Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘Oh wow,’ Angela murmured as she stared at the mansion.

  ‘I know,’ Marc-Anthony said proudly. ‘It has that effect on everyone. Gaudy, but so chic with it, don’t you think?’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Now that he’d said it, she wasn’t sure about the mansion on an aesthetic level. It seemed so out of place in this naturalistic setting, yet at the same time it was so impressive it could actually compete with the magnificent landscape. Bartram’s designer had gone for a pyramid with a truncated apex, so that it resembled the urbane modernist version of some Inca temple. The façade comprised huge rhomboid sections of glass, each one a different colour, and framed by beams of matt-black metal. Wide horizontal balconies were wrapped round it, supporting long troughs full of high-desert plants.

  ‘Wait till you see it at night, sweetie,’ Marc-Anthony said. ‘The frame lights up. We look like a miniature Vegas on the seafront.’

  The Jaguar dipped down into a tunnel, which took them to a hangar-like garage directly underneath the mansion. The only cars parked there were Jaguars, identical JX-7 models to the one Angela had just arrived in, even down to the silver-blue colour. There must have been fifteen of them. Marc-Anthony just shrugged when she gave them a puzzled look. ‘Don’t ask.’

  When they came up a spiral stair into the main atrium with its black and white marble floor, the air was noticeably cooler and dryer than outside. Sunlight streamed down from the transparent apex high above, striking the chrome rails on each of the landings stacked between tall fluted pillars. Two of Bartram’s girlfriends were there waiting for her on the broad casual loungers that gave the place a hotel lobby feel rather than anything homey. Olivia-Jay, with her dark lustrous skin and eastern-Mediterranean features of wide lips, flattish nose, and hazel eyes; thick short-waved hair flowed down over her shoulders. She was wearing a gauzy pearl-white skirt and a breezy, welcoming smile. Karah was less effusive, waiting politely while Olivia-Jay bounced over and gave Angela a big hug. An interesting restraint considering Karah was completely naked. Angela’s first impression was of a redhead fitness fanatic who would dwarf most woman pro-volleyball team members.

  ‘Welcome to wicked Gironella,’ Olivia-Jay said. ‘The overtox by the sea.’

  Karah kissed her on both cheeks. ‘It’s not that bad,’ she said in a husky tone. ‘You’ll be all right.’

  ‘Us girlfriends, we stick together,’ Olivia-Jay said. ‘Especially when Brinkelle’s about.’

  ‘Behave,’ Marc-Anthony warned in a mock-serious voice.

  ‘Who’s Brinkelle?’ Angela asked, because it was the kind of question a naive eighteen-year-old would ask. It was odd, but she hadn’t expected that meeting the other girls would be so tough. She hadn’t even considered them before now. But despite their jaunty character she thought them sad. In fact she was starting to feel angry that they were here, angry that in this day and age old men still coveted and exploited young girls as they always had, that there hadn’t been any social progress since Roman times, how actually opening up new worlds had been a backward step because so much was now beyond the reach of true civilization and accountability. And as they always did, the Norths took the whole scene with girls to its extreme, because they could, because excess defined them, because unaccountability was their god.

  You knew all this before you came here, she told herself sternly. It’s why you’re here. Come on, focus, there’s nothing you can do for them. They’re here for the money, just like you. She gathered up her self-control and smiled nervously at her two new friends.

  ‘The daughter,’ Karah said. ‘She’s only in her twenties, and she’s already a complete bitch.’

  ‘Girls, girls.’ Marc-Anthony clapped his hands together. ‘Who’re the bitchy ones? Honestly. Now, please, Angela needs to get settled. It’s been a long trip.’

  ‘You’re in the room next to me,’ Olivia-Jay said. ‘Come on.’ She started tugging Angela towards the lift positioned discreetly behind the sweeping staircase.

  Her room was on the sixth floor, a massive square with a split-level polished stone floor and gold velvet walls. A two-star interior in a five-star building, she thought in bemusement. But the long external glass wall opened onto her own section of balcony, with a view to the south-west and that fantastic waterfall.

  ‘Your clothes are in the closet, and indexed in the mansion’s net,’ Marc-Anthony said.

  ‘But—’ Angela pointed to her case, which was already standing beside the circular bed.

  ‘You don’t wear your own clothes here,’ Olivia-Jay told her. ‘And that’s if you wear any. Poor old Karah. Naked is part of her contract.’

  ‘I’ve procured the kind of garments Mr Bartram enjoys,’ Marc-Anthony said. ‘They’re in your size.’

  ‘How do you know my size?’

  ‘Ms Aslo sent your details last week.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Now, Mr Bartram won’t be back until this evening, he’s over at the Institute today for treatment. You can have a rest until he arrives. I don’t know about you, but coming through the gateway always messes my body clock.’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’

  ‘I’ll pick out something appropriate for your introduction later.’

  Angela went over to her bag and took out an interface set and her netlens glasses. ‘Is there an access code for the mansion’s net? I’d like to tell my mum I’m okay.’

  ‘Your mother?’ Olivia-Jay squeaked.

  Angela pursed her lips in resignation as she clipped the black earring on. ‘She thinks I’m still at Imperial College. I don’t want to let her know I’ve dropped out. Not yet.’

  ‘The mansion’s an open area access,’ Marc-Anthony said. ‘Just get your e-i to register.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Angela waited until they’d left the room then sat on the bed. Unsurprisingly, it was a water mattress. Her e-i placed a call to her mother’s transnet interface address. The unavailable icon popped up in her netlens; Angela told her e-i to access the voice-message function. ‘Hi Mum. It’s me. Just want to let you know I’m fine. Studying hard – ha ha. There’s a bunch of us going out to the West End this weekend, if I can afford it. But that company I told you about has offered me more stewardessing work, so I might finally have some cash again. Call me when you’re back. Love you. Bye.’ She flopped down and rode the mattress’s slow wave beneath her. There was nobody at the interface, of course, certainly not a mother. It was a one-way relay. What she said didn’t matter, there wasn’t even an elaborate code anyone could decrypt. Accessing the interface was the message, a simple one: I’m in.

  Wednesday 6th February 2143

  ‘I’m going to bust out of this place,’ Angela announced quietly.

  On the other side of the mess table, Paresh froze up, a fork wound tight with spaghetti halfway to his mouth. ‘What are you doing?’ he whispered back. ‘I’m supposed to watch you, make sure you don’t go anywhere unauthorized. Besides, your clothes are tagged.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I’d forgotten. That’s going to stop me all right. Hey, could I borrow your scissors?’

  ‘Angela!’

  ‘If you come with me, you won’t get into trouble for losing sight of me, then, will you?’

  ‘Huh?’

  She grinned roguishly, and used a finger to push the fork towards his mouth. He didn’t resist.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, with wide-eyed mischief. ‘A night on the town; just the two of us. There are decent clubs here, not just the rich hang-outs. And you’ve never truly eaten until you’ve tasted milliseed in chilli sauce.’

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘But smart with it. Think about it, we’re going to be shipped out to Edzell any day now. That’s two thousand kilometres away, and it’s only the first camp, a staging post. Crap knows how far we’ll be going eventually, or how long for. You think this alien is going to be easy to find?’

  ‘Did you hear something about us being forward deployed?’

  ‘No. I’m just apply
ing logic.’ She pointed out through the sides of the big mess tent where a Daedalus was rolling along a taxiway towards the end of the runway. ‘They’re even nightflying supplies out to Edzell. And they’ve already got four e-Rays up on the other side.’

  ‘Yeah, but the last one found this huge mountain range further north.’

  ‘The Eclipse Mountains, so called because the range is so big it eclipses everything.’

  ‘Damn, is there anything you don’t know?’

  ‘This place is one giant teenage girl gossip fest. Besides, not even HDA thinks a mountain range is classified information. I access the Observation Centre feed on my grid a lot.’

  ‘Okay, but, a jailbreak?’

  She sucked on a chunk of watermelon. ‘The point is, we’re going out there soon, and who knows when we’re coming back. So let’s award ourselves a little R&R time. You think Passam eats in this tent every night? Fuck, she doesn’t even sleep in the airport compound.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard she and her people are in the Mortant Hotel.’

  ‘Five-star rating, and all at the taxpayers’ expense. So . . . ? It’ll be no fun by myself.’ She gave him an entreating look.

  ‘Oh hell.’

  *

  Angela borrowed a plain white short-sleeved blouse from Leora and a simple turquoise skirt with a gold hem from Audrie. Her squadmates weren’t the same size as her, but the fit wasn’t too bad even though she had to keep tucking the blouse back in. The pink and yellow trainers were also Leora’s, worn with three pairs of socks to keep them on.

  ‘Did you remember to swap your underwear, too?’ Paresh asked.

  ‘What underwear?’ Evil: but worth it for his expression.

  Paresh knew one of the quartermasters in the motor pool. They checked out a Land Rover Tropic, with a patch loaded to suspend its log for the evening. Driving along the Rue Turbigo into town, they were both conscious about how out of place the big olive-green vehicle was amid the coupés and supercars and limousines on Abellia’s roads. But there were plenty of other HDA vehicles about, so . . .

  Angela told the rugged vehicle’s auto to take them down to Velasco Beach. They walked along the promenade as the dazzle-point of the sun slid down towards the horizon. There weren’t many people left at this time of day, and the stores along the front were shutting up. Paresh insisted on wearing his smart fatigues. ‘So they can’t accuse me of being off duty,’ he said. The HDA clothing earned him a few curious looks, but certainly no hostility.

  There was a marina at the end of the promenade, the Rueda, which hadn’t been there twenty years ago. Reasonable enough, Angela supposed. It was strange how the time in Holloway was compressing, reducing to a weird discontinuity, but the memories of her earlier life were stronger now than they had been for a long time.

  ‘These shops weren’t here before,’ she said as they walked along the vitrified stone. ‘And those ones over there were still being built. All we had behind the beach back then was stalls, like a market. And I don’t think the promenade was this long, either.’

  They stopped and leaned on the black metal railing, watching the stragglers making their way off the beach. ‘What was it like back then?’ Paresh asked.

  ‘Smaller town, obviously. But I didn’t spend much time in this district. I was mainly out at the mansion.’ She knew that wasn’t what he was asking for, that he was fishing about her earlier life. The sweet puppy boy that he was, it had been all too easy to twist his hopes to an impossible high of anticipation over tonight. She almost felt guilty about that. And actually, it had been twenty years . . .

  ‘How was that?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She pushed some wisps of hair back from her forehead as she gazed out to sea. ‘Sorry, I’m not quite ready for that. And you don’t want me to have a fainting fit again. Not tonight.’ The promise in the tone was indecent.

  ‘Sure. I can wait.’

  ‘Paresh, I have to ask, what is someone as nice as you doing in the HDA?’

  ‘Hey, we’re the good guys. We defend the human race against the Zanth.’

  No you don’t. Not really. Not defend us. Just organize us when the Zanth swarms. Angela grinned. ‘My turn: sorry.’ She stood up on tiptoes, pressed against him, and awarded a kiss to his lips. A casual kiss. A kiss for a friend. A kiss that went on longer than a friend intended. A kiss that meant more, and so surprised her. He could see that in her eyes when she finally parted. The look that said where this evening was going to end, and that she was rather pleased that it would.

  Thursday 7th February 2143

  Dawn brought a thin mist creeping in across the sea to meander around the dunes at the back of Camilo Beach. Saul watched it materialize out of the semi-dark that was a St Libran night, illuminated first by the pale ringlight, then the dawn’s horizon haze. He was sitting in a chair on the kitchen patio, dressed in a thick white cricket sweater he’d owned for eight years, a pair of long, baggy, cyan-green shorts with sagging side pockets, and ancient trainers. His eyes were red rimmed and he was frightened someone would see them and ask why he’d been crying. It would be another couple of hours before his family roused themselves, and Emily would realize he hadn’t been to bed that night. Two hours to pull himself together, to get his rampaging emotions under control. To push down the bitterness and hatred at what fate had delivered to him.

  The languid St Libra waves made a constant swishing noise that rolled over the empty sands as the small tide started to turn, bringing the waters back. He thought about it as he stared out at the grey water with its white crests. How easy it would be to take his board out there, to settle down on the comforting warmth of the sea and start paddling. Paddle out and out, set course for Ambrose, or maybe the Dry Isle in the fall zone. To leave all this behind, because the strain and shock was going to kill him as sure as drowning in his beloved ocean. And the ocean would be cleaner.

  His eyes closed to shut out as much as he could of the world, and breath came down in shudders. He couldn’t do it, of course. All he could see in the nothingness were the faces of his lovely family, frantic faces as the days stretched out and the lifeguard searches were called off. How lost the children would be without him, how Emily would be broken. How they would never know why, never understand. That sad bewilderment would hang over their lives for ever, scaring them.

  As a husband and father he had responsibilities. It wasn’t that they couldn’t survive what was happening, he just didn’t want it to happen. Not to them. Camilo Beach, Emily, the children, this whole leisurely agreeable life: they were his second chance. Beautiful proof that he’d finally moved on and left his terrible past behind.

  But you could never leave the past behind. Not really. Not a past like his. So that was it, time to choose. To walk away from everything, or face up to what was happening and try and work out what the hell to do next. Not a choice really. The only thing he couldn’t work out was how Emily would react. She didn’t deserve this; he’d promised her a decent life away from the misery which had threatened to claw her down from happiness.

  Maybe that was the real reason they’d been drawn together. There he’d been, adrift and alone, trying to recover from the horror of his life, the loss and the terrible uncertainty, not truly knowing what to do. A man on auto. And even then drawn to the ocean for whatever it represented, the missing segment of his soul.

  Saul had found her on the old town harbour wall after midnight, a hunched figure sitting on the edge. He’d heard the sobbing before he actually saw her. There had been that long moment of indecision, to turn round and leave her, or do the decent thing. And enough time had passed for him finally to be able to reach out to another human. What with this being Abellia, he basically guessed her story before he even sat down beside her, because when he was settling on the concrete he saw how young she was, how beautiful.

  ‘He kicked you out then?’

  Emily turned to face him, cheeks wet with tears. She gave him an uncomprehending look, and bu
rst out crying again.

  It was the oldest human story, but one refined by Abellia. Emily was a model at the start of her glamorous career, growing up on New Washington, and her lover was an older, richer man, unveiling the excitement and freshness of his world to her. He’d brought her out to Abellia for an exhilarating fun holiday in the family mansion. That was when she realized what the relationship really was: how she was property, this week’s amusement. They fought, and he didn’t need that kind of shit, not from the likes of her.

  ‘I haven’t even got any clothes,’ she sniffled. ‘He said that as he’d bought them all, they belonged to him. And he wouldn’t fly me back to Highcastle on his jet.’

  ‘Because it costs money,’ Saul filled in. ‘And money is all that sort care about. Cheaper just to leave you here than pay for a ticket. After all there’s no law against it. He’s not the first, and he certainly won’t be the last.’

  ‘What do I do?’

  Saul could have been truthful, could have told her that someone as young and pretty and female would never lack for anything for long – not if she didn’t want to. That all she had to do was sit in the right bar and smile at men. But then she knew that now – that’s why she was sitting on the harbour wall in the middle of the night with enough tears to create her own high tide.