She plucked at her collar, and sighed. The cab had slowed to nearly a standstill now at the gate.
Luke whirled around wildly to look at the contents of the truck.
‘What’s in here? It’s all stuff.’
Her eyes had gradually adjusted to the dim light.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. There weren’t, as she’d been expecting, boxes of goods; instead, the huge truck was piled high with bales. At first she thought it was rolled-up carpet, but instead, as she grew closer, she saw it was cloth: tweed, when she bent down to see it. Harris tweed.
‘Quick,’ he said. ‘In here. If we bundle you and bundle you, maybe? Under lots of layers of other stuff?’He frowned. ‘Will that work? Don’t suffocate.’
‘No!’ said Connie desperately. ‘Dogs are… I mean, they can smell absolutely anything. All they’ll do is sniff and think, “Ah, that’s a load of Harris tweed next to Connie.”’
‘Finally,’ murmured Luke. ‘A species that can do cool stuff.’
Connie looked at him as he pulled off his coat, trousers and shirt and made her put them on.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Here,’ he said. ‘If I really don’t give off a scent, if I really do turn dogs away, then these might help mask it.’
Connie couldn’t think of a better idea. And now the lorry had come to a full halt.
She covered every inch of herself with Luke’s clothes and knelt, feeling horribly exposed in the middle of the bales, unable to see. Luke knelt over her. He could not be the all-encompassing force he had been in the water, but he was still a big man, and he enveloped as much of her as he could, clasping round her ankles. The very fact of him being there was comforting, protecting and safe.
There was chatter outside from the two men, who clearly knew each other.
‘Have they not found fuckers of sheep yet?’
‘Don’t think he go to ex-communist shit bloc to where you drive.’
‘All right, orange son of bitch. Hey, does dog want sausage, I have?’
‘Oh, that’s why he’s fuss. No, hein, he’s busy looking for people that don’t smell of the sausage. That smell of bad beer and are probably drunk, hé?’
There was a laugh from the Polish driver, who then said something Connie didn’t understand.
Then there came a pause and a rustle of documents. Connie held her breath, as if terrified of releasing even a few molecules of herself into the air. She waited for the barking to begin, the tearing, growling noise of the dog, primed to get at her, to rip and hold any humans it came across. She shut her eyes tight and wondered if the dogs would bite her or whether they’d call them off when they hauled them in. She wondered if it would hurt.
Her hands started to shake and tremble, her throat choking so she could hardly breathe. Luke, his head resting on her head, attempted to gently stroke her quivering back, to calm her down, but she couldn’t feel him, was lost entirely in her own fear until, with enormous slowness, a light passed over the cloth side of the truck, passed slowly along the sides, and she squeezed her eyes closer than ever and waited for the light to stop…
… but it did not, and the great vehicle itself slowly creaked into gear and lumbered forward… and forward, picking up speed, and now the lights were flashing overhead faster now: the great motorway lights high above the road, flickering past from the terminal buildings and the great junctions to Europe – south to fragrant France and warm Italy; north to the cold Scandinavian countries.
But as the lorry confidently took the road, and the flickering lights on the tarpaulin ceased and became only the occasional glare of passing headlights at this, the quietest hour of the day, Connie knew deep inside that they were going east, ever east. And even when they were moving quickly, they stayed in the same position, curled up on the dusty floor, holding each other fast, for a long, long time, until Connie had finally stopped shaking, and even beyond then, as her breathing slowed and, entirely wrung out, she gently fell asleep in his arms.
She awoke just before dawn and they looked at one another in the dim light. Connie smiled at Luke, as he handed her the bottle of water she had bought what seemed like so long ago and she took a long pull from it. Her fear had receded now they were on the road; now she was worrying what was happening to the others back in England. But there was something about the physical act of moving that made it impossible not to be at least a little bit excited. They were moving; she could feel the kilometres pass under their feet, and that, she knew, was absolutely the best she could hope for. And she didn’t want to think about home, or Arnold and everyone; she wanted to move, keep moving forward, never looking behind her. She turned to the man sitting on a huge pile of brown papered pillows, lost in thought.
‘Hey,’ she said, smiling at him. He smiled back.
‘Hey,’ he said, pulling her to him. ‘How are you?’
‘Better thanks. How are you feeling?’ she said. ‘Are you still sore?’
He nodded. ‘It’s okay. It… it doesn’t pass, but I do get used to it. More used to it.’
Connie blinked and sat down next to him. She was still wearing his shirt.
‘I wonder,’ she said. ‘I mean, you basically work like a person… a human person, don’t you?’
Luke nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said glumly.
Connie nodded, a smile starting to play around her mouth. She took a long drink of water, then pulled out the band she had in her hair, letting it tumble down around her ears. She knew he couldn’t fail to look at it, and he did.
‘You know that… that lip thing?’ she asked shyly, now she had his full attention.
Luke gazed at her.
‘Mmm?’
‘Have you tried it?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It looks weird.’
Connie laughed and widened her eyes.
‘You said it. Captain Weird.’
‘I am actually not at all weird,’ said Luke. ‘I am the most normal individual you could possibly meet.’
Connie looked at him.
‘I am,’ said Luke. ‘I never did an interesting thing in my entire life before the wall. I grew, I studied, I swam, I… hmm… did a sport you don’t have a word for. I did everything the Extraction wanted me to do. Then one day…’
He waved his arms.
‘Et cetera.’
‘Seriously?’ smiled Connie. ‘Genuinely, you’re dull?’
‘Very dull,’ said Luke. ‘I like being in the water, and music, and four-dimensional regular polytopes and building structure and raisin cookies and beyond that I am not in the least bit interesting.’
Connie laughed.
‘Well, you are incredibly interesting to me.’
‘You say that now.’
She moved closer.
‘Well, would you like to try something completely different?’
The fresh, clean salt smell of his skin was near her again. It was irresistible.
He smiled slightly nervously.
‘What do I do?’
‘Just follow me,’ said Connie. ‘And your instincts. They’re in that shape somewhere. If you can eat a cookie and climb a fence, I reckon you might as well give this a shot.’
And as the lorry thundered through the dawn onwards, ever east, along a long, straight, flat road, past the Netherlands, past Belgium and on through northern Germany, she began, slowly and tentatively, to kiss him. And equally slowly and tentatively – at first – Luke kissed her back, then, gradually, engrossed, he became more forceful and raised his hands to weave themselves in and out of her hair, both of them breathing faster and faster.
Connie shifted, moved herself onto his knees then, modesty forgotten, simply sat astride his long legs as they kissed deeply and fiercely while the slight wailing of a Russian music CD came wobbling slightly through into the back of the truck, and the man in the cab upfront drove on at a perfectly even ninety kilometres per hour, completely oblivious to their presence.
She moved his hands up underneat
h her shirt.
‘What are these for?’ said Luke huskily, exploring.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she muttered. ‘Just keep doing it exactly like that.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘This… this really does help.’
‘Good,’ she said, smiling, her breath coming short in her throat. ‘Now, those zone things we were talking about…’
Luke’s face changed suddenly.
‘I can feel it,’ he groaned.
‘So can I,’ said Connie.
‘I think… I’m not sure about this. It feels like it’s going to burst.’
Connie let out a short laugh, which changed to curiosity and excitement as she felt through his trousers.
‘That’s how it’s meant to feel,’ she said, breathlessly unbuttoning his shirt, and feeling downwards with her hand. ‘Oh, Luke, you’ve made it too thick.’
Luke glanced down. ‘Sorry. Oh. I can… next time I change I can do it differently.’
‘Uh, no, you know what, that’s okay.’
His human shape was so smooth: hairless, and warm against hers. She took her own clothes off quickly, astonished, suddenly, at her boldness. She had never been in the least bit like this; not at all forward – quite the opposite.
But then she couldn’t remember ever feeling so compelled before. Had never wanted anyone or anything so much. The memories of what had already passed between them only spurred her on. She pressed herself up against him, and they both shivered in the musty air, although it was not in the slightest bit cold.
‘Now it’s my turn to ask you if you’re sure,’ she whispered, smiling.
Luke nodded fiercely.
‘Good,’ whispered Connie ‘Keep following your instincts. Trust them.’
‘All my instincts are you,’ he said, pressing her closer, then painfully closer still, then finally, agonisingly slowly and carefully, they were together. Sweat burst out on both of their foreheads, and Connie’s hair tumbled down her back. ‘Oh God. Oh God.’
And now it was Luke’s turn to close his eyes as the truck rumbled on through the early dawn, and the birds started from the trees as the heavy wheels thundered past.
Chapter Twenty
‘Day two.’
Evelyn had managed to hiss it out of the corner of her mouth to Arnold, as she had been marched past his room to wash and Arnold was being brought out. Arnold looked up startled.
‘It’s day one today!’ he whispered. ‘Yesterday doesn’t count as a full day.’
Evelyn raised an eyebrow.
‘It does to me,’ she said urgently.
Arnold shook his head.
‘What are you two whispering about?’ said the guard unpleasantly. He disliked smart alecs.
‘Where’s breakfast?’ said Evelyn. ‘Also, we need a lawyer. Or to be charged with something.’
‘Wouldn’t know anything about that,’ said the guard.
Breakfast was porridge. They weren’t allowed to eat together. Nigel had ordered that they be kept apart to stop them conspiring about whatever it was they were up to. If they had to ask each other work-related questions, they could send each other notes. Evelyn had, of course, already mocked up some modular arithmetic steganography she expected the boys to recognise immediately but which would be inserted as a formula on each page without arousing suspicion in anyone below doctoral level. She awaited the results with interest.
Ranjit was just falling off to sleep. Nigel had sat with him for two hours. Did he never get tired?
‘The thing is,’ Nigel was saying, and it sounded so persuasive when he said it. ‘It seems something has happened. Something that has made two of your colleagues run away. Can you understand why we are so worried by what’s in that message?’
‘Yes,’ eeped Ranjit. He was terrified of authority. Nigel sensed he was the weak spot and pushed harder.
‘Ranjit, if you know something about this signal… or what happened with Luke and Connie and the professor… if you know anything about this signal which could mean something for everyone in the world; that could influence history…’
He was laying it on thick, but he didn’t care.
‘You owe it to the world to tell us,’ said Nigel. ‘You owe it to use. Stop protecting your friends and tell us.’
Ranjit finally burst into huge racking uncontrollable sobs. Nigel waited for him to stop, but they only seemed to get more and more hysterical as time went on.
‘What is it, Ranjit?’ said Nigel. ‘What do you know?’
But Ranjit only shook his head.
‘No,’ he said through choking sobs. ‘That’s not it.’
Nigel damped down his impatience.
‘Well, what is it?’
Ranjit burst out into a fresh bout of tears.
‘They’re the only friends I’ve ever haaaaaad,’ he wailed.
Frantic messages were passed between Evelyn and Arnold’s cells all morning, and very little actual work, which didn’t matter on balance. Regardless, their coding degenerated into solid insults faster than expected. Arnold wanted this to count as the first day. Evelyn wanted to give Nigel the information protocol and get it over with, get it done. They had no idea what Luke and Connie were doing nor where they were, and in the hard, cold light of day Evelyn thought it was time to give up. Neither could agree. ‘They’re probably lying about somewhere bonking,’ said Arnold savagely at lunch when they were allowed to pass each other at the fridge.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Evelyn stoutly. ‘They’re trying to save Luke is what they’re doing. I’m not doubting them. But…’
Arnold glanced at the guards.
‘Well, I fucking wish they’d hurry up with it. Did you see Ranjit’s face?’
Evelyn nodded.
‘I know. And I don’t know how much longer we can hold them off.’
In Sé’s cell, he sat alone, pretending to focus, stimming, and occasionally kicking hard at the wall without the slightest idea that he had done so. He was horrified that he had sent Connie out into the world with an alien. Horrified he had been so blind. What if Luke had done exactly the same to her as Sé still thought he might have done to the professor? What if she was lying, right now, in a copse somewhere, drained of all colour as Luke searched for his next victim, blending into the background, maybe even changing the way he looked. Maybe they’d never ever find him. And it would be his fault.
But he had made a promise.
‘What the hell is going on?’
Nigel sighed. When Anyali was fierce, she didn’t mess about.
‘I mean, I thought you guys were trained in interrogation! Knew how to get information out of suspects. That’s what we pay you for, right?’
Nigel sighed again.
‘Yes.’
‘Well?’
‘Well, normally we do it by separating them from their family and friends… putting them in a room with nothing to do, refusing them phone calls or contact with the outside world, cutting them off completely… I mean, that breaks most people down into a total panic with a few hours. And that’s hardened crims, never mind total newbies.’
‘So?’
‘So I have a horrible feeling this lot don’t really mind it. I’m not sure they’re not having quite a relaxing time just doing sums all day in peace and quiet. One of them asked for a phone call to renew his Netflix subscription.’
Anyali let out a low hum of frustration.
‘And the astronomers, they’re still getting this stuff in?’
‘Yes. I tried to put them together, get them to tell the other guys how to work it out, but they came out reeling.’
This had been entirely Arnold’s doing. He had just cut out any filters in dealing with non-mathematicians and had told them in detail exactly what he was doing, thus completely stymieing any hope of progress.
‘The PM isn’t pleased.’
‘Look,’ said Nigel, lowering his voice. ‘I think if an alien civilisation has reached us, and hasn’t blown us up just yet afte
r having heard some Miley Cyrus singles, you never know, they might be friendly. Or, they might have enough goddamn intelligence to know that this kind of stuff doesn’t solve itself overnight.’
‘But what did the other two read, Nigel? What do they know? What have they done?’
Nigel brought his fist down on the desk in frustration, and turned back to the cells.
Resistance is Futile Page 21
