Havoc (26 page)

Sure enough, when we turned into one of Bethun's wide avenues an army checkpoint
pulled us up—young guy, gun, hand up, palm out, bright in front of a floodlight rigged
on top of a truck.

Dash slid down her window and wielded her ID like a weapon. ‘Soldier, I'm in a hurry.'

The kid on the receiving end jumped to attention, saluted and said, ‘Ma'am! Thank
you! You're free to go!'

His squadmates sniggered at him saluting a security agent and he tried to recover
with a nonchalent wave of his hand and a grown-up ‘Drive on.'

Dash pocketed the ID, put up the window and we drove away.

‘Where are we going?' I asked.

‘St Clare,' said Dash. ‘Down near the bridge. There's a med centre there with someone
I know on the staff. He'll help.'

We drove along empty streets past rows of darkened
buildings. Their windows were
blank and black but I felt eyes on us, as though people were standing in the dark
of doorways and windows watching us glide by.

We pulled up beside a concrete slab of a building with an unlit MED sign. Dash unlocked
the door on Lanya's side and got out.

Lanya climbed out slowly, smiled at Dash, then bolted.

Dash yelled, ‘Hey!' and pulled her gun. She shouted in Breken, ‘Stop! Now!' and aimed
at Lanya's back.

I launched myself out of the car and knocked her arm off target before she could
fire, and by the time she'd regained her balance Lanya had disappeared into the darkness
of the unlit street.

‘No!' Dash wailed. ‘No!' She turned the gun on me. ‘You promised!'

‘Whoa!' I held up both hands. ‘Be cool, okay? Let me go after her.'

‘No.' She shook her head, emphatic. ‘You promised!'

‘You have to let me. She won't know where it's safe to hide and she'll spread this
thing without even meaning to.'

Dash flicked her glance despairingly from me to the street where Lanya had gone.
‘Why are you doing this?' she demanded. ‘You're risking your life, Nik. And it's
not like they're even your people!'

I was watching her gun; it drew an unwavering bead on me. My breath was coming short
and fast and I
wondered if you could ever get used to staring down a gun barrel from
the wrong end.

She said, ‘The Hendrys are your people. And Fyffe. And me. And our friends from Tornmoor.
Not Southsiders. You only met them six months ago.'

I looked away from her, towards the river. I wanted to slow things down, give Lanya
time to run, let Dash's temper cool. The arch of the St Clare Bridge gleamed over
the slow pulse of the water. I watched it for a few seconds then turned back to the
metal gleam of the gun barrel and tried to speak without my voice shaking.

‘It's not about who are my people. I don't have a tidy answer to that, anyway. It's
about forty thousand innocent people and a war crime. You have to let me go after
Lanya or she'll spread the disease whether she means to or not.'

The gun wavered. ‘Where would you go?'

‘I can't tell you that.'

‘Let me come with you then.'

‘In that uniform?'

‘Okay, okay. At least come in and see if there's some vaccine here.'

I shook my head and her frown deepened.

‘You don't trust me.'

I took two steps backwards still holding up both hands.

‘I trust you not to shoot me.'

Three more steps back. Dash looked miserable.

Then I turned and ran after Lanya.

Dash yelled at me, but she didn't shoot.

Lanya was waiting in a darkened doorway two blocks away. She called out quietly as
I jogged by and joined me on the road.

‘You got away.'

I was still spooked. ‘You nearly didn't.'

‘She wouldn't have shot me?'

‘I honestly don't know. If she thought it was the only way to stop you spreading
a deadly disease through the whole of Cityside, then she might have.'

‘Where are we going?'

‘Sentian. To find a place to hide. And wait for Fyffe to make trouble.'

CHAPTER 35

The lights were on in Sentian. Lamplight and bulb light and battery light and candlelight
spilled out of the windows and doors of the tall houses wedged together along its
alleyways, making the place seem inviting and homely. People were talking in little
groups in their open doorways and there was plenty of foot traffic. So much for curfew
and blackout, I thought. In fact, so much for the eviction of all those people whose
houses were under notice of demolition; a sniff of victory and they'd come flooding
back. They'd thrown a barricade across Bridge Street exactly where we'd seen the
army trucks a few days before and people were milling about, still building it up,
heaving torn mattresses across the skeltons of old cars, weighing them down with
rubble from the beginnings of the demolition.

We went past slowly, avoiding attention, avoiding
people as much as we could.

Brown's and the Bard are in deepest, darkest Sentian, slumped together, their upper
storeys leaning over the alley as though they're about to spill their books onto
unsuspecting passers-by. That night they looked deserted.

‘Dear Mr Corman,' I wrote on the notepad I'd taken from the Marsh. I explained that
we were camping next door in the Bard and that he shouldn't come near us because
of the virus. I signed the note with both our names and posted it through the door
of Brown's, which was old enough to have a little slot in it for hard-copy mail.

‘He'll be asleep,' I said to Lanya, as we explored the back door and peered in the
windows of the Bard looking for a way to break in without making too much noise.

‘Who can sleep when revolution is in the air?' Mr Corman leaned on his cane in the
unlit doorway at the back of Brown's, and then came carefully down the steps. ‘We
sleep when we are dead,' he said as he reached us. ‘Please use this key. I do not
wish you to break the door.'

‘Mr Corman! Read the note! You shouldn't—'

‘Shouldn't, nonsense. Inside with you both. There is revolution about, but also—'
he lifted his face and breathed in the night air ‘—other things. Unsavoury things,
the unwelcome guests of revolution. In! In!'

He ushered us inside and up the stairs past doorways that opened into dusty booklined
rooms. We climbed to the third floor—Cosmology & Quantum Physics, New
Urban AI,
and Weird Fiction: 19th & 20th C—where Mr Corman took hold of a shelf lined with
H. P. Lovecraft stories and hauled on it. The whole bookshelf pulled away from the
wall, dragging with it a mass of cobwebs and exposing a low wooden door. He opened
it and we stooped down to follow him into a cramped, stuffy room with a bed, a sofa,
a few chairs, a kitchen area, and door to a tiny bathroom. He leaned on his stick
and looked around.

‘People hide here sometimes,' he said. ‘Stay. For as long as you need.'

He walked about turning on lights and firing up a gas water heater and a gas cooker
while we stood gaping with gratitude.

‘Which is first?' he asked. ‘Food? Hot water?'

‘Food!' I said, just as Lanya said, ‘Water!'

He nodded. ‘I will return with coffee and bread.'

I wondered how many times he'd done this: the hidden room, people on the run, food,
shelter. Safety and unquestioning kindness, with no fuss or heroics.

Lanya dived for the bathroom while I hunted around and discovered a functioning screen
hidden away in a cupboard. I hauled it out, tuned it to the news channel and waited
through a business report and a weather report before it came to what I wanted.

Back to the Marsh now, where quick action by the army is bringing the situation under
control. Meanwhile concern is focusing on the township of Moldam where it's believed
the viral outbreak began. We'll shortly be hearing from Dr Parrish of Pitkerrin Laboratories.
Oh, we have him right now. Dr Parrish?

Dr Parrish was a tired-looking guy who kept smoothing down what little hair he had
and fidgeting with the narrow glasses perched on his nose. He was nervy. Maybe Frieda
was watching off-camera.

Welcome, Doctor. Tell us about this outbreak.

The man nodded and gazed solemnly out of the screen.

Thank you, yes. I can tell you that Moldam township on Southside has been placed
under quarantine after a viral outbreak was confirmed there. This virus is no threat
to Cityside. The population here is perfectly safe.

He was moderately convincing, I supposed.

I see. It's dangerous though, this virus?

Well, uh, yes. Yes, somewhat.

Not so convincing.

We've heard there's a vaccine?

There is. That's right. Everyone will receive it in due course.

Good to hear, doctor. But what about this claim that there isn't enough vaccine for
everyone?

There will be.

But there isn't right now? How much is there, doctor? What's the current stock?

We have plenty. Fifty thousand doses. More than enough
to contain a limited outbreak
here. But, as I said, we don't need it. The disease is quarantined in Moldam.

What about the people on Southside?

Well, of course, we want to get it to those Southsiders who are in danger, but until
we have a guarantee of safe passage for our medics, and that means an enduring ceasefire,
I won't be advising we send anyone over the river.

‘Fifty thousand.' Lanya came out of the bathroom with a billow of steam and sat on
the floor beside me. ‘That's enough for everyone in Moldam.'

I glanced at her and did a double take. ‘What are you wearing?'

‘Pyjamas. I found them in a cupboard in the bathroom. They were pressed flat and
stiff as a board, and they smell all right.' She sniffed at her sleeve and made a
face at me. ‘I was desperate for something clean. Do I look ridiculous?'

I laughed. ‘No. You look stunning.'

She smiled and hugged her knees. ‘What's the news?'

‘Nothing we don't already know.'

…Marsh, we have our reporter, Jasmine Fielding, on the scene. Jas?

Thank you, Tim. I'm standing in the foyer of the administration block which, as
you can see, is perfectly fine, but there are fires burning in other buildings. A
lot of people have been cleared from the grounds, but there are still some thousands
at the gates, and I can tell you they don't look like going
home soon. With me is
Director of Security, Frieda Kelleran. Director, thanks for joining us at this late
hour. How much damage has been done to the facilities here?

Well, Jasmine, there has been some damage but it's minimal and will soon be put right.

You've made arrests?

We have certainly made arrests, and people will be dealt with speedily and appropriately,
I can assure you.

‘I bet,' I said.

Director, do you think there are professional protesters in the crowd out there?

We have no doubt that One City extremists are involved. In fact, we know that they've
used this disturbance to effect the escape of some of their sympathisers who were
in custody here. Two in particular we'd like to bring to the attention of the public…

‘Oh, look,' said Lanya.

It was us. Mugshots they'd taken at the Marsh.

…armed and dangerous. We've launched a search, of course, and will be going door
to door in places where they might be holed up. We're confident we'll find them.

Thanks, Director Kelleran. We'll keep those images on rotation. Remember, folks,
armed and dangerous, do not approach. But on a brighter note, things look like returning
to normal here at the Marsh very soon. Back to you, Tim.

Thank you, Jas. And now in other news, the on-going drought in the north is…

I muted it and we sat staring at the weather map on the screen.

‘You did look dangerous,' I said. ‘I wouldn't take you on.'

She grinned at me but that soon faded. ‘She knows we're out and she knows we could
be sick.'

‘But she didn't say anything about the virus. And she probably won't—'

A clatter outside the door made us jump to our feet, but it was just Mr Corman with
a small loaf of grainy bread, a hunk of cheese and a little bag of coffee from his
precious store.

I tried one more time to ask him to stay away in case we were infectious, but I had
no chance.

‘Nikolai, I am old. I have seen off many epidemics and pandemics in my time. I do
not think a new young buck of a virus will be interested in this ancient carcass.
I will hear no more of this anxiety. No more.'

‘They're looking for us,' I said.

‘Yes, they will look. God willing, they will not find. Eat now. And sleep. I will
leave you. Good night.'

We turned off the light and opened the window wide to let the room breathe in the
warm night.

Lanya looked at the bread and cheese. ‘Hungry?'

‘Not very,' I said. ‘You?'

She broke off a piece of bread. ‘We should eat.' But she didn't.

‘Nik, what if Frieda ignores us?'

‘I know. She could. We have to hope that Fy will make such a noise that she has to
do something. Besides, she doesn't know you at all. She doesn't know how much of
a fanatic you are and how far you're prepared to go with this.' I glanced at her
and tried to smile. ‘I don't even know—how much of a fanatic are you?'

‘You mean would I infect people on purpose?'

‘Would you?'

‘No. And you wouldn't either.'