Authors: Thomas Blackthorne
Tags: #fight, #Murder, #tv, #Meaney, #near, #future, #John, #hopolophobia, #reality, #corporate, #knife, #manslaughter
Edge (38 page)
Tony nodded, while Hannah said "You rock, girl."
"Thank you."
On day twenty-two, in darkness, in front of the training house, Suzanne hugged the others farewell, Tony, Hannah, and the others she had met only five days before, Raj, Brummie, Ron, and Morio. Josh's way of saying goodbye was more in the way of wry smiles, punches to the upper arm or touching fists, and a final inventive insult that was returned in kind.
There were four cars, already packed with kit. Josh and Suzanne climbed into the first together, and drove off. The others would leave at intervals, dispersing rather than forming an obvious convoy. They would rendezvous tomorrow morning, coming together from different directions.
"Three days left," said Suzanne. "And yes, I know. We've got to get through tomorrow first."
"Good job we're ready," said Josh.
[ TWENTY-NINE ]
And so, the Barbican.
It was a jumble of architecture, a long promenade by a wholly artificial rectangular lake – American visitors called it a pond; the locals thought it too big for that label – with its own straight-edged waterfall to a lower level, leading to a pool that partly undercut one of the towers, which was supported on stilts.
On the promenade, under normal circumstances, chairs ringed parasol-covered tables for al fresco dining. Now, the area was covered with jagged-looking obstacles that looked like massive fragments of shattered concrete, though they were rubberised and soft to the touch. Graffiti marked them: symbols of urban breakdown and destruction, props for the coming show.
In total there were three towers, including the one undercut by water, all of them filled with apartments overlooking the promenade-turned-urban arena. The building walls at one end formed a hollow curve, like some Circus Maximus of old. There, the apartments' silver-shuttered windows offered perfect views of the action to come, while keeping the residents far re moved from the real urban dangers beyond the estate's high walls.
In previous decades a music college had enjoyed premises on site; now that building was occupied by a blue-sky research campus owned by an Eastern European consortium, part of the Web 4.0 Initiative. It was just one more accidental by-product of the wealth pouring into Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, now that their natural uranium deposits were growing ever more valuable in the ongoing rush to throw up reactors as fast as possible. In contrast, the alternative programmes were years behind schedule and/or underfunded by billions, depending on who you asked.
Under other circumstances, Josh would have been tempted to break into the W4I labs, just to see what they were up to.
Silvery membranous sheets were draped shroud-like against walls and over awnings. In ambient daylight, they were translucent; but later, when the smartroof drew over the promenade arena, casting shade, the sheets would come alive with rippling, motile patterns of light, turning the post-apocalyptic setting into something eerie and modern. Background music would pulse throughout the estate. The same music that would form the backing for the webcast, with state of the art audio mixing.
Men and women in dark blazers and sharp-creased trousers were patrolling the grounds, the stairwells and colonnades and corridors, and the theatre complex that was the Barbican Centre at the heart of the estate. They paid no attention to the spyball cameras dotted everywhere; they did watch the cleaning staff and webvision roadies moving along the promenade among the props. This was despite the hoops everyone had already jumped through simply to come on site, three successive security checks, taking an hour in total.
For the most part the residents were staying away from the promenade, for the few days it formed a webvision set under construction. But some walked their dogs or strolled according to habit, and the security personnel were careful both to observe the walkers and keep their distance. The residents were rich or they would not be able to live here, and the security objective was to keep them safe, not annoy them.
By 9am, many residents had long departed to go to work, though others worked at home, while some – several actors and at least one luxury-class prostitute – would still be sleeping off the previous night's activities, ready for a late start to their working day. Few families with children lived here, because it was not that kind of place: it was for the go-getters, the well-off or those thirtysomethings who were too busy fighting in the corporate jungle to create for themselves an actual life.
Casual visitors, for the next few days, would be turned away with unswerving, implacable politeness. Some would walk outside the perimeter proper, taking in an external view of the jumbled, purplish architecture, all hard edges and curves, with neither the plentiful glass of more modern creations nor the gracefulness or playful details of classical design. A few of the visitors might be envious, wishing they could live so close to the City – which is not the city, not London itself, but only the calculating financial centre with both the bustle and the heartlessness of Wall Street or the Beijing Bourse.
Most of their co-workers rode packed commuter trains to and from their air-conditioned offices that bore all the warmth of a locker room, and spent long days stressed by violation of their personal space, by verbal sniping and turf wars fought over imaginary corporate territory. All the while, their workplace constraints forbade the physical movement or verbal release that might dissipate the built-up hormones of freeze-flight-fight that were crying – on the strength of a four-billion-year evolutionary history – for free expression.
Rats in a cage.
Outside the estate proper, the security firm had no presence, relying on normal police spycams to pick up anything suspicious. For today and tomorrow morning, that would remain sufficient. But tomorrow afternoon, and all through the big day itself, there would be extra security: uniformed and plainclothes officers, plus specialist close-protection units, working the streets in vehicles and on foot, and patrolling the skies in helicopters. When the prime minister ventured out from Fort Downing Street, this was the kind of coverage he required.
That was standard, but the forthcoming event was even more crucial, because any mistake would potentially be webcast to millions of viewers. It was near-realtime transmission, with a five-second delay which was supposed to be long enough for the producers to pull the switch if necessary. Otherwise, if things went as normal, the event would be watched with that five-second lag by nine million households at least, and would be picked up later from the amorphous Web at people's leisure.
Inside the Barbican Estate, high buildings and early morning combined to create cooling shade. But on the streets outside the temperature climbed towards uncomfortable intensity as the bustle of pedestrians began thinning out. Everyone who was working had reached their destination, grateful for their job or cursing the day ahead, whatever the case might be.
By 9.45 am, when a white-and-blue van marked Quantum Cleaning Services (motto: Teleporting grime away) drove along London Wall, and slowed to a halt at a pedestrian crossing, the street was almost deserted. An exception was the bent-over man limping across the black and white striped crossing, while the cleaningvan driver shrugged at his mates, and none of them noticed the dark-blue car pulling to a halt behind them. Nor did they notice a silvery balloon accidentally released by a thin woman, just as she passed the pole-mounted yellow globe that marked the crossing. Surely she could not have known that her balloon would pass in front of the mounted spycam, obscuring its view.
At that moment, two shapes dropped from beneath the car, wriggled forward, and disappeared beneath the cleaning van. Then the old man reached the end of the crossing and waved his thanks to the van driver, who nodded and put his vehicle into drive.
The van pulled away, followed a second later by the blue car. At the next junction, the car turned into a side street and was gone, leaving the van to continue slowly forward. Soon it drew up before the heavy metal doors of a service entrance leading to the Barbican Estate. The doors rattled aside, and the van drove into a covered entrance bay, echoing with engine sounds bouncing back from concrete. Then the doors clanged back into place, followed by the dull thudding counterpoint of mag locks ramming home.
Vibration and soot, the tremor in his eyeballs making it hard to see, and the cloud of carcinogenic crap turning his respiration into wheezing, the underneath of the van pressed against his face, hard and caked with grime and oil, all of it unpleasant, his thoughts slow and difficult. The webbing harness bit into Josh's body everywhere, pinching his inner thighs, constricting his balls into aching compression, dug into his back below his shoulder blades, and bounced him against hard metal with every unevenness in the road.
Poor Suzanne must be having a hard time of it. For him, this was business as usual. He twisted, careful not to let a jolt damage his neck, and squinted at Suzanne. She was clinging, knuckles pale, using all her strength to assist the harness. They had planned this so they would be under the van only during the last part of its journey, when it was moving slowly; but for her this was probably a high-speed ride more dangerous than she had ever attempted.
"Scan coming up." Tony's voice sounded in his earbead. "And you're over it."
In the old days, guards used mirrors on castors, pushed on long poles, to check underneath vehicles. Thank God for modern systems, relying on cameras and intelligent software, just waiting to be subverted by those with the right technology and attitude.
The van rolled to a halt beside a loading platform, the engine whining down to stillness, the suspension rocking. After a moment, the guys inside dismounted.
"Check-in with security is through there, right?"
"Yeah. Bring the gear, it'll save time."
"OK."
Thumps and swearing meant they were unloading their cleaning equipment. Loud trundling accompanied their exit from the loading area, ending with the dull bang of a heavy steel door. Then silence.
Webbing dug into Josh's back and hamstrings as he hung there.
"Get ready," came Tony's voice.
Josh looked over at Suzanne. Her mouth was tight with strain as she nodded.
"Release in five seconds, four, three, two, one, go now."
Gekkofastenings tore free, and Josh and Suzanne dropped to the ground. They rolled sideways as if spilled from a carpet, the loading bay a blur of oil-stained concrete and corrugated roofing. Then he thumped against brickwork, and Suzanne rolled into him.
"Internal bay is clear. Go for next stage."
The spycams around the loading bay would be transmitting an ongoing still image.
Josh vaulted up onto the high platform, crouched into a squat, and hauled Suzanne up. Then they flung themselves either side of a utility doorway, not the one the cleaners had left by. In the centre of the door was a pane of armoured glass, revealing distorted outlines of blazerclad men moving on the other side. From that glimpse, it appeared they were walking and looking, a roving patrol. With luck, they would rove off out of here.
"Hold position."
Suzanne was swallowing. Josh gave her a wink.
"Move in three, two, one, go now."
The door clicked open – Tony's handiwork, conducted remotely – and they went through. The security personnel were gone.
"Third door on the right."
Josh gave a tongue-click acknowledgment, then nodded to Suzanne and led the way, half jogging to the target doorway. His boot soles were rubber, therefore silent, as were Suzanne's.
"Clear to go through."
Suzanne was staring at him, eyes huge. It took a moment, then he realised: a hunter's fang-revealing grin was stretching his mouth.
"Go now."
Filled with electric aliveness, he went through, every action magnified and excited by surrounding danger, like a stage performer thrilled by the onset of showtime, coming fully into his own. His movements were exact, exquisitely controlled, because these were the conditions he had learned to operate under, against role-playing opponents using live ammunition and out in the field, against real and lethal threats; and that made all the difference.
This was home, where he did more than operate: he came alive.
On the edge.
Ten minutes later, they were just inside a door that opened onto a quadrangle. Once through the threshold, they would move into the domain of another tier of the surveillance system, where security personnel wandered in greater numbers. At this point, it was no longer possible for Tony to edit over the images. Deep inside the system, the software observer-components
were
subverted, failing to report on two individuals whose gaits and features had not been logged on entering the estate. But for human security staff watching monitors, there was no way of hiding Josh and Suzanne. It was time to move openly.
were
subverted, failing to report on two individuals whose gaits and features had not been logged on entering the estate. But for human security staff watching monitors, there was no way of hiding Josh and Suzanne. It was time to move openly.
From their pockets, they pulled out squares of lightweight fabric that unfolded parachute-like into bright, billowing jackets: his, fluorescent orange and silvery grey; hers a blazing lime-green. Suzanne wrinkled her nose. At the training house, she had made remarks about how ugly it looked, how it made her appear fat.
Josh blew her a kiss.
She gave a sick attempt at a smile, then pulled out a silver cylinder from her pocket. A twist of her wrist, and it blossomed into a heart-shaped helium balloon, floating upward on string until it bounced against the ceiling. Tugging it down, she nodded to Josh.
Josh triple-clicked his tongue, signalling Tony.
"Raj, ready for your big fight scene, and… do it now."
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