NEITHER TIM NOR JODIE heard the first tentative little knock on his door. They were together on his room’s elderly leather sofa, squirming around in a reasonable approximation of a wrestling lock. He’d already got her blouse open, while his own trousers were down around his knees.
The knock came again.
Tim’s head came up, giving the door a worried look. For all he’d settled confidently into university life, he was still scared of the bulldogs who ruled the college. Prowling through the cloisters and quads in their black suits and hats, ever alert for recidivist activity, they inspired the same level of fear in the current student body as they had for centuries.
“Just a minute,” he called.
They hurriedly pulled their clothes back together. A last quick check with Jodie, who was now sitting primly on the sofa, and Tim opened the heavy oak door, a neutral smile in place.
Annabelle stood outside.
Tim just gaped dumbly at her. She was dressed in a black blouse with a vivid scarlet tartan skirt, all visible through the open front of a fawn-colored camel hair coat. Long looping gold necklaces completed the ensemble, making her appearance tremendously chic in comparison to the students her age. Tim very quickly damped down that thought.
“Hi, Tim,” she said. Her voice was quiet, almost shy.
“Hi. Er, come in. Please.”
Annabelle and Jodie looked at each other, then their gaze fell in unison to the bright pink fluffy sweater that was lying on the floor beside the sofa. Tim knew his face was red as he made the introductions.
“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” Annabelle said. “But I had to see you in person.”
“Why?” Tim asked. She was acting very strangely.
“You have to come home with me. I brought the car. I can take you now.”
“Home? Why?”
Annabelle bowed her head, as if she was no longer strong enough to hold herself upright. When she spoke he could barely hear her. “Jeff’s ill, Tim. Really ill.”
“He never said. I spoke to him a couple of days ago.” He was almost indignant with her: Such a thing couldn’t happen to his father.
“He hasn’t said anything to you; he didn’t want you to be upset. You know what he’s like.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
She simply shook her head. Tim was shocked to see a tear running down her cheek.
“What?” he demanded; her reaction was making him nervous, which he tried to cover by sounding annoyed.
“Tim!” Jodie warned.
“Sorry. Look, Annabelle, what is all this?”
“You have to come home.”
He looked to Jodie, who nodded encouragingly.
“Okay,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I’ll get my coat.”
“Thank you,” Annabelle said. She dabbed at her cheek with a tissue.
“What did the medical team say?”
“He won’t let them in the house.”
“Jesus.” Tim was starting to get worried now. “What is wrong with him?”
“He wants to tell you himself.”
57. THE WATCHERS
AS WITH ALL AVALANCHES, it started with the smallest breath of motion. Jeff had made the decision way back when he was lying in his bed at the Brussels University Medical Centre. It might have come from shock, or anger, though he preferred to think of it as rooted in youthful idealism. Jeff didn’t blame Dr. Sperber, but he’d been around long enough to know how the information would be used, twisted, sanitized, controlled, released in a way that left Brussels devoid of responsibility. That was the way of all government and politicians; it was never their fault.
The Official Jeff Baker Lifesite/News
Turbosender destination: universal
There is something I wish to share with everyone. Please access me
>hyperlink<.
People the globe over received the txt, and either frowned or sighed at the umpteenth piece of spam to sneak through their interface that day. Ninety-nine point nine percent ordered their computer to delete it without even glancing at the message heading. Of the tiny number who did use the hyperlink, none canceled it. Instead they started to txt their friends and family. The professional media caught up with the story a few minutes later.
THE USUAL URBANE CALM of the anchorman behind the Thames News desk was visibly shaken as the breaking story was whispered into his earpiece. He smiled nervously at the camera, and said: “We now take you to a live personal feed.”
IT WAS THE DISTRIBUTED SOURCE NETWORK that Jeff had helped to make possible through memory crystals that allowed his broadcast to happen. The little camera in the manor’s study was sending its images into the datasphere, which immediately made it available to anyone with the correct hyperlink code, of which there were hundreds of millions. Simply by accessing it, they made themselves part of the source. It was impossible for anyone to switch off the interface of millions of people, especially if their identity and location were unknown.
The Brussels commissioners, through Europol, might just have had the authority and technical ability to cut any physical land lines to the Baker manor. But Jeff knew that. There were a dozen different live mobile connections linking him into the datasphere through various routes.
Whatever happened in his study would now be played out to the bitter end.
AS THE SAYING GOES, nothing spreads faster than bad news. Ten minutes after Jeff began the broadcast, over eighty thousand people had accessed the feed. Five minutes later the number had jumped to three hundred thousand.
Prime Minister Rob Lacey finally saw what was happening at the twenty-one minute mark. He was brought out of a strategy meeting with his election team into an office with a big wall-mounted screen—it had been an intense session, the London Riot was acting like a millstone around his campaign. For a minute he simply stared at the scene, listening to Jeff’s quiet voice talking calmly and rationally to his rising global audience. Every word was a needle-sharp accusation aimed right into the heart of his credibility.
“Get him off!” Rob Lacey shouted at an aide.
“But, sir…”
“Off! I want that motherfucker shut down!”
ALAN AND JAMES SAT on the plump couch in Alan’s living room. Both of them stared at the giant screen on the wall opposite. The way it was set up, the angle of the study camera, made it seem as if Jeff was sitting in the room with them. Neither of them had spoken for the last fifteen minutes.
In the corner of the screen a small call-not-accepted icon flashed repeatedly.
IN OFFICES, workers tended to cluster around the cubicle of whoever had accessed the feed first. Silent crowds watched the unfolding event with a guilty fascination.
On the streets in cities and towns, people gathered outside any shop or pub that had a screen interfaced with the datasphere. Many pedestrians wearing PCglasses simply stood still in the middle of the pavement as the lens display played the images.
Jeff’s study was just the primary scene; there were a number of other cameras in the manor that were supplying images to the datasphere. Thirty minutes in, and five million people watched as Europol officers Krober and Cherbun approached the door to Jeff’s study. Sue and Alison Baker stood outside, along with Graham Joyce.
“Please,” Krober appealed, “stand aside. We need to go in.”
“I’m too old to move,” Graham said. He brought his fists up in a boxer’s stance. With his white hair and stooped shoulders he looked quite pitiful standing in front of the two fit young officers. “Come on then. I don’t suppose it’ll take you long enough to bash an old fart like me out of the way. Did you bring your biggest truncheon, sonny? Do you like the sound it makes when it cracks bones in half?”
“Mr. Joyce, this is not good,” Krober said.
“Come on.” Graham jabbed out with his right arm.
Krober barely had to move to dodge the attempted blow.
“Leave my house,” Sue said. “Both of you. All of you
. Get out. Now.”
Krober and Cherbun looked at each other, neither knowing what to do next. Lucy Duke arrived, cursing her heels as she ran. Her eyes searched around until she found the camera high up on the wall; she grimaced at it. “Enough,” she snapped at the Europol officers. “For God’s sake.”
“We have our orders,” Krober insisted.
Lucy winced at the phrase. “Don’t make this any worse.” She appealed directly to Cherbun. “Think!”
Cherbun nodded with slow reluctance. “As you wish.”
THE AUDIENCE OF ELEVEN MILLION now included the cast of Sunset Marina. They stopped shooting their latest plotline twist to gather in the studio canteen, where a big screen played a news stream. Karenza started sobbing as she watched Jeff with his soft smile. “I hate them,” she told the bewildered cast and crew. “I hate all of them.”
ONE OF THE MANOR’S OUTSIDE CAMERAS picked up the Jag as it swept into the drive. Tim and Annabelle got out. Twenty-two million people watched them hurry inside.
58. DYING LIVE
SUE, ALISON, AND ANNABELLE WALKED into the study with Tim. Even though Tim thought he’d prepared himself for the moment, he was scared by the sight of his father.
Jeff was sitting at one end of the couch, wedged up into the corner. A thick rug was wrapped around him, as if it was holding back the cold of midwinter. The study heating was on maximum, turning the air to a sweltering fug. It didn’t make any difference to Jeff; he was shivering beneath the blanket.
He broke off from the monologue he was delivering to the camera and smiled up at his son. “Hello, Tim.”
“Hi, Dad.” He so much wanted it to come out casually, as if he’d just got back from school to ask what was for supper. Instead, it seemed to get blocked in his throat, choking him. He gripped Jeff’s hand with its icy sickly white skin. “What’s happened?”
“Poor Tim.” Jeff smiled gently, which showed up the dark circles around his eyes. Annabelle sat on the couch beside him and laid an arm on his shoulder, fussing with the blanket. She kissed his brow, like a priest bestowing a blessing.
“Something this big, it’s too much for hints and allusion, isn’t it,” Jeff said. “We need to have it spelled out. That way someone else takes the blame, there’s no guilt for guessing right.”
“Dad, please,” Tim pleaded.
“It doesn’t work, son. As I’ve just been telling my viewing public.” He tipped his head to the camera. “Rejuvenation treatment is a load of crap.”
“But you’re young!”
“I’m dying, Tim. There’s some kind of flaw in the mitosis process. They can bring my body back down to twenty again, but after that something in the treatment disrupts natural cell division. They’re not sure what, unfortunately, but no doubt they’ll solve it in time.”
Tim started sobbing. “That can’t be right. They must be able to do something.”
“No escape, son. This is something that time doesn’t forgive.”
“Why did they give it to you in the first place?” Tim cried. “If it doesn’t work, why did they tell you it did?”
“Because that’s what Europe is, and this treatment is Europe. Once something so grand, so powerful has been set in motion, then it cannot be allowed to fail. I will just be a small sad glitch along the route of progress to success. That’s how Lacey and his kind would want to portray me. They’ve invested too much of themselves in this now; their association is total. My death will help the project to its final goal, so they would want to say with their solemn eulogies.”
“They lied!”
“Of course they lied. They’re politicians, it’s what they do.”
“But they’ve killed you.”
“Yes, Tim, but it wasn’t a cheap death. Not for them, and not for me. Especially me. I was free at the end of my life. Free from age and all its horrors. Free to enjoy life the way only the young can. That was such a beautiful gift to own. You know what? If they’d told me straight, that it was a massive gamble which I might not survive, I’d still have gone for it. I’d still have wanted these last few months this way and no other. I have absolutely no regrets. Except for you, Tim. You’re the only victim in this, and that’s my fault.”
“No. You’re dying! You can’t die, Dad, you can’t. You’re my dad.”
“You live on in the minds of people, those who love you, those who knew you.” Jeff chuckled, the old roguish predator briefly shining out through the decaying flesh. “Which means I’m going to be the most alive corpse on the planet. Everybody knows me.”
“I don’t. Not really.”
“You do, Tim, better than anyone after what I did to you. I still hope that someday you’ll forgive me for that.”
“I do. Really, I do.”
“Annabelle is pregnant. She’s having our daughter. Did you know that?”
“Yes, Dad. I know.”
“You’re going to have a sister, Tim. Look after her. The world is going to become very chaotic over the next few years, I suspect. She’s going to need a lot of help growing up. But don’t you give up university.”
“I won’t, Dad.”
“When my daughter asks about me, when she wants to know what her father was like, what will you tell her, Timmy?”
And a quarter of a billion people heard Tim say: “I’ll tell her that I loved you, Dad.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PETER F. HAMILTON is the author of numerous short stories and novels, including Pandora’s Star, Judas Unchained, and the acclaimed epic Night’s Dawn Trilogy (The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, and The Naked God). He lives with his family in England. Visit his website at www.peterfhamilton.co.uk.
BY PETER F. HAMILTON
THE NIGHT’S DAWN TRILOGY
The Reality Dysfunction
The Neutronium Alchemist
The Naked God
Fallen Dragon
THE GREG MANDEL TRILOGY
Mindstar Rising
A Quantum Murder
The Nano Flower
Misspent Youth
A Second Chance at Eden
The Confederation Handbook
Pandora’s Star
Judas Unchained
The Dreaming Void
Copyright
Misspent Youth is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2002 by Peter F. Hamilton
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in slightly different form by Macmillan, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd., London, in 2002.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hamilton, Peter F.
Misspent youth / Peter F. Hamilton.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-49551-8
1. Rejuvenation—Fiction 2. Genetic engineering—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6058.A5536M57 2006
823'.914—dc22
2006045455
www.delreybooks.com
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Misspent Youth (commonwealth saga) Page 34