Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘So there is a Project Lazarus,’ I said. ‘What about Morphenox-B?’

‘I can neither confirm nor deny,’ she said with a smile, ‘and just in case you missed it, the paperwork you signed at reception was a Non-Disclosure Agreement. If you whisper a word about anything you see in here, then Mr Hooke – did you meet Mr Hooke?’

I nodded.

‘…is tasked to enforce compliance, and I’ve a feeling that’s not something anyone might cherish. There’s a story going round that he once took on a starving Arctic badger – and won.’

‘That’s not so impressive.’

Arctic badgers were notoriously bad tempered, but still no larger than a medium-sized dog. I’d not like to tackle one, but suitably armed, I’d probably be okay, give or take a missing finger or eye.

‘When he was four,’ said Lucy. ‘He’s womad stock; Oldivician, I think. Part of his midwinter freezerthon.’ [36] ‘Womads’ or ‘Winter nomads’ often left their children out in the Winter to separate the weak from the strong.

‘Okay, that is very impressive.’

‘So the story goes. C’mon, let’s get you both over to “B” Wing.’

She beckoned me out of the waiting room and clapped her hands twice. Both golf-cart drivers looked up with the languid heavy-headed motion typical of a nightwalker, and she pointed at the one who’d been named Dave, who drove slowly up to us and stopped. He then simply sat there, waiting, staring at the wall above and to the right of us.

Lucy gestured for me to get myself and Mrs Tiffen on board, then sat herself.

‘We’re trying to extend the redeployed nightwalker skill set beyond sorting spuds and opening doors,’ she said, ‘but it’s all very much in the Beta-testing stage at the moment – which is why we don’t let them off-facility. It’s company policy to always have a jam sandwich and a box of almond slices when you’re in a golf cart with them. Despite their skills, they do still get a little bitey when hungry.’

Lucy told the driver where we were headed and we were off with a screech of tyres. There followed a singularly hair-raising trip of narrowly missed obstacles and recklessly negotiated blind corners with only the beeping of the warning siren to assist any pedestrians out of our path. Dave seemed to have only a cursory interest in his task, and throughout much of the journey stared at my arm as a dog might stare at a bone.

Lucy told me I would be meeting The Notable Goodnight, so to mind my manners.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

My surprise was easily explained: The Notable Charlotte Goodnight was the only surviving member of ‘The HiberTech Five’, the close-knit team that had been with Don Hector during the development of Morphenox. Goodnight had been a sixteen-year-old chemistry prodigy when she joined the team, and had personally perfected Juvenox for the under-twelves. When Don Hector died, she was the logical choice to lead the company.

‘What did Mother Fallopia say when you told her you were leaving?’ asked Lucy as we hurtled along.

‘She said that I was an ungrateful little shit, I’d be dead less than a week into the Winter, and if I had a known grave, she’d come and dance on it.’

‘She said that?’

‘Words to that effect.’

‘You still did the right thing.’

We drove through a self-opening door which led into another long corridor, but this one open to the elements on one side. I’d seen aerial pictures of the facility and knew it was constructed much like a college around a quadrangle, but here the quad was a twelve-acre area of trees, shrubs and even a stream that, were it not frozen solid, would have risen in one corner, tumbled through rocks and gullies and cascaded down a waterfall before it vanished with a gurgle at the opposite corner.

‘The entire facility was originally designed as a four-thousand-bed sanatorium for those suffering Hibernatory Narcosis,’ said Lucy, following my gaze, ‘but it was handed over to Don Hector and his team as his research bore more and more fruit. By the time they had developed a workable version of Morphenox, the whole site had been given over to hibernatory research: how more citizens might hope to survive it, how we might need less of it, and how to better handle the mental and physical issues surrounding early rising.’

‘It’s very impressive,’ I said.

‘It should be,’ replied Lucy. ‘HiberTech’s mission statement is to forever rid humans of the debilitating social and economic effects of hibernation.’

‘It’s a bold promise.’

‘HiberTech always think big. We’re here.’

The golf cart screeched to a halt outside a door marked ‘Project Lazarus’.

‘Have-a-nice-day-enjoy-your-stay-at-HiberTech,’ said Dave, repeating the words as though he’d learned them phonetically.

Lucy unlocked the door by way of a keypad and after several rights and lefts and another pair of swing doors, we found ourselves in a circular room with desks, chairs and filing cabinets. Radiating out from this circular chamber were eight corridors, and off these were secure cells, perhaps twenty or so to each corridor. I could hear noises – murmurings and bangings – along with the distinctively unpleasant odour of unwashed nightwalker. A little way down the corridor a male nurse with a rubber apron was hosing down a cell, the soiled water running into a central drain.

I stood there, looking around, one hand on Mrs Tiffen’s elbow. To my right was a door with a glass panel, and, curiosity getting the better of me, I moved closer and peered in. A nightwalker dressed in a pale green jumpsuit was strapped to what looked like a barber’s chair. Directly above him was a curious copper device the shape of a traffic cone but six times larger, the pointy end about an inch from the subject’s forehead. Behind the operating table a pair of technicians were working on several large machines that were covered in gauges, buttons, dials and four large screens. The technicians were saying something, but it was muffled by the thick glass set into the door.

‘You know what curiosity did to the cat?’

I turned. It was The Notable Goodnight.

She was older than she looked in the publicity pictures, but to my guess on the cusp of her seventh decade. A well-exercised mid-season weight, she had unblinking blue eyes and was dressed in a starched white uniform that seemed to exude no-nonsense efficiency. She stared at me with thinly disguised disdain.

‘Oh,’ I said, embarrassed at being caught snooping, ‘sorry.’

‘Well, do you?’ she asked.

‘Do I what?’

‘Do you know what curiosity did to the cat?’

‘It killed it, I guess.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.’

‘Killed it,’ I said in a louder voice.

‘Exactly. The meaning is quite clear, of course—’

She stopped, thought for a moment, then turned to Lucy.

‘Lucy, dear, why did curiosity kill the cat?’

Lucy had been reading Mrs Tiffen’s file but looked up abruptly as her name was spoken.

‘Oh – er, the context of the saying remains obscure, ma’am, but the idiomatic meaning is quite clear.’

‘ Exactly ,’ said Goodnight, ‘couldn’t have put it better myself. An idiom. Our work here is unpalatable but necessary for the greater good. In idiomatic terms… Lucy?’

‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs?’

‘Close enough.’

‘Isn’t that… proverbial rather than idiomatic?’ I asked.

They both stared at me for a moment.

‘Lost interest and moving on,’ said Goodnight. ‘Where’s Chief Logan?’

‘Aurora killed him.’

‘For kicks and giggles?’