Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

Coincidentally, Toccata had recently called the office, looking to speak to Logan. I told Pryce about it and he raised an eyebrow.

‘Personal?’

‘Professional. Something weird going on in Sector Twelve.’

‘So what’s new? There’s always something weird going on in Sector Twelve.’

There were few leads regarding who killed Klaar. A recent snowfall had wiped all the tracks, but Logan sent a couple of Consuls to speak to the friendlies to find out which gang had the bigger grudge.

‘What happens now?’ I asked as Logan and I drove back to the Consulate.

‘We wait,’ said the Chief. ‘Once the hunger sets in, someone will come pleading for food in exchange for information. Nothing like a good roast beef dinner with gravy and Yorkshire pud followed by trifle to get people talking. “Fill the tum, loosen the tongue”, as we say.’

The next two days were dominated by heavy snowstorms so I practised blind driving with Logan using the H4S radar set in the Sno-Trac. It was a little tricky to begin with, but I’d done several hours on the simulator, so didn’t make a complete pig’s ear of it.

‘Want some advice?’ asked Logan as I swerved my way around Cardiff navigating only by the radar returns on the H4S screen.

‘Is it about washing?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s this: plans are all well and good in the Summer, but in the Winter it’s wiser to simply have an objective.’

‘I thought we were meant to make a plan and stick to it?’

‘Events move fast,’ he said, ‘and you need on-the-hoof flexibility to ensure the plan doesn’t get in the way of the goal.’

It actually seemed like quite good advice.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘You’re welcome,’ he replied, ‘and less starch on my shirts – it’s like wearing cardboard.’

Toccata called again once we were back in the office and Logan spoke to her for almost an hour in the privacy of his office. From what I could understand, Toccata wanted Logan to come over to help on a case, but Consuls didn’t go off-sector this close to the Winter – protocol, apparently. There was also, it seemed, something about a woman named Aurora, who a quick piece of research revealed was HiberTech’s Head of Security in Sector Twelve. From what I overheard of Logan and Toccata’s conversation, she was hated by both of them. I asked Vice-Consul Pryce about Aurora and he warned me to ‘stay away from those three – nothing but trouble’.

The day after that we helped the MediTechs round up all the Edwards and Janes.

‘I never like this part of the job,’ said Logan. In fact, no one enjoyed it as far as I could see – except the MediTechs themselves, who were finally going to do in the Winter what they had been preparing for all Summer. The redeployed, their limited usefulness over and physiologically unable to hibernate, were due to be parted out as soon as the recipients were in full hibernation. If nightwalkers were the unintended consequence of Morphenox, the free menial workers and transplantation possibilities were the unintended consequences of the unintended consequence. Screening had been carried out all Summer, and each Edward or Jane had the names of their intended recipients cold-branded on their various parts. Leg, face, fingers, organs – there wasn’t much that couldn’t be replaced. Something to do with the hibernatory state being especially conducive to non-rejection. [20] It was due to low white cell count, part of the blood-thinning physiology peculiar to hibernation. I didn’t know that at the time.

‘Never enough, eh?’ said one of the MediTechs, consulting a clipboard and the thirty or so individuals we had collected from their places of work. They stood there blankly, swaying gently from side to side until they were loaded into a mammoth-truck and carted away.

‘Doesn’t seem right somehow,’ I said, probably too loudly. Consul Thomas heard me.

‘You’ll not complain once you lose something to frost and want it replaced,’ she said, patting her arm, which I noted was a great deal paler than the rest of her, ‘and you will, eventually. You’re not part of the Winter until the Winter’s taken a part of you.’

On the fourth day before Slumberdown the local police conducted the seasonal handover of Jurisdiction, a ceremony that included the mayor, the Chief of Police and a large symbolic snowflake made of gingerbread and marzipan. I wasn’t there; someone had to answer the phones in the office and finish the ironing.

Two days after that, Beryl Cook nearly had a meltdown. And this is when Mrs Tiffen comes back into the story.

We drove across the city at daybreak, the tracks of the Sno-Trac clean and sharp over a fresh fall of snow, the sky slate-grey. Only the thin trails of vapour rising from the numerous Dormitoria gave any clue that we were in a city of almost half a million people.

Despite it being two days before Winter officially began, most people had already hunkered down, and anyone who wasn’t yet asleep would be going through their pre-hibernatory nesting rituals. Yoga and Gregorian chants were always popular, with yoyo, tango, humming, bezique and watercolouring going in and out of favour as the vagaries of fashion saw fit. But for most people it was a simple slowing of activity, purposefully avoiding anything exciting. This was a winding down, a relaxing of mind and spirit.

To assist initial descent and a free return in case of an accidental awakening, the networks ran looped repeats of Bonanza throughout the Winter. Residents with Random Waking Syndrome kept a TV switched on at the foot of their bed, sound turned down low, the picture dimmed.

‘It’s only dull by endless repetition,’ Logan had explained earlier, while we discussed strategies to ease anomalous wakers back to sleep, ‘and the close familiarity of the characters and situations make for an often transcendental drifting of the mind.’

No one quite knew why Bonanza had become the TV series of choice for the Winter, but the more it was watched, the more suited to easement it became. If the machinations of the Cartwright family didn’t work, you could always watch reruns of Crossroads or resort to the default entry-level route to welcome catatonia: Ulysses , Moby Dick or War and Peace.

I halted the Sno-Trac outside the Beryl Cook Dormitorium, the largest of twenty-seven Kipshops [21] Flopshop, Kipshop, Sleepshack, Slumberhouse – all slang for the venerable Dormitoria. on the seafront at Penarth. I made sure the compressed air tank was in the green so I could effect a restart, then stopped the engine and climbed out of the rear door. The recent fall of snow had partially melted in the morning sun then refrozen, and the ground felt like Rice Krispies beneath our boots.

‘We’ve got the control rods fully in and the core temperature is still wavering on the red,’ said the porter in an oddly enthusiastic way, as though a reactor fire would be a welcome diversion from the Winter boredom. He beckoned us in to the small control room just behind the reception and we all stared at the core temperature dial, which was indeed wavering on the danger level.