by Gavin Chait
There was a gap of about four metres between this warehouse and the roof on to the tangle of pipes at the refinery. The fall between them probably was not sufficient to kill, but the water hid twisted metal and clumps of wood and debris.
Tuft went over with room to spare on the other side. Shakiso leaped, flying horizontally, her arms outstretched.
She landed lightly on her hands, rolled forwards on to her feet and chased into the pipes.
This next part was relatively easy, relying mostly on navigating a way through the tight space, and there were plenty of well-placed handholds. There was only one tricky part left, and she made a bit of a spectacle of it.
She had drawn ahead of Tuft, who had gotten slightly lost amongst the pipes, and vaulted through into a clear space, landed and leaped again for a horizontal pipe a few metres ahead.
Her fingers were a little short, and she plummeted, her body already curved and braced to roll. She landed on a metal plate protruding from the water, her metal-gel armour foaming and dispersing the blow. She gasped and took a breath, watched as Tuft flew over her then looked down, panting. She did not wait.
Shakiso grinned and sprang upwards, catching up where Tuft was pacing and contemplating the horrors of the swim.
‘Almost there,’ as she dived open-armed into the water ten metres below.
There had been an old parking lot between this building and the tower, and the water was at its deepest.
Tuft whined before leaping, paddling frantically to get across.
A pair of grey seals surfaced nearby and swam alongside, staring at them in astonishment before slipping away.
Shakiso waited in the water at the base of the tower alongside the spare kayak she had tied there earlier, and hooked the sixteen-kilogram caracal to her back. The cat sneezed and wiped her face on the back of Shakiso’s neck.
‘Ah,’ she shouted, ‘that’s nasty.’
A few minutes later, she had climbed the ladder and was sitting at the top, Tuft licking her fur dry.
The sun glimmered over the waters and glowed against the buildings seemingly afloat on the landscape. Dry London rose above it, and she could see tall, glass-clad buildings shining across the horizon. A bank of rain softly advanced from the east. In the near distance, two boats skipped across the surface, a broad red flag crackling from the bow of the leading vessel.
She wiped sweat from her eyes, grinned and breathed deeply.
‘That’s absolutely spectacular. So, so beautiful. I hope you’ve loved this as much as we have. You guys have a fantastic day and join us again next time.’
She swiped at her ear and closed the channel.
‘You hungry, youngster?’ opening her rucksack, pulling out a water bowl for Tuft and a bottle, pouring half the contents for the thirsty cat. She drank the rest herself, then opened a container and threw a sandwich at the caracal.
‘Yip, this is a perfect morning,’ scratching Tuft between the ears with her other hand.
Her earlobe vibrated, a whispered ‘Frieda Köhler’ from the implant, nodding to accept the call. ‘Frieda! How’s my favourite international tycoon?’ grinning, her mouth full as she ate the last of her sandwich.
‘Ms Collard, I do wish you wouldn’t call me that.’
‘Yeah, but your real title is so boring. “Chairman of the Hans Luftig Stiftung” sounds like you should be the villain.’
Shakiso heard the sigh and could imagine Frieda shrugging her shoulders. She grinned broadly.
‘Ms Collard, we had an appointment. I take it you are not at home? You’re not –’ Shakiso stifling laughter as she pictured Frieda’s suppressed horror ‘– doing one of those runs again?’
‘Relax, Frieda, we’re not running.’
A relieved sigh. ‘That’s good—’
‘We’re two hundred metres up at the top of the old Barking Power Station cooling tower. We’ve finished our run.’
‘Ms Collard!’ Frieda sighed and recovered herself. ‘I’m sorry, Ms Collard. Your hobby frightens me, but I have no place judging you.’
‘Don’t worry, Frieda,’ she said gently. ‘I don’t even tell my parents what I’m up to. Now, how can I help you on this wet and beautiful morning?’
‘Good,’ Frieda said, and Shakiso could hear her swiping at a console on her desk. ‘Do you remember Oktar Samboa?’
‘Yes,’ her voice was suddenly icy. ‘That asshole still running Climate into the ground?’
‘He is still Chief Executive,’ Frieda said tactfully. ‘We need your help.’
‘No, you know I won’t go back.’
‘You will not have to work with him, but we do need you to take over the organization.’
She leaned back on her elbows, laughing. ‘Frieda, I know you fund them, but the Climate board don’t usually let donors decide who runs things. How do you figure you’ll be forcing him out?’
She heard Frieda hesitate and stand, could visualize her walking around her desk and staring out through the broad windows, across Tiergartenstraße and into the forested park.
‘This will only be short-term, and the situation is delicate. The UNHCR camps across the region are emptying, despite millions of seekers passing by and millions of our Deutsche Mark spent on relief. The board wants to know why, and if Oktar has missed something. They’re looking for someone who can discreetly come in and fix things. They asked for you directly.’
‘“Discreetly?” Huh? First time anyone described me that way. What does Oktar think of this?’
‘This is the delicacy. It seems that, over the past six months, Oktar has become obsessed with some industrialist investing in Senegal. They have both gone missing. I’m told that he and this industrialist may have been kidnapped by Ansar Dine.’
Shakiso whistled, drumming her fingers on the edge of the tower. ‘Why me? Why now?’ she asked.
Frieda’s voice softened. ‘When you left Climate—’
‘It’s OK, you can say “stormed out”,’ said Shakiso brightly.
‘When you left,’ continued Frieda, ‘I advised you to be patient. That the board needed time to accept your ideas, that the right time would come.’
‘Nothing else working so you thought you’d try me?’
Frieda shrugged, the gesture translated as a slight downward tremor in Shakiso’s ear implant.
‘You said “short-term”?’
‘You will have at least a one-year contract. Even if Oktar is released earlier, we will ensure he takes a year to recover and receive counselling. After the year, we can look to make your role permanent.’
Shakiso stared thoughtfully down at the rain-blurred waters beneath her, gusts of wind visible as grey welts that pounced and vanished. In the distance, the chase between the police boat and the group of squatters festooned in red banners had devolved into cheerful name-calling which echoed and rippled across the waters as their boats spiralled in ever widening circles, never quite catching each other.
Over a year since she had fled Benghazi and burned her way out of Climate. A year spent running in the Wet, hiding from the memory of fear in the eyes of those sent back. Of Michèle. Too ashamed to find her and see if she was coping.
She shivered and pulled Tuft close.
‘I understand your concern,’ recognizing the silence, ‘but we have little time,’ said Frieda.
The two boats disappeared beyond a tumble of eroded buildings, the sound of their motors and shouted insults lingering.
‘Frieda, I’m going to need to know more before I’ll be comfortable with this.’
‘I understand. I can meet you in London tomorrow morning.’
‘And I’ll want to make my own decisions even if that causes problems for you.’
She could hear Frieda smile. ‘Ms Collard, there are over ten million people gathered on the southern Mediterranean coast even now. Our current estimate is almost two hundred million internally displaced. If my newsfeed is to be believed, Europe is traumatized at the thought of all those seekers c
oming here. I think you will find you will have no difficulty convincing people to do whatever is necessary to stem the tide.’
Shakiso stood, her toes over the edge of the tower, staring at the glass city in the distance. The police boat reappeared, alone, and trudged towards Dry London.
‘Good. Who’s responsible for getting Oktar back? Not me, I hope. I’ll tell them to keep him.’
‘No, we are contacting the people who work with this industrialist. Another reason for my visit to London. We hope they can help.’
‘Who is he?’
‘A man called Simon Adaro. He is CEO of a company called Achenia.’
Shakiso shook her head. ‘Never heard of him,’ shrugged. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Frieda, give Gerhard a hug for me.’
Somewhere out amongst submerged buildings, the haunting blast of an air horn grew fainter as the squatters retreated deeper into the shrinking remains of Wet London.
Tuft leaned against her, her legs hanging over the edge. She put her arm around the cat, who rested her head on her shoulder.
And they watched the sun trickling through the rainswept water in silence.
10
Achenia’s office canteen on the ground floor was a surprisingly fashionable café called Tyranny. The first ‘y’ was rusted and hung loose over the lower part of the ‘T’, making the word look like ‘Tranny’. On the walls were pictures of dictators done in transgressive Andy Warhol-style.
‘What do you mean you’ve run out of tea?’ bewildered outrage from an elderly man, as his wife kneaded her purse in frustration.
‘Tea not popular. Come back next week. Camel is late,’ said the barista, her clothes artfully torn, as if beaten by rocks, and her uninterested ambivalence in character with the décor. She was playing with the gimbals around a glass vial filled with a red liquid placed as a centrepiece on the counter, spinning them as the contents remained motionless.
‘What do you mean, “the camel is late”?’
There was a cheer and clanking of misshapen tin mugs from a group of students near the window as the elderly couple retreated in confusion.
Shakiso was early and spent the time seeing how many of the portraits she could identify. Tuft was curled up at her feet, under the table.
History’s obvious monsters were absent, making it more difficult. She refused to put on her rims and let the connect help her.
‘Let’s see, Tuft. That’s one of the Kims, isn’t it? Probably Ju-ae. Ooh –’ she grinned as she spotted a recent addition ‘– that’ll be controversial. Oleg Shkrebnev.’
She was distracted by a newsfeed on a wall to the side of the portraits where a roll of cable was unspooling far out in orbit towards the Earth, its scale revealed where tiny flecks glared from the suits of the engineers as they flung themselves across it. Text scrolling across the feed attempted to explain how the first private-sector space elevator would succeed where others had failed.
A waiter rushed to the inner door leading into the Achenia lobby and held it wide open as a man in a wheelchair eased his way through the chairs and tables. People – embarrassed or indifferent – made space for him. The chair was an expensive-looking custom print. She noticed how it responded to him, now moving on its own, now assisting as he propelled himself.
As he reached her table, the bottom axle rotated to the top, raising his chair to a height that must have approximated his standing position. He removed a cut-off glove from his right hand, extended his arm, and smiled in obvious pleasure.
‘Ms Collard, I’m thrilled to meet you,’ he said.
‘Mr Agado,’ she smiled. His hand was calloused and dry. ‘Please, call me Shak.’
‘Call me Hollis,’ he said. ‘Please, sit,’ his chair returning to its seated height.
‘Oh, and this must be Tuft. She’s beautiful,’ as the caracal rested her head on his lap for a scratch.
Shakiso raised an eyebrow. ‘You know her name?’
Hollis blushed. He was in his late forties, his hair was thinning, his face lean and lined, but the rush of colour made him look boy-like and quite charming.
‘I’m sorry, Ms – Shak –’ grinning ‘– I’m a huge fan of yours. I don’t get out much.’ He gestured at his stomach, straining against his white shirt, his legs strapped to the chair.
‘When I was younger, I used to love running in the woods, and watching your feed is one of those vicarious thrills. It’s as close as I’m going to get.’
Her turn to blush, and she combed her hair back off her forehead to mask it. ‘That’s supposed to be anonymous,’ she said.
‘Frieda told me you have a caracal who goes everywhere with you, and I thought I recognized your voice when we spoke this morning.’ He grinned at her discomfort. ‘She looks young. One of ours, isn’t she? From GeneWorx?’ stroking Tuft’s head where she appeared to have gone to sleep propped up on his lap.
‘Yes, a gift from my dad about a year ago.’
‘My husband will be jealous. Me hobnobbing with our favourite beautiful mystery runner.’
‘Damn, so the blonde, blue-eyed, damsel-in-distress-thing isn’t going to work for me?’ she said, laughing, and smiled at him.
‘Oh, it might,’ he laughed. ‘What do you get out of your broadcasts? I always assumed you were a simple renegade?’
‘Escape,’ she said, lowering her head so he could not see her eyes. ‘It helps me avoid thinking about things.’
‘And this?’ tangentially prying further even as he honoured her privacy.
‘It might be time to starting thinking about things again,’ she smiled sadly.
A waiter momentarily came between them, depositing two espressos and glasses of water on the table.
‘Frieda was quite insistent that I’m supposed to take responsibility for getting your boss back?’
‘Not my boss,’ said Shakiso, shaking her head, wiping espresso crema from her lips. ‘Frieda knows. . .’ She sighed. ‘Oktar’s a loathsome man, but I can’t joke about this. No one deserves to be left to those butchers.’
‘Well,’ said Hollis, looking sympathetic, ‘I can assure you, as I told Frieda, we are dealing with it.’
‘Going to pay the ransom?’
‘They haven’t offered, and we wouldn’t pay.’
Shakiso was surprised. ‘Even for the CEO of Achenia?’
‘No,’ he paused deliberately, and she had the impression that more could be said, and would not be.
‘Fine, so you’re up to something. I’m not involved, but I’m not sure what Oktar has to do with it?’
Hollis shrugged. ‘To be honest, I hadn’t heard of him till Simon was kidnapped. I’m not sure I understand his thinking, but our investments in the Sahara seem to have upset him? He appears to have inserted himself into our battle with Rosneft.’
‘Knowing Oktar, you’re “evil capitalists out to exploit the suffering of the poor”, and he would have been trying to stop you.’
Hollis smiled delicately. ‘Ah, the famous contradictions of your industry.’
Shakiso raised her hands, grinning. ‘Oh, totally. Oktar’s a hypocrite. We’re trauma tourists. Oktar gets off on being the saviour of the world, and he’s quite convinced any private companies interfering in his business are no worse than terrorists. He knows everything and won’t listen to anyone.’
‘There have certainly been companies which deserved his mistrust,’ Hollis conceded. ‘But we are what we say we are. In any event, Oktar didn’t seem to intend violence, and Rosneft trying to assassinate Simon every few weeks has been more on our minds.’
Shakiso was unblinking. ‘Why do this to yourselves? And this mysterious Simon Adaro?’ She looked around the café. ‘Building solar plants in the desert seems very remote from all this corporate stuff.’
‘Simon enjoys playing around,’ he started.
‘You lovers?’ shocking even herself. ‘Sorry, that’s rude of me.’
‘We were classmates in school,’ said Hollis, laughing. ‘Ad
aro, Agado, alphabetized surnames and old-fashioned seating arrangements. I certainly would have wanted to, but he’s not, and after. . .’ His face was a mixture of sorrow and regret, his eyes focused on the past. ‘We are good friends, though. I meant, he likes starting things, the more unusual the better. I like running things. We make a good partnership.
‘Simon decided, for reasons of his own, that he wanted to take on Rosneft. Simon’s brother is the lead engineer at the Mars colony, and Simon asked if he had anything to help with his problem.’
‘All the billionaires are buddies?’
‘Something like that,’ he smiled. ‘You’ll find that no one goes to Mars to be wealthy. There are only eighty-three of them, and their lives are dangerous and unpleasant. Hardly the stuff of aspirational dreams. Many of their senior technical folks are old friends. They sent over some designs, and I think you know what Simon has been up to?
‘If you don’t mind my asking, what are you supposed to be doing for Climate?’ His eyes were curious.
Shakiso laughed, pushing her hair back from her forehead. ‘Not at all. A long time ago, Climate ran agricultural adaptation projects. Drought, civil war and Ansar Dine mean there are now almost three hundred seeker camps across Africa. We expanded our role to build the core infrastructure at UNHCR camps, operate their schools and set up their farms. We manage thirty of them in West Africa.
‘All of that relies on people actually turning up in the camps. Over the last few months, they’ve been emptying. We have no idea where the seekers are planning to go, but they’re currently heading north and collecting along the southern border of the desert. The fear from our government sponsors is that they may all try to cross the Sahara. And that is before you consider that no one has any idea what to do if the millions of seekers already sitting on the beach in North Africa figure out how to cross the Mediterranean.
‘Frieda called me because I’ve been yelling at her for years that treating camps as temporary accommodation for seekers is a failure, and now they’re scared enough to try something else.’