Regeneration

by Stephanie Saulter

  “You never said any of this before,” Crawford replied, looking horrified.

  “I told you the longevity gemtech had impregnable security. I didn’t think it was necessary to provide specifics. I didn’t think,” Zavcka said, dripping bitterness, “that this was the nature of our relationship.”

  “It isn’t! Madam, I wish you could come with us, I wish I could escort you to our rendezvous point right now. But it’s impossible.” He was pleading, pointing at her with a shaking finger, pointing at her throat. “You can’t leave this apartment, remember? There’d be alarms the moment you stepped outside, you’d be tracked wherever you went . . .”

  She touched the slender polymer and metal rope around her neck. The thought floated through her mind, in the odd, abstract way that unnecessary thoughts did when there were more pressing matters at hand, that she had grown quite accustomed to it.

  She raised an eyebrow at Crawford: superior, knowing.

  “I can deactivate it.”

  “Deactivate . . . How?”

  “I bribed one of the technicians to provide me with a means of blocking its transmissions. You paid the bribe yourself, in fact—one of those transfers I had you make? The Prague portfolio?” She spread her hands. “Now you know what it was for.”

  “But . . . I beg your pardon, madam, but if you were able to do that and get out of here, surely you would have done so already?”

  “Would I? Think about it, Mr. Crawford. Once the signal goes dead and they discover that I am not in this apartment, every train station, airport, and helipad will be on alert. Every security cam on every road in the city—not to mention those leading out of it—will be scanning for me. If I’m already out of London, that won’t matter, but I no longer have travel documents or access to personal transportation. I might be worth billions, but I don’t have access to money that I can easily spend. None of those problems are insurmountable, of course; I wonder whether you realize how much of the work you’ve been doing for me has been aimed at solving them.”

  It was Crawford’s turn to look stunned.

  Zavcka smiled coldly. “However, the necessary arrangements are not yet in place, and you are departing. As things stand, I’m unlikely to be able to find my own way out before all routes are blocked. Unless, of course, I go with you.”

  “I don’t . . . I can’t . . . How long will it take?”

  “The tracker? Not long. The device in my possession corrupts the circuitry. No more than half an hour.”

  “What if it doesn’t work? I’m sorry, madam, I can’t risk it—I can’t wait that long.”

  “I’ll meet you. You won’t be taking a commercial flight or a train, not with the child. Private car or helicopter? Tell me where.”

  “No, we’re using the . . . None of the things you said. Madam, I can’t. We don’t have travel documents for you. You’re too recognizable.”

  “Mr. Crawford, you and your companion and the child you intend to kidnap are about to become equally recognizable. Clearly you have a plan to avoid detection.” Zavcka was watching him narrowly and decided to gamble. “If it’s the same one you’ve been using to keep the police from catching up with these two, it must be good.” She gestured at the screen, where the WANTED banners for the Thames terrorists were once more interminably flashing. “Just include me in it.”

  He went white with shock and his knees sagged. Stumbling, he sank onto the arm of a chair as though all his strings had been cut. Zavcka smiled again, her lips thin, amused, as though she had only stated the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Oh yes, I know what you’re running from. Your friend Mr. Fischer must be of great concern to you at the moment, and with good reason. We had better stop wasting time.”

  Crawford’s eyes were flicking from side to side. He looked like a trapped animal. “We . . . we only have room for the three of us . . .”

  “Perfect. Take me. I’m the one who knows what you’re involved in; I’m the one who can give you what you want. Leave my daughter out of it.”

  “Madam, I can’t.” It was a wail, lost and desperate. “It’s not up to me. Events are already in motion.” He was scrambling for the door, frantic now, chest heaving.

  “Mr. Crawford!”

  He stopped in his tracks. He turned.

  “I am going to call you,” she said. “In half an hour or less I am going to use this device to call you. I will confirm that the tracker is deactivated, and that I am safely out of this apartment. You are going to tell me where to come. I will sort things out with your companion when I get there. You will leave it to me. Is that clear?”

  He stared as though she were a witch or a vision, some monstrous thing he had never seen before. Then he nodded sharply, silent and frightened, and was gone.

  GENERATION

  25

  They had turned the heat up in the classrooms of Riveredge Primary to ward off the freezing fog of the morning and, as always seemed to be the way of things, it had gone from so cold you had to keep your coat on and could see your breath indoors to so hot that children were shedding layers of clothing as though they were snake skins and drowsing at their desks. Eve, like most of her classmates, was down to a thin shirt. She worked through the list of problems on her tablet—easy, these were all so easy—squinted suspiciously at the example on the wall screen just to make sure there wasn’t a trick lurking somewhere to trip her up, and swiped to send the answers to the teacher. Then she slouched, chin on fist, and gazed longingly at the window. There was something that might almost be sky out there now, instead of the gray-white cloud that had earlier pressed up against the glass and condensed, first into fine dots, then into big drops, and then run down in fat streaks like rain. She knew from experience that the more often she checked the time, the longer it would take to get to lunch, but she could tell from where they were in the lesson and the first rumbles of hunger in her stomach, that it had to be soon.

  Her tablet pinged softly. All of her answers were correct and she’d been sent another three problems to solve. These looked a little trickier. She glanced over at the teacher, Mr. Yucel, who smiled at her approvingly. Eve sent a tiny smile back, although for once she would have preferred to daydream the remaining minutes away with nothing to do until everyone else had completed the set. But this was the price for being at the top of the class: you got more—and more difficult—problems than the others. You got to be the one who explained things to the kids who weren’t as smart. You got away with a little more impudence, a little more rowdiness, a little more independence of mind. You got approval, and indulgence. She bent to the task.

  She did the first problem quickly, spotted the trap in the second and reworked it and was deep in contemplation of the third when a sound intruded: a high, wavering electronic screech that resonated unpleasantly up and down her spine. She looked up. All around her, chairs were being pushed back. The sample problem on the wall screen had been replaced by the words EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY pulsing ominously in time to the screeching. Mr. Yucel was on his feet, frowning at it as he tucked his own tablet away, then frowning worriedly around at his class.

  “Right, children,” he said, calmly, but Eve could hear an anxious note to his voice, “you all know what to do when there’s a fire alarm. Don’t worry about your tablets or fetching your coats. Just move outside quickly and in an orderly manner like we’ve practiced. This isn’t a drill, so no fooling around, please. Yes, Tufiq, that means you too. Come along, Darla, quickly, now. Eve, Perce, hurry up both of you.”

  Eve grabbed her discarded sweater in one hand and her tablet in the other and joined her classmates heading for the exit. Contrary to instructions but true to form, Tuffy was clowning up at the front. She could hear Mr. Yucel at the back, making sure that no one had been left behind, urging Darla to move more quickly. The corridors were crowded with everyone from the very little kids—Suri’s age, though she didn’t see him—up to the ten- and eleven-year-olds with whom Eve was at constant war on the playgro
und. But even they looked subdued by the unscheduled scramble and rush, and the high, worried voices of the teachers. Eve looked for Mish and thought she spotted his gangly frame up ahead. But it was just a silhouette glimpsed against the wide gap of the open doors and whoever she’d seen was lost in the crush. Fumbling a little, she slid her tablet away in the pocket of her sweater as she shuffled along toward the rectangle of daylight. It was too packed to try and pull it on in here, and anyway, it was much too hot—maybe there really was a fire somewhere, underneath their feet perhaps. Maybe turning the heat up so high had made the building start to burn? She imagined flames licking up from the basement, red fingers painting the underside of the floor beneath her feet, and she shuddered with fear and curiosity as she wondered what the school on fire would look like.

  She was at the door now, tumbling down the steps into the yard, turning around immediately to look up at the building as she backed away. There was no sign of any fire or smoke, and she felt a twinge of disappointment; then the cold hit her like a slap and she scrambled to pull on her sweater over her head. Through the openings of neck and sleeve she caught flashes of others all around her doing the same, while the teachers anxiously tried to herd them toward the playground. Children were still continuing to pour out of the door, an endless wave of them, all crowding into the space, and Eve hopped backward to avoid being knocked over as she struggled with the sweater.

  We assemble on the playground, to the side and out of the way, Eve thought. I know that. She popped her head through the neck opening in time to catch a glimpse of Tuffy staggering away in the distance, still making faces, with his coat half on and backward. Twit. At least he was going in the right direction. She got her arms out through the sleeves, straightened the sweater, and moved to follow.

  “Eve?” said a voice she did not recognize. It came from above, behind and a little to one side. She turned.

  It was a norm man, one she’d seen a couple of times before, once in the morning as she was arriving at school and another time when she’d run out to meet Mama in the afternoon. Those times he had been out on the street, but now he was standing just inside the gate, as though he had stepped in to see what was causing all the commotion. She wondered why it was unlocked at this hour, then realized, Of course, it must be because of the fire. The man had a deeply lined face and a lumpy, purplish nose; he was wearing a dull brown raincoat. She didn’t know which child was his, or how he knew her name.

  “Evening8,” said the man, “have you seen dorok235?”

  “What?” said Eve, so perplexed by the question that she forgot to be suspicious of the questioner. Those weren’t real names, but she knew them.

  “You’re friends with her onstream,” said the man. “See?” He held out a tablet, bending a little to bring the screen level with her eyes, and when she looked at it she saw her last chat with @dorok235 and the rest of the banished gang. The man’s other hand was coming down beside the one that held the tablet, holding something, a small dark something, and her attention shifted to it, trying to make out what it was. A puff of white mist blew into her face, cold and chemical-smelling, and she coughed, then gasped. She looked up at the man, blinking, and suddenly deeply confused. There was clamor and shouting behind her, but she could not remember what it was about. There was a man she did not know in front of her, talking to her, telling her to come with him. She recalled vaguely that there was something you were supposed to do if that happened, but she could not think what.

  “Come this way, Eve,” said the man. He sounded far, far away, but he had a kind voice. Kind man. “Quickly now.”

  She felt someone take a hand that might have been hers. She felt feet somewhere lift and move in a slow, dreamlike motion that was almost like walking. She did not know who the feet belonged to or where they were going, and she didn’t care. It didn’t seem important. The man led her out of the gate, past the passersby who were gathering to peer curiously into the teeming, screeching schoolyard, along the pavement, swiftly around the corner and out of sight.

  Gaela was in her kitchen, eyeing the bounty of apples Aryel had brought and thinking that she really should make something with some of them, if only to remove them as a task for Bal. The trouble was, they both knew that he would do a far better job than she could, no matter what she tried. In the fifteen years of their relationship she had yet to achieve more than basic competence in cookery, while he was able to generate an endless variety of delectable dishes from the most mundane of ingredients. She tried every now and then, but it was more about showing willing than expecting much in the way of results, and the whole family knew it.

  Still, it had been a while since the last attempt, and she had just about decided to go for it when her tablet pinged: probably Gabriel, replying to the message she’d sent a few minutes before. She glanced at the screen, expecting his comcode along with an acknowledgment, maybe a question. What she saw instead made her snatch up the tablet and leap for the door, grabbing the coats hanging beside it as she went.

  Bal met her halfway, charging up the stairs as she was charging down. “Did you get—?”

  She answered by tossing his coat at him; he pivoted and led the way, hauling it on as he went, saying, “It’s probably nothing. False alarm—”

  “I know. I can go on my own—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” He stuck his head around the door of the grocery, yelled to Horace to hold down the fort and ran to catch up with her.

  It had taken Agwé only a few minutes to work out that some big new thing must have happened during the few hours she’d been gone. Her route back from college was topside all the way and as she zigzagged through the narrow streets, then onto the quayside and across the footbridges to the Thames Tidal Power building she noted a newstream van pulling up in one of the side roads that dead-ended at Sinkat, an unknown launch moored in a corner of the basin with an EM tech pulling himself onboard and a flutter of voices and tension as she stepped into the big project office. Gabriel was at his workstation with his back to the door, focused on his screen or his band, or both. At the far end, Qiyem, who would normally be sitting just as quiet and focused, looked like he was about to leave; he had coat and bag in hand, and seemed weirdly twitchy. For once, his band was pulsing, as if he might actually be using it. He saw Agwé immediately and half rose, as though he’d been waiting for her. She nodded an acknowledgment in his direction, but headed straight for Lapsa, who was finishing a conversation with someone.

  “—unbelievable. No, I know it’s not your fault, Fayole; I’m not trying to drop you in it. Just . . . You will? Thanks. I’ll ask them. Okay, bye.” She flicked off and looked up at Agwé.

  “There’s a guy from Environmental Management in a boat outside—”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “—and I just passed an UrbanNews van on Star Mews. What’s going on?”

  “You haven’t heard?” Lapsa sounded surprised, then added, “No, I suppose you wouldn’t have. I’m sorry, I haven’t had time to message, and I guess Gabriel didn’t either.”

  They both glanced over at him. He had seen her now, and his expression was so woebegone that she almost melted. He didn’t appear to have slept any more than she had.

  Lapsa said, “He’s working too hard already and I’m afraid today isn’t going to be a quiet one.” She explained about the Kaboom operation.

  “Are you joking?” Agwé was shocked rigid. “So all those trolls, the horrible things they’ve been saying—they were the terrorists too?”

  “Not all, but a lot of them. Gabriel,” she said significantly, “has been very busy.”

  “Holy shit. I’d better go and talk to him.”

  But she had made it far enough only to notice that his face had managed both to brighten and to look more anxious when she was intercepted by Qiyem.

  “Agwé.”

  “Hi,” she said, “sorry about yesterday. I still have to sort a couple of things out.” She gestured vaguely toward Gabriel.
>
  “I was wondering where you were,” Qiyem said, sounding desperate.

  Honestly, give the man a hint of a chance and whatever coolness he had washed out like the tide.

  “I need you to . . . come have lunch with me.”

  “Already?” she said in surprise. “It’s too early—I had breakfast at college not that long ago. Anyway, I’ve only just gotten back.” She made to move past him. “How about tomorrow?”

  He stood his ground. “Tomorrow isn’t going to work.”

  “The day after, then—or next week.” He was still standing there. “Qiyem, I’ve got things to do.”

  He stepped aside, reluctantly. “I’ll wait. As long as I . . . can.”

  That was so bizarre that she didn’t even attempt an answer. So much for listening to her guilty conscience; she’d been right to think there was something weird about him.

  Gabriel had been watching the exchange with that strange mixture of eagerness and hesitation. As she finally got to his workstation he stood up and plucked his tablet off the dock, his face looking tired and solemn.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said without preamble.

  “No—really?”

  “Really really, but not here.”

  There was something about the seriousness with which he spoke that made her bite back a snarky retort, and she followed him out and upstairs to an empty meeting room.

  “We need a conference for this?”

  “We need privacy.”

  “Lapsa just told me about this troll team?” she said conversationally. “Operation Kaboom, the ones that got arrested yesterday? And you’ve been having a hard time with the trolls, and I guess if you already knew about them you’d be on a short fuse.”

  “Oh, that,” he said distractedly, “that’s a whole other story. Yes I did, but no one’s supposed to know I did, and anyway, that wasn’t the reason.”