Live Without a Net

by Lou Anders

  I shook my head. “Not Harry.”

  “Harry’s ex-SAS. Good with munitions.” Modem blew gently on the burning coal at the end of the spliff. “An absolute star. No end to the things Harry can do with a few ounces of plastic explosive.”

  “What do you want?” I shouted.

  Modem looked taken aback. “It’s just this situation with Rex and Liam—”

  “Yes!” I yelled. “Intervene! Do whatever you fucking well want!” We sat looking at each other from either end of the bed. “Are you happy now?”

  Modem stood up. “I’m never what you’d call happy,” it told me.

  Every village has a character. Sometimes, if the village is big enough or unfortunate enough, it might have more than one. Ernie Hazlewright was ours, a big, permanently annoyed old man who lived just down the road from me. He was a legendary drinker and a brawler of some note, and he’d been barred from all three of the pubs in the area more times than anyone could remember.

  By rights, he should have gone down fighting in a punch-up in the street, but he’d actually fallen into the river while walking home pissed out of his mind one night and drowned. I supposed it was a rather sad way for a Falklands veteran to go, but I wasn’t going to miss him.

  Still, it was rather a good turnout in the little cemetary down by the river. About thirty people turned up, mostly Ernie’s old drinking buddies. I managed to get a few words from each of them.

  The mourners had all gone off to the pub, and I was chatting to the vicar when I saw Rex coming down the gravel path from the church. He stopped by Ernie’s grave and stood looking down at the coffin. I went over to him.

  “He wasn’t a bad old lad, really,” he said. “Just drank too much.”

  “He was an absolute nightmare,” I said. “Coming home legless at all hours of the day and night, beating up his wife. You didn’t have to live near him.”

  Rex nodded. “That’s true.”

  “He smashed all my front windows once.”

  “You haven’t been in to the office yet, have you?” he said.

  I shook my head. “I came straight here.”

  “So you won’t have seen what we found in the yard when we came to work this morning.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “So the animals didn’t have anything to do with you, then.”

  I frowned and felt my stomach start to contract. “What animals?”

  Rex shrugged. “Well, I left Harry counting them, but it looked like fifteen or so chickens, half a dozen goats and four pigs. Three sows and a boar.”

  I stared at him.

  “Anything to do with your source, do you think?”

  I had never kept anything from Rex. I had told him everything about myself, at least everything I could remember. He was the only person I had told about 56K Modem and its visits, and I thought it was probably the bravest thing I had ever done. Rex, of course, was an old-fashioned sort of newspaperman. A contact with the elves was literally beyond price, even if it might be morally suspect, and a good journalist always protects his sources.

  “Modem came to see me last night,” I said. “It asked me if I wanted them to do something about this thing with you and Liam.”

  Rex frowned. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a game with them, Rex. They think we’re funny. They watch us like we’re some kind of soap opera or something.”

  He scratched his head. “Well.” He turned and started to walk up the gravel path toward the entrance to the churchyard. I followed. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or not.”

  “Best not.”

  “Aye, maybe you’re right.”

  “Someone had better mention to Harry that the elves are on to him, as well,” I said.

  He glanced at me. “Did your source tell you that, as well?” I nodded, and he shook his head. “Why don’t they just pick him up, then?”

  “I told you, they love to play games. Modem said Harry was in Sheffield last night meeting with a Resistance cell.”

  Rex put back his head and laughed. “Either your source was playing games, or it’s not so well informed as we thought. Harry was nowhere near Sheffield last night.”

  “Oh?” I was rather hurt. “Where was he, then?”

  “He was with me, burning down the Chronicle’s office.”

  I stood still. Nobody I had spoken to this morning had mentioned anything about a fire, but I supposed they’d all had other things on their minds, like mourning Ernie and getting to the pub for opening time.

  Rex walked a few more steps; then he turned and looked at me. “Don’t just stand there with your mouth hanging open,” he said. “He’d have done it to us.”

  That was fair comment, I supposed. “You’ll never get away with it. He’ll know who it was.”

  He smiled cheerily. “There’s knowing,” he said, “and there’s proving.”

  I caught up with him. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  Rex looked thoughtful. “No,” he said finally. “No, neither did I.” He looked about him, then started walking again. “We didn’t put him out of action permanently, anyway. Just sort of charred the office a bit. He’ll be up and running again in a couple of weeks. It’s actually rather funny.”

  “How on earth is trying to burn down your competitor’s office funny, Rex?”

  He chuckled. “It’s just that Harry and I spend most of the night skulking around the Chronicle’s office, trying to put Liam out of action for a while so some of the advertisers will sign up with us, and this morning we find the backyard full of livestock, courtesy of your friends.” He shook his head. “I just found it funny, that’s all.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. I knew there would be some kind of price to pay, but there was no way of telling what it would be. Or what would happen when the elves didn’t find us amusing any longer.

  “One of us ought to go over to the Chronicle’s office and do some kind of story,” Rex said.

  I grinned. “You cheeky old sod.”

  “It’d look suspicious if we didn’t. And it’s good copy, anyway. ‘Local Newspaper Burns Down.’ ” He nodded to himself. “Good local copy. The cornerstone of a good local paper.” He looked at me. “Would you like to do that?”

  “It would make my day,” I told him.

  He nodded again. “Good lad. And if you see Alice, give her my regards.” And he walked away, head up, back straight, whistling a little tune, the happiest editor in Derbyshire.

  John Meaney is the author of three groundbreaking British novels. To Hold Infinity was one of the Daily Telegraph’s Books of the Year. It was also nominated for the BSFA Award, as was his acclaimed second novel, Paradox, which begins the Nulapeiron sequence, continuing in the sequel, Context, and the forthcoming Resolution. Meaney holds a degree in physics and computer science, a black belt in shotokan karate, and is addicted to weightlifting, running, languages and science, all genres of fiction, cats, coffee, and chocolate.

  THE SWASTIKA BOMB

  John Meaney

  A great black delta-shape slid overhead, gut-wrenching subharmonics pouring down in waves. It slewed into position, hovering above Nelson’s Column. Panicked, pigeon flocks exploded outward, a burst of wing flurries as the intruder’s shadow fell upon Trafalgar Square.

  Heinkel Drache 22-E. I recognized the species immediately. Already, beneath its wings, the dark, deadly payload was struggling to be free.

  I stared upward—frozen, despite all my training: the wings’ noise felt solid, beating down—and swallowed at the sight. Great Luftwaffe cross-insignias matched the black wriggling Hakenkreuzen slung in bomb racks.

  Move.

  Wrenching my attention down, preparing to run … and right at that moment I saw her, and fell in love.

  Like a spring storm, when the sky darkens, yet suddenly a figure on the ground glows in contrast with white, internal radiance—that was her. Upswept honey-hued hair, her pale triangular face an ivory glow above the trim b
lue-gray RAF uniform, wide-eyed …

  Her devastating gaze met mine.

  My God. Such beauty—

  Then the Swastika Bombs dropped.

  She hesitated beside the dry wide fountain—the black lion statues were at my back—as I felt the movement overhead, and then I was moving very fast.

  By the time I reached her, she had kicked off her shoes, and I grabbed her jacket in the small of the back—that perfect back—and lifted her almost bodily as we sprinted in time, swerved, ran hard, heading for the tall pale church of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields as the big black hooked crosses fell.

  They snapped, writhed, anxious for the kill.

  Run.

  Her thoughts were mine, in total communion, with no breath to speak: we were elemental primates, running for the mortal joy and fear. Sprinting for our lives.

  Faster.

  Then we were at the building’s side, and for a moment I thought we might run on to Charing Cross, but she tugged left, making the decision, and we skidded to a halt beside piled sandbags as a great crump sounded from behind. Ravening bombs, like great conjoined black worms, whipped in their death throes, smashed granite like papier-mâché, building up a crescendo of maddened destruction, internal pressures building, rising until virus-venom sacs and acid bladders exploded—

  Too late.

  But we were already stumbling down the steps, and helping hands dragged us through the doorway and then we were inside the church’s darkened crypt and safe. A great gout of dust followed us in as walls blew apart on the street above.

  Safe …

  And in that moment of exhilaration, we grasped each other hard, and kissed—her lips like silk, absorbing—each pulling the other inward as though we would fuse together in blissful joy, forever.

  For this was war, our darkest hour, and things were very different then.

  I asked her, “Will you marry me?” and she said, “Yes,” and then we told each other our names.

  This was the way of things, when no one knew whether life or death awaited the next day, or the next.

  “I’m Laura.” Her voice was breathless and elegant.

  Around us, others crouched or stood in the shadow-shrouded crypt, barely lit by flickering orange candle flames. Some were civilians in mufti; most were service personnel in uniform. They hunched atop the three-century-old headstones that paved the floor, sunk inside their own thoughts or muttering to those close by.

  But to me, there was only Laura: the real and beautiful wonder of her.

  “Listen.”

  Her hands tightened their grip, and then I heard it: a bright silver whistling through the air.

  There was a grim edge to her smile as she whispered: “Now we’ll see.”

  A distant whump, and you could picture the sudden burst of flame, feel the wave of heat. Then we all heard the strange eldritch cry of a wounded bomber-dragon.

  “Spitfires!”

  Cheers rose up around the darkened crypt.

  “Bastard Jerry’s had it now.”

  Later, we would get the full description: of those brave young men who took their green-and-silver raptors, perched in the tiny spinal cockpits, melded into their mounts’ ganglionic pathways, hurtling down from the clouds with wings furled, then snapping those wings outward—under heart-wrenching stresses—as they swooped past the formation of great black delta-winged dragons, glimpsing the crews’ shocked faces as they carried destruction back to the death-bringers.

  It was not one-sided, that fierce battle, for the Luftwaffe had their own escort of emerald-green Messerschmidt Falke-104s, the dreaded Falcons glinting in the sun, and soon there were duels in the air above beleaguered London as the faster Germans took on maneuverable Spitfires: brave young men—on both sides—with iron will and lightning reflexes, fighting for their countries, risking everything.

  The bomber-dragon that had hit Trafalgar Square took severe injuries in those first few seconds: from flamebursts and fling-stings as the Spitfires swooped past. Wounded, the great black dragon swung up into the air, delta wings curling, but the injuries were mortal and the crew could do no more as vital organs burst inside, and then they were falling in a long lazy arc towards the Thames.

  It smashed into waves, the impact hurling gouts of spume high into the air, wrecking any hopes of capturing the aircrew alive: pulping their bodies as the dragon’s back broke in two.

  Later that evening, crowds of adults, and a small number of children who had missed evacuation, would watch from the Embankment as navy trawlobsters dragged the huge corpse ashore, to the waiting RAF dissectors.

  But as the air battle, still raging overhead, moved farther away, there was a ripple of relieved laughter in the crypt, the lighting of cigarettes, which had been ignored until now. The air seemed easier to breathe.

  “Here you are.” Laura handed me my spectacles. “If you want them.”

  The glasses had survived the run, only to fall upon a worn seventeenth-century gravestone beneath our feet. One lens was splintered.

  “Thank you.” I tucked them inside my suit jacket—double-breasted, brown, now stained with dust—and looked around for my hat. “I might need them later.”

  “For disguise? This close to Whitehall?” Those elegant lips curled into a smile. “Or have plain-glass lenses got some use I don’t know about?”

  “You’re very observant.”

  “Not only that … I suspect we’re headed for the same place, my love.”

  Then the all-clear sirens wailed, and it was time to go.

  As we passed through the square, the skies were clear save for a distant observation blimp, blue gills fluttering as it scoured enemy spy-seeds and germspores from the air.

  Hand in hand, Laura and I skirted still-moving sections of black rubbery Swastika Bomb carcasses, while bomb-disposal scarabs crawled around the debris, directed by their asbestos-suited masters. Cleanup dromedatanker crews were already spraying antiviral mist across the foul yellow fluids spattered everywhere.

  We walked carefully, avoiding acid puddles and toxic pools, and turned into Whitehall. The long boulevard was remarkably untouched by the action. Tall white-gray buildings stood blocky and proud; their cross-taped Regency windows, with their heavy blackout curtains and sandbag reinforcements, concealed the smoke-filled rooms of the War Ministry, the Admiralty spillover, and Military Intelligence.

  They formed the intellectual center of the British war effort, in those darkest die-before-surrender days when it seemed certain the Blitzkrieg would destroy us all.

  At a short flight of pale steps before tall iron-studded doors—we were headed for the same place—Laura kissed me lightly on the cheek. Then we passed inside, Laura returning the sentries’ salutes, while I nodded politely, reinforcing my pseudocivilian status.

  In the foyer, as my heart shivered, we parted company for the first time.

  Blue pipe smoke wreathed the Old Man’s office: a dark, mahogany-paneled chamber, heavy with stern predecessors’ portraits. From the anteroom, I peered in, and waited while a group of women, half in uniform—WAFs and FANYs—exited in a clatter of high heels, a businesslike bustle of long skirts, clutching their clipboards.

  All intelligence personnel had antiallergen infusions and oncovaccination. Still, there were reddened eyes; everyone looked relieved to be out of the smoke.

  “Come in, old chap.” The admiral’s voice boomed from behind his huge desk. “Take a pew.”

  “Sir.”

  I nodded automatically to his secretary, the formidable Miss Poundstone—chestnut brown eyes, so different from Laura—and passed inside, closing the heavy doors behind me. He indicated a chair with his pipe stem.

  Laura …

  “Now then, Fleming—”

  The Old Man’s words snapped me back into the moment. “It sounded urgent, sir.”

  In the hard-backed chair, I waited for the fearful words.

  “Time”—his big blunt fingers drummed on the leather-bound blotter—“t
hat you went back into the field, don’t you think?”

  No. Too soon.

  Part of me had had enough: of the twilight-sleep treatment in a Birmingham hospice on my return, drugged to the gills again, with morphine and God-knows-what; then of the endless retraining in the windy Rutland countryside, restringing my nerves in the echoing former public school where operatives underwent the harsh discipline designed to keep them alive. I had been teaching, too: as an old hand who had survived—flea-bitten and ragged-eared, but functioning—giving the cynical benefits of my hard experience to wide-eyed neophytes who revered me too much.

  For their eyes were bright with youth’s secret knowledge of their own immortality, secure in their ironclad conviction that the torture victim’s screams as Gestapo interrogators bent to work, the broken corpse splayed facedown in a dark puddle in some cobbled alleyway, were images from someone else’s future, not from theirs.

  “You’re sending me into occupied territory?”

  Part of me yearned to return: that desperate obsession with the brink. Yet all of me wanted Laura: my world was different now.

  “Where else?” With a frown, “We can only mount this operation with a particular type of agent at the forefront. That means you, Fleming.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I took it as a compliment.

  “You know about nanoviral vectors. Well”—from under heavy white eyebrows, he glowered—“our cousins across the water are putting their best boffins—and I include the best who escaped Europe, not just Yanks—onto a single weapons program. The Brooklyn Project promises to end the war at a stroke.”

  I shifted. A feeling of dread slid across my skin.

  “You don’t want to hear this.” For all his bluff manner, the Old Man could be sensitive to the point almost of telepathy. “Strategic context is hardly de rigueur in briefings.”

  Worrying about long-term implications could make your trigger finger tremble at the wrong moment. Too much background was dangerous.

  “The thing is”—with a granite smile—“you’ll pick up the resonances soon enough, so I’m telling you right now.”