The Scioneer (4 page)

There was
a M
etro station at the
corner of The Cut and Blackfriars - Lek didn’t like the vibe on the
streets any more and decided to take his chances underground. He
took a final deep lungful of clean air before walking down the
steps and into the dim eco-lights. The cracked cream ceramic tiles
of the ticket office walls were slick with filthy slime, and the
Terror-Guards and Metro-staff glowed in the green gloom in their
bright orange bio-hazard uniforms. Anybody who wasn’t wearing a
filtro-mask had tied bandanas or handkerchiefs around their faces
to block out the stench of decomposition. Lek buried his own mouth
and nose in the crook of his elbow and made his way to the
infra-red lights of the silver security turnstiles, which seemed
out of place in the stinking humidity. He was about to thumbprint
his way through the gates, when paranoia got the better of him.
They could be tracking my bank account, he thought, and immediately
backed away from the scanner as though it were a bomb. He pushed
his way out of line, much to the annoyance of a wild-eyed kid
wearing face-paint behind him, who bared his fangs and
hissed.

Lek fed
four cred coins into the slot on the
‘cash-only’ queue and made his way through the
barriers. The ticket office concourse was nothing compared to the
deeper levels of London’s underground system. It truly felt like a
descent into hell – the eco-lights flickered in the depths,
illuminating the press of bodies struggling to get through the
horrific ordeal as quickly as possible. The heat was almost
unbearable and the closed-in onion stench of sweat was
overpowering. Commuters freely stood or squatted to urinate against
the walls, and the floor was alive with rats. At the bottom of the
stairs, a man in a pink rabbit-suit, the feet of which were stained
brown up to the ankles, was playing the theme from ‘The Fourth Man’
on the zither. There were flies everywhere, feeding on everything,
and straggly etiolated roots hung from the ceilings, caressing the
commuters’ faces and hair like dead men’s fingers. Lek felt the
bile rising in his throat and moved to join a line of people
vomiting on the Metro-tracks, but his stomach was empty. He peered
down at the enormous squashed yellow carcass of a train-biorg and
watched it sizzling on the third rail until the lights of a Stadia
Line pierced the murkiness and the train roared into the platform,
bringing with it a pestilential wind and a fresh swarm of insects.
Only three stops, Lek thought to himself as he pushed his way into
the carriage. Since there were so few still running these days, the
train was heaving with people, and Lek found himself face to face
with a gruff Hispano sporting a tremendous circus-strongman
moustache. The lights flickered as the train left the station and
then went out completely. Only three stops, Lek thought again,
keeping a firm grip on the doctor’s holdall in his hand.

The cool
fresh water from the
fountain outside Victoria Metro Station tasted like the
elixir of life itself and Lek dipped his head under the tap, hoping
to wash away the reek of the underground from his skin. He breathed
in the city air again and dropped a few coins into the cup of a
beggar kneeling at his side, before walking up the steps into the
International Station, trying to avoid making eye contact with
anybody in the crowd. Sunlight poured in through the glass ceiling
and Lek made his way through the palms and giant yukkas to the
snaking queue at the Europatrans Counter. He hadn’t realised he had
been tapping his feet and chewing his nails nervously until he
noticed one of the Terror-Guards eyeing him suspiciously. Calm
down, he told himself, everything is going to be just
fine.

Lek
stepped up to the assistant, a young round-faced girl who clearly
enjoyed a touch of Tigranol in the bedroom, judging by the faint
stripes of black discolouration in her otherwise red hair. She
listened patiently as he explained his need to catch the next train
off the island before replying,

‘I’m
sorry
sir, there’s
nothing available’

‘Nothing
available? How is that possible?’

‘All the seats
are taken, sir.’

‘All the
seats?
All
the seats?
Until when?

The lady
behind the Eur
opatrans
desk tapped away at her console, and replied cheerfully, ‘until
22.05 tonight.’

’Ten
o clock
tonight!? That’s...just... not possible. There has to be something
before then?’

‘I’m
afraid not sir.’

‘Nothing this
afternoon?’

‘No
sir.’

‘How about
early evening?’

‘No sir.
Shall I book you a ticket for the 22:05 train?’

‘No. Yes.
No.... Go on then.’

‘Will that be a
single or return sir?’

‘Single.
Please’ Lek added, trying to be polite.

‘And will you
be travelling alone?’

‘Uh...
actually no,’ Lek was thinking on the spot. ‘I’ll take two singles.
Please.’

‘Very
good sir. Thumbprint here please.’

‘I’d rather pay
cash…’

‘Passport
security s
ir. Thumbprint
please. And that will be 420 cred....’

Lek
reluctantly pressed his thumb against the scanner, fished the money
out of the doctor’s holdall and paid.

‘Thank you sir.
Have a safe trip and thank you for choosing to travel with
Europatrans.’

In truth,
there was no choice. The only way off the UK mainland was via
Europatrans train-tunnels under La Manche and The North Sea. All
aircraft had been grounded in 2034 when half of Iceland exploded
cataclysmically and sent immovable clouds of pyroclastic ash up
into the stratosphere above France, Spain and the British Isles.
The same clouds were responsible for the rapid climate change in
Northern Europa, concentrating the high density of fossil fuel
smog, low level ozone and ultra-violets into a permanent
quasi-tropical weather system of monsoon rains, raging
thunderstorms and intense heat. Lek wiped the sweat off his
forehead and considered his next move. He made his way hurriedly
through the crowds at the IKEA Victoria Station to the Smarte
Storage Lockers in the concourse. Surreptitiously, he took two
bundles of creds – C10,000 in total - and a handful of hypos,
grafts and bases and stuffed them into the pockets of his short
suit. Everything else he shoved inside a locker, his documents and
notepad, even the bag itself, slammed the door and fed ten one-cred
coins into the slot to cover his time left in England, reckoning
that if he wasn’t there to retrieve the goods in ten hours, he
would already be dead. With a bang, a locker to his right suddenly
clattered open - its pre-paid storage having expired – and a gang
of vagabonds scrabbled to grab the contents: a pair of women’s
shoes which were ripped apart in the ensuing struggle. Lek turned
his back on the tragic scene, and checked the time on the station
clock: 11.52. He had just over ten hours to kill before he could
escape, and just under ten minutes before Pechev’s bulldogs would
start the chase for him. He wouldn’t be able to face them alone.
Maybe Cesar could help.

***

Across
the street from the South Bank Lion, a skinny black boy in an
oversized ‘Rabies Bites’ T-shirt, carrying an incongruous black
briefcase, was watching a skin-headed man nervously chewing on goji
berries. Ac
cording to
Big Ben, it was 11:52. To pass the time, Wez leaned back against
the window of Credland store, closed his eyes and slipped his free
hand into his underwear. Anybody watching would have assumed he was
engaging in a midday moment of sexual gratification, completely
lawfully of course, since the Berlusconi Act of Public Free Love
was passed in 2015. In fact, Wez was still too young to have
experienced the joys of masturbation, but lightly fingering the ten
banknotes pressed against his scrotum was the closest thing to
ecstasy he had ever known.

Big Ben
sang out
, ‘Noon!’ and
Wez snapped back to reality.

‘Are you
Delić?’ he asked the thin, pock-marked skinhead in shades, looking
out across the river.

‘Who the
fuck is asking?’

Wez
ignored the question. ‘The Doc sent me. He asked me to give you
this,’ he said, handing over the case.

Delić
spat out a
goji berry, red juice trailing down his chin, and fixed two clammy
hands around the briefcase. He had to raise one leg against the
podium of the rainbow-painted statue in order to rest the case on
his knee and flick open the clasps. He took out the envelope and
opened it. The clear plastic strip fluttered to the weeds at his
feet. He didn’t even look at Wez when he said, ‘Now fuck off kid,’
but Wez saw the grin spreading across his red-stained
lips.

Chapter 6

‘Fuck it
all! I need a drink’ Lek said to nobody in particular as he bowled
through Pimlico, and walked into the first bar he saw. The Spread
Eagle was cool and dark, and felt like a refuge from the madness on
the streets. Lek was happy to be in the company of real addicts for
once – barely in the PM, and the four men leaning on the bar were
already knocking back single-malts and chain smoking while they
peered through their yellow eyes and down their red noses at the
Racing Post. They turned and looked him up and down before
returning to picking their horses. Lek didn’t feel like he could
order a gin and tonic around these men, and so plumped instead for
a pint of Guinness and a Jameson’s chaser. ‘The King!’ he said, as
he raised his shot-glass and the fab four automatically did the
same. The whisky took the edge off his paranoia instantly and he
sloped off into the snug to nurse his pint and think about his next
ten hours in London. His options were limited. Remember, he told
himself, you have to
approach the problem logically,
scientifically. Without thinking, he grabbed a paper napkin from
the stack on the table, whipped a pen out of his pocket and began
writing initials and symbols, crossing some out now and again and
connecting others with arrows and equals signs. Lek tried as best
he could to express his problems as an elaborate chemical equation,
balancing the elements of time, money, friends and enemies in a
single coherent line, but by the time he had drained his Guinness,
the only conclusion he had drawn was that there were simply too
many variables to be taken into account.

He screwed up the napkin and walked out.

***

Vidmar
was alr
eady seated in
the corner of Pechev’s office when Delić arrived. He cast an eye
over the outfit Delić was sporting: a sleeveless raincoat, tied at
the waist, and street socks, and sighed. It was no joke that the
Metropolitan Fashion Police patrolled London’s West End, handing
out hefty on the spot fines to anybody seen wearing anything not
recycled, reused, or made from natural materials, but for a
hardened criminal who had done time in some of the toughest prisons
in Eastern Europa, Delić clearly took these laws far too seriously.
For his part and as a nod to the rigorous FP, Vidmar had his
Saville Row tailor cut all of his garments into scraps of fabric
before stitching them back together. The effect was striking,
particularly on the otherwise immaculate gunmetal grey Argento silk
suit he was wearing that day. It looked like it had been carved up
by a butcher, and so the four inch scar which ran from the corner
of Vidmar’s left eye to his mouth fitted perfectly with his attire.
No need for conjecture here – he had tried to jump the prison
canteen queue one lunchtime and an incensed Latvian named Karlov
sliced his face open with a shiv made from the previous night’s
rib.

Pechev
waved Delić towards a chair by way of greeting and said,

‘So, the
bird has flown, gentlemen. Not entirely surprising. Somewhat
disappointing, yes, but not surprising.’ He paused to measure his
next words. ‘I’ve had my suspicions for some time that our Doctor
was - how do the Americans say? – getting rather big for his boots.
Phineas suggested testing him and I was in agreement’ He pursed his
lips and closed his eyes for so long, Delić thought he was nodding
off.

‘We have
given him too much….. latitude.’ Pechev continued, and Vidmar
noticed the change from ‘I’ to ‘We’. The big man never took
personal responsibility for any mistake.

‘Dr
Gorski knows not only the innermost workings of our company, he is
also absolutely integral to its functioning as smoothly as it
always has. We have made the mistake of allowing one man to hold
power over us all. So, you must find him. A little game of hide and
seek. It should not be hard for men with skills like yours. You
have the company technology at your disposal, of course. There is a
catch, however. If you should kill him in the course of your
pursuit, I will not be pleased. Gorski is carrying 100,000 in
unmarked cred notes. If you find him and bring him to me alive, I
shall return that money to you five-fold, gentlemen. Half a million
cred.’

Delić
sat up in
his seat, and practically licked his thin lips. Vidmar picked at
something under his fingernail and feigned indifference.

‘I want
Lek Gorski in this office by the end of the day. We need to fit him
for a shorter leash. That is all. Thank you gentlemen.’

Delić
bolted for
the door.

What a prick,
thought Vidmar.

Chapter 7

Lek
tapped his Dynagym membership card between his teeth as he hurried
down a quiet side-street. He had a vague sense of the direction he
was taking, but having never had a re
ason to be in this part of town, he couldn’t be
certain. He passed a skypephone box and thought about calling
ahead, but paranoia was gnawing at his insides again and he wanted
to keep moving. Cesar will be there, he thought, that gym is his
life. Cesar has to be there.