Ollie did his best not to sigh. For someone who had been educated in the supposedly excellent egalitarian school system of Delta Pavonis, Lolo could be fucking stupid at times. ‘That’s a load of bollocks. You’ve got to stop living off gossip. What you just said is a paradox. I’m sure the Olyix are heading for the settled worlds, but if they cut the power that’s coming to us from Delta Pavonis and New Washington and all the others, Earth’s city shields will fail.’ His finger pointed up at the devil-sky. ‘And that mothermonster will come crashing down, just like it did last month in Berlin. We’ll all die – which is exactly what they can’t afford. Not after the effort they’ve put in to beating us down.’
‘Berlin’s shield fail didn’t kill everyone.’ Lolo pouted. ‘Just the ones the storm hit when it burst down.’ Sie paused for a second. ‘And the ones who drowned when the river Spree flooded back in.’
‘Thankfully for everyone else, the Olyix flew in real fast and converted them into cocoons, so they got to live on, sort of,’ Ollie scoffed. ‘Lucky them. They get to see what the universe is like at the end of time.’
‘You can be such a downer.’
‘Most like, when the power does get cut from the settled worlds, the Olyix will just starve us out. We’ll walk meekly into the arkship two million by two million.’
‘We wouldn’t! People are better than that.’
‘Face it, if there’s a choice between dying in a tsunami of ruined supercharged toxic atmosphere or taking your chance as a mutated freak cocoon that’s on a trillion-year pilgrimage to meet an alien god, what do you do?’
‘Well, I’m not going to give in. I’m going to make a stand.’
That statement was a wide opening into a world of snark that Ollie wasn’t prepared to enter. Not tonight. ‘And I’ll be standing right there beside you.’
Lolo gave him a happy hug.
The Bellenden Community Centre was a civic hall built eighty years ago on the site of an old school. Its composite panels had been printed to resemble traditional London brick, though that had faded over the decades so they now looked like walls made of a kid’s fraying building blocks. There was a constant stream of people walking through the entrance arch, most of them carrying bags full of cold dishes they’d printed out at home to accompany their hot meal. Nearly half of them were refugees who’d poured into the city when the Olyix started their invasion. Everybody who lived in the countryside or the ribbon towns had come, seeking safety under the shield, boosting the population towards eleven million. They were crammed into old deserted buildings, with few amenities. Communal was how most people lived these days. Ollie didn’t mind; it allowed for plenty of anonymity.
The scent of cooking filled the air as they went up the community centre steps. Inside, the main hall had been laid out like a makeshift cafe that no one had quite got around to regularizing, with a jumble of various tables and chairs taking up most of the floor, and long stainless steel canteen counters along one side. Rations were served from a hatchway that had two light-armoured police standing on either side. You could either choose to have the rations cooked in the centre or take them home. Most people ate in the hall, as electricity was scarce in this part of town. Who had enough kilowatts to heat food every day? Ollie queued up and held out his R-token for the woman inside the hatch. Registering for it had been surprisingly easy. Just after the siege started, he’d stolen Davis Mohan’s identity – one of his old neighbours from Copeland Road. When he and Lolo had begun exploring the nearby houses, they’d found Davis lying on his kitchen floor in an advanced stage of cocooning, his body a barrel of modified organs, limbs almost gone, fading in and out of consciousness. For Ollie, a fake identity was a simple enough task – one he’d done dozens of times before while he was in the Southwark Legion. If anything, this was even easier. When rationing was introduced in those chaotic early days, solnet was reduced to a Dark Age version of itself, and the checks were childish.
The woman behind the hatchway scanned his R-token and handed him a ribbon of pellet bags and a packet of assorted texture powders.
Lolo stepped up. ‘Any salmon powder?’
‘Sorry, sweetie, not today. Got some blueberry powder if you want. It’s quite good if you mix it with water and let it set in a mould. An ice-cube tray is best.’
‘That’s so lovely of you, thank you.’ Lolo pulled a small jar out from under the basket’s gingham cloth. ‘Almond-flavoured marshmallows. I’ve been experimenting. Let me know what you think.’
They exchanged a smile. Ollie thought the ribbon of pellet bags she gave Lolo was a lot longer than the one he’d got. He shook his head in bemusement. ‘Is there anyone in here you don’t flirt with?’
‘I’m not flirting,’ sie exclaimed in an indignant tone. ‘I’m just nice and talk to people. It wouldn’t hurt you to try it some time. We’re all in this together, you know.’
‘I talk to people. The ones I need to.’
‘Ooh, storm a-brewing. You’re so hot when you do that moody Mr Serious voice.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Mind your mouth, boyfriend. There are children in here.’
They went and queued at the counter. At the first station, they handed over a couple of the pellet bags each. Ollie looked at the labels on the powders he’d been given and dropped the one for butter chicken on the counter.
‘You’ll smell of that all night,’ Lolo complained.
‘Stop whingeing. It won’t smell or taste anything like butter chicken.’
A couple of minutes later they’d made it down to the serving station. Lolo took a pair of plates out of the basket. Ollie watched with an impassive face as the bloke behind the counter ladled a pile of gingerish slop onto his plate. It doesn’t matter; this is just what you have to do so you can rescue Bik and Gran, he told himself.
They sat down at one of the tables. Lolo made a show of taking the additional dishes sie’d prepared out of the basket, all peppy and cheerful as each one was announced. ‘I made some salad, look, and some naan bread – though to be honest, it’s more like a pizza base. And some chocolate mousse for pudding.’ Sie produced a bottle with what Ollie really hoped was apple juice, because it looked too yellow for his liking. Alcoholic drinks were banned from the community centre.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘It’s not easy, you know. I could do with some more electricity.’
‘Can’t spare any. Sorry.’
Lolo gave a martyred sigh. ‘Right.’
‘Look, I’m close, okay? Tonight should give me Larson.’
‘I don’t want you to get hurt.’
‘I cause the hurt, remember?’
‘Ollie, please . . .’
‘Don’t worry, I’m careful. You know it.’ Ollie picked up one of the leaves from the salad dish. That was a mistake. It was basically a thin green biscuit that tasted like what he imagined raw seaweed would be when it grew next to a sewer outlet.
The tables around them started to fill up, and with it the volume of conversation rose. Kids started to run around, and older people were helped to tables by younger relatives. Several Civic Health Agency nurses worked their way along the hall, checking up on their patients, asking families if the youngsters were okay.