“It’s an interesting cultural artefact,” Li concedes. “The question is, do they know what’s happening or not?”
“Is there any point discussing this?” It seems like a good time to change the subject. I can see the argument getting heated on both sides. We don’t want to be the ones shouting in a native bar. If the natives are friends of Li they might understand Modern. “We don’t know why the bar burned down. I don’t know why my client went missing. Until we do, all this is mish talk.”
“So what’s your solution?” Li turns on me. “Keep quiet and let the grown-ups sort it out?”
“What else can we do?”
Li is fierce. “I don’t trust the grown-ups. What happened was an attack on us.”
“It might be what it feels like,” Jorge says. “But we don’t know that. Not yet. And if we speculate without information we’re as bad as DomeWatch.”
“Who are funded by Geneva,” Li says. “Think about it,” she adds when Jorge groans. “It’s a classic way of discrediting real concerns. Associate them with nonsense.”
“I read it this morning,” Edda says. “I think there’s a simpler explanation.”
“Edda’s right,” Jorge declares, as if he expects her to be grateful for his support. “The people here don’t need our help to generate nonsense. Domeheads, DomeWatch—we don’t have to tell them what to say. We corrupt them simply by being here.”
“Not all of them.”
“It doesn’t need to be all of them. It only takes a minority. The trouble with you, Li, is that because you know a few reasonable locals you underestimate how much the rest of them hate us. And I don’t blame them. Look at it from their perspective. Ten years ago they didn’t know we existed. They’re not yet used to us. Or they’re used to seeing us but only just beginning to realise what that means. Remember the protests in America? All those people who thought the world was going to end in their lifetime and they’d go to heaven? The second coming of Jesus? They can’t believe that now. Remember why we don’t go to the Middle East? We’re an awkward fact they can’t acknowledge. This March for Humanity?”
“It won’t happen,” Li says.
“It’ll happen. Enough of them hate us, and it needn’t be because of anything we do. The fact we exist is enough. The minority that don’t like us is going to have their march and make trouble. And your minority, Li, will be happy to sit back and watch.”
It’s annoying, but Jorge’s probably right. For all we tell clients the early 21st is advanced and sophisticated, the people will still turn into a mob if they’re given the right enemies. The Justin Bayers may be one in a thousand, but a dozen others will join in readily enough, and the rest won’t try to stop them.
“Geneva,” Li begins but doesn’t finish. She’s realised Jorge is just trying to impress Edda and isn’t going to be swayed by arguments. “All I’m saying is there’s more going on than we think.”
“I don’t know,” Jorge can’t let her have the last word. “In your case, Li, there’s probably less going on than you think. Spens is right,” he adds reluctantly. “All we can do is wait.”
“Speculation helps,” Edda says. “We can’t talk in front of clients.”
“Perhaps we should.” Li softens her tone. “They’re not children. Has anybody else been asked to report on people’s opinions? Ban asked me this afternoon.” Ban is their version of Erquist. According to Li his management style is based on appeals to pity. “When I refused he started crying.”
“He asked me.” Jorge looks dismayed. He probably thought he’d been singled out. “I thought it was easier to say yes and do nothing. There’s no point upsetting him.”
“I wasn’t asked,” Edda says. She turns to me. “So what happened when you were attacked?”
I give a brief account. Jorge is surprised by the machete. “And this was about your client? She’s trouble.” He laughs. “Maybe she did have something to do with the bar.”
“The latest is my head of Safety thinks she might be an Anachronist.”
“Please,” Jorge says. “I know your lot have older clients, but how old is she? Aren’t they extinct?”
Edda makes a point of asking me, “What’s an Anachronist?”
“Idealists,” Li says before I can answer.
“Idiots.” Jorge is emphatic. “They didn’t know where they were going or what they would do when they got there. And they all died. Apart from the one in California.”
“They knew what they were doing,” Li insists. “Did you read their manifesto?”
Nobody answers.
“I didn’t think you had.” Li is scornful. “They were concerned by the implications of travel. They thought that information brought back from the future would mean the end of freedom. That whoever controlled that information would have the perfect means of social control. They wouldn’t even need it; they only had to claim they had it. They could make it up, and people would do what they were told. The Anachronists weren’t playing a game. They didn’t even call themselves Anachronists.”
“You sound like a fan.” Jorge is once again delighted. It’s clear he thinks this is an easy target. “But they failed, didn’t they? You can’t just turn up in the 10th century and expect an audience with the Pope. It’s a fundamental mistake.”
“That’s not what they were trying to do. People say it was all about Big History, saving a Kennedy, killing a Hitler. They knew that was impossible.”
“So what were they trying to do?” Edda sounds as if she really wants to know.
“They wanted to see if they could be more than a passive observer of the past. They wanted to see if they could actually have influence.”
“They didn’t,” Jorge says. “They couldn’t. They died.”
“True,” Li says. “But we don’t know how they died. How could we? They left no traces. It doesn’t mean they failed. Most of the population of the world leaves no trace. We’ll leave no trace.”
Jorge glares. “I still think they’re cranks.”
Edda turns to Li. “You sound like you’d have joined them.”
“I don’t think I’d have had the nerve. When they left they knew they had no hope of coming back.”
“Like Brink and Nakamura,” I say.
“No. They were supposed to come back. If it hadn’t been for Brink catching typhus they’d have made it to Siberia in time. Besides, I know you’re a fan, Spens, but they were just passive observers. They made their recordings and were careful not to change anything.”
“What could they have done?” Jorge says. “Given Beethoven a hearing aid?” He stands up. “Last bus. Li? Edda?”
Li accepts. For all their disagreements they’re friends. When they’re gone Edda complains about Jorge. “Typical Happiness with the clients. Then he tries to make himself interesting by arguing with everybody. At least you and Li have been other things.” She isn’t typical Happiness: her kin, she admits, are mostly Safety. Her eye modifications are not entirely cosmetic. She chose to be a rep because it was an easy way to travel. She wants to go to Africa. “It doesn’t matter when. It’s just easier to get there in the 21st.” I ask why she wants to go. She says, “Aren’t you curious?” and lists reasons: the history, the wildlife. “Megafauna, Spens. They’re still alive, as we speak.” She can almost make me feel her enthusiasm. And then she says, “I read about the 28 incident.”
I assume this is an African thing and look blank.
She prompts. “That was the accident that killed your parents, wasn’t it?”
I don’t usually talk about my parents. It seems either presumptuous—other people’s parents die—or manipulative. Why would I tell you unless I was trying to win your sympathy or claim some kind of exemption? Besides, showing too much interest in your kin is a Happiness trait and, despite my occupation and the people I work with, I’m not really Happiness. I was in the Tunnels, with everything that entailed—and that’s something I don’t talk about either, because you don’t talk about the Tunnels with civilia
ns. We didn’t even discuss it among ourselves. We took tonin and stared at the ceiling or rambled on about what we’d rather be doing instead.
And I’ve never heard of the 28 incident. “It didn’t happen in 28. In any 28.”
“It’s not the year. It’s the number of the site where it happened,” Edda says, as if it’s common knowledge. “Just before I came out there was a scandal about a recovery team. There were radioactive elements in a cache. They hadn’t been warned so they weren’t wearing protective suits. The contamination wasn’t even noticed until they reached a storage hub and the people there weren’t protected either. They said it was the worst incident since the 28 site. I looked it up because I remembered the date. The 28 incident happened the year you were twelve. Wasn’t that your age when your parents died?”
It would explain why their bodies were never brought back. Cantor had been intrigued by this. Something was being concealed: of course he was intrigued. “Does it say why we were burying radioactive elements in the first place?”
“No. The story was there only because some of the last team were able to contact their families. The authorities had to acknowledge something had happened, and that’s when they mentioned the 28 incident.”
I’m relieved Li isn’t here for this: the way the authorities manage information is one of the things that makes her angry. They say nothing and then, suddenly, without announcement, the information is there, as if it had been available for years. “How much do they say about it?”
“They don’t give details. Just that it happened and that it was bad. You didn’t know?”
“I was told it was an accident. They didn’t say what kind.” I don’t know what to make of this information. My parents died because somebody didn’t make a proper inventory. It’s bad, but people have died for worse reasons. “Where was site 28?” I don’t know why I ask. It’s not as if I can go there now and put up a warning sign. The materials might not yet be there. Geneva could still be trying to secure the land.
“On the main. They don’t say exactly where. I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”
“I’d have found out when I returned.” By accident, probably. I wouldn’t have been looking. There would be a reference in the Arc, with no indication it hadn’t been there for years. Or I’d meet Cantor again and he’d tell me. See? I was right all along. I wondered how he’d get on with Li, and dismissed the thought. She’d probably think he was frivolous.
An hour passes. I ask how she’ll get back to her resort. “I thought I’d walk you home,” she says. “I want to see how people live outside. And you might be attacked again and need my help.”
You’re not Picon
There’s the extemp who isn’t Picon and, in the front, two locals. One drives while the other continually checks the mirrors. “You have something,” the extemp says.
You don’t trust him. It’s the way he smiles. “You’re not Picon Delrosso.”
He keeps smiling. “Does that matter?”
You feel a jolt in your chest, a sense of the world sliding away from you. “I’m supposed to give it to Picon.”
“He’s not here. You give it to me.”
“That’s not the arrangement.”
“There’s been a change.”
The extemp gives instructions to the locals. You’ve studied the language but he talks too quickly for you to understand. He shouts at them, then turns to you and smiles. “Picon is not who you think he is. How much is he paying you?”
You don’t say anything. He’s Number City, you decide, but not Safety. A criminal working with local criminals.
“So how does it work? Are you paid in advance? When you get back? What is his system?”
He keeps talking: “Or are you acting from pure altruism?” He sounds bitter. “Are you kin?”
You don’t answer. If you’d been stopped by the authorities—a Safety, a local police—you’d know what to say: you are Adorna Mond, a tourist. You weren’t told what to say to criminals. You wish you had a pin gun. Or a knife. They taught you how to use weapons, then told you not to carry one.
It must be part of the test.
The locals seem to be driving in circles. You begin to recognise the names of shops and the posters in windows. The streets are still crowded. You have already seen more people today than in the whole of your previous life and here are hundreds more. You remind yourself this is before the Collapse. There are billions of people alive in this era, millions of them on this island, at least a million in this city. At home the numbers had always sounded impossibly high. The superabundance of the mall begins to make sense, even if you can’t think of the people as real. There are too many of them.
The driver stops. At first you think they’ve taken you back to the street where you climbed in. It’s been a test after all, and you’ve passed: you didn’t give up the box. Picon will appear and congratulate you, and then you’ll be taken back to the resort. Instead they half push, half drag you towards a shop that, like the car, has tinted black windows. The locals don’t look happy until the door is locked behind them. They hold your arms while the extemp pats your sides until he finds your phone and the box. He takes both. “Now, that was easy, wasn’t it?” You expect him to ask you to open the box; instead he hands it to one of the locals, who leaves.
You’re confused. He’s Number City, but he doesn’t recognise a Dolman box. Meanwhile, Picon will notice you’ve missed the rendezvous. All you have to do is wait. Or is this a test of initiative and the box is going to be given to Picon?
The remaining local keeps in the background. It’s obvious he doesn’t trust the extemp.
The extemp is old, soft. You wouldn’t need a weapon against him. The local is younger, possibly dangerous. He leans against a wall by the window, sighs to show he’s bored and keeps looking at you. You know the look.
“You haven’t met Picon yet, have you?” The extemp keeps talking. He’s trying to make you think he’s on your side. “Have you seen where he lives? How he lives? You should. He lives easy. The longest T-break in history. Do I sound envious? It’s because I am. Every few months another of you turns up with another delivery. How does he find you? Does he have a contact in Two West?”
You’re not sure what to make of this. You thought the box contained instructions. How can they be valuable to criminals? You were told the last courier was over a year ago. Who are the others?
The extemp keeps talking. “And what was he at home? Some intermediate administrator. Facilitation, or whatever they call it.” He complains about their castes: “If you’re born into the wrong family…” Typical Number City, you think, rebelling by running away.
The local is getting impatient. His sighs are becoming louder. He’s like a child who wants to join a game.
“Don’t worry,” the extemp says. “This will soon be over. As soon as we get the clear sky they’ll let you go. They might even take you back to your resort.”
There’s a burst of noise: a bad recording of a man shouting over a kind of music. The local snatches something—it’s a phone—from his pocket and the music stops. He holds it to the side of his head and growls. The extemp stops talking and watches him.
This would be a good time to run. The local is preoccupied; the extemp is weak. But you don’t move. You need the box. You need to carry out your instructions.
The local and the extemp shout at each other. You can’t understand everything they say but it’s clear the extemp wants the box brought back and the local is adamant it can’t be done. “I’ll talk to him,” the extemp says. “Face to face. I’ll see him now.” The local gestures at you. The extemp points at the back room. “It seems we have to keep you here for a little while longer,” he tells you. “Trust me,” the extemp tells the local. “Everything will be fine.” The local looks disgusted and steps forward. Between them they push you into a back room. You don’t resist. You’ve been locked in smaller rooms before. It’s almost a relief.
They don’t tie you up.
They’re fools.
Within seconds of the door closing you find the switch for the light. You’re in a storeroom, with cardboard boxes stacked on metal shelves. A wooden door with a single, antique lock, no window. You make an inventory, looking for anything you can use.
The boxes contain small squares of yellow paper, ring-binders and things called staplers. Half of the boxes are empty.
The shelves are held in place by metal uprights. You clear boxes from one shelf and start loosening the nuts. The first bolt comes away easily. After half an hour you’ve removed the upright, a narrow metal stick. You swing it like a baton. You can imagine whipping it into the face of one of the extemp’s locals—or the extemp himself. It’s a gratifying image.
You start working on the lock.
It takes longer than you’d think, but it works. The lock gives; the door opens. The local is leaning against the wall and looking at something on his phone. He opens his mouth when he sees you and pulls the white plugs from his ears. You run at him and slash down with the upright. You are fast, efficient, angry. Because of him you have missed your rendezvous with Picon. Because of him you have failed. On the third blow he drops to the floor; on the seventh he stops trying to get up. The sense of triumph doesn’t last. Within seconds you realise you’ve made a mistake: you should have left him conscious enough to answer questions. Now you have no way of finding the box… You go through his pockets: a leather wallet, a phone, some keys. No weapons. They left an unarmed man to guard you. They were fools. They deserve this. You take his phone: you can use it to call Picon. The screen has a clock. You watch the seconds flick past while your breathing returns to normal. The man on the floor groans; there’s a splash of blood on your sleeve. You can’t make the call: you walked into a trap, lost what you were supposed to deliver and now you might have made things worse. You feel numb, frozen, uncertain what to do next. Think, girl. The clock turns to 4.00 and the phone chirps. Two words appear on the screen: Karia answer. Picon, you think. You wonder how he knows your real name. The music blares out again and you answer. It’s a woman’s voice. You recognise the familiar accent of home. “Karia,” she says. “Listen carefully.”
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