The Vanguard

by SJ Griffin

Chapter Twelve

  The rest of the trip passed without incident or interest. We skulked like the stowaways we were until we could hurry off the boat, still disguised as a team of cleaners. Only a handful of words passed between us. I was so relieved to arrive home I could have kissed the doorstep as though I’d just disembarked from an inaugural aeroplane flight. Early the next morning all the alarms in the hotel went off. Our trip had given us all the jitters so we’d decided we needed maximum security. Even a mouse walking across the road outside triggered a motion detecting camera that would record its every move until it moved away and stopped menacing us. The closer someone got the more they set off, someone had gotten very close indeed.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Roach said over the intercom from reception. ‘It’s friendly.’

  ‘Minos, turn it off,’ Casino said. ‘My ears.’

  We staggered out into the lobby, all except Lola who was in the incident room catching up on news footage. I had been in the other kitchen fixing up an old cycle that was no substitute for my beloved bike but would have to do until I worked out what I wanted. I was trying to see it as an opportunity but it was hard. I made the bike that Tixylix had murdered myself, waiting with uncharacteristic patience for all the parts to arrive in my hot little hand. It was a labour of love and now it was gone. Haggia and Marshall Dailly were the cause of the disruption. They were peering into the camera lens at the main doors and mouthing excited words.

  ‘We don’t have audio on that,’ I let them in. ‘Start again.’

  ‘Where have you been?’ Haggia said. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’

  ‘What is it with you and setting alarms off?’ Minos said to Marshall.

  ‘Never mind that,’ Haggia said. ‘We want to throw a party for you.’

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  Haggia hesitated. ‘To welcome you back from where ever you’ve been.’

  ‘Really?’ I said.

  ‘And we want to show you something,’ Marshall said. ‘You’ll love it.’

  ‘A party. That’s a great idea,’ Casino said.

  ‘Yeah, because the last one went really well,’ I said. ‘What with all the car chasing and nearly dying and all that.’

  ‘Don’t let the great introvert put you off,’ Roach said. ‘We love a party.’

  ‘We’ll have it here,’ Casino said. ‘Is tomorrow too soon?’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ Haggia said.

  And with that it was all settled.

  I sent out messages at nine the next morning and by eight in the evening the hotel’s ballroom was a seething mass of friends and casual acquaintances. The ballroom was a huge space covering half of the second floor with a bar at one end and a kitchen space behind that. I always imagined ballrooms to be old and elegant but ours looked like it had seen better nights and plenty of them. Our living spaces were all shut off, apart from the rooms on the ground floor where people milled about seeking refuge from the dancing upstairs. The incident room was locked down with all the security we could muster. It had taken Minos and Roach hours. It was no quieter downstairs. We’d all perfected the art of shouting right into each other’s ears and using precise sign language to make ourselves understood, so it wasn’t communication that was the problem, it was more the physical discomfort. I didn’t mention in the invitation that we’d returned from anywhere or that we were having a party for any particular reason so it become one of those parties that people had just because they wanted to. They’re always the best kind.

  ‘That’s the rum everyone’s talking about,’ Marshall said, pointing at a crate on the floor.

  The amount of booze piled up in the three different bar areas we’d set up would have made the Ministry of Welfare issue a flurry of health warnings.

  ‘Is it?’ I said. ‘Well I never.’

  ‘That means someone here knows something,’ he said.

  ‘But you’re not here to work, are you?’ Casino said. He had been glued to Marshall all night.

  ‘No, you’re right,’ Marshall said. ‘Tonight I don’t care about the rum.’

  ‘And tomorrow it will all be gone,’ I pulled a bottle from the crate.

  ‘Give a girl a refill, will you?’ Clara Ten Below said, avoiding eye contact with Casino and Marshall in her usual manner.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I said, obliging.

  ‘Your friend invited me,’ she said. ‘Is that not all right?’

  ‘Of course it’s all right, the more the merrier,’ that was the rum talking. ‘Which friend?’

  ‘That fat little gamer,’ Clara said. ‘I swapped an invite for an hour with the Vanguard.’

  ‘With the Vanguard?’

  ‘The real one,’ Clara said. ‘She played the real one. I thought her head was going to explode.’

  ‘All right, Sorcha. Excellent party,’ Loop said.

  ‘Praise indeed.’

  Clara took one look at Loop and melted into the crowd. He was an earthy outdoors type, geek repellent. He harboured bacteria that Clara would have known the names for.

  ‘I was sorry you missed my birthday, it was pretty legendary,’ he said. ‘I heard about the flu thing you guys caught, sounded rough.’

  Loop knew how to throw a party. I thought it was a myth that whenever Enforce turned up to arrest people at his parties they always ended up joining in, until I saw it happen, twice. We never had that problem at the hotel, from the outside it looked as boarded up as it ever did, even the sound stayed inside.

  ‘Yeah, it was pretty rough,’ I said. ‘You got a drink?’

  ‘Thanks but I’m rolling with a green and purple friend tonight, alcohol takes the edge off. You want one or have you had too much to drink?’

  Loop also knew how to take, and make, his recreational drugs. The green and purple ones were excellent. I tried to calculate how much rum I’d drunk but failed to such an extent that we agreed I had indeed had too much to drink.

  ‘How’d you go in the riots?’ he said.

  ‘We holed up here, mostly,’ I said, almost letting slip that we’d been away.

  ‘Queens got battered, but then it always does. The watcher balloons will be there for a while but Enforce have gone.’

  ‘Good timing for them, wasn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Great distraction from Rhone and Terminus taking over, don’t you think?’

  Loop tapped my forehead. ‘Did you ever consider that you’re a little bit paranoid?’

  I chatted to him until his green and purple friend wanted to dance, by which time Massey had appeared wanting to hold court. It wasn’t until Loop walked away I realised that the whole time we’d been talking he’d been standing there wearing a red t-shirt with Vanguard emblazoned across the front in blue letters. And I knew for a fact that Loop was as likely to be found in a game as I was. The Vanguard virus was mutating.

  ‘All right?’ Massey said.

  I nodded, because I wasn’t sure if I was talking to him yet.

  ‘You’re mad at me, aren’t you?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’ I was talking to him I decided. ‘Anyone can say the words.’

  ‘For the Vanguard thing,’ he said.

  ‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m getting sick of hearing about it.’

  ‘I was going to ask you to get a copy because people were pestering me about it, but then it just arrived.’

  ‘It just arrived?’

  ‘Yeah, a courier brought it. For a minute I thought it was from you or Minos but then you always bring your own stuff, what with you being a courier and that, like you don’t need to pay someone else to do something you are the best at, right? Right?’

  ‘Did it come with a docket? Did you sign for it?’ I enjoyed the compliment almost as much as the desperation that made him make it.

  ‘No, he said it wouldn’t be necessary.’

  ‘Where was the courier f
rom?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Massey said. ‘Anyway, listen, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘It’s fine.’

  He grinned. ‘I meant to ask you, what’s a child link?’

  ‘In what context?’ I said.

  ‘When I installed the game, it said it was establishing a child link. I’ve never seen it do that with you so I wondered if it was a new thing.’

  ‘No, very basically, it’s when you establish a link to another server and receive instructions or information from it. Like the other server is the parent and yours is the child. It definitely said child, not sibling or anything?’

  ‘No, child link. Should I be worried?’ Massey said.

  ‘No, it’s nothing,’ I said. But parents would never listen to their children, that made this link useless for market research purposes, so what was it for? ‘I can come and check it out if you want?’

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ he said. ‘If you think you should.’

  ‘Maybe, it’s probably nothing.’ I didn’t want to make a big thing of it and spook him so I changed the subject and we chatted until he disappeared into the ballroom. I struggled through the people on the stairs to find Minos. He was probably outside or in the kitchen.

  ‘So, I need to get some funds together and then I can put on the exhibition, just for friends you know, I don’t want to get involved with all the new academy stuff, not now anyway. It’s all so establishment,’ Tex said.

  Lola rolled her eyes at me. She was sitting on the worktop in the kitchen next to a languid young man who had draped himself around the fridge despite the fact that it was full of homebrew that people needed, some more than oxygen, and he was proving to be a very trying obstacle. There were not many people who managed the transition from their Riverside lives to new lives down with the underclass with the aplomb Lola had. Tex hated his parents and he had worked out that the best way to annoy them was to drive his scooter up to the NW sector and hang out with the downbeats and dropkicks there. As a downbeat dropkick I found his presence irritating and his trust fund infuriating. He was hard work. I always felt like I was on the receiving end of a very bad comedy routine. He didn’t tell jokes, he deployed them. I was about to wander out of the kitchen to avoid Tex when he spotted me and made such a fuss about calling me over I felt like I’d need a very hot shower or I’d never been clean again.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ Tex said.

  ‘No? That’s weird, given that I live here,’ I said.

  ‘I thought you were in the Detention Centre,’ he said. I’d never seen him look so serious.

  Lola and I laughed long and hard.

  ‘What made you think that?’ Lola said. ‘How funny you are.’

  ‘My Dad said so.’

  ‘And who’s he?’ I said.

  ‘He’s in the Ministry of Securities. He’s Director of Enforce liaison,’ Tex said.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I stopped laughing. ‘I remember now.’

  ‘So?’ Tex said.

  ‘So what?’ I said.

  ‘So, what’s with you and the Detention Centre?’

  ‘Tex, you know that no one escapes from the Detention Centre,’ I said.

  Tex stood up and laughed. ‘Yeah, and I guess if you had escaped they’d be looking for you everywhere. The last thing you’d want to do would be to have a party.’

  Lola started swearing as soon as he was out of earshot.

  ‘I have been wondering about that again,’ I said. ‘It is odd that they still aren’t looking for me. You’d think after the film they would be.’

  ‘Maybe they were and we were on Nexus,’ Lola said. ‘They were busy with the riots, remember? Maybe they’ve got more important things to do, what with Terminus new to the hot seat and the weird ceremonies and the like.’

  ‘But if Rowling is looking for the five, and she thinks I’m one of them or I’m going to lead her to them, why isn’t she looking for me?’ I couldn’t work Rowling out, she could have been another space alien for all the sense she made.

  ‘Maybe she is looking for you, maybe she just isn’t looking in the right places,’ Lola said.

  I made my way back upstairs to find Minos feeling exhausted and harassed by the endless tangle of maybe. I contemplated finding Loop and getting him to prescribe something enlivening for the remainder of the party, never mind the dangers of mixing. The party could go on for days they way people were settling in. I was just about to investigate the queue to the bathroom when I spotted Haggia sitting at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Haggia looked so sad I almost ran away in case it was contagious, but the rum told me I was a better person than that. Besides I wanted to ask her something. I approached her the same way I imagine I would have approached a poisonous jellyfish playing dead.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘What’s up?’ I sat on the step next to her.

  ‘I’m tired. I’ve been...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Is it to do with the Vanguard?’ I said.

  ‘How did you know?’ she looked amazed.

  I pointed at a badge she had pinned to her top. The logo was becoming familiar, everyone was in on the act.

  ‘I’m trying not to play the games anymore,’ Haggia said. ‘I go to a group, I’ve got a sponsor. I get as far as step three and then I fall off the wagon and get run over by it again. I tried to get Gru to hypnotise me, but it didn’t work. I just pretended it did.’

  ‘Don’t tell Lola,’ I said. ‘She thinks it’s the band, but I think it’s all in the mind.’

  ‘Me too,’ she looked miserable.

  ‘There are worse things,’ I said, closing one eye and examining the rum bottle which was almost empty. Odd. I must have spilt some.

  ‘You don’t play do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If you did you’d know that there aren’t worse things,’ Haggia said. ‘I’d rather be on homebrew or shooting up those industrials on that new warning poster.’

  ‘Why do you play, if you hate it?’

  Haggia got this strange look in her eyes, like something was hovering in middle distance, something amazing that only she could see. ‘It’s so real,’ she said. ‘It’s realer than real.’

  ‘What’s the Vanguard like?’

  ‘It’s not like the other games.’ Haggia said. ‘The five are in it.’ She lowered her voice. ‘You five, or five very similar. It makes everything make sense. Somehow. I can’t explain. You should play it. Just once. You’d understand everything.’ Her eyes sparkled with a fervour I’d not seen there before. She gripped my arm hard with excited fingers.

  I shook my head and offered her the last of my rum, I felt like I’d had enough for bit. ‘Why did you open the shop?’ I said.

  ‘Now, that’s a funny story,’ Haggia said. ‘I got a message from a long lost relative saying could I take over for the foreseeable future because they were sick. I said yes and they sent me the keys and all documents and here I am.’

  ‘What’s funny about that?’

  ‘I don’t have any relatives. They all died in the flood. There’s only me.’

  ‘Was this before or after the games?’

  ‘After. I’ve been playing for years and years. I thought that the shop might help, you know, give me something else to do.’

  So, Étienne had got Haggia through the game and Marshall through his job. Doodle had been other side, but we couldn’t find any more out about that. What about Prophet? He was probably doing it for fun but whose story was he telling? Ours or theirs, I thought but I corrected myself hers or theirs. I felt like one of the pawns, but for the first time in my life it didn’t bother me.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ I said, only half to Haggia.

  ‘I’m sure it will be,’ Haggia said, hauling herself to her feet. ‘I hope so anyway. I would hate for anything bad to happen to you. Remember I’m here to help.’

  I’d forgotten tha
t Haggia was supposed to be a source of information, that’s what Marshall had said too. She could tell you who had bought what from her shop and what had happened in the slice of street life she could see from behind her shop counter but we were far better informed. I had a theory that I found comforting. She wasn’t giving information to us, she was gathering it, and then giving it to someone else live and direct in her beta game. Not to Rowling, or Enforce they were still a step behind us maybe even two, so it had to be Étienne. That was how she knew everything. Maybe it wasn’t old magic, maybe it was newfangled data. Or perhaps it was both.

  I found Minos smoking a cigarette behind the reception desk. He was sitting on the floor, hiding.

  ‘Everyone is talking about the Vanguard,’ he said. ‘Everyone. It’s doing my head in.’

  ‘Is Prophet here?’ I said.

  ‘No. At least I haven’t seen him. Why?’

  ‘I want to ask him if he plays the games.’

  ‘Don’t you start,’ Minos said. ‘Vanguard, Vanguard, Vanguard.’

  ‘Maybe I should play, just to see what the fuss is about.’

  ‘If you go into that game, I don’t know what I will do to you, but it will be horrific and life changing and we will never be the same again, you and me. Do you understand me? You stay out of all the games. You especially. More than anyone, ever. You’ll be gone worse than Ginger Yates, far worse. Is that understood?’

  I nodded and didn’t push it. You didn’t mess with Minos when he meant something that much. He’d put the thought right out of my head. ‘Massey’s installation of the Vanguard came with a child link,’ I said.

  ‘What to?’

  ‘He doesn’t know,’ I said.

  ‘So, now they’re putting thoughts into people’s heads instead of just taking them out,’ Minos said. ‘That’s progress I guess.’

  ‘I wonder if Lola can do that,’ I said just to change the subject and then wished I hadn’t.

  ‘That doesn’t bear thinking about,’ Minos said.

  The party went on for two days and in all that time no one slept and neither Haggia nor Marshall showed us what it was they had to show us. Haggia summoned us to the shop for show and tell once we’d all recovered. The streets were deserted, apart from a group of scrawny pigeons that someone had spattered with bright pink paint picking at a chicken kebab. There was something disgusting about that, like they were cannibals, it made my stomach churn. We walked up to Haggia’s through the fine, strange smelling drizzle marvelling at how peaceful everything could seem.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ Lola said to Haggia as we all settled on various sacks and buckets. Marshall was installed behind the counter, in person.

  ‘It’s been very quiet for last couple of days,’ she said.

  ‘There’s talk of a permanent curfew being imposed,’ Marshall said. ‘Maybe people are trying to keep their heads down.’

  We’ve already got a curfew,’ Minos said.

  ‘Yes, but it’s temporary,’ Marshall said. ‘This one would be proper so we’d all have to stick to it.’

  We gave various snorts of derision, there was even a burst of cynical laughter. Last time we had a so-called proper curfew everyone made a point of staying out past it, even if they had happened to abide by the existing one. We weren’t the kind of community to stick to anything, co-operation just wasn’t in us. Besides we didn’t differentiate between temporary and permanent anymore. The permanent was all too easily swept away.

  ‘They’re not happy, whatever’s going on,’ Haggia said. ‘There’s still a lot of murmuring about Chichester Rhone dying and Terminus taking over. And those people with the very blonde hair keep appearing, they’ve really upset people. Apparently, they’re some kind of organised crime syndicate from way out East and now they’re all over the news hanging out with politicians.’

  ‘People think they helped Enforce kill Chichester Rhone and, to be brutal about it, he hadn’t been in office long enough for people to hate him so they are very suspicious,’ Marshall said. ‘Some people are even saying that it was the gangsters in that clip wearing Enforce uniforms trying to set Enforce up. The chief executive of Enforce is going nuts about it.’

  ‘Well, that film is a bit suspicious,’ Haggia said. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s wholly suspicious,’ I said, intrigued that Marshall hadn’t told her. ‘Never mind a bit.’

  ‘You are going to remember to show us whatever it is you have to show us, aren’t you?’ Lola said. ‘The anticipation is killing me, it really is.’

  Everyone was still being very careful of Lola. Stark remained in the Detention Centre as far as we knew and she wouldn’t discuss it with anyone. She had set up a feed to capture all the news about it and we had all caught her checking it in secret. We figured that she checked it a few times a day. She must have taught herself how to do such a thing, she didn’t know how to before and she didn’t ask anyone to help her. Even I couldn’t tell when she was being sarcastic and when she wasn’t. She spent a good deal of the time on the verge of tears and I wished the others would stop being such boys about it. I didn’t know how Minos could be so different with me, he was my favourite person to sob on but he was so awkward around Lola. It was most vexing.

  ‘Of course,’ Marshall smiled at her and held out his hand which to my surprise she took. He was good, I’d give him that. ‘Step into my office.’

  He ushered us all down the central aisle, past the shampoo and soaps, between some pasta that looked as though it might be real, to a very cheerful display with lots of figurines and small homemade pamphlets with comic strips. Some of the figures looked very familiar.

  ‘Look, it’s Casino,’ Roach said.

  It was. Casino was a small plastic figure about four centimetres high. He was wearing silver and grey. It was almost a very good likeness.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Roach held up a larger figure.

  ‘That’s you, of course,’ Haggia said. ‘Can’t you tell? Look you’ve got a book under your arm and everything.’

  ‘There’s one for each of you,’ Marshall said. ‘What do you think?’

  Minos’s figure didn’t look all that much like him, he looked much more like a ginger ferret in real life but his miniature was quite handsome and the flames that licked his feet formed the small red base he stood on. His trousers were of the right bagginess. Tiny Lola had a very serious expression on her face and her eyes were neon green, from all the mind reading that she was engaged in.

  ‘Sorcha is not this curvy,’ Casino said. ‘Sorry, but you’re not.’

  He was right. I wasn’t. The model was much less stick-like than I was. The figurine was holding out her hand, palm skyward, I didn’t have spooky eyes or anything. I flicked through one of the comics while the others chattered about their tiny likenesses. We were having marvellous adventures in the stories, saving the world and all sorts. At no point did anyone look terrified or feel guilty or burst into tears, it looked like great fun.

  ‘There’s a reason you don’t look exactly like you do,’ Marshall said. ‘It’s totally deliberate.’

  ‘It’s so you can still get around without being pestered,’ Haggia said.

  ‘Pestered?’ I said. I was not a fan of being pestered.

  ‘These are selling like they’re going out of fashion,’ Haggia said. ‘I’m raking it in. The profits we will, of course, split between us.’

  ‘You have quite the fan club,’ Marshall said.

  ‘Who’s buying them?’ Roach said, as though he thought those people might well be mad.

  ‘Lots of people,’ Marshall said. ‘It started with a little animation that’s very popular on the DarkNet and it’s just spiralled from there really.’

  ‘We’ve got to get more made,’ Haggia said. ‘People are loving your adventures.’

  ‘Loving them,’ Marshall said. ‘I even did a little end of show piece on you yesterday. It was just a bit of fluff but you’re news.’

  ‘The
Vanguard,’ Minos pointed to a poster on the wall.

  ‘That’s right,’ Marshall said. ‘The Vanguard is coming.’

  ‘To save the world,’ finished Haggia.

  ‘It’s the game, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Not us at all.’

  ‘Kind of,’ Marshall said.

  ‘Kind of?’ Minos said.

  ‘The thing is that this is beyond the game really,’ Marshall said. ‘It’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins now. We’re just going with it.’

  ‘So there are two Vanguards?’ Minos said. ‘One in the game and one in the real world?

  Marshall looked confused. ‘Kind of, they overlap. It’s really complicated.’

  ‘Do the characters in the game look like us?’ I looked at Haggia.

  ‘No, they look like whoever you’re playing with. So, the telepath would look like me because that’s who I play,’ she said. ‘And whoever you come across in the game, that’s who you see. Or you see what they think they look like.’

  ‘Why didn’t you play me?’ Minos said. ‘I’m disappointed.’

  ‘Hang on. What about rights?’ Casino said. ‘I have rights over myself, don’t I? Even if I look like someone else, it’s still me. I am the invisible one that stands beyond sight.’

  ‘Of course you don’t have any rights. But we don’t know what’s going on in the game, we only have second hand information and it varies from person to person because of the neural patterning. It’s similar but not the same,’ Marshall said. ‘It’s really hard to explain. And their prophecy isn’t worded like Prophet’s is.’

  ‘Rowling’s isn’t either,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe we should just play it,’ Roach said.

  He got a truncated version of the lecture from Minos and that upset Haggia, who started trying to argue with him.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ I said.

  Everyone looked at me as though there was nothing to get.

  ‘Tell me why I’m holding a tiny version of myself in my hand?’ I said, holding my tiny plastic self up. ‘Why is that necessary?’

  ‘What is the most valuable currency we have right now?’ Marshall said.

  ‘Information,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Marshall said. ‘Wrong.’

  ‘Wrong?’ Casino said. ‘The courier in me begs to differ.’

  ‘Misinformation is the most valuable currency we have,’ Marshall said. ‘It’s worth more than information every time.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Minos said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Roach said. ‘The footage of Rhone’s assassination is a good example.’

  ‘You’ve seen the news, right?’ Marshall said. ‘It’s wall to wall golden heads. The Administration class love them, but more importantly the Work and Labour drones adore them. And they’ve got the numbers.’

  ‘People love having something to follow,’ Roach said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Marshall said. ‘And who can we follow?’

  We all looked at him with blank faces. We didn’t have things to follow. We’d always forged our own paths.

  ‘No one,’ Marshall said. ‘And that needs to change.’

  ‘So, we’re giving people something to follow,’ Haggia said.

  ‘Did someone tell you to do this?’ I knew who I wanted to follow and she was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘No,’ Marshall said. ‘Like who?’

  ‘A flyer came through about a manufacturer who was going bust and was doing a deal on model-making and we thought it would be a fun thing to do,’ Haggia said. ‘They’re not going bust anymore.’

  ‘And given they just tried to blame the assassination on the Vanguard, or a group like the Vanguard, we thought it was a great opportunity to cement the work we’d done with the film,’ Marshall said.

  ‘And the animation?’

  ‘Someone sent it to me through work,’ Marshall said. ‘I got them to make a couple of changes and we uploaded it.’

  ‘Who?’ I said.

  ‘Some new woman in the technical department, cameras and that. I’ve never actually met her. Never will. Apparently she got fired yesterday.’

  ‘Can I have a copy of each of these?’ Minos said, rummaging through the comics.

  ‘Sure, you’ll need to get up to speed in case we do any public appearances or anything,’ Marshall grinned until he saw my face. ‘Sorcha, I’m kidding. Seriously, this whole thing is working because people don’t know you’re real. Relax, everything’s fine.’

  ‘What do you mean, they don’t know we’re real?’ Casino said. He would have liked being a celebrity. It was all right for the invisible man, he was the only one who could hide.

  ‘The minute they know we’re real they’ll be disappointed, we’ll never match up to our imaginary selves,’ I said.

  ‘And we’ll be in a medical facility and experimented on to within an inch of our lives,’ Minos said. ‘No thank you.’

  ‘We would last five minutes,’ Lola said. ‘If that. Seriously.’

  ‘You said it yourself, Casino,’ I said. ‘Remember? Guinea pigs.’

  We meandered back to the hotel talking about what other merchandise we should have. Casino wanted to design a range of t-shirts because he didn’t like the ones people wore at the party and this prompted Minos to offer to design some underpants.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Lola held a length of red rubber in her hand. She had been fiddling with her band all morning and had worn it through.

  In unison, the four of us produced a handful of red rubber bands from a pocket somewhere on our persons and held them out for her.

  ‘Thank you,’ Lola said, selecting one of mine and slipping it on her wrist.

  We breathed a collective sigh of relief.

  Immortalised in plastic and print we may have been, but the world was determined to carry on as if we were ordinary, less than ordinary. I was grateful. One of Casino’s regular clients had got work so he pedalled off. Lola went off without saying where she was going and Roach went to the docks with Minos. I pulled a couple of licences that Elijah Blue was after from the system and me and the substitute bike made our way into the heart of the city to deliver them.

  The cafe was busy. It wasn’t like Greasy Clive’s, Elijah served a more tasteful clientele and it could be quite a mixed crowd.

  ‘New bike?’ Elijah said.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I said.

  ‘Then we won’t,’ Elijah said. ‘Long time no see’

  ‘I saw you at the party at our place,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, but before that it was a long time.’

  It was the night of Étienne’s first delivery, it felt like a world away. I got the licences out of my bag and put them on the counter. Most things that were official and necessary were credit card shaped and the licences were no exception. We were plagued with bureaucracy, you couldn’t move without it being logged on some system somewhere and you couldn’t do anything else if it wasn’t. And if there was a system entry for it, there was corresponding piece of paper. Not for nothing was the lead ministry called the Ministry of Administration.

  ‘Coffee?’ Elijah said.

  ‘Please.’

  I sat on a bar stool and watched as he started up the ancient coffee machine. Minos had fixed it for him a few times and a myriad of other people had also rummaged about inside it to get it going again. It was on its last legs but hanging on. As Elijah wrestled with its idiosyncrasies my eye wandered to the shelf above him where our five plastic replicas sat waiting for their chance to save the world. Elijah followed my gaze.

  ‘The Vanguard,’ he said. ‘They’re awesome.’

  ‘Are they?’ my voice didn’t sound like my own.

  ‘Yeah, have you read the comics?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Seen the cartoon on the DarkNet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You should. They’re great,’ Elijah put a coffee on the counter in front of me. He’d fashioned a letter v out of the brown sprinkles that were supp
osed to be cocoa, whatever that was. ‘That’s what I want the licences for.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m having a themed party,’ Elijah said. ‘Now the riots have finished.’

  ‘Why?’

  Elijah ducked down and disappeared behind the counter, I could hear him shuffling some paper around. He produced a crumpled comic, pushed my coffee cup to one side and put the comic in front of me.

  ‘See?’ he said, flicking through it and pointing things out. ‘There’s a riot and then they have a party. So that’s what I’m doing.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It’s a costume party. Loads of people are coming, do you want to?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I don’t.’

  I finished the coffee as fast as I could. I dropped in to see Haggia on my way back home, she was arranging a pile of cabbages and lettuces into a confusing mound of green leaves.

  ‘I’m glad you’re back,’ she said. ‘I forgot to give you this.’

  ‘What is it?’ I took the envelope.

  ‘I have a strong suspicion that it’s an envelope,’ she said. ‘Open it, they usually have things in them.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said. ‘Who’s it from?’

  ‘You have to open it and find out, that’s how it works. Someone slipped it under the shutter.’

  I put the envelope on the pavement outside, with the side my name had been written on face down. Haggia and I hid out in the stock room and I peered around the door and through the shelves to watch the envelope open itself, millimetre by millimetre. Nothing happened. No explosion, no gas, nothing. I went to retrieve it. Inside was a scrap of paper torn from an old fashioned notebook with thin blue lines ruled on it.

  The note read: Breakfast was nice but dinner would be nicer. When? Agent Tourniquet.

  ‘First he tracks me down to Greasy Clive’s,’ I showed Haggia the note. ‘Now here.’

  ‘Stalker,’ Haggia said. ‘You be careful.’

  ‘I think I’ll be all right,’ I said as I thought-screwed the envelope into a ball. ‘He’s just a puny human after all.’

  ‘You’re just a human. You’re not immortal.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to ignore him,’ I thought-dropped the paper in the bin on the other side of the shop. ‘Besides, he didn’t give me any contact details.’

  ‘Maybe he thinks you’ll be able to track him down anyway,’ Haggia took a carton of juice from the refrigerated unit and poured us both a drink.

  ‘It’s a wonder you make any money at all,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t need to make any money. The books balance themselves,’ she said. ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘Not much. Those things,’ I pointed at the aisle with the merchandise. ‘I went to see a friend to give him something and he had all the figures. They were sitting there on a shelf behind his bar and I was sitting in front of the bar. It was weird.’

  Haggia laughed. ‘I bet it was. He didn’t put two and two together?’

  ‘No. I was sitting here and she was standing there and he never noticed.’

  ‘See? You needn’t worry,’ Haggia said. ‘Marshall’s right. They’re realer than the real thing.’

  ‘Yeah, try being the real thing and see how it feels,’ I smiled. ‘I guess it could have been worse. He could have made four.’

  ‘Is he having a party?’ Haggia said.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Everyone is. You had a party, they’re having a party.’

  ‘But we really did have a party,’ I said.

  ‘Well, he’s got to get his ideas from somewhere.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The kid that draws the comics. He’s got a funny name. Like Mex or something. He’s proper posh as well. He’s got that super clean, smooth skin they all have. And a funny accent, like Lola’s.’

  ‘Tex,’ I said.

  ‘That’s him. Do you know him?’

  ‘Unfortunately. Is he making all the comics up?’

  ‘No, Marshall tells him what to do mostly but Tex came up with this one and Marshall thought it was good. Besides Marshall can’t draw. I asked him to draw a cat the other day and I thought it was an aeroplane. Why? Is Tex dodgy?’

  ‘No, I think he’s harmless. Listen, will you do me a favour.’

  ‘Anything,’ she said. ‘Well, almost anything. Anything legal. Almost legal. Maybe. Depends what it is.’

  ‘Will you make a model of Doodle?’ I said.

  ‘Doodle?’

  ‘Yes, I don’t have a photograph but I can draw him for you.’

  ‘Who is Doodle?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘He was my friend. He got all mixed up in this and something happened. Something terrible.’

  ‘And you feel bad about it,’ she took my hand in a kind of maternal way. For once in my life I didn’t rip my hand away and say something sarcastic.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me get you something to draw on,’ she waddled off to the relevant shelf.

  I drew a picture of Doodle. I drew him in a Wushu pose, holding the chopsticks that he’d used to kill the Enforce officer. He looked like a noble warrior.

  ‘That’s the noodle seller at Jubilee Market, it really looks like him. I didn’t know you could draw,’ Haggia said. ‘I thought you were just a common delinquent. He went nuts on some Enforce officer and killed him, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah, he thought if he got himself arrested he’d be safe.’

  ‘He’s already a folk hero round here,’ Haggia said. ‘He’ll be a great addition. Not to the Vanguard proper though. He’s like supporting cast. We need some more of them, and some villains.’

  ‘We’ve got plenty of them,’ I said.

  ‘Get drawing then,’ Haggia said. ‘Carry on like this you’ll be helping Tex out.’

  ‘I’d rather die,’ I said. ‘I’m not exaggerating.’

  Without warning everything burst into chaos. Unlike the riot, which approached from distance, getting closer at its leisure, this particular hell arrived at high speed, sirens screaming. The street was full of cars braking, voices shouting and footsteps running. I heard a loud speaker click into life, clear its throat and announce a sector search. The lights in the shop went out along with the power. The hotel would go into its own lockdown. We’d been passed over in four sector searches, there was no reason to think that this one would be any more effective, besides even if they found us they wouldn’t be able to get in. Inside the fake boards that fooled passersby, steel shutters would come down as extra protection. It had taken a whole year to get the hotel set up but it was time well spent. A sector search was a specific Enforce procedure during which they could round up people, possessions, contraband and anything else they didn’t like. Normal laws were suspended. Enforce could shoot to kill without incurring any paperwork. The last search had been to celebrate some high ranking officer’s birthday. Fifty three people died. They gave him bodies like they were the bumps. Sector searches were never announced over the receivers, so even we never knew when they were coming, they were arranged on pieces of paper deep in the bowels of Enforce HQ. Then they were run on the streets as word of mouth affairs, with Enforce officers so well drilled and enthusiastic that one could be launched almost before the ink on the paper was dry. There were hundreds of officers outside, lined up in the street behind the finest, state of the art riot gear Imagination Industries could supply. They were all dressed in black, faces hidden behind heavy helmets and breathing apparatus. And then Prophet walked into the shop as if none of it were happening.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, rooting through the apples. ‘What’s all this about?’

  ‘Sector search,’ I said. ‘Have you not had one before?’

  ‘No, never. I told you I’m not from around here,’ he said through a mouthful of apple. ‘They look like fun though.’

  My wristset beeped. It was Minos.

  ‘You OK?’ he said. ‘It’s on the DarkNet already.’

 
‘I’m fine.’

  ‘No you’re not. Where are you?’

  ‘At the shop.’ I resolved to practise my lying, my transparent honesty was becoming a handicap. Even Massey could almost see through me and he was the most gullible person I’d ever met. To Minos, who’d known me for as long as I could remember myself, I was an open book.

  He got in some top notch swearing and even a trademark whistle before I lost the connection. I took the wristset off and kicked it under a shelving unit. I couldn’t risk Enforce happening upon it in a sector search when it would be bagged and logged before we could blow it.

  ‘Why are they doing it now?’ Haggia said. ‘Everything was so quiet.’

  ‘Maybe it was too quiet,’ said Prophet.

  ‘You’re not helping,’ Haggia said.

  There was nothing to do but wait for something to happen. We didn’t have long to wait.

  ‘Well, this is a pleasant surprise,’ Vermina said. She’d breezed into the shop with a clatter of heels and a sweep of expensive coat. ‘I’m sure I left you somewhere else.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Don’t be like that, darling,’ she said. ‘How’s your head?’

  ‘Fine thanks,’ I wondered who she was with. Tixylix wouldn’t be far off if this was official business. But it was Rowling who stalked into the shop like she was half human, half insect. A praying mantis, probably. Then some moments later Tixylix followed. He was wearing a bullet proof vest. Neither Vermina or Rowling had any armour on. They made him look like an amateur.

  ‘Well, I better be getting on,’ said Prophet.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Tixylix looked at Prophet down the barrel of his sub machine gun.

  ‘Right you are,’ Prophet said. He sat on a sack of rice like the one Mr Gru was enjoying. ‘I’ll just stay here.’

  ‘You,’ Rowling pointed at Haggia. ‘Over here too.’

  Haggia perched on the tiny amount of sack that Prophet allowed her. I leant on the egg shelf trying to look bored. Outside Enforce officers were marching down the street, their boots heavy on the pavement.

  ‘I do hope you haven’t gone to all this trouble for me,’ I said.

  ‘I bet you do,’ Rowling said, walking towards me. ‘Bad news. We have.’

  I thought she was going to walk right over me but she stopped two centimetres from my face. Her lipstick was bleeding into the wrinkles around her mouth. She was a smoker.

  ‘You never told us you were so important, Sorcha,’ Prophet said.

  ‘I know, a sector search just for little old me, I find it hard to believe,’ I said.

  ‘You always were terribly modest,’ Vermina said. ‘Almost to the point of being secretive.’

  ‘She can be very secretive,’ Prophet nodded. ‘Very mysterious.’

  Rowling whirled around. ‘Interesting. I had assumed you were a random shopper. Not an associate.’

  Prophet laughed. ‘Very good, very good. Keep up the pretence. As if you don’t know who I am.’

  She’d shown me his picture in the Grosvenor. She did know who he was. Why was she pretending not to? I couldn’t believe she didn’t recognise him. She was too clever for such a mistake.

  Rowling paused, like she’d taken a mental stumble and needed to right herself. ‘The thing is, Mr....’

  ‘All right then. Yalta,’ Prophet said, making a show of reading the name off a label behind the counter.

  The thing is, Mr Yalta,’ Rowling said. ‘Sorcha knows something and she won’t tell me. I find that upsetting.’

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t know,’ Prophet said. ‘She thinks she knows everything, but she doesn’t.’

  I glanced at Vermina. The merest flicker of concern had crossed her face. I wondered if she knew what was going on and if I was going to get any more assistance. I thought I might need it.

  ‘And how do you know her?’ Rowling said.

  ‘Oh, we go way back. Way, way back,’ he said.

  ‘And how about you?’ she asked Haggia.

  Haggia had made herself even shorter than she already was, she had hidden herself behind Prophet as though she were sitting in the folds of his ragged robes. ‘She shops here,’ Haggia said. ‘She is a customer, that’s all.’

  ‘This store is legitimate,’ Tixylix said. ‘All the records check out.’

  ‘In that case,’ Rowling said. ‘You can go. You are of no interest to me.’

  ‘What?’ Haggia said.

  ‘Go on, go,’ Rowling said.

  Haggia ran as fast as her little legs would carry her. When she was clear Rowling nodded to Tixylix and he started to bring the shutter down. I watched as the officers moving around with great purpose outside disappeared from top to toe. The shop was dark. Tixylix and Vermina turned on torches, the thick beams showing in the dusty air. Rowling got a small pen light out of her pocket and shone it into Prophet’s eyes. He grinned.

  ‘How far back do you go, exactly?’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ Prophet said. ‘Days, maybe weeks.’

  ‘So long?’ Rowling said.

  ‘It feels like longer, believe me,’ he said.

  ‘Why’s he getting all the attention?’ I said. ‘I’m kind of hurt.’

  ‘Oh, you will be,’ she said. ‘You will be.’

  ‘You’re going about this completely the wrong way,’ Prophet said. ‘If you don’t mind me saying. There’s no need to go the long way round.’

  ‘Why don’t you point me towards a short cut then?’ Rowling said.

  She stood between me and Prophet her hands on her hips, she seemed very impatient. Prophet settled back on his sack as if he was about to tell a bedtime story.

  ‘You tell me exactly what you want to know and I’ll see if I can help you,’ he said. ‘Because, believe me Rowling, I do want to help you.’

  How did he know her name? I looked at Vermina, she was watching Prophet, like a snake watching a rabbit.

  ‘Get me a chair,’ Rowling said and Tixylix leapt to her aid. She sat down. ‘OK, Mr Yalta, have it your way.’

  Mr Yalta. The way she said it, so dry it was arid.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Prophet said. ‘I’d have thought you were far too important. Or have you run out of minions?’

  ‘I am a great believer in doing something yourself, if you want it done properly. From what I hear this one has been running around doing as she pleases for as long as anyone can remember, yet not once has she been prosecuted for anything. I find that suspicious.’

  ‘So?’ Prophet said. ‘She’s not that important, surely?’

  ‘I thought that she had been given a piece of information, a prophecy if you will, and I wanted to know how she found out about it. Who told her and so on,’ Rowling said. ‘But this prophecy speaks of five people, warriors of a kind, and I have come to believe that she is one of them.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ Prophet said, looking at me then back to Rowling. He leant forward. ‘You best hope she’s not the one who can read minds. Otherwise we’re all buggered, ain’t we?’

  I would have applied some serious violence to Prophet then but Vermina had me in an arm lock before I could move. The barrel of her gun was cold against my cheekbone. ‘No,’ she said, her voice so quiet I felt the vibration of the word rather than heard it.

  ‘Thinking of running, Blades?’ Rowling said. ‘You won’t get far this time. Which reminds me. The other thing I want to know. Who helped you escape? The noodle seller was an administrative error but you, you vanished.’

  ‘One of the other five, I would think,’ Prophet said. ‘Or a couple of them. It probably wouldn’t take the whole posse. They’re getting quite the following out there. But then you know that don’t you, that’s what’s making you nervous. The numbers aren’t working out so well for you anymore.’

  Vermina twisted my arm further up my back.

  ‘Put her down, Vermina, she’s not going anywhere,’ Rowling said. ‘You. Check the back is secure.’

  Tixylix went out to th
e stock room, his torch swinging over the shelves as he went. His beam flashed over the Vanguard merchandise. He didn’t see them, or didn’t care what they were, in any case he didn’t stop. I was convinced that whatever game Vermina was playing she hadn’t invited her partner to the table, as usual. He shut the door on his way back in, took up position in front of it and nodded in his efficient, perfunctory manner.

  ‘Maybe she’s the pyromaniac,’ Prophet said. ‘And is there an invisible one? I can never remember.’

  ‘Shoot her,’ Rowling said to Vermina.

  ‘What?’ Vermina said, her face expressionless.

  ‘Shoot her,’ Rowling said.

  ‘Don’t shoot her, Rowling,’ Prophet said. ‘She knows everything you want to know. Shoot her now you’ll never know even half of it.’

  ‘I already know everything she knows,’ Rowling said. ‘Get rid of her.’

  ‘She knows who the witch is,’ Prophet said. ‘You don’t know that, do you? You want to but you don’t.’

  I told myself to be still and quiet, to not give anything away, but it was too strong. Everything on the top shelves exploded. Couscous and dried beans rained down on us. Then the next shelf went, sauces and oil ran down the shelves, spices burst into bright clouds. I could smell paprika.

  ‘She’s here,’ Prophet jumped up and down. ‘You’ve done it now.’

  ‘Who’s here?’ Rowling looked frightened.

  ‘The witch, the witch,’ Prophet was giggling like a small boy. ‘You’ve done it now.’

  The Vanguard merchandise flew across the room, the box spinning in the air before sliding into a dark corner. The beams of the torches swung around the shop like wild searchlights.

  ‘Do something,’ Prophet said. ‘Rowling, do something. Otherwise it’ll be too late.’

  But she didn’t know what to do. She was confused. He wasn’t on her side. He was on our side. ‘Is it her?’ she pointed at me. ‘Is it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Prophet said. ‘She’s a tricky one.’

  Rowling was afraid. She was trying to hide it but a vein throbbed at her temple and gave her away. I could see Prophet through the gap between Vermina and Rowling’s heads. They were both watching me but Prophet was dancing about as though he was in his own world. He stopped capering up and down and made a gun shape with his hand and pointed to Vermina then at himself. I didn’t understand. He wanted me to shoot her? He gestured again. Vermina, then the gun shape, then himself. He wanted me to pass him her gun. It was still in her hand. I felt it in my mind, she didn’t have a tight grip on it, I could slip it out of her hand and put it in his before anyone could move. What if he wanted to shoot her though? Then Tixylix was roaring something and hurdling over debris. The muzzle of his gun flashed orange in the half light as he sprayed the shutter with bullets, punching holes across it. The air was filled with shooting and shouting. I jammed my fingers in my ears and hit the floor as the shutter flew open, flooding the shop with light again. Vermina’s gun fell to the ground in front of me as she and Rowling took cover. A red beam ranged through the shop and then a single shot rang out and Tixylix screamed as he fell to the ground.

  I scrambled over to Prophet who was chuckling, bright arterial blood colouring his lips. ‘Sorry, kid,’ he said. ‘Never been much good at charades.’

  ‘He was going to shoot her,’ Tixylix shouted to someone.

  ‘I thought you were with them for a minute there,’ I knelt beside Prophet.

  ‘Me? Nah,’ he coughed thick blood. ‘It’s time they knew is all.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘You get me talking about that, I’ll be dead before I get to tell you something you need to know,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not going to die,’ I said. ‘I won’t let you.’

  The front of his robe was covered in blood. He should have been dead already. ‘I don’t think it’s up to you. I’m not going to do the funny voice, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘I do mind,’ I said. ‘I like that voice.’

  ‘There is time and then there is another time,’ Prophet said, pulling himself to my ear with a huge effort that stole his breath.

  ‘What? Is that it?’

  ‘You’re full of questions you you’ve no faith that’s your trouble you will know near the end,’ he said on his last single breath running the words together in his hurry to get them out before it was too late. Somehow he’d saved my life. And saved Vermina from being the one who’d taken it.

  The shop was full of knees and boots. Someone pulled me to my feet.

  ‘He was going to shoot her,’ Tixylix was wailing, writhing on the floor, lentils and breakfast cereal sticking to him. They’d shot him in the thigh and he was only just bleeding but you’d have thought he was going to die. Like Prophet. ‘He made this gesture with his hand and then pointed at Vermina. He was going to shoot her. She saw. She saw.’

  ‘Did you?’ Vermina said to me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. It was almost true, I had seen and it didn’t matter anymore.

  ‘I have seven officers dead outside Ma’am,’ a figure clad in riot gear said, its voice like a genderless robot’s through the thick mask. ‘They were unprepared for friendly fire.’ It didn’t sound very sure of itself.

  ‘Get him some medical support,’ Rowling said. ‘He’s just saved another officer’s life. He’s been injured in service.’

  ‘Do you want me to take this one?’ the robot said, pointing at Prophet. In the street behind him they were loading bodies into a squad van.

  ‘Yes,’ Rowling said. ‘And clear the area. Of everybody.’

  The officer bowed and scraped its way over to Prophet, as terrified of Rowling as Doodle had been. It just hid it better behind its armour and weaponry. They picked Prophet up as though he weighed nothing and put him in the back of the van with the other people Tixylix had managed to shoot. Vermina’s face was a mask.

  ‘I’m not sure what happened here,’ Rowling said to me. ‘But I will work it out and when I do you are going to be very sorry indeed. I will make sure of that.’

  I laughed. I got right in her face and I laughed like I’d never heard anything quite so funny in my life. She didn’t flinch. She had recovered her nerves.

  ‘Get her out of here,’ Rowling said. ‘Vermina, you take her personally. Take her to the Tank. I’ll meet you there in a couple of hours.’

  ‘On my own?’ Vermina said.

  ‘You can handle her, if she bothers you shoot her. I’ve lost interest.’ She hadn’t lost interest, not now she thought I could lead her to Étienne. She just knew she was beaten, for the time being.

  It was a short-lived, hollow victory. Vermina took me by the elbow and steered me out of the shop. We walked up the road to her car at such a pace we almost ran. She pushed me into the passenger seat and slammed the door. I could have run but I would only be dead or back in the same passenger seat. Vermina started the car and we pulled out just before the cavalcade of marked cars snarled up the streets. We accelerated through the road block which parted for us without query.

  ‘He wasn’t going to shoot you, I’m sure he wasn’t,’ I said. ‘He just wanted me to pass him the gun.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she said. She was thinking about something, planning something.

  We were driving down the main road into the city. She moved the car in and out of the flow of traffic, passing everyone.

  ‘What’s the Tank?’ I said.

  She hesitated. ‘It’s a very well kept secret. It’s like the Detention Centre, except this one is more of a short stay facility. And even more unpleasant.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know Latch, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He has applied to work there five times but they turned him down.’

  ‘Is he back at work?

  No,’ she glanced at me. ‘How do you know he’s off sick?’

  ‘I don’t know, I just picked it up somewhere,
I expect. You know what I’m like.’

  She looked sceptical, she too saw me as an open book.

  ‘Why did they turn him down?’ I changed the subject. I couldn’t tell her about Nexus.

  ‘He always scores too high on the psychiatric test. They want a score of three or below.’

  ‘Doesn’t that make you a psychopath?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ Vermina said. ‘Of the worst kind, if there is a best kind.’

  ‘Are you expecting Latch back?’

  ‘No, he’s very ill.’

  ‘And what do these well-adjusted people do at the Tank?’

  ‘They kill people,’ Vermina said. ‘I’m over simplifying it, of course. But you go in alive and you come out dead. If there’s anything left to come out, that is.’

  We drove on in silence for a while. I considered my options. I could crash the car. I could strangle her with her seat belt or something. Which would crash the car. She hadn’t let the speed drop below seventy. She knew what she was doing. If we crashed, we would die. I didn’t want to die.

  ‘You’re shivering,’ she said, turning the heat on. ‘You’re in shock.’

  ‘What are you playing at?’ I said.

  She ignored me, turning the car into a long bend. We were heading up to the Flyover.

  ‘You can tell me,’ I said. ‘I’m not likely to live past night fall so what will you lose? Nothing.’

  ‘I don’t know where to start,’ she said.

  ‘Pick a point at random,’ I said.

  ‘Have you met her?’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The witch.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. Even though Prophet would never get the chance to remember what he was supposed to tell me about the witch, I knew it must be Étienne. I couldn’t be anyone else. ‘A couple of times. Three times, actually but the second time she looked like someone else.’

  Vermina said nothing.

  ‘Have you met her?’ I said.

  ‘Why would I have met her? I’m not important, I’m not really part of what’s going on. Rowling mentioned her the other day. I thought it was a codename. That’s goes to show how much I know,’ she took a ramped exit without slowing down, easing in between two cars. She still drove like I cycled. ‘You know what I do know though?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re going to live past night fall.’

  I doubted that. We were high above the city. She was still driving at speed, weaving in and out of the traffic. I gripped the edges of my seat remembering the crash and the pop the window had made. I wondered where the others were and what they were doing. They’d have assembled themselves by now but they wouldn’t be able to get into the city. Even the underground access was inside the sector. They’d think of something. They had to. I felt the inside of my collar. It was empty. My wristset was in the shop. I was flying solo.

  ‘You think I’m up to something,’ Vermina said, breaking the silence. ‘I’ve never been anything but precisely honest with you. Too honest.’

  ‘Brutally honest, I would say.’

  ‘It’s everyone else I’m lying to,’ she turned to me.

  She looked at me for so long I want to scream at her to look at the road. But the car never faltered, never strayed from its perfect path down the centre of the lane. Then she looked away and I knew her well enough to know that there wasn’t anything else coming on that particular topic. I felt sick.

  ‘Why is everyone always talking in riddles?’ I said. ‘It’s infuriating.’

  ‘I bet it is,’ she laughed. It was as I would always remember it. A nice sound that suited her.

  We took the only vehicle bridge over the water, heading past the Project. Because of our angle of approach and the holographic shield, one moment the tower wasn’t there and then the next it soared into the sky, banners and signs hung from its height like prayer flags. There used to be warning notices so drivers weren’t shocked by its sudden appearance but someone stole them. Vermina took a sharp left onto a narrow pier joining the bridge to the Project, the only access.

  ‘Are we here?’ I said, puzzled. We couldn’t be. The Project would never let Enforce set up a facility there.

  ‘No.’ Vermina stopped the car. She leant across me and opened my door. As she moved back to the driver’s seat she stopped, she was so close our eyelashes were almost tangled. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and undid my seat belt.

  ‘Run,’ she said.