Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘Safe Haven,’ said Lloyd, acknowledging the request.

‘My first blizzard,’ said Lucy to me, pulling off her parka. ‘A little more excitement than I’d bargained for.’

‘It’s good to see you,’ I said, with a sense of relief.

‘And you,’ she said, and we tapped fists.

‘Good afternoon, Deputy Jones,’ said Hooke.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Jonesy, without breaking her pace to the coat rack and now almost pushing Birgitta in front of her.

‘It would be safer to stay inside,’ said Hooke. ‘Going out in this is foolhardy at best, and irresponsible at worst.’

‘And yet you are yourself a new arrival,’ retorted Jonesy, pulling on her boots and then rummaging for a spare parka for Birgitta.

‘Safe Havening,’ he replied, ‘as you heard. We expect to be here until it eases – what’s your reason for you venturing out? Something pretty important, I should imagine?’

He looked from me to Jonesy as he spoke.

‘Consulate business,’ said Jonesy, handing me my coat, ‘and of an urgent and pressing nature.’

‘With a nightwalker and a Novice?’

‘Consulate business,’ she repeated, smiling but without humour.

‘That’s as may be,’ said Hooke, taking a step closer, ‘but my orders are to ensure Worthing remains free to join us at HiberTech.’

And then, with the pretext of moving his arm to straighten his tie, Hooke pushed his coat back to allow easier access to the Bambi on his hip. The gesture did not go unnoticed by Jonesy. He wasn’t there to Safe Haven, he’d been likely ordered to interrupt his journey to come over here and stop us from leaving. HiberTech had been tipped off – by Lloyd, most probably.

‘We take recruitment seriously,’ continued Hooke, ‘and the Chief has made a personal investment that she doesn’t want to see bruised.’

‘Charlie’s a Consul, not a piece of overripe fruit, and right now, under arrest – our prisoner, our jurisdiction.’

I opened my mouth to say something, but Jonesy pressed her fingers on my mouth to keep me silent.

‘You’ve charged Worthing with harbouring?’ asked Hooke.

‘Yes.’

Hooke looked at Birgitta, who was still staring blankly around the lobby and freaking out the winsomniacs, who were studiously avoiding her blank gaze.

‘Worthing was looking after this nightwalker at our request,’ said Hooke. ‘We’ll swear to that in an affidavit. There has been no crime. Now, release the prisoner from your custody and this can end without recrimination.’

‘Irrespective, Charlie is still a Consul,’ said Jonesy.

‘Deputy Worthing could resign,’ said Hooke, ‘here and now.’

Jonesy stared at him coldly.

‘Charlie’s not resigning. Wonky, you’re not resigning.’

‘Only Charlie can make that decision.’

It was Lucy Knapp who’d spoken. She looked at me and smiled.

‘Charlie, listen to me. The Consul Service are not your friends. I’ve seen stuff and know stuff and at HiberTech we’re on the cusp of introducing something quite new and wonderful to the world. For purely personal reasons and an intense dislike of Aurora, Toccata is trying to throw a spanner in the works. But we need to move forward without let or hindrance: it’s a game changer.’

‘Project Lazarus?’

‘Ten years in the preparation. It’s a winner, any way you want to look at it. And HiberTech needs your help to ensure the most satisfactory outcome is enjoyed by the majority.’

‘What’s on the cylinder?’

‘I don’t know, Hooke doesn’t know, and I’m willing to bet Miss Jones doesn’t know.’

I looked at Jonesy, who didn’t deny it.

‘Why me?’ I asked. ‘What’s so special about me that only I can help?’

‘Aurora sees something special in you,’ she said, ‘a gift that can be nurtured until it becomes a skill that will set you head and shoulders above any potential career with the Consuls. Working for HiberTech will be the best decision you’ll ever make.’

‘She’s lying,’ said Jonesy, ‘whoever she is – sorry, we weren’t introduced.’

‘Lucy Knapp,’ said Lucy, holding out a hand, which Jonesy shook.

‘Miss Knapp’s lying,’ continued Jonesy, slowly moving her hand to where her Bambi was holstered. ‘HiberTech look out only for themselves. They’ll take what they want from you and the next thing you know you’ll be driving a golf cart around the facility. Only you won’t know that, because you won’t be able to.’

‘Jonesy exaggerates wildly like the outspoken fool I now realise she is,’ said Lucy, her voice rising, ‘but she has no cogent arguments, merely slander. It’s a bona fide career. How about it?’

‘There will always be the Gower.’

It was Birgitta. She’d interrupted the conversation and was momentarily distracting – something that Hooke and Jonesy both exploited.

Whu-whump

They’d drawn and fired their weapons almost simultaneously. Concussive vortex rings do strange things in restricted spaces, but opposing thumps do even stranger things – and like weather systems, Arctic badgers and Sister Contractia, they are difficult to predict. The two pulses met with the sound of a log being split, then ran around each other before stabilising in a tight vertical dust devil that sucked up anything not nailed down – dust, paper, hats, gloves, books. We watched the vortex grow darker and heavier and had to hold onto furniture and each other to avoid being swept off our feet, until the maelstrom explosively lost cohesion and knocked us all off our feet. Hooke drew his second Bambi but Jonesy’s back-up weapon caught him on the chest and cannoned him backwards into a plaster wall, which buckled under the impact, and Hooke fell forwards in a cloud of dust.

Jonesy dropped the spent thermalite from the Bambi and swiftly replaced it with another.

‘We’ll laugh about this later,’ she said to me, advancing upon Hooke, who was struggling to get up, still dazed, ‘in that cosy retirement we promised ourselves.’

Whump

There was another ear-popping concussion and Jonesy was lifted off her feet and thrown backwards through two chairs, a standard lamp and out through one of the front windows by way of the heavy drapes. The snow and wind swirled into the room, the cold air replacing the hot in an instant. I turned. Lucy Knapp was holding a Thumper and had a look of steely determination about her. Lucy had lied: she was HiberTech first, friend second. When you accept a corporate fast track, you have to leave a part of yourself behind.

I pushed my way past the tattered curtains, which were flapping wildly in the gale, and waded through the snow to where Jonesy was lying. She wasn’t dead, but it wouldn’t be long. Her face was a fine mesh of broken capillaries. Her eyelids were sunken and closed and I knew that her sockets were empty underneath. She was breathing in short gasps, and a small amount of blood frothed from the side of her mouth. Her lips were moving and I leaned closer.

‘It’s Charlie,’ I said.

Her cheek twitched into a half-smile.

‘We had a good life together, didn’t we?’ she whispered.

‘The best,’ I replied, ‘I have no regrets.’

She smiled again and pressed something unseen into my palm which I knew was the Polaroid of Birgitta and Webster, and after that, she moved her hand in an uncertain manner up towards her chest. I didn’t see at first what she was trying to do, but then noticed her thumb was out, and guessing her intent, I hooked her thumb into the D-ring of the pulse mortar on her chest. She patted my hand and twitched me another smile.

‘Move away from her,’ said Lucy and I trudged back through the snow into the lobby. Already, Porter Lloyd was fetching emergency shutters of folded canvas on bamboo while the winsomniacs all made themselves scarce, just not very quickly.