The Relic Keeper (17 page)

The rear doors were being evacuated and they pushed through the throngs of people and rammed the trolley through the crash bars out into the street. “Out the way, emergency!” shouted Philip, and he watched as people parted to allow them past. Outside he saw Rei running to meet them. He snatched the cover off Mathew.

“He’s unconscious,” he stated incredulously.

“He wouldn’t come,” said Deon. “I did try to convince him, but he wouldn’t come so I had to use a little of this stuff that Reiko gave me.”

Rei joined them.

“Nice diversion,” he said. “Any problems?”

“No, I can handle a smoke grenade.”

“So I see.”

“What’s happened to Mathew,” she asked inspecting the patient on the trolley. “Did you have to use the chloroform?” Deon nodded.

“How long will he be out? He won’t be able to walk anywhere soon presumably?” asked Philip, sensing that the whole plan of pulling Lyal out quietly had been completely fucked.

“No, he’ll be out for an hour or so,” Rei replied. “It’s bedlam back there. They won’t realise that he’s gone for a while, there’s too much happening.”

“Well, let’s not count on that. I reckon they were already onto us before we set the charges. Hopefully it’ll keep them occupied for a while though. Deon, go out to the road and get a cab. Not a bike, right? Get us something with seats.”

“Right, where to?”

“Just get one for the moment. Right, Rei, hold onto this guy a second.” Rei held Mathew up as best she could on the trolley. Philip took out a small flask from his pocket and poured some of the contents over Mathew, then pulled his arm across his shoulder. “Rei, try and get under the other side and give whatever support you can. This had better work, bloody waste of Jack Daniels otherwise.”

They dragged the unconscious man along the side street to where Deon had managed to hail a cab and pushed Mathew into it.

“Your mate reeks of scotch. If he’s sick I’ll charge double,” objected the driver.

“He’ll be ok, just a little too much liquid lunch.” Philip gave an address and the four of them left the carnage of the Walden Centre.

“Bloody mess back there,” said the driver. “Spect it’s anover of them bombs that bin goin’ off this week. I’m gonna leave London soon as I get the money. It’s too bloody dangerous ’ere these days.”

“Yeah,” said Philip. “I’m thinking of getting out myself.”

Mathew’s head ached and his vision was blurred. He felt the world slowly swim into focus and tried to remember what had happened. He was in a cold and dark room, not the white constant temperature of the clinic anymore. The room had wooden joists and plaster walls and looked more like the loft to a shop than anything associated with his hospitalisation. There were sash windows on two sides giving a view out over roofs and gutters, which was the first view if the world he’d really seen. Within the room itself there was little in the way of furniture, although a few boxes and crates were scattered randomly around. He heard someone talking and looked around, to see Rei speaking to two men. He knew one of them, the porter who had been in his room earlier. The other was a large man in his thirties, who looked like he’d been tough once, but had let himself go. They were speaking in quiet tones that Mathew couldn’t make out. It didn’t make any sense.

“Where are we?” he asked, suddenly feeling the dryness in his mouth. The three all looked up but Rei was the first one to approach him.

“Hello Mathew, you’ve been out for a couple of hours. I was getting worried. How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts and I’m very thirsty. Do you have any water?” She passed him a bottle and he gulped at the contents, almost choking. “Thanks, where am I?”

“You’re safe, which is what matters,” the large man said as he approached him. “I’m Philip.”

“I thought I was safe before.”

“Well, you weren’t. There were some problems at the clinic that you don’t know about, and, well we’ve got you away from there because of that. Obviously you know Rei, and this is Deon.”

“I thought your name was James.”

“It’s a long story, pal. But Deon got you out, not that you helped much. We’re in south east London, but we need to get you right out of here. Basically you’re not safe as long as you’re alive here. We’ll hole up here for a day or so while we make plans, then we’re going to get you out of the country, and then you should be safe.”

“Out the country? What are you talking about? Rei, I can’t leave here. I’ve only just started to walk again. And James, or Deon if that’s your name now, I thought you’d made contact with Jessica? I’m not leaving the country. Where would I go?” Mathew sniffed the air, turning up his nose at the smell. “Did someone pour a drink over me?”

“Ok ok, I appreciate this is all a bit of a shock, but we really do need to keep you away from the clinic. We’ll get a change of clothes for you too. Just give us a chance to get organised. We really do need to get you out of London.”

“What for? Do you think they’re going to kill me or something?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” snarled Philip. “That is pretty much it. They’ve exploited you as much as they need to and now they’re not bothered about you, and to be honest it looks as if it would be in their best interests now if you weren’t around for a whole while longer. So start accepting that this is being done for your good.”

“Rei, what’s all this about? Have you three kidnapped me? What is it you want?”

“I’m sorry Mathew,” said Rei as Philip folded his arms and waited for her to try to pacify the situation. “But Philip’s right, if a little indelicate. I’ve been dismissed for something I didn’t do, so has everyone who worked with you. Did anyone see you yesterday?” Mathew shook his head. “That is because there isn’t anyone left to administer to you. I had to get Deon to bring you out of the clinic disguised as a corpse.”

“Which at least you’ve had good practice at.”

“Shut up Philip. We had to get you out otherwise they were going to let you die. They’ve already broadcast a report that you have relapsed and are now terminally ill.”

“We have to keep you from harm,” said Deon. “There’s more at stake here, you should know that. We have something that we need to do for the future.” Mathew felt a little anxious at the way he spoke. It seemed as if Deon thought they shared a secret.

“Don’t worry about him,” said Philip, without looking over, “he always talks like that. The thing is; you are in trouble. I know you didn’t know anything about it, but there are reasons for the Walden Centre not wanting to help you make a full recovery.”

“What reasons?”

“Well, it looks as if…” started Philip before Rei interrupted.

“We don’t know. We do know that there is a reason that they do not want you to recover, but currently we are not positive why that is. But we know that you are safer here than in the clinic.”

“Oh great, you’ve all really thought this out,” cried Mathew, feeling his headache intensifying. “So I did have all the medical attention I needed and a room and food, and a chance to contact my kid, and maybe even my wife. But you three got a feeling that something was wrong and ‘rescued’ me to…” he looked about the room, “…to this shit hole. And now you want me to get a plane out of here or something. This is fucking brilliant.”

“It would have to be a boat really,” said Deon, while he rummaged in the bag he’d brought. “Although I did think that maybe there might be a rail-route that we could use.”

“Shut up,” growled Mathew. “I think you’ve pissed me off enough for one day.” He sat on the chair by the table and breathed deeply, trying to compose himself.

“I tell you what,” snapped Philip, pointing a finger accusingly at Mathew. “You’d better start trusting people, ’cos none of us has anything much to gain from this. We’ve all put ourselves out for your safety, and at the moment I reckon I’d be better off sending you back where you came from, pal.”

“And what is your interest in this exactly?” asked Mathew. “Why are you all helping me? ’Cos at the moment this seems like the sort of help I could do without.”

“I have lost my job in caring for you,” said Rei quietly, “and that may mean that I get deported. I know that you are in trouble and I feel that I would like to help you, rather than let you perish, which is what would surely happen. Deon feels the same, and so does Philip. He’s been interested in your case since he started his first article on you a few weeks ago.”

“Article? You’re a journalist? Well, that explains a lot. So how much am I worth to you?”

“Nothing if you die before I get my story,” Philip said acidly.

“You’re a regular charmer, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, and you need to have a little more faith. I don’t really care about you, ok, but I want a story, and at the end of the day I don’t see why the clinic should get away with what it’s been doing. And this girl here has no reason whatsoever to help you, except that she wants to. Same with him,” he pointed to Deon. “So just try to accept that we know best. If you want I’ll take you back myself, and you still won’t see your daughter ’cos you’ll be dead in a week. That what you want?”

“I think,” said Deon timidly, “that we all need a little faith here. We all need to trust that things are happening beyond our control for a reason we can’t see yet. Maybe we could pray.”

“Oh do shut the fuck up about your ideas on faith and destiny,” Philip said, cutting Deon off.

“Let him speak, Philip. He’s just as involved in this as you are,” said Rei. “But probably not the praying part, Deon.” She smiled at him and he smiled back. “What were you saying about trust?”

“Well that’s it really. We’re all here, we don’t know why exactly anything happens, but we have to accept it to an extent and try to see the end that is right. And getting Mathew out of the Walden Centre doesn’t mean that he can’t meet up with his daughter. We need to get him out the country, but we can do that and take in Devon in the route. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“It is a good compromise, Philip.” Rei spoke softly to him. “I’m sure in a day or two allowing Mathew to visit his daughter would be possible. I don’t think that the clinic would trace him there…and it would add something to your story. Imagine the impact that a feature on a generation reunited could have.”

“Hmm, maybe.”

“I haven’t agreed to this yet, you know. It is my life you’re playing with.”

“Well, if you have a better idea pal, now would be a good time. I still think it’s dangerous keeping him in the country longer than necessary, but maybe that would be the best way to arrange things. Where is the daughter?”

“I’ve traced her to a place called Beer,” explained Deon, still sorting out his bag and eventually pulling his autopipe out and activating a tablet in one of the compartments.

“Is it definitely Jess?”

“Almost certainly. But we’re not really able to communicate with her except in person.”

“Well that’s what I want to do then.”

No one spoke for a while. Rei was the first one to break the silence and spoke as she wafted away the smell from Deon’s pipe. “Deon, we should arrange transport south. You still think you can do that?” He nodded. “And we should all go. I have a duty still to Mathew and Deon, you have skills that will be needed. Philip? You will be of great use if you come.”

“I need to follow this story to its end. Anyway, no one in London’s going to miss me.”

“You can collect anything that you need, but we should not tell anyone else where we are going. Agreed?”

Deon looked up at her, and she thought he seemed slightly sad as he said, “I don’t have anyone to tell anyway.”

“Nor me,” added Philip. “No one who’d be interested anyhow. Just my editor.”

“I have to make some arrangements tonight, and then I’ll need to go in person to meet the travellers,” Deon said, collecting the bag he had brought with him and packing items from his pockets into it.

“Who?” asked Mathew.

“I can get us ride with some Roamers who have a camp not far from here. “I’ve travelled with them before. I just need to find out when they’re leaving and work out the payments that they want to move us. It should all only take about an hour.”

“Roamers?”

“Travelling people,” explained Philip.

“Gypsies?” Mathew was a little suspicious.

“They’re Roamers, travellers, they’re not really like you’re twentieth century gypsies,” explained Philip. “Although I suppose some are descended from them,” he added.

“I’ll come with you.” Rei was still not totally sure how much she trusted Deon, and preferred to keep him close by. She wasn’t expecting any major trouble from him, but he certainly seemed to have a talent for attracting trouble. “But we should get some rest now and go tomorrow evening when the business at the clinic has subsided.”

“And do we have anything here?” asked Mathew. “Like food and water? And is there any heating? I’m freezing.”

“I’ve had some food and blankets sent here for us.” Philip shouted over his shoulder as he started to unpack a small box in the corner of the room. “A lot’s happened today, and I think we all need some sleep. Deon, you and Rei can go see your friends tomorrow evening, then arrange to get us all away as quick as they can, ok? In the meantime, we’ll just have to make ourselves as comfortable as we can. It may be a little boring, but the next 24 hours may be the last rest we all get for a while.”

After an uncomfortable night they’d spent a dull day locked in the attic room. Philip and Rei had discussed plans and scenarios on where to go when they left Britain, although until they were across the Channel neither of them wanted to commit to anything. Philip also periodically made notes into the voice recorder on his c-pac, while Deon tried to teach Mathew some new skills on his, in particular how to use the interactive gaming facility on the ethervision. It was a long and dull day and Mathew was glad when the light had started to fade and Deon and Rei left for the Roamers’ encampment. If everything went to plan they would be able to leave the following day.

The door shut behind Deon and Rei, leaving Philip and Mathew in the subdued light of the cold room. Philip paced nervously around the two fenestrated sides of the room, looking out of each window at any passers-by in the street. Mathew sat in the centre of the room on an upturned box. He still had the c-pac that Deon had lent him and it was now set it to play patience, one of the few tricks he’d learnt to do with the machine over the course of the day. He sat quietly flicking the electronically displayed cards over in front of him, then wiping the deck and starting again, hardly looking at his anxious companion. He was still fascinated by the way that he could touch and interact with the projected images, although he had a problem comprehending that he could not feel the cards that his hand moved. Philip left the window and moved across to the far side of the room, producing a bottle from the bag that he’d brought with him.

“That queen there can go on the pile to your left,” Philip said.

“I don’t need your help,” replied Mathew.

“You know if you use the integrated system you don’t have to have to have the cards visible to everyone on the ethervision, then it won’t annoy anyone passing, who won’t have to tell you how to play the fucking game.”

“Or you could just ignore it!”

“Fuck this,” Philip said. “I’m having a drink. Want one?”

“No thanks,” replied Mathew curtly, not looking up from the cards that floated unsupported in the air in front of him, and selecting a ‘7’ from it.

“Don’t approve?”

“It’s nothing to do with me what you do, Philip. I’d just rather have a clear head.”

“Suit yourself.” Philip poured a measure of scotch into a metal beaker and downed the contents swiftly before refilling the cup.

“Are you going to get pissed?”

“Huh?”

“Are you getting drunk?” repeated Mathew, saying the words slowly and deliberately, as if he was talking to a non-too-bright twelve-year-old.

“I’m nervous. I’ve put my fucking neck out here. I have no contingency plan, and we seem to have no real strategy to work with at all. We have to rely on some over-zealous religious crank who we know very little about, and we’re about to make some kind of trade-off with the travellers in order to get us somewhere which isn’t where we need to go. I’ve helped spring a patient from an unethical medical facility, run by a devious prick, who wants him dead, and I’ve set off a couple of minor explosives in the centre of London. So yes, I’m going to have a drink and think things through. It’s how I work. And no, I’m not getting ‘pissed’. Is that ok with you?”

“Like I said, it’s nothing to do with me. It’s just I’ve seen people before who drank ’cos they couldn’t cope with reality and I’m not comfortable with it to be honest.”

“I’m sorry?!
You’re
not comfortable? Well, Mr Reality, perhaps you should waken up a bit.” Philip had been biting his lip, but the tension brought his anger to the surface. “Coming from a man who’s so in touch with reality that he can’t even accept that he’s not fucking immortal I find that a bit offensive. So you can just lighten up and shut up, ’cos I really don’t give a rat’s what you think about me at the moment. You want to remember who’s helping who here. Got it?”

Mathew said nothing, but went back to his card game. Philip glared at him for a few seconds, but got no response. He downed another mouthful of the warm liquid, thought about topping up the beaker and decided against it before he went back to his watch of the windows. The street was fairly quiet and the rooftops were silhouetted through the rain in the twilight of the day as ethervision adverts started to flicker to life in front of the offices.

After a few minutes of seeing nothing Philip started to grow bored and wondered back to the centre of the room. He checked the time and gave an exaggerated sigh.

“They’re only supposed to be an hour.”

“How long has it been?” asked Mathew, not looking up.

“Just on an hour and a quarter.”

“Is it still raining?”

“Fuck this. I can’t just sit here and talk about the sodding weather.”

“What exactly is your problem?” Mathew cleared the cards as he spoke and looked directly at Philip for the first time since the others had left. The cards fluttered in mid air before disappearing. He didn’t like coming over aggressively, and was worried about aggravating the twinge in his chest that he’d felt since waking up here, but Brading had been winding him up all day and he was really ready to have it out with the man, however bad he felt.

“You! You’re my fucking problem.” Philip marched up to Mathew and stood over him as he spoke, his face slightly reddened and the veins on his temples throbbed. “Because of you and some fucking mental idea about immortality that you had last century, I’m left standing in a deserted warehouse in south east London on a wet evening, when I could be at home working on a story that would actually pay some bills. But no, I’m babysitting you with a vague idea about possibly writing something that no one will care about in a week’s time. I’m a journo and you, my friend, are short-term news, and do you know why? ’Cos there’s no human interest in this story. It’s about your stupid ego. How important did you think you were, that you’d be of some use to the world in the future?”

“I never wanted to be of any use, I wanted to live a full life. I don’t want to be immortal, but I never wanted to wanted to die in my thirties either. Do you? I was ill you know, or had you forgotten that. I’m 38; I have a wife and kid. Or at least I did, and just maybe I still do somewhere. I was told that I was never going to see my daughter grow up. Never see her married. No more birthdays, Christmases, nothing. Leave my wife and family and everything that I loved. And I found a way to change that. I’m a family man, I’m not a solo agent like you. I don’t really expect you to understand that but do you really think that makes me an egotist?” Mathew realised that tears were welling in his eyes and fought to hide his face from the bulky journalist.

“I think it makes you naïve at best. Look, I don’t want to just have a go for the sake of it. But this hasn’t turned out to be the best thing you could do for yourself…or your family.”

“You wouldn’t understand. You think you’re pretty clever and successful. But what do you do? Pour that shit down your throat every time you have a problem. And where are your friends, your family. You don’t have any ’cos no one gives a fuck about you or your opinions. You criticise things that you know sod all about and hurt people for the sake of it. You’d have been an excellent journalist in the twentieth century, you know, they were all full of shite too.”

Mathew waited for the return, but instead a grin came over Philip’s face.

“What the hell does ‘shite’ mean?” he asked condescendingly. Mathew lightened up and grinned slightly for the first time in a while.

“It’s a turn of phrase I suppose. I guess nobody uses that anymore. Can we just try and get along and make the best of this situation?” Phil nodded, still smiling to himself.

“Yeah, OK. Let’s just try not shite on each other, eh?”

Mathew laughed. “It doesn’t really sound right like that. But I’m sure we can manage to talk civilly for the time this is going to take. And maybe there is a story here. I could be your big break. I remember the press coverage when the first heart transplant took place…” Phil held out a hand to stop Mathew.

“You crack me up you know. ‘Shite’, the first transplant, you’ll start on about the Poll Tax next. Perhaps we should put you on the screen as a kind of out of time comic.

“But seriously, did you really think you going to wake up in some future utopia and everything would be great and they’d be pleased to have you?”

“Well, yes,” said Mathew, slightly embarrassed. “That is pretty much it. I never saw myself as a news story, or going on the run from some fucked-up clinic. All the films we watched as kids showed the future as a glittering place where anything was possible.”

“Really? And you bought all that?”

“Well, no, yes, sort of. I always assumed the future would be better than the present. I thought that there was always progress.”

“You know in the Middle Ages they thought the perfect world was the Garden of Eden, and everything after that was decaying until the world ended. The idea of progress creating a better world is a fairly modern notion.”

“Well, this isn’t the future that I was expecting to wake up in.”

“So what did you think you’d do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Work, employment, how you’d support yourself, that sort of stuff.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really think that far ahead. But I felt cheated. I’m only 38. I’ve a beautiful wife and baby girl. I wasn’t ready to die. I just wanted Paula and myself to be able to start again with a clean slate. You know some people live for years, decades, with people that they hate. We’re in love. We are a really close family and I’m going to do anything that I can to stop that being torn apart.”

“But you don’t know where she is.”

“Who? Paula or Jessica?”

“Well, either. You’ve got nothing to go on yet. You don’t know that Paula is in cryopreservation.”

“Why wouldn’t she be? It was arranged, I can still find her.”

“Fine. So let’s say that you find her and get someone to bring her back. What then? What about your girl.”

“Well, I’m not thinking that far ahead yet. Deon reckons that he’s got a lead and that’s good enough for me for the moment.” Mathew paused for a moment and looked at the strange place, in the strange world, that he’d landed in. “I was cheated,” he continued. “I’m a young man. I mean ok, I’m no teenager, but I should have had years ahead of me. Decades. I hadn’t had time to do anything constructive with my life. Some people lead terrible lives and live for years longer than I have. It isn’t fair. I’ve never made my mark on the world….” Philip held up a hand to stop him again.

“Life isn’t fair pal. Karma doesn’t hunt down every bad person. Justice is arbitrary. Just because you died, er, sorry, I mean…well, you know what I mean. Anyway, just because you were in your thirties doesn’t mean you hadn’t had time to achieve anything. Alexander the Great died at 33, and by that time he’d conquered virtually the entire known world. Look at all the great people who died young and still left legacies behind them. Maybe you’re just one of those many billions of people destined not to make a mark on the world in that way. Look at what you did leave behind. Your family was your legacy, but the people of your time all seemed to be so obsessed with fame and longevity that you couldn’t just accept the ephemeral nature of life. It’s like that quote from John Lennon about everyone being famous for a day.”

“It was Andy Warhol and the time was fifteen minutes.”

“Whatever. But the fact that you even knew that just shows how captivated by celebrity you people were. Most of us never really make our stamp in history like that. We carry on and do what we can, but we can’t all expect to be celebrated in our own lifetimes; let alone in other eras. You had a disease that couldn’t be cured in your time. It’s sad, but it happens. We still can’t cure everything. People still die, they’re still poor, and they’re still downtrodden. There are still famines and disasters. Do you want everyone to achieve lasting success and longevity? And what about the next time?”

“How do mean?” Mathew pulled a blanket from a pile and wrapped himself in it, shivering.

“Ok. You’ve been cured and reanimated, yeah. But not forever. Here you are in the second half of the twenty-first century, and what happens when you get ill now? What about if you get a major brain tumour, or a cancer that’s not caught in time? What about dementia? You can still get old and deteriorate you know. And what about the fact that the world’s so grossly overpopulated? Christ, if we all lived on into the next century there wouldn’t be enough food. We’ve already stretched out aquacultural resources to their limit. For fuck’s sake there probably wouldn’t be enough oxygen.”

“So you think I’m being selfish?”

“I think that you’re hopelessly misguided in your beliefs. I mean, is this the future that you expected?”

“I don’t know. I sort of expected everything to be glass and steel, and automated. Maybe I’ve seen too many sci-fi films. Perhaps I thought all the cars would fly and we’d all wear silver suits.” Mathew smiled at the idea and looked out at street full of motorbikes and dirt.

“Depends where you are. It’s certainly not like that in Europe since the Depression.”

“What depression.”

“It’s so weird, of course you don’t know any twenty-first century history do you?” Mathew looked blankly back. To be truthful, he thought, he didn’t actually know much twentieth century history either, but he kept quiet.

“When you were alive, I mean before, what were the important areas and nations? Europe, America and the Soviet Union?”

“Well Russia sort of went downhill in the late 1980s, but yeah, I guess that’s about right,” Mathew said, wondering where this was going.

“And I expect you thought that would always be pretty much the same, yeah?” Mathew nodded.

“And what was their prosperity based on, do you think?”

“I don’t know. Military power?”

“Well, yes, in a way. But largely it was oil. Economies rose and fell depending on the price of oil, and that helped power the technological breakthroughs of your time. The car, the microchip, travel and communications were all based, in a roundabout sort of way, on oil. And the Middle East had the capacity to hold the Western World, as it was, to ransom. But the West played different areas, differing countries, off against each other to destabilise the region and so create a more stable environment for itself while they tried to expand their own natural resources.”