Warriors of the Night. Demons.
Elusive. For this moment.
Quinn gathered his thoughts and returned to the real world. Courtney yawned and blinked rapidly as Quinn’s toe nudged her
awake. She smiled up at her dark master, uncurling off the cold flagstones.
“It’s time,” he said.
The possessed disciples he had chosen stood in a silent rank, waiting obediently for their instructions. All around them,
the ghosts of this place howled their anger at Quinn’s desecration, bolder than any he had encountered before, but still helpless
before his might.
Billy-Joe came ambling along the aisle, scratching himself with primate proficiency. “It’s fucking quiet outside, Quinn. Some
kind of weird shit going down.”
“Let’s go and see, shall we?” Quinn went out into the hated dawn.
______
The curfew announcement was glowing on the desktop block’s screen when Louise and Genevieve woke. Louise read it twice, then
datavised the room’s net processor for confirmation. A long file of restrictions was waiting for her, officially informing
her that the mayor had temporarily suspended her rights of travel and free association.
Gen pressed into her side. “Are they here, Louise?” she asked mournfully.
“I don’t know.” She cuddled her little sister. “That Parsonage Heights explosion was very suspicious. I suppose the authorities
are worried some of them escaped.”
“It’s not Dexter, is it?”
“No, of course not. The police got him in Edmonton.”
“You don’t know that!”
“No, not for certain. But I do think it’s very unlikely he’s here.”
Breakfast was one of the few things which the curfew didn’t prohibit. When they arrived at the restaurant, the hotel’s assistant
manager greeted them in person at the door and apologised profusely for the reduction in service, but assured them that the
remaining staff would do their utmost to carry on as normal. He also said that regretfully, the doors onto the street had
been locked to comply with the curfew edict, and told them the police were being very strict with anyone they found outside.
Only a dozen tables were occupied. In fearful exaggeration of the curfew order, none of the residents were talking to each
other. Louise and Genevieve ate their corn chips and scrambled eggs in a subdued silence, then went back upstairs. They put
a news show on the holographic screen, listening to the anchor woman’s sombre comments as they looked out over Green Park.
Flocks of brightly coloured birds were walking along the paths, pecking at the stone slabs as if in puzzlement as to where
all the humans had gone. Every now and then, the girls saw a police car flash silently along Piccadilly and travel up the
ramp onto the raised expressway circling the heart of the old city.
Genevieve got bored very quickly. Louise sat on the bed watching the news show. Rover reporters were stationed at various
vantage-point windows across the arcology, relaying similar views of the deserted streets and squares. The Mayor’s office,
ever mindful of its public relations dependency, had granted some reporters a licence to accompany constables in patrol cars.
They faithfully delivered scenes of constables chasing groups of shifty youths off the streets where they were hanging in
spirited defiance of authority. An unending number of senior Govcentral spokespersons offered themselves up for interview,
reassuring the audience that the curfew was a precaution indicative of the mayor’s strong leadership and his determination
London should not become another New York. So please, just cooperate and we’ll have this all sorted out by the end of the
week.
Louise turned it off in disgust. There was still no message from Joshua.
Genevieve laced on her slipstream boots and went down to the lobby to practice her slalom techniques. Louise went with her,
helping to set up a line of Coke cartons along the polished marble.
The little girl was half way down her run, and pumping her legs hard, when the main revolving door started moving, allowing
Ivanov Robson into the lobby. She squeaked in surprise, losing all concentration. Her legs shot from under her, sending her
on another painful tumble against the marble. Momentum kept skidding her right up to Robson’s shoes. She bumped up against
him.
“Ouch.” She rubbed her knee and her shoulder.
“If you’re going to do that, you should at least wear the right protective sports kit,” Robson said. He put a big hand down
and pulled her upright.
Genevieve’s feet began to slide apart; she hurriedly double clicked her right heel before she made another undignified tumble.
“What are you doing here?” she gasped.
He glanced at the receptionist. “I’ve been asked to collect the pair of you.”
Louise glanced through the glass panes of the revolving door. There was a police car parked outside, its windows opaqued.
Private detectives couldn’t acquire official transport during a curfew, no matter how well placed the contacts they claimed
to have. “By whom?” she enquired lightly.
“Someone in authority.”
She didn’t feel in the least bit perturbed by this development. Quite the contrary, this was probably the first time he was
being completely honest with them. “Are we under arrest?”
“Absolutely not.”
“And if we refuse?”
“Please don’t.”
Louise put an arm round Gen. “All right. Where are we going exactly?”
Ivanov Robson grinned spryly. “I have absolutely no idea. I’m rather looking forward to finding out myself.” He accompanied
them back up to their room, urging them to pack everything as quickly as possible. The doorman and a couple of night porters
picked up all their bags and struggled downstairs with them.
Robson settled their account with the receptionist, brushing aside Louise’s half-hearted protests. Then they were out through
the revolving door and into the back of the police car, their bags being placed in the boot.
“This is very comfy,” Louise said as Robson climbed in and took a seat opposite them. The interior was more like a luxury
limousine, with thick leather seats, air conditioning, and one-way glass. She half-expected a cocktail bar.
“Not quite your standard arrest wagon, no,” he agreed.
They accelerated along Piccadilly and curved smoothly up onto the circular express route. Louise could see all the hologram
adverts glimmering over the empty streets below, the only visible movement in the arcology.
The car shot along the web of elevated roads threaded round the skyscrapers, and she imagined millions of pairs of eyes behind
the blank glass facades looking out to see them flash past. People would wonder what they were doing, if they were rushing
to contain an outbreak of possession. There was no other reason for the police to be active. Not even the mayor himself was
allowed out of 10 Downing Street, as his press office had been keen to point out a hundred times that morning.
Curiosity was becoming a very strong force in Louise’s head. She was keen to meet the person who had summoned them. There
had obviously been so much going on around her of which she was totally ignorant. It would be nice to have an explanation.
Even so, she couldn’t for the life of her work out why anyone so powerful would want to see her and Gen.
Her hope that all would be quickly revealed was doused as the police car took a ramp down to the base of the rim and drove
straight into an eight-lane motorway tunnel. A huge set of doors rumbled shut behind the car, sealing them in. Then there
was nothing but the carbon-concrete walls lit by glareless blue-white lights. More than the arcology, the broad deserted motorway
gave her the greatest impression of the curfew and the sense of fear powering London’s residents into obedience.
Some unknown distance later, they turned off the motorway into a smaller tunnel road, leading down to the subterranean industrial
precincts. The car delivered them to a huge underground garage with the style of arching roof more suited to a train station
in the age of steam. Long rows of grubby heavy-duty surface vehicles stood unattended in their parking bays. The police car
drove along until they came to the end bay, containing a Volkswagen Trooperbus.
Two technicians and three mechanoids were fussing round the big vehicle, getting it ready for its trip.
The car door slid open, sending in a wave of hot humid air that reeked of fungal growth. Holding her nose in exaggerated disdain,
Genevieve followed Robson and her sister out to look at the vehicle. The Trooperbus had six double wheels along each side,
one and a half metres in diameter with tread cracks deep enough to hold Genevieve’s hand. A heavy retractable track bogie
was folded up against its rear, capable of pushing it out of quagmires which came up over the wheel axles. Its dirty olive-green
body resembled a flatbottomed boat hull, with small oblong windows set along the side, and two large angled windscreens at
the front. All the thick glass was tinted a deep purple. With its steel and titanium armour bodywork it weighed thirty-six
tonnes, making it virtually impossible for an Armada Storm to flip it over. Just to make sure, there were six ground securement
cannons, which could fire long tethered harpoons into the earth for added stability in case it was ever caught outside in
rough weather.
Genevieve slowly looked along the length of the brutish mud-splattered machine. “We’re going outside?” she asked in surprise.
“Looks that way,” Robson replied cheerfully.
One of the mechanoids was directed to unload the sisters’ department-store bags, transferring them to a locker on the side
of the Trooperbus. A technicians showed them the hatchway.
The main cabin of the Trooperbus was designed to hold forty passengers; this one was fitted with ten very comfortable leather
upholstered swivel chairs. There was a toilet and small galley at the back, and a three-seat cab at the front. Their driver
introduced himself as Yves Gaynes.
“No stewardess on this trip,” he said, “So just have a rummage round in the lockers if you need anything to eat or drink.
We’re well stocked.”
“How long is this going to take?” Louise asked.
“Should be there for afternoon tea.”
“Where exactly?”
He winked. “Classified.”
“Can we watch out of the front?” Genevive asked. “I’d love to see what Earth’s really like.”
“Sure you can.” He gestured her forward, and she scrambled up into the cab.
Louise glanced at Robson. “Go ahead,” he told her. “I’ve been outside before.” She joined Gen in the spare seat.
Yves Gaynes sat in front of his own console and initiated the startup routine. The hatch closed, and the air filters cycled
up. Louise let out a sigh as the air cooled, draining out the moisture and smell. The Trooperbus rolled forwards. At the far
end of the garage, a slab of wall began to slide upwards, revealing a long carbon-concrete ramp saturated in sunlight bright
enough to make Louise squint despite the heavily shielded glass.
______
London didn’t end along the perimeter of its nine outer domes. The arcology itself was principally devoted to residential
and commercial zones; while the industries sited inside were focused chiefly towards software, design, and light manufacturing.
Heavy industry was spread around outside the domes in underground shelters ten kilometres long, with their own foundries,
chemical refineries, and recycling plants. Also infesting the dome walls like concrete molluscs were environmental stations,
providing power, water, and cool filtered air to the inhabitants. But dominating the area directly outside were the food factories.
Hundreds of square kilometres were given over to the synthesis machinery capable of producing proteins and carbohydrates and
vitamins, blending them together in a million different textural combinations that somehow never quite managed to taste the
same as natural crops. They supplied the food for the entire arcology, siphoning in the raw chemicals from the sea, and the
sewage, and the air to manipulate and process into neat sachets and cartons. Rich people could afford imported delicacies,
but even their staple diet was produced right alongside the burger paste and potato granules of the hoi polloi.
It took the Trooperbus forty minutes to clear the last of the vast, half-buried carbon-concrete buildings full of organic
synthesisers and meat clone vats. Strictly rectangular mounds, sprouting fat heat exchange towers, gave way to the natural
rolling topology of the land. The sisters stared out eagerly at the emerald expanse unfurling around them. Louise was struck
by growing disappointment, she’d expected something more dynamic. Even Norfolk had more impressive scenery. The only activity
here came from the long streaks of bruised cloud fleeing across the brilliant cobalt sky. Occasional large raindrops detonated
across the windscreen with a dull
pap
.
They drove along a road made from some kind of dark mesh which blades of grass had risen through to weave together. The same
vivid-green plant covered every square inch of land.
“Aren’t there any trees?” Louise asked. It looked as though they were driving through a bright verdant desert. Even small
irregular lumps she took to be boulders were covered by the plant.
“No, not any more,” Yves Gaynes said. “This is just about the only vegetation left on the planet, the old green grass of home.
It’s tapegrass, kind of a cross between grass and moss, geneered with a root network that’s the toughest, thickest tangle
of fronds you’ll ever see. I’ve broken a spade before now, trying to dig through the stuff. It goes down over sixty centimetres.
But we’ve got to grow it. Nothing else can stop soil erosion on the same scale. You should see the floods we get after a storm,
every crease in the ground turns into a stream. If they’d had this on Mortonridge it would have been a different story, I’ll
tell you.”
“Can you eat it?” Genevieve asked.
“No. The people who sequenced it were in too big a rush to produce something that would just do the job to build in refinements
like that. They just concentrated on making it incredibly tough, biologically speaking. It can withstand as much ultraviolet
as the sun can throw at it, and there’s not a disease which can touch it. So now it’s too late to change. You can’t replace
it with a new variety, because it’s everywhere. Half a centimetre of soil is enough to support it. Only rock cliffs defeat
it, and we’ve got limpet fungi for them.”