The Scioneer (5 page)

In 2029,
one hundred years after the Wall Street Crash, the bottom fell out
of the energy market in the UK and plunged the country into the
deepest domestic recession it had ever known. Like all disasters,
it began with a butterfly flapping its wings a thousand miles away.
In this case, the butterfly’s name was Forsvinna Hagen and she was
the fiancée of Anders Berg, the Norwegian oligarch. Berg was an
unassuming man who had inherited his father’s oil and gas empire at
the tender age of 28. Although he had never wanted for anything
during his childhood, he was
unprepared for the responsibilities of high office, not to
mention the trappings of wealth and success, so that when the
beautiful Forsvinna, a former Miss Norway, attached herself to him
at a charity ball in Oslo, Berg, weak-chinned and balding
prematurely, found himself powerless to resist her blatant
advances, regardless of their true motive.

Norolje,
Berg’s company, supplied the UK with 21 percent of its total crude
oil, and as such, Berg was often asked to attend corporate events,
trade conferences and board meetings of the various companies he
owned throughout the world. It was the success of his football
team, Tranmere Rovers, however
, which had once again topped the Starbucks Europa Premier
League that season, that earned Berg and his fiancée an invitation
to King Charles’ tenth annual Garden Party in the grounds of
Buckingham Palace. Forsvinna was overjoyed at the prospect of
finally meeting British royalty and spent weeks and huge sums of
money visiting the finest boutiques in Norway with her retinue of
personal shoppers, secretly hoping that she might be the one to
catch the eye of Prince William: still Europa’s most eligible
bachelor, after his on-off engagement to Kate Middleton finally
imploded following the Mail’s undercover reporting of a
particularly wild weekend with his brother in Monaco.

On the
afternoon of the party however, the Prince was not in attendance,
choosing instead to visit some backward village which had been
devastated by the hydra plague in Botswana. Forsvinna was similarly
devastated by the turn of events and spent the afternoon sulking
and sweating in an over-the-top vintage teapot outfit designed by
the late Gaga herself. Excluded by her own poor grasp of the
English language, and outdone by her Russian counterpart, a
nineteen year old supermodel from Smolensk, Forsvinna was forced to
endure the dull company and drab conversation of a fellow
countryman, Jacob Hallensen, a politician lobbying for change in
the Anglo-Norwegian fishing laws, who continuously picked his nose
when he thought she wasn’t looking.

It was a
disaster, and Forsvinna Hagen made it her mission in the days
following the party to convince A
nders Berg that the British were nothing more than
a bunch of two-faced barbarians who only maintained their
relationship with Norwegian businessmen for the sake of the free
Christmas tree they stole each year. Berg, worn down after days of
her endless complaining, agreed to cut all ties with the UK with a
single stroke of his pen.

At first,
the British Government thought it would be able to weather the
storm, until the Russians, seeing a chance to make even more money
from their dwindling reserves hiked up the price on every drop of
oil they pumped into Britain. Refusing to pay the extortionate
rates, the Prime Minister at the time, Mr Rascal, called instead
for the coal-miners of Wales and the North East to work longer
hours for the same wages in order to meet the growing need for
power in the face of an escalating crisis. They refused, choosing
to strike as an alternative to the PM’s request.

Years of
empty promises of funding for Scottish wind farms and Cornish
solar-fields
bit the
Government hard and by July, a three-day working week had been
imposed and all energy usage outside of the emergency services was
rationed. On the tenth of August, sirens sounded out across the
city exactly two hours after sundown, to signal the beginning of
the first electricurfew. It had never been lifted since that day:
lights-out every night, two hours after sunset until an hour before
sunrise. Crime rates soared in the darkness. There were riots in
every major city from Newcastle to Bristol. The British economy
went into freefall.

Just when
it seemed there was no end in sight, Malcolm Rose, the
philanthropic owner of UberFitness, a national chain of gymnasiums
and leisure centres, had electro-dynamos fitted to every single one
of his exercise machines over a 48 hour period at huge personal
cost. He subsequently cut a landmark deal with NuPowGen, the UK’s
foremost gas and electricity supplier to conve
rt all the kinetic energy produced by his
loyal gym members into electricity and distributed to the National
Grid substations around the country. The Dynagym was born. In
honour of his work, Malcolm Rose was knighted and given Anglesey,
having professed a liking for sea-bass fishing in a recent
interview with Gentlemen’s Quarterly magazine.

The
Government saw the huge potential of energy self-sufficiency and
rushed the Dynagym Act through Parliament without any objection
from the Opposition. And so it came to pass, in the year 2029, that
the Government issued a new law stating that all able-bodied
residents of the United Kingdom between the ages of 18 and 45 were
required to spend seven hours a week working out in their local
Dynagym, doing their bit to combat the energy crisis.

The move
was reframed by the National Health Service who saw this as the
perfect opportunity for a nation renowned for the obesity of its
youth to redress the balance and ‘fight the flab’. Kai Rooney and
the fabulous Beckham brothers were drafted in from Milan and Los
Angeles for photo-shoots of them performing their national service
on dyna-treadmills and cross-trainers.

The Green
Alliance, who later rebranded themselves as the Imagine Party, also
hitched their wagon to the
Dynagym shooting star, proclaiming that Britain was blazing
a trail in saving the planet. Europan Union financial backing came
flooding in, and the Party won the 2030 General Elections with a
landslide.

Und
s
o, the politicians were
content; the public was satisfied; even the coal-miners stopped
complaining. The scioneers were happy too – producing enormous
quantities of drugs to help an unfit, overweight nation cope with
the exertions of an hour a day’s keep-fit.

As ever,
there were abusers: juicers who had previously over-indulged in
protein pills and anabolic shakes switched instead to Torox
(‘Strong Like Bull!’) and Gorillamine (‘Be King Kong Strong!’). The
latter claimed a victim in an old friend of Lek’s, back in the day
when he was a fresh-faced immigrant in London and still bothering
to do the rounds of the speed dating circuit. He regularly saw a
couple of guys in the same position as himself: newly arrived in
the city and looking for female company. One of these was Cesar
Pitres, a Puerta Rican former boxer turned gym
instructor.

One
unsuccessful evening at the Covent Garden Greyhound Racing and
Singles Night, Lek and Cesar opted out of chit-chatting with
members of the opposite sex in favour of a bucket of gritted
chicken and several Texmex beers. It helped that earlier in the
evening they had
both
placed a winning bet on the same dog – a black bullet called
Introspective – and so were happy to spend their creds in the bar.
They stumbled through the centre of London and back to their
respective homes south of the river. They became firm friends after
that night, but over the years, Cesar’s constant abuse of
Gorillamine and Lek’s persistent calls for him to take it easy had
put a strain on their relationship. Still, Cesar was an ally, and
right now Lek felt he needed some muscle in his corner.

Lek
pushed open the door of the Kennington Park Road branch of Dynagym
and asked the receptionist if he could speak with the manager. She
looked him up and down before taking his name and saying tonelessly
into the tannoy, ‘Mr Pitres to Reception please, Mr Pitres to
Reception’. It had been some time since Lek had last seen Cesar and
the sight of him bursting through the double-doors of the weights
room was both awesome and terrifying. Ten years ago, Cesar Pitres
was a well-built, handsome young man. Now he was a monster. He must
have weighed at least 300 pounds, and every inch of his massive
arms and legs, straining the fabric of his sports vest and shorts,
was covered in uneven tufts of dark fuzz. With age, his hairline
had not receded, quite the opposite: it had crept down his forehead
and merged with his heavy eyebrows, frowning over fierce amber
coloured eyes which seemed to know the wisdom of ages. The muscles
of his face no longer expressed real human emotion, and it was only
in a faint sparkling of those eyes that Lek recognised any pleasure
in Cesar’s face.

‘Lek
Gorski!’ he boomed, ‘Welcome to Cesar’s palace! Come up to my
office amigo – long time no see!’

Lek
winced as his fingers were nearly crushed in a warm handshake. He
noticed that Cesar’s fingernails were black.

‘You look
well,
’ Lek tried to lie,
but it was no use. The words came out strangled.

‘I know,
man, I know.... Don’t say anything. Too far gone to change now.
Anyway, what brings you round here? It’s good to
see
you man!’ Cesar cried and threw
a giant arm around Lek’s shoulders as he led him
upstairs.

‘We need to
talk Ces. I might need your help.’

Over a
carbon
ate-free coke in
Cesar’s office, Lek told him everything – the meeting, the money,
the transponder, the train - and Cesar took it all in, seated at
his desk, his thick hands working a pair of fist-grips like they
were clothes pegs.

When Lek
had finished he felt completely drained: the very elements of his
story sounded ludicrous in his own head, but when Cesar pushed him,
he still felt that he had made the right decision by running. Cesar
nodded, deep in thought.

‘You’ve
got troubles, son,’ he concluded. ‘Here’s the thing: half the guys
in this place, including yours truly, are buying the drugs your
company produces. Your dealers, Pechev’s men, they come round here
all the time, so you best believe me when I tell you that this is
not the place to lay low. Your man Pechev, he’s got his fingers in
a lot of pies in this town: not just the drugs, but prostitution,
illegal gambling, protection. Who do you think keeps the wolves
from our door?’

‘What are
you saying Cesar? Are you in Pechev’s pocket as well?’

‘Cesar
Pitres is in no man’s pocket!’ He replied in a voice like
thunder.

Lek
cowered
. ‘You wouldn’t
fit,’ he managed to squeak.

Cesar’s
expression softened almost imperceptibly. ‘All I’m saying is this
Lek. I can’t protect you. Not from them. Not here. Yeah, sure, look
at me, big tough guy, but even I can’t stop bullets. That’s what
you’ve got to know. They’ll be coming for you. Here’s one of them
now.’

Cesar had
uttered that last line so nonchalantly, that its significance was
lost on Lek for a moment, before the words exploded in his
consciousness. He stood and looked out of the window as Vidmar
stepped out of his Honda Enzyme. Lek watched him straightening his
scarred jacket and taking a moment to bask in the midday sun, as he
felt his own life crumbling around him.

‘Fuck
, Cesar!
That’s Vidmar! He’s fucking here for me!’

‘Chill
yourself,
’ rumbled
Cesar, picking up the phone on his desk. ‘Janine? Anybody wants me,
I’m in a meeting. Do not disturb. Understood? Good.’ He turned back
to Lek.

‘Just
rel
ax chico – you’re
safe for now.’

The room
fell silent. As the seconds leaked by, Lek heard the door open into
reception. Janine was speaking. He was straining to make out the
voices, until –

‘Sir, you can’t
go up there!’

Cesar
moved away from his desk and across the room with a speed that
belied his bulk. His massive frame blocked the doorway.

‘Is there
a problem here?’ he asked smoothly.

‘No
problem,’ Vidmar replied, and even from where he was sitting, Lek
could hear the shock and surprise in his voice. ‘I was just hoping
to have a moment of your time, Mr...?’

‘Pitres.
And you are?’

‘Vidmar.
‘Veed-Marr’.’

‘Well Mr
Vidmar, I’m afraid now is not the best time. If you would be so
kind as to make an appointment with my secretary, I’ll be happy to
see you after lunch.’

‘Thank
you Mr Pitres. I’ll do that,’ Vidmar said, his composure regained,
and he handed Cesar his business card. He trotted down the steps
and nodded politely to Janine as he left without making any
arrangements to return.

Cesar and
Lek watched Vidmar looking back at the office window as he made his
way across the tarmac to his car. The Enzyme rolled silently out of
the car-park and out on to Braganza Street.

‘Yeah, he knows
you’re here alright. I thought you said you dumped the bug?’

‘I did.’

‘Then they’re
following you chico. Flat-footing. Pure and simple. You can’t stay
here.’

Lek looked like
he might cry.

‘Pull yourself
together. I’ll have a couple of fellas lead you out the back door.
Stand behind them and nobody’s going to spot a guy your size.’