The Curve of The Earth

6

Auden was waiting for them at Departures. He suspected something because he was a suspicious man. He knew the Freezone. He hated them.

Petrovitch hated him right back, though he doubted very much that Auden would guess what they’d done to Newcomen. Neither would he find out until it was too late. That, at least, allowed Petrovitch a moment of smugness.

If Newcomen had Auden, Petrovitch had Tabletop next to him, looking cool and efficient, and no matter how much he disliked the NSA operative, Tabletop could double that emotion and more. There was every good reason to believe Auden knew her real name, knew her whole history, and Tabletop would like nothing more than to beat that information out of the man. Preferably over the course of a few weeks.

It meant they were ridiculously polite to each other on the infrequent occasions they met.

“No Mrs Petrovitch to wave you off?” asked Auden.

“It’s not required. I talked to her just now, I’ll talk to her again in a moment.”

“And only the charming Miss Tabletop for company.”

“Hand it over.” Petrovitch turned his palm upwards, and Auden placed a thin plastic rectangle on it.

Petrovitch turned it to face him. There was his image on the left, burnt in three dimensions into the hologram, and on the right, the dots of a machine-readable data matrix. The back told him it was his Department of Homeland Security visa, and remained its property.

He passed the card to Tabletop, who ran it through a portable scanner she’d pulled from her shoulder bag. She held out the card to Auden, who took it back with an audible sigh.

“That one seems to be full of spyware, Mr Auden. I wonder if you have an alternative?” She smiled.

“This was what I was given, I’m afraid, Miss Tabletop. It’s either this, or Dr Petrovitch won’t be allowed on the flight.” He wasn’t sorry at all as he re-presented the visa to Petrovitch.

“Never mind.” She opened her bag again and pulled out a rectangular box with a slot in the top. She held it out for Petrovitch, who posted the card inside. “We’ll clean things up for you.”

The top of the box had a button and two lights. Neither was currently illuminated, but when she pressed the button with her thumb, the red light came on. There was a crack of electricity, and the green light glowed.

“There,” she said brightly. “All done.”

Petrovitch retrieved the card. It looked unaltered, but the microcircuitry that would keep Homeland Security informed of his whereabouts was so much molten slag.

He idly stuck it in his back pocket. “That particular charade over, Auden?”

“So it seems. Have a good journey, and Agent Newcomen? I appreciate that your duty is a difficult one, but we always try to carry ourselves with dignity and fortitude. I’ll be sending a report to your superiors informing them of your exemplary conduct so far.”

Even Newcomen had the sense to be diplomatic. “Uh, thank you, sir. I’m sure AD Buchannan will appreciate that.”

“You’re a credit to the Bureau, and to America. Dr Petrovitch will find you a valuable guide when he’s in unfamiliar territory.”

“Yobany stos, enough of the corn, Auden. We both know that Newcomen’s a fall guy and I’ll probably ditch him at the first opportunity, so there’s no point in your govno. You’ve done your job. Take your goons and go.”

Auden accepted defeat and peeled off. As before, several nondescript travellers suddenly aborted their flight plans and flanked him as he strode away.

“And just like that, I’m abandoned.” Newcomen looked at his shoes.

“He’s still got people here, watching what we do. There’s even a couple of agents booked on the flight over, three rows back from us. Remember, if you ever think you’re not under surveillance, you still are. You can be overheard at any time. I let it slide this morning, because you needed to know the score. But from now on, on the plane, in a cab, on the street, in an office, over the phone, on a computer — unless I explicitly say so — you have to assume they can read your thoughts. Vrubatsa?”

“You keep saying that. What does it mean?”

Petrovitch felt like he was explaining something to a child. “Do you understand?”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Really?”

“I get it.”

“Good. Now go and get your stupid case checked in and meet me back here.” Petrovitch watched him go, the luggage trundling after him. “Chyort, so many things can go wrong.”

Tabletop tugged at her ponytail. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to jump, and you ask me that?” People passed around them, ignoring them, not even seeing them.

“Of course I do. We’re here to catch you. But there’s nothing wrong in being afraid.”

“They can smell fear. Auden knows we’ve no real idea what’s going on, and he’s told Washington that.” He screwed his fingers into fists and jammed them in his pockets. “It’s pizdets.”

“The data miners are hard at work. We’ll have something soon.” Tabletop nodded over at Newcomen. “And he may well surprise you.”

“The only surprise I’m going to get from him is guessing how long he can hold it together. How the huy did he ever end up working for the Feds? He’s scared of his own shadow. Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity my arse.”

“He graduated from Quantico with decent marks.”

“All that proves is that he’s fit and not stupid.” Petrovitch snorted. “I could pass.”

“You’d fail the lie detector test five different ways,” Tabletop countered. “And the psychological profiling. And you’re not an American citizen.”

“I could fake all those.” He ground his teeth. “Why now? Why Lucy?”

“It’ll be all right.” She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I gave you a hard time earlier, but I know she had to go off and do her own thing.”

“Yeah, well. She could have chosen Antarctica, but no. Yebani Alaska.”

Newcomen came trailing back. “Bag’s been checked.”

“Still don’t understand why you brought all that stuff with you.” Petrovitch noticed Newcomen staring at Tabletop, and where her hand was. It was nowhere inappropriate, except it was on him. “What now?”

“I don’t think your wife would approve.”

“All hail the nuclear family. Newcomen, I got married while you were still throwing pigskins around in college, but if I was going to run off with a mind-wiped CIA-trained assassin? You’re right: I’d choose her.” He stared the American down. “You don’t have any female friends because your warped social conventions don’t let you. The rest of the planet think you’re idiots.”

“She’s a traitor to my country,” said Newcomen, baldly.

“Yeah. Doesn’t stop you from trying to look down her top, though,” said Petrovitch. “I think it’s time we were going before the Reconstruction virus you’re carrying infects anyone else.”

He pushed Newcomen around and aimed him at the security screen. Halfway there himself, he turned to see Tabletop adjusting the strap of her bag across her body, watching his receding back plaintively. He stopped, shooed Newcomen onwards, and went back to her.

She hugged him to her, pressing the side of her head against his. He held her for a moment longer than was strictly necessary, and whispered, “Good luck” in her ear.

“And you.”

He didn’t look back this time, just strode through the arch of the screen without pausing. It didn’t detect anything, although the operator’s console should have lit up like a Christmas tree. The real-time editing of data wasn’t difficult: all it needed was enough processing power and the bandwidth to pull it off.

Newcomen was scandalised by Petrovitch’s behaviour with Tabletop. Petrovitch didn’t care.

“I don’t expect you to understand, now or ever. Neither do I feel that I owe you an explanation. All you need to know is that she turned against you and everything you stand for when I accidentally showed her a different future. And she’s in love with that future — not me — even more than she despises her past. Come on,” said Petrovitch, heading off in a seemingly random direction, “we’re leaving from gate thirty-four.”

Newcomen dug his heels in. “I know I don’t know much about international travel, but when I was at JFK, I had to wait two hours between checking in and departure.”

“I’m sure you did. According to the airline’s computers, we’ve been at the airport for two and a half hours already, and if you’d noticed the displays, we’re already boarding.”

“But what about my case? And I wanted to get Christine something from one of the concessions.”

“Your case will be fine, and if some giant bear stitched in a sweatshop is your idea of a suitable present for the woman you’re going to marry, God help you. And her. Besides, getting back from the Metrozone in one piece should be enough of a gift.” Petrovitch shook his head and stood to one side to let a family of eight go by, the man in front, the bejewelled and shimmering woman behind, and six children of various sizes between. “I can delay the flight for as long as I like, but let’s not waste any more time, okay?”

Newcomen tore his gaze away from the vast array of shiny baubles and reluctantly followed. Petrovitch didn’t wait, but Newcomen’s stride length meant he was finally caught. They fell in, side by side, walking down the connecting corridor: Petrovitch caught his reflection in one of the windows, hands in pockets, slouching gait and all. Not that different from the last time he went out to war. He looked past himself to the man next to him, tall, broad, filling his coat and tending to fat around his middle. Newcomen had the appearance of being sculpted, created — which he was.

They looked like they were from different species. He wondered how long it would be before that became true.

They’d been booked business class, but Petrovitch had upped the ante and upgraded them to first. He could have bought the airline, but he didn’t normally need one. Just this time — and it wasn’t like he was a frequent flyer — he decided he’d take the easy way out and give himself some leg room.

The flight attendants treated him like he was an egg, and Newcomen noticed: how they referred to him as Dr Petrovitch, showed him to his seat, asked if they could stow his luggage and to be sure to call if he needed anything.

He noticed Newcomen’s sideways glance.

“It’s either because they’re scared of me, or because I’m as famous as a physicist is likely to get. Look out the window.” Petrovitch had the window seat, and Newcomen had to lean over him to see. “Those bumps on the wing? I invented the things inside them. Remember when you were a kid on the farm, and all those planes you used to see flying overhead like little silver crosses? They’re rusting in a desert somewhere in New Mexico because of me.”

“Uh, sure.”

“We’re not sitting in cattle class, are we? Even our tame spooks have had to get bumped so they can keep tabs on us.”

Newcomen looked out of the window again. “It still has wings.”

“They don’t do much of anything except act as something to strap the engines to.” Petrovitch frowned. “You didn’t honestly think something this vast could fly on those stubby little things, did you? Or did you just not think at all? You flew from Seattle to New York. Then again from there to here. Yobany stos, man. Didn’t you notice the difference?”

“We took off and landed.”

“Vertically?” Petrovitch threw himself against the back of his seat. “I’m going to throw you out mid-Atlantic. Is that all right with you?”

The fuselage filled up with passengers; not that many of them came into Petrovitch’s part of the cabin. The secret service guys turned up, dark suits, infoshades, and eased into the rearmost seats. Made aware of their arrival by an alarm he’d placed on the manifest, Petrovitch half stood and gave each one in turn a good minute of his undivided attention.

They stared back at him in return. He’d rather not have had them on the flight, and it would have been straightforward for him to have made the carrier lose their tickets. But a wave of their badges and they’d have been allowed to board anyway. Only US planes could fly to the US, and the carrier depended on a permit from the government to fly. Petrovitch still had to work within the bounds of what was possible. He wasn’t omnipotent enough to just wish his dreams into being. Not yet, anyway.

“Problem?” asked Newcomen when Petrovitch had sat down again. He’d been leafing through the safety information on the little handheld screen tucked in the pocket of the seat in front.

“Spooks. Back of the cabin. Don’t worry about them for now. They’re as trapped here as we are.”

“Doesn’t mention your name in any of the literature.”

“Bet you it doesn’t mention Frank Whittle, either.”

The cabin staff toured the seats, checking all the passengers were sitting comfortably and securely. The pilot started to taxi them to the edge of the runway, nudging the jets to above idle. They rolled on their fat black wheels out away from the terminal buildings, and Petrovitch watched the cracks in the concrete slide by.

By bending lower, he could see a China Eastern flight coming in from Shanghai, the vast torpedo shape occluding the sky as it drifted overhead. Its undercarriage was down, ready to receive the ground, and its engines pushed it forward until it had a clear space to land on.

The fat, rocket-shaped body rumbled away into the distance, and it was their turn.

The pilot engaged the repulsors. The airframe creaked as the weight shifted, and when the wheels were clear of the runway, they retracted with a series of positive clunking sounds.

The ground dwindled away. With no forward power, they spun slightly, giving Petrovitch a view of the towers of the Metrozone, then the wilds of the Outzone looking towards Windsor down the Thames valley. Tangled trees held their bare arms up in amongst the sighing walls and fractured roads.

They passed through a layer of cloud. The map of the ground was obscured, and they spiralled upwards into the thinner air unsighted.

With the aircraft’s nose pointing north-west and bright pillows of cumulus beneath them, the engines started with a rumble that grew into a roar. Shortly into the flight, they passed over Ireland, almost directly above the domes of the Freezone.

Petrovitch felt a pang of longing, and wondered if he’d ever see his home again.