145
Mr Douglas Esswood
Outward appearance
Middle-aged man, prematurely grey, bustles into the car. Heavy grey suit, clean beige overcoat. Briefcase and smaller cloth bag probably containing laptop computer. Passenger 110 moves feet so he can sit down. Nods to the kid, then settles in more pensively, index finger pressed against the line of his mouth.Inside information
Sales Director of Effective Buggers Inc, an American company. On way for third presentation to the Met Police. Douglas's company offers realtime image enhancement to video surveillance systems.What he is doing or thinking
Pondering Britain. A kid like that back home would be a punk, here he's sweet and polite. This is such a nice country, but all anyone talks about is security - job security, locks, CCTV. Douglas knows his product works. It enlarges, clarifies but it's being called upon to do new things. Because to put it bluntly, it's illegal to spy on people in America. A visit to New Scotland Yard left him exhausted. A very pretty woman his own age simply switched channels from flyovers to alleyways, shopping centres, main streets. The whole country is wired. In a department store in Oxford street, the cameras followed a man the operators didn't like around the shop. After he left, they warned other stores by radio.
Then cameras followed him down the street, saw him get on a bus, and videoed the bus to make sure he didn't get off. The English live in 1984 and don't know it.
Still, it's good for his business. As long as nobody tries to do the same to him.
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