Ken MacLeod: Intrusion

‘And your name is…?’ he said.

‘Hope Abendorf.’ Another laugh, this time at herself. ‘And I’ve heard all the jokes since kindergarten.’

‘Jokes?’

‘My nickname was Hope Abandon.’

With her slender English-posh vowels, that did sound a little like her name, the way Hugh heard it. Hape Ebendon .

‘No jokes about that from me,’ said Hugh.

‘Good,’ she said.

They went on talking, and didn’t stop. There was one awkward moment, when she was telling him something about her course – art and business studies, which as she said was about right for minding some village gallery or craft shop in the Home Counties – and his attention wandered. A tall, long-haired, bearded guy in leathers and metal – could have been a biker, could have been a re-enactor – strolled past and suddenly turned and fixed Hugh with a blue-eyed glare and said, in a language Hugh didn’t speak and had never heard but did understand, ‘You be good to that one,’ and strode straight on, through the wall as if it weren’t there. Or as if he weren’t, to be more rational about the matter. It had been ten years since Hugh had seen someone who wasn’t there.

‘Am I boring you?’ Hope asked, her tone light but sharp.

‘No. Sorry.’ Hugh blinked, and shook his head. ‘Something you said just reminded me of something, that’s all.’ He smiled. ‘You have all my attention.’

The way he said it, slow and precise, it sounded like a promise. Which, as it turned out, he kept.

Fiona Donnelly rang the doorbell at 10.15 the day after Hope’s queries to her friends. She was about forty-five years old and she was a district nurse. She’d been alerted by Hope’s monitor ring, which like all such devices logged its results with the local health centre and the national database. Her visit had popped up on Hope’s diary when she’d fired up her glasses that morning, and Hope had nodded in agreement. Mrs Donnelly had been her visitor when she was pregnant with Nick.

Still, when Hope opened the door and saw Mrs Donnelly standing there in the little basement-flat front yard under a light dusting of snow, she felt a slight pang of dread, like she always did when she saw someone in uniform on her doorstep. It wasn’t much of a uniform, just a hooded blue fleece over a blue tunic and trousers, with a few badges and discreet sensors – cameras, mikes, sniffers – pinned here and there over the chest, but there it was. Authority. Hope had had a slight nervousness about people in uniforms since she was a girl in Ealing, back when Ealing was still des res and she was about ten, and the men from Environment had come to take away the Aga.

‘Hi, Mrs Donnelly,’ she said. ‘Come on in.’

‘Fiona, please, Hope. It hasn’t been that long. Let’s not be strangers.’

‘No, no,’ said Hope.

Fiona took off her fleece, shook the ice particles off it, looked about for a peg and hung the garment on a handlebar. The two women walked crabwise past the bikes, and sat down at the kitchen table.

‘Coffee? Tea?’

‘Tea would be lovely, thanks. No milk or sugar.’

Hope put the kettle on and rustled up tea bags. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Fiona slip a computer out of her tunic pocket and wave it in front of her chest before setting it down on the table. The nurse peered and poked at it for a few seconds, then sat back, no doubt relieved that no molecules of dangerous substances had been detected in the air.

Over cups of tea Hope and Fiona did some catching up. After about ten minutes Fiona pushed away her empty cup, tapped the tabletop beside her computer and moved to business.

‘Work OK?’ she said. ‘Not too stressful?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Hope. ‘Not at all. It can run itself if it has to, and if it gets too stressful – can’t imagine, but if – I can just let them know I need some time off. They’re always happy to have me back after I’ve been away.’

‘Fine, fine.’ Fiona’s finger twiddled on the tabletop, writing. ‘Any general health problems? Anything that might not have shown up on the logs?’

Hope shook her head. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. She straightened her back and wiggled her shoulders. ‘I should get a bit more exercise, and take a few more stand-up breaks, but with all this snow…’

‘Yeah, I know. Global warming. Well, so long as you keep that in mind. Get outside more than just the school walk and the shops, OK?’

‘Oh, I do, I do, we go for walks at weekends…’

‘Fine, fine – like I say, keep it in mind, make a little extra effort. Anyway… we’ll book you in for a first check… next month?’

Hope put her glasses on, invoked the diary, tapped the table and synchronised diaries with the nurse’s computer.

‘OK, the twelfth of April, fine. Twelve-thirty.’

Fiona looked down at the tablet, sighed, and looked up.

‘Now,’ she said. ‘Sorry I’ve got to say this, but… I’ve got to. You’ve thought about the fix?’

‘I’ve thought about it.’

‘And are you going for it this time?’

Hope compressed her lips and shook her head.

‘Why not, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘I do mind you asking,’ Hope said, more lightly than she felt. ‘But I just don’t want to do it, and that’s that.’

‘Do you have any safety concerns about it?’

‘No.’

‘Faith issues?’

‘No,’ Hope said. ‘I don’t.’

‘Shame,’ said Fiona. ‘Because I could have set your mind at rest about safety, and given you some tips about placing a faith objection.’ She put a forefinger against the side of her nose, and tapped, gazing idly out of the window at the bare branches of the bush outside. ‘You’re absolutely sure you don’t have a faith objection?’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Hope. ‘We – Hugh and I – have been over all this.’

‘Much as it pains me as a not very good Catholic,’ Fiona said, with a wry look, ‘I have to tell you that there are non-religious faith objections, if you see what I mean. Off the top of my head, uh, Green Humanism for one…’

Hope burst out laughing.

‘Green humanism? What’s that? Humanism for little green men?’

‘It’s about leaving human nature alone, as I understand it,’ said Fiona, a little stiffly. ‘As well as the rest of nature. No mucking about with genomes. I gather they also object to the New Trees.’

‘Well, there you are.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve got nothing against New Trees. And I could hardly pretend to, because Hugh works with new wood all the time. Well, half the time, but you know what I mean.’ Hope propped her elbows and began waving her hands. ‘Look, Fiona, Hugh and I have been through all this. It’s not enough to claim you believe something, you have to show it in some way, and I’m just not prepared to do that if I don’t actually believe in something, and the fact is, there’s nothing out there for me to pretend to believe in, let alone actually believe in.’

‘Well in that case, my dear, I’m afraid you’re stuffed.’

‘So to speak!’ Hope acknowledged Fiona’s joke. ‘But isn’t it enough that I just don’t want it?’

‘No,’ said Fiona. ‘It isn’t enough.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, if that was enough, if just saying no and not giving a reason was enough, where would we be? It would be just chaos.’

‘It’s enough now,’ Hope said. ‘Or was until a couple of days ago. And I don’t see chaos.’

‘Well…’

‘And anyway,’ Hope went on, ‘the ruling is being appealed, so I’m not in any legal difficulty by not having the fix.’

‘I’m sorry, Hope, but you are. The ruling stands, and unless it’s overturned on appeal or the law is changed, we have to take it into account.’