CASH & CREDIT 2

His life had been ordinary up to this point. There was nothing about him that made him seem different from the crowd, he was anonymous, he lived an anonymous life. He had drifted through school, through employment, through life, a notable underachiever; his youth had passed him by without incident. He lived in a typical house in a typical street with his Wife and 2.4 children. There was nothing visible to separate him from the great mass of humanity surrounding him. But he was different.

It had all changed that one day in autumn. Circumstances had forced his hand. Now he was proud of the system, though proud was perhaps too strong, for somewhere inside he still felt a deep regret that the system had proved necessary to his survival. Being respectable and successful would have meant so much more, but it was never to be, it never could be now.

It had all begun so slowly, but now its strength was frightening to behold, and yet it was all rooted in principles which had a simple premise - the institutions were vulnerable. They had no choice but to open themselves to abuse, and trust in the basic honesty of the great mass of the people. All it took to gain advantage from that belief was someone like him and the conjunction of circumstances that made his reactions inevitable.

Now, the network was indeed formidable. In every city and major town there were ‘operatives’ carrying out orders, taking over empty houses, moving into salubrious areas, opening offices in

respectable business premises. Most of all, these operatives generated cash flow, withdrawing vast sums of money, yet in such small amounts at a time to be inconspicuous among the millions of transactions made daily by the honest section of the population.

His own distinctly dishonest transactions would only become obvious as such when the inevitable defaults began to appear, after all, there was no point to drawing money then paying it back again.

Some payments were indeed made. It was all a question of balance. While there were still opportunities to gain from keeping the account and the identity seemingly valid, there was reason to ‘invest’ in such an individual’s illusory future as bait, in fact, to lure further income into the net.

The down side of these accumulating defaults was of course the growing visibility of the deception. Already, the system had accounted for some £10 million vanishing from the institutions. Around now, he knew, the authorities would begin to notice the unusual activity and take steps to monitor, identify any problems, and eradicate them, but he also knew that the nature of bureaucracy was slow to take action. It would be some time yet before his enemy began to take decisive steps against him. Defending the system would not be simple, for it had in effect become a bureaucracy itself. Controlling it, even with the swiftest of intentions, was like steering the Titanic away from the iceberg, so difficult for something of that size to make the manoeuvre quickly enough.

Another disadvantage was that his enemy had the best of resources and could call on any such resource without fear or favour, whereas he had to make every move by stealth, hide every action by subterfuge and cunning. At the same time though, the system had all the facts at its disposal, the others were working in the dark, unaware of how the pieces of the jigsaw fitted together. Also, as vast as the system was becoming, it was still the size of a fly in relation to the elephant that was the banks and the treasury, but as huge and powerful as the elephant was, it would have great trouble standing on a fly. Nevertheless, even as things were, he had the capacity to do enormous damage, and he had every intention of doing so.

Lost in these thoughts, he glanced out at the night sky through the stained glass window of his elegant mansion. To the right of him, and slightly below, there on the one lonely road along the horizon, he could see the luminous glow of cars as they drifted through the darkness, on their way home perhaps, or enjoying the company of someone they loved.

An aching loneliness filled his heart as memories of another time pervaded his consciousness. The system he had planned was already spectacularly successful.

Why then, did he still feel so empty inside?