2184

by Martin Parish

  "Couple different ways we can do this. We can just chuck them in there - but I think it's better if I take the other end and step into the barge with it. And if you lower the end you're holding - the liquid won't all run down to my end like it did the last time."

  "All right," he nodded. He tilted one of the drums on its side and crouched to hold the end as closed to the ground as possible; I lifted the other end and stepped backwards. The water level in the river had fallen slightly.

  "All right, now drop it," Kamal said, and I let the drum slip through my hands to the floor. The barge swayed with the impact as I climbed out.

  "Next one." We repeated the same steps over and over again; sometimes our luck held, and everything went well; another time Kamal's grip slipped and I had to jump back fast to dodge a smashed foot. At last only three drums remained on the quay, but the sun was low in the sky. I stopped for a moment to crack my knuckles. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure approaching us.

  "How are we doing then?" Scott said as he walked onto the quay. "Just about done?"

  "Just about," I said as I climbed out of the barge. "We've only got three more to load."

  "You're late then," he said; "it's eighteen-ten right now." Not bad, I thought to myself. I didn't have a watch.

  "Only by a few minutes. Here, Kamal, pick up that end." Scott watched us load the last two drums.

  "Think we're all done," I said. Scott cast a cursory glance at the boat and nodded.

  "Yeah, that looks about right," he said, although he'd hardly had time to check them. "Is one of them leaking?" Solvent like chemical perfume suffused the air around the barge, and I too had wondered at one point if there might be a leak, but the cargo box was still dry.

  "Not so far as I know," I replied. Scott unwrapped one of the two mooring cables and threw it into the barge, then followed suit with the other. "You're going down the river tonight?" I asked. "It'll be dark soon.”

  "No, not all the way, no." I felt queasy; he hadn't mentioned the money he owed us, except to remind us that we were late.

  "So what about the fifty nationals?" Kamal asked.

  Scott shook his head and walked off the quay towards the towboat. "Sorry, can't pay you anything. I said by eighteen hundred, I came over here at eighteen o five and you've held me up another ten minutes. It's six twenty now." My surprise quickly crystallized into rage.

  "No," I said, advancing on him, "we've been working at this all day. Sorry about your fifteen minutes, but you can knock off a few nationals if you want.”

  "No, can't pay you anything," he replied.

  "Then you're not leaving," Kamal said, echoing my own thoughts. Scott stood to his full height; he was four inches shorter than I and I began to laugh, but in a fluid motion he drew a small handgun from his jacket coat pocket and the laughter died in my throat. He shook his head wearily.

  "Just sod off, will you, and don't waste any more of my time, you've held me up fif-teen fucking minutes already."

  "That's a pretty toy," I said; "if they-" I jerked my thumb towards central Reading - "know anything about that you'll be on your way west quicker than you can blink."

  "So who's going to tell them? Not you. You got out from the lab. Couple of dirty lab rats. You go to them and it's back to your cage," he jeered. I finally realized he'd never meant to pay us anything; he wanted the job done for free. Of course! He'd seen us rooting through the trash; like everyone else, he thought there was a lab in Reading and assumed we'd escaped or been released; and if we gave him any trouble, well, no one would miss us. His implacable eyes assured me he wouldn't hesitate.

  "Come on," Kamal said quietly; "it's no good."

  "Well, fuck you too then," I spat and turned on my heel. Together Kamal and I walked towards the stone bridge. We'd have to go that way and find a place to stay for the night.

  &qotYou were right," I said sourly to Kamal.

  "Just to save fifty nationals. And he didn't even have to make it fifty," Kamal said, shaking his head; "I'd have done it for twenty-five." As I glanced over my shoulder I saw the barge pull out into the river, headed downstream. Scott would probably try to make it as far east as he could before dusk. My empty stomach reproached me bitterly for having been so naïve.

  I laughed as I turned it over in my mind. "Fifty. I guess that's all we're worth now. I'd've hoped I'd be worth a hundred, but you have to take what you can get. At least we got breakfast out of it. Other than that we've worked all day for free.”

  "We can't go back to London for a while now," Kamal said; "we're going to have to stay here, even if it's just for a couple days."

  "Yes," I said, still deeply disappointed; "I know."

  Chapter 8

  We spent the night in an abandoned building and rose before dawn. We tried scavenging through another dumpster in a back alley, but someone else had already picked it clean.

  "You know what, to hell with it," I said. "We'd better find a place to stay for starters, and then we can get cleaned up, we'll have more luck that way, I think."

  In the cities of those days, there were always a surfeit of abandoned homes and buildings; there's plenty of room in a city when half its population has died. Finding a place to stay wasn't difficult - depending on what you were prepared to accept. At the simplest you could take possession of any abandoned building, get keys cut for the doors(locksmiths were in constant demand), and make your own improvements. The Mods operated the water mains, and they subcontracted in turn with Mongrel firms who operated the actual plumbing, so you could contact the water company to get the water installed or switched on. Of course there were risks to simply taking what you found, because you could end up with a house on the verge of collapse or some other ugly problem.

  Usually the most desirable homes or buildings in London already had owners; you could rent these out if you had cash. Other unowned homes or buildings were maintained by the tenants, who formed a tenants' association(TA) to upkeep the building and screen new residents. Becky and I were part of a TA in London. But TAs also had drawbacks, since like everything else they had no real legal existence. The only court of appeal was the Mods, and it was best to avoid seeking their arbitration; superior intelligence often has disturbing ideas about fairness and justice.

  If you didn't care for what you could find or buy, there was always one other option. Some people stuck up their own lean-tos, improvised hovels built from corrugated metal, cardboard and other scraps. There were entire neighbourhoods in London that swarmed with these strange creations like human-sized chicken coops, shantytowns in the making.

  Kamal and I, however, we had no choice; without time and money we'd have to settle for what we could find. We walked south and east across Reading, stong to look at anything promising. After a half an hour or so we picked a place in a two-story brick-and-plaster terrace off a narrow side street. It looked like it would fit the bill: it was sturdy and there were neighbours, but not too many of them.

  "This'll work. What's the address again?" I asked.

  "Oh, I'll get it in a minute. Here, look at the kitchen." But I froze in surprise. Through a doorway I saw a complete stranger watching me.

  He was bearded and grim, a frown etched into his brows; his dense hair and beard were tangled and matted with dirt; he was gaunt like a scarecrow, and a lunatic intensity shone in his eyes. The stranger had a hunted look like an animal on the run. He reminded me of the cannibals in the deserted village. I opened my mouth to speak - and so did he.

  "Shit. Kamal?" My reflection said the same thing. It was a mirror left hanging on the bathroom wall when everything else in the flat had been plundered.

  "Mark?"

  I laughed. "Sorry, never mind. Nearly scared myself to death."

  We begged a couple of passer-by for money and this time we got lucky; after half an hour we had eight nationals. Not a fortune but enough to buy us soap, a razor, a pair of scissors, some food, some synthetic kerosene. Kerosene is the most ghastly way to kill lice because
not only does it hurt like hell, but you run the risk of lighting yourself on fire and dying together with your tormentors. The only thing to be said for it is that it's cheap and it works.

  We stole a bucket from an empty yard and used it to bring water from a fountain on the square. Once I'd cleaned up a little and rid myself of my beard and shaggy hair I felt a little more civilized again, and while we still looked ragged as scarecrows it was a start. When you are filthy and dirty your self-respect suffers, just as when you're despised you come to see yourself the same way. But finding work still wouldn't be easy; our clothes were in rags and we knew no one.

  "Didn't you say you were a plumber?" I asked Kamal.

  "Yes, but I don't have any tools with me, I can't just-"

  "All right, I know, I know." After I went to refill the bucket I realized I'd save time if our new neighbours would loan us some water. But would they be home? I didn't even know what day of the week it was. I knocked on the door of the house one down from our own. A dog responded from within with a deep-throated bark.

  "Yes?" the owner said with a frown as he opened the door. He was a meaty, thick-necked man in his early thirties wearing a sweater darned and patched at the elbows; he had pale blue eyes like a fish's eyes in a coarse fleshy face. He reminded me of a boar. Behind him a mixed-breed mutt scuffled at the wainscoting.

  "My friend and I just moved in next door and we don't have the water switched on yet, so I was wondering if we could borrow some of yours. I can pay you back later if you like." I didn't know how much they charged for water in Reading, but I didn't want to presume generosity where there might not be any.

  "Okay," he said and looked me up and down dubiously. "So how much water do you need then?"

  "Just a bucketful," I replied.

  "Oh. That.” He snorted. "That's no problem, I thought when you said you were gonna pay you meant more than that. No, you don't have to pay us back for something like that, no. What'd you say your name was?"

  "Mark Henshaw."

  "Tom Ferguson." He extended his hand; he had a brutal grip.

  "Pleased to meet you."

  "Here, why don't you come on in then. The wife and kids are out right now, so it's just me. Stop it, Butcher." By Butcher he meant his dog. "Kitchen's right through there, you can fill it up in there. Where'd you say you came here from?"

  "From London. Actually just got here this morning," I said. It wasn't a lie, just an omission. We had come from London, via a work camp, of course, but there was no point in telling him that. My experience the day before had taught me caution.

  "You walked a long way?"

  "Yes." I positioned the bucket under the faucet and turned it on. Their home was well-maintained; I inferred Tom had done all the repair. In the parlour a wonky table cobbled together from mismatched boards stood opposite a fireplace, and a curtain hung across the window.

  "So what'd you come here from London for?" he said, watching me fill the bucket.

  I hesitated, trying to contrive a story on the spot. "It's tough finding work in London right now. I heard it was easier out here.”

  "Well, I guess it depends on what you do. It seems like we always need more locksmiths. And doctors. Course there's no hospitals for us Mongrels any more, at least not here-" (there weren't any in London, either) "-but there's plenty of work for a good doctor, it's good pay if they do house calls."

  "No, nothing like that, I'm afraid."

  "Why, what'd you do in London?" he asked.

  "Electrical repair. I used to work at a government fuel plant in London, actually, working for the Mods, but I got my clearance revoked, so they won't hire me anymore," I said. That seemed believable enough.

  "Now electrical repair, you coul do pretty well with that. Everybody that's got their own generator or their own solar or whatever, and the water people, they're always needing that for their plant. I have trouble sometimes," he said with a chuckle, "we got our own solar unit here and I don't know much of anything about electronics, don't want to set the place on fire, so maybe you could lend me a hand, you know, when you got time."

  "We haven't really looked around yet, we only just got here."

  "Ah. Well if you haven't found anything yet - I tell you what, the place where I work, the manager's looking for a couple of blokes to work the night shift. It's real easy, simple stuff. You could take that up while you look for something else."

  I shut the faucet off. "The night shift? Is there a curfew?"

  "Well, I dunno. If you poke round their buildings downtown at night you'll get arrested, but why would anybody do that? Other than that you're fine.”

  "How does the plant run at night?"

  "We've got solar panels, so we store up the energy they get during the day and then we run the place at night on backup. You know, on supercapacitors.”

  I flipped off the faucet. "What kind of company is it?"

  "Well, it's not that big, I dunno, I wouldn't say it's a really big company or anything, but it's a contractor for the Mods. We assemble solar cells for their gadgets." In some industries, the Mods subcontracted for parts with Mongrel firms. While many of their more advanced materials were made using nanobots or biomolecular computing, those techniques were expensive enough that a Mongrel company could save them money. In other industries, the Mods ran all parts of the supply chain themselves and hired Mongrels to do the dirty work, especially at their fuel plants, which were so critical they had to oversee them.

  "It sounds fine. Where is it?" I asked.

  "It's up north of the station," he said. "I work there on the dayshift, I do some of the assembly work, you see, but if you want to come along with me tomorrow morning you can meet the manager and see if it'll work out, and I can put in a good word for you later on."

  "That's great, I think we'll do that if you don't mind," I said. If it really was simple entry-level work they wouldn't mind if we looked shabby, and later on we could look for work elsewhere if we needed to. "That's really kind of you."

  "Of course. We help our neighbours out here when we can. I leave real early, though, just a bit after sunup, so just make sure you're up by then."

  "Yes, we'll be over first thing in the morning."

  "Well, you don't have to do that," he said; "I'll stop by your place on my way out. You come over here that early you'll set the dog off and wake everybody else uphavent>

  "He doesn't look that ferocious," I said. “How'd he lose his ear?”

  "Lost it in a fight with a wolvo. He killed the wolvo though. Good boy.”

  “He killed a wolvo?” I said, amazed.

  “Yeah. Isn't that something. He's a fighter. He's tough. You wouldn't guess it just looking at 'im but once he's got his teeth in, bloody hell.”

  "How long have you had him?" I asked.

  "About five years. He was a stray when we found him."

  "I can't believe he killed a wolvo."

  "I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't seen him do it," he said as the dog examined a grease spot on the floor. “Look at him. What a dummy. Come on, Butcher.”

  "Kamal."

  "Yeah," he said, his voice drifting down from the second floor. He came to the head of the stairs. "Just checking to make sure everything'll hold up, you never know with these old buildings. So what is it."

  "Got some good news. Just talked to our neighbour, I told him we'd moved out here from London looking for work, and he says the manager where he works is looking for a couple people for the night shift - I guess they have night shifts there or something, and it's really simple work." He came down the stairs. His clothes were still tattered like my own, but he'd shorn off his shaggy beard and his moustache was once again carefully trimmed.

  "That is good. Where is it?" he asked.

  "It's over near where we were yesterday."

  "Oh, all right, that's not too far," he said.

  "He said we can come over with him tomorrow and he'll introduce us to his manager, you know, put a good word in for us," I e
xplained.

  "I guess we'll have to scavenge again today, unless we want to starve," Kamal said, shaking his head. "Wonder when they pay us. Probably once a week.”

  "I know, I know," I said. Hunger harassed me constantly, distracting like the pain from a rotting tooth. It was always on the back of my mind and if I ever stopped to concentrate on it I felt queasy and weak. "But at least it's a start. You know, all we really need to do is work there until the first time we get paid then we can leave."

  "You think?" Kamal frowned.

  "Of course. All we want to do is get back to London, as long as we've got some money in our pockets we can buy a change of clothes, you know, everything else we need, and get back on the M4 to London."

  “Ok, that makes sense.”

  "Why, what'd you think we were going to do, give them six years notice?" I asked.

  "No, that makes sense, I just wasn't thinking for a moment," Kamal replied.

  “I mean, we've got to go back,” I said. “There's this other thing – what I told you about before.” Marengo came to me unexpected and unwanted, but now that it was mine I could no longer turn it down; my life belonged to the human race, not to me. The others who held it were dead or scattered, and if I died who would know?

  “Right. No, no, I know,” he said, descending the stairs. “But don't talk about that. You never know.”

  “That's true.” We knew they monitored us, although how extensive or how universal their surveillance might be was unknown. The worst danger was probably our fellow Mongrels. The less often we spoke of Marengo the better.

  We set out early the next morning together with our new neighbour. "You all ready then?" he said after the sharp rat-tat at the door announced his arrival. He was dressed in shirt and jeans under overalls. He frowned at my jeans for a moment, probably noticing I wore the same tattered clothes as yesterday. An unpleasant gleam of suspicion dawned in his eyes.

  "Yes, let's go," I replied. Tom scrutinized Kamal for a moment then me again; but whatever he guessed, he kept it to himself. "This is Kamal Das, and Kamal this is Tom Ferguson."