Edge. Part 22

"Look at him laughing, the t.w.a.t. Got no idea how lucky he is."

"Mind your language."

Richard sipped from his c.o.ke. It was good, cold andwith a kick. No alcohol, because that was for losers people trying to cheer themselves up with a depressant, where was the sense in that? Father might earn money but his face looked flabbier, blotchier by the week; and whenever he locked himself away in his office at home, he invariably appeared bloodshot next morning, breath stinking, at least until after breakfast, and forty minutes in the master bathroom.Their home had six bathrooms, five en suite. The squat had one, shared by two dozen people, give or take, and the water that came out was tepid and brownish. Paying no bills, they were lucky to have that much.

"Why's he lucky?" He meant the small guy who'd mouthed off.

"Big Eddie" Brian gestured with his gla.s.s "trains in four fighting systems, works the doors at Zero Point where he will not" looking at Opal "let under-eighteens inside, and he competes in Blade in the Cage. That's like Knifefighter Challenge, a semi-pro circuit that"

Richard's stomach convulsed, a tsunami of acid inside. He got up and stumbled back from the table.

"Sorry..."

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Richie."

"I'm sorry."

Hands clutched against his stomach, he moved as if trying not to be sick as if a blade had pierced into the pub, but going straight through, holding it all in, staggering through the exit and back into light. No one came after him, so he continued alone, into the hot evening, nothing in mind except to keep going until his eyes stopped burning and the acid inside him died down.

Maybe an hour later, he was sitting slouched inside a bus shelter at the Elephant & Castle. The fear had seeped away; now his limbs felt soft with tiredness. He listened as two women talked.

"It isn't all bad. Look at this." One of them gestured around the aluminium-and-plastic shelter. "Ten years ago, there'd have been graffiti everywhere."

Some places were still covered in tags, usually where they sprayed the streetcams first.

"Maybe, but with this heat, it's all like falling apart."

"d.a.m.n scientists and their global warming. Ozone layer and G.o.d knows what else."

Ozone is an allotrope of oxygen, the atoms going around three to a molecule instead of in pairs "Like a saucy menage-a-trois instead of a couple saucy menage-a-trois instead of a couple" some chemist had said in an online lecture. The live adult audience had laughed. Richard had looked up menage-a-trois at OEDOnLine; he already knew what an allotrope was.

"Excuse me?" he said.

"h.e.l.lo, son. What is it?"

He wanted to ask them what sort of person would have been measuring ozone concentrations high over the Antarctic in the previous century, and exactly what kind of people had been warning the world for decades about climate transition. He wanted to say that without science there wouldn't be civilisation, and the average lifespan would be thirty-something or less. That if they didn't get the new reactors built in time, everything would fall apart. He wanted to say all that.

"Er... do you know how long till the bus comes?"

"Says right there, on the display. Seven minutes."

"Oh. Thank you."

Then they were deep in conversation again, this time about taxes and what the Benbow family were up to in SimEastEnders SimEastEnders. They paid no attention as he slipped out of the bus shelter. How could they be so certain about things, and yet so ignorant? Why couldn't sensible people be in charge of the world?

He thought about Dr d.u.c.h.esne. She'd been nice, so very calm. Perhaps he could be like her some day, far different from Father. Some day. Right now, an ache was returning to his stomach, this time from lack of food.

Later again, and still hungry, he stood at South Bank, watching from beneath a concrete overhang out of view of cameras while gekrunners spun through acrobatic manoeuvres, skating across paving stones, cartwheeling down stairwells, tumbling over obstacles. The interplay of movement was mesmerising, their ability to keep their nerve incredible. Several tourists looked up, and he risked peeking out from cover. On the rooftop, three gekrunners chasing each other in fun, with a series of jumps and rolls to reach the roof's edge, then somersaulting down the wall to ground level, with skilful use of gekkomere gauntlets, lethally dangerous.

"seen him yet," a man's voice was saying.

"From his profile, he hangs out here sometimes, not every day."

They were checking images on their phones, then glancing up to check out gekrunners and the watching crowd. Could they be police?

Worse, was that his image they were looking at?

"Let's ask. Some of these little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds might know him."

"Right, and you want them to remember someone asking after their pal Jayce?"

"Oh. See what you mean."

"He ain't around. Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here."Richard pulled right back, trying to press into solid stone. Except it wasn't him they were looking for, was it? Nor did they act like police officers; but then, how many officers did he know? I'm a criminal because of Jayce. Because Jayce had taken him to the shop owned by Khan, but maybe that was not it. Maybe if he was helpless then it was his fault, because he was as weak as Father said. And now he could never go back home, not without them coming to drag him into jail.

Laughter sounded from around the corner.

"No, I don't believe it."

The police were gone. He moved out of cover, drawn by sounds of happiness. Seven or eight gekrunners, plus a few other folk, were watching an unfurled screen. Inside the image, a twentysomething man was tearing up a T-shirt.

"He's out of his head. Carlsen will throw him off the team."

"Nah, man. Him and Andre will have to fight."

"No way. They're on the same team."

"Gotta happen. He's just torn up Laurenson's clothes. They'll change the rules and make 'em fight, guaranteed."

"s.h.i.t, that Knife Edge House."

"Crazy, ain't it?"

"Wish I was in there."

"Huh? Now that is insane. Spycams on you for what, three months? Can't even pull the weasel in private, so how would you survive?"

So it was here again, the world's craziness swirling around, Knifefighter Challenge and all the rest, and couldn't anyone see how insane it was? But he remem bered Mr Dutton, in the calm of his cla.s.sroom, explaining that we create our models of the world through perceptual filters, so people see what they focus on: "'To someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' Anyone know who said that?"

He and Jayce and Opal and Brian lived in a different world, saw different things than Arches, Wandsworth, 9pm Thursday.

Jayce had got him to write the words, a reminder of someplace he had to be. Tonight. Of course. And he probably knew nothing of the men who were looking for him. Someone had to tell him.

Finally, so tired from what seemed a full day walking, Richard reached the right area. He pa.s.sed a road that would lead back to the squat, but ignored it, following the railway line overhead. If he had misunderstood, then there was nothing he could do; but if arches meant railway arches, then Jayce would be around here somewhere. He looked around as a scarlet bullet bus whooshed past. No sign of... A splash of red hair. The same shirt. Blanket beneath one arm. Jayce was ambling along the main road.

Richard called out, but Jayce kept moving along, head bobbing.

"Hey! Jayce! Jayce!"

He waved both arms. Several pa.s.sersby glanced at him.

"Jayce!"

The redhead turned it was him then turned left and disappeared behind a building.

Why did he do that?

Trying to jog, Richard moved faster, or at least with more effort could you call it a limp if it was in both legs? feeling the jolt in his knees. Three rats bigger than his forearm scampered across the street in front of him. Turning a corner, he skirted a bulbous pile of binbags, starting to wheeze, no longer with the breath to shout for Jayce. This was not a good place sensitised now, he noted the street cams smeared with black, like congealed tar. Up ahead, Jayce broke into a run.

"Wait..."

His vision was watery, his gait a continuous stumble, unable to understand why Jayce was intent on getting away doesn't he recognise me? while scarcely noticing the silver-grey van that screeched past, heading in the same direction but an awful lot faster. Seconds later, smoke pouring from the wheel arches, tyres screaming, it swung across the road. A door banged open, three men tumbled out, and then they had Jayce. Levering his arms, they swung him inside, rolled back in, and closed the door, the van already accelerating, hurtling around a corner, and out of his world.

Jayce...

But that was the end of him. Richard took some dreamlike paces forward. Jayce had been standing right there, where the blanket had fallen.

I should call the police.

But what he imagined was heavy hands coming down on his shoulders, snapping cuffs around his wrists, and throwing him into a police van much as the strangers had done to Jayce.

He picked up the blanket.

It's Jayce's, isn't it?

Did he want to remember his sort-of friend? Or was he just keeping an abandoned item that he could use? Was this all that life was on the streets?

It's awful here.

He rolled the blanket, draped it over his shoulder, walked on.

Somehow he found himself amid greenery, sitting on gra.s.s and staring at a flowering plant, captivated by its leaves more than its yellow blossoms. He blinked, trying to remember how he'd got here. It was a tiny public garden, no more area than a large town house, encircled with tall brick walls. Rhododendrons and other things he couldn't name grew from strips of black soil, surrounding lawn gra.s.s, impeccably maintained.

During his walk here, he had pa.s.sed a pub just as a door slammed open and a man flew out, launched by two large bouncers. On screen it would have looked like a cartoon, but up close the suddenness, the thump of bone on pavement, made it physical. From inside the pub came the sound of shattering gla.s.s, and the larger bouncer said: "When will this heat let up? People are going nuts."

"Keeps us in work," his colleague answered. "Got your baton? Let's get back in there."

Here in the garden, the heat was peaceful, and there was little traffic sound, though it was in the heart of London. As he thought that, a beep sounded, high up. On spycams atop the walls, orange lights were flashing, and an automated warning sounded. "This park will close in five minutes. Please vacate. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen." in five minutes. Please vacate. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen."

There was no one besides Richard. No camera was turned in his direction. He moved deep beneath a rhododendron.

"Please vacate the park. Thank you."

There was only one gate, made of patterned steel bars, taller than a man. And on the street beyond

Police!someone in a dark uniform was coming closer. He strode into the park, turned around and called: "Anybody there?" Back at the gate, he pressed his thumb against a scanpad and exited. Steel swung shut, clanged, then locks clicked home.

Richard was shut in.

From his hiding place, he could see a wooden bench, luminous in the sunset, a bronze plaque glowing: IN MEMORY OF JASMINE BARCLAY, 1991-2022. Had she sat here? Alone or with others? Did she take sandwiches to feed the birds? Underneath Father's headquarters in the City, as in so many corporate buildings, was a gla.s.slined bas.e.m.e.nt containing Roman ruins, once occupied by Roman soldiers, some perhaps from Tuscany, dreaming of their vineyards, suffering in the British chill. Everything was so... temporary.

His eyelids drooped. Still crouched beneath shrubbery, he felt his shirt beneath his chin, realised his head had lowered; then toppled downward into sleep.

[ SIXTEEN ].

It was nearly 7pm when Josh's phone chirped and Petra's image grinned at him. He had been in a dark, quiet mood for hours, staring at the barges on the Thames, seeing the man he had killed, smelling the stench, not comforted by the memory of naked teenagers turned into nanoviral factories, and the knowledge that he would kill again in such a situation.

"Hey, lover. I wanted to give you an invitation."

"Petra. What kind of invitation?"

Earlier, he had gone to the hostel at Zenith Place, checking out the only piece of information Khan had given him. No one had recognised the pictures of Jayce or Richard. But one of the volunteers mentioned that there were other volunteers and other clients meaning drop-in homeless people so that if he came back later, he might get better results. What he ought to do was return now, and check again, not stand around chatting to Petra.

"The short-notice kind of invite that says, come round to my place tonight, for late supper, dinner, whatever."

"Your place?""With zero evil intentions on my part, tight-buns. Yukiko will be there, and she gets jealous. Bring your girlfriend, make it a foursome."

"She isn't my... Well."