The Handsome Man

The ‘Seekers of Freedom and Truth’ or ‘SOFT’ as they were often referred to on their early 2000s looking, green-text-on-a-black-background-acompnaied-by-free-stock-images-of-cyberpunk-globes website, had not reached the global scale of anti-government banditry that they’d hoped for just yet.

Their activities thus far had been parochial and confined exclusively to Hatchfield and the surrounding area. Lacking a secret underground bunker or a dining room table capable of seating all of its 22 members, they opted to hold their covert assemblies at a community hall on the first Monday of every month. Visitors welcome. Tea and biscuits provided.

The group had been established to spread the word of the impending demise of civilisation at the hands of 9G mobile network. Many of SOFT’s older members had been part of protests against 8, 7, 6, and even 5G. Each generation had failed to prevent the rollout of technologies that they believed dissolved your head from the inside in exchange for better mobile coverage. And each generation had failed to establish just how many of their thoughts the government had been stealing. But this time, they were certain 9G was a step too far. And they were certain that this time, they would stop it.

“Now before we get to our special presentation from Arthur…” A man at the front of the hall, wearing a black cap and shaggy beard began. He was the chair of SOFT. His name was Gregory, everyone knew it was Gregory. But he insisted on using a pseudonym ‘Paladin’ during these gatherings to, as he put it, ‘throw the spooks off the scent’. “I’ll go over the minutes from last meeting as well as tonight’s agenda. Oh! Before I forget!” He looked up form his paper, stared at nothing in particular, and raised a hand. “To truth and freedom. We are committed!” He announced in nasally sincerity. The rest of the room, almost all of them adorned with black caps too, mumbled the words back at him.

The same set of meeting minutes could probably be copied for several consecutive months without most of SOFT realising. Every meeting seemed to open with protracted debate over new and exciting dire consequences of 9G that had materialised in niche message boards or the minds of the meeting’s attendees. The degree of hyperbole ran from ‘9G might give you cancer after prolonged exposure’ to ‘it’s a tool to allow interdimensional creatures to harvest the souls of your children’. These quite disparate viewpoints might be hard to reconcile, but SOFT remained united under the universal truth that, whatever 9G was, it was bad.

The meetings would then move on to planned acts of sabotage against 9G infrastructure itself. On the rare occasion that the group would carry these out, the result was normally mild vandalism against vaguely electrical-looking equipment in the nearby area. None of which had anything to do with mobile communication.

Following the recital of the minutes, the frantic ping pong of new theories as to how exactly 9G would ruin everyone’s lives began. Accusations of skin burns from high frequency waves, cats going feral and eggs being cooked in their own shells flew around the room. Kayleigh, who went by the name of ‘Venus’ at these meetings, had perhaps the most engaging contribution. She stood up amongst the chatter to announce that “I heard these new 9G phones and towers and that. They’re so fast. Like, really fast. To make it easier for the government to spy on us! They’re so fast that they can read a message, you know like a text message and that, they can read it before you’ve even typed it out!”

“What!?” Scoffed a man in a far corner of the room. This man was Douglas, and he hadn’t meant to say that audibly. This was only Douglas’s second meeting. After the first, he’d told himself that these people were deranged, unhelpful and not worth his time. But boredom and loneliness had brought him back. If only just to see how this was all going to pan out. The room turned to him. He began to sweat.

“Oh you think you’re so clever do ya?” Said Venus. Her words pounding him like haymakers. “think we’re all a bunch of loonies!? Well it’s the truth! Open your eyes you little lost lamb! Do your research!” The phrase ‘do your research’ was one of the most powerful weapons that SOFT had in its arsenal. Whenever faced with legitimate criticism, it could be deployed in a diverse range of scenarios. It allowed you to take the intellectual high-ground and compel your opponent to go and find a cogent argument for your point so that you didn’t have to.

Douglas scrambled to defend himself. “Look I… I came here because I wasn’t happy about the towers. They’re putting one up right at the end of my garden. And I don’t know about all this cancer stuff or spying on my phone but having one of them things right near my house can’t be good. I thought you’d help me do something about it. But all this… this…. Stuff. About the cats and the aliens.”

“Cross-dimensional ethereal beings” corrected a man in a t-shirt that needed a good wash.

“Well whatever they are. It all seems a bit… nuts”. The rest of the room froze in awe at such an indictment of their cause. A barrage of so-called evidence followed. Douglas tried to bat each one away.

“Nuts is it!?” Cried one man. “Well what about all the milk tasting funny?”

“Yeah!” Came a chorus of voices.

Douglas felt that he’d lost the room but hadn’t quite reached the point of leaping out the window. “Well that… that could be anything! Shops not keeping it properly, bad batch of grass for the cows?”

“Oh how convenient!” yelled an unseen man from a corner of the room. It was actually very inconvenient. Most of the town’s residents couldn’t remember what cornflakes were supposed top taste like at this point.

“What about the robots!?” Cried a new voice. There’s that one that got hit by a van on my estate the other day. It’s the government you know? They send ‘em round to… to um… to transmit the err…. You know… it’s an outrage!”

“What are you on about!? There aren’t robots running around. Well only the ones you’d expect to see out an about!” Douglas’s rebuttal was met with ambient disgruntled noises from the herd.

“What about The Handsome Man!” Yelled a middle-aged creature in a suspiciously large leather coat who insisted on the pseudonym ‘Portsmouth’.  A resounding “Yeah!” from the room followed, louder and more forceful than the last. Douglas’s face contorted in confusion; he bared his teeth like he was staring into the sun.

“Who… What?”

Venus groaned in exasperation at his persistent ignorance. “The Handsome Man! He’s been spotted all over the area! The same man, sometimes in two different places at once. Jet black hair, chiselled features. Nice tan, even in February.” Douglas’s face somehow contorted even more.

“I reckon it’s the waves. Long exposure tightens your skin, alters your DNA and singes your hair. Makes everyone end up looking the same.” Said Portsmouth. “I reckon it’s on purpose too. Who knows what they could do if they made everyone into genetic copies?”

“Bugger all.” Thought Douglas, but he dared not say it.

“No! You’ve got it wrong! That’s what THEY want you to think!” interjected dirty t-shirt man. “They’re all part of a government cloning programme. They’re agents sent to monitor the 9G rollout.”

Douglas had had enough; he was ready to go. “Look I’m sorry but I’m certain now this is all a joke and you can’t convince me otherwise.” Douglas went to grab his jacket and make a swift exit, but the other attendees were advancing around him, the ambient noises turning to audible anger.

“He’s a stooge!” Yelled the still unseen voice from the corner. Others started to repeat it. The word bounced around the room. Fermenting, getting angrier. Douglas feared that he was fast approaching the point at which people would start tearing his limbs off before the trance was lifted by Paladin’s voice.

“Alright, everybody calm down! We’re all entitled to our opinions, even if they are wrong. I’m thankful for the energetic discussion on the consequences of 9G, but I must insist we move on to give Arthur the time he deserves. As I’ve said, he’s got something quite special for us.”  Arthur began to wheel a small trolley to the front of the room. On it sat something under a white dust sheet. Survival instincts told Douglas to take the opportunity to run home while he still could, but like all people, the prospect of seeing something under a sheet revealed in a flourish had rendered him paralysed.

Once he was certain he had the room’s full attention, Arthur pulled the sheet back as theatrically as his stiff limbs would allow. Atop the trolley was a complex amalgamation of wires, metal rods and plastic components.

“This, fellows.” Croaked Arthur “Is a 9G potable transmitter! Generously provided by my son Garry who works at the EtherCom warehouse who shall remain nameless. Now I will be powering this on to show you the devastating effects 9G can have so we need to take safety precautions. A bag of onion slices will be handed round.” A plastic bag full of onion quarters fell in Douglas’s lap, he’d seen that everyone sat around him had taken one and was preparing to bite into it.

“You’ve got to hold one of these in your mouth.” Whispered Venus. “It absorbs the waves.” Not wishing to face the ire of SOFT again, Douglas bit into a slice of onion. Arthur began fiddling with wires and plugging the contraption into the mains. He placed an apple next to the transmitter, presumably to see if the 9G waves turned it into a lemon.

“You know we probably won’t even see any effect.” Called dirty t-shirt man. “You know, because of the onions. We’re too well prepared.”

“Yeah!” grumbled the room in unison.

“Yeah and the government, they’re sneaky aren’t they? So they’ve probably made that thing defective on purpose!” Added the voice who’d been concerned about robots. Another “Yeah!” followed.

“Onions at the ready!” Bellowed Arthur as he pulled a switch on the side of the transmitter in a grand gesture. The room tensed, but nothing happened. A few seconds passed before Arthur peered closely at the machine. No noise. No movement. Nothing. He went to place his hand on a component to tweak it when a sudden pop and a deep orange glow emanated from the transmitter. Arthur jolted upright but not before a bright flash enveloped his head.

The room was in shock, Arthur was still standing. His eyes fluttering. A wisp of smoke rose from his charred, formerly grey, hair. The force of the pop had hit him bluntly in the face, his pointy nose now shorter and rounder. The rush of the flash looked to have forced the skin of his face backward like a Croydon facelift. It smelt as if he’d been lightly flash-fried. His skin had taken on a golden hue as if he’d just gotten back from the holiday of a lifetime. He looked like a handsome man.