London Wild

by V. E. Shearman

  In the bathroom she turned the taps on with a relish she could hardly have imagined more than a week earlier. But it really had been too long since she had even seen a bathtub, let alone had the chance to soak in the warm, luxuriating waters of such. Finally she could cleanse herself of the filth of the cell.

  She sighed with happiness. It was so easy to please her after all she had been through, but before she got into the bath she felt she needed something to put on once she got out. Walking about the house naked was all very well, but she wasn’t going to stay here indefinitely; she would need clothing if she was going out again.

  First she entered ‘Mandy’s Room.’ This was the bedroom of a young girl, the walls covered in posters of movie and music stars, while soft toys of various descriptions covered the bed. There was a chest of drawers and a wardrobe that held clothing, but it was too small for Lara to wear.

  The next door took only a minute to check; it was a linen closet that was totally bare. Whoever owned the house must’ve emptied the closet when they left. This reinforced Lara’s belief that she was indeed alone in the house.

  The last door led into the master bedroom. Here she found some clothes that might fit her. They had been left in a closet when the house had been deserted. There wasn’t much, just a few items of ugly and gaudy clothing that the original owner hadn’t considered worth taking with her. She could look for makeup to try and cover her stripes with later; for now she just wanted the clothes.

  Lara took everything; she would decide what to try on after her bath. If anything, the clothes looked a little on the big side for her, but she could cope with too big easier than too small.

  Also in the master bedroom she also found a refrigerated mini-bar that still contained a few beers. Lara despised the taste of beer and tended to avoid it, but at the moment she was thirsty enough to drink anything. She opened a bottle and drank it straight down. She then grabbed a second bottle to take with her.

  Lara spent over an hour in the bath slowly soaking, thinking about food and sleep. She was yawning more and more often now as the feeling of security in this old farmhouse swelled. Twice she had almost nodded off in the bath and forced herself awake, taking a swig from the second bottle of beer.

  Before she would take a nap, though, she wanted to eat. Perhaps the herd had left some food behind; it was unusual for people to desert their home and take all the food with them.

  Though the clothing she wore after the bath hung rather loosely on her body, at least she felt dressed as she ventured slowly down the stairs. After a quick look, Lara knew roughly the layout of the floor. She didn’t hang around to examine what each room contained as she passed them. She was looking for the kitchen, which she found at the opposite end of the hall from the bottom of the stairs, under where the master bedroom would be.

  Here she found that the kitchen was well stocked. She supposed that with the house being in the middle of nowhere, several miles from the nearest shops, the owners wouldn’t want to go shopping too often, so when they did they bought plenty. Lara made herself a large sandwich and then, deciding she was very hungry, made a second, all the time drinking milk straight from the bottle in an attempt to get rid of the taste of the beer she had had.

  Instead of heading back up the stairs to the bedrooms as she had originally planned, she decided that she would have her snack in the living room. It was a standard layout for a living room. It had a nice comfortable couch and two reclining chairs, a newspaper, and a holoviewa. There was even a table on which sat a three-dimensional computer monitor.

  The thing that caught Lara’s eye, though, the thing she almost had to kick herself because she hadn’t thought of it, was the large computer screen on the far wall as she walked in, located just above the fake log fire.

  She sighed at her own stupidity and took a large mouthful of a sandwich as all the worries of what she should do once she left the farmhouse left her.

  ‘Computer,’ she said. Her voice seemed to be little more than a whisper. There was a small chance that the computer wouldn’t react; it might be password or voice coded.

  The computer’s screen sprang immediately into life. Its voice was soft and gentle and seemed very, very friendly. ‘Your request?’

  Her heart elated, Lara told it, ‘I need to make a call.’ She gave the computer the number to call. It was her parents’ home number.

  It seemed to take forever for the call to be answered, but eventually a voice said, ‘Hello,’ and then in shock the voice added, ‘Lara!’ The computer must’ve automatically decided to send her image. The image of the person she was talking to also became evident on the screen. It was Hamdrill, one of her parents’ bodyguards, who also doubled as the butcher and cook.

  ‘I’m stuck,’ Lara cried; she could hear the emotion in her own voice. ‘I’m on a farm on the edge of London. Can you send help? Can you send someone to pick me up?’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ replied Hamdrill with feeling. ‘Which farm?’

  Lara’s hopes fell for a moment. She had no idea which farm, and since there must be thousands surrounding the city and she could be on any one of them, suddenly she felt lost again. Then an idea struck her. ‘Computer, can you send them a map of our location?’

  The computer replied simply, ‘Done!’

  ‘Okay, that’ll do nicely,’ Hamdrill stated on the other side of the screen almost immediately. ‘I’ll let your parents know you’re all right, and then I’ll come and get you myself.’

  ‘Great,’ Lara replied happily. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  ‘Good to see you too,’ replied Hamdrill. ‘Glad to see that you got out of that prison. I guess Myajes completed his mission!’

  Lara shook her head sadly. ‘Something else happened that got me free. I’ll tell you about it once I get home. I’m afraid Myajes was captured when he tried to rescue me. I have no idea where he is now.’

  As the screen went dead, Lara began to wonder if the call had been a good move. She was feeling very tired and really needed to get some sleep, and the call really could have waited until she was rested. Hamdrill was a good friend, but she was also well trained as one of her parents’ bodyguards and would be naturally suspicious of Lara’s call. After all, as far as anyone knew, Lara was still a prisoner of the Elite Guard, and if they had discovered who she was, they might easily set up a trap using her as bait. Lara decided she would have to stay awake until Hamdrill arrived, fearing that if Hamdrill had to actually come into the house to find Lara asleep on one of the upstairs beds, she might instead decide that the danger of an ambush was too high and leave without her.

  Lara uttered another prayer of thanks to the Goddess and then took a seat on one of the less comfortable chairs in the room. She then started to check through the newspaper. She might have a long wait before Hamdrill did arrive. Lara didn’t know where she was, but she knew she was somewhere on the far side of London in comparison to where her parents lived, and she also knew that even when it wasn’t rush hour, the streets of the city were very slow going. Of course, at this point, she didn’t know about the great exodus from the city.

  29

  Mars

  The first thing that caught February’s attention as she awoke was the strong smell of herd somewhere close by in the house. Almost immediately this triggered a number of natural responses to the perceived threat. Before she was fully aware of her surroundings, she was off the couch that she had spent the night on, crouching behind it, ready to pounce with her claws fully extended. This was the third morning she had woken up on that couch, and still she wasn’t used to the scent that greeted her. It was with her as she went to sleep. It was with her all through the night as she slept and was no doubt partially responsible for some of the nightmares she had been having lately about being cornered by the herd.

  Not that she felt totally safe with the Lomaxes. They were herd, after all. But she had spent three nights with them so far, and this had brought her to the conclusion that although she c
ouldn’t trust them fully, they were very unlikely to do anything against her so long as Kitty was around. If they handed February over to the authorities there was a high risk that Kitty’s liberty would also be forfeit, and none of the three Lomaxes wanted that, not even Maureen, who had so far been extremely outspoken against February staying with them and even more so against her going to Mars with them.

  She rose from her crouching position almost immediately and pulled the blanket off of her makeshift bed, throwing it about her shoulders to cover herself. The living room was the nexus of the house. It wouldn’t usually take long for the others in the house to make their way here after they had woken up, and she would rather not be in just her night attire once they started to appear, especially as she had taken to sleeping in her underwear.

  No more than a few seconds later she heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs towards the living room. They seemed to be deliberately heavy, no doubt as a courtesy to give February plenty of warning of an approaching visitor. The scent that accompanied the sound was Stanley’s, mixed with a slight flowery smell that probably came from the soap that he had just been using in the shower. February quickly checked to make sure the blanket was covering her decently, and then she sat back on the couch, peering over the backrest to await his arrival.

  It was clear that Stanley had just emerged from the bathroom, not only because of how clean he was looking and the smell of soap, but also because he was wearing towels instead of clothing: one about his midriff, one on his hair, and another about his shoulders. The drying facilities in the bathroom were amongst the most modern on the planet, but Stanley was used to what the moon had to offer, and life on the moon was all about the conservation of space. A towel took up a lot less room than a mechanical dryer, and once people had gotten into a habit it sometimes became hard to break them of it. It was a habit he would have to break, though. February didn’t know a lot about Mars, but like most people she was aware of the water shortage. Some claimed that Mars only had about a quarter, maybe a third of the water it really needed for comfort. She didn’t know how they handled things like showers and baths, but she was pretty sure that the use of towels would be frowned upon.

  ‘Good morning,’ February said to him as he walked in. She considered his body for a minute: the odd drip of water glistening as it ran down his arm, the ugly stripe-less skin, and his lack of tail. Despite everything that the herd was currently putting her people through, she was glad she hadn’t been born one of them.

  ‘Morning,’ Stanley replied happily. Then, no doubt referring to their imminent trip to Mars, he added, ‘Today’s the day!’ He sounded very jolly today.

  ‘Indeed!’ February felt that her voice sounded a little stilted, probably because of the earliness of the hour.

  ‘The bathroom’s free if you hurry,’ Stanley added. ‘I’m about to make some breakfast. Would you like some?’

  ‘That’d be nice,’ February replied as amicably as she could manage. ‘Whatever you’re making for yourself will be fine.’

  ‘It’ll be a simple fry up.’ Stanley then left the room, whistling to himself.

  ‘That’s fine,’ February called after him. It was nice that Stanley wanted to fix her breakfast every day.

  Virtually every meal since her arrival had been prepared by someone else. For some reason they didn’t seem too keen on letting her do any cooking. They probably thought she’d try to put herd on the menu, or something silly like that. They wouldn’t even let her cook something just for herself.

  After her shower she used the mechanical dryer, both for the ease and the speed of it. Then, covering herself with the blanket again for the sake of decency, she crossed the landing to Kitty’s room.

  She knocked twice on Kitty’s door. This was more for courtesy than anything. All of the items she had brought from her home had been stored in Kitty’s room for the duration of her stay, including her clothing, some of which she needed immediately.

  ‘Come on in,’ Kitty called from the other side of the door.

  February entered the room and stepped to one side so that Kitty, who had obviously been waiting for her arrival, could leave the room. Kitty dashed across the short gap between her room and the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

  One of the worst things about flying by shuttle, especially when you were leaving the planet rather than just flying from one city to another, was the limitation on weight. For the casual traveler the limit was just one suitcase and one carry-on, both of which were heavily policed as to how much they could weigh. If you were a resident or going to be a resident of your destination and could prove it by producing the right paperwork, then you were allowed two suitcases as well as the carry-on.

  February’s carry-on had been easy; it was a small bag that carried a portable computer. The bag also had a number of small side pockets, and these February had filled with anything she could fit in them.

  By the time Stanley and Maureen had known that February would also be coming with them, it had been too late to get the paperwork updated. She was going to be limited to just one suitcase, while each of the other four got two. She had managed to convince Kitty to pack a few things in one of her cases, such as the pills that she had gotten from Stenhas and some of the makeup stuff. This had provided her a little more room in her own suitcase. Most of that extra room was now filled with clothing. She also packed a book reader and some cartridges, but as small as they were, she wanted to take a lot of cartridges, and together they took up a lot of room. February had had to painstakingly decide which to take and which she just didn’t have room for.

  That was all in the past now; she was packed, and the weight of her suitcase was still within the limitations laid down by the spacelines, but February couldn’t help thinking that there was something missing. Something she had made a point of bringing with her from her home and had yet forgotten to pack for Mars. The idea that it might be a weapon kept nagging at her. In the end she put it down to that nagging feeling most people seem to get that they have left something they need behind when they are about to go somewhere.

  She took something from the pile of clothes she had left beside her packed suitcase. Later she would have to decide from that small pile which combination of clothes she would wear for the journey itself. The rest would be discarded through lack of room. She was already considering wearing two or even three outfits so that she would get to keep them, but there were many things to do before she made any final choice, and right now all she wanted was something to wear so she could mingle with the others and have some breakfast.

  After breakfast, February made her excuses and returned to Kitty’s room with Kitty in tow to finish getting ready for the trip. The first order of business was a disguise, and whereas under normal circumstances she might settle for a mixture of powders to obfuscate her stripes, today that just wouldn’t be enough. They were taking a long journey to a different planet. Though they might not be expecting to encounter any of the Elite Guard en route, they would be passing a number of security checkpoints, including what might be waiting for them at the spaceport. For this trip February had deemed it necessary to use the masks they had each had specially made.

  ‘I’m glad now you insisted on getting your own mask made up,’ February told Kitty. She remembered how she had tried to steer Kitty away from the idea because of how much work it took to make such a mask, but Kitty had been adamant.

  ‘It seemed like something that would be good to know,’ Kitty replied simply, brushing off the compliment. ‘Since I was now a fugitive, I thought the more such skills I could learn, the better my chances of survival.’

  ‘That makes sense to me,’ February commented dryly. She closed the bedroom door behind them and then locked it. There were parts of the disguise February didn’t really need to wear because she expected to be covered in those places by all the clothing she was planning to put on. Nevertheless, the easiest way to carry the disguise, as she didn’t want to leave any p
art of it behind, was to wear it, and that meant stripping down to her underwear again. Plus there was something else that both she and Kitty needed to put on afterwards, and that would require them both to strip even further. And though February felt she could trust the herd for the time being, she didn’t want to risk one of them barging their way into the room while she and Kitty were in a state of undress. Not that they were in the habit of doing so, but better to be safe than sorry.

  February had often heard members of her race boast that they could put on a disguise like this in less than ten minutes, including all the color matching that had to be done after the pieces had been placed. February, though, had never managed to get this type of disguise on in less than twenty-five minutes, and on this occasion she had to share the room’s mirror with Kitty as well as assist her in putting on her mask. In the end it was nearly a full hour before she was happy with how it looked. Kitty too was nearly ready as February admired her handiwork in the mirror. She still had a bit of a problem with the way the mask merged around her eyes; it just didn’t look natural, and it took another twenty minutes with February’s help to fix it.

  ‘There,’ said February as she assisted her friend with her contact lenses, ‘it would take an alert Elite Guardsman to recognize us for what we are now.’

  ‘How would they recognize us?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ February replied; she studied her reflection in the mirror and continued, ‘something in the eyes perhaps. Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘I’d like to know for certain,’ replied Kitty to herself more than anything.

  February nodded and walked over to the pile of clothing she had left next to her packed suitcase. At the bottom of the pile, hidden where she doubted any of the herd would bother to look, were the two canisters she had obtained almost a week previously from her regional headquarters. Supposedly the stuff in these cans would confuse her scent enough that even a sniffer dog wouldn’t be able to detect her. She looked at the cans doubtfully. If it worked, it was a shame to have to use it when she might have a dearer need for it later, but with that thinking she might decide never to use it. No, she thought to herself, she knew that the herd had put checkpoints up all around the north of London. These would be guarded by sniffer dogs, and there would be other sniffer dogs at the spaceport when they arrived. If they didn’t wear this stuff, or if it didn’t work as advertised, then both she and Kitty would probably find themselves in a Cattery cell by nightfall anyway.