For as long as he could remember, pigeons frightened Eric Blain. Strolling home from the tube station in Stepney, he encountered a gang of them strutting and pecking the sidewalk with a marked air of belligerence. He marshaled on, but they held their ground, bobbing their matted heads like some devil wind-up toys. Nearly on top of them, Eric shouted “Go!” as though they’d perhaps learned English, but they hadn’t. He conceded the battle of wills at the last moment, veering away from the street and into Mr. Sheppard’s shrubbery. The foul birds gave chase, a blurry mess of fluttering and flapping, and flew away. He waved his arms wildly, then stood between shrubs, thinking about how ridiculous he must have looked.
Eric looked about to see if anyone had taken notice of his momentary madness. On a stoop across the lane, two young hooded hoodlums smoked cigarettes and barked laughter, but they weren’t pointing their hoods his way. Then he noticed a trio of surveillance cameras mounted on a light pole; one pointed almost precisely down at him. Eric was used to seeing the longish white tubes in the city proper, mostly near Parliament and other touristy spots, but not in this neighborhood. The only crime here was Mrs. Barnes and her garish wardrobe--even the young thugs liked it that way.
“Hello.” He waved at the black lens, and continued down the street.
As usual, Eric’s flat mate, Ian, was not at home. Ian worked nights at some unnamed corporation. He described the job as “back-end stuff,” and left it at that. In the kitchen, Eric put on the kettle and made tea. The Guardian (which Eric distained as liberal rubbish) sat on the kitchen table, opened to an article declaring ‘TERROR THREAT WORSENING.’ Eric was not keen on terror, but rode the tube like everyone else, as the PM told him to. He read a bit while waiting for the kettle.
“There are 2,000 individuals that police and security agencies are monitoring. There are 200 networks. There are 30 active plots."
The kettle whistled. Eric, who enjoyed conversing with himself in his ample hours of solitude, tsked. “Bloody good that there’s cameras everywhere. Best defense is a good offense!” He read a bit more whilst sipping his tea, nodding and gesticulating and agreeing with himself whole-heartedly.
Two weeks later, Eric, armed with an anti-pigeon umbrella, saw civic workers from the end of the block, setting up cones and launching a portable crane from the back of a truck. Their garish striped vests and noisy hydraulics seemed distinctly at odds with the ivied serenity of the block.
“Putting up a camera,” said his neighbor Mrs. Barnes, out walking her sheltie in an orange, flowered nightdress. She wore them at all hours, apparently haven given up in her retirement on the notion of dressing to suit the hour or occasion. “About time, I’d say. It’s getting a bit dark in the neighborhood” She squinted and smiled at him with the air of someone daring him to argue the point.
Eric forced a smile in return. “ Yes, I suppose it is.” The old woman loved to make people complicit in her ugly little exhibitions of racism. Better to play along than start a flap. She smiled back triumphantly. He stepped around the dog and walked towards the workers and his flat. Indeed, the men were installing another security camera on the light pole adjacent his building. As he reached the iron railing of the stoop he said “Excellent! Just the right thing.”
In his flat, Ian, hunched over his laptop in precisely the same position on the sofa he’d hunched that morning, surprised Eric.
“Ah, just in time for tea, Eric!”
“You made tea?”
“I believe it’s your turn?” Ian hadn’t looked up from the laptop, but he smiled crookedly and continued typing.
In the kitchen, Eric put the kettle on. Soon they sat in the sitting room, drinking tea, Ian still gazing into the screen of the laptop.
“Did you see the civic workers outside? Looks like they’re installing a security camera.”
Ian finally looked up from the screen. “Civic workers? Those aren’t civic workers, mate. Have a look.”
Eric pulled the curtain aside and scrutinized the men. They wore vests with fluorescent yellow stripes, and looked for all the world like civic workmen.
“Look at the truck.” Ian was back to staring at his screen. “Read the side.”
“Victory Inc. So who are they?”
Ian nodded at the laptop. “They are the blokes who keep an eye on us. The ones who monitor the CCTV. It’s not the government, you know. Private companies do it.”
Eric let the curtain fall. “They don’t actually sit there and watch the feeds all day?”
“Oh yes they do, mate. Have a look.” He turned the laptop, prompting Eric to flinch. Sometimes Ian’s taste in entertainment made him a bit squeamish. The image on the screen showed a man seated before a wall of closed-circuit TV monitors.
“Good! I’m impressed, really. I’ve got nothing to hide. Not like those yobbos down the way. Only criminals like those lads should be worried about it.” Eric returned to his tea and Ian to his screen.
“Everyone’s got something to hide, Eric.” Ian smiled from behind his teacup. After a minute, he rose from the sofa, snapped the laptop shut and stuffed it in a backpack. “Right. I’m off then darling! Don’t wait up.” He blew Eric a kiss.
Eric dodged. “Quit that.”
Ian grinned and crossed to the window. He pulled something from the backpack and put it on the sill. “Leave this, mate.”
After he left, Eric went to see what he’d placed there. It was a little flag with the emblem of the Chelsea Football Club.
* * *
Over the next week, Eric began to notice cameras everywhere. Clusters of white rectangles fanned out above the streets, clunky black boxes, and orbs like moist salamander eyes in the tube stations. He was constantly amazed--surely they hadn’t popped up overnight. Eric worked in a glass tower on the Isle of Dogs, processing purchase orders and receipts for a company that made ship rudders. The bench where he ate lunch on better days sat in view of three of the hooded eyes.
They were everywhere.
One morning, he mentioned it to Ian. “I’m telling you, there must be hundreds.”
His flatmate laughed. “You’re just noticing this now? Wait; here are some edifying bits of trivia.” He hunched over and punched some keys on the laptop. “There are, in fact, four-point-two million surveillance cameras in England, well over ten-thousand in London. Here in Stepney, they’ve passed one hundred. It says here that the average Briton--that’s most definitely you, Eric--is on as many as 300 cameras every day.” He leaned back and sipped his tea. “That’s just the tip of it.”
“What do you mean, ‘tip of it’?” Eric leaned forward on his chair.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Statistically, there is one camera for every thirteen citizens of London. Of course, that’s not counting the cameras in the busses and taxis. Oh, and they’ve begun installing T-Ray cams in some of the London tube stations.” He grinned up at Eric. “Millimeter wave machines,” they call them. See right through your clothes. What would you have paid for one of those when you were twelve, eh?”
* * *
Ian was scarce for a while. They had typically crossed paths in the mornings, trading interesting tidbits from their rival newspapers (Eric read the far more sensible Daily Mail) over tea and toast. Eric missed the comfortable banter. Ian was, Eric considered, a good lot. He’d seemed a bit of a sketch when Eric had answered the ad for a flatmate and met the man. He’s answered the door in pajamas with childish looking animals on them, sipping what turned out to be ale from a teacup. He’d blown on it. The man himself was tall and lanky, hair cropped close to his head. He looked to be anywhere from his mid-twenties to thirty"it was hard to tell"and bore the perpetual crooked grin of a man with x-ray eyes.
The flat was so oddly decorated that Eric thought the man must have inherited it lock, stock and barrel from some elderly geezer, maybe his Nan. Hundreds of tacky odds and ends--miniature flags and chipped ceramic rabbits and old photos--adorned shelves and end tables. Nothing of any monetary value or even kitschy charm. The television was top notch though--a sleek flat panel that sat on a battered chest of drawers like it had wandered into the fifties.
After Eric moved in, Ian had treated him in an oddly familiar way from the start, like a cousin or younger sibling. He cajoled and teased, and generally made Eric feel welcome, if harried. But he’d been oddly silent concerning personal matters--his past, his family, his job--all questions of that sort were brushed aside with pat deflections. “My mum was a hair dresser. Her dream was to make Lady Di look less mannish. I think Camilla was the end of her.” Eric grew accustomed to the arrangement and stopped asking. Ian never went out, except for work at nights. Twice monthly, he brought home two, always two, sacks of groceries. He never spoke about women (or men), never had visitors. His only constant companion was his laptop, which bore no logos of any kind. The number keys were unmarked as well"probably some kind of bootlegged Chinese import. He never left it home, and rarely left it alone.
One evening Eric came home to discover the odd laptop open in its usual spot on the coffee table, but alone. He searched the flat. Empty. Typically, Eric only accessed the Internet at work. His computer was monitored and locked out of internet sites deemed “non-productive,” which he discovered was pretty much all of the internet. He looked at the laptop, and at the door. He made tea. It took twenty minutes of proper hedging, hemming, hawing and sipping tepid tea before Eric finally sat down and tapped the power button. The machine had been on stand-by, and flashed to life. Ian had left a browser window open to Google. Eric touched a key, and a note popped up on the screen:
“Thought you might like to mess about on the net.
I have some excellent pornography bookmarked!
Enjoy " Ian”
Eric shook his head and closed the pop-up. He typed “surveillance” into the window and hit enter.
Hours later, Eric sat in the dark in his boxer shorts, sweating and chewing his lip, squinting into the glow of the screen. His neck ached from craning involuntarily and his is right hand had cramped once during a particularly exciting moment. Eric was spent, overcome with obsession, but the temptation to keep pushing on was too great. Ian was right--it had been just the tip of it. The first revelation had been the Oyster Card. He’d used it every day for three years to pay tube fare, just like everybody else"swiped it when he got on, swiped it when he got off. That second step had never seemed odd, but Eric learned that the “departure swipe” offered a perfect record of a user’s point a and point b--a record someone was keeping.
From there it just got crazier. Strange code words: Operation Kratos, Trojan 84, Cleanskins and Shellgames; it was like a bloody spy novel. There were, Eric thought, two conflicting truths: London was a cauldron--a hive of terror cells awaiting marching orders; or it was not. The latter choice held ugly implications of conspiracy and malevolence on the part of the Government--of Orwellian control and the end of freedom. It made America seem like a nice place to live. Eric leaned back and rubbed his eyes. He touched the pad on which he’d scribbled notes. This was not good, not right. This was madness.
* * *
Eric obsessed over the cameras. He counted them on his commutes. Whenever he seemed satisfied that he’d spotted them all, another would pop out of the landscape. He wore hats. On weekends, he stayed in the flat.
“You said it yourself, Eric: you’ve got nothing to worry about.” On Saturdays, Ian lived on the sofa, clicking away on his laptop and watching football matches on the TV. He sipped beer. Eric paced the apartment, glancing from Ian to the Chelsea match to the curtained window. A little figurine of a British Royal guardsman stood at attention on the windowsill.
“Look, you’re a law abiding citizen. You’re pale, Protestant, and you don’t carry a backpack. There’s not a trace of dodginess about you, Eric!”
“Still. I just can’t get it out of my head. I mean"they’re watching me, recording me, all the time. It’s like walking around naked.”
Ian leaned back on the sofa and folded his hands across his chest. “Well, once your eyes are opened, you can’t just close them, can you? You have only three options.”
Eric stopped pacing.
“One: you can realize that they don’t give fig about you, and go about your business.”
Eric furrowed at this. He made a face.
“Right. Two: you work nights like me. I almost never leave the flat before nightfall. Bit of a b***h finding a job though. Three: you can take action.”
“Take action? What action?”
“Wait.” Ian was watching the match, grimacing at Chelsea’s striker, Drogba, hobbling off the field. “Bollocks.” He looked at Eric. “Take action. Disable the cameras. Now there are three ways to approach"“
Eric burst out laughing. “Now that’s brilliant, Ian. Should I just start cutting cables, or get a gun and shoot them out!”
Ian paused, then went on like a teacher waiting for his pupils to quiet down. “As I was saying, there are three ways to approach the problem of the cameras. One: you can disable them physically. That is, you can obscure the lenses, skew the cameras in the wrong direction, or just destroy them. This would obviously be the most hazardous route.” He was more animated now, gesturing with his glass and free hand. “Two: you can disable them electronically. That is, jam their signals so the geezers manning the monitors see nothing but static. Difficult, but possible.” He smiled. “Three, you can hit the source--basically blow up the watching stations so as to render all of the cameras useless. Of course, this would make you the very kind of terrorist they’re looking out for, and I’d be obligated to report you.” He smiled and tilted his glass to Eric.
“You’re serious? You’re a bloody nutter, you are.” Eric plopped down on his chair and rubbed his eyes. “There’s no way to do any of that. You know it; I know it.” He sighed. “How did it even come to this?”
Eric amassed a collection of hats, caps and hoodies. He ate lunches at his desk. He held the Guardian high to obscure his face in the tube. For weeks, he lived in this agoraphobic hell, unable to look up, because he knew what he would see, and that it would be looking back. He fretted. He lost weight. The obsession demanded some kind of action.
* * *
On a Thursday afternoon Eric strode from the tube station in a recently acquired bowler hat. The lane was pleasantly pigeon-free. Then he saw the workers again"the orange cones and the hydraulic crane. This time cameras were being installed two blocks past his flat. The entire street was now under surveillance.
The flat was, per usual, deserted. Eric glanced to the window. A little Union Jack sat on the sill. In the kitchen, Ian had tacked a note to the teakettle. Eric read: ‘Supper in the oven, love.’ Eric pulled open the heavy door of the oven, just to see if Ian had taken the joke further. He had. The tray had been removed to fit a large cardboard box. Eric pulled it out and set it on the kitchen table. On top, Ian had written ‘open me.’ This was absurd, and Eric wondered if Ian was hiding in the pantry trying not to laugh. “I’ll make tea,” he said aloud, and did just that.
The box sat on the kitchen table.
Eric sat across from it, sipping his tea. It sat. He sipped.
He sighed, then pulled a knife from a drawer and sliced it open. Inside was a slightly smaller box, also sealed. It had an envelope taped to the top. It had “Eric” written on it. “Jesus, Ian.” He cut the envelope from the box, sliced it open and pulled out the letter within. He read:
Dear Eric,
Before you open the inner box, think back to our chat about options. Inside is option number three, approach number two. Think first, and think well. DO NOT OPEN IT if you’re not interested. Just put it back in the oven and forget about it.
- Ian
Eric thought. He remembered. He opened the box. This time, he was neither surprised nor amused to find another sealed box and another envelope. The next note gave Eric an urgent compulsion to seek out packing tape, wrap it up and stuff it all back in the oven.
Friend Eric,
Congratulations! By opening the second box, you have embarked on the path to freedom. Inside the third and final box, you will find a small plastic device that looks like a garage door opener. In theory, the device will jam signals of all of those naughty wireless surveillance cameras. Time to test the theory! But you can’t just go flipping it on willy-nilly. This little experiment needs to be conducted with great precision. You and the box will be the independent variable. To carry this off properly, you need to follow these instructions EXACTLY as written:
1) Do NOT press the button on the box until instructed. Tomorrow, wrap the box in a copy of the Guardian and take the tube to Trafalgar Square. Do NOT use your Oyster card.
2) Once there, go to the National Gallery. Be sure you’re at the bottom step at one minute to noon tomorrow.
3) At exactly noon, approach Nelson’s Column, walking at a leisurely pace.
4) Look for a rubbish bin to the LEFT, just past the fountain, but do not approach or pass it.
5) Turn the device on discreetly.
6) Head immediately to the bin and drop it in.
7) Continue in the same direction and leave the square.
That’s it!
Best luck, Ian
Trafalgar Square. Broad daylight. Eric, who was not a drinking man, drank some horrific gin that he found in a cabinet.
The next morning, Eric woke to find the flat deserted. He showered, dressed, ate and vomited breakfast. On the kitchen table, only the third box with the strange device and the instructional note remained. A fresh copy of The Guardian sat next to it. He strode, fitted cap pulled down, eyes to the ground, to the tube station. Eric felt the cameras above him like heat lamps. Consequently, he locomoted with the awkward gait of someone who focuses his attention on appearing normal, yet feels the relationship between brain and muscles to such an extent that he practically forgets how to work his legs. Mrs. Barnes shuffled along in a pink housecoat, her damnable sheltie in tow.
“Look who’s taken a fancy to hats, then!” She smiled a hideous smile, and winked at the dog as though sharing the joke. “Dating a haberdasher, are you Eric?”
His stomach was still in turmoil. “Ah! Brilliant! Lovely! You’re a cheeky one, Missus Barnes.” He smiled awkwardly, without teeth, and moved to circumvent her.
“Really, lad"are you losing your hair or something? I never seen you wear a hat in years, and all of a sudden you’re a bloody dandy.” She wrinkled her face beyond its usual wrinklage. “Is it gang related? Like those bloody Bangladeshis? Should I be watching for cars pulling up for drug deals?” She picked up the dog and clutched it to her bosom. “I read all about it in the Sun“
Eric hurried away, likely confirming the old biddy’s suspicions. He made it to work. He worked.
* * *
At 11:59am, Eric Blain stood on the lowest stone step of the National Gallery. The sun shone on Trafalgar Square, casting garish, shadowless light on a thousand tourists and Londoners. And pigeons. Thousands of pigeons. Trafalgar Square had ever been a haven for the winged beasties. Therein lay Eric’s true dread. Any fool could push a button, but braving the pigeons seemed like a cruel twist on Ian’s part. Eric looked at his watch. Noon. He stepped into the square.
He’d made it all the way to the fountain--almost there!--when the first flock crossed his path. Trafalgar Square pigeons, unlike ordinary pigeons, have long lived under the assumption that humans are a food source, equating them to something like moving statues covered with patches of delicious seed. The only trick was to find it. Eric gripped the paper tight to his right side, and waded into the still grounded birds. In a rush, all of them launched. Pecking and flapping ensued. Eric felt the claws and wings and beaks everywhere. Eyes shut tight; he flailed madly with his free arm. A beak gashed his nose, and that was when the instinct to move kicked in. Squealing, spinning, slashing the air with his arm like a swordsman, Eric advanced. He cracked an eye (an act of great courage) and saw that he was three steps from the fountain. He changed course. The pigeons, realizing that this particular mobile statue had no caches of seed, flew off. Eric waited a moment, then opened both eyes. A few people stared and pointed, but no police had taken notice. He turned and strode toward the statue, stuffed his left hand into the paper, and pushed the button. Then came the rubbish bin, the drop, and escape.
* * *
Back at the flat, Eric waited and fidgeted and watched the news. Nothing. No reports, no Ian. A little flag, the Jolly Roger, sat on the sill. He spent a restless night waiting for something, anything, to happen. In the morning he leapt from the sofa called out to Ian, but he was alone. In the kitchen, he put the kettle on, and sighed. He opened the stove. There, stuffed inside, was a box. The note said:
Brilliant! Time for option number three, approach number one.
Eric sighed. He felt deflated, naïve and lost. What had he done, really? Had the cameras been jammed, or was this just Ian’s ridiculous prank? Before he opened any more boxes, he had to know. At 9:30, Ian shuffled in. He appeared disheveled--hair all askew and oxford shirt un-tucked. He shuffled into the kitchen, poured some tea, and smiled.
“Hello Eric. Pigeons give you a rough go?”
“So it was just a prank then.”
“A prank? Brother, you blanked out the cameras in Trafalgar Square, and walked away scot-free! Lad, you’re a bloody hero! Shame you won’t go further. We could have made a statement.” He shut the oven door emphatically and ambled from the kitchen.
Eric was flummoxed. The world had gone flat. He felt no sense of accomplishment from the Trafalgar Square incident. It was all empty. He sat at the table and stewed until he heard Ian’s door close.
* * *
Weeks passed, and Eric tried to forget about the incident. The paranoia had taken permanent residence in his mind, though, and Eric could not shake it. He remembered the night of discovery on the laptop, and it grated on him because Ian had facilitated, perhaps masterminded Eric’s education when he left it behind. Cheeky b*****d. It occurred to Eric that it might be good to get some fresh perspective on things. He would consult the anarchists. They’d been easy to find"type “anarchy in the U.K.” into the search window and “Presto!” a thousand blogs and websites and even a nice recipe for brownies. An Anarchist club (who knew there was such a thing?) in Whitechapel seemed just right: conveniently located above an Anarchist bookstore, fixed meeting schedule, tea and biscuits served. Perfect. Eric took the Whitechapel bus on a Saturday afternoon, notebook in hand. He’d donned a hoodie and worn jeans, to look more authentically anarchic.
The building looked properly rundown and seedy, and Eric was delighted to hear “Password?” when he punched the buzzer.
“Brown-out.” The lock clicked, and Eric went in. The stairwell and hallway were actually quite nice--clean and well lit, with a lovely Persian throw rug in the foyer. On the second floor, Eric knocked at the door and was let in to a sitting room that reeked of"something. Four men and a young woman lounged on a sofa and easy chair, and they did not seem much like Eric’s vision of radical activists. Khakis, loafers--one man wore a houndstooth blazer--it was like a university faculty lounge. They looked at him in glazed apathy. In another room, a woman’s voice said something about Burmese tea.
“Come in, welcome!” The man who’d opened the door smiled through a reddish fuzz of beard. He had shoulder length red hair and round spectacles, like a young Santa Claus. “You’re Kurt’s friend, right?”
“Sorry, no. I found you on the net.” Eric entered and looked for a place to sit. Only a bit of the sofa was open, so he stood. “This is the Anarchist club, innit?”
The man sitting on the easy chair perked up. “Yeah, right! We’ve been on a bit of a Communist kick lately, eh Reg?” He smiled at young Santa.
“I’ll say it again, Phillip"Communism is ultimately repressive, even in it’s purest"“
“Tea and biscuits!” A young woman, an Asian with inexplicably large breasts, entered the room with a tray. “Oh! Hello"I’ll fetch another cup.”
They fetched him a kitchen chair, exchanged names and small talk. Did he like the website? Where did he attend university? What did he think of this court ruling or that MP? This continued for what seemed like hours like a bloody quiz show. He decided to stir things up.
“Did any of you hear about the CCTV incident at Trafalgar?”
They stopped talking.
“The cameras. They were jammed somehow. In broad daylight, no less.”
Reg exchanged a look with the Asian woman, Kara, and cleared his throat, adams apple bobbing uncannily like a pigeon’s head. “Where did you read that, Eric? I read all of the blogs. Never saw"“
“Hey, how ‘bout we smoke up?” It was the third man, Will, who had sat out most of the conversation silently eating biscuits.
“Righty-right! I’ll get the gear.” Kara got up with a bounce and went to the kitchen.
A pipe was passed around, and Eric learned that the peculiar smell that clung to the place was in fact marijuana.
“Eric?” Reg held the pipe out.
He waved it away. “Thanks, no. I’m"my job tests.”
Reg passed the pipe to Phillip.
“You know, I know how they did it. The cameras? I know how they jammed them. I’m sort of involved, in a peripheral way. Well, not involved, but you might say I’m on the inside. I think we could"“
Phillip stood abruptly. “Whoa, whoa there, mate!” He was backing up. An odd look had come to his face, like feverish euphoria mixed with an upset stomach. “What are you, some kind of Bloody Anarchist? I mean, like a radical or something? Look, we’re all for ‘Anarchy in the U.K.,’ or what-have-you, but you, mate, you’re a nutter! Please get out. Does anyone know you’re here? Please just take a biscuit!” He thrust one at Eric. “Really, please go. We’re sorry about the misunderstanding.”
Kara was saying something about the police to Will, who was shaking his head. Reg was lighting the pipe.
The door closed behind Eric, and he left feeling worse than he had in weeks. These were Anarchists? Intellectual stoners who sat around eating biscuits and talking politics? No wonder nobody seemed to notice that England had become police state. They were too busy debating the merit of regulating tobacco use while smoking weed. Eric stewed on the bus ride. Later he tried to assault a gang of pigeons on the sidewalk, whooping and kicking. Ian was not at home.
* * *
Glum with disenchantment, Eric returned to his hats and habits. Riding the train in the mornings and evenings, he buried his face in The Guardian and tried his best to ignore the ever-present low-wattage hum of paranoia that pricked his scalp. On Tuesday, he became aware of an odd little man in a too-large suit on the train car glaring at him from behind black-rimmed glasses. The first time he caught the man’s eye, both turned away quickly. After the next stop, several newcomers obscured the little man, but they caught glances again, and this time Eric glared back until he fidgeted and looked at his shoes. When he exited, the little imp stayed put, so Eric more or less forgot about him. The little bugger was back on Wednesday, this time at the Queue at a Chicken Cottage. Eric had held the door for a particularly lovely young woman, and wanted a nonchalant glance at her. He turned, and there at the door was the little man. Eric’s body jerked involuntarily--a puppet held by a sneezing master"and he shot his hands outward and into the not-so-much waiting arms of the woman.
“Hey! Piss OFF!” She pushed him away.
“Sorry! I didn’t touch your" Sorry!” He looked beyond her, and the man was gone. “S**t.” He bought his chicken.
By Friday, Eric was leaping from behind corners, spinning suddenly, doubling back on his path, anything to catch the little man in the act. Nerves frayed to ribbons, he jumped at any abrupt sound or jostle. His left eye twitched uncontrollably.
That Saturday, Eric and Ian sat sipping beer and watching a match in silence. Occasionally, Ian pecked at his keyboard, silly crooked grin plastered to his face. Eric could take it no more.
“Put it in the oven.”
“What?” Eric hadn’t looked up from the laptop.
“The thing"the box. Put it back in the bloody oven. I’m ready.”
“Right. Brilliant.” Eric smiled wide, went to the window, and put the ceramic rabbit on the sill.
* * *
The following Monday, at 12:19pm, Eric Blain stood on the bottom step of the National Gallery, panama hat low on his brow, and looked at his watch. ‘A bit later this time,’ the note affixed to the inner box had read, ‘we botched that part on the first run. Lunch wave wasn’t in full swing yet.’ This time, lunching Londoners were occupying every possible perch, along with hundreds of picture-snapping tourists. And of course the pigeons. Thousands upon thousands of bloody ugly, head-bobbing, cooing, clucking, strutting pigeons. He found that he cared less about their presence--he’d conquered the pigeons. He gripped a paper lunch sack containing the tools of his latest mission. Four of the little black boxes and one larger device that looked like a black turtle with four round magnet feet affixed to the base. The instructions had been more elaborate this time. Eric was to drop each of the four of the jamming devices into rubbish bins in corners adjacent the fountains, then make directly for a large metal box that he would surely see on the east edge of the square. Eric had angrily marched to a shop and bought a map of London to determine which bloody way east was. He was to affix the turtle-thing to the box, continue directly to the taxi stand across the street, go directly home, and place the Jolly Roger on the sill. ‘Other things will be happening in the square,’ the note had warned, ‘IGNORE THEM and focus on your task.’ Lovely. Eric had no idea what to expect, and adrenaline was now rocketing through his veins. He thought of his mum and Mrs. Barnes and old Mr. Sheppard, imagined them all glaring with folded arms and down turned mouths, shaking their heads. Eric Blain smiled, and realized that they didn’t matter either. This was his moment--his act of defiance--regardless of Ian or whomever had cooked up this ridiculous plot. It was time to make a flap. Ian smiled and stepped into the square.
He made his way through the crowd. At the first bin, he opened the sack, grabbed a box, pushed the button and dropped it in. On to the next, and again the next. He’d almost reached the last of the bins when he heard a woman scream, then a man shouting. Try as he might to resist, Eric had to look in the direction of the growing cacophony. At first, it looked like some Moses was parting the crowd, but he couldn’t make out what the divine force was. He continued toward the bin, reached it, and dropped the last box in. He had not turned it on.
Months later, there would be a dozen or so dinner conversations in households all over the globe. In seven different languages, the participants would laugh and shake their heads, puzzling over the vision of a man in a panama hat diving into a trash bin and thrashing about wildly. The more creative of them would relate in detail the kicking legs, describing a man running upside-down or a rubbish bin that had sprouted legs.
Clawing frantically, Eric got a hand on the box, and pushed the button. He pushed out of the bin and spun around to get his bearings. The source of the brouhaha was now in clear view, and bearing down on his position. Nude people. There were maybe a dozen of them, jogging, jouncing, flapping their nude parts and grinning like idiots as they made their way through the square. He saw Phillip’s longish red hair, and the effect of the laws of physics on Kara’s enormous breasts. She smiled and waved. Eric ran.
By now the commotion had gathered more onlookers, and navigation became difficult. Eric elbowed and made apologies over his shoulder as he headed (presumably) east. He saw the box, and the taxi stand beyond. He grabbed the turtle and let the bag fall to the ground. He apologized most sincerely to the elderly couple he sent spinning away. Eric reached the box; he slapped the turtle on it. He bolted, and stopped short. Across the street, four black-clad men with very large guns blocked his escape. One pointed, and they all turned to stare at him. Eric cut right (presumably south) and ran for it. He heard shouts and knew they were giving chase. He knew what was next: the sound of guns, and terrible pain as they cut him down. Bullets had to be painful. There was really no doubt about that.
Eric was headed away from the melee of the nude anarchists now, and the crowd had thinned dramatically. Behind him, Eric heard a shouted “Stop!” Ahead of him, the pigeons had formed ranks--a skirmish line that he was sailing towards, pell-mell, with no hope of avoiding battle. He flew into the pigeons, sending them into a furious tizzy of flapping feathers. He covered his face. He heard guns fire.
The official record of officer T-2 would report that his two bullets had struck two pigeons. Officer T-3 would report assassinating three of the winged vermin, and the other two Special Anti-Terror Task Force members would simply report missing their target. In all, sixteen pigeons would give their lives in the miraculous three seconds of gunfire. The official record, released to news outlets and used as evidence against Tactical Unit One in the lawsuit, would be whitewashed of mention of birds of any kind.
“Hold fire! Hold fire! Tac-one, stand down!” The voice came as from a dream, and Eric, who expected colossal pain and sure, grim death, stopped.
Sprinting from what had to be due north, Ian held an I.D. badge aloft and waved it frantically. “He’s with me! Stand down Tac-one!” He reached Eric and threw an arm around him, then pushed him to arm’s length and looked him over. “You hit? Jesus, your not, are you! Miraculous, Eric. Bloody miraculous.”
Eric looked down and saw that indeed he was unscathed. He looked at the blood and feathers and lifeless birds. “No, Ian. Pigeons. Sweet, beautiful pigeons.” Eric’s grin faded. “So what, you’re with them?” The tactical cops were standing some twenty yards away, inspecting their guns and shaking their heads.
Ian laughed. “Does it matter, Eric?” He grinned the crooked grin.
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