And the now-familiar voice in his ear said, “Boo.”
In no mood for it, Lugan spun, scowling.
“Will you fucking stop doing that?”
Ecko was standing directly behind him, his skin and cloak reacting to the overspill of light from the office. Lugan had no idea how he’d got there or where he’d come from, and his sense of humour was struggling. He’d been all night trying to find a concrete reason to keep this little bugger, to add him to the Boss’s tightly run cell network, and right now, Ecko’s pranks were a temptation to just tie a bike frame to his ankles and chuck him in the Thames.
Lugan said, “Gimme my lighter back.”
“Don’t have it.”
“It’s too early for this. Give me my lighter.”
“Don’t have it. Not this time. This time you lost it all on your ownsome.”
The commander drew a breath. “I’m warnin’ you –”
“I said, I don’t have it. An’ if you keep bein’ an asshole, you don’t get dinner.”
Motion pulled Lugan’s attention downwards. In Ecko’s hand, swathed in his stealth-cloak, was a crumpled brown bag. From it came the faint, curling scent of takeaway.
The smell made Lugan’s belly grumble, loud in the stillness. Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t s’pose you paid for that?”
“Don’t be stupid.” Ecko grinned like a fiend.
Unable to help himself, the cell commander chuckled, half in relief, half in exasperation. Ecko might be off-the-fucking-wall annoying, but what they’d do without him... Lugan didn’t want to finish the thought. Instead, he cuffed Ecko’s shoulder, made the smaller man wince. Ecko’s ability to get in and out of local businesses was frankly astonishing – hoverdrones, cameras, recorders – the little man might as well have been invisible.
One way and another, it was sodding handy.
And not just for free food.
“Well, what the fuck have I done with it, then?” His dog-end still between his lips, Lugan made one last search of his pockets and then shrugged and reached for the arc welder, behind him on a shelf.
He shielded the cigarette with his opposite hand and then swore round the thing as the arc nearly torched his beard.
Ecko cackled. “Addict.”
“Freak.”
The welder went back on the shelf with a bang.
“Serious for a minute?” Fuller’s voice came from the office. “My newsfeed’s just gone batshit. I think –”
From outside, there came the first wail of sirens.
* * *
Half two.
The lights in the Bike Lodge were off. Outside, it was quiet; the last yowl of siren was finally fading. Inside, the curry was roiling uncomfortably in Lugan’s belly, and he still hadn’t found his lighter.
Agitated, the cell commander was pacing.
In this new age of Pilgrim’s social tranquility, sirens were rare and disturbing things. Sirens for almost an hour could well mean the fucking apocalypse.
Bollocks.
Lugan spun on his boot heel and paced the other way. The various oil-stained papers tacked to the wall – ID numbers, serial markings, notes, addresses – fluttered in his wake as though trying to escape.
On the couch, Fuller had discarded the older laptop and was glued to his tiny, secure flatscreen, trying to track and identify the night’s events. Ecko was sat next to him like some sort of urban grotesque, hunched up with his knees almost into his chest.
Lugan had never seen him look this pensive.
And it made him angry.
“What the fuck did you do? I thought you went out after dinner! Tell me you got out clean and they didn’t follow your arse back ’ere?” The commander paced back, jabbing a stained and callused finger at Ecko as he did so. A dog-end was still clamped in the corner of his mouth and reflexively his hands kept going for the lighter that wasn’t there. “I got your future to fight for, mate, an’ you better not be takin’ the piss.”
Ecko snarled back at him, “I’m doin’ your job, for chrissakes. I went out after leads, on Pilgrim, on how to take them down. Better than sittin’ on my ass in here.”
“What I don’t want is the Met on my doorstep...”
“Please.” Ecko snorted. “They couldn’t find me with Sherlock Holmes and a bloodhound.”
That much was probably true. One advantage to the little fucker being so reckless – Ecko wasn’t afraid of much, and that made him honest.
Lugan spun again. “I ’ope you’re right, you little bastard, because if they do, I’ll slit your throat myself.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Watch me.”
“Chrissakes, I can’t watch my own throat.”
Fuller chuckled at their double act, smothered it.
For a moment, Lugan stopped pacing and glared at the pair of them as if he was the only sane man left in the city. Then he flung himself back in his chair, swore venomously, and picked up the now-cold mug of tea.
“What says Collator?” he said to Fuller. “You trackin’?”
“Still on radio silence,” Fuller answered. “For the moment, I got nothing.”
“Fuck.”
“Easy, Luge,” Fuller said. “If the Met knew anything, they’d be here with the tear gas by now. The chaos is calming down.” He glanced round at Ecko, the light from the little screen making his eyes glitter. “Luck is on your side, it seems. Again.”
“Luck, for chrissakes.” Ecko grinned back, like the Cheshire Cat’s evil twin. “Skill.”
“I swear, one of these days you’ll give me a fucking ’eart attack.” Lugan eyed the tea and thought better of it. He smacked the mug back on the table. “Now. Quit dodging the subject. If I’m gonna defend your arse to the Boss, I need to know what you did. And ’ow much of a mess you made.”
Ecko shrugged. “I went after the pharmacist, Grey.”
As Lugan opened his mouth to answer back, Ecko cut him off.
“C’mon, Lugan, we’ve done fuck all for months. D’you wanna do this, or what?”
“Grey’s the cook, not –”
“In fact,” Fuller commented, “Grey’s another major shareholder. When Pilgrim bought out the NHS in the early tweens, he was the orchestrator. It’s his utopia we’re living in.”
Ecko said, “See? Major bad guy. I found his Secret Lair.” He grinned. “So now we can go bust his ass.”
Lugan said nothing. On the desk in front of him was an old pub ashtray, half full of roll-up remnants. Carefully, he began to shred them and collect the remaining tobacco. It was a habit he’d picked up a decade or more before, while waiting on His Majesty, and he’d never quite given it up.
Ecko was bristling with anticipation, his obsidian-black eyes flickering with a faint, red light. His impatience was infectious, and Lugan could almost hear his thoughts, C’mon, let’s go let’s go let’s go let’s...
“We can get Grey? You serious?” As the realisation sank home, Lugan was beginning to think that, aggravating or not, Ecko needed to stay on his team.
Like, big time.
Ecko’s grin spread. “You wanted leads. I know where’s he’s at. An’ we can fuckin’ get him.” He was almost bouncing on the seat. “Well, I can.”
Fuller said, “It’s tempting, Luge. Pilgrim’s utopian society is largely attributable to Doctor Grey. You know the story – every GP, every researcher, every psychologist, was given a choice by their new employer: you prescribe the drug we give you, or you lose your job. Suddenly every dissenter, student, protester, everyone who’s unemployed – they all have ADHD, or depression, or anxiety, or maybe they just can’t sleep... A decade later, we’ve got almost complete servitude. No unrest, no remonstration, no riots, no freedom. The internet’s full of happy cats, and everyone loves their job. Whatever it is. It was bloody genius.”