by Andy Graham
The clips were blurry and shaky but clear enough to cause problems. Clear enough for the government to have to rewrite their press release, which had already been uploaded and shared. He hoped the electronic spiders would do their job before the clips found dark virtual corners to hide away in.
A handful of candles on the table flickered in a blast of cold air. He refilled the glass he didn’t remember drinking. Those clips were from a legionnaire’s helmet-cam in Substation Two. Exactly which legionnaire had gone rogue was another question. There were only four he knew of that had been there with the necessary skills. The rest of the people sent in might as well have been expensively dressed tailor’s dummies, for all their talent and initiative. These mobile mannequins had been hand-picked, in a fanfare of clandestine pomp, and sent out wearing aggressively proud smiles.
Two of the four, taken from the ranks of the Unsung, knew him well enough not to try and double-cross him. So which of the others had been running out of the sub-basement, framed in a halo of flames? He had a suspicion he knew which one it was.
Chair legs screeched on the stone floor. Someone sat in the chair opposite, spots of rain sparkling in her dark hair. She helped herself to a drink, clinking her refilled glass on his before swallowing the second shot.
“This is an unexpected surprise, Dr Swann.”
Her cheeks were ruddy from the night air. The VP felt his mood lifting. Maybe a midnight stroll amongst the ruins was in the offing after all.
49
A Wooden Chair
(Friends)
David Prothero snatched the bottle of painkillers from his bathroom cabinet and rattled it. He’d got these high-strength pills from his neighbour, a man with an evergreen smile and sculpted hair who had vivisected the health service. Talking to him made Prothero’s skin crawl but, like the drugs, he had his uses. Maybe next time he would remember to give Prothero the information about how many of these bloody pills he could take with his regular meds and not die in a frothing heap. Stupid man. Worse, he was rich and stupid, an unforgivable combination as the former gave you a way of not being the latter.
He shook out a fistful of pills and tried a tentative quarter squat. His knee still felt like there was a metal rod inside it, even more so after the day he’d had. Shouldn’t the operation have fixed that? In retrospect, Prothero realised the surgeon had said the operation would make the knee stable again, not help the pain. Medics, he decided, were cut from the same linguistically devious cloth as politicians. Whether that was worse than being rich and stupid, he wasn’t sure.
He heard the apartment door click, called out a greeting and washed down as many pills as he thought he could get away with. Back in the main room of the apartment, he stopped dead. The reflection scattered across the glass and steel walls was not who he was expecting. Prothero’s eyes darted towards the door as a swipe card slid across the table.
“Your guard’s fine. Sleeping. You may want to untie him later, though.”
“I was expecting someone else,” Prothero said, “an old friend.”
“Life’s a treasure of surprises, Spokesperson.” Blooded and dirty, the legionnaire leant his rifle, a Mennai weapon, against one of the brass stopcocks.
“Franklin, right? Corporal Franklin? From the hospital,” said Prothero, buying time to think.
“Captain Franklin, sir.” The man’s voice was low and wary. “I was promoted just before being sent into Substation Two. You’re aware of what happened there, I take it?”
Fingers twitching, Prothero reached for his pocket watch. It was in his waistcoat, hanging over the wooden chair next to Franklin. The legionnaire’s helmet clattered onto the seat and Prothero winced. “Careful, please. That’s important to me.”
“It’s a chair.”
“No,” Prothero replied, “not just a chair.” An heirloom. A chance. Hope. Most families from Mennai had something to pass on from father to first-born son, or mother to first-born daughter. This was his. Prothero knew every curve and twist his great-grandfather had carved into it. He knew all the near-forgotten stories depicted by the symbols and scenes from the pantheon of Mennai, too. It was a link to his past, his future. He hadn’t yet given up on that last shred of hope that he would also be able to pass the chair on one day.
“Congratulations,” mumbled Prothero. “A well-deserved promotion. I recommended this myself.”
Franklin scooped his helmet up and dusted the seat down. “The Substation.” Not a question, a demand.
“I know very little about government policy, Captain.”
“I wasn’t aware we were talking about government policy.”
“Right. That. We weren’t.” Prothero thrust his hands in his trouser pockets, playing with the edge of the plaster on his forefinger. ”What I meant to say was—”
“I need help.”
“You need what?”
“Help,” Franklin repeated. He explained why he was there, what he wanted and how quickly. As the legionnaire spoke, the thumping in Prothero’s chest subsided. This may not be the problem he had thought it was.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said once Franklin had finished. “I don’t know anything about such a camp or a brother and, if it is what you are suggesting, I won’t have clearance or access anyway. I don’t understand why you’re here.”
“I was hoping you’d live up to your reputation and not side with the government,” Franklin said, a weary expression on his face. “Guess Brooke was right about you all being political clones.”
“Brooke? Who’s Brooke? What are you talking about?”
Franklin pulled something out of his pocket, keeping it concealed in his fist. “You’ve always been the only voice of dissent the government has ever tolerated, the one person who’s been able to push through any meaningful reforms,” Franklin said by way of answer. “No one else even pretends to listen. Who else could I turn to? Remember what you always say? ‘Nothing is fixed, nothing is forever.’”
“Yes. Of course. I would help if I could.” Prothero had the unnerving feeling he was being cornered. “You have no one else?”
“I thought so but she disappeared.” The man looked utterly exhausted now rather than fierce.
“What about Chester?” Prothero asked, eyeing whatever Franklin was keeping hidden.
“Breaking into a civilian building, even this one, is easier than a military facility. And since Substation Two went down, a lot of your security is off-line.”
“I’m sorry, Captain. I wish I could help, but I can’t. I’ll see what I can do tomorrow but I’m not hopeful.”
Franklin appeared to come to a decision. His fleeting look of vulnerability disappeared as he herded Prothero away from the door. The man stank of sweat and blood and dirt. A fresh cut across his forehead took a chunk out of one eyebrow. The recruitment ads never mentioned the smell or the disfigurement. The legions’ mascot, Captain Electric, had only ever been seen with strategically placed dirt. ‘Scars that don’t mar’ was the unofficial line.
“When I was a new recruit, I was sent to Settlement 610, New Town.”
The throbbing pain from Prothero’s cut finger disappeared. The nagging stiffness he felt in his knee from morning to night evaporated and, like never before, he regretted his choice to remove the security cameras from his apartment.
“I spent most of the mission in the trucks with the rest of the back-up,” Franklin continued. “I was told what happened. I found out later what really happened.” He checked behind the balcony curtains.
“What’s your point?”
“The accent. New Town had a very distinct accent. Partly due to the many wrestling caravans that would winter there together to train with each other. Also because of its proximity to the disputed border. It’s been claimed by both Mennai and Ailan for centuries, even to the point of dividing streets.” He stood in front of Prothero, just out of reach. “But then I think you know that. I also think you know what it was called about fifty years ago,
when it was a prosperous part of Mennai, before Ailan claimed it and taxed it back to the Stone Age.”
Prothero thought back to his rushed greeting from the bathroom. Tired, sore and careless, he had used the wrong language. “How do you know this?”
“A colleague of mine was born there before two units of the Ailan army wiped New Town off the map, literally.”
“I know the story, Captain. I was told neither unit had known the other was there. Both claimed to have been fired on first, that there were terrorists hiding in the square, in the historic houses. It was a tragedy.”
“Did you also know the legionnaires slaughtered the villagers trapped in the square? That the villagers tried to escape into the ‘historic houses’ in the centre of the square? Were you told that many of the villagers crushed themselves to death in those pretty homes as they burrowed deeper into them to escape the bullets? That the military followed them in and killed many at point blank range? They used their rifles as clubs when they ran out of ammo. I helped clear up the aftermath. The battlefield forensics told their own story.”
Prothero shuddered. He hadn’t known this. He’d looked but not found any information. He’d been told the digital deficit had claimed those files. Franklin could be lying. Or the government may be. “Your point, Captain?”
“I heard the New Town accent in Substation Two earlier today, from a man about your height and build. He had a limp, same knee. Same odd-coloured socks, too.” He pointed. “Blue and green.”
“How dare you slander me like this.” This boy had no idea what and who Prothero had given up for this country. His hand twitched for the pocket watch again. It left a thin streak of blood on his shirt. The plaster had come off his finger, pulling the scab off the cut.
“Cut yourself?” Franklin held up the small plastic bag. Inside was a broken metal switch with a streak of blood on it. “There’s a serial number on the back. I believe the VP may be interested in seeing this, given it comes from Substation Two.”
‘Leave nothing behind,’ Prothero’s team leader had told his team earlier that night. ‘Nothing at all. You take a piss, you carry it out with you. You so much as fart, you make sure you get that rank air out of there.’ They had all chuckled and Prothero had given himself a mental pat on the back for choosing men who knew their trade. Except for the man who had failed to turn up and was most likely now drunk, locked up or dead. So Prothero had volunteered to make up the numbers. He had been building up to the mission for years. His partner during the Window Riots had first had the idea and there was no way Prothero was going to cancel at short notice. He couldn’t. He had just learnt that the hidden route into the Substation through the old elecqueduct pylons was due to be demolished any time soon.
He and the team had got in, done what they needed to do (though the explosion was a lot bigger than he had anticipated, problematically so) and flown out. As instructed, the men hadn’t left anything behind and were now probably spending their wages in an underground bar on more rough alcohol and sex than they could afford. Mission achieved. But he, David Prothero, a man who had prided himself on his cunning during the Window Riots, a man who considered himself worldly-wise and blessed with the right amount of cynicism and optimism and experience to survive both the corridors of power and the streets of the capital, had screwed up. He had not thought anything of cutting his finger in the Substation beyond the fact that his obsequious neighbour with the sculpted hair would have some drugs if the finger got infected. Damn the man. Damn his luck. Damn his drunken team member. But most of all, damn Ray Franklin and his mother.
The legionnaire was doing a slow sweep of the room again. Checking. Watchful. The boy had a lot of his parents in him, both physically and in the attitude the authorities had thought the legions could contain. The eyes, the set of his jaw, were all Rose. But in uniform, with the stench of revenge hovering around him, the similarity to his father was striking. Prothero had an uncomfortable feeling the Franklins were not done with Ailan just yet. The question was, which side of the future did Prothero want to be on?
“OK,” he said, sucking the blood off his finger. “I’ll help you. You keep your mouth shut. But if this brother of yours is still alive, he may not be who you expect him to be. It may be better to leave him as he is.”
Franklin sat in the carved chair, his rifle across his lap. “Tell me what you know and why you were in the substation. And then get me into that camp. Tonight.”
The night sky was busier than normal, the circling lights lower. There was a hiss of tyres running through a puddle. Ray pulled away from the sheen of neon lights reflected in the pavement, trying not to look conspicuous in his attempt to be inconspicuous. It was a well-known but quietly discussed fact amongst the Rivermen that this was one of several blind spots around the Kickshaw, a few square metres of concrete where you had at least partial invisibility. The cameras above him whirred and focused on the passing vehicle as Ray huddled closer to the wall.
He had met Stella Swann at this bar before his world had started unravelling. She was another puzzle he had to solve now. Something else he needed to do before the government found him. They must have worked out who had uploaded that footage of the helicopters by now. And Prothero? Had the man really been in Substation Two to protect it? As unlikely as it seemed, he’d spoken very knowledgeably about energy security.
It had been part of the the official tag line of the post-Revolution government: maximising security, developing economic and societal efficiency. It had been one of the first things he had learnt in the access schools. When he had repeated it in front of his mother, she had sat him down and explained the small print: according to a governmental evaluation of local need. She had then listed the counter-claims of the propaganda war. Those battles had been fought across various digital formats until they were pulled off the ether, too. Rose had finished with a warning not to repeat the counter-claims if he wanted to see her again.
A burst of noise spilled out onto the street, quickly muffled as the door closed. Two women stood behind Prothero. It took him a couple of seconds to see past the civilian clothes and the new hair cut, but he recognised the first from Nascimento’s pictures.
“You look different from how I remember.” His mouth twitched into a smile. “You’ve got clothes on for a start. And you’re vertical.”
“What are you talking about, you slag?”
“Slag?”
“Who d’you think you are, anyway? You one of those malingerers from the clinic?” the medi-sec demanded. “Talking as if you know me. You don’t know me. You don’t deserve to know me.”
“I can see why Nascimento liked you,” Ray said.
The medi-sec hadn’t heard him. “Who is this stinky slag?” she asked the other woman.
“A friend of a friend,” Ray replied.
The medi-sec crossed her arms under her breasts, hitching them up and looking down her nose at him. It was an expression of indignation as classic as it was timeless. “Don’t sound like no friend to me.”
“Easy, easy now.” Prothero looped his arm around the second woman’s shoulders. “This is the man I phoned you about. Can you get him in?”
The way the second woman looked Ray up and down reminded him of the horse traders that had once toured the Towns, checking sizes and proportions and teeth.
“I think I can do that.” She pulled the end of her ponytail over her shoulder. “You’ll get me what I want?”
“Yes. Of course, Anna,” Prothero replied, kissing the top of her head.
“Please don’t call me that, Dad. I keep telling you, I’m not a little girl anymore.”
“Dad?” Ray mouthed to Prothero. The other man shushed him over his daughter’s head.
“Joanna’s a better name for a scientist, anyways,” the medi-sec added, picking at a nail. “Will you get me in again, too? That redhead was kind of cute—”
“Avery? You kidding me?”
“Well, cute for a nerd. Do you think he likes
tattoos? I could change mine. Might be easier than removing it. Don’t believe I got a tattoo done for that muscle-headed goon and he never calls me back.” She linked her arm through the other woman’s, pulling away again when her head brushed against Prothero’s hand.
“Avery’s a jerk,” Joanna said. “A child running with scissors. Besides, I can only get one in at a time and you don’t want to get caught there, trust me. The DNA demon will disassemble you!” They both dissolved into fits of giggles.
“Tonight,” Ray said. “Now.”
“No can do, Mister Stinky-Soldier-Slag-Sir,” Joanna said, clouds of mist forming with each word. “My next shift is in two days. At least I get shifts. Word is, people used to be stationed there for months at a time. No TV. Not even decent internet. They censored the shit out of it.”
“No porn?” the other woman asked.
“Not even adverts.”
The medi-sec made horrified noises and the women giggled again. There was a similarity to the two, Ray noted. Not so much features but mannerisms and attitude. Were they sisters? Half-sisters? Cousins? Or merely friends who sought security in numbers and aped each other’s behaviour and dress sense? They were about as unlike Brooke as was possible while still being female.
The door to the Kickshaw swung open, releasing a burst of laughter and light as someone ran towards a departing tram. Snowflakes drifted down, melting on the pavement, and the medi-sec said, “C’mon. My round, I’ll treat you. Cocktails first.”
“Cock tales second,” Joanna finished, high-fiving the woman.
Ray exchanged quick glances with Prothero. The older man whispered something into Joanna’s ear. She shook her head. Prothero’s whispers became firmer. Her sigh cut off mid-breath as her gaze slid back to Ray.