Tag

by Simon Royle

  The crystal glass suddenly shattered in my hand. I had squeezed too tight. The top half had collapsed into the bottom and I felt blood seeping from my hand. Sir Thomas didn’t seem to have noticed. I put my broken glass back on the table, with a thump.

  “Oh damn. Sorry, I’ve just broken your glass.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Get yourself another from the cabinet. We have things that we have to talk about urgently.”

  I got up from the chair and, putting the dagger on it, crossed to the sliding doors. Opening the clearfilm doors to the living room, I went inside. A single lamp near the door lit the room in a soft yellow light. Mariko, still in UNPOL uniform, didn’t say anything but looked questioningly at my hand. I shook my head softly with a glance to the bodyguards, who watched me when I came in, and then professionally looked away.

  I got a new glass from the cabinet and, wrapping a tissue around the bleeding wound, went back out to the balcony. Sir Thomas hadn’t moved. His dark shape stared forward, his back hard up against the chair, arms on the armrests, the glint of a glass in his left hand. I picked up the dagger as I sat down, placing it back in my lap, then I twisted over to take the top off the whisky bottle and poured myself another shot. The little walk had done me good — I was back in control and focused again. The alcohol and my emotions had got the better of me. For a while back there I had come close, too close, to plunging the dagger into his chest. The whisky sat like a smoldering fire in my belly, waiting for the winds of my emotions to fan it. Be cool, Jonah. Stay cool, stay calm, learn and think.

  “Jonah,” Sir Thomas hissed.

  I jumped in my seat, startled. “Yes, Uncle.”

  “I want you to do something for me. It is a test of your loyalty to me and to us as Hawks. Will you do it?”

  “Yes. What is it you want me to do?”

  “I want you,” his voice changed and he turned and leaned very close, putting his mouth next to my ear, almost a lover’s kiss, “to kill someone for me.”

  I sat dead still. His words running through my brain. I felt stone cold sober. I cleared my throat, to be sure that there wasn’t a quaver in my voice, and didn’t turn to face him.

  “Who is it that you want me to kill?” As I said this my brain was running through the list of people it could be. For a panicked sec I thought he might order me to kill Mariko in the living room. I sucked in air sharply. If he did that I’d kill him and we’d just have to take our chances with the bodyguards and Charles.

  “Someone. Anyone. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the commitment. Kill and bring me evidence of your kill. Then I’ll believe that you can make life or death decisions. The greatest generals all cared for their men, and didn’t hesitate to spend them to attain their goals. This is no different.”

  I exhaled slowly. We’ve already committed a crime together, I thought. This. Talking like this is conspiracy to murder. Enough to have both of us put in containment for years. I have to kill someone. Or I will die.

  “When?”

  “Within two weeks. You have until Friday week. Do it. Don’t get caught and don’t tell anyone what you are going to do. Especially not her.” He tilted his head and rolled his eyes in the direction of the living room. “If we decide later to bring her in, she’ll have to go through the same test of loyalty. But until then. Not a word.”

  A test of loyalty or a tool for blackmail? I thought.

  Sir Thomas continued with the same breathy quality to his voice: sexy in a woman, scary coming from the mouth of a seventy-five year old lunatic. “Events are moving fast. I need you to get through the test and join me. I want you to be by my side as these events unfold. He paused and leaned closer, reaching out with his hand he turned my face to his. He’s going to kiss me, I thought, shrinking back in the seat. But instead he spoke softly, his sweaty hand tenderly cupping my cheek. “If you can’t do this thing for me, then this will be our last two weeks on Earth together.” His eyelids lowered and he squinted through them looking directly into mine.

  “What do I get when I do this?” I said, staring at him hard.

  He smiled. “When you do this thing for me, I promise you power like you could never imagine.”

  He patted my cheek lightly before standing up with a grunt. I looked up at him, my hands folded in my lap over the dagger. My sight impaired by a stray hair falling down over my eyes. I reached up and swept the hair out of the way, not taking my eyes off him. The reason for the two bodyguards became clear as I saw him shake his head slightly while facing the clearfilm windows of the living room. If I had refused I had no doubt my death would have been a dual suicide with Mariko, off Sir Thomas’s balcony. Or perhaps a staged crash on the Travway. Either way we wouldn’t have survived the night.

  He seemed smaller in the dark, and his shoulders were slumped. He turned sharply almost as if on a parade ground. And then stopped and turned to me. “You better hide that,” he said, nodding at the dagger. I rose from the seat and slipped the dagger into the back of my bottom outers and lifted my jacket over it. I rolled my shoulders and shook my hands. He looked me up and down and then sniffed in loudly and tugged at his jacket. Straightening, his shoulders square and with his chest puffed out, he chuckled and clasped my arm.

  “Come on. Let’s sally forth, eh?” he said, chuckling again as he opened the door and walked inside. The guards and Mariko came to attention sharply when Sir Thomas and I entered the room.

  “At ease. At ease everyone. Relax. No need to be formal. It’s late and we’ve all had a long day. Mark…” I jumped at hearing the name, but realized he was talking to one of his bodyguards, “… please escort Jonah and Operative Mariko to their vehicle.”

  “Sir!” The bodyguard, who I now knew was called Mark, saluted Sir Thomas and went to the door. He opened it, stepped outside and closed it after himself. I turned to Mariko and smiled. She didn’t smile back but stood with her legs apart and her hands behind her back in an informal ‘at ease’ position.

  “Shall we?” I said and held out my hand to her. She smiled at me then and ignoring my hand walked towards the door. Sir Thomas put his arm out in front of her and clasped her arm as she passed him. Taking her hand in his, he brought it to his lips and said, “My dear, I do apologize for being such a terrible host this evening, but in my defense, Jonah and I had some very serious matters to discuss. I look forward to having the opportunity to address my failure as a host in short order.”

  Mariko smiled at him and left her hand in his. “Oh please don’t apologize, Sir Thomas. I think it’s wonderful how you and Jonah get on so well.”

  Sir Thomas patted her hand and released it, smiling at her. His eyes puffy and bloodshot in the rimless round glasses. I crossed to Mariko and put my hand in the small of her back as we walked to the door. She put a hand out behind her to hold me back and pulled the door swiftly open, stepping through, her head moving from side to side. I saw through the gap of the door that Mark stood in the foyer next to the Lev port. The Lev door was open and a soft chiming noise came from it.

  Mark left us only when we had climbed into our Titan, and Mariko had given him the thumbs-up from cockpit. I had bought the Titan in the week after Gabriel’s letter, worried about Mariko traveling on Levs. I slumped in the co-pilot’s Siteazy, too tired to even think about driving. Mariko took over and I looked out of the window at the world going by. Soon we were clear of the city and traveling up the Intracoastal Travway towards Sisik, still about two hundred and sixty kiloms away according to the Dev on the console.

  Mariko was driving fast as we passed long-haulers transporting goods north to the markets of the Thai and China Geographics. My thoughts swayed, from ‘how do I get out of this?’ to ‘how do I choose who to kill?’

  “Can you pull over?” I said with some urgency. Mariko glanced at me, her focus on the Travway, and suddenly my weight shifted sharply right as she swung through five lanes of traffic and took the off-ramp, rapidly decelerating. About two hundred meters farther down the
road from the off-ramp, she pulled over at the side of the road. I went down the stairs, opened the door and got out into the cool night air. Here, without the heat of the city, the air was about twenty-three cel. I breathed in deeply, the hum of wheels on the Travway loud in the still night. My feet crunched the gravel on the side of the road. The jungle dark in front of me.

  Who to kill?

  The heat in my stomach boiled up and a surge of liquid rose in my chest. I fought it but my brain took a dive like an out of control Lev heading down into blackness. The heat surged again and I threw up. The dinner and about sixty thousand creds worth of whisky lay on the gravel in front of me. Some of the puke had splashed on my footwear. My stomach heaved again as my stomach muscles twisted and squeezed everything out.

  I felt a hand on my back. Mariko. I was bent over my hands on my knees. I breathed in deeply, my brain swooshed again but I felt better and breathed deeply again and again. I straightened up and tilted my head back. Big mistake. My brain did the swooshing thing and I stumbled, losing my balance. Mariko caught me and I found my feet. Gazing up at her I smiled weakly.

  “You OK?” she said with an even look.

  I breathed heavily, puffing my cheeks out as I expelled the air in my lungs. My mouth tasted foul.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just the rest of me that’s alked.”

  She laughed at the look of chagrin on my face. “This is the second time I’ve had to carry you home. I don’t want you making a habit of this, Jonah.” Her teasing smile laid false the rebuke and I took her arm as we walked around to the door of the Titan.

  “Come on, let’s get back home, get you cleaned up and into the sleeper.”

  I woke up to the sound of my Devstick beeping at me and the light of the sun streaming through the windows. My brain felt like it was too big for my skull. I pushed the heels of both hands against my temples to try and force it back in but it didn’t work. Mariko stood by the sleeper with a container of something orange and green in her hand. It looked like the vomit on the roadside.

  “What’s that?” I said between clenched teeth.

  “Does it matter? Just drink it!”

  I reached out for the horrible looking drink and, staring at it down my nose, hesitated. The Devstick’s beeping was getting louder.

  “Just drink and you better answer that. It’s from Annika Bardsdale. It’s the fifth time she’s called you.”

  I drank. It didn’t taste too bad, a bit earthy, and I really didn’t want to know what was in it. Well not now anyway, but it went down OK and most importantly stayed down. I sat with my arms around my knees and the sheet pulled up to my waist.

  “Hi, Annika.”

  “Jonah, I’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours. Have you just woken up?”

  “Yes, sorry, Annika. Had a bit of a late night last night and a few too many alkys. Anyway what’s the urgency?”

  “You haven’t heard then?”

  “No. Haven’t heard what?”

  “As a result of the bombings they’ve moved the Popvote day for Tag up.”

  “Why? The bombings were a few weeks ago. Why didn’t they move the date forward then?”

  “No. There were new bombings yesterday. Geneva, New Berlin, London, Houston, Sao Paulo. All within an hour of each other.”

  “Oh shit. I went to sleep at about one in the morning New Singapore time. When did all this happen. Many dead?”

  “It started in Geneva, about 7pm European time, and by 8pm all of the cities had been hit. Over two hundred and fifty dead and over a thousand wounded.”

  “What date?”

  “Feb 15th, Friday week. The General Assembly voted yesterday at 4:30 in urgent session, and in view of the bombings they moved it forward.”

  “What percentage was for?”

  “Nearly eighty percent. How’s the case going? Will you be ready in time?”

  “I’ll have to be, won’t I? OK. Let me catch up with the news. Have a think and then I’ll get back to you with a plan, all right? We may need to meet. What’s your schedule like early next week?”

  “It’s a mess. There’s a climate conference that I have to be at till Wednesday. After that I’m booked to speak in Melbourne on GMD.”

  “What’s GMD?”

  “Global Mother’s Day, Jonah. You should know that. Oh… sorry. That was stupid of me.”

  “It’s OK. Forget it. I do know it, just never heard it called GMD before. Where’s the conference being held?”

  “That’s the thing. It’s being held in New Zealand Geographic. No Levs there yet. Takes four hours just to fly there from Australia. No sub orbs either. They’re very protective of their ozone down there.”

  “Well. OK. Where’s this GMD speech you’re doing?”

  “Melbourne, Thursday evening. And then I’m on a sub orb back to London.”

  “All right. How about we meet in Melbourne after your speech? Will that work?”

  “Sure, that would be OK but it means we lose three, nearly four days.”

  “I’ll need at least that much to sort out a response anyway. What we’ve got now is just case history and a law. I’ve still got to construct the argument.”

  “OK. Thursday evening, Melbourne. It’s a date.”

  “Bye, Annika. See you Thursday.”

  The concoction that Mariko had given me really had made me feel better. My headache was gone, and my stomach didn’t feel as if someone had been beating on it all night. And then I remembered. How could I forget? I had to kill someone. The reality of the thought consumed everything I’d been thinking and squashed them with its weight. I had no idea where to begin to even think about how to do it. Selecting someone to kill seemed worse than killing but then again I didn’t have to do that yet. But I did have to choose someone. Who to kill to become a Hawk?

  “Come on. We haven’t had any exercise. Let’s go for a swim around the headland,” Mariko said, stripping off her bottom outers. Even the sight of her naked didn’t change the thought. I climbed out of the sleeper and went to get my swimmers. I walked out to the deck and down to the beach and realized that I had forgotten the Devstick. After I went back and got it and returned to the deck, Mariko was gone. I couldn’t see her in the water but then she’d probably already reached the cave.

  I jogged down the beach a little to reduce the distance I’d have to swim. Then I cut in to the edge of the surf and dived in. The water felt good, cool and alive against my skin. Pulling against it I made up for missing the run this morning and went for it, striking hard, hands cupped to get maximum pull. Dipping my body through the larger waves, I was at the headland and took a dive. Going deep, using the breathing technique Mariko had taught me, I aimed for cave, swimming along the bottom of the ocean three meters deep and pulling strong for the opening of the cave. I was through the entrance and my world went black.

  The sound of my breathing echoed with the slop slosh of the water in the cave. I swam to our ledge and felt. Nothing. I reached along the ledge further, and further until I came to the wall. Nothing.

  “Mariko!” I shouted, although it didn’t matter. All I got was my echo. My heart raced and my breathing was more like fast sips of air as I pulled myself up onto the ledge and fumbled for the Devstick in my pocket. Don’t drop it — slow down, I told myself. Finally I got it open and the weak white light from its screen washed into the cave. What I knew became true. She wasn’t here.

  I dropped off the ledge, taking a deep breath as I went, and hit the water with my knees tucked under me, diving immediately for the entrance. As soon as I was through I came up and swam as fast as I could back around the headland to where I could see the beach. Hope and panic. Oh no. Oh no. These were the thoughts that came the strongest.

  I stopped and scanned the beach. Far down toward Abdul’s restaurant there was a person but it was a man. A fisherman by the look of his outers.

  I swam. The Devstick a hindrance, I dropped it. I had two more back at the house and now I just swam as
fast as I could thinking, It’ll be all right. She changed her mind. We passed each other swimming. While my logical brain dismissed my hope with ease: you would’ve seen her. No, I ran down the beach. I cheated. I’ve never done that before. You still would have seen her. No! Suddenly my hands were scraping sand. I lurched to my feet, lost my balance and hit the water again.

  I got up and started running for the house, powering through the powdery white sand. I hit the deck running and shouting, “Mariko, Mariko.” I went inside and said, “Mariko,” in a slightly softer voice. I went down the stairs to the ground floor but she wasn’t there. I went out the door facing the jungle and only the Titan was there.

  I ran back around the side of the house and out onto the beach again. I stopped. Footprints in sand are easy to spot and usually the only footprints on the beach in front of the house were ours and usually they were made with bare feet. These were footprints made with a boot of some kind. Thick zigzag tread evenly spaced down to the heel. I followed them. It looked like there were two people, maybe three, but it was hard to tell as in some places they were scuffed and hard to see clearly; the sand was deep and soft. They led to the deck of our house.

  My heart racing, I searched for other signs but there were none. That was it. I looked down the beach and walked out of the line of the jungle to see more clearly. It was empty. I turned back to the house, walking and then running. Back up to the steps through the open doors. It was the same as I’d left it moments ago. No. No. No. Think. Do not panic. Think. Call Sir Thomas. I went to the sleeper side table and grabbed the Devstick that was lying there. Turning it on and thumbing for contacts. 10:35am.