The House Next Door Trilogy (Books 1-3)

by Jule Owen

  He stares at his image, reflected in the bomb-proof spinel windows, his sideburns touched with grey, only because he has chosen it. It doesn’t do to appear too young.

  Nystrom sets his sights to tele and focuses on the hills at the far edge of the city. If he concentrates, he thinks he can spot a gathering mass of figures. Or perhaps it is his imagination. He turns back to the apartment. Shrilk wrappers still protect much of the furniture. Dearlove’s family is planning to move from Birmingham next week. Of course, that won’t happen.

  Dearlove comes from his bathroom, his hair still wet from the shower. In his youth he carried a lot of weight, but he is now quite fit. He does no more exercise. There are medicines to burn unwanted fat and build muscle. There are medicines to deal with cholesterol, hardened arteries and fat around the heart.

  Dearlove grasps Nystrom’s hand warmly, “Oli! Welcome to my humble abode! Isn’t the view magnificent? Of course, you probably know it better than I do, this being your baby and all.”

  “I did pay particular attention to the plans for this apartment,” Nystrom says.

  “So, St Paul’s will open its doors tonight. Your crazy plan is coming together. What is it like, walking around the city you dreamed of, after all these years?”

  “Good,” Nystrom says.

  “Good?” Dearlove steps back and scrutinises Nystrom thoughtfully. “Ha!” he says. “You’re a strange man, Oliver.”

  “How’s the jetlag?” Nystrom asks. “You got back last night, didn’t you?”

  “It’s fine; all part of the job. Besides, I took a hypersonic jet - a short flight, at least.”

  “You will be okay tonight?”

  “Of course, of course! So what’s the plan? Should we join the rehearsal?”

  “Yes, if you’re okay with that. I thought we could go over to St Paul’s now.”

  “Sure,” Dearlove says. He stands next to Nystrom and looks at the view. “I have to say, Oli, ten years ago, when Saul was killed and we started to talk, I wasn’t sure about you. I was suspicious for a long time and a big part of me thought all of this,” he gestures to the city below, “was pure insanity.”

  “But you agreed to it because it served your purposes.”

  “It served the purposes of the nation.”

  “Of course.”

  “The country needed a new idea to get behind. Saul represented what hadn’t worked. The nation needed a reboot. You had clear, strong ideas and you were passionate. It didn’t matter if the ideas were real or not. God knows, most of what Saul said was complete hot air.”

  “You were his deputy.”

  “But we’re doing things, Oli. This city is world-class. The Atlantic States Treaty will get signed and the world will move forward. We’ll rise from the decline and misery we’ve been stuck in.”

  “Careful,” Nystrom says. “You sound like an idealist.”

  “Today, I’m an idealist.” Dearlove turns back from the window to face Nystrom. “You know, through all the years we’ve worked together, you have never pushed me on a succession plan. You’ve never asked for more power. You’ve never asked me to resign for you. I wanted you to know I appreciate your loyalty. I want you to know; if anything happens to me, you have my full support as my successor. There’s a video with my private secretary, already prepared, asking the nation to stand behind you. Giving you my blessing.” Dearlove grips Nystrom’s arm.

  “Thank you, Bart. I appreciate it,” Nystrom says. “We need to get going.”

  Dearlove smiles, “I’ll grab my jacket.” He disappears into the bedroom and reappears dressed in a handmade, bespoke tailored jacket, which cost the same amount as the average English worker’s monthly salary, and was claimable as an expense. From tomorrow, Nystrom thinks, this will stop.

  “How do I look?” Dearlove asks.

  “Like the Prime Minister,” says Nystrom.

  “Ha! Good. Let’s go.”

  A man called Bryson and his second in command, Rowan, meet them in the lobby. Bryson sports a crew cut and a broken nose, and leads Dearlove’s security team. Bryson has worked for Dearlove for twenty years and has been responsible for his personal security for the last five. Dearlove trusts him implicitly.

  The men enter the lift together and face forward, shoulder-to-shoulder, their hands folded in front of them.

  Dearlove is buoyant, “You guys are solemn today. Did something happen?” He studies the stone-faced men around him.

  “We’ll be glad when today is done,” Bryson says. “There’s a lot to consider. A lot to worry about.”

  “Try to enjoy it as well, will you?”

  Bryson clears his throat and nods slightly, still staring ahead, “I’m sure we’ll celebrate tonight.”

  The door closes and the lift descends. Even the latest engineering can’t completely eradicate the stomach lurch the rapidly falling lift causes. They are silent as the floors flash by.

  Then the door opens. They have reached the basement where the Prime Minister’s car is parked, waiting for them.

  A man in an engineer’s boiler suit is balanced at the top of a ladder, adjusting a security camera. He nods to Bryson, climbs down, collapses his ladder, grabs his toolbox and stands to one side. Dearlove glances at him curiously. It’s rare to come across human technicians these days. Robots do most of the manual work.

  Bryson clears his throat again. It is a nervous tick, Nystrom thinks, but Dearlove hasn’t noticed. These failures of attention to detail get you killed, Nystrom thinks.

  The man behind Dearlove is Rowan. He is 27, an ex-marine who has worked for the Prime Minister’s Office for six months. He has recently received half of a large payment of money and has a hypersonic jet ticket to Lima in the inside pocket of his jacket. In 24 hours’ time his name will be media mud, but he cares little for this and significantly more for the second half of the payment and the estate it will buy him in Peru. Nystrom watches him pull a gun from his breast pocket, careful that the expression on his own face doesn’t alert Dearlove.

  The gun has a silencer. Rowan moves swiftly and Dearlove has no time to react. He aims the gun carefully, an immediate kill guaranteed, no need for a second bullet and minimal mess. Nystrom had specifically asked for no splatter.

  Bryson catches Dearlove by his armpits as he slumps to the ground.

  “Grab his legs,” he says to Rowan. They struggle as they heft him up. Despite the rejuv treatments and the health pills, he is still a big man and he is now a dead weight.

  “Clean it up,” Bryson says to the engineer. He nods at the small smudge of blood on the floor.

  Nystrom opens the boot of the car. It is lined with a shrilk sheet. They shut the body in. Bryson opens the door for Nystrom, “Prime Minister,” he says with a sort of smirk.

  “Not yet,” Nystrom says. “Right now I’m a hostage.”

  27 The Echo of a Memory of a Dream

  “I will go back home,” young Mathew says. “If you try and help me save my mother.”

  The truck rattles and bumps along. They have been moving for several uninterrupted hours now. Lestrange is still perched on his sack next to the door, his legs crossed at the ankles, elbows on knees, chin on his hands, meditative, relaxed. His eyes remain shut when he speaks.

  “Ah Mathew, I’m a historian not a doctor.”

  “You raise bodies from the dead. You pluck bullets from wounds.”

  “Yes, in this world, which we agreed is not real. It is not your world.”

  “But if I stayed with him… me… for a while, if I worked with him, we’d find a cure. Time is different here, isn’t it? No matter how long I stay, when I go back it will be when I left.”

  “We discussed this.”

  “But I don’t understand. What can I possibly break if this is a VR? And if I do break something, how important can it be compared to someone’s life?”

  “More important than you realise. But it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have that much time.”

  “What does
that mean?” Mathew asks.

  Lestrange is silent.

  “You never told me why your library has books about me and Clara,” Mathew says.

  One shut eye opens and then another. He regards Mathew carefully and then says, “Didn’t I?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  Lestrange closes his eyes again.

  “Are you ignoring me?”

  “No. I’m considering whether or not I should tell you.”

  “What are your concerns?”

  Lestrange smiles, his eyes still closed, “On the one hand, I think there’s a seventy-five per cent chance you won’t remember this conversation tomorrow. On the other, there’s a twenty-five per cent chance you will, or some of it, probably the memory of the essence of it, but it might be enough to influence you one way or another.”

  “Why would it matter?”

  “Because it may make you do something different. Think differently. Make different decisions.”

  “Why don’t you just lie to me?”

  Lestrange laughs, “I could, but then I’d have to pick the right lie. The wrong lie might be as bad as the truth.”

  “I tried to read the book with my name but it flung itself away. I thought the room was haunted.”

  Lestrange opens his eyes, “Really?”

  “It’s not haunted, is it?”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “No.”

  “Well then.”

  “Did you make the book throw itself away from me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t want you to read it.”

  Mathew puts a hand to his forehead, “Hold on. Hold on. You do weird shit here because it’s not real. It’s a game or a deterministic narrative or whatever it is you said. But when I saw those books in your library, it was my world. That was reality.”

  “What is reality, anyway?” Lestrange says.

  Mathew gapes at him. “Are you telling me, my world, my real life, is a game as well?”

  “I never said any of this was a game, Mathew.”

  “Okay, okay, a deterministic narrative.”

  “In a way.”

  “What do you mean by a deterministic narrative anyway? Do you mean events are preordained?”

  “From my perspective, yes.”

  He stares at Lestrange with dawning wonder and fear. “For you, my life has already happened. I am history. So I have no free will?”

  “Clearly, you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. It would be better if things happened as they are meant to happen. Better isn’t the right word. Critical or imperative would be more accurate.”

  Mathew’s face brightens, “I remember now, the book told the story of my life. How do you know all that stuff? Or did you make it up?”

  “I know more about you than you know about yourself.”

  “You don’t know what’s going on in my head…” Mathew gazes at Lestrange, “Oh my God, you do! You know everything I think and do! You’re inside my head now, aren’t you?”

  The truck brakes suddenly. There is silence and then, “Open up!” says a voice outside.

  Lestrange glances at Mathew, raises an eyebrow and reaches to the canvas flaps. The upward sweep of a single finger unravels the knot.

  A soldier balances on the foot plate and peers in. “Where’s Kiefer?” he asks.

  “Kiefer got called away to help with the drone,” Lestrange says.

  The soldier eyes Lestrange curiously, “Who are you?”

  “My name is August Lestrange. I’ll look after Mathew now.”

  The soldier nods, hesitantly. “Right, well, I’ll let you get on with it.” He jumps from the back of the van and reties the strings.

  A couple of minutes later they start to move again.

  “Won’t he report you?” Mathew asks.

  “No,” Lestrange says.

  “Why are you so sure? Did you brainwash him like you brainwashed me?”

  “I didn’t brainwash you, Mathew.”

  “You said there’s only a 75% chance I won’t remember this tomorrow. So there’s a 25% chance he will report you, surely?”

  “Lestrange shakes his head. There’s one hundred per cent chance he won’t report anything. It’s different with you. I have to be more careful.”

  The echo of the memory of a dream passes through Mathew’s mind, like the fleeting image of a ghost. He tries to grasp it but it’s gone. “You’ve told me that before?”

  Lestrange shakes his head. “You’re remembering a conversation you overheard once.”

  “You’re messing with my head.”

  “Don’t worry, tomorrow you will wake and this will bother you no more than a vivid dream. You’ll have forgotten it by the time you’ve brushed your teeth.”

  28 The Invasion Map

  They are three miles from Silverwood.

  Hathaway is inside the Nemean Lion, an armoured vehicle the size of a small bus, with impenetrable carbon fibre skin, a central seventy-five millimetre gun and four gun turrets. It is an extraordinary gothic thing, created in Jonah Marshall’s personal workshop, made of the best salvaged parts from captured coalition military equipment.

  Inside, Hathaway sits at a small table, where he projects a map of Silverwood. He stares at a message. Large white letters obscure the map. He reads it aloud to his companions; Kilfeather, Jonah, Drake, and a muscular, dark woman called Winterbourne.

  He says, “Our host sends his apologies, but will you please still come to the party?”

  “It’s begun, then,” Kilfeather replies.

  “Yes. It’s begun.”

  It is the first milestone of a plan to return the rule of England to the majority. He ought to be jubilant, but he is tired, weighted down by gravity. Kilfeather is tired too. His face is drawn. He is like me, Hathaway thinks. This is not a path he would have chosen. That’s why I keep him close.

  Hathaway rubs his face with his hands, closes his eyes, tilts his head back and breathes. “This is it. We can’t stop it now even if we want to.”

  “But we don’t want to.”

  Hathaway says, “No. Of course not.”

  On the map there are various coloured markers scattered and moving across the city. He watches an orange dot that represents Oliver Nystrom, and the body of the former Prime Minster. The dot tracks the car as it drives away from the Cadmus Tower. A green marker blinks on the new Broadcasting House. Green is already positioned on the main nuclear fusion facility, and other green dots head for various locations that represent energy substations, and the main water reprocessing centre. The green markers represent the successful neutralisation of internal security. Orange represents an in-process operation. Orange is on the city’s communication hub. A green dot on the far west of town represents Rhys Llewellyn and the Welsh militia.

  Red dots represent the invading forces. Their red dot heads for the south of the city, and is poised to split into several groups. Their group will be red dot 1, or Red1. The other Accountant army vehicle divisions head for separate entry points, marked as blinking black triangles on the map. He imagines this must be what it is to be a god, directing the lives of tiny humans from the heavens, except he feels anything but god-like.

  They are now a mile from the city.

  “Any news leaked on the Nexus yet?” he asks.

  “No. Communications are all locked tight. It’s like clockwork.”

  “What about the Blackweb?”

  “Some unconfirmed rumours, but the chatter is escalating. The military will have picked it up. But it doesn’t matter anymore.

  “There’s been no resistance?”

  “Nothing serious, no.”

  “How tenuous the Prime Minister’s power must have been! No loyalty from the men who were there to protect him. What do you think passed through his head when he realised he was about to die?”

  “I don’t think he had any idea,” Kilfeather says. “It would
have been too quick. Nystrom insisted he was shot in the back of the head.”

  “Not honourable.”

  “It was humane.”

  Hathaway snorts, “Is killing ever humane?”

  “Surely, you’re not going to discuss the morality of killing just before we invade a city.”

  “If the plan goes well, this should be one of our most bloodless battles.”

  “But Dearlove won’t be the only man dying today,” Kilfeather says.

  “No. No he won’t,” says Hathaway.

  Hathaway turns his attention back to the map. He’s received a message via the Blackweb. “We’re peeling off,” he says.

  He shares images of part of the convoy as it takes an exit off the ring-road they are now on.

  “We take the next one,” Kilfeather says. “We have the confirmation code from our gatekeeper. We’re good to go.”

  Hathaway nods, “You’d better get to your positions,” he says to Drake and Jonah. Both men climb into their gun turrets. Winterbourne goes to the front of the vehicle to monitor the control unit, where she collects messages from other parts of the convoy. Hathaway and Kilfeather are alone. Hathaway says, “Where’s the boy you found?”

  “He’s in vehicle number ten in our group.”

  “I’d like him here with me.”

  Kilfeather’s eyes narrow, “I know why you wanted to speak to him.”

  “Do you, Kieran?”

  “Yes, I do. It worries me. It’s a distraction. You need to focus, Director.”

  “Have you ever known me to get distracted?”

  “Today is not the day to start.”

  “I am not a fatalistic man, but the boy showing up is like fate.”