Peter Hamilton - Misspent Youth

Youth, with its high idealism quotient, considered almost any price worth paying. From his unique viewpoint looking out over Europe from two distinct generations he could see both the arguments, how valid they were to their practitioners. He just wished he knew who was right.

His hands began a gentle massage on her shoulders. “Don’t worry, something has to give way eventually. Europe can’t carry on like this; it’s a schizophrenic continent.”

A big movement of people down below caught his attention. The front rank of protestors at the head of the traffic circle’s southern slip road was surging forward, pressuring the police barricades. Smoke bombs were hurled over the heads of the officers. Thick plumes of scarlet smoke gushed out across the tarmac. Then long strands of green smoke began to wind through the protestors. The crowd’s cohesion broke, turning them back into individuals, all desperately running away from the barricades, pushing and shoving their way back down the slip road.

Tear gas , Jeff realized. And the summit hadn’t even started yet. “I’m going to stay here,” Annabelle said. “I don’t want to try to travel through that.”

“Good.” Jeff put his arms around her to offer some comfort, and steered her away from the window. “The agencies can wait for another day or so. We can stay on in London after the summit so you can see them then.”

Annabelle had received thousands of txt and avtxt messages as Lucy Duke’s carefully orchestrated publicity campaign built up. Some wished her well, some congratulated her and Jeff, a great many asked for money, still more asked her to join their sect/religion/commune/political party/charity; an unpleasant percentage contained some kind of threat (which Krober forwarded to Europol’s Domestic Analysis Division for cross-referencing and tracking); some were funny, and some were from cranks; teenage (and older) boys wanted high-resolution pictures of her, preferably in a bikini or less; proposals of marriage were common. In among the deluge were several genuine offers of work and contracts from modeling agencies, keen to exploit her looks and public profile. She had trouble believing the kind of money they were promising.

Jeff had turned to Sue for advice on which ones to consider. “Talk about life going in cycles,” she’d said snidely. But once she’d stopped laughing at him she told him which of the agencies had reasonable reputations. They’d arranged for a couple of interviews and a studio test session, which Annabelle intended to do while he was busy at the summit.

The pack Jeff had been given at the reception desk contained several dozen invitations to parties sponsored by various companies, universities, and government bureaus. Then there were extra forums supported by news streams. The brochure was over a hundred pages thick. “And totally pointless,” he grunted as he thumbed through it; glossy pictures of industrial machinery and smiling community groups made it resemble some kind of share flotation prospectus. The loose sheaf of party invitations fluttered down across the bed. “You could spend the entire time eating and drinking here without ever getting to a session.”

“How many are we going to?” she asked.

“Why, want to start showing off some of those new clothes?”

“Don’t start that again. I don’t want to let you down at these functions, that’s all. I had to have something decent to wear.”

“Nobody’s even going to notice me when you start wearing those so-called dresses.”

She struck a pose. “Jealous?”

His PCglasses ping ed and began emitting a red laser flash; he stuck his tongue out at her as he picked the unit off the bed. The call was from Alison. “Click, accept,” he told the glasses.

“Are you two all right?” Alison asked hurriedly.

“Sure. We just got to the hotel. Why?”

“Graham just called me. He was at Euston station when it was evacuated.”

“Evacuated?”

“Access a news stream, Jeff. There was a clash between the police and the protest marchers. The ticket office is on fire. Graham said he saw the police shooting some kind of tear gas rounds inside the station. Some of the younger marchers had to carry him out.”

“What the hell is Graham doing there in the first place? He’s in his eighties.”

“Age doesn’t stop you from taking part in the democratic process, not if it’s important enough.”

“Is he okay?”

“I think so. That modern tear gas is nasty stuff. It’s got chemical marker dye mixed in, God knows what that does to your lungs. But he said he was going to get cleaned up, then join the main protest outside the Marshall Centre.”

Jeff clamped a hand over his forehead; he couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Listen, Alison, if you’ve got any influence over him at all, get him to go home. Please. I can see them from our window. It’s really not pretty down here.”

“I’ll tell him, but I don’t suppose it’ll do much good. You know what he’s like.”

“Yeah.”

Jeff gave his PCglasses a long look. “I’m going to call Tim,” he said.

TIM WAS SURPRISED by the reception at Kings Cross. As soon as he and Vanessa got off the train the police marshaled them along the platform, a busy line of people all treading on one another’s heels. It was the start of the pushing that he’d have to endure most of the day.

“Are you with this lot?” a policeman shouted at him as they got to the end of the platform. The man’s voice was muffled by his helmet filters; he was jabbing a gauntlet toward the yelling, chanting protestors packed into the concourse.

Vanessa pulled herself tighter against Tim, her face anxious as she took in the huge mass of bodies.

“No,” Tim yelled back. “We’re here to visit some friends.”

“Wrong day,” the policeman said. “Get out over there. This lot are all going to Docklands. You don’t want any part of that.”

The two closest protestors screamed obscene abuse at him. Tim shoved his way through the throng toward the side exit the policeman had indicated, keeping a close hold on Vanessa. They finally made it outside to the deserted taxi rank. Tim took a deep breath. Vanessa was shaking.

“I didn’t think it was going to be like that,” she said in a small voice. There was no traffic on the Euston Road; the crowds outside Kings Cross and St. Pancras had spilled over the tarmac as they waited for their march to Docklands to begin. Stewards had long since given up trying to shepherd them along their designated route. Every arriving train seemed to bring hundreds more.

Tim put his PCglasses on and called Colin.

“Where the hell are you?” Colin asked.

“Just got in. Where are you?”

“Halfway to Docklands, I think. Simon and Rachel are here. We’re in the middle of a march. Nobody knows what’s happening. There aren’t any stewards. We’re just following along.”

“Can you get out? We should meet up.”

“Yeah, right. Hang on, my GPS says we’re on Whitechapel. We’ll try and get across to Bethnal Green tube station. Can you get there?”

“I think so.” Tim’s PCglasses showed him a London street map. “We’ll walk up to Angel and catch a tube. It might take a while.”

He was right. They had to take a long detour to Upper Street, where the tube station was. Traffic had backed up into a solid gridlock to make way for the various marches. Everywhere they went, tempers were fragile.

The tube trains were crammed with unhappy passengers. As always, the only air below ground was hot and stale. They had to switch lines twice, waiting a long time for each connection on platforms that became dangerously crowded. This part of the network was nothing like the efficient, modern central zone that Tim normally used when he came down to the city.