Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘I don’t get it,’ said Aurora, ‘is there something unusual about Worthing’s face?’

It suddenly struck me that she only saw the left-hand side of things – witness her curious half-sketch and not seeing the MediTech – so she might not see the wonky side of my head at all.

‘I have a congenital skull deformity,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ she replied, leaning over to try and see, and I think failing, ‘then that makes Mr Hooke’s comments entirely uncalled for – you’re to apologise.’

‘I apologise unreservedly, ma’am,’ he said in a bland monotone.

‘Not to me , you clot,’ said Aurora, nodding her head in my direction.

‘Oh,’ he muttered, then turned to me and gave a fulsome if strained apology, adding that if I so wished I could make fun of the fact that he had lost his left testicle in a ‘freak accident involving a revolving door’ with no risk of retaliation either now or in the future.

I declined, and he took a step back.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Aurora. ‘Hooke is particularly suited to thinking up imaginatively terrifying interrogation techniques, and sometimes forgets himself. Okay,’ she added, picking up the photo, ‘we’re done. You have the thanks of HiberTech Industries for the safe delivery of the cabbage – and if you see any of the people from that hotel room I’d like you to contact HiberTech Security immediately . Yes?’

I told her I most assuredly would, but privately I was thinking that all I wanted to do was to speak to Chief Toccata, get home and then have nothing to do with Sector Twelve ever again. Aurora offered me her hand to shake and then pulled me into the Deep Winter embrace, her breathing husky and close to my ear. I could feel the flat of her thighs against mine, the hardness of the Bambi across her chest.

‘Good luck, Charlie,’ she said, her breath smelling of coffee, banana milk and Mintolas, ‘I have the strongest feeling you’re going to be a really good Consul.’

She released me and I turned and headed towards the exit. I checked my watch. My train was due to depart in forty-eight minutes.

‘I need to see Toccata,’ I said to Laura once I was back at the entrance lobby of the Wincarnis . ‘That’s the Consulate facing us, yes?’

‘I’ll come with you,’ she said, so we pulled on our parkas and overboots. ‘I do filing over there for eight hours a week. Without it I’d be just another one of the sleep-shy. I like to pay my way.’

‘What’s the deal with Hooke?’ I asked as we stepped outside.

‘Best avoided. He used to work in Military Intelligence but was forced to resign due to his unbridled enthusiasm for “psychologically invasive interrogation techniques”. He’s basically a nasty bully who’s been given some authority – never a winning combination. Or,’ she added, ‘a totally winning combination. It’s a question of perspective.’

‘And Aurora?’

‘She runs hot and cold, same as Toccata. When it comes to HiberTech Security, the safe default position is to avoid all and everything in as aggressive a fashion as possible.’

We walked past the statue that was positioned in the town square, moved up some steps until we were at the Consulate’s main door, and Laura punched some numbers in on the keypad. We entered the primary shock-gate, walked down a short corridor, then went through the secondary shock-gate and into the main chamber. The offices were identical in layout to the offices back in Cardiff – the same as everywhere, in fact. The only difference was that the room was partitioned about a quarter of the way in by a long counter that was piled with files, reports, SkillZero procedure manuals, fliers for state-registered winsomniacs and a large tear-off desk calendar that indicated there was one day until Slumberdown.

Behind the counter was an open-plan office with a half-dozen desks, all of them stacked high with unfiled and forgotten paperwork, paper cups, old newspapers and general bric-a-brac. There were the usual half-dozen or so super-sensitive barographs across one wall, and across another was a plethora of missing persons posters. Some new, some old, some ancient.

‘Anyone over two seasons missing is logged as “Likely Carrion” and declared dead,’ said Laura, ‘but we keep the posters up as it helps to have human faces around, irrespective of who they were or their current status.’

We stared at them for a moment.

‘We call it the “Wall of Lost Souls”,’ she added, then said, as I heard footsteps approaching: ‘Ah, Fodder.’

I turned to find a powerfully-built man who was about two foot taller than me, probably weighed twice as much again and looked as though he could comfortably eat me for breakfast. He had crew-cut hair, half a left ear and eyes so dark his sockets seemed empty. His nose looked as though it had been broken at some point, healed unset, then broken, then healed again, then broken, then healed again. He carried a Thumper upon which was drawn a smiley face and the words ‘Have a Nice Day’, and sewn into the shock-vest was a D-ring. I’d not seen one before, but knew what it meant: once it was pulled, a pulse charge would detonate instantaneously. He’d be Consuling to the end – and if things got truly bad, he’d take as many Villains with him as he could. He was, in spirit rather than current profession, very much a soldier.

‘Fodder, this is Charlie Worthing,’ said Laura, ‘Deputy Consul.’

I nodded respectfully and he stared at me without blinking.

‘I’ve not seen any transfer paperwork,’ he said after what seemed like an age.

I told him that I was delivering a nightwalker, but on account of Continuity Protocol SX-70 was representing Chief Logan on an investigation.

Laura and Fodder looked at one another, and I think I might have seen a glimmer of nervousness on Fodder’s otherwise impassive features.

‘Chief Logan is dead? How did that happen?’

‘Aurora thumped him backwards into a wall when he was about to execute me. He’d been farming nightwalkers,’ I added quickly by way of explanation, ‘and couldn’t trust me not to blab.’

There was silence for a few moments.

‘Toccata will not be pleased,’ said Fodder, ‘not pleased at all – and I’m sure as shit I’m not going to be the one that tells her.’

‘Nor me,’ said Laura. ‘Jonesy can do it – she can run the fastest.’

‘Is Toccata around?’ I asked. ‘I could tell her.’

‘Clearly, you don’t know Toccata, and no, she’s off-duty.’

‘It’s probably important enough to interrupt her break,’ I persisted.

‘It doesn’t work that way. And besides, if she thinks you were in any way to blame for Logan’s death, well, I don’t much care for your chances.’

‘C’mon,’ I said, having always thought the stories about Toccata were overblown, as was almost everything in the Winter, ‘she can’t be that volatile.’

‘She punched me in the eye so hard she detached my retina,’ he said, ‘and all I did was place the preposition at the end of the sentence.’

‘That’s grounds for an investigation, certainly a reprimand, maybe even charges,’ I said, ‘against Toccata,’ I added, in case he misunderstood me. But Fodder shook his head.