can to put in place safeguards to ensure that it can’t in the future. Go back and add that.’
Andrei didn’t move.
‘Do you want me to do it? Do you want me to type that out—?’
They were interrupted by Alan Mendes, Fishbowl’s head of communications, who told them they had already had their first interview requests and wanted to know if they had a line and who was going to do the talking.
‘No one’s talking,’ said Andrei. ‘I’m about to issue a statement.’
‘Is it ready?’ asked Mendes.
Wordlessly, James passed it to him and watched as Mendes scanned the lines.
‘Andrei’s going to condemn it,’ said James. ‘He’s going to add that we’re going to take measures to minimize the risk that anyone could do it in the future.’
‘Well, that would help.’
‘I’m not adding anything,’ said Andrei. ‘That’s the statement, Alan. Send it to the lawyers and tell them I’m going to post it in an hour.’
James stared at him.
‘That’s the statement. That’s it.’ Andrei left the statement with Mendes and walked out of the room.
James took his eyes off Andrei and looked at Mendes. ‘Send it to the lawyers,’ he muttered, through clenched teeth.
Mendes left. James stayed behind in the meeting room, fuming. He felt humiliated, excluded, isolated. Something was going on, he was sure of it. He felt radically and irreversibly undermined. He was so angry he literally didn’t know what to do. He closed his eyes and tried to pray, for patience, for understanding, for anything, but his rage was so intense that he couldn’t do it. That was the worst of it, he told himself, what this had done to his inner state of mind. He had arrived that morning full of the peace of Christ’s grace, and now he was filled with anger, fury, hate.
On the other side of the sixth floor Andrei sat down and opened his screen to the Grotto. A monumental shitstorm was in progress. The fanatics, the cynics, the idiots and the conspiracy theorists were out in force. Many of all persuasions seemed to be saying that the rumour was no surprise because social networks had been exploiting their users for years, probably in this very way.
Andrei was struck by that. They already thought Fishbowl was doing this – and yet they used the service? What was wrong with them? People might be yelling and screaming all they liked, but if they really believed what they were saying, and they had been using Fishbowl despite that all this time, were they going to stop now just because their fears had been confirmed?
At around four in the afternoon, Chris walked into the office.
James had been calling him every quarter of an hour and had had all his calls go to voicemail, which had merely enraged him even more. He confronted Chris directly on the open floor of the office.
‘I just want to know,’ he said. ‘Yes or no?’
‘Yes,’ said Chris, staring him in the eye.
James watched him for a moment. Then he turned and marched across the office to Andrei. He pointed at the meeting room again.
‘I don’t believe you didn’t know,’ he said to Andrei, when the door had closed. ‘Tell me right now that you didn’t know. Look me in the eye and tell me.’
‘I’m not saying I didn’t know,’ said Andrei.
‘And Kevin and Ben?’
Andrei gave a slight shrug. Kevin, of course, had been involved in the experiment from its inception. Ben hadn’t taken part in the fortnightly meetings in Andrei’s apartment. In fact, after he had told Andrei he was opposed to the idea, Andrei had never explicitly told him that he had agreed for Chris to go ahead. When Ben had become aware of the post in the Grotto that morning, however, he hadn’t been surprised. He realized that he had guessed it was happening all along.
‘What would have happened if it didn’t happen to leak?’ demanded James.
Andrei didn’t reply.
‘You can’t run a business like this! You go off with Chris to Yao’s and I don’t know what you’re plotting! It’s him or me, Andrei. Chris is finished with this company. He’s got his shares, he’s still an investor, but we don’t see him – or I’m gone. What’s it going to be?’
Andrei glanced through the glass wall at Chris, who was sitting on the edge of Kevin’s desk. Chris was someone who had ideas. James was just a guy who knew how to run a business. And Andrei had had his doubts about him ever since his outburst over the