THE SCRAMBLER (FINAL) - ALANNAH

The Scrambler

By Alannah Joanne D'Souza

Love is whatever you can still betray
John LeCarre

All a man can betray is his conscience. ~
Joseph Conrad


123-345-567-789-The green beam glides back and forth, inscribing every action, of every individual. The city lies enclosed in invisible mesh. The mesh swallows everything and digests it as numbers. Underground, within the Mainbrane lowcounts scramble to keep the data fissures free of dust. 1,000m above a sky shuttle Counter refuses to let Anya on board.
The counts don’t match.


Anya had met Jai again during the flood, a month ago. They were trapped together in an abandoned shute for a day. It had been years since they had spoken. Growing up, she had made sure to accumulate her numbers – getting into a good university, no tax evasion and now a top job. She had made sure she excelled and secured a highcount status for herself. And yet the scanner always seemed to find Jai in a sore spot- bad college records, poor health sheets, involvement in No-Number gangs. She had never understood why he didn’t make the effort. Being lowcount had no benefits.

763 456345- 4-6-64-13- a flash of green 123 234 455

Anya burst into the ‘Numeral Complaints Office’. Mr. Manjunath sat there, ignoring the line of people peering patiently up at his desk. The bunch was mostly a crowd of lowcounts who were trying to file petitions for a count upgrade. The insipid slug Manjunath gazed at them lazily. With her count not matching the records Anya was helpless. She couldn’t use any services or make any transactions.
She jabbed the direct line button on Mr. Manjunaths desk as he glared at her annoyed that she had not bothered asking.
On the other end Meena answered,
“ Meena whats going on the shuttle denied me..”
“ I know your count didn’t match. We haven’t figured it out yet. Just come down to Mainbrane Encoding Cell as soon as possible. Use your digit card Ive put out a forewarning so the systems will grant you access just by the card”
“ But whats..”, but the line had gone dead.
Anya hurried out through the chrome doors. She could hear Manjunath yell after her. Stupid lowcount Bureau-counter she thought to herself. The silver disc at her clavicle glinted as it caught the light.


They had started with polite conversation. Anya had noticed that Jai became uncomfortable every time she brought up the topic of what he was doing currently. He would quickly come up with some childhood anecdote and then they would laugh about the fun they had had. After a short while the formality had dissolved. She had been laughing so much that she had to keep halting to catch her breath
“Remember …remember how we weren’t scared at all…”
“ Oh I remember that!”
“She was so angry when she caught us…..and nobody noticed us sneaking in, except Bruno started barking and then … and …. then we..” Anya faltered as Jai’s smile twitched and vanished. He looked away so she couldn’t catch his expression.
It had happened when they were only thirteen. Brandy, Jai’s dog had been sick for a while. The vet couldn’t diagnose the symptoms and put it down to nothing serious. The death came suddenly. Anya remembered running after Jai as he rushed to the vet with Brandy’s limp body in his arms. Jai wouldn’t leave without an explanation. Unable to dismiss the child, the Dr explained,“ The immune system is generally present to protect us from foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses. But sometimes the immune system can betray itself. Bruno’s system attacked her own body as though her organs and tissues were foreign.”

144-15662-277-388 back and forth144 1561 99 and back

Outside it was damp and grey. Anya strode through the street perfectly calm though inside her coat pocket her hands trembled as she clutched her digit card. Her digit card would provide her immunity but she didn’t want to take a chance.
That horrible electric green was still flashing in her head. She’d felt a spasm of fear and embarrassment when the other passengers had stared at her when the counter flashed the mismatch signal. She looked every part a highcount there was no doubt about it; her smart jacket, her athletic figure. But appearance couldn’t save her from the lockdown. Two count mismatches and you find yourself in the lockdown, no questions asked. They would realize it was a mistake but it would be such a terrible disgrace. Besides there were all those horrible stories she had heard. Stories about how the lockdown was a dank, airless wasteland where defaulters where left to rot alive. After a week inside most inmates died or went completely inane. Ofcourse the Mainbrane authorities had branded these stories as unlawful rumours.
As she turned a corner she heard an alarm go off. Across the road a Counter was going insane, it kept reciting messages, which didn’t make any sense. An angry and confused crowd was clambering around in the sludge that caked the road. Many of them were high counts. Oddly, this sight calmed Anya down a bit. Quite obviously she wasn’t the only one with a mismatch error today. Clearly something was terribly wrong.


Abruptly breaking the silence, Any asked Jai directly,“So where is that you’re working now?” He smiled wryly and didn’t reply. “Why do you do this Jai? Why do you choose to live as a lowcount. You could easily do better. We both know you’re intelligent enough.”
“Oh! Let it go Anya” he said,” You know I’ve never been a fan of the number game.”
“ It’s not a game” Anya said her voice raised,” It’s a valid system.”
Jai scoffed,“ Oh, it’s quite a system! A system that tracks your every move. Have you paid a bill? Did you annoy a Counter? Are your adrenaline levels too high or too low?
Should this glorified calculator be allowed to decide where we’re allowed to go? What we should eat? Who we should fall in love with?”
“I’ve contributed to this system Jai. I’m a junior encoder now.” Anya fought back meekly.
“I know.” Jai said
They fell silent again.

144-15662-277-388 back and forth144 1561 99 and back

“Anya! So kind of you to finally show up”, Anil Bahel sneered through his hollow cheeks as she entered The Encoding Cell. He was the Head of the Encoding Department. A dreadfully dry human being, who looked like a shred of meat that had been left to cure in the sun. Anya opened her mouth to argue but put her head down when she saw Meena signal her to shutup. Meena was also a Junior Encoder.
“ Initially we thought it was a common anomaly,” Meena whispered with urgency, as she walked beside her,” But then a fissure in the lower bulge of the Mainbrane sank and an entire wave ruptured.”
“ You mean the count records of that section are missing! But surely it can be recovered.”
“Whatever it is that is causing these ruptures is scrambling the Count Memory. The scrambling is making recovery impossible.” And still as they ran in panic trying to delay ruptures more complaints were pouring in. Anomalies and mismatches were being reported from different quarters of the city now.


After many hours had passed. Jai broke the silence and did his famous voice imitation that had always made Anya laugh. As usual it didn’t fail. The bitterness of the earlier argument was gone.
“You know Jai im pretty high up now. Maybe I can help you out, get you a count upgrade. I could..”
He shook his head. “Don’t…. please”
“But there is something I would like you to have.”, he said. “I made it myself.”
Leaning forward he clasped the silver chain around her neck. The silver,etched disk shone against her skin.



Just two days ago Anya had decided the verdict on a group of lowcounts who were completely running out of digits. Jai was on the list. She had sentenced the whole group to absolute ‘0’ benefits. She had tried to help Jai. He had refused.
And now the guilt was a constant weight she carried around with her. All through college Anya had avoided Jai. She was clear about her status aspirations and being associated with a renegade didn’t help. Recently she had found out that Jai was in deep trouble. The flood had been forecast and she knew it was her only chance to meet Jai unscanned, without affecting her count. Even the all-pervasive scanner took sometime to catch up with a natural disaster.
She kept telling herself she couldn’t have done anything differently. She had tried. The meeting during the flood had been no accident. Still sentencing someone to zero benefits is as good as leaving the injured to die. She wondered if he had known, if he had figured out that she had planned that meeting. “It didn’t matter”, she thought to herself. The backup she was supposed to be fixing suddenly gave off sparks and jerked her back to reality. She felt Mr. Bahel glaring at her.
“ It didn’t matter.”
“ It didn’t matter.”

1234 768 234—count after count- 234 567 890
Jai looked down at the screen in his hand. There she was, Anya a little green dot trying frantically to fix a system that was now floundering beyond repair. He thought of her sadly. He pictured her there; the worry in her eyes, her forehead crumpled, tense, the pendant around her neck glistening.

123455 667 878 gliding green 123667 34 55

By now they had tried various backup techniques. Nothing was working and they were running out of options. Just then a lowcount dust filterer rushed into the cell.
He was panting and fumbled“ Sir, Senior Algorithm Digitizer sent me to show you this Sir. The scrambell, the scrambles..
“The brane scrambling.. ,” Bahel interjected. Anya couldn’t see the dust filterer as Bahel and a few other Encoders were blocking him out of view.
“Yes sir scrambelling it was coming from Mr. Alok”
“ You mean senior encoder Sunil Alok is causing the…”
“ Yes Mr. Sunil, Miss Shah, Mr. Ramesh. Sir it was coming from them. They were all wearing these..”
As Anya inched forward to catch a glimpse of what it was that he was holding out for them to see. Mr.Bahel whirled around and lunged at her, tearing the shining disc pendant that hung from her neck.

123 345 567 789

(end)