6) High Times
GERMANY
HAMBURG DOCK ZONE
Lather was having a nightmare, he knew and understood it, but still couldn't wake up or stop the dream from relentlessly happening even as it got worse and worse. Until only a few weeks ago when the Terrible Thing happened a nightmare would only take him to a certain point before reality impinged enough to wake him.
Not any more. This time he'd been dreaming of being on a deserted beach, at dusk, with only a wind from the sea making a noise. The waves seemed dark, even oily, the sand had a reddish cast to it and stretching before him endlessly was a trail of footprints in the sand. Compelled to follow the footprints, he trudged on, noticing how the dunes to his left gradually rose above him and became a sheer cliff. While he walked on the sea washed up the beach behind him, cutting off any retreat. Then he began to notice the footprints weren't quite … proper, there were six toes to each impression. Nor was that all - the longer he followed the trail, the more grotesque the prints became, twisted, malefic. Ahead in the distance the cliffs curved around to meet the shoreline in a dead blank rock wall that met the sea. Behind, lapping three metres deep, the sea barred any withdrawal. And ahead, just vaguely visible, a dark shape in the distance, the creator of those "footprints", squatting beneath the cliff, becoming clearer in detail as he drew nearer.
Not surprisingly, Lothar woke with a shriek when his squat-mate, Peiter, shook his shoulder.
'I've told you,' snapped Lothar peevishly at breakfast. 'I haven't dropped any acid or Hype. Nothing hallucinogenic, okay? I haven't taken any so I don't have any so stop pissing me off.'
"Breakfast": an expansive term for half a carton of almost stale soya milk, a black market duck egg acquired in a trade, a few stale slices of wurst already spotted with mould. Their portable heater/cooker unit lay in one corner of the dully-echoing attic space, abandoned since they didn't possess anything to cook on it and it was out of fuel tablets anyway. No matter, the weather was warm, the attic well-insulated - perhaps they could trade it, mused Lothar.
'Okay, okay.' Peiter sulked for a minute. He really liked the strong psychedelic agents but the supply had dried up of late. A crackdown, some dealers said. A bottleneck, others said. Quality control, said others. A drug war, said the police, who knew the truth.
''D'you want some hash?' asked Lothar, offering a tiny metal pipe. Peiter shook a reluctant head. Smoking cannabis or any of its derivatives made him ravenous but once again - nothing to eat.
Lothar carried on. As the fumes rattled round hid lungs he cast a bleary eye over their current abode, idly reflecting on how they'd gotten in.
The two were living within the false ceiling of a huge derelict warehouse at the very eastern end of Hamburg's dock zone. Originally it had been a bonded warehouse, holding liquor, tobacco, electronics, software. A false ceiling was installed to hold air-conditioning, lighting and alarm systems: it had been constructed strongly to support such equipment, more than adequate to hold the weight of two people. When the Port Authority opened up new macro-cellular modular warehouses the older ones had been stripped of their fittings and left to decay. Apparently it was uneconomical to demolish them immediately and through oversights one or two - such as the one Lothar and Pieter occupied - remained standing.
Initially they'd only come in, out of a nasty positive pH rain after sneaking in through rents in surrounding fences. Discovering a vertical rust-encrusted ladder, Pieter borrowed their flashlight and climbed seventy metres to discover their best hiding place so far. Later they removed the ladder and made a rope one of their own. Even if both were out of the attic they could still get back up, since Pieter stole a remote-control spindle and beamer unit. All you needed to do was point in the approximate direction, press the button and hey presto, down came a rope ladder. To hide it after use, simply press reverse. If ever the technology they could resurrect the old iron ladder.
Melodramatic and over-elaborate? No, not really. They had used it twice so far to hide when in fear for their skins. First occasion, they were about two minutes ahead of a gang of enraged Hell's Angels. The Angels thought that they were getting twenty per cent pure heroin, seven grams worth. What they got was an eighth gram sample plus six-and-seven-eights of uncoloured cosmetics base. Neither Lothar nor Pieter expected their violent victims to inject to soon after purchase and suffer the puking horrors. They were glad of the loft then - the Angels had come hunting with swords and shotguns … On the second occasion; when the Polizei made a huge sweep through the whole dock district for low-life of all sorts, especially druggies. They'd hid after frantically running, not daring to emerge for three days.
'Hey, Pieter, what say we trade the heater? We could get a fair bit for it..'
'What? Talk sense! D'you think they'll trade dope for that down on the circuit? Don't be an arse.'
Lothar swore back.
'You stupid Dutch tosser! I meant we take it down to Apple Street, flog it there. There's loads of traders that end - second-hand, third-hand, pawn shops, barter stalls. Take the money, right? And go back to the Circuit. Stop on the way and get some food, salad stuff.'
Pieter hummed to himself for a few minutes, thinking. That hater was their Number One item, German Wehrmacht surplus, compact, powerful and efficient, worth about seven hundred although they'd be lucky to get three, four if the gods were with them. On the other hand, the loft insulation was excellent, so they didn't actually need a heater. Cooked food? Limited to toast and eggs, actually -
'Okay! Let's do it!'
They had stolen the heater anyway so it wouldn't be that much of a wrench to part with it.
Yuri's: a garish neon sign above a heavy riveted door, paintless after a decade of use and abuse. Under Hamburg's licensing regulations, Yuri's was a club, open only during the hours of darkness, less strictly monitored than an inn, bar or hostel. Being on the Circuit, the clientele were whores, dealers, users, pimps, runners and general drifters. People who were serious about obtaining illegal services gravitated towards places such as Yuri's; only fools and tourists bothered to deal with the people who stood on street corners.
Lothar and Pieter both met at Yuri's. Pieter being there after fleeing from Holland and a badly bungled robbery, Lothar running from the aftermath of the Terrible Thing. Both liked the relaxed atmosphere where tension rarely surfaced.
Now clutching various groceries, they moved through layers of smoke to the secluded seats farthest from the bar. Dealer territory.
'Hi!' said a weaselly little Moroccan known as Ben, whom they knew. 'Hey, do I have a deal for you. Sit, sit.'
They sat with Ben and made some purchases; marijuana resin, Hype and a few metamphetamines. By convention they remained to smoke one with their dealer.
'Are you available for, ah, work, lads?' asked Ben in his appalling German.
'Work? That depends, really. What kind, how's the pay, and so on,' replied Lothar.
Ben tapped his nose.
'Follow me.'
He led the two wary men to what had been a storeroom. Pieter nervously fingered a double-edged knife hidden up one shirt sleeve; Lothar shrugged fretfully, ready to act in a hurry if need be.
There was only one item of furniture in the room, a cheap plastic table. Behind it stood three men - no, make that a woman and two very large men. Shit! thought Lothar, bad news. What if they get nasty! How do we cope with them when carrying ten tonnes of groceries in our arms?
Happily, there was no need to cope.
"Mrs Schmidt" introduced herself, then explained, after dismissing Ben, that she would like to offer them employment. Pieter by reputation had a way with gadgets, Lothar was large and strong and most relevant of all, the duo had a secure bolthole in the docks zone. Location unknown but definitely a secure rathole.
What the lady wanted were pictures and diagrams of a special secure warehouse deep in the dock zone - hence the offer made to the two dock rats. They would be given a Velos camera and five thousand in advance, an additional twenty thousand upon successful completion. The greed circuit present in the human mind promptly switched on in both Lothar and Pieter. They accepted. No questions about the warehouse were answered, but they worked it out between themselves on the way home; it must contain impounded drugs, taken from the streets, from black market sources, from grey market medical houses. They knew Mrs Schmidt fronted for some vague personality in the background, but the five thousand marks and the Velos camera were reassuringly concrete.
Thus: a night later after a thorough reconnaissance they had gotten past an inner security fence, across an inert electronic moat, through a positive maze of hive-like modular warehouses. Pieter drew a map during daylight to ensure they reached Storage Facility #122. Now, from a hundred metres away they carefully lay low, taking a few pictures then moving, taking a few pictures then moving, trying to cover all sides of the warehouse. Surprisingly enough there was still activity at this late hour, vast hoverbed trucks loading and unloading, attended by flocks of uniformed staff.
Maybe it wasn't drugs after all, concluded Lothar. They noted at least six different alarm systems in or around 122 and some of those - uniformed? - staff carried guns.
'ARE YOU TWO HAVING FUN?' boomed a hollow voice above them. They had missed the seventh alarm system, a powered miniature glider carrying an electronic snout and operated by a keen-eyed Customs Control officer, who switched on the glider's spotlight and played it over the horrified duo.
'REMAIN STATIONARY. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST.'
Lothar froze, thinking a single thought repeatedly. Pieter leapt up and fled as hordes of uniforms from the warehouse raced towards them.
'STAND STILL,' echoed the giant voice from above.
Pieter kept right on, straight into the now activated electronic moat, which promptly gave him an electric shock powerful enough to throw him to the ground, stunned. Lothar stayed perfectly still, until he noticed the red epaulettes on the shoulders of the Customs Control officers pointing guns at him.
Oh shit, he thought, scared enough to start shaking. The Fed.
7) Power Cut
JULY 1
ASHTABULA
OHIO
"Responsibility".
That had to be the word, responsibility. Cleavon knew how to say it and he knew what it meant but dammit if he knew how to spell the wretched word. After all, there seemed to be lots of vowels in it. He could guess at the spelling, of course. He managed "R-E-S-P-O-N" before deciding against it. If this application form got spoilt they might not accept it. Cow crap! Why couldn't he have done better at school! And despite all the high-tec surveillance gear arrayed around him nothing would tell him how to spell.
A quick check of the compound screen showed nothing unusual. Good; he might get this application finished tonight. If he didn't, Marie would chew him out and go sleep in the guest room again.
'Cleavon, you there?' asked a speaker unit. That would be Pollock, the new supervisor, checking up.
'Yes. What's up?'
'Oh, nothing special. There's a new Guy patrolling your section of the fence tonight, just watch he doesn't trip any alarms, okay?'
After a wait of several minutes, sure enough, the Guy patrolling the perimeter hove into view. Big and muscly and smooth in motion, carrying a heavy machine gun.
No use asking a Guy about spelling. It (actually a "he" but sterile and usually seen as genderless) had the IQ of a small child. Dedicated, loyal, tireless and stupid because Uncle Sam didn't want intelligent Genetic Utility Infantry to pose a threat to Homo Sapiens. The Guy plodded out of sight behind the entrance sign that read "Welcome to Ashtabula! Atom City USA!". Cleavon nodded to himself in affirmation that no matter how dumb he might be, the Guy made him look smart. He carried on with his form, carefully. Should he get caught "shirking" he would be summarily dismissed. Although there were no monitor screens in the post there might be vision sensors hidden in order to spy on him, nor could you ever be sure that there wasn't an observer watching you at some time.
Cleavon worked as one of the shift security guards (for which read "night watchmen") monitoring the immense perimeter fence that guarded "Atom City", festooned with black lights, radar traps, seismic sensors, detection apparatus of every kind. The fence itself was electrified and topped with mono-molecular wire. Moats ten metres wide and three metres deep lay both in front of and behind the fence, spanned only at the guard post by a narrow bridge. Patrols swept the barren land and made a point of killing any wildlife encountered, ensuring that "critters" did not cause false alarms by encroaching on the fence zone. Wildlife, though, did not thrive in this environment.
And why ..? Because of nuclear energy. Fusion power was all very well but fissile materials derived from the fission process were essential to the American nuclear weapons program. Uranium, plutonium, thorium, all came from the clandestine shadow plants at Ashtabula. Nuclear energy produced there powered the domestic and industrial areas of the North-Eastern USA in a convenient military-industrial symbiosis. On the debit side a combination of pollution, waste and accidents had made an area of concern to conservationists both moderate and radical: hence the security. Fiscal competition, plus a little energy blackmail, led to occasional forays against Atom City by Pennsylvanian Energy Authority Agents: hence the security. Internally the heads of Atom City worried about their continuing commission from the Department of Energy, Fissile Fuels Division and the Department of Defence, Fissile Procurement Division: hence the security. Also, the spectre of nuclear war persisted in the human psyche; Pennsylvania wished to retain and remain the -sylvan part of it's name; the conversion of Transylvania to "Transplutonia" in the Last War was remembered: hence the security.
The security was intended to prevent intruders from entering and thieves from leaving. It worked. There had been no incident for over seven months now and the last one involved a rather pathetic attempt to break in by three West Virginians from an extremist environmental group (all three now safely dead). Cleavon thought it reasonable, therefore, for his taking time out to fill out his application to the New America Party in the small hours of the morning, unworried by the possibility of disturbance (he left a small blank space to fill in later when he got the chance to check that spelling).
Reasonable, but wrong.
A screen started to flash; a speaker buzzed; a string of codewords raced across a monitor.
'Attention please, attention please, we are now being subjected to an attack,' droned the artificial voice of the sentry speaker.
Cleavon sat up in abrupt surprise, listening to the incongruously calm computer-generated voice.
'An attack! From where!'
'An assault by persons unknown conveyed in three air-cushion vehicles. They are headed towards this section of fencing. Attention please, attention please, we are now being subjected to an attack. Att-'
He shut out the annoying voice. Another one came through, Pollock shouting questions at him. Cleavon ignored the supervisor, rotating cameras and running through the detection spectrum.
There …
Distant but rapidly drawing closer, three vehicles, yes. Three hovertanks skimming along in follow-the-leader formation. They seemed ready for action, lights extinguished and hatched locked down, turrets tracking slowly from right to left. When they got nearer to the fence zone passive defence measures started up; huge red warning holograms materialised: STOP; DANGER; AVERT; LETHAL FORCE WILL BE USED; NO MORE WARNINGS.
'Cleavon! Who the hell are they! Jesus Mary Joseph, Central, are you getting any of this?'
On came the tanks, remorseless and faceless, neither slowing nor speeding, making no radio contact with the signalling sentries, closing fast on the fence and leaving a rolling wake of dust behind them.
Tank number one cut power just short of the outer moat. Carried on by momentum, it sailed into space and dripped into the moat at almost a hundred kilometres per hour, wrecking itself with a noise Cleavon could hear and a tremor that he felt deep in his bones. The next two tanks raced over the improvised bridge of their fallen comrade, number three slowing down considerably. Number two ran straight into the fencing with a huge blue flash as the whole section shorted out. Leaving a great ragged rent and carrying sheets of wire netting, the hovertank crashed into the inner moat and stopped dead. Tank number three shot through the newly created hole and over the smoking wreck of the second tank, headed for Lake Erie and the PowerPlex with nothing to stop it. Cleavon rotated cameras to track the rapidly disappearing vehicle, shaking his head in awe and fear. He wanted the tank to stop, turn around, vanish, do anything except carry on. The tank merely dwindled into the distance and darkness beyond the camera's ability to resolve.
Pollock's voice still rang, panic-stricken, from the speakers, issuing instructions, another supervisor shouted from another speaker and alarms shrieked all along the fence.
Then, unexpectedly, a series of explosions came from the direction that the assaulting tank had arrowed away to, then another violent firecracker, then another.
Cleavon slumped in his seat with a deep, dark pit opening up in his stomach, looking at the screens but no longer seeing them. Cow crap. With what just happened he'd be lucky to live to see tomorrow, he couldn't have seen it but that, of course, in the current State of Emergency, made no difference. Just in case, he'd torn up the application form and burnt it, ground up the ashes and mixed them up with the waste in his refuse bin. Inspiration struck him and he powered down the monitors in the booth, left and locked the door. A quick sprint brought him to the wrecked tank lying in the outer moat. The turret, torn from its mounting by the force of the crash, lay at an odd angle with smoke seeping out from the narrow gaps between the hull and turret base.
This, thought Cleavon, will convince them that I was on the ball, not jerking off in the booth. He unholstered his side-arm and shot off a whole clip at the wreck (the first and only time he ever used the gun). Small bright splotches showed on the hull of the tank where the bullets ricocheted off and removed paint as they did so.
Cleavon returned to his booth seconds before a fireball rose in the dark behind him. At first he ducked, thinking that one of the wrecks in the moat had blown up, but when he looked backwards he saw a twisting tongue of fire rising many kilometres away. He sat in his chair and stared at the floor in stunned disbelief. Those attacking hovertanks had been embellished with the insignia of the Ashtabula Security Force, leased from the Fourth Armoured Division. Why would they carry out a suicidal assault like this?
8) Blackmail (and Strong Drink)
LONDON
JULY 10th
Alex drove from the motel back to work. Each night he'd slept over in a different hotel, paying cash instead of using a card, signing an illegible signature, avoiding people. Avoiding his flat, too, avoiding thinking about his predicament. It was a temporary measure and he knew it. As he slowed down for a red light an unregistered black saloon blocked him in front. Looking behind, he saw another unregistered black saloon blocking the rear; two people had left it and were casually walking towards him and when he looked to the front there were two people there as well. One pair went to the offside door, one pair to the nearside. Although they obviously represented authority, they politely knocked at the window.
He sighed and opened the door, prepared for the worst. In a strange way the politeness of these English felt far more unsettling than the treatment meted out to suspects back in Serbia - rough and uncompromising to the point of brutality.
'Mister Petrovic? Yes? Please leave your car, sir,' asked a nondescript person. There seemed to be a bulge under each armpit.
'Who are you?' asked Alex out of morbid curiosity, not really expecting an answer.
'Police, sir,' and all four produced coded hologram chips at the same instant in an incongruously comic manner. Alex peered. NEW NEW SCOTLAND YARD glimmered back at him, set deep in an intricate jewelled nest of ideograms. They were the real thing all over, this foursome; two metres tall, bland looks (surgery, perhaps?), sharp foxy eyes, deferential manners sugar-coating an undoubtedly hostile cast. One of them took his elbow in a grip just short of painful, urging him forward to a black saloon. Another policeman got into Alex's car.
'Am I under arrest?'
'Please get in the car, sir.'
'No, you are not under arrest, Mister Petrovic. We are acting on behalf of the Concordat.'
'Oh. And what does the Concordat want with me?'
'You are to be delivered to South London Sorting Office.'
Nothing else was said for the rest of the trip. Alex felt his heart alternately flit like a bird and thump like a hammer. He didn't feel comfortable about that title, "South London Sorting Office", and wondered just what it was.
It was a large modular warehouse, an accretion of geodesics only identified by a small and discreet plaque. Around about were other similar buildings, some empty, others being emptied or stocked. A lone figure waved cheerfully to them from an access hatch set in a truck-sized doorway in the Sorting Office wall, then came trotting over the concrete apron to meet them. Alex was forced out of the saloon, which then drove off at speed. None of the police even glanced back.
'Miserable long-faced lot, aren't they?' said the receptionist, and said it in Serbian. 'I'm Slobodan, by the way. Any questions? Well, of course you have. Come along and I'll answer them.' He looked good-natured, sharp-eyed and intelligent, almost like a fox rendered human.
Alex considered running away but the almost subconscious voice of caution warned him not to. Just as well, for Slobodan had instructions to get his client to the warehouse by any means possible; "alive" being the only constraint. This insistence was because the warehouse happened to be FedCon territory and they had full jurisprudence over any employee within it's bounds. Slobodan found that a friendly, curiosity-arousing approach worked best, especially if the escorts who delivered clients were a singularly humourless as those of New New Scotland Yard. He was, however, quite prepared to use threats of weapons or both if he had to.
'Where's my car! And what about work -'
'Don't fret so. The police have driven your car back to Badfort. They called your supervisor to say that you were called up to do jury service.'
Alex entered through the service hatch. Two very large people stepped in behind him: uniform-clad FAA police, implicitly forcing their escortee forward. One male, one female, both looking professionally unpleasant.
South London Sorting Office consisted of stacked offices constructed from modular sections. The small party entered one office which in fact led to a basement level. Alex led the way along a series of anonymous corridors until a sharp thrust from behind threw him headlong into a cramped cell. The door swung shut behind him and no lights followed. He panicked momentarily, then realised why: rotting straw. They made the place smell of rotting straw, just like that evil little oubliette in America. Before taking a step forward he waved both hands in front of him.
Nothing there. No trips or traps. However, since they had used smell, they ought to hit him with another type of sense assault.
They did. Sounds, pitched just below two hundred decibels, a mixture of hideous two kilohertz wailing and massively amplified gunshots. Then, just as he started to recover from that, they used -
Lights, actinic kliegs flashing stroboscopically at nearly seven times per second, bright enough to penetrate beneath the eyelids. Alex curled up and cowered, terrified of suffering an epileptic fit under these stimuli.
The sensory barrage continued for an almost unendurable, nerve-shredding time. Then - nothing.
Hidden in the cell was a speaker.
'Hello there!' came Slobodan' s voice. 'This, Alex, is an Eagle Two.'
Eagle Two. Shit, thought Alex, miserable and dejected, also disoriented. I'm being interrogated. Eagle Two meant they had already performed an Eagle Three - namely, covert observation of a subject, monitoring their activity, friends, relatives, background, finances. Eagle Two came next in the progression, the direct, confrontational interrogation of a suspect. These cell walls probably bulged with monitoring electronics.
'Please respond to the questions we ask you, Alex. This is your opportunity to clarify your position.' Translation: answer or suffer.
'Full name.'
'Alexander Dragan Petrovic.'
'Place of birth.'
'Sjenika, Serbia, Yugoslav Federal Republic.'
'Personnel number.'
'Can't remember.'
'Don't lie, Alex! Personnel number.'
'Ah - no, still can't remember.'
'Ho ho, most amusing. Why didn't you declare your earnings?'
'Earnings? Oh, earnings. Because I'd worked bloody hard for them, doing all the research and I wrote them before joining the Fed. You don't just throw away two years hard work for nothing.'
'Your address please.'
On and on and on went the session, for hours and hours. Gradually Alex calmed down, the raw fear that manifested itself earlier becoming an irritation at the bland questioning.
Just as surmised, each wall (also floor and ceiling) of his confinement room were full of eavesdropping equipment, subtle electronic sages constantly monitoring up to twenty-eight different parameters: galvanic skin response, pupil dilation, respiration rate, heart rate, vasodilation, horripilation and a host of other measures beyond the ability of all but a yogi to control. From a central processor the raw data passed to SLSO's resident psychologist, who came up with a rapid interpretation of the information, since a certain Mister Weiss of UNION was waiting for a definitive answer. At that moment one of UNION's agents watched the psychologist working, ready to take a reply and personal observation back to his superior.
'That's it, Mister Gelb. First run analysis complete. Want to hear it?'
'Condense it.'
'Ah. Okay. Our subject seems to possess a colossal guilt problem. Principally his guilt stems from the money he has, which appears rather meaningless to him. Not just the money but the things it also provides - nice car, holidays abroad, costly flat. This seems to derive from his experiences in Mexico. You will have noticed that he allocated, by covenant, had the money back to his family in Serbia. Now, if you want a punchline, what our subject is seeking, or has been seeking, in life is an epiphany. What he is looking for, though he may not have verbalised it quiet so, is some type of purging experience that would remove his guilt and make him believe that he was doing something of genuine worth. He looks back on his time in Mexico with mixed feelings, you see; it felt terrifying at the time but also vital. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he has a request in for transfer to DRA, to go to the Maghreb or back to Mexico.'
'Would he take our offer seriously?'
The psychologist laughed.
'He doesn't have much choice, does he? Sorry. Seriously - ah, well, it would jar his sensibilities to begin with. Make it an unpleasant initiation, though, and I guarantee he will pass it, to simultaneously defy you and redeem himself. There might be a problem, though.'
Gelb turned and looked enquiringly at his partner.
'As I said, Mexico made a profound impression on him. He saw death at close proximity and with regularity. From his admissions and from what I deduce he made a private agreement with himself never to kill anyone.'
Oh really, thought Gelb. The Eagle Three team didn't get quite that impression when they met Petrovic for the first time. He was going for a weapon in the kitchen, probably one of those fancy German mono-blade knives. Whatever, Weiss had instructed that Petrovic be inducted; if found passable he could be used, if not they could throw him to the wolves in some appropriate manner. And, contrary to public opinion, UNION did not exist solely to kill people.
'Ah. It is, perhaps, time to send in the shadow,' said the psychologist.
(SHADOW: "A dark image, an area of relative darkness, a threatening influence, a spectre, an inseparable companion, a person who trails another in secret, such as a detective")
Eventually Alex lost his temper at the questions and simply shouted curses in response to each new query. After being grumpy and angry then irritable and bored, Alex returned to the door of his cell.
Unlocked! They must be playing games with him. He carefully stepped out and breathed stale but clean air circulating around the nondescript corridors.
After appearing out of nowhere, the FAA police marched Alex though more corridors, seemingly at random until (surprise!) both escorts moved away at the entrance to yet another room. This one seemed relatively appealing, far more so than the last one, since it featured two reclining chairs, a small table, a person - male, late twenty-ish, wearing a wry smile and an earlink monitor. Upon the table sat a bottle and two glasses.
'Take a seat. I'm Milos, by the way. So we meet at long last, hey?'
Alex sat. Milos sat. Together they sat, in silence. Milos, however, was being supplied with information via the earlink about his assignee. He received a prompt.
'Do you want some slivovitz? Good stuff. One two zero per cent proof.'
Suspicion bloomed within Alex, the old ugly flower that impelled him to caution and care.
'What is it with UNION? Are you all Serbs? Oh - I get it. This is the pleasant side of my interrogation, isn't it. Pretty stupid of me not to realise.' He didn't drink anything.
Milos got a glass and absently clinked it against the bottle of spirits. Then he got another feed from the eavesdropping psychologist.
- be honest with him, tell him about Shadowing -
'I'll be honest with you. I'm a Shadow.'
For a shadow he looked curiously solid and three-dimensional.
'It's my job to study in detail any person who's under investigation, reading about them, studying them, trailing them. So I know all about you, though you don't know me at all. This meeting may change that.'
Alex remained silent and sullen.
'Now, you're bound to wonder what we're up to.'
- explain to him about shadows, explain that to him -
'As a shadow I can explain anything you want to know about my employers and your future employers.'
Alex reached for a glass at those words. A phrase of Neil's came back from their conversation back at his flat came back unbidden as his stomach clenched and his throat dried up: "You could offer to work for them."
'Future employers! Do you know something I don't?'
Milos smiled a knowing smile. No, make that an annoying, knowing smile.
'I promise to tell you the truth. UNION want you as an employee.'
Which happened to be what Alex didn't want to hear but expected anyway. Half expected. Internally he took stock: they might blackmail him into working for them but he'd never become one of them and he'd certainly not break his rule against taking life. The eavesdroppers and interpreters had doubtless learned that during the interrogation and could make of it whatever they wanted. Why would UNION want an unco-operative, unwilling Serb working for them? he asked himself, then answered his own question: all those contacts in Greece, people he knew, addresses, personal profiles, political sympathies, weaknesses, general assessment work he could carry out.
'I'd be useless.'
'Oh, I'm afraid not, Alex. You are actually a prime candidate for recruitment.'
'What! Oh, come on! Christ Risen, this gets worse. What do you mean?'
- stop smiling, he doesn't like it. Talk in a commiserative way, as if you're sorry for him -
'A prime candidate. Alex, what do you think UNION's most pressing problem is?'
'Not enough people to shoot?'
- ignore that and carry on -
'Actually it's their staff.'
Alex looked blank.
''They simply can't get enough staff of the right calibre. Those they get they can't retain. It's a perennial problem. Another?' he asked, referring to the bottle.
'Yes. Cheers.'
'So, a person such as yourself makes a good catch. To use the example of carrot and stick, they have a large blackmail stick to beat you over the head with just in case you're reluctant -'
- don't overdo it! -
'- with the carrot of being able to do what you really want to do, helping people directly instead of pushing a pen and shuffling papers. You already have experience of covert work in Greece, with a long list of contacts built up over the years.'
'Well, yes, but - I mean, the relatives are pretty distant ones. As for the local Greeks, they always kept a certain distance. Through fear, I think.' That was a lie, the Greeks he knew were friendly and outgoing and not suspicious in the least, and he didn't want to betray them just like that.
'Regardless, Mister Weiss would dearly like to get hold of that information. That's not all either. You're already a member of FedCon with eight years experience; you've worked in Mexico, Britain and Holland. Your personal assessment says you are, quote: Intelligent and able, well-motivated." So you see, you are quite a good catch.'
Alex glowered and made two little lines above his nose, wrinkling it as he sneered derisively, surprised as he was at such a positive assessment.
- alright, now the conscience salve -
There fell a pause before the conversation began again.
'When they induct you, Alex, they'll put you through something known as the Meatgrinder.'
- good, now you can lay it on -
'To be honest, Alex, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. It's a ball-breaker, really.' And Milos wasn't exaggerating because he had been through the Meatgrinder himself and spoke with feeling and experience.
"Meatgrinder?" wondered Alex, what on earth is that? It doesn't sound like a party invitation.
'They put you through a six month course in six weeks, to see if you can stand the pressure. There are tests, practicals, assessments, all highly intensive. Creates very high levels of stress and it's really unpleasant. I know, I've done it.'
Milos tutted sympathetically and they both had another drink.
Bastards, thought Alex. They've left me with no alternative, have they. Go to White Hell in McMurdo Sound or pull years of screamtime down the Trench or - get minced.
'What would happen if I accepted ik. Ik? Sorry, accepted it. My tongue's not working properly.'
- this is it! We have got him just where we want him, in a corner. Right, tone down the consequences a little -
Milos slyly played on Alex's guilt and acquisitiveness, explaining that what he had at present he could keep but future royalties would be diverted to Finance with him only getting a percentage of his percentage. No more superlative income to cloud the conscience or the bank account. Although as a UNION probationer he would in fact earn almost twice his current salary …
(Not strictly true, as Alex later found out. He would need to work for two years with a flawless probationary year and a one hundred per cent second year credit to boost his salary by a hundred per cent. Nobody to date had managed such a feat and Alex didn't' break the duck either.)
Next day.
Alex woke up. Then he decided that waking up happened to be a bad idea. Waking up meant feeling dire. Clearly Sobr-Ups had a low level of efficiency when deployed against half bottles of imported slivovitz. Not only that but the resultant chemical cocktail made him feel ill.
In flashes the previous day's travail came back to him: detention, interrogation, drinking. But not working.
Christ Risen! Ten past twelve noon - no, no that must be wrong.
No.
Ten past twelve. Ten minutes beyond the last clocking-in time at work and even if he drove full speed (assuming nil time to depil, dress, wash, eat, depart) in a traffic-free metropolis he would still be at least thirty minutes late. Christ Risen, what could go wrong next! Arrested, detained, now late for work. All this flashed in another sequence in Alex's mind, in mental fifth gear. He hurled the duvet back and dropped both legs to the floor.
Piezo-electric crystals cleverly connected and the wall-screen television came on, too loud.
'Good morning Alex!' boomed the speakers.
Alex, rubbing his hair and stretching, paused in surprise. It couldn't be a personalised broadcast, they were illegal and no station dared broadcast them, hadn't done for years - or was that only in Europe?
'Hello hello! You must be wondering about work, well no real need to. You're on indefinite leave. All has been taken care of.'
Oh well, the late start was resolved anyway.
Obviously persons unknown had thoughtfully made up a video disk with the visual code deleted and inserted it in the player, all ready for Mister Petrovic and his surfacing in the morning. They pulled official strings to arrange for indefinite leave, returned him to his room whilst still inebriated (not a condition he normally suffered from so there may have been more than vodka in that bottle of Milos'). He dressed, walked sombrely to the main room and found various miscellania deposited on the coffee table. A new copy of the Manual of Personnel Operations (boring centimetre-thick tome), a newly-typed sheet of print that appeared to be a contract, a small imitation-leather cachet. Alex picked up the last-named first.
That disk still rattled on in the background.
' - you will have to make your own arrangements for travel to Amberland. Arrival time is between nineteen to twenty-two hundred on the eighteenth of this month. If you are so much as a minute late you will not get it. The entry code will be after the beep and PAY ATTENTION! Because this whole vid is a self-eraser one-play'
"beep" went the disk, then "one three five seven six one". Alex bit his cheek and frantically looked for an EMO or Greenscreen, found one and whilst reciting the numbers to himself typed them in.
What lay in the cachet? He held it along each edge and pressed, making the little pouch gape into a mouth; tilting and shaking made a small piece of plastic fall out. It was electric green and of a size to fit into the palm; it came wrapped in a heat- and pressure-proof plastic shield with Day-Glo instructions attached.
1) OPEN IN PRIVATE
2) FOR FUTURE POSITIVE VERIFICATION:
A) PLACE TWO DIGITS UPON MEMORY STRIP AND RETAIN THERE FOR TWO SECONDS.
B) DO NOT DIVULGE DETAILS OF DIGITS USED.
3) ENTER VIA PERSONAL TACT SECONDARY CODE APPENDED.
4) DESTROY SECONDARY CODE
5) DESTROY THESE INSTRUCTIONS
IMPORTANT! THIS CARD IS THE PROPERTY OF FEDCON. IT CAN BE RECALLED AT ANY TIME. KEEP IT SAFE. YOU WILL BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR IT'S LOSS
Alex stuck the various laminae in a pocket and went about eating some crispbread, periodically dipping it in mock-yoghurt and trying not to drop crumbs. He took a long slow look around him, making an assay of the room. The draft that included himself would be accommodated at Amberland for their training, so he wouldn't have the benefit of all his paraphernalia. No more messages to El Quatro. UNION had already removed his optical laser, anyway. He felt half-excited, half-scared and half-angry, one hundred and fifty per cent alive. It was strange, strange, strange; about to surrender his freedom and future financial security yet he truly felt more euphoric than he had for years. Off to do battle with the System Runners, Authority, Wire Puller (it helped, really, to personalise the struggle as against people instead of a training program). Possibly removing the guilty secret that he'd ferried around inside for years helped his conscience, too.
Looking round the room, seeing it through eyes opened by honesty, he saw it as it really was, a softer type of prison; one where you locked yourself in, against the outside world. All communications sanctioned and censored, no contact with other people - he'd be better off in an antique hole like the one Neil lurked in.