London Wild

by V. E. Shearman

  Myajes had once been the best of the best, the most capable of all four of the bodyguards, but after spending a week or so in various cells drugged up to his eyeballs, and on top of that, force fed a drug that was intended to make him docile, he was no longer so sure that he had the edge.

  He watched the house from a distance, pretty sure that it was empty. The cameras that tended to make regular sweeps of the area seemed now to be fixed in position, and there was no sign at all of any other activity anywhere on the grounds. His brother was always out and about on the grounds when the family was home. Another sign that no one was home was that the car which usually sat in the driveway just beyond the entrance to the grounds—the car that he himself had spent many a weekend getting washed—was nowhere to be seen.

  Myajes had had a fair number of things he had wanted to report to the Matriarch before he tried again to rescue Lara from the Cattery. He wasn’t as skeptical as February had been about the Eschiff, or throwbacks, as the Matriarch had often referred to them. And he wanted to report their involvement in the latest developments of their relationship with the herd. He also wanted to hand over the frame thing and perhaps even be assured by her that it wasn’t really of Eschiff manufacture after all.

  Another thing he wanted to do, although it shouldn’t be too hard if he was willing to stay in one place for a few minutes, was to find a piece of bare wall out of possible sight of anyone so he could set the gateway back up and thus give both February and Kitty a way home. He had waited two hours before leaving the laboratory and even then had done so reluctantly, but he had known that it would only be a matter of time before someone was missed and the bodies were discovered, and it would be better for all concerned if he wasn’t near when they did.

  Before he left the laboratory, he had put the supposed Eschiff creature into the room beyond the gateway before dismantling the frame. It would be easier to transport that way than trying to walk through the corridors of Mars with her over his shoulder, and he felt that it too was proof of one kind or another.

  Although the house itself looked quite empty, the road just beyond the grounds looked a lot busier than it ever had in his memory. There was an old van parked across the street from the main entrance that looked totally out of place on this road. Its windows had actually been boarded up and it looked as if it had been abandoned, but it was a bit of a coincidence that it should be abandoned exactly where it was. There were workmen in the street; supposedly they were replacing a pipeline, but in the two hours that Myajes had been watching them, they had taken no more than three shovelfuls of earth out of the hole, and then only when they thought someone was watching them. There was also a couple out walking their dog. They had passed the house with a poodle about an hour and a half ago and then come back approximately an hour later. It was possible they were a genuine couple, but somehow he doubted it. If he had the time he might watch to see if they passed the house again, perhaps with a different dog. And there were probably others around that he hadn’t noticed yet. For example, there was a dirt track behind the hedges that surrounded the back garden, and there would almost have to be someone watching that part of the house.

  One thing Myajes was sure about was that whoever was watching the house, it wasn’t the Elite Guard. The Elite would probably have done a better job of disguising their intent. Instead of an old van that was supposed to look abandoned, they would have used something more in keeping with the ambience of the area and something that looked less like a surveillance vehicle. A convertible with the top down sprang to mind. The observer could watch through a specially crafted hole in either the front or rear storage areas, uncomfortable but very discreet.

  If they weren’t the Elite, then the Guard was obviously stretched beyond their current capability and they had had to get others in to watch the house for them. Since capturing the Matriarch was virtually the holy grail of the Elite Guard, it pointed even more to the fact that no one was home.

  Myajes sat back in his car and started the engine. It would do him no good moping around here all day. He still had to find a way to rescue Lara, though admittedly, he had been out of the picture for so long it would be a miracle if she was even still alive.

  He looked at the folded frame sitting on the passenger seat beside him. He wasn’t about to walk into the Cattery with that; he had gone through a lot to get it, and it might be vital in the war they might now be fighting on two fronts. It would be best if he gave it to someone trustworthy in the hope that it would find its way into the Matriarch’s hands. He decided to visit the nearest regional headquarters. There he might even be lucky enough to find out where the Matriarch had gone. If nothing else, he could leave the frame and the holographic picture with the leader, and she could pass it on to the Matriarch when the opportunity arose.

  To Myajes’ mind, Lara’s life was on the line, and it was possible that every second he delayed made it even less likely that he would find her alive, but after his last experience in the Cattery no one could blame him for wanting to delay his next attempt at a rescue. Besides, he was also hoping for a place to rest up a bit first, a place to sleep a little and time to flush his system of the drugs that had been pumped into him.

  The nearest headquarters to the house in Fobbing was just a few short miles up a shallow hill to Basildon, and it took him no more than ten minutes in fairly light traffic to make it. Indeed, it was surprising just how little traffic there was in the area and how the closer to London he got, the less traffic there seemed to be, which was the opposite of how he remembered it from as recently as two weeks ago.

  The headquarters was a mess. It looked as if several bombs had hit it, and the walls were strewn with many blackened laser burns. The building seemed to be pretty much in one piece, but a few chunks of debris had been knocked out of the walls and were lying about here and there.

  There were a few soldiers milling about the place, including what appeared to be two of the Elite Guard. There was also a robotic reporter complete with a built-in camera recording everything for posterity. Three N’s were emblazoned on the robot’s camera, telling Myajes the network that was recording this event.

  A robot reporter, though… Obviously what had happened here wasn’t even being considered important enough for the network to have sent someone of flesh and blood. And that meant that of every coup the army had had against his people recently, this had to be quite a minor one by comparison.

  Myajes decided not to hang around. If the Elite noticed him watching what they were doing, he might find himself in that cell again before he even knew it. There were a couple of friends who lived nearby; perhaps he could visit one of them and find out what had happened. It was even possible that he might yet uncover the new location of the Matriarch, although his hopes in this area were fast evaporating. For all he knew, the Matriarch and her husband were already guests of the authorities. It was unlikely, since they were still watching the house, but nevertheless it was something to think about. He might have to rescue not just Lara but also both her parents.

  Gramm Stanic was the nearest that he knew of. A member of the regional headquarters he had just left, he lived no further than two or three streets from the place on a road called ‘Sparrows Hearne.’ He stopped the car just across the street and looked at the mess that awaited him. The glass windows of the house had been broken, the bars that had protected them were torn from their mountings, and the door had been smashed in. There was no sign of a struggle, no rubble or laser burns, and Myajes hoped that Gramm hadn’t been in when this had happened.

  The next house he knew of belonged to Dol and Marita Lear. They were close friends of the Matriarch and her husband and lived a little further away in Pitsea. Their house was also empty, although by the look of it, whatever had driven them out of their house hadn’t been the armed forces.

  Myajes drove on, unsure what to make of the situation. The armed forces seemed to be striking everywhere, but it also seemed that his people had been ready and in most
cases had moved out already before the soldiers had arrived. The worst thing he could imagine that might have happened to Dol and Marita was that they had been visiting the headquarters when it had been attacked, but neither of them were the sort that frequented there that often, and the likelihood of either being there at just that moment seemed somehow unlikely. It was more likely that whatever had driven the Matriarch and Patriarch from their home was the same thing that had driven Dol and Marita out too, and hopefully even Gramm.

  He began to feel that he should try to hunt down a newspaper and maybe learn of what had been happening in the world, if only from the herd perspective. There had been a newspaper on the flight, but he had ignored it because usually it was little more than herd propaganda and rarely reported anything useful. Nevertheless, a newspaper might answer some of his questions as to what had happened.

  The third house showed signs of a vicious gun battle. A burned-out shell of a lightly armed vehicle was parked outside the house, still smoking as if whatever had happened here had done so in the last hour or so. There were soldiers still in the area, and from the way they were moving, they didn’t seem too sure that the residents of the house hadn’t gotten away during the scuffle. Or maybe they were worried that there might be others nearby. The house itself was a wreck. The combined arms of the assailants had demolished the entire front of the building and had also started a small fire which had since been put out. From the proximity of the nearest buildings, it had probably been a close thing that the fire hadn’t spread. The soldiers seemed to have made quite a coup with the collection of weapons that they had taken from the house. A wide selection of armaments, some of them fire damaged, were lying flat on the pavement in a neat row, just outside the house.

  Myajes decided he wasn’t going to stop and investigate further. Instead he drove past the scene, trying not to look too disinterested in what had happened whilst not wanting to give any of the soldiers a good look at him. At this time he didn’t want any unsought attention from even non-Elite soldiers.

  He decided to forget calling upon individuals; it was fast looking like a waste of effort. He couldn’t go home because of those watching the house, but maybe he could find a hotel room for a little while. Hotel rooms usually came with a newspaper, so maybe he could learn a little bit about what had been happening during his incarceration.

  He drove to the same hotel that he had stayed at the day or two before he had first tried to rescue Lara. It was quite a distance from the Matriarch’s house, but he knew he could rely on their discretion. Unfortunately, for some reason the place was closed, as were all the surrounding businesses. Indeed, here on the edge of London, the streets should have been crowded with people trying to get where they were going, and the businesses along this road and every other road should have been flourishing, and yet nothing was moving. He had escaped from his cell to find a world so much different from the one he had left.

  A little frustrated that nothing he seemed to do was getting him anywhere, he started to head east again. Every time he saw something that looked as if it might be a hotel, he stopped long enough to see if it was open and was always disappointed. Soon he found himself beyond the borders of London. Here hotels were much fewer in number, and Myajes wasn’t really too sure where to find those that did exist.

  As he traveled further and further east, he began to fear that he was headed back towards Basildon. What was worse, he might end up having to go all the way to Sou’nd before he found a place, and he had a vague recollection of February telling him that Sou’nd wasn’t safe at the moment or something to that effect.

  Then, just as he was beginning to despair of finding a suitable place, he noticed a sign for a hotel that from the street at least still appeared to be open for business. He was in luck; the place was open, and the owners were overjoyed to see him. It seemed that business had been bad for about the last week.

  ‘We’ve only had two other people stay here since Slim took out Sou’nd,’ the man behind the counter told him as he checked in. ‘That Slim has a lot to answer for; he’s virtually put me out of business.’

  Myajes wanted to ask more about Sou’nd but decided against it. He didn’t want to raise any suspicions about himself, and besides, the newspaper would likely have more information about it when he reached his room.

  For the third time in the last forty-eight hours, he signed his name as ‘Murray-Phillips’ and used the identification he had taken from the dead scientist. The first time had been to buy a seat on a shuttle, the second to hire a car, and now he was perhaps stretching his luck by using it to sign into a hotel. Checking in to the hotel also used up the last of the money he had taken from the bodies. Once he eventually checked out again he would most likely have to become someone else.

  42

  Dinner With The Lomaxes

  The cooking and housework had effectively become George’s sphere of operation about the Martian apartment. It was the housework that took most of his time; cooking required no more attention than putting the food in the zapper and pressing the button on the front. All the calculations of working out the temperature and how long it needed to cook was done by the gadget’s own sensor array.

  Maureen hadn’t yet been able to find herself a job, and although Stanley was currently earning more than the two of them together had earned on the moon, when they had been on the moon there had only been two mouths to feed, and Stanley’s increase in wages didn’t really stretch far enough to pay for five people.

  It had been more than thirty hours now since February and Kitty had last been in the apartment, yet as dinner time approached for the second time since they had left, George once again prepared five meals for the family.

  ‘This has to stop,’ Maureen commented angrily as dinner was served.

  George nodded reluctantly. Yesterday he had used the excuse for them that they had probably simply gone out for the day and were late getting back. When evening came he had argued that maybe they just wanted to sample the night life. As dinner approached for the second time since they’d left, he found he was all argued out.

  ‘I warned you that we couldn’t trust that February, so what happens? As soon as she gets the chance she leaves us and takes Kitty with her. I’m surprised we haven’t already heard about cat attacks on the people of Mars.’Maureen was in fine voice. ‘Maybe we ought to turn the newspaper on and see if there’s anything we missed?’

  ‘They left a lot of their things,’ George commented; ‘they’ll be back. I’m sure they’ll be back. All their disguise materials, their clothes, everything is still here.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ Maureen pushed. ‘You think a cat like February isn’t capable of building her life from scratch if she needs to? No, we won’t see her again, and I very much doubt we’ll see Kitty either. They got what they wanted from us, namely passage to Mars and relative safety, and a new hunting ground.’

  ‘February seemed like such a nice girl,’ George defended. ‘And as for Kitty, I brought her up well; there’s no way she could ever bring herself to kill another. I’m not even sure she’s really recovered from Jojo’s death.’

  ‘Really?’ Maureen commented coldly. ‘Anyway, forget Kitty for a moment. February was a wild cat; she was never going to be someone we could really trust. We should have handed her over to the authorities when we had the chance.’

  ‘You know why we couldn’t: Kitty,’ George commented.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Maureen replied, ‘but where is Kitty now? I’ll tell you where she is, she’s out in the colony learning to kill with her wild cat friend. Jojo may be dead, but Kitty has found a replacement sister, and Kitty always was very impressionable where her sister was concerned.’

  ‘Not that impressionable,’ George insisted. ‘I tell you Kitty will not kill, regardless of how much pressure February might put on her.’

  Stanley decided it was time to make a comment. ‘Please dear, George is probably feeling bad enough about it as it is, we don�
��t need to keep going over it.’

  Maureen gave him a gentle smile and said, ‘Maybe you’re right. But this preparing of meals for two people who don’t appreciate it and who will never turn up has to stop. It’s costing us far too much. You’re only bringing in one wage, my love, and although we can probably feed three on that, we can’t feed five.’

  ‘She’s right there,’ Stanley said and turned his attention to George. ‘Tomorrow, unless the girls are actually back in the apartment with us when you start cooking, don’t prepare meals for them. It’s just a waste of food, and all food on the colony has to be imported, so it’s not cheap.’

  George nodded reluctantly.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what we should do about those moggies anyway,’ Maureen commented.

  ‘Oh,’ said George, looking up from his meal. He was almost dreading anything else she might say on the subject.

  ‘We need to report them to the authorities, to warn the colony of their existence and the possible danger to the population, but we can’t do so without potentially getting ourselves in trouble for harboring them in the first place.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’ Stanley asked.

  ‘By now, George is probably wanted on Earth for not handing his moggy over before the end of the seven-day grace period. If he ever returns to Earth he could be locked up for whatever they eventually decide the mandatory sentence should be. What is worse, they might try to get an extradition agreement with the Mars admin. He could be shipped back sooner than he’d like. Coming here hasn’t saved him from a cell; it’s only delayed it. And Stanley and I could possibly even be considered accessories because we helped him leave Earth in the first place.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m going to like this suggestion,’ George offered.

  ‘It’s simple, really,’ Maureen told him. ‘We inform the authorities of the cats’ existence here on Mars and tell them that for the last six or seven days we had been held prisoner. First in your home on Earth, and then they forced us to bring them with us to the Martian colony. They left us because in order to continue the charade, Stanley would have to go to work where they could no longer keep a careful eye on him, and though they still had two hostages back at the apartment, they’re cats and weren’t willing to take the chance. Besides, they no longer needed us, having gotten what they wanted, so they left.’