Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

Dr Gwynne was not coming with us. He viewed himself as being possessed of ‘Fortitude Lite’ [62] More simply put, a coward. but was good at technical support.

‘Good luck,’ he said as we were preparing to leave.

I thanked him and passed over a scribbled note.

‘I know this is a long shot,’ I said, ‘and the weather’s bad and everything, but I have a suggestion as to how you could redeploy at least one of the Golgothas to greater effect.’

He looked at the note and nodded slowly, then patted me on the shoulder, told me to take care, and we parted.

‘The plan is simple,’ said Foulnap as we walked down to the museum’s basement. ‘We go to the Siddons and retrieve the Somnagraph, then head to the Cambrensis for the cylinder. If anyone tries to stop us, we thump them.’

‘It has the benefit of simplicity.’

‘The best plans always do.’

The museum basement was used mostly for storage and contained a fairground ride, an entire Railplane tractor unit and half-scale educational models of a HotPot, both the closed thermosiphon and sintered hotplate version. There was also a collection of the now unfashionable hyperbaric deep-sleep chambers and a moth-eaten animatronic giant tree sloth, which had been doing the rounds as they were on the brink of extinction. More relevant to us there was a Welsh licence-built Sno-Trac branded a Griffin V, which looked as though it had just been pulled off display.

Foulnap instructed me to start her up and drive her out so I climbed in, my shock-suit more restricting than cumbersome. I hadn’t actually wanted to wear the one functioning suit, but Foulnap argued that since I was the most valuable, I should be the one inside it.

I settled into the Griffin, switched on the electrical systems, then pressed the air start and the engine hissed into life. Once Foulnap had opened and closed the double shock-doors, he joined me in the cab. It was now pitch black outside. The on-board anemometer registered gusts of sixty; the temperature was at minus forty, the only view from the headlights a bank of constantly moving snow.

I drove out through the wrought-iron gates and crept up the road, around the bridge, then past the Cambrensis – all courtesy of the topography revealed on the H4S screen. There was even a radar return from Hooke’s abandoned Sno-Trac, a good deal farther on than where I’d guessed, but no sign whatever of the Gronk. While I navigated beyond the Cambrensis and towards the Sarah Siddons at a slow crawl, Foulnap sat beside me, his eyes fixed on the glowing green dots of the H4S, refreshed and updated by every sweep of the scanner.

‘So,’ I said, unable to keep quiet lest my nerves actually snapped with an audible twang, ‘who’s the current Kiki now Logan’s dead?’

‘It’s safer not to know,’ he said, ‘with the threat of Aurora and her interrogative use of Dreamspace. Webster worked to Logan’s instructions but never knew who he was, so couldn’t give him up. Hold it here.’

I pulled up and Foulnap pointed to a cluster of returns on the H4S.

‘We’re about forty yards behind another Sno-Trac. They’re waiting for us on the corner near the billboard.’

‘Can’t they see us if we can see them?’

‘With a bit of luck they’ll think we’re a friendly; I’m squawking a HiberTech ident on the IFF.’

‘You’re what?’

‘Just boring techy stuff,’ [63] He was right, it was. I found out later that IFF meant ‘Identification Friend or Foe’, but it didn’t improve my life knowing it. he said, making for the rear door. ‘I’m going to look for Toccata. If I’m not back in twenty minutes, assume own initiative—’

He’d stopped talking because in front of us there was a soft glow of orange light from within the snowstorm.

‘Cancel that,’ said Foulnap, ‘I think we’ve just found her.’

The snow was instantly cleared from the air, revealing a flaming Sno-Trac, the fire burning in concentric rings as the fuel mixture in the compressed parts of the torus ignited more brightly. It was a spectacle that was both beautiful and alarming – and short lived. For a fleeting glimpse I saw Toccata holding a Schtumperschreck twenty feet in front of us, and then, once the pressure had equalised, the water condensed back into ice and all was dark once more.

Within a few minutes the rear door opened and Toccata jumped in.

‘Raising overkill to an art form?’ asked Foulnap.

‘As dead as the Winter and good luck to them,’ she said with a look that seemed mildly unhinged. ‘It was payback for Jonesy. Actually, no, that was just the interest on the payback for Jonesy. Open Network says it was Hooke and a HiberTech newbie who killed her.’

‘The newbie died,’ I said, suddenly thinking that Lucy didn’t have to be named again, not ever.

‘Good,’ said Toccata. ‘Where’s Hooke now?’

‘Taken by the Gronk,’ I said. ‘He was… unworthy.’

She stared at me for a moment.

‘If you say so. Now, Hugo,’ she began, reloading the massive weapon with a thermalite the size of a baked-bean tin, ‘where are we headed?’

‘The Siddons ,’ he said, ‘to pick up a Somnagraph from room 902.’

‘Game on. Will Aurora be there?’

‘I can almost guarantee not.’

Within fifteen minutes we were parked just short of the Siddons by about ten yards. Foulnap went out first into the blizzard, trailing a safety line, and we both followed and caught up with him outside the Dormitorium. We all entered the lobby one by one, weapons at the ready. I had my Bambi, but also a Cowpuncher slung around my shoulder, which every single training manual ever written said shouldn’t be discharged indoors unless ‘there was absolutely no alternative’.

The windows had been hastily repaired with layers of canvas and pieces of wood, but they still rattled and shook with the buffeting of the wind. The Winterlounge looked empty, and we could see Laura Strowger sitting behind the desk in the porter’s lodge.

‘I’m sorry about Jonesy,’ said Laura to Toccata. ‘I gathered up what I could find of her and put it all in the cold store. These were her personal things. Her Silver Storks and stuff.’

She gave Toccata a clear plastic bag. Toccata took it without speaking and shoved the bundle into her jacket.

‘They took Birgitta to HiberTech,’ said Laura, ‘and Lloyd said he was going to take a… walk outside. He was only in his shirt sleeves so I don’t think he’s coming back.’

He must have known about the abuses happening on the ninth floor. He probably tipped off Hooke, too. Perhaps the Cold Way Out was the best thing for him.

‘Is there anyone from HiberTech still in the building?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Laura, ‘but I expect so – be careful.’

‘You stay in the lobby,’ said Foulnap to Toccata. ‘Charlie, with me.’

Toccata nodded, then moved back into a defensive position where she could control all possible entrances to the lobby.

‘Here,’ I said, handing Laura the Instamatic camera, ‘I think I might have got something.’

‘Such as?’

I showed her my missing little finger. [64] The Mk III shock-suits still had elasticated cuffs, rather than gloves. Users often walked away from a heavy thump intact, their hands livid purple with bruising. Hence the expression ‘caught red handed’.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘right.’

I then ran up the stairs after Foulnap.

‘Does Toccata really eat nightwalkers with mint sauce?’ I asked as we reached the first landing and started towards the second.

‘No, that’s just a story she puts around to intimidate people.’