by Carl Neville
What does it give me access to?
If you are a citizen of the Co-Sphere or the True Commonwealth you will have access to all PRB and home sites and have full and immediate rights to care, housing, transport, education, work and leisure activities. You will have full access to any sites and protocols from within the Co-Sphere.
If you are a citizen of the United States, Australia, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand or South and Central America (including Chile), you will have full access as above but will not be able to access information from home without first requesting a bridge site. Residents of China and Japan will have limited access to home data and sites dependent on the permissions granted them by their home country.
What are guest credits?
All visits to the PRB by non-Co-Sphere members of a thirty-day or under duration entitle the ROD holder to a daily subsistence provision of basic comestibles and admission to all cultural activities/events within the institution’s remit. Any consumption beyond the subsistence/free admission level can be paid for through credit transfers from your country of origin or through work within the PRB. Please check the Necessary Labour section of the Institution of Labour on your ROD for work options.
What happens if I lose the ROD?
Please check the ROD-Deposit points nearest to the last place you remember having your ROD, if this is practical. ROD drop-offs are the clear plastic booths labelled as such and found on most street corners, in Provision, the PRB’s main supermarket, post offices and most transport hubs. If this is not possible, please inform central services through the messaging centre on one of the drop-off points and your ROD will either be returned to you once found or replaced.
She showered, changed her clothes, and laid down on the bed for a twenty-minute nap through which she could feel the sediment of the Nanivar gently sifting. Here she was, at last.
An empty, trance-like drift, broken by a tapping at the door and Tom’s voice.
Bite to eat?
Sure, she said. She prepared herself for her first taste of true PRB food. As she came down the stairs she could hear a couple of people talking in the dining room and reminded herself to be winning, watchful, not to make too many mistakes.
They were seated at the table. Tom stood, this is Jennifer, who stood and extended her hand. So nice to meet you dear, she said, thank you so much for putting me up, she said back. Please, please take a seat. There was a big teapot in the centre of the table, the room filled with plants and flowers, green and cosy. Jennifer enquired about her flight, her first impressions, passed around some little coloured cakes on a tray as Tom alternated gazing and fidgeting. Then, suddenly, in from the kitchen came…
Dominic. Also tall, quite strikingly angular and handsome, olive skinned, dark eyed, wavy hair cut short at the sides and slightly messy on top, a beautifully cut grey herringbone suit. Wow. The friend in high places Tom had talked about so much, she could see why he might have developed a crush on him. He stood at the other side of the table, extended his hand. Thanks so much for helping out with the flight, she said, oh, he laughed and smiled, leant toward her conspiratorially, just one of the bits of rule-bending that’s required to make life here in the PRB tolerable. Just don’t inform my superiors for God’s sake. She looked a little alarmed, but also, he was somehow familiar and she was about to say, haven’t we met somewhere before?, but that was impossible and would sound ridiculous and she was flustered until he said, no it’s fine, I’m pulling your leg, sorry, we stopped shooting subversives a few months ago. Dominic, Jennifer said and slapped his arm, the handshake having extended so that they were simply holding hands across the table, don’t alarm the poor girl on her first day here.
Tea?
Tea. Tom sluiced the huge pot around then poured, passed the cups over on saucers. Sugar? No, no. A slice of cake? Sure. They all busied themselves with the reaching and passing to cover the awkwardness of first interactions.
So, you’re researching some of our music makers, I believe.
That’s right, she said, started to explain, talking a little bit too fast, a bit too long. Tom chipped in now and again to explain or elaborate to Jennifer as Dominic sat back sipping, legs crossed. She could feel the way his eyes strayed toward her, disguising itself as a scan of the table, and how her own gaze met his halfway, causing them both to shift slightly unnaturally in their seats. Her heart thumped up a gear then idled, don’t get carried away, Julia.
I am due to make my first trip to the United States actually, Dominic said.
Business or pleasure, she asked? Looked up from her scone, blushed slightly. Don’t be so obvious, Julia!
Oh business, regrettably, he said.
Dominic’s helping to organize the Co-Sphere’s delegation to the States.
We shall have the pleasure of meeting your Mr Altborg. If he exists.
We have just been watching a programme on your recent presidential elections, American-made. NC24, Jennifer said. An excellent network.
The Greta Farloni one?
Yes.
I have to say the situation looks rather alarming.
We are all still in shock, I think. But there is plenty of resistance too.
We don’t believe for a moment that there hasn’t been some kind of manipulation. We maintain an excellent relationship with your unions and progressive parties, we are confident they will prevail.
My God, she said. He is… I really don’t think I am exaggerating if I say some of the things he has said are insane.
Well, Dominic said. I hope we will find your Mr Altborg more comprehensible, at least. He smiled. She smiled back.
Well that’s good to know. Perhaps we should move on to talk about more pleasant things… will you be able to see anything of the Games?
Oh, I don’t know.
But Tom, you are integral to the opening ceremony, surely.
Actually, Tom said, I haven’t put it on the itinerary yet, it was sort of a surprise, but I have actually relinquished my role in the ceremony so we can both spectate.
Oh that’s great, she said.
Well I didn’t feel I had time to fully prepare it and show you around, so… I thought you should be my priority.
Well that’s so kind, she said, hoped her voice stayed buoyant despite the counterweight of her heart sinking slightly.
Tom has had to pop out, too bad, something Games-related, leaving her in Dominic’s capable hands. What are her plans for the next two weeks? She took a sip of the very bitter beer she’d been offered.
Well, she said, I seem to have everything pretty much planned out. We agreed on an itinerary.
Jennifer smiled; Dominic arched a single immaculate eyebrow. An itinerary, he said. Do you have a copy? As it happened, she did in a thin paper wallet in her suitcase, went up the dark, creaking stairs to get it, back down to the warm, dim living room.
Dominic scrutinised it. Very worthwhile. Lots of library time! He said with a wry grin.
It is really a working holiday, she said.
Though you are going out to the Hub on Thursday night. A very interesting place, old haunt of the Pre-PRB radicals, many plots hatched there. I shall join you for that, if I won’t be intruding.
I may well join you too, Jennifer said. And you must think about staying for dinner on Friday once Alan makes it back from London.
Sure, well, all that would be great.
Then you have, Dominic continued, library, more library, archives, interviews, a night out at The Circuit. Prepare yourself for that he said. All those south London chrononauts! Then out to the farm, Tom’s rural idyll. Then conferences! Looks like more work than holiday.
Some of us enjoy time spent reading and reflecting, thinking.
Theorizing! Dominic said in a mock-dramatic voice.
Not everyone takes such delight in beautiful surfaces, Jennifer gently admonished him.
It’s true he said, I lack depth, especially compared to Tom, I am essentially frivolous perhaps. He caught Julia’
s eye. My pleasures tend to be more physical than cerebral he said, his eyes narrowed slightly as he gave her a faint, knowing smile.
The library is a fascinating place in itself. Pre-Autarchy but then extended after the Breach to become a leisure complex. Some excellent film seasons, the communal television rooms are very comfortable, the Canteen does some interesting south Asian dishes, Jennifer told her.
There’s the Timeline of course. The very centre of the city. “History’s Gravestone”!
Both he and Jennifer laughed and Julia Verona found she was laughing along too, though she had no idea what that last observation meant.
A hesitant tap at the door. That must be Tom.
Yep, she said. Come on in. What time was it?
Do you think you can face a full PRB breakfast? Tom asked as she sat up in the bed and took a first sip of tea. It is a lot of cholesterol.
She smiled. I have resigned myself to putting on a little weight on this trip, she said. And maybe getting a little liver damage too.
Yes. Probably for the best, he said, then lingered a second. Well I best get on with it. Twenty minutes enough?
Wow, she said, entering the living room and seeing the plates and cutlery all laid out, the serving bowls in the middle heaped up with sausages, bacon, scrambled egg, fried mushrooms, the rounds of toast in their racks, a big pot of bubbling beans. How many of us are there?
Ah, just the four of us, he said.
Well I hope you guys are hungry, she said as Dominic breezed into the living room, looking fresh and wearing another rather beautifully cut soft grey suit.
Oh, we’ll soon polish this little lot off, he said, and came round the table to pull back her chair so she could sit down.
A little pick me up he said conspiratorially as he sat down next to her, took a pill out of the small enamel box he produced from his jacket pocket, and quickly crumbled it into the teapot.
This has been putting a spring in Jennifer’s step for years. Don’t tell her though!
Tom hadn’t needed to accompany her to the library for a second consecutive day but had politely insisted. Out the front on the steps leading up to the great tiered concrete and glass edifice he gestured across to the metal slab on its plinth, planted in the very centre of the big central square. The Timeline.
History’s Gravestone? She said, remembering a few nights before.
Oh yes, he laughed. It’s built out of iron of course, the iron laws of history and all that. It has all the major struggles up to the Breach and the integration of the Co-Sphere at which point they used to claim that History had ended and that was its headstone, dates and all. It’s got a little weather-beaten over the years so it has been overlain with a digital programme now, tap on it and it will give you all the background information around key accords and so on. Quite exhaustive. Shall we go and take a look? He asked.
I’ll check it out on the way back, she said. I should probably get in there. She gestured to the main entrance.
Shouldn’t I show you around some more?
That’s fine, I think I can figure it out. I’d like to try anyway, she said.
Of course. There was a pause. What time should I come back to collect you?
Honestly, I am not sure how long I’ll be. I am pretty sure I can get back to Harborne road now.
Yes, it’s the number 34 and then stop…
Stop B2. I should be OK.
He looked a little crestfallen.
Well, he said.
So. Thanks so much. I guess I’ll see you back at Harborne Road.
Of course, he said. His hand went into his pocket and he quickly popped a pill into his mouth, smiled a little sadly.
How was the library? Jennifer asked.
Great. It’s hard to find information specifically about the record label Counterfactuals though, the stuff they released. There’s actually more stuff on the Urkive.
Well that’s why we are going to see Robert Gillespie, and Rose Galloway too, who I have pencilled in for next Thursday up at the South Academy, Tom shouted in from the kitchen.
Sure, that’s great, thanks for that. I’m just going to freshen up. She went upstairs and stood in the shower for a long time, didn’t want to use all their hot water but knew, just knew that when she came out Tom would be knocking on the door with a series of questions, offers, requests.
She let the water soak into her face, which felt a little numb and distant to the touch. Who knew how many pills and pharms she had been consuming in tea, in beer combined with the occasional Deveretol from the little stash they had left next to her bed?
She should be careful. She had had a strange experience just before coming back to the house. She went across the square to look at the Timeline, the two metre high grey slab engraved with the dates of progressive governments and workers’ uprisings stretching back to the second world war, the development of the institutions, the Autarchy and the Breach through to the founding of the Republic and as she knelt down to see the last stages that had been added, from the integration of the Co-Sphere to the Partition and the trans-Co-Sphere institutions, a ripple somehow seemed to run through the solid metal and the dates and events shifted, the United States appeared not as an antagonist but a partner, an alternate history of co-operation and the breaking down of boundaries that ended in the present day with an undivided socialist world, all of humanity brought into Universal brotherhood. She had stepped back and the timeline had rippled again, gone back to representing the solid, unalterable path that things have really taken.
She got out of the shower, all the floorboards along the landing and in the bedroom signalling her movements and sure enough, within a minute or so of her hairdryer going off he was tapping on the door.
Give me five minutes and I’ll be down, she said, trying to keep the edge of impatience out of her voice.
Deep breath, neutral smile, back down to the living room. At least Dominic was home now, looking impressively elegant and unrumpled, perched cross-legged on the edge of the sofa.
All done? Tom asked. Ready for the off? A little trip to the centre of town?
Wreck Farm? Dominic asked.
Wreck Farm?
The largest vendor of recreational substances in the City. A pun on Rec(reational) Pharm(aceuticals) he said. A terrible national proclivity for the Pun. And also alliteration.
Actually, I thought perhaps a gentler intro.
Ah yes. Dominic and Tom exchanged the briefest of glances. Well…
Jennifer accompanied them to the door, asking, Should I set some supper out for you, for when you get back?
That’s extremely thoughtful of you Jennifer, but we will probably go to a Canteen.
As you think best, dear. Well I shall see you in the Hub later.
Then they were out on the street again, the late, low spring sun shimmering in the windows, bouncing back off the solar panels in front gardens, on garage roofs, sheathing everything in a coppery glow.
So, we are off to hear some music first, which, after all is what you are here for. I thought we might go to some of the Canteens around the Centre, always very lively in the evenings.
Oh great. And we are going via some big pill bar?
He rummaged in his pocket, brought out a plastic bag and fished around in it for a second before producing what looked like a tiny, very ornate Fabergé egg.
On the subject of pills, fancy a little something to start the evening off? Quite mild, looks much more baroque than it really is in all honesty.
That’s not, like a, a Red Star, is it? I mean I need to take a few things back to the library first. She had heard tales of unwise guests experimenting with old Soviet-era pharms. A Brutalist D.M.T trip at warp speed but several hours long, that was how Timor had tried to describe his experience on a Red Star. She wasn’t sure how functional she would be after that.
God no! He laughed. A Peon-E. More like a mug of Horlicks.
Horlicks?
Then, rather than explain what Horlicks wa
s, he said, A very friendly sedito-stimulant, made locally. He popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed it, retrieved another.
A little welcome gift. Dominic gave me it, rather beautiful isn’t it? Even the pills he takes, he held it up to the light, admired the detail, have to be more flamboyant.
Sure, she said. More pills? Well, she was only here for three weeks, a once in a lifetime trip, might as well make the most of it.
Carpe diem, she said, and took it from between his fingers.
ROD GUIDE TO THE PRB
INSTITUTE: INSTITUTE OF LEISURE
SUBCATEGORY: RECPHARMS
SSC. CARE/HEALTH
The “Pill Bars” and Your Health
Please click the red button for a full list and images of all officially sanctioned PRB recreational pharmaceuticals along with recommended maximum doses. A directory of officially sanctioned Recreational Pharmaceutical Providers (Pill Bars) can be accessed by pressing the blue button.
All recreational pharmaceuticals should be checked for authenticity and purity with the test strips that will either be provided with your purchase or are available from the Health section of Provision, the PRB’s official supermarket. Please note that test strips brought in from other regions may not provide 100% accuracy.
Adverse reactions to any sanctioned Recreational Pharmaceuticals within the recommended dosage range (where use has not been contraindicated by a medical professional) will be treated as medical emergencies within the existing National Health Service. Health-related issues that stem from use when contraindicated, doses which exceed the recommended maximum use or polydrug use (combining two or more SRP or non-sanctioned RP’s or any adverse reactions to non-sanctioned RP’s) will be dealt with within the existing system on the first three instances. After this, voluntary and non-official medical services must be used. A list of regulated, non-Institutional medical services, free at the point of use, may be accessed by pressing the white button.
