CHAPTER FIVE
GREY stone embankments erupted from the horizon. The sun had not yet risen but the Gothic crests of the city stood clear against the grey dark. As Strang’s sore feet hurried out of his generous town house, past the handsome sweeping buildings of his neighbours, he realised there would be no return. How strange to be packing a life into such a small case; to decide in a matter of minutes what possessions would be left forever.
The early morning bustle was already brewing as he left the Georgian houses of the New Town and walked briskly across the square. In the distant north-west, the ever-present plumes of steam from the Forth were visible even in the half-light.
Coachmen on their nightshift wearily uncoupled their horses. Tea girls were opening café shutters preparing to serve the incoming workers. One man in a tailored business suit had arrived early, stepping outside his capsule-like float with some difficulty and plugging it into a charging point. The capital had become a different place after the riots in London.
The English King, his Parliament and Prime Minister were all given refuge in the new capital. Of course, the Scots had gloated that they had escaped the worst of the energy shortages. New gas pockets were to be thanked for this. The tiny nation had been better insulated from the crisis and for a short time, even made a profit from its increasingly-rare export. Of course, nothing lasts forever – but the relative stability had bought enough time for important research to take place. His research. And it was the research that James Brown and so many of his friends now wanted removed from his head.
Strung-up bundles were dropped outside the cafes on Princess Street by horse cart. Boys in sheepskin coats broke apart the papers to reveal the yellow-stained pamphlets containing the day’s news.
A phalanx of officers marched past him. The grand buildings on either end of the street had been given over to the Royals. With the fleeing English dignitaries, two new forces arrived, adding to the already highly-competitive policing market.
Staggered water worshippers sprawled outside the station entrance, exhausted by their noisy exultation. Their matted hair and torn clothes told of busy hours of dancing in the rain, of which Auld Reekie was a plentiful provider. Some still murmured their visions, others rocked in silence.
Strang slipped through the crisscrossing bodies. The concourse near the station was now thronging with clerks, merchants, messengers in their black caps bringing dispatches and packages.
Had it not just been a few years ago that the great greenhouse of Waverley had been a derelict shell? Hydro stations had restored energy to the grid, moss and grass were cleared from the rails, and the lines resurrected. The trains that everyone had once thought were dead had now leapt back into life. Not everything was worth bringing back, Strang thought.
Take the departure court. Mains power had been restored, and was coursing through the electric bulbs, coursing through the tracks, making everything seem normal again.
But board which once displayed a dozen different announcements had not been re-connected. Instead a team of flunkies balancing on ladders hurriedly chalked and swept off the names of new and departed trains.
Strang scanned their work for several minutes, searching for inspiration. Perhaps because it had a name that he had always pondered, the train terminating in the far north town made sense.
Going north was risky. Re-electrification had happened first in the cities – and was still only just reaching the remotest areas. However there was security in the wilderness. The mountains were remote and barely populated; there were few, if any, bracelet readers. Physical currency had been withdrawn years ago but there were rumors of distant communities which still continued with bartering.
The lazy-eyed attendant, unable to stifle his yawns, was unphased by the unusual request.
“I’d like single tickets to every city in the country please?”
“Which cities would those be sir?”
Hastily, Strang reeled off the names of cities and towns he could remember, being sure to include his true destination. He paid the fee, several hundred credits, and pocketed the handful of tickets. Making his way gingerly through the concourse, he sat down at a café but rose almost instantly. The hasty tutorial from his would-be assassin. Buying drink, food, anything was now impossible.
Messages to friends or family were now being monitored. His horses had been drugged, the carriage sabotaged, its registration was flagged and would quickly picked up by road scanners. Airstations and harbours, where his bracelet would need to be read, were out of the question. Escape to England would be impossible. There was now way he could cross without identification.
He looked at the slips in his hand. The last – and final message – to come through the relay.
You have sent me no reply, Mr Strang. But in answer to the question you must be asking, I think you deserve a bit of a sporting chance. It’s not as if I will get in trouble. I’m still going to kill you. Only it will be at some point down the line.
Why not sooner? Well, it’s because I think there’s a lot more learning that you need to do have over the next few weeks and I’ll be damned if I deny you your growth experience.
I make no apology for my line of work. I kill for money and I’m good at it. That, as they say, is that. And how many have I killed, you ask? Oh hundreds but sometimes – and I’m almost ashamed to say this – I don’t always do it very quickly. There’s such an intense relationship between you the client – and me the executioner. You never want it to end.
One of the greatest inventions to come from the energy crash – your own discovery being a notable high point of course – was the steam chair. With so much unrest, the death penalty becomes necessary but no-one wants the barbarity of a public hanging. Electrocution is out of the question, of course, but steam, that noble, trusty technology, provides the solution. Harnessed properly it gives a quick, humane death. But with some just a few adjustments it can be ever so slowly.
I’ve not yet decided how slowly you’ll die Mr Strang. I suppose it depends on what sport you offer me. That is your incentive.
I’ll try and give you a bit of a head start today – I’m sure I can conjure up a rumour of your appearance somewhere else in the city – but do remember to stay inconspicuous, don’t trust anyone and for heavens’ sake don’t use your bracelet. It will make it far too easy…
Liddell had been nobody; weak and pale like a ghost. Just like the man who had promised to kill him, the man who had entered his house and planted the small black box under his bed. Perhaps he was also the man who had silenced Liddell for good. Yes, Liddell had been weak in person but in print he had been a colossus. His pamphlets – in coffee shops and in pubs where students drank throughout the city became a conduit for the discontented, whistleblowers and those critics of how fast and far the Uisge Corporation had spread. The pamphleteer was no journalist, no investigator, but armed with such contacts, he made it his to published anything and everything, no matter how scurrilous or ill substantiated, about accidents at the gas bottling plants, lubrication payments to local planners, the accidents and disappearance of opponents of new power stations. Messenger boys would be seen reading the letters in their breaks; copies could even be spotted in the cases of judges and advocates.
Despite the threat of law suits and the unpleasant rumours surrounding the company’s own private police force, Liddell remained immune to fears of reprisal. There had been no mention of Liddell’s own untimely accidental death in mainstream papers. From the little Strang could glean, there had been a wife and a child.
It had been a small, almost meaningless gesture to pay for the protestor’s funeral. It was a minor, trifling sum. But instinctively, Strang knew he had broken the groupthink. Word had reached the board. His punishment had come swiftly. His kindness to Liddell’s family was seen as a sign of open revolt. Not only had Brown’s advisor and friend gone behind his back but had, however taci
tly, acknowledged the company’s responsibility for the death.
The bell rang seven o’clock. Time was getting on. Strang boarded cautiously, scanning every face that passed. The usual mixture of administrators and engineers, wealthy students, a few successful merchants taking samples to the towns. The cables above sparked and spat as they met with the carriage’s grateful contact frame. The carriage jerked into life – wheels rasping against the rusted track.
He had forgotten what an old-fashioned form of transport this was. Whatever their limitations in terms of distance and speed, the new electric floats were at least silent and sleek in their motion.
A young woman in the row of seats in front glanced up at him but quickly dipped down again. Other heads turned in his direction and he could hear whispers exchanged. The horrible realisation; they recognise me, Strang thought.
Nearly all of them travelling would be travelling on their way to Grangemouth; the very home of UisgeCorp, site of the first hydro reactor. Strang had never thought of himself as a celebrity – certainly his company was famous and, as a result his face and name featured in certain periodicals. Caring little for these things, he had previously viewed his achievements with a sense of detached amusement.
How long had it been since their army of engineers and mechanics had turned the waterside town into a sprawling city in its own right; everyone working with the one goal to keep the pulsing reactor ever-running; harnessing the explosive power of water’s simplest ingredients: hydrogen and oxygen.
Sprawling suburbs flashed past the carriage window showing the neat fabricated structures which housed the families of the vast workforce. In the distance, four tall columns sent the water vapour high into the sky, joining with the main body of cloud above, like the legs of a giant animal.
There were too many buildings to make out the giant funnels, drawing the tens of thousands of gallons from the estuary into the dividing station, the turbines providing enough energy to split the hydrogen, compressing the gas ready to be transported to the reactor, where it would be dramatically re-united with its partner, oxygen. The by-product of this marriage – energy and steam – driving the turbines in a series of controlled explosions. The never-ending cycle dragging the world from the brink of a new dark age.
Feeling their eyes upon him, the old man knew it was only a matter of time before one of his fellow passengers would pluck up the courage to speak. Perhaps in the second class carriage he could sit unrecognised by the clerks and message boys. Eyes tracked him as he slipped down the aisle. He operated the stiff handle, closing it quickly behind.
The air stank of warm bodies, but the atmosphere was lighter. People joked, played cards and talked unguardedly among themselves. He closed his eyes. Every few minutes, there would be a yelp as hands were won and lost. It was the first opportunity to consider his situation. He had abandoned his home and was running for his life – but lack of sleep and the exhaustion of his ordeal overtook him.