Friday 22nd January

Date of log – 20660612

Transcribers note – for the purposes of clarity it has been decided that the words of the Interrogator shall be indicated by indented paragraphs, those of the Prisoner shall be in straight text.

-[Good morning Mr. Smith.  May I call you Janek?  For so long I have thought of you as Janek that the formality of referring to you as Smith seems ridiculous.  Don’t you agree?]-

If you say so.  Though….actually, I am past caring.

-[Well, let’s just take that as read then shall we.  Now Janek, we have, as I am sure you will have guessed, read the single file on your ‘laptop’, though I am not sure if the term applies to such a strange antique and hybrid creation.  My first question to you, and I am sure you must realise that I have many, very many questions to ask, is where exactly did you buy the machine?]-

I can’t remember.

-[Oh dear.  Not a good start.  I am afraid that answers of that nature really will not do Janek.  I am sure you must realise that.  Before I ask you again maybe I should remind you of the reason you are here.  Along with the many crimes you have committed, both by commission and omission, and your futile attempts to evade your arrest, probably the most serious error you have made was in betraying our trust.  Do you understand me, Janek?]-

If you say so, but actually as I said already – I really don’t care.

-[But we do, Janek, and that is the important thing.  We most certainly do care; that is the point I am trying to make.  In a way I actually have some sympathy with you, believe it or not.  Reading your little journal I can see that you have had rather a rough old time of it, one way or another.  And you know; it didn’t need to be like that.  Not at all.  I am sure that had you expressed some of your dissatisfaction through official channels we would not be sitting here now.  And let me just add, this discussion doesn’t need to be conducted in such an atmosphere of hostility either.  It will be much better all round if you co-operate with us.  Don’t you agree?]-

I suppose so.  But I don’t know what good it will do.  I mean here I am; your prisoner, you can do whatever you like with me.  I am helpless against your power.  Whatever I do or say, you will still be in control.  Is that not the case?

-[That is one way of looking at things, certainly.  But, in life there is always a choice, even if that choice is simply to keep on living or to die.  Which would you rather?  Or is that a stupid question?]-

Are you really asking me if I would rather stay alive?  Are you telling me that if I refuse to co-operate I will die?  Is that it?  Is that what all of this has come down to?  Just because I decided to opt out of your pretty little strata system I have to die, is that it?

-[You are taking me too literally Janek.  Such melodrama.  It is really not helpful, and I would have thought in your situation you need all the help you can get.  I was using the question of life or death as an example of the choices before you.  It was not meant to be taken literally.  No-one is suggesting that you might be killed.  As usual your descent into hyperbole is quite ridiculous.   However it must be obvious, even to you in your depressed state that your co-operation, or possible lack of it, will have some bearing on the outcome of your case.  All I am really saying is that it will be much better for you if you co-operate.  Do you not agree?  Besides you really are in no position to argue.]-

I wondered how long it would take.  For the facade to drop, I mean.  Look, as you say, I am in no position to argue, but I am tired.  Actually I am very tired; both physically and mentally.  I will answer your questions, or try to, as well as I am able.  But I won’t be betraying anyone else, I can assure you.  If this is some sort of witch-hunt I will not co-operate.  Besides I can assure you I have acted alone in all of this.  So do what you want with me, but I won’t be betraying anyone.

-[But you already have Janek.  Don’t you see?  By the very act of recording, of writing your little journal, you have betrayed everyone mentioned in it.  How long do you think it will take us to find them?  A week?  Even that is stretching things.  But, actually apart from the Aldwych cell, none of them interests us in the slightest.  No.  I think you misunderstand the nature of this conversation.  We are not specifically interested in people you may have met, who may or may not have assisted you.  We are fairly sure that you were never a part of any organised movement.  It is you we are interested in.  The reasons you became a ‘reb’ at all.  Why you felt it necessary to turn your back on the world, on our world, on all of us.  Why you thought you might be cleverer than us.  That is what we are interested in.]-

But as you have told me already, you have read my Journal.  It’s all in there.  Everything is there, in black and white, and no doubt uploaded and being scrutinised as we speak.  You’ve already told me you have read it.  Save yourself some time.  Read it again, then you needn’t waste both our time by asking me to repeat myself.

-[Well you certainly let rip in places there, didn’t you?  You sounded really angry, outrageously so.  I want to know exactly why?  What was so wrong with your life; that you, rather than everyone else who complained, should decide to do something about it.  What was it about you Janek Smith that made you behave in that particular way?  What in short is so special about you?]-

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing, I can assure you.  I just felt I had had enough.

-[Enough of what exactly, Janek?  Your life seemed quite pleasant from where I am standing.  Better than many anyway.  As you know, and so eloquently have written of, there have been three great financial crashes this century.  The whole system has had to be rebuilt from the ground up.  Look at what we have achieved; almost everyone now has some sort of employment, even the poor are much better looked after than previously, we have stability.  Surely that is better than what went before.   I want to know what was it about your life that seemed too much for you to take anymore?  And I want to hear it from your own lips; one can read all one wants and still not understand half of what the spoken word can tell us.]-

I don’t know really.  It wasn’t anything specific.  It was just a feeling that had been growing in me.  Over a few years too, it wasn’t triggered by anything specific really.  I suppose I had been unhappy for years without really formulating it into concrete ideas.  Then when I started writing the journal, this incredible feeling of freedom overcame me, and the words just tumbled out of me.  I never edited anything; I didn’t go back and correct anything.  Not a single word.  Everything you can read is just as I wrote it.  And then after the exhilaration came the fear, the fear of discovery, the fear of being down-strata-ed and Cosmos knows what else.  One thing led to another I suppose and escape loomed larger and larger.  It felt as if I wasn’t really in control of things, it was as if there was someone else making the decisions for me.  Mind you that’s more or less how I used to feel all the time anyway.  But this was different, this wasn’t some impersonal system controlling me, this was immediate, this was suddenly real.  And when the chance came I took it.

-[The laptop intrigues me.  Let me repeat my first question to you, where did you buy it?]-

I bought the shell, you know the keyboard and the screen and the simple processors, at an antiques fair in a bit of G.L., north I think – Welwyn Garden City.  My wife’s sister lives there, and we were paying her a rare visit.  It was over two years ago now.

-[And you adapted it yourself?  You disabled the uplift technology, and loaded an old Microsoft compatible version of Word, is that correct?]-

More or less.  There was quite a bit of trial and error involved.  And the Word compatibility programme didn’t work for ages.  Android and Ms never communicated that well really.  As you must know I studied Computer Science at crammer.  I had a rudimentary understanding of these old machines but I was amazed when it actually worked.   And excited.  Do you understand?   I was so excited, exhilarated actually.  I had no real plans of what to do with it at that point.

-[And yet you had spent months of your spare time trying to get it work.  Doesn’t that sound like some sort of contradiction.]-

If you say so.  Look, I sort of had an idea at the back of mind that I might be able to use it secretly, but I hadn’t really thought it through.

-[Okay, let’s put the laptop to one side, metaphorically speaking anyway.  If we take your explanation at face value does it not seem strange that you should have started your so-called Journal with such a torrent of bile?  I have rarely read anything like it.]-

Why thank-you kind sir……….  I see you aren’t laughing.  Obviously not much of a sense of humour.  Been stuck in here for too long I expect.

-[Sarcasm has little place in my life I must admit.  However we are here to discuss you Janek and your little rebellion.  I should remind you that I am the Interrogator and you are the Prisoner here.  I will only ask you once to keep any comments you may wish to make about me to yourself.   Anyway, I think we have talked for long enough today.  You appear to be tired and out of sorts.  I would like you to reflect on your situation for a day or two.  Then we will talk again.]-