Miller
Head bowed, Francesca Miller marched along the streets of outer London. Her face was well-hidden both by the upturned collar of her coat and the shadow cast by the round brim of her black bonnet. She would not ordinarily had purchased and worn something so outdated, but it served its purpose well: keeping a low profile and keeping her identity ambiguous was essential.
Her right hand was tucked in her coat pocket, her slender fingers clasped around a pistol. In her left hand she held a briefcase. It was made of strong leather, black and square. Inside the briefcase was a telescreen.
Despite her best efforts, she had drawn a degree of attention from the proles. There were broad women brushing the pavement outside their shops, emaciated men huddled in doorways, children playing football with an abandoned soldier's helmet. Though she did not look up, Fran could sense their wary, curious eyes follow her, wondering where this mysterious, young and beautiful woman was striding so purposefully towards.
She did not resent them. On the contrary, she always took courage whenever she saw the proles. Though they were dirty, ugly and obnoxious, not to mention constantly partaking in drug use, excessive drinking, prostitution and general debauchery, they were human. It was so important to remember that. They loved, they laughed, they sang, they cried, they screamed. None of this was possible for a Party member unless it was politically motivated. The proles were infinitely more human than anyone else.
A red bus trundled past her and came to a grinding halt just as Fran reached the shabby shelter. Two drunkards staggered off the bus and, upon noticing Fran, made a couple of slurred remarks on her figure. She gave them a twinkling smile as she hopped on the bus, and the men fell dumbstruck. The male proles were like a different species to the male Party members, whose celibacy and robotic manners offered zero threat or interest to her. The men in the streets of London, however, were crude, boisterous, but infinitely more fascinating. Besides, if they ever became too crude, or too boisterous, Fran could always threaten them with a bullet through the forehead.
She slipped a dollar to the bus driver and climbed the short set of stairs to the upper level. She sat at the very front, both for the encompassing view of the street, and to keep her face hidden from her fellow commuters. She placed the briefcase on her lap. Now she was safely off the streets, she could breathe a sigh of relief and inwardly reward herself for her efforts. Obtaining the telescreen had taken months of planning. When Goldstein had set the mission for her, she had thought it impossible. But she was a problem-solver. She had been chosen for her cognitive skills, her ability with firearms, and above all, her adeptness at concealing thoughtcrime.
It had taken perhaps four weeks to locate the ideal telescreen for dismantling and stealing. Four weeks of mental elimination: it could not be a telescreen in any of the Ministries, nor a telescreen that shared a room with another, nor a telescreen attached to wood or brick, or any other material that would display discolouring due to dampness or lack of light in the telescreen's absence.
Rocking gently with the bus's movements, she continued to stare ahead though the wide window at the dull, grey skies, the labyrinth of offices and shops and high-rise flats …
She had eventually found the perfect telescreen in an abandoned sportswear shop in the heart of a murky proles' community in East London. The company had gone into liquidation. The shop was bare and dark, but for the telescreen fixed on the left-hand wall. Though it had no audience, the voice continued to blurt out a stream of encouraging statistics detailing the Party's success in increasing food supply, educated children and military equipment. The telescreen had simply been forgotten about, though that only meant it was ignored.
The first time Fran had seen it, she had merely walked on, as was the sensible choice. When she had set about finding the shop again, she had dyed her hair black, sported a completely different outfit, and spared the telescreen the swiftest of glances as she walked by, to memorise its exact position on the wall.
For months she had studied the shop from every angle. She knew that the longer she postponed the heist, the higher the chance that either the telescreen would be discovered and removed by the police, or it would detect her for what she really was. However, the first possibility frightened her a lot more than the second, so confident was she in her own skills of seeing without being seen.
Finally, on this day, she had entered through the back entrance of the shop. Having memorised when the telescreen made its announcements on a daily basis, she had waited for the loud, sharp voice of the announcer to burst into life before creaking open the back door.
She was in. She had removed her shoes before entering, so her socked feet were silent on the hard flooring. Knowing that the announcement would last two minutes before lapsing back into silence, Fran wasted not a second.
'… increased by fifteen grams per person. Also, cotton production is up by twelve percent from last year, the highest yield of any harvested fibre in Oceanic history …'
She crept closer, until she was standing, still hidden, alongside the telescreen. Against her will, her heart had leapt to her throat and she spent three seconds controlling her breathing. From her pocket she extracted from her briefcase a simple-looking instrument: half a metre in length, made of steel, it most closely resembled the tapering blade of a huge chisel.
Carefully, with a steady hand, she slipped the wide, razor-thin end of the rod in between telescreen and wall. She had, of course, investigated exactly what it was that attached the telescreen so securely to the wall. Screws were too obvious; superglue and other adhesives were equally fallible. The answer was magnetic force. A steel plate was buried in the wall before the installation of every telescreen, and the telescreen simply stuck to it. Convincing in appearance, practical in execution, but by no means immortal: much like the Party they served.
The suction of the magnetic force was greater than Fran had anticipated. She forced the butt end of the rod with the heel of her hand, grimacing with the effort. The rod was flat against the wall, so there was no leverage to employ.
'MiniPax reports a greater arsenal amongst its South African ranks than ever before. Production of grenades has increased by twenty percent, while …'
Fran clenched her teeth to prevent a groan escaping her as she shoved the rod deeper. She reckoned on another thirty seconds, and if the damned thing wouldn't yield by then, she'd have to come back another day.
Without warning, an ear-splitting scream issued from the telescreen like some ghastly siren. Simultaneously, with a grunt of effort that undoubtedly went unmissed by the wailing telescreen (she could visualise the Thought Police clustering around the twin screen back in the Ministry of Love even now), Fran succeeded in removing the telescreen from its steel plate. The telescreen crashed to the ground, face down, though still issuing that everlasting, hellish scream. Quick as a flash, Fran thrust the thing inside her briefcase, snapped the latches shut, and silence fell.
Even recounting this event made Fran's heart quicken. As the bus grinded to a halt and she trotted downstairs and onto the pavement, she thought how lucky she had been. No one had come running; no one, it seemed, had recognised the telescreen's siren. The noise, upon reflection, had been music to Fran's ears: it showed the Party had a fear. It showed the Party couldn't afford to allow a telescreen fall into the wrong hands. That scream had felt as though Fran had inflicted pain directly upon the Party. She hid her smile in her upturned collar.
She was outside London by now. Tarmac underfoot became grass, concrete and steel became brick and iron. Her destination lay five minutes away. She was excited to see the reception she'd get when they learned of her success. The computer technicians – geeks, as she called them – would practically snatch the telescreen from her in their eagerness to set about dismantling it. Goldstein, unfortunately, would not be there in person. For obvious reasons, he could not stay in one place for more than a day, so he tended to move from branch to branch, and he was like a deity or a martyr to those lucky enough to be graced by his presence.
Finally, she reached the old barn which belonged to one of the sub-leaders of the organisation. She stepped inside the dusty building and approached a large aluminium milk churn. She shuffled the heavy thing across the straw-covered floor, revealing a trapdoor: this she lifted, and clambered down a ladder.
She was in a small lobby-like area underground. Brushing straw from her coat, she straightened up and pressed the buzzer on the door in front of her.
A voice spoke, fuzzy and official, but nothing like the telescreen announcer.
'State your name and purpose.'
'Francesca Miller, Operator for the Brotherhood: Einstein branch. By order of Emmanuel Goldstein, I was tasked to obtain a functioning telescreen without detection. I have succeeded.'