by Andrew Tudor
“Hey,” he said. “You look like it’s been a tough day.”
“Mmmmn. No more than usual with that lot. But I’ve had my ear bent by Michael Lang. He wonders if we could approach Sarah again by enlisting Irene’s help.”
“Yes, he had a go at me yesterday. What do you think? Might Irene sway it? Or would she want to keep Sarah and her grandchild in England?”
“Given the way England’s going she might believe they’d be safer up here. Can you still get a letter to her?”
“Yes, just about,” Douglas said, not looking entirely certain. “It’s getting difficult for my people down there and we’re thinking of pulling them out. We’d have to move quickly.”
“OK. I’ll draft something tonight and get it to you in the morning. I’ve nothing special on tomorrow.”
“Lunchtime will do. I’m busy in the morning anyway. Let’s eat at my flat. One o’clock?”
“Right,” said Ali. “See you then.”
Setting her CommsTab to Do Not Disturb, she called up some music on the sound system, leaned back on the sofa, and began to plan her letter.
Vasilis Kouklakis had lived his entire life in the same small village tucked into the foothills of the Lefka Ori, the White Mountains of Crete. He was an old man now, related by blood or marriage to many of the villagers, and well known to them all. On this particular evening he was sitting outside his house, wrapped up against the night-time chill and staring absently across the olive groves. All was quiet except for the call of a Scops owl somewhere out in the darkness.
Vasilis could barely comprehend what had happened. Over the past weeks the foreign disease that they had heard about on TV had overcome the village, and while some had fled north to the city of Chania in search of treatment, most had remained and died. Now Vasilis was alone with only the sounds of the night for company. All his life he had loved the call of the tiny Scops owl, mournful though it was, knowing it as part of the texture of the countryside in which he had been born, lived and worked. But today he could only hear its familiar melancholy as a desolate cry for the dead souls that surrounded him. Vasilis closed his eyes and listened and waited. What else was there to do?
6
The train from York to London was all but deserted. There were no more than half a dozen civilians in the carriage and as many soldiers playing a noisy card game in the section of seats next to Irene. That the train was thinly populated was hardly a surprise. The current crisis had precipitated a further clampdown on travel and, even for an official of Irene’s status, it was difficult to obtain permits. She was only there courtesy of Jonathan Hart. She had reminded him of his long-ago promise that he would facilitate contact for her with Sarah and, a little to her surprise, he had come up with digital authorisations allowing her to visit her daughter. As far as she understood it, she was designated as one of his staff away in the field on DSD business, a status that quite appealed to her sense of the absurd.
Happy though she always was to see her family, the trip had inevitably turned out to be more business than pleasure. A few days earlier there had been a ring at her doorbell one evening and, on answering it, she found a figure on her doorstep wearing a shoulder bag marked with the familiar ‘Support the Needy’ insignia. From the bag he drew a bundle of leaflets and thrust them into her hand.
“I’ll be back around this time next week,” he said, beaming at her. “You donated last time so I hope you’ll be able to do so again.”
“Yes,” she replied, returning his smile. “I’m sure I’ll have something for you. See you then.”
Sifting through the leaflets she found, as expected, a letter from Ali, but this time not seeking information but asking for help in persuading Sarah of the need to move to Scotland. Initially Irene was aghast at the suggestion, but after reading the whole letter and thinking it through at some length she saw the sense in Ali’s proposal. England was fast becoming disturbingly unstable – Hart made that very observation to her when she saw him later about the travel arrangements – and it was likely that her daughter and granddaughter would have a better chance of survival north of the border. Survival. That was what it had come to, Irene thought, sheer survival.
So it was that she now found herself sitting on a train after two days of intense discussion with Sarah and Hugh. Hugh had been no problem. He was already convinced that they would be best served by returning to his home country. But about Sarah she was less certain. Irene had tried to make it very clear to her daughter that she would not see their departure as in any way abandoning her. Quite the opposite, she argued. It would be a great comfort for her to know that they were out of immediate harm’s way, and, what’s more, they would be well placed to receive her if and when she felt it impossible to remain in England. Not that she had any idea how she might reach them in that event, but at least it absolved Sarah from some of her concerns. In the end, though, her daughter remained undecided, if less determinedly so than she had been before Irene’s visit. Now, as Irene sat staring out of the train window looking back over their conversations, she felt that she had done her best. All that was left to do was to let Ali know and encourage her to apply even more pressure.
This line of thought was interrupted suddenly by some overheard talk among the soldiers, who mercifully had at last given up on their boisterous game of cards.
“Anybody been to this place we’re going to be stationed at? What’s its name? Northwood?” a soldier enquired of the group. Several shook their heads or shrugged until one responded: “Nah, not been there, but I know somebody who has. He says it’s a cushy number, guarding a big underground control centre. In the suburbs south of Watford.”
“Wonder why they’re dragging us down there all the way from Catterick? There must be plenty of specialist units a lot nearer than us.”
The man with the information nodded.
“Yeah, I wondered that too. Rumour is it’s something to do with a big national op – Operation Homestead. Seems there’s a lot of people on the move.”
“More training then. Let’s hope it’s cushy like your mate said. Can’t be worse than what we’ve been doing.”
The group then fell to chatting about other matters, and Irene, who had carefully avoided looking at them throughout this exchange, leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. She knew that Northwood had long been a strategic military HQ and Control Centre, and according to civil service rumour had latterly been significantly expanded to include a considerable number of additional underground bunkers and residential quarters. The cost had been enormous, sums dwarfing the puny science budgets with which she was familiar, or so the rumours alleged, while the whole development had been shrouded in secrecy and nobody she asked had been able to come up with any reliable information. But now it appeared that they were drafting in additional troops, specialist ones of some kind if the conversation she had just eavesdropped upon was to be believed. She opened her eyes for a moment and looked again at the group. They were wearing military fatigues with no distinctive badges that she could see. She closed her eyes once more. Something’s brewing, she thought.
A few days later, having safely dispatched her letter to Ali via the ‘Support the Needy’ courier, Irene was walking down a corridor in the Government Office for Science building. She was deep in thought and paying little attention to what was around her with the result that she all but collided with Jonathan Hart.
“Whoops! Sorry. Miles away,” she said, then, on seeing who it was, added lamely, “Oh, it’s you. What brings you here?”
“I’ve been visiting your Chief. But I did have something I wanted to speak to you about as well. Is there somewhere we can go? A quiet coffee perhaps.”
It was clear from his tone that Hart wanted to talk away from prying ears, electronic or otherwise.
“There’s an outdoor coffee kiosk just down the road,” she suggested. “They’ve stayed open and they do goo
d coffee. It’s not too cold a day.”
“Yes, that sounds fine. Let’s go there.”
Irene collected her coat and they headed out onto Victoria Street.
“Look at it,” Irene said with a sigh. “This street used to be packed with people. Travellers to and from the station, tourists, folk going about their business. Now it’s so quiet. Just those who absolutely have to be here.”
As he prepared their drinks the proprietor of the kiosk also commented mournfully on the lack of passers-by. “Don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to stay open,” he said, shaking his head, “and coffee’s getting hard to find anyway.”
Once they were standing at a drinks station where they could not be overheard, Irene got in first.
“Actually, there was something I wanted to ask you about. What’s Operation Homestead?”
Hart looked at her in astonishment. “You’ve heard about that? It’s why I wanted to see you. Where did you come across it?”
“I overheard a conversation among some soldiers on the train last week. They didn’t seem to know much except that they were due to be part of it. But it made me wonder why soldiers were being brought down from the North when they’re obviously needed up there.”
“Yes, I’m sure they are. Though whether they could do much about what’s happening in the northern cities is debateable.” Hart paused for a moment. “It’s a question of government priorities. That’s what Operation Homestead is about. Establishing secure bases from which government can continue if – when – things get considerably worse.”
“Ah, I see. That makes sense of something they said. The men on the train were going to Northwood and there have been a lot of rumours about hugely expensive developments out there. That’s part of it then?”
“It is indeed. In fact, Northwood is the key location. It’s where the government, senior officials, top military staff and so on, will be housed. That’s why I wanted to see you. I’m part of the group organising the migration to Northwood and I just suggested to your Chief that you would be a good person to have along.” Hart paused to let his revelation sink in. “He’s agreeable, so I hope you’ll consider it. When things get worse it will be the safest place to be. Defended, provisioned, with medical support and comfortable accommodation.”
Irene looked at him doubtfully. “Why me? I don’t have any skills that would be useful there. I’d be – what’s the official phrase? – surplus to requirements.”
“No,” Hart replied, “I think you do have skills that will be important. You’re much more willing to be critical of prevailing views than most of them, and it was you, after all, who tried to steer them away from the Zeno project.”
“And failed completely,” Irene interjected, “with the consequences that we now see around us. Don’t you think I feel guilty about what’s happened? How could I tuck myself away in a hole, safe from all this?” She gestured towards the almost deserted street. “Besides, they’re no more likely to listen to me now than they were then.”
“You could bring close family with you,” Hart said hopefully. “You’ve got a daughter and granddaughter to think about.”
Even more reason to get them to Scotland, Irene thought, then replied: “I wouldn’t wish it on them. I’ll take my chances out here and so will they.”
Hart sighed. “I was afraid you might feel like that. At least promise me you’ll think about it. To be completely honest with you, I would personally very much like to have you there. As I said before, I count on you as an ally and I’m going to need one if I’m to have any impact on what happens.”
“OK. I’ll give it some thought, but don’t get your hopes up. It doesn’t look like an attractive proposition to me.”
“Good. That’s something. But you haven’t got long to decide. I think Homestead will swing into action quite soon. When it does you’ll get an official notification that there’s a place for you. It’ll come via the Chief Scientific Advisor, not from me.”
Irene gave him a hard look. “Do you really think it’s a good idea?” she asked. “It sounds to me like you would be trapping yourself in a kind of cage with a collection of unsavoury and duplicitous people. Not how I’d like to see the world out.”
“I can’t say that I’m enthusiastic,” Hart replied with a shrug, “but I don’t see any viable alternative at the moment. Basic resources are already running short. At least this option should guarantee supplies longer than they’ll be available on the outside.”
“I suppose so,” Irene said. “But even then I think I’d rather stay out here.”
“It’s up to you, of course. But one other thing you might want to bear in mind. Once Homestead is fully implemented the intention is to declare a State of Emergency. That will mean curfews, travel even more limited than it is now, severe rationing, restricted access to medical services. Surviving will be tough.”
Irene spread her hands in a gesture of acceptance. “It will be tough anyway,” she said. “But at least I’ll be making my own choices. Good luck with it, Jonathan. And thank you for the offer.”
Hart smiled. It was the first time she had called him Jonathan and, given how determined she appeared to be, it would probably be the last. “Fair enough,” he said, turning to leave. “I’ll try to keep in touch.”
Irene watched him depart, not for the first time wondering what was going on in his head. He had seemed like a changed man when they had last met on the common. As if his life had become a chore, yet a chore that he absolutely had to complete. Clearly something significant had happened to him but what it was remained entirely opaque. Nor was she likely to find out now, she thought, as she dropped their coffee cups into the bin and set off back to her office.
In New Zealand, about as far away as you could get from the virus’s birthplace, a huge queue snaked around Christchurch’s Cathedral Square, winding back on itself and contained within a maze of roped walkways. Armed guards were posted every ten metres or so, sullenly eyeing the people waiting in line. Their goal, frustratingly visible to all as the queue edged forward, was a large marquee in front of which officials checked each person’s documents and, if they met with approval, issued a bag of basic foodstuffs. To those caught in the outer reaches of the spiral their destination never appeared to get any nearer, and whenever the queue ground to a halt as officials queried a supplicant’s status, a kind of low moan travelled along the line of people like a tidal bore flowing up a river. Otherwise the crowd remained remarkably silent, beaten into submission by disease, hunger, and an utterly dispiriting lack of hope. The restored cathedral, once destroyed by earthquake, loomed over them as a kind of rebuke to their despair. But for the most part they ignored it, shuffling forward looking only at their distant destination.
7
Once a day, usually in the morning, Julie worked her way through a carefully chosen set of internet news feeds. By now it had become a routine, the presumed bias of each site taken into account, their respective specialisms balanced one against the other. Of course, this procedure was no guarantee against false reports – all sites were subject to those, if only because the vast network of live sources was altogether too large to be properly monitored. But all the sites that Julie consulted were well aware of the fake news traps and of the associated risk that if something was repeated often enough it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The various editors did what they could to ameliorate the dangers of malicious fabrication, primarily by applying mutually agreed corroboration standards. That didn’t mean that they got it right every time. There was simply too much information flowing across the system for that. But it did lower the failure rate, particularly where stories could be checked and cross-checked over a number of independent sites and sources.
On this particular day she was encountering the customary distressing reports of death and disorder, whole communities all but wiped out by the flu, especially where public health
was already weakened by food shortages and ineffective hygiene. In the poorer and more populous areas of the world mortality rates were already high and continued to rise. Their health systems were unable to stem the tide of illness even where they sought to do so, and their citizens, undernourished and isolated, acquiesced to what they increasingly saw as an inescapable fate visited upon them by malevolent external forces. In the richer countries efforts to combat the disease were only marginally more effective, but here the people were more disposed to hold their governments to account, resorting in many cases to radical action and social disruption. All of which offered golden opportunities for the brutal and self-interested who could exploit the growing weakness of official forces of law and order and fill the power vacuums that they left behind.
It was this kind of confrontation that was of particular interest to Julie. As a result of her Zeno revelations she had become the communications channel of choice for the anti-Zeno movement in England, and their ongoing campaign was now the major focus of her reporting. Their organisation was fluid, as it had to be to evade government attempts to clamp down, but Julie had reliable lines of communication with the network and particular links with a couple who were key members of the Brixton Enclave. Although official sources denied it, Brixton was one of two London areas which had securely established themselves as effectively independent of state control. Aided by some strategically placed roadblocks, an uneasy peace allowed the Brixton Enclave to function as a self-supporting neighbourhood which therefore also served as a shelter for organisers of the Zeno campaign.
