Early Riser_The new standalone novel from the Number One bestselling author

by Jasper Fforde

  Foulnap instructed me to start her up and drive her out so I climbed in, my shock-suit more restricting than cumbersome. I hadn’t actually wanted to wear the one functioning suit, but Foulnap argued that since I was the most valuable, I should be the one inside it.

  I settled into the Griffin, switched on the electrical systems, then pressed the air start and the engine hissed into life. Once Foulnap had opened and closed the double shock-doors, he joined me in the cab. It was now pitch black outside. The on-board anemometer registered gusts of sixty; the temperature was at minus forty, the only view from the headlights a bank of constantly moving snow.

  I drove out through the wrought-iron gates and crept up the road, around the bridge, then past the Cambrensis – all courtesy of the topography revealed on the H4S screen. There was even a radar return from Hooke’s abandoned Sno-Trac, a good deal farther on than where I’d guessed, but no sign whatever of the Gronk. While I navigated beyond the Cambrensis and towards the Sarah Siddons at a slow crawl, Foulnap sat beside me, his eyes fixed on the glowing green dots of the H4S, refreshed and updated by every sweep of the scanner.

  ‘So,’ I said, unable to keep quiet lest my nerves actually snapped with an audible twang, ‘who’s the current Kiki now Logan’s dead?’

  ‘It’s safer not to know,’ he said, ‘with the threat of Aurora and her interrogative use of Dreamspace. Webster worked to Logan’s instructions but never knew who he was, so couldn’t give him up. Hold it here.’

  I pulled up and Foulnap pointed to a cluster of returns on the H4S.

  ‘We’re about forty yards behind another Sno-Trac. They’re waiting for us on the corner near the billboard.’

  ‘Can’t they see us if we can see them?’

  ‘With a bit of luck they’ll think we’re a friendly; I’m squawking a HiberTech ident on the IFF.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘Just boring techy stuff,’63 he said, making for the rear door. ‘I’m going to look for Toccata. If I’m not back in twenty minutes, assume own initiative—’

  He’d stopped talking because in front of us there was a soft glow of orange light from within the snowstorm.

  ‘Cancel that,’ said Foulnap, ‘I think we’ve just found her.’

  The snow was instantly cleared from the air, revealing a flaming Sno-Trac, the fire burning in concentric rings as the fuel mixture in the compressed parts of the torus ignited more brightly. It was a spectacle that was both beautiful and alarming – and short lived. For a fleeting glimpse I saw Toccata holding a Schtumperschreck twenty feet in front of us, and then, once the pressure had equalised, the water condensed back into ice and all was dark once more.

  Within a few minutes the rear door opened and Toccata jumped in.

  ‘Raising overkill to an art form?’ asked Foulnap.

  ‘As dead as the Winter and good luck to them,’ she said with a look that seemed mildly unhinged. ‘It was payback for Jonesy. Actually, no, that was just the interest on the payback for Jonesy. Open Network says it was Hooke and a HiberTech newbie who killed her.’

  ‘The newbie died,’ I said, suddenly thinking that Lucy didn’t have to be named again, not ever.

  ‘Good,’ said Toccata. ‘Where’s Hooke now?’

  ‘Taken by the Gronk,’ I said. ‘He was … unworthy.’

  She stared at me for a moment.

  ‘If you say so. Now, Hugo,’ she began, reloading the massive weapon with a thermalite the size of a baked-bean tin, ‘where are we headed?’

  ‘The Siddons,’ he said, ‘to pick up a Somnagraph from room 902.’

  ‘Game on. Will Aurora be there?’

  ‘I can almost guarantee not.’

  Within fifteen minutes we were parked just short of the Siddons by about ten yards. Foulnap went out first into the blizzard, trailing a safety line, and we both followed and caught up with him outside the Dormitorium. We all entered the lobby one by one, weapons at the ready. I had my Bambi, but also a Cowpuncher slung around my shoulder, which every single training manual ever written said shouldn’t be discharged indoors unless ‘there was absolutely no alternative’.

  The windows had been hastily repaired with layers of canvas and pieces of wood, but they still rattled and shook with the buffeting of the wind. The Winterlounge looked empty, and we could see Laura Strowger sitting behind the desk in the porter’s lodge.

  ‘I’m sorry about Jonesy,’ said Laura to Toccata. ‘I gathered up what I could find of her and put it all in the cold store. These were her personal things. Her Silver Storks and stuff.’

  She gave Toccata a clear plastic bag. Toccata took it without speaking and shoved the bundle into her jacket.

  ‘They took Birgitta to HiberTech,’ said Laura, ‘and Lloyd said he was going to take a … walk outside. He was only in his shirt sleeves so I don’t think he’s coming back.’

  He must have known about the abuses happening on the ninth floor. He probably tipped off Hooke, too. Perhaps the Cold Way Out was the best thing for him.

  ‘Is there anyone from HiberTech still in the building?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Laura, ‘but I expect so – be careful.’

  ‘You stay in the lobby,’ said Foulnap to Toccata. ‘Charlie, with me.’

  Toccata nodded, then moved back into a defensive position where she could control all possible entrances to the lobby.

  ‘Here,’ I said, handing Laura the Instamatic camera, ‘I think I might have got something.’

  ‘Such as?’

  I showed her my missing little finger.64

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘right.’

  I then ran up the stairs after Foulnap.

  ‘Does Toccata really eat nightwalkers with mint sauce?’ I asked as we reached the first landing and started towards the second.

  ‘No, that’s just a story she puts around to intimidate people.’

  ‘It works.’

  We made it to the ninth floor without encountering any HiberTech operatives, then padded silently along the corridor and stopped outside room 902. I carefully unlocked the door and let it swing open, half expecting an agent to be inside, but it was empty aside from the steamer trunk. Foulnap produced a large screwdriver from his coat and levered off the lock.

  The trunk was empty.

  It was too much to hope they’d leave something as valuable as a Somnagraph once they’d been rumbled.

  ‘That was disappointing,’ said Foulnap in a masterful display of understatement, and I asked him what the plan was now.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said in a dispirited fashion, ‘this was pretty much it. Default is to get all assets to a safe house and rethink the situation.’

  ‘You have a safe house?’

  ‘Actually, no,’ he said, ‘but it was high on my to-do list. To be honest, given the size and quantity of RealSleep’s assets right now, this steamer trunk would probably suffice. Let’s go.’

  I stayed in the room while he walked out into the corridor. He turned to me once there, opened his mouth to say something and was then blasted off his feet with a concussive thud that catapulted him off down the corridor and out of sight.

  There were HiberTech agents in the building. I stayed silent, flipped down my visor and powered up the shock-suit, which crackled as it inflated. I pulled out my Bambi, changed my mind and instead carefully removed the Cowpuncher from where it was hanging around my shoulders. I knelt down, flicked off the safety and aimed it at the open door.

  ‘Is that Worthing?’ came a voice. ‘I saw two people going in, so I know the room’s not empty.’

  ‘I’m in here,’ I confirmed.

  ‘Then best come out.’

  My hands tightened on the Puncher. I’d never fired a weapon at anyone, with either lethal or non-lethal intent. But I was ready to do so now.

  ‘I choose not to surrender,’ I said. ‘Do your worst.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  There was a pause and two puck-shaped pulse grenades rolled in. One went und
er the steamer trunk but the other described a languid circle in the middle of the floor before coming to rest. They would have been designed only to concuss and disorientate; they wanted me alive. If the shock-suit ever needed a test, this was it. The grenade detonated, but all I felt was a momentary sense of increased pressure on my body, like being softly squeezed by a large hand. Almost immediately a single figure – no one I recognised, but dressed in the HiberTech Security uniform – came running through the doorway. I didn’t hesitate for a moment and pulled the trigger. He was thrown backwards in the direction of the corridor behind, but as he passed through the door, the pressure wave that had carried him off also tried to get through the door, and had to accelerate rapidly to compress itself to fit through the aperture, then expanded with a devastatingly explosive effect on Foulnap’s assailant, along with a very audible pop.

  I wiped the drops of blood and tissue from the visor, then walked cautiously to the door and peered out. I stepped gingerly over the body parts that were strewn along the corridor to look at the man who I had known as Hugo Foulnap or Danny Pockets, although that too was probably an alias. He was quite dead, and looked utterly peaceful. I told him I was sorry for not listening to his sound advice back at the John Edward Jones, paused for a moment to dignify his departure, then trotted down the stairs to rejoin Toccata. Quite where this left us all, I wasn’t sure. No Foulnap, no Somnagraph, no plan, no Birgitta, nothing.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Toccata as soon as I was back down in the lobby. Laura, it seemed, had legged it for safety.

  ‘Foulnap’s dead,’ I replied.

  ‘That is definitely an arse.’

  ‘But I got the fella who killed him.’

  ‘An arse with a silver lining. What now?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’

  ‘I’m on a RealSleep need-to-know kind of deal – not sure why,’ she said, swinging the Schtumper back and forth, covering the main entrance, then the door to the basement, then the Winterlounge, ‘and I work only to Hugo or Jonesy’s orders. They’re both dead, so according to Hydra principles, that makes you the new Kiki. Congratulations. You’re now head of the Campaign for Real Sleep, with full control of all assets and supreme command of policy, both strategic and tactical. You’re also one of only two people ever sentenced to death in absentia by the Northern Fed’s Supreme Council. Consider yourself honoured they think you that important.’

  This took a moment or two to sink in.

  ‘Foulnap was Kiki?’

  ‘Yup, but don’t be too impressed. The size of RealSleep has been dwindling recently and I think you and me are now pretty much it. In the absence of any known command structure and my “need to know just follow orders” status, that makes you the big cheese.’

  I thought this might have been her quirky sense of humour, but she was deadly serious.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m qualified.’

  ‘If you can tell right from wrong and have a pulse, you’re qualified. And from what I’ve heard from Foulnap about you and Birgitta, you know right from wrong. I’m only sorry we didn’t know this earlier. You could have been on board all along instead of dancing around the periphery like a ninny.’

  My face fell.

  ‘You’re not going to bail, are you?’ she asked. ‘We’ve gone too far and lost too many and risked too much for that. Bringing down HiberTech and Aurora isn’t just a good idea, it’s a moral imperative. And,’ she added, ‘dealing with Aurora once and for all would be hugely enjoyable.’

  I thought about what Dr Gwynne and Foulnap had said about Aurora and Toccata’s inner conflict. They couldn’t play it out internally, so it was being played out here, in the real world.

  ‘No,’ I said, thinking of Birgitta and the other nightwalkers, ‘I’m not going to bail.’

  ‘There’s no uniform or medal or hat or anything to being Kiki,’ continued Toccata, ‘and if you and I get killed it’s entirely possible that no one will ever know you were Kiki. But I know, and I salute you for your fearlessness and steadfast adherence to duty.’

  And she dipped her head in respect.

  ‘I’ll … try not to let you down.’

  ‘It’s not me you don’t want to let down,’ she said, ‘but broader society – and all the nightwalkers murdered and parted out in the past. No pressure, mind. So,’ she added in a more upbeat tone, ‘what’s our next move, Chief?’

  It was kind of galling that the first time I was head of anything it would be a banned disruptionist organisation and carried a mandatory death sentence. If anything I’d hoped to work my way up to Desk Sergeant-Consul via Head of Records and the vehicle pool. But that was the thing about the Hydra principle: you could be zero to hero and back again in less time than it takes to blink.

  But oddly, I wasn’t panicking. I was actually thinking quite clearly. I could retrieve the cylinder, sure, but I didn’t have a Somnagraph and the Spring was a long way away. I could fall back and consider my next move, but that would give HiberTech more time to figure out their next move – and they had more and better minds on this than I.

  No, I’d have to go on the offensive right now, and hope that providence and a few aces up my sleeve would win the day. I took out my Bambi, flicked it to the lowest setting and pointed it at Toccata.

  ‘Wonky?’ she said. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘It’s … on a need-to-know basis.’

  She looked at me, then at the Bambi, then back to me.

  ‘Bring it on,’ she said, ‘you’re the Kiki.’

  I pulled the trigger and Toccata went over like a ninepin. It was an audacious plan, sure, but right now I didn’t see any alternative. I needed to get us both into HiberTech to meet them head on, and there was only one person who could get us there. I swiftly climbed out of the shock-suit and then stared at Toccata with a sense of morbid fascination as she changed from one person to the other. Her unseeing right eye moved violently around in its socket, then, after some jerks, a quivering foot and some swearing, her eyes swapped: the left eye became the unseeing eye, and her right popped open.

  ‘Charlie?’ said Aurora, sitting up and looking around. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘The Siddons,’ I said, feigning a quivering lip. ‘Thank goodness you’re here. Hugo Foulnap and his RealSleep nutjobs tried to kidnap me – I think they killed one of your agents up on the ninth.’ I gave out an award-winning sob. ‘You’ve got to help me.’

  ‘Everything’s all right now,’ she said in a soothing tone, taking my hand in hers. ‘I promise.’

  Orientation

  * * *

  ‘… The HiberTech facility was originally designed to alleviate the long-term suffering brought on by the occasional side effects of hibernation, before medical science began to get a handle on potential cures. Hibernational Narcosis sufferers constituted the majority of patients, and those with emaciatory muscle loss and calcium migration equal close second …’

  – HiberTech: A Short History, by Ronald Fudge

  It was lucky I did what I did when I did it. Six more HiberTech Security agents were through the door of the Siddons within a minute of Toccata turning into Aurora. She seemed curiously accepting of the fact that she was in different clothes in a strange place, but presumably she was used to this by now. While the HiberTech Security agents went up to the ninth floor to investigate, Aurora sat me down and quizzed me on what was going on.

  ‘Hooke and I were ambushed when he was taking me to safety at HiberTech,’ I explained, trying to make it all sound plausible. ‘He goes out in the Winter and vanishes, and I go to look for him and I find him, dead, but then I lose the line and make it to the – um – museum, and Danny Pockets is there, who is actually Hugo Foulnap, and he gives me all this bullshit about needing a cylinder and the dreams being projected into my head and we go to the Siddons because he’s convinced there’s a dream machine in 902 but then one of your agents killed Foulnap who is th
en killed in turn by … Toccata.’

  Aurora looked around nervously.

  ‘She’s here?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘she left just before you arrived.’

  Aurora frowned and her unseeing eye twisted and turned in its socket.

  ‘She keeps on doing that. Why does she keep on doing that?’

  The last part of her sentence she delivered in an angry, almost frightened tone, and she gripped my arm so tightly it was painful.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Toccata’s up to something,’ she continued. ‘She wants to bring me down. Why would she want to bring me down?’

  She glared at me dangerously.

  ‘I still don’t know.’

  She stared at me some more and then seemed to relax.

  ‘Tell me more about the cylinder that Foulnap mentioned.’

  ‘I don’t know anything. He didn’t elaborate.’

  One of her agents came downstairs and whispered in her ear.

  ‘So the Foulnap part of your story is correct,’ she said. ‘Do you know what he was doing in Sector Twelve? Something to do with RealSleep?’

  I decided to just play dumb.

  ‘That’s above my intellect and pay grade,’ I said simply, staring at my feet. ‘I’m just a stranded Novice with narcosis, having bizarre dreams that I’m remembering backwards.’

  She stared at me for a while longer.

  ‘Okay, then,’ she said, getting to her feet, ‘we’ll debrief more at our leisure. The job at HiberTech still stands. Light duties until the narcosis clears. Up for it?’

  I said I was, and after being checked for weapons I was ushered into a waiting Sno-Trac and driven across to HiberTech, the storm still raging, the small vehicle buffeted by a wind that on occasions seemed to blow in all directions at once. I sat in the back without a plan of any sort – I’d seen too many plans come to naught recently to have any hope that if I made one, all would be well. But if I’d learned anything from Logan, it was that plans often get in the way of a fast-moving incident-rich landscape, so better to have on-the-hoof flexibility – and objectives.