“C’mon, you gotta go,” then Grids says, gently.
“Come with me,” she replies.
The sound of her voice. All the air leaves now Grids’s lungs.
“I can’t, Mel. I gotta stay. I got people I need to look after.” Grids mouths the words, perfectly in time with the hidden memories, words that have echoed around his head every day for ten years, full of regret and self-doubt.
She’d come to him, a few days before that final show. Told him that things were going to get bad, that she was going to have to fake her death to keep the cops from coming after her again, that she was going to have to get out of the city. That he should too. She’d given him money, told him she needed a car—an old one, one that didn’t drive itself—and someone to drive it, who wouldn’t ask any questions, wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone. And that he mustn’t either, not tell a soul. Told him he was the only one she could trust, that nobody else knew what was going to happen. Nobody in her crew, nobody in her production team.
Now she’s getting into the car, and then Grids is closing the door behind her and nodding to the unseen driver, as the car pulls away, and now Grids has to fight the urge to run after it, to follow it, to try to stop it.
Instead he, and his young self, stand together and watch it go, both consumed by regret and lost possibilities.
At the other end of the alley the car crosses the border of the Republic, escapes the recording’s all-seeing eyes, and vanishes.
Grids instinctively reaches for a virtual jog wheel, starts to rewind it, then stops himself.
Not again, not now.
Some other time.
There’ll be times when he’ll need her back, but not now. Let her have her peace, let her be gone.
He taps the Nike logo, shuts down the simulation, steps back out onto Stokes Croft and watches the crowd flowing around him like a stream around a rock, splitting itself naturally and re-forming behind him, keeping a respectable distance while nodding back at his smile, but he keeps the spex on so they can’t see his tears.
As Anika walks past the tank she pauses, glances over. Music she doesn’t recognize reverberates from the huge speaker stacks that flank it. Something new, yet old at the same time. Hints of the grime and jungle she used to dance to, but somehow different, weirder time signatures and polyrhythms. Flexible tempos, the groove holding while the BPM noticeably shifts. Somewhere, amid the percussive cacophony, what sounds like rain. Wind passing by a high window. The distant sound of voices through urban spaces.
She peers over the swaying crowd and sees the kid, Tyrone, standing in the top of the tank’s paint-splattered turret like a triumphant general, facedown over the decks, one headphone shell covering an ear, the other tucked behind. And as she squints against the sun she notices something else—spex on his face, some jury-rigged mass of cables tumbling from them into the mixer. She smiles. Clearly College’s handiwork. What he must have been doing with that soldering iron when she passed out last night, high.
She thinks about stopping, dancing with the crowd, trying to pursue some lost memory of youth. When was the last time she danced? Maybe in Wales. Maybe in those long, boozy nights on the farm before the Land Army arrived, the silhouettes of trucks and troop carriers rising on the horizon. Dark angular shapes against dull, damp skies.
And then. In the crowd. She catches his face. A quick glance as he turns away from her. She knows it’s him, the same guy she saw that first day here. The suit might be gone, but the baseball cap and spex are hiding nothing. The same guy, the same VIP she’d seen when she first got here, the same potential target. The same chance to strike a blow for the resistance. And this time without his security detail.
Her hand goes into her bag.
She closes her eyes briefly, slows her breathing, recalls her Bloc training.
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.
Eyes open again.
Not here. Too many people.
He’s slipping away into the crowd now, heading out the gates, heading toward the Bearpit.
She breathes again. Repeats the mantra. Pulls her hoodie up over her head and follows him, leaving the last new music she’s heard in a decade behind her.
Walker pauses in the shadows of the tunnel under the 5102, the darkness echoing with the chatter of the crowds still pouring into Stokes Croft. A quick glance over his shoulder, a paranoid flash of being watched. Maybe he shouldn’t have come alone, maybe he should have brought his security detail with him. But then that would have alerted the LA, and they’d be down here trying to work out what was going on in their usual ham-fisted way. The time for their depressing bureaucracy and gunboat diplomacy would come. Maybe later today, maybe tomorrow. Maybe next month. He had no idea how the increasingly erratic Bristol command worked anymore, but when they did get down here they’d try to fuck everything up for everyone, including him.
He glances around again, reaches into his bag, takes out and unrolls the picture the girl had given him as they left the shop, stares at the sad eyes, feels the quality of the paper between finger and thumb.
Blinks.
The spex trace outlines of the drawn face, countless nodes where chalk and pen lines interact. A window pops out of the paper, floating a few inches in front of his face. A request for more details. He dials in the time, as best as he can figure.
The inside of the tunnel starts to shimmer and distort. The crowd disappears, replaced by the reflective glow of flashing blue lights. Silence at first, then the weird rush of sound. Music, police radio chatter, shouts. Behind him, somehow piercing it all, the whisper of panicked, scared voices.
They’re not going to let us out
They will
Ahhh god my arm god I think it’s broken
We’re best just getting to some first aid
Ahhh please
Be careful
They’ll let us out really trust me
“Jane!” he hears himself shout, as he spins around. His way is blocked by an impenetrable wall of armor-plated riot cops. Polycarbonate shields and science-fiction face masks, dystopian silhouettes against the whiteout of smoke-filtered daylight. And behind and between them, there she is, she and her friends, like tiny crumpled figures.
Please, my friend is injured, we need to get to safety.
Step back! Step back immediately!
Please
I’m sorry
Please, his arm is broken, look
Walker wants to grab the cops by the shoulders, pull them out of the way to make room for the kids to pass—
Step back!
Please! Look! I’m Jane Walker! Jane Walker! My dad is Chris Walker! Chief Constable Chris Walker!
I said, STEP BACK!
Chris Walker is my dad! I’m Chris Walker’s daughter!
Sarge?