Even his imagination hadn’t projected such a scene. There were people in every room, crammed in so tight that nobody could sit and dancing was near impossible. Three sound systems were blaring out three different tracks in three different rooms, all of them merging together in the hall and landing to make an incoherent wall of sound. Hardly any of the lights were on, leaving the house seriously gloomy. The kitchen floor’s terra-cotta tiles were awash with fluid that was already turning tacky, and it was only half past seven.
They plunged in. Simon saw them and gave Tim a big hug. He was already drunk. The kiss he gave Zai was overeager; she moved her head aside with an annoyed grimace.
“Your parents will kill you,” Tim shouted above the din.
“No way,” Simon shouted. “We put anything breakable in the barn this afternoon. The worst they’ll find is a couple of strange stains. Derek knows what he’s doing. You should hear about the kind of parties he has at uni.”
“Sounds good. Sorry we’re late; I was watching Sir Mitch’s flight.”
“Great. How high did he get?”
“Just under two hundred kilometers; and that was at Mach fourteen. Won’t be long now.” Tim held up the bagful of bottles and cans he’d brought. “For your collection.”
“In there.” Simon pointed to the kitchen. His grin widened as his girlfriend pushed her way toward them through the crowd, drinks held high in both hands.
Tim hoped he wasn’t staring again. Not that he’d ever been able to help it as far as Annabelle Goddard was concerned. He was used to the savvy upper-middle-class girls who attended Oakham School. Given that most of them were attractive, possessed of the kind of impeccable style and extraordinary self-confidence that only family money could achieve, he was as accustomed to hanging with delectable girls as best as any eighteen-year-old boy could be. But Annabelle was something else again. Her face was enchantingly beautiful, fine-boned with a clear complexion and a few clusters of freckles. To make matters worse, she also had an amazing figure, which was the subject of heavy discussion among Tim and his same-gender friends. For the last six weeks, they had all become seriously envious of Simon for managing to pull her. Add to that Simon’s constant boasts of how she was constantly up for it, and how good she was in bed, and his social status was rapidly approaching divinity.
“Hi, Tim,” Annabelle yelled cheerfully. She handed Simon a drink and gave him a forceful kiss.
Tim was sure there were tongues. “Hi,” he said weakly. She was wearing a shimmering purple miniskirt and a small white T-shirt, thin enough to reveal the outline of her bra underneath.
“Great party, huh?”
“Yeah.” Tim grinned oafishly, hotly aware of the way Zai was looking at him. “Let’s get started,” he said to her.
Zai nodded curtly. “Yes, let’s.”
Tim shoved his way into the kitchen. He knew he’d messed up in front of Zai again. Strange how she was so different from Annabelle; petite and intense, always managing to find fault with him. Whereas Annabelle was so upfront and good-hearted he could never imagine her being angry with anybody. So how was it possible for him to be attracted to complete opposites at the same time?
He made up for his earlier lapse by being overwhelmingly attentive to Zai for the next few hours: pouring her a Bacardi and lemon (heavy on the Bacardi), dancing in the conservatory, swaying about as other couples barged into them. It was hard to see in the dark.
They ran into Martin and Colin when they were taking a break in the dining room. Martin greeted Tim with a full arm salute. “Bonjour, Unionist Comrade. I’m amazed you were allowed out tonight.”
“Why?” Tim asked automatically, and cursed himself for not thinking first.
“I saw the Eurogestapo around at your house the other day. Installing all the State Security machine guns and Rottweilers, were they?”
“No,” Tim said with a labored sigh. He’d been getting a lot of this kind of joshing lately, not all of it good humored.
“Must be. It’s only, what, a couple of weeks till they uncork your old man, right?”
“Young man,” Colin corrected. His beer bottle waved around as he gestured, foam spilling from the neck.
“About that,” Tim agreed.
“The Commission must be worried. He’ll be a valuable piece of State property. The Separatists are bound to try something.”
“Shut up, Martin,” Zai said. “Nobody’s going to do anything to Jeff Baker. Don’t be so stupid.”
Martin laughed, taking another swig.
Zai pulled Tim away, and they headed back to the kitchen. “You okay?” she asked.
“Sure. I’m used to it.”
“That’s not the point. Martin is such an asshole.”
Derek Langley’s friends from university had brought a load of intubes with them, which they passed around freely. It was a hot synth8, Tim decided as he sucked the atomized vapor down into his lungs. Better than anything he and his friends ever scored from Rutland’s seedy replicators; this one had been engineered to slide straight through his lung membranes direct into the blood with zero resistance. A lot of design work must have gone into its constituent molecules. His head buzzed as the music echoed around inside his skull; and he was so light that every movement was effortless. Zai took a deep draw of her own, and grinned up at him as it flooded her bloodstream.
They talked to more friends. Danced again. Tried to eat cold pizza slices. Made out happily. Drank some more. Laughed as Tony stripped and ran around the garden waving his trousers around his head before falling into the laurel hedge.
Later on—he didn’t know what time—Tim hauled himself upstairs. He’d been guzzling beer all evening, and now badly needed to pee. The downstairs restroom was disgusting—bowl clogged, puke all over the floor. Several people were sprawled around the dimly lit landing, not saying much; two were already asleep. All the bedroom doors were closed. Tim made his way down to the bathroom at the far end of the house. The door was shut, but he could hear someone inside chortling softly. He leaned on the side of it, hearing voices.
“Wait a sec.”
Tim frowned. He was sure that was Annabelle’s voice.
“Oh come on.”
Simon’s voice, definitely, sly and insistent.
A third person laughed. Tim tried to shake off his lethargy. The laugh had been almost malicious. He didn’t know what the heck was going on.
Then Annabelle suddenly went: “There!” Whatever she’d done was greeted by raucous cheers; somebody was loudly applauding her.
Tim knocked on the door. “Hey, you finished in there yet?” He didn’t know what else to say.
Simon barked: “Oh fuck off, Tim. I’m taking a crap.” There was a lot of giggling and shuffling around accompanying the sharp sound of zips being done up. The toilet was flushed, which triggered another round of giggling.
Simon pulled the bolt back and stepped out, grinning inanely. Annabelle was pressed up behind him, her face all flushed, trying hard not to laugh. Tim had never seen her looking so exultant before.
As if that wasn’t disconcerting enough, Derek Langley and his blonde girlfriend, Louise, followed them out. They trooped past Tim sharing exactly the same superior smile, as if he was some mediocre zoo animal standing there for their amusement.
Simon’s hand patted him on the shoulder. “Finished. You take care in there, Tim.”
Derek and Louise were laughing again as Tim’s face screwed up into more confusion. Annabelle flashed him a brief roguish grin before Simon’s arm found its way possessively around her hips, guiding her away. The four of them made their way down the landing without even looking back at him. It was as if he no longer existed to them.
He went into the bathroom and locked the door. The air inside was thick with the scent of synth8. Tim sniffed it despondently as the alcohol elevated his own thoughts to a state of perfect clarity. His problem was that he would never be like Simon or Derek, never be able to grab so much out of life as the moment came. He was alwa
ys too scared of consequences. Yet that ability was exactly what he wanted. Right then he would have given anything to have been a part of that devilsome group, to have joined in with hearty abandon, to be their equal. His life completely lacked the kind of Bad Fun that everyone else he knew of was having in abundance.
Tim spat into the toilet bowl, suddenly furious. He hated everything about himself. Most of all he hated the fact he was so pathetic that he was helpless to change what he was.
THAT MONDAY MORNING, the Rutland Circuit bus dropped Tim off outside Oakham market. A few cars slid along High Street, smooth and quiet, their power cells venting thin ribbons of snow-white vapor from their rear grilles like some old-style rocket letting off cryogenic gas. Most of the traffic was bicycles and e-trikes, ridden by residents from the sprawling estates encircling the town who were heading into the center for work. A steady line of buses brought commuters in from the outlying villages.
Oakham’s center was a mixture of architectural styles from the mid-nineteenth century up to the late twentieth, by which time the conservationists had finally stymied the developers and planners. It left High Street dominated by shop fronts, interspersed by the occasional monolithic bank. None of them were particularly relevant to the modern age. The majority of shops had closed, as the larger retail groups went online and consumers sourced direct from the manufacturer. Now, only small specialist shops and cafés remained, while the rest of the buildings had been converted into offices and service centers wired into the datasphere economy. Even those were beginning to thin out; with the National Cable Initiative drawing toward completion, companies were adopting decentralized domestic networks for their employees. Several estate-agent TO LET signs were sticking out discreetly from various façades.
Tim crossed over the road and headed up to the Buttercross. The grandiose old buildings of Oakham School made up two sides of the quaint cobbled square. A horde of boisterous schoolkids was crossing the square, funneling into the school under its wide iron-arch gateway. Younger ones were in their smart uniforms, while the seniors, like Tim, wore their own clothes. For all his troubled relationship with his mother, Tim was grateful for her fashion sense. She always managed to dress him stylishly. Their money helped, of course, but then everyone at the private school had money; she made sure everything he wore fitted and looked good. It helped a lot keeping him in with his friends.
As he walked through the neat little enclosed garden beside the school’s stone chapel, he caught sight of a familiar figure sitting on one of the wooden benches at the far end. Annabelle was turned away from the rush of noisy kids, her head bowed and shoulders slumped.
Tim went over. “What’s up?” he asked.
Annabelle stirred, brushing her mane of long gold-chestnut hair away from her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed, glistening with moisture. Tim’s immediate impulse was to throw his arms around her, anything to help comfort her. A girl as beautiful as Annabelle shouldn’t be crying.
“Nothing,” she sniffed, and smiled. “Well…I suppose it’s me and Simon. There was an argument….”
“I’m sorry.”
“The two of you are good friends, aren’t you?”
“Not exactly,” he said quickly. “We live in the same village, and we’re the same age. That means we hang out. Nothing else.”
“I don’t think I’ll be hanging out with him again. We’re pretty much through.”
“Really?” Tim tried hard not to show how elated he was. Annabelle was available again.
“It’s just…I guess I made a mistake. My fault.” Her expression was anxious, needing him to agree.
Tim thought back to when he’d seen Annabelle with Simon at the party, how much she’d belonged with him at the time. But if she’d dumped him, Tim wasn’t going to try to talk her out of it. “Completely. You know he and Derek caught hell from their parents afterward. We pretty much wrecked the place that night.”
“Yeah.” Annabelle gave a small, vaguely malevolent grin.
“Look, there’s a bunch of us catching the bus back to my house this afternoon after school, probably go for a swim or something. Simon won’t be one of them. Why don’t you come along? Be a good break for you. Enjoy yourself without him being around.” The indoor pool at his house was one of Tim’s biggest social attributes. It didn’t quite make him leader of the pack, but along with his father’s name it certainly contributed to making him one of the right people to know.
Annabelle pondered the invitation for a moment. “Sure. Yeah, okay, I’d like that.”
“Great.” That just left him with inviting everyone else back home. Oh, and telling Zai.
THE FIRST LESSON that morning was French. Tim hated languages, he was hopeless at them, but it was a compulsory subject at UE level. When the interactive tutorial began he slipped on his PC-glasses, pushing the earplugs in and flipping down the tiny wire mic. They were ebony and gold 909 Hi-shots, pilot-grade, the coolest of the cool, just like Sir Mitch wore when he was piloting Newton’s Arrow. There were ads for them everywhere, big posters with Sir Mitch dressed in a flight pressure suit and the glasses, standing at the end of the runway. All right, so they didn’t make Tim look quite as glamorous as Sir Mitch, but they were still pretty damn funky.
Tim murmured quietly to the secretarial program, calling up a fix to deal with the French tutorial that would convince the teacher he was hard at work. It left him free to compose avtxts. His finger skated across the interactive keyboard mat, selecting colorful little graphics from the menu file, which he began to mix into an invite. He had to keep the audio segments muted: Everyone he was sending them to was also in school. The holographic display on his PCglasses flashed replies at him for the remainder of the lesson. Most of the boys who answered had included symbols that gyrated with semi-obscene content, which nearly made him laugh out loud. When the tutorial ended, he’d collected eight acceptances.
It was a good strategy, he congratulated himself; with so many other people included, Annabelle wouldn’t feel pressured at all. This was nothing like asking her for a date. By midmorning, though, he still hadn’t decided how he should go about cooling things with Zai. It wasn’t something he was accustomed to. Normally girls finished with him, an inevitable conclusion to his relationships which he greeted with grudging acceptance. But he and Zai were actually getting on pretty well right now. At the end of Saturday’s party, loaded on beer and synth8, they’d got down to some serious seminaked making out. He just knew it wouldn’t be much longer before they had full sex.
Sunday morning had been spent avtxting long silly messages to each other before she caught the bus to Empingham and had lunch at the house with him and his mother. Afternoon had been a lazy time around the swimming pool, followed by watching some pre10 movies on the five-meter wallscreen in the lounge.
To be honest, he’d never had a girlfriend as good as Zai before. Everything was chugging along perfectly. His excitement over Annabelle actually agreeing to tag along that afternoon was subdued by the constant feeling of guilt. Zai didn’t deserve to be treated like this. To be given the elbow when things were on the upswing must be terrible. It was the deliberate infliction of pain. He could barely believe himself capable of such a thing. It was horrid, as if some part of Simon’s character were transfusing into him.
Tim sat with Martin and Colin at lunch. The three of them wrapped up discussing their Jet Ski project. It was an old machine that they were renovating ready for summer in the hope of having some serious fun with it on the lakes at Tallington.
“So did you forget?”
Zai’s voice made Tim wince instinctively. He risked looking up to see her standing at the side of his table holding her lunch tray; her friends Rachel and Sophie were beside her. Too late, Tim remembered he’d avtxted an invite to Sophie for this afternoon.
“Forget?” he asked.
“Your little swimming club.”
“Well, I just thought you’d be coming.”
“You asked Annabell
e, didn’t you.”
Tim glanced around. People were looking at the scene; conversation in the dining hall was drying up. “What?”
“They haven’t split up twenty-four hours and you ask her out. You piece of shit.”
“I haven’t…”
“What did you think, having a whole load of people there doesn’t make it a date?”
Tim wouldn’t have thought it possible for his body to get any hotter, but it did. His skin must be neon red.
“You didn’t even have the courage to break up with me first. Were you going to avtxt me? Is that how you tell people it’s over?”
“I was…this…it’s not…”
Zai sneered at him. “I’d say go screw yourself. Except you can’t, can you, midget dick.” She turned around and walked away. Rachel and Sophie shot him derisory looks, and followed.
There was a lot of sniggering coming from the surrounding tables. Tim wished she’d just tipped her tray of food over him instead. It would have been less humiliating.
“Wow,” Martin exclaimed. “Two-timing Tim. I’m impressed.”
“I wasn’t…” Tim began limply.
Colin gave Tim a hearty slap on his shoulder. “You are full of surprises. Did you try and get the two of them into bed together? Is that why she’s so pissed off?”
“No! Look, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Honest.”
“You sly old sod,” Martin said. “You just need a better date organizer program, that’s all. Keep them separated better.”
Tim groaned and gave up.
SUE BAKER STOOD beside the bedroom’s tall veranda window, watching the Europol technical security team wandering across the lawn. A gloomy February sky was drizzling solidly. In their navy-blue rain jackets, the police team seemed almost immune to the conditions. They carried on positioning slender high-technology poles around the edge of the garden, heedless of the mud and water. Another team was doing the same thing in the sloping paddock beyond; wearing waders, two of them were walking along the flooded stream that made up one side of the field. She knew there was a third group out there somewhere, sweeping through the woods on the far slope.
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