The Authenticator

At a nod from the diminutive man in the charcoal grey suit, a grey only a shade or two darker than his swept-back hair, a uniformed security man closed and locked the heavy, oak-panelled double doors of the Cabinet Room. After a more vigorous shaking of the grey haired head of the man in the grey suit, the same security guard unlocked the doors again, stepped outside, closing and locking them behind him. The grey haired, grey-suited man looked around the room at the fifteen grey-suited men seated around the elongated horseshoe shaped meeting table.

As a matter of official record, two of the men were in fact women who—unrecorded officially—were not attired in grey suits; for the purposes of the story I am relating to you now, however, they might just as well have been, given their capitulation to talking and behaving like the men in order to rise through the “grey suit ceiling” to their rank of Cabinet Members. (In the interests of accuracy, I can let you know that in other official but highly confidential records, official doubts had been registered over the chromosomal constitution of two of the fifteen. But since this story concerns a rather more fundamental aspect of authenticity, I shall respect this confidentiality and say no more at this stage.)

Steve—that’s the name of the grey-suited man with a penchant for communicating by means of head movement—turned to his left and looked at the man there. He raised his eyebrows, demonstrating a versatility in communication style. The second man, whose name is recorded in the official minutes but is known by everyone around the table as Mister IT, smiled, rose from his seat and walked over to the trolley in the corner by the window. (Once upon a time, the window had admitted light into the room along with seven other windows on that side of the room but any useful illumination had long since been obscured by the combined grime and pigeon shit.) Mister IT pulled the trolley behind him until he was half way down one arm of the meeting table, where there was a gap. The gap was there to allow him to push the trolley, after some deft manoeuvring, into the space created in the middle of the horseshoe. Visibly impacted by the physical effort, he took a handkerchief from his top pocket and wiped his brow, before restoring his smile. He looked around slowly at his seated audience. Satisfied, he gestured towards the trolley, on whose upper surface sat a cube about a foot high, covered by a black velvet cloth, to which had been stapled a card bearing the printed words “Not To Be Removed”.

‘Mr Leader, fellow Cabinet Members, gentlemen,’ he said, in an announcer’s voice, ‘—and, er, ladies, my apologies—’

‘We are all Cabinet Members, get on with it,’ Steve said, his head and eyebrow movements matching his tone in conveying irritation.

‘Yes, quite, Steve—er, Leader,’ said Mister IT. He reached out, taking hold of the black cloth and lifting it with the flourish of a second-rate magician. (Which he once was, before being selected for, sorry, elected to, the position he now held.) ‘I give you… The Authenticator!’

Unsure what to do with the now redundant black velvet cloth, Mister IT tried stuffing it into his trouser pocket but realising it was too big, opted for letting it fall behind him where he kicked it under the table on that side.

There was silence in the room. All eyes were on the trolley; or more specifically on the glass case sitting atop. Inside the case was what appeared to be a brushed aluminium brick.

The silence was broken by Mr Artemis, the Chief Accountant. He was a tall man, even when slouched down in his chair as he was now. Mr Artemis’s angular face, despite being softened by a grey goatee, neatly trimmed, was known throughout the Council as being devoid of any expression no matter what the circumstances. Thus his single raised eyebrow (the left, I think) as he spoke sent noticeable shivers around the Cabinet Members. Known to be careful and economic in all things, Mr Artemis uttered only one word: ‘And?’

Mister IT was not to be put off by any heckling, for that was how he saw it. He wheeled to face Mr Artemis, raising his left hand half aloft, forefinger pointing upwards. ‘Well, I am so glad you asked me that, I shall be honoured and privileged to demonstrate what follows your “and” forthwith. But first,’ and here Mister IT tapped the side of his nose and lowered his voice with no lowering of its loudness as he looked around the table in his best conspiratorial manner, ‘a word of warning, my fellow Cabinet Members.’ He had their full attention now. ‘The Authenticator is inside this glass case for a very good reason. Biomolecular energy waves, or “bionergics” as we have come to call them, do not travel through glass and thus, as long as the cover remains in place, cannot be detected by The Authenticator.‘ He paused. No one spoke, although one shuffled awkwardly before regaining composure. ‘As soon as I take away the glass case, detection will occur—spontaneously!’

Mr Artemis, in an uncharacteristic flood of a few words, said, ‘So you are telling us that after you have exposed us in this room to the… device, it will detect that we are indeed human. Something that frankly, Mister IT, we already knew.’ If his face had an expression at that moment, it would have been of smugness.

Mister IT had, however been fed just the line he wanted. Spreading both arms wide and gyrating slowly, he said triumphantly, ‘And that is exactly the beauty of it, gentlemen. And, er, non-gentlemen’

The one who had shuffled awkwardly a moment ago did so again now but I am happy to report that no one besides me noticed it.

Mister IT was in his element now. ‘Nothing happens! At least, not while we are all as human as we present ourselves to be. But let there be just one of those, even a hybrid, within twenty feet of The Authenticator and then, by Jove, you will see something happen, yes indeed!’

He stopped, turned and looked questioningly at Steve, who nodded. With a flourish, he reached out for the brass loop fixed to the top of the glass cage and lifted it high in the air in the manner of a head waiter at a gourmet’s convention. A frown formed across his forehead as, much as he had advised but had not expected, nothing happened.

The frown had barely settled on Mister IT’s face when a low chime sounded from somewhere beneath the glass case—a sound not unlike a dying doorbell. A small red light, previously unnoticed by anyone, began to pulse on the console in the corner by the window.

Every head in the room turned toward it.

‘Ah,’ said Mister IT, though it was not entirely clear whether this was triumph or alarm.

‘Well, it’s not me,’ someone said. Which struck several others as an odd thing to feel the need to say.

‘Nor me, obviously,’ said a second, though with rather less conviction than the sentence required.

Eyes moved from person to person around the horseshoe table, not accusingly exactly, but not not-accusingly either.

Mr Artemis did not say anything. He rose, unhurriedly, walked the length of the room to the console that sat in the far right corner of the room, reached behind it, and switched it off at the mains.

The chime stopped. The red LED light faded. The room exhaled as one.

‘For a moment there, Fred,’ someone said, and laughed, and several others laughed with him, though nobody could have said precisely what the joke was, only that laughing felt like the correct thing to do now that the chiming had stopped.

‘I always knew there was something about you, Jill,’ said another, to general amusement, and Jill—who had not moved, and had no particular reason to be singled out—laughed loudest of all, which seemed the safest response available to her.

Steve looked at Mister IT for a long moment. 'That,' he said, with the particular flatness he reserved for his most cutting remarks, 'is the machine you have brought us. A machine, detecting a machine we all know is here.' He paused. 'Thank you, Member for IT.'

Mister IT opened his mouth, closed it again, and said nothing at all—which those who knew him considered the most alarming development of the entire meeting so far.

Two seats along from Steve, a small private exchange passed almost unnoticed beneath the general chatter. The man—that is, recorded, officially as a man—leaned very slightly toward the woman beside him, whose own official record disagreed with certain other, less official, records.

‘Bit close, that,’ he murmured.

‘Wasn’t us,’ she said. Then, after a pause, more quietly, she added, ‘This time.’

He said nothing further, which she took, correctly, as agreement.

Further down the table, in the seat where the shuffling had twice been heard and only once remarked upon, someone let out a long, slow breath—the kind of breath a person allows themselves only once they are quite sure no one is watching them do it. I was watching, though. Again, I shall say no more about it for now.

Steve rapped his knuckles once on the table. ‘Are we done?’

It was not really a question. Chairs scraped. The doors—unlocked now, mercifully, opened to let fifteen Cabinet Members, one Authenticator, and considerably more unresolved business than had entered, back out into the corridor.

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