Once in the suite, I ordered from the room service menu. The two members of staff who wheeled enough food for ten people into our room acted as if it were perfectly normal behaviour.
I gave them a fifty-pound note each from the roll George had handed me, and they glided away.
I was starving, but I still kept drifting back to the huge window. I could see the London Eye across the river. St James Park was a minute's walk away. I wanted to be out there, breathing the air, seeing normal people doing their Christmas shopping, walking dogs, standing outside pubs, stamping their feet against the cold.
"You can go out the day after tomorrow," said George. "Mid-morning. When the streets are packed. You're probably the most wanted man in London. No point taking unnecessary risks. Once the first twenty-four hours have passed, they'll look further afield. But they will be out there tonight. Checking hostels, B&Bs, cheap hotels, squats. We should be safe though. There's no way someone as unimaginative as Hopkins would ever think of looking here."
I looked around the suite, from its chandeliers to its two enormous bedrooms, both with en suite bathrooms bigger than my old bedroom. One wall in the drawing room was dominated by a flat-screen TV - technology I hadn't even known existed. Every piece of furniture, from the chairs to the chaise longue, sofas, and enormous dining table was unique, supplied by different designers. Somehow, they all tied together and gave the whole place an air of understated, expensive elegance.
It was a stunning hotel. For three and a half thousand pounds a night, it had bloody better be.
I looked over at George. Her hair was now pulled back by what I would describe as a hairnet, but—since it was studded with diamonds and constructed of white gold filigree—the word hardly seems adequate. She wore a simple black dress.
I was wearing a dark grey suit by a designer I had never heard of. I had a Breitling on my wrist and a pair of beautiful Church's loafers that made my feet feel as if they were being kissed. Mainly because they fitted.
"Come on," said George, lifting a silver cover to reveal the biggest steak I'd ever seen. "Let's eat."
I poured us each a glass of red wine I couldn't begin to guess the price of and started eating. George matched me, bite for bite, and when I pushed away my third plate, defeated, she started on two huge desserts.
"What is that?" I said, as she demolished the second bowl.
"Jam roly poly and custard." She shovelled the last mouthful in, sighed, and dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin. "I had them make it specially."
She wheeled herself back from the food and headed for the first bedroom, burping as she went. She called out over her shoulder.
"Bedtime. I've ordered breakfast for seven-thirty."
I tried to speak, but she got there first. Again.
"I know you have questions. We'll be here a few nights. I'll—"
She stopped talking. I went to her. Her eyes were shut, her lips pressed tightly together, and she was gripping her left hand with her right.
"Are you okay?"
She didn't speak for a while, then the grip she had on her hand loosened, and she opened her eyes, looked at me, and shook her head.
"That's something else we must talk about," she said. She reached up and put a hand on my cheek. "Just not right now. Now go to sleep."
She closed the bedroom door behind her.
I went to the window and looked out at the city. When I stepped out of my shoes, my feet sank into the soft, deep carpet. Nothing seemed real.
I went to bed as instructed.
The last thought I had before my eyes closed was that there was no way I would be able to sleep.
The next day, we talked. Or, rather, George talked. I listened, asking the occasional question.
My life up to this point had been fairly tough. A lonely childhood, a mother who didn't love me, no father. At seventeen, an amazing few months when I thought my life was about to change for the better. Then Station, and four years of believing I was making the world a better place. Being a hero. Until that last mission when the illusions Station had put in place crumbled away. Having robbed me of my innocence, they took away everything else. They stole fourteen years from me.
Like I said, a fairly tough life. Compared to George, though, it had been one long party.
33
Georgina Kuku was born in London in May 1982. Her mother was married to a Nigerian diplomat. He had thrown her out when he discovered she was pregnant, despite not having sex with him for almost a year. Alone in a strange country, George's mother had tried to get home, only to learn her husband had revoked her passport. Her access to their bank accounts had also been blocked. When she called him, begging for help, he informed her that, should he hear from her again, he would have her family back in Nigeria killed.
Reverting to her maiden name, Mrs Kuku looked for work in London, but no one was interested in taking on a mother-to-be, despite her qualifications. Eventually, through a tenuous connection made at a dinner party months before, she found a job in a country house just outside London.
Mrs Kuku was expected to cook, clean, and look after the rich couple's two teenage children. She had one afternoon off per week and was not paid at all, just given board and lodging. When she had brought this up, her employer—a man who had inherited his wealth—asked if she'd rather he call her husband and ask him to take her back. Mrs Kuku had submitted to her fate, for the sake of her unborn child.
For twelve years, George's mother had been a slave, bringing up her daughter in the single room they'd been given. There were no playmates for George, and no school when the time came. As far as the state was concerned, Mrs Kuku and her daughter didn't exist.
George's education was piecemeal, using books borrowed from the children's room, and from the well-stocked library no one else ever visited. A quiet, bright child, used to spending most of her time alone, George made the most of her mother's attention and love in their few hours together each day.
Once or twice a week, George was allowed to watch TV for a few hours in the basement. At the age of eight, she'd gone to look for her mother when a power cut stopped her cartoons. She found Mrs Kuku's employer pushing his body against her mother in the pantry, his hands pulling at her blouse. Thinking she was being attacked, George hit the man's legs until he turned and slapped her away, leaving her stunned on the cold kitchen tiles.
At the age of eleven, while his wife was away for the weekend, Mrs Kuku's employer visited George while her mother was cleaning at the far end of the house. When she screamed, he left, but promised he would be back.
That night, George's mother took the largest knife from the kitchen, went upstairs and buried it in her employer's chest.
They took his car and drove away, George's eyes wide as she left the gates of the estate for the first time. When her mother stopped outside a police station and told her to get out, George did as she was told, before shouting in fear and disbelief as her mother drove away.
George found the letter at the bottom of her bag. Her mother revealed the identity of her real father and begged for forgiveness. George would have given anything to be able to tell her that no forgiveness was necessary, but she never saw her again.
A few days later, a tired-looking lady from Social Services patted her hand and told her her mother was dead.
George spent the next two years in an orphanage. The other children bullied her at first, then, when she started screaming whenever they came near, avoided her. She spent her days alone, apart from the hours she was forced to attend school.
The British education system held no interest for George Kuku. When it came to English, History, Geography, Philosophy, and Languages, both classical and modern, George had already progressed well beyond her classmates thanks to the superb library she and her mother had used.
Just like me, puberty came late to George. She was nearly sixteen when blood on her sheets coincided with the worst headache she'd ever had. She cried out in pain and, when the orpha
nage staff couldn't calm her, an ambulance was called. Hospital tests confirmed a rare condition that attacked the body's nervous system. She could expect progressive muscle wastage, deterioration of the respiratory system, and, eventually, death.
George's prognosis suggested she might live into her fifties, but she needn't worry about saving for retirement. A children's facility for those with untreatable long-term conditions accepted her, and she moved once again.
Alongside her illness—linked inextricably to it, according to George—was a major change in her consciousness. As the months wore on, George became clumsy, then struggled to walk. But a new world was opening in her mind. By the time she first used a wheelchair, at the age of sixteen, she had begun to embrace her birthright, the genetic gift from her father.
George had started her second life, as a child of The Deterrent.
She had researched her father as much as she was able, but no useful information was in the public domain. She intended to find him. She knew it was likely there were other children. For a girl as alone as she was, the idea of finding a family must have been powerful.
Her power was different from any ability officially attributed to The Deterrent. This excited and fascinated her. She had watched the footage of him with the Challenger tank—who hasn't?—but that was a demonstration of his power over inanimate objects.
George was different. She could look into other minds. More than that, she could plant ideas there.
She took a few years to develop her skills. At first, she experienced it like white noise. Wherever she was, whatever she was doing, it was in the background. It dropped in intensity at night when most minds were asleep.
One night, she woke up in the ward she shared with five other girls, experiencing three distinct mental states: her own, the matron's on duty, and a cleaner who was mopping the hall outside. It wasn't that she could hear their thoughts, exactly. George found her ability difficult to describe. She had once tried writing how it felt, but hers was an ability no one else shared. Words couldn't get close. It was like describing the sound of a bassoon to a deaf squirrel.
After that night, she slept as much as possible during the day so she could hone her new talent at night. A few weeks was all it took for her to be able to identify individual mental states and link them to the staff members or children producing them. Soon, she was able to do the same thing during the day, aware of dozens of people simultaneously.
She discovered the other side of her ability by accident. The director of the facility had been sitting in her car, wondering how much longer she could risk embezzling the charity that paid her wages, before she could escape with her young lover. George watched her thoughts with disbelief, as the director had always seemed devoted to her work.
What George did next wasn't accomplished in a completely conscious way, it was a mixture of instinct and intelligence. She pictured the director coming to her bedside, handing an envelope to her containing a bank card and chequebook in her name, giving her access to a new account containing twenty thousand pounds of the stolen hundred thousand. George had no idea how to open a bank account or transfer money. She just imagined the end result - the director handing her the envelope. And she made that image as bright and clear as she could, sealing it in place with a kind of white-hot mental weld.
The sleep she fell into immediately after this event was so deep that a nurse thought she had lapsed into a coma and moved her to the intensive care room. Two days later, she woke up and asked for toast. She ate three loaves of bread.
Ten days later, the director walked into the ward, pressed an envelope into her hand, and left without a word.
George knew she had made it happen. She also knew her subsequent collapse was the price she'd paid.
She was still wondering how long she should wait before leaving when the director was arrested.
Three days later, George moved to London and put down six month's advance rent on a tiny flat in Putney. She was eighteen.
George set herself to uncovering information about The Deterrent. She could discover truths hidden to others. She could sift through minds, one at a time, find out what she wanted to know. It might take a little time.
It took fifteen years.
The problem was the toll her power took on her body, and the effect it had on her physical condition.
George had identified three separate abilities. The first was looking into the minds of others. The second was the ability to place suggestions so strong they became commands. It was this that drained her and placed a strain on her immune system. As she learned how to use this aspect of her power, she suspected she was directly, and adversely, affecting her projected lifespan.
She needed an income. By frequenting cafes in the financial district, she found that embezzlement was far from uncommon in the city of London. There were plenty of minds to choose from, and she selected a dozen from the greediest. They each set up monthly payments to her account of a few thousand pounds. Because of the punishment it inflicted on her body, she forced herself to take her time and allow a few weeks to recover before moving on to the next candidate. True financial independence took five years to put into place.
By then, George suspected she might not make it into her fifties after all.
Her speculation about her lifespan wasn't pure guesswork. It was backed up by her third ability.
More nebulous in quality than other aspects of her power, this third ability gave George a window into the future. Her future, specifically, but also a more general picture. The white noise of millions of London minds was like listening to a vast orchestra playing a discordant symphony. Sometimes, a flurry of notes concentrated in a certain area would suggest violence about to erupt. Occasionally, a theme barely audible at first would swell and gain traction, and she would start to pay attention. Living near the City meant she picked up on the dotcom stampede early, made hundreds of thousands as stocks rose, then sold it all months before the tech bubble burst.
Her own future began to define itself in ways she hadn't anticipated. When she started her research in earnest, when she began seeking out those who might know something about The Deterrent, she began to see details about moments in her future. It was as if she were on a plane beginning its descent through thick clouds. At first, there was nothing to see, then a glimpse, abstract and unformed, of fields, a lake, with few details. Then more glimpses, maybe long enough to pick out a building, cars moving in queues, sunlight glinting on their roofs. A break in the clouds, and the aircraft banks, revealing the lights of the runway towards which, inexorably, the remainder of your flight will take you.
As George's research started to produce results, she saw that destination more clearly. And yet she continued.
Twelve years after moving to London, George got the break that led her to Station. She had scaled down the hunt for a few years, making sure she had enough money to be truly independent and enough skill with a computer to write her own tailored search programs. She also made connections within the city's criminal underworld. Her abilities meant she could ensure the few people she contacted face-to-face were left with no memory of their meeting. But, as a wheelchair user in a city that sometimes seemed designed to be an architectural obstacle course, her progress was frustratingly slow.
George was a patient and determined woman, but she came close to giving up more than once.
She spent months trawling through the newsgroups and chatrooms springing up daily as the internet's reach spread in the first decade of the century. There was no shortage of information about The Deterrent, and plenty of speculation about his children. A superhero, a real superhero, as powerful and unlikely as any that had ever appeared in a comic book, had been part of British national life for two years. Follow that with the disappearance of the seven-foot flying man, and the internet was the perfect breeding ground for millions of pages of speculation. Most of it was wild, unfounded, or plain stupid.
George sifted through the stream of garbage
. She built up a slim folder of comments, news items, and correspondence that slowly led her to four carefully considered conclusions.
1) The Deterrent was not a product of a secret genetic engineering project. A quarter of a century after his disappearance, cutting-edge science was still nowhere near that level of sophistication. Sticking an ear on a mouse was hardly in the same league. The Deterrent's actual origins had been concealed behind a smokescreen of national security.
2) He hadn't died in 1981. Despite the day of national mourning a year later, there was too much circumstantial evidence suggesting that the military had continued searching for The Deterrent. The British government believed he was still alive.
3) Of the children left behind, a documented thirty-seven had died at puberty. Messily. An elaborate and expensive investigation by a talented computer hacker had provided photographs and post-mortem reports. Whatever power had kicked in was, in most cases, too much for their human bodies. But, since no one knew how many pregnancies could be attributed to the promiscuous superhero, there must be other children. Some of whom might have survived. Which led her to
4) Me. Daniel Harbin. The lurid tabloid accounts of Mandy Harbin's encounters with her super-lover were a matter of public record, as was the disappearance of her only son at seventeen. Combined with the rumours of a supersoldier during the years following, the circumstantial evidence was compelling.
I was George's most promising lead. She was convinced I was out there somewhere, and she suspected I had been picked up by the same government department responsible for my father.
She didn't want to draw any more attention to herself than necessary. With the help of the country's top forger, George constructed a fictitious personal history, leaving a paper trail, and altering online databases. By the time she was ready to emerge from the shadows, she was Georgina Carlton-Marshall, orphaned heiress to a Zimbabwean property magnate.
Children Of The Deterrent Page 19