Early Riser

Jack Logan

Most Consuls sought only anonymity outside the Winter, but a few courted the limelight for one reason or another. ‘Wildcat’ deLuth over in Sector Nine East was renowned for her capacity for capturing nightwalkers alive – four hundred and sixty-two consigned to the redeployment centres, a record unlikely to be beaten; ‘Tangy’ Schneider of Sector Nineteen outraged public decency by living with a Winter Nomad when off-duty, and Chief Consul Toccata of Sector Twelve was suspected of resorting to Winter cannibalism more enthusiastically than was considered acceptable or, indeed, necessary.

Jack Logan, by comparison, was the clean-cut, acceptable face of the Consul Service. Sure, there were stories of overzealousness and an eye to commercial exploitation but his record spoke most loudly. The Newport/Port Talbot/Cardiff Region had consistently the lowest levels of wastage, HotPot overheat, Villain incursion and nightwalker outrages of anywhere in Wales. He was genetically Tier One, too – rumour had it that he could charge eye-popping siring fees, but to his credit, didn’t.

Logan nodded greetings as he passed, briefly made eye contact, and signed autographs on scraps of paper that were offered to him. We knew he was a long-time patron of St Granata’s, but he rarely attended social events.

The initial excitement over, we shuffled along the food queue and picked out some corn on the cob that oozed butter, then helped ourselves to rice and chicken. Large portions, too. It seemed almost thrillingly extravagant.

‘What’s Jack Logan doing here?’ asked Brian, who was behind the counter, serving the food. ‘Not the usual, I’m guessing.’

‘He’s giving Mother Fallopia her twenty-eighth Silver Stork,’ said Gary Findlay, who was three places farther up in the queue.

‘Well deserved,’ said Brian.

Brian had been the venerable sister’s twelfth Silver Stork and Gary and Lucy her joint eighteenth. The Sisters of Perpetual Gestation took their pledge seriously. The record was Sister Vulvolia over in Sector fifty-one, with thirty-four. All but nine survived their first Winter and each of them from different sires – but then Sister Vulvolia had a good eye,[10] and took the need for genetic variation seriously.

‘Hmm,’ said Lucy, picking out a drumstick, ‘d’you think Logan will be performing this afternoon?’

It was always possible. Those in the military or law enforcement agencies often had a second career acting out their Winter adventures. Logan’s performances were quite sophisticated, with fake snow and wind machines. Once, he featured a real live nightwalker, but that was stopped when he got loose and went on a rampage in the dress circle. A tragic affair, although if it had been the stalls I don’t think anyone would have minded.

Once we had stuffed ourselves quite stupid and mopped up the oil and juices with bread rolls, we sat down to get ready for an equal volume of pudding in an hour or two, followed by biscuits and candy floss two hours after that. Anyone who hadn’t consumed at least five times their usual calorific intake might be deemed not taking the whole ‘bulk up’ issue seriously.

We talked some more, catching up on news. What ex-poolers were up to, who had died, then a long procession of do-you-remember-whens that seemed to have become less shocking and more amusing with the passage of time: about Donna Trinket’s accident – always a perennial favourite – or when Betty Simcox was nearly buried alive during a prank that went wrong, or when Joplin set fire to herself in a prank that went about as well as anyone had expected – and then, as always, how Dai Powell vanished on his sixteenth birthday and returned on his twentieth, and no one knew where he’d been.

‘He still has no idea,’ said Lucy. ‘I asked him again only last week.’

‘Kidnapped into domestic service by Villains is my guess,’ said Megan, ‘but too ashamed to admit it.’

After the jam roly-poly, apple crumble and bread-and-butter pudding had been consumed with about two gallons of custard,[11] Mother Fallopia gave a speech. It was the same old Fat Thursday stuff that we’d heard before, many times: about how we must all embrace the virtues of gluttony and sloth as we headed towards the Winter, and to remember those who had not survived hibernation last year through not being diligent about their weight, and to consider a career with the Sisterhood if female, and if male then to do one’s utmost to be a productive member of society and to honour the Princess Gwendolyn daily and remain loyal to Wales and the Northern Federation – and so on and so forth. She then announced her retirement due to a slackening of fertility, and proclaimed she would be putting the reins of St Granata’s firmly in Sister Placentia’s hands, which was met by half-hearted applause and, somewhere at the back, a groan.

Sector Chief Winter Consul Logan then made a speech, about how the Sisterhood were more than doing their part to head off the spectre of Winter wastage, thanked Mother Fallopia for her numerous confinements and wise and committed leadership of St Granata’s, welcomed Sister Placentia to her new-found position of authority, then repeated much of what Mother Fallopia had said. Right at the end he related a short ditty that seemed, at the time, entirely random:

We all looked at one another and shrugged, then dutifully applauded as Logan presented Mother Fallopia with her Silver Stork. That done, we returned to the table and the roofing-tile-sized after-dinner mints, cheeseboard, any leftovers on other people’s plates and finally the serving bowls themselves. Traditionally, Fat Thursday never resulted in any washing-up.

Several other ex-poolers joined us and we settled down to talk, or at least, they talked, I listened, my mind still distracted. A cop who worked in Forensics told us about her job analysing splatter patterns of messy eating following illegal pantry incursion and food theft.

‘It’s always out of hunger so they eat on the spot,’ she told us, ‘and hunger eating is never tidy eating.’

She told us about a Pantry Heist over at the Cary Grant Dormitorium. It was unguarded at the time, having been boarded up after a reactor shutdown, but stealing pantry was then, and still is now, an offence carrying the punishment of Frigicution. Most were blaming Villains, but the authorities decided it was the Campaign for Real Sleep wanting to retain enough pantry to mount an overwintering campaign.[12] No one with any sense believed them, and Kiki – RealSleep’s nominal head – denied the report as ‘utterly ludicrous’.

‘Some said it was the cops nicking stuff themselves in order to flush out Kiki into denying it,’ said someone, I forget who.

‘Who is Kiki anyway?’ I asked.

‘The head of RealSleep,’ said Megan.

‘I know that. Not the what, the who.’

‘Nobody knows,’ said Lucy with a shrug. ‘It’s not a person, it’s a position. Remove a Kiki and the Vice-Kiki takes over.’

This was undoubtedly true, as much was run on the Hydra principle, from Royal Families to Winter Consuls to the military to staff at Mrs Nesbit Tearooms. Remove one and another would be waiting just behind. Irrespective, RealSleep had been quiet recently, but like the active-yet-currently-dormant volcano on Skye, no one was sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

I left them to their conversation and started to corral the children into tidying up and fetching out the board games and the hookahs as the gathering dusk brought darkness to the hall. Sister Placentia loved a raspberry hubble-bubble when playing Scrabble while Sister Fertizilia tended towards her non-aggressive version of chess where you couldn’t take any pieces. Zygotia liked nothing more than a noisy game of Hungry Hippos. Each to their own. But as I was passing Mother Fallopia’s office on an errand for Sister Placentia, I noticed a row of people sitting on the bench outside. I asked what was going on and Williams blinked owlishly at me and said that Logan was conducting open interviews for the Winter Consuls.

‘Open interviews? No preselection?’

‘Seems like it. He lost his Novice and needs a new one.’

I thought for a moment. Or rather, I didn’t think for a moment. I just told Williams to budge up and then sat down on the bench, heart thumping, and for good reason: joining the Winter Service Industry was risky – little more than suicide, some said – but it did give one access to Morphenox.[13]

‘So when did you first consider a Winter career?’ asked Williams, who seemed chatty.

‘Oh, eight seconds ago,’ I replied.

For the 99.99 per cent of the population who slept through, the Winter was an abstract concept. Go to sleep and wake up – hopefully – four months later.

Other than those who worked in the Transplant industry and had to brave the Winter, few people opted to face the cold, the vermin, the Villains, the loneliness, the Wintervolk. But with my utterly unrewarding house manager career, limited prospects and the rarity of untrained jobs with Morphenox rights attached, overwintering had suddenly become hugely attractive.

‘How about being a Winter Consul?’ asked Williams. ‘How long you wanted to be one of those?’

‘Oh, years and years.’

In truth, given the risks and the usually over-rigorous selection process, never. I sat on the bench, trying to keep calm and wondering what I should say. Each interview took about ten minutes and to every applicant that emerged long-faced there was a torrent of questions from the remaining queue. All questions were met with a shrug, the news they’d been rejected, and no clue as to what Logan was actually looking for.

After Williams went in with enthusiasm and emerged looking crushed, it was my turn.