“Justice must be done,” the man in the hat said. “And that’s why I’m here today. I’m here to escort you both into custody – if you’ll come willingly of course.”
Walker glanced up and down the road. Then he looked up at the streetlights, listening out for that familiar whirring and clicking noise that had been driving him crazy for the past six months.
“There are no cameras on you,” the stranger said to Walker. “Not here, not now. This meeting is entirely between us.”
“Bullshit,” Barboza said. “You film everything, don’t you? Bunch of voyeuristic motherfuckers. And if we’re such heinous bloody murderers then I’m sure the viewing public will be queuing up to see us in a pair of handcuffs. That’d be pretty good for the ratings, no?”
“Think about it,” the man in the hat said. “Think about what we’re talking about here. Do you really think this is fit for public consumption? I can assure you that this conversation is private.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Barboza said. “Because we’re not coming with you. You can go fuck yourself mate.”
“I would urge you to reconsider,” the man in the hat said. “This will be a dignified exit for you, off camera. A route has been prepared that will take us to a nearby helicopter and there are no active cameras on that route. You will simply vanish from the Future of London set and…”
“And?” Walker said. “Then what?”
“A trial of course,” the man in the hat said.
Walker glanced over the stranger’s shoulder. “Are you really alone?” he asked.
“I am. Except for the helicopter pilot.”
Walker caressed the blade of the axe with the tips of his fingers. He felt the faint, sticky sensation of dry blood.
“You think you’ll be able to take us?” Walker said. “Just you?”
“I was hoping to be able to persuade you,” the man in the hat said. “There is no need for anything else. No taking, as you put it. We are all civilised human beings and so much blood has been spilled already on this beautiful summer’s morning. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“You talk about civilised?” Barboza said. “Do you think it’s civilised, what you do to the people in here? Filming them without them knowing.”
The man in the hat was looking at Walker. He didn’t appear to hear Barboza’s question or he simply chose not to answer.
“What if we say no?” Walker said. “Then what?”
“You walk away,” said the man in the hat. “I can’t stop you. But you must know that if you choose to do so, we will come back. And we’ll come back with something more forceful than just words. I can’t guarantee either that your final moments in this world won’t be captured on camera either. So you see, you have a choice to make. Choose a quiet, dignified exit now. Or face violent and exploitative consequences later. It’s up to you.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Walker said.
Barboza shook her head. “No,” she said. “We’re not coming with you.”
The man in the hat looked at her.
“Think very carefully my dear,” the man in the hat said. “Think very clearly about what you’re doing. You must think about your family.”
Barboza hesitated.
“What did you say?” she said.
“You’ve put our organisation in a very difficult situation,” the man said.
Walker thought that the man in the hat sounded like an adult scolding a naughty child, and one who enjoyed doing so.
“You were contracted by the casting director to perform a specific task here in London,” the man said to Barboza. “You were paid money to play a part and you violated that contract by attempting to sabotage our broadcast this morning. Isn’t that so?”
“Sabotage your broadcast?” Walker said. “She told me the truth.”
The man in the hat ignored Walker.
“You don’t get it,” Barboza said. “You have no idea what it’s like living in this city for real, day after day. And neither did I. There are real people in this city you bastard. A fucking tiger tried to kill me this morning in Tottenham. A tiger! I didn’t hear the director yelling cut, did you? There was nobody there, waiting to escort me to my trailer. It was Walker who saved my life. And you expect me to keep lying to him? He was going crazy in here, you fucking creep.”
The man in the hat shook his head.
“This is a problem Sharon,” he said. “Your family and friends – don’t you think they’ll try to tell people that Sharon Freeman is a real person and that Cristiane Barboza is just a character? We’re already trying to persuade the public otherwise but the people who know you are a problem. We chose you because you had few contacts and those contacts could be trusted to keep quiet while you worked in London. But now that things have gone wrong, these people might have the urge to say something to someone about your true identity. And that’s bad for us.”
“It’s your problem,” Barboza said. “Leave my family alone.”
“It’s your problem too,” the man in the hat said. “Because of you, we’ve been very busy today, paying your loved ones a visit to ensure that nothing is said about your real identity. There are more visits to be made.”
“I swear to God,” she said. “If you touch my family or my friends, we’ll tell every living soul in this city that they’re being watched.” She looked at Walker. “Right?”
Walker nodded. “Right,” he said. “And that’s why you’re here today isn’t it mister?”
The man in the hat turned to Walker. “What do you mean by that?”
“Your biggest fear isn’t the people on the outside,” Walker said. “You can always distract them with a fresh dollop of bullshit. But in here it’s different. You don’t have that sort of control over the people in here. If people here knew that their lives were being exploited for the sake of crass entertainment – the shit would hit the fan, right? I can’t even imagine what would happen next.”
Walker saw a flicker of uncertainty in the stranger’s eyes.
“That wouldn’t be wise,” said the man in the hat.
“Have you got a gun by the way?” Walker said, taking a few steps closer to the man. Now they were almost within touching distance. As he spoke, Walker raised his axe up to about chest height, with the bloody blade pointing towards the man. “Because if you’ve got a gun, I’d pull it out and shoot us right now. That’s your safest bet.”
“I’m unarmed,” said the man in the hat, lifting his hands in the air. “I’m only here to offer you a way out that doesn’t involve violence. You will receive a fair trial and if you are pardoned, you will be free. I thought that would appeal to you but perhaps I overestimated your intelligence, Mr Apocalypse?”
“A fair trial?” Walker said. “By whose laws? We live in here – your rules don’t apply. The soldiers died inside the M25 and in here, that’s the end of it.”
“Who’s been feeding you for the last nine years Mr Apocalypse?” the man in the hat said. “Who provides electricity into this city? Clean water? You tell me you’re no longer part of our society but if it weren’t for that society you’d have died years ago. Isn’t it so?”
The man in the hat smiled.
“Tell me,” he said. “If you feel so aggrieved, then why haven’t you said anything to the cameras so far? You’ve been out walking in London for some time now, passing many cameras on the way. Why haven’t you told the viewers that Barboza is an actress? I can understand why your friend here wouldn’t say anything – she has her family to think of. Or perhaps she’s still too busy thinking about what she did to that poor young man this morning.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Barboza said.
“But what about you Mr Apocalypse?” the man in the hat said. “Why haven’t you said anything yet?”
Walker looked at the man with cold contempt. “I have something to do,” he said.
The other man’s eyes lit up. “Oh? Is that so?”
“Aye,” Walker said.
�
��And what is it you have to do?”
“None of your fucking business,” Walker said.
“But it is my business,” the man in the hat said. “The public have turned against you. Mr Apocalypse is no longer flavour of the month. The people want to see you brought in for the savage killing of these two young men. They want to see justice.”
There was a wicked glint in the man’s eye as he spoke.
“Did you know that one of those young men had a three-month old daughter?” he said, looking at Barboza. “I can’t recall which one. It might have been the same man whose throat you slit open earlier today.”
Barboza lunged at the man. But Walker had sensed that it was coming, sooner or later. He was ready. He got his arm in the way of Barboza’s progress, preventing her from getting her hands on the man.
“Fucking prick!” she yelled. She spat at his face, the gob missile falling short of its target.
Walker forced the enraged Barboza back with his left arm. With his other arm, he pointed the axe at the man in the hat.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Walker said. “We’re done.”
The man in the hat nodded. “Very well,” he said. “You’ve made your choice. You won’t come willingly and I can’t stop you leaving now. But I can make your life – whatever is left of it – extremely uncomfortable.”
“You won’t do anything,” Walker said. “Because we’re the ones with the upper hand. We’ve got your little TV show by the balls and if I see anything that looks weird, anything or anyone that reeks of your people then I’ll make sure that – before you get me – everyone in this city knows what’s going on. I swear to God, I’ll spread the word faster than you can blink.”
The stranger stared at Walker. Despite the heat of the day, the man’s ivory white skin was bone dry.
“Assuming we let you go,” the man said. “You truly have no intention of telling anyone?”
Walker lowered the axe – a little. “That’s not on my agenda,” he said. “And that’s all you need to know.”
“And when you have completed this task?” the man said. “What then?”
Walker shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.
That was the truth.
The man looked back and forth between Walker and Barboza. Walker guessed that he was pondering his next move – that perhaps he was debating an alternate option that hadn’t occurred to him until now.
“Very well,” the man said after a lengthy silence. “Perhaps the easiest thing would be just to let you go about your business. That is, as long as you’re sincere about saying nothing to anyone. But remember this Mr Apocalypse and Sharon Freeman – there are microphones everywhere in this city. You cannot speak of what we have spoken about here today.”
“What about my family?” Barboza said.
The man in the hat reached into the side pocket of his jacket and pulled out a sleek, narrow-bodied mobile phone. Using his thumb, he swiped upwards on the black screen. Then he stepped forward and pointed the phone at Barboza.
“No one will be harmed,” the man said, looking at the screen while adjusting the angle of the phone. “As long as they promise to keep quiet about your real identity. But if there are any leaks, I assure you my bosses will not be happy with those people.”
“What are you doing?” Barboza said, scowling at the man.
“Taking a photograph for your family,” said the man in the hat, slipping the phone back into his pocket. “And for your friends. With the time and date recorded on the phone, this will let them know that we have made contact and that we have spoken. I’ll tell them about our little deal. If they agree to play ball, everyone goes about their business as usual.”
The man in the hat looked at Walker.
“You do nothing, we do nothing,” he said. “We’ll call it a stalemate for now. Mr Apocalypse and Cristiane Barboza will be outlaws on the run in London. They will be wanted for murder but as long as you stay quiet, you will never be captured. That’s the deal. The public will probably forget all about you but until they do, we’re going to have to trust one another to keep silent.”
“I’ll never trust you,” Barboza said. “And if anything happens to my family…”
“What choice do we have?” said the man in the hat. “But to trust?”
With that, he touched the tip of the fedora hat with his index finger and bowed without ever taking his eyes off the two fugitives. Then he turned his back to Walker and Barboza and casually strolled down the road, walking past a row of empty shops, a burned out solicitors office, towards a small road that cut off to the left.
Before he took that left turn, the stranger stopped and turned around. Now he was facing Walker and Barboza once again. He took off his hat, revealing a white, cue ball shaped head, completely devoid of hair. The sun beat down hard upon his face, turning it so white that he barely looked human.
“Oh I almost forgot,” he said, that wicked grin back on his face. “Good luck tonight my young assassins. You’re going to need it.”
Chapter 2
The Future of London – A Special Announcement
July 12th 2020
VOICEOVER: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. We’d like to briefly interrupt all of our live streams across the Future of London network to bring you this special announcement from our CEO, Rudyard Campbell.
Cut to Campbell.
The Texan media mogul is standing in a TV studio, staring intently at the camera. There’s a strained expression on his face that gives the seventy-seven year old Campbell the impression of being even older. His grim countenance is at odds with the studio background; the bright, hip colours, the half-circle shaped couch, but above all, the large and still blinking map of London that dominates the set. This is the ‘Calling London’ studio and it’s a particularly noteworthy location, considering that the hosts of that particular FOL companion show – Georgia Perkins and Johnny Castle – along with many others, were killed just hours earlier in an attack on the M25 by the Good and Honest Citizens.
Campbell straightens his tie as the camera slowly zooms in.
RUDYARD CAMPBELL:
My dear friends, tonight is the night. The Ghosts of London will climb out of the Hole and make their way north for the Big Chase.
To the people of North London, even though they can’t hear us, we say this – our thoughts and prayers are with you.
And to you, the viewers, we understand that this isn’t for everyone. In light of what has already happened today at the M25, who really wants to see any more bloodshed? We at the Future of London will broadcast what happens tonight, but only out of our ongoing commitment to showing you the truth. That is what we promised to do when we launched this channel earlier this year – to tell you the truth. It would be wrong only to show you certain things and omit others. To do this is to lie to our audience and we won’t lie to you. We understand if you cannot watch tonight’s events – but we will broadcast them.
I repeat. The Ghosts are coming north. To the people of London, I say this – hide, hope and pray for the sun to rise.
God Bless.
Chapter 3
Walker and Barboza continued along the A105.
The streets here were narrow and claustrophobic. On either side of the road, abandoned or destroyed shop fronts reminded Walker of the kind of things he’d forgotten had existed. He walked past all sorts of places, including a Chinese Medical Centre that – according to a poster that still barely clung to the wall – offered a variety of herbs and acupunctural treatments.
Walker caught himself looking over his shoulder more than once. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see or hear behind them. Perhaps the muted growl of an armoured vehicle in the distance? Was that so far-fetched? Somebody had to be chasing them considering what they’d just done. Walker envisioned the pack of armoured vehicles hot on their heels, with the man in the hat poking his head out of the hatch of the leading car, that devilish grin lighting up his face.
&
nbsp; “Walker!”
Barboza’s voice came out of nowhere. It was distant, like someone calling him out of a dream.
He looked at her. “What?”
“Why do you keep looking over your shoulder?” she said. “You’re making me nervous man. Even more nervous than I already am.”
“Sorry,” Walker said. “It’s just…”
“What?”
“That guy in the hat,” Walker said, fighting the urge to look behind him. “You don’t think he’s just going to back off and let us do our thing, do you? Knowing what we know?”
“Maybe,” Barboza said. “Maybe not. Maybe his best choice is to hope we stay quiet like we say we will. What they should have done is killed us back there when they had the cameras switched off. I’ll bet he only wanted us to go quietly so that they could have a public trial outside the M25 – more fucking headlines and sensationalism. The Mr Apocalypse trial! Dignified exit my arse. They’d probably hang us in a public square and sell tickets.”
“Aye,” Walker said.
“Yeah,” Barboza said, glancing up at the tall, black streetlights that lined their route for the foreseeable future. “But we’re not supposed to talk about it, remember?”
Walker nodded.
They walked in silence under the hot sun.
Walker looked up at the foreboding shape of the tall buildings in the distance – the concrete tower blocks that formed such an essential part of the skyline. Places that somebody had once called home. He was imagining what it was like to be inside the private dwellings within those gloomy monoliths – the corpses that were probably lying in the bedrooms up there, side by side, just like the ones he’d seen back on Stanmore Road.
He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else. Anything besides the smell of rotten corpses.
“Walker!”
The Future of London Box Set Page 39