by Terry Tyler
"But he'd heard of Unicorn?" says Phil.
Scott nods. "Yeah. That encouraged me, and I asked him if he'd do something for me. I asked him to send you an email, and you'd think I'd just told him his favourite joke. Found it dead funny that I didn't know about there being no internet, no nothing. Well, then it all came out. I got him to sit down with me and tell me everything, exactly what was going on. I was to learn much more later, but not from Mick." He puts his hand up. "I'll get to that. But, yeah, he told me about the spread of the virus, the state of the country, everything. The staff at the hospital had been given the vaccination, but most of them had cleared off to be with their families. He only stayed because he hadn't got anywhere else to go; no family, and his mates were all dead. And he didn't want the residents to starve to death." Scott bites his nail; he looks sad. "He was a good bloke, Mick."
"Couldn't he have let you out?"
"No. There were heavies downstairs. Military. Said they'd taken over the staff's facilities. I reckoned he didn't have much choice over whether or not he stayed, to be honest."
"Did you ask him why you were being kept under lock and key?"
"Course I did. He didn't know. So I pressed him about where he'd heard the name Unicorn before."
"And what did he say?" Scott kept pausing, and I could feel Phil's impatience; he was doing his best not to ask him to cut to the chase.
"It was a few days later. He came in, said he remembered where he'd heard it before. This girl who arrived around the time I did. Drop dead gorgeous, he said. Italian looking."
Kara and Phil looked at each other.
"Gia," whispered Kara.
"The very same. He said she was sedated, like me, but she'd been locked up on the third floor, which made him shake his head sadly, for reasons he wouldn't give me. When she woke up she kept muttering about a unicorn; he thought she was hallucinating."
"Did he know what happened to her?"
"I'll get to that in a bit."
"Okay." The tendons of Phil's neck were strained in his effort to be patient.
Scott looked around the table, frowning. "You've laid this for dinner. Were you just about to eat?"
"That's okay," Kara says. "We'll do that later. Unless you want something now?"
"No. No, not just yet. House I slept in had a tin of Fox's Chocolate Assortment and I've been eating them throughout the day! But could I have some of that brandy now, please?" He ran his fingers through his hair and yawned. "And I'd really like to sit somewhere comfortable, if I could."
"Sure."
We trooped through to the living room area, where Phil banked up the fire and lit more candles.
"Mum, I'm starving," Lottie hissed, as she sat down on the floor beside me.
"Go and get something, then. But sssh."
"Can I lie down here?" Scott asked, indicating the sofa on which Ozzy slept, with his sleeping bag rolled up at one end.
"Anywhere you like." Phil turned. "Oz, can you go and get wine for everyone? Or brandy, if they want."
"I'd take the brandy, if I were you," Scott said, as he lay down on the sofa. "You're going to need it."
Kara knelt down, taking Phil's hand. "Is Gia dead?"
"Yes. But that's not what you're going to need the brandy for."
"I knew everything was falling to bits, because the light didn't work sometimes, and the water was unreliable; Mick gave me candles and two extra duvets as the nights started to get colder, 'cause there was no heating, he gave me a bucket to flush the loo once a day, then it wouldn't flush at all and I just got a bucket, full stop. I suspected the place wasn't being run as a hospital any more. I heard gunshots and thought I saw smoke drifting my way; can you imagine how scared I was? I smelt a bad smell when the fires burned, so I asked Mick; he said they were executing the psychos and nutters. His words, not mine, I hasten to add. Burning the bodies."
The poor chap; he starts to cry. Kara dashes forth with a piece of kitchen roll, and I'm impressed that he doesn't apologise for his tears. They make my eyes water too; I look around, and the others are similarly affected.
He stops, sniffs, and wipes his eyes. "Every day I said to him, this is fucking stupid, why am I still locked up? But Mick said his guv'nor hadn't had orders to release me; this guy, whoever he was, said that until he had, it was more than his life was worth to let prisoners of the state go free. He laughed at that, Mick did; he said, 'What you been doing, pal?' He had no idea about any of it, he was just there to do what he was told." His lip quivers. "He wasn't that sharp, Mick, but he was a good bloke."
"Then he began to bring booze up to share with me. He got drunk, I didn't have more than the odd glass. I didn't dare. He was lonely, just wanted someone to talk to. Mostly, we'd discuss video games and films, and I'd tell him about my moments of hacking glory. He said, several times, that they called me 'The Hacker'. He said lots of things several times, my mate Mick. I didn't mind, though."
He looks sad.
"So, yeah, I still had no idea if I was ever getting out. Until yesterday lunch time, that is. I was sitting on my bed, re-reading one of the wartime action adventures and eating boiled rice with tinned sweetcorn, when Mick comes in. 'Guv'nor says you can go,' he announces, just like that. I quote: 'he says he couldn't give a shit any more, he's not spending his days babysitting a load of idiots for the wankers who left him behind'."
"Yesterday?" Kara says. "Why didn't you come straight here?"
He levers himself into a sitting position. "Because by the time I left I was drunk, it was dark, and I didn't dare drive all the way. I'm getting to that. And before I left I wanted answers. I'd been sitting in that room for over four fucking months, and I wanted to know why. I wanted to know what happened to Gia, so I could tell her family if I ever got to see them, I wanted to know if they'd taken Jeff, Dex, Naomi—"
My heart lurches. "Had they? Did you find out anything?"
He smiles at me, kindly, and shakes his head. "I'm sorry, no. Which is good, as far as I'm concerned. When we all decided to make ourselves scarce, the three of them were going to Jeff's bunker."
My eyes meet Kara's.
"That's where he is, then," she says, softly.
Scott nods. "Probably, seeing as it's safer than a safe house."
My heart leaps, then sinks back further. So if Dex is alive, he's with Naomi. He must be, or he'd have come here. I don't understand. Why did he leave that note about getting to the safe house, if he had no intention of turning up, if he was planning to go off with her? Was it just guilt? I think back to that last day, the last day I saw him. The way he held me, told me he loved me. It didn't make sense.
I look up, and see Scott studying me; when our eyes meet he gives me a sad, slightly embarrassed, half smile. I suppose Dex and Naomi's relationship was common knowledge between them all.
He turns back to Phil.
"Where was I? Oh yeah, right. Well, I said to Mick, 'I want see the man in charge'." He points his finger as though Mick's standing in front of him. "I said, 'You get me in to see him before I leave; I need answers'. So that was what happened. I packed up my things and followed Mick downstairs. Up on that second floor the place was dead shabby, but it got more luxurious the closer you got to the front of the building. Public face and all that, I suppose. So, I waited in this plush waiting room, and eventually I was shown in to see Major Charles Ridgeway." He shakes his head, staring at the floor. "And what I found out will blow your fucking minds."
He sits back, staring at the ceiling, the back of his hand on his forehead.
The silence is broken only by Ozzy topping up everyone's drinks.
"Take your time," Phil says.
Scott takes off his glasses, wiping the lenses on his jumper again. "I will." He sighs. "We've got plenty of that, now, haven't we?" He puts his glasses back on, wrinkling his nose and eyebrows as if adjusting to the lenses. "Gather round, children." He takes a sip of his brandy. "It's story time."
Chapter Twenty-one
; Project Renova
The waiting room was like a small drawing room in a stately home, with a glowing fire, oil paintings on the walls and luxurious rugs, but Scott scarcely noticed his surroundings. He stood behind the door, straining to hear Mick's hesitant, Geordie-accented mumble as he put forward Scott's request to whoever was in the room across the hall.
He couldn't hear the big man's exact words, but another voice boomed out, loud and clear.
"Answers? Fine, fine, he can have some answers!" The mystery man sounded drunk. "I'll tell him anything he fucking likes. None of it fucking matters now, does it?" Drunk, and the sort of upper class drawl Scott had only heard on the television. Nobody he knew spoke like that. It was the voice of old money, of confidence and unquestioned authority.
"Bring the little bastard in, Michael. What the hell, I could do with somebody new to talk to."
Scott peeped out and Mick emerged, wiping his hands on his baggy, cotton trousers; that his audience with the mysterious drunk had been nerve-wracking was written across his sweaty brow.
"Major Ridgeway will see you now."
Scott put his hand on Mick's shoulder in a show of thanks, and mentally flexed his modest biceps. Should he knock? No—to do so would imply that he considered this Major Ridgeway his superior. He was his gaoler, that was all, who'd locked him away without a trial.
The carpet in the office was as luxurious as that of the waiting room. Now, though, the red, blue and gold pattern was ruined by the prints of a hundred pairs of mucky boots making their way to the chair opposite Major Charles Ridgeway, where he lounged, in full khaki, his own shiny boots resting on the desk.
A log fire blazed in the hearth, and the haughty, angular face beneath the inky black hair and black moustache was ruddy, sweating. On the desk stood a variety of bottles: Glenmorangie, Isle of Jura, Bunnahabhain, Ardbeg. Ridgeway drank from a crystal tumbler which he cradled to his chest; he thrust it down on the leather blotter and gestured with extravagance as Mick showed Scott in.
"Bring our friend a glass! In the cabinet, in the cabinet, Michael, where do you think they're kept? Yes. Over here. No, don't hang around; off you go and mop some floors, or something."
He poured out Glenmorangie for Scott without asking if he wanted it.
"Drink. It's good."
Scott drank. It was.
"So, you've got questions for me, have you?" He sniffed, and topped up his glass from the almost empty bottle of Ardbeg single malt. "I'm intrigued. Why? Why aren't you already on your way? If I was offered a free pass out of this place I'd run for the fucking hills."
Scott shivered, despite the heat of the room. "I want to know what's happened to my friends. And why I've been kept locked up for so long." He heard the effects of the last few months in his voice; damn it, he mustn't show weakness. "I have a right to know. Last time I looked, it was a free country."
Ridgeway smiled, and flicked imaginary dust off his lapel. "It's free if you do what you're told, sonny; less so if you dick around in anti-government organisations, and hack into the private files of large corporations. Or whatever it was you were poking your spotty little nose into; I'm buggered if I can remember what everyone was getting their knickers in a twist about now." His thick, dark eyebrows assumed an exaggerated frown, his finger directed at Scott's face. "It's treason, my son. Treason. The Tower for you, boy!" Then he flopped back into his seat. "As if I give two flying fucks. I should be sunning myself on the veranda of the golf club bar on Logan Island by now, not stuck in this shit hole." He stared into his drink, his expression morose. "Bastards. The course is said to be the best in the southern hemisphere, but who gets left here to mind the kindergarten? Major Charles-fucking-Ridgeway, that's who."
Scott took another sip of whisky. "So, can you tell me why I'm here?"
"Because you're a hacker par excellence, I hear. At least, I think that was why; aside from that little club of yours being a threat to national security, something was said about your skills being useful. Someone terribly important was supposed to be coming to see you, but of course they never did, because Patient Zero, as I believe he is called—and whoever he may be—turned up three months early, and anybody who's anybody has been shipped out of this hell hole. Except that the bastards forgot to make a stop in fucking Northumberland and pick me up." Droplets of whisky flew out of his glass as he slammed it down. "Big change of plans, oh yes. Major Charles Ridgeway must stay and keep the troops in order." He beat his fist on the desk, and saluted. "Yes, sir!"
A wave of weariness and desperation to be alone overwhelmed Scott. "Can you tell me what happened to Gia? She was brought in the same time as me."
Ridgeway lifted his legs from the table and sprawled over it. He swivelled his glass round in his hand so the sharp edges of the crystal caught the light from the fire. "Oh yes, Gia. Real name Fabrizia Lewis. The comely part-Italian wench, about whom one of my men commented, 'I'd even fuck her if she had syph'. Alas, she was revealing state secrets, so she had to go." He set his glass down, clenched his fists, then sprang them open. "Poof! Gone."
"How?" Scott's eyes fill with tears. "How did they kill her?"
"No idea. Wasn't there. Fret ye not, it would've been quick. They usually do suicide with the younger ones; the heart attack story doesn't cut it when they're under forty, and car accidents can get messy. Happily, global disaster struck just in time; no explanations needed for la madre e il padre." He laughed. "Who I daresay are dead now, anyway, by the hands of the Men In Black, if not the flutter of the bat's wings. What larks, eh?" He sat back, and picked up the bottle of Ardbeg. "I bagsy what's left in this. You can have the Glenmorangie. That's if you're staying. Now you've got your answers, I mean. You can stay if you like. You have a certain schoolboy charm, though you're a little skinny for me."
"I haven't." Scott looked out of the window. The afternoon was fading, the sun throwing diagonal beams of yellow light, fading to orange, beneath the clouds. "I mean, I haven't got my answers." He didn't feel intimidated by the Major any more; he seemed like a sorry shell of a man, so drunk that Scott was sure he could fight him off if he had to, or at least run. "I want to know everything. If you know whether my other friends are safe, but not just that. I want to know what Gia knew that got her killed."
Ridgeway sat back. "Why would I tell you that?"
Scott braved a smile. "Why not? You're stuck here, as you say. If it's the end of everything, what does it matter?"
"Oh, it's not the end, but you're right, my old chum. It really doesn't matter." He narrowed bloodshot eyes. "It all went tits up, as they say, and it's not like you and your pals can swamp the internet with your articles any more, is it? I read one or two of them after they brought you in. They laboured various points a tad, but were not without insight, I have to admit." The glass was emptied down his throat, and refilled. "Okay, let's have a smoke, shall we?" The ebony cigarette box fell to the floor as he selected one. "Where's the fucking lighter?" Glazed eyes searched the table, hands scattered papers.
"Here." Scott reached down and picked up the box, and leant forward with the zippo he'd spotted by the whisky bottles.
"Cheers." Ridgeway lit the end with some difficulty, and took a long drag. "Never can find fuck all when I've had a drink. Can't see fuck all, lately, either. Go and light some of those candles, would you? Come on, chop, chop. And that oil lamp. Can't stand sitting here in the dark, it's so fucking depressing, but we're on power rations, as you may have noticed. Fuel's getting low, no electric light until seven pm. And chuck a log or two on the fire."
The room looked instantly more inviting, and Scott felt his soul warmed by the light from the candles and lamp, the glow of the flames.
"My friends." He sat back down. "Jeff Finch, Dexter Northam, Naomi Phillips. From Unicorn. D'you know where they are?"
Smoke billowed into the air. "Not a clue, chum, sorry. Never had the pleasure."
The lack of interest in his voice told Scott he was telling the truth. "So tell me the rest."
"What rest?"
"Everything." He leant forward and poured them both drinks, emptying the Major's chosen bottle into his glass.
"Oh, oh, I see, you're trying to get me drunk so I'll reveal the master plan, aren't you, you naughty little scallywag?" Ridgeway wagged his finger at him. "What the fuck, I couldn't give a shit. I'll spill the haricots, and the pintos too; serve 'em right for leaving me to rot."
"What master plan?"
Ridgeway yawned. "Now, now, don't rush me, young man. You realise I'm drunk in charge of national security, here?"
Scott sat back, assailed with weariness. "Just get on with it. Is the disease global?"
Ridgeway sniffed. "More or less. Europe's one big nasty hotbed of disease. Pockets here and there remain untouched, mostly in the area of Australasia, Indonesia, Polynesia, the Windward Islands, which is where everyone who matters has buggered off to, the jammy bastards, leaving poor saps like me here to hold the baby. It's contained in areas of the Western US and some of Canada, but of course such containment is neither reliable nor necessarily permanent. Then there's Siberia, but who the fuck wants to go there?" He laughed, and raised his glass in the air. "To French Polynesia, and all who lounge upon her! Not Micronesia, though. Marshall Islands are radioactive hell holes."
Scott swallowed, and took a large gulp of whisky. "The virus. Was it real, or was it—"
Ridgeway rolled his eyes, as though he'd answered the question a hundred times before. " man-made? Yes, of course it was. You clever little sods had already worked that one out, hadn't you?"
Outside, the sun slipped over the horizon; a sensation of finality crept over Scott, as if he and Major Ridgeway were the last people on earth, sitting in that cosy, warm room, drinking whisky as the sun went down on the human race.