The Relic Keeper (18 page)

“Did they?”

“Well, yeah. That’s how your world worked. You were probably too much a part of it to see it. But there was another world running along different lines, kinda parallel to yours. The Far East, especially China, Japan, Korea and Thailand, industrialised much later than Britain and Europe and evolved in a different way, stemming from a completely separate culture. And the West didn’t notice, they were too complacent and assumed they’d have power permanently. They believed in their own longevity. A little like the Victorians did in the nineteenth century. And they were equally wrong about their destiny. Same happened to the Roman Empire.” Philip suddenly saw the similarity, but decided not to labour the point, there was no need to completely destroy this guy, whatever he thought about his motivations. “History repeats and stability is never long-lasting. Anyway, two things happened over the first few decades of this century. Firstly, fossil fuels started to run low.”

“We were always told that would happen.”

“So what did you do about it?”

“I dunno. Nothing really.”

“That’s what the problem was. But that wasn’t the only limited resource you had. Your world became reliant on computers. And they, in turn, relied on silicon as the basis on their circuitry. And when that and the oil became scarce the world you knew began to crumble. Your power bases collapsed in on themselves. You must have seen some of it happening in your time, although you were probably too close to it to see it for what it was, but the countries that used to be part of the old Soviet Union, once that power, be it good or bad, depending on your politics, was removed, well they didn’t have the framework in place to become stable nations for the most part. Some fell in on themselves quicker than others, but there comes a point when inertia takes over and everything follows. The West’s financial houses were very interdependent, and as one started to collapse so there was little to stop the others following. There wasn’t any nuclear holocaust, or rising of the Arab nations of the kind that people in the twentieth century seemed to expect. Your world fell apart from the inside, due to greed and complacency.”

“So what came in place of all that?”

“Well, that’s where the West missed the boat, so to speak. Europe and the United States were trying to develop better software for your computers and faster processors, more efficient 2-and 4-stroke engines and all of that. But all of that’s just working on improving what you already had, it wasn’t innovative. The innovations that were discovered in the West were largely restricted. Engines that ran on hydrogen, ultra-efficient machinery; these things didn’t work in favour of the multinationals that ran the West and exploited everyone else, so they stifled them.”

“I don’t follow. Why would they do that?”

“If your company sells oil, the last thing you want to do is market an engine that needs less of it, or can run on water straight from the faucet. Keeping innovation under wraps allowed the controlling companies to keep their power in the short term, but in the long term it killed western industry. On top of that, the interdependent currencies of Europe and the US started to pull each other down. Once one started to slide, the others followed.

“A surplus of cheap labour, and a market not tied directly to the US or Europe meant that they rode out some of the financial storms early in the century. At one point China was selling cheap consumer goods to the US, to make money, to lend to the US, to get back as interest payments. It’s genius, if not very much along the Marxist lines that the state claimed to employ. Then the real breakthrough came from the Far East. In Japan they were reinventing the wheel. They went back to the origins of industrialisation and looked at machinery again from a new angle, and created a new type of engineering, based on nano-mechanics.

“Then the wars of the early twenty-first century completely destabilised the West.”

“Which wars?” asked Mathew.

“Well, there’s too many to go into, but it stemmed from attacks on the former USA, that led to President George Bush attacking the Middle East.”

“The Gulf War,” interjected Mathew. “In Iraq. I know about that. That was in the 90s.”

“No, pretty sure Bush and the Gulf War in Iraq was after the 90s.”

“It can’t be, otherwise how would I know?” replied Mathew. “Unless there was another Gulf War by another George Bush!”

“I don’t know pal, I’ll check later,” said Philip curtly. “Anyway, it destabilised both the Middle East and the West. Economies collapsed; countries went bankrupt, huge corporations, the ones that were thought untouchable, crashed overnight. Islamic and Christian extremism went unchecked. Massive migrations from countries affected by war, persecution, and poverty led to splintered communities, and the type of ghettos not seen since the days of Hitler. And when a large group of refugees turn up on a country’s shore, there’s always problems. And while all that was happening, the East was rising industrially at a rate no one could predict, and no one even noticed. Once they were on a path to a new industrialisation, the cultural background meant that they thought in totally different ways to the Western engineers. And what they came up with was the miniaturisation of mechanics. Tiny engines that work technology without the need for microchips. Look around this place, all the machinery, the communicators, the engines, fuck even the doors and windows, they are all operated by micro-mechanics. Simple, but clever, and it happened at the right time and place. And it left us behind.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The East moved at a different rate to the West this century. Look around you.” Philip waved his arm at the dreary surroundings. “There’s not enough food, there’s not enough work, there’s not enough houses. The countryside is abandoned and the cities are crime-filled hovels. Disease is everywhere and no-ones doing anything about it. All our politicians are corrupt. A handful of people have all the money and all the power. There’s riots everyday. There’s religious groups bombing each other and anyone who gets in the way.

“The whole weight of political and economic power that you people took for granted has now shifted out to the East. I’m sorry to disappoint, pal, but your future wasn’t Utopia, it was this load of ‘shite’. You’ve just woken up in the new Third World.”

A few spots of rain began to paint the pavement a darker shade as Rei and Deon hurried back to the warehouse. They had been gone over four hours and Rei was sure that Philip would be worried; or worse still, bored, and that could lead him to antagonise Mathew. The journalist seemed to Rei to have taken an instant dislike to Mathew, and she wasn’t sure if it was as personal aversion or due to the circumstances of his predicament. It was true, she thought, that the situation was odd. Three people with, let’s face it, next to nothing in common, finding themselves responsible for a man who’d been technically dead for most of the century. They had to care for, and protect Mathew, as well as having to teach him what life in the last half of the twenty first century was about. Sometimes Philip seemed to resent the responsibility. There didn’t really seem any reason for him to dislike Mathew as a person, not least as they had hardly had a chance to speak since meeting; but yes, there was something about the whole situation that riled Philip. Rei was still not sure that Philip fully believed that this wasn’t some elaborate hoax invented by the Walden Centre for some reason, to boost their share prices and now dismissed to cause chaos, perhaps. She’d seen Philip several times over the course of the day examining the FT Index details in depth on his c-pac. That cynicism was, she supposed, in the nature of the job he did.

The rain started to fall more steadily and she and Deon picked up speed. The streets were unusually quiet, even for this time of night, and that gave an eerie quality to their surroundings. The city looked still and peaceful, bathed in the iridescent glow of the automated street lights that flickered on and off as they passed. Down a side street a series of lights glimmered briefly. It could have been other people passing, or a fault in the system, but either way it made Rei nervous of being out in the city this late. She glanced at Deon. He hurried along in the way he normally did in the street; head down and hat pulled over his ears. He stepped confidently and Rei noticed the difference to the unsure man she’d met in the canteen. This time of the day, and these streets, were where he was at home. And despite the gnawing distrust she felt towards him, he made her feel less anxious. Over the last few hours she’d seen a whole new side to this usually quiet and withdrawn man.

They’d left the other two just as the sun had gone down and headed off to a place where Deon had suggested that they could more easily access the mainframe databases that could help them. The place they’d ended up in was not what Rei had expected. From the basement of a late Victorian house they’d connected a selection Deon’s machines together and plugged them into a communication port. Rei had been nervous about using a hard-wired interface, but felt no option but to accept what Deon had told her: that he could scramble the signals so that only the most ardent of pursuers would be able to recognise and trace the information. And they were hardly in the ‘most wanted’ category. Not yet.

“I’ve used this place before,” he’d explained. “Remember when you asked me to run a check in our Mr Lyal’s daughter; well, this is where I did it from. It was fine then and it’ll be ok now.”

Within ten minutes Deon had a trace on some people that he felt could help them out of the capital and south to the coast. The cost, he explained, would be high, but affordable, adding several times that he would require someone to pay his share, and they should be able to leave the following night. The route would have to be agreed, but Deon told Rei he was sure that it wouldn’t be any problem, whatever course they took.

“If you can give me the money now,” he said, “I can meet them and finalise everything. They won’t arrange anything unless it’s in person.”

“No way. I’m not transferring over that sort of money to you here, for you to disappear and meet some people I’ve never heard of.”

“Rei, I’m in on this. I’m not going run off with your money.” He threw his hands up in a manner of melodramatic frustration.

“That was not what I was implying,” she lied.

“And you won’t be able to transfer anything. They’ll want cash.”

“Who deals in cash?”

“Well, obviously Roamers do. Or goods. They like gold.”

“Great. Ok, I’ll get my gold reserves out shall I?”

“You have gold reserves?”

“No, Deon I don’t. I expect I can get some cash. Somehow. But if they take that money we have nothing left. Neither of us has an income at the moment. There is no room for mistakes. Taking the cash on your own – I feel that it isn’t safe.”

“So what do you want to do?” he asked impatiently. “Come with me to set it all up?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re going to drag along behind, slow me down, interfere, probably fuck the whole thing up, just ’cos you’re worried about losing a few hundred bucks.”

“We need to do this, Deon. If you want to help, do it my way. And by the way, I don’t see myself slowing you down; quite the opposite I imagine.” With that Rei picked up the bag with the few possessions she felt she needed and headed for the door.

“Coming?” she asked, wondering what on Earth she was doing.

They walked for nearly an hour. Rei was tired and wet and the bravado that she’d been faking was beginning to wear thin, when Deon stopped and placed his hand gently on her arm.

“Please, if you must come with me, just let me handle things, it really will be better. You’ll just have to trust me on this Rei. They’re good people, really critical, but they need to be handled right.”

“Deon, you’ve lied to me fairly consistently about who you really are, why should I trust you now?”

“Because you haven’t any choice,” he answered calmly. With that he pushed the brim of his hat up and marched off through an archway between two tall buildings. Rei stood slightly stunned for a moment before trotting after him like a chastised puppy.

As soon as she passed the archway she heard the background noise of talking and motors increase, and she felt strangely relieved to be entering a more human, louder environment. She could hear music, although it sounded odd and old-fashioned, and she could smell food cooking. The rain had become heavier deadening the sounds and smells, and making Rei surprised when she turned a corner a short way ahead and came face to face with a camp of people. The path they had taken had led them to a large grassy area, probably laid out as a park at one time, she surmised. Around the edge of this were a collection of several dozen vans, trucks and mobile houses. Two or three fires were visible to the front of some of these. Groups of people were huddled from the rain under canvass canopies, and a group of children were playing with two dogs in the puddles left by the vehicle tracks. Rei stopped to take in the situations, allowing the rain to cascade down her face.

Deon had marched ahead and suddenly became aware that he walking on his own. He doubled back to where Rei stood mesmerised.

“Come on, what are you doing?”

“Who are these people?” she asked, hardly aware that she’d stopped.

“They’re people I know. They helped me before and I’m sure they’ll do it again. They’re just not like the other people that you normally meet, so just stick with me and it’ll be fine.”

“Are these Roamers?”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t call them that…or anything similar for that matter.” He took her arm and motioned with his head for her to follow him through the muddy tracks. “In fact, just don’t speak.”

As they walked people stared at them through the rain. The difference in their appearance must have made them look strange, and Rei tried her best not to stare back as she walked with her tall companion. The Roamers whispered and nodded as they passed, and one or two of them spat towards – although not actually at – them. The sounds and smell of the camp overwhelmed Rei’s senses and she worked hard to keep her head. Deon kept hold of Rei’s arm and guided her through the groups of people. As they passed between two large trucks, the type that Rei had only seen in books before, an enormous figure appeared in front of them. The man was white and stood about 10 centimetres taller than Deon. He brought them to such a sudden stop that Rei nearly walked into him, and she jumped back slightly as she looked up at him. Deon pulled his hat off and smiled in the jagged-toothed way that Rei thought made him look both endearing and slightly retarded at the same time.

“Joseph,” said Deon, unfazed. “How you doing?” He nodded enthusiastically at the giant man, who said nothing in return. Slightly embarrassed Deon continued, “Is your brother ’round?”

“Why?” replied Joseph, distractedly.

“Well look, I really need to ask Karl for a favour, well, when I say favour, it’s more that I need something looking after and I wondered if he’d like to do a bit of business.”

“Wait here,” commanded Joseph and lumbered off into one of the trucks.

“Deon,” hissed Rei in the loudest whisper she could manage. “Do you know what you’re doing? I’ve heard stories about these people. They’re violent. They’ve got a reputation for….” Deon stopped her by placing his hand softly but firmly over her mouth.

“Don’t judge. Jesus teaches to accept people. I know these people. We’ll be fine as long as you don’t say anything stupid.” He released his hand. “Really, we’ll be fine with them. You’ll like Karl.” Rei looked up at him wearing a face that actively displayed her displeasure, but she said nothing while they waited for Karl.

The Roamer hadn’t been what Rei had expected. Tall and eloquent, he spoke with a soft accent that she’d never heard before, but that made her warm quickly to him. He was handsome, in a rough sort of way, she thought, and his arms were brightly coloured in tattoos. Rei had seldom seen tattoos before and had to check herself to keep from staring at the patterns and pictures of birds and women. She noticed that one of the pictures appeared to be a naked Geisha, and she wondered if that was how Karl saw her. She was fascinated by the way that the pictures seemed to change as the muscles in arms moved. Some of them appeared to be writing, although not in any script she had previously seen. Karl’s hair was dark and unkempt, falling gracefully about his face, not cut to different lengths as most people wore their hair in Britain. Food was brought out, which only the women seemed to cook. Rei even tried some of the strange dish, and decided not to ask what it was. She’d heard these people ate dogs! Karl used strange words and quaint old-fashioned expressions that reminded her of Mathew’s dialect. And his manners were odd: he ate and spoke at the same time, although there seemed no need to; and he smoked. Not through a pipe like she seen Deon do occasionally, but using cigarette paper, which he actually set fire to. He wore a vest and faded pair of denim trousers and seemed to have come from a world divorced from all of Rei’s previous experiences. While they talked he drank beer from a container, and even offered them both some. For a second Rei was tempted to accept just to see what it would be like, but habit forced a negative response from her before she had time to think.

So she stood talking to this strange creature from another world for an hour somehow agreeing, against her better judgement, to pay him and a group of his people to take them into Devon over three days. From there they could return along the south of England to a port from which they could travel to France. The price was agreed with Karl and a payment made. Then the time of their departure was settled and Karl insisted that, as this was a deal, that they should all shake hands. Rei had to bite hard on her lip not to grin at the antiquated custom.

Then, before she knew it, they had left the camp and were back walking down the cold wet streets of the city. It had been surreal and Rei felt almost as if she’d dreamt the meeting. The rain eased a little and they heard the distant muffled sound of yelling, as a game of street football broke down into a brawl. The old stone buildings of the city seemed to stand in stark contrast to the newer constructions, like a scar across otherwise flawless skin.

Deon surprised her by suddenly announcing that it would be easier for him to take a separate route direct to Southampton, from where he could make arrangements for their passage across the channel. Rei would then have to arrange to get Mathew out of Europe, but this would be easier once they had left the country and were again able to travel in a relatively open manner, he had explained.

“I don’t know. I think we should try to keep together. You know these people, their ways and customs. It would be easier for you to stay with us.”

“Yeah, but I can be of more use here, you know, making plans and getting us booked on a ship. I can’t do that from a travelling camp; not easily anyhow. This way you get to journey with Mathew and keep an eye on him, then, when you get to Southampton everything’s done and we can start to decide what we’ll do when we reach the mainland. And, we’ll draw less attention to ourselves if there are fewer of us. You know it’ll be the sensible thing to do.”

“Deon, I have not done the sensible thing for several days now. But I do think you could have a point,” she said, thinking out loud as they hurried along the streets, trying to avoid the food stalls and market sellers. They turned off the main street into the small road of Victorian warehouses where Philip and Mathew were waiting. “However, I still think we should all stick together. The four of us can leave tomorrow as arranged rather than having to meet you in Southampton in five days, if everything goes according to plan.”

“Ok. I can’t see why things shouldn’t go to plan,” replied Deon cheerfully, pleased at his successful role in this scheme. He looked across at the pretty oriental girl by his side, and was about to smile at her when he felt a warm rush of air. He saw Rei’s hair fly in the wind and watched confused as she was blown backwards, then a split second later he heard the blast and felt himself being pushed by the force of it. He fell back and saw dust and debris fill the sky and begin to fall back towards him. Instinctively he covered his face with his hands as the fragments of glass landed on and around him, and he knew instantly that he’d been close to the centre of a bomb blast.