Gatekeeper: A New Order Duology

By Jett Harrison

Gatekeeper is a near-future sci-fi thriller set in Australia, an Australia where multi-national corporations seek to hi-jack social interaction with invasive advertising – advertising so powerful that it can even interrupt speech, forcing citizens to spout their lies.

One group stands between the people and advertisers – Charon, designers of an implant chip used to filter out the advertising.

Yet for Oscar, designer at Charon, that status quo is about to change. When he brings his brilliant idea of ‘home towers’ to filter out the advertising, he accidentally uncovers a deadly conspiracy that threatens not only his life, but the autonomy of the whole of society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Close-Up Books
• Release date: Feb 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648260035

Book preview

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Chapter 1

In soft light from the single pear-shaped lamp Oscar swallowed, his mouth dry. Wait.

She froze, jeans halfway down her bare legs. Her dark eyes were wide; a touch of confusion. I thought...

Oscar wobbled as he stepped around the bed, moving to take her hands. Shit, how many had he had? I remember the first five but after that... No. I want to, but maybe we should go slow, you know? He licked his lips. Because, well… Shit, now I sound like one of those guys that says something like that as an act – to trick a girl.

She sat on the bed, shaking her head. No. You sound like someone who just rejected me.

Her nipples pushed through the fabric of her singlet. He looked away – how the hell was he supposed to ignore that? I didn’t mean it like that. We only just met and—

A sigh. I know. She stood again, moving before him. She rested smooth hands at his neck, sliding her fingers across the skin beneath his ears. He shivered, closing his eyes.

Why don’t we try again? she whispered.

Good idea.

She pulled him onto the bed and he kissed her neck as his pulse marched double time. And then she gave a tiny, almost imperceptible twitch. The true test of any cigarette is the drag. Smoke only Pinchys for the next five days...

Oscar stopped. That’s the end of that then. Damn, I like this girl. Daphne?

She frowned. ...and see how sweet Pinchys go down, day after day, we defy you to find a better tasting cigarette.

Oscar sat up and waited. For that matter, where were his own smokes? In your jacket where you left them, idiot. In the other room. But there was no need to rush for them; Daphne would be finished soon, hopefully.

"See Blood-Mist now: the quickest blade in the Sun Farm badlands," she said. Tears formed in her eyes and he took her hand and squeezed it.

Her eyes lost focus a moment and then she turned away, hiding her face with her hair. I’m sorry. I’ll understand if you want to leave.

It’s okay, he said. Why don’t you just buy a filter like everyone else?

She let go and tapped her temple. I have one. But those pricks just keep making new ads, new ways around them. I’m sick of it.

Do you get the upgrades?

There’s always another damn upgrade, she snapped. God, how am I supposed to afford them? It’s every six months now.

Want a discount?

You work for those pricks? For Charon?

He frowned. Come on, we’re protecting everyone.

Yeah, but for a price, right? Daphne stood, her eyes devoid of warmth. Sorry Oscar, but this isn’t going to work.

Damn.

Okay. He collected his jacket from the kitchen chair, fumbling with it a moment, then slipped into the hall, pausing beneath the fluoro. Old building, to still use them. He hadn’t noticed on the way in. Why don’t they upgrade? It’s not like this building’s part of a slum. But then, just what constituted a slum nowadays?

The auto-lock clicked behind him and he half-skipped, half-stumbled down the stairs and onto the warmth of a dark street. Green-scrapers rose like shadowy sentinels round him, the plant life touched with moonlight. Silver moss; kinda beautiful.

His shoes scraped along the footpath as he pulled a cigarette and raised it to his lips, then shook his head. He flicked it to the ground, then stomped on it.

Expensive habit to kick – he’d just done away with twenty bucks.

He found his car by the broken meter, and scratched the key into the lock. Too bad he hadn’t upgraded – new cars had sensors, probably for this very occasion. Inside, he slumped back in the seat and rubbed his hands down his face.

Shit, the roof’s like an ocean – when the hell is it going to stop moving?

He closed his eyes.

~~

Morning lanced into his eyelids and he slapped the sun visor down, groaning as his limbs protested. Sleeping in the car. Classy. Oscar swigged from a water bottle on the passenger seat with a grimace – it was warm. He tossed it aside before turning the key.

The engine growled to life and he pulled onto the road, keeping in the ‘lead lane’ as the snobs in their electrics called it, and headed for home. The green-scrapers dotted the skyline like giant trees, mixed between the more banal buildings of grey stone and flashing glass, as he turned into a side street.

A ‘City in Transition’ was the tagline down at city hall. They weren’t wrong, he supposed, everything was changing – just not all of it for the best. At an intersection, he tapped a knuckle against the window, letting a soundless, sleek electric slide by, then followed it along the river – from his parallel lane of course. The water was a deep, muddy yellow that sparkled with the rising sun. Joggers crossed footbridges, some with dogs, but most alone with only their thoughts – or their music. One even had a fancy new mini-drone S Series, with a live stream to the police. Extravagant, but if it kept joggers a little safer from muggings and worse, then so be it.

Oscar wound his window down as he neared his own building, then reached out to press the scuffed fingerprint panel. He pulled into his apartment building’s parking – no green scrapers around here – squeezing into his space and heading for the elevator with a muttered curse directed at the new headache. God damn it, how cheap was the shit I was drinking? Another fingerprint panel – this one was cleaner, and he stepped into the steel-grey elevator.

A flat-screen ran another ad – Build a Bub. You too can have exactly the future you deserve, right down to the tiniest detail – whether it’s highlights in hair colour or even the number of freckles!

He thumped the channel change.

Sports.

Better, even if it was only basketball. Couldn’t have been footy, huh? he asked the flat-screen. The elevator chimed, and he strode up the hall, unlocked his door, and chucked his keys on the kitchen table.

Light pumped into the room through open curtains, a big window revealing the steel and glass of the city, and the straight lines of green too, but he gripped the fabric and smothered the view. In the welcome dimness Oscar grabbed the multi-vision remote where it sat on a stack of boxes. He nudged the one labelled ‘classic film’ with his foot. You’re next. He’d have to unpack the rest sooner or later.

So far, all he had was essentials ‒ furniture, clothes, cooking utensils and the multi-vision; everything else had been rendered faceless by boxes, and luxuries were silenced by packing foam. At least there was less stuff to worry about.

He opened the fridge and went for some blood orange. The screen warmed up and blinked on as he poured. Headlines; as usual, it was more fighting, pieces of shit blowing up kids, and a few minor advances in the underfunded robotics industry. No feel-good story tacked on at the end this time, just the shrill claims of another ad, this one for painkillers.

Oscar flicked onto the food channel and browsed the shopfronts, skipping Chinese, Pasta, Steak and Fish Houses before stopping at Pizza. He dialled from the remote and stock footage of sizzling salamis and cheerful men kneading dough disappeared, replaced by a video link.

A young man in a white cap stood before giant ovens. Workers bustled back and forth behind him, carrying paddles laden with pizzas. Their shouts blended into a general din behind the man, whose own words were clear. Good mics with the new multi-vision.

Welcome to Pizza-Inferno, sir, what would you like?

Meat-Attack, please.

Where to?

19 Old Elisabeth St, apartment 211.

The man nodded. No probs. Forty-five dollars charged to your account, take about twenty minutes.

Thanks. Oscar switched the multi-vision back to news, turned it down and slumped into a chair, one leg over the arm. He sipped at his blood orange. It didn’t do much to ease his hangover, but that was what the pizza was for.

The news station chattered away as he sat, lost in nothingness until a knock at the door finally stirred him.

He fumbled with the door remote, unlocking it. Come in, he called.

Another knock.

It’s open.

Yet another, impatient now.

Oscar struggled from the chair and strode across the room. All right, I’ll get it then, he said as he opened the door.

A figure wearing a black balaclava stood holding a knife.

What the—

The stranger leapt forward, crashing into Oscar’s chest. Oscar gave a shout as he thumped onto carpet, wind knocked from his lungs. He gasped for air as the man bent over him, blade held inches from his left eye.

Stop what you’re doing at work, buddy.

The voice was a growl.

Oscar gaped, the blade tip now the centre of his world.

No warnings after this. The man stood, kicked Oscar hard in the ribs then left.

Chapter 2

Oscar took the morning off and drove to the nearest NationalSports to shop for bats. The heaviest he could find. The clerk gave him a look when he hefted an aluminium one, smacking it into his palm, but the sound and the feel of it... it was good.

He bought two.

One he kept in the car, the other was for the house but he’d drop that off later.

Right now, it was time to play detective, or at least, watch someone else do it. Because without surveillance footage – what could the police do? Nothing. Which is exactly why the guy wore what he did.

But he’d report it anyway – because that’s what you did after a crime.

Dutiful citizen.

The police station stood firm on the ground floor of law offices and other paper-bound professions, a clerk in a classic blue uniform picking up a phone after hearing Oscar’s story. Let me find someone.

The woman tapped a pen on the counter until she got an answer.

Mr Evans, please wait in interview room one, Detective Tran will be with you shortly. She showed him into the bare room where he took one of two chairs at a long table. Its shiny metal surface reflected the light