by Simon Ings
Ajay glanced at her. ‘I’ve panaceas. Here.’ He dug into his jeans pocket and handed her a clear plastic packet. ‘Silver blister-pack, red lozenges. Suck one.’
‘What does it do?’
‘Teaches your immune cells what to do. The air’s like soup here, full of crap.’
‘Milk would do,’ she said.
‘There’s no milk here.’
‘No pigs?’
‘What?’
I didn’t even say goodbye.
‘Rosa,’ said Ajay after a while. ‘Something you said back there.’
‘Said what?’
‘About coming to Rio.’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s no way you can come with me.’
‘But Ajay—’
‘Listen carefully,’ he said, with force. ‘I might have left with Elle entire. As it is I’ve got Elle’s head. And that won’t last long in this heat. I figure my best gift’s the beads. The data. Herazo will content himself with that I hope. But I turn up in Rio with a Dayus Ram-made girl, a living girl, he’ll tear you limb from limb as said, looking for some “specialness”.’
‘But you were taking me to Rio,’ Rosa said, appalled. ‘You knew he would do that to me?’
Ajay shot her a disbelieving glance. ‘I explained all! I told you Elle was meat, that it was death to down-well. You heard me!’
She looked away, ashamed. ‘I heard you,’ she repeated.
‘You gave me fuck-all choice, Rosa,’ he pressed on, angrily. ‘You freebooted down-well. Now here is what you do for me. You stay by me a while, since as you are you’re trouble on a stick. Once you know enough, once you get competent with how things are, you leave and find your own way. Right?’
Abashed, she nodded. ‘You’ll – stay with me? A while?’
‘And you do as I say.’
She nodded. ‘As you say.’
‘Or we’re both as good as dead.’
‘I understand.’
There were more towns now. A sign said Santa Cruz. A few metres further on, the road humped over a small river. White railings marked the span. Before the bridge, set back from the road, a plastic shelter caught the mellowing light. Ajay pulled off the road and stopped the car. He got down and studied a board fastened to the awning. ‘We’ve an hour before the bus.’
‘Bus?’
‘Like this only bigger.’
‘We couldn’t walk?’
‘Conspicuous.’
‘Okay,’ she sighed.
He started the car up again, pulled the transmission into reverse and hauled them back to the Santa Cruz sign. To their left a gate stood open; a sign said, Private Road. A gravelled track wound to the right, and ran along an embankment across wetland to the line of low hills. There were trees at the foot of the hills, and a ribbon of smoke rising from them.
Ajay drove slowly down the track.
‘Where we going?’
‘We need better clothes, money, stuff to make us look normal.’
The light weakened. The track showed up poorly against the undergrowth to either side.
‘Do we have lights?’ Rosa suggested.
Ajay shook his head. ‘Conspicuous.’
There were lights in the copse ahead. Ajay slowed down even further.
‘What is it?’
‘A house, I hope.’
A tree-covered hill rose to their right. There were signs nailed to the trunks here and there, but it was too dark to read them. A chain link fence ran alongside the track to their left. Behind it Rosa glimpsed trellises and cloches, an irregular patchwork of tilled earth criss-crossed by tidy paths, a toolshed and a rusted car. She blinked, unable to take it all in. Her head pulsed like a bad tooth.
Ajay pointed. ‘There—’ On top of the rise stood a clapboard house. He stopped the car. From his pocket he drew a handful of things he’d saved from the golden suit. An olive-drab stock with a pin sticking out of it, and a pale china rod. He snapped the rod into the stock at an angle. A red LED set into the stock blinked once. He tucked the assembly into his jeans. ‘Follow me. Bring the bag.’ Rosa reached behind her chair and picked up the sports bag. It felt light.
‘It’s been leaking.’
‘Shut up,’ Ajay hissed. He climbed out the jeep and closed the door behind him, gently. Rosa did the same, walked round the car and put the bag down next to him. He took a black lozenge out his pocket, snapped off the cap, spoke into it, put it together again and dropped it through the open window into the cab. ‘Stay away from the car,’ he told her. ‘Well away. Walk back down the road a few yards and wait for me. If you see anything, hear anything, if anything approaches you, hide in the trees. Run if you have to. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘For God’s sake stay away from the car.’
‘Okay.’
He punched her on the shoulder. ‘Get moving.’ He picked up the sports bag and set off down the road towards a steel mesh gate. He swung it open. Rosa turned and walked the other way, past the jeep and along the road. She glanced back. Ajay was half way up the hill, heading for the house. He had the sports bag in his left hand, the olive-drab thing in his right. There were three lights on in the house, two on the ground floor, one above. She paused a moment and watched. Ajay knocked on the door. A light came on above the porch, drenching him in orange light. He said something, she didn’t catch what. The door swung open. Ajay strode in, device upraised. She heard glass breaking; a child’s cry, cut short. Then silence. There was nothing more to see. Reluctantly, she turned and set off again down the path.
Above her, to her left, a light blinked on.
She froze, heart-in-mouth.
There was no sound.
She took a step forward. The light disappeared.
Another step. It appeared again.
It came from up in the trees to her left, only intermittently visible through the screen of branches. She walked some more, watching the light. The light was rectangular, like the lights from the house. A window. Another building? But they’d surely have seen it before, if that was what it was. She climbed the dirt bank up into the trees for a look.
Footsteps on the road approached her. She cowered behind the nearest tree trunk. Ajay came in view. He was carrying two bags: the sports bag, and a canvas hold-all. ‘Ajay,’ Rosa hissed.
He stopped.
She slid down the bank and beckoned to him. He came over. She took his hands. They were shaking. ‘A light,’ she whispered.
Ajay looked where she pointed. He laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Stay here.’
He moved up the bank, between the trees, into the darkness.
‘Ajay!’ she hissed.
He motioned for her to keep silent.
‘I’m scared,’ she insisted.
He sighed. ‘Follow then,’ he said, softly. ‘Stay out of trouble.’
She followed him at a safe distance through the trees. She trod slowly over the uneven ground, afraid to trip and twist something.
There was, after all, some building here; suspended in mid-air, or so it seemed. They crept closer. It was a box: irregular, jerry-built, resting in the fork of massive branches, about six metres off the ground. A rope ladder dangled from it. They waited, staring up at the box, and at the bright rectangle at its centre. Something moved, white on white. Rosa stepped forward. Ajay held up his hand, halting her. Crouching, he ran up under the tree, took hold of the ladder and climbed.
Rosa crouched in the shadows, wide-eyed. She stared up at the window, willing the shape to come clear, and when it wouldn’t, gazed higher and higher, into the tree, the fractal swirl and recession of branches, dividing, dividing—
A sudden movement pulled her back to the present. Something shifted at the window. A figure, looking out. Long curly hair, eyes haunted by shadows, top hidden by a shapeless shift; the suggestion of breasts. She looked for Ajay and glimpsed his legs, disappearing inside the box. The figure at the window cried out, then scrambled out the window, long legs flailing,
and jumped. She hit the ground running. Rosa dashed after her.
The girl’s legs flashed pale against the dark branches. Fat, thought Rosa, salivating; slow.
The girl crested the hill and disappeared. Rosa followed. The trees ended. There was a chain link fence ahead – the girl was halfway over. Rosa sprinted, breakneck, down the slope towards the fence. Her feet felt big and clumsy in her shoes. The jeans tangled her up so, she couldn’t run properly. Cursing, she fetched up against the fence, her quarry gone. She climbed the fence. From her perch she saw the girl, hurtling down the reedy bank to the swamp below. Rosa leapt from the fence, curling into herself as she fell. She landed softly on the reedy slope and rolled, down and down, and landed, gasping and flailing, in shallow, filthy water. She found her feet: mud oozed around her ankles. She cast around, grabbed a handful of reeds and pulled herself out the ditch. She paused then, listening.
The quarry was not far off, bogged down by the mud, panting, spent. Rosa pushed through the tall reeds, slipping and sliding, sinking to her knees at times, but sure now of her quarry, huntress-proud.
There: a flash of grey between the black reed stalks. Rosa plunged through. The girl glanced behind her. Her eyes went wide with surprise. She slipped and fell face forward in the mud. She turned onto her back, feet paddling for purchase, arms upraised in poor defence.
Rosa snatched the cloth from out her pocket. She squeezed it, purring, and fell on her.
The girl tried squirming free, scoring her fingers through the mud, hunting for a stone, a clump of earth, anything that might make a weapon.
Rosa raised the cloth. It was still limp. She stared at it, dismayed.
The girl leaned up, driving her forehead into Rosa’s chest.
Taken by surprise, Rosa fell back.
The girl leapt on her, hands around her throat, squeezing and tearing—
The glove, thought Rosa, dizzily. With the glove on, the cloth did not respond. She fought to free her hands. Reaching up, she swapped the cloth from gloved to ungloved hand. It stiffened. The girl was using her weight to crush Rosa’s windpipe. Her hair fell down around them both, trapping her musky scent. Spots danced before Rosa’s eyes. Her head began to swim. Her vision became tunnelled. Her throat was on fire. She reached around the girl and hugged her close, arms crossed tightly around her back. The girl dug into her neck with her teeth, tearing at her flesh. Rosa leant into the bite, giving herself up to it. The scent of her quarry sent her senses wild: this surely was the finest foe she’d ever faced! Pain shot through her neck and down her back. Stiffening and crying out, she scored the cloth across the young girl’s back. The girl cried out, flailing, hunting for the blade, fending it off. Rosa sat up. The girl fell back into the mud. Rosa drew in a ragged breath, forcing it through her throat, then struck again, repeatedly, long shallow playful cuts. The girl, demoralised, hadn’t the strength to fend off the blade. Dispatching her was easy now. Tiring of her bloody game, Rosa slit the girl’s soft throat and turned her over, letting the blood drain out.
‘Merda.’
She wheeled round. Ajay towered above her, a filthy giant, his face flecked with mud. ‘What have you done?’
She showed him.
‘How?’
Sheepish, she tried to hide the cloth.
He snatched it from her. It softened as he studied it, no tool for strangers’ hands. ‘With this?’
She nodded.
He slapped her, hard, across the face. She overbalanced, fell on top of the corpse.
‘Christ. Mind the blood,’ he muttered, pulling her up again by her arm, at the same time squeezing it and twisting it to hurt. ‘I told you to dump this!’
‘Useful!’
‘I don’t care.’ The cloth was quite soft now. He crumpled it into a ball and stuffed it in the dead girl’s mouth. He took another black lozenge out his pocket, whispered into it, then snapped it shut and poked it into the wound in the girl’s side. ‘Come away.’ He led her wearily back out the swamp, up the hill, through the woods and down to the drive again. The hold-alls were where he had left them, behind a tree.
‘Undress.’
From the new hold-all he handed her a damp towel. She used it to wipe off the worst of the mud and the blood. He stripped and did the same, then put the towels back in the hold-all. He had fetched fresh clothes from the house. He handed her a pair of roomy draw-string pants and a black vest, more comfortable by far than what she’d had. For himself he’d found a shirt, newly pressed, black suit pants and a linen jacket. He shoved their old clothes into the bag and they walked back together to where the jeep had been.
A rusted hulk was in its place, sunk to its chassis in the dirt. The tyres were gone, and of the soft-top only tatters remained, flapping from half-chewed aluminium spars. The interior upholstery had turned to dust and seat-springs, mounted to warped frames, melted and smoked to stubs before her eyes.
‘Stay back.’ He threw the bag into the wreck. It deflated as they watched.
Rosa stepped forward for a closer look.
‘Careful.’
She looked down. The drive was gravel. Around the car though, in a perfect circle, the gravel had turned to sand.
‘Nanotechniq. Come away.’
She glanced up at the house. It sagged strangely. Stains poured from its windows. Timbers snapped; a sharp retort.
‘Quickly now.’
They walked back to the highway and Ajay led her into the bus shelter. They sat side by side on the plastic bench, Ajay with his head in his hands, Rosa face up to the stars. ‘Which one’s Ma?’
‘You can’t see her from here.’
‘Is she not big enough?’
‘That, and this is the wrong hemisphere.’
‘Can you see her from Rio?’
‘With a big enough ’scope. If you know where to look and have money to burn.’
‘But you found it,’ said Rosa.
‘I was told where it was.’
‘Look!’
Ajay looked up.
There was a light in the sky, uneven and fiery red. She followed the light with her finger. ‘A falling star!’
‘No,’ Ajay said, more to himself than to her. ‘Too bright for that.’
‘An airplane?’
It arced over them, hovered a moment, and descended.
Ajay snatched Rosa’s arm and squeezed it hard.
‘It’s coming for us!’ Rosa cried.
‘Down.’ He pulled her to the concrete floor of the shelter and flung himself over her.
The rocket exploded above their heads, a single, vicious crack. There was no flash to speak of. Rosa struggled up from under Ajay to see what was going on. He grabbed her legs and pulled her back beside him. His face loomed over her, stricken with fear. ‘You stupid bitch, I said get down!’
‘What is it?’
‘Missile of some sort.’ He dug about in his suit pants for the strange ceramic gun. He drew it out and aiming, swept the road with fearful gaze.
It was raining paper. Little squares of it, light blue against the darker blue of dusk, were drifting aimlessly about the road.
Ajay got up. ‘Stay here,’ he warned her. ‘It could be nanotechniq.’ He left the shelter and strode a few yards down the street. With the barrel of his gun he began nosing at the papers where they drifted all about him. She saw his shoulders slump at last. He put the gun away.
‘Forget it,’ he said, returning. ‘A leaflet drop is all. Some dumb advert, by its looks, or maybe something politic.’
Rosa got up and shook the grit out her hair. A scrap of paper bowled towards her. ‘Can I pick it up?’
‘Yeah, sure.’
She stooped and gathered it. It was thin and greasy. There was something printed on one side, some words or a number, she couldn’t be sure: in the gloom she could not read it. The other side had some sort of design, too faint to be made out.
She turned the scrap over and over and then, tiring of the mystery, she folded it up and tuc
ked it into her pants pocket.
‘Come sit down,’ said Ajay. He took her hand and pulled her gently down beside him. She put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself. He brushed her away. ‘Keep off me, please.’ He sounded tired.
She stroked his hand.
He brushed it off. ‘Stop it, I said.’
She couldn’t see him clearly. There wasn’t enough light to see real colours. Things far away were shades of grey. Ajay’s face was an olive blur, as though his skin were lightly impregnated with phosphorous. His eyes were dull. He was breathing through his mouth, and his lower teeth showed in a pitted, uneven line. He had less hair than she remembered. It had flecked off in patches. A hemisphere of skin over his right ear was quite bald. She listened to his breathing.
The milk is wearing off, she thought. ‘Ajay, are you well?’
‘No.’ He looked at her, seemed to come to a decision: ‘Not at all.’
‘A red pill?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve nothing to digest it with. No foliant in my gut. I can feel it starting.’
‘What?”
‘Nausea.’ A moment later: ‘Up!’
‘What?’
‘Up! Help me up!’ Light glinted off his eyes; she saw the whites had gone yellow. There was sleep around his lids, and spittle on his lower lip.
‘Quick!’
She turned. There was a light on the road. It moved silently towards them. She scrambled up and out the shelter, pulling Ajay with her. He was surprisingly light. She propped him against the awning and ran out into the road, waving frantically.
‘Rosa, stop it, there’s no need!’
She glanced at Ajay. He beckoned fiercely for her to join him.
The bus hissed to a stop. Ajay pulled Rosa against him. ‘Pack it in!’ He led her round the side of the bus. It was made almost entirely of glass. Rosa looked in and saw a handful of passengers. Some of them had black skins, like Ajay. Others were lighter-skinned, though none were as pale as her.
In front sat a driver, separated from the rest of the interior in a glass bubble of his own. He fixed them with hard eyes.
Rosa looked at Ajay.
Ajay was looking up at the driver with a wholly unconvincing smile. ‘For God’s sake,’ he whispered to her, ‘say nothing.’
