Embedded Files
35
The pilot put her gauntlets down on a French satinwood dressing table and picked up a platinum and emerald phone.
“Harry? Stella here. Pardon? Yes, they’re in their suites. Room service has just taken up a couple of burgers. Honestly, the eating habits of the young don’t get any better. Talking of gross ignorance, can you tell Membling I like my Chateau Confitableure a little less chilled than freezing? The setting on my ice bucket was way over the odds. Mind you, I blame Administration... Pay peasants' wages and you get peasants. I’m jumping in the bath now, so I’ll see you later."
Stella looked at her com. The bath temperature was way over the odds, too. Nothing was more irritating than paying through the nose for technology and then having to do it all yourself.
Not that she had paid through the nose for anything. Telling the boss of Whisper that she knew his little secret had been a bit of a shock for him at first, but she had managed to convince him that setting her onto the property ladder and providing the little luxuries in life would be well in his favour. Widespread knowledge of a gang leader with a taste for cannibalism was not good (even for Whisper) and it certainly wouldn’t be good for him if it ever got out.
Whatever cruelties could be laid at Whisper’s door, uncouth behaviour of that sort was not good for their fastidious, cultured image. Stella had been the repair engineer on call when the freezer in the boss’s kitchen had packed up. The boss was away, but a few pictures of dismembered corpses commed to his hideaway in the Pacific Ocean was enough to get him back and agree to her terms. His chef’s body was found the next day by a hoverboat pilot as it bobbed on the tide. She had thought the murder very spiteful and a little immature of her boss, but as the chef had been her very own father it gave her a little emotional extra to negotiate with when the boss was buying her silence.
The corpses in the freezer were mostly children. She thought of Joe and Ruella. They were quite safe, as the boss found teenagers a little tough. Amazonian children by the dozen had entered the kitchen as washer uppers and left it served up on fine, hand painted porcelain plates having been marinated in exquisite sauces and spices and cooked to perfection by top chefs.
Ten minutes later, Stella dried herself and looked at the Deputy Head of Whisper Personnel in the mirror. A little saggy here and there, but obviously still good enough to turn the head of an impressionable adolescent. Perhaps another visit from her surgeon?
She still knew how to flirt with the best of them and she had given that grimy little tramp Ruella a good demonstration of how it was done. How the poor little lamb had cried. Oh, tragedy! Stella cackled. It was a deep, creepy cackle and she had worked on it as part of her image for years. Like the rest of her, she couldn’t remember whether it was original or manufactured and stuck on afterwards, but Stella was not one to care about such trifling matters.
Calling up her clothes on a multiscreen, she put an outfit together. She decided on lots of lace and lots and lots and lots of gothic black in velvet and leather. She also decided that the cavalry sabre was a little over the top and settled on a small Samurai sword to tuck into her sash. It had sentimental value as it was the one she had decapitated her brother Grifter with after he had cheated at gambling. It was sheer good luck that had made his bloody, finely coiffured head bounce a couple of times in the spinning roulette wheel before being catapulted onto the front of Desdemona’s new white evening dress. Even she, picky little madam that she was, had to admit it was a pretty classy stroke.
Outside in the corridor, several purple and gold chairs were gliding around the thick pile crimson carpet looking for the rooms of their fares. Once outside the right cream and gold door they beeped the guests' coms and waited patiently, the only sign of life being the name and room number flashing in the back of the headrest. Jones tapped on Roosha’s door.
“This is it!" The chairs lowered themselves to the ground as their passengers came out of their doors and climbed in. The chairs wobbled slightly as they rose and this caused great hilarity among the revellers who were already excited by the thought of the evening ahead. Even more chairs joined them as they glided towards the main ceremonial building through a maze of galleries hung with priceless works of art and covered courtyards, each one in its own microclimate. They floated effortlessly between Greek marble sculptures and exotic orchids, between Picassos and Rembrandts and carefully prepared areas of rainforest and ice flows, not to mention in and out of country garden layouts and cacti-embellished desert displays.
The theme at the meal that night was the circus and the banqueting hall had been decked out as a stripy big top with sides of engraved mirrors. Red and yellow banded poles reached to the ceiling and had figures on trapezes swaying across the red and gold ceiling between the glittering chandeliers. Everything, right down to the Big Top salt and pepper shakers, had a circus theme.
By the time they had glided into their places, each diner had a servant, their attendant for the whole evening. The servants’ costumes were like pictures Jones had seen of circus performers. Roosha had a trapeze artist in a spangled light blue costume that twinkled as she moved. Her tresses were held by sapphire clustered clips and real butterflies glowed as they fluttered around the ultraviolet lights scattered in her hair.
The trapeze girl held Roosha’s chair and moved it in behind her as she sat down. Jones’s servant was an Amazonian boy dressed as a clown and would have looked very spectacular if it hadn’t been for the sadness of it all. His spangled suit was crowned by a glittering top hat that lit up like a stained glass window. The effect was, in Jones’s eyes, full of pathos because the painted-on smile made him look even sadder.
Unlike the trapeze girl, the little clown was being ridiculed by the other guests, and Jones realised he had to do the same if he didn’t want his cover blown. He could see that tonight was going to be difficult.
Each evening's décor took a different team weeks to complete. When the event was over, they were trashed and dumped in the desert. The night before had been a Native American theme and the following one was to be Space. The containers of stars, planets and spaceships were already behind the banqueting hall for the following evening,
The first course consisted of an individual spun-seaweed circus tent. Inside were tiny performers made from prawn on a circus ring of red caviar. The poles were made of caramelised saffron strands and each tent was topped by the freshly decapitated head of a hummingbird. The diners applauded as the creations were placed in front of them. All the diners that is apart from Roosha and Jones.
Stella, was sitting with her friends at the top table. The vice-president of Whisper was on a flying visit and the guest of honour that night. He had spent the day inspecting the dungeons, control room and Pleasuredome but Stella couldn’t help noticing that he had spent more time in the Pleasuredome than anywhere else. She looked round cautiously, uncertain whether even her thoughts were private anymore. Perhaps, she thought, she was bugged the same way the diners were. She always behaved as if she was, just to be on the safe side. There were two hundred guests (apart from the permanent Las Vegas staff) and each had a minute microphone concealed near them.
Stella had been boasting to her friends about her catch in "dear little Joe and Ruella" and, pointing to her com, she indicated Roosha and Jones in the dim, smoke-laden distance. Looking smug she homed in on them. The smile soon disappeared when she heard what they were saying about her. Their conversation was certainly animated.
“And have you seen her wrinkles?" said Roosha triumphantly as she delicately placed the hummingbird head on the side of her plate. "Like an inner-city roadmap! You’d think someone like that would be able to have them ironed out."
“Perhaps she likes the lived-in look," said Jones. "It can look quite attractive." Stella allowed herself a weak smile of minor victory as her friends guffawed.
“But not on her, I’ll admit" continued Jones, helping himself to Roosha’s caviar. That was it. Stella swore into her com and the trapeze girl and the clown came running to her table.
“Uh oh," winced Roosha. "This doesn’t look good." A terrible thought dawned on her. “You don’t think she heard, do you? You don’t think she’s got her spies? Excuse me, I think I’m going to the loo!"
“That’s the worst thing you can do," rasped Jones. “Stick together!" The trapeze girl and the clown returned and asked them both to get up and follow them out into the entrance lobby. Once there, two huge guards grabbed them and threw them into a lift.
Hitting the steel floor they soon felt themselves plummeting and were pulled out at the bottom by two more guards who bundled them into the back of a hovertruck.
They heard the echoes of a concrete bunker change to a flat, muffled whine as they left the underground car park and reached the open air. One of the guards drove while the other one leaned over the back of his seat and pointed a gun into the gloom behind him. They went along a smooth road and then turned off into bumpy terrain. Jones and Roosha couldn’t see out of the windowless sides, but they guessed that they were heading into the desert.
After about ten minutes the truck stopped. Jones and Roosha were dragged out and stood up against a large rock. For what seemed like an age, the guards held firearms to their heads.
“This is the end of the road for you two".
The guards laughed.
“Seeya, kiddies!"
Returning to their vehicle, the guards piled in and started the turbine. In one minute they were gone and it was silent again.
36
It was a cold, damp night and Jones and Roosha were dressed in what they had dined in, Somehow, a strappy little silk top and a flimsy nylon shirt were not really suitable for a cold night in a desert: hings might have been better if one of the guards hadn’t offered them water and then thrown it over them as a parting gift. Wet, and exposed to biting wind, they didn’t even have their jackets as those were still hung on the backs of their chairs in the beautifully warm, luxurious banqueting hall. Jones put his arms round Roosha and they huddled in a gap between two small rocks, desperately trying to get out of the cold.
“I didn’t know you cared, Jones." He pulled her closer and rubbed her back. Her eyebrow rings felt cold against his face and he could feel her mouth tremble against his shoulder as her teeth chattered. Listening carefully, they heard a rustle in the brush. Were they about to be eaten alive? Bitten by a venomous snake? Really shot this time?
Roosha cried out as a hand touched her shoulder. She knew it wasn’t Jones’s because it was larger, rougher. Even in the fresh air, she picked a different smell from the one emanating from his repulsive nylon shirt. There was a gruff voice and it was very near.
“It’s OK, darlin’, I’m not going to hurt you. Here, have a blanket. You all right, lad? You have one too.” They drew the large pieces of coarse, stinking wool around them as if they were the freshest, most luxurious down quilts. Then came a momentary silence, a brief whistling and the unmistakable scratching of fingers in a beard. The voice rasped again.
“Right, I think we can safely say they’re gone now. I’m Dorking." Jones laughed, partly out of relief that they had been rescued and partly because of what the man had just said. Jones wasn’t sure whether ‘Dorking’ was an activity, a state of mind or the man’s name.
“The name’s Dorking London. We’re named after places here. Sounds funny, but it keeps it sort of personal but anonymous, if you know what I mean."
“We?"
“Yeah, there’s a whole load of us. We live in Old Vegas just over there.” Jones imagined that the body attached to the voice must have pointed in some direction or other. The man’s voice relaxed a little.
“Who are you? Just been chucked out?" Roosha had stopped chattering now and whispered hoarsely.
“Ruella and Joe and, yes, we have been 'chucked out'. How did you know?”
“Most of us here were chucked out, love. Didn't make the grade or displeased them in some way. Can you give me any names? Want to talk about it?”
“Stella. She was a lady called Stella".
“Ooh yes, a prickly customer. You were pretty lucky, then."
“Why’s that?"
"There are two ways Whisper deal with people like you. This is one way, but her way is usually to take you up in a Bubblejet and drop you onto Old Vegas from a great height. If you hear an aircraft it’s a good idea to go into a building until it’s passed over otherwise you could end up flattened by a falling body." He lit a lamp and started walking to a stretch of tarmac. “It might just be they didn’t have a spare jet handy." They were beckoned into a cart and only then noticed a horse waiting patiently between the shafts.
Jones and Roosha swayed gently from side to side as the horse plodded along the stony, neglected road. As they approached a built-up part of a city, they noticed metal baskets made from scrap hanging from lampposts. The baskets were filled with debris and lit like beacons. Looking up they noticed that the bulbs from the streetlights were long smashed out and the posts were scarred with charred paint and dribbles of melted plastic where burnt waste had oozed out of the metal cradles. Ragged children ran from one lamppost to another and threw fuel in to keep them burning. Here and there, old cars were alight and these, likewise, were tended to make sure they didn’t go out.
The children shouted to Dorking as he went by and he waved back, calling each one by name and reminding them to be careful. Turning to Jones he asked if he could write. Jones was surprised at the question but simply answered that he could.
“Rootle round in my bag, son - you’ll find a bit of cardboard and a pencil. Make a note of the names as I call them out. They’ll want something in the morning and I’m jiggered if I can ever remember ‘em all." He called out a list and Roosha woke from her slumber.
“Excuse me asking, Dorking, but shouldn’t these children be in bed? What about school in the morning?" She could see him clearer now they were in the city and she watched him draw a ragged sleeve over his shaggy beard as he thought of the best reply. He looked up at the dead neon signs on the derelict hotels for inspiration and then frowned as he wrestled with the meaning in his head and how best to convey it.
“School? School’s a luxury, darlin', we ain’t got time for schooool. These kids gotta work." He grunted and spat onto the potholed roadway from the lofty height of his home-made wooden seat, sighing as he flicked the reins absently at the old horse’s back. "These kids gotta keep the fires goin', collect the fuel, keep the animals fed and generally make sure that the place don’t fall short of materials. The more clever ones get jobs like messengers and the reliable ones supervise the younger ones. Some of the young ones get put on top of buildings as lookouts 'cause their eyesight’s really good.” Roosha was beside herself with curiosity but she managed to wait until Dorking had turned to Jones and reeled off half a dozen names.
“But where are we? What is all this? It’s like a film set. Were these buildings ever normal?" She waved her arms at the crumbling casinos and hotels with blasted-out windows and giant signs hanging off the wall. Their neon strip and bulbs had blazed their last glorious spectacle of colour and light long before Jones’s and Roosha’s slow amble up the derelict street.
“This, little lady, is - or rather was - Las Vegas. We call it Old Vegas. Before Whisper came along it was the gambling centre of the world. People came from all over to squander money at roulette tables and feed the greedy mouths of gambling machines called one-armed bandits. If they had any left over they might see a show or travel around a bit. Whisper saw how much money it was making the owners and thought "Hey, I want some of that" so they built their own bigger version over there where you just come from. They even stole the name and called their fancy new one Las Vegas. This is the real Las Vegas". He looked round and shrugged resignedly. “Leastwise, it was. They knew they were on safe ground, did Whisper. Who’s gonna feel sorry for a den of gambling and vice on its beam end?"
“Anyway, Whisper spread lies and fear 'til no one wanted to come ‘ere no more. Not satisfied with that, they detonated lots of small explosions under us and made the whole place unsafe." The old man looked up warily at a swaying lamppost. “You’ll be alright so long's you keep a weather eye out for falling debris."
Dorking paused and pulled his horse up in front of the Golden Nugget Hotel or, at least, what was left of it. He climbed down and banged on the side door.
His wife Radnor let them all in. Jones and Roosha peered in the gloom and saw a rickety, cobbled-together desk with one candle on it. This candle was the sole source of light in the room and lent the piles of sacks, blankets and papers on the tall shelves an almost mystical air. Radnor pushed two cats off a frayed armchair and invited Roosha to sit in it. Jones smiled and watched his friend pull her blanket around the kittens as they jumped on her lap and cosied up to the trespasser in their chair. Radnor licked her pencil and sighed.
“I don’t know, Ruella. I’ll have to put you with Mr. and Mrs. New York. And you, Joe, I’m going to put you with the-"
“No!" Interrupted Roosha. "We go together!" Radnor looked apologetic and shrugged.
“"Sorry, dearie, I’m not sure I can." Roosha grabbed Jones by the sleeve and began to drag him out of his chair.
“Come on, Joe. We’re going!" Jones managed to spill his tea on his leg. Whispering at her, he stood up and flapped his trousers to get the worst off.
“Heck, Roosha!” Radnor looked up from her grimy sheaf of paper and peered at Jones thoughtfully over her spectacles. He sat down slowly and took in Roosha’s “Jones, you stupid berk” look, one that he had learnt to read quite well over the last few months. Jones and Roosha looked at Dorking and Radnor in the dim light. If the sudden change of name had been noticed, they had chosen to ignore it. Radnor looked up from her papers.
“Right, that’s all settled then. Dorking here will take you both round to the New-Yorks."
37
The next day they were woken at six o’clock in the morning. The New-Yorks were sensitive and gave them jobs that they could do together. Having built a fire for the day’s cooking, they were sent out to one of the hotels with a jemmy and a small cart to collect more firewood. Once in the open air, they met a grubby child in front of an even grubbier piece of cardboard. The large sheet was adorned with a crude picture of flames and a roughly painted red arrow. The little girl greeted them as the walked along the street.
“Hello. My mummy is getting firewood. Are you getting firewood? We go somewhere else to get it today. My name is Lundy. We have to go where the big signs tell us." She pointed at the sign and then put her tousled head on one side. She looked at them intently. “You are new. What is your name?" Jones and Roosha looked at each other and nodded in a kind of unspoken agreement that they had to trust this strange place. Roosha went up to the bare-footed child and, squatting down, looked into the earnest face.
“My name is Roosha and this is Jones. Tell me, Lundy, how do we find our way back here?" Lundy pointed at a name daubed on the wall.
“This is Childrey Street." The little girl looked down. Roosha held her gently by the hand and spoke softly to her.
“What’s the matter, Lundy?"
“She was my sister. Childrey was a big girl. She had brown hair she was ten and a quarter and –and - she went to Vegas." A voice called and Lundy looked around and answered.
“Coming, mum!" A woman in camouflage trousers and a shawl called from down the grey, derelict street. She held a small cloth bag and beckoned Lundy to hurry up. She looked at Jones and Roosha with a mixture of compassion and wariness. Waiting for the child to climb on board a cart, she weaved in and out of the burnt-out cars and trucks. Stopping, she took a sign from a bundle of cardboard and attached it to a derelict, long-abandoned police hovercar with a piece of wire from her bag.
Once they had reached the Alhambra Casino, Jones and Roosha were sent to a large, panelled room and they joined the crowd of people who were pulling elaborately carved pieces of mahogany off the wall. Inlaid with satinwood and ebony, the craftsmanship was exquisite. Once off the wall it was smashed into manageable lumps and loaded onto the home-made carts that waited in neat rows outside.
They trudged back to Childrey Street and met two sisters with signposts. This time, the arrows were blue.
“Excuse me," said Jones, "What does a blue arrow mean?” The elder sister stopped her hammering and paused. Looking at Roosha, she smiled. Roosha looked at the girl’s fingers and smiled hesitantly back. She didn’t recognise her but she recognised the tattoos on her hands all right. The sight of a Bomb Bomb Mixer girl threw her momentarily and there was something recognisable about the voice that made her stiffen.
“Hi, Bomb Girl. I’m Argentina."
Roosha was guarded. She suddenly realised that this girl was a bit of her past that she wanted behind her.
“Hi." She looked at the girl’s knuckles and saw a red cross among the Bomb Bomb Mixer tattoos. “we’re new here. This is Joe, I’m Ruella.”
“Yeah, right..." The girl scanned Roosha's puzzled face and smirked. "I was in Red Chapter. You're Roosha and you were in Orange. You were number two, yeah? Everybody knew you.". Someone knew about her, Roosha, and she was feeling decidedly uneasy about it. She tried to sound relaxed as she replied.
“Maybe. That’s in the past now."
“Maybe. To answer your fit young friend, the blue arrows are for today’s water. Whisper have all but cut us off so we’re rationing at the moment. They’re the Big Cat playing with the Little Mouse - us. First they give us water and then they don’t and each time it gets a little bit less.” Roosha looked round, uneasy. Ignoring her, Argentina continued.
“Whisper are just pawing us around the flower bed until the time they get bored, sink their claws in and rip us up." Argentina nudged a piece of rubble and drew absently in the mud with the toe of her boot. She moved nearer to Roosha and spoke quietly as if afraid that someone might hear.
“You here for good?" Roosha shrugged. Argentina looked over at Jones and was pleased to see that he had got bored and was talking to a group of lads.
“See me in an hour, Roosha. Half last seven. Don’t worry ‘bout loverboy, he’ll be OK knocking around with Nerds United over there for an hour or so. See that one with the scary hair? That’s Dresden. He used to be a hacker for Whisper until they slung him out. Now he hacks them. At least, he tries to." She turned the piece of rubble over into a puddle and looked down at it thoughtfully. "Be nice to talk Bomb for a while. Meet here and go for a walk, right?"
“I’d better stick with Jones for now. He needs me."
“I told you, he’s OK. Look!" Argentina pointed at the animated group by a burnt-out car. Jones was in the middle of them, pointing in the air and waving his arms in a wide arc. He went over to Roosha and punched her lightly on the arm.
“Hey Roosha, these guys are off the wall. They reckon that if we can get to the Whisper satellite we can block their communications. Isn’t that incredible?"
38
The President peered at the screen. He squinted to see if it looked any better but it still looked like a blizzard. Wiping his glasses, he prodded the observer crouched over the computer and leant over to his ear.
“’S’all gobbledygook to me, boy. D'you mean to say that you can read that whole loada porridge?"
“It’s scrambled at the moment, sir, to stop prying eyes getting in on our act."
“Oh, right. Any chance of us here seeing something we can actually understand, or is that cheating? I’m a busy man, Baker, and this’d better be worth it!”
“Oh, it is, sir," said Baker hesitantly, praying that his target had not suddenly decided to go for a walk. He clicked an icon and the screen cleared. The President stared at the monitor in disbelief.
“Hey, it’s Jones, the ol' son of a gun! And there’s his lady friend. This really from a satellite?"
“Yes, sir. For some reason, Jones’s com can’t cope. He could do with something stronger. We’ll get one of our people to give him a new one."
An hour later, a small boy dropped a small object in the middle of a burnt-out casino.
In the next street along, Jones’s com buzzed and he read the message.
“COM DEVICE. FOLLOW ARROW."
Watching a pointer on the screen, Jones walked for two or three minutes and tutted as the arrow wavered this way and that.
“C’mon, make your mind up!" Following the indicator, Jones climbed over a pile of bent and rusty girders and peered into a gloomy hole in the ground. A small red light was flashing and there was a steady 'beep' from somewhere. Jones picked up a small metal egg and pressed a button. A screen activated, showing the President.
“Howdy, Jones. You OK?"
“Yes, sir. It’s great to hear from civilisation. Sir, did I see Sergeant Braithwaite there?"
“'S'OK, Jones; we all know she’s called Julie. Do you want a word?" The camera moved round and stopped at a pretty girl in a chair with a battery pack on the back. Jones knew that his joy at seeing Julie was about to suffer a severe blow.
“Hi, Julie." She laughed "Hi" and waved at the camera. He took a deep breath and hesitated.
“Julie. Are you in a chair?"
“We all are, Jones.”
“You know what I mean.” Her smile disappeared and she looked down.
“It’s OK, Jones, everyone’s been really great. I’m still able to carry on working. I’m attached to the surveillance team as a-" Jones stared at the blank screen and shook the com.
“TRANSMISSION ERROR"
“You what? I don’t believe it!” Jamming the device in a pocket he picked his way back and came across a smooth, polished piece of casino floor. An old fashioned gambling machine lay on its side with its legs sticking out, a dead robotic animal with its flank prised open. Small silver coins lay on the ground next to the buckled door like a huge overspill of metallic blood. A child had laid them in a pattern and Jones smiled at the metal matchstick man who stared up at him from the glossy stone.
The power behind Whisper had been laid out in a throwaway piece of child’s art, vulnerable to the whim of any small hand that came along. Jones picked a coin up from a large pile and, turning it over in his hand, studied the presidential head and the inscription. "One Dollar". He’d seen metal money in museums but never actually handled any. Stooping down, he picked some up. One. Two. Three... Four. One for Roosha, one for Chen and one each for himself and Julie.
39
“Where have you been? I’ve been worried."
“Sorry, Roosha.” Jones looked at Mr. and Mrs. New-York and smiled a sheepish apology at the cold food on the small, rickety table. He had been gone for much longer than he wanted, but he had managed to introduce Dresden to the team back at the presidential compound. He’d also fixed up a shuttle rendezvous so he was feeling reasonably pleased with events. Sitting down to eat, he felt the com device vibrate in his pocket. Emitting an apologetic sigh he got up from the table and answered it in the shabby room next door. It was Julie.
“Jones, they’ve just run a check on Dresden and he’s sound. Trust him Jones, he’s as solid as they come. Don’t worry about Roosha, the New-Yorks are our agents and they’ll have told her that by now. It’ll be safer for her if she stays with them. This trip back isn’t without its risks." Jones felt a pause. “You OK, Jones?”
“Sure, Jules. You know, you’re just as gorgeous as I remembered."
“What? even though I’m a cripple?" Jones went silent for a moment and then flustered.
“No, Julie, I didn’t mean-"
“Sorry, Jones. I’m having a bit of a self-image thing at the moment. I’d sort of imagined myself clubbing 'til I was ninety-two, not trying to cope in a granny flat at sixteen." Jones screwed up his eyes and banged his forehead on the chipped bedroom doorframe.
“Julie, I still, I still-"
“Careful what you say, Jones. You were an innocent little bunny caught in the claws of a passion-starved party animal in a sweaty club. You’ve only seen the new Julie from the waist up. You haven’t had to change my bed at two in the morning or heave me on and off the toilet. The shuttle’s still on course to arrive in two hours, so be at the bombsite where you were this afternoon. A cart will take you and Dresden to the desert."
“Can I see you when I get back?"
“I have my lunch in the Blossom Garden every day from twelve ‘til half last. Take care, Jones.”
“Bye." He stared at the com, clicked it shut and trudged back to the main room. Sitting on the bench, he played with the food and leant his head on Roosha’s shoulder as she put her arm round him.
“Sorry, Jones. I wasn’t really listening in, I just heard you. Do you want to talk?" They went out into the dusk and stared up at the orange sky. Roosha went with Jones as far as Dresden’s towerblock. Stopping at the stairwell she gripped his arms and stared into his eyes. “See you, boy, and don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Send me a postcard from space!"
40
The journey back was bizarre, to say the least. It started with the rickety lurch of Dorking's malodorous cart and ended in the high tech shower of a top specification shuttle.
Within two hours of landing, Jones and Dresden were sat in the reception area of the President’s state office. Dresden got up and went to inspect himself in the reflection of an antique walnut cabinet. Tilting his head to one side, he sneered and pulled his collar to loosen his tie. He smiled at the result. That would show an arrogant so-called President what he thought of his authority.
“Do you buy all this smart little uniform crap, Jones?” Jones shrugged and forced an appeasing, non-committal grin.
“Yes, if it gets me the right result. That’s something I learnt off a friend of mine a while back." He wandered over to the window and looked at a pale girl as she sat in her chair under a tree. The sun dappled her face through the leaves and she chewed slowly, deliberately on a peach. He watched her as she gazed into the distance.
Hodgkins picked up his buzzing receiver and smiled at the two lads.
“The President will see you now, gentlemen". As he went through the door, Dresden could hear a whoop and raucous laughter. This was the President? Peeping beyond Jones and Hodgkins he saw a grown man and a boy running round the office and throwing a ball into a net. The next second, Dresden saw Hodgkins execute a well practiced duck and leave the way open for the ball to drop right into his own hands. The middle-aged man guffawed again.
“Don’t just stand there, boy... Shoot the darned thing!" Dresden broke out into a grin and put the ball into the net at the other side of the vast office, expertly managing to miss an eighteenth century crystal chandelier and a bronze bust of Benjamin Franklin. The boy in the loud check shorts whooped with elation.
“Wow, Pop, D’you see thaaat? Hey, he’s gooood!"
The President collapsed underneath the disapproving stare of George Washington on his horse and told Desmond to get four cans out of his desk drawer. Loosening his tie, he looked earnestly at Jones.
“Hey, Desmond, better make that five. Too much sun ain’t good for a girl. Need plenty of liquid. Perhaps you’d be good enough to take this to our friend in the garden, Jones? No need to rush back 'cause me an' your friend Dresden here got an appointment with Baker in the command centre."
Jones took the cans and watched the three basketball players disappear through the large mahogany door. He soon heard the laughter of different voices echo through the vast corridors of power.
Jones’s stomach was knotted with emotion as he stepped out of the lift on the ground floor and walked towards the smile that waited beneath the pink spring blossom.
41
Julie looked up at Jones and he noticed joy in her eyes. His own feelings were a potent cocktail of guilt, tenderness and pleasure as he saw how the raucous powerhouse of yesterday had kept her beauty, albeit it a fragile and porcelain-pale copy of its former self. She extended a hand and he kissed it before brushing his lips on her cheek.
“Hello Jones, you old charmer. Welcome to my world. It extends roughly from this tree, over to the command centre and back to that flat over there.” She lifted a weakened arm towards a recently widened door in an old stone wall. "It looks idyllic but it’s all a bit too familiar now.” She scanned his pensive face. "Sorry, Jones, I don’t want you to think I spend my time in self pity. Do you want to see inside?"
Without waiting for an answer, she pushed the joystick on her chair and it rose from the lush grass and glided through the opening. The door appeared again from a slot in the ground and whirred up the frame. Julie watched it and called "stop!" They both looked beyond it into the sunlit garden.
“I have to shut it a little bit or Monty starts bringing in little furry corpses for me. He must think they don’t feed me enough.” She passed a hand over her thin, cardiganed arm. “I don’t blame him".
“You look great, Julie.” She didn’t want to embarrass him by contradicting him so she smiled “Thanks" and beckoned him to sit down. Jones watched as she negotiated another doorway and reached for a kettle in the tiny kitchen.
“Sorry, Jones: only room for one. Would you like tea or coffee?"
“The President gave us a couple of cans."
“I bet that was a ploy for you to come over. He’s very thoughtful like that. To be quite honest, I can’t stand the stuff!"
“Neither can I." Laughter rang round the flat and Jones watched his friend as she reached for two mugs from a shelf. "Tea, please." He suddenly felt uneasy and looked down, flustered.
“Look, Julie, I... er..."
“Milk?"
“Um..."
“I’ll take that as a yes. Sugar?"
“One, please. Look, Julie, I don’t care what has happened, I still feel-" She hovered over to him and put a finger on his mouth. Leaning over, she held him in a tight embrace.
“No - you look, Jones. We had a cuddle on a dance floor and a smooch - albeit rather short-lived - and that hardly constitutes an item. You have made no commitment to nurse a crip until she’s one hundred and three on the strength of being dragged off to a club."
Jones was confused. Was this a release? A brush-off? Either way he knew he had to accept it and be gracious.
“When was the last time you went out, Julie?"
“When we did, and before you come over all nice and charitable, that’s the way I like it." Jones wasn’t the kind to buy a clean conscience with a token trip out for the poor and needy and she immediately realised that she’d overstepped the mark. Julie could see that he needed to get out, even if she didn’t. If he wanted to be nice, wasn’t it churlish to deny him that pleasure?
“Jones, you’ve been half way across the world and are about to go back up into space but I guess that’s no substitute for a trip into the countryside with a luscious chick, is it? Jones growled like a wild beast as he took her cheeks in his hands. Julie clutched his fingers and hid her face behind them. She’d done aloof and dignified and she’d done hurt and pathetic. Now she was herself and she didn’t want him to go.
“When, Jones?”
“When I come back?”
“When you come back. I’ll hold you to it!”
42
Leaving Julie to get ready for an afternoon in the command centre, Jones sat in the Blossom Garden and waited for Dresden. His new colleague arrived and slapped him on the back. He even seemed to have picked up the President’s guffaw and Jones almost looked back with longing to when Dresden would mope around and scowl at any part of the world which got in his way. At least he was fairly quiet then.
“Hey, Jones, what’s up?" Jones felt that “Actually, you’ve just desecrated a beautiful and tranquil moment" would have sounded rather pathetic so he settled for:
“Well, Dresden, how was it?”
“He’s mad, Jones!"
“Who?”
“The President. He didn’t have the first idea of what we were talking about but he had to go and join in like a big puppy knocking over the best china when the guests are around. I suppose he’s harmless, taking an interest and all that."
“You’ve changed your tune."
“Yeah, well, once bitten twice shy. If you’ve worked for Whisper you look at power a bit differently." Dresden looked around.
“Where can we eat round here? Is there anywhere else apart from the officers' mess? Those guys really bugged me.” Jones recalled the spat between Dresden and the Head of Presidential Supplies at breakfast and wondered if the last croissant had really been worth fighting over. Dresden’s retort of “Slime-ball Sucker" certainly hadn’t gone down too well. Jones was beginning to wonder whom the Presidential Secret Service had consulted when they decided to let this renegade hacker loose on the ordered, cloistered world of a top security installation. Perhaps Enzo's would be the safest bet.
“Do you like pizza?”
“Wow, Jones... haven’t had any of that for years. Better be good!" Jones decided that a window seat was less risky as it meant minimal contact with the rest of the room, so they sat on the stools and watched the world go by. When their pizzas arrived, Dresden took a bite and closed his eyes in absolute bliss.
Opening them again he noticed a pale, thin girl in a hoverchair going to the command centre.
“Hey Jones, who’s that scrawny chick in the chair?”
“That’s my girlfriend, Dresden."
Dresden looked at the floor and then at his pizza. He covered his face with his fingers and breathed out heavily. Standing up, he threw down his serviette and went towards the door.
“Dresden-" Jones saw him stride off towards the accommodation block. Pausing a moment to whisper to the waiter, he walked quickly to Dresden’s room. Jones sat on the bunk slowly and looked at the sobbing head buried in the pillow.
“Sorry, Jones. My big mouth. Gaffe every time. So, so stressed out. I’ve been living with awful secrets. I’ve been colluding with evil. You wouldn’t believe what they do to people, Jones. All the badness in the world has been sucked into one place." Dresden turned over and tried to look Jones in the eye. “I have a selfish, arrogant streak, Jones, and Whisper used it. They said I was important, indispensable and they put me on data security. Old Vegas is crowded out with people like me trying to forget what they did. The things I saw. I know it’s no excuse, Jones, and I’m sorry." Jones squeezed his arm.
“Heck, Dresden, it would have done me in. Now, let me get this straight. You get up a few people’s noses and get threatened - but not killed - because you’re too useful?"
“Yeah, that’s about it.”
“Then you escape, end up here, and are about to bust the huuuugest crime organisation this planet has ever known."
“Well, if you put it like that..." Jones heard a knock on the door.
“Grab the sofa, Dresden. We can talk better there.” Jones answered the door and returned with two large flat boxes. He slumped down next to the figure sprawled on the cushions.
“Or," said Jones, handing him a steaming container and reading the large multiscreen on the wall, "we could watch the basketball which starts in two minutes. I wouldn’t hang about opening that box either ‘cause I don’t reckon this pizza will take being warmed up for a third time!"
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