Free Regeneration by Stephanie Saulter Page B

complete.]
    \> {Better luck next time, hey? Can’t get the staff.}
    \> (Another petition?)
    \> [Can’t tell what might disrupt quantum containment. TTP denials not credible.]
    \> {We’ll see if electricity & water mix after all! KABOOM!!!}
    Gabriel slid into his chair, his tea unfinished and all but forgotten. He checked their IDs onscreen, making a mental note to let Herran know that while this latest version of the app could distinguish between different participants, it was no good at communicating their identities. The pompous complainant about the failed petition turned out, predictably, to be the group that had sponsored it: @EstPresSoc, the Estuary Preservation Society. The credulous streamer ready to believe in mutant shellfish looked like a real person. Kaboom was obviously an avatar: a syntactically generated alphanumeric ID, a boilerplate profile and a timeline that went back all of ten minutes. They were randomly generated, existing only for the duration of a particular streamchat and then were never seen again—an increasingly common tactic among corporate rivals and lobbyists, despite breaching the Code of Practice they all claimed to abide by.
    Gabriel tagged the feed for future reference, though he knew there was little point; whoever was composing the text would already be activating a new, equally temporary virtual mouthpiece, ready to spout more unfounded rumors and outright slander. The dishonesty grated at him—but Herran had shown him how to game the streamfeed algorithms so that they pulled his posts into any discussion tagged relevant to Thames Tidal. Maybe that wasn’t particularly scrupulous either, but under the circumstances he felt it was justified. At least it meant anyone following the feed would get both sides of the story. He checked the posts he’d already prepared, editing and reordering, dropping them onstream steadily but not too quickly:
    @ThamesTidal : Tomorrow we power London. Quantum-battery banks fully charged, ready to go.
    @ThamesTidal : New vids of dolphins around estuary power plant! Environmental Management confirms healthy ecosystems, no damage to wildlife.
    @ThamesTidal : TTP celebrates 10 years of tidal turbines, 5 of quantum storage, 0 casualties or serious accidents. Best safety record in the industry.
    @ThamesTidal : We’ve been around for a while, folks. London launch expands on Sinkat/Riveredge service: lowest bills in city past 3 years.
    @ThamesTidal : We’re at the TideFair to answer your questions. Food, fun, facts. Tomorrow in Sinkat Basin, all welcome.
    @ThamesTidal : What happens at midnight? Clean, cheap energy for all Londoners. Don’t take our word for it, check out the independent audits .
    It took Gabriel fifteen minutes, though Kaboom disappeared as soon as the first Thames Tidal post popped into the feed. He sipped cold tea and grimaced. Kaboom would be back under a new handle, insinuating danger, death, or malfeasance in a tone variously jocular, conspiratorial, or frightened. The jibes always skated close to, but never quite over the edge of what could usefully be reported to the police. He’d seen the pattern a lot over the past few days, ever since news of the sabotage attempt had surfaced. The dashboard panel in a corner of his screen registered a steady uptick in traffic along the links he’d laid down to the Thames Tidal infostream, and he allowed himself a small smirk of satisfaction.
    “What’s funny?” Agwé had appeared at his elbow.
    “Just another troll sent packing. For now. The fuss about turbine vulnerability has died down, but all of a sudden they’re getting worked up about the battery banks. It’s like they think when we join the grid they’ll somehow become dangerous.”
    “That doesn’t make sense. The batteries are already charged, so releasing power to the grid would make them less dangerous.” She looked perplexed. “That’s if they were dangerous in the first place. Which they’re not.”
    “Welcome to my