Futuretrack 5 (11 page)

She managed a wan smile of disbelief. “I’ll settle for a cuddle until morning.”

She slept; I lay awake. At first, full of glee at my plans to send my love, or at least my love making, back to Laura. I had no doubts about my power to fool her. Computers are lousy at 2-D images. I only hoped my old sex-starved mate Sellers didn’t while away his boring duty hours looking through Laura’s dirty-photograph files.
He’d
recognise me for sure…

Then I began to have doubts. Did Vanessa’s Sisterhood really exist? Or was it a lousy Est con-trick? To weed out Unnem-girls of determination and drive, who might have special and dangerous gifts. Certainly I’d never heard of a Sisterhood, either as an Est or a Tech. Could it be another name for the lobo farm?

It was a labyrinth. How little any of us knew what was really going on. The Ests didn’t want to know, providing they had their little comforts, their little party games. The Techs didn’t want to know: too busy fighting among themselves. But somebody must know; somebody must be planning it all.

For some reason, I thought of Scott-Astbury. I tried to laugh myself out of it, remembering his paunchy prancing. Then I remembered the peculiar pale blueness of his eyes. People laughed at Scott-Astbury, but
he
never laughed.

I poked Vanessa awake.

“Oh, God, it’s not morning, is it?”

“No. Listen. Did you ever hear of a man called Scott-Astbury?”

She blinked at me Wearily.

“Think! It’s important.”

She rubbed a thin, beautiful hand across red-rimmed eyes.

“When I was an Est… Daddy used to go on about Scott-Astbury. He said that what Scott-Astbury was doing in the Scottish Highlands was wrong. But he and Mummy always shut up when they saw I was listening. Aw, let me sleep, Sellers!”

That was all I ever got out of her.

The morning of the Championship, I felt great. Vanessa had been to the Labour Exchange twice: none of her photographs had been rejected. I’d fooled dear, distant Laura’s photoscanners forty times in four days.

George didn’t approve; neither did the Bluefish. “Let me show you a
real
woman,” said George, as they collected me.

“Straight through,” said the Bluefish, massively. There were twelve of them now, though George explained I wouldn’t have to pay the extra wages till I was Champ of the Month. Bluefish, old and new, were pretty high. Grinning from missing ear to missing ear, a catlike joy in their lope. They kept on trying to pick me up and carry me; kept whispering about a rumble.

“What
rumble?”

“Leave them be, man, they’re happy. Come and meet this
real
woman.”

I let them persuade me. I was tired of being paraded around the domes like the FA Cup.

We’d gone a mile, through a district of half-ruined warehouses, when I heard a noise like a hundred road drills. Giggling, the Bluefish flattened themselves into doorways.

The noise became an orgy; doors vibrated. Then the street end filled with a cloud of dust full of glinting points of chrome, and red and yellow helmets and green and purple and gold arriving at stupefying speed. I slapped my hands over my ears and the scream of tortured steel drilled straight through, trapped and bouncing between the walls of that brick canyon. I glimpsed the black leading bike, black rider, black helmet, blond hair streaming back like eagles’ wings. Then their exhaust gas punched our faces and they were dwindling, leaving us choking in the cracked and burning hydrocarbons.

As they reached the far end, a yellow robo-truck turned the corner, seemed to totally block the brick canyon. I gasped, waiting for the splat.

The lead rider swayed left, like a reed in the wind, into a shadowed crack between robo-truck and wall; almost seemed to pass right through the truck.

Others, blue, green, and white, managed the same trick. The rest swayed right instead, spilling down an empty rubble slope in a shambles of tumbling, rolling, spinning chrome.

The robo-truck came on steadily, undisturbed. Its yellow front carried a splatter pattern, a scarlet spider-web. Odd! Who’d bother decorating a robo-truck? And on top… among its steering antennae, a brown shape fluttered feebly, like a trapped bird.

Then I wished I’d closed my eyes sooner. The scarlet pattern was still wet, growing, glistening. The fluttering bird was an impaled motorcyclist. One gauntleted hand still moved, as if pleading. I hoped it was the slipstream moving it.

Six feet above our heads he passed, unstoppable, spattering us with warm, red rain.

“They’ll fetch his body from the robo-depot,” said George. “Man, I’ll say that; they do give each other great funerals. When they’re not racing, all they do is go to funerals. Come and meet this girl. …”

The Bluefish emerged, grinning and whistling. “That Keri… ain’t she
somethin’?”
They loped on, happily.

I threw up in the gutter.

“That Vanessa’s cookin’ ain’t doin’ you no good, man,” said George, heartlessly.

We reached the rubble-strewn slope; the motorcyclists were picking themselves up, straightening the handlebars of their bikes. There were a couple of gum-chewing broken arms, and a broken rib, coughing up blood and jokes.

With a roar, the surviving riders returned.

“Who hitched a ride on the robo-truck?”

“Billy.”

“Billy who?”

“He never had time to tell us.”

“You can’t just write ‘Billy’ on a coffin!”

“What about ‘Silly Billy’?”

They all seemed to think that remarkably funny. The black-leather lead rider took his helmet off, so he could laugh easier. A rounded, girlish face; rosy, dimpled cheeks, under the oil smears. The eyes were large and green, under dark brows odd against the blond hair. The nose was snub, determined. Two deep frown marks of concentration on the rounded forehead. The full mouth smiled, cherubically. The broadish shoulders were slightly hunched from riding.

The chest, partly released as she unzipped her leathers, was opulently female…

“This is the
real
woman,” said George, with his biggest dazzling grin. “Keri Roberts, National Champ. She’s lasted four months, longer than anybody.”

“As Champ?”

“As alive,” said George. “Keri, meet Sellers. He’ll be pinball Champ of the Month by tonight.”

“So I can see,” said Keri, raising one dark eyebrow at my wretched plastic champ’s ribbon. “Dangerous sport, pinball. A real
man’s
game.”

I should have loathed her forever. Intead, I was fascinated.

“Don’t knock the guy,” said George. “I’m managing him.”

“George, you’d manage a three-legged cockroach, if you couldn’t find anything better.”

“Thanks,” I said. “As one ex-Est to another …”

“Who’s ex-Est?” she blazed. “I’m Unnem, mate. Born and bred. What’s so bloody great about being an Est?”

“Sorry. I thought …”

“Oh, yes, you Ests
think.
Guzzle real red meat and
think.
Drink genuine booze and
think.
Go for long walks watching dicky birds and
think.
I don’t
think
about racing; I race.”

“Keri can see round corners,” said George, hurriedly. “She can smell a robo-truck coming a mile away. This Keri, she got nine lives like a cat, man.”

“Shurrup, George. I ran over a cat this morning.” Her hand reached down, touched a sweat-blackened silver cross that hung between her breasts. Her face was suddenly sharp and peaky.

“I’ll lend yo’ my lucky rabbit foot, Keri!”

“Just
manage
your little ex-Est out of my way, George.” She put her bike into gear and rode straight at me. I dodged, but the end of her handlebar still caught

me in the crotch. Then she was away in a cloud of smoke.

“Keep goin’, man.”

Three hours since the Championship started. One kid each from Glasgow, Birmingham, Swansea. Two of us from London Northeast; some kid from London West. A flickering in the corner of my eye told me the big screens were busy; one showing scores, the other close-ups of us players as, doubled up, we sweated on.

Sweat running into my eyes. Unasked, George changed my towelling headband for the tenth time. All round, the huge audience shifted and coughed in the flickering darkness. All the machines silent, except two, tonight. Mine was running so hot a glow came up to my face, like an oven. But it was well serviced; I’d seen to that. Half an hour to go, and it wouldn’t conk now.

No time to look at the score. I could sense how I was doing from the muted noises of the crowd. A deepening silence, as I lost ground; a growl as I began to climb; a sigh as I regained the lead. I’d gained and lost it twice; was lying third, behind Birmingham and London West.

An exultant yip from the crowd.

“Birmingham burned out,” said George. “Keep goin’. Twenty minutes left.”

My back was locked solid; my hand clenched in a glove of pain, my mind a maze of numerals. But I still heard the sudden shouting outside; savage shouting far away. Hammering on the dome. A growl from the Blue-fish, shoulder to shoulder around me, in a sweaty ring.

“What’s that?” I asked, missing one shot altogether.

“Nothing to bother you, man. Keep goin’.”

The hammering grew. The crowd around me was breaking up and whispering away.

“Keep goin’, man. We can cope.”

“With
what?”

A huge slow banging on the main doors made the whole dome boom like a gong.

“Keep going’. ‘Tain’t nothin’. Just the usual.”

I heard the main doors collapse, with a screech of metal. Echoing triumphant shouts. An answering shout from the remaining crowd around me.

“George, for God’s sake …”

“Watch it, man. You missed two in a row, there. Keep going’—the rest’s up to us.” He sounded tense, uncertain.

A crack, like a gun. A Bluefish staggered back against my machine, steadied himself with one hand, pushed off again. Leaving, on the glowing glass, a bloody palm print.

Then I was in the middle of a storm; backs and legs of Bluefish pressing in round me. The machine rocking and swaying. Thump of flesh on flesh, bone on bone. A gurgle. It was all caving in on me, but I went on pulling the handle to please George. Suddenly a roar of triumph. Many feet, running away. Silence, and a ring of grinning, earless Bluefish faces, close to mine. I went on pulling the handle, till George eased my fingers off.

“You won, man.” Stroking me gently. All the Bluefish—stroking me like I was a prize-winning pussycat.

“Let me stretch.” I pushed through them, easing my numb back with numb hands. One big screen just carried my score. The other carried my face as big as a wall. Unshaven beard like black grass; wrinkles like irrigation ditches with streaks of sweat like waterfalls. I could have crawled up the black nostrils of my own exhaustion and vanished from the world forever…

White-coats hanging a purple cloak round me again; it seemed a slightly better quality. An even higher crown, put crooked on my head.

My foot kicked something soft. I looked down, holding my crown in place with both hands.

At my feet lay a dead boy; a total stranger. A yard away, a Bluefish lay face down, a round wound in his back pulsing blood like a little roadside spring.

“Look up, man, smile,” said George. “You’re on the Box.”

“Come and speak to them, man. They’re all waiting.”

Bluefish practically carried me up the metal stairs, to a metal balcony where the moon rode high.

I’d never seen a crowd so huge; all of London Northeast. All looking up at me. Little children held up in their parents’ arms. Old, bent grannies shrieking, “Sellers is Champ, Sellers is Champ.”

But all I could think of was the blanket-covered bodies laid out against the wall of the dome. Two rows, one much shorter than the other.

“We done them, man. We really slaughtered them.”

“Who were they?”

“Guys from London West. We were expectin’ them. We was ready.”

“And what happened to the London West Champ?”

“He ran away. When we broke into
his
dome, he ran away. He’s finished, man, finished. You’re Champ. An’ it’s Champ of the Year, next month. Speak to them, man. Tell ‘em they did well. …” He thrust a microphone into my hand.

“You did well,” I said.

I thought the cheering would never stop.

“You’ve given them something to live for, man!”

I looked at the row of blanket-covered bodies.

“That as well, man. If you hadn’t come, they’da fought among themselves, died for
nothing.
Thanks to you, they died happy, dyin’ in the moment of victory.”

“What victory?”

“Don’t
talk
that way, man.”

“Take me to Vanessa’s.”

Around dawn, I went to the window, drew back the curtain; a grey, flat morning.

From the bed, Vanessa said, “You’re a good man, Sellers. You’ve no idea what this place was like before you came. You give people hope… pride.”

“I get people killed.”

“People are getting nicer. George is talking to me. The Bluefish come to take me shopping. …”

“I’m going away.”

“Oh, God, where?”

“Where I can only kill
myself.”

“To Keri Roberts. She’s the real killer. Killed hundreds and never grieved for one.”

“That’ll make a pair of us, then.”

Behind me, on the bed, she began to weep.

“Here’s your bike,” said the mechanic. “Gimme your chit.”

I handed him my Racer’s chit from the Labour Exchange and bent to examine the bike.

A wretched thing: once red, but most of the enamel had been scraped away by contact with the road. Rust bubbling through everywhere. The previous owners had tried covering up the rust with stickers and hand-painted lettering: ball of fire, the clacton kid.

There were other stickers beneath the top stickers; other lettering under the top lettering. I peeled and picked at them, like doing an archaeological dig.

LEYTONSTONE LIGHTWINGS, YOUNG GARY.

Where were they now? The handlebars had that wavering line that meant they’d been bent and straightened

many times. So had the front forks. The crude single-cylinder engine dripped oil on my boot.