Simon Morden - Theories of Flight

“Chyort.” He pushed his glasses back onto his face. The red dots that represented the group outside were drifting back toward the bridge, and he checked out of the window to make sure. He could see their backs as they wandered up the road.

Lucy already had her trainers on, and was standing by the door. She opened her mouth to say something, and Petrovitch pre-empted her.

“Do not,” he said, “now or ever, thank me. Okay?”

“But…”

“Just don’t.” He pushed past her and descended to the kitchen. He filled three small bottles with water, threw one to Miyamoto, and one to Lucy. She managed to catch it.

Miyamoto stared at the girl, and then at Petrovitch. He narrowed his eyes.

“You said.”

“Past’ zabej! We have five minutes at most to make it to the next line north.” He reached into his coat pocket for Lucy’s knife. He held it out to her, handle first. She hesitated, and Petrovitch growled. “You know what to do with it? Yes?”

“Yes.” She took it from him, and wondered where to put it. She ended up holding the waistband of her pleated skirt out, and sliding the flat of the blade against her hip.

“We have to go. Front door.”

They moved down the hall. Petrovitch turned the latch and opened the door. The sound of bleeping and blaring and ringing crowded in. He took a deep breath and started to run.

The Outies had gone right. They went left, away from the crash scene and the spreading pools of blood, hunched over so that the tops of their heads were no higher than the tops of the cars.

They crossed the road, quickly, skittering like blown leaves, then turned up a side street. Petrovitch straightened up, glanced behind. Lucy was next, her stupidly obvious footwear flashing like the warning signals of a startled deer. Miyamoto was almost on her heels, close enough to put his hand in the small of her back and push her along if he’d wanted to.

The road swung around toward the station. The nearest Outies were at the top of Willesden Green, coming down the hill toward them. Less than a kilometer away. Hardly any distance at all.

Using the map as a guide, they darted into a private car park that bounded the railway cutting. A high fence of concrete panels blocked their path. Petrovitch crouched down by the wall and cupped his hands between his knees.

Again, Lucy froze, not knowing what to do. Miyamoto jogged past her and, without breaking step, placed his foot in Petrovitch’s hands.

He was boosted to the top of the wall, and as deftly as any gymnast threw one leg over so that he straddled it.

“Run,” said Petrovitch, “jump.” Miyamoto lowered his hand for her.

She took two steps back, then sprinted. She seemed to have her eyes mostly closed, but managed to leap at the right moment.

Miyamoto caught her forearm and, with a face screwed up with effort, pulled her the rest of the way. She wobbled briefly, then dropped down the other side.

Petrovitch took a run-up himself, and planted his feet against the rough concrete, hanging from Miyamoto’s wrist. They looked at each other, briefly, and Petrovitch found that he was completely unable to read his expression.

“Sorry,” said Petrovitch. “We had to bring her.”

“You had to bring her, you mean.”

“Yeah, that’s precisely what I mean.”

Petrovitch put one elbow over the top of the wall, and let go of Miyamoto to get the other across. He hauled himself painfully up, then measured the drop on the other side. Lucy was looking up at him from the rough grasses of the embankment, swigging from her bottle. She was already dirty and disheveled, her tights torn through at the knees.

He rolled his body, and hung by his fingertips. Then he fell, picked himself up, and batted his coat with his hands.

Lucy asked him. “What do I call you?”

“Whatever you want. Sam, I suppose.”

Miyamoto released himself from his perch and landed softly beside them. “Which way?”

Petrovitch pointed northeast, and Miyamoto set off to join the rails without another word.

“He doesn’t want me here, does he?”

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks.” Petrovitch checked all his belongings. The rat was still safely in one pocket, the gun and knife in another, the bottle in a third. “All that matters now is that you stay with me.”

F resh text scrolled across his eyeline as he jogged along. They were crossing over a major road on a gray-painted bridge, but its sides were high, and topped with even higher mesh, in an attempt to prevent thrown objects landing on the tracks.

There were Outies beneath, but they couldn’t see him. Knowing they were there made his heart turn a little faster, made him place his feet a little more carefully.

He paid attention to the words bouncing in front of him.

[Reuters: Nobel nominee Dr. Epiphany Ekanobi arrested attempting illegal border crossing to Mexico from U.S. Dept for Homeland Security source states Ekanobi “credible terrorist threat.”]

“Chyort vozmi,” he growled.

[She is being held at the local sheriff’s office until personnel arrive from Los Angeles.]

Petrovitch felt his fists clench involuntarily. “If they so much as harm a single hair on her head, I’ll…”

[What possible damage can you do to them?]

“Crash their currency. Wipe their records. Deny them their satellites. Dangle them over the information abyss and threaten to drop them.”

[While I am likely to be able to do these things, I would need persuading before I was willing. Furthermore, I am currently using some of their assets to help you: the NSA are providing your satellite imagery.]

“I didn’t mean now: we’re busy. Later will do fine.”

[Regarding the digital map: I cannot sustain it beyond 1656 GMT. Unless all the Outies remain perfectly still over the fifteen minutes between one viewing platform setting over the horizon and the next rising sufficiently high to take over, all data will be lost.]. It added helpfully, [Just over five hours.]

“I could crawl on my hands and knees and still make it to West Ham in four.” He turned, running backward for a few steps, to place his finger to his lips and point downward at the road.

[It is unfortunate that Dr. Ekanobi has been captured. But I have identified the MEA unit your wife is attached to: she is north of West Ham, on the North Circular. They have taken up a defensive position on a raised section of road.]

“But won’t they end up completely surrounded?”

[There is another MEA unit engaged in a fighting retreat toward Woolwich. Their tactics appear to be to use one group as a diversion while the other escapes, more or less intact, along with the many thousands of refugees ahead of them.]

“So she’s bait.”

[Yes.]

“Does it look like there’s a plan to get them out?”

[No.]

“I’m not abandoning her.”

[Your worth to human civilization is far greater than the meaningless sacrifice of your life for a woman you cannot say you love. If you try to save her, you will die.]

“Yeah. You know this for sure?”

[The girl Lucy will die too.]

“ Zatknis’ na hui. There’ll be a way. I just have to think of it.”

The embankment graded out and for a few short paces they were level with houses. They swept under a vast concrete structure that carried trains into Finchley Road, and kept angling down. The ground either side and in front rose up, and the tracks multiplied and split, left and right: after they passed through Finchley station on separate platforms, each bundle of rails went under the hill of Hampstead Heath. No short tunnel this time.