by David Gullen
Josie held out her hand. ‘Give me that gun. We’re not bad people but I have had enough of looking down that barrel.’
The cop meekly handed it over.
Gingerly, Josie took the heavy weapon.
Hands held out, Benny hopped with excitement beside her. ‘Can I hold it? Can I?’
‘No, you cannot.’ Josie passed the weapon to Novik. He dropped the clip into his palm, racked the slide and ejected the chambered round onto the ground.
As soon as he was done, Josie turned on him. ‘What the hell were you doing?’
‘I was right, wasn’t I?’ He knew it didn’t matter, he’d done a crazy thing. Fake cop or not, she had the gun, she could have killed them all. No thanks to him, they were alive. He rounded on the bogus patrolwoman. ‘What were you going to do, rob us? Walk us out into the desert and shoot us down?’
‘I wasn’t going to hurt you.’
‘Easy to say now.’
‘They’re only blanks.’
‘Bullets don’t work on me.’ Benny ducked away as Novik cuffed at his head.
The fake patrolwoman pulled off her fake cap. Tight blonde frizz bounced into shape. She clutched the cap to her chest. ‘May I call my mother? I just want to say goodbye.’ She sat cross-legged on the ground, formed circles with her middle fingers and thumbs and began to chant. ‘Aum. Aauum.’
Novik and Josie exchanged a puzzled look. ‘There’s still some contamination on the money,’ Josie said.
Novik tried to apologise. ‘Babe, I was scared. I thought–’ he couldn’t say it. ‘I don’t know what I thought.’
‘Aaauuum,’ chanted the fake cop.
Benny tapped her on her shoulder. ‘Are those Nebraska plates?’
‘Aaaaauuu…’ she looked up sheepishly, ‘Yes.’
‘I knew it,’ Benny crowed. ‘Car’s a beaut.’
‘Thanks. I did the paint job myself…’ her voice trailed off as she followed the flight of some birds across the sky. Then she waved her hands in the air. ‘Wow.’
‘We need to clean that money,’ Novik said. ‘We’re doing this wherever we go.’ He squatted in front of the cop. ‘You’re not a rogue officer.’
‘I was a performance artist with an improvisational troupe,’ she said absently. ‘We decided to turn our lives into mobile interactive installations. I wanted to do this, Halifax and the rest of the troupe wanted to be gangstas. Halifax hates cops so we split. The people I book become part of my art, I become part of their lives.’
‘What are we going to do with her?’ Josie clenched her fists. ‘I know what I’d like to do.’
Novik took her hands and gently broke open her fists. ‘She’s harmless but her method is freaky. Josie, if you can forgive me, we can forgive her.’
‘I – I got stuck in the role. Lost, somehow. I miss Halifax so much.’ The patrolwoman wept silently. ‘I’m lonely.’
‘She’s crazy,’ Josie’s said. Her expression softened, ‘Same as you.’
‘We need to get her to a mall.’
The patrolwoman heard him, she looked very mellow. ‘Is that where you’re going to whack me? You guys are so confident nobody can touch you that you do your wetwork in public.’ She held her arms out towards them. ‘I don’t mind. I’m ready to go. The world is a beautiful but terrible place, it’s time to travel towards the light.’
‘What’s your name?’ Novik said.
‘Marytha Drummond.’
‘You’re not going to die, Marytha, but you are going to have to stop frightening ordinary people.’
‘What’s going to happen to me?’
Novik pulled Marytha to her feet. ‘We’re going to make you one of us. You’re going shopping.’
- 19 -
European sequestration a big success.
‘Planet Earth did it by accident in the carboniferous, today we’re doing it deliberately.’ Ernesto ‘Che’ Fowland, head of EU carbon sequestration services is upbeat about the program. ‘We’re sucking tens of millions of tons of carbon out of the atmosphere. Permanently.’
A hundred years ago, whole communities toiled to extract coal from mines across Europe. Today, compressed charcoal is delivered to the mines using gravity trains – full carts head down into the earth, their weight pulls the empty ones up. ‘It’s elegant and it’s free,’ Fowland explains. ‘And it’s old tech. The British invented this when William IV was on the throne.’
Atmospheric inertia means it will take as much as a century to see any effect, but the EU claim, along with OneAfrica and the far-eastern countries, that they are in it for the long haul.
‘The FSoSA have other priorities,’ Fowland stated. ‘The Amazonian countries are replanting as fast as they can. That’s their job for now.’
Critics of the charcoal program point to associated rises in atmospheric oxygen. Giant dragonflies and centipedes inhabited the world when oxygen was 50% more abundant than today.
– Slobodan Jones, KUWjones.org
All over the world there were people who believed Palfinger Crane was so rich he would not miss the money they needed to perfect their own lives. Most were scammers, chancers and dreamers. The varied ploys of crooks and fraudsters far outweighed those of the genuinely needy, who also had access to the various charities and foundations Crane supported.
Almost none of these direct appeals reached Crane himself. The more persistent, inventive or overtly hostile were dealt with by a dedicated wing of the administration that surrounded Crane’s private world.
Crane never got used to the idea that some people hated him for having what they thought they themselves deserved. It changed him in ways he didn’t particularly like; he grew suspicious, he became rather selfish. As a result, almost none of the money Crane donated came directly from his personal wealth. That near limitless ocean of riches he reserved to himself, Bianca’s allowance, and Ellen’s phenomenally costly medical care.
Every bequest and endowment came via the corporations, multinationals and over-holdings of his world-wide business hegemony, the CraneCorp Buisplex. Crane thought this prudent, which it was. He also thought it was enough. Other people disagreed.
These included the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Compact and energetic, Mikhail Lobachevsky paced around Palfinger Crane’s palm-fringed office like a middle-aged man with ADHD. He sat, he stood, he sipped his Jamaican Blue Mountain. He put the cup down. He stirred his coffee, rattled the spoon against the cup. He strode to the window, fiddled with the catch, scratched at a speck on the glass, and returned to his coffee.
Crane relaxed in his own chair and wondered if Lobachevsky was allergic to caffeine. The Russian Secretary-General loved the expensive brand but refused to have it in his own office.
‘Mikhail, sit down,’ Crane said. ‘You’re making me dizzy and wearing out my carpet.’
‘I cannot help it.’ Lobachevsky kicked off his shoes and carried on pacing. He picked up a pen, put it down, stirred the coffee again, half rose then sat firmly down, hands clasped on his knees. ‘Very well, despite myself, I become still because you ask me to. I make this concession, see how it is done? That is politics, yes?’
Crane demurred with a gesture.
‘So, now I will make another. What I asked before, give me only half.’
Crane looked out through the window to the blue sky, the gently swaying palm fronds, and the glittering sea beyond. ‘Mikhail, that is still over five percent of the GDP of the European Union.’
Lobachevsky spread his hands. ‘A quadrillion roubles here, a quadrillion roubles there, what difference does it make between friends? So, you’ll help me?’
‘Not like that, no.’
Lobachevsky’s head jerked. ‘Then what?’
Crane named a figure. Compared to what the Secretary-General was asking it was tiny. Briefly Lobachevsky looked glum, then spread his arms and laughed. ‘Fantastic! More than I’d hoped for.’
Cranes arms hung at his sides. ‘Good. I am happy to help.
’
Lobachevsky’s eyes glittered. ‘I warn you, I shall be back. At Epiphany, we break the ice of the Moskva river into the shape of a cross. The priests bless the water and we swim. We are strong, we Russians. Like Mother Russia we may be defeated but never conquered.’ The Secretary-General retrieved his shoes. ‘Thank you, Mr Crane.’
Feeling both wretched, and angry with Lobachevsky for making him feel wretched, Crane escorted the Secretary-General onto the covered veranda, where Lobachevsky’s impeccably groomed and ever-smiling retinue drank iced tea and cold beer with Crane’s staff. The Secretary-general’s people formed a carefully balanced mix of ethnicity, age, politics, sexuality and faith, yet they had one thing in common; they were all beautiful.
The UN flotilla of open-topped solar-electric vehicles rolled towards the distant gates and Crane was alone again. He moved along the veranda, inspecting the squat, scaly cycads and luxuriant tree ferns. Despite being in the same environment, the stiff-leaved cycads grew in a reluctant annual burst of activity, while the tree ferns threw out sprays of three and four-metre long fronds continuously.
He didn’t understand the difference, it intrigued him. What did the cycads do with all that sunlight? Ignore it?
Everyone wanted something, even Palfinger Crane. Especially Crane. His need was so strong it was almost pathetic. It actually was tragic.
All these visitors, caps in hand, were so certain he could help them, that he had what they needed. In return, none could give him the one thing he desired above all else: his daughter Ellen, size sixteen.
Crane tugged up the knees of his cream cotton trousers and sat on the veranda step. He wondered why it was that money couldn’t help Ellen when it seemed that it could help everybody else.
As he looked out across his estate, the bay and the jungle-clad mountains beyond, Crane realised that he didn’t care about the world’s problems. All he wanted was for Ellen to be like everyone else, to stop being a freak that freak-lovers idolised, and for her not to die young.
Alone on the step he wondered if there had ever been a time when things could have been different, if he could have made other decisions with better outcomes. He wondered if it was, in fact, all his fault.
Out of nowhere, deeply and intensely, he missed Bianca. He didn’t blame her for leaving, he had never resented her for it. Some people accepted the hand life dealt them, others put the cards down and walked away to find another game. He wished she’d stayed with him, with Ellen, the three of them together. He still thought about her every day. For a moment regret crushed him. He forced his sob into a mocking laugh.
On the far side of the sloping lawn one of the gardeners, Christian, cleared fallen palm fronds from the deep border of red and pink hibiscus and purple bougainvillea. Like all the estate workers, Christian lived in one of the nearby villages. Young and well-built, he wore faded blue cotton shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. Thick canvas gloves protected his hands as he stacked the hard, dead fronds into a handcart.
Christian stopped working when he saw Crane approach. He wiped his brow with his forearm and grinned in welcome. His voice was deep, mellow and silky. ‘Good day, Mr Crane. I hope today you are feeling very fine.’
‘Good morning, Christian. Yes, I am fine. How are you today?’
‘Fine, Mr Crane. Very fine.’
‘I need you to do something for me,’ Crane said.
Christian became attentive. ‘Yes, Mr Crane.’
‘I want you to tell me that I am a fortunate man and I must stop feeling sorry for myself.’
Momentarily thrown, Christian regarded Crane carefully, then clapped his hands and laughed. ‘Of course, Mr Crane, sir. I shall do that for you right away.’ Trying to keep his face straight, Christian spoke as sternly as he could to the richest man who had ever lived. ‘Mr Crane, we all have our problems, but you must pull yourself together, for you are luckier than most. Also, it is a great privilege to be able to tick you off.’
Amazed at his own words, Christian took off his gloves, put his hands in his pockets, took them out, folded his arms, rubbed the top of his head and put his gloves back on again.
‘Thank you, Christian.’
‘It is my pleasure, Mr Crane.’
Crane looked along the row of colourful shrubs and high palms. ‘Still plenty to do.’
Christian took that as dismissal. ‘Leave it to me.’
Crane tugged at one of the dead fronds. ‘I think I will give you a hand.’
Christian pulled off his gloves and offered them to Crane. ‘The stems are sharp.’
‘What about you?’
‘I have a spare pair in the cart.’
One of the fallen fronds had flattened a small hibiscus. Crane lifted it clear and Christian produced a pair of secateurs and clipped away the broken stems.
‘How is your family?’ Crane said.
‘We are all very fine. My grandmother is not as young as she was.’
‘Ask my doctor to bring forward his next visit.’
‘Thank you, Mr Crane.’ Christian opened his mouth, he hesitated, torn between courtesy and a desire not to intrude. ‘How is Miss Ellen, Mr Crane?’
‘She is not well at all, Christian. We do what we can.’
‘We all hope for the very best.’
‘Thank you, Christian. So do I.’
They worked together for an hour, until the border was clear.
- 20 -
The sole reason the littoral of the Gulf of Mexico is suffering catastrophic depopulation, from northern Nicaragua to western Florida, in The Bahamas, Cuba, the Caymans and north Jamaica, is the collapse of the Bermuda High.
This former zone of high pressure used to push hurricanes north from their east-west path when it shifted west in the summer. An unfortunate consequence was they sometimes hit land, but they came and they went, and the Bermuda High killed them off.
The tropical cyclone known as Hurricane ‘Permanent’ Larry formed two years after the Bermuda High failed. Since then, winter seawater temperatures have been warm enough to sustain Larry, and each summer it regenerates.
Permanent Larry is the cows coming home in spades for past failures of world environmental policy. The scary thing is, it is still growing. Thermal balance is years, possibly decades away. Planet Earth now has its very own Red Spot.
Our own research shows similar conditions are forming in the Bay of Bengal, and the Sea of Japan.
– Nasrin Choudhury,
8th International Extreme Weather Symposium, Dacca.
Jericho Wilson had long suspected there was another agency outside the FBI, beyond the CIA. Non-uniformed, non-suit, answerable only to the Executive, possibly just Snarlow herself. Something so undemocratic it couldn’t possibly exist, until a spook knocked on your door and either whacked you or reeled you in. To his mind there had always been the need, hence the facility to satisfy the need.
He also wondered if this shadowy agency might exist in parallel to the Exec, totally free. Seated in the SUV beside Masters the thought didn’t make him feel any better.
‘You want to talk about it?’ Wilson said.
Traffic was dense but steady. Masters tapped a button on the dash and let go of the wheel. The car accelerated briefly, edged left then settled down, sensor-locked with the vehicles ahead, behind and to each side.
Masters avoided eye contact. ‘Frankly, it’s going to be in the way if we don’t. You’re going to be stuck in a state of infinite mental regression, forever wondering what I’m thinking about you, that I know that’s what you’re thinking about me, and that you know that I know you’re thinking about what I’m thinking about.’ She flashed him a tight smile. ‘I’ve been there during resistance training, a bottomless pit of paranoid intersubjectivity. It’s a complete headfuck. You got to let it go.’
Wilson sighed and sank back into his seat. She was right, it was such a big thing, the biggest thing in his life. The dreadful pivot about which his entire existence swung.
�
��Okay.’ Wilson spoke as if he were announcing himself to a room of strangers. ‘My name is Jericho Wilson and I shot my wife in the back of the head.’
The interior of the car was almost silent, the only sounds tyre rumble and wind. Under the hood, the horizontal flywheel spun silently on superconducting mag-vac bearings at three-quarters of a million rpm.
Masters had driven Wilson away from his tract house leaving Johnson on the pavement. The black spook walked away without farewell, speaking into the air. As they turned the corner, Wilson saw another anonymous saloon appear at the far end of the street and pull up beside Johnson.
‘So why no guns?’ Masters said. ‘Don’t you like the nasty bang?’
Her coldness, her speckled grey suit and neat, short hair, the whole thrust of the conversation made Wilson feel defensive and vulnerable.
‘I don’t want to make any more unfixable mistakes.’
She smiled at that, faint lines appearing in the smooth skin each side of her mouth.
Wilson couldn’t help himself. ‘How old are you?’
She laughed at that. ‘We’ve all made mistakes, Mr Wilson. I expect we’ll make a few more in the coming days.’
A tray slid out of the dash in front of Wilson. A handgun with a triangular cross-section barrel lay in a foamed recess.
‘That’s a Type 1 FaF pistol. Fire and Forget. If the target moves, the bullet follows. You can shoot round corners. No more mistakes.’
Wilson opened his fists, he hadn’t realised they were clenched. He pushed the tray back into the dash and placed his hands flat on his knees. ‘Tell me about Gould’s man.’
Brake lights flared ahead and the car slowed. Masters put her hands back on the wheel and changed lane.
‘He’s called “Manalito”, a radicalised first-nation Apache and known anti-white randomer. Prefers women, seven confirmed dead, twice that many suspected, and probably twice that again since he went to the Southern Littoral and became Mitchell Gould’s personal butcher. First-nation elders either vehemently disown him or deny he’s even Native American. We believe they’re right.’