Chapter 81

81

Anthony

Anthony closed his eyes and took a moment to listen. Aside from a faint tinnitus ringing in his ears – a hangover from a childhood punch by one of his mother’s violent exes – the only sounds in his office were his breaths and the tap of a stylus against the surface of his desk.

On purchasing their home three years earlier, a team of security experts had been sent by Hyde to soundproof Anthony’s office, install steel doors with biometric locks alongside reinforced glass windows and thick metal shutters. Then, Anthony thought transforming that room into a modern-day Faraday cage was an exaggerated and unnecessary measure, but now he was grateful. Because hidden inside it, he was protected from the interference of the outside world.

The silence engulfing the rest of the house was a different matter. It was uncomfortable. As he made his way out into the kitchen, he missed the excited squawks coming from the playroom as Matthew participated in virtual reality games with his friends in their 3D metaverse. He longed to hear the sizzle of oils in pans as Jada brought recipes from around the world into their kitchen. He craved the laughter of friends and family around the garden dining table on balmy summer nights. An absence of sound created by those he loved most rendered the house soulless.

He opened the fridge to remove a cold bottle of beer and finished it with the door still ajar. He did the same with a second. But no amount of alcohol could smooth out the rough edges. Anthony missed his family more than he ever thought possible.

A notification appeared on the wall-mounted digital calendar. There was apparently a takeaway delivery waiting outside on the doormat. Suspicious because he hadn’t ordered it, a quick check of the family organizer revealed Jada, still in Florida, was responsible for arranging it. A full monthly shop was to arrive tomorrow. She must have been remotely monitoring the contents of the fridge and cupboards through their sensors and saw that he was eating poorly. After all he had put her through, she was still caring for him, even halfway across the world.

On the doorstep, he unattached the food box from the drone’s pincers and pressed the recall button to return it to the Thai restaurant. Back in the kitchen, he habitually removed three sets of knives and forks from the drawer before realizing his mistake and replacing two of them. Then he returned to his office to eat alone.

Many times, he had clutched his phone ready to videocall his family, only to hold back. By seeing their faces, and hearing their voices, he might lose his focus and that would only prolong his work on the Young Citizen Camp project and being reunited with his loved ones. His plan was to condense three months of work into one. The sooner this was over, the sooner he could leave his job and put the camps and Hyde behind him. So he and Jada only communicated by concise, matter-of-fact emails. He hoped the emotional distance between them was not as wide as the oceans separating them.

Back in his locked office, Anthony ate as he scanned the screens on the wall and the volume of work he and his team had accomplished in such a short space of time.

By the morning, he had completed his workload for that week and logged out of the system. And, for a moment, he surrendered to his irrational but niggling fear that Hyde’s people had somehow snuck into his hideout and planted new listening devices while he was elsewhere in the house. He swept the room again until he was sure he was safe. Then he removed an outmoded laptop from under his desk and switched it on. He had already detached its wifi, Bluetooth, 7G internet and tracking capabilities, making it impossible for anyone to know that he was using an unmonitored, nonapproved device. Then he plugged in a digital memory stick to continue working on a side project of his own. One that Hyde and his team were oblivious to.