This Machine Kills (39 page)

   “If it wasn’t you, then why did you send my men to kill me?”

   Milton shrugged, “I had nothing to do with that, perhaps there’s someone else you’ve upset? You do seem to have a knack for it.”

   He remembered Mason’s words about how he would not tolerate being made a fool of under any circumstances. So much for the old man loving him.

   Milton looked down and saw where Taylor’s hand was resting.

   “You know I thought it was you who killed her until now,” he said with a sigh, “I guess we were both wrong.”

   The absence of fear on Milton’s face made Taylor move his hand away from the pistol and back to his side. With the beginnings of a smile on his face, he nodded through the window to the burning city below.

   “Then it looks like I did all this for nothing.”

   Milton turned and looked out of the window, taking in as much of the City as he could.

   “Maybe it’s for the best,” he said quietly.

   Taylor laughed, “You can’t mean that, I know what this place means to you.”

   Milton tried to laugh back but he didn’t have it in him, “Things are different… now that she’s gone.”

   When he turned around, he was wearing a look of serene calm on his face. It was like a completely different person was now in the room. Taylor suddenly realised what it was that usually made Milton appear so edgy. His mind was always racing; thinking about the issues affecting the City and their most appropriate solutions. But now, it was like all those things had been wiped clean. For the first time he felt like Milton’s mind was there in the room with him, not elsewhere, working through a myriad of problems.

   “When I first came up with Triage,” he said; his voice flat and smooth, “I ignored all the negative things they were saying because I knew I was right. I was only doing what had to be done, I was-”

   “Responding to the demands of the market,” Taylor interrupted.

   “Exactly,” Milton smiled, realising he had given the same speech to him before,

   “I’ve always stuck by that too, never wavering in my belief that what I did saved us from a much worse fate. But since the wall went up….”

   Milton walked away from Taylor, staring out at his dying creation. After a dozen steps he spun on his heels, looking like he’d forgotten to mention something,

   “Tell me,” he said, “why did we build it?”

   The obviousness of the question surprised Taylor.

   “To protect the City,” he answered, deliberately keeping his answer simple.

   Milton seemed not to register the response as he continued his walk around the periphery of his home.

   “One of the biggest advantages of Triage,” he eventually said, “was that it dealt with the energy problem we were facing. With so many less consumers of our raw materials, it meant we were in a pretty secure place. And then of course, when we got hold of the oil in Canada and the new reserves in the North Sea, it meant we were home and dry. We’d have enough to last us for hundreds of years.”

   He reached the corner of the room and took a right turn in order to continue his walk.

   “It was a good thing too, as no one was interested in nuclear power anymore, not after what happened at the power plants, and as for renewables, well they were just too expensive and inefficient.”

   “I feel a but coming on,” Taylor said.

   Milton momentarily stopped walking and gave him the briefest of smiles before continuing.

   “
But
,” he said, placing special emphasis on the word, “it turned out that things weren’t going to be that simple. You see, Canada was nowhere near as productive as we thought it was going to be, and as for the reserves in the North Sea… well, they simply weren’t there.”

   Just before Taylor was going to have to start following him in order to hear his words, Milton turned and walked towards him.

   “Our oil people deliberately lied to us. They had massively over exaggerated the amounts we had left in order to get our endorsement. I also have a strong feeling it was them and not the Chinese who were responsible for the mishap at the nuclear plants. The situation with gas isn’t much better, there’s only a fraction left of what we first thought. If we’re lucky we’ve got six months, maybe a year or two at the most
before they’re all gone. I mean obviously the Chinese have got their stores, but we’re nowhere near strong enough to try to acquire them. They know it and so do we.”

   “But why,” Taylor said, as Milton closed the space between them, “why would your own people lie to you. You all work for the same company now, surely they realise they’d be cutting their own throats?”

   Milton shrugged, “They had their own empire to protect, no matter what the cost… I can’t blame them really, I probably would have done the same thing myself if I was in their position.”

   Taylor looked around for someone to share his disbelief with, “But it doesn’t make any sense.”

   “Well,” Milton said, shrugging, “that’s just the way things work.”

   “So what happens now?” Taylor asked.

   Milton stopped a few paces from him, “Oh, you know, just the end of life as you and I know it. There’ll be no fuel for the production centres to build the products that run our lives. No power to run our homes and all the amazing things we have in them. Do you know that oil is an essential ingredient in the creation of plastic? Just think about the consequences of that for a moment. It’ll be like the industrial revolution never happened.”

   Taylor raised his eyebrow, “Shit.”

   “Exactly… But fortunately,” Milton reassured him, “some things will stay the same…You see we realised that this need not spell the end of the way we do business. We just needed to reassess our priorities, to reorganise the markets. We did it once when I created Triage, there’s no reason we can’t do it again, if you follow my meaning.”

   Taylor shook his head, “I don’t.”

   Milton almost huffed at his ignorance before carrying on, “Look at the Romans for example. They didn’t have plastics and televisions, yet relatively speaking they lived really rather splendid lives. They had plenty of money, plenty of food, large villas and so on. Triage was all about shrinking the economy; the next stage is to simplify it. From now on, it will be the basic things in life that will be the most valuable commodities. Forget entertainment systems and technological wizardry, it’s the simple things like food, clothing and shelter that people are going to desire.”

   Taylor smiled, “Like in the Old-Town.”

   “That’s right,” Milton answered, “and just like in the Old-Town, it will be ClearSkies that people will have to come to in order to get hold of those products.”

   Taylor laughed, “You think the people in the city can make things for themselves? Most of them can barely wipe their own asses. I don’t think you need to worry about them being self-sufficient.”

   Milton let out a sigh, “And therein is where our problems lie. You’re right when you say people in the cities have become stupid and lazy. They have lost the ability to do things for themselves anymore. And don’t think I’m complaining about that, it’s exactly how we wanted them…. But the thing that worried us, is that it would only be a matter of time before they realised that all they needed was a patch of land and a few seeds before they could start to look after themselves. This, as I’m sure you can understand, is something we could never tolerate. It’s the reason we treat the co-ops with such prejudice. We couldn’t have our good citizens looking to the other side and getting ideas.”

   Taylor thought about Ben and his father doing all they could to help their communities, and how it had cost them both their lives. That was the point when the penny finally dropped.

   “And that was why you built the wall.”

   Milton nodded, “And that was why we built the wall… We knew that this new approach would be successful, but in order for it to work, we needed one vital ingredient, and that was a captive audience. The wall was never intended to keep people from getting into the City. It was always about stopping them from getting out… It was the only way we could make sure our products stayed in demand.”

   “But where would they have gone,” Taylor asked, “not to the Old-Town and definitely not to the country. Not with the pollution.”

   As he said the words, he realised that even after everything that had happened, he was still no less naïve than before.

   “The radiation levels dropped years ago,” Milton answered unnecessarily, “that was just something we ran with to keep the Old-Towners from straying too far from the City. We make too much money from the food queues to want them to leave. Unfortunately though, we’re not fooling them all anymore. You must have noticed that the place is much quieter than before?”

   Taylor nodded.

   “That’s because they’ve given up relying on us and gone in search of a better life. I’ve seen satellite pictures of the communities they’ve created out there and I can honestly say that some of them are really rather magnificent.”

    Whether he realised it or not, Milton was wearing an enthusiastic, almost child-like smile on his face.

   “You sound jealous of them,” Taylor said.

   “Who me?” Milton answered coyly, “I don’t think so. I’m not the sort of man to get my hands dirty.”

   The sound of an explosion ripping through the streets made both men look to the window then back to one another.

   “For people to keep their freedom, we needed to cage them in,” Milton said, then contemplated his words and smiled, “but I suppose you know that better than most, don’t you Taylor?”

   When there was no reply, he spoke again.

   “We had to try,” he said, “it was the least the City deserved… At least that’s what I thought.”

   “And now?”

   Milton shrugged, “Charlotte was never a believer in the wall. She always thought it was destined to fail… It looks like she was right.”

   They were interrupted by the whirring of the lift motor kicking into life.

   “Sounds like we’ve got more visitors,” Milton said casually.

   Taylor hadn’t expected to say what he did next, but nevertheless he heard the words escape from his mouth.

   “You should go now. Get to the roof, get in your helicopter and go before they get here.”

   Milton shook his head, “Where I am going to go? This is my city, my home…Besides, they’ve probably got some questions they want answering.”

   “They’ll want more than answers,” Taylor said, “now go before it’s too late.”

   A banging sound from the lobby preceded Doyle bursting through the main doors into the suite.

   “The lift is nearly here,” he said, “what do you want me to do?”

   “Keep them outside,” Taylor answered, “do whatever it takes.”

   “No!” Milton shouted, shocking Taylor with the force in his voice, “let them in.”

   Doyle looked to his friend, who gave him a curt nod before he disappeared from the room again. Without saying anything, Milton gave Taylor a reassuring wink, the action being acknowledged with a brief and doubtful smile. Their moment of solidarity was quickly smashed by the sound of angry, raised voices in the lobby. Seconds later, Doyle moved back into the room with a worried look etched on his face.

   “Here they come,” he shouted breathlessly, “and they look pissed off.”

   Doyle wasn’t exaggerating. The eight-man mob that poured into the suite looked primed for further violence. They were led by a limping Warchild, who effortlessly barged Doyle out of his way as he marched his men towards Milton; the object of their aggression.

   On instinct, Taylor stepped protectively in front of him, making himself the last barrier between the men of the Old-Town and the engineer of their oppression. Warchild stopped within feet of Taylor as the men behind him, all dressed in prison uniforms, instantly did the same; none was brave enough to step in front of their leader.

   “I told you I’d make it,” Warchild said.

   Taylor nodded, “I never doubted you would.”

   The giant, who looked almost as beaten and battered as Taylor, motioned with his head to where Milton stood.

   “Why haven’t you dealt with him yet?”

   “I have,” Taylor answered, “it’s over.”

   Warchild shook his head, “How can it be over, when he’s still standing?”

   “Hasn’t there been enough blood spilt already?” Taylor asked, “We’ve won, isn’t that enough?”

   Murmurs of discontent rose up from Warchild’s men. A stern backwards glance from their leader quickly silenced them.

   “It’s not over yet, Taylor. We’re not leaving here without him.”

   Taylor sighed, “Then you’re going to have to go through me first.”

   As he spoke, he was aware of Doyle standing shoulder to shoulder with him once more.

   “Why?” Warchild asked, his voice now a mix of confusion and anger, “after what he did to us, what he did to my family. Why would you protect him?”

   Taylor was temporarily at a loss to answer.

   “I told you,” he finally said, “I’ve seen enough bloodshed for a lifetime. I don’t need another death on my hands.”