The Passengers(31)
‘Why would the rest of the world care?’ Jack asked.
Cadman laughed. ‘Oh, you are such a kidder, aren’t you?’ He turned to the jurors. ‘He is kidding, isn’t he?’ Muriel shook her head. ‘Jack, five minutes after this all blew up, excuse the pun and RIP Victor, it’s been the only thing anyone is talking about. Every country in the world with access to social media is watching you, they’re watching the Passengers, and they’re taking in everything as it happens live. Look.’ He turned his tablet to face Jack. ‘On average there are six thousand tweets sent every second of every day. That number has doubled today. Facebook has never seen so much traffic since its peak back in two thousand and twenty and this one event is bringing them millions of pounds of revenue every minute. It is pulling the world together.’
Cadman flicked the page of his tablet to project against another wall. It featured news channels from around the world. The USA, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and New Zealand were all running live footage of the events on British roads.
‘Who sent you?’ asked Jack.
‘Now that I can’t answer you. We were booked months ago through the usual Government channels and paid in advance,’ he continued. ‘We were told we’d be informed of what would be required of us on the day. Taxis were sent to our hotel this morning and on our way here I was sent profiles of six of the people trapped in these cars. Then we received an urgent call from Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms A, or COBRA to you and I, urging us to attend – they were taken aback to learn we’d already been booked.’
‘Commander Riley and his team escorted us up here and explained what we’d find behind closed doors.’
If Cadman felt intimidated by Jack’s piercing gaze, he didn’t show it. He looked to the Passengers’ screens. ‘So get me up to speed. Which one of this lot are you killing off first then?’
Chapter 23
Libby did not appreciate the flippancy to which Cadman referred to the Passengers.
‘We have yet to discuss it properly,’ she said. ‘And I wouldn’t know where to start. It’s impossible.’
Cadman shrugged. ‘Bringing the dead back to life; travelling at the speed of light; standing at a supermarket checkout and not looking at what the person in front of you has put on the conveyer belt – they are impossible things. Voting for someone to die whom you’ve never met? Not so impossible. And the public is already lapping up the opportunity to have its say.’
‘Who in their right mind would want to send someone to their death?’
Cadman read the tablet he held. ‘Approximately two hundred thousand people so far – and that’s based only on what’s trending on Twitter.’
‘I don’t understand. Two hundred thousand people are doing what so far?’ asked Libby.
Cadman turned to his team. ‘Am I going to have to spell everything out to them?’ He sighed. ‘Of the million Twitter mentions of the hijacking, at least two hundred thousand of them have hashtagged the name of a Passenger they’d most like to see dead.’
‘How can they be so quick to judge?’ asked Muriel. ‘They know as much about the Passengers as we do. You can’t make a decision based on so little.’
‘Wars have been started, fought and won on less detail,’ Cadman replied.
‘Muriel is correct,’ the Hacker began, and a hush befell the room. ‘People are voting purely on the basis of what they have seen and little else – much like how decisions are made in your inquests.’ Libby was the only juror not to look sheepish. ‘Your process is biased and unfair,’ the Hacker continued. ‘I would like to make my process fairer.’ He paused.
‘Is he always this dramatic?’ Cadman whispered.
‘He’s waiting for us to ask how,’ said Libby.
‘Ooh, mind games. I’ll bite. How, Mr Hacker?’
‘Let’s find out a little bit more about our Passengers, shall we?’ the Hacker replied. ‘Please turn your attention to the wall.’
Libby watched as some screens blanked and others rotated so that just eight remained. Seven contained one Passenger, and the last showed footage of fire fighters dampening the blaze of Victor Patterson’s taxi. It was a stark reminder of what the Hacker was capable of.
‘Let’s begin with Passenger number one. Claire Arden is a twenty-six-year-old teaching assistant at a school for children with special needs. She is married to husband Benjamin and seven months pregnant with their first child.’ Libby’s heart broke for the red-eyed woman, tears streaming down her face and clutching her stomach. And when #killclaire appeared in the corner of the screen, it made Libby nauseous.
‘In vehicle number two, we have Bilquis Hamila, forty-six, who arrived in this country two years ago from Somalia, claiming political asylum. She is widowed and has a daughter back home whom she hopes to bring to the UK. Her application to become a British citizen has already been refused by the Home Office, and she is currently mid-way through the appeals process.’
In her nursing career, Libby had worked with refugees, foreign nationals and asylum seekers. So she was no stranger to hearing the horrors inflicted on a person by war and torture and seeing how regularly it manifested itself with psychoses, depression and PTSD. She wondered how much Bilquis had suffered to make her flee her country and leave her child behind.