Shopocalypse

by David Gullen

  ‘And now he’s Stateside.’

  ‘Correct. He’s arranged a rendezvous with some creeps from Birmingham, the errand boys for the Vegas run. Manalito’s going to chew gum and take names.’

  The window beside Wilson became opaque and mug shots of Manalito appeared, front, profile and three-quarters. Wilson tapped the window and stats scrolled in a frame: 194cm, 234lbs, 26 years old, wanted in eight states for murder, kidnap, aggravated assault, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, the list went on. He tapped the glass again and the pictures returned. Manalito was physically impressive, even handsome, with high cheekbones and aquiline nose.

  ‘So what’s smart money?’ Wilson said.

  ‘Semi-bright 2D nano. Handle it and it scans and stores your prints and DNA, then polls the FedMesh at the next till.’ Masters pulled a small screen with a touch pad from her pocket. ‘These units interrogate the Mesh, plot, track and extrapolate probable routes. This one’s mine. Yours is in the glove box.’

  ‘That’s… impressive.’ Wilson extracted his tracking device. The operation was simple, all the intelligence was in the money. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Few do. Brand new Arabtech, hot from the deserts of Oman. They’re good at it. Like we used to be.’ Masters pulled a sour face. ‘Must be all that sand, or the special sherbet. You didn’t hear any of this and non-disclosure is implied and expected.’

  Wilson didn’t like that last bit at all. ‘The objective with Manalito is what?’

  ‘Information gathering. Core-dump the redskin and scalp the others. We share what we find. Take anything you can use to hurt Gould with our fondest regards. Whatever you decide to do next, we’ll be looking elsewhere.’

  Wilson doubted that entirely. ‘I don’t want to just hurt Gould.’

  Masters looked at him properly for the first time, serious, appraising. Then she winked. ‘That’s good. I like that. Honesty is rare and refreshing.’

  ‘You’re recording this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  It was the first time they both found the same thing funny.

  - 21 -

  The big sea canoe rolled with the swell as Bianca awoke, the long outrigger lifted and slapped down into the water. Seated in the last but one position she could see two of the men forwards of her working their paddles while the others, including the grey-haired man behind her, slept. The night was almost over, pale dawn light tinged the eastern horizon while stars still burned in the black west.

  The two canoes had paced each other through the darkness, more intent on keeping together and aligned with the star field than in making way. The six islanders in Bianca’s canoe worked in pairs, letting the others rest or sleep, the men and women in Tekirei’s canoe did the same. Bianca rubbed her palms, tender from the previous day. She was used to manual work, enjoyed achieving things with sweat and muscle, yet her hands were not used to paddling for hour after hour across the Pacific.

  ‘It is only a short journey,’ Tekirei had told her. ‘A day and a half, two if the wind is against us.’

  What if there is a storm, Bianca wanted to ask. What about sharks? She had kept quiet, not wanting Tekirei to see her nerves.

  ‘It is good to sometimes do things the way they have always been done,’ Tekirei said. He showed Bianca the contents of his bag. ‘I also like to have ultra-lite life jackets, Satnav and distress beacons. These days our voyages are for pleasure, not necessity. We keep alive the old skills and traditions and have a good time too. The weather will be fine, the seas not too high, and the currents generally good. If there is a serious problem a seaplane can be with us in under an hour.’

  Bianca had major doubts about whether spending two days paddling across the ocean in a canoe would be anything approaching fun. If nothing else, it would be an adventure few people from her background experienced. It was worth a little risk and discomfort simply for that.

  Now, floating in the pre-dawn light, unknown miles north-east of Pohnpei, she felt nothing but gladness. With every hour at sea, every mile they travelled the world and its worries had slipped away behind her. Not ignored, just temporarily no longer required.

  ‘How far from Pohnpei are we?’ she asked Mautake, the young man in front of her. He looked past her to the older man, and although he smiled, he also shook his head. His nose was a little flatter than Mautake’s, his mouth a thin slash. All throughout the voyage he had barely spoken, simply acknowledging the water and food passed back and forth with polite nods.

  ‘Tekirei likes the mood of these journeys to approach the way things might have been. We are a little over halfway,’ Mautake said.

  As he spoke, Mautake winked then glanced down to his hip where he splayed his fingers six times. Then he yawned, stretched and took up his paddle.

  The sun rose, the sea turned red then gold and the sun lofted into a sky of high white haze. The crews called greetings to each other across the water and the two sea canoes drew together. Bianca waved to Tekirei.

  ‘Good morning,’ he called. ‘Did you manage to sleep?’

  ‘More than I thought.’ Bianca realised she was tucking back loose strands of hair and pulled her hand down. All of a sudden she felt very self-conscious. Whatever the other men in the boats knew, or suspected about her relationship with Tekirei, they were very polite, the younger men friendly, the older men more reserved. Most probably they simply believed she was the patron to Tekirei’s projects and he was taking her to his home to introduce his daughter and family. Bianca recalled their conversation at the ruins of Nan Madol; it was little short of the actual truth.

  Tekirei pointed to the thin, high clouds. ‘Today will be very hot.’

  Despite their much darker skins the men in both canoes were applying UV protection, Bianca followed suit. Everyone took up their paddles, dug them into the water and the canoes moved off.

  Behind the high haze the sun was soon blistering, far hotter than the day before. After about half an hour the front man dropped out, rested for around fifteen minutes, then resumed paddling. As he did so, the man behind him rested, and so on along the line until it was Bianca’s turn, and then the old man behind her.

  The day wore on. The men began a slow, hypnotic song in their own language, Kiribati. Unable to understand, Bianca felt the rhythm of the words, the beat they gave to the paddling. She slipped into a semi-trance, her breath and stroke matched to the steady pulse of the song.

  A shout came from Tekirei’s canoe, a pointed arm. Away to starboard a shoal of flying fish broke water, skimmed a hundred feet through the air and dropped below the surface. Sleek grey-blue dorsal fins cut the water behind them as dolphins pursued their prey. The fish flew again and the encounter moved away across the ocean.

  ‘Those dolphins were not trying too hard,’ Mautake said. ‘They like to play, to party. For them life is a fine game.’

  Awestruck and enchanted, Bianca was impressed by the animals’ energy and speed. Mautake shook his head. ‘They hunt for the joy of the chase. The sharks never play.’

  Bianca looked around anxiously. Miles of dark water lay under the thin hull of their canoe. ‘What sharks?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mautake smiled with easy assurance. ‘Tiger sharks are easy to kill, and rokea only sink your canoe if you steal their fish.’

  An hour later, a conversation broke out between Tekirei and the old man in the stern. The two boats held position while the sea water was tasted and the two men stood and looked out across the swell.

  ‘The sea changes here,’ Mautake said. ‘It becomes darker and colder, the waves flat and heavy. Tekirei thinks we have come far enough. My father disagrees because the water is too sweet.’

  Bianca looked out across the ocean. Perhaps it did have a deeper shade, the swell more ponderous. ‘Who do you think is right?’

  Mautake grinned. ‘My father, of course. He is strong and brave, wise and virile as a turtle, fascinating to women, a superb fisherman and skilled in many crafts and arts.
All traits I have inherited to a large degree.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Bianca said. ‘Is modesty also one of his attributes?’

  Mautake stroked his chin. ‘That was not on the list he gave me.’

  Mautake’s father won the argument and they paddled for another hour before repeating the process. This time they agreed, the canoes turned to port and they set off again.

  ‘This has all had to be relearned, like fighting tiger sharks.’ Mautake said. ‘When Enewetak sank beneath the rising waves some of us went to Australia, others the USA. Many followed Tekirei to live with his relatives on Ujelang atoll.’ Mautake spoke slowly, matching his words to his breathing as he paddled. Both swell and wind were growing and everyone worked hard to drive the boats up the foam-flecked waves and across the troughs.

  ‘Ujelang was a difficult place to live at first. Technology saved us, solar stills and medicines, engineered plants. My father spoke to an old man on Pohnpei, a hurricane survivor. He relearned the lost routes, made solo voyages, and now he teaches me.’

  ‘How do you kill the sharks?’

  ‘Tigers?’ Mautake spat over the side. ‘They are brutes, too broad to turn when they charge. At the last moment you must swim to one side and hold out your knife. The shark’s speed and weight drive it onto the blade and it destroys itself. Very easy,’ Mautake laughed. ‘Apparently.’

  ‘And the others, the rokea?’

  Mautake’s smile faded. ‘No, you do not try to kill them. Even dolphin fear rokea.’

  The slate-blue ocean swelled higher and higher, each wave-top flecked with spume. The canoes rose and fell on the high waves, their prows breaching clear at the summits. The view at the crests showed an endless heaving seascape in all directions. Everyone was paddling now, the time for rest and conversation gone. Bianca matched her rhythm with the lead man, the best paddler in the canoe, and drove her paddle into the water until her arms burned with the effort.

  A cry went up from Tekirei’s canoe and it surged forwards.

  ‘Land,’ Mautake gasped. ‘Ahead.’

  Too breathless to speak Bianca looked across the ocean at the next peak. Nothing. Another peak came and there, over to the left she saw a dark line upon the water. The sight gave her energy, joy.

  ‘You see it!’ Mautake gasped. ‘Ujelang atoll.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They held to their course, keeping the atoll to port until almost parallel to it. Then the canoes swung hard over, Tekirei’s canoe dropping behind. Now Bianca could see the atoll in more detail. Clusters of palms, a glimpse of sand, a few dark shapes running on the beach.

  ‘This,’ Mautake bared his teeth, ‘is the fun bit.’

  Behind Bianca, Mautake’s taciturn father touched her shoulder. Now his eyes were wide, his smile broad. ‘When you are on the wave, paddle like a tiger shark is on your heels.’ He laughed, high pitched and shrill, and dug furiously at the water.

  ‘What wave?’ Bianca said.

  Then she saw it.

  Two hundred yards away the ocean crashed endlessly against the atoll reef. Spray burst upwards, the deep boom of each strike thrummed in the air.

  There was a break in the reef forty feet wide. Oceanic combers piled against the reef and collapsed through the gap in a gigantic boil of leaping water. Bianca’s canoe headed straight for it.

  The paddler at the prow led them in, working furiously one moment, coasting the next. Part terrified, part exhilarated, Bianca realised they were trying to synchronise with the incoming waves. Behind her, Mautake’s father leaned on his paddle like a tiller and kept the bows pointed towards the gap.

  They were close now. The waves pushed them at the reef, the brutally jagged coral close ahead. The stern lifted, the prow dipped.

  ‘Ya!’ everyone cried, and drove their paddles into the rising wave.

  Bianca felt as if a great hand lifted the canoe and pitched it forwards. The air roared, spume burst all around, they swept past the sharp coral in a blur.

  Then they were coasting in the calm lagoon. Bianca yelled and whooped as loud as Mautake and the others. A crowd of people waved and shouted on the beach, children leapt with excitement. Bianca turned in her seat and saw Tekirei’s canoe ride the gap. White water churned around and above it. Briefly, the canoe was lost to sight. Then it hurtled clear.

  Bianca marvelled that she had just done such a thing herself.

  White sand, blue sky, the roar of surf, a crowd of people on a beach backed by palm trees. Never had Bianca felt so far removed from her own life.

  Children, men, and women ran into the sea. And there was Tanoata, Tekirei’s teenage daughter. She splashed through the shallows in her bright skirt towards her father’s canoe. Tekirei leaned over the side and embraced her, kissed her forehead then turned to wave to Bianca, his teeth flashing white.

  ‘Tekirei,’ Bianca called and waved. ‘Tanoata.’

  Tanoata stared blankly for a moment, then took hold of the gunwales of her father’s canoe and helped haul it towards the shore.

  - 22 -

  “The making of breakfast at the same time by millions of people across the country is as much a part of the production line as is work at the conveyor belt an hour later. Our behaviour has been profoundly altered by the production line. Standardisation increases efficiency of output, and as a result, only the rich can afford possessions that are truly unique. The rest of the community lives in the same kind of house, wears the same pattern of clothes, drives the same car, watches the same TV programmes, dreams the same dreams in the hierarchy of work.”

  – J. Burke, Connections

  Oscar Gordano managed about twenty miles before the knot of fear in his guts grew so bad he knew he was going to puke.

  ‘Pull over,’ he told the driver. As soon as the car stopped he was out the door, took five steps into the trees at the side of the road, and threw up. Ahead and behind, the black escort cars had also halted. Gordano waved away the muscular, crop-headed agents as they emerged.

  ‘It’s okay. I just puked.’

  ‘Are you ill, sir?’ the nearest agent said. His firm jaw and clear, pale eyes, the way his dark suit fitted his shoulders and chest, everything about him made Gordano feel inadequate.

  ‘No. It’s cool,’ he lied. ‘We did some legals at the end of the meeting.’ Gordano blew his nose and dropped the tissue on the ground. ‘Late night, empty stomach, pharma fun does it to me every time.’

  Unsmiling, the security agent turned away. The rest of his team had already fanned out, their passives and actives deployed in an impromptu cordon.

  Gordano looked down at his trembling hand. Christ, what had he been thinking of, opening up to the President like that? If Gould found out he’d be dead meat. Laundering Gould’s money through the Gordano casinos had been good for them both. Snarlow for Chrissakes! He’d given her a real piece of leverage and for what? Her temporary and undependable respect. He didn’t want her respect; she could take it and stick it inside her overheated and echoing twat.

  It was just the drugs. He’d lost his nerve about the opinion polls, the situation building in the UN. Then Andriewiscz’s talk about battlefield nukes had freaked him and he’d blabbed. He’d wanted to show he could piss as high up the tree as anyone, that despite the fact he was only the VP he was also a player.

  Gordano blew his nose again and returned to his car. He took a drink of water, swilled his mouth out and spat. Then he settled into his seat and sat quietly for a while. ‘Call my wife,’ he told the car.

  After a moment the windscreen greyed out, and there she was, sprawled on her side on a garden lounger wearing nothing but jewellery. The gold waist and breast chains contrasted well with her tanned skin, the diamond and gold piercings through her ears, nipples and labia sparkled in the sun.

  Her welcoming smile was flawless, her greeting effusive. ‘Oscar, darling! My poor baby, where are you?’ She gestured expansively behind her. ‘The new pool is wonderful.’

  In the background Gordan
o could see figures lounging in the manicured acreage of his garden. Servants wore light costume, formal shorts or ribbon skirts. Most of the guests were nude.

  ‘Enjoy it, Jazmin. Look, I’m delayed half a day. It’s this crisis in Mexico.’

  Jazmin leaned forwards, pouting sympathy. ‘Baby, you work too hard. Why is the Mexican government so unreasonable?’

  Gordano watched her breast swing, ‘They want to destroy our way of life.’ He gestured towards the figures by the pool. ‘Make sure you tell our friends.’

  ‘You got it honey.’ Jazmin’s heart-shaped face showed a frown. ‘Oscar, I just remember, Shirleen called–’

  ‘What the hell does she want?’ Gordano’s guts knotted. His relationship with last year’s wife had ended, as the nuptial negotiator had put it, disharmoniously.

  ‘She wanted to tell you–’

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Jazmin. Can’t you keep that harpy off my back?’

  ‘Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, okay?’ Jazmin swung her feet onto the floor and walked away. The cell view panned past her as she went. Gordano admired the way everything readjusted as she moved, firm but mobile. He’d been sceptical at first but the active implants she had cajoled out of him had been money well spent.

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetness,’ Gordano said weakly. ‘Look, I don’t want to argue. Shirleen and I, you know how she got to me. Honey, sweet-pea, let’s not fight. How about we log this as a level two spat, my misdemeanour, and we forget about it?’

  He was being generous, level twos were generally considered to be screaming bust-ups. Jazmin shrugged and blew him a kiss. ‘Sure thing. Let me log it and we can get on.’

  Gordano waited while she registered the infraction on her bracelet. A moment later he received the application, acknowledged his wife as the injured party and countersigned it. ‘Ah, so what did Shirl want?’