Ken MacLeod - Intrusion

The street was otherwise deserted. Semis, bungalows, villas, New Trees. Smell of goats and chickens. Cars and bike racks. No kids running about. A policeman stepped forward, raising a Kevlar-gloved palm. The other two held back, hands lightly resting on holsters and batons at their belts. Geena stopped. She said nothing.

‘Your ID, please.’

Geena handed over the card. The policeman held it in front of the scanner on his helmet. Mirrored text scrolled on his visor. He asked her name, her address, her place of work, her…

Wearily but promptly, she complied.

The policeman stepped back, still holding Geena’s card, and with his other hand beckoned behind him. One of his colleagues took his place – a woman, Geena now saw, more slightly built and more heavily armoured than the others.

‘Last night,’ the policewoman said, ‘you passed a piece of virtual graffiti, near the junction of Hillingdon Road and Huxley Drive. Could you describe it?’

‘It was the word “Naxal” with a swastika in place of the “x”.’

‘Uh-huh.’ A nod. ‘And tonight you noticed it again?’

‘Yes,’ said Geena. ‘About twenty minutes ago?’ ‘Yes,’ said Geena, puzzled. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Plenty of time to report it, then.’

Geena felt baffled. ‘Report it? Why?’

‘It’s a serious offence.’

‘What? It’s virtual graffiti!’ Geena waved a hand around, indicating other samples of the art. ‘I don’t think there’s even a law against it yet; you couldn’t get them for anything apart from littering , and that’s Council, that’s—’

‘The content ,’ the policewoman interrupted, her voice hardening. ‘Glorifying terrorism. Written support of an illegal organisation. Aid and comfort to the enemy.’

‘But… but…’ Geena floundered, disoriented by the absurdity of the claim. ‘It’s against the Naxals! It’s saying they’re Nazis!’

‘Ms Fernandez,’ the policewoman said, with sarcastic patience, ‘I do understand that you’re from a Catholic background. But you must have celebrated Diwali at school, yes?’

‘Yes,’ said Geena, with a sudden lift-shaft feeling as she realised where this line of questioning was going.

‘Then I take it you recognise the significance of the swastika in Hindu culture?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘So what this graffiti is really saying is something like “Hail the Naxals! Good luck to the Naxals!” Isn’t that right?’

‘Well, maybe,’ said Geena, trying to keep a tremor out of her voice, and to sound like she was just thinking aloud. ‘I suppose it could be read that way, but in a political context the significance of the symbol changes, and I’m sure most people would read it the way I did.’

‘The way you say you did,’ said the policewoman, also as if turning things over in her mind. She seemed to come to a decision. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to be a little more certain than that.’ She waved towards the van. ‘Would you step inside the van for a moment, please?’

‘No!’ Geena looked from side to side. Nobody around. Somewhere a dog barked. Blue flicker of plasma telly on curtains. Bleats and clucks. She wanted to run, even though she knew it was hopeless. Her legs wouldn’t move. Her knees shook.

The policewoman took another step forward, hand reaching out, not yet touching her.

‘No, please, no!’ It came out as a wail.

Grabbed. The other two leapt forward, surrounding her. One of them wrenched away her bag. The other deftly pulled her glasses from her face. Her feet were off the ground. Bundled around the back of the van. In. Slam, muffled, like a bank vault.

The interior of the van had half a dozen seats with head and limb restraints. Geena thrashed like a child, and with as little effect. Before she had time to do anything, she was being held down, then fixed in. The restraints were syn bio stuff, soft on the skin, unyielding.

The policewoman lifted off her helmet, revealing a pleasant young face and a heap of tied-up hair. She held out a cupped hand. One of her colleagues, still visored, tossed her a small metal object that looked like a miniature grenade. She flipped the top off, pressed down a switch. An inch-long jet of flame shot up, blue and white. Geena couldn’t take her eyes off it.

The policewoman reached for a seam in her jacket and pulled out a pin. She played the flame up and down it.

‘This is to sterilise the pin,’ she explained, kindly. The flame vanished with a click, and she passed the lighter back and leaned forward.

Geena clenched her fists on top of the armrests, straining against the clamps around her forearms. The policewoman prised up the middle finger of Geena’s left hand, and pushed the pin under the fingernail.

There was no language. There were no words.

Sheet of paper. Small print; boxes to tick.

‘Sign this.’

A smile. Another sheet of paper: smaller, folded in three, with coloured font.

‘Take this.’

Geena looked down at it.

Trauma counselling. Helplines.

They returned her glasses and her bag. She stuck the leaflet in the outer pocket.

They opened the doors.

She went home.

The following morning Geena awoke sobbing. Her boyfriend, Liam, sat up and leaned over. His face interrupted her fixed gaze at the ceiling. Hair tousled, cheeks bristled, eyes bleary; breath garlicky from last night’s chicken curry. She shut her eyes on his anxious gaze.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, from far away.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just a bad dream, that’s all.’

‘Aw…’

He laid a hand on her shoulder, pulling her towards him. She shrugged him away and rolled over, hauling the duvet.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, muffled. ‘Just let me get back to sleep.’

She heard his breathing above her head for a minute, then a sigh as he turned away. He heaved himself under the covers, his back to her, and lay there until the alarm beeped. Then he got up. Geena heard him in the bathroom, in the shower, getting dressed, in the next room making his breakfast.

He came back into the room and kissed the top of her head.

‘I’ve made you some coffee,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ she said, her face still to the pillow. ‘Have a good day.’

He waited, then:

‘You too. Bye.’

‘Bye.’

As soon as the outside door closed, she jumped out of bed and hurried through to the front-room bay window just in time to see Liam go up the street. Tall and thin, he walked with his hands in his jacket pockets and his elbows out, shoulders moving in sync with his stride, as he always did. And as always, he turned at the corner, smiled and waved, though he probably couldn’t see her. Geena waved back, slightly self-conscious at still being in her pyjamas.

When he’d gone, she sat down in one of the two old rug-thrown armchairs that faced each other across where a fireplace had once been. She held up her left hand. It shook a little. The dull pewter of the monitor ring on her wedding finger gleamed in the early sunlight. The blue sticking-plaster around her middle fingernail reflected more brightly, a jade satin ribbon of SynBioTech manufacture, its pad still dispensing antisepsis and analgesia in calibrated dosage. Adhesion, calculated too: when the plaster had done its job, it would drop off, like a scab.

The smell of coffee called her to her feet. She stepped barefoot across raffia to the corner with the table and the cooker and the sink, and pushed down the plunger of the one-shot cafetière. The monitor ring gave her its usual morning warning twinge about the caffeine. She ignored it, filled a mug, and sat down to sip, wrapping the injured hand around the hot china.