by Tim Maughan
“There you go, man. Sorted. They should all work now when you take them in.”
“The cans?” The guy doesn’t look like he understands what Rush is saying.
“Yeah, the cans. I reset them all. They’ll work now. They’re yours.”
“Yeah, okay.” The guy looks at him like he’s mad, talks to him like he’s a child. “Thanks, man, thanks for that.”
The next stop is Canal, and Rush helps the guy get his cart off the train before jumping back on. He waves at him, smiling, as the doors close. The guy waves back, shaking his head like he still thinks Rush is crazy.
Rush laughs to himself, smiles, and steadies himself against the lurch of the train as it pulls away by grasping a nearby pole with his unprotected, naked hand.
* * *
Frank gets to the recycling place just as they’re loading the last of the machines onto the back of the truck.
“What the fuck are you doing? Where you going with the machines?”
One of the laborers, some Mexican-looking guy, turns to face him. “No more machines, old man. They out of service now.”
“Out of service? Here, too? When you bringing them back?”
“Never. We ain’t never bringing them back. That’s it, man. New system, no need for these old machines. They redundant.”
“But I just brought these all the way over from Brooklyn … How am I going to get my money for them? I need some cash! There’s like two hundred bucks here!”
“No cash,” the guy says, as he jumps up onto the truck’s front platform, where its cab should be. “No cash for recycling, just credit. You gotta get the app now.”
“This doesn’t make any fucking sense,” says Frank.
“You gotta keep up, man, gotta get smart,” the guy shouts down from the truck as it starts to drive itself away. “The city is changing.”
Frank watches the truck roll past him, watches it pull out onto Canal Street. Looks over at his cart. He walks over to it and starts to push it away.
“Fuck you,” he says, to anyone that can hear. “Fuck you and your changing city.”
3. AFTER
This guy comes and sits next to her, the feet of the plastic chair squealing against the floor as he pulls it out from under the table. She’d mentally tagged him a couple of times already, as she’d scanned the crowd in the café, his eyes fixed on hers, his gaze never backing down when she met it.
Now he’s leaning in, as if he knows her, with some unjustified familiarity, uninvited intimacy. Rotten-egg breath and matted beard hair barely hiding inflamed, peeling skin.
“You getting weird looks, girl?” he says.
“Only from you.” She fixes him with a stare, and again his gaze stays firm, unwavering. A half smile breaks out across his face as he studies her.
“You think you can walk around a place like this without being recognized? You’re the buzz of the services. Everyone’s talking about you.”
She breaks his gaze, scans the café again. Here and there a pair of eyes catch hers, but unlike his they look away the instant she meets them. Disheveled figures hunched over Formica tables. Ripped coats bleeding filling from elbows, cloaks improvised from stained blankets. This used to be a Costa Coffee, she remembers. She stares at the repeating coffee bean motif engraved in the walls, like ancient hieroglyphs that get harder to decipher as time passes. There are kids alive today that have never seen a coffee bean, she thinks, probably never will.
Magor Services. They used to stop here on trips into Wales, when Claire would force them to take a break from the city for a few days. Flash back to cappuccinos and Kit-Kats, panini and impossibly pure water wrapped in plastic bottles. Rush and College leaning over laptops, unable to let go. There used to be a McDonald’s here, too, she thinks. Maybe a KFC. Some noodle place. A WHSmith selling print magazines that she never saw anybody buy. Back then this place had a purpose, a little node of brands and consumption for when travelers on the M4 needed a break, back when the supply chains still flowed and before the motorways were deserted.
She turns back to the guy. “I think you’ve got the wrong person.”
“Have I?” He reaches into a pocket, retrieves a ball of paper. Unravels it, places it in front of her, attempts to flatten it out with mud-stained fingers. A badly photocopied face stares back at her, smeared and stretched out of proportion, but still too familiar.
“They’re everywhere,” he says. “All over the place. Every wall between here and the border. It’s a wonder the LA’s got that much ink and paper. And they’re using so much of it on your face. They must really want to find you.”
The face is young, and she had shorter hair then. It’s a head shot rather than a mug shot, posed rather than forced; staring off into the distance, into some lost future, rather than directly into the camera. It used to be her, that image. Her on social media, her on artist profiles, her in high-end print magazines that she never saw anybody buy. She wonders where they found it.
WANTED, the text above the image reads. Below it, ANIKA BERNHARDT. WANTED FOR TERRORISM AND CRIMES AGAINST THE COALITION. CASH AND RATIONS REWARD FOR ANY INFORMATION LEADING TO HER ARREST.
She sighs, choking back panic. Takes a breath. Picks up the chipped mug of lukewarm mint tea and downs the dregs. Pushes the sheet of paper back across the table to the guy.
“I think you’ve got the wrong person,” she repeats. She stands up to leave.
He shoots a hand up, grabs her arm just below the elbow. Holds it, too tight.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” she tells him, calmly.
“I just thought you’d want to know, LA patrol just turned up. Parked up out on the slip road there. Only one guy got out and he headed straight in here. Probably a piss break.”
She looks out of the café’s grease-smeared windows, squinting. She can just make it out. Land Rover, camouflage colors.
“When?”
“Just a few minutes ago.” He lets go of her arm. “Just before I came over. Maybe he left already. Just be careful. The people here, you might be a hero to them, but they’re hungry. They’ve got family to feed.”
She nods at him, grabs her bag from the floor, pulls her hood up, and leaves.
* * *
Head down, hood up. Weaving through bodies.
Out of the café.
Into the corridor.
And straight into the Land Army trooper.
They pass each other silently, in slow motion.
He’s young, they always are.
His eyes are brown, tired. They meet hers for a second as they pass. Some flicker across his face. Maybe recognition. Maybe disgust. Maybe fear.
But he keeps on walking.
So does she, until she reaches the doors, where she pauses. Staring out across the chaos of the car park, toward the green-and-brown Land Rover.
He could be on his radio right now. Calling in the sighting. Or maybe he’ll piss first. Or get tea. Either way, once he tells them, the whole forecourt will be crawling with troopers before she can get out of here.
Or maybe he won’t do anything. Maybe he didn’t recognize her. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he just wants to piss and get tea and get home, no hassles.
Maybe.
She pauses. Thinks. Tries not to panic.
Reaches out a hand to push open the heavy glass doors.
Freezes, pulls it back.
Turns on her heel and heads back into the crowds.
* * *
The men’s toilet stinks of piss and shit, like it’s not been cleaned in three years.
Half a dozen faces turn to meet her, startled to see a woman in here.
Before anyone can speak, she puts a finger to her lips, mouths Everybody out.
Taps are turned, dicks are zipped away. The men start to shuffle out past her, except for one. He pauses, looks her in the eye. Turns and points at an occupied cubicle.
She nods back at him and he leaves. As he passes he whispers to her: I’ll make sure you�
��re not bothered, as long as I can.
She nods at him again. Doesn’t move until the door closes behind him.
Silently she repeats the mantra in her head, as she quietly stalks the line of cubicles, checking for feet under doors.
She closes her eyes briefly, slows her breathing, recalls the Bloc mantra.
With zero bandwidth there is no calling for backup.
With zero bandwidth the advantage is ours.
With zero bandwidth there is no many.
With zero bandwidth there is no legion.
With zero bandwidth we are singular.
With zero bandwidth there is no time to hesitate.
With zero bandwidth there is only opportunity.
With zero bandwidth opportunity is our only weapon.
Nothing, nothing until she reaches the stall the guy had pointed out. Two black boots, scuffed and split. Camouflage fatigues pulled down around ankles.
With zero bandwidth there is only opportunity.
With zero bandwidth opportunity is our only weapon.
As quietly as she can, she slips into the adjacent stall, closes the door. Drops her bag on the filth-stained floor. One foot up on the toilet as she gently pushes herself up, so she’s peering over the flimsy hardboard divider.
He’s young, they always are. But he looks even younger from this angle, looking down on him shitting, vulnerable, like a kid on a potty. He’s reading a book, she can’t see what it is. Some disintegrating paperback, loose pages sticking out at wrong angles. There’s no gun, that she can see. He probably left it back in the jeep. There’s no radio that she can see, either. And if there is, he’s not using it to call her in. No guns, no radio, just some kid, maybe seventeen years old, trying to get some time for himself, trying to escape in a book, trying to take a shit.
And then he looks up.
“What the fu—”
And she drops on him, her boot hitting his face with enough force that she’s pretty sure the crack she hears is his jaw breaking.
She lands better than she hoped, steadying herself against the wobbling stall wall.
To her surprise and his credit, the kid tries to get up. She breaks his nose with her palm getting him to sit back down.
Time to finish this. She glances around, looking for her bag. Not here. In the cubicle next door. Fuck.
The kid has clearly got some spirit. Or, more likely, he knows what’s meant to be coming and is shit-scared, because he tries to get up again. This time he throws himself at her, wrapping his arms around her waist and sticking his head into her stomach, like some angry rugby tackle. Anika doesn’t see it coming at all, and it’s enough to wind her, pushing her back hard against the closed cubicle door. She grabs him by the hair and pulls him off her, kicking him in the chest to put him down, before dropping to the floor, grabbing him by the hair again, and smashing his head into the toilet bowl.
Once.
Twice.
Maybe four times.
She stops. There’s not much left of his face, or the toilet bowl, and for long seconds she’s dazed, looking at the mess, trying to work out what’s blood and what’s shitty water, what’s porcelain fragments and what’s teeth.
Then she snaps out of it, gets moving. Tries to open the door but she can’t because his foot is jammed against it. His boots look relatively new, like maybe just ten years old. Maybe she should take them? It’d be a good motive, too. She’s seen people beaten to death for less than a pair of boots. Far less.
No fucking time, Anika, snap out of it. She forgets the door, pushes herself up off the cistern, drops down into the next stall. Grabs her bag off the floor and pukes in the toilet. Brown liquid, stringy spit, and the taste of overstewed mint-and-nettle tea. She realizes she’s sobbing.
* * *
Out in the corridor the guy is still keeping watch. They nod at each other silently and she leaves, bursting out into the daylight of the car park from a side exit. Head down, hood up.
The forecourt is like a shanty town, stalls and tents, tarpaulins draped between dead cars to provide shelter. She can smell food cooking and she thinks she might puke again. Music coming from somewhere, breakbeats and bass hits. Some woman ranting to anyone that will listen about how the air is cleaner now, since the crash, clean of Wi-Fi and cell signals. It’s safe to breathe again, she says, embrace the clean air, fill your lungs. Anika wonders how long she’s been here, how long any of these people have, if any of them were here when it happened, stranded when their phones died and their cars stopped driving themselves, and that’s why they stayed, stranded on this concrete island.
No time to ask. Head down, hood up. She’s past the shantytown and into the larger car park, walking the aisles and scanning license plate numbers looking for the one she’s memorized, trying to stay calm.
Her hand is in her bag, holding the grip. Any second now, she thinks. Any second now they’ll find the body, and then there’ll be shouts and screams and running and gunfire and—
This is it. White Ford Transit van. Ancient, pre-automation. Matching registration number. Some guy leaning into the open hood, tweaking the engine, his face hidden. Oh, please fucking god, tell me it fucking works.
“Neal?”
He looks up, narrowly missing banging his head, turns to face her. White, old but fresh faced. A little too friendly, somehow.
“Anika? Ah, you made it.” He extends a hand stained with motor grease, and before thinking she meets it with one smeared in blood. She catches him nervously glancing at it.
“Does it work?” is all she can say.
“Huh?”
“The van. The engine? Does it work?”
Neal laughs, glances over his shoulder. “Oh yeah, she works. I mean, she’s a bit temperamental and—”
“We need to go. Now.”
“Oh, okay, well, I—”
“Now. We need to go now.” She gestures out toward the motorway. “There’s an LA jeep parked up there. Did you see it on your way in?”
“Yeah, I think so—”
“Well, if they see me, they’ll kill me. And then they’ll kill you.”
Neal sighs, the friendliness fading from his face. “Right. Okay. Shit. Dave said this would be fun.”
“Dave paid you already, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we go. Right fucking now.”
He closes the hood, wipes his oily hands on a rag, and opens the passenger door for her. Yellow foam spilling from split, fake leather seats. The faint smell of mold.
“After you,” he says.
* * *
A few minutes later, after Neal coaxes the van into life, they’re slipping out of the car park, onto the access road to the motorway. Right past where the LA jeep is parked.
“I’m sorry, no other way out,” Neal says through gritted teeth.
“It’s fine.” She sinks down into her seat, pulls her hoodie up as much as she can. “Just, y’know, let’s not hang around.”
As he pulls the van onto the motorway she glances out at the parked patrol. The guy back in the café was right, it’s a Land Rover, but it’s not army issue. It looks like a farmer’s old jeep that’s been badly sprayed forest camouflage colors. Land Army stencils on the side. Towheaded kids, no older than the one bleeding out in the toilets, smoking a joint, laughing, cradling assault rifles. It suddenly all looks like a joke to her, like apart from the guns it’s nothing more frightening than some out-of-their-depth kids. It reminds her of being told, back at the camp, that it’s all the Land Army is: bored farmers and starving country kids, trying to stay alive and playing army. Kids angry at the cities, blaming the cities for everything, for all that went wrong.
Maybe they’re right, she thinks.
But then all she can see is the labor camps, the starving children being dragged from their homes by LA troopers, the fields of crops being burned just to prove a point.
And then they’re away, past the patrol, out on the M4. Heading east.
/> She lets herself relax, just slightly. Neal chuckles next to her, shakes his head.
“I tell you what, girl, I hope it’s worth it.”
“What?”
“Whatever you’re going to Bristol for. I hope it’s worth all this shit.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah. So do I.”
4. BEFORE
Dumb City: The Neighbourhood That Logged Off
7 July 2021
Neeta Singh
BBC News magazine
In a hip neighbourhood in Bristol, a controversial group of anarchists are rebelling against the smart city by blocking out the internet. Neeta Singh visits the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft to find out what life off-grid looks like in the centre of one of the UK’s most connected cities.
The whole world around me is cycling with colours—every building down this busy Bristol street is covered with animated patterns: flocks of birds scroll across their surfaces; intricate, alien-looking plants burst forth from the architecture; and stylised faces look down on me with cool disdain. And I can’t share or tell anyone about it: my timelines aren’t working. I can’t connect to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even my Gmail. In fact, I can’t connect to the internet at all. I can’t even send a text message or make a voice call. My spex have been completely hijacked by secret, almost mystical, technologies hidden in the buildings around me, and I’ve no choice but to try and enjoy the ride.
Welcome to the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft, a two-mile-long digital no-man’s-land right in the centre of Bristol, one of the UK’s leading smart cities. Part hippyster commune, part permanent art installation, and part political protest, the Croft (as the locals call it) claims to be a refuge from the physical and digital surveillance we associate with everyday life both in major cities and online.
“Your first reaction might be ‘oh god, I can’t connect to anything,’ but the reality is that you’ve actually disappeared,” explains Rushdi Manaan, anti-surveillance activist and the PRSC’s most infamous founder. “When you step into the Croft here you vanish not just from the internet, but also from the cameras and sensors that now watch us everywhere else we go in the city. Your spex and your phone might not be able to access the usual networks and services you use, but that means they can’t find you, either—they can’t track what you’re doing, can’t record your every movement—both in the real world and on the internet. Only here can you be truly sure of some privacy.”
