Futuretrack 5 (21 page)

I went for the third. The bottle in his hand wasn’t alight. He saw me, started to run. I brought him down with a lovely rugby tackle.

Next second, a rather exciting tingling enwrapped my whole body. I found I couldn’t move. I could only collapse alongside the bomber, like a man and wife in bed. I kept on trying to move my arms and legs. All I could move was my eyes and lips, and my neck a bit.

“What’s happened? What’s happened?” I yelled. Nobody answered. I could hear the crackle of flames from the Jag. Strangely, its engine was still running.

Then a brown face looked down at me, upside-down. A black crash helmet with the visor in place.

I never thought I’d be glad to see a Paramil. The air was full of the beating of psychopters.

It’s hard to take things in, lying paralysed. The Paramils were hosing down the Jag, burying it in foam, its crumpled wing sticking out like the wing of a charred bird. The smell was awful. Then the Paramil captain pulled at the front doorhandle, gingerly. He got it open at the third attempt.

“Oh, Diane.”
I thought.
“Oh, Loretta!”
But I couldn’t drag my eyes away…

Major Arnold got out stiffly, enraged and shaking but alive. Then he helped Mrs. Arnold out. Then she reached back inside and pulled out Loretta, who was silly enough to touch the door frame and burst into tears. Then Diane, huge-eyed but composed. I was surprised to see she had a perceptible bosom, but then I hadn’t seen her for two years.
I’m getting to be a real dirty old man,
I thought, frantic with happiness that they were safe.

Then somebody thumped down behind me, swearing horribly. Keri. A Paramil was holding her arm twisted savagely behind her back.

“Leave her alone, you brown bastard.
She
hasn’t done anything.” Trust them to get the wrong end of the stick.

“They’re alive,” I said to Keri. “They’re all
right.”

“Course they are, you stupid nerk. They got armoured glass and an armoured petrol tank an’ two-way radio. Why’d you think I told you not to interfere?” 1 can t move.

“They got you with a blaster.”

“It’s all right. I’m not dead.”

But her eyes, looking over my shoulder, filled with dread. I followed her eyes.

The Paramils were lifting the first petrol bomber. They passed, carrying him. His body was limp, but his head was screwing this way and that, like a tied-up chicken’s. His eyes were terrified.

They took him to the nearest psychopter; the stretcher pods on its undercarriage were open, gaping like piranha-fish. They slotted him down one. As he really began screaming, they slammed the lid on him. His voice echoed weirdly, inside the metal tube.

They did the same with the second guy, a thin, fair kid with his eyes screwed tight shut: the one I’d blinded with petrol.

The psychopter took off.

We both knew where for.

Then the Paramils loaded the kid lying next to me. I’ll never forget the look on his face.

Then they came back and picked me up. Keri broke free and went for them. “He’s innocent. He didn’t do nothing. He was trying to help. …”

The captain took out his blaster and gave her a stun. They picked her up as well…

“Oh, you
fool!”
she said to me, as they carried her away.

All I could think of was what they were going to do to my brain.

They slid me into a pod. Were just going to close the lid when I heard Loretta say, “Daddy, why are they hurting Kit? He tried to save us—he hit that man.” Major Arnold had his back turned, trying to calm his wife. But Loretta was tugging at his coat. “Daddy, why are they hurting Kit?”

A brown hand descended to close my lid. Then I heard Major Arnold say, “Wait. I think there’s been some mistake.” He sounded confused, feeble.

“We do not make mistakes. We are following regulations. The matter will be dealt with at the far end.”

“My daughter says this man was not involved in the attack. He was trying to help us.”

“Your daughter is a child. She was confused. How can she tell what she saw?” His hand tightened on the pod lid, impatient to tidy me away and get on. But Major Arnold was getting mad.

“Look, she knows this young man well. He used to be our baby-sitter.”

“This man is one of
your
people?” asked the Paramil.

I saw Major Arnold swallow, break out in a sweat. “He was a pupil of mine for ten years. The children know him well. He wasn’t in the van … he was riding a motorbike … he tried to warn us.” Old Arnold would never tell a lie. But what he could do with a half-truth…

The captain nodded, grudgingly. Two Paramils pulled me out onto the ground carelessly and slammed the pod lid.

Then they slammed the other pod lid down on Keri. Strands of her blond hair still hung down outside the black pod.

“She was on the motorbike as well,” I screeched. “She never went
near
the car.”

The Major nodded, wearily running his hand over his face. He was really putting his neck on the block for us. Bad-temperedly, the Paramils dumped Keri on the grass, too.

We lay there, side by side, and watched. The Arnolds were bundled into a psychopter and flown off. Two bigger choppers, sky cranes, arrived and hovered, lowering grabs to pick up the blackened Jag and the yellow van. Which had never belonged to East Midlands Water at all, but was now revealed as a poor fake, green paint beneath its yellow.

The captain came over and had a last frown at us, like we’d spoiled his body count. Then he flew off, too, leaving only the big gap in the perimeter Wire, and a patch of churned, burned grass, and broken glass glinting in the rain.

“Why do you Unnems
do
things like that?” I snarled. “Those oafs didn’t know Major Arnold from Adam. He’s a good bloke. And little kids. …”

” ‘Cause they ain’t got no hope. ‘Cause their dads didn’t have no hope. ‘Cause if they have kids the kids’ll have no hope. I’d do the same meself—only I’d plan it better.”

We glared at each other. We weren’t strong enough to do anything worse. After a bit I said, “D’you think you can crawl?”

“With one bloody leg.” We crawled side by side, as quickly as we could. Before the Paramils sent another sky crane for Mitzi.

We felt better astride Mitzi. But we didn’t feel like moving on; just sat staring blankly at the broken Wire and the burned patch. Thought about Diane and Loretta, buried in flame; about the guys in the pods of the psychopters, still breathing, screaming, throwing up, but already as doomed as squawking chickens hooked to a broiler-house conveyor belt…

Our cover was blown. Already, they’d have got my name from Major Arnold. And Mitzi’s registration belonged to the vanished MacDonalds. Laura would certainly spot that. Maybe we had two hours left: enough time to go to ground in London Northeast. Which was exactly where they’d look for us.

Then the wind blew, scattering the charred stems of grass; bringing the evil smell of petrol. But behind the petrol smell came the huge smell of green. Green of grass and moss, pool and wood.

I looked up, noticing the country beyond the burning for the first time. Flat as a snooker table. Hedges and spinneys, cottages, and barns. But nothing could disguise the snooker-table flatness, blurring away into misty rain. No Wires or watchtowers, factories or estates, right to where the mist descended.

“Nice,” I said.

“Like the cheese in a trap.” Keri said bitterly. “Wherever there’s cheese, there’s sure to be a trap.”

“Might be a cheese factory. …”

“Sucker.”

“Rather go to London?” I started Mitzi and rode down through the broken Wire. Careful to keep our wheels inside the wheel tracks left by the yellow van.

“We don’t know where this
is!”

“Could it be worse?” I pulled up where the van’s tire tracks ended. Forty yards on, a cart track led out of the field. “We’ll have to carry the bike from here.”

“Why?”

“Paramils have eyes. Hurry!” I unhooked the panniers, and we carried them first. Mitzi was lighter than most bikes, but humping her across that field nearly killed us.

I drove her deep into the first spinney. “Take a break— I’m going back to cover our tracks.” I had the sense to dump my leathers, change my boots for scruffy plimsolls.

The marks we’d left in the wet turf weren’t too bad. But it was obvious to the eagle eye that
something
had happened there. I began trotting to and fro, between the cart track and the burned patch. That looked better—as if a small crowd had gathered; or some looney had run backward and forward to keep fit. I was still trotting when the big yellow fence-repair truck arrived, and a jeep-load of Paramils.

I wasn’t daft enough to run away. I put a long stem of grass in my mouth and went to meet them, eyes full of wonder, total village idiot.

The Paramils inspected the marks on the grass with the old inscrutable Oriental eyes. One asked me, “Where are your friends?” For a Paramil, he was surprisingly gentle…

“Gone back to work.” I stood embarrassingly close to him, let my spit spatter on his shirt. He backed off. He didn’t like my three-week-old smell. The grass-chewing had filled my mouth with saliva. I let a bit of it drool. Even took him by the arm.

“We do be liftin’ taters over there. Come and see.”

He wriggled his arm out from under my hand, trying not to show his distaste. I let my eyes go even wider, till the whites showed all round, as I’d often practiced in the mirror.

“Big fires… choppers… fun!”

“Go back to work, please.”

I walked off, shoulders drooping like a disappointed child. But soon turned and gawped again. This situation was interesting. He hadn’t asked me for any ID. He’d expected me to be scruffy, not too bright. Done his damnedest not to upset me. … I continued gawping.

The repair truck was worth gawping at, with the pile driver attached to one side, and the huge roll of green fence wire to the other. It repaired the fence, good as new, without human help, in twenty minutes. The Paramils spent the time, with unzipped blasters, on the motorway embankment, only interested in keeping people out of this new place, not keeping the inhabitants in. That made it seem quite a nice place. Then truck and jeep drove off. We were safe inside.

Back at the spinney, Keri was fast asleep in a hedgerow, head cradled in her arms, hair flowing down her slender, shirted back and mixing golden with the ivy and cow parsley. The sun broke through the leaves and shone on her.

We wakened about teatime, Sahara-thirsty. No drinkable water; no streams; just irrigation channels, thick and green. Thirst drove us on. Too hot to wear bike gear, we stowed it. Our slipstream blew up the legs of our jeans, down our shirt sleeves, making them flutter like birds. The coolness was nearly as good as water.

The narrow road was raised above the land, endlessly long and straight and bumpy. With the flatness, and the hugeness of the sky, it felt like sailing. Keri complained she felt seasick. Deeper than the whine of the engine, the silence of the land sank greenly into us.

“Ain’t it
quiet?”

“No pinging at all,” I said, “since we crossed the Wire.” Six hours and no psycho-radar. Even in the Highlands, we’d heard echoes of it every few hours.

Eventually, we did hear a helicopter, far off. Still no pinging, just the blat of chopper blades.

“Mebbe they’re testing
silent
psycho-radar,” said Keri, just to cheer me up.

I saw the chopper: it was fuzz of some sort. Circling to the south at zero height, vanishing behind spinneys and reappearing; being flown in a graceful, tricksy way, stopping dead, flying sideways, backward.

“Keep cool,” I said. “They’re not looking for anybody, just filling in time. Routine patrol.”

But her hands tightened on the handlebars. She wiped one hand on the leg of her jeans. It was very tense, in that flat, green emptiness.

“Sing,” I shouted. So we sang the old Racer’s hymn: “Take the piston from out of my crankcase. …”

A what-the-hell feeling overtook us. Enjoy the now, sitting astride the razor’s edge…

Louder and louder came the chopper. I told myself that all fuzz, even Paramils, are bored out of their mind ninety percent of the time. Lots of the things they do are just to avoid going mad from boredom.

It flew alongside, still at zero feet, its blades sending purple whirlpools through the ripening corn.

“Wave!” I shouted. We waved like mad and held our breath. British police would wave back; Paramils wouldn’t.

They waved. Keri began to weave the bike from side to side, missing the ditches by inches…

The chopper accepted the challenge. Flew ahead of us, spinning in elegant circles, waggling its hips like a girl.

Keri, encouraged, put up her feet on the handlebars to steer. The chopper dropped back to watch. Then waved and suddenly flew off northward.

“Friendly!”

“Or silent psycho-scan!”

But I felt good. We saw tractors working in the fields, a combine. The drivers waved; we waved back. We passed a cottage on a corner, dozing behind dense laurels, only the red tile roof showing. A scrawled notice said:

STRAWBERRIES 2c PER KILO. BEST TOMATOES 3c PER KILO. WALLFLOWERS 4c A BUNCH. BEWARE OF THE DOG.

I made Keri pull up a hundred meters on. “I’m going back for some fruit.”

“Be careful, Kit.”

“We’ve got to eat. They haven’t got a phone in that house. They haven’t even got telly.”

“I don’t like it. It’s like something out of a fairy tale.”

“If I’m not back in five, get the hell out to the nearest wood. I’ll find you.”

I was stiff from the riding. The road was silent. Flies buzzed. Then I saw the dog I was supposed to beware of. Brown and black and panting. Ears flopping. So fat he reared up on sticklike front legs, with his belly spreading across the old bricks of the garden path. I leaned over the mossy, rickety gate and patted him; he licked my hand. I hadn’t seen a dog for ages. Techs think they’re dirty. Unnems kill them on sight—probably eat them.

The gate creaked alarmingly. On the right was a greenhouse full of tomato plants. Glossy leaves pressed hard against the glass; gaps disclosed the female curves of unripe fruit, better than the ones my father grew.