Bruce enjoyed playing rugby, but all the recent drama in his life meant that it was difficult to find the time to train with his local team. There was a long-standing local rule that you had to attend training at least once a week to get selected to play on Saturday or have a bloody good excuse. Bruce had lots of good excuses he couldn’t share, so the result was he hadn’t got much game time last winter.
He was especially delighted how he had managed to retain a slight edge over everyone else, even the androids, enabling him to dictate a style of play he especially enjoyed, with lots of running, passing, and lots of tries. The indoSkidians didn’t really enjoy this style: when they got a hold of the ball they simply hoofed if off down the field and chugged after it, from set piece to set piece. Lineout to stationary scrum, and they didn’t compete much in the other areas of the game.
Halfway through the second half Bruce took himself off the field and made his way up to the Chief Mati’s box where Lake, Little Bruce and Mahmoud sat.
“Fantastic game!” Lake told Bruce excitedly.
Mahmoud remained silent, and Bruce sensed he was angry and resentful about something, as Zarif had been back at the farm when the astronaut woman had decided to bugger off with Wisneski.
We’ll need to watch him carefully, he told the Transcendents. He strikes me as someone who will never be happy. He will always find something to complain about, and he will always ask for more.
Bruce poured himself a beer. He and Lake discussed the way the game had evolved, and how well the indoSkidians had played. He tried to involved Mahmoud in the conversation without success. The man remained silent and mildly hostile, and clearly wanted to be somewhere else, and there was no way he could be convinced to have a beer.
“OK, well, it’s getting on,” Bruce said after knocking back a second beer. “I’d better get going.” He looked around for his son and found him running up and down the stairs outside as fast as his little legs would carry him, much to the consternation of the Senators. The distraction he caused made it almost impossible for them to enjoy the Stim event.
“I’ll catch up with you in a few days.”
Outside the stadium, Bruce summoned one of the travelling conveyors to take them back out to The Farm. He'd decided to have another go at leaving Little Bruce with Sue for the night.
“Now, mate,” he began, squatting in front of the boy again, “it’s really important you spend some time with your mother. Do you understand me?”
“Yes dad, I understand,” Little Bruce said solemnly. “I’ll be a good boy.”
“Good man.”
“Are you going to leave me here all the time, dad? Don’t you and Ngaio love me any more?”
That completely took the wind out of Bruce's sails. He understood how it felt to be an outsider. He had felt like this for much of his life, and the last thing he wanted was for his son to feel the same way.
“Oh son,” he said, picking the boy up and giving him a cuddle, “no, of course we love you. Sue is a special person in your life, and it’s really important you two spend some time together and get to know each other.”
“Can you stay too?”
Bruce thought about it. “Ngaio really wants me to come home,” he explained to his son. He wasn’t sure how she would take to him staying the night with his ex. He wouldn’t be too happy about it if the boot was on the other foot. “I won’t be able to stay until I have talked to her. So, we might have to come back tomorrow. OK? Sounds like a plan though. A good plan.”
“Yes dad.”
“OK, well, let's go and see Sue and see what she thinks about the idea, then we’ll head home.”
“You’re drunk,” Sue accused him when she came to the door.
“I am not,” Bruce retorted. “I’ve only had a couple of beers.”
“You’re drunk. What do you want? Have you come to apologise for turning the boy against me?”
“I’m not trying to turn the boy against you. He just doesn’t want to stay here by himself.”
“Oh. So, that's your latest excuse for not letting him stay. Why don’t you just be honest and say you and your new wife want to keep the boy away from me?”
“Listen to me, Sue, please be reasonable,” Bruce pleaded, trying to keep his growing frustration with her attitude under control. “I was going to suggest we go home tonight. I’ll have a chat to Ngaio to see if she is OK with me spending the night here tomorrow. I might even see if Ngaio wants to come along.”
“You’re determined to turn the boy against me,” Sue wailed. She was so consumed by how she felt and what she wanted, she didn’t notice how her raised voice made her son recoil in fright.
“Look, Sue. Ngaio and I both agree that it is a good thing for Little Bruce to spend some time with you, to get to know you. The trouble is, right now, it doesn’t look like he wants to stay here by himself, and I don’t want to force him into it. I’ll check with Ngaio and bring him back tomorrow. He can spend the day with you, even if he doesn’t end up staying the night. I promise.”
“Well you go off and do what you think is right. You always do,” Sue snapped at him and turned back into the house. She chose not to listen to Bruce try to explain the position. Trev, who had been standing behind her, gave Bruce a sympathetic smile.
“I think it is a good idea to come back tomorrow when she’s had a chance to calm down. You know what she is like. Once she has had time to process things she’ll come around.”
“No, I won’t!” Sue called from inside the house.” And Trev, if you know what is good for you, you’ll come back into the house now!”
Nineteen
Bruce sat on the veranda on the seaward-facing side of the house, enjoying a beer and a cigarette, contemplating the day’s events, staring out over the harbour. After a while Ngaio joined him, waving away the smoke with her hand as she sat alongside.
“I thought you were going to give up that disgusting habit.”
“I just about have. The medichines take away the physical cravings, but it seems I retain a deep-seated psychological attachment to smoking.”
The two of them enjoyed the silence together for a few minutes. The only sound, other than their breathing and the soft slap of waves breaking on the beach, was the crickets chirping away in the trees. It was a little late in the year for them to keep up their evening chorus, but it showed no signs of abating.
“Why did you bring Little Bruce home with you? I thought we agreed to leave him with Sue for a few days?”
“Our boy certainly has a mind of his own,” he started to explain.
“You’ve only just realised that?” Ngaio laughed and patted his arm. “Like father, like son, eh? He can be a real little shit when he digs his toes in.”
“How come I never noticed before? I certainly did today,” Bruce added ruefully before Ngaio could reply.
“This is what little boys do. Your mum has some delightful stories about you when you were young, once you had set your mind to something, it was hard to get you to change it. You just don’t spend enough time with him,” Ngaio chided him gently. “Maybe now things are settling down on Skid you could spend more time together, take him along with you when you travel, and take him out on the farm. He’d enjoy hanging out with his dad.”
“Yeah. I thought we had a good talk about how important it was going to be for him to stay with his mum on and off and get to know her. He told me he understood what I was saying,” Bruce added philosophically.
“Little Bruce might be a very clever two and a bit, but he’s still only two, honey. You can’t expect him to have an adult conversation with him.”
“Yeah. But he knew what he was doing, the little shit. I’m pretty sure he did anyway.”
“How was Sue about it?”
“Pretty well as you would expect from her. She was pissed off, to put it mildly. I think he would be OK if I stayed the night with him. What do you reckon? Just until he gets used to staying with Sue and Trev, I guess.”
&nbs
p; “How do you think I would feel, Bruce?” Ngaio snapped. She was normally placid, so her sharp response was a shock.
“Oh,” he said.
“What do you mean, 'oh'? You’re such an idiot sometimes. How do you think I would feel about you staying the night in her house?”
“Hmm.” Bruce realised he hadn’t thought this idea through as thoroughly as he might have.
“I’m sorry honey, I should have been more thoughtful and sensitive.” He didn’t really understand why Ngaio had responded like this, but he knew he had to defuse the situation somehow. He didn't want any form of relationship with Sue and didn't want to spend more time than was necessary in her company. One of the few new tricks he had learnt in recent months was knowing when to let go, so this is where he went with the conversation.
“I could stay in another part of the settlement,” he suggested.
“What about hardening up and teaching the boy a lesson? Don’t give him the opportunity to say no. Just leave him there.”
Bruce had thought about doing that. However, once his son had asked if he didn’t love him any more, he felt he just couldn’t leave Little Bruce there. As he recounted the conversation to Ngaio, she gradually softened her stance.
“Do you want to stay up there a night or two?” Bruce asked. “Not in the settlement but maybe somewhere else?”
“Not really. I’m not happy about you having to stay up there either, but I guess you might have to. It doesn’t mean I want to.”
“You knew I was going to stay up there from time to time.”
“But not with your ex-wife, Bruce! There is a difference, you know. You can’t seem to understand where I am coming from.”
“I won’t be staying with them, just the boy. I’ll stay somewhere else,” Bruce repeated. “Or we could go and stay in the city somewhere. Like when we stayed with Lake?”
“Not this time. Look,” she finally relented, and gave Bruce a cuddle and a peck on the cheek to show there were no hard feelings, “Little Bruce does need to spend some time with his mother, and he needs to get used to the idea. I understand your reluctance just to dump him there, but I don’t think I should go. It’ll just confuse the boy.”
“Thanks love.” Bruce stood up to fetch another beer.
“Hang on a minute, I need to talk to you about something else.” Ngaio was fine with Bruce staying on Skid for the odd night, and she wasn’t really concerned if he did stay in the house with Sue, Trev, and the boy. She was confident he wouldn’t do anything he shouldn’t, except possibly drink a little too much than was good for him. She also knew Bruce needed the odd reminder to pay her some attention from time to time.
“You know how I mentioned the other day there were a few people around the district acting a bit strangely?” she began.
“Yeah, but that’s nothing new, there are some bloody odd people living around here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there has been a lot of inbreeding going on since the year dot along the peninsula,” Bruce suggested, waving in the general direction of the finger of land jutting into the harbour north of them.
“Be serious, Bruce. You know what I mean. Now you mention it, some of those families I have bumped into in town seem stranger than normal, if that was possible.”
“Like how?”
“There’s a few things,” she began. “You know the camping ground in town?” Ngaio meant the small seaside village almost an hour away, the closest settlement of any size to the farm. It boasted a pub, some cafés, a small range of shops, a garage and panel beater, a supermarket, and a few churches. It was also where they had gone to high school and where the rugby club was. A camping ground sprawled over a sheltered basin in the dunes between the beach and the town’s golf course.
“Yeah.”
“A group of people have come along and established a semi-permanent camp site there and are using it as a base while they travel around the countryside.”
“So, what’s wrong with that? It might be a wee bit off the beaten track, but there are worse places to set up a base. Be good for the shops in town too. Won’t it?”
“Nothing wrong with it really, except they all seem to be schizophrenic. They seem to rotate characters every few days and its freaking people out.”
“How can they tell?”
“Well the same people keep asking the same dumb questions repeatedly, for a start. There’s something else. When they first arrive, they behave like new born lambs, skipping and gambolling around, like they’ve just found their feet. It’s really freaky and some people are scared of them.”
Bruce shrugged his shoulders. “So, what? It sounds like the government or the local DHB has decided to ship a whole lot of mental health patients out of town to get them off the books for a while and improve their KPIs. Once they work out how to get back to town, they’ll leave.”
“I thought it might be something like that at first. But it’s not just them, some of those peculiar people out on the peninsula are acting the same way, and so are some of our closer neighbours.”
“I wonder if the Transcendents are test-driving new bodies?”
Bruce had asked the Transcendents about this before. They had sheepishly admitted to downloading themselves into a body from time to time, but the practice had ceased recently.
I am not aware of any, the Transcendents replied after a slight stutter.
Have you managed to pinpoint a reason for these population anomalies? Bruce asked. Is this related, do you think?
I’m concerned about population changes on Skid, not in your small primitive outpost, the Transcendents replied haughtily.
Bruce wasn’t convinced by the response. What he didn't know was that the Transcendents were as rattled as a cloud-based mind could be. They were beginning to realise there were gaps in the completeness of their knowledge of what was happening on Skid and the offworld, and it was quickly concluding another team might be experimenting with fleshies.
“People are getting a bit spooked,” Ngaio continued, oblivious to the internal conversation Bruce was having. It had taken her a long time to get used to the idea he had a talking dog and had access to an artificial intelligence running a whole planet. He didn’t know what she would make of his 'imaginary friends', the Transcendents. She knew about the Transcendents and had been involved in discussions with it, but Bruce had never let on about them riding around in his head.
“So why are you telling me?”
“Well, some of the locals think these weirdos look a lot like Myfair and Leaf.” Ngaio wasn’t sure how to describe the individuals she was talking about. “A few of the people in town are starting to wonder if there is a connection with us too, because we have always been pretty vague about where Myfair and Leaf come from.”
“Fuck. This is the last thing we need,” Bruce answered slowly. He realised it was highly possible there was a Skidian connection to this puzzle. It was too much of a coincidence, even if the Transcendents denied any knowledge of it, given the population variations it had noticed.
“I’ll catch up with Myfair in the morning before I go back to Skid and see if he can shed any light on it.” He spoke with Myfair most mornings to review the previous day’s progress, and plan what work needed to be undertaken on the farm. Bruce often used the time to pick the brains of Myfair and Leaf about all things Skidian. Leaf was the more self-driven of the two, and most likely to give him a straight answer, without any hesitancy or concern about saying the right thing. He thought about wandering down to the old shearer’s quarters where the Skidians had made their home to have a chat about the strange goings on, but he decided it could wait till tomorrow.
“By the way, some guy who could be Myfair’s brother, by the looks of him, turned up today looking for him. Do you know anything about this?”
“Nup, he never mentioned it to me. I know Myfair has at least one brother on the planet. He was the basketballer who took a few pot-shots at old Mitch in the UN, and we decided to leave the American justice system
to deal with him in the interim. Once the noise has died down, I told Myfair to break him out and send him up to Skid or give him some work around the farm.” There had been at least one other brother, but Bruce had never told Ngaio about Eduid and his part in the Eduid’s death. “I think there was some bad blood between Myfair and his surviving brother so he’s taking his time in springing him from prison.”
“I could be wrong but when I saw them standing together I could have sworn they were brothers. He said his name was Arnold Rumbold. That name sounds familiar.”
In other news..
A formal investigation has been launched into how former basketballer Arnold Rumbold has managed to escape from Federal custody. Rumbold was apprehended after attempting to assassinate former President Mitchell, several months prior to Mitchell's sudden death. An intensive search has failed to find any trace of Rumbold, adding further to the mystery surrounding him.
Rumbold had been held in an unnamed maximum-security facility under twenty-four-hour lockdown. He received no visitors, except for the law enforcement officials who have been interrogating him, and the mental health professionals charged with determining his state of mind at the time of the unsuccessful attack, to determine whether he is fit to stand trial.
FBI counter-terrorism officials and senior members of law enforcement agencies involved in the case have all denied responsibility for Rumbold’s escape.
White House officials commenting anonymously, because they were not authorised to speak publicly about the case, confirmed his flight from federal custody. The high security compound from which Rumbold absconded is technically escape-proof and rumours are already circulating that this was an inside job and guards have been compromised.
In related news, questions have been raised about Rumbold’s background, because much of his early personal history has been shown to be an elaborate cover story. However, it is not clear why this cover story was in place, and no one knows where Rumbold came from.
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