Jones 7

31

Once in the air, Jones did a couple of circuits of the parade ground for practice and was relieved to find that the President was right. He took it up to fifty metres and hovered over the building where they had been staying.

"Roosha!"

"Yes, Jones?"

"Are those dirty dishes on your balcony? You dirty little tramp!" Roosha was too nervous to be embarrassed. She nudged the door gingerly to make sure it really was shut and resigned herself to putting her head back and closing her eyes. She wanted to tell Jones to land but she knew that he probably wouldn’t. She opened her eyes again and looked down. It wasn’t quite as bad as last time, so perhaps she was getting used to it.

"Come on, Roosha! You’ve flown half way to the moon and back. You can’t be having second thoughts about flying this low? Anyway, I’ve flown things like this loads of times." Roosha looked at him with horror.

“That is not the attitude, Cadet Jones; complacency causes accidents! You may have flown these before, but only in that big, empty void we lovingly call Space. There’s all sorts of sticky-up bits and traffic flow down here!"

"So you haven’t ever come up against several hundred tons of free-floating space debris? At least these 'sticky-up bits' are stationary. As for the other traffic, they know we’re here. We’ll be fine if we read the signs and stick to the lanes." He watched the hologram on the Bubblejet screen. It was laid out like a virtual road in front of him, and as he changed the direction or height of the craft’s position, the image changed with it.

Roosha decided to occupy herself with the screen in front of her and soon realised that the greeting 'To Whom It May Concern' could only apply to them. She read the instructions out to Jones as they came up. After he’d said "what?" for the umpteenth time she clamped a pair of headphones over Jones’ ears and used her microphone.

"You'd better pay attention to this one, Jones, or we’ll miss it. It says we’ve got to land on a concrete bunker in Clinton Valley fifty kilometres west of New City."

"That's where we’re heading, Roosha. I’m getting the sat nav up on my windscreen."

"Pardon me for breathing, Jones!"

"No, no, keep updating me, Roosha!" said Jones hastily, "We need the whole picture!" He winced as Roosha flashed one of her familiar 'don't patronise me' warning signals at him.

"Look, Roosha. If you are going to smack me in the face, at least wait until I’ve landed this darned thing! Snarling, she pressed her fist against his face and gave a mock squeal as he pretended to bite it.

Jones suddenly realised that he had docked a lot of Bubblejets in space but that was a just a matter of drifting slowly towards the wall of the space station and waiting for a tube to float out and connect itself to the craft. This was the first time that he had landed on Earth with gravity pulling him down towards a large, hard block of concrete. He jiggled the craft and a digital assistant flashed up on the windscreen. It spoke through Jones’s headphones.

"You look as if you are going to land. Do you want some help?" It guided the craft down with a bump. Roosha opened her eyes and gasped. They were on the roof of the bunker but it still looked a heck of a long way up.

Looking at the next set of instructions on her screen, Roosha dragged Jones down the steps and into the recess under the roof of the bunker.

"Now listen, Jones. The screen said you’ve got to put your iris up to a camera so that it can recognise you and then put your palm on a digicom." Once Jones had done that, a carbon fibre door slid open.

"Jones; why the look of relief?"

"Because it read my hand print and because that means I’m supposed to be here. However..." Roosha didn’t like the sound of "However".

"Yes, Jones? However what?"

"Do you realise that if something goes wrong, and there’s an enquiry, then the President will wash his hands of us? He’ll deny that he ever gave us authority which is only true because he didn’t give us specific permission. This is a foolhardy mission and we deserve everything that comes to us."

"Jones, are you telling me that we don’t have permission for this trip?"

"Yes and no, Roosha."

"How about ‘yes’ or ‘no’, Jones?"

“Look, Roosha, if you want to go back now and let me go on alone then I can get a Bubblejet here in half an hour to pick you up." Roosha looked at him with disdain.

“I didn’t hear that, Jones. Anyway, Chen's my friend as well. Now, are we going into this grotty little hole or not?"

Once in, they soon realised that what they had in the trunks inside was basically a Whisper disguise. Along with the sleeping bags and the rations were packs of mascara, eyeliner and some very weird clothes. Roosha’s eyes lit up at a box of aerosol paints. Of course, Whisper always sprayed hijacked craft with graffiti. This was going to be fun! With all this they would blend into nothingness in Vegas. Jones was amazed. The Presidential staff would have been working all night to get this organised in time. Roosha picked up a couple of spray cans and started to shake them vigorously.

“Hold on, Roosha: we do us first!" He pointed at the sink in the corner and shook some sachets of hair dye in front of her. Half an hour later, Roosha’s hair was a violent shade of pink and Jones’s was dark green. She tried to persuade him that he could be more adventurous but realised she’d done well to get as far as she did. She braided a false plait to the back of his hair and attached some beads. She’d been wanting to do something like that to ever-so-slightly-boring Jones for months and was enjoying every second of it.

“Wow, Jones!” She clapped her hands together and giggled. "Bye bye, shuttle anorak!" Putting her thumbs up in approval she ran back to the Bubblejet and came back with a bundle of clothes. She held some up to Jones and pushed them into his arms. She pointed to the opposite corner and then to her own.

“You there, me here, don’t forget the posh undies and no looking!" Ten minutes later they staggered out into the sunlight as Joe and Ruella... or, at least, that’s what it said on the credit cards in their gold lame wallets.

They built a small bonfire by a stream and piled on their old clothes. Prodding and poking the embers into a small dead pile, they kicked the ashes into the water. Suddenly remembering, Roosha ran back into the bunker store and came out with armfuls of spray cans.

“Come on Joe! Like that name – kind of suits you."

“Ok, Ruella. It’s not a bad idea to use the names. One slip, and- "

“Yep. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Let’s go and spray some Bubblejet!"

Roosha decided that she was quite a nice contradiction in a floral print combat jacket and heavy-duty pink boots. She decided to echo this on her side of the jet by spraying a pink love heart with an open fanged mouth in the middle of it. She had just outlined a jagged 'R' and a block-like 'J' when she decided to go round the other side and see what Jones was up to. She stood behind him and guffawed.

“OK, Roosha, what’s so funny?"

“Is that all you’ve done?" She looked at a sad little dribble of paint plopping onto the grass.

“You’re keeping the spray can still for too long, Jones. The paint’s piling up and forming great pools. Look… they’re just dripping on the ground." She put her hand on his shoulder. "Would you like me to draw?"

“Yes, please. I don’t think I’m very good at this kind of thing." She sent him round her side to fill in some shapes.

“Wow, Roosha: these are fantastic!"

“Thank you, Jones. A misspent youth, I’m afraid. I used to practice on the side of our home. It was a caravan."

“Didn’t your parents mind?"

“Probably not: they used to steal the paints for me to do it with."

“They sound great."

“Yeah, but totally untogether." She sighed and painted some flames around the front under the windscreen. As she moved round she could hear his spray can spluttering. “Give it a good shake!”

“None left, Roosha.” She shook his can and gave it a quick burst up side down.

“Just a bit blocked. I must say Jones, not bad". She sprayed a little and stood back to look. “How do you like your name? I reckon Ruella suits me... a bit like Cruella!"

“ Well, Roosh – Ruella - I’ve never dressed weird before but I reckon I could get used to all this."

“Heaven forbid, a President-Elect with a craving for Velvet Paisley trousers and pink silk shirts!" Jones dropped his spraying arm and stared at her.

“Who told you? You weren’t to know."

“It came up on my screen just after take-off. I didn’t say anything because I wanted to see if you mentioned it."

“Are you disappointed in me because I didn’t?"

“Heck, no, I’d have been disappointed in you if you had. It means you didn’t betray the trust put in you, and if there’s anything we’re going to need in the next little while it’s a big, copious dollop of T.R.U.S.T." She punched his arm and resumed spraying. “How about the jets, Jones?"

“Better not to touch those. In fact, I reckon we’re done." They stood back again and grinned, nodding. "Roosha, if you ignore the fact we could be blasted from the sky, tortured or shot into little pieces, this trip looks as if it could be quite a laugh. You ready?"

“You better believe it!”

Slamming the door shut, they loaded up the Bubblejet and belted themselves in. Roosha’s screen started up and 'BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON WHISPER' glowed up at her. She scanned the topics and by the time she and Jones were flying over the sea they had gone through 'Food', 'Dress', 'Activities and habits' and 'Music'. Playing a few tracks from Whisper Club compilations, they realised that they could quite happily get used to the general culture. By the time they had finished, they realised that the average Whisper member rarely smoked, was probably vegetarian and had a penchant for classical music, expensive wine and extreme violence.

“Yeah," said Jones, "quite cultured people apart from the throat slitting and the general brutality, perhaps." He yawned and rubbed his eyes. "Tell you what, Roosha, I’ve been flying this thing for about three hours now. I’m just going to have a little doze." Putting the Bubblejet onto automatic pilot, he put his seat back and smiled through half closed eyes as Roosha opened up a sleeping bag and put it over him. She patted his head.

“Are you OK, Mr. Jones? Do you know who you are? The nurse will be round in a few minutes with your pills. Try not to wander off again or we’ll have to send the nice man out to bring you back!"

Watching him until he drifted off, she then turned her gaze to the sunset on the horizon. It was incredibly intense and it made the sea shimmer like a great sheet of hammered copper. Seeing Jones’s face glow in the pink light of the setting day she was, for a moment, overwhelmed by something very powerful. She was soon jolted back by the thought of the unknown that she was flying towards and suddenly felt very, very alone.

32

Roosha was woken by a judder. She looked through bleary eyes at lush green tree tops and squinted as the sun glared on the windscreen. Jones was at the controls and looking anxious.

Roosha looked down and saw figures in football shorts and baseball hats with braids and feathers. Some had body decoration made out of electrical wire and parts of computer circuit. It was the first time she had seen Amazonians and what they were wearing wasn’t a million miles from the kind of things she wore. She smiled and waved to them out of her open window.

“Roosha: you must be mad! Shut that window!"

“Loosen up, Jones!” People were waving back and beckoning them to land. There was feverish activity as wristcoms were activated on the ground. Roosha looked below, pressed her wristcom and answered a call.

“Hello! Who’s that?" A small boy waved.

“It’s me, lady. I’m called Patrick. Do you like Maxi Mouse?"

“Yes, I do. Do you like Plastic Pete?" She grinned. Totally different part of the world, totally the same cartoon characters. Roosha laughed as she saw the little boy screw his face up and shrug.

“He’s OK, but I prefer Hobo Hound: he’s a bit like my dad. Grandma says you gonna stay and have something to eat with us?" Roosha peered at Patrick and waved.

“Love to, Patrick. Tell your grandma we’ll be on the ground in a couple of minutes."

“She turned to Jones.”See. People. What are we doing here, anyway? According to my display we are in the middle of the Amazon Jungle. “

“I clicked the wrong word in the index and we’re a few thousand kilometres off course. We’re supposed to be at the Amazon Hotel in Las Vegas."

“Well done, bird brain. It’s a good job it wasn’t Tokyo Towers or we’d really be up the Swannee." Roosha looked at the people below. "It seems a shame to go without having a look round and saying "hello".

“Sorry, Roosha. This has set us back enough."

“That’s your fault."

“OK, you win: it wouldn’t hurt to stop for a call of nature and a bite to eat. Do you know what they eat?"

“The sacred oracle on my dashboard says that anaconda is a big on the menu here: apparently it tastes a bit like chicken. Probably not much chance of a burger and fries, Mr. Shuttle-Spotter.”

Anaconda? Chewing on a snake? Yuck. Jones grimaced. "Over my dead body!" They landed and got out. An elderly woman in a floral dress and feathers greeted them.

“Please join us for lunch".

Jones and Roosha were ushered into a tin roofed building and beckoned to sit down. As they chatted to Patrick’s grandmother, the little boy brought them their food. Putting a plate down in front of Roosha, he leaned over and whispered in her ear.

“Hey, Roosha lady, you like Princess Petunia? You like girlie stuff like that? I say Princess Petunia, go chew an armadillo!" Roosha almost choked on her bun. Patrick’s grandmother turned to Jones and asked him if he was enjoying his meal. She thought perhaps he was, because he was on his third burger.

“Oh yes, Mrs., Sanchez, these are fantastic burgers. What’s the recipe?"

“Anaconda."

Back in the Bubblejet, Roosha collapsed laughing.

“Your face, Jones… priceless!”

“OK, so it was anaconda. Big deal. Can we go now?" Roosha ignored his irritability. He looked tired.

“How long have you been awake, Jones?"

“Apart from that quick nap, since about four this morning."

“Quit being a selfless hero, lie down and have some sleep."

“We need to get on."

“No, you need to sleep. You can’t go on like this. Apart from anything else, it’s making you unbearable!" She tousled his hair but quickly drew her hand back when she saw how much it irritated him.

“OK, Jones, OK!"

“Sorry, Roosha. Tell you what, I’ll have half an hour." Sliding the seats apart, Jones rolled a sleeping bag out onto the floor. He climbed in and within a minute he was out like a light.

Roosha went to seek out Patrick. If there’s one thing she wanted to know it was why the local people had such a thing about Whisper. She found him playing on a multiscreen in one of the communal buildings and sat down next to him.

“Lady Roosha. Very nice to see you. I thought you’d gone. Where’s your quiet boyfriend?"

“Oh, he’s not my boyfriend, Patrick, we just work together. He’s having a sleep at the moment. What are you playing?"

“One of the games Whisper gave us. The goodies are Whisper and the baddies are the government. The aim of the game is to shoot all the government soldiers as they appear from round corners and when you win the game Whisper go up in a Bubblejet and drop dollar bills all over the jungle and that’s the game over." Roosha noticed that what he was describing was, the opposite of what was happening on the screen and the government men were actually shooting all Whisper agents. He typed a pin number onto the screen. "You put your code in and the more games you’ve played the more sweets you get from Whisper man!"

“The who?"

“He comes round once a month and sees how we’re getting on. He leaves us presents and food. Any sickness, he arranges healthcare and if we need fuel he gets us some." Roosha pointed worriedly at two little children on the next screen with cigarettes hanging from their mouths.

“And if you run out of cigarettes?"

“Oh, yes, they supply us with everything. My eyes are getting tired, Lady Roosha. Do you fancy a walk? We never stray far into the jungle nowadays despite Whisper’s kind protection, so you’ll be OK!" That was fine by Roosha. She didn’t want to let Jones - or the Bubblejet - out of her sight.

Roosha followed him out into the sunlight and they walked along a path. Patrick turned to her and looked urgently in her eyes.

“You’re not from Whisper, are you?"

“No, Patrick. You can speak freely." He began.

“They first came here about five years ago, Lady Roosha and it was all friendly and small. They came in a canoe with things and stayed for two days. They talked to the chief and the elders. They turned up later with more gifts and they did this for a year. We got buildings, wristcoms, clothes and motor boats." He hesitated. “You really ain't from Whisper, are you, Lady Roosha?" She looked him in the eye and shook her head slowly. Patrick was taking a great risk and she was doing everything she could to reassure him.

“Go on, Patrick."

“Then they wanted something back. They took some of our children to work for them." Roosha was beginning to feel she didn’t want to hear this. Patrick looked back down the path and then in front of him.

“They take children sometimes when they come here. The children send money back home and the parents are happy. Some of us are not happy. Some of us are not happy because Whisper want the forest. They want to build their big base here."

“How do you know?"

“They talk about it freely in front of the children who work for them and then the children tell me. They send mails to me. If they are caught doing that they are beaten." Patrick looked thoughtful and then beamed up at her. "You like the multiscreen game, Lady Roosha? I changed it myself. Much more popular now Whisper get beaten by the government instead of the other way round!”

“Pretty sharp, Patrick. How come some people are able to be so openly hostile against Whisper?

“They get away with it because Whisper like people to say "Whisper are forgiving, they are nice". They like being challenged because it lets them look like mild and reasonable people. Later they will be bargaining with us for our land. I wonder if that will be mild and reasonable. Some say the elders will almost give it to them.”

“Tell me Patrick, why are you being so trusting towards me?"

“I have no choice, Lady Roosha. I have to be brave and come out in the open. The price for silence is too great. Don’t forget, you have trusted me too."

“I’d better get back to Jones. He’ll be waking up soon. We have to go to Las Vegas. A friend of ours is being kept there." As they walked back, a small band of children followed Roosha and kept pestering her for cigarettes. She had trouble explaining that she didn’t have any because she didn’t smoke.

“They don’t believe you," said Patrick. "Every white person they have ever met has given them cigarettes."

“Look, I really don't", said Roosha. "I think smokers suck."

“Very funny, Lady Roosha!" She laughed weakly and, brushing her way through the undergrowth to the Bubblejet, looked back on the small group of buildings.

“'Bye, Patrick".

“Bye, Lady Roosha." He was very formal and extended his hand to her. Was she shaking on some kind of deal? Had she committed herself in some way to helping them? If she came back in a few months time, would he be gone with hundreds of other children? She climbed into the Bubblejet and shook Jones gently.

“Come on, Superpilot. Time to move it!"

33

Flying over the forest, Jones decided that he was fed up with hugging the ground and decided to go up a bit. He pressurised the cabin and started a slow steady climb up to the clouds. They broke through and were almost blinded by the clear sunlight and the dazzling blue of the sky. Roosha was now a lot more relaxed about flying in general (and Jones’s flying in particular) and enjoyed the ride over the clean, dazzling, cotton wool carpet.

There was more traffic above the clouds, and even though Jones had learnt to trust the instruments he was, after his recent experience, leaving nothing to chance and decided to stay awake at the wheel. They went north for a couple of hours and gradually saw the sky fill with more (and newer) machines. They were definitely reaching a more affluent part of the world. Peering out of his side window, he suddenly felt Roosha tug at his arm.

“Over there, Jones... there’s two of them!" He looked out of her window and saw a pair of Bubblejets, one painted with Whisper graffiti and the other a dazzling chromium. As they got closer, Roosha waved to them with as much confidence and enthusiasm as she could muster. She felt slightly sick as this was their first face to face contact with Whisper on the trip and she suddenly wondered what she was doing there. She found a tinted pair of glasses in a bag behind her and put them on Jones’s face. The Bubblejets moved in on either side and escorted them. A crackled voice came over their com in the cabin.

“Your craft is not on our database. Identify yourselves!” Roosha panicked. They had been so busy that they hadn’t even thought about getting their story straight. She faked a coughing fit to play for time, to give herself a few extra seconds in which to think. Roosha laughed nervously into her headset microphone.

“Oh, er, hi… So sorry about that! I’m Ruella and I’m here with my brother Joe. We’re just up from New State. On our way to Vegas.” Jones looked at her. So they were siblings: why hadn’t he thought of that? It would certainly explain the way they behaved towards each other sometimes. He smiled and mouthed “Nice one, Roosha!” The com crackled again.

“Why are you travelling to Vegas?"

“Pleasure. We’ve never been before. Are you from Whisper? Joe and me are so excited!" Jones smiled approvingly. Childish excitement was something that Roosha could do with conviction but it was normally sarcasm right before an announcement that she’d never been so bored in all her life. This at least sounded real. The com grated again.

“Do you realise you’re in Whisper airspace now?”

“No." She giggled and put her hand up to her mouth. “Silly us! She did know, and, what’s more, she knew their position to the nearest metre but she reckoned that being a bit dippy wouldn’t do any harm. The one thing that she and Jones had already decided was that she was going to be the airhead and he was the boring, dependable type. She heard a voice from the other craft again.

“Follow us down and land. Have your ID ready!"

Two minutes later they were sat in a desert, miles from anywhere. The sun beat down on the crew of their escort plane as they climbed down and walked over. The pilot sported a black bobbed haircut and a coral-pink de Cheung silk flying suit. She also packed a rather large revolver in her shoulder holster. When they got to the Bubblejet, Roosha saw her own reflection in the woman’s mirror shades and wondered if she cut as cool and elegant a figure. Feeling the dirt on her itchy forehead roll into little gritty sausages as she rubbed it, she suspected that perhaps she didn’t.

The woman displayed an immaculately made-up pair of eyes as she looked at Jones over her sunglasses. He found he had ample time to examine a row of metal work in her eyebrows that made Roosha's look pretty tame and half-hearted. Even in the weird department, an area where Roosha usually had little difficulty in scoring points, the pilot won hands down.

What really got to Roosha was the way that Jones reacted to the woman’s flirting: for what seemed an age, he exchanged glances with the pilot. While Roosha held onto Jones's arm as if to show sisterly concern and support, she couldn’t suppress the feeling that she’d rather have been gripping his throat. The woman tapped on the glass and Jones opened the window a little to allow their ID cards to be passed out to her. Roosha started her naive spiel and was so convincing that Jones was seriously worried.

“We're... we're... we're here to be near Whisper, ma'am. We really admire them and we imitate them any way we can, isn’t that right, Joe? Right from when we were very little we’d wake up and spend the whole day pretending to be agents. Do you like our Bubblejet? We stole it! Are you Whisper? Wow!" The pilot looked at her number two who had just ambled up after relieving himself behind a rock. He looked at Roosha with amusement as she gazed at them both in wide-eyed adoration. She managed to look suitably hurt when they bent double and guffawed. The woman put a white kid glove in front of her immaculate lipstick and tutted when she saw Roosha’s tears.

“Gee, sorry, honey. We’ve really upset you. Tell you what, would you like us to show you round a little bit?" Maybe the woman had swallowed the bait so far, but Jones and Roosha knew they were about to go into the lion’s den. Still, that was what they were there for. Jones knew that his acting skills were nowhere near Roosha’s so he stuck to Deadpan, Dependable Brother.

“Thank you, ma’am. That would be very nice of you. We’d really appreciate that wouldn’t we, Ruella? Don’t worry about her, ma’am, she gets very emotional and this is a very emotional time isn’t it, Ruella?" The pilot thought he sounded as emotional as a shuttle timetable. Perhaps he wasn’t that cute after all.

“Right, you two follow us and do exactly what we say. Stick to the restricted lanes and, any problems, you com us. Got it?" She looked at them and they nodded eagerly. They were very different from each other but something they obviously shared was innocence. She had to admire them for their courage, though; not many kids who stole Bubblejets managed to make it that far before being shot down, so they obviously had something about them. What's more, they could do with encouraging because they were exactly the type of gullible, young fodder that Whisper needed: the boss would indeed be proud of her.

They flew into the Whisper city behind the pilot and her sidekick. Jones had seen the other craft peel off before they had landed in the desert and watched it disappear into the distance: it had probably reported the sighting and they would already be in the Whisper database. Every moment seemed like a new point - the point - of no return. He looked across at Roosha who was taking readings.

Beneath them was every building style that had ever been. Hotels in the shape of Roman temples jostled with Egyptian pyramids and Mediaeval cathedrals. Twenty-first Century mingled with Fifteenth, Tenth and Prehistory. Neon signs flashed in the twilight and head and tail lights clogged the freeways like jewelled necklaces.

“We’re nearly in the middle of the city now, Joe." She was anxious to stick to their new names - not only did they need the practice, they didn’t know who was out there monitoring them, either. Suddenly tutting, she opened a small plastic capsule and told Jones not to blink. She took off his shades, took out a contact lens and, pulling his eyelid back, popped it in. Doing the other one she whooped with relief at a successful mission and looked for her own. It was the last part of their disguise and they had been dumb not to think of it until now. The special lenses would fool any iris reading detector. It wouldn’t recognise them as anyone in particular but, there again, it wouldn’t recognise them as Roosha and Jones either. Their com crackled again. It was the pink pilot.

“Down below, you two. When you have landed, stay in your 'jet and wait for the OK." A clearing had been made between two hotels and various craft were arrayed on newly laid tarmac. The parking zone was surrounded by opulent hotels in the shape of sphinxes and Roman temples aglow with lights and the tacky excess of gold and marble. Jones could have steered the craft into place with the speed of a brick dropping down a well, but he decided to hesitate and appear incompetent. The voice came over again.

“You OK landing? You have flown before, haven’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am, but could you guide me down, please?" She directed an infrared beam where she wanted him to land and then locked onto his craft. “Thank you, ma'am." Jones made a big show of the craft swaying around and Roosha gasped. For extra realism, Jones scraped one of the Bubblejet skids against the top of a lamppost on the way down. Roosha let out a huge groan of relief when the craft touched the ground.

“Wow, scary. Can I look now?” Seeing the pilot come over, Roosha decided that a blazing row would be a good brother and sister thing to do. She started shouting at Jones and glowered at the pilot as she tapped tentatively on the window. Roosha threw it open and screamed out at her.

“Did you see that, ma’am? Did you see that? And just what dumb ass cretin did our poor mother have to go and spawn? Him, that’s what!" She unclipped her seat belt and flung the door back. “Honestly, ma’am, if I stay in the same place as him I’m going to swing for him." She looked at Jones’s crestfallen face and pretended to melt. “Oh, come here, baby. You know I don’t mean it!” She gave him a big cuddle and looked over to the pilot. “Poor honey. He’s been under a lot of stress recently and the last thing that Joey Woey needs is me bawling him out. He starts making mistakes when he’s hungry. What he needs right now is a bath and a burger." She put her nose close and sniffed him. “And in that order, too, ma’am."

34

Their rooms were next to each other and had a communicating door. Roosha liked the Egyptian theme and thought the best touch was the pyramid-shaped bed. The fridge like a mummy case came a close second but she decided the absolute no-no was the real crocodile embedded in the glass floor of the bathroom. Fiddling with the door between their rooms, she realised that it was unlocked. Roosha felt guilty as she quietly slid the bolt over because this mission relied on one hundred percent trust and it was as if she suspected weakness or didn’t trust Jones in some way. A minute later she had opened it again, part of her ashamed for doubting Jones and another part feeling vulnerable and isolated.

Jones padded around his gold-walled bathroom. The turquoise and gold tiles around the marble bath had glistened as he splashed the foamy, perfumed water over the edge and he wasn’t sure whether the opulent luxury disgusted or excited him. There was something trashy and vulgar about it all that seemed to make the whole thing fake and unreal. He knew that behind the plastic marble throne there was a cistern and a sewage-smeared pipe and he also reminded himself that the dazzling gold ceiling hid tangled knots of dusty electrical wiring and was actually cheap plasterboard nailed onto rough wooden battens. The whole city was like that and as long as he kept that in his mind he knew that he wouldn’t be phased by it or overawed by the glitz and the glamour. Whisper relied on their city to add a little awe to their image and he had to be above that.

Their trunks were carried by two Amazonian children. One of them had stumbled on the stairs and was immediately kicked by the hotel orderly. Jones had to hold Roosha back as she went to his assistance and he glowered at the kid and barked at him.

“Geddup!" He kicked the child on the backside and pushed him over again. Turning to the hotel orderly, he noticed his approval. Jones assumed a bored drawl and questioned the man.

“Amazonian? Godforsaken place. The best you can do with that armpit of a sweat-hole is to concrete it over and make a decent hover park and a shopping mall. We went there to see if it really was as bad as we’d heard."

Jones looked back on the incident as he rinsed his hair. He felt ashamed of his behaviour, but he reckoned there were going to be times in the next few days where he was going to have to act an arrogant slob: he reckoned it was better than being polite and losing Chen in the process. Getting dressed in his room, he heard a tap at the communicating door.

“Come in, Ruella!" He was having trouble with a stud on the front of a shirt and was pleased to have someone do it for him. He’d found a velvet jacket that was totally over the top and he thought the dark red with the gold jeans was probably gross enough. Roosha had managed to find a dressy pair of trousers that would give her a better chance of running from a sticky situation than a skirt. Jones nodded approvingly when she walked through the door. He felt they’d both judged it just right: they were dressed like a pair of awe-struck youngsters who were desperately afraid of getting it wrong. They looked like a couple of kids who had overcompensated and gone completely over the top. "You look great, Ruella!" Roosha smiled and patted his shirtfront flat.

“How touching to hear such a compliment from a brother. We’re meeting that woman down in the banqueting hall in half an hour.”

“What’s for dinner? I could murder a burger and fries."

“We’re dressed in velvet and dripping with jewellery and you’re expecting burger and fries? Dream on, El Capitano!"

Jones looked worried. Picking up the phone he placed a food order with reception.

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