Great North Road (41 page)

“Why do you do this?”

Marc-Anthony put on a mischievous smile. “I’m basically unemployable otherwise. A disgraceful incident in my long shady past involving some illegal tox and an indecent vegetable. In public!”

Angela laughed. “I don’t believe you.”

“Well, maybe I was exaggerating the vegetable’s importance. But this isn’t such a bad job. I get to meet lovely people like you. You know, you have quite the most beautiful green eyes.”

She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”

“Oh don’t, you’ll get me all soppy.”

The nurse came in. “All clear,” she told them.

“Right then,” Marc-Anthony said cheerfully. “Let’s get out of this truly dismal weather and into some real sunshine.”

A black Mercedes executive sedan drove them straight to the gateway. There was a GE Border Directorate office at the end of Last Mile. Angela was surprised that all she had to do was put her hand on a biometric scanner and have her e-i certify her citizen status to the directorate’s AI. It cleared her for transit immediately, and issued her with a small GE visa chip with a return authorization.

“Don’t lose it,” Marc-Anthony warned as the Mercedes slid smoothly up the metal ramp that led into the gateway. “It’s not so easy coming through the other way.”

The Mercedes drove smoothly along Motorway A to the airport. Marc-Anthony enjoyed her delight at St. Libra’s rings, even stopping the car so she could get out and have a proper look. She breathed in the exotic air just like everyone visiting a new world for the first time, not complaining about the pervasive bioil smell, barely able to contain her excitement at being on St. Libra.

It was a HyperLear LV-700 which was waiting for them at the airport. A neat delta-wing, fifteen-seat executive jet whose P&W Excelsior turborams were capable of pushing up to a cruising speed of Mach 3.8.

“What about everyone else?” Angela asked as stewardess took her bag at the bottom of the airstairs.

“Just us,” Marc-Anthony said.

They didn’t fly low and slow through the Fall Zone. It was probability, Marc-Anthony explained. A quick dash through at high altitude had the same chance of impact as the commercial flights lumbering along in the murky fog twenty-five kilometers below. Low and slow was all down to psychology, keeping the passengers content.

It was raining when they arrived at Abellia, thick dark clouds that shielded the coastal town from view as the HyperLear descended toward the airport. A Jaguar JX-7 convertible, with the roof up, drove them along the Rue de Provence, which took them out to Gironella Beach where Bartram’s mansion sat on the narrow shelf of land between the deep sands and the steep plateau slope behind. The clouds drifted away north and the dazzling Sirius sunlight played across the sparkling turquoise sea as the Jag emerged from the tunnel, showcasing the tremendous vista ahead of them. Even knowing Bartram had chosen the Abellia peninsula out of a whole world didn’t quite prepare Angela for the sight. The rumpled slopes at the back of the three-kilometer-wide cove were huge and almost vertical, smeared with jade and aquamarine vegetation that clung to the narrow fissures in the rock for the first third before loosing traction, leaving dark moss and sporebloom to thrive on the naked rock above. At the far end of the curving wall, a vast waterfall thundered down for more than two hundred meters, producing a continual explosion cloud of spray that swirled with rainbow diffraction waves in the brilliant sunlight. The grounds around the mansion were neatly maintained, a perfect compromise between formal and natural; planted with carefully chosen luxuriant native trees, providing a colorful arborious parkland that gave off a musky-sweet pine scent in the humid sea air.

“Oh wow,” Angela murmured as she stared at the mansion.

“I know,” Marc-Anthony said proudly. “It has that effect on everyone. Gaudy, but so chic with it, don’t you think?”

“Uh-huh.” Now that he’d said it, she wasn’t sure about the mansion on an aesthetic level. It seemed so out of place in this naturalistic setting, yet at the same time it was so impressive it could actually compete with the magnificent landscape. Bartram’s designer had gone for a pyramid with a truncated apex, so that it resembled the urbane modernist version of some Inca temple. The façade comprised huge rhomboid sections of glass, each one a different color, and framed by beams of matte-black metal. Wide horizontal balconies were wrapped around it, supporting long troughs full of high-desert plants.

“Wait till you see it at night, sweetie,” Marc-Anthony said. “The frame lights up. We look like a miniature Vegas on the seafront.”

The Jaguar dipped down into a tunnel, which took them to a hangar-like garage directly underneath the mansion. The only cars parked there were Jaguars, JX-7 models identical to the one Angela had just arrived in, even down to the silver-blue color. There must have been fifteen of them. Marc-Anthony just shrugged when she gave them a puzzled look. “Don’t ask.”

When they came up a spiral stair into the main atrium with its black-and-white marble floor, the air was noticeably cooler and drier than outside. Sunlight streamed down from the transparent apex high above, striking the chrome rails on each of the landings stacked between tall fluted pillars. Two of Bartram’s girlfriends were there waiting for her on the broad casual loungers that gave the place a hotel-lobby feel rather than anything homey. Olivia-Jay, with her dark lustrous skin and eastern-Mediterranean features of wide lips, flattish nose, and hazel eyes; thick short-waved hair flowed down over her shoulders. She was wearing a gauzy pearl-white skirt and a breezy, welcoming smile. Karah was less effusive, waiting politely while Olivia-Jay bounced over and gave Angela a big hug. An interesting restraint considering Karah was completely naked. Angela’s first impression was of a redhead fitness fanatic who would dwarf most woman pro volleyball team members.

“Welcome to wicked Gironella,” Olivia-Jay said. “The overtox by the sea.”

Karah kissed her on both cheeks. “It’s not that bad,” she said in a husky tone. “You’ll be all right.”

“Us girlfriends, we stick together,” Olivia-Jay said. “Especially when Brinkelle’s about.”

“Behave,” Marc-Anthony warned in a mock-serious voice.

“Who’s Brinkelle?” Angela asked, because it was the kind of question a naive eighteen-year-old would ask. It was odd, but she hadn’t expected that meeting the other girls would be so tough. She hadn’t even considered them before now. But despite their jaunty character she thought them sad. In fact she was starting to feel angry that they were here, angry that in this day and age old men still coveted and exploited young girls as they always had, that there hadn’t been any social progress since Roman times, how actually opening up new worlds had been a backward step because so much was now beyond the reach of true civilization and accountability. And as they always did, the Norths took the whole scene with girls to its extreme, because they could, because excess defined them, because unaccountability was their god.

You knew all this before you came here,
she told herself sternly.
It’s why you’re here. Come on, focus, there’s nothing you can do for them. They’re here for the money, just like you.
She gathered up her self-control and smiled nervously at her two new friends.

“The daughter,” Karah said. “She’s only in her twenties, and she’s already a complete bitch.”

“Girls, girls.” Marc-Anthony clapped his hands together. “Who’re the bitchy ones? Honestly. Now, please, Angela needs to get settled. It’s been a long trip.”

“You’re in the room next to me,” Olivia-Jay said. “Come on.” She started tugging Angela toward the lift positioned discreetly behind the sweeping staircase.

Her room was on the sixth floor, a massive square with a split-level polished stone floor and gold velvet walls. A two-star interior in a five-star building, she thought in bemusement. But the long external glass wall opened onto her own section of balcony, with a view to the southwest and that fantastic waterfall.

“Your clothes are in the closet, and indexed in the mansion’s net,” Marc-Anthony said.

“But—” Angela pointed to her case, which was already standing beside the circular bed.

“You don’t wear your own clothes here,” Olivia-Jay told her. “And that’s if you wear any. Poor old Karah. Naked is part of her contract.”

“I’ve procured the kind of garments Mr. Bartram enjoys,” Marc-Anthony said. “They’re in your size.”

“How do you know my size?”

“Ms. Aslo sent your details last week.”

“Oh.”

“Now, Mr. Bartram won’t be back until this evening, he’s over at the Institute today for treatment. You can have a rest until he arrives. I don’t know about you, but coming through the gateway always messes my body clock.”

“Yes. Thanks.”

“I’ll pick out something appropriate for your introduction later.”

Angela went over to her bag and took out an interface set and her netlens glasses. “Is there an access code for the mansion’s net? I’d like to tell my mum I’m okay.”

“Your mother?” Olivia-Jay squeaked.

Angela pursed her lips in resignation as she clipped the black earring on. “She thinks I’m still at Imperial College. I don’t want to let her know I’ve dropped out. Not yet.”

“The mansion’s an open area access,” Marc-Anthony said. “Just get your e-i to register.”

“Thanks.”

Angela waited until they’d left the room then sat on the bed. Unsurprisingly it was a water mattress. Her e-i placed a call to her mother’s transnet interface address. The unavailable icon popped up in her netlens; Angela told her e-i to access the voice-message function. “Hi, Mum. It’s me. Just want to let you know I’m fine. Studying hard—ha ha. There’s a bunch of us going out to the West End this weekend, if I can afford it. But that company I told you about has offered me more stewardessing work, so I might finally have some cash again. Call me when you’re back. Love you. Bye.” She flopped down and rode the mattress’s slow wave beneath her. There was nobody at the interface, of course, certainly not a mother. It was a one-way relay. What she said didn’t matter; there wasn’t even an elaborate code anyone could decrypt. Accessing the interface was the message, a simple one:
I’m in
.

W
EDNESDAY,
F
EBRUARY 6, 2143

“I’m going to bust out of this place,” Angela announced quietly.

On the other side of the mess table, Paresh froze up, a fork wound tight with spaghetti halfway to his mouth. “What are you doing?” he whispered back. “I’m supposed to watch you, make sure you don’t go anywhere unauthorized. Besides, your clothes are tagged.”

“Oh yeah, I’d forgotten. That’s going to stop me all right. Hey, could I borrow your scissors?”

“Angela!”

“If you come with me, you won’t get into trouble for losing sight of me, then, will you.”

“Huh?”

She grinned roguishly, and used a finger to push the fork toward his mouth. He didn’t resist.

“Come on,” she said, with wide-eyed mischief. “A night on the town; just the two of us. There are decent clubs here, not just the rich hangouts. And you’ve never truly eaten until you’ve tasted milliseed in chili sauce.”

“You’re crazy.”

“But smart with it. Think about it. We’re going to be shipped out to Edzell any day now. That’s two thousand kilometers away, and it’s only the first camp, a staging post. Crap knows how far we’ll be going eventually, or how long for. You think this alien is going to be easy to find?”

“Did you hear something about us being forward-deployed?”

“No. I’m just applying logic.” She pointed out through the sides of the big mess tent where a Daedalus was rolling along a taxiway toward the end of the runway. “They’re even nightflying supplies out to Edzell. And they’ve already got four e-Rays up on the other side.”

“Yeah, but the last one found this huge mountain range farther north.”

“The Eclipse Mountains, so called because the range is so big it eclipses everything.”

“Damn, is there anything you don’t know?”

“This place is one giant teenage girl gossip fest. Besides, not even HDA thinks a mountain range is classified information. I access the observation center feed on my grid a lot.”

“Okay, but, a jailbreak?”

She sucked on a chunk of watermelon. “The point is, we’re going out there soon, and who knows when we’re coming back. So let’s award ourselves a little R and R time. You think Passam eats in this tent every night? Fuck, she doesn’t even sleep in the airport compound.”

“Yeah, I heard her and her people are in the Mortant Hotel.”

“Five-star rating, and all at the taxpayers’ expense. So …? It’ll be no fun by myself.” She gave him an entreating look.

“Oh hell.”

Angela borrowed a plain white short-sleeved blouse from Leora and a simple turquoise skirt with a gold hem from Audrie; her squadmates weren’t the same size as her, but the fit wasn’t too bad even though she had to keep tucking the blouse back in. The pink-and-yellow trainers were also Leora’s, worn with three pairs of socks to keep them on.

“Did you remember to swap your underwear, too?” Paresh asked.

“What underwear?” Evil: but worth it for his expression.

Paresh knew one of the quartermasters in the motor pool. They checked out a Land Rover Tropic, with a patch loaded to suspend its log for the evening. Driving along the Rue Turbigo into town, they were both conscious about how out of place the big olive-green vehicle was amid the coupes and supercars and limousines on Abellia’s roads. But there were plenty of other HDA vehicles about, so …

Angela told the rugged vehicle’s auto to take them down to Velasco Beach. They walked along the promenade as the dazzle-point of the sun slid down toward the horizon. There weren’t many people left at this time of day, and the stores along the front were shutting up. Paresh insisted on wearing his smart fatigues, “So they can’t accuse me of being off duty,” he said. The HDA clothing earned him a few curious looks, but certainly no hostility.

There was a marina at the end of the promenade, the Rueda, which hadn’t been there twenty years ago. Reasonable enough, Angela supposed. It was strange how the time in Holloway was compressing, reducing to a weird discontinuity, but the memories of her earlier life were stronger now than they had been for a long time.