"Yeah, I had a strong right hand and poor eyesight, from all that puberty."
"And look how you turned out."
"Suave and sophisticated. A gentleman, like."
"Pretty much what I was thinking."
"Later, pal."
"Later."
He wanted to phone Suzanne, but her phone was bugged. Except that he could always introduce a little misdirection. In his phone's Favourite Apps, he opened a hotel and pub guide, then tapped an improbable series of keystrokes on the pad, stared at the lens so it could read his retina pattern, and placed the call. His signal now carried sneakware that subverted the GPSID system, changing the coordinates of his phone as logged in the data tier. So long as he and Suzanne were careful with their words, it was safe.
"Hey," he said.
"Josh. You're doing OK?"
"Yeah."
"Any luck on… you know." She was being circumspect, but if the police were monitoring the case, they knew what he was working on.
"Maybe Richard has a friend, maybe not. If I can find this person, it might help."
"That's good."
"Suzanne? Are you OK?"
"Disciplinary hearing. I've been served notice."
"What do you mean, disciplinary hearing?"
"Mr Broomhall has taken legal action through the professional association I belong to. Apparently, that does not preclude the possibility of further action through the courts, it says here."
"Shit. Are you suspended?"
"No, but they tried for that. The review board agreed that the case was serious, but not that the initial evidence was so strong that I needed to be kept from seeing clients in advance of the hearing. They advised me to let my insurance company know what was happening, and not take on any new clients."
"You'll be all right. I'm sure you will."
"Thanks, but Broomhall has expensive lawyers, and I don't. The army with the biggest guns wins, isn't that how it works?"
Josh stared at her in the phone.
"You know, when Thatcher was prime minister forty years ago, a full-blooded Marxist coup clamped down on the Gambia republic, taking their prime minister's family hostage. Said prime minister was visiting Britain at the time – he was an ally – so old Iron Maggie didn't take too kindly to that."
"I know where the Gambia is. I don't know this story."
"Three – count 'em – three Regiment guys went in country to investigate, and discovered that the rebels were holding the family in a hospital. The guys went in openly and without weapons, knowing they would be searched."
In the phone, Suzanne nodded, though her expression remained unhappy.
"But they didn't need weapons," he went on, "because once inside, they beat the bejesus out of some of the guards, took away their guns, and proceeded to extract the family. Spirited them away in the night. In and out like ghosts."
"You mean like ninjas?"
"Yeah, like that. The thing was, that was all it took for the coup to collapse and the government to reinstate itself. Three quiet guys."
Suzanne bit her (very kissable) lower lip.
"You're an interesting man, Mr Cumberland."
"And you're not so bad, Dr Duchesne."
"You want to meet up for lunch tomorrow? In Victoria would be best for me."
"If I can. I'll ring you in the morning to confirm. Say, ten-ish?"
"Yes. Good luck."
He rang off, checked the surrounding park again. Three people had left, none had entered, and all appeared quiet. A boomglobe played music. Outside the railings, a group of youths was passing. Suddenly, one guy leaped up, hit the railings and flipped over backwards to land in a crouch, then threw himself into a shoulder roll and came up to his feet. The others laughed, one clapped his shoulder; then the group continued onward, joking about something.
The gekrunners are gathering.
Or maybe they were freerunners, but two of them wore backpacks that might contain gek-gloves and boots. He could jog after them, catch them up and ask about Richard or Opal, but it might have the opposite effect to what he wanted. They looked like lads who would be suspicious of the law, or someone who acted halfway official – witness the thugs in the cafe who had assumed he was a police officer, simply because of the way he stood and used his voice.
His fingers seemed to tap the phone by themselves.
What the hell am I doing?
His now-ex-wife's image appeared, eyes widening.
"I didn't expect you to call."
"Come off it, Maria. We can still talk."
"Yes, but will we actually say anything?"
She was there in his phone in miniature, the woman he had slept beside – when he was at home – for so many years, who had shared the unglamorous intimacies of farting in bed, of peeing while the other showered, of doing each other's laundry, the deep sharing of everyday life that goes beyond romance; while the miracle they had created in collaboration was one day to become a woman in her own right, except of course that would never happen, not now, because the mind was gone and the body-shell would not last, not even with the machines; because humankind can build electronic bellows to work the lungs but not rekindle the fire of a living mind.
She knew him deeply, this stranger. There were no secrets. They could say anything to each other. Yet there was a disconnect: a severed cable that had once linked two human souls in the ultra-high bandwidth, two-way transmission of love; a gap in the hardware; a break in the signal that might be only centimetres but might as well be lightyears, too wide for the spark to leap across.
"If you need anything, you can call on me for help."
"All right."
"How's…? Have you been to the hospital lately?"
From the webcam recordings he could check, but he usually just peeked in at the realtime image whenever he had to, at whatever random time the urge arose.
"Yeah. Hammond talked to me today. With our, er, new status… it will only take one of us to consent to, ah, you know."
"Turning off the machines."
"Right."
"Because he wants the organs for donation."
"I told him to keep Sophie alive. God decides when life ends."
He did not believe that. But if Maria's belief system helped her through this, he would hold back on attacking it.
"Whatever your decision, I'll back you up."
"Are you sure y-? OK. Thank you."
"Take care of yourself."
"Yes. What are you doing right now?" In the screen, she blinked. "You're outdoors, with voices and music. A party?"
"I'm working."
"Ah. I should have guessed."
"I'm sorry, I've always been too focused on-"
"Josh, it's all right. We're on different life-paths, that's all."
Perhaps they were, but if so it was his fault. And it was too late to go back, so what he ought to do was accept it and let the situation go.
"You're correct. You always are."
"Ah, Josh. Take care."
"Yes. Take care."
He stared at the black display.
I'm an idiot.
Then he put the phone away, checked the knife on his hip, and got moving.
[TWENTY-ONE]
The Millennium Wheel was wired for light. Each ellipsoidal car, wrapped in a smart plastic lamina, rippled with scarlet, indigo and white patterns, shining even in sunlight. The struts, braided with optic fibres, shimmered with a thousand colours, shifting in time to the music's beat – atop a tall pedestal stage on the Embankment proper, a band was playing, their instruments redfanging the lights: a visual kaleidoscope phaselocked to the beat.
"It's brilliant," said Richard.
"Yeah, watch now." Opal pointed. "That's Hammerfeld, from Norway, you want to talk about brilliant."
The grassy square next to the Wheel contained a complex arrangement of scaffolding towers, some with tough lightweight sheeting to form walls, plus ramps and outcrops of hard plastic with minimal padding. The competitors were doing their thing two at a time, partly because this was a friendly competition for little prize money, a demo showcasing the participants of next week's Xtreme Run championships. Most of the foreign competitors were already here in London.