UK2

by Terry Tyler

  Verlander comments often on Dex's value to the new UK, particularly in the realm of people management, so Dex feels the time is right to suggest that work begins on one of the empty buildings originally designated for workers' recreation.

  "Throw up a bar, stick in a coffee machine and a little kitchen for snacks—nothing fancy, just bowls of chips—and give them a few pool tables. Perhaps a stage with a mic so the musically inclined can entertain. We could use the place intended for the bowling alley; it can seat more. Works on the same principle as the credit raise; if they have nothing, the person who gives them even just a crumb is seen as a great benefactor. Fuck it, stick a Christmas tree up in the window; they'll love you for it, you'll see!"

  Verlander says work will commence immediately, and slaps him on the back. "You're a shrewd bastard, Northam. Thank God you decided to bat for the winning side, eh?"

  "So you'll be letting the Renova Group know this was my idea?"

  "Of course!"

  "When do I start having direct contact with them?"

  "Don't have much myself, these days. UK2 is only one small part of the rebuilding process, and it's not one of the most problematic. Just do your job; Rome wasn't built in a day, right?"

  Such evasiveness frustrates Dex, but he knows better than to push. No matter. There is plenty to keep him occupied. He checks in on each department, regularly, and is delighted with how Flora has shaped up. The Juno initiative is thriving, with newly pregnant couples happy to attend parenting classes and be told how they will bring up their children.

  Not one of them has complained that the binding partnership ceremonies have no religious context, although he imagines that, had it not been for bat fever, most of them would have eventually got married in church. But there is no place in this new world for unseen deities who will reward good behaviour after death; the myth of Christ and his like served the past well, and indeed afforded great riches for those who, throughout history, wore the robes and told the tales, but the 21st century worker bee has too great a sense of personal entitlement to accept promises of glory in the next life. The new religion is the better world they are working towards, together.

  Barney returns from his last trip up north of the year. The vans and trucks are filled with new residents, with more travelling behind in their own vehicles. Dex can't help feeling on edge as he sees familiar faces alight outside the holding bay. Have they been told Vicky's story about Heath's demise? Evidently not. They smile, shake his hand, comforted to see someone they know.

  He is mildly disappointed not to see Rowan amongst them, but unsurprised. Had she arrived, he would have secured her a Level Two management position and an apartment in Hub Residential.

  Her loss.

  Dex has a new woman in his life. Storm, the team leader from Recruitment, she of the short, shaggy blonde hair and fearsomely worked out body. She flexes her muscles in places Dex didn't know women had muscles.

  She fits into his life just fine. Half the week she's out recruiting, and when she's away he makes his duty calls to Naomi and Phoenix. Storm doesn't want a relationship. She just wants to fuck, and be bought dinner and drinks in Spritz after a few days on the road. No chance of Naomi finding out, because she is not allowed in the Hub.

  Actually, Dex is slightly irked that Storm doesn't want a relationship. He's never yet been involved with a woman who hasn't wanted more than he's prepared to give. Storm is just fine with it. Then again, making her want him is an interesting challenge in itself.

  Sometimes, he leaves her bed straight after sex, when he wants to stay. Just to keep her on her toes.

  Trouble is, she doesn't seem to mind.

  On his free nights, Dex works on his book. He can't get the words out fast enough.

  His theories about the lack of resistance to being microchipped make up a whole chapter. These are the people who downloaded every new app advertised on Private Life, who didn't mind that every single word they wrote online, every photo shared, was fed into the huge data compilation, to be used they knew not how. They're the 'if you're not doing anything wrong you don't mind who sees it' crew. Too careless to understand the full implications of a society in which privacy scarcely exists.

  Two decades of social media have prepared them well for UK2.

  Damn sheep.

  Damn worker bees.

  And isn't his life better because they exist?

  In the enclosed space of Rez 4, Naomi irritates him far more than she did on Lindisfarne. He is sure she didn't get on his nerves this much even in Jeff's claustrophobic bunker, or perhaps she was more eager to gain his approval, back in the early days of their relationship. Now, in her apartment, he notices how untidy she is; she doesn't keep house as well as Vicky did. She cooks unappetising concoctions from pulses, and there is no extractor fan in the kitchen alcove, so the constant simmering of lentils and aduki beans means that the whole flat is clammy with steam that never escapes. Dex tells her to open the windows, but she says she can't, not in the winter, because Phoenix suffers with his chest; she is sure he is asthmatic.

  That's all he needs. An asthmatic child. He remembers the two in his class during his own schooldays. They couldn't play in the playground without their inhalers, their mums wrapped them up in woolly scarves, and they were picked on by the tough kids.

  He suspects that Naomi actively wants their son to be asthmatic so she can mollycoddle him and, as the mother of a child with a condition, receive special attention. Phoenix is showing signs of becoming a mummy's boy; he cries and grizzles in a way he didn't on the island. He's better when Suzanne is there, because she doesn't let him have everything he wants.

  He takes his cues from his mother, of course; she whinges, whines and stamps her feet, so Phoenix does too.

  Dex wants to whinge and whine at Naomi, and worse. He wants to say, you wanted a kid, I gave you a kid, now can you leave me the hell alone? Why can't she be strong, like Suzanne, and just get on with stuff?

  Why does she still think he owes her his life?

  She's on the Hub watch list, though of course she does not know this. When she's working down in the Supplies Zone she's a little too ready to complain about the system to anyone who will listen. Verlander advised Dex of this, a couple of weeks ago, and today he calls him into the office again.

  His manner is friendly, man to man, all smiles, but Dex hears the warning behind the words.

  "Have a word with your Mrs, will you, Dexter?"

  Dex sits down in the chair opposite without an invitation. He laughs, to keep the atmosphere light, to stop it becoming a potential situation. "What's she done now?"

  "She's stirring up unrest, bro. Constantly nit-picking about the medical facilities for your boy, the size of the apartments. You know how these things gather momentum. You get four people who are a bit unhappy about something, but they put up with it, 'cause life ain't perfect. Then one of those four starts yapping. Next thing you know, the other three start thinking they have justifiable grievances, and you've got a fucking revolution on your hands. So you gotta nip it in the bud, like we did with Lincoln. But I'm giving you the heads up, because she's the mother of your kid."

  Dex understands. "Consider it done." He smiles. "We may have been on the original Renova hit list, but I assure you she's now with the programme!"

  Verlander's eyes do that shifty thing that he has noticed before, when a reference is made to Project Renova. Since their introductory conversation he has been oddly reticent about it, and Dex has accepted that he may never gain answers to the questions he senses he should not ask.

  Today, though, maybe because he is being told to discipline the mother of his child, or maybe just because he is fed up with waiting for the promised contact with the Group, Dex decides to ask them. Verlander is waiting for him to leave, but he's not moving. Instead, he rocks his chair back and forth on its flexible stem, and puts his hands behind his head.

  "Tell me something, Alex. What was your exact role in Project Renova? Pr
e-outbreak, I mean."

  Verlander twiddles his pen, but doesn't look at him. "Workforce Liaison."

  "Which involved what?"

  "I kept the wheels and cogs turning for Maxlo. Data analysts, lab assistants, logistics workers for vaccine distribution."

  "So how did you achieve that position? Had you always worked for Maxlo?"

  "Uh-huh. PR."

  Of course.

  "And you were in on the whole thing, from the get-go? How did you feel about it, when the idea was first introduced?"

  Verlander stops twiddling, leans his elbows on the desk, rests his chin on interlocking fingers, and stares down at the papers in front of him.

  Dex waits.

  Finally he glances up, and, for possibly the first time since Dex has known him, he looks as if he might say something real.

  "I'm not sure you truly understand the vision, Dex. There was never a day on which some guy waltzed into a New York boardroom and said, 'hey, let's solve the problems of the world, here's Project Renova'. It evolved over many years, the maturing brainchild of the brilliant few who understand the long game. The people who make the decisions about how we live. And I don't mean the figureheads, like the king of England or whoever's been chosen to sit in the White House. I mean the behind-the-scene guys who preside over the wealth of the world, who finance and control the figureheads."

  "I get that."

  "They're the people who run the show."

  "I know."

  Verlander stares past him, his glazed eyes expressionless, as if Dex hasn't spoken. "I'm talking about the silhouettes you spot, just for a moment, when you look up at a window on that floor you aren't allowed access to. The guys whose names are not widely known, who ride in private planes and cars with dark windows to meetings in places hidden from public view." He stops, shuts his eyes for a moment. "They're the few who understood that the crisis was real, it was happening, and it was up to them to avert chaos."

  Dex does not say a word. He suspects that to do so will flick a switch, and the moment will be gone.

  "We'd reached two minutes to midnight on the Doomsday Clock; it was almost too late." Still Verlander is not looking at him. "Both natural and man-made climate change will cause catastrophe in decades to come, but the size of that catastrophe lessens with the control of population growth, which had accelerated way beyond numbers that could be managed by shit like 'one baby per couple' programmes. Natural wastage wasn't cutting it; we can cure almost any disease, keep alive old folks who should have popped their clogs years ago. Wars like those of the early twentieth century will never happen again; basically, we just weren't dying fast enough. And the masses could no longer be kept in line by the time-honoured methods of organised religion, corporal punishment and established social hierarchy. TV, the internet, global travel, better education, higher wages—it made people want more, expect more, demand their so-called fucking rights, of which they don't really have any, other than being blessed with life in the first place. Average Joe's been getting seriously out of hand since the end of the Second World War. Everything had to be taken back a step."

  "I understand all that," says Dex. "I used to read about it, talk about it, write articles about it."

  "Then you know." Verlander shifts in his seat, throws his pen up in the air and catches it with a flourish. "Y'see, Average Joe, he thought he should enjoy a reasonable standard of living even if he had jack shit to contribute because a robot could do his job ten times more effectively for a fraction of the cost. Kids had lost respect for authority, and kids with no respect grow up into adults who think the world belongs to them. Before July 2024, old Joe Public thought a good job with great benefits, a comfortable home, medical care, enough food and even fucking happiness was his right, and if he didn't have those things, all he had to do was create a fuss, hold up a banner, and some freakin' do-gooder would come to his aid. It was time for all that to stop. Trouble was, some otherwise intelligent bastards like you were under the impression that all those useless eaters, these pointless, resource-guzzling lumps of humanity, had those fucking rights, too." He laughs, and points his pen at Dex. "Which is why you Unicorns and everyone like you was first on the 'no vaccine, no way' list."

  Dex sits back, hands behind his head; he mustn't appear ruffled. He's way smarter than Verlander, who is, in his way, just another worker bee, for the Renova Group's elite hive.

  "And yet I'm here. In a position of power."

  "So you are," says Verlander. "So you are. Why's that, do you think?"

  Dex smiles. "Because you recognise my strengths."

  "That I do. But why aren't you down on the shop floor, campaigning for better conditions for the workers? That's you, isn't it?"

  "Not now. Perhaps my time on Lindisfarne helped me stand back and appreciate the bigger picture. The long game. Perhaps being in charge changed me."

  Verlander nods. "Leadership does that to you."

  "Yes. It does."

  "We couldn't have carried on the way we were going. The human race would have expired in a couple of hundred years." Verlander smiles, just slightly, then more widely, and Dex realises that the public face is back in place. "Now we're building a new society with common aims. We're moving the world on to greater things in this new millennium, and beyond."

  Yawn. Dex stands up. He doesn't need to hear the rest. "Indeed we are."

  "And you'll have a word with the Mrs?"

  "She's not my Mrs, but yes, I will."

  Verlander points two fingers at his own eyes, and then at Dex: I'm watching you.

  Dex laughs, and takes his leave.

  Outside, the afternoon is wet and cold, and he turns up the collar on his coat, reaches into his pocket for his hat.

  His intention had been to make for the Supplies Zone where Naomi will be at work, but, as he walks down towards the Hub gates, he wonders if he can be bothered. The guard in his kiosk gives him a respectful nod; Dex stands for a moment, and looks down the road. On the right, yellow light shines out from the windows of the huge Supplies Zone, and he watches the people spilling out in their dull clothes, sheltering from the freezing drizzle under hoods and umbrellas. On the other side is the smart, white, Juno medical centre with its tinted glass, next to the much larger medical centre for the workers. Further on, work is well underway on the new Leisure Zone—his idea!—and past that are empty shells that might, one day, become a live music venue, a cinema, an old style pub, though the workers do not know that the completion of these facilities is so low on Verlander's list of priorities that it may never happen.

  The waiting list for jobs in the Leisure Zone is already over a hundred names long.

  The Supplies Zone door opens once more, and out walks Naomi, huddled into a large, black, quilted coat of cheap material, too big for her. She puts Phoenix in his pushchair, pulls the cosy red hood of his little fleece over his head, and sets off in the direction of Rez 4. She has the best part of a mile to walk; he could call to her, offer to drive her. But he doesn't. He doesn't want to spend an hour sitting in that tiny box while she prepares another of her revolting meals, listening to Phoenix whining, followed by the inevitable argument when he does Verlander's bidding.

  Not today.

  He turns and walks back the way he came. He will have a hot shower, perhaps catch a bit more of the documentary he was watching last night, then nip down to the basement car park and drive to Rez 1.

  Storm is back this afternoon. By the time he gets there, she should be rested and ready for him.

  Besides, he thinks twenty minutes later, as he stands under the steaming shower, if Naomi carries on the way she is going, she will be shipped off to Mercia. Which might be better for everyone. He is sure he can persuade Suzanne to take on the day-to-day care of Phoenix, who will have a chance of developing into a reasonable human being if the influence of his neurotic mother is removed.

  If he does nothing, Naomi will shoot herself in the foot.

  Later, watching Storm bucking
on top of him like she's on a mechanical bronco, and making enough noise to alert the whole of Rez 1C to the fact that she's having a great time, he reflects that he has done very well for himself indeed.

  Two days later, he is summoned once more. On the way down the warm, carpeted corridor to Verlander's lair, he runs through his prepared speech about Naomi being particularly stubborn, and a possible threat to Central's stability.

  But Verlander has other matters on his mind.

  As Dex walks in, he picks up his satellite phone.

  "Trouble at mill," he says, waggling it at him.

  Dex slides into the empty chair. "Which one?"

  "Several of them." Verlander puts the phone down and assumes the same thinking pose as before; arms resting on table, fingers linked together, but this time he can't stay still; he drums his fingertips on the table, then flops back and swivels his chair to the side, before leaning back with his hands behind his head. "Tassie. Islands. Indonesia. Oman, which will mean Yemen and Sordid Arabia, too."

  "What will?" Dex stifles a yawn. "What are you talking about, Alex?"

  Verlander opens his eyes wide. "The virus. It's embarked on a comeback tour."

  He stops yawning; his stomach lurches.

  "Bat fever?"

  "The very same."

  "How do you know?"

  "Oh, I was told by the powers-that-be that it had resurfaced Down Under, but they said it was nothing more than a final gasp for air before it died. But I've had a call from André, my counterpart in France, who heard from Tanya out on Lomax 7 in the Pacific, who wasn't supposed to tell him, that it's healthy enough to have taken a little strut around the islands."

  "Shit. I thought it had worn itself out. Ages ago."

  Verlander wrinkles his nose, as though it's itching. "In Europe and the States, yes, or we wouldn't have commenced the rebuild. But there were always some who did not discount the slight danger that it was lurking in sparsely populated areas in the southern hemisphere. We thought Tas was totally bug free, but it's reared its nasty little head in some coastal parts, and given itself something of a makeover."