2. The Analyst analyst  

"I am not lying down. No way matey." Connor was perched on the edge of a chair in front of Senga's desk. It was a pre-cast black plastic affair. He had only been sitting on it for two minutes and already the backs of his legs were sweating. He fidgeted constantly. He pushed his hands under his thighs in an attempt to lift them off the chair and stop the perspiration.

"Connor, please relax. No one is asking you to lie down." Senga spoke in a calm steady voice as befitted her profession.

"I’m not a Psychiatrist and I don't have a couch." In truth she was a qualified psychiatrist but her role today was that of a councillor. The office was furnished in grey. Grey carpet, plain grey walls, dark grey skirts and windows frame. The only colour in the drab room came from on oil painting on the wall to Connor's right. When he had first entered the room he had noticed it. It seemed to be an image of a mature lady dressed in a fashion from centuries gone by. She was holding the hand of a young boy who was looking up at her with large, Manga style eyes. It seemed out of place. He thought it might have been placed there to give subliminal messages of Mother/Son relationships designed to help the interview along. He tried not to look at it, he didn't want Senga to add paranoia to his impending list.

“Psychiatrist, councillor. Same fish, different ponds. You guys all want to mess with what's best left alone. You're wasting you're time with me. Haven't you read my profile? Yes, I was an orphan and yes, I had numerous foster homes but" He over emphasised the 'but' "I was never abused, never felt unloved, at least not with the Princeton's, I never hurt my pets and I very rarely lie. I have a straight 'A' education, six letters after my name and a fuckin' well paid job. Why do you need to mess?"

 His hands were sweating now which was more uncomfortable than the legs. He brought them out from under his thighs and discreetly tried to rub the sweat off onto the top off his trousers.

"I am not going to mess with anything Connor. All I need from today is to get an overall picture of 'you' and some insight into why you act and respond to things the way that you do. No tests, no hypnosis’s, no needles and most of all, no couch." She fixed him with her eyes "agreed?"

Pause.

"Agreed."

"Would you like a drink of anything Connor? Coke? Evian?" she stood and made her way around the large grey desk.

"Coke. Please." He tried to put a hard edge into his voice. The please let him down. She wore a pair of grey cotton trousers and a short blouse style jacket to match. Her black cotton blouse reached up to her neck and ended in a thin collar. Her hair was platted in a style that reminded Connor of old German porn movies. As she passed Connor the air that was displaced moved past his nose. She smelt warm and homely and, to his surprise, he wasn't overpowered by perfume as with most women he had encountered. He didn't realise that she wore very little perfume during working hours deliberately, like the clothes, it was a conscious decision and it was in her training. She opened a small cabinet at the back of the room, poured the Coke and returned to her chair. She leaned forward and passed the drink over to him.

"Connor. You look tired. How many hours a week are you putting in?" She raised her eyebrows indicating the need for a response. Connor didn't answer. He looked down into his Coke glass, pleased now that the sweat on his palms of his hands had mingled with the condensation on the outside of the cold glass.

"Can I answer for you?" Her voice gentle now. "You don't know do you Connor? You don't know because you work all the hours that are available to you."

Silence.

Connor lifted his head and squared his red eyes with Senga's.

"I get the results don't I? I keep everything going for them don't I? Why am I being....".

Senga stopped him.

"Please Connor. Listen to me. The company knows that you can deliver time and time again. They hand picked you for it. They know you will not let the connections fail even for a second. They problem is that over the last few years" she glanced at the oil painting on the wall to her left. Her eyes only left his for a second. "you seem to have become somewhat obsessed with certain aspects the job. This obsession seems to be effecting you and is manifesting itself in a number of negative ways. Do you have any compulsions to carry out any mundane or repetitive tasks? Anything that you have noticed in your daily routines?" 

"Please Mrs. Moshen, give me credit. We both know that you think I have an obsessive/compulsive behavioral problem. We also both know that the only reason you are assessing me is because they" He pointed to the oil painting "think that I won’t be able to keep all the plates spinning if I’m barking. Am I right? I’m right." He realized that he was standing up leaning over the desk.

He sat back down.

Senga sat with her fingers interlocked in the age old 'thinking pose'. She pulled open her draw and removed a little black pot that had contained paperclips and a roll of bonding tape. She emptied the contents of the pot onto the desk. She stood up briskly and made her way over to the oil painting. On closer inspection it was obviously a scanned image output to a printer and mounted in a cheap, wood effect frame. She lifted it down from the wall with one hand. Behind it was the tiniest, button like lens embedded into the plasterwork wall. She placed the little plastic pot over the camera/microphone and drew the roll of tape across, fixing it securely to the wall.

She sat back down. She looked very determined.

"I am a consultant councillor. My firm is paid by your firm to assess you and help to identify any trends or obvious behavioural problems that may lead to your work as 'Head of Support and Services' here at Ny-net being compromised. If any such problems are encountered I am to take the necessary remedial action to prevent it advancing and hopefully council you through to a successful recovery. In short, I’m here to help you. OK?"

Connor felt like a scolded child. He sat with his head down, rotating the now empty glass in his hands.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, neither one saying anything. Eventually Senga said

"Connor, I need to just access another file that may help us move forward with this. Bear with me while I get it."  She stood and left the room.

Connor figured that it must be a paper file because there was a screen right there on her desk. He glanced around. He was alone. He had been on this floor now for over an hour. He hadn't downloaded anything for nearly two hours. He noticed that he was sweating again. This time his forehead had a line of perspiration beads across it. His head felt hot and tight. Two hours. Would the Net still be there? Had the connections failed? He tried to calm down, he took long slow breaths, in, out, in, out. It was failing. He knew in his heart of hearts that the start of the end had arrived. Two hundred thousand people had started to lose their access to the Net all because of him.

He didn't hear voices in his head but, he thought, If he could hear voices they would be saying go and check that things are still ok.

He glanced over to the door again. Alone. Leaping up he scurried around the desk and settled into Senga's chair. It was still warm from her body heat. He opened the second draw down and pulled out a little keyboard. It was a remote, cast in the same stippled black plastic as the two-centimetre thick screen on the desktop. He punched in a login code and the screen came to life. His hands were trembling. He took it through a number of security checks and after identifying who he was it let him in. He delved straight into the Ny-Nets massive Intranet and accessed information on his own server elsewhere in the building. He called up the 'InPhilTrator' and sent it off looking for some illicit software. As he punched the 'search' command he visibly relaxed. He felt re-assured that the networks hadn't all collapsed in his absence. He would not get to see what pirated software his 'agent' had retrieved for him until he got back to his desk. He didn't care. He pushed the keyboard back into the desk and made to move back to the other side of the table.

Senga was standing in the doorway leaning against the frame with her arms folded. Connor wanted to throw up. He wanted to run through the doorway and up to his office away from everything. Away from her.

 

They talked for another hour after the incident. Senga got Connor to relax more in her presence. She allowed him to talk about his experiences with Ny-Net over the last eight years. She enjoyed the interview. It helped her to forget the events of the previous night. She didn't want to exhaust him at their first meeting so towards the end of the second hour she started to indicate that they must draw the session to a close.

 

"Can I see you again tomorrow? Same time?" She felt like they had made good progress for a first session.

"Yeah, I’m going nowhere." Connor felt relaxed. Senga had not put him down or criticised him for his downloading episode in her office. He began to like her.

"Connor, before we do meet, can you think about something for me? We both know that some of the things that you have been doing have been somewhat, shall we say, 'bizarre' when looked at them from a different angle?”

 "Agreed?" Again she ended a sentence with raised eyebrows indicating the need for a verbal response.

"Yes. Go on." He remember how they had talked about some of his fears and how he allayed those fears in his own mind.

"Okay. So, during the next week I would like you to draw up a list of things that over the years may have worried you. Write down anything that comes into your head that has frightened you or just made you want to run away and hide?"

"I can do that Mrs. Moshen." He stood, turned and made for the door.

"Connor?"

He stopped, half turning.

"Thank you for trusting me." She had a genuine smile.

Connor moved nearer to the door but instead of leaving he brought himself up short. He turned side on looking back at Senga.

He paused.

"Mrs. Moshen?"

She smiled at him.

"What was it that made you run away and hide?" He turned and left, very gently closing the door behind him.

 

Senga sat in silence staring at the door. She remembered her past. She remembered leaving home and jacking university. She remembered what she thought Connor was referring to. She had run away and hid from herself. She hadn't used data transference as an escape mechanism, her catalyst could have had a much more damaging and longer lasting effect.

 But she had survived, thanks to Rosh. She made some changes in her life and went back to her studies. She even changed her name. She remembered signing the de-pole papers which symbolically turned things around for her, 'Agnes' became 'Senga'. As she sat reminiscing a thought occurred to her. How did Connor know so much about her? She didn't even subscribe to Ny-Net. She began to understand why Connor was so important to them. Better the devil you own.

She packed her case files away into the scratched Samsonite case that she had used for years. She pulled out her diary and checked her schedule for the rest of the day. A couple of hours punching keys and she would be free. She dialled for her Domestic and checked for any messages. A short list ran down the tiny screen. There was a note from her Mitsubishi requesting a Vax`n`Valet. She ignored it.  She pulled out her mobile and called Rosh.