by Chris James
Perkins considered this and then said: “As you wish, PM, but I would only like to note that every society has its, shall we say, undesirable elements? And with unrestricted access we could be leaving ourselves open to unscrupulous members of those societies who will use the current chaos to sow a nihilistic discord in our own society.”
Napier shook her head and said: “I don’t regard that as a convincing argument. We have enough ‘nihilistic discord’ running rampant as it is.” She glanced at the Police Commissioner for England, a rustic brute of a man with thinning hair. She asked him: “Are the numbers of suicides still increasing at the same rates?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the brute answered with deference. “But my colleagues and I are looking forward to the new laws restricting alcohol and other drugs,” he added with shrewdness, Webb thought.
The boss reached for her water and answered: “The House will vote on that tomorrow; the legislation will face no hurdles.” She sipped then turned back to Perkins and said: “Anyway, your objection is noted.”
Perkins nodded.
“The next item is civil defence. Tom?”
The brutish Police Commissioner gave a short cough and spoke with greater precision than Crispin would have thought possible: “No significant changes to the plan, ma’am, and its implementation continues as scheduled. While I think we will come in for some criticism for a few of the suggestions, it is better than telling the population that there is no choice and they have no chance of survival.”
“We don’t know that for certain, Tom,” the boss said.
“Sorry to sound fatalistic, ma’am.”
“Never mind,” she said, shaking her head. “We all know there are hard choices to make.”
“And that’s the real problem, ma’am. All of our construction replicators are needed on the flood defences. Many people are complaining that shelters could be built if it weren’t for the constant need to keep the water out.”
“But we have more than mere shelters, yes?” Napier asked.
“Of course,” the Police Commissioner said, puffing his chest out. “Practical defences are set up all around London, although under military control.”
“Thank you, Tom,” Napier said. “Terry, can you update us on the military side?”
“Yes, PM,” Terry said at once. “Despite the increasing enemy attacks on the Atlantic Convoys, he is not making a serious effort to stop them, which might be connected to his public position to be seen to be allowing us time to consider our surrender. We are all quite sure he has enough ACAs to destroy those ships if he really wanted to. However, this means that we can now put up a much better defence than we were able to offer in February or March. If I may, PM?”
Napier nodded her assent and Crispin had to smother a laugh as Terry took out a slate, opened it, and placed it on the table. For the hundredth time, he asked himself why those things hadn’t been banned and wrinklies like the General obliged to have a lens.
The walls around the conference room lit up with a map of England with indicators in different colours and shapes. Terry said: “The computers are allocating Battlefield Support Lasers to match the most probable attack scenarios. Despite the current political stand-off, we can be certain that in any resumption of hostilities, an air attack on the Home Countries is a certainty, so BSLs and missiles are being brought over, produced and deployed with the utmost urgency.”
On the other side of the table, Home Secretary Aiden Hicks cleared his throat. His chins wobbled and he asked: “Looking at those images, we don’t seem to have half of what we need to protect everything. How are the priorities set? Are we protecting homes, hospitals, schools, architecture, historical monuments, what?”
Terry said: “The computers work on the assumption that the protection of human life has primacy, although priorities do need some flexibility. For example, if a hospital is close to a bridge over a river, it’s debatable what better deserves defending: without the bridge, no one can get to the hospital, but if the defences only defend the bridge, the hospital will be destroyed. The computers are allocating the defences as prudently as possible, but there is some room for local authorities to make their own decisions.”
“Thank you,” Hicks said.
Terry continued: “However, that analogy also extends to the defence of the rest of Europe itself. Difficult questions need to be answered regarding how many Battlefield Support Lasers and missiles should be assigned to civil defence, and how many should be given to the military to actually battle the assault when it comes. If too much goes to civil defence, then the military—”
“Yes, thank you, Terry. We’ll move on now,” Napier said.
Webb caught the underlying tension from the boss. He looked at the General but did not see the slightest flicker of emotion on that round face. If the General had problems with getting things done his way, he hid it very well indeed.
Terry’s head tilted and he murmured: “As you wish, PM.”
Foreign Secretary Charles Blackwood said: “Er, PM, what’s the situation with our neighbours? Are they also preparing?”
Napier said: “Yes, I spoke to both the presidents of Scotland and Wales last night and, given the geography of any attack on the British Isles by Caliphate forces, it is clear they will know well in advance. In any case, they have their own allocations of these weapons and are facing identical problems as we are.”
Blackwood scoffed and said: “Hardly worth breaking up the Union thirty years ago.”
Napier shrugged in dismissiveness: “Just another anniversary no one will mark on Monday.” She looked around the table and asked: “Any questions before we wrap this up for today?”
Silence greeted her question. She said: “Very well. Thank you all for coming along. In the absence of any surprises, nasty or otherwise, we shall reconvene at the same time tomorrow.”
Chairs scraped on the floor as the attendees rose. People filed out of the meeting room. Napier shook her head and whispered to Crispin: “Every day nothing happens and we don’t surrender, it’s another day closer to the war picking up again. It can’t go on forever.”
Crispin caught a glimpse in her eye that raised his concern. She hissed: “You realise we’re wasting our time over nothing while waiting for the inevitable.”
Crispin had no answer, so he just nodded in agreement. A voice somewhere in the back of his mind asked him, not for the first time, why he stayed in London doing a job that would almost certainly see him killed when the invasion reached the British Isles.
Chapter 50
12.37 Friday 5 May 2062
MARIA PHILLIPS EMERGED from East Grinstead station, and with her free hand shielded her eyes from the glaring spring sunshine. She looked among the other people thronging the platform for her older brother.
“Maz, over here!” she heard a voice shout.
“Martin,” she called, pushing her way through the crowd to him. She reached him and they embraced. Maria felt the passing of time: a little over two months and not only had she changed, she knew her older brother had also grown.
His round eyes shone with affection as he asked: “We have transport in seven minutes, or shall we walk home?”
She said: “Let’s walk, I could do with the exercise.”
“Just what I thought you’d say. Need a hand?” he asked indicating her canvas holdall.
“No, thanks,” she replied with a sardonic frown.
“Sorry we weren’t at your passing-out; that was bad form for Brass to stop families from attending.”
Maria shook her head and answered: “The invasion has changed a lot of things. Passing out now only means we’re barely ready to face the threat; it doesn’t carry the significance it used to before the war.”
“The short hair suits you, Maz. Makes you look like you won’t take any shit,” Martin said with a chuckle.
“I could say the same thing about you, dear brother. I don’t think I’m the only one who has a different outlook now.”
> The crowd thinned as they navigated through the backstreets towards their familial home. Maria enjoyed the warm breeze that rustled the shrubs in the front gardens and lifted the new leaves on the trees lining the pavements. Suddenly free after her basic training, she felt as though the British Army had given her an entirely new perspective on the future, however long or short it might be.
She glanced at her brother and said: “I have a question for you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“What exactly does a ‘Forward Observer’ observe these days? I heard your job was to go and wave at the raghead’s ACAs so they would blow you up first. Is that right?”
“Ah, now, you see, Maz? You’re just giving away your intense jealousy that I made it into the best regiment in the Army while you flunked everything you tried till they dumped you in the Medical Corps. I mean, seriously? Your idea of a military career is picking up the bits and pieces of the unlucky squaddies? How much fun do you think that’s going to be, Maz?”
Maria laughed and answered: “About as much fun as you’re going to have counting the thousands of ACAs coming at you just before they blow you up.”
The banter continued as the siblings wended their way through residential streets and past parks and open spaces Maria had known since childhood, some areas now sporting mounds of fresh earth that hid air attack shelters.
When the jokes subsided, she confided in him just how stressful the previous weeks had been. She said: “The fact that the Army has doubled the length of its Phase One training for new recruits gives you an idea of the blasted uncertainty the generals must have concerning what we’ll have to face. And you know what? In Harrogate we even drilled what we’d have to do if our Squitches packed up altogether, something we all thought was as close to impossible as it was possible to get.”
She listened as Martin told her of his own shock at the Phase One training he completed in Warwick, which included battle tactics reintroduced years or even decades after the development—and then the supremacy—of the ACA on the battlefield was thought to have rendered them permanently redundant.
“Seriously, me and my squad had to practise doing covering fire for advance and retreat,” he said.
“We did, too,” Maria said.
“But what’s the point? Either you’re in the advance, in which case your ACAs are burning and blasting the shit out of the enemy, or you’re in retreat, in which case you’re fried, or running for your life about to get fried.”
Maria said: “I remember years ago, when I was at school and our history teacher used to say that the old style of war was over, that from now on wars would be fought only by those machines. Soldiers wouldn’t have anything to do.”
Martin let out a mirthless chuckle and said: “I think they think they’re going to throw nobodies like us straight at the raghead’s ACAs if they have to, not that it would change the result.”
“If it won’t make a difference, then they won’t do it, dear brother. Dad was not right when he claimed we would just be used as cannon fodder,” Maria said with assuredness. “But yes, all of my squad also debated why they were training us like that.”
They turned into their street and Maria looked for Billy, the faded wooden rabbit that sat on the chimneystack. He came into view from behind another roof as they walked. They reached the front gate and Maria thought it seemed to have shrunk a little since the last time she’d walked through it.
“After you, Maz, and I’ll take your bag now,” Martin said. “I got back yesterday, so it’s you they’re waiting for.”
Maria let her brother take her bag. Their parents appeared at the door and Maria hugged them. Twenty minutes later, Maria answered her parents’ questions over steaming mugs of tea.
“So is a medical orderly the same as a doctor?” her father Anthony asked.
“No, Dad,” Maria replied, “but I will be helping people who get hurt.”
“Must be that kind heart you inherited from me,” her mother said with a smile.
“Do you think you’ll get posted to Europe?” her father asked with concern.
“It depends on what regiment my unit is assigned to, but I don’t think so.”
Martin said: “The rumours in my crew are that Brass wants to keep as many British soldiers back as possible for home defence—”
“You know,” Maria broke in, “to a large extent it’s not our choice.”
“Yeah,” Anthony grumbled, “all our futures are being decided in Tehran.”
Martin sipped his tea and said: “The super artificial intelligence says that every day the enemy does nothing, it becomes gradually more likely that he will resume his attack.”
“Yes, dear,” Jane said, “but all of our computers never saw this war coming to begin with, did they? So why should we believe them now?”
“Because that’s the best we’ve got,” Martin said.
“I was talking to Mrs Withers at number thirty-five and she says we should surrender—”
“She’s over a hundred, she must be losing her marbles,” Martin said.
“She remembered what her mother told her about the Second World War, and how it should never be repeated—”
“Too late, Mum, it already has,” Maria said, sounding a little more direct than she’d intended.
Martin said: “And no one can be in any doubt what that would really entail. It’s enough to see how they’re behaving in the areas under their control. The little info that’s leaked out has been terrifying. Surrender is not an option and never has been. And for a change even those callous, idiot politicians have been able to see that.”
“Where’s Mark?” Maria asked suddenly.
“Immersed, like he usually is,” her father replied in indifference. “He appears maybe once, twice a week, just to… you know.”
“Yes, we know,” Maria said, her mood darkening. She took a gulp of tea, put the mug on the table, stood up, and said: “So I will go and let him know that his younger sister is back home.” She strode for the door.
“Leave him, Maz,” Martin called after her.
Maria left the living room and strode along the short corridor to the old utility room that Mark used as his gaming base. For the first time, she felt different emotions, or perhaps they were same emotions but were now easier to control. Her frustration no longer led to impotence; instead, it allowed her to focus with greater clarity.
She entered the room without knocking. Her brother, Mark, lay in a couch that curved like a hammock. A black suit with large pockets and other features covered his entire body, and an oval helmet surrounded his head. Maria’s nose wrinkled at the smell of urine in the room. She watched her brother in fascination as his limbs jerked sporadically up and down, and then left and right. With little concern, she walked to the nearest wall, bent down, and yanked the power transmitter from the socket. She held it up to the light and deactivated the reserve supply provider, thus depriving her brother of all power.
Mark reacted at once. His whole body shuddered. He ripped off the oval helmet and stood, shouting: “Who the fuck just did th—”
“Hello, dear brother,” Maria said, feeling only a slight satisfaction among the disappointment that she’d had to take drastic action to get her brother’s attention.
She saw the fury on Mark’s face as he spluttered: “You idiot, you stupid, stupid little girl. You absolute fucking idiot. You have no idea where I was and what I was doing.”
Maria said nothing as Mark expelled his rage at her, placing the power transmitter on the table among half-empty cups and food containers.
He went on: “If you were anyone other than my little sister, I’d cave your skull in—”
Maria laughed, even though a voice in her head cautioned her to be more careful. However, she could see that Mark’s ridiculous outfit prevented him from moving quickly or exerting any significant strength, and the hours of self-defence and unarmed combat training leant an assuredness that even in his fury, her older brother would
be containable from a military viewpoint.
She said: “Oh, sorry, dear brother. I am home from my Phase One training and might be posted away at any moment. I wanted to see you before I go.”
Her brother peered at her and said: “Do you mock me, little sister?”
Maria replied at once: “I do not mock you or anyone else because it is not in my character, but the situation out here in the real world needs all of us to pay attention, not hide away in pretend—”
“Don’t!” Mark shrieked. “Don’t ever lecture me about the real world, or about ‘hiding’. You have no idea what I and the people I associate with in there are planni—”
“Plan away, little boy,” Maria said, pleased that her voice remained flat and emotionless. “Just let me tell you that the storm of violence—real, unstoppable violence—draws closer every single day. Out here, we have a word for people like you.”
“Oh yeah?” Mark sneered.
“We call you ‘heroes’, because you are all so heroic, hiding away—”
“Piss off, little sister. You are a fool; a fool for thinking your pointless real-world efforts will make any kind of difference, a fool for giving in to your desire to ‘do your bit’ by agreeing to be NATO’s cannon fodder—”
“There is a name for it, dear brother. The reality that will overtake you, me, and all of us. Its name is ‘the battle for Europe’, and it will be here soon. See you at the party?”
“Piss off,” Mark snarled, awkwardly moving to get the power transmitter and plug it back into the socket.
Chapter 51
09.11 Thursday 11 May 2062
CORPORAL RORY MOORE stepped out of the autonomous transport vehicle, turned to Pip and said: “It’s been twenty-four hours since we got off that submarine, and I still don’t feel sure when I put my foot down that what it lands on won’t move.”
Pip walked around from the other side of the vehicle and said: “I thought the Spiteful was a lovely boat, not as cramped as you made out.”
