Neal Asher - The Departure

‘Why?’ she asked, her voice choking.

It seemed an odd question to be asking him then and there, but then he himself had grown used to seeing the dead scattered across the agricultural landscape, and smelling the occasional stench arising some days after another desperate human being had fallen foul of readerguns or razorbirds.

‘Because human life has been cheapened by its sheer number?’ he suggested.

Hannah had no reply for that, so they now climbed up into the truck’s cab. He paused to watch as a robotic tanker pulled out of the forecourt, probably loaded with sugar syrup that had been processed here during last season.

‘You can drive this?’ Hannah asked him, her gaze still fixed on the fly-blown corpse clinging to the razormesh. ‘It won’t be picked up?’

‘It’s always wise to be prepared,’ he replied, reaching under the dashboard and pulling out the black box he’d stashed there previously, which was linked in to the truck’s computer. The click of a switch overrode the recognition system that allowed only approved drivers to operate the vehicle. He pressed the start button and, after the hydrogen turbine had wound up to speed, reversed the lorry round, before heading towards the compound gate. It opened automatically, and soon they were out on the all-but-empty motorway.

‘So what other preparations have you made?’ Hannah asked leadenly.

‘I’ve got caches of useful items spread across Europe, as well as new identities I can assume. More in North Africa, too, in case things get really desperate.’ He glanced at her. ‘But we definitely don’t want to go that route, as it would take us further away from where we ultimately want to go.’

‘Minsk Spaceport,’ she replied fatly.

The apartment Saul decided to use measured eight metres square. It possessed a small kitchen area, a combined toilet and shower, a motorized sofa bed and a home computer. One window overlooked the central megaplex of the residential block, and a screen window could run any view he selected, including ones from the numerous cams positioned on the block itself. Or at least it would if the screen was working. A single lighting array, also containing a community safety camera, was suspended from the ceiling. Generally, only complex computer programs kept watch on the inhabitant of this apartment, but if his behaviour strayed outside acceptable parameters, the visual and audio feed would instantly be diverted to a community political officer, for further assessment. Not everybody endured cameras like this one perpetually watching them, but then not everyone was considered a ‘societal asset’ who needed constant supervision.

‘Not your place, then?’ Hannah remarked.

‘Assigned to one of my reserve identities,’ he replied. ‘Ownership is merely an anachronistic concept fostered by the anti-society dissident,’ he quoted.

‘So what’s your name now, citizen?’ Hannah asked, as she paused by the door – holding it open, as he had instructed, with his altered keycard still in the slot.

‘Kostas Andreas,’ he replied, looking round.

‘Very . . . Mediterranean,’ she observed.

He nodded, pulled over a chair and stood on it to get at the safety camera, smearing the lens with a gobbet of rotten margarine he’d scraped from a pot in the fridge – which, in turn, had been automatically shut down by Block Control after its door hadn’t been opened for a specific time. Next he jammed a pen into the little microphone incorporated in the side of the camera and scrunched it around a few times. He then stepped down.

‘Okay, you can close the door now.’

After doing so, she headed across to dump her holdall on the sofa and hand him back the keycard. ‘Are you sure that vandalism is not going to be a problem?’

‘Cam service personnel are overstretched almost everywhere, but especially here.’ He looked up at the device as the microphone spat out a spark – the cam now activating in an apartment that had registered vacant until Hannah removed the keycard. ‘They’ll detect the fault instantly, but then it’ll join a maintenance backlog over a month long.’ He gazed at her steadily. ‘You have to understand that our masters are starting to give up on the whole idea of constant surveillance and ideological correction. They’ll only be reinstated when our numbers are sufficiently reduced for them to again be effective.’

She nodded, looking slightly sickened by the thought, then threw herself down on the sofa. He’d already told her about this Straven Conference, and the sectoring of ZA sink estates and other population areas. She’d wanted to disbelieve him, but he guessed the corpses she’d recently seen in the fields went some way towards convincing her. He suspected her doubts had lasted only until he abandoned the lorry in what he hoped was still a cam deadspot adjacent to a sector fence. He felt that the two corpses, one lying on the ground and one still clinging to the fence, must have finally persuaded her.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that since you took me from the Inspectorate, this is the longest time in my life I’ve been without someone constantly watching me.’ She reached up, pressing a fist against her chest, her shoulders hunched and a bewildered expression on her face.

‘ I’m watching you,’ he said. ‘Are you in pain?’

‘Panic attack.’ She gave him a tight, forced grin. ‘They’re a constant with me but, as I’ve recently discovered, I don’t get them when there’s any real reason for panic.’ She waved a dismissive hand and lay back, closing her eyes, deliberately pulling her hand away from her chest and resting it flat on the sofa beside her.

‘You’re watching me,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think you’re about to lecture me about squandering government resources, or deliver any completely inappropriate homilies.’

‘Misuse of government property is theft from the people?’ he suggested.

‘Yeah, because all property belongs to the people, but is controlled by the Committee for the good of the people.’ She opened her eyes and gazed at him. ‘Better then to say that all property and all people belong to the Committee, for its own good.’ She looked up. ‘You know they gave me political prisoners who were scheduled for disposal to experiment with?’

Yes, he already knew that, but it seemed she wanted to repeat herself. She wanted to be certain he knew about the crimes she believed herself to have committed. Perhaps she wanted to revel in her own guilt.

‘I saw one in your surgery,’ he said neutrally. ‘And I released one from his cell. He seemed very self-possessed, so I wonder if he managed to escape.’

‘Malden,’ she said. ‘I hope so too, because, if so, he’s going to be a big thorn in the state’s side. He’s a revolutionary leader, maybe even the revolutionary leader. I put as much hardware in his head as I could, and used the organic interface and comlife they allowed me. He is a lesser version of what you yourself can become.’

He dropped onto the sofa beside her, saying nothing.

She eyed him sideways. ‘I had no choice, you know.’

‘I know.’

‘After Smith made us watch what happened to you, he kept us grouped together for a while longer. Once they brought in the first human subjects for experimentation, Aira objected.’ She was staring at the floor again. ‘He didn’t even try to persuade her otherwise, just took her down to a cell and made us all watch while five enforcers raped her repeatedly. When they were done, he just shot her through the head – no attempt at adjustment.’

‘I can pass judgement on you if you like,’ he said. ‘If you consider a serial murderer’s judgement of any relevance. You, at least, have done the bad things you’ve done to survive. I don’t have that excuse.’