Adam agreed to the figure, giving the location and combination of a self-storage locker in Kings Cross station, which contained slightly more cash than the opportunistic Martin had demanded. Adam used similar lockers in major cities all over the world.
Adam removed the burner’s sim card and swallowed it. He did some quick mental calculations.
He would need to stop at one of his lockers to replenish his wardrobe, makeup, and wigs.
He would need firepower, quickly.
He would need to steal a car.
He could afford four hours sleep before leaving. He lay down and closed his eyes, a small smile playing around his lips.
Joni Varden was in London.
27
London
Joni took a while to get to sleep. It was night, but there were still lights outside, and distant sounds were audible over the occasional snore from others in the room. She doubted London was ever silent. How could people stand it? Not being able to find a refuge where the only sound was a gust of wind through the leaves of the trees, or the distant murmur of the ocean? She lay awake in the semi-darkness, wondering if another aspect of her abilities might be the knack of attracting trouble. She’d come to the capital to escape a killer and walked straight into the middle of the Manna War. She’d heard what was going on from visitors to the island and more had been filled in by a couple of books left behind. But this wasn’t like the events in her history lessons. This was happening right now.
Her mind finally caught up with her body’s insistence that she needed to sleep and she closed her eyes.
After Year Zero, it had taken Manna users a few years to confirm their worst suspicions. Year Zero marked the point after which no more Manna users were born. There were many theories as to why it had happened, but none offered sufficient evidence to be convincing. Manna was still there, and its Users could still fill up with the power they craved as easily as ever. But they would be the last.
One unexpected result of Year Zero, after Users spent a few years looking for answers which never came, was the end of secrecy. Manna users were a very small subset of humanity, able to focus their minds in such a way that they could draw power from Thin Places around the world. Some had used this power to help heal, or feed the hungry. Most had used it to wield power over their fellow humans. All had kept to the shadows, as those who had more openly revealed their abilities in the past had often been reviled as monsters and slaughtered. Vampires, werewolves, golems, witches, wizards, shape-shifters…these were myths and legends drawn from real encounters with Manna users. And, although less easy to kill than normal humans, the most powerful Manna users on the planet died just like anyone else if beheaded or consumed by fire. And they were outnumbered thousands to one. Secrecy had, over the centuries, became as important to them as their abilities.
But the last generation of Manna users wanted answers, wanted to give their children the chance to develop the same power. The children of Manna users were statistically around five times more likely to be Users than those born into regular families. Some Manna users went to the scientific community for answers. They did it carefully, paying for their own labs, scientists, and technicians. The majority of Users had accepted that Manna was some kind of advanced nanotechnology, buried in Thin Places. Some stubbornly clung on to a belief in magic, God, or Satan, attributing the gift of Manna to their preferred candidate. For the majority, two theories vied for supremacy as to the origin of Manna. One named aliens, the other an advanced human civilization, long since gone. The latter explanation had gained the most traction.
Science proved to be a dead end. Any attempt to discover what was happening at a cellular or molecular level inevitably failed. Manna users at the peak of their powers gave samples of blood. It was normal. Scans were taken—CT and PET—while a User was demonstrating their power. The moment the equipment was turned on, the Manna turned off. Any attempt to measure Manna was thwarted. It didn’t want to be observed, and human ingenuity was nowhere near advanced enough to persuade it otherwise.
Those who wielded this ancient power reacted in different ways after the permanent effects of Year Zero had been confirmed. Some global players began the slow process of legitimizing their businesses. Others liquefied their assets and retired into obscurity. Smaller criminal groups fought among themselves or disappeared. But the most significant outcome was the rise of Manna gangs. Based in major cities, where certain districts soon became virtually no-go areas, the gangs used their power to fuel their private fantasies, no longer trying to hide. Their combined power was such, that—after early failed attempts by the police and military to reclaim the gangs’ territories—they were, in general, allowed to live relatively unmolested.
An uneasy peace existed for a short while.
After the first, lawless years, the police and courts were given powers to keep Users in check. Germany was the first to come up with bespoke weapons, its lead followed quickly by the rest of Europe, then the world. Australia introduced tagging devices into its criminal justice system after a few false starts and—once again—the rest of the world was quick to copy a workable method designed to curb the Manna gangs.
The weapons were a combination of existing tech combined with some new ideas. Tasers, a way of immobilizing a potentially violent suspect, had been popular in some police forces for years. It soon became known that a taser, besides overriding the central nervous system and causing muscles to spasm, also knocked out any Manna currently active in the victim. Every police officer in Manna gang cities was issued with the devices, nicknamed ‘Manna-spanners.’
The second weapon was the EMPty - an electromagnetic pulse grenade. A holy grail of the military for more than two decades, scientists, weapon designers and technicians in the field suddenly found their budgets increased. This was accompanied by huge political pressure. Within eighteen months, the first prototype was being tested and, a year later, the EMPties were in use. Thrown into a crowd of Users, the EMPty would explode three seconds after its pin was pulled. It wasn’t designed to inflict physical damage, although some damage was inevitable in any explosive device. Its Unique Selling Proposition was the tightly targeted electromagnetic pulse it produced, knocking out any cellphone, computer or electronic device within a thirty meter radius. Also, of course, disabling any Manna. The shock to a person of a sudden, complete loss of Manna had the useful side-effect of producing unconsciousness.
The Manna-spanners and EMPties turned the tide. Soon, Users stopped any open raids of areas outside the districts in which they had settled. The situation was pretty much a stalemate, but the Australian approach to justice made it possible to contain the Users and dissuade them from making any attempts at a major power grab. Again, it was based on existing technology.
It was a brutally effective, simple system. Any Manna user caught by the police was tagged. This, much to the horror of human rights advocates, included those who used their power to help their fellows. The rise to government of hard-line right-wing parties in the West had been another notable trend following Year Zero, so the same human rights advocates found themselves comprehensively ignored. The tags were simple in design - they sent a signal if tampered with or removed. The wearer’s DNA was on record. If a tag wearer ever found him or herself in police custody again, the DNA on record removed the need for a trial. The prisoner automatically qualified for a life sentence in one of the purpose-built facilities far from any Thin Place. With no chance of parole. Tag removers qualified for the same treatment the moment the tag was tampered with.
So Joni knew what she was looking at when she woke up in the squat the next morning to the sound of—to her exhausted and slightly paranoid brain, at least—someone assembling various metal instruments of torture on a work surface. She opened one eye and cautiously tugged the sleeping bag away from her face. She was looking at an old, cracked, tiled floor. About eight feet away a pair of ankles came into view. Bare feet. She shivered inside the sleeping bag, fully clothed. On
e of the ankles sported a bright orange band. A Manna tag.
Joni quietly pushed herself into a sitting position, sliding her back up the wall behind her. She hadn’t really got an impression of what kind of place she was in the previous night. She had been so exhausted, Charlie had taken pity on her and set her up on a thin mattress. Now, sitting in the early morning light, she could start to fill in some details about her location.
The ground floor was one, big, space. Judging from the abrupt changes in flooring materials over a few different areas, the house must have originally been more traditionally laid out, as a series of rooms. The conversion to an open-plan arrangement had obviously not involved any architects, interior designers, or anyone by the name of Quentin. Instead, it looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the interior walls and kept swinging until they were gone. Which was, in fact, exactly what had happened.
Diagonal stripes of mote-filled winter sunlight fell across the floor and up the side wall, illuminating the first four steps of an elegant staircase, its tattered and faded carpet hinting at a more salubrious past.
Around the walls were various piles of clothing, sleeping bags and personal belongings. All but one of the four sleeping bags were occupied. Joni could see a tuft of Charlie’s unkempt red hair poking through a small gap in the sleeping bag nearest to her.
The unoccupied sleeping bag must belong to the tagged ankles. It was a man, his back to her, wearing long shorts and a camouflage jacket. He was tall, his blonde hair shaved close to his scalp. The noise that had woken her was him making his breakfast. Joni was amazed that everyone else seemed able to sleep through the racket. He had filled up a battered metal stove-top kettle and turned on the gas hob, lighting it with a flourish before flicking the match behind him. Now that Joni looked more carefully, she could see dozens of burnt match heads littering the floor.
While the water was heating up, Ankles grabbed a mug from a shelf and set it down on the counter, before tapping out a salsa-like rhythm on it with a teaspoon. There was an old, filthy looking toaster on the counter and he grabbed this next, pulling it toward him before dropping two slices of white bread into it. He pushed the lever. The bread slices disappeared inside, then immediately reappeared. He pushed it down again, with the same result. This was followed by about thirty seconds of what looked like a vicious attack on the defenseless appliance. Finally, it yielded, and the bread stayed down.
The kettle began to whistle as it came to the boil. Rather than removing it from the heat and stopping its rising shriek, Ankles started whistling too, trying to match the ascending tone. As he did so, his teaspoon salsa resumed, and he started dancing, singing something loudly in a language Joni didn’t recognize.
Finally, he stopped singing and drumming. He used the teaspoon to flip the teabag against the window, where it began sliding down a well-worn brown trail toward a pyramid of teabags, suggesting an interval of many weeks between any cleaning attempts. He then used the same spoon to force a blackened piece of bread from the toaster and take a bite.
“Well, are you wanting a cup of tea and some jammy toast, or will you be staring at my tag the whole bloody morning?”
Joni jumped, startled. How could he…? Manna?
“I just know when someone is staring at me, that’s all.”
Was he reading her mind?
“And I’m not reading your mind, so no need to be worrying about what you are thinking. It’s a simple enough question, noob. Tea?”
He turned, while taking a long sip from the hot tea. When he lowered the mug, Joni jumped again, and only just managed to stop herself blurting out his name.
It was Odd.
28
Northumbria
Mee stood at the Thin Place, shivering. It wasn’t cold - in fact, a long-promised area of high pressure had finally done whatever it is that areas of high pressure did and brought on one of Britain’s fabled heat waves. This meant very little to Mee, who was trembling for two reasons, neither of which were weather-related. The first was the fact that she’d only left the island on one other occasion since Seb vanished. The second was the fact that Joni had gone, and was almost certainly in danger. Joni. Her little girl.
She hadn’t suspected a thing before Stuart had seen her that morning. Joni hadn’t slept in her bed the previous night. The morning before, she’d been up before dawn. She’d left Mee a note.
I need a day or two alone to think about Dad - and this weird power of mine. I’ll be in the crofter’s cottage. I’ll be back when my food runs out! Love, J xxx
The crofter’s cottage was a one-room stone dwelling on the northeast tip of Innisfarne. It was weatherproof but basic, a simple camp bed in one corner and an ancient washtub in the other. A rudimentary toilet. Visitors sometimes used it for silent retreats.
Mee had given Joni the space she wanted. She understood the power of solitude. Stuart’s news that morning had come as a huge shock.
He’d handed her an envelope at breakfast. It was addressed to her. Joni’s handwriting.
Mum,
Don’t give Stuart a hard time over this. I wrote him a separate note and told him if he didn’t do exactly as I instructed, it could mean you, Uncle John, and maybe others might be killed. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. I had to lie to you the other day.
Please trust me. This is the only way I could think of that might keep us safe until I can work this out. I can’t explain any more than that, but I want you to stay where you are. Don’t come after me. I will get in touch soon.
I know this sounds crazy, but I think you could see I was more upset than I should have been the other day. Something happened. I reset, but I know it will happen again unless I find a way of stopping it.
I’m sorry. I love you. I will be back as soon as I can,
Jones xxx
Mee had read it twice, feeling numb. Then she looked at Stuart. He wouldn’t meet her eye.
“She left me a note, Mee, said it was life and death. Now, she’s not your average teenager, that one. I know she wouldn’t say it unless it were true. She also asked me not to tell you anything else.”
That was the longest speech Mee had ever heard Stuart make.
“What do you mean, anything else? What aren’t you telling me?”
Stuart had simply shaken his head, looking down at the table. Mee had waited until he finally looked at her.
“Bugger,” he had said. “All right, then.” He told her about the letter he’d delivered to the ginger man in the boat. After he’d finished, he added that he had a ‘bad feeling’ about the man.
When Mee had said she was going after Joni, John and Kate had both wanted to come with her. It had taken a while for Mee to talk them out of it. For a start, someone Joni knew and trusted had to be on Innisfarne if she got back before Mee did. And Kate ran the place. They had both eventually seen the sense of this, but neither of them liked it. Kate had shown her the missing disqs, not upset at that loss, just relieved that Joni would have enough money. She’d also given Mee a cellphone and a wireless charger from a cupboard, taking note of the number.
“Call us, keep us informed.”
Mee looked at her slightly cynically. The island’s landline was notoriously unreliable. Kate had responded by punching a number into the cell’s contact list and handing it back.
“Send texts to this number.” She held up a second cellphone. I’ll give this one to Stuart. He can pick up the signal on the mainland and pass on any messages.” The thought of Stuart using any kind of technology invented after 1970 was comical, but Mee wasn’t in a laughing mood.
She’d hugged Kate and John and left Innisfarne.
Now Mee had a bag full of clothes and no idea where she was heading. Stuart had delivered a letter to a man on a boat. It wasn’t much to go on. He had promised to look for him today, but Mee had the sickening feeling he wouldn’t find him. Because he was with Joni? Had they run away together? No. Joni wouldn’t lie about the danger they were in. This man was
a threat to her somehow. To all of them. He was the danger.
She looked at the remains of the stone circle in front of her. It was at the edge of a meadow, hidden from the road by the undulating landscape. There were five stones, gray, smoothed by centuries of exposure to wind, rain, hail and snow. The tallest stone appeared to be three feet high, but this was due to the fact that only the tips were visible. The bulk of each of the stones was buried underground, like landlocked icebergs.
Mee could feel the power. It had been a long time—many years—but she knew what to do. She allowed her mind to empty. She stepped forward, knelt and placed her hands on the warm earth. Almost immediately she felt her brain light up as tendrils of energy shot through her limbs, filling her with a power she hadn’t felt for nearly two decades. God, it was a rush. Her whole body shook as the force of the energy took hold of her, the Manna responding to her need. Despite the situation, she grinned. This must be how an alcoholic feels downing a scotch after years and years on the wagon.
“Oh fuck!” she screamed. “Fuck, yeah!” A sheep in the neighboring field interrupted its chewing and gave her a long stare, before moving briskly away as if offended.
Twenty minutes later she was on the bus. The driver remembered Joni well and, when they reached Moilburgh, so did the lady at the ticket office.
“Oh, yes, lovely girl. Your daughter? I can see the resemblance.”
If there was some kind of data protection regulation to stop public transport companies revealing the private travel arrangements of their passengers, news of this had yet to filter through to the northeast fringes of the network.
“Oh, yes, dear,” said the woman, beaming happily. “Of course I remember. She was off to London, dear.”
The World Walker Series Box Set Page 82