Free Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle by Matthew Blakstad Page B

eyes when i close them
i see the line along your jaw when the muscles tighten
i want to tear that muscle with my teeth
dani xoxox
     
    She presses Send. The reply takes less than a second. Ping.
Oh Dani
I love it when you hurt me. I want you to hurt me more.
Sam xxx
     
    Contact. It’s almost like touching. It’s what she needs. She presses her thighs around her left hand and goes in again, typing with her right.
     
hey sam
you know what? ive been thinking about you
have you been thinking about me? haha i know the
answer to that
you havent have you? fuck you sam i think i love you

Wednesday:
    Trusted Third Party
‘Those who value freedom over control must do all in their power to release information from the strictures of cold Authority, even where this means disregard for the law of the day. The law will be forced to change; or we shall step around it.’
  —Elyse Martingale, The Electronic Radical:
  or Why Information Will Be the Dynamite
  of the Next Revolution

Zero
    I’m speaking to no one. It’s a fascinating conversion.
    Two dozen stray personalities, detached of their hosts, are plotting riot and disorder. Aren’t we something? But not one of us is actually here. We shout and overrule and I sit alone and watch the city morning rise.
    When did it become so normal to speak to words instead of people? Maybe when the names for the act began to multiply. I’ll message you, DM you, proffer, tweet, post. When we started to speak through channels owned by someone else.
    Or maybe in 1876, with the words Mr Watson, come here; I want to see you . This sentence barely made it to the next room before it was owned by the black box on the workbench. I’ll call you, phone you, bell you. We depend on these wires – property Western Union, Marconi, Bell. I’ll cable you, telex, fax.
    Since then what have we cried into the wires but a billion variations on that plea? Come here. I want to see you – but there’s always another veil to pass through before we can see it all.
    Which brings me to the absent, fragile sic_girl. You want to see her? Here – some clickbait for you to share.
    This fictional character thinks she can bring down a minister with words. Find out how .

¶justwannahavepun
Beth in Venice
The Pig Lebowski
Mo’ Bethany Blues
One Swine Day
The Lehrer of the White Worm
Pork the Line


One
    Hell has many doors. So does the Cabinet Office. Bethany and Krish took a discreet off-Whitehall entrance, where media were seldom seen. A triple-lanyarded staffer swiped them along a back channel through interlocking buildings. After six or seven doors their path was blocked by three black security pods.
    They placed keys and phones in a tray, then each stepped into a scanner. Bethany glanced through the glass at Krish, as electronics juddered round her. He hadn’t spoken to her since she arrived. A particularly Scottish form of intensity knotted every inch of his six foot three.
    Released with a Star Trek hiss, they followed more blind corridors and climbed a narrow stairway. A young staffer in shirtsleeves shouldered past without a glance. This was the one place in the country Bethany could walk without drawing a glimmer of attention.
    She understood Krish’s exasperation. Clearly he thought she’d been deliberately late this morning. She should have explained but had instead been brusque. The backstory was far from ministerial. On her way out of the house this morning, she’d paused to help negotiate an ailing and unwilling Jake into his school gear. As she tugged up his purple uniform trousers, some gastric reflex had kicked in and he’d been prodigiously sick down her front. No choice but to change her suit and blouse: she hadn’t looked – or smelled – like Downing Street material. The productivity of Jake’s drum-tight little stomach was incredible. As she dumped her soiled clothes in the bathtub, the gag-inducing stench had overwhelmed her. She prayed Peter would remember