Read The System for Free Online Page A

irrelevance. Which was admirable and impressive sometimes. But was mostly just highly irritating. And right now it was much worse than that.
    Raffy drummed his fingers on his desk.
    ‘Everything okay?’ Cassandra asked.
    Raffy glowered at her. ‘Just dandy,’ he said, his voice low.
    Cassandra’s face appeared, still very attractive but more maternal now, with fine lines around her eyes and some grey hair framing her face. ‘You’re not happy with the code,’ she said. ‘You can’t be. You’ve been in a bad mood ever since I brought it up and you haven’t typed a thing.’
    Raffy shook his head. He was not discussing this with a computer. Especially one built by Infotec. Even more especially since his every move was being watched, his every word being listened to.
    ‘I’m just envious of the code,’ he said eventually. ‘Just working out how I can improve it. You know, add value.’
    ‘Right,’ Cassandra said, dubiously. She seemed to peer at Raffy. ‘Really? You’re sure that’s all it is?’
    ‘Really,’ Raffy said irritably, then, realising that if Cassandra was suspicious, whoever was watching him would be too, he started to scroll through the code properly, trying to look impressed instead of utterly lost.
    And then, suddenly, he frowned. Because in amongst the garbage was a line of code that he recognised. Something Linus had used over a year before when he had been teaching Raffy how to dismantle the System, back when they were planning their attack on the City, believing it would change things, that it would make a difference. It wasn’t code. It was something else. It was a language.
    Raffy stared at it for a few minutes, but it made no sense; he figured Linus had just put it in because he was bored, because he could, because sometimes coming up with meaningless junk is actually quite difficult. But then, as he scrolled on, he saw something else, another line that stood out to him as though there were a light shining behind it. It was the language of the System but it wasn’t in code that would build anything. It was spelling out words. Words that only Raffy would be able to read. Words that only Raffy would even be able to recognise. They could communicate. Secretly, away from the cameras, away from everything.
    Raffy moved his chair forwards and started to read, deciphering phrases and words to create sentences. And as he read, he felt his heart begin to thud in his chest. ‘Your computer has a blind spot,’ the message started. ‘You can communicate with the outside world as well as me.’ As he read on, Raffy felt his eyes widen and his temperature rise. It was audacious, what Linus was suggesting. Impossible. Dangerous. But what hit Raffy most of all was the way Linus was trusting him. When all he had ever done was to prove himself untrustworthy.
    He took a deep breath. He was going to repay that trust. He was going to make this work.
    ‘Cassandra,’ he said thoughtfully a few minutes later.
    ‘Yes?’ She looked excited to have been called upon; Raffy had to remind himself that she was just a computer.
    ‘Would you mind doing some research for me? I’m trying to rework some of Linus’s code but I need to see the latest Unix, see how it’s changed over the past couple of decades.’
    Cassandra nodded vigorously. ‘I’ll have to go into archive mode.’
    ‘Whatever,’ Raffy said. ‘Just quick as you can.’
    ‘It means I have to restart, I’m afraid, but it won’t take me a minute.’
    ‘Go for your life,’ Raffy yawned.
    ‘See you in a minute!’ Cassandra closed her eyes and started to close down. Quick as a flash, Raffy typed a line of code. And there, as if by magic, was what Linus had told him about. His very own Trojan Horse. A corner of the screen that Cassandra wouldn’t see, couldn’t see, that couldn’t be reported on, couldn’t be censored. The screen went black, then Cassandra started to reboot. And Raffy waited.

5
    She was running, running so fast her