Misspent Youth (36 page)

O
XFORD CAME AS AN ABRUPT TRANSLOCATION SHOCK
after the quiet semireclusive life of a retirement estate in Rutland. Tim greeted university life with the same initial heart-flutter of reservation that all the millions of freshmen before him had undergone. It passed soon enough as he struggled bravely through the wall-to-wall parties that traditionally characterized freshmen week. His determination not to drink faltered on several occasions, though he never went back to the kind of destructive intake that had blighted his last few terms at Oakham. He could see that happening all too clearly among the other eighteen-year-olds who were experiencing their first true taste of away-from-home freedom, using it to reach maximum excess. So he merged into the mainstream with a minimal number of hiccups and gaffes.

The term played out against a backdrop of a classic autumn, with England’s climate once again shifting dramatically over a mere two weeks. After arriving when the daytime warmth lingered long into the twilight, he soon found himself digging out thicker clothes to survive days of bitingly cold wind and rain, and others of bright, low, yet strangely heatless sunlight. Trees succumbed to the encroaching frosts, shedding their leaves across the city to form a water-slicked shawl that made cycling and trike riding a dangerous adventure before the council crews cleared the gutters.

Tim went to most of his lectures. He signed on for soccer and badminton. He steered well clear of the youth wings of major—and minor—political parties. He tentatively started to make new friends. Everybody knew who he was, of course, which was somewhat unnerving. But he learned quickly enough to distinguish between who was interested purely in his mild celebrity status, and those who didn’t mind that. He discovered which pubs and clubs to go to.

To his credit, he called his mother almost once a week, and sent her txts most days. Alison, too, was on the contact list. As was Vanessa, though that dropped away as the term progressed—she was at Bristol University. The old crew from Oakham sent circular avtxts telling each other how they were getting on, though those were none too frequent. But he did stay in touch with Jeff. Nothing deeply significant, or emotionally meaningful—thank God. Tim found he got on best with his dad if they just swapped trivia: what he’d done today, what he’d eaten, lectures and essays. It was all perfectly normal, or at least as normal as it was ever going to get between the pair of them now. He was content with that. He even dutifully managed the occasional txt to Annabelle, whose modeling career seemed to have stalled.

And of course there was Jodie. Tim met her at the last party of freshmen week. She was taking computer sciences, and liked almost the same music as he did, though her taste in pre10 films was truly atrocious. Her hair was white-blonde, and came down below her shoulders. She was tall, and pretty, and came from a public school in Suffolk. Her family owned a lot of property in various European cities. All those little details locked together easily; with their similar backgrounds they could be very comfortable around each other. At first they were just friends, because he was still calling Vanessa on a daily basis. But then he decided that was stupid, he and Vanessa were never an item, not really—just a pleasant summer romance. It wasn’t long after that realization that they wound up in bed together.

N
EITHER
T
IM NOR
J
ODIE
heard the first tentative little knock on his door. They were together on his room’s elderly leather sofa, squirming around in a reasonable approximation of a wrestling lock. He’d already got her blouse open, while his own trousers were down around his knees.

The knock came again.

Tim’s head came up, giving the door a worried look. For all he’d settled confidently into university life, he was still scared of the bulldogs who ruled the college. Prowling through the cloisters and quads in their black suits and hats, ever alert for recidivist activity, they inspired the same level of fear in the current student body as they had for centuries.

“Just a minute,” he called.

They hurriedly pulled their clothes back together. A last quick check with Jodie, who was now sitting primly on the sofa, and Tim opened the heavy oak door, a neutral smile in place.

Annabelle stood outside.

Tim just gaped dumbly at her. She was dressed in a black blouse with a vivid scarlet tartan skirt, all visible through the open front of a fawn-colored camel hair coat. Long looping gold necklaces completed the ensemble, making her appearance tremendously chic in comparison to the students her age. Tim very quickly damped down that thought.

“Hi, Tim,” she said. Her voice was quiet, almost shy.

“Hi. Er, come in. Please.”

Annabelle and Jodie looked at each other, then their gaze fell in unison to the bright pink fluffy sweater that was lying on the floor beside the sofa. Tim knew his face was red as he made the introductions.

“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” Annabelle said. “But I had to see you in person.”

“Why?” Tim asked. She was acting very strangely.

“You have to come home with me. I brought the car. I can take you now.”

“Home? Why?”

Annabelle bowed her head, as if she was no longer strong enough to hold herself upright. When she spoke he could barely hear her. “Jeff’s ill, Tim. Really ill.”

“He never said. I spoke to him a couple of days ago.” He was almost indignant with her: Such a thing couldn’t happen to his father.

“He hasn’t said anything to you; he didn’t want you to be upset. You know what he’s like.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

She simply shook her head. Tim was shocked to see a tear running down her cheek.

“What?” he demanded; her reaction was making him nervous, which he tried to cover by sounding annoyed.

“Tim!” Jodie warned.

“Sorry. Look, Annabelle, what is all this?”

“You have to come home.”

He looked to Jodie, who nodded encouragingly.

“Okay,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I’ll get my coat.”

“Thank you,” Annabelle said. She dabbed at her cheek with a tissue.

“What did the medical team say?”

“He won’t let them in the house.”

“Jesus.” Tim was starting to get worried now. “What is wrong with him?”

“He wants to tell you himself.”

A
S WITH ALL AVALANCHES
, it started with the smallest breath of motion. Jeff had made the decision way back when he was lying in his bed at the Brussels University Medical Centre. It might have come from shock, or anger, though he preferred to think of it as rooted in youthful idealism. Jeff didn’t blame Dr. Sperber, but he’d been around long enough to know how the information would be used, twisted, sanitized, controlled, released in a way that left Brussels devoid of responsibility. That was the way of all government and politicians; it was never their fault.

The Official Jeff Baker Lifesite/News

Turbosender destination: universal

There is something I wish to share with everyone. Please access me

>hyperlink<.

People the globe over received the txt, and either frowned or sighed at the umpteenth piece of spam to sneak through their interface that day. Ninety-nine point nine percent ordered their computer to delete it without even glancing at the message heading. Of the tiny number who did use the hyperlink, none canceled it. Instead they started to txt their friends and family. The professional media caught up with the story a few minutes later.

T
HE USUAL URBANE CALM
of the anchorman behind the Thames News desk was visibly shaken as the breaking story was whispered into his earpiece. He smiled nervously at the camera, and said: “We now take you to a live personal feed.”

I
T WAS THE DISTRIBUTED SOURCE NETWORK
that Jeff had helped to make possible through memory crystals that allowed his broadcast to happen. The little camera in the manor’s study was sending its images into the datasphere, which immediately made it available to anyone with the correct hyperlink code, of which there were hundreds of millions. Simply by accessing it, they made themselves part of the source. It was impossible for anyone to switch off the interface of millions of people, especially if their identity and location were unknown.

The Brussels commissioners, through Europol, might just have had the authority and technical ability to cut any physical land lines to the Baker manor. But Jeff knew that. There were a dozen different live mobile connections linking him into the datasphere through various routes.

Whatever happened in his study would now be played out to the bitter end.

A
S THE SAYING GOES
, nothing spreads faster than bad news. Ten minutes after Jeff began the broadcast, over eighty thousand people had accessed the feed. Five minutes later the number had jumped to three hundred thousand.

Prime Minister Rob Lacey finally saw what was happening at the twenty-one minute mark. He was brought out of a strategy meeting with his election team into an office with a big wall-mounted screen—it had been an intense session, the London Riot was acting like a millstone around his campaign. For a minute he simply stared at the scene, listening to Jeff’s quiet voice talking calmly and rationally to his rising global audience. Every word was a needle-sharp accusation aimed right into the heart of his credibility.

“Get him off!” Rob Lacey shouted at an aide.

“But, sir…”

“Off! I want that motherfucker shut down!”

A
LAN AND
J
AMES SAT
on the plump couch in Alan’s living room. Both of them stared at the giant screen on the wall opposite. The way it was set up, the angle of the study camera, made it seem as if Jeff was sitting in the room with them. Neither of them had spoken for the last fifteen minutes.

In the corner of the screen a small call-not-accepted icon flashed repeatedly.

I
N OFFICES
, workers tended to cluster around the cubicle of whoever had accessed the feed first. Silent crowds watched the unfolding event with a guilty fascination.

On the streets in cities and towns, people gathered outside any shop or pub that had a screen interfaced with the datasphere. Many pedestrians wearing PCglasses simply stood still in the middle of the pavement as the lens display played the images.

Jeff’s study was just the primary scene; there were a number of other cameras in the manor that were supplying images to the datasphere. Thirty minutes in, and five million people watched as Europol officers Krober and Cherbun approached the door to Jeff’s study. Sue and Alison Baker stood outside, along with Graham Joyce.

“Please,” Krober appealed, “stand aside. We need to go in.”

“I’m too old to move,” Graham said. He brought his fists up in a boxer’s stance. With his white hair and stooped shoulders he looked quite pitiful standing in front of the two fit young officers. “Come on then. I don’t suppose it’ll take you long enough to bash an old fart like me out of the way. Did you bring your biggest truncheon, sonny? Do you like the sound it makes when it cracks bones in half?”

“Mr. Joyce, this is not good,” Krober said.

“Come on.” Graham jabbed out with his right arm.

Krober barely had to move to dodge the attempted blow.

“Leave my house,” Sue said. “Both of you. All of you. Get out. Now.”

Krober and Cherbun looked at each other, neither knowing what to do next. Lucy Duke arrived, cursing her heels as she ran. Her eyes searched around until she found the camera high up on the wall; she grimaced at it. “Enough,” she snapped at the Europol officers. “For God’s sake.”

“We have our orders,” Krober insisted.

Lucy winced at the phrase. “Don’t make this any worse.” She appealed directly to Cherbun. “Think!”

Cherbun nodded with slow reluctance. “As you wish.”

T
HE AUDIENCE OF ELEVEN MILLION
now included the cast of
Sunset Marina
. They stopped shooting their latest plotline twist to gather in the studio canteen, where a big screen played a news stream. Karenza started sobbing as she watched Jeff with his soft smile. “I hate them,” she told the bewildered cast and crew. “I hate all of them.”

O
NE OF THE MANOR’S OUTSIDE CAMERAS
picked up the Jag as it swept into the drive. Tim and Annabelle got out. Twenty-two million people watched them hurry inside.