Josh reached for Suzanne's fingers, and gently squeezed.
"Did you talk to the doctors?"
"Yes, and read the notes." Suzanne pointed at a screen on the end of the beds. "See that little abbreviation? SBA?"
"In the comment field." Free-format text. Hardly the best way to enter codes.
"Private notation among the medics. Should Be Alright. As opposed to BAP, Bloody Awkward Patient, or WOO, Waste of Oxygen."
"You are joking."
"No. They have alternative meanings for everything, just in case someone asks. But everyone on the job knows the truth."
Spatters on the window became washing rain, then hissing jets of water as the flash storm intensified. Josh nodded toward the glass.
"Good job you don't need the Tube to get back."
"They're getting better. It might be OK."
Most lines had overground sections which flooded during flash storms. London Underground had spent millions of euros on drainage tunnels and elevating barriers, with some success. But every summer, the storms grew more frequent.
"Come on." Suzanne tapped Josh's upper arm. "Let's take a break."
They walked out to the corridor, leaving Richard at the bedside.
"He needs to tell Opal how he feels," she said. "I'm not sure how she'll respond later, because for now the drugs are dulling her mind. But Richard needs to verbalise his thoughts."
"What do you mean about responding later?"
"Once she's a bit more
compos mentis
, she'll remember his words. I've no way of telling what they'll mean to her. Maybe she'll blame him for her being here."
"If it's anyone's fault, it's mine. But won't she be more worried about social services carting her off to some home? I mean, she's young and living in a squatters' commune."
"Maybe." Suzanne looked back toward the ward. "I'm not sure what we can do for her."
"Are you trying to save the world, Dr Duchesne?"
"One person at a time. Fractal salvation, my new theory. Save one, save all."
"You have an interesting mind, Doctor."
"Whereas you're a thug whose major assets are physical."
"I may not be intelligent, but I can lift heavy weights. That's the Navy Gunners' motto."
"It's not so much your muscles I was thinking of."
"Dr Duchesne. Tsk, tsk."
"Hmm." Once more she looked back at the ward. "What are we going to do about Richard and his father?"
"Philip and I had an interesting chat."
"Excuse me? Did you just refer to Broomhall senior as Philip?"
"Actually, I did."
"Tell me. All of it."
Richard felt someone tapping on his shoulder.
"–are over," she was saying.
"I'm sorry?"
"Visiting hours," said the nurse. "All done. Our patients need their rest, you know?"
"Yes." He touched the back of Opal's hand, avoiding the inserted tube. "They do."
"Your folks are waiting out on the corridor."
"My–? Oh. Right."
He walked alongside the bed, touching the warm metal of the bedframe as though it could keep him linked to Opal; and then he went out. Dr Duchesne, Suzanne, was there.
"Josh is checking his car and the roads. It's quite a storm, isn't it?"
"Storm?"
"Look, there's some kind of waiting room for patients' families, just round the corner. Shall we go in and sit down? Hang on for Josh?"
"OK."
White-and-blue corridors and a sharp chemical tang: this was a strange place, almost dreamlike. In the waiting room, Suzanne sat him down, then took a chair at right angles to his. If she was going to put him into trance again, that was all right with him. Anything to forget the bruises on Opal's face that were all his fault; except that was wrong, he needed to keep her in his mind, every detail.
"You know," said Suzanne, "when I was a student, a friend asked me to cure her phobia of snakes. She lived in the middle of Paris, so I asked her if it really was a problem."
There was a pause. Some distant part of him wanted to hear the rest of the story.
"Well," Suzanne went on, "she said if she just walked into a room where a screen was showing a scene with grass, she'd have to leave the room – in case she saw a picture of a snake. So she really did need to feel comfortable about what used to be a problem."
His eyelids were blinking.
"In this country," she continued, "arachnaphobes used to be in no danger at all, but over time things change, and you know about copperlegs being sighted in London?"
"Um, Ms Cole in biology showed us a newsclip from Kansas, this church guy saying copperlegs are another sign of the, er, apocalypse, is that right? The Final Days."
"Not Josephson, President Brand's pastor?"
"Yeah, that's him."
"So what did you think?"
"She also showed Sharon Caldwell saying that visible speciation, black widows turning into copperlegs, is evolution in action, right before our eyes."
"So do you think the TechDems can win the general election here?"
"I guess."
Father thought otherwise. He had said he would support the TechnoDemocrats if he thought they could win, but since they couldn't, he was forced to work with Billy Church's LabCon cronies.
"Tell me about visible speciation."
"You get pure black widows in Arizona," said Richard. "And pure copperlegs in Illinois. They're a new separate species, the copperlegs, and they can't, er, mate with black widows."
He was beginning to blush, but carried on.
"The thing is, if you start around Phoenix and travel
up to Chicago, you see the black widows slowly becoming different. Like halfway along the journey, you get spiders that can mate with black widows
or
copperlegs. They're kind of a transition, you know? Ms Cole said speciation is analogue, not digital, if you look close enough."
During his days on the streets, he had not been able to think like this, not even in the workshop with Brian.
Suzanne touched his shoulder, and he felt calmer.
"There can be things in the world," she said, "that are safe so long as you take care, like some spiders that you have to handle carefully, while others you can do anything with. You can feel safe without overconfidence because you can relax…"
Here came the trance, and he slid into it with a smile. He drifted, allowing the process to happen, for what seemed like days. Then it was time to leave the imaginary star-cave and ascend to the normal world, the real world. He rose to the surface and opened his eyes.
"Welcome back," said Suzanne.
Josh was standing inside the doorway.
"Interesting," he said. "What was that about copperlegs?"
Richard answered: "They're proof of either Armageddon or evolution and climate change, depending on who you talk to."
"Are you sure you're only fourteen?"
"I'm sure."
"Good. So, look." Josh pulled out a phone. "You're staying with Suzanne for as long as you want. You know that, right?"
"Er…" Richard looked at Suzanne.
"You're fine." She touched his shoulder. "See?"
"Yes."
"I talked to your father today," said Josh. "In person. He was–"
"Is he all right?"
Suzanne smiled at him. So did Josh.
"Yes," he said. "Now he knows you're safe, he's much better."
Richard looked down. The floor design seemed to swirl, matching the feeling inside his stomach. Finally, he raised his chin. "But he's worried about me?"
"Yes. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to say it. Not to you."
"Oh." Richard looked down at the floor again. "Maybe…"
"What?"
The words just seemed to creep out by themselves. "Perhaps I should talk to Father."
Suzanne was smiling.
"Well, perhaps you should."
Josh found
PB
in his contacts list and made the call. As soon as Philip's image appeared, Josh said: "Someone to talk to you."
He handed the phone to Richard.
"Richard? Oh, my God, Richard. You're all right. You're really all–"
"I'm sorry, Father," said Richard, and began to cry.
Josh looked at Suzanne, who nodded. He assumed she meant
leave them to it.
So this was what reconciliation looked like. But in his case it would never happen: Sophie was not coming back, and Maria had nailed down the coffin of the marriage that he had killed through neglect, and that was that. He left the room, knowing Suzanne would remain, in case she needed to intervene.
"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing," he said to the wall.
At the far end of the corridor, a nurse glanced at him, then walked through a doorway and was gone, used to visitors in odd states of mind.
I know what I want to do, but not how to do it.
Forget the flash storm outside. His nerves were dancing, electrified, like every op before the start, but there was no Regiment to back him up; and just because he needed to fight, that did not mean he could succeed.
He prowled until the waiting room door opened, and Suzanne waved. Inside, Richard was finishing up his conversation with a soft "Goodbye, Father."
"Well," said Suzanne. "You won't believe what Richard just did."
"What was that?"
"Er, I got Father to show me his knife. In the phone."
"Bloody hell," said Josh.
His own weapon was in the glove compartment. Wandering around a hospital armed was not the done thing.
"We can test your being confident again." Suzanne pulled out her phone. "What was that thing that Yukiko showed us the other night? Oh, yes…"
She tapped commands, calling up movie panes, then turned the phone towards Richard. Josh wondered if the smallness of the images helped him deal with seeing things he feared. Or had been afraid of, more like.
"Knifefighter Challenge," said Richard. "That thing."
In the panes, there were fighters in training armour, some in actual combat, and a garish webviral – 20TH JULY glowing across fight scenes – whose audio track sounded from the phone:
"Live from the Barbican Centre,
the ultimate clash of warriors begins…"
Establishing shots followed, showing the venue, and then from last year's final, the championship belt being handed over.
"… handed over by the Godfather of Violence, president of
Bladefight Inc., Zak Tyndall, along with his–"
Richard's face whitened.
"What is it?" Suzanne muted the sound. "Richard? Richie?"
"That's them," he whispered.
"Who?"
"The ones in… in Africa. In the labs."
"Holy crap," said Josh.
Suzanne was holding Richard's shoulder, steadying him.
"Where were they, exactly?" she asked.
"In the… When I slipped away from Father."
"They were in the virapharm lab? Those two men?"
"Yes. Talking to the, the doctors. When the two of them walked away, the doctors turned and I slipped in behind their backs, you know?"
"And where did you go?"
Richard's chest heaved and tensed, as if in the throes of asthma. "The room with the… with the children on the slabs and the, the–"
"You're safe." Suzanne pressed on his arm, then tapped his collarbone and beneath his eye, some kind of acupressure thing. "You're safe and everything is fine."
Both Tyndalls were in the picture, Zebediah and Zak, father and son. Tyndall senior was the architect of the Blade Acts, while his son was the public face of Bladefight, owners of the
Knife Edge
reality show and the Knifefight Challenge circuit.
"Bastards," said Josh.
"Look, I'm not talking about the disciplinary thing," said Suzanne. "But you'll remember what I told you about confabulation, and the installation of false memories."
"I remember it." Richard was calmer now. "You know I do."
"Yes, Josh and I know it. What we don't want to do is try to prove it legally."
She meant in court, with her and Richard treated as hostile witnesses by lawyers intent on tearing their story apart.
"I'll get the evidence." Josh took the phone from Suzanne. "These bastards are recognisable. There'll be footage, and I'll find it."
"Don't do it. Leave them alone."
"Why would I do that?"
"They've got power, and you haven't." Suzanne touched his arm. "Please."
"Is this another of your emotional triggers? That point on my arm?"
"Josh?" She pulled her hand back. "I'm not trying to manipulate you."
"I… Shit. I know that."
Richard was watching them, holding very still.
"Look." Suzanne tapped the phone in Josh's hand. "Whatever you try to tell the world, they'll find a way to bury it. You should know that better than me. Government disinformation, burying the truth. You've probably participated, in your time."
Josh forced a breath out.
"We call it regime engineering, when we do it abroad."
He stared at the pictures of the Barbican, the montage of knives arcing through air and fighters training, and the webviral message once more:
Live from
the Barbican Centre, the ultimate clash of warriors begins.