“At ease. At ease everyone. Relax. No need to be formal. It’s late and we’ve all had a long day. Mark…” I jumped at hearing the name, but realized he was talking to one of his bodyguards, “… please escort Jonah and Operative Mariko to their vehicle.”
“Sir!” The bodyguard, who I now knew was called Mark, saluted Sir Thomas and went to the door. He opened it, stepped outside and closed it after himself. I turned to Mariko and smiled. She didn’t smile back but stood with her legs apart and her hands behind her back in an informal ‘at ease’ position.
“Shall we?” I said and held out my hand to her. She smiled at me then and ignoring my hand walked towards the door. Sir Thomas put his arm out in front of her and clasped her arm as she passed him. Taking her hand in his, he brought it to his lips and said, “My dear, I do apologize for being such a terrible host this evening, but in my defense, Jonah and I had some very serious matters to discuss. I look forward to having the opportunity to address my failure as a host in short order.”
Mariko smiled at him and left her hand in his. “Oh please don’t apologize, Sir Thomas. I think it’s wonderful how you and Jonah get on so well.”
Sir Thomas patted her hand and released it, smiling at her. His eyes puffy and bloodshot in the rimless round glasses. I crossed to Mariko and put my hand in the small of her back as we walked to the door. She put a hand out behind her to hold me back and pulled the door swiftly open, stepping through, her head moving from side to side. I saw through the gap of the door that Mark stood in the foyer next to the Lev port. The Lev door was open and a soft chiming noise came from it.
Mark left us only when we had climbed into our Titan, and Mariko had given him the thumbs-up from cockpit. I had bought the Titan in the week after Gabriel’s letter, worried about Mariko traveling on Levs. I slumped in the co-pilot’s Siteazy, too tired to even think about driving. Mariko took over and I looked out of the window at the world going by. Soon we were clear of the city and traveling up the Intracoastal Travway towards Sisik, still about two hundred and sixty kiloms away according to the Dev on the console.
Mariko was driving fast as we passed long-haulers transporting goods north to the markets of the Thai and China Geographics. My thoughts swayed, from ‘how do I get out of this?’ to ‘how do I choose who to kill?’
“Can you pull over?” I said with some urgency. Mariko glanced at me, her focus on the Travway, and suddenly my weight shifted sharply right as she swung through five lanes of traffic and took the off-ramp, rapidly decelerating. About two hundred meters farther down the road from the off-ramp, she pulled over at the side of the road. I went down the stairs, opened the door and got out into the cool night air. Here, without the heat of the city, the air was about twenty-three cel. I breathed in deeply, the hum of wheels on the Travway loud in the still night. My feet crunched the gravel on the side of the road. The jungle dark in front of me.
Who to kill?
The heat in my stomach boiled up and a surge of liquid rose in my chest. I fought it but my brain took a dive like an out of control Lev heading down into blackness. The heat surged again and I threw up. The dinner and about sixty thousand creds worth of whisky lay on the gravel in front of me. Some of the puke had splashed on my footwear. My stomach heaved again as my stomach muscles twisted and squeezed everything out.
I felt a hand on my back. Mariko. I was bent over my hands on my knees. I breathed in deeply, my brain swooshed again but I felt better and breathed deeply again and again. I straightened up and tilted my head back. Big mistake. My brain did the swooshing thing and I stumbled, losing my balance. Mariko caught me and I found my feet. Gazing up at her I smiled weakly.
“You OK?” she said with an even look.
I breathed heavily, puffing my cheeks out as I expelled the air in my lungs. My mouth tasted foul.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just the rest of me that’s alked.”
She laughed at the look of chagrin on my face. “This is the second time I’ve had to carry you home. I don’t want you making a habit of this, Jonah.” Her teasing smile laid false the rebuke and I took her arm as we walked around to the door of the Titan.
“Come on, let’s get back home, get you cleaned up and into the sleeper.”
I woke up to the sound of my Devstick beeping at me and the light of the sun streaming through the windows. My brain felt like it was too big for my skull. I pushed the heels of both hands against my temples to try and force it back in but it didn’t work. Mariko stood by the sleeper with a container of something orange and green in her hand. It looked like the vomit on the roadside.
“What’s that?” I said between clenched teeth.
“Does it matter? Just drink it!”
I reached out for the horrible looking drink and, staring at it down my nose, hesitated. The Devstick’s beeping was getting louder.
“Just drink and you better answer that. It’s from Annika Bardsdale. It’s the fifth time she’s called you.”
I drank. It didn’t taste too bad, a bit earthy, and I really didn’t want to know what was in it. Well not now anyway, but it went down OK and most importantly stayed down. I sat with my arms around my knees and the sheet pulled up to my waist.
“Hi, Annika.”
“Jonah, I’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours. Have you just woken up?”
“Yes, sorry, Annika. Had a bit of a late night last night and a few too many alkys. Anyway what’s the urgency?”
“You haven’t heard then?”
“No. Haven’t heard what?”
“As a result of the bombings they’ve moved the Popvote day for Tag up.”
“Why? The bombings were a few weeks ago. Why didn’t they move the date forward then?”
“No. There were new bombings yesterday. Geneva, New Berlin, London, Houston, Sao Paulo. All within an hour of each other.”
“Oh shit. I went to sleep at about one in the morning New Singapore time. When did all this happen. Many dead?”
“It started in Geneva, about 7pm European time, and by 8pm all of the cities had been hit. Over two hundred and fifty dead and over a thousand wounded.”
“What date?”
“Feb 15th, Friday week. The General Assembly voted yesterday at 4:30 in urgent session, and in view of the bombings they moved it forward.”
“What percentage was for?”
“Nearly eighty percent. How’s the case going? Will you be ready in time?”
“I’ll have to be, won’t I? OK. Let me catch up with the news. Have a think and then I’ll get back to you with a plan, all right? We may need to meet. What’s your schedule like early next week?”
“It’s a mess. There’s a climate conference that I have to be at till Wednesday. After that I’m booked to speak in Melbourne on GMD.”
“What’s GMD?”
“Global Mother’s Day, Jonah. You should know that. Oh… sorry. That was stupid of me.”
“It’s OK. Forget it. I do know it, just never heard it called GMD before. Where’s the conference being held?”
“That’s the thing. It’s being held in New Zealand Geographic. No Levs there yet. Takes four hours just to fly there from Australia. No sub orbs either. They’re very protective of their ozone down there.”
“Well. OK. Where’s this GMD speech you’re doing?”
“Melbourne, Thursday evening. And then I’m on a sub orb back to London.”
“All right. How about we meet in Melbourne after your speech? Will that work?”
“Sure, that would be OK but it means we lose three, nearly four days.”
“I’ll need at least that much to sort out a response anyway. What we’ve got now is just case history and a law. I’ve still got to construct the argument.”
“OK. Thursday evening, Melbourne. It’s a date.”
“Bye, Annika. See you Thursday.”
The concoction that Mariko had given me really had made me feel better. My headache was gone, and my stomach didn’t feel as if someone had been beating on it all night. And then I remembered. How could I forget? I had to kill someone. The reality of the thought consumed everything I’d been thinking and squashed them with its weight. I had no idea where to begin to even think about how to do it. Selecting someone to kill seemed worse than killing but then again I didn’t have to do that yet. But I did have to choose someone. Who to kill to become a Hawk?