Michael Smith - One of Us

The cut there was a lot deeper, probably the opening slice. Though maybe not: could be the weaker cut had been the first, and when she'd seen the tunnel open in front of her had decided she might as well run down it as fast as she could. Blood was still slicking out of the wrist in major quantities, and once the towel was round it I saw this wasn't going to be enough. Hot water and alcohol had thinned her blood, and it was eager to come out and play. A hotel dressing gown hung on the back of the door, and I tugged the belt out and tied it tight round her upper arm. She stirred then, for the first time, one of her eyelids flickering like some bug's sluggish wing.

Bracing myself with one foot on the other side of the tub, I leaned forwards and tried to pull her up. Though slim, she was about as easy to manoeuvre as the hotel, and I nearly pitched forward onto my face. Eventually I got her slumped against the back wall, and held her there while I grabbed the gown and wrapped it round her shoulders. I tried getting her arms through the holes, but it was too difficult and I didn't want to dislodge the towels. In the end I just tipped her over my shoulder and carried her into the bedroom.

She moaned quietly as I lay her on the bed, but made no sign of moving. I re-opened her suitcase, grabbed a few handfuls of clothes and pushed them into the pockets of my coat. Then I hauled her back over my shoulder and carried her out into the corridor. A quick look either way told me no-one was about, which was good, because this was going badly enough as it was. It didn't even occur to me that I should have looked for her purse until the elevator doors had shut behind me, and at that point I decided she'd just have to live without it.

I was halfway across the lobby downstairs when I heard an exclamation behind me. I turned unsteadily – unconscious bodies are difficult to manage – to see the flunky staring at me open-mouthed, hand already reaching for the phone.

‘Private joke,’ I said.

The flunky eyed the blood-soaked towels. ‘Excuse me?’

‘She's a heavy sleeper. Sometimes I just come along and take her somewhere weird so when she wakes up she wonders where the hell she is.’

‘Sir, I don't believe you.’

‘Does this help?’ I asked, pulling my gun out and pointing it straight at his head.

‘Very amusing,’ he said, and his hand crept back to his side.

‘Keep laughing for a while,’ I suggested. ‘Or I'll come back and explain it again.’

I lurched around the corner to where I'd parked the car, and laid Laura Reynolds across the back seats. Then I got in and drove away, knowing that if I didn't get her to a doctor within a very short time my life had just got even worse.

As I two-wheeled onto Santa Monica Boulevard I nearly totalled us both, swerving to avoid a small group of chest freezers making their way across the road. I could have just driven straight at them, but I make a policy of not tangling with white goods. They're really heavy.

When we were safely heading in the right direction I called Deck. It took him a while to understand what I was saying, but he agreed to do as I asked. Then I flipped the phone to the Net and tried Quat again. It rang and rang, but there was still no answer. I frowned, cut the connection, redialled. Okay it was late, but Quat was always up, and whenever he was awake he was in the Net. Still no answer.

I left it on callback with a redirect to the apartment, and concentrated on the road as we crossed Wilshire and into Beverly Hills. You should know that I'm not a big fan of driving. Never have been. I realize this undermines me in the view of any red-blooded American, but so be it. Lot of people still bemoan the fact that kids spend all their time in computer games: I say it's the only thing that's going to prepare them for real life. Driving equals long stretches of boredom, during which lunatics will randomly pop up and try to kill you – interspersed with pockets of hell where absolutely everything is out to get you. They call these pockets ‘cities’, and they're best avoided unless you happen to live there. Give me a fist fight in a bar, and I'll hold my own. Send me round the beltway at rush hour – fuck off. I'll take a cab. Or walk.

I glanced back at Laura Reynolds continually as I drove, and after the turn onto Western pulled over to get a proper look at her. She was still breathing, but the rise and fall of her chest was shallow. The blood round the cut on her right arm was congealing nicely, but the other still looked wide open. I loosened the tourniquet for a moment, then re-tightened it before setting off again. I really hoped Deck got hold of Woodley, or I was fucked. The only alternative was taking her to a hospital, in which case I'd lose her. I couldn't stand guard the whole time, and she'd already proved she was determined to escape one way or another.

When I turned off Los Feliz I was happy to see there wasn't much of a queue for entry into Griffith. There's only twenty entrances around the entire district, and at certain times of day it can be a complete pain in the ass. As we approached the wall I saw a knot of armed guards peering in the direction of the car, and was pleased to note that even at this advanced hour they were working for the inhabitants' protection.

In 2007 someone decided that Griffith Park wasn't operating to its full potential. They felt the whole ‘park’ thing, in fact, was a little bit twentieth century. It was all very well having a huge open space with a couple of golf courses and areas for boy scouts to tramp around, but there were other uses the land could be put to. Up-scale residential, for example. The nice areas of LA were pretty full by then, and the well-heeled craved new Lebensraum – especially after plate analysis revealed that, come the next quake, Brentwood was going to end up in Belgium. There was a pitched battle with the local history fanatics and the poorer people who liked having a place to barbecue, but the problem with those guys is they don't have much money. The developers did. They won, more or less. A solution was reached.

An area was marked off, bordered by the Ventura and Golden State freeways in the North and East, and Los Feliz in the South. A hundred-metre wall was built along this entire stretch, and along the boundary with Mount Sinai Memorial Park in the West, creating an entirely closed area. The exterior of this wall was painted with high-resolution LED, and the whole surface was wired into a central computer. Certain interior features, like Mount Hollywood and small areas of the old wild lands, were left untouched. Even the developers realized the Hollywood sign was inviolate. This, along with stored images of how the park used to be before the development, was seamlessly displayed on the videowall – creating the illusion that nothing was there. From wherever you stood in LA, you could still see the sign, and the Hills and park to the North East. Unless you walked right up to the wall and punched it – which the guards were there to prevent you from doing – the illusion was perfect. It was like nothing had changed.

Inside the district the same idea was deployed in reverse, with views of Burbank, Glendale and Hollywood constantly updated right up to the sky. LA got a whole new district, but kept the same view, and access tunnels leading from the outside to the three preserved areas even meant that there was technically still a public park. The environmentalists were a bit pissed about the whole thing, claiming this wasn't the point, but they never have any money at all and weren't even invited to the meetings.

As we approached the gate – a ten-by-six-foot hole in the otherwise flawless panorama – I laid my finger over the sensor in the dashboard. This relayed my name, genome and credit rating to the matrix built into the car's shell, for reading by the entrance computer. The matrix was treble-encrypted with a top-of-the-line government DES algorithm, and thus had probably taken someone a good twenty minutes to crack. I simply don't believe that all the people you see driving round Griffith have the money to live there. Particularly those who hang around my block.