high esteem by the Great Leader. Your expertise in logistics is second-to-none.’
Which is probably why I haven’t been purged, mused Dashwood.
Yet.
Beria leant back in his chair and gazed up at the ceiling as though in search of higher inspiration. ‘But unfortunately I cannot say the same thing about all your family. I had Captain Dabrowski attend a social given by Mrs Albemarle two days ago with the express intention of making an evaluation of your daughter.’
Dashwood stiffened in his chair and he felt a shiver run down his spine: in the ForthRight the word ‘evaluate’ was replete with many meanings, none of them good.
‘My daughter?’ he asked as casually as he was able.
Beria didn’t answer immediately. Instead he pulled a buff-coloured file towards him, opened it and began slowly to turn each of the pages, studying them with theatrical exactitude. ‘For one so young, your daughter has amassed a commendably… or should that be censurably thick file.’ He shook his head in mock astonishment. ‘From what I can glean, the received wisdom is that your daughter has all the hallmarks of a future trouble-maker, a girl with potentially disruptive HerEtical tendencies. It takes real counter-revolutionary zeal to be Censured before the age of sixteen.’
‘Trixiebell was very upset by the death of her mother…’
‘But to have publicly lambasted her UnFunDaMentalist Ideology Tutor for teaching, and I quote here, “twaddle”. Tut, tut, tut… this is not something one expects from the daughter of a high-ranking Party official. She also seems to have made a protest to the Principal of her academy regarding the removal of references to a nonNix… an unperson.’
Dashwood did his best to defend his daughter. ‘Trixiebell was chastised and attended a two-week Political Re-Education Camp last Summer. I am sure she is now totally realigned both politically and ideologically.’
‘I wish I could share your confidence, Comrade Commissar. Young people today are such a trial. Unfortunately, the report of the Captain here suggests that your daughter is still possessed of subversive inclinations.’
Dashwood surreptitiously unclipped the holster that held his Colt revolver. If there was one thing he was certain of it was that he wouldn’t let Trixie fall into the hands of this degenerate. He’d kill Beria first.
Beria picked up a likeness of Trixie from the file and studied it. ‘Your daughter is very beautiful, Comrade Commissar.’ He licked his lips. ‘So slim, so blonde, so athletic, but, unfortunately, so wilful. It would be a tragedy, would it not, to lose such a perfect example of Aryan womanhood to the pernicious cant of HerEticalism? The Captain has suspicions that your daughter could be a proto-RaTionalist… perhaps even a Suffer-O-Gette.’
‘Never.’
‘Perhaps that is a little excessive. But I must warn you, Comrade Commissar, that your daughter is on the slippery slope that leads to destruction. However, your daughter’s teachers report that she is remarkably intelligent and a gifted debater.’ He took a pull on his cigarette, then blew a nimbus of smoke up to the ceiling. ‘I have a task that requires the services of a young girl… an intelligent young girl. It is a task that, if performed with diligence, will result in the rather compromising contents of this file’ – here he closed the file and tossed it disdainfully into the waste-basket – ‘being consigned to oblivion.’
‘And what is this task?’ asked Dashwood.
3
The Real World: 12 June 2018
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D’oh?
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I asked, Miss Thomas, if you would like to earn a million dollars.’
Ella took a deep breath as her natural suspicion kicked in. She eyed the General sceptically, simultaneously shooing away all those very pleasant thoughts about how good it would be not to have to worry about raising the money she needed to get to college, not to worry about paying the rent, not to worry about Billy, not to worry about all the things an eighteen-year-old girl shouldn’t have to worry about.
‘Are you on the level? You’re not just blowing me shit… winding me up?’
The General nodded enthusiastically, which Ella found a little confusing. ‘Why yes, Miss Thomas, I am absolutely on the level. I am deadly serious. Never more so! So I ask again, would you like to earn a million dollars?’
Ella mulled things over, trying to stay calm. The General looked like he was playing the straight shooter. But…
‘That, in the words of my law teacher, Mr General, Sir, is a non sequitur. Of course I’d like to earn a million dollars. The question is, though: what would I have to do to earn it?’ She smiled. ‘Who would I have to kill?’
The General frowned and gave his head a vehement shake. ‘No one, Miss Thomas, absolutely no one. No, you won’t have to kill anyone. What the US government wants you to do is save someone. We need you to go on a rescue mission.’
This whole conversation, Ella decided, was getting a little bent out of shape. She had come to Fort Jackson – the US Army’s InDoctrination and Training Command Center – a week ago to audition – so they had told her – as a singer in a band being put together to tour US military bases around the world. And now, here she was, being asked if she wouldn’t mind playing Ella TrueHeart and being offered a million bucks for her trouble. It didn’t make sense. But a million bucks was a million bucks.
‘You don’t want me to sing?’
‘Oh, yes, that is vital. The woman we send on this mission has got to be able to sing. The only way she’ll be able to infiltrate the enemy’s position is by being able to pose as a jazz singer.’
This was getting out of hand: Ella decided to give the General a reality check. ‘Look, General, Sir, I’m just an eighteen-year-old high school student who sings in the evening to try to scratch up enough dough to put herself through college. I’m an ordinary girl. You’ve gotta realise that the name Ella Thomas ain’t some kind of secret identity. I ain’t sitting here in your office as my alter ego. I’m not Wonder Woman or Supergirl in disguise. People like me don’t do “rescue missions”. People like me wait tables and run checkouts.’
The General gave Ella what she guessed was his take on a reassuring smile. She wished he hadn’t: it made him look constipated. ‘I sympathise with your confusion, Miss Thomas, and I apologise for springing this on you so suddenly, but you really are ideally qualified for this mission. We need a girl like you to play a role in a computer simulation.’
‘What… a computer game?’
‘A very, very sophisticated computer game.’
‘Okay, General, I’m listening.’ This didn’t sound so bad: playing a character in a computer game might be a lot of fun.
And a million bucks was a million bucks.
The General didn’t say anything. It was as though he didn’t quite know how to proceed with the conversation, he just gazed out of the window and absent-mindedly tapped his pencil on the desk.
Tap, tap, tap.
