in a recycling plant, and not someone’s living room. Beneath it all was the same frayed carpet from outside.

The man reappeared with two mugs of coffee and plonked one down for Sam, emblazoned with the old CaliaCorp logo, the one they sometimes used on faux-retro vintage products. A bold font with a gradient from pink into orange like sunset over a tropical city. It spoke of bright, beautiful futures and fun and joy. On the mug it looked faded and sad and cracked. Sam looked down at her murky coffee, it looked barely drinkable. She took a sip. It was barely drinkable.

“So,” she began, “you worked at CaliaCorp?”

The man frowned, as if Sam called him a name.

“No time for introductions? What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Sam,” she said, curtly.

“Well Sam, I’m Gregor. And yes, I worked at CaliaCorp, but then again, hasn’t everyone?”

Gregor looked unkempt. His hair long, with strands of grey streaking it. His scruffy beard was fully grey already and his clothes stained and worn, an ancient pinstripe shirt and grey slacks. Office wear, but no longer fit for an office.

“My friend is there.”

“My condolences.”

“What do you mean?” asked Sam.

Gregor took a long swig from his coffee and slammed the mug back on the table. A deep brown dollop of it splashed up and onto the wooden surface. He didn’t notice. Or didn’t care.

“Your friend is gone. Might as well be dead.”

Sam pursed her lips and took a moment. Taking it in.

“He only just started,” she said.

Gregor sighed. “It won’t matter, most likely, but maybe he’s not too deep yet.”

“Too deep? Deep in what? What are they doing there?”

“You already know,” Gregor said, leaning forward and planting his elbows on the table, arms splayed wide.

“I suppose, I have an idea. Someone from there told us.”

“Us?” Gregor asked.

Sam bristled. Shifted in her seat. She came to ask questions but instead felt interrogated. Gregor’s eyes were wild, wide and bloodshot.

“My friends and I.”

“They gonna work for her too?”

Sam’s hands were under the table. She balled them into fists and squeezed.

“What did you do? At CaliaCorp?”

Gregor laughed. A long, deep laugh. He leaned back and his belly bounced as he chuckled. Sam’s hands tightened.

“What did I do? What did I do?” Gregor laughed. “I did what everyone else does. I made money for the machine, and the machine grew.”

Sam pulled her hands from beneath the table and slammed them down on it. Coffee spat up from her cup, arcing down onto the surface in two splashes.

“I need to help my friend, can you take this seriously for god’s sake?”

“Ok, ok,” Gregor said, nodding and clamping his mouth closed for a moment as if to stifle another laugh. “What do you want to know?”

“What have they done to him?” Sam asked. “What’s happening in that place and how do we get him out of there?”

Gregor, suddenly serious, leaned forward, as if sharing some terrible secret with Sam. He clasped his hands together.

“They’ve done to him what they did to me and everyone else who walks through the doors of their headquarters. They’ve broken down his resistance and turned him into a dedicated drone for the company.”

“How?” asked Sam, leaning in too now, desperate to learn the secrets. Needing to know.

“In business, long time ago, you might have said everybody has a price. You know, people will do some vile things if you give them enough money. It’s primal, you get me? Even if you’re rich, you’re an animal, you need to survive, and you’ll claw at comfort and security beyond what you need. Luxury, safety, and power. Those things keep the wolf from the door.”

Sam clenched her jaw.

“What does that mean? What does that have to do with anything?”

“What if,” Gregor whispered, “you replaced one primal need with another?”

Sam leaned back. Her eyes widened. Gregor continued.

“Sex. Not safety. Not shelter. See, a job gives you the basic needs. Money to buy food, shelter, warmth. Then you get enough of the money, you get your safety.”

Sam nodded. She knew this bit.

“What’s next, Sam?”

“Love. Belonging.”

“Bingo. So, if you get a job you like, it might give you prestige, esteem, creativity, and achievement. But jobs rarely give you belonging, or love. They might say they’re your family, you might make some friends but that’s not work, is it? That’s something that continues afterward.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” said Sam, “you’re saying what? CaliaCorp added sex to work?”

“CaliaCorp filled a gap in the hierarchy of needs, a gap that most companies were afraid to fill because it’s taboo. Was taboo.”

Sam leaned back in her seat. Exhaled.

“So… in practice? What does it mean?”

“What I said about everyone having a price? The price changed.”

“To what?”

“Weakness.”

Sam looked around the room. She suddenly felt nervous.

“What weakness? What do you mean?”

“Everyone has something. A fetish, a kink, a dirty little secret that makes them tick. What if a company could find it, and flood your mind with it, until you’re basically an addict, and they control the drug supply.”

“Sexual weakness? That’s crazy.”

“Is it?” asked Gregor.

“I mean…” Sam trailed off. She had seen it. The shows on TV, the advertising, the things that appeared on computers. The algorithm that chased her with images of dominant blonde girls.

“But people aren’t that stupid, are they?”

“People were happy to let the world burn, to stoke the flames themselves, as long as their basic needs were met.”

Sam felt something she never had before. She wasn’t shocked. Not even surprised. It was like finding something she knew had been there all along.

“They’ve given people their biggest desire,” she said.

“They’ve given them the one thing that doesn’t come easy, even with money. Sex, love, lust, all of that physical intimacy. The same intimacy that slowly vanished the more we lived online.”

“But all the brainwashing stuff, the hypnosis?”

Gregor smiled.

“My department. It’s one thing to get people turned on, or even to get them to fall in love. But you need to get them to act against their other desires. That’s where those elements come in. Conditioning, control. Repeat exposure, over time, makes it too hard to resist. You don’t become desensitised, you want it more.”

“They are brainwashing people.”

“Yes,” Gregor said, and folded his arms across his chest.

Sam clasped her hands around her mouth and nose, then let them drop onto the table.

“Why? Why do that? Why control people and create a world of brainwashed drones?”

Gregor looked around the room. At the rotting books and paint peeling from the walls.

“Maybe it’s better, eh?”

“How could it be?”

“I lived in a luxury apartment and had my every need catered too. Physically, sexually, emotionally. The world is cooler, wars are all but gone.”

“So why did you leave?”

Gregor let out a half-laugh, his chest almost bouncing with it.

“Because I was stupid enough to try, and nobody tried to stop me.”

“Wait… they didn’t?”

“I was as surprised as you are. But no, they never stopped me. Never came after me. I told them I quit, they said thank you, and by the time I got home that luxury apartment was locked, and I was homeless.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You do. I think.”

Sam thought about it for a moment. Sipped the muddy coffee.

“People don’t want to leave, do they?”

“The hard work is getting them in. Breaking down resistance. The planning, the effort, the manipulation of everything. Most fall into it willingly, happy to have their needs met but for those who don’t want that, who rebel against it, they go out of their way to make sure there’s no way to stop them. Even if you think you’re beating them, you’re being conditioned, corrupted.”

“Is that what happened to you?”

Gregor nodded. “A little part of me always resisted.”

Sam saw Gregor’s expression change. He seemed sad.

“Do you regret leaving?”

His eyes wandered around the room. “Sometimes.”

“So people… people just accept it? Even if it’s not what they want?”

“Before, they accepted a world of chaos and disorder, just to make barely enough to survive. Why wouldn’t they accept it now they’re being put up in luxury accommodation and being fucked by whatever their fantasy is?”

He shrugged. Sam didn’t know how to argue that point, but her mind scrambled to try.

“But they’re controlling people. What about free will?”

“What about it? Do you want to be free, or do you want to be secure, safe, and happy?”

“But people can choose to do better, can’t they?”

“Then why didn’t they, Sam? Why were we consuming even as it was destroying us?”

“You sound like you work for them; you know that?” Sam snapped.

Gregor sighed. “It’s a paradox. Control. You let people choose and a few bad actors can manipulate everything to their ends. Mould the world in their image. Or you let someone who has a better vision take over. Or you embrace chaos.”

“What are you saying?”

“Do you think the world is better with, or without CaliaCorp?”

Sam paused. Gears turning in her mind. So many things she could say, but none of it felt important. Finally, she spoke.

“How do I get Ben out of there?”

Gregor looked away, then back at Sam.

“Kicking and screaming, I’d imagine.”

“Come on, give me something.”

“Find him. Ask him to leave. If he’s new, maybe you’ll get through to him.”

“How do I find him?”

Gregor shrugged. “I don’t know. Find a staff list? You just need to get past the front desk and to the upper floors.”

Sam nodded. She had a plan now. Something she could try, at least. It wasn’t much more than when she started but having things confirmed, having knowledge, information, that satisfied her. There was comfort in knowing what would happen next.

“One more thing,” she said.

Gregor nodded.

“Is she real?”

“Who?”

“Calia.”

“Yes, she’s real,” Gregor said. “She’s still there, in the building.”

“But what age is she? How? What even is she?”

Gregor opened his mouth to speak and Sam’s phone rang, piercing the quiet of the apartment with an insistent ringing. She mouthed sorry to Gregor and stood up to answer, walking to a corner of the room.

“Theo, are you ok? Where? How long. Ok, ok, see you then. Bye.” She walked toward the door the moment she hung up the phone. “Sorry I have to go, sorry. Thank you.”

Gregor shook his head and sipped his coffee as Sam rushed out the door, and ran off down the corridor.