“When?”
“Just a few minutes ago.” He lets go of her arm. “Just before I came over. Maybe he left already. Just be careful. The people here, you might be a hero to them, but they’re hungry. They’ve got family to feed.”
She nods at him, grabs her bag from the floor, pulls her hood up, and leaves.
Head down, hood up. Weaving through bodies.
Out of the café.
Into the corridor.
And straight into the Land Army trooper.
They pass each other silently, in slow motion.
He’s young, they always are.
His eyes are brown, tired. They meet hers for a second as they pass. Some flicker across his face. Maybe recognition. Maybe disgust. Maybe fear.
But he keeps on walking.
So does she, until she reaches the doors, where she pauses. Staring out across the chaos of the car park, toward the green-and-brown Land Rover.
He could be on his radio right now. Calling in the sighting. Or maybe he’ll piss first. Or get tea. Either way, once he tells them, the whole forecourt will be crawling with troopers before she can get out of here.
Or maybe he won’t do anything. Maybe he didn’t recognize her. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he just wants to piss and get tea and get home, no hassles.
Maybe.
She pauses. Thinks. Tries not to panic.
Reaches out a hand to push open the heavy glass doors.
Freezes, pulls it back.
Turns on her heel and heads back into the crowds.
The men’s toilet stinks of piss and shit, like it’s not been cleaned in three years.
Half a dozen faces turn to meet her, startled to see a woman in here.
Before anyone can speak, she puts a finger to her lips, mouths Everybody out.
Taps are turned, dicks are zipped away. The men start to shuffle out past her, except for one. He pauses, looks her in the eye. Turns and points at an occupied cubicle.
She nods back at him and he leaves. As he passes he whispers to her: I’ll make sure you’re not bothered, as long as I can.
She nods at him again. Doesn’t move until the door closes behind him.
Silently she repeats the mantra in her head, as she quietly stalks the line of cubicles, checking for feet under doors.
She closes her eyes briefly, slows her breathing, recalls the Bloc mantra.
With zero bandwidth there is no calling for backup.
With zero bandwidth the advantage is ours.
With zero bandwidth there is no many.
With zero bandwidth there is no legion.
With zero bandwidth we are singular.
With zero bandwidth there is no time to hesitate.
With zero bandwidth there is only opportunity.
With zero bandwidth opportunity is our only weapon.
Nothing, nothing until she reaches the stall the guy had pointed out. Two black boots, scuffed and split. Camouflage fatigues pulled down around ankles.
With zero bandwidth there is only opportunity.
With zero bandwidth opportunity is our only weapon.
As quietly as she can, she slips into the adjacent stall, closes the door. Drops her bag on the filth-stained floor. One foot up on the toilet as she gently pushes herself up, so she’s peering over the flimsy hardboard divider.
He’s young, they always are. But he looks even younger from this angle, looking down on him shitting, vulnerable, like a kid on a potty. He’s reading a book, she can’t see what it is. Some disintegrating paperback, loose pages sticking out at wrong angles. There’s no gun, that she can see. He probably left it back in the jeep. There’s no radio that she can see, either. And if there is, he’s not using it to call her in. No guns, no radio, just some kid, maybe seventeen years old, trying to get some time for himself, trying to escape in a book, trying to take a shit.
And then he looks up.
“What the fu—”
And she drops on him, her boot hitting his face with enough force that she’s pretty sure the crack she hears is his jaw breaking.
She lands better than she hoped, steadying herself against the wobbling stall wall.
To her surprise and his credit, the kid tries to get up. She breaks his nose with her palm getting him to sit back down.
Time to finish this. She glances around, looking for her bag. Not here. In the cubicle next door. Fuck.
The kid has clearly got some spirit. Or, more likely, he knows what’s meant to be coming and is shit-scared, because he tries to get up again. This time he throws himself at her, wrapping his arms around her waist and sticking his head into her stomach, like some angry rugby tackle. Anika doesn’t see it coming at all, and it’s enough to wind her, pushing her back hard against the closed cubicle door. She grabs him by the hair and pulls him off her, kicking him in the chest to put him down, before dropping to the floor, grabbing him by the hair again, and smashing his head into the toilet bowl.
Once.
Twice.
Maybe four times.
She stops. There’s not much left of his face, or the toilet bowl, and for long seconds she’s dazed, looking at the mess, trying to work out what’s blood and what’s shitty water, what’s porcelain fragments and what’s teeth.
Then she snaps out of it, gets moving. Tries to open the door but she can’t because his foot is jammed against it. His boots look relatively new, like maybe just ten years old. Maybe she should take them? It’d be a good motive, too. She’s seen people beaten to death for less than a pair of boots. Far less.
No fucking time, Anika, snap out of it. She forgets the door, pushes herself up off the cistern, drops down into the next stall. Grabs her bag off the floor and pukes in the toilet. Brown liquid, stringy spit, and the taste of overstewed mint-and-nettle tea. She realizes she’s sobbing.
Out in the corridor the guy is still keeping watch. They nod at each other silently and she leaves, bursting out into the daylight of the car park from a side exit. Head down, hood up.
The forecourt is like a shanty town, stalls and tents, tarpaulins draped between dead cars to provide shelter. She can smell food cooking and she thinks she might puke again. Music coming from somewhere, breakbeats and bass hits. Some woman ranting to anyone that will listen about how the air is cleaner now, since the crash, clean of Wi-Fi and cell signals. It’s safe to breathe again, she says, embrace the clean air, fill your lungs. Anika wonders how long she’s been here, how long any of these people have, if any of them were here when it happened, stranded when their phones died and their cars stopped driving themselves, and that’s why they stayed, stranded on this concrete island.
No time to ask. Head down, hood up. She’s past the shantytown and into the larger car park, walking the aisles and scanning license plate numbers looking for the one she’s memorized, trying to stay calm.
Her hand is in her bag, holding the grip. Any second now, she thinks. Any second now they’ll find the body, and then there’ll be shouts and screams and running and gunfire and—
This is it. White Ford Transit van. Ancient, pre-automation. Matching registration number. Some guy leaning into the open hood, tweaking the engine, his face hidden. Oh, please fucking god, tell me it fucking works.
“Neal?”
He looks up, narrowly missing banging his head, turns to face her. White, old but fresh faced. A little too friendly, somehow.
“Anika? Ah, you made it.” He extends a hand stained with motor grease, and before thinking she meets it with one smeared in blood. She catches him nervously glancing at it.