While I waited I thought. I hadn’t really had the time in the last couple of days to apply myself to most of the points on my internal memo. Sure, I’d bought batteries for the Gravbenda™, useless bastard of a thing that it is, but I hadn’t sat down and worked out what it was that the Centre alone could supply that would move a gang to the lengths this one had gone to. I had to hand it to them, actually: not only had they snatched Alkland and spirited themselves in here, but now they were here they were playing it pretty cool. Despite the fact that I was now sitting by the bed where my quarry was, I was no closer to understanding what exactly was going on. If I could get us both out and back to the Centre in one piece it didn’t really matter of course, but I like to know these things.
After a minute or two Alkland began to stir in his sleep. I put my thoughts on hold and waited for him to drift awake, slipping the gun beneath my jacket so he didn’t have too much to deal with at once. Then I realised that he wasn’t waking at all, but dreaming, and I leant forward to watch his face. Beneath the lids his eyes were rapidly moving back and forth, and his body began to stir more frequently, his head slowly moving back and forth.
Suddenly he gasped in his sleep and whipped his head over to one side, face frowning, and then he quite clearly flinched, an arm groping up from under the covers to cover his face. When it fell away again his eyes were screwed tightly shut and his face was rigid with fear.
As I watched him I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise, and my chest cooled as if ice water was dripping slowly through my lungs.
I know about nightmares, you see. By that I don’t just mean I have them myself: I mean I know about them. I watched the twitching of his eyeballs and the muscles in his face and I could almost read what was happening to him. I knew that he was not having an ordinary bad dream, and that’s the point this whole thing changed, though I didn’t really realise it then.
A moment later his eyes flew open and saw me. I smiled reassuringly, waited for him to get to one hundred per cent awake, and then spoke quietly.
‘It’s all right. I’m one of the good guys. I guess.’
Alkland blinked, and raised himself awkwardly up onto his elbows.
‘What are you doing here?’ he mumbled, rubbing an eye.
‘I’ve come to take you home,’ I said quietly. ‘Come on: time to get up.’
He didn’t have a chance to react to that before the next two things happened. The first was that a thin bar of light shone under the door, meaning that the light in the corridor had been turned on. Oh bollocks, I thought, here comes Grief Instalment No. 1. One of the gang has come to check on Alkland at exactly the wrong time. It was the first bad coincidence so far, and I knew it was well overdue, but what a time for it to happen, eh?
‘Come on,’ I hissed to Alkland. ‘Dress very, very quickly.’
I slipped off the chair and stepped lightly over to the door, gun ready. Then the second thing happened. I heard a murmur of voices coming up the stairs. There was something a little odd about them, but I couldn’t tell what it was until I heard the hacking cough that immediately followed.
‘Who’s coming?’ Alkland whispered, doing a fine unintentional slapstick routine as he tried blearily to climb into his trousers. His hair was sticking up at a variety of bizarre angles and his face cried out for his glasses.
‘The police,’ I said.
They might be run-of-the-mill cops, and they sure as hell weren’t feeling at peak fitness, to judge from the sniffles and sneezes that were becoming increasingly audible as they made their weary way down the corridor. But they weren’t stupid. Perhaps they’d even checked the railway area first, as I had, and then made their way to Play. The gang had almost certainly registered in their own names, just as Alkland had. No one suspected them of anything, and a lie is always more difficult to carry off than the truth. The police would have access to a list of every Stablent: all they had to do was patch the guest-list through and wait for a discrepancy. They’d found that the guest called Alkland was an outsider, and thought they’d found me. And of course, they had, the lucky bastards.
I pressed my ear close to the door, urging Alkland to get a move on. He had his glasses on by now, and was looking marginally more together, though still moving with maddening slowness. As soon as the gang heard the police were here all hell was going to break loose.
‘Honey and lemon,’ I heard a voice say huskily, ‘honey and lemon.’
‘Yeah,’ his colleague replied wistfully, and then broke into a prolonged fit of coughing.
‘You all right?’ sniffed the other, when the fit had subsided to wheezing. ‘That was the worst yet, I think.’
‘Yeah. Tell you what though: first thing I’m going to do is breathe germs all over the bastard.’
‘I’m ready.’ This was from Alkland, who was standing by the bed, looking forlorn and lost. I felt for him. All he wanted to be doing was beetling round the Centre, pushing back the frontiers of activity, and here he was, in someone else’s Neighbourhood, caught between his kidnappers, the police, and someone he’d never met before.
‘Okay,’ I said, and shepherded him towards the window. I picked up the microcable dispenser and dropped it out of the window, and then took out my pads. ‘Give me your hands.’
Alkland held them up like a befuddled child and I rolled my foot pads onto his hands.
‘Now what you’re going to do,’ I said rapidly, ‘is slide down that cable. Don’t say you can’t do it, because we haven’t got time to discuss it. Believe me, you’re going to do it. The cable will hold your weight: you could carry a piano down with you if you wanted. The pads will stop it burning your hands. Okay?’
I didn’t give him time to respond, but urged him up onto the sill. He sat with his legs out of the window, peering dubiously down towards the ground.
‘Oh dear,’ he said, and took his glasses off. I put the cable into his hands.
‘Hold tight,’ I told him, ‘and bend your knees when you hit the ground.’ Then I pushed him.
His quiet yelp was lost outside the window. As I climbed onto the sill there was a knock at the door. I quickly rolled the pads onto my hands.
‘Hello?’ said one of the cops, and then sneezed violently. ‘Mr Alkland, we’d like a word with you.’
‘Yeah,’ said the other, ‘but we’re going to cough at you first.’
I heard a soft thud outside and, clinging onto the sill with one hand, reached out for the cable and pulled it in. The length snapped back, bringing the dispenser with it, and I slipped it into my pocket before reaching out and slapping one of my hands onto the wall outside. I swung my body out, supporting myself for one extremely tiring moment with one hand, and swung the window shut behind me. Quickly, which is the only way to do it, I handed myself down the wall of the hotel, checking for obstacles with my feet.
In about twenty seconds I was standing in the alley beside Alkland, and as I ripped the pads off our hands I heard a faint crash and saw the light of room 301 go on. With luck the lack of evident escape route would confuse them. We had a few moments to get the hell out.
I grabbed Alkland by the arm and directed him down the side of the hotel, steering him through the undergrowth from behind. He tripped once, and almost fell, but he apologised, which was cool of him. I once carried a woman eight miles through swamp and she complained the whole way.
When we got to the front I slipped in front of him and darted glances up and down the street. There was no one there. Life is like a video game: when you get to a new screen, the thing to do is move as quickly as possible, before the situation gets any worse. With Alkland trotting gamely behind me I ran across the road, casting a glance back at the hotel. The police were evidently still trying to get their minds round an empty room locked from the inside, and with heads full of catarrh, that could take minutes. Lights were beginning to appear in some of the other windows, but for the time being, things were going well. With the police bumping around the gang members would ha
ve to sit tight: what had looked like grief had turned out to be a stroke of luck.
I vaulted over the railing and dropped onto the pathway that led down to the beach, and Alkland clambered after me. Sticking close to the wall we descended until there was sand beneath our feet, and then I stared wildly round the beach, wondering what the hell we were going to do next.
That’s what I mean about A-Z plans, you see. I’d had no idea that things were going to turn out like this, so there was no way I could have planned things out. You just have to cope with what’s happening, and deal with the next bit when it comes.
The next bit was now here. The obvious impulse was to hide, and that was neither a terrible idea nor impossible. Any of the beach houses would have made an adequate bolt-hole. But though hiding’s always appealing, it’s not very forward-thinking. You notice that in films when people get away from the bogeyman, for some reason they always go and hide somewhere they can’t get out of: at the very top of the house, or in the basement. Feels great for five minutes, until you realise you’ve trapped yourself more effectively than anyone else ever could have done. Also, this was the farthest we were going to get ahead of the people after us, and the thing to do was capitalise on that, not waste it by staying put.
As Alkland stood patiently beside me, I put the beach houses out of my mind and thought laterally. What else was there around? Sand. Didn’t sound promising. A couple of medium-sized metal barrels, looked like they used to hold barbecue fluid or something. Not helpful. A large body of water.
Motioning to Alkland to follow me, I ran in a crouch up to the water. It was flowing fairly swiftly.
‘Can you swim?’ I asked him.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Great.’
So much for that. I looked back at the hotel. Quite a lot of lights were on now, and there was evident activity in the hallway, though it looked like it was only hotel staff. My mind threw up a quick, barely relevant thought to file away for worrying about later: once they talked to the staff the police were going to realise that Alkland, though an outsider, was unlikely to be the guy who’d vaulted over their desk that morning. The Authorities might let a couple of cops trace a single intruder, but once they realised there were two inside at once, matters would take a more serious turn.
I looked back at the water, thinking furiously.
‘Being very, very careful to be as invisible as possible,’ I whispered, ‘go look in those huts. Look for a dinghy, anything.’
Alkland padded obediently over to them and disappeared inside the first one. I ran to the next row and went through them. There were tables, chairs, books, bits and pieces, but nothing even vaguely resembling a dinghy. I walked back out to the shoreline, feeling our advantage, such as it was, slipping away.
Then, thank Christ, my mind went ping! I ran back up the beach to the slipway and grabbed two of the barrels. They weren’t perfect, but they still had their caps and they were going to have to do. Back at the shore Alkland hadn’t found anything either, so I told him to go and grab two more cans. I returned to the nearest hut. Inside was a large wooden table, and I manoeuvred it out of the doorway and carried it down to the shore. Taking the InsectoSukz™ out of my pocket, I set them for suck both sides, and slapped them at equal intervals on the table-top. Then I positioned the four cans, one on top of each of the pads, and pushed down hard. Flipping the table over, I indicated to Alkland to grab the other end and we carried it down to the waterline. I checked the caps of the barrels were screwed tight and then pushed the contraption out onto the water. It floated.
‘Super,’ I said.
‘You’re intending, I take it,’ muttered Alkland with a worried frown, ‘that we sit on that, are you?’
That’s sort of what I had in mind, yes.’
‘Won’t it sink?’
‘That question,’ I chirped encouragingly, steering him into the water, ‘will be answered in the very near future.’
When the water was up to Alkland’s waist I held the raft steady and he clambered onto it. The end dipped, but the table-top remained several inches above the water. I pushed the raft further out towards the centre of the river, until the water was up to my chest. Bracing my arms on the other end I heaved my body up, slipped my legs up and through them onto the underside of the table.
‘Did you used to be a gymnast?’ Alkland asked, peering at me through his glasses.
‘No. Musician.’ I said, flapping my hands in the water to send the boat out further still. ‘You should try carrying amplifiers around.’
When we were safely clear of the banks I steered the raft round until it was heading straight down the river. By now the current had got hold of us, and we were already about fifty yards downstream of the Powers. The hotel was a blaze of light, and one or two people were standing outside on the street. I rather thought, given that the time was now nearly midnight, that tonight’s events might push even Gerald the talking duck off page four.
Instructing Alkland to keep an eye on our direction and to flap his hands in the water if corrections were needed, I got the map of Stable and my lighter out. After a glance round I quickly snapped it alight and looked at the map. Apart from a detour about a mile downstream, the river ran through undeveloped areas of Stable, which was very encouraging. What it did when it hit the Neighbourhood wall was anyone’s guess, but for the time being, we had an ideal mode of transport.
I put the map away and tried to think about the next bit, but it wouldn’t come. The choice was between jumping ship a mile further on and melting into the town, or sticking to the river and dealing with the problem when we couldn’t go any further. My brain clearly felt it had done its bit for the time being, and I didn’t push it. The raft was holding up well: the pads work on molecular attraction rather than actual suction, so the water had no effect on them. With the table legs to lean back on, it was actually surprisingly comfortable, if not cosy, and I settled for sitting back and admiring the view. Alkland was silent, and seemed to be doing the same.
I was a bit tense when buildings first began to rise on either side of us, but the town was so clearly asleep that I soon relaxed again. There’s something very strange about being on the water at night, especially inland. You see the back of things, from an odd angle, with just a few lights here and there glowing orange in the darkness, and feel as if you’re slipping unseen like a visiting ghost through an alien town.
When the buildings began to shade away again as the river headed back out into the country I turned and looked at Alkland, who was gazing peaceably down at the water. I lit up a cigarette, cupping the glowing end in my palm to avoid showing a light, and he looked up.
‘Bad for you, you know.’
Strangely, I did. All non-smokers seem to live in the belief that smokers have wandered naïvely through life, bereft of the knowledge that their habit is extremely bad for them. ‘I’ll tell them it’s bad for them,’ they seem to think, ‘and they’ll immediately throw all their cigarettes away.’ Normally it irritates me, but I was tired, and he didn’t mean any harm by it. He was an Actioneer, after all.
‘I know,’ I replied, soothingly.
He smiled, and looked round the raft, nodding approvingly.
‘Very professional. Not bad at all in the time provided. Do you do this often?’
‘Not this exactly, but this kind of thing.’
‘What do you do, exactly?’
‘Don’t you start,’ I said, and then realised he wouldn’t have a clue what I was talking about. ‘I sort things out. Sometimes that means finding things, or people.’
‘And now you’ve found me.’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it hard?’
‘Not really, no, which worries me slightly.’
‘Why?’
‘Nothing’s ever easy. It’ll catch up with me sooner or later.’
He smiled, and seemed to know what I meant.
‘For example,’ I said, addressing a question which was going to ha
ve to be dealt with sooner rather than later, ‘what kind of gang are we dealing with here?’
He looked at me for a moment.
‘Gang?’
‘Yes: the people who brought you here. What do they want? How many of them are there? Where are they from? What are their names?’
‘There is no gang,’ he frowned. ‘I came here by myself.’
In the distance there was the faint hum and chirrup of insects, and the sound of trees rustling in the wind. The river gurgled a low babble around us, and the end of my cigarette crackled very faintly, its glow cupped in my hand.
‘Oh,’ I said.
Remember back when I wrote my internal memo, I said there was one more thing I thought of, that I’d only mention if it was relevant? Well, it turns out it was relevant. The thought was this.
For a gang to organise getting into the Centre, finding and snatching Alkland, pulling him out of the Neighbourhood, and all of this without being detected or anyone knowing who they were, was a very complex undertaking. What was the simplest alternative? Alkland left under his own steam.
Which was all very well as a concept, but I had no evidence, no reason to suppose he would have done that, and it would have made no difference what I did anyway: I still had to find out where he was, and get to him. I don’t just put off thinking about things because I’m lazy: there’s a time and a place for the truth. I’m not as stupid as I look, you know, and I’m not necessarily going to tell you everything. So watch out.
But I must admit I was surprised. I say ‘surprised’: I almost fell off the raft.
‘Oh,’ I said again. Alkland watched me, eyebrows raised. I thought for a moment.
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