by Andy Graham
The grass rushed up to meet him, two of the blobs resolved into large trees straddling a road. A waking village stood just a spit away from them. A vehicle was disappearing into the distance, his jeep. It left curved black skid marks in its wake. The picture lurched left. A man was leaning on a crutch, facing two soldiers.
The image crackled and blinked. The footage switched to a military helmet-cam: the time, date and ID stamp in one corner.
“Here you go,” said Stann. His face was more haggard than when Rick had left him. One hand clutched his ribs. “This is what Franklin gave me. Wanted me to keep it safe.” He held out the pen drive Rick had smuggled out of the capital.
One of the soldiers, a burly fellow with a slit for a mouth, took it off him. He slid his baton back into his belt. “Wanna lift home, Taille? Least we can do for a vet.”
The image dissolved into static and winked out.
“He walked,” said the president. “Long way for a man with one and a half legs.” He shrugged. “Nice work with the dragonfly lenses in the sun-fans, though. Flying energy generators that have an endless supply of power for their independently wired, high-def cameras. Genius. There are a couple of new glitches that need resolving but that, I’m assured, is minor. And now that we can sync them to the existing surveillance network . . . ” He clapped his meaty hands together. Hamilton twitched, the glass slipping from his hands.
Through the windows Rick saw an explosion from across the river. A gush of flame lit up the Sunken Clock Tower. He could just about make out the gatehouse falling in on itself. He fancied he could hear cheers and laughter, sirens and screams. He held his head up high, at the exact angle the parade pins would have been pricking into his neck.
“My family has been part of this country for a long time, since before Brettia became Ailan. I think you’ll find it harder to weave us out of its history than you think, us and all those like us. One day the people will rise up and there will be no more need for revolution. The future is on our side.”
“And if you believe melodramatic trite like that,” the president said with a snort, “it’ll never happen. That’s a fact, Franklin. I know that because history is on my side. This is real life, not a work of fiction.”
De Lette fumbled in the cigar box on his desk and pulled something out of it. He flicked it across the room. The small shape spun, reflecting shards of light across the walls and ceiling.
Rick caught it. It was a Mennai coin. Bent, charred on one side, with red stains in the milling around the edges. The coin the dead girl had offered him in the tunnels under this tower. The same coin he had seen resting on the eyelids of the dismembered bomber in Castle Brecan.
“For luck,” De Lette said, a smirk playing across his face. “Now, get out. And get digging.”
25
Three Words
(A War Hero)
Rick was marched through the corridors to a recording suite. Once there, he read a series of prepared statements into a microphone. Most were for the public, some for his family.
The sound engineer was a man with a frizz of grey hair around his temples and a ginger beard reaching to his belt buckle. He looked like he had been pickled and enjoyed every second of it. He coached Rick through the session until he got a few takes he said did Rick justice.
Then an official started interfering. Clutching her clipboard in chicken-bone fingers, the woman pointed at one button out of a sandstorm of controls. She said she wanted the recording to evoke feelings of a blacksmith forging an incandescent sword of victory. In no uncertain terms the engineer told her where to stick her ears, her opinions and the clipboard of notes a highly paid consultant had produced. He added that unless she wanted the public to think this had been recorded in a cave, she should leave him alone to do what he did.
The woman stormed out to find some soldiers to back up her arguments. Her gait stiffened as loud whispers reached her ears that she walked as if she was trying to stop her future falling out of her arse.
The sound engineer gave Rick ten seconds to record a real message for his wife and daughter, which he promised to get to them. The three words Rick wanted to say didn’t take long to record, though he couldn’t say them enough times.
The official returned with two guards, her beak of a nose twitching. One sniggered at the woman behind her back. The other slid his baton through a circle made by his thumb and forefinger while he leered at the engineer.
Rick recorded the woman’s statements again, his voice echoing and sibilant in his headphones. They were all in the same vein: he was working hard to help the government restore the strength and stability of this great nation, striving to undo the problems caused by the shirkers and slackers on behalf of hardworking taxpayers across the country. Once finished, he was led to an underground garage and bundled into the back of an old laundry van. Its logo still poked through the dirty white paint.
The back of the van had been converted: soundproofing and handcuffs added to the walls, unforgiving metal seats bolted to the floors. It smelt of washing powder. There were traces of other smells that roused unwanted memories: bayonets in eye sockets, knives, corpses with no legs and bedsheets slick with his own sweat. A shaft of light fell through the open doors. Rick shuffled away from it, farther into the shadows. Bury everything where the light can’t touch it. Bank up your feelings where the cold can’t get to it. Hibernate. Wait. Survive.
A rapid clip of heels. The door was flung open. Rick squinted into the harsh light. A silhouette climbed into the van. The perfume hit him before his eyes adjusted.
“Beth.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me or not.”
“I’m not sure I do. You’re here now, though.”
They remained still for several moments. There were so many things he wanted to know but couldn’t find the questions for. He was struggling to make sense of what had happened over the last twenty-four hours, of where he was going to be within twenty-four hours.
Beth pulled the door half-closed and stoop-shuffled closer. “I haven’t got long.”
“You’ve got longer than me.”
“Yes. I suppose I have.” She held out an envelope. Rick ignored it. Squeezed a thumbnail until it hurt. The red flooded back when he let the pressure up. Would he be able to feel anything after a few months extracting the uranium ore? Would he have hands left in a couple of years? If he couldn’t dig or type, what would the miners do to him? Or would the radon gas get him first and leach the life out of his lungs? He coughed and wiped his mouth with fingers that tingled.
Stop it.
Your fingers work fine.
There is no cough scratching at the inside of your chest.
Your brain’s playing tricks on you.
Sighing, Beth lowered the envelope and tapped the van walls. “Maybe this is the safest option. For all of you.”
“You believe that?”
“No. But you’ll never win if you play by their rules. There’s a slim chance this could be the best solution.”
“Believe that if it makes you sleep better.”
“You don’t get it, Rick. You may be a soldier who has ‘seen and done things that make you want to retch’. But you’re a nice guy. The people you’re up against—”
“My own government, you mean?”
“—are always prepared to go one step further than you, cut off more than you’ll take. Hamilton suggested slicing the eyelids off Private Marka and the others before they were hung. He wanted to sit them in front of a smokey fire, ‘to warm them up before the final chill’. Even if it was a sick joke, it was wrong. De Lette forbade it in the end.”
“What a hero,” Rick muttered. “I’m sure the dead were grateful as their necks snapped or they choked to death.” Rick sat on his hands to keep them still. He should feel nauseous. He didn’t feel anything. Where the lump of the silk hanky had once pressed into his thigh, De Lette’s coin sat in his pocket like a rock.
“The president is right abou
t politics,” Beth said, seeming to take his silence as an invitation to talk. “It’s the ultimate demonstration of humanity’s needs. At least you know where you stand with the upper echelons of society, those people who profess a burning desire to lead for the greater good. There’s a certain refreshing honesty when they fulfil our expectations of them.” She stared into one corner of the old laundry van. “But I’m not always sure which came first, the expectations or the behaviour? Does the collective consciousness, the hive mind of all these ever-so-individual individuals in the public create behavioural straitjackets for the politicians?”
“Beth, please. I’m not in the mood for philosophical discussions.”
“I guess not.” She pointed to the bench. “Can I?”
Rick nodded. He blinked in solidarity for Marka and the dead.
Beth laid the envelope on the bench between them. He breathed in the musty smell of his own sweat. Her perfume. The fragrance that had once excited him now filled him with anger and loss. But, he reminded himself, she could be the last friendly face he saw and he wanted answers. “What do you get out of this?”
“Evolution.”
“I’m sick of the word.”
“It’s my chance to usher in a new Ice Age,” Beth said, “a smarter predator to end the dinosaurs. De Lette agreed to have my university fees waived for a doctorate in political science. If you don’t have the family or funds to get you into government the customary way, the hoops you have to leap through are higher and smaller. Sometimes burning, too, with a pit on the other side, full of wolves.” The smile that had been dancing across her face fled. “I need a piece of paper that says I know what I’ve proved I know in practice. I checked the course. It could be interesting in places.”
“‘Interesting’? There’s a word that can go in any number of directions. My future would be ‘interesting’ for some.”
“Rick, please. Stop.” She rubbed the mole on the end of her nose. There was a glint of tears in her eyes. “I was checking the old course reading lists when I heard you’d paid De Lette a visit.”
“Shouldn’t you be reading the current one?” He wasn’t interested, but while she was here, talking to him, he wasn’t alone. He was still alive.
“It’s always entertaining to see what books the teachers no longer want you to read. Some are removed because they are obsolete, others because they are subversive or gibberish. There’s one,” Beth said, forced enthusiasm in her voice. “The Unrecorded History of Ailan — it makes some bizzare claims about why Brettia became Ailan. One chapter says there was a whirlpool of dragon fire that drained all the magic from the land and left it barren of anything fantastical.” She laughed softly. “My dad said ‘a good story needs at least six mentions of dragons’.” Her voice trailed off.
The silence stretched between them, populated the ghosts of Beth’s father and his dragons, and images of the family Rick would never see again. Then Beth coughed. The movement sent another waft of perfume towards Rick, disturbing the quiet.
“The book does have some interesting facts—”
“There’s that word interesting again.”
“—such as what life was like on our planet before the second moon appeared in our orbit and—”
“‘No one understands how such a thing was possible but the gravitational upset of the new moon disrupted the tides and caused the Great Flood, setting back technology and progress by millennia’,” Rick said. “I know the story. I read it somewhere. May even have been in the same Unrecorded History book. Dad had a copy.”
The silence returned. When Beth spoke again, Rick wasn’t sure if she was defensive or apologetic. “The pre-Flood societies seemed even more messed up than we are. I’m not sure any author could make up stuff as nasty as what some people do to each other for real. As for the rest of the degree course? It appears to be a theoretical construct designed to justify its own existence. The content bears no resemblance to the workings of society that I know.”
“So why do it?”
“I need it to get where I want to be. In our certificate-driven society, you need qualifications to progress. Compliance and good grades outweigh talent, experience and free thinking. I’m going to be the new predator, the lone she-wolf that hunts the dinosaurs and wins.”
“I don't envy your tutors.”
“Course lead is a guy called Professor Henn. Got a bit of a reputation. Especially amongst the younger women. I look forward to flaying it to shreds. Him, too, if I get the chance.”
“Bethina Laudanum on the warpath? I really don’t envy your tutors.”
She grinned, baring sharp teeth at him. “I wish you could be there, it’s going to be—”
“Interesting. I get it.” He took a swig of water from a bottle Captain Lacky had smuggled into the van. “What’s your end game, Beth? Expose this guy Henn, then what? Or Who? Hamilton? De Lette? Isn’t he worried about your ambitions?”
“I hope so.”
“And you’re not worried about repercussions?”
“When did anyone get anything done by worrying?” The warmth was gone, the sneer was back.
“What else’s going on? C’mon, Beth. I know that look of yours. What is it?”
She gripped the cloth of her trousers, twisting the fabric into knots. And as she sat there, close enough for him to hear her breathing, near enough to smell her, he realised what the events of the last months had hidden. “It’s true, isn’t it?” he asked. “What De Lette said about you calling me back to the capital?”
She dropped her head. A line of light slashed diagonally across her face, leaving part in shadow.
“Beth?”
“Do you remember why I used to trace a happy face in the steam of our bathroom mirror in the morning?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” His patience was wearing thin. These were his last few minutes of freedom and she was evading his questions?
“I need to tell you,” she said. “It won’t make things better for you. Where you’re going. But maybe if you understand...”
“OK. I’ll play your game.” Rick, defiant.
“It’s not a game.” Beth, broken. It was the wrong way round.
“You painted a happy face in the mirror because it was your way of starting the day with a smile.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Beth replied. “It was my way of guaranteeing I’d see at least one genuine smile other than yours. You have no idea what life is like here. De Lette’s former permanent secretary warned me about it the morning she disappeared. She told me I would live and die by the maxim that neither my friend, nor the friend of my friend, is my friend. She said ‘I should trust no one, not even the dead. Their lies can be unwound at their opponents’ leisure’.
“There are more sides to take in government than there are people. Even the interns smile at me like a piranha in a goldfish bowl. Every week there’s another deal or bargain to be made, another coup or rebellion in the offing. It’s a constant war of egos and vanity from people proclaiming we’re all in this together. They give tub-thumping speeches about solidarity, with one hand held behind their backs, fingers crossed, and the other plucking used notes out from under the nation’s mattress.”
She grabbed the envelope off the metal bench, clutching it to her chest. “Take the worst school bully you remember, all the bitching that goes on between kids, all the war games. Then give them real power, real bullets, real people to die for them, and the ability to change the laws to suit their own purposes. That’s who I deal with every day. The people here are the playground thug, the headteacher and the milk monitor rolled into one well-pressed, vindictive package. All the stuff we learn as children gets gutted when we reach adulthood. All the fairy tales we feed our kids are simplistic stories of good against evil: hard work, dedication and a good measure of pluck winning the day. My mother was full of them. I have my own theory that they encourage a sense of moral entitlement and permissible violence in the young. It plants a s
eed that can be manipulated when they’re older. If—”
“Beth, please. What does this have to do with what De Lette said about you and me?”
Beth appeared not to have heard him. She pressed on, her voice picking up. “These stories teach kids not to lie, to share, to play fair, never hit first, only hit back. We hold these up as ideals for children to aspire to, that they should be more like the grown ups. But has any adult got where they are in life by never doing any of these things? I hate it, this hypocrisy of childhood.“
“Please. You were too scared to have kids. What do you know about them?”
“Does a doctor need to suffer from a disease to diagnose it?”
“Beth, stop.”
The envelope creased around her fingers. Her eyes were feverish. “Don’t you think it’s wrong young children get praised for behaving like adults? Shouldn’t we praise them for being kids? That way fewer adults would behave like children. Most are jealous and insecure. In their own way, they scream and shout like the brats they’ve always been. They want all the toys all the time. Never happy til they get what they want. That’s what I face every day. De Lette is the president because he’s the best at these things.”
“It doesn’t sound like my childhood, Beth.”
“Your family is exceptional. You can’t take that as normal. My childhood was very different from yours and from what you and Thryn are giving Rose.”
Rick let out a humourless chuckle. “You’ve never seen me with my family, Beth.”
“I have. I—” Beth wiped her hands on her trousers. “I saw footage of you with Thryn and Rose at your father’s funeral.”
“You watched that?”
“I arranged it.”
“You did what?” The words exploded from his mouth. Just as he had thought he knew where this was going, why she had called him back to the capital all those months ago, it all changed again.