Information Overlord – Bentley 15

[For back story go here: Story so far at 12 June 2020 and more recent Bentley episodes]

The phone rang. Bentley picked it up in his continuing bad mood.

“I have information,” said a voice with homemade distort added. Or maybe they were just speaking through a cloth.

“What information?” asked Bentley.

“The information you need.”

“Can’t hear you properly,” said Bentley.

There was a low level swear word and a smother shuffle or two before the voice said: “Can you hear me now?”

“Better, yes. Go on.”

“I have the information you need.”

“How do you know I need it?”

“You asked me to do something, I have done it and I have the information you need. It’s quite simple.”

“How do I know your information’s any good?”

“Because… because it is – you know my reputation, if you stop interrupting you might learn something.”

“I doubt that,” said Bentley.

The voice at the other end sighed.

“I have the information you need. About your son.”

“Ah, righto.”

“Good. Got that?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s complicated.”

“You said it was simple.”

“It’s complicated,” persevered the voice, “because your son will pay me more money for me not to tell you than you are to tell you.”

“Come again?” asked Bentley.

“He will pay me more money for you not to know than you will to…”

“Gotcha,” said Bentley. “Don’t care.”

“What?”

“I don’t care,” said Bentley. “Don’t want it, don’t need it. Don’t care.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. During this time, Bentley cast his grim eyes around his immediately surroundings. The cat was purring like it was somewhere else, or certainly dreaming of being somewhere else. The entire flat had a dim colour to it, as if it had been put through a vintage colour-draining filter, an attempt to make it look old even though the sun was blazing outside and Bentley was a reasonably up to date man as far as appliances were concerned. None of it mattered, thought Bentley. None of this flat, none of these people. Everything has lost its meaning. Trying to give it meaning was futile because the sands kept shifting and regardless of however hard he tried no one would let him out of this damned place.

So, he thought. This disembodied voice, no doubt belonging to some spotty adolescent with a big computer and a dad with money and no interest in what the hell his son did on his big computer, could also go and do one. Do whatever he wanted to, say whatever he wanted to say, Bentley did not care. If he couldn’t get out of his damned flat, no one could get into it either. No one could touch him and no one would play him.

“Do you have any idea what could happen?” asked the voice.

“Yes.”

“Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Yes.”

“I can make life very difficult for you.”

“You’ll make it no worse than now,” said Bentley with no tone in his voice whatsoever.

“Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?” said the voice, increasingly irate, but also a bit worried. Maybe the old man had a point.

“Look, chum,” said Bentley. “If you’re the one who’s been sending me financial threats from all and sundry I know what you can do.”

“It’s only the beginning.”

“It’s only pathetic is what it is. Pathetic and trivial and child’s play. But then I’m guessing that’s all you are. An over privileged kid with time on his hands cos you haven’t been able to go to school.”

“I am nothing like that…”

“If I wait long enough you’ll be off on your family holiday to some seaside town or other, or some posh villa your dad owns or, or bloody glamping.”

The voice at the other end starting laughing. A menacing, slightly unhinged laugh.

“You don’t get me,” said Bentley, unstoppable now, “I can laugh like that too.”

And for a moment both people on each end of the phonecall simply demonstrated their evil laugh to the other. Neither one was really appreciated of course, because no one was just listening.

“You’ll be telling me you’ll get your dad on to me next, or your big brother,” sneered Bentley.

“I have… people,” said the voice, purposefully enigmatic.

“Me too,” said Bentley. “And I’ll bet George can take out whoever you want to put forward any day of the week.”

There was a pause, both sides taking a breath.

“I can see we’ll not come to an arrangement right now,” said the voice. “So I’m going to give you four hours to come up with a solution and email it to the address you have. If I receive nothing I will take this as a sign you do not care about your family or, indeed, yourself. I will then start my campaign against you in earnest. Four hours.”

There was a click and he was gone. Bentley tutted and raised his eyebrows at the cat. But Covid was asleep and purred on.

Bentley fired up his computer and was ready to send a message to the address given that would definitely not be a solution to the current issue. But in the time it took for him to load his email programme he was having second thoughts. Innocent people could get caught up in whatever was about to happen. Maybe he needed to rethink.