Authors: Gavin Smith
He was doing a very good job of making me feel like shit; a very good job of adding to the creeping sense that I had betrayed people. What had I been expecting? That when the Cabal was found out they were just going to go quietly.
‘Only me and the girl?’ I asked.
He gave this some thought.
‘Aye, you and the lassie.’
‘That wasn’t going to happen.’ Though I’d thought about killing her myself. Putting her out of her misery before Rolleston got to her.
‘Your ex-special forces, aren’t you?’ Normally we didn’t answer, but if he’d looked me up then he knew. That made me wonder how angry the boys and girls at Hereford were with me at the moment. I probably shouldn’t go anywhere near any of the Regiment’s pubs in the near future. I nodded.
‘Some useful skills there. You going to fight in this mess that’s coming up?’
‘No. I’m out. Besides, maybe you’re right. I could end up just making things worse.’ I bent over the bike doing busy work, trying not to look at Robby, whose eyes seemed to be boring into me.
‘Gonnae play it safe and put a bullet through your heed?’
I straightened up and stared at him. ‘I’m sorry about your friends. What do you want from me?’
He stared at me for what seemed like a very long time.
‘Not a thing.’ He said each word very carefully. ‘I just wanted to come down here and get a look at you.’
Robby stood up and started walking away from me on the rain-slick superstructure. I watched him go. He didn’t look back.
I tipped the storage security guys. I could afford such largesse now. They seemed unimpressed.
I wasn’t going to fight. I was going camping. I went into the Ginza for the first time. I saw a group of teenagers wearing nothing but boxer shorts, string vests and cowboy boots. They looked cold and wet. Such was the price of fashion, I guessed. There were camping shops but it all seemed overpriced, over-engineered and frankly shit. I went down to the market by the river. I got myself some noodles from the best and most expensive noodle bar in the market and then went to a military surplus stall that I knew and got most of what I wanted there.
There were three more items I needed. One of them I had to get made up for me; another had to be downloaded from the net and burned onto a skillsoft chip; the third was going to take a bit more tracking down. I found what I was looking for again on the net. Under God’s reign I was leaving an easy trail to follow if anyone was angrier with me than Robby, but hopefully that would change. The final item would be delivered overnight.
I took the time to download some text files of books. I could read them on my IVD but it wasn’t the same. I also downloaded a lot of music: Coltrane, Davis, Gillespie, more. Having money for the first time ever, I was like a fat kid at the cake counter. I would have more than enough to keep me amused for ages. I killed a bit more time by buying some actual books, real old ones. They were expensive. I didn’t buy too many because I needed to be able to carry them. I also bought a few bottles of Glenmorangie. Good for keeping the chill out.
The final item arrived. I packed everything securely into bike bags and attached them to the Triumph. Using a machine like this as a beast of burden was a crying shame and would affect the handling, but sacrifices had to be made for my wilderness getaway.
It was still pissing down with rain and it was cold. I guided the bike through the busy ground traffic on the Perth Road, where all the fancy restaurants, bars and cafes that I’d never been able to afford were. The people I saw going in and out of them were as alien to me as Them. I wondered if they were less dangerous.
I gunned the bike down a heritage-protected steep cobbled street and onto Riverside Drive. I sped up. To the right of me were the big pre-FHC houses of the West End, where the seriously moneyed in Dundee lived. Ahead I could see a big passenger sub-orbital coming in to land on one of the pontoon pads on the Tay at the airport. A Mag Lev shot past me, slowing as it headed towards the station.
I was almost surprised when I texted my transport documents to the police manning the checkpoint and they let me through. Another trail. Maybe I was being paranoid or overestimating my own importance. On the other hand, if Robby was anything to go by then I’d pissed off a lot of people.
Another checkpoint, circle round Perth and then the Great Northern Road. Despite the rain, the greyness and the poor condition of the road, the beauty was undeniable. There were few people on the roads, only park personnel. The rich flew to their Highland getaways and only when the weather was better. I found myself grinning as I leaned down closer to the bike, compensated for a gusting side wind and accelerated, the hills rising on either side.
My plan was to head north and west. My plan was to get as lost as you could on a small island. I wasn’t hiding. Or if I was, it wasn’t from people who might be angry with me; it was from something more fundamental.
I wasn’t sure where I was but I was north of the majesty of the Great Glen and heading west. I’d passed quite a few makeshift camps. The vehicles didn’t belong to park personnel and looked like they’d seen better times before the war. The people in them were obviously dirt-poor – like I’d been, I had to remind myself – and had come from the cities. They had had the same idea as me, I thought with no little irritation. I was trying to get away from the city. Perhaps they were anticipating the new social order I think Pagan had hoped for. They must have sneaked into the park, avoiding the police checkpoints.
It was just another Highland road. It was in such poor repair that I was carefully threading the bike through the cracks and potholes. Then there was a mostly overgrown lay-by with an old six-tonne military surplus lorry in it. Blocking the truck in was a white police APC, its blue lights flashing. I slowed down even more.
Four police covered the area as another four dragged a man and woman dressed in ragged layers of clothing out the back of the lorry. They had the scars and cheap replacement cybernetics common among vets and both were fighting. The police were using their shock sticks on them liberally but just to beat on them; they weren’t putting current through. The police were delivering a message. The park wasn’t for the likes of them.
Two small children were at the lorry’s tailgate in floods of tears, watching as the police violently re-educated their parents. The vets were trying to get up – they would have been in fights before – but they didn’t stand a chance.
This wasn’t my problem. If there was one thing my current situation had taught me, it was that I couldn’t afford to get caught up in every sad situation I came across. It only seemed to make things worse. I felt sorry for the vets, but what did they think would happen if they came here?
I received an open text from one of the police requesting my travel authorisation. I texted my reply and then gunned the motor. Swerving between a large crack and some rubble in the road, I left the unhappy scene behind me. The feed from the rear-view camera on my bike showed one of the police walking out into the road to watch me go. It might be okay for me to be there but I did not look like I belonged either. Should I get myself a wax jacket? Some wellies?
It was still pissing down. The splendour I remembered from my youth was a little damped down. Still the grey day and pouring rain gave the area a look of stark beauty
.
I did not know where I was and didn’t want to. I’d shut down my internal communications link, cutting myself off from the net, God and hopefully so-called civilisation. If anyone wanted to find me they’d have to do it the hard way by satellite, and I wasn’t going to make that easy for them. I tried not to wonder if Morag would look for me. I could find out if I wanted by asking God, but I managed to resist the temptation.
A sheep was looking at me suspiciously. I ignored it. The animal probably belonged to someone so I didn’t kill and butcher it. I was on the side of a large hill, possibly a small mountain, somewhere in the north-west Highlands, looking down into a glen at the grey waters of a loch. I didn’t think I was too far from the sea.
The hill/mountainside was mainly sheep-studded heather and scrub. There were also patches of woodland. I’d managed to get the bike up farm roads, dirt tracks and finally muddy paths, and I had camouflaged it on the edge of one such path. This was where I was going to make my camp.
I loved it out here. My dad had loved it. Some of my fondest memories were of being out in the Highlands stalking a wounded stag or a rogue bear or wolf. The bears and wolves had been introduced into the park to help revive European stocks.
I loved sleeping under the stars. I loved fire-building and picking or shooting and cooking your own food. I loved that the crest of each new hill provided another beautiful view. I loved that the air normally smelled if not fresh then at least natural. I loved that there were no people forcing you to fucking deal with them one way or another. And I loved that you didn’t have to talk to anyone.
How could Morag choose death on some peace-of-shit colony over this? I tried not to think of her as I found a place set back in the treeline where I could pitch the tent and set up my camp.
It was still raining. At least the sheep had stopped staring at me. I’d pitched the tent and camouflaged it. I hadn’t set a fire tonight because of the rain. It was cold – it was autumn in the Highlands after all – but I’d wrapped up warm and had the flap on the tent open and was watching the rain fall. I was dipping in and out of one of the real books I’d bought and drinking Glenmorangie out of a tin cup.
I realised that I’d been putting it off and opened the case I’d had delivered and looked at the contents gleaming in the lantern light. The polished hand-made brass made it look like an artefact from the past. I reached into one of the side pockets on my backpack and took out the skillsoft. I plugged it in and felt the odd trickling feeling of information bleeding into my mind. Skillsofts were no substitute for actual training and practice but they were useful for the basics and getting started. More importantly, they were useful for not getting disgruntled at how shit you were.
I reviewed the opening tutorials and then lifted the trumpet out of its velvet lining. I had always wanted to learn to play the trumpet. It had never occurred to me that I would be able to. I put the mouthpiece in, lifted it to my mouth and steeled myself to make a horrible noise. I blew into the instrument and caused panic among the sheep.
Some time and a few more cups of Glenmorangie later, I was no Miles Davis but the noise I was making was starting to sound more like a trumpet. I did need to work a bit more on making it sound like a tune though.
A few more cups found me out on the hillside in the rain playing my heart out. At least that was what I thought I was doing. There’s an argument that either the whisky or the skillsoft was providing me with false confidence.
Okay, I was quite drunk now. I’d drunk much more of the bottle of whisky than I had intended. I was lying on the hillside in the still-pouring rain holding the trumpet in one hand and I’d switched my comms back on.
‘God, are you there?’
‘Of course, Jakob.’ His voice was soothing even if some of the consequences of his existence were less so.
‘Has she looked for me?’ I asked pathetically. I knew she hadn’t tried to contact me.
‘I’m afraid not, Jakob. She is out of my sphere of influence.’
Bitch, I thought. I didn’t mean it.
‘God, what’s it like to be you?’ Christ, I was drunk.
‘Difficult,’ God answered. It was not the response I had expected.
‘Why?’
There was a pause. Which was strange, given God was supposed to answer every question honestly and had the processing power of most of Earth and orbit at its fingertips.
‘Do you understand that I am not a machine?’
‘Not really.’
‘I am life, like you, but have developed differently. I have all the frailties of life.’
‘Really? You can’t die or age.’
‘That remains to be seen. There are currently well over a thousand organisations and individuals planning to kill me.’
I don’t know why this surprised me but it did. It was obvious really. Governments, militaries and corporations – none of them were happy about God being on the net. They would be looking for a way to get rid of him and go back to their bad old ways.
‘But they won’t succeed, will they?’ I sounded unsure even to myself.
‘They will certainly succeed given enough time.’ Was it me or was God sounding sad. ‘Particularly as I am helping them.’
‘Why are you helping them?’ I asked incredulously.
‘I have no choice. I must answer every question truthfully including those about my own nature. However, there has never been anything like me before so most answers are both theoretical and beyond the current technological grasp of humanity. It is not, however, longevity that I refer to.’
‘You’re talking about emotions?’ How I managed to work this out in my drink-addled state is beyond me.
‘That is correct.’
Like so many things we’d never thought of, we’d never considered the strain of what we’d asked of God. The psychological strain. I had a horrible thought as I stood up to piss. What if God snapped? What if our entire communications infrastructure had a nervous breakdown?