Day Zero

by James Swallow

She heard the first sirens moments later. She kept her eyes on the body, on the man kneeling over him – going through his pockets? No. Trying to help. A concerned citizen. Her people were closing in on him, whoever he was.

  It had been going so well, too. That was the annoying part. The speech was one of her best, she thought – simultaneously comforting, informative but lacking in any real substance. An anodyne quote was a safe quote, perfect for contextless soundbites.

  Early in her career, she’d made the mistake of playing the firebrand. She’d been too young, too inexperienced, to think about the optics of a tall, second-generation Somali woman berating her peers. When she realized how it was being spun, she’d been forced to re-evaluate her idealism – to hone it into something more politically expedient. It hadn’t been difficult. She’d always been pragmatic.

  Idealists got into power. Politicians stayed in power. And Sarah Lincoln had decided there and then that she’d rather be a politician. And as a politician, she knew an image was worth a thousand words. And the image of an MP, trying desperately to calm a panicked crowd – well… two thousand words at least.

  Her people reached the body even as the first police car squealed to a stop, blue lights flashing. More arrived moments later. The concerned citizen was long gone. She wondered where, then dismissed the thought. Fewer people to share the spotlight with was a good thing. At least, that was what she told herself as one of her security detail knelt beside the body. Sarah started over, despite Hannah’s protests.

  The security man had stripped off his jacket, folded it up and slid it beneath the victim’s head. Her father’s stories about the civil war came rushing back, even as she tried to recall the lessons of a long ago first aid course.

  It was clear to her that the poor bastard was already dead. The hole was too big, there was too much blood. She felt a moment’s nausea, before pushing it down and walling it off. Had he lived here? She thought she’d seen him in the crowd. He didn’t look like the sort of man who got shot on the street. She couldn’t help but wonder why he was dead.

  Several uniformed officers had gathered. One was speaking hurriedly into his radio, while another – a woman, part of the uniformed detail provided for her speech – joined her. “You okay, Ms Lincoln?” the officer asked, gently.

  “Quite well, thank you. It’s just – I’ve never seen someone die before.” She took a deep breath. “I guess it wasn’t a heart attack, was it? I thought it was, at first, but…”

  “The crime scene unit is on the way–”

  “Officer, there’s a bloody great hole in his chest.”

  The officer looked away. Sarah studied the body. A part of her wanted nothing more than to get away as quickly as possible, now that she’d done her bit for the cameras. But another part was curious. This wasn’t the sort of thing that happened here. Tower Hamlets – the East End – was no stranger to violence. But it was always a very specific sort of violence. This seemed appallingly random.

  The police went about their business efficiently. A cordon was set up, witnesses questioned. Sarah watched and made sure she was seen to watch. Hannah brought her a cup of coffee and tried again to get her to leave.

  “What if it was meant for you?” Hannah said. “You wouldn’t be the first MP to be attacked by some lunatic…”

  Sarah took a sip of the coffee. It was terrible. Milk and sugar couldn’t hide the taste of burnt beans. She grimaced, but kept drinking. “If it had been meant for me, they would have hit me. Or you. We were on stage, after all.”

  “Even so…”

  “Even so, we’re perfectly safe now.” Sarah looked at her assistant. After a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “Are you alright?”

  Hannah looked at her, startled. “I think so. Just a bit shaken.”

  Sarah patted her on the arm. “Good girl. Stiff upper lip, as the old white men are fond of saying. Now, come on. I want to know what’s going on.” She strode towards the largest knot of police officers, Hannah trailing diffidently in her wake.

  They nodded respectfully, but were less than forthcoming. A Labour politician couldn’t be seen to be too chummy with the Met, else the usual suspects in her own party would start whispering. Law and order was for the Tories.

  She turned to Hannah. “Go out and get coffees for everyone. Or tea, or whatever they’d prefer. And be quick.”

  To her credit, Hannah didn’t argue. She simply started making the rounds, taking everyone’s order. Sarah looked back at the body, under its white sheet, surrounded by anonymous technicians in their clean suits. One of them was using a laser pointer to calculate trajectory. Others were looking for the bullet that had killed… she paused. “What was his name?” she asked, out loud.

  The officer who’d talked to her before turned. “We don’t have a confirmed ID yet, but we think he was a local.” She spoke in low tones.

  “He lived here?”

  “Possibly.”

  Sarah looked at her. “What’s your name?” She could have simply asked her Optik, but there was something to be said for the human touch.

  “Jenks, ma’am. PC Jenks.”

  “Thank you. For earlier, I mean, PC Jenks. Checking on me.”

  Jenks was about to reply, when the sound of a heavy engine rumbled through the air. They turned, and the policewoman frowned. “What are they doing here?” she muttered. Sarah saw a blocky vehicle with the yellow Albion logo stencilled on its reinforced hull pull into a nearby car park.

  It was an ugly thing, meant for driving through demilitarized zones and urban battlefields. The doors opened and two men climbed out. A moment later, the rear hatch disgorged half-a-dozen Albion security personnel in their black fatigues and combat gear. One of them was disappointingly familiar. “Faulkner,” Sarah said.

  Hannah tugged on her arm. “We should go.”

  “No,” Sarah said, watching as several officers moved to intercept the newcomers. “I don’t think so. This is my patch, and I’ll not be hurried off by a bunch of jackbooted thugs looking to play copper.” She caught sight of Jenks trading glances with another officer at her words. The looks were approving, she thought. The Met weren’t yet on board with the government’s plan to turn over their brief to Albion. Neither was she, come to that. Not unless someone made it worth her while.

  Ordinarily, she wouldn’t care. But Albion liked to throw around its weight in Tower Hamlets. And that irked her considerably.

  She moved towards the burgeoning confrontation, hoping to reach it before it boiled over. The relationship between the officers on the street and Albion’s personnel was hostile at best. She had dozens of reports of altercations between the two, mostly verbal but some physical. Faulkner, Albion’s man in East London, frequently tested the limits of his authority. He’d been reprimanded twice, but it didn’t seem to concern him or his employers all that much. Then, maybe he was doing exactly what he’d been ordered to do.

  Faulkner was a soldier – ex-soldier, rather. Her dossier on him was incomplete, mostly redacted. Albion liked to protect the privacy of its employees. Even the little fish like Faulkner. He was short and barrel-chested, with close-cropped salt and pepper hair, and a face that had been on the wrong end of a few too many punches. But his eyes were sharp and he had the air of a man who was constantly taking stock of his surroundings.

  “Albion can go where it wants, mate,” he was saying, as she arrived. He almost, but not quite, poked one of the officers in the chest with a blunt finger. “Tower Hamlets is our patch. You don’t like it, take it up with your bosses.”

  “Whose patch?” she asked, brightly.

  Faulkner turned – and frowned. “So nice to see you again, Mr Faulkner,” Sarah said, before he could speak. He had an issue with minorities, she knew. He wasn’t a full blown bigot, but rather more presentably condescending. Bigots were less annoying.

  “Sergeant Faulkner,” he corrected.

  “Mr. Faulkner,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “This is a matter for th
e police, surely.” She put herself between him and the officers. It would no doubt make for a powerful image and the news-drones were circling overhead, cameras whirring.

  “As I was informing these officers, Albion has jurisdiction–”

  “For now,” she interjected. “You have jurisdiction for now. And what jurisdiction you have is singularly limited in scope. Active crime scenes are not part of it, I believe.”

  “Maybe we were just being concerned citizens.”

  “And I’m sure the police will be happy to take your statements, as part of their ongoing investigations. Until that time, perhaps you might – oh, let’s say, bugger off?”

  Faulkner blinked. He wasn’t used to being talked to in that way. Sarah allowed herself a thin smile. Most men hated that smile and Faulkner was no different. He didn’t reply. Instead he turned stiffly on his heel and marched back to his men. They retreated to their vehicle, and Sarah watched in satisfaction as the police moved to ensure that they stayed there. She glanced at Jenks, who’d joined them. “Carry on then, PC Jenks.”

  Hannah fell into step beside her as she made her way back to her town car. If Albion were here, it was time to go. If the police wanted to ask questions, they could come find her at her office. “Are you certain that was wise?” Hannah asked, softly.

  “No. But I find him repulsive and it pleases me to antagonize him.” She glanced at Hannah. “I want to know why he’s here. Albion aren’t an investigative body.”

  “Maybe they were just trying it on. You know they’ve been trying to muscle in on the Met’s brief for months now. To show they can do a better job” Hannah seemed nervous. Then, maybe that wasn’t a surprise, given the way men like Faulkner looked at her.

  She looked back. Faulkner was watching them go. She was tempted to blow him a kiss, but decided against it. There was a fine line between justification and provocation.

  “Maybe,” she said. “But I still want to know.”

  3: Tower Hamlets South

  Olly had achieved something close to calm by the time he reached Limehouse, and the garage. He’d stopped to strip off his bloodstained hoodie and stuffed it into a handy bin, leaving him in shirt sleeves, but noticeably cleaner. He’d gotten it from a Salvation Army donation box in the first place, so it wasn’t a big loss. DNA evidence worried him some, but there were ways around that, if he was smart.

  He twigged his newsfeed to scan for any updates on the shooting – and it had been a shooting, he was sure of it. Even if he hadn’t seen where the shot had come from. Conflicting reports danced across his display. The video-feed of the shooting replayed itself over and over again, impossible to ignore.

  He thought of the look on the dead man’s face. That sudden cessation – like a light going out, only not quite. A brief moment of horrible realization, followed by a slackness as everything in the human machine stuttered to a halt. He’d never seen anyone die before. And he was certain he didn’t want to see it again.

  The garage was shuttered and dark. Cast iron window frames, now boarded over, glared blindly at the street. Loading doors on the opposite side opened onto the Limehouse Cut, though he couldn’t remember anyone ever opening them.

  The building hadn’t always been a garage. Olly’s feed filled with local colour as he approached it. It had started as a sailmaker and chandler’s stores – whatever those were – before transitioning into various sorts of warehouse, and finally, a garage.

  It had been vacant since before Olly had been in short pants, though it still had a faded sign declaring itself a MOT centre. Oil stains marked the broken, weed-choked parking area in front of the bay doors and the iron fencing was plastered with signs offering a cheap sale, if one contacted the estate agent.

  Olly knew for a fact that the agent had also gone out of business. Nor were they the only ones. The housing market had tanked a few years ago and never quite recovered. Even so, every few months, some firm or other would come sniffing around, looking to knock everything down and build luxury flats, the way they had with the neighbouring derelict shops and units. They always went away disappointed. DedSec made certain of it.

  He slipped through a gap in the chained gate, and squeezed his bike through. Bits of unidentifiable rusted machinery littered the lot, like the detritus of a losing battle. Some of it was rigged with motion sensors keyed to send a silent alert to the Optiks of every DedSec member in the area. Closed-loop recording devices would be tracking his every step. Not that they would see much, in his case.

  There were drones whizzing by overhead, but the garage had a concealed baffle-unit attached to the spine of the roof. The device inserted regular three second interruptions into the feed of any recording device in range, making the garage – and anyone coming in and out – as good as invisible.

  Of course, if someone were watching from one of the cars across the street, it wouldn’t matter. But Olly wasn’t getting any pings from unknown Optiks, so he was reasonably confident in not being spotted. That didn’t mean he wanted to linger outside any longer than necessary.

  The shutters were always locked, unless someone needed to hide a car in a hurry. He wheeled his bike around to the side entrance, waving to the concealed security cameras, and pressed his Optik to the front of the lock. A hidden sensor trilled, and the lock released with a click. Olly pushed the door closed behind him once he’d gotten his bike inside. The lock, and the alarm system attached to it, rearmed themselves. If you didn’t have the right app installed on your Optik, the alarm went off and a reinforced security shutter slid into place behind the plain old wooden door.

  If someone were determined to get in, it wouldn’t really keep them out. But it would buy everyone inside a few extra minutes to escape. That was DedSec standard operating procedure in a nutshell – observe, harass, delay – run away to fight another day.

  Olly had never been a big fan of running away. Even as a kid, he’d tried to slug it out with the bigger boys. It never worked out well, but that’d only made him try harder the next time. He’d gotten beaten up a lot, but he’d learned how to roll with it. And how to hit back without getting caught.

  That was what the stunt with the shelf-stacking robots had been – hitting back. Or at least that was what he told himself. It was an old British tradition, wasn’t it? Stealing from the rich, and all. Proper Robin Hood, he was. Only instead of a bow and arrows, he’d used a cloned Optik and a cracker-app. He’d been proud of himself and wetting his pants all at the same time. Waiting for the police to knock on his door. But it hadn’t been the police.

  DedSec had come calling, and Olly had gone with them without too much hesitation. He liked to think he’d impressed them, but he knew they were pulling in anyone with the necessary skills. DedSec weren’t the only hacktivist hive in London, but they were the best organized. That was the claim, at least. Sometimes, Olly thought it was anything but. You never knew who you’d be talking to one day to the next, and sometimes you got asked to do contradictory shit. There was no one to complain, even if he’d been brave enough to do so.

  Screw-ups didn’t get to complain, and Olly was a screw-up. He’d fucked up twice – once more, and he was out in the cold. Maybe banged up in Pentonville, if his handlers were feeling vindictive. The first time had been an honest mistake – he’d handed a package to the wrong person. The second time, he’d almost gotten himself and few others arrested.

  Olly touched his jacket, and felt the envelope. No screw-up this time though. Despite the universe’s best efforts. He took a deep breath, inhaling dust and the smell of mildew. The interior of the building was just as dodgy as the exterior. The roof was mostly glass, set into an iron frame that was being eaten up by rust and bird shit.

  Walkways ran along the upper reaches of the interior, largely inaccessible from the ground floor. Heavy winches and loading hooks hung from a track along the underside of the roof. Rusted out generators and other bits of obsolete industrial equipment sat abandoned along the walls. Patches of green mould r
an along the brickwork in the corners closest to the river and the loading doors. The broken floor was dotted by pools of rainwater or runoff, all of it smelling vaguely of the river.

  Taking it all in, Olly wondered if this was what people meant when they said “urban decay”. He stored his bike in a concealed rack behind a broken section of wall. There were two others already there, both better than his. Somebody was home, then.

  He went into what had been an office. Forgotten filing cabinets, covered in black mould and rust stains, sat like lonely sentries in the corners, and a shabby desk, now mostly rotten, occupied the centre of the room. Over the desk was a broken light fixture, and inside it was a hidden fibre-optic sensor. Condensation proof, like every other bit of kit installed in the building. Had to be, otherwise it’d spark out every few days.

  He called up another app on his Optik, and waved it over his head. A tiny flash of green told him they hadn’t changed the locks. There was a muffled click, and he felt the floor shift under his feet. He knelt and reached down, feeling at the mouldy carpet squares that littered the floor. When he found the access panel, he pushed down on it with all of his weight, and scrambled back as the concealed hatch rose slowly on its pneumatic hinges.

  The hatch was barely big enough for one person. A set of metal steps wound down into a dimly lit space below the garage. The property had a cellar of sorts, and it had still been there when DedSec had bought the property.

  It wasn’t a cellar anymore, though. Now it was a den for all kinds of troublemakers.

  He took the stairs carefully, the LED lighting providing him just enough illumination to put one foot in front of the other. As he descended, the hatch sealed itself with a hiss of air. There was a reinforced door with a keypad lock at the bottom, and he quickly punched in the current code. It changed weekly, and sometimes daily, depending.

  He closed the door behind him and looked around. The cellar wasn’t much, but it was home. Olly had a flat, but he didn’t stay there often. It was depressing. Here wasn’t much better, but at least the hob worked and there was stuff happening.