‘She’s not as strong as you.’
Kavi gave a nervous smile.
‘You can go, I’ll call you later.’
‘If you’re sure.’
‘Go.’ Chloe gave her a gentle shove. Kavi smiled and turned. She had only gone a few paces when Miss Kepple came round the corner, her shoes clipping on the hard surface. Kavi froze.
Miss Kepple breezed past her without even looking; she had her eyes fixed on Chloe. Even in the Purity lessons, Miss Kepple never addressed a question, a look, or perhaps even a thought, at Kavi. It was as if she didn’t exist. She had stopped noticing Ashley as well.
Chloe liked Miss Kepple but did not think that was right.
‘How is your back, Miss Dark?’
‘Much better.’
‘Good.’ Miss Kepple opened the door to the infirmary, checked the room was empty and ushered Chloe inside. She shut the door firmly.
‘I understand you have applied to join the Purity?’
She was so stern Chloe could not decide whether she was angry or not. So she just nodded.
‘I would have thought you would want to discuss it with me first.’
‘I do, I mean, I would,’ said Chloe. ‘It was my dad really. He put my name in first.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Miss Kepple seemed to be adjusting mental gears, and then she smiled. ‘Well that’s all right. So you would like to talk about it?’
‘If you don’t mind?’
‘After school tomorrow then.’
‘Thank you.’
Chapter 5
Mitchell
The warehouse was swarming with police, technicians and forensics. Though mostly for show, since the whole area had been irradiated by the Sanitation squad as the first step. There was little evidence that S.I.D could infect in any way other than direct contact, and more than just a brief encounter.
Detective Inspector Mitchell stepped into the main floor with the plastic-covered machines. It was nearly lunchtime and he was hungry. He had handed over his gun to the forensic scientist responsible for the police side of the shooting and gone through the various administrative procedures. The incident outside had been filmed by drones so there would be no doubt justice was seen to be done as always.
He’d lost count of the kills he’d made.
One of the forensics went past carrying a half-eaten sandwich in an evidence bag. He stopped the man with an abrupt wave of his hand and had him hold up the sandwich. The pattern of large incisors was unmistakable. It was Dog again. That perp was a pain in the backside. When he had first surfaced, Mitchell had assumed Dog was a freak, but he had been around so long he must just be human.
Mitchell walked over to the line of tape outlining the primary area of interest. He glanced around at the lathe and the table of cartridge bags. There were three fully suited forensics combing the area. Mitchell felt rather than saw Yates coming up beside him.
‘Any sign of Dog?’ he said.
‘No, but Kendal’s got an aching head.’
‘Serves him right. What the hell did he think he was playing at?’
Yates shrugged. He was a good twenty years younger than Mitchell, and a good detective, though he reminded Mitchell of a game show host.
‘He was at the low risk end.’
‘Computer analyses are crap.’
‘You know that, I know that,’ said Yates. ‘But rules are rules.’
‘I want that little bastard.’
‘Hey, you got the freak; you know the Super will love you for that.’
Mitchell sighed. ‘There’s nothing we can do here.’ He turned and headed for the door.
As they descended to the first floor there were a dozen moving spotlights flickering and shining into the dark of the building.
Yates went ahead and pushed open the doors. The crowd outside surged in their direction, along with clamouring voices. Journalists with microphones shouting questions. Mitchell hung back, Yates loved this stuff. Let him handle it.
The crowd went quiet as Yates raised his hands. Mitchell squinted into the lights.
‘How many freaks have you eliminated now, Mitchell?’ A woman’s voice pierced the air.
‘No comment as yet,’ said Yates raising his voice.
‘What do you say to the accusation you enjoy killing freaks?’
Yates pushed into the crowd that gave way before him. They may be reporters but they could be arrested if they obstructed an investigation. Mitchell followed. Questions continued to fly.
‘Are you following the rules, Mitchell?’
He tried to see who was asking the questions, but Yates moved back and stood directly in front of him.
‘Today’s intervention has eliminated weapons manufacture that would have put the lives of ordinary citizens at risk,’ Yates said smoothly. ‘The use of lethal force against an S.I.D infectee can be seen as an act of kindness in light of the degree of abnormality. You’ll be receiving images of the infectee in due course.’
Mitchell escaped the crowd and found his car. He slid into the driver’s seat. He rummaged around among the empty snack wrappers in the door until he found a half-eaten energy bar. He pulled some hairs off it and took a mouthful.
Yates opened his door and sat down with a cup of coffee.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘One of the journos.’
‘Abuse of power.’
‘Want some?’ Yates asked. ‘Wash that thing down?’
Mitchell took the paper coffee cup. It was barely warm. He took a mouthful and handed it back. The actual coffee content was minimal. ‘You do talk a load of crap.’
Yates shrugged. ‘They lap it up.’
Mitchell selected Manchester Central Police Station and activated the auto-drive. The car stayed slow over the uneven surface outside the warehouses but accelerated smoothly once out on the sparsely populated main road. Mitchell took another bite of the snack bar.
The screen in the middle of the dashboard flickered into life. A grey background with the androgynous head and shoulders of the police wirehead, Lament. Weird name. The image was completely lifelike if you can call a bald twenty-five-year-old with a voice that was as indistinctly androgynous as the face it theoretically belonged to ‘lifelike’. The skin colour was vaguely Mediterranean which meant nothing. The wirehead could be anything it wanted.
‘Sorry to disturb you, DI Mitchell.’
‘What do you want, Lament?’
‘There has been another kidnapping.’
‘Not my case. You should be talking to Thomas.’
‘He’s busy at the scene.’ The wirehead’s face was capable of expressing emotion. It seldom did. ‘You are to proceed to the girl’s school and take statements from friends and teachers. The girl’s parents have been sent there.’
‘Do I get any choice?’ said Mitchell. It was a rhetorical question.
The car decelerated abruptly and swung into a u-turn.
‘Shit!’ shouted Yates, brushing coffee from his trousers.
‘Consumption of liquids (hot or cold) in a moving police vehicle is prohibited.’
Mitchell could have sworn Lament was laughing behind the words. The screen went dead.
‘Bloody machines,’ muttered Yates.
‘If he were a machine.’
‘God, don’t remind me. Those wireheads give me the willies. The idea there’s a body in there somewhere.’
‘I wonder how he feels about it.’
Chapter 6
Mercedes
Mercedes Smith straightened her dress. The movement was automatic and completely unnecessary. She could afford the very best but she always used the clothes designers on the rise. They struggled hardest to succeed. They worked to satisfy her, because they understood the benefit of having the CEO of Utopia Genetics as a customer.
‘You look fine,’ said a disembodied voice in the room. She was in her private suite near the top of the UG skyscraper—what passed for a skyscraper here, anyway.
‘Spying on me
?’
If she could have heard a shrug it would have been there.
‘Just doing my job.’
‘Giving me moral support is part of your job?’
‘The smooth running of your life is my job, Mercedes.’
She allowed Xec to use her first name when they were together in private. She laughed to herself; there she went again, imagining he was really here. The truth was different. Even when he was ‘here’ she was still completely alone.
‘Is there something you want to tell me, Xec?’
‘You’re ten minutes late for the meeting.’
‘I know.’
‘That’s all right then,’ he said. ‘As long as you know.’
And he was the only one she allowed such familiarity and, potentially, rudeness. Everyone else was terrified of her, and so they should be.
She sighed and headed for the exit. It was just a couple of floors down to the conference room. There was an elevator but she took the stairs as usual. Her shoes were not quite flats but the heels were no problem. Exercise was important; not that she intended to lose weight. Having generous curves was an important statement nowadays: only the poor were thin.
‘Anyone complaining about me being late?’ she asked as she came down the final flight.
‘You know I’m not supposed to do that,’ said the voice of Xec. He preferred to be the faceless entity rather than use a virtual image on a screen. She appreciated that; it made him scarier. She also knew he would do as he was told. She could not imagine what benefits wireheads gained from being paid, but he responded well to a generous income.
‘Well?’
‘Only McCormack, but then complaining is what he does best.’
Mercedes pushed through into the main corridor. The carpet was well-worn and would need replacing soon. Xec would deal with it as and when it became important.
She was no longer sure about McCormack. As Head of Research he probably thought his position was secure, especially as he knew a lot of secrets—the sort it would take a lot of money to suppress if they got out.
It was not that she wanted yes-men, but she preferred to have people with a more positive attitude. Still, his department was doing good work.
At what point does the balance shift?
The door of the conference room came into view as she turned a corner. She stopped. ‘Anyone in his department that could take over and do as good a job?’
‘Possibly.’
‘That’s not helpful.’
Again the silent and invisible shrug. ‘I’ll have to look into it; the job requirements are difficult to fill.’
‘And look into what can be done to remove any possibility of McCormack going to one of our rivals.’
‘Apart from the obvious?’
‘If it can be avoided.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Mercedes nodded, knowing that he could see her perfectly clearly.
The upper echelon of executives stood as she entered the room. Almost every one of them was both taller and older: Alistair McCormack with his fake grin, fake hair and Scottish pretensions; Margaret Jenner, shorter than Mercedes and wider, in charge of Administration and Support Services—she also had a very short fuse; Paul Banner, Security and Purity Liaison, quiet but with a sonorous speaking voice, he was hard to read but she had never had a reason to question his loyalty; and Kingsley Upton, marketing, who always seemed to be selling something.
‘Sit down, everyone,’ she said as the door closed with a gentle click behind her.
‘Room secure, Miss Smith,’ said Xec.
‘Off-the-record protocol, Xec.’
‘Yes, Miss Smith.’
The background buzz, so constant no one ever noticed it, went silent. It was a trick Xec had suggested. He broadcast the buzz at all times through every speaker. It was hard to hear even when you listened for it, but you noticed when it vanished.
Anyone with sufficient authority could request the off-the-record protocol. Xec would switch off the buzz and give the impression he was no longer listening. It was a lie.
‘Hope we can get through this quick,’ said Upton. ‘I have seats at the Palace tonight.’
Jenner looked across at him. ‘Is that An Ideal Husband? We were thinking of getting tickets.’
‘Degenerate,’ said Banner, his voice rolling across the room. Other people might have muttered the word; Banner did not need to.
‘It’s just a play,’ said Upton quickly. ‘Historical.’
‘Wilde was a degenerate.’
Mercedes moved in her chair. Their attention focused on her immediately. ‘We are more likely to get out of here quickly if we stick to the subject.’
No one spoke. ‘Paul, you had something you wanted to communicate to the team?’
All eyes turned to him. ‘The sudden availability of new resources and their collection has attracted the attention of the Purity.’ He paused for a breath. ‘They are sending an investigator to work with the police.’
‘Can they do that?’ said Upton. He looked at Mercedes as if for confirmation.
‘They can do whatever the hell they like,’ growled McCormack. ‘More importantly, can they trace it to us?’
‘I do not think so,’ said Banner.
‘You don’t think so?’ cried Upton. ‘You know what they would do to us?’
‘We all know,’ said Mercedes barely raising her voice but it calmed them. ‘They won’t find out. We have taken precautions. The more important question is what we should do if any more resources become available while this investigator is in the area.’
There was a long silence. It was Jenner who broke it. ‘We need to take each case as it comes. If we can ensure the resource is properly suppressed then it should be no problem acquiring it. Otherwise it should be terminated.’
Jenner nodded. Upton continued to look worried.
‘I’m loath to lose any resource,’ said McCormack.
‘What about your life?’ said Upton.
Mercedes stood up and leaned forward with her fists pressed against the table top. ‘It won’t come to that, Kingsley. You know we have protocols in place to deal with bad situations. Margaret is right; we’ll just take each one as it comes. Any that risk our exposure will be ignored.’
With that she turned and headed for the door. ‘Enjoy the play, Kingsley.’
She noticed the artificial hum as she came out of the room. ‘Kingsley may be more of an issue than McCormack,’ she said out loud.
‘And considerably easier to replace,’ said Xec.
‘I need to go home,’ she said.
‘Not the club?’
She said nothing; he knew her very well. Perhaps too well.
‘Not tonight.’
Chapter 7
Chloe
Half the lights in the corridor leading to the school atrium were out. There was enough to see by and you got used to it. The passageway was straight and wide. The school had been built to accommodate perhaps two thousand kids before the plague; now there were barely five hundred.
Chloe knew her history: The S.I.D plague had taken a lot of people; no one really knew how many because records had been lost. When enough people died in a business that depended on computers, the passwords were gone and no one could get in.
The riots, panicking and social disorder that followed the worst of the S.I.D plague had been bad but not killed many others. But in a society run on computers that no longer worked, everything had shut down. Civilisation disintegrated in a matter of weeks. Ordinary diseases and malnutrition killed off the weakest of those who were not infected by S.I.D.
It was only the Purity that held off complete collapse.
But still things broke and could not be mended because the industry was not there. Most resources were engaged in ensuring the S.I.D plague did not spread again. It had not been wiped out, just controlled.
The front of the school was all window, which allowed daylight to illuminate the space. Chloe cli
mbed the wooden stairs that curved round to the mezzanine floor. The steps were clean but stained with years of use. Her back still twinged every few moments at the stress of climbing. She was angry at herself. Normally she would have run up them two at a time; now she was like an old woman.
She paused and looked round as a rhythmic whooshing started up in her ears, accompanied by a low throb that sounded like a heartbeat. She turned her head trying to see where the noise was coming from, but the sound moved with her. She pressed a finger in her right ear. The sounds changed in quality but did not diminish. She shook her head trying to clear whatever had blocked up her ears. The sound faded.
She sighed and hoped she was not getting an ear infection as well. That would be too much. She continued to plod up the stairs.
The school lockers were ranged across the walls of the mezzanine floor. Here and there were clumps of other students, mostly older ones who had free periods. She headed for her locker where she could see Ashley and Kavi. A murmur of conversation floated her way. A boy from a nearer group looked her way with a frown on his face.
‘...shouldn’t be allowed in the school.’
Chloe stopped and touched her ear. He had turned back to his friends but she heard his whispered words distinctly as if she had been standing beside him.
‘My dad says all the families should be put in quarantine for years.’
‘That would cost too much.’
‘Just kill them then, like they used to. Easiest all round.’
Chloe shook her head. Must be a trick of the acoustics; she was a good fifteen metres from them. She strode on.
‘I don’t get that one,’ said the first voice. ‘Her dad’s in the watch, but she’s friends with them.’
Chloe allowed herself a smile and continued towards her locker. People like that couldn’t possibly understand. They were the sort that would riot given half the chance, follow the crowd and not think for themselves.
‘I still don’t get that she likes Kepple.’ That was Ashley.
‘She wants to get into the Purity.’ She heard Kavi say. ‘Anyway, you used to like Kepple.’
‘Well, she used to like me, until ... you know.’
‘Yeah.’
‘But if she wants to get into the Purity, why is Chloe friends with us?’
‘Maybe because she’s a good person.’
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