Jon Evans - Swarm

I made my way down the narrow grassy alley between that house and its back yard, squinting and moving gingerly, my hands held high against the semidarkness that revealed only outlines. I had hoped to find a shed, a garden, some tools. Alas, none were apparent, so I forded the fence to the next neighbour over.

The noiseless traversal of chest-high wrought iron was no easy thing for someone in my lacerated condition. It was easy to imagine an insomniacal little old lady calling the police to report the maniac prowling through her garden. I felt a little like I was a maniac, reduced to foraging through strangers’ backyards by some crazed imperative that I could not resist. The imperative in question was necessity rather than madness, but just then the line between the two seemed fine.

Again nothing. I forced myself over another fence, this time barking my shin hard enough that I very nearly cried out, and limped across a third yard.

Success at last: in their little vegetable garden I found a trowel, a garden hose, and a bucket. I used the trowel to hack out a four-foot length of hose, stole the bucket, and returned to the street. There an old Citroen lay parked in the shadow of an oak tree. I opened its gas cap, inserted the hose, put the other end to my mouth, knelt to the pavement, and sucked as hard as I could. For my efforts I was rewarded with a gagging mouthful of gasoline.

I spat it out, filled the bucket from my improvised siphon, and carefully made my way over fences to the yard behind the house in which Jesse was held. It was mostly stone and brick, but it had some wooden joists and a wooden deck. I soaked them as best I could, and hoped it was enough. The eastern sky was growing worryingly luminescent.

I hustled away a safe distance, pulled out my gleaming new cell phone, and dialled 911. Nothing happened. It wasn’t until my third attempt that I remembered that the UK emergency number was 999.

“Listen,” I said, ignoring the responder’s request for my name, pitching my voice to frantic while keeping it quiet, “I need the police, I’m in Brentford, a street called The Butts, I just saw two men beating the shit out of another one and dragging him into their house, I think they’re holding him against his will, I think he’s in serious danger, they were being really violent, it was a really bad scene. Number 8, The Butts. I’m outside there right now, I think I hear screaming inside, you better send police right away.”

“Yes, sir,” the woman said, coolly, “can you please tell us -“

“Oh shit I think they saw me,” I gasped, and hung up.

Trembling with adrenalin, I rushed back to the neighbours’ lawn, all but vaulted their fence, made my way to the house in which I devoutly hoped Jesse was being held, and waited, hoping, praying.

When I heard the oncoming siren it was like seeing a burning bush.

The cigarette lighter caught first time. I lit my rolled Daily Mail and touched it to the gasoline-soaked wood. Flames rose immediately, unexpectedly translucent, and spread like ripples skittering across a pond. Seconds later I had to back away from the intensity of the heat. Then I fled, across the fence yet again; but this time I went the other way, away from The Butts, through another back yard, past another house, onto another street.

This new street crossed a canal before connecting to an arterial road. I threw the cell phone into the water and walked northwards, away from the fire and smoke, as the howling sirens behind me grew in both number and ferocity. I felt certain of success. They might have talked their way past the police, but with the house on fire too, a thorough search by the authorities seemed inevitable; and Jesse, unlike me, was not a wanted man.

When a black cab loomed out of the night I hailed it, and returned to the Net cafe from which my venture had begun. I stank of sweat and gasoline, but neither I nor its proprietor cared. Back in that same semi-private booth I called up Argus once more, and watched London’s police and fire brigade free Jesse and take his captors into handcuffed custody.

I had rarely been so physically miserable, and things had never been so desperate, but it was one of the great moments of my life. I had done something extraordinary, all by myself.

I emerged from that Internet cafe into the gloomy Earl’s Court morning, and for a moment stood dazed beside a classic red British phone box straight out of Dr. Who , adjusting to the light and the traffic. Early-morning commuters were already making their way to their cubicles. For the first time in my life I envied them.

I had to work out how to contact Jesse, now that all our email accounts had been compromised. First, though, I needed food and caffeine. I was starved, exhausted, and jet-lagged. So much had happened since landing in the UK that it was hard to believe only 24 hours had passed.

Somewhere a telephone rang. In my confused state it took me a good few seconds to realize that it was inside the phone box beside me. The empty phone box beside me.

I started, then walked away quickly, as if it might be demonically possessed. Another phone box, belonging to a different company, stood only twenty paces away. As I passed, it too began to ring.

I stopped and looked around wildly, feeling like a hunted animal. But nobody on the street seemed to be paying me the least attention.

After a long moment I opened the door, entered the box, and answered the ringing phone.

“Mr. Kowalski, I presume?” asked a low British voice.

“Who is this?” I demanded.

“A friend of your favourite court jester.”

“How did you find me?”

“The same way you found him. Which should worry you greatly, because if I can track you, they can too.”

Cold dread began to seep into the pit of my stomach.

“But don’t panic just yet,” the voice reassured me, “they’re not as fast as me. Listen carefully. A red car will stop beside you in about five minutes time. Just before it does, I will crash the entire Argus system. It will take another five minutes to come back up, during which we can disappear you.”

“To where?”

“To safety,” the man said with some exasperation in his voice, “what did you think?”

“I don’t -” I didn’t know what to think. “Who are you?”

“LoTek.”

I inhaled sharply. Suddenly this conversation made a lot more sense. “Oh.”

“Five minutes.” He hung up.

It happened just as he had described. The dreadlocked Rastafarian behind the wheel of the red car with tinted windows drove me to another, identical vehicle, piloted by a woman in a business suit. Neither spoke a word to me. I supposed that was good security. She in turn took me to the parking garage beneath a five-star Meridien hotel.

There Jesse was waiting for me.

“ Dude ,” he greeted me, and tried to bear-hug me.

I quailed away. “Ow.”

“Oh. Sorry. Come on, let’s get you to the suite.”

I looked at him. He had a black eye but looked otherwise unscathed. Then I looked around the cavernous parking garage. There seemed to be cameras everywhere.

“Don’t worry,” he said, sotto voce . “We own the eyes around here.”

Entering the Meridien was like crossing a dimensional barrier into a different and far better world. Even the elevator was ostentatiously luxurious. It took us directly to the hotel’s enormous penthouse, expensively decorated in black and silver. The transition from homeless fugitive to resident of a luxury hotel suite with a stunning view of central London was so abrupt and profound that I felt dizzy with vertigo, had to sit down hard on the nearest overstuffed suede couch. I was both starving and utterly exhausted.