But the door opens before we reach it. A Safety stands there, helmeted and armoured, though his visor is still up. “We need to clear this area,” he says. “Take him back to his room.” He sounds almost apologetic.
“Why?” the doctor asks. “What’s happening?”
The Safety hesitates. There’s a question of rank here. He wouldn’t need to say anything to a rep; a Medical might merit an explanation. I have the impression he’s been told not to explain anything. “There isn’t time now. We need to keep this corridor clear.” He looks unhappy saying this. “I can help you, if you like.” He gestures towards me. He’s noticed the foot. “It’s fine,” I say, and, to his evident relief, turn back. The doctor and Edda follow me. The Safety says, “One more thing. All reps are to gather in Entertainment Area One.”
Edda takes my arm. “I’m off duty.”
“It doesn’t matter. You need to be there.”
“Why?”
“It will be explained there.”
“What about me?” the doctor says. “Am I supposed to go anywhere?”
“The main medical centre.”
“I presume it will be explained when I get there,” the doctor says to nobody in particular. “I don’t see why they can’t just bip me.”
“I’m sorry,” the Safety says. He’s young, possibly younger than Edda. This might be the first time he’s had to give orders. “But this corridor has to be kept clear.”
Edda releases my arm. “I’ll let you know.” She walks past the Safety. The doctor takes my arm and guides me back to my room, as if I might have forgotten the route. At the door of the room we hear the Safety shouting “Clear!” and then we hear the thunder of boots. Two abreast, a column of armoured personnel move along the corridor at a steady pace. For close to a minute we watch them jog past. They’re not Safety. No resort needs a Safety Team this size. These are Millies.
“I’m not sure we were meant to see that,” the doctor says once they’ve gone. “They must have jammed them into the transport. A good thing they have a high tolerance for boredom.”
I sit on my bed, suddenly aware once again of the sensation in my leg. It’s definitely pain, but manageable. “Everything seems to be normal,” the doctor says. “Now I’ll go and see what they want us to believe. Will you be all right here? I’ll see to it that you’re not forgotten.”
“I’d like the screens to work.” I indicate the ceiling. “And something to eat.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” She smiles. The encounter with the Safety has made her friendlier. We’re united against a common enemy. “But for now you need rest.”
“I’ve had too much already,” I start to say. But she’s gone.
It’s two hours before I see anybody else. It’s not the doctor, but a low-grade med-tech, the kind who keeps the simpler machines working. He hands me a control for the screen. “I was told you wanted this.”
“What’s happening outside?”
“I don’t know.” He retreats to the door as soon as the plastic is in my hand. “I wasn’t at the meeting.”
“What about the Millies?”
“I had inventory.” He’s already through the door. “They didn’t tell me.”
Typical med-tech. Not good enough with people to be a Happiness, not sharp enough to be a proper tech. I point the control at the ceiling. The screen comes on at the Heritage resort menu. I call up information. There are no recent announcements. I check the summaries of world news: election results and wars in countries where we don’t have resorts. There’s nothing about riots or demonstrations in this one. The summary is bland, designed to reassure, if not lull. I try connecting to the native channels, but I’m not good enough to cheat the machine. Finally I scan the available entertainment and settle on an old recording of Mahler conducting Tristan which I’ve heard about but never listened to. The prelude has barely finished when the med-tech returns, this time with a tray of food. He winces at the music, so I switch it off. “Find what you wanted?” he asks.
“Not quite. Are you the only person here?”
“I seem to be.”
“Where is everybody else?”
“Still at the meeting, I presume.”
“Must be important.” The food is bland, made up of the safest choices for a patient with unknown health problems.
“Not necessarily.” He seems slightly friendlier. “You know what meetings are like.”
“Who’s looking after the clients?”
“Safety. They had their meetings earlier. Whatever it is, they’ll probably tell us last. They need somebody to keep the place working.”
“Have you heard anything about the Millies?”
“Not a whisper. Do you need anything else?”
“There’s one thing. I had a handheld.”
He perks up. “It’ll be with your clothes.”
“Do you think I can have it? I need to talk to my own Safety Team.”
He seems pleased to have a job. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I eat the bland food and restart the music. Entartet Geschlecht! Isolde sings. Unwerth der Ahnen! Degenerate race, unworthy of your ancestors! For some reason this makes me think of DomeWatch, our degenerate forebears. What are they saying these days? For a few minutes it seems important to know, but the screen won’t give me access to their internet. I listen to the attenuated yearning of the music. I am in a bubble, unable to find out anything. It feels like I’m being kept here so I won’t find out. If it had been my decision I would have sent you back. I wasn’t sent back. The benign interpretation is that they don’t have the space: the clients go first.
Act Two is drawing to a close when the med-tech returns. He has a bundle of clothes, clean and folded, and my handheld. “We found only one of your shoes,” he says apologetically. “I’ve found another pair. I don’t know if they’ll fit.”
“Thanks. It doesn’t matter.”
“And I don’t know if your handheld will still work. It might have been fried.”
“I’ll soon find out.”
“And then there was this.” He hands me a Dolman box. “It was in the tunnel. They assumed you’d dropped it.”
It’s a small one, about two centimetres deep, the kind used for carrying information or small pieces of tech. I turn it in my hands. There are no identifying tags. It doesn’t open at my touch. It doesn’t, as in old entertainments, turn out to be a box I closed, or will close.
“You’re lucky you didn’t lose it.” He backs away. “If you need anything else…”
“Thanks. You’ve been very helpful.”
He nods and retreats. As soon as he’s gone I put on my real clothes. The shoes fit. Pushing my temporary foot into the left shoe adds to the feeling of strangeness. My left trouser leg is frayed at the ankle.
Ivan had claimed our client was carrying a box. Could this be it? Is this the reason she went missing? It seems unlikely. She wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble only to throw it away in the approach. The last time I saw Riemann he had been trying to take something from his pocket. Could it have been this? Had he meant me to have it? I’ll decide what to do with it later.
The handheld springs to life at my touch. I bip Erquist: nothing. I bip Hayek: nothing. I try Edda: busy. Li answers, “Spens, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I’m still in the bay. What’s going on?”
“Nobody knows. Honestly, nobody knows. I’ll come and see you.”
“I’ll come to you.”
“Are you sure? Are you well enough to move?”
“I’ve spent long enough here.”
The walk along the corridor to the Entertainment Area takes me longer than I’d thought. The medical bay is empty. I don’t even see the med-tech. The doors open; a relief. I’d half expected them to be locked. The hall outside is empty, and dark. The sky above the dome looks black. There’s a 4.00 a.m. feel, except without clients returning from dance rooms and meditation tanks. The local time, according to one of the s
creens, is 23.06.
The hall should be busier. It’s the place where clients come to avoid the Entertainment Areas. But there’s nobody about, not even a lone Safety. The emptiness makes the hall appear larger. The sensation in my leg gets closer to pain as I walk. Before I’m halfway across it’s become actual pain, an axe blow to my ankle at every step.
I stop at a bench with the gate to the area in sight. It’s barely a hundred metres but I can’t walk any further. It feels as if the foot is about to fall off. I almost wish it would. How long would it take to crawl the remaining distance? I bip Li. “Wait there,” she says. “We’ll come for you.” Minutes later she appears at the gate with Edda. They run over to me, hoist me from the bench and, between them, drag me to the area. “We don’t want to stay out too long,” Li says. “We’ve been told to stay in Area One or quarters.”
“What’s happening?” My usual question.
“Let’s get out of here first.”
It doesn’t take them long to reach the gate. Edda is stronger than she looks. A lot stronger. The Entertainment Area is nearly as empty as the interzone. Most of the restaurants and bars are closed. The remaining clients are subdued but it’s hard to miss their repressed excitement. An evacuation wasn’t part of their itinerary but it’s either an exciting bonus or something they can complain about for the rest of their lives.
Li and Edda guide me to 3.2, which is still open.
Li goes to the bar. No table service tonight. There’s one man working instead of the usual nine.
Edda says, “You should be more careful. Your leg could be infected.”
“I couldn’t stay there any longer.”
“Does it still hurt?”
“Less now, thanks.” I look around the room. Bar 3.2 is built to hold two hundred people. Tonight, the only other customers are reps, six of them, sitting gloomily at a table in the opposite corner. “Where is everyone?”
“Getting ready to leave.” Edda speaks softly. “Half of the clients have gone already. The resorts are being brought under military control.”
I’m pretty sure there’s a protocol which forbids this. “Why? Are we being attacked?”
“We’ve been told it’s a precaution.”
Li returns with drinks. “The service staff will be gone by tomorrow. Mack says they’re leaving just enough to keep two of the bars in Area Three open. The Millies need to drink.”
I wonder if the beer will react with whatever drugs are still in my system. I sip anyway. “Is it happening everywhere, or just this resort?”
“We don’t know.” Li is excited. “The first thing they took over was communication.”
“What about your friends outside? What are they saying?”
“Their signals are blocked. We’re cut off.”
I feel dizzy. It’s not just the beer. “Look, we studied the history before we came here. I don’t remember there being anything that needed this.”
“We’ll be home soon enough.” Edda says. “We can look it up then.”
“I don’t want to go home,” Li says. “I like it here. I’ve got another five months on my contract. I need those five months.”
“They’ll reassign you,” Edda says. “They’ll send you to another resort.”
“If there’s one to be sent to.”
“It needn’t be a resort. They could send you earlier.”
“They won’t. I was here in the 70s. You know what they’re like about overlaps and backtracking. ‘A rep,’” Li quotes, “‘may not work in more than two periods and those periods are required to be sequential.’ Besides, I’ve seen enough resorts.”
“Where would you like to go?”
“I’d like to see the 1930s.”
“You’re mad,” Edda says fondly. “You know, you could go to another continent. Africa is supposed to be amazing.”
“Maybe.”
“And if you’re sent back now, they have to compensate you.” I try to remember the rules. “I was supposed to be sent back for breach of protocol.”
“Your record is wrong.” Li turns to Edda. “Did you read yours?”
“There was nothing. So, do we think the authorities know what’s happening?”
“They know.” Li is emphatic, happy almost. Her conspiracy talk is being proved true, or less wrong than I’d like. “Every step of the way.”
Edda laughs. “I’m not so sure. I think they’re as surprised by this as we are.”
“Does it matter?” I’m uncomfortable, and not just because of my foot. One day you think you’re living an ordinary life, and suddenly you’re caught up in a Major Historical Event. You walk home from the factory or the orchard and see the first conscription notices being posted. “It’s like you said: we’re about to be sent home. We can find out what happened when we get back.”
“The Millies are here for a reason.” Li doesn’t give up.
“But is it a good one?” Edda asks. “It’s not like we’re about to declare war on the 21st.”
“The War Ouroboros,” I say.
“Why not?” Li says. “Competition for resources. It’s what nations have always done. And the past is just another country. Why wouldn’t we use force?”
“Because they outnumber us,” Edda says. “Heavily. And I’m not sure the 25th would let us. And if we’re beaten we don’t have a clear line of retreat.” She looks at me. “How’s your foot?”
I swig the beer. “Which one?”
Edda laughs. Then says, “I shouldn’t laugh.” She sits up straight. “Tunnel Boy,” she says. “I’ll keep this short. This link won’t last.”
“Hayek.”
“Obviously. I want you to get here as soon as you can.”
“Hayek, I can barely stand.”
“I don’t expect you to walk. Take a vehicle. Bring your friends if you need them.”
“What’s happening?”
“This link won’t last. Go to the vehicle bay now. If they stop you tell them—” Edda frowns. “He went dead.”
“Your Safety Chief,” Li says. “Do you trust him?”
“I don’t know.” I’ve had half a glass of beer and an unknown quantity of painkillers. Somebody else will have to drive. “But I don’t want to stay here.”
By the time we reach the vehicle bay I’m limping again. Hayek has approved a vehicle, a heavy black box only a Safety would find beautiful. Edda offers to drive. I wonder if this is where I find she’s had military training.
She takes the wheel. Protocols are engaged, so even if this is her first time we should be safe. She drives us smoothly to the exit. When we stop at the barrier she tells the Safety, “We’re collecting a client from Resort Four. Kinship issue.” He looks at us, checks a screen, looks at us again, seems about to say something, then nods and steps back. Hayek must have called in a favour, trading on the old resentment between Safeties and Millies. The barrier is raised. Two minutes later we’re on a public road. There’s not much traffic: an occasional lorry, a coach full of sleeping men. I tell Li, “You didn’t need to come.”
“I did. You can barely walk. What else was I going to do? Wait to be sent home?”
“That might be all that happens at Four.”
“Maybe.” She stares out at the road. “But at least I get a last look at the 21st.”
It’s an unimpressive last look. A straight dark road with steep concrete verges. Still, we’re under an open sky, and every now and then there are lights in the distance, houses, small towns.
There’s a concentration of traffic ahead. It’s not the kind of queue that usually forms behind an accident. This one is slow, but still moving steadily. As we draw closer we can see it’s made up of a line of canvas-sided vehicles. The drivers are wearing camouflage jackets.
“He’s back,” Edda says. Her voice becomes flat. “Do you see those? We have seen similar movements all over the country. That’s why you had to come now. By tomorrow there could be roadblocks. I don’t want you blabbing what you know if they stop
you.”
“What am I supposed to know?”
Edda gives it the right tone of weary disdain: “Just get here.” Then, in her voice: “He’s gone.”
“Really gone, or just listening in?”
“Gone. I’d know if he was listening.”
“The machines are always listening.”
Edda doesn’t recognise the quote. “They might listen, but they don’t always know what’s happening.”
The convoy is behind us now. The road ahead is clear.
Li says, “Geneva knows.”
Edda keeps her eyes on the road.
Half an hour later we pass another convoy heading in the opposite direction.
The gate to Resort Four opens automatically. There are, we’re pleased to see, no angry mobs outside. I’d turned on the radio after seeing the second convoy, and caught one of their news programmes, one that was broadcast for a fixed number of minutes at set times no matter how much or how little there was to report. There seemed to be not much. There was no mention of troop movements. The main stories were overseas: refugees from the flooding in Southern Europe, tensions on the Turkish border.
The natives were being told as little as we were.
As soon as the bulletin finished Edda told me to turn the radio off. Something about it was giving her a headache.
There are two Safeties at the dome entrance. They wave us through. I manage to walk from the vehicle bay to the main concourse before my stump starts hurting again. It’s as quiet as the place we left. No Millies yet: they’re either being kept out of sight or, Resort Four being Tri-Millennium and low status, they’ll be deployed here last.
Hayek is in the outer office with Erquist and two of his team. They’re examining native camera feeds: empty streets and stretches of motorway. It’s only the second time I’ve seen them out of their offices.
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