Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle by Matthew Blakstad

to send Agnieska to the cleaners with the Betty Jackson, else she’d have yet another impossible task for her ever-mounting to-do list: buy new suit. She’d been rotating the same five smart-but-quirky outfits since the day she took office. Four would be too few.
    The staffer tapped on a door, opened it without waiting for a response and held it open for Bethany and Krish. From behind her desk Karen Arbiter looked up briefly over reading glasses but continued to write. The pair of them took to the two leather-upholstered upright chairs and sat in silence while Karen finished. So: it was to be the headmistress routine. Bethany longed to take a peek at what Karen was writing. She had a hunch she’d see All work and no play makes Karen a dull girl ,repeated two dozen times down the page.
    Krish’s eyes were fixed on a portrait of some formidably moustached Victorian. Bethany didn’t look at him but she could hear the muscles clench in his neck. An unfortunate tell, that. For her part, Bethany was calling on every astanga session she’d ever taken to maintain her breezy poise. She recrossed her legs and directed a Zen smile at the Number Ten chief of staff. She trusted Karen found this suitably irritating.
    Karen rested her fat pen on the page.
    ‘Apologies,’ she said. ‘I don’t have long. The PM needs me at eight. Crime stats.’
    ‘Well, it’s your meeting,’ said Bethany. Bright. Smiling. Relaxed.
    Karen gazed back in surprise. This was a standard Arbiter mind game so Bethany kept smiling. The blue of those eyes was so intense; the brows so sharp; the red crimp of hair so forthright. A dull rumble came from somewhere beyond the walls, as though the building was fired by a vast engine room nearby.
    ‘I take it then,’ said Karen, ‘you don’t have anything new for me to take in to Simon?’
    Bethany, who indeed had nothing new, chose to stall.
    ‘Oh, God, Karen, this is so stupid. It’s only made the nationals because of those ridiculous pigs. We shouldn’t rise to this. Or we’re going to look ridiculous, too.’
    ‘I hope you’re not suggesting that the security of citizens’ data is not a cause for our concern?’
    ‘Obviously I am not saying that. But there’s no proof any data has been compromised. Our homepage has been defaced. That’s all we know so far.’
    ‘So you don ’ t have anything for me to take to Simon?’
    ‘Well, we’re working closely with—’
    ‘With Parley, yes, I’ve read the press statement. I meant real information?’
    ‘Goodness,’ said Bethany, ‘I have lots of information. I’m the Minister for the Internet.’ Krish coughed quietly: go easy! ‘What sort of information did you have in mind?’
    ‘We only need to know one simple thing. I don’t think we’ve asked you anything else for the last twenty-four hours. Did you receive any information from your technology supplier about a security breach, before Oral Questions last Monday?’
    ‘I think the Answer I gave the House makes that pretty clear.’ Bethany pantomimed a sudden shocking thought. ‘Unless you’re suggesting my Answer was inaccurate?’
    Karen looked at her for a moment. Was she going to point out that Bethany hadn’t answered her question?
    ‘But you see, Beth, this is where I have a difficulty, because –’
    Karen began to rifle through her papers. Bethany sniffed – what was that smell? Or not so much a smell as a delicate burning of her nostril hairs. It took her a moment to place it: child sick. Somehow she’d failed to clean off all the filthy stuff and was carrying a trace.
    She dared a peek and saw a growing damp patch on her Agnes B shirt, just beside her left breast. Oh, shit, it must be on her bra. She should have changed that, too. She coughed and shifted in her chair, closing her jacket as much as possible. The piss-yellow patch was starting to make the cotton transparent. What bra did she put on today? Was it showing? She twisted to the side to avoid giving Karen or