Day 5 (Tuesday 29th June 2060) to Day 8 (Friday 2nd July 2060)

Old George must have written a program for creating the encrypted crosswords. How else could he and Ellie produce them so quickly? This worries me because how have they been able to hide this from the authorities? Which leads me to wonder whether I can actually trust either of them.

Given our new inability to talk in the library, or, indeed, anywhere else, the crossword messages have become the only method of communicating important information that we need to keep secret. I have hardly seen Old George since our eviction from the library. How can I send a message to him? I can’t set encrypted crosswords, or indeed any other type, and even if I could, how would I get them to him?

All I could do was sit back, wait, and continue my research in the Archive. There was no reference there to the wars Old George had talked about. If Old George was telling the truth, then the Archive had been deliberately scrubbed.

Every morning of the next four days, I had breakfast with Ellie, which, following our proper introduction, had become the high point of each day. I was still nervous with her and not just because I wasn’t too sure whether I could trust her. I didn’t want a repeat of my clumsy Jane Doe moment, and I am glad to say that there hasn’t been one so far. Ellie is very confident, but she senses I am not, so has been working to make me feel more comfortable. Of course, the topics we couldn’t cover left us no choice but to focus on ourselves. As a result, we got to know each other better. I learned a bit about biotechnology, and I probably bored her with talk about reading, writing and studying history.

On Wednesday, after Ellie had left for her day at Piccadilly, I was visited at my breakfast table by Philip Seaton. He brought along a woman. I immediately recognised her as the woman I had encountered near my flat. They both sat down at my table and smiled at me, though I felt their smiles were forced. Seaton did all the talking. The woman just looked at me for the whole interview. I don't think she ever blinked during the entire conversation.

“May we join you?” he asked. “This is my colleague Sonya Hastings.”

“If you must, Mr Seaton — you tell us it is a free world.”

“Oh, so cynical, and in one so young!”

“What else can I be? I only have knowledge of what goes on inside this Block, and only some of that. For news of anything else, I have to rely on what the Archive tells me. How do I know it is the truth?”

“Oh, it is the truth all right. The government is very careful about that.”

“Really? And what about what it doesn’t mention?”

“Then there is nothing to be known about that. Stands to reason.”

“In your mind, perhaps,” I commented.

“You are very sure of yourself, Mr Williams.”

“I am not sure of anything. How can I come to conclusions when I know so little about the world?”

“Fair question. What else is it you want, Mr Williams?”

“Before I answer that, if I do answer that, what is it you both want with me, Mr Seaton?”

&ldauo;A friendly chat is what we want. May we call you Billy?”

“No, you may not, Mr Seaton.”

“Very well,” he continued. “That’s your privilege. Be careful you don’t lose it. People with attitudes such as yours tend to regret them. I see you were talking to George Warmsley in the library a few days ago.”

“What of it?”

“He is a bit of a loose cannon, is our Mr Warmsley. What did he tell you?”

“That’s between him and me, Mr Seaton. Can I help you with anything else?”

“You need to understand that Mr Warmsley isn’t very reliable. I don’t think you’ll get much truth from him, you know.”

“And can I get any truth from you, Mr Seaton? How can I tell truth from fiction? As I said before, without more knowledge of the world, I can’t decide on anything. What’s it like outside, for instance?”

“I can’t talk about that,” Seaton replied.

“Why not?” I demanded.

“National security,” he said, as if that should answer all my questions.

“Please be specific, Mr Seaton. How would my gaining knowledge of life outside the Blocks endanger national security?”

“Telling you that would in itself endanger national security.”

“So,” I responded. “I just have to trust you?”

“That’s right, Mr Williams.”

“No, Mr Seaton. That’s precisely why I don’t trust you!”

“Be very careful, Mr Williams. You’re being watched. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

That ended the conversation. Mr Seaton and his companion walked away, leaving me with the knowledge that Ellie had been right. I was a person of interest. Seaton had started off friendly. Was he trying to recruit me, as Ellie had warned?

I spent Wednesday afternoon trying to solve George’s Wednesday crossword puzzle. I did manage to get two answers and was pleased with myself for getting that far. It was the next day that I inspected the published solution. I have drawn it below.

It did contain a message: ‘BW SAY TROUT TO ELLIE’. Old George had a sense of humour, it seemed. How could I say such a word to Ellie? At least he hadn’t added the word OLD before TROUT, but probably only because he couldn’t set up a crossword with such a long message.

On Thursday morning I decided to go for broke. After Ellie and I had both sat down, I looked her straight in the eye and said, “Trout.”

Her reaction was immediate. She leaned over, took my hand and whispered in my ear, “We knew you’d understand. Worst chat-up line in the world, mind!”

She sat back, and then I was treated to that bewitching smile once more. After my brain started work again, I reflected that Ellie and George both now knew that I could crack their code.

It was time to find out about Piccadilly. “What’s at Piccadilly? Is there a circus?”

“A circus? No, there is no circus that I have seen. Why should there be a circus there?”

“I’ve read in the archive of a place called ‘Piccadilly Circus’. I wondered if that was where you worked.”

“Piccadilly is just a Block like this one, though larger. It has several floors of laboratories. I work in one of them,” she replied.

“How far away is it?”

“Don’t know, though it takes twenty minutes on the train to get there.”

“Probably not so far, then,” I posited, then continued, “Change of subject. Have you ever heard of Hell’s Grannies?”

“Should I have done? Where did you hear that?”

“From Old George. He didn’t know what it meant either. I looked it up in the Archive, but there were no hits.”

“Were there any hits for ‘Piccadilly Circus’?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t looked yet,” I replied.

On Friday morning, Old George joined us for breakfast. Part of the mellowing he had talked about, perhaps? He was in his usual smart suit, and Ellie was in her normal attire of a shirt and jeans. I was in my T-shirt and jeans, but I had my jacket on as well, the manuscript safely in that inside pocket, as it had been all week. I needed to tell them both about my journal, but how?

A few minutes after we had all finished our breakfast, we turned our heads to the opposite wall as we heard a sharp click as the locked door opened. Through it came Philip Seaton and Sonya Hastings. They were accompanied by a large, serious-looking man in a uniform. As the door clicked shut behind them, I saw that Sonya was carrying a stack of folders.

They made their way over to our table. Seaton spoke, “I am Philip Seaton, and this is my colleague Sonya Hastings. The man in uniform is Police Sergeant Hammond. We have been authorised to arrest all three of you under Article Seven of the Emergency Statutes currently in force ...”

“What for?” Old George interrupted angrily.

“Breaches of Article Seven,” Sonya responded.

“Which is?” George demanded.

“You’ll find out at the formal charging once you’re in custody.”

The three of us looked at each other, and we all realised the game was up. Hammond on his own could probably restrain all of us. He was ostentatiously carrying three sets of handcuffs. The cafe was still full of breakfasters, but none of them looked interested in our little gathering.

We were guided over to the locked door, which Hammond quickly opened. We all passed through, and the door shut behind us. We descended the stairs and ended up in the area of the ground floor where I had been with Seaton a few days earlier.

We were herded to stand in front of the very window where I had seen that boy appear. He wasn’t there now. I couldn’t see anybody out the window this time. Sonya walked up to me and opened one of the folders so that I could see what was inside. It was a single page and contained just a photograph of me, my name and my date of birth. She included those particulars in the caution she then formally read to me as the other two looked on.

Our little rebellion was over almost before it had started.

Continued here