‘Let’s have a drink to celebrate!’ she said, just slightly too loudly. ‘I think we all deserve it.’
‘Good idea, we can have a drink on the top terrace so we can see the crowds in the squares,’ said Officer Velasquez. As a large crowd of officers entered the room there was a sudden rise in noise levels as shouting and laughing filled the air. There were quite a few men in the large crowd, there was a lot of hugging going on and the scene was so hectic and fast-paced I lost all trace of who was saying what to whom.
I followed the crowd across the big room, more officers were arriving all the time, they all seemed to be in very good spirits and I got a lot of hugs and powerful pats on the back. I got an enormous hug from the woman who had stood right next to me in the Senate house the previous night. At that time she looked Terminator-scary, now she had a big smile across her huge face.
‘I always thought you were too little to be a serious problem,’ she said with a big laugh. I laughed back. I didn’t want to upset her again.
Tadeu walked along with Nkoyo and I, Nkoyo seemed very at ease conversing with Officers in high speed Portuguese. I didn’t know why Tadeu was there or if he knew the officers, or even if he was one himself. He wasn’t wearing a similar outfit but no one seemed to mind his presence.
‘Tadeu is a Senator,’ said Nkoyo discreetly. As always, she knew what I was thinking, I wasn’t even surprised, it was normal.
‘He’s a Senator! He only looks about fifteen years old.’
‘He’s forty-seven,’ she said flatly. ‘I thought you’d know. Anyway, he’s one of the five.’
‘The five?’
‘There are five male Senators who sit in the house, as you can imagine, he has had a very busy day. His speech was nothing short of inspiring.’
‘Wow. I’ve met a Senator.’
‘Yes, you have,’ said Nkoyo as we entered one of the room-sized elevators with everyone else. The noise in the elevator was deafening, what now seemed like hundreds of officers and a fair-sized crowd of men were laughing and joking with one another as we ascended.
When the large lift doors opened Officer Velasquez stood to one side and said, ‘Welcome to our terrace, Gavin. I hope you don’t suffer from vertigo.’
I walked forward onto a wide terrace with a purely glass balustrade running around the edge. The distance I could see from right by the door gave the clue that on this side of the building it was a very long way down to ground level. As I approached the glass wall at the edge of the terrace I admit my heart leapt into my mouth for a moment. As the building was constructed on the ridge of a fairly big mountain the drop was stomach-churningly far.
‘Wow, what an amazing view,’ I said, Officer Velasquez standing close beside me.
‘Look down there,’ she said pointing down and to the left.
At first all I could see was a patch of intense colour among the other incredible buildings of this mega city. I soon realised I was looking at what could have been a hundred thousand people gathered outside the Senate house. I could tell there was a lot of noise coming from the crowd but it was so far below us it was barely audible. The scale of the city was so far removed from anything I’d seen, the square was of epic proportions but it was dwarfed by the scale of the building surrounding it. I spent a long time looking out at the vast arena of structures, realising too late that Officer Velasquez had long since departed to join her mates. I turned to see one of the really enormous officers carry a large steel box to the centre of the group gathering on the terrace. She dropped it down, opened the sealed lid which made a slight hiss as the seal broke.
‘You want a beer, English?’ she asked with a big grin, offering me a large bottle with a reusable cap, it was just the same design as had been used on bottles three hundred years earlier.
I took a beer, chinked it with various members of the Senate security forces surrounding me and took a swig. It was cold and delicious. It was the first beer I had drunk in months. I then tried to join in. Well, I suppose I did join in a little, I chinked my bottle with so many of these enormous, powerful, confident women I cannot begin to remember them all. I felt like a wallflower though, the men and women on that incredible roof terrace had so much to say to each other, I couldn’t really join in. Nkoyo was right in the middle of it clearly lapping up the attention. It wasn’t so much I was left out; I just felt this wasn’t my battle even though many had implied that I was in some ways the focus of it.
I couldn’t quite work out why I felt uncomfortable about the whole thing. Something about being the man who saved the entire male race didn’t fit with me. I didn’t want to be part of it. I think the fact that the Senate, and, I suppose, the people of the planet had decided to allow men to survive was a good thing but the whole notion struck me as barking mad. The Weaver women were clearly a couple of picnics short of a nice day out but the feeling I couldn’t shake was that maybe they had a point. I stood by the glass balustrade looking over the vast city as the light slowly faded, this city was built by women, this world was run by women and for all the failings and upheaval I had to admit it was better than the world I’d left in 2011. I think that fact alone made me unable to sing along with the boisterous crowd of Senate security officers and their boyfriends.
I somehow knew at that moment that what ever deeply buried interest I’d had in Officer Velasquez would remain unrequited. She was standing with a large crowd of people at the far end of the terrace, one of them was a young man and she had her hand on his back as they talked and laughed, then she leant toward him and kissed him tenderly on the neck.
I don’t think it was only jealousy I felt. It was an incredible feeling of loneliness. I was utterly alone in a strange world. It was absurd because at any time that evening I could have struck up a conversation with anyone, they were all incredibly friendly but I knew it was pointless, I didn’t belong, I really was an anomaly.
32
Voyage Home
I had my own cabin on the Yin Qui on the way back to South London. I say cabin, it was more like a luxury Russian oligarch nouveau riche apartment in a high-end development in Miami or Cape Town. It was too big, too brash and too ostentatious for my already fragile state of mind.
I had been hated one moment, lauded the next and it felt like I didn’t do anything either time. The cabin windows looking out over the bow of the ship were so huge I felt dwarfed by their technological magnificence. How a sheet of glass could withstand the pressure of being pushed along at hundreds of kilometres an hour was finally causing me to give up interest. They were sloped at a steep angle and auto tinted depending on the position of the sun. I stood under this huge expanse of glass staring out at the sea. The whole arrangement was far too grand for my modest taste.
As was so often the case during my stay in 2211, it took me a while to understand what was going on. Everything just happened, there was no itinerary, no printed docket or boarding pass, no e-mail string advising me of travel arrangements. I simply walked down the hundreds of steps with Nkoyo the following morning until we reached the dock. During this long hot descent I was mobbed with people who, it seemed, just wanted to look at me. They lined the steps as we made our way down the mountainous passageway. They cheered and clapped as we passed them. Nkoyo was lapping it up while I was feeling distinctly awkward.
It was therefore a relief to finally find myself alone in the huge cabin at the front of the Yin Qui. The peace engulfed me instantly; I sat down on a rather ugly chair as I watched the rolling waves of the South Atlantic slide beneath the vast bulk of the ship, again feeling no movement.
I was drained. I had lost the will to understand what was going on, I’d lost my interest in finding out how things worked. It was too complex, too different, something had happened to my brain, something I’d never experienced before. I was full up. I couldn’t take in any more information.
&nbs
p; I started to wonder if I really wanted to do anything, there wasn’t much I could do in this place. There were no worn-down hydrogen-powered earth movers that needed fixing, I couldn’t understand how a coffee pot or a door worked, far less a seven million ton ocean craft with no moving parts in its propulsion system. I imagined Nkoyo finding me dead in my enormous cabin, maybe it would be better to just die. That was an alarming moment. I’d never thought that before, but if I didn’t die, then I’d have to live somewhere and surely I’d have to do something.
I wandered around my massive cabin; what I was experiencing in the world of 2211 was nothing short of extraordinary and yet I felt flat and bored. It was ridiculous, I jumped up and down a few times to try and shake off the feeling, I tried to find a positive spin on the whole thing, I was living in an amazing world and I had loads of money.
That stopped me dead. I had loads of money in theory. I didn’t know how much, I’d never thought about it before. I wanted to know how much money I had left. As these thoughts raced through my head I suddenly knew I had three million, seven hundred and twenty-two thousand, four hundred and eleven Kwo. I wanted to know what a Kwo was, and of course I immediately understood that Kwo was the global currency, not based and backed by gold or some arbitrary algorithm produced by a national bank, it was based on kilowatt hours. Kwo, commonly described as bits, just like bucks for dollars and quid for pounds, was a currency based on energy. It was simple, standardised throughout the world, not based on shortages, hoarding, theft, war or pointless greed. It was based on energy and the cost of producing and transmitting this power. It was stable and fully understood by everyone.
Jumping up and down to try and energise myself and understanding Kwo was the first time I knew anything about my wealth. I merely had to wonder how much money I had and I knew. How I had never accessed that information before was a total mystery but I suppose I’d never really had the thought. I wanted to know how much it had cost me to travel on the Yin Qui. One hundred and eighty thousand. I knew instantly, but what I didn’t know was how that related to any currency I might know about. Nothing. I couldn’t seem to access that kind of information.
The door slid down and there was Nkoyo.
‘You don’t look happy,’ she said at once as she walked into my hanger-sized cabin.
‘I’m knackered.’
‘Is that good?’
I shook my head. Nkoyo sat on a chair facing the bed. She was still a long way away from me because the cabin was so enormous.
‘You’ve been through a lot,’ she said. ‘We’ll be back in London tomorrow evening but you don’t have to do anything. No one is going to ask you to speak or visit anything. You can have a rest at the Institute and gather your thoughts. There’s no rush.’
‘But I have no idea what to do,’ I said flopping back on the enormous bed. ‘I don’t really want to stay here. I thought I didn’t want to stay in Gardenia but after a while I sort of got used to it. Gardenia was very simple, this world, your world, it’s really complicated. There’s so much I don’t understand but there’s quite a lot I don’t want to understand. I don’t think it’s because women are running everything, I think it’s a world that’s just got too complex. Not on the surface, underneath. I find the hidden aspect of this world really disturbing.’
Nkoyo sat looking at me for a while, she looked mildly concerned. ‘I don’t know what to suggest other than you take your time to try and adjust. There’s no precedent, Gavin, no human being in history has had to deal with what you’re dealing with. There is no manual.’
33
Talking Cure
In all the time I’d been living at the Institute of Mental Health in London I had no idea they had their own entrance to the transportation system that ran beneath the buildings, squares and pathways of the enormous city.
My return to the strangely familiar surroundings was entirely discreet, also not a complete surprise. Nkoyo had explained everything when we were still on-board the Yin Qui. She informed me there was now increased public interest in my activities and the historic events that had taken place in Rio; the recording, the revelation of what actually happened, and the backlash that had apparently resulted in unanimous global condemnation of the Weaver women. As if that wasn’t enough, London had been through its own political drama while I’d been away.
The Mayor of London, Hilda Mickleton, who was publicly sympathetic to the Weaver cause had, it turned out, been involved in the cover-up surrounding my doctored recording. She was in a position to alter my timeline and that of Anne Hempstead.
I learned that she was no longer the Mayor of London. She was living in isolation on the coast. I’ve no idea what that meant but there was due to be a sudden and unexpected election and campaigning for the position of Mayor was already underway.
I remembered Hilda Mickleton vividly from my first day in the Squares, an old and slightly stout woman with a big chain around her shoulders who seemed genuinely offended at everything I said.
I’m sure some white men from back in my day have experienced this kind of reaction from a woman although I don’t think I ever had done before. I imagine it’s what many black and Asian people have experienced from white people. I think it’s called prejudice; not only is it annoying it really is soul destroying. The Mayor didn’t know me, she didn’t know anything about what I was really like. She had been reacting in a negative way just because I was a man. She was reacting to a generalised grouping, just as white people have done with black and Asian people and, I had to reflect, I had sometimes done with homosexual men.
Nkoyo ushered me back into the Institute very quietly via a private underground entrance, I followed her through the building and up a few flights of stairs until we entered a large room I’d never been in before, my vague understanding of the enormous building told me I was a few floors above the main entrance lobby.
Nkoyo stood to one side of a ceiling-height window and asked me to join her and take a look. I was a little shocked by what I saw, beneath us in the entrance garden and all along the path outside a large crowd of men had gathered. By large group I mean huge, like the audience at an open-air rock festival, the only difference being they were very quiet. They just stood around chatting with one another, some would occasionally glance up at the building but mainly they just seemed to be waiting.
‘Probably best not to let them see you just now, if you want a bit of peace,’ said Nkoyo. ‘Don’t worry, they can’t see through the window, it’s reflective, it looks like a mirror from the outside.’
I nodded my understanding. I knew the window was essentially a transparent energy gathering laminate of silicon and graphene, the single pane I was standing in front of produced seventy kilowatt hours of electricity a day and the building had 900 windows exactly the same. I knew all this and I also knew the information was pointless. There was no role for me in this knowledge. However, the view outside the window indicated that there was a role for me with the large gathering of men, the problem was, I had no idea what that role was.
‘What am I supposed to do?’ I asked.
‘You don’t have to do anything,’ said Nkoyo.
‘But what do they want?’
‘They want to thank you.’
‘But you and I know I haven’t done anything.’
‘Well, I think you have to accept you represent something to these people, they’ve been here since the vote in Rio last week.’
I turned to look at Nkoyo who was staring out of the window. ‘What, all the time?’
Nkoyo nodded.
‘Thats insane! What on earth can I say? I’m not a rock star, I can’t go out and sing them a song.’
Nkoyo turned to face me. ‘You don’t have to do anything, Gavin, they will leave eventually, it’s going to take a while for things to settle down. Eventually y
ou’ll be left alone but we do have to start thinking about what you’re going to do. Where you might want to work, where you might want to live, if you’re going to start a family. I know you have some Kwo left but that isn’t going to last your whole life, you have to remember you could easily live another hundred years, maybe a bit less considering what you’ve been exposed to before you arrived.’
‘A hundred years!’ That suggestion hit me like a punch in the belly. ‘A hundred fucking years, that’s…’ I sighed deeply. ‘That’s a really long time.’
As we’d been talking, I noticed the crowd outside the Institute had grown even larger, it was all very civilised, they were just standing around chatting with each other. A number of the men had small children with them. It wasn’t like a demonstration or political rally, rather a huge crowd of men standing around waiting for something. In any other circumstances I might have wanted to join them and have a party, but they were waiting for me.
After a long time staring out of the window feeling more and more trapped and hopeless, Nkoyo showed me to a new room on the same floor. Thankfully it was overlooking the gardens at the rear of the building. This was a much bigger room than the one I’d originally stayed in at the Institute, just a large empty room with a pile of what looked like cushions in the corner.
‘These are gifts from some of the men outside,’ said Nkoyo. ‘Don’t worry, we’ve scanned them all, they’re perfectly harmless.’
‘Cushions! They’ve given me cushions! Can I just say men have changed quite a bit since my day.’
‘Not just cushions,’ said Nkoyo. ‘Also furnishings and fabrics to make you feel a little more homely.’
I looked down at offerings, just a pile of small mustard brown cushions piled up against one wall. Nkoyo stared at me and smiled. ‘Of course, you haven’t seen this before have you? It’s a bit like clothes only bigger.’ She bent down and picked up one of the cushions, tossed it back on the pile and found another.
News from the Squares Page 31
