“Fancy another plunge into VR?” Maria asked. “I’ll log you in as a guest.”
“Twenty minutes, maximum. I want us focused on arrival."
“No worries.” She scrolled through her strap. “How about Star City casino, the Eiffel Tower café, Marrakech marketplace—”
“You know Meakin’s probably monitoring you?”
She nodded, not appearing to fully acknowledge the creepy prospect while continuing her search. “Perfect. No guests at Piha Surf Club. I'll set auto-disengage for twenty-past-seven.”
Nothing followed behind the pod, so Luke twisted the headset across and lowered it. The HUD activated, identified his man-machine-interface, and he realized trips into VR environments had to stop if he didn’t want his details and location broadcast to Timetronic.
Maria donned her headset and reclined in her seat. A connection for Piha activated and the real world switched off as Luke’s senses transferred.
The comfortable leather seat changed to a hard surface with no back support.
Humid air enveloped his body.
In a split second, a scene of waves crashing against black volcanic sand pixelated in front of his eyes. A giant rock, shaped like a resting lion, jutted from the middle of the beach.
Luke sat at a wooden picnic table, back in his black rubber suit, and consoled himself that at least it had the superficial appearance of a wetsuit.
Maria’s clear outline formed on the opposite bench and quickly solidified. She looked across the surrounding hills and swept hair away from her face. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Picturesque,” Luke said. “Can I take a dip in the sea?”
“No. The program only extends a few meters around the building. You’ll hit an invisible wall.”
A shaggy-haired young man, wearing a white and blue hooped rugby jersey, pushed through the surf club door and crossed the timber decking toward them.
“Is he real?” Luke whispered.
“Yeah, I reckon.”
“How are ya?” the man said in a thick Kiwi accent. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Two beers,” Luke said. “What’s the local tipple?”
“BD Import, Mac’s Silver or Tiger Red?”
“Mac’s Silver, please,” Maria said.
The man gave a knowing nod and sauntered back inside the club with the urgency of a steamroller. Luke caught a glimpse of the empty bar inside before the entrance slammed shut.
“Let’s talk about you for a change,” he said.
“Sounds ominous. Are you interviewing me to keep my position?”
“I don’t know a lot about you. Your history, ambition, dreams?”
“There isn’t much to tell. I’m twenty-eight, work shifts at the Transport Management Center, and never have enough credit.”
“Come on, Maria. There’s more to you than basic details. Don’t you want to see the world, have a family, or think there’s any truth in terrorists’ posters?”
She stared out to sea as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Are you under instructions to stay quiet?” Luke asked.
“I lied on my application form about living in Zone Seven. Lynch found out and if I screw this up I’m out of a job.”
“If anything, I’m the one he needs to worry about. I’ll give you glowing report.”
“Since I met you, I’ve thought about some of the patients at the facility—”
Something behind Luke distracted Maria and her eyes followed footsteps across the decking. A strong whiff of perfume drifted on the breeze, and he looked over his shoulder at a tall, tanned woman in a luminous pink bikini. She stopped and lowered her shades. He turned back, not wanting to come across as a pervert.
The woman moved into Luke’s line of vision, stood under an outdoor shower at the side of the building, and hit its steel button. Water sprayed over her head and shoulders, and she rubbed her body while focusing in his direction.
Maria screwed her face and rose from her bench. “I’ll see what’s happened to our drinks.”
The woman watched her disappear inside, cut the water, and moved over to Luke, swinging her hips with every slow deliberate step. She stopped by his shoulder and bowed next to his ear. Glistening drops fell from her body and pooled around her feet.
“Mind if I join you?” she said in gentle voice. “I don’t bite.”
Before Luke could answer, she straddled the bench and sat facing him. He looked past her at the club’s entrance, hoping Maria would promptly return with a couple of beers.
“I like a man in uniform,” the woman said. “I’m Cindy.”
“Nice to meet you,” Luke said, a little unsure if she was part of the environment or a guest. Regardless of whichever, she struck him as a living cliché of a trophy woman. Like the Duomo in Florence: attractive on the outside, dull and empty within. “We’re having a private conversation, if you don’t mind?”
“With little Miss Average? You can do better than that.”
“Wow, you’re charming.”
She bit her bottom lip and stared into his eyes for a few uncomfortable seconds. “What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”
“With lines like that, you’ve got to be part of the program?”
“I’m real as real as it gets, Sugar. Have a feel if you don’t believe me.”
“No thanks,” Luke said and edged away.
She shuffled next to him, rubbing up against his arm. “Why don’t you tell why you’re wearing a transport suit?”
“It's the reason I can't talk. Sorry, but we’re leaving when my friend returns. I’ve a job to do and don’t have time for small talk.”
Cindy planted her hand on Luke’s inner thigh and slid it toward his groin. “I’m sure you’ve time to show me what you learned in prison? Let’s go behind the surf club. You can tell me all of your filthy secrets.”
Luke grabbed her hand moments before it reached his virtual crown jewels and forced it away. “No offense, but you’re not my type. I wasn’t in prison either.”
“What’s wrong? Do you have something to hide?”
“Nothing that won’t be sorted out shortly.”
Maria appeared in Luke’s peripheral vision holding two full glasses, but he’d already decided on leaving as soon as possible. Cindy brought the same level of comfort as being smashed across the face by a football sock packed with broken glass.
“Everything okay?” Maria asked.
“Put the beers down,” Luke said. “We’re going.”
“Why so soon?” Cindy said. “We haven’t had a chance to get properly acquainted.”
Maria slammed down the drinks, looked at Cindy as if she just found her smeared across the bottom of her shoe, and said, “Disengage.”
Luke stepped away from the bench. “Disengage.”
Cindy gave him a seductive smile, raised her hand, and wiggled her fingers.
The scene vanished and dark weightlessness returned for a brief moment. The pod’s interior flashed around Luke, and the holoscreen showed fifteen minutes to their destination.
Maria batted her headset to the side and let out a grunt of frustration. “I can’t believe she ruined it. What did she say?”
“It’s more what she did.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Any idea who that was?”
“Maybe a rich housewife with too much credit and not enough sense.”
“We can talk here. What were you about to say before she showed up?”
“Forget it,” Maria said. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Okay, whatever you say.”
Luke checked through the rear window. Still, nothing had followed them during their time at Piha Surf Club so he relaxed back in his seat, mentally preparing for their arrival, and the possibility of increased danger if he found Helen Penshaw and she had a different story to tell.
Chapter 18
The trip time on the pod’s holoscreen dropped below a minute. Morning s
unlight reflected off the repetitive glass fronted apartment blocks on either side of the track. Luke remembered early twentieth-century two-story houses covering this part of north London, and he guessed the government spared little when bulldozing space to squeeze more people inside the urban pool’s perimeter fence.
In his mind, virtual destinations replacing physical space didn’t add up. The beach club was a cool experience, but the reality of the situation seemed closer to watching a travel program on television than actually visiting the location, and wasn’t a fulfilling way to live out an existence.
The pod’s engine descended in tone and the vehicle slowed toward a digital board displaying Enfield Central. Several people in business attire waited for transport on the opposite side of the road. Maria, who hadn’t spoken much since their last disengage, groaned from her seat and waited by the door.
Luke moved to her side. “We’ll waste Lynch’s credit later.”
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m not bothered, and can’t stop thinking about our patients at the facility.”
“In what way?”
“Some are legit, we’ve woken them, but hundreds were admitted over the last thirty years and never leave. I searched a few names on the Superhighway and couldn’t find anything relating to their names.”
“Nobody questions it?”
“And risk losing their job and lakeside apartment? It’s easier to assume we’re taking in faceless corporate bigwigs in need of medical procedures we haven’t invented yet.”
“Terrorists or not, Lynch unplugged the wrong guy if he thinks I’ll give him a pass.”
“It’s hard to believe a man who changed—”
“Millions of lives?” Luke said, cutting her off before he had to hear it again. “Hitler did the same thing. Change doesn’t always mean better, and between you and me, I’ve stopped working exclusively for Lynch’s benefit. Don’t compromise yourself by digging and leave it to me.”
The pod jerked to a standstill, its holoscreen shrunk to a dot, and the door swiveled open, filling the air-conditioned space with a waft of fresh air. Luke slung the daypack over his shoulder and surveyed the immediate vicinity. Commuters went about their business on the busy paths, a few in suits, most in different colored coveralls with corporate logos on their right breast.
“Where’s the nearest clayport?” he asked.
“A ten-minute walk. The EC's closer."
“EC?”
“Exchange Center,” Maria said. “Our bikes.”
She led Luke between two buildings and headed west through a grid system of apartments, collectively standing like a deluxe version of communist-era Eastern Europe. Each one had black tinted windows and an empty marble lobby at its base. Only the square grassed courtyards between each block, lined with plastic flowers that vibrated when catching a breeze, stopped Enfield from being a complete concrete jungle.
The more Luke saw of the London urban pool, the more he preferred Zone Seven and understood the facility staff’s desire to keep their employment and lakeside apartment.
“It’s pretty grim around here,” he said.
“There you go again. What’s the attraction of drafty brick buildings?”
“History, period features, a mix of architecture. This place is duller than ditchwater.”
“Saxons lived in huts. We didn’t keep those for sentimental reasons.”
“It’s not the same thing. Progress shouldn’t mean trashing physical history and surviving on a diet of pulped vegetables.”
“Whatever. I’m holding you to that promise of a chicken curry.”
After five minutes, Maria and Luke reached a smaller block, more typical of the 1960s monstrosities that formerly blighted London’s skyline, and they walked down a dark ramp at the side of the building.
Concrete supports broke up the gloomy area. At the far end, roughly forty meters away, five artificial lights twinkled down onto a long table packed with small items. Two people stood behind it in deep conversation.
“Exchange Center made it sound a bit more impressive," Luke said.
“It’s technically illegal. Cops turn a blind eye.”
“What’s for exchange besides bikes?”
“Stuff not made anymore. Toys, old kitchenware, electronics—”
A slim male figure sprung from behind the closest concrete support and lunged at them with a glinting knife.
Luke grabbed Maria’s shirt and dragged her behind him. He took a step back, out of striking distance, and extended his cybernetic hand toward the man, ready to parry any attack. If something had to be cut, the artificial part of him seemed the best candidate.
“Transfer your credits,” the man said in an aggressive whisper. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
“He’s a burner-strap mugger,” Maria shouted. “Best do as he says.”
The man circled them, blocking off the entrance and pressed Luke back toward a dark corner. He considered drawing the pistol but decided on a physical approach to avoid a murder charge, and he wanted to teach his attacker a lesson.
“Transfer your credits,” the man repeated. “Don’t even think about calling for help.”
“That’s the last thing I’d do,” Luke said.
“Why?”
“Because I want to smash your face in.”
The man paused for a split second and frowned, no doubt expecting him to mirror Maria’s reaction and weakly submit to the demand.
Luke thrust forward and kicked him in the chest. His back thumped against a support and he blindly swept his knife from left to right.
Before he could bring his arm back for another wild slash, Luke slammed his full bodyweight into him, pinning him to the pillar. He grabbed a clump of the man’s greasy hair and repeatedly rammed his head against the concrete.
The knife dropped and clattered along the ground after the fifth dull thud, and he sagged in Luke’s grip like a rag doll.
Somewhere in the gloom, Maria took rapid shuddering breaths.
Luke crouched and picked up the blade, a mean looking hunting weapon with a serrated top edge, and he poked its tip into his attacker’s throat. “Move a muscle and I’ll slice you from ear to ear.”
The man moaned. Blood darkened the left side of this face.
Maria edged out from behind a pillar.
“You said burner-strap?” Luke asked.
“Cloned for jobs like these. It’s tough to track peer-to-peer credit transfers because they’re offline and quickly passed to another device.”
Luke slipped the strap off his attacker’s wrist, threw it to the ground, and crushed it under his heel. He gripped his lapels and hauled him up. “Do I need to expect trouble from you?”
“Wh… what?” the man said.
“Do I need to kill you?”
He groggily shook head. “No, man. It’s all good. I’m outta here.”
Luke let go of his coverall, and he sank to his knees. The mission took priority and calling claycops wasn’t an option as he felt sure Meakin would show up. After this quick mismatch, he doubted his attacker fancied returning for a second helping of attitude realignment, and he wanted to reach Waltham without further delay.
The man winced and hissed breath through his clenched teeth. He unsteadily rose to his feet and staggered up the ramp without looking back.
Maria gave Luke a wild-eyed stare.
He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and encouraged her to the back of the basement. “You can’t let people kick sand in your face.”
“I’m not sure whether to be more scared of him or you. That was some serious Zone Seven shit you pulled.”
“Only be afraid if you’re on my wrong side.”
“I guarantee that’s not happening.”
The violence had attracted the attention of both women who watched with suspicion as Luke approached. Three bikes, a lawnmower, and weightlifting bench rested against the wall behind the cluttered table.
“Consider this
a gift,” Luke said and placed down the knife.
One of the women, wiry and gray-haired, pushed it back toward him. “We don't deal in dangerous items.”
“Didn’t you see what just happened?”
“I did. Thank you, but I can’t accept it.”
“Fair enough,” Luke said and passed the knife to Maria. “For you next mugger?”
She eyed the blade and cautiously reached out, but withdrew her hand. Luke nodded in encouragement and teased it closer. He knew in an ideal world people didn’t need weapons, and early twenty-first-century governments dreamed of such a utopian place. But the problem was every void always created an opportunity, a market for criminals to take advantage. Human nature meant good people had to defend themselves from evil, and they needed an equalizer if claycops weren’t around to protect them. He saw no problem using this kind of force, even if the politicians of 2070 didn’t agree.
“It’s illegal,” Maria said. “I can’t.”
“Your call.” Luke knelt to stow the knife in his pack’s side compartment. He glanced up at the old woman’s taut facial features and detected his presence made her nervous. “Maria, cut a deal, I’ll meet you outside.”
“Two bikes?”
“Just one, unless you want one for something else?”
“Not if I’m heading back to the PCC.”
Luke headed back through the basement and up the ramp. A few droplets of blood had spattered across the footpath outside, leading in the opposite direction to his next intended destination. He leaned against the entrance and considered his strategy after reaching Waltham Abbey.
The warehouse lay two-hundred meters beyond the fence, close to a perimeter gate. If Timetronic scanned people and pods entering and leaving the urban pool, like they did for Zone Seven, he thought there either had to be another way to the warehouse or somebody continually beat the security measures. He decided on finding a vantage point to gain a bird’s eye view of both locations.
FAST FORWARD: A Science Fiction Thriller Page 13
