“I’m sorry you have such a poor opinion of us, Mr. Fox,” Waterman said. “But your perspective is just a bit too narrow, too simplistic. It’s all much more complicated than that. It’s a very complex system, and it’s our job to maintain it. It’s what’s best for the country. What you and your people have instigated has led to chaos. Why, you can see it for yourself. People dying of a virus you deployed. Shops forced out of business. Riots in the streets. Is this your utopia?”
“If it’s all so complex that a poor dumb bastard like me can’t understand it, it’s too complex to serve anyone,” Sam said through gritted teeth. “Take me back to my cell.”
“Very well.” Waterman nodded at Simsworth, who rose from his chair after taking a long swig from a glass containing a colourless liquid. Grasping Sam roughly by the forearm, he hauled him out of the dining room.
Waterman placed his dinner fork on the table, picking up the smaller dessert fork beside it. He resumed his meal, serving himself a lovely slice of lemon bundt cake, a pungent recipe that included the zest of Meyer lemons, his favourite.
Chapter Thirty-Four
BIRD ON A WIRE
Vitalica. Half the nation had been prescribed it to treat symptoms of the Dot virus. Although a controlled Class B drug which could earn a stint in prison if possessed illegally, it was one of many popular street drugs that circulated in seemingly unlimited supply. Previously marketed under different names, Vitalica had been prescribed to treat various conditions from obesity to ADHD.
Most patients with the Dot virus who began taking Vitalica reported improvements in their symptoms within the first week. Fatigue decreased while productivity increased. Some subjects experienced an increase in appetite, while others reported a decrease. Similarly, some patients reported disturbances in sleep patterns while others reported a better night’s sleep due to feeling more awake during the day. Overall, it seemed that patients were feeling better, and that the drug made them able to function despite being carriers of an uncharted epidemic.
Though not a cure, it was a welcome bandage. Many were able to resume their normal activities, as if they were in remission.
Some, however, were not.
Charlotte Piebald found herself bedridden—unable to sleep at night, unable to muster enough strength to get out of bed during the day, too groggy and disoriented. She informed Doctor Wender that the Vitalica he prescribed had little to no effect. He’d tripled the dosage and added Somnaquell, a sleep and/or anxiety medication which calmed her nerves for the first hour or so, but ironically kept her awake for most of the night, during which she watched the Ideal World direct shopping channel, its monotonous advertisements oddly comforting. Luckily the Ideal World still accepted ‘real’ currency, and since she was already infected, it didn’t matter if she used their app on her cleverband to purchase gift boxes of triple-milled soap, stackable stainless steel containers, a teapot with the loveliest little pattern of lavender tea roses painted on it.
Charlotte wondered if anyone had attempted to avoid the virus by providing businesses with their Dot serial number manually, by voice, avoiding contact with any P.O.S. terminal, phone, tablet, or computer display—all devices that had eradicated the need to enter in account numbers by hand and potentially expose yourself to fraud—god knows where that information went as it travelled at lightning speed through the atmosphere. She answered her own question by reflecting upon her own experience contacting businesses via voice—recorded messages, an automated response system that guided you through sequences of digits to enter into your keyscreen—and then you wound up swiping the Dot to complete your purchase anyway, rarely was there ever a human operator at the other end of the line. If she required another human being to be present in order to acquire all her goods and services, absolutely nothing would ever get done.
Charlotte touched the call icon on her cleverband’s display to alert her assistant. A young woman soon appeared in Charlotte’s bedroom doorway. She was dressed in a blue button-down blouse and grey slacks, her thick, brown hair tied back in a firm ponytail.
“Talia, darling. Thank goodness. Do you think you could fluff these pillows for me a tad? They’re getting awfully bunchy, what with me just lying around on them all day. In fact, could you fetch me a few new ones from the wardrobe?” Charlotte pulled out a large pillow with a pale yellow ruffled case from behind her head. “Here, replace this one. It’s always been too soft, anyway.”
“Yes, of course, Miss Piebald,” Talia said.
“God, Talia, you’re so lucky. This disease is awful—so sinister, so subversive. I can’t remember the last time I felt comfortable.”
Talia propped Charlotte up with a new purple ruffled pillow and smoothed down her bed sheets. “You look better today,” she told her. “More colour in your cheeks. You’ll be better soon; you’re strong.”
“I wish I had your confidence,” Charlotte said. She dismissed Talia after the girl brought her a glass of vitamin water, two paracetamol and three-and-a-half white round tabs of Vitalica.
Adverts were playing on the telly again. I swear there’s more adverts than actual telly, thought Charlotte. Some of them are rather amusing though. This one with the squirrel and the mop is simply hilarious.
Suddenly, the screen cut to black. Black and white fuzz appeared for a brief moment, frenzied ants darting across the screen. Charlotte had never seen this sort of interruption before in all her years of watching telly.
The picture shivered back into focus.
It was that awful man, in all his tacky feathers and sequins. The one who’d started all this. The one who’d made her sick.
Charlotte glowered at the screen. The effeminate old tosser had the gall to look solemn. She wondered what he was up to now. A new strain of his infectious virus, perhaps? Was she not dying fast enough for him?
The man in the television screen was pleading with the government to stop taking innocent lives, his long face beseeching, dark eyes adopting an expression that was almost human. A crazed cult leader, Charlotte thought.
“You can’t fight a war with pleases and thank yous,” he was saying. “All you understand is violence and depravity.” He held out the tail syllables of words for too long, she noticed. Depraviteee. “I, Prime Minister Waterman, I am not depraved, like you lot. You might think I am, but you’re wrong. Still, I wouldn’t force my hand if I were you.” He grinned then, showing off two terrible, unnaturally coloured rows of teeth.
Dear god, how have they not arrested this man yet? Charlotte wondered. I love my King and country, but there’s a reason people at large assume our government is completely inept.
Goodness, do I feel faint, she noted, falling back against her harem of pillows. That man is the devil, and he’s got the whole world doing his bidding.
Just what would it take to stop him?
Darkness broke in streaks through fog and street lamps, through beer bottles and cigarettes lining damp gutters. The distant shouts of girls and boys echoed as they made their way home from the pub in the wee hours before daybreak, squeezing out the last drops of their collective high before exhaustion took hold. Eyes sleepy and shining, wisps of brightly coloured hair sticking to their foreheads, scented sweet like flowers and stale like whiskey, home to their mums, home to their untidy beds, thinking of nothing but the new loves and old losses found and stolen on the dancefloor only hours before.
How beautiful and bright was the blissful ignorance of youth.
Jeeves scuffed along the trash-littered streets, his shadow on the pavement moving in flashes and stripes in contrast to the unwavering silhouette of Montreal keeping pace beside him.
On this dark morning that felt like eternal night, Jeeves and Montreal returned to the scene of the crime, to the alleyway behind the Tesco on Marlborough Road, to where Jeeves had anticipated the deployment of TAKEBACK in shakes and shivers, pulsing like a livewire in the cold wet dawn of Londontown.
It was raining once again. No
t the kind of rain that happens on any given day, light showers in the spring that you can walk through without getting very wet, popping into a café for a pot of tea if it turns heavy, waiting inside for it to let up and the sun to peek out for a few minutes.
This was a torrential downpour. Black sky and thunder in the distance.
Montreal’s slick black trench coat was wrapped tightly around him, his gloved hands in his pockets. “It’s not going to get better any time soon.” he said. “Should stay here under the overhang till it lets up.”
Jeeves scuffed the sidewalk with his alligator boot, standing next to Montreal under the canvas awning behind the rear entryway of Tesco.
“It’ll get better,” Jeeves said, pausing to light a cigarette. “Always does. Just have to be patient.”
“Give it here.” Montreal reached for Jeeves’ lighter and cigarettes. The lighter was fickle, a thick silver thing inlaid with opal that Jeeves refused to part with even though the darn thing only worked half the time.
In between curses, Montreal finally managed to spark a flame, handing the lighter back to Jeeves. “So, I’ve gone through every channel I could think of. No leads, nothing. No canary I know will sing the song of Saint Fox.” He hollowed his cheeks as he inhaled from yet another sworn-off vice. “I can tell you this much though. The fact that we can’t find him means they got him.”
Jeeves was quiet for a moment. Behind the grey wisps of smoke escaping from his lips, his long face was tired and drawn.
“They’re killing ‘em dead,” said Jeeves, his eyes on the ground in front of him. “Just kids.” He dropped his cigarette onto the wet ground, watching as the rain washed it down the street, a bent little submarine. “They’ll kill him, too.” His voice was barely above a whisper. There was no lilt at the end of his sentence, no frenetic pitch, no exaggerated drawing out of consonants.
“You know they’ll stop soon, right? It’s a last ditch attempt to scare us off before they accept their fate, calling us bioterrorists, tryin’ to convince people that TAKEBACK is aggressive, that their violent demonstration against us is for people’s safety. Probably trying to impress the Americans or something, show those bastards we don’t need their help.” Montreal glanced sidelong at Jeeves, then up at the black sky, exhaling his smoke. “Too many folks are using GGcoin now, whether they like it or not. The money—that’s the real battle. The virus is GGcoin, and when something goes viral, there’s no stopping it. The virus takes over. Redefines the system it overtakes. You don’t even remember what it was like before.” Montreal’s blue eyes were bright and earnest like a boy’s, a stark contrast to the lines on his face detailing his age and experience.
“No one was supposed to die,” Jeeves said. A sick wave of panic had taken up residence in his stomach, but he pressed it down low beneath madness and hope. “War is always messy, no matter what. I should have known.”
“Could have told you that,” Montreal huffed. “And you did know. You just didn’t want to believe it.”
“We were supposed to cure everyone. TAKEBACK—boom!, then GET CLEAN, rolled out in waves as the usage of GG coin steadily rose—that was the plan. Now we can’t even distribute the cure with the goddamn military posted round every corner.”
“You could make the cure readily available. Or…you could tell them the truth,” Montreal said, casting his eyes skyward.
“Too soon!” Jeeves snipped. “It would threaten the currency.” Increasingly ludicrous thoughts ran through his mind like a news ticker. “I wanna help ‘em all, I do, but if we time this wrong it’ll make all our hard work for naught.”
“I know what you’re thinkin’. What’s my next scheme?” Montreal shook his head. “Ain’t always a way out.”
“You’re wrong,” said Jeeves, lighting up another fag. “Always a way out. One way or another, Saint Fox will sing again.”
“How’s that gonna work?” Montreal raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“He’s my boy. I made him once, I can make him again. We’ll rally,” Jeeves said, nodding vigorously. “Get everyone pumped up again. Teach ‘em it’s okay to fight back, protect yourself, don’t fold yer cards no matter what you’ve got in your hand, don’t show them your belly. Don’t sweat and don’t break eye contact. Just steady...steady...” he balanced on one foot, arms out in front of him, rain falling between his fingers, “then HIT! Hit ‘em where it counts.”
“We did exactly that. Hit ‘em in their pocketbooks.” Montreal pulled his coat closer around himself. “I’ll keep digging. Security’s gotten tighter, wherever they’re keeping him is someplace different from the bases in operation when I was active. Who knows what they’re even keeping him for? It’s not like the kid knows anything.”
“Just what I taught him.” Jeeves shifted a tad in his demeanor, so that he stood a little taller and his colours came alive. “Rain’sss letting up. Let’s go.”
He stepped out into the drizzle, doing zigzag spins past the murky puddles at his feet.
Montreal sighed. “I’ll keep you informed, Nijinsky. Try my darndest. I like that boy.”
“You do that. We don’t want to lose another man. Now come on, I’m in need of one of the other talents on your myriad list of skills.”
“Which skills would those be?”
“Your rock star skills, of course,” Jeeves said, a smile spreading across his lips as he tilted his face to the wet sky.
Jeeves and Montreal turned their backs on Tesco on Marlborough Road. They walked silently through the water-covered streets, Jeeves dancing in nimble jumps and jives whenever the rain fell lighter.
Chapter Thirty-Five
SCREAM LIKE A BABY
Light slipped into the concrete room through the corridor, and was immediately blocked by the looming, ever-present form of General Simsworth.
“Sleeping in the middle of the day, are we? Just like a rock star,” he mocked, stepping in closer.
“I don’t feel so good,” Sam mumbled. He shook steadily, skin pale and covered with a layer of cold sweat. “Think I need a doctor.”
“Is that right?” Simsworth nudged his thigh with a steel-covered toe. Sam shivered, half frozen to death in the stark square prison. His once shimmering days and nights were now spent lying on a cot atop a flea-infested mattress, under a scratchy brown blanket no better than sackcloth, drifting in and out of consciousness and hoping that today would be the last day his body needed to detox.
“Why’s it every time I open my eyes I see your disgusting face?”
Simsworth crossed his arms. “‘Cause I’ve been marching over here every couple of hours to make sure you don’t get any sleep. Or maybe I’m just dancing through yer dreams,” he said, making horrid mocking kissing sounds.
He stepped over to loom above Sam, a bright, sweaty thing casting a dark shadow. “Here.” Simsworth shoved a small chalky substance into his mouth with his large fingers. “Chew. Swallow. It’ll make you feel much, much better.”
“What is it?” Sam choked out, the powder coating his dry throat.
“It’s your favourite sweet,” Simsworth said. “Tasty smack. Good, isn’t it?”
Sam leaned over the cot and spat on the ground, a few pathetic splotches of saliva and white.
“I didn’t go through gettin’ clean against my will just to get forced into becoming a junkie again,” he said.
Simsworth grabbed Sam around the ankles, pulling him off the cot and onto the floor, into his own sick. “You don’t have a will anymore, Saint Fix.” He spat on the ground next to his face. Simsworth kicked him in the stomach, then exited the cell in three quick strides. A loud metallic clang echoed throughout the room as the door slammed shut.
Sweat ran down Sam’s back in wide, thick streams, heat and chills, fire and water, the salt burning wounds that had yet to heal.
Montreal was right, he thought. Everyone who says they’re your friend is a liar. He coughed and spat hard on the ground, a mixture of blood and bile. The smell in the room was beyo
nd unbearable, warm recycled air and stale piss that he no longer recognised as foul after living in it for weeks.
I’m the King of England, he thought. The kids won’t stand for this. When they find out what’s happened to me, they’ll band together and bust me out of here. My own army of devotees.
But they aren’t my army. They belong to Janus Jeeves. They belong to no one. They’re just lost kids, like me. Didn’t know what the bloody fuck was going on, just wanted something to believe in, something besides superhero movies and cleverly written television shows.
So I gave them a rock band.
All those flashing lights and eyes like so many dead things boring into you, like they wanted to carve out a piece of your soul and cherish it next to their hearts ‘cause there was nothing else inside of them.
Bang bang, shoot me in the head. Bang bang, shoot me til I’m dead. C’mon over here, baby. Come over here and shoot me.
The beginnings of a killer tune, he mused. Kit would know what to do with it. She’d make it screech and squeal and beg, dip and rise and plummet, leaving the kids high out of their minds and wanting more.
Sam was glad she couldn’t see him now. It didn’t matter. No snatch, no matter how sweet, could save him. His mind reeled at the thought of sex, of smooth legs and full, red lips, of cunts and cocks and tits and whatever the hell else people had on them these days. He retched onto the concrete floor. The vomit from his near-empty stomach was practically transparent.
For the past three days, seemingly without reprieve, the singer for Saint Fox and The Independence had been beaten, punched, kicked, and cut open. He’d had buckets of freezing ice water thrown at him, then buckets of boiling water. They’d shaved off his hair, through the dark roots grown in underneath the red, not caring how many times they nicked his scalp in the process. I guess Sailor won’t be giving me another haircut any time soon, he’d thought when it happened.
The Rise of Saint Fox and The Independence Page 22