Early Riser

Thumped

We came down by way of the stairs, a circular descending journey that ran around the interior wall of the central heat-well like a helix. Lloyd was in the lobby with two of the winsomniacs, still standing by with blankets and hot drinks in case another of their compatriots made it through – an act of kindness liberally laced with deluded hope. I’d seen the blizzard, and doubted anyone could navigate the three changes on the fixed line to get here, even if it was less than two miles. Others would have either sought refuge in other Kipshops en route, got lost, or just given up. Winsomniacs had few energy reserves. Even blinking was an effort.

‘What in—’ began Lloyd when he saw me leading Birgitta by the hand.

‘Harbouring,’ said Jonesy. ‘Worthing is so under arrest right now.’

The front door opened. But it wasn’t a confused and very cold yet navigationally astute winsomniac, it was someone considerably less welcome – Mr Hooke. He was accompanied by Lucy Knapp, wrapped up tight in a duvet jacket and large woolly hat. She smiled when she saw me, but looked nervous, too.

‘Safe Haven?’ asked Hooke, the traditional request for unconditional shelter in the Winter. ‘Staff transfer between facilities and we got lost.’

‘Safe Haven,’ said Lloyd, acknowledging the request.

‘My first blizzard,’ said Lucy to me, pulling off her parka. ‘A little more excitement than I’d bargained for.’

‘It’s good to see you,’ I said, with a sense of relief.

‘And you,’ she said, and we tapped fists.

‘Good afternoon, Deputy Jones,’ said Hooke.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Jonesy, without breaking her pace to the coat rack and now almost pushing Birgitta in front of her.

‘It would be safer to stay inside,’ said Hooke. ‘Going out in this is foolhardy at best, and irresponsible at worst.’

‘And yet you are yourself a new arrival,’ retorted Jonesy, pulling on her boots and then rummaging for a spare parka for Birgitta.

‘Safe Havening,’ he replied, ‘as you heard. We expect to be here until it eases – what’s your reason for you venturing out? Something pretty important, I should imagine?’

He looked from me to Jonesy as he spoke.

‘Consulate business,’ said Jonesy, handing me my coat, ‘and of an urgent and pressing nature.’

‘With a nightwalker and a Novice?’

‘Consulate business,’ she repeated, smiling but without humour.

‘That’s as may be,’ said Hooke, taking a step closer, ‘but my orders are to ensure Worthing remains free to join us at HiberTech.’

And then, with the pretext of moving his arm to straighten his tie, Hooke pushed his coat back to allow easier access to the Bambi on his hip. The gesture did not go unnoticed by Jonesy. He wasn’t there to Safe Haven, he’d been likely ordered to interrupt his journey to come over here and stop us from leaving. HiberTech had been tipped off – by Lloyd, most probably.

‘We take recruitment seriously,’ continued Hooke, ‘and the Chief has made a personal investment that she doesn’t want to see bruised.’

‘Charlie’s a Consul, not a piece of overripe fruit, and right now, under arrest – our prisoner, our jurisdiction.’

I opened my mouth to say something, but Jonesy pressed her fingers on my mouth to keep me silent.

‘You’ve charged Worthing with harbouring?’ asked Hooke.

‘Yes.’

Hooke looked at Birgitta, who was still staring blankly around the lobby and freaking out the winsomniacs, who were studiously avoiding her blank gaze.

‘Worthing was looking after this nightwalker at our request,’ said Hooke. ‘We’ll swear to that in an affidavit. There has been no crime. Now, release the prisoner from your custody and this can end without recrimination.’

‘Irrespective, Charlie is still a Consul,’ said Jonesy.

‘Deputy Worthing could resign,’ said Hooke, ‘here and now.’

Jonesy stared at him coldly.

‘Charlie’s not resigning. Wonky, you’re not resigning.’

‘Only Charlie can make that decision.’

It was Lucy Knapp who’d spoken. She looked at me and smiled.

‘Charlie, listen to me. The Consul Service are not your friends. I’ve seen stuff and know stuff and at HiberTech we’re on the cusp of introducing something quite new and wonderful to the world. For purely personal reasons and an intense dislike of Aurora, Toccata is trying to throw a spanner in the works. But we need to move forward without let or hindrance: it’s a game changer.’

‘Project Lazarus?’

‘Ten years in the preparation. It’s a winner, any way you want to look at it. And HiberTech needs your help to ensure the most satisfactory outcome is enjoyed by the majority.’

‘What’s on the cylinder?’

‘I don’t know, Hooke doesn’t know, and I’m willing to bet Miss Jones doesn’t know.’

I looked at Jonesy, who didn’t deny it.

‘Why me?’ I asked. ‘What’s so special about me that only I can help?’

‘Aurora sees something special in you,’ she said, ‘a gift that can be nurtured until it becomes a skill that will set you head and shoulders above any potential career with the Consuls. Working for HiberTech will be the best decision you’ll ever make.’

‘She’s lying,’ said Jonesy, ‘whoever she is – sorry, we weren’t introduced.’

‘Lucy Knapp,’ said Lucy, holding out a hand, which Jonesy shook.

‘Miss Knapp’s lying,’ continued Jonesy, slowly moving her hand to where her Bambi was holstered. ‘HiberTech look out only for themselves. They’ll take what they want from you and the next thing you know you’ll be driving a golf cart around the facility. Only you won’t know that, because you won’t be able to.’

‘Jonesy exaggerates wildly like the outspoken fool I now realise she is,’ said Lucy, her voice rising, ‘but she has no cogent arguments, merely slander. It’s a bona fide career. How about it?’

‘There will always be the Gower.’

It was Birgitta. She’d interrupted the conversation and was momentarily distracting – something that Hooke and Jonesy both exploited.

Whu-whump

They’d drawn and fired their weapons almost simultaneously. Concussive vortex rings do strange things in restricted spaces, but opposing thumps do even stranger things – and like weather systems, Arctic badgers and Sister Contractia, they are difficult to predict. The two pulses met with the sound of a log being split, then ran around each other before stabilising in a tight vertical dust devil that sucked up anything not nailed down – dust, paper, hats, gloves, books. We watched the vortex grow darker and heavier and had to hold onto furniture and each other to avoid being swept off our feet, until the maelstrom explosively lost cohesion and knocked us all off our feet. Hooke drew his second Bambi but Jonesy’s back-up weapon caught him on the chest and cannoned him backwards into a plaster wall, which buckled under the impact, and Hooke fell forwards in a cloud of dust.

Jonesy dropped the spent thermalite from the Bambi and swiftly replaced it with another.

‘We’ll laugh about this later,’ she said to me, advancing upon Hooke, who was struggling to get up, still dazed, ‘in that cosy retirement we promised ourselves.’

Whump

There was another ear-popping concussion and Jonesy was lifted off her feet and thrown backwards through two chairs, a standard lamp and out through one of the front windows by way of the heavy drapes. The snow and wind swirled into the room, the cold air replacing the hot in an instant. I turned. Lucy Knapp was holding a Thumper and had a look of steely determination about her. Lucy had lied: she was HiberTech first, friend second. When you accept a corporate fast track, you have to leave a part of yourself behind.

I pushed my way past the tattered curtains, which were flapping wildly in the gale, and waded through the snow to where Jonesy was lying. She wasn’t dead, but it wouldn’t be long. Her face was a fine mesh of broken capillaries. Her eyelids were sunken and closed and I knew that her sockets were empty underneath. She was breathing in short gasps, and a small amount of blood frothed from the side of her mouth. Her lips were moving and I leaned closer.

‘It’s Charlie,’ I said.

Her cheek twitched into a half-smile.

‘We had a good life together, didn’t we?’ she whispered.

‘The best,’ I replied, ‘I have no regrets.’

She smiled again and pressed something unseen into my palm which I knew was the Polaroid of Birgitta and Webster, and after that, she moved her hand in an uncertain manner up towards her chest. I didn’t see at first what she was trying to do, but then noticed her thumb was out, and guessing her intent, I hooked her thumb into the D-ring of the pulse mortar on her chest. She patted my hand and twitched me another smile.

‘Move away from her,’ said Lucy and I trudged back through the snow into the lobby. Already, Porter Lloyd was fetching emergency shutters of folded canvas on bamboo while the winsomniacs all made themselves scarce, just not very quickly.

‘I’m sorry if you liked her,’ said Lucy, ‘but Project Lazarus brings a whole new meaning to the word importance.’

Hooke picked himself up, touched a finger to his bleeding nose, shook his head and then found his weapon. He reloaded it and looked at Lucy and me in turn, then outside at Jonesy, who was still moving weakly on her back in the snow.

‘Put her out of her misery,’ said Lucy. ‘We’d expect the same courtesy from her.’

‘It’s time you were blooded,’ said Hooke. ‘Do it yourself if you’ve the stomach.’

She glared at him.

‘Oh, I’ve the stomach,’ said Lucy, and took Hooke’s Bambi from him.

I started to say something. A warning, I think. Lucy noticed, stopped and stared at me.

‘What is it?’

I stared back at her for a moment.

‘It’s nothing.’

She strode across to where Jonesy’s form was lying in the snow outside, then leaned over and placed the Bambi to Jonesy’s head. I turned away as Jonesy detonated the pulse charge, a heavy concussion that blew the snow and tattered remnants of the curtains back into the lobby. When I looked back outside, there was only a refrozen circle of clear ice on the ground, about the size of an ornamental fountain.

‘Well, shit,’ said Hooke, following my gaze, ‘that’s a loss.’

‘I liked her,’ I said, referring to both of them, I think.

‘No,’ retorted Hooke, ‘I was talking about my staff protection bonus.’

He then looked at me, and presumably misconstrued my lack of decisive action or intervention in any of this as tacit approval of his intentions to take me to HiberTech.

‘Well now, Worthing,’ he said, switching his attention to Birgitta, ‘wouldn’t have marked you as a harbourer. Porter, put this deadhead somewhere safe, and make sure she’s looked after.’

I asked Hooke in something of a daze if we should wait until the blizzard had abated, but he told me that the sooner I was safe inside HiberTech, the better it would be for him. He walked away and I, in a confused and shocked daze, followed.