Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

Come to think of it, I didn’t. The story was that he spent two decades perfecting the drug; I’d not heard how he actually did it.

‘Morphenox was a fluke,’ said Shamanic Bob when I didn’t answer, ‘discovered wholly by chance. ’

I was going to ask him to expand upon that when Moody turned up. Unfortunately, not in a manner I’d hoped or expected. We were interrupted by a shout and I looked out of the café window, where I could see a naked Moody running towards where we sat, his coarse wintercoat standing hard up against the cold. He was wielding an axe and yelling ‘Blue Buick!’ at the top of his voice, and without pausing for a second swung the axe with all his might against the plate-glass window of Mrs Nesbit’s – a pointless gesture given that it would be certified to withstand torrential rain, gale-borne debris and an enraged mammoth. He scratched the toughened glass, but that was about it.

‘This isn’t a great advert for dreaming,’ said Shamanic Bob. ‘Moody has been riding the arse end of the reality slope for quite a few days now.’

‘I hope the Gronk lays eggs in your brain, Mrs Nesbit!’ he yelled, raising the axe to swing it again. ‘And they bury you alive!’

Just then a man strode unhurriedly around the corner. It was Agent Hooke, all tall and gangly and with a face like leather. He was cradling a Thumper, but not the old-fashioned one of Lopez’s back at the John Edward Jones , it was the Mk VII – twice as powerful and available in matt black or nickel.

‘HiberTech Security,’ announced Hooke, standing thirty or so feet from the clearly confused RailTec. ‘Drop or you get dropped.’

Moody turned to face him with a look of shock. It didn’t appear that he was fully awake, let alone able to follow simple instructions.

‘Blue Buick!’ he yelled, then turned to face me, and there was a flash of recognition.

‘You’ll visit the blue Buick and Mrs Nesbit will harangue you, too,’ he shouted, ‘tell her nothing and whatever you do, don’t leave the rocks or the hands will get you !’

And he raised the axe, turned, and charged at Hooke.

Whump

My ears popped as a doughnut-shaped pressure wave erupted from the front of Hooke’s weapon and caught Moody full in the chest. I saw the pattern of a Tudor rose blossom on his chest hair before the secondary shock wave lifted him off his feet and propelled him backwards across the square into the unyielding stone of the town hall. There was a wettish thud and he fell into a lifeless heap on the ground; the compacted snow melted into water by the momentary pressure change to reveal cobbles and half an iron inspection cover. In a split second the pressure had normalised and the water instantly refroze as gin-clear ice, locking Moody’s body to the ground. In the Winter, warmth is only ever a transitory commodity.

Hooke broke open the weapon, ejected the spent cell and replaced it with another from his pocket.

A movement caught my eye. It was Aurora running around the corner, weapon at the ready. She threw up her hands when she saw what had happened.

‘You bloody idiot!’ she yelled when she saw Moody’s body. ‘What happened to good old-fashioned proportionality?’

‘I was well within my rights, Aurora,’ said Hooke in an unrepentant tone. ‘Moody was endangering my life and that of others. The law permits me to use reasonable force in such circumstances.’

He said it in the same sort of tone you might use to describe your favourite brand of butter.

‘We need our infrastructure support staff,’ said Aurora in an exasperated tone, ‘even the deranged ones. Who’s going to bring the rail network out of mothballs to meet the Springrise schedule? You?’

There followed an argument in which claims and counterclaims were issued, insults traded, demotions hinted. But ultimately, with little to no headway.

Within a few minutes other security agents had arrived, presumably alerted by the Thumper’s pressure signature, which would have every barograph spiking within a mile. It was only then that Aurora spotted me in the window and walked over.

‘Deputy Worthing,’ she said as she walked into the café, Hooke by her side, ‘how’s the viral dreams investigation going?’

‘One of your agents just killed my star witness.’

‘It was self-defence,’ said Hooke. ‘You saw him run at me with an axe.’

‘Did he?’ asked Aurora.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I suppose so.’

‘I see you’ve met our resident parasites,’ said Hooke, who had been looking around the café. ‘Good evening, Shamanic Bob.’

‘Good evening,’ said Bob with a defiant smile. ‘Come to wish us all a slow death?’

‘You read me like a book,’ said Hooke. ‘Spooky. But let’s face facts: you are the most loathsome of spongers.’

‘That’s Mr Loathsome Sponger to you,’ said Shamanic Bob, his defiance not wavering in light of Hooke’s insults, ‘and I know my rights. You’re private security, not Winter Consulate. You have no jurisdiction over me.’

But ever cautious, presumably on account of his dreaming habit, he decided to leave anyway.

‘We’ll talk again,’ said Shamanic Bob to me, although it was unlikely. My train was due out soon. But despite what little I knew of HiberTech, I was intrigued by what he’d said about Morphenox being a fluke.

‘Liars and schemers all,’ said Hooke. ‘Did you lend him any money?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘but you should probably know they’re scoring D-Reem from somebody in HiberTech.’

‘It troubles us not one jot,’ said Hooke. ‘One less sleep-shy is one less mouth to feed.’

‘I’m really sorry you weren’t able to talk to Moody,’ said Aurora, trying to move the conversation on and nodding towards where the security agents outside were using a heat gun to free Moody from the ice. They weren’t very good at it; I could smell the singed hair from within the café. ‘Mr Hooke was employed for his ruthless adherence to HiberTech’s well-being, so subtlety isn’t really his strong suit. Do you accept my apology?’

‘Yes, I guess.’

‘Good. I have a few questions for you. Is that okay?’

‘Sure.’

She pulled a photograph out of her breast pocket and laid it on the counter. The picture depicted a man in his forties, fairly nondescript, thinning hair, holding an iguana.

‘Know this person?’ she asked.

‘Never seen him.’

‘This is Hugo Foulnap. The only Hugo Foulnap. An accountant, he nightwalked twelve years ago and was parted out the same Winter. The Hugo Foulnap in the hotel room wasn’t Hugo Foulnap at all.’

‘Ah,’ I said, unsure where she was going with this or what she wanted me to do. ‘Why is he holding an iguana?’

‘I don’t think it’s relevant. What do you think they were going to do with Mrs Tiffen?’

‘She was going to be farmed.’

‘Foulnap actually said that?’

‘Not specifically, but it was fairly obvious.’

‘Did he mention Kiki?’

‘No.’

‘Did Foulnap say anything that suggested he was with the Campaign for Real Sleep?’

‘Nothing I can think of,’ I said, but then added without really thinking, ‘If you suspected he was with the Campaign, why didn’t you arrest him?’

I knew it was impertinent the moment I’d said it, but it wasn’t Aurora who reacted, it was Hooke.

‘You’ve got some lip on you. Any more of that and I’ll rearrange your face – although from the look of you, someone has already tried.’

He smirked at a joke that he thought was both funny and original, something in which he was entirely wrong on both counts.

‘Then maybe you could arrange it for me and help us all out,’ I said, having weathered far worse insults over the years. The interaction with Gary Findlay had been the turning point. He’d made fun of my looks for years but me biting off his ear was dubbed ‘wholly disproportionate’. Mother Fallopia was bound by full disclosure policy after the event, and once I had ‘Biter’ on my record even the more sympathetic adopters hurried on past.