Gareth L Powell

by Gareth Powell

  Both the police and press were out in force. Turning up the collar of his coat,

  he made his way through the crowds. Some were hurrying away from the

  Square, injured and panicked; others were pressing closer, trying to get a look

  at the thing that had erupted from the magazine’s servers. He barged through

  them all, ignoring their shouts and protests.

  The contagion had spread. For the past six months, mini Singularities

  had been popping up all over the globe. They erupted like flowers, only to

  whither and die. Nobody really knew how or why, but neither of those

  questions really mattered right now. Lee had been on his way to Whitehall

  when the news of this latest eruption broke, and now all he could think of was

  finding Kerri.

  Even after half a year, his shin hurt where it had been broken in the

  avalanche. The bone had healed but the damned thing still bothered him when

  the weather turned wet and cold.

  Up ahead, the police were trying to cordon off the road. He limped up

  to the most senior officer he could see—a harassed-looking sergeant with a

  radio pressed to one ear—and flashed his Downing Street security pass.

  “I need to get through.”

  “You and half of London, mate.”

  The man’s thick build and unspoken, belligerent assumption of

  superiority were redolent of a young thug called Glyn, standing in a quarry in

  Wales while bees buzzed, and a girl called Kerri tried to drag him back into a

  corrugated iron hut.

  “No, seriously, the mother of my son’s in there.”

  The sergeant shrugged. Lee’s problems were none of his concern.

  “Sorry, emergency crews only.”

  Lee felt his fist curl around an imaginary rock.

  “Look at this.” He flapped the laminated pass under the man’s

  moustache. “Do you know who I am? I’m Lee Doyle, the CEO of Lone Tower

  Inc. Ever heard of it? I’m over here advising the government on these

  outbreaks. I know more about what’s happening here than you do. Now, are

  you going to let me past, or do I have to ring the Prime Minister?”

  30

  “Now, listen here-”

  “I’ve got her on speed dial.” Lee pulled out his mobile. “All I have to do

  is press this button.” It was the purest bluff. He’d never met the woman

  personally, only consulted with her advisors—the Prime Minister needed to

  keep some distance between herself and the measures Lee would have to put

  in place to curb the spread of the contagion—but this cop wouldn’t know that,

  and Downing Street passes weren’t handed out to just anybody; and Lee hadn’t

  built his company into a giant corporation without learning a thing or two

  about the art of bullshit. He hovered his thumb over the keypad and looked the

  sergeant in the eye. “Now, I’m going to count to three,” he growled. “Are you

  going to cooperate, or do you want to explain yourself to the PM?”

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, Lee reached the remains of the magazine’s office building

  just as a stretcher team carried Kerri from the rubble. He caught up with them

  as they were loading her into the back of a waiting ambulance. She was covered

  in plaster dust.

  “Lee?” Her eyes were bloodshot. She kept hacking.

  “I’m here.” He squeezed her forearm through the red blanket. One of

  the medics tried to intervene but he waved his security pass at them.

  “Government business,” he said.

  The office block had partially collapsed. Bits of it were ablaze. Fire crews

  emptied their hoses through broken, soot-stained windows. Somewhere in the

  depths of the ruin skulked something black and fibrous. Lee could see one of

  its tentacles twitching feebly. The bodies of the dead were lined up on the

  opposite pavement, anonymous beneath identical red blankets, waiting to be

  taken wherever it was that bodies were taken in these circumstances.

  Kerri worked her hand free and gripped his fingers.

  “Lewis.”

  “What about him?” Lee glanced at the rubble in alarm. “Oh God, he’s

  not in there is he?”

  Kerri’s lips were dry and cracked; her clothes stank of smoke.

  “No, he’s at home with Heather.”

  “Thank Christ.”

  “Lee, listen. If anything happens to me, you have to promise-” She broke

  into a series of wracking coughs.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you.” He turned to the waiting medics

  for confirmation. “Right?”

  The stretcher-bearers exchanged a look.

  “We need to get her to hospital.”

  “Why, how bad is it?”

  “She’s inhaled a lot of smoke. At least one broken rib. There may be

  some internal bleeding.”

  “Shit. Then I’m coming with you.”

  He let them load her into the ambulance and climbed in beside the

  stretcher. He pulled out his mobile phone.

  “Which hospital are we going to?”

  31

  “UCH.” The driver turned the key in the ignition. “The rest are

  swamped.”

  The wipers clunked back and forth across the windscreen. Lee scrolled

  through his contacts and selected Kerri’s home number. Heather answered on

  the second ring. She had been watching the catastrophe on the news. He told

  her where they were going and hung up.

  Rain beat on the ambulance roof. Cars choked the roads, and groups of

  people were gathering on street corners in the rain. The medic slipped an

  oxygen mask over Kerri’s face. A valve hissed every time she exhaled. By the

  time they reached the hospital, she had stopped breathing altogether. The

  ambulance crew whisked her into the treatment room. Lee tried to follow but

  found his way barred by the arm of a stressed-looking nurse. Hands in pockets,

  he walked back to the overcrowded reception area. When Heather turned up,

  almost an hour later, it took her a moment to spot him in the crowd.

  “Any news?”

  He shook his head. He hadn’t been able to elicit anything useful from

  the staff. There were simply too many casualties. Those patients that could be

  moved were being shipped off to Royal London and St. Thomas’s. Minor

  injuries were being turned away at the door. People infected by the Reef were

  being moved to a special quarantine facility.

  “Where’s Lewis?”

  “He’s with a friend.” Heather brushed back her wet hair. Beneath her

  raincoat, she wore an old rugby shirt and jogging bottoms. A furled umbrella

  dripped from her left hand. “I didn’t want to bring him.” She slid the umbrella

  into her shoulder bag and pushed her hands into her coat pockets. “I was sorry

  to hear about your wife.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You didn’t have any children, did you?”

  “No.” Lee swallowed. “No, we couldn’t.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too.” For the first time in years, he found himself wanting a

  drink or a cigarette. Mostly, he just wanted something to do with his hands.

  “You know,” he said, “this is probably the longest conversation you and

  I have ever had.”

  “So?”

  He shrugged.

  “I’m just saying.”

  He lapsed into sile
nce. Leaning against the wall, they watched the clock

  hands crawl around the dial. At midnight, one of the doctors came to find them.

  “We’ve stopped the bleeding.” The man looked tired. “She’s weak, but

  she’s stable for the moment. You should go home and get some rest.”

  When the doctor had gone, Heather said, “I’m going to stay.”

  Lee yawned.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” he said. “We should both get some sleep.”

  “Even so.”

  32

  “No, come on.” He pulled out his mobile. “I’m going to call my driver.

  I can give you a lift home. You need to check on Lewis. He’ll need you, and

  Kerri’s asleep anyway. Let me take you home, and I’ll send the car back for you

  in the morning. You can get a good night’s sleep and still be back here when

  she wakes up tomorrow.”

  Heather looked around at the crowded plastic seats and the clusters of

  half-empty coffee cups. The place stank of disinfectant, sweat and impatience.

  In the opposite corner of the room, a cleaner mopped around the feet of

  relatives waiting for news of loved ones.

  “Okay,” she said.

  SHE FOLLOWED HIM out onto the street. The rain had stopped, and a watery

  moon shone through veils of orange cloud. Lee turned up his collar.

  “I can get her transferred to a private hospital.”

  Heather shook her head. She fumbled in her bag for her umbrella.

  “No, she wouldn’t want that.”

  “Because it’s me?”

  “Partly.” Heather smiled despite herself. “Also, she doesn’t believe in

  private healthcare.”

  Lee’s phone rang. It was the driver. Some sort of disturbance was going

  on, and he couldn’t get close to the hospital. The roads were blocked.

  “Wait there,” Lee told him. He pocketed the phone and turned to

  Heather. “We’ll have to walk a little way, I’m afraid.”

  She tugged the strap of her bag more firmly onto her shoulder.

  “Whatever.”

  Side by side, they made for the Euston Road, their footsteps loud on the

  quiet pavements. The air felt fresh and clean after the closeness of the waiting

  room. An airliner passed overhead; its red and green lights winked.

  “It’s just a plane,” Lee reassured himself. Beside him, Heather raised an

  eyebrow.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.” They were nearing the Tube station. Ahead, he could hear

  the restless grumble of a crowd. Blue lights glanced off the wet-slicked tarmac.

  A glass bottle smashed.

  Heather slowed.

  “Maybe we should go another way?”

  “No, come on.” All Lee wanted was to get to his car, and then back to

  his hotel. They emerged onto the main road. The carriageway had been closed

  to traffic. At one end, a phalanx of armed police faced off against an agitated

  mob.

  “I don’t like this,” Heather said.

  Lee was too tired to care. He’d seen similar protests in other cities.

  Wherever the Reefs sprang up, unrest followed. Some wanted to purge the

  infection, others to embrace it. He took her hand and began walking in the

  direction of the police lines. He could see his car, waiting on the curb a hundred

  metres or so behind the farthest riot van. All he had to do was flash his ID when

  33

  they reached the front ranks of riot policemen, he thought, and they’d be

  through; but, as they drew closer, he heard a roar of voices behind him, the

  sound of running feet. Looking back, he saw the crowd surging forwards;

  placards and sticks held aloft, mouths screaming open, faces contorted, stones

  and other missiles raining from their hands.

  A Molotov cocktail arced overhead and shattered on the road between

  Lee and the waiting constabulary. He got a waft of heat, a whiff of petrol.

  Heather tried to drag him into a doorway, but they were caught up with the

  rioters now, driven forward like fishing boats running ahead of a storm, unable

  to fight the current for fear of getting capsized and trampled.

  Ahead, the police sheltered behind a line of riot shields. Their faces were

  shadowed beneath helmets and visors. They waited until the crowd was almost

  within touching distance, and then let fly with a volley of gunfire. Lee heard

  the flat, echoing reports, saw the smoke. Someone went down to his left. He

  heard cries. The frontrunners tried to slow but were pushed on by the weight

  of those behind.

  Another volley.

  Heather jerked and fell. Her fingers slipped from his.

  The charge broke up. Only the foolhardiest continued to storm the

  impregnable shield wall. The rest ran from the shots, barging into and tripping

  over each other in their hurry to get away, to put something solid between

  themselves and the projectiles loosed by the police.

  Lee found Heather lying on her side in the street. She had been kicked

  and trodden upon. A bloody red welt disfigured her forehead, and her eyes

  had rolled up into their sockets, showing only the whites through half-closed

  lids. A plastic bullet lay beside her, the end rimed in crimson. He knelt beside

  her on the wet road. The baton round had hit the front of her skull like a spoon

  hitting the top of a boiled egg. Her mouth hung slack, and a line of drool trailed

  from the corner of her lip. Rain pooled in her open eyes. Without knowing why,

  he picked up the plastic bullet that had killed her. It felt warm in his hand, like

  a sun-warmed rock on the lip of a Welsh quarry.

  Thunder rolled.

  The rain grew heavier.

  Lee knelt there, cradling the bullet in his hand, until the police came to

  take him away.

  34

  6.

  LEE STOOD ON his balcony and looked out over the grey waters of the Thames.

  From here, near Waterloo Bridge, he could see the Gherkin and the dome of St.

  Paul’s in one direction, and the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament in

  the other. The view gave him a sense of crawling satisfaction. It made him feel

  close to the centre of things, perched at the intersection of politics, religion and

  commerce. Recently, some of his friends had taken their fortunes and moved

  out to large houses in Oxfordshire or the Cotswolds; but he never would. He

  couldn’t imagine himself living in the countryside again. He needed light and

  noise. Going back would feel like a return to his childhood on the Welsh border,

  where it was always too quiet at night and the rolling hills held too many

  ghosts. He took a sip of orange juice from the wineglass in his hand. Out on the

  river, a pleasure barge sounded its foghorn. A plane rumbled through the

  overcast sky. A train pulled out from Waterloo Station, rattling and clattering

  its way across the bridge.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Beside him, Edward Harrell placed his own half-empty glass on the

  balcony rail and adjusted his cufflinks.

  “No thanks necessary.” He was a portly man with a flushed face and

  thick, florid lips. He wore a pinstripe three-piece suit and shiny black brogues.

  His fingers were short and thick like expensive sausages. “I even spoke to the

  PM, and she’s been very impressed. Especially with the way you handled that />
  business in the Mediterranean. Not to mention the incident in Cornwall.”

  Lee shrugged.

  “We lost good men in both those operations.”

  “But, in each case, you prevented an outbreak.”

  “And that’s why you’re offering us this contract?”

  Harrell leant on the rail. The wind ran a comb through his thinning hair.

  “Essentially, yes. You’re doing a good job rounding up the infected, but

  if we’re going to really contain this thing, we’re going to have to be ruthless.”

  Lee looked down at the remaining juice in his glass.

  “And you think we’re the right company for the job?”

  Harrell smiled. “We do.”

  “But these camps you’ve set up…”

  “Purely a precautionary measure. We hand over the running of them to

  your security personnel, and they keep the inmates confined until we’re sure

  they haven’t been infected.”

  “And how long will that be?”

  “We don’t know.”

  Spots of rain began to fall, borne on the wind. Lee led his guest back

  inside, into his study. The floors were polished hardwood; the rugs were from

  Morocco; a Swedish recluse had designed the furniture. A brass telescope stood

  on a tripod beside the door. Tasteful picture frames held photographs of Lone