The System: Series 1: Level 1: Get Naked

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What do you want to do with your life? Do you want to spend your days in some bullshit job whose ultimate purpose is to maximize long-term shareholder value? Are you a shareholder? You want to spend the rest of your time glued to a screen, feeding the dopamine addiction you don't even know you've got, looking at pictures of things you'll never have, places you'll never go, and people you'll never meet? Or do you want to exist?

In the real world. Do you want to be part of something? Do you want to use your body? The only body you'll ever have. Gifted to you by millennia of evolution. Do you want to use it for something other than swiping and clicking and tapping and eating donuts and masturbating? If so, we may have something for you. How was that? CCTV. An alleyway behind the South London housing estate. Two men in their 20s. Man one approaches man two from behind and calls something out. Oi!

Man 2 ignores him. Keeps walking. Man 1 grabs him by the arm, yanks him round. Man 2 just stands there. Man 1 pulls back and blamps him in the jaw. Man 2 staggers back then stands straight up again. Man 1 punches him. Again and again. Man 2 falls to the ground. Man 1 doesn't let up. Punches again and again and again. Then he stops suddenly. Turns around. Looks directly into a camera.

and runs like hell. The system. Level one. Get naked. Present day. Maya. I should be sleeping. Or reading about Foucault. Instead I'm eating skips and watching rich teenagers from New York being bitchy to each other. Some people drink, some people have meaningless sex. I watch old episodes of Gossip Girl in the middle of the night. People keep telling me the world is my oyster. I hate oysters. I know number. 3am. Hello?

Where are you? Who? Jake, is this some kind of... Are you in an escape room or something? Stop what? They're going to do something. What? I don't know, but it's going to happen the day after tomorrow. They're calling it judgment day. Judgment day? Jake, I can't... If you're not well, you need to get proper help. Look, I need you to go to my flat. In such a box under my bed. Get it out of there. Where are you?

I try to bury the phone call, pretend it was a bad dream. Another chapter in the saga of my brother. But that weird name worms around my head all night like Bo Leach. Google doesn't give me much. Just a dairy farmer in West Virginia. Seems unlikely. So, three hours later, I'm standing outside his block, the council flat he shared with his nan, till she died a few years ago.

I get flashes of the last time I came here. Here's Nan's old furniture, the empty Domino's boxes, a Sports Direct mug half full of squash that someone put their spliff out in, the sound of the PS4, the smell of Lynx and sweat, God knows what. I... I fully expected to hit me when I opened the door, but... Shut up. It's immaculate. The walls painted white. The carpet's replaced. It's almost too tidy.

If someone brought you back here, you'd definitely want to text a friend your location. Especially when you saw... What the hell? The pair of antlers above the fireplace. Go away. I look under his bed and here it is. A box. Heavy. And padlock shut. A car pulling up. But too fast. An SUV with blacked out windows. My stomach drops.

Adrenaline tells me to get out of here. The key is jammed. Shit. I just managed to get it out, pull my hood up and walk away. As three dudes and hoodies round the corner and nearly knock me over.

Are these police? And they could be undercover. Pardon, they're supposed to bang on the door, not just kick it in. One guy glances back at me. Pale skin, dead eyes. Does he see me? Seeing him, I put my head down and I'm gone. Maya, where the hell are you? I just went for a run. It's 6am. What's going on, Dad? It's Jake. He's in trouble. What kind of trouble? I don't know. The police are looking for him. Has he called you? Maya, are you there? Yes. No, I haven't heard from him.

Am I an idiot? Or a good sister? Back home I get the box out, take a hammer and... Something heavy wrapped in a cloth. Some kind of antique pistol. An old photo of Jake and his dad on holiday. Two bits of paper. A list of animals. Next to each one, a phone number. Codenames? And on the other, a list of... I don't know what. 1. Get naked. 2. Sweat blood. 3. Fieldwork. 4. Red pill. 5. Kill the past. Six. Judgment Day question mark. And at the top, two words underlined. The system.

Two years earlier. Jake. I'm walking home from work. Don't know it yet, but this is going to be the second worst day of my life. Some lads I've never seen before are sitting on the stairs. They say nothing, but one of them stands up, comes right up to my face. He stares right into my eyes, his nose a centimeter from mine. I can smell the skunk on his breath. Then... He spits right into my face. As I lurch back, one of the others grabs the plastic bag from my hand.

and they run off with my dinner. Shut, locked, bolted, chain on. I wash my face and try and put my evening back together. Cider opened. PS4 fired up. Replacement dominoes ordered. Waiting for the game to load, I can't help myself. Instagram. See what the kids from school are up to.

House parties, holidays, festivals. I know I shouldn't, but I do. Like picking a scab. And then something unfamiliar. One new follower. Alex Novak. And I'm swiped away into another world. Expensive restaurants, beach holidays, leg days, quads, glutes, biceps, triceps, a new car, a new flat. Shanghai, New York, Sao Paolo. Is this really the fat little Scottish kid I was friends with in Year 7?

Not great. Yeah. Look, I wondered if you wanted to come over later. Play some PS, drink some cider, watch an action movie. I can't tonight. Why not? Well, Mum and Dad want me to be here. Well, why then? What are they doing? They're not having a party, are they? It's 20 years of marriage. They want to market somehow. We're having dinner. Look, I'm sorry. Maybe I could slip away later. I'll, um... I'll give you a call. Okay.

Bye. Bye. Insta Alert. One new message. Alex Novak. Drink? I can't get over it. What? I wouldn't have recognised you. Like the greasy barb and the acne? Thank God for that. So what are you up to? I work in online retail. Oh yeah? Who for? Just a... Grocery chain. You're not at liberty to divulge. What? The name of the shop. Is it confidential? I'm looking for something else. What about you?

FinTech. Ah, right. Which is annoying jargon for financial technology. FinTech, of course. Should we get another one? I mean, it's great that things are fairer, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I think it's got to the point where if you're not part of the elite or one of their special groups, if you're not like BAME, LGBT, whatever.

you might as well forget it do you know what I mean I do I absolutely do but at the same time it's important that we don't start thinking like victims you know because we're not yeah no of course sorry do you know what I should shut up I'm chatting shit And I should get around. It's my turn. I'd love to, man, but actually, I've got to go. I promise my girlfriend I wouldn't be too late. You've got a girlfriend? Jess, yeah. She keeps me on the straight and narrow. Yeah.

I better go too, actually. I've got someone coming over. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Late night, hook up. Well, it's good to see you, mate. Let's do this again. I still can't get over it. What's that? You, man. Two years ago, I was like 16 stone. No way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was pretty much living off KFC and benefits. Couldn't get a job. No girl would look at me. Bog standard, fat loose. I was bad, man. I was getting into insert stuff and then...

A mate of mine recommended this thing. What the... It's kind of... It's a personal development programme. It sounds wanky, but it basically saved my life. Wow. Not that you need it, but if you're interested, I could recommend you. Like. What's it called? I'll Google it. You won't find anything. It's all done by recommendations, strictly offline. Okay. All right. It sounds like a cult or something, but it's basically just a training program. Like I say, best thing I ever did.

So how does it work? I can't tell you, you just have to do it. Listen, mate, I was skeptical to begin with, but in the end, I just thought, what have I got to lose? Literally, nothing. Right.

You coming? I'll just finish this one up. Kate? You were going to call. Sorry. So can you come over? Well, why not? Who's there, Maya? Who's there? I'm outside their massive house. Big shiny 4x4s parked out front. I slip round the side, look through the windows. People everywhere. This is not a few friends. It's crammed with pissed 50-year-olds. And there in the middle of it all, all dressed up and a bit pissed too, Mum and her husband, Jerome, climbing onto a chair.

Thank you so much for coming, yeah? 20 years! I can hardly believe it. I just want to thank Louise. She didn't want all this, but I insisted. because you are an amazing woman. You have given me a beautiful life and a beautiful daughter, Maya, who... as I may have mentioned, is about to go and study at a little place called the University of Oxford. Have I mentioned that? Maybe once or twice. But of course, there's someone...

we need to thank above all, yeah? And that is God. God brought us together. Louise had barely set foot in a church before, but something took her there that day. She was going through a hard time, as some of you know. But the moment she stepped in, everything changed. And our 20-year love story began. Come here, baby.

My heart is thumping in my chest. My head is throbbing with the pints I had in the pub, plus the bottle of cider I preloaded. I'm not in full control of my body as I barge my way forward. Jake? He's lost for words. For once. My face is red. I can feel the sweat under my armpits. My eyes are hot. There's a lump in my throat. But I'm not going to let that happen. A bottle of champagne on the table. I grab it. Lift it over my head. What are you doing? Maya's suddenly there.

What are you doing? Hang on. You lied to me. Jake, come on. Take it easy. Take a break. Excuse me. And I'm out of here. Running through the rain, the dark streets, away from the lights of the houses, the families inside, down an unlit alleyway, over a locked gate and into a fragment of ancient woodland. Still, like I say, it's only the second worst day of my life. The first was 20 years ago.

Whilst my mum was celebrating our marriage at a golf club a few miles away, my dad came into these woods with an antique pistol. He was laid off from the printers where he worked and he'd been drinking for about three weeks straight. He wasn't about to call the Samaritans or seek help. He wasn't going to talk his way out of it. He was going to take action. How have I got to lose? This is Alex, leave a message. Hey man, it's Jake.

that thing you mentioned the program yeah so i'm interested in hearing more

It's 6am, barely light yet. As I walk to my assessment, his words are ringing in my ears. I can't tell you much, but I can tell you that it's... pretty intense but go with it there'll be times where you're thinking what the hell have I got myself into but you have to push through the discomfort's all part of it you just have to think about where it's taking you uh what else uh oh don't bullshit

And just don't leave. You want to leave, you want to run away, every bit of you will want to run away, but don't. Just stay. This is not what I expected. A unit on a light industrial estate between a Pentecostal church and a tyre fitters. The door opens. It's dark. There's a chair and a camera. Please sit down. There's a light shining directly into my eyes. I can barely see. Alex, is that you? Hello, mate. I'll be carrying out your assessment. Please sit down. What's your name?

Jake. Any chance of a cup of tea? Age. And maybe a bacon sandwich? No? Okay. Age. 25. Education. Uh... GCSEs? I didn't... I need to finish my A-levels. Employment. I work in an online retailer. You can say what it's called. There's no reason for you not to say what it's called. Ocado.

What's your job? I work in the Fulfillment Centre. Doing what? Operations. What kind of operations? I pack the bags, okay? Robots pick the stuff and we put it in the bags and make sure everyone's got the right olives and hummus. Do you have a partner? Between relationships right now. Do you have a partner? No. I thought this was like a fitness thing.

It will be. We need to start by fully assessing your health. That includes your mental and emotional health. The questions go on. More and more exhaustive. How many close friends do you have? Every little bit of my life. Can you drive? There are psychometric tests. Do you have any recurring dreams? Hearing tests, sight tests, reaction times with no break. And then... Okay. Please remove your clothes. What?

We need to conduct a physical assessment. Please remove your clothes and get onto the scales. Really? Please remove your clothes and get onto the scales. This is the final stage of the assessment. And your underwear. This better not end up on Pornhub. Another light comes on and suddenly a huge mirror becomes visible. Okay, now stand in front of the mirror. What do you see? What do you mean? What do you see? Me Describe it Describe what? What you see

You can't change if you're not prepared to see yourself. Really see yourself. Okay, I'll tell you what I see. Your hair is lank and greasy. Your skin is pale. You have acne on your face and bags under your eyes. You're hunched. You've skinny arms and legs with no muscle. You've a ring of fat around your middle. You've got a belly like an old man, hips like a woman, and little boobs.

You've got little man boobs. You're 25 years old. You should be in peak physical condition. All right, all right. Would you dispute any of that? No. Is that how you want to look? No, I've just got a bit out of shape. When was the last time you did any exercise? I don't know.

Think. I don't know. School, I suppose. Can I put my clothes back on? What do you want? What? What do you want from your life? Right now, I want my pants and a cup of tea. What do you want from your life? I don't know. You don't know. Well... You don't know what you want from your life. I want... I don't know. A better job, a girlfriend. Do you think the world is fair? No. So what are you going to do about that? I don't know. How are you making the world a better place?

Do you think you're fulfilling your potential? I don't know. No. Try and pick up that weight. Can I have my clothes back now, please? Try and pick that weight up. All right. Then can I have my clothes back? Try and lift that weight. I can't. I can't do it. Would you like to be able to? Yes. Now, can I please have my clothes back? When was the last time that you had sex? What? You're not a virgin, are you? No, I'm not a virgin. How many people have you slept with? I don't know.

If you're not honest, we can't help you. Two. Would you like to sleep with more? Of course I would. What did you earn last year? You, what? We already know, so just say it. I don't know. Yes, you do. Twelve grand. What do you care about? What do you care about? I don't know. What would you die for? Is there anything you'd die for? Is there anything or anyone you care so much about that you'd actually lay down your life for them? Yes. Is there?

Who? My sister. My little sister. A light comes on. It's a two-way mirror. What the hell? Five blokes sitting in chairs. Have they been here the whole time? Well done for staying, mate. It takes a lot to stay. This is insane. Who are you? Who the hell are you people? They've all done it too. They're not alone. He walks over with clothes and food.

Take some time to read the contract in front of you, and when you're ready, you can make the declaration. My head is swimming. I've been here for hours. I look it over, it seems okay. What have you got to lose? I, Jake William Dean of my own volition, commit to the programme here described according to the terms. A man appears on the screen.

Congratulations, you have completed the first level of the system. You, my friend, got naked, and you got a glimpse of who you really are. Now the question is, who do you want to be? What do you want from your life exactly?

Present day. Maya. I'm sitting on my parents' sofa. A detective in plain clothes is asking me questions. It's disconcerting how much D.I. Cohen looks at my old geography teacher. So, you haven't seen or heard from your brother for some time? No. Why's that? We drifted apart. There was a bit of a falling out in the family. You were close to your brother.

He's my brother. But you were closer to him than anyone else, would you say? He wasn't someone who had close friends. No, not really. Well, not that I know of. He was a loner. Yes. Did he have any interests? Not apart from GTA. Grand Theft Auto, it's a game. I know what it is. And, yeah, he does have a history of violence, doesn't he? What?

Well, the incident at your parents' wedding anniversary two years ago. He didn't hurt anyone. I smashed a bottle. And then he pushed you to the floor. There were several eyewitnesses. You broke a rib, didn't you? No, it was an accident. He was emotional. It was a difficult day for him. And when you were at school, he was expelled for attacking a boy? Yeah, but that was... He was trying to protect me. This kid was being racist. So it's in the nature of your relationship?

to look out for each other, to protect each other? Yeah, I suppose so. We're brother and sister. Half brother and sister. He's my brother. And are you trying to protect him now? No. Because if there's anything you're not telling us... It's better to get it out now, you know. Otherwise you could risk being charged with obstruction. Do you understand that? Yes. Of course you do. You're a very clever young woman by all accounts. Oxford. It's very impressive. Your parents must be very proud.

Not right now. I've been rusticated. What does that mean? It's a special Oxford euphemism which means you've been kicked out for not getting good enough grades. Well, I'm sure you'll work it out. What did he do? I'll find out. Why can't you just tell me? It was an assault. You mean he got into a fight? Not a fight. It was an attack. Pretty vicious attack. What?

On who? We don't know yet. He's unconscious in hospital and there's nothing to identify him. Jake wouldn't attack someone for no reason. You know, your brother made a pretty disturbing video detailing his plans. We think he meant to kill. And we think he means to kill again. Sneakers? Trainers. Whatever you want to call them, they are amongst the most iconic cultural objects of our time. But their evolution is a story rarely told until now. From BBC Radio 4, this is Sneakernomics.

Across this podcast, we're going to be telling the crazy origin stories of the most well-known sports companies and their relentless quest to be the world's number one brand. Sneakernomics tells the story of fierce competition and rivalry. one that tore families and friendships apart and even divided towns. We'll follow in the footsteps of mavericks, hustlers and dreamers and hear their tales of boom and bust, fame and infamy, hope and heartbreak. Above all...

This is the story of the people behind the shoes. From BBC Radio 4, this is Sneakernomics. Subscribe at BBC Sounds. At the BBC, we go further so you see clearer. Through frontline reporting, global stories and local insights, we bring you closer to the world's news as it happens. And it starts with a subscription to bbc.com.

giving you unlimited articles and videos, ad-free podcasts, the BBC News Channel streaming live 24-7, plus hundreds of acclaimed documentaries. Subscribe to trusted, independent journalism and storytelling from the BBC. Find out more at bbc.com slash join. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way.

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