by Jule Owen
Falkous, who is also reading the menu, says, “Not exactly health food, but at least we won’t go to bed hungry.”
Mathew selects a burger and chips, a Coke and an apple pie and ice cream for pudding. Vid leans across and looks at Mathew’s selection. “Boy after my own heart,” he says, grinning.
They place their orders. Vid leans back in his chair with his arms behind his back. “What’s in that blue bag, anyway?” he asks.
“My mother,” Mathew says.
Vid laughs.
Mathew stares at him.
“I think he means his mother’s ashes,” Falkous says.
“Crap. I’m sorry.”
“Idiot,” Falkous says.
There’s a long awkward silence. “I’m sorry,” Vid says.
Falkous looks at Vid.
“What?” he says. “I am sorry. How was I to know? Who carries their mother’s ashes around with them in a rucksack?”
Falkous sighs, “Someone who is sixteen, recently bereaved, and is travelling north so he can have a proper funeral with his grandmother present?”
“Crap,” Vid says again. “Crap. Sorry.”
“Can you be quiet?” Falkous says.
“Hey, no one else is going to keep the conversation going.”
“You call this conversation?”
“Better than silence.”
“No,” Falkous says. “It isn’t.”
Mathew shifts in his seat. The robot waiter comes with his Coke and drinks for Falkous and Vid.
“Is your grandma a radical, then?”
“For frack’s sake, can’t you shut up?” Falkous says.
“What? Truville said so.”
“Oh, Truville said! Jeeze.”
“Is she, then?” Vid asks Mathew.
Mathew shrugs and drinks his Coke. He doesn’t care about Vid. Or anyone. Or anything.
The robot comes back with their food and lays it out in front of them. “Will there be anything else?” it asks.
“No,” Falkous says.
“Enjoy your meal,” the robot says as it retreats.
“The reason I’m asking about your grandma is I want to know what we’ll face when we get there.”
Falkous says, “I swear, if you won’t be quiet I will make you.”
“There may be a hostile reception for us. Those Edenists are extreme.”
“She is Garden Party, not Edenist. And she’s not extreme. She doesn’t carry guns. She doesn’t kill people with biological weapons,” Mathew says.
“Whoa! Boy’s a radical!”
“Will you please shut the frack up?” Falkous says, slamming her hand down on the table.
The other two guests turn around to look at them disapprovingly.
Vid sulks. They eat in silence for a few minutes. “Pass the ketchup,” he says to Mathew. Mathew hands him the ketchup.
“No hard feelings?”
“Hush!” says Falkous. “Not a peep.”
“What time do we start tomorrow?” Mathew asks Falkous.
“Seven-thirty,” Falkous says. “Straight after breakfast. Okay?”
Mathew nods.
“We should have you with your grandma by nightfall, so long as there’re no holdups on the road.”
“What kind of holdups? Is the road flooded?”
“The motorway won’t be flooded,” Falkous says. “Although some of the smaller roads we have to go on as we get further north may be. We’ve had a good report though, so I’m not expecting anything untoward.”
“Do you know Truville?” Mathew asks her.
She shakes her head, “No, not really. We’re from central security. We can be assigned to any department across Panacea.”
The robot returns to clear away their plates, “Have you finished?” it asks, swiping Vid’s plate. He grabs his burger away. “Hey!”
“I will return with your pudding shortly,” the robot says.
“It’s insane,” Vid says, watching the robot retreat across the restaurant and through the double doors of the kitchen.
Falkous shakes her head.
In his room, Mathew checks his messages. Clara has responded to his note, asking if they can talk when he has time. He sits for a while, thinking, and then calls her. An image of her appears, sitting on her bed, sheets pulled around her.
“Did I wake you?” he asks.
“No,” she says. “I was reading. It’s good to hear your voice.”
He sighs, “I’m sorry I haven’t called.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t even say it. I can’t even begin to imagine what you must have been through.”
“It’s not been good,” Mathew says. “It feels like it will never be good again.”
“It will,” she says. “Where are you?”
“In a hotel on the motorway.”
“What’s it like?”
“It’s fine. I have a double bed.”
Clara smiles.
“Do you have a guard with you?”
“Two of them. The woman’s alright, but the man’s a dick. He started saying my grandmother is a radical.”
“Well, she is, isn’t she?”
He is sitting on the edge of his bed; he shuffles backwards and props himself against a pillow. “No more than your parents were. But to be honest, I don’t know what to believe any more.”
“You’ll feel better when you’re with your grandmother.”
He sniffs, “She usually tells me what I should think. I told you about Truville, the bureaucrat, didn’t I?”
“The one that wanted you to sign the contract? I can’t believe it.”
“I can. My Dad’s company was the same after he died. They have whole teams of lawyers dedicated to shutting down trouble.”
“You were right not to sign. You should get a lawyer to look at it.”
“My grandmother knows a lawyer. I told Truville I wanted my grandmother to look at it, which I think frightened him a bit. I’m never going to sign it, not unless they tell me what actually happened.”
“Do you think they ever will?”
“No. But a friend of mine might be able to find out.” Mathew is thinking of Lich King.
“It is good to hear your voice. I’ve been so worried about you,” Clara says.
“I’m okay.”
“Yeah.” She pauses. “Your dreams are weird.”
“I know.”
“Still feel real?”
“Nothing feels real to me right now. The whole universe may be a giant hologram for all I know.”
“Isn’t there a theory saying it is?”
Mathew laughs, “Yes, there is.”
“What do you think?”
“I’d like to ask Lestrange.”
“Mr. Lestrange?”
“Yeah. If I wasn’t on the way to Elgol, I would knock on his door and ask him what’s going on. I bet he knows.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Nope. I’m not joking. But I’d never get to ask him because he’s never there. He never answers his door.”
“Now you’re worrying me again.”
“I’m tired.”
“I should let you sleep. What time do you start tomorrow?”
“Seven-thirty, so up at six.”
“Yuck.”
“Exactly.”
“Night, Mat,” she says.
“Night, Clara.”
“Let me know when you get there.”
“I will for sure.”
4 Roadblock
DAY TWENTY-FOUR: Wednesday 15th December 2055
In the daylight, in the car park of the hotel, Mathew can see the surrounding landscape clearly for the first time. The flooded fields are like quicksilver under the low grey skies.
Vid seems more subdued, perhaps from a dressing down from Falkous.
They are quickly on the road, joining the steady stream of traffic. Mathew is alone again in the back of the car. He feels better for having spoken to Clara. Now he doesn’t know why he avo
ided her, but in the days following his mother’s death, he didn’t want to speak to anyone.
Setting the table at an angle, he calls the news to view footage of hypersonic warplane attacks across Russia and China. The big announcement is wireless power has been switched on for the Allied soldiers fighting in Poland, and funding has been signed off by Congress and the EU for an accelerated programme of development for new Battlestars. Mathew absently watches some commentary, and then switches to a tabletop holofilm. It’s been ages since he’s watched one, the characters and scenery appearing before him like a minute version of the world, real enough to reach out and touch. The story is engrossing and he is grateful to lose himself.
A few hours later, the film has finished. He looks out of the window to see the motorway now bordering a camp. High barbed-wire-topped chain-link fencing runs along a ditch on the other side of the hard shoulder. Beyond the fence there are hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters, separated by straight muddy pathways. No one is about. The rain is lashing down. The fence seems to go on for miles, then suddenly it ends, and there are fields, actual fields with soil and trees. There are grassy hills with sad-looking cattle and sheep huddled together against the weather. The road ahead is empty and they are speeding along, making good time. In spite of himself, Mathew feels a flicker of the old excitement he used to experience when, as a boy, he would be taken north to stay with his grandmother.
Then the car starts to slow.
They crawl to a halt, joining the back of a line of traffic. This is unknown. He immediately feels alarmed. Through the glass plate separating him from the front of the car, he can see Vid and Falkous talking. Their body language tells Mathew he’s right to be afraid. Falkous notices Mathew staring at them and opens one of the glass windows that separates them.
“Nothing to worry about,” she says. “Must be a crash.”
“A crash?” Autonomous cars don’t crash.
“It happens.” It doesn’t.
“Vid is going to take a look and I’m going to check in with our intelligence team and find out if they know anything.”
Mathew frowns.
“Don’t worry,” Falkous says. “Okay?”
Mathew nods, but he knows something is wrong.
Vid gets out of the car, edges between the other vehicles stationary on the road, and walks over to the hard shoulder, disappearing behind an autonomous delivery truck. Falkous is deep in Nexus conversation. She looks worried now. She hangs up and immediately makes another call, still speaking as she gets out of the car. Vid comes jogging back. Mathew opens his door and steps out into the road.
Mathew hears Falkous saying to Vid, “We need to turn around.”
Vid says, “How, for frack’s sake?” He indicates to the cars and trucks now queuing behind them.
“We can use the hard shoulder.”
“We’re in the middle lane.”
“Let’s ask this truck here to move.”
“There’s no human in it,” Vid says, peering in through the glass.
“Even better. We can get our on-board computer to talk to its on-board computer.”
Falkous sees Mathew and barks at him, “Get back in the car until I tell you to get out!”
Other passengers are getting out onto the road. “What’s going on?” a man in a suit shouts over.
Falkous watches Vid return to the car out of the corner of her eye. She says to the man, “There’s a roadblock ahead. Potentially a hold-up. The motorway is blocked with articulated lorries.”
“You’ve got to be joking!” says the suit. He’s irritated about being late for his meeting.
Vid is back inside the car, talking to the on-board computer.
Falkous sees Mathew, still standing there, hesitating. “In the car!” she yells. He opens the door and gets in.
Vid has his door open. He leans out and shouts to Falkous, “Hey, Falkous, back here! I think it worked.”
Falkous strides back and gets in the car, as the delivery truck starts and moves on the hard shoulder. “What worked?” She looks across at the truck blocking the lane next to them, her mouth open. “It’s trying to turn,” she says.
“Yes, it’s what you asked.”
“No. I want it to pull up there ahead on the hard shoulder,” she points, “so we can get through. If it tries to turn it will get stuck; there isn’t enough room. Like that.” She thumps the dashboard. “Frack!”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“Wasn’t it obvious?” She puts a hand to her forehead. “We’re sitting ducks here,” she says.
“The car is bullet-proof,” Vid says. “Secure. Whoever is out there won’t be able to get in.”
“Do you want to stake your life on it? And the boy’s?”
“But where do we go? The fields are flooded and there’s not even a ruin out there to take shelter in.”
“The further from the front of the queue we get, the better. We can walk back to the service station.”
“That’s miles back.”
“There’s bound to be something. I saw a camp.” She looks at Mathew. “We need to go.”
Mathew nods.
“Leave your stuff.”
Mathew grabs his rucksack. Falkous catches his eye, holds it for a moment and then nods. “Okay,” she says. “But just the one.” She checks inside her jacket for her handgun, takes it out, takes something from an inside pocket and fits a silencer. She notices Mathew watching her. “Don’t want to attract attention, do we?” she says.
Then she gets out, goes round to the boot and pulls out two automatic weapons, handing one to Vid. Opening the door for Mathew, she bundles him between her and Vid, keeping him close, and they start to walk away between the cars.
More people emerge now on the road. The man in the suit follows them. “Where are you going?” he asks.
Falkous says, “Away from here.” She doesn’t look back.
There’s ten of them walking now, but many passengers stay locked in their cars. Their fearful eyes follow them as they pass. “They’re smart,” Vid says.
Then suddenly there are no more cars. They come to the end of the queue. Instructions have been broadcast to all vehicles travelling north to exit at the preceding junction. They are unlucky to be amongst the last cars that passed the junction before the warning was issued.
“Help must be on its way,” Falkous says. “They’ve closed the motorway. The authorities know what’s going on.”
“What should we do?” the suit asks. “Should we go back to our cars?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Who do you think they are?”
“I would bet whoever is doing this is working their way down the line, taking whatever they can get. I doubt they’re friendly,” Falkous replies. She is looking out across the field. “There’s a house over there.”
Vid says, “What? Do you want us to swim?”
“It might be surface water. We could wade. Why don’t you go and see?” Vid looks at Falkous. “Go on.”
Vid walks uncertainly over to the hard shoulder and slides down the muddy, raised embankment of the motorway onto the field. He wades out a few feet. “It’s shallow,” he says. “Bit slippy, though.”
“What about further out?”
He turns and walks out a few metres. “Same,” he says. He is smiling as he turns back towards them. “I think it’s fine.”
The first shot hits him in the arm, making him drop his automatic weapon. Instinctively, he moves with his other arm to pull his handgun from its holster, but the second shot hits him in the head. Mathew is standing mesmerized by the look of surprise on Vid’s face as he hovers where he stands for a moment before collapsing to the ground with a splash.
“Crap!” Falkous says, pulling Mathew back with her towards the shelter of the cars. “Crap. Crap.” She pushes his head down, “Keep down, for God’s sake!”
“We should have stayed in the car,” Falkous says. “The idiot was right. T
he one time he was ever right and I didn’t listen to him!”
They are crouched by the side of a lorry with large wheels. Falkous starts taking off her jacket.
“What are you doing?” Mathew whispers, alarmed.
“Put it on. Now,” she says to Mathew, thrusting it at him. “It’s bullet-proof.”
He watches her check her gun strapped to her body in a cross body holster. She takes the gun out, takes off and throws away the holster, then puts the gun inside her shirt in a special pocket with a strap.
“Can you see it?” she asks.
“You’d have to be looking.”
She helps Mathew do up the bullet proof vest.
She says, “There.”
“What about you?” he asks.
“I got you into this, didn’t I?” She peers out from behind the wheel. “It’s okay. We are going to be alright.” She seems to be talking to herself as much as to him. “I think they took a long shot at Vid. I don’t think they are close yet. Let’s go.”
She pulls Mathew after her. “But we’re going towards them,” he says.
“I want to get back to our car.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a large box in the back. Did you see it? The one with the fridge in?” Mathew nods. “Good. If you pull the fridge out and get in, there’s an emergency button to shut the door. It’s a mini-panic room. A bit tight but you should be fine,” she says, sizing him up.
“Where will you be?” Mathew asks.
“I’m going to try and ram our car into that truck to push it out of the way and get out onto the hard shoulder. If it doesn’t work, I’m going to sit tight, hope help arrives soon, and pray that Vid was right about the car being bullet-proof. Let’s keep moving.”
“Where are you going?” the man with the suit asks. He is standing above them, bowed slightly.
“You should get down,” Falkous says.
“Right,” he says. Some of the other people on the road come over. “You should get down,” the man in the suit says to the others. They all crouch down, looking at each other for validation.
“Jeeze,” Falkous says. These people are a complication she doesn’t want.
“What’s the plan?” another man asks. He is wearing casual clothes and is in his early twenties. A student, most likely, Falkous thinks.