Futuretrack 5 Page 13

  “Good-bye, Keri.” Then he was gone, scampering over the mounds.

  Keri turned, tears in her eyes. “You cheap Est bastard. What the hell are you playing at? I could kill you.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her all. Then shut it. I could tell her nothing.

  The Paramils would still pick us up. They had our registration, and we’d been the last people to see Vic alive. They’d grill us, with a psycho-radar pinging away in our very ears. J might manage to lie successfully. I’d been an Est and a Tech. I knew how to keep my mind cool, I knew how to bluff. But Keri was a babe in arms; they’d have her for breakfast.

  Unless I told her nothing. Unless she was completely innocent.

  There remained the small matter of the hiking compass. I noticed she still had Vic’s newspaper packet, tucked in her top pocket.

  “I’ll look after that,” I said, and lifted it, without waiting for permission. I opened the end of the packet and let the little round knob of the hiking compass fall to the grass silently, in the dark.

  “Why’re you such a sod, Kitson?” asked Keri, ominously.

  “Call it pure Est jealousy. I don’t want you snogging around with yobs like Lenny. Okay?”

  “I could kill you,” she said again. She was flaming. So much the better. Psycho-radar can distinguish good honest rage from fear.

  She slammed the bike forward like she was squashing me under the front wheel.

  We were only ten miles from Glasgow when they caught us. Vic’s death must have really got their knickers in a twist. A patrol car came up behind, pinning us with its headlights like some fluttering moth. Their big red stop sign began to flash and we pulled off onto a lay-by.

  I’ve never seen anything so fast. We were spotlighted in the beams from three cars and stripped naked before we could draw breath. Nice, being a peep show for the lines of juggers roaring past. Maybe we even gave the robos a twinge in their electronics. It just didn’t feel very sexy to us: the wind was cold.

  They stripped the bike, too, leaving everything lying on the cinders; and they weren’t too careful where they put their feet. I heard a bottle crunch in Keri’s luggage. They searched everything three times in all. And found only the two tapes… Keri was volcanic; called the Paramil captain a Buddhist eunuch. He was impressed; their psycho-radars gave them one genuinely outraged female. As always, they were logical; shrugged and told her to get dressed. Then she found her broken bottle, and the psycho-radar almost broke its loudspeaker.

  By the time they turned on me, it was too late. All I was giving out was anger, too.

  “You bought these tapes in Carlisle?” the captain asked.

  “Yeah. What’s it to you?”

  “What was the shopkeeper doing when you left?”

  “Counting the credits I’d given him.”

  The captain smiled his small and velvet smile. “And what did you think of the shopkeeper?” I took a deep breath.

  “A nutter.” I said. “Kept trying to sell us a bloody tent. He had camping on the brain. Camping’s illegal, innit?” I put on my typical, thick Racer act again.

  “Who told you that?” Under the spotlight, the pupils of his eyes narrowed for a moment; his eyes began to blink quite rapidly, till he slowed them down by an effort of will. I’d never seen a Paramil so put out.

  “Some feller in a caff in London,” I said. “Was he a nutter as well? Is camping illegal or not?”

  Again his blink rate went up. (Bull’s-eye, I thought.) He said, “What did this man in the cafeteria look like? And which cafeteria?”

  I gave him a list of six possible cafeterias, and a description of my late headmaster. “Well, is camping illegal or not?”

  There was a crowd gathering. Truck drivers, a few curious Ests in shootin’-and-fishin’ clothes. They were getting tired of gawping at my nakedness; starting to take an interest in the legality of camping… I was becoming inconvenient. Downright embarrassing.

  The captain communed with Buddha for a moment; then, with a curl of the lip, let us go.

  Chapter 13

  Old Vic pointed the gun at me again. I pushed back his arm. His face glared. The gun exploded. The bookcase fell and the flames leaped everywhere…

  I wakened, sweating. Lay consoling myself that the nightmare was getting less vivid.

  I looked across at Keri’s bed, but she’d gone. Racing. God, Glasgow was an awful place. No Est enclave; Glasgow was being allowed to go to pot. The huge, black Doric columns of the public buildings were covered in graffiti from top to bottom; the famous art gallery was roofless after a fire. We’d found a boardinghouse that cost the earth, run by a giant, frizzy-haired Scotswoman who called everybody “hen,” ambushed you in corridors, and talked interminably about her wee man, who’d been dead thirty years. But at least there was a stout bedroom door and I’d bought a padlock and moved Mitzi in with us, in spite of mother hen’s protests that even pets weren’t allowed.

  “Mitzi’s house-trained. She frets if I leave her.”

  She’d taken our credits, so there wasn’t much she could do.

  First morning, there was hammering on the bedroom door. Keri unlocked it, was driven across the room by a horde of guys letting off flashbulbs and thrusting TV cameras in her face.

  “They missed you on the Box last night, Keri. What you trying to do to us?”

  “You racing today? Or is there a secret romance?” The cameras swung momentarily onto me.

  “Racing,” said Keri. Well, more a low snarl.

  “Aren’t you sleeping with him?”

  She nodded to where she’d parked Mitzi’s oily muddiness pointedly between the two beds. Then made the mistake of yawning and stretching. Cameras clicked.

  “Hold it, Keri! Perfect! Undo your zip a bit more?”

  I couldn’t kill them all.

  The race circuit ran round the city centre. (At least, in London they’d kept the circuit free of broken bottles.) The spectators seemed permanently drunk, waving on their favourites with those bayonets and cutlasses that Glaswegians were always so fond of. Several people lost ears; everyone enjoyed the joke. I kept my crash helmet on. I said racing was so dangerous in Glasgow even the spectators needed crash helmets. Keri didn’t find it funny.

  I’ve never seen Paramils walk so wary; always in threes, blaster holsters open. But you never saw much of them, especially after dark.

  The famous Keri Roberts didn’t win the first race; she wisely stayed behind the field, sussing out the track. Came back with blood on her leathers, but somebody else’s.

  Between races, she worked hard proving that I didn’t exist. Busy swopping those incredible Racer jokes. Like the guy who had the top of his skull ripped off by a low traffic light, but still won by a short head.

  I tried to find things to do, like checking her tires. But the bike they’d given her was very new. And Racers have no time for mechanics. They began elbowing me away from her, treading on my feet, kicking me when my back was bent.

  She won the second race. In such style that the wing of a robo-truck ripped her leathers from gauntlet to shoulder. The Scottish Champion lodged an incoherent Scottish protest. He was a totally bald kid who gained a lot of ground dragging his steel right boot on the corners. It wore out daily. He used it in fights, too. He called Keri a little Sassenach hooer. But even he gave back when she looked at him. Her face was white as scraped bone. She had bitten her lip, on the scar where she always bit it, when she was racing. A trickle of blood wound down her chin. Her eyes were sunken, wild. When I tried to calm her down, she hit me. I slunk back to the boardinghouse. I couldn’t bear to wait for the final accident; I knew I’d lost her.

  That had been two days ago. I’d spent a lot of time staring at the wallpaper since. Trying to think of ways of getting her back. Waiting for them to come and tell me she was dead. They’d come all right; the media would want an exclusive interview…

  Think about something else, Kitson. The illegality of camping, for instance. I’d neve
r thought about camping, till now. It was something Est kids read about in books; or did in the back garden. When they grew up, they never did it. Even Est mountaineers went back to the hotel for a shower and a good meal with wine.

  No Tech would dream of camping; they’d die without their air conditioning.

  Unnems? I’d had to explain to Keri what camping was.

  So who was camping? Why were they a threat to the state, worth five-hundred-credits reward?

  Ridiculous.

  Was it relevant that Vic had operated out of Carlisle? The first owner of that tent, according to Vic, had been a motorcyclist riding down from the north.

  The Scottish Highlands?

  Where Scott-Astbury had made a mistake? Vanessa had said so. “Daddy always said Scott-Astbury made a big mistake in Scotland.”

  So suppose Scott-Astbury had dropped some great big clanger in Scotland, in the big, empty mountainous spaces, where a guy camping with a motorbike might have stumbled across it?

  How the hell could I find it? Scotland was enormous. I was clutching at straws.

  But it was the only clue I had. If Scott-Astbury’s mistake had been big and technical, atomic power, say, it would leave big technical clues. Overhead power cables, roads for heavy vehicles. Which would show up like a sore thumb, in the lonely emptiness of Scotland.

  It was better than nothing.

  Keri came home early. Dropped onto her bed and closed her eyes, looking like death, her eyebrow twitching.

  “Can I get you … a drink?”

  “I won four times,” she said drearily. “If I win twice tomorrow, I’m Scottish Champion.”

  “Congratulations,” I said, not meaning it.

  “And if I win once, they’re going to kill me.” She stared at me a long time, eyes empty as the fag burns in her blanket. “They’ve turned against me, Kitson. They’re supposed to be Racers. What kind of Racer kills his mates?”

  “Scottish Racers,” I said bitterly. “You don’t have to race.

  “I don’t scare easy,” she said. “I don’t mind dying, if it’s quick. But being killed by your mates. …”

  “I’ll complain to the Paramils. …”

  “Grow up, Kitson. What do the Paramils care? What could they do? It would only take somebody to touch my back wheel when I’m doing a ton. It happens all the time. By accident.”

  “With all your fans watching on TV? They wouldn’t dare.”

  “Why d’you think the fans watch, Kitson? They’ll show the action replay of my death a hundred times. The big payoff. They’ll print souvenir magazines. Write a pop song. I’ll be top of the hit parade for a month.” She closed her eyes again; the eyebrow went on twitching.

  “Who’s going to kill you? Who says?”

  “Their Champion’s complained to somebody called Blocky … he runs Glasgow… he’s given permission.”

  I was filled with black rage. “Where do I find this Blocky?”

  “Nobody ever sees him—he sends messages. The Paramils are after him.”

  “I’ll find him.” As I opened the door, she opened her eyes.

  “Be careful, Kitson, mate. Glasgow’s got different rules from anywhere else. …”

  “I could almost believe you cared. …”

  “Drop dead,” she snarled.

  It was a strange walk, looking for Blocky. I once saw a film about Berlin in 1945, all burned-out walls and rubble. Glasgow was like that. The worst of the wreckage was human.

  Everyone I met, I asked where Blocky lived. Said I had an offer that would interest him. I hadn’t. But what else could I say? Instead, it was me who had the offers. A little girl of eight offered me a drink of meths; another offered me real plum brandy. Luckily, I caught the whiff of bitter almonds just in time. I had several offers from women, one with a well-grown moustache. I had to break somebody’s arm and nearly got drowned in a sewer.

  About five in the morning, a girl with black leathers and black crewcut hair simply walked up to me and said, “Blocky will see you now.” An Est voice.

  “He’s taken his bloody time.”

  “I’ve been following you all night. He said if you survived till dawn, you might be amusing.”

  She led me to the blank wall of an old bonded warehouse which carried, in huge letters of white glazed brick, the legend: EWART AND SON WHISKY DISTILLERS FOUNDED 1865.

  She knocked on a massive, rusted iron hatch, which I could’ve sworn hadn’t moved for a hundred years. It opened on silent, oiled hinges. There were two more girls inside and two lads, all slim, black-leathered, crew-cut, talking in Est voices. Not carrying bayonets or cutlasses; it made them feel quite dangerous. We went up echoing flights of uncarpeted stairs and burst into a long, gilded hall that might have belonged to a stately home. Except when I tapped on the marble Doric columns I found them plastic. But the oil paintings of Scottish lairds and stags at bay were genuine enough; the ancient, tarnished Adam mirrors, huge Wedgwood vases.

  “Don’t keep him waiting,” said the girl.

  “He kept me waiting.”

  She raised her eyebrows, pursed her lips, shook her head. It was more scary than any number of cutlasses. She knocked on a highly polished Georgian door. The cheap brass door knocker, in the form of an imp, looked somehow out of place in a nasty sort of way.

  Blocky was sitting in a Chippendale chair that might have come out of Buckingham Palace. (Later, I was fairly sure it had.) He was fondling the ears of a depressed-looking corgi that looked like it would rather be asleep, but knew it had better stay awake and have its ears fondled by Blocky.

  Blocky was little: about five foot three. His tiny feet, in pointed, highly polished, black businessman’s shoes, didn’t quite touch the floor. I remember a spotless white shirt, Brigade of Guards tie, blue pinstripe trousers. But the rest of him was wrapped in a quilted maroon dressing gown, with Chinese dragons writhing all over it.

  I nearly killed myself laughing.

  I mean, if I’d laughed, he’d have had me killed. It was there in his eyes. China-blue, they sparkled like a young girl’s when she’s in love. Sparkled with interest and joy. Not joy in life: joy in evil. He grinned at me like a child grins at its presents on Christmas morning. He was going to open me up, sort through me, break some bits, take others apart to find out how they worked. He was overjoyed with me. His hair was fine and blond, freshly washed. His skin was clear and pale, but his cheeks shone rosy with health.

  “Cigarette?” He held out a full, expensive packet toward me, one fag already pulled forward like the barrel of a gun. Lit it for me with a silver butane lighter. The flame shot up about six inches; I heard the front of my hair singe and crackle. I was careful not to flinch. He laughed and put the lighter away.

  “Kitson, Henry. Ex-Est, ex-Tech. Welcome to the club. And how do you think you could interest me?”

  “Keri Roberts.”

  “Your problem. She’s Unnem. I only collect Ests.”

  “She’s National Champ.”

  “That won’t save her.”

  An idea grew in my mind; it seemed to grow out of the air inside that room. One second it wasn’t there; the next it was full-blown.

  “If your boy won six races off her, he’d be National Champ.”

  “He couldn’t beat her in a million years—unless she gave him the races on a plate. And she wouldn’t do that. She’s too… honest.” He said it with a giggle.

  “She’s a bit tired of racing. She’s got a new interest— camping.”

  He raised pale eyebrows. Looked down at the corgi, as if sharing some sly joke with it. The corgi gave him one uneasy glance, then stared fixedly across the room again, letting its jaws hang in a tongue-lolling pant.

  “She must like living dangerously. Getting scraped off the front of a robo-truck is jun, but the lobo-farm. …”

  “Why do they send campers to the farm? How can camping be a crime against the state?”

  “Oh, but it is. Isn’t it Charlie?” he asked the corgi. Whi
ch went on uneasily panting.

  “But why?”

  “Try it. Find out for yourself. It cost me a lot of good guys, finding out. Why should I give it to you, for free?”

  “I intend to find out. But we need a tent. …”

  “And pans and grub and your bike resprayed, and new registration plates and new ID, and a job for you as a government countryside-snooper… You’ve been appearing in too many Paramil security printouts recently, Kitson, old mate, old buddy.” He smiled, switching it on like a torch. “You do need a lot of things, in return for one little potty National Championship.”

  “But…”

  “Oh, you can have them. No bother to me.” He waved a small, soft white hand. “Screwing up Paramils is my favourite hobby. It just worries me it might turn into a

  … virtue. But my boss here reckons that the end justifies the means. …”

  “Boss?”

  He flicked one hand toward the wall behind my head; the wall the corgi kept staring at.

  I turned, looked where the corgi was looking. Hung on the wall, in an antique gold frame, was a painting unlike any I’d ever seen before. From a greasy, splattered background, a face looked out, large-nosed, small-eyed, long, grey, gloomy. With a hint of antlers where the ears should be. Not a human face. A face that drained the room of hope, drained the world of hope. You couldn’t look away. To look away was to admit that you were afraid, inferior. But if you went on looking, it seemed to work its way deeper and deeper into your mind. You couldn’t win.

  “Who painted that?”

  “I did. I was down to my last credit. I was going to jump out of the window, twenty stories up. I was just combing my hair before I jumped, in the wardrobe mirror, when I saw this face looking out at me, from the grain of the wood. I had this urge to paint the face bigger, clearer. Spent my last credit on a bit of plastic board. Borrowed some oil paints off the kid downstairs. He didn’t want to lend them—we had a fight. I knocked him down. Afterward, when I took the paints back, he was still lying there, bleeding, dead. Must’ve knocked his head on the fender. Something made me scoop up a bit of his blood with my finger… and mix it with the paint of the mouth, here. Dunno why.