Part 22 (1/2)
”Look at him laughing, the t.w.a.t. Got no idea how lucky he is.”
”Mind your language.”
Richard sipped from his c.o.ke. It was good, cold andwith a kick. No alcohol, because that was for losers people trying to cheer themselves up with a depressant, where was the sense in that? Father might earn money but his face looked flabbier, blotchier by the week; and whenever he locked himself away in his office at home, he invariably appeared bloodshot next morning, breath stinking, at least until after breakfast, and forty minutes in the master bathroom.Their home had six bathrooms, five en suite. The squat had one, shared by two dozen people, give or take, and the water that came out was tepid and brownish. Paying no bills, they were lucky to have that much.
”Why's he lucky?” He meant the small guy who'd mouthed off.
”Big Eddie” Brian gestured with his gla.s.s ”trains in four fighting systems, works the doors at Zero Point where he will not” looking at Opal ”let under-eighteens inside, and he competes in Blade in the Cage. That's like Knifefighter Challenge, a semi-pro circuit that”
Richard's stomach convulsed, a tsunami of acid inside. He got up and stumbled back from the table.
”Sorry...”
”b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Richie.”
”I'm sorry.”
Hands clutched against his stomach, he moved as if trying not to be sick as if a blade had pierced into the pub, but going straight through, holding it all in, staggering through the exit and back into light. No one came after him, so he continued alone, into the hot evening, nothing in mind except to keep going until his eyes stopped burning and the acid inside him died down.
Maybe an hour later, he was sitting slouched inside a bus shelter at the Elephant & Castle. The fear had seeped away; now his limbs felt soft with tiredness. He listened as two women talked.
”It isn't all bad. Look at this.” One of them gestured around the aluminium-and-plastic shelter. ”Ten years ago, there'd have been graffiti everywhere.”
Some places were still covered in tags, usually where they sprayed the streetcams first.
”Maybe, but with this heat, it's all like falling apart.”
”d.a.m.n scientists and their global warming. Ozone layer and G.o.d knows what else.”
Ozone is an allotrope of oxygen, the atoms going around three to a molecule instead of in pairs ”Like a saucy menage-a-trois instead of a couple saucy menage-a-trois instead of a couple” some chemist had said in an online lecture. The live adult audience had laughed. Richard had looked up menage-a-trois at OEDOnLine; he already knew what an allotrope was.
”Excuse me?” he said.
”h.e.l.lo, son. What is it?”
He wanted to ask them what sort of person would have been measuring ozone concentrations high over the Antarctic in the previous century, and exactly what kind of people had been warning the world for decades about climate transition. He wanted to say that without science there wouldn't be civilisation, and the average lifespan would be thirty-something or less. That if they didn't get the new reactors built in time, everything would fall apart. He wanted to say all that.
”Er... do you know how long till the bus comes?”
”Says right there, on the display. Seven minutes.”
”Oh. Thank you.”
Then they were deep in conversation again, this time about taxes and what the Benbow family were up to in SimEastEnders SimEastEnders. They paid no attention as he slipped out of the bus shelter. How could they be so certain about things, and yet so ignorant? Why couldn't sensible people be in charge of the world?
He thought about Dr d.u.c.h.esne. She'd been nice, so very calm. Perhaps he could be like her some day, far different from Father. Some day. Right now, an ache was returning to his stomach, this time from lack of food.
Later again, and still hungry, he stood at South Bank, watching from beneath a concrete overhang out of view of cameras while gekrunners spun through acrobatic manoeuvres, skating across paving stones, cartwheeling down stairwells, tumbling over obstacles. The interplay of movement was mesmerising, their ability to keep their nerve incredible. Several tourists looked up, and he risked peeking out from cover. On the rooftop, three gekrunners chasing each other in fun, with a series of jumps and rolls to reach the roof's edge, then somersaulting down the wall to ground level, with skilful use of gekkomere gauntlets, lethally dangerous.
”seen him yet,” a man's voice was saying.
”From his profile, he hangs out here sometimes, not every day.”
They were checking images on their phones, then glancing up to check out gekrunners and the watching crowd. Could they be police?
Worse, was that his image they were looking at?
”Let's ask. Some of these little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds might know him.”
”Right, and you want them to remember someone asking after their pal Jayce?”
”Oh. See what you mean.”
”He ain't around. Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here.”Richard pulled right back, trying to press into solid stone. Except it wasn't him they were looking for, was it? Nor did they act like police officers; but then, how many officers did he know? I'm a criminal because of Jayce. Because Jayce had taken him to the shop owned by Khan, but maybe that was not it. Maybe if he was helpless then it was his fault, because he was as weak as Father said. And now he could never go back home, not without them coming to drag him into jail.
Laughter sounded from around the corner.
”No, I don't believe it.”
The police were gone. He moved out of cover, drawn by sounds of happiness. Seven or eight gekrunners, plus a few other folk, were watching an unfurled screen. Inside the image, a twentysomething man was tearing up a T-s.h.i.+rt.
”He's out of his head. Carlsen will throw him off the team.”
”Nah, man. Him and Andre will have to fight.”
”No way. They're on the same team.”
”Gotta happen. He's just torn up Laurenson's clothes. They'll change the rules and make 'em fight, guaranteed.”
”s.h.i.+t, that Knife Edge House.”
”Crazy, ain't it?”
”Wish I was in there.”