The Tourist

by Robert Dickinson

  “Not all of them, Tunnel Boy. It turns out our girl has a connection to one of the signatories of the original manifesto, one of the ones who never travelled.”

  I sit up. This is possibly relevant. “I thought they all travelled.”

  “Some were caught while they were still setting the controls. They were planning to reach early-21st Europe.”

  “Do we know why?” It sounds unlikely. The Anachronists were supposed to be keen on Big History: assassinations (William the Silent, Bobby Kennedy), even, supposedly, the crucifixion of Jesus. (So far nobody’s travelled back further than the 14th, and that was just to see if it was possible. There’s nothing of much use to us before then.) The early 21st is an unlikely choice for an Anachronist. Apart from us declaring our presence, nothing significant happens. That’s why it’s a popular Tri-Millennium destination. “What were they looking for?”

  “If I had access to the records I could tell you. There is only so much information they let us have.” Hayek sounds as if, for the first time, he’s beginning to resent this arrangement. “However, I’m still in contact with Geneva. They may be able to provide more information.”

  “Do you think they’ll tell us anything?”

  “If it was about drugs, no. If it was about a missing tourist, no. If it’s about old history like the Anachronists then maybe.”

  “Good luck.”

  “If you want to do something before then,” Hayek says casually, “I can tell you Justin Bayer’s address.”

  “Why? Do you want me to damage his car?”

  “You could ask him why he damaged yours.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “More of a suggestion, Tunnel Boy.” He bips me the address. “It’s three streets from where you live.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It exists even so.”

  After which I’m in no mood to listen to music. First it was follow our client, then question an extemp. Now I’m being asked to talk to a native. Whatever Hayek says, it’s an order, except one I’m supposed to choose to follow. Agency.

  I will choose to follow it. Justin Bayer damaged my car. It felt personal. I want to know why.

  I wonder if he has a machete.

  Edda bips me. She’s waiting outside a cathedral. Her party of tourists are inside, amazed at how small it is and mixing up their civil wars. According to Li it’s how clients usually spend time in cathedrals. We agree to meet in Bar Five. If it’s busy—or if Ivan shows up—we can move to that dead place round the corner.

  At least I know what I’m doing this evening. It gives me a tiny sense of agency.

  Erquist, who’s noticed my mood, hasn’t assigned me any rep duties for the rest of the day so I spend an hour in the gym in Entertainment Area One. Resort gyms are the traditional place for reps to prey on the younger clients. I’m not in the mood. I spend my hour in the back room pounding an Auto Combat. It’s satisfying and unsatisfying at the same time. The machine remembers your last session and tells you how much progress you’ve made (none, in my case). This detracts from the brute pleasure of hitting a heavily padded machine and trying to avoid it when it hits back. I set it at Level Three, the hardest I can manage. (At Level Four it taunts you; at Level Five it tells you how it will beat you and alerts the medical area in advance. Only the mad—Safeties, ex-Millies—use Level Five.) After an hour of punching and occasionally being punched I’m bruised and exhausted but there’s no catharsis. And there’s no word from Hayek. I let Erquist know I’m leaving and go to see Justin Bayer.

  My apartment’s in a house built in the 19th. We lease the older houses because they have larger rooms and, importantly, higher ceilings. Justin Bayer’s block dates back to the later 20th, when builders seemed to think people were getting shorter. It has an external staircase, so I don’t have to identify myself before I reach his door. The stairwell is as fetid as I’ve come to expect. The 21st has working sewers but the natives will still piss in any enclosed public space. They’ve written on the walls as well: the names they wish they’d been given, libels about their neighbours. I wonder if these scrawled testaments were left by the children I saw waiting in the street on my way here. The style is childish enough.

  Justin’s apartment is one floor up. It’s a standardised, modular building, like a child-sized version of the structures at home. All the doors are the same colour. His is the third one along. To reach it I pass three identical windows giving views of three once-identical kitchens.

  There’s a button by the side of his door. I push it, producing a weak buzz that’s surely too faint for anyone inside to hear. I don’t expect him to be in. I wait anyway, just in case.

  The door opens. It’s not Justin, but another native, smaller and thinner than the one in the image Hayek extracted. As soon as he sees me he tries to close the door. I put my shoulder against it and hold my position. The door bounces open, and there’s the sound of somebody falling over. I step into the hallway. It’s narrow, only slightly wider than the door. I have to dip to avoid a hanging light bulb. “I’m looking for Justin Bayer,” I say to the person on the floor. I use This English. I doubt he speaks Modern.

  It’s a teenager, as far as I can tell. He crawls away, still on the floor. “He’s not here.”

  I give him time to get to his feet.

  “Jesus.” He retreats into one of the rooms. “Hulk smash. You’ve broken our door.”

  “It’s not broken.” I close it behind me. It shuts perfectly, despite the splintering around the hinges. “I just want to talk to Justin Bayer.”

  “He’s not here.” His voice is out of its usual register. He’s too scared not to be telling the truth. “I’ll call the police.”

  “Justin damaged my car. I’ve already told the police.”

  “That was his idea,” he says very quickly. “I didn’t want to do it. I like you people. I don’t have anything against you. I think you’re…” He can’t find the word he wants. “I mean, I’ve got nothing against you.”

  “Why did he do it?”

  “Because he does hate you.” He keeps moving backwards, one small step at a time as if he hopes I won’t notice. He’ll have to stop when he reaches the television, a big screen in the far corner. It’s switched off. That’s the first thing I notice about the room. The second is a bookcase. It’s small but full of books. This is unexpected. In the early 21st literacy usually depends on income. Poor people are supposed to watch entertainments and self-medicate.

  The next thing I notice is the furniture. Everything looks worn out. Even the television is last century.

  He stops when his back touches the screen. “Justin, man. He hates everybody.”

  “Why did he attack my car?”

  “I don’t know. Because you were the nearest?”

  I’m curious about the books. I read the spines, expecting to see swastikas. I don’t recognise any of the titles. 20th and early 21st isn’t really my period.

  He sees my curiosity. “We call them books,” he says. “I don’t suppose you have those.”

  “We have books.” Print survived the NEE better than electronic records and we were printing books long before we rebuilt the networks. The materials—rag paper and hemp—were easier to find. “Our time isn’t what you think,” I tell him. “Are these Justin’s?”

  “They were our dad’s. Now they’re mine. I’ve read everything here.” He sounds hurt. “Nearly everything. Justin—he started one book two years ago and hasn’t finished it yet. So what do you read?”

  “Just tell me about Justin.”

  He crouches on the edge of a grey sofa. “So what is this? Is this where you ask me questions, I answer them and you send me back to the Jurassic?”

  There’s another chair in the room: brown panels on a chrome frame. It looks fragile. I remain standing. “I won’t send you anywhere. I’m just a travel rep.”

  “Jesus,” he says. “I’d hate to see the fucking police. Whatever. It’s still weird. I’ve
never spoken to one of you before.”

  “We’re not so different from you.”

  “Yes, you are.” He snorts. “Can I take a picture? Just to prove you were here.”

  “Don’t, please. I came to talk to Justin. I want to ask him why he damaged my car.”

  “I told you. Because he hates you. Not you personally. You people.”

  “Why does he hate us?”

  He snorts again. “How long have you got?” I’m not given a chance to answer. He rattles off a list: “He hates you because he thinks you think you’re better than us. Because you’re rich. Because he thinks all the gold you carry around is our gold. Because he’s scared of what’s happening in Geneva. Because he can’t work out if you’re white or Asian or what. I mean, does it even matter where you come from? Because you won’t let us into your domes or tell us what’s going to happen.” As he talks he relaxes, his voice sinking to its natural register. “Because he thinks you’re freaks. That squad in Mexico—were they even human? And, really, that’s just the start.”

  There’s nothing I haven’t heard before. All it tells me is that his brother reads DomeWatch or talks to people who do. “So what made him do it now?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think they’re that well organised. He’s known about you for weeks. Maybe he couldn’t hold back any longer. Maybe it was the first time he saw you had something he could damage. How long have you had the car?”

  “Did somebody tell him to do it?”

  “You mean, did he receive orders?” He laughs, as if the idea is ridiculous. “No offence, it doesn’t work like that. Look, he talks to people. Social media. They encourage each other. He might have read something. He might have thought, you know: This time they’ve gone too far. And, like I said, you were the nearest.”

  “So he was watching me?”

  “I wouldn’t say watching. But he knew about you. I mean, you stand out. Look at you.”

  “The people he talks to, who are they?”

  “I thought you’d know. Aren’t we history to you? Can’t you look it up?”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “How does it work? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking, why are you here?”

  “Because your brother vandalised my car.”

  “No. Why are you here, in this century, now? Why do you people keep coming back? What’s so great about us?”

  “People are curious about the past.” It’s a bland answer, but I don’t want to mention Material Acquisitions or the NEE. “Your people visit museums. It’s the same with us.”

  “So we’re a museum to you? Thanks. But is that all? I mean, what you do can’t be cheap. Those domes. They’re too big just for a few tourists. I thought you’d be living on Mars rather than coming here.”

  Mars! I should know more about 21st aspirations. “People want to see something they feel a connection with.” There’s nothing on Mars we want. It’s emptier than the 14th. “What else can you tell me about these people?”

  “Not much. I don’t know who Justin talks to. They use code names. You should hear them. Snow White, Happy Diggers, Sleeping Beauty. For a while I thought he was talking about drugs, but he’s always been funny about those. I don’t know if they’re people or things they’ve got planned or what. His laptop’s in his room. Can’t you copy his files or something?”

  “Not quite.” With the right connection I could load them onto my handheld and read them on my own laptop. But I don’t have the right connection. The code names don’t tell me anything: Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are children’s stories and I’ve never heard of the Happy Diggers. “Can you show me his laptop?”

  “No. He keeps everything in the cloud.” The cloud. I remind myself it means something different here. When we hear the words the first thing we think of is a sixty-kilometre-wide toxic weather front. Our parents grew up in its shadow, sometimes literally. When the Cloud arrived you sealed all the doors and stayed inside until it was safe to inspect the damage. If an entertainment set in the past wants to add drama they’ll usually have a character run in and shout, “The Cloud! The Cloud!” When I left it was somewhere over the South Atlantic and not expected back. In the 21st the same word means all the information that will be lost. “I don’t know his password. He uses at least three. He’s paranoid. He doesn’t trust anybody.”

  “He took you with him when he damaged my car.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t trust me. He wanted me to be involved. So I wouldn’t talk.” He laughs again. He seems amused by his own thoughts. Or it’s terror. “I mean, I’m talking to you. But I wouldn’t talk to the police. No, actually I would. If I thought he wouldn’t find out. I’d tell them like a shot.”

  “These people he talk to, who are they?”

  “I don’t know their names. It’s all codes. ‘This is Grumpy5,’ like it’s a big conspiracy. They’re probably all EPP.”

  “Who?”

  “Do you know, like, anything? You must have heard of them.” He spells it out. “English People’s Party. He used to be a member.”

  “Are they connected to the German–Hellenic Society?”

  He smiles, but doesn’t laugh this time. “I’ve never heard of that. The EPP were politics, sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “They have one idea. They hate you. Sorry to break it to you, but you people are not exactly popular. Especially round here. I’ve got nothing against you, but you should be careful. It’s building up.”

  “What is?”

  “Everything.” He’s confident now, playing out a scene from an entertainment: the truth teller and the official who doesn’t realise what’s happening. “It’s not just people like my brother. The March for Humanity? You must have heard of that. It’s proper politicians. They’re starting to get involved.”

  This sounds unlikely: politicians with actual power are the last ones to make trouble. “Tell your brother we’re watching him.”

  “That’s why we don’t like you. You think you can control everything. You think you’re the only people who matter.”

  “Tell him.”

  I let myself out.

  Hayek bips me. “That was your worst interrogation so far.”

  “It wasn’t an interrogation.” I’ve held my breath as I descend the stairwell and gasp as I come out to the open air. A group of native children are sitting on the wall. They watch as I walk past. You people are not exactly popular. “Aren’t you supposed to warn me when you’re listening?”

  “When you load Safety functions onto personal tech you give me permission.” Hayek is nonchalant. “Implicitly. Besides, you were asking questions at my request. It would have been irresponsible of me not to listen.”

  “He didn’t know anything.”

  “He could have told you more, Tunnel Boy.”

  “Would it have helped?”

  “Are you asking me to evaluate information you didn’t obtain?”

  A click, and he’s gone. I take the handheld from my pocket and turn it off. It’s a gesture. Hayek can turn it on again when he chooses and I don’t want to miss any messages from Li or Edda. I turn it back on.

  What I’ve learned is more about mood than information. Justin’s brother thought something was coming and Justin probably thought the same thing more fervently. It doesn’t mean anything is going to happen. People without power often look forward to a reckoning—a disaster, a revolution, the return of their gods, a levelling event that will show the rest of the world they were right all along. But the vindication doesn’t happen, and goes on not happening until the NEE arrives, and nobody wanted that.

  In the meantime, while they wait, there’s politics, or what passes for politics in the English People’s Party. The big parties aren’t a problem. The small ones can damage your car. Back at home, while the television news shows people expressing their concerns about the African elections and floods in Central Europe and nobody mentions Metzger, I see if there’s anything about the
EPP on their internet. I expect to find something. In the early 21st there is no faction so small it doesn’t occupy some server space.

  The EPP has an official page. It’s bland, the politics-as-usual in this era—smiling men in suits, inoffensive slogans about caring passionately and putting England first. The only sign they’re cranks is the link to DomeWatch. Another link which says “Latest News” leads to a blank page. I’m not going to learn anything about the EPP from the EPP.

  But they’ve attracted some attention. Another site, put up by people who don’t like them, has a brief history: they’re a fraction of a fraction of another small party, who broke away because the other group didn’t recognise the threat we posed to the English way of life and Western Civilisation. The EPP aren’t just a typical hate-all-outsiders group: the outsiders they hate are us.

  Still, I’m intrigued. How big is this group? If it’s Justin and a few friends it won’t matter. If it’s popular it’s something we should know about. Geneva should be told. They have resources Hayek can only dream of. They’ll find Justin’s passwords and analyse every message he ever sends or receives.

  I remember the name Justin’s brother mentioned and type in Grumpy5. I find an online conversation between EPP members on an entertainment site. It’s part of a long sequence where natives discuss their favourite native actors; somehow three of the participants have recognised their shared beliefs and carried on exchanging messages long after everybody else has left. It begins with speculation about the possibility of making a film of something they call TWO (or two, or just 2) and then gets sidetracked: 1 come in my shop ystrdy. Wanted to smash his smug face. Answered by: They come in my place all the time. Can they spk English? Dont be stupid. It’s hard to follow: their spelling isn’t standard and they don’t punctuate. One of them comments: Shame cos wmn r hawt. Some things stand out: They are dstrying our country. We shd do something. Answered by: Have 2 b careful, frends with Govt. Russians best bet. More independent.

  But Russian films r shit.

  Its a Russian story.

  Still shit films.