Looking for Jake Part 12

But maybe he just hadn't bothered.

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville * * * I spoke to Aykan several times, but a couple of months went by without me seeing him.

One morning I found another of his unmarked emails in my inbox. "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS f.u.c.kPIG Sc.u.mSUCKING PIECE OF s.h.i.t?"

I had. It was the homepage of an organisation called An End To Hunger. I had been sent it at least twice already, as a recipient on ma.s.s emailings.

The site contained low-key, muted, and simple graphics, with a selection of harrowing statistics about world hunger. There were links to the UN Food Programme, Oxfam, and so on. But what made it such a popular site was its push-b.u.t.ton charity donation.

Once per day, anyone visiting the site could click a little toggle, and in the words of the website, "feed the hungry." Alongside the b.u.t.ton was a list of sponsors-all very dignified, no logos or bells or whistles, just the name of the company and a link to its homepage. Each sponsor would donate half a cent per click, which was roughly equivalent to half a cup of rice, or maize or whatever.

It all made me feel a bit uneasy, like corporate charity usually did. When I first saw the site I'd pressed the b.u.t.ton. It had seemed churlish not to. But I hadn't visited it since, and I was getting irritated with people recommending it to me.

I called Aykan. He was incandescent.

"I've seen the site," I told him. "Bit gruesome, isn't it?"

"Gruesome?" he shouted. "It's f.u.c.king sick is what it is. It's f.u.c.king beyond beyond, man. I mean, forget 'politics lite,' this s.h.i.t couldn't be parodied."

"I keep getting emails recommending it," I told him.

"Any motherf.u.c.ker emails you that reply them right back and tell them to shove it up their a.r.s.es till it hits the roof of their mouth, yeah? I mean by s.h.i.t almighty . . . have you read the FAQ?

Listen to this. This is f.u.c.king verbatim, OK? 'Can I click the "Give Food" b.u.t.ton more than once, and keep making donations?' 'We're sorry!' " Aykan's voice spewed bile. " 'We're real sorry! It's a shame, but you can't do that. Our sponsors have agreed for us to count one donation per person per day, and any more would be breaking our agreement.' " He made a noise like angry retching.

"f.u.c.k 'em, bro," he said. "They tell us we can't be naughty and do it too often? " I didn't tell him I had donated that first time. He was making me ashamed.

I murmured something to him, some agreement, some dismissal and condemnation. It wasn't Looking for Jake, By China Mieville enough.

"This is f.u.c.king war, man," he said. "This one I can't let go."

"Run them through your hide engine," I suggested vaguely.

"What?" he said. "What the f.u.c.k you talking about? Don't talk horsef.u.c.k, man. I want them down and dead. Time for the big f.u.c.king guns, hombre, " he said, and put the phone down. I tried to call him back but he didn't pick up.

Two days later I got another email.

"Try visiting you s.h.i.tting know where," it said. I did, and An End To Hunger would not come up. The browser couldn't find it. I tried again at the end of the day and it was back, with a small, pious note about how sad they were to be targeted by hackers.

Aykan wouldn't answer his phone. A week and a half later he called me.

"Man!" he shouted at me. "Go back to the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," he said. "I was . . . you know, I jumped the gun last time. Wasn't particularly clever, right? But it was like a f.u.c.king, what do you call it, I was doing a reconnoitre. But go back now, click the b.a.s.t.a.r.d b.u.t.ton all you can."

"What did you do, Aykan?" I said. I was at work, and kept my voice neutral.

"I don't know how long it'll last," he said, "so get all your f.u.c.king friends to go visiting. For a short time only the s.h.i.t-licking sponsors are going to be making a reasonable f.u.c.king payout.

Ten bucks a f.u.c.king click, my friend, none of this half a cent bull. So go give generously."

It's impossible to say how much of an impact it had. Certainly for the next day or so I proselytised zealously. An End To Hunger kept it very quiet, when they found out. I like to think that it took the businesses in question the best part of a day to realise that their pledged donations had gone up by around 200,000 percent.

I wondered when Aykan would get bored of these games.

We spoke for a long time on the phone, one evening a fortnight or so later. He sounded exhausted.

"What you up to?" I asked him.

"Waging war, man."

I suggested that he was wearing himself out, that he should apply himself to other things. He got angry and depressed all at once.

"It really got to me, this one," he said. "It really got to me. I dunno why, but I can't . . . This Looking for Jake, By China Mieville one matters. But . . . I keep hitting the wrong enemy. 'Corporate sponsors don't actually care!'

'Big business is hypocritical!' That's not news to any f.u.c.kingbody. Who doesn't know? Who gives a f.u.c.k about that?

"Do you ever stop to think about them, man?" he said. "Them in the AETH office. What must that do to your head? Like some kind of ghouls, man. What's that got to do to you?"

I changed the subject several times, but it kept coming back. "I dunno, man . . ." he kept saying.

"I dunno what to do . . ."

It may have been the next day that he decided, but it was a good three weeks before he could make it work.

"Go and visit A* E** T* H*****," the email said. "Click and send the poor starving ma.s.ses a present. See what happens."

I went to the site. Apart from a few minor updates, nothing seemed to have changed. I looked for some clue as to what Aykan had done. Eventually I clicked the "Give Food" b.u.t.ton and waited.

Nothing happened.

The usual little message, thanking me on behalf of hungry people, appeared. I waited a couple more minutes, then left. Whatever Aykan had planned, I thought, it hadn't come off.

A couple of hours later I checked my email.

"How the f.u.c.k . . ." I said, and paused, shaking my head. "How the f.u.c.k, you insane genius b.a.s.t.a.r.d, did you do that?"

"You like that?" The connection was terrible, but I could hear that Aykan sounded triumphant.

"You f.u.c.king like it?"

"I . . . I don't know. I'm very impressed, whatever."

I was staring at the message in my inbox. The sender was listed as "Very Hungry Foreign People."

"Dear Kind Generous Person," it read. "Thank you so much for your Generous gift of half acup of wet rice. Our Children will treasure every grain. And do please thank your KindOrganisers at An End To Hunger for organising their rich friends to throw rice at us-that isthe advantage of employing Sweatshop labour and trade union busting. That way they canafford rice for us poor people. Whatever you do, do keep sitting back and not asking anyquestions of them, keep them happy, don't agitate for any corporate taxes or gra.s.sroots controlor anything like that which would threaten the large profits that allow them to buy us Cups ofRice. With humble love and thanks, The Hungry."

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville "Every motherf.u.c.ker who clicks the b.u.t.ton's going to get that," Aykan said.

"How did you do it?"

"It's a f.u.c.king program. I stuck it on the website. It scans your f.u.c.king hard disk for what looks like your email address, and sends off the message when you draw attention to yourself by clicking. Try pressing 'Reply.' "

I did. The return address listed was my own.

"It's very impressive, Aykan," I said, nodding slowly, wishing someone else had written the letter, made it a bit subtler, maybe edited it a bit. "You've done a real number on them."

"Well it ain't over yet, bro," he said. "Watch this s.p.a.ce, you know? Watch this f.u.c.king s.p.a.ce."

My phone went at five the next morning. I padded nude and confused into the sitting room.

"Man." It was Aykan, tense and excited.

"What the f.u.c.k time is it?" I said, or something like that.

"They're onto me, man," he hissed.

"What?" I huddled vaguely on the sofa, rubbed my eyes. Outside, the sky was two-tone. Birds were chirruping imbecilically. "What are you on about?"

"Our f.u.c.king philanthropic friends, man, " he whispered tersely. "The concerned folk over at Feed The World central, you know? They've rumbled me. They've found me."

"How do you know?" I said. "Have they contacted you?"

"No no," he said. "They wouldn't do that-that would be admitting what the f.u.c.k was up. No, I was watching them online, and I can see them tracking me. They can already tell what country I'm in."

"What do you mean?" I said. I was fully awake now. "Are you intercepting their email? Are you crazy?"

"Oh man, there's a hundred f.u.c.king million things you can do, read their messages, watch who they're watching, bounce off internal memos, keep tabs on their automatic defences . . . Trust me on this: they're looking for me. " There was a silence. "They may even have found me."

"So . . ." I shook my head. "So leave it alone. Let it be, get off their back before you p.i.s.s them off any more and they go to the police."

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville "f.u.c.king pof.u.c.kinglice... " Aykan's voice swam in scorn. "They won't give it to the police, the police couldn't find their own thumbs if they were plugging up their a.r.s.es. No, man. It's not the police I'm worried about, it's these Hunger motherf.u.c.kers. Haven't you clocked what kind of people these are? These are bad people, man. Major bad ju-ju. And anyway, man, what the f.u.c.k you mean leave it alone? Don't be such a s.h.i.t-eating coward. I told you, didn't I? I told you this was a f.u.c.king war, didn't I?" He was shouting by now. I tried to get him to shut up. "I'm not looking for advice. I just wanted to let you know what was going on."

He broke the connection. I did not phone him back. I was tired and p.i.s.sed off. Paranoid p.r.i.c.k, I thought, and went back to bed.

Aykan kept sending his obscure emails, advising me of some new change to An End To Hunger.

The letter to donors did not last long, but Aykan was relentless. He directed me to their sponsors page, and I discovered that he had rerouted every link to a different revolutionary left organisation. He created a small pop-up screen that appeared when the "Donate" b.u.t.ton was clicked, that compared the nutritional value of rice with what was rotting in European food mountains. He kept hinting at some final salvo, some ultimate attack.

"I keep watching them, man," he told me in one of his irregular phone calls. "I swear they are so on my tail. I'm going to have to be really f.u.c.king careful. This could get very f.u.c.king nasty."

"Stop talking rubbish," I said. "You think you're in some cheap thriller? You're risking jail for hacking-and don't shout at me, because that's what they'll call it-but that's all."

"f.u.c.k you, bro!" he said. "Don't be so naive! You think this is a game? I told you . . . these f.u.c.kers aren't going to the police. Don't you f.u.c.king see, man? I've done the worst thing youcan do... I've impugned their philanthropy! I've f.u.c.king sneered at them while they do the Mother Theresa thing, and that they can't f.u.c.king stand!"

I was worried about him. He was totally infuriating, no longer even coming close to conversing, just taking some phrase of mine or other as a jumping-off point to discuss some insane conspiracy.

* * * He sent me bizarre, partial emails that made almost no sense at all. Some were just a sentence: "They'll love this" or "I'll show them what it really means."

Some were longer, like cuts from the middle of works in progress, half-finished memos and s.n.a.t.c.hes of programming. Some were garbled articles from various encyclopaedias, about international politics, about online democracy, about computerised supermarket stock-taking, about kwashiorkor and other kinds of malnutrition.

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville Slowly, with a stealthy amazement and fear, I started to tie these threads together. I realised that what looked like a patchwork of mad threats and ludicrous hyperbole was something more, something united by an extraordinary logic. Through these partial snippets, these hints and jokes and threats, I began to get a sense of what Aykan planned.

I denied it.

I tried not to believe it; it was just too big. My horror was coloured with awe that he could even dream up such a plan, let alone believe he had the skills to make it work.

It was utterly unbelievable. It was horrific.

I knew he could do it.

I bombarded him with phone calls, which he never picked up. He had no voicemail, and I was left swearing and stalking from room to room, totally unable to reach him.

An End To Hunger had been ominously quiet for some time now. It had operated without interruption for at least three weeks. I was going crazy. There was a mad intensity to everything, every time I thought of Aykan and his plans. I was scared.

Finally, at ten minutes to eleven on a Sunday evening, he called.

"Man," he said.

"Aykan," I said, and sighed once, then stammered to get my words out. "Aykan, you can't dothis, " I said. "I don't care how f.u.c.king much you hate them, man, they're just a bunch of idiot liberals and you cannot do that to them, it's just not worth it, don't be crazy- "

"Shut up, man!" he shouted. "Listen to me!" He was whispering again.

He was, I suddenly realised, afraid.

"I don't have any f.u.c.king time, bro," he said urgently. "You've got to get over here; you've got to help me."

"What's going on, man?" I said.

"They're coming, " he whispered, and something in his voice made me cold.

"The f.u.c.kers tricked me," he went on. "They kept it looking like they were searching, but they were better than I thought-they clocked me ages ago, they were just biding time, and then . . .

and then . . . They're on their way! "

"Aykan," I said slowly. "You've got to stop this crazy s.h.i.t," I said. "Are the police coming?"

Looking for Jake, By China Mieville He almost screamed with anger.

"G.o.df.u.c.kingdammit don't you listen to me? Any f.u.c.ker can handle the police, but it's this charity wants my f.u.c.king head!"

He had invited me to his house, I realised. For the first time in years, he was ready to tell me where he lived. I tried to cut into his diatribe. "I know s.h.i.t about these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds you wouldn't believe, man," he was moaning. "Like some f.u.c.king parasite... You got no curiosity what kind of f.u.c.ker lives like that?"

"What can I do, man?" I said. "You want me to come over?"

"Yeah, man, please, help me get my s.h.i.t the f.u.c.k away," he said.

He named an address about twenty minutes' walk away. I swore at him.

"You been close all this time," I said.