One couple was carrying a newborn, which Ollie frowned at. ‘How could they do that? How could they have a kid in this place?’
‘Gedd and Lillie-D? They’re sweet people, and their baby’s a real cutie. I’ve cuddled him a few times.’
‘Why? I mean, don’t they understand what’s happening? Our two chances of getting out of Blitz2 are none and fuck all. How could they bring a kid into this world?’
‘Because we can’t afford to give up hope. Just look at him; he’s so adorable. We need babies to remind us why we’re alive.’
‘That’s not hope, that’s being stupid and selfish.’ Shaking his head, he bit into another salad leaf and tried not to pull a face.
‘Evening, guys, how’s it going?’
Ollie looked up to find Horatio Seymore standing at the end of the table. The senior manager helped run half a dozen district food operations in this part of London. He’d been some kind of hotshot with the Benjamin charity in the time before. Ollie had even encountered him a few times when social agency outreach workers had tried to get Bik and his parkour équipe to come along to a youth gym. Then one other time: an unnerving not-quite-encounter along the Thames just after the last of Ollie’s Legion friends had been killed.
Which made Horatio someone who actually knew Ollie’s real face. Every time he turned up at the Bellenden Community Centre, with his neutral smile and non-judgemental attitude, Ollie’s nerves kicked in. He knew that was stupid. The fleshmask was flawless. But still . . .
‘We’re good, thanks,’ Lolo said. ‘Would you like some lemon squash?’
‘It’s lemon?’ Ollie blurted.
‘Ignore my friend, he’s such a philistine.’
Horatio’s smile became more genuine. ‘No thanks. So you’re all right? Got something to do in the day?’
‘We trade,’ Lolo said. ‘We do all right.’
‘Nothing too illegal, I hope?’
‘Absolutely not. I’m into food textures. If you’ve got some watts left in a quantum battery, that’s my payment; I can work up most flavours. Vegetables are a speciality – no offence to the people in here, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Horatio said. ‘Glad to hear it. But if you do ever need help, you can always call on me. I’m not official, not part of the council or police, okay?’
‘That’s very kind,’ Lolo said. ‘We need more people like you.’
Horatio nodded affably and moved on to the next table.
Ollie spooned up some more of the not-butter-chicken goop. ‘I don’t like him.’
‘He’s a good man,’ Lolo protested. ‘You’re just horribly biased against authority. Not everyone in government is automatically a corrupt fascist, you know. And anyway, you heard him – he’s not actually officialdom.’
‘Then what’s he doing here?’
‘Helping people.’ Lolo gestured around exuberantly. ‘Without people like him, people who care about others, where would we be?’
‘Breaking through the barriers the bastard Zangaris have built across the interstellar portals and getting offworld to where we’d be safe.’
‘Nowhere in the galaxy is safe from the Olyix.’
‘The exodus habitats will be. Not that we’ll ever make it there.’
‘We will,’ Lolo insisted. ‘Once you find Larson, we’ll have ourselves some real trading power.’
‘Oh, so now you want me to go after him?’
‘Don’t be such a trash king. I love you, Ollie. I’ve literally given you my life because I believe in you.’
Which wasn’t a responsibility Ollie had wanted at all. But he had to admit, for all hir stupid opinions and neurotic nerves and fragile mien, Lolo made this purgatory just about bearable. ‘I’ll find him. Don’t worry. I’m real close now.’
*
A couple of hours after the evening meal, Ollie pedalled up the north end of Rye Lane. The east side was taken up with a big old shopping centre that had been derelict for thirty years. Behind its boarded-up facade, it had been decaying sluggishly, attracting layers of gloffiti and moss while developers negotiated with the local council and the planning department over turning the big site into luxury apartments. Since the siege started and solnet commerce failed, traders had found their own use for it. Stalls had set up in the old shops – some no more than an over-optimistic kid sitting on a chair hawking a box of scavenged junk, while the more realistic merchants had metal-meshed kiosks and some tough fellas on either side to protect the commodities. By now Ollie had good relationships with several of them. He wheeled the bike up to Rebecca The-L, who was in her usual gothic black lace dress, with druid purple dreadlocks hanging down to her waist.
‘Davis,’ she drawled, ‘looking gooood.’
‘Not so trash yourself.’
‘You bring me some wholesome Ks?’
‘Very wholesome.’ Ollie took three quantum batteries out of the bike’s panniers.
Rebecca The-L’s nark-drifter smile lifted as she took them from him and slipped the first into a charge port on the kiosk. She let out a soft whistle of appreciation as she quickly read how many kilowatts he’d brought. ‘Impressive. Have you got a cable direct to Delta Pavonis?’
‘Something like that. So, are we in business?’
‘Davis, I appreciate quality, and you never fail me.’
‘You have them?’
She gestured to one of her tough fellas. He produced a small aluminium case from inside the kiosk and gave Ollie a disapproving look.
‘Go ahead,’ Rebecca The-L said as her dreamy composure returned.
Ollie slipped the catches and opened the lid a crack. Inside, two synth slugs the size of his little finger rested in protective foam, their dark skin glistening as if dusted with a sprinkling of tiny stars. Designed in some black lab using eight-letter DNA to craft unnatural components into their basic body, they had a bioprocessor cluster instead of a natural slug’s nerve cells. He told Tye, his altme, to ping them. Data splashed into his tarsus lens, confirming their functionality. ‘Be seeing you,’ he told her.
‘You don’t look dangerous, Davis. You have a pleasant face, guile-free. But it’s your eyes that give you away. When I look into them, I see only a depth that comes from darkness.’
‘Er, right. Catch you later.’ Ollie could feel Rebecca watching him as he wheeled his bike away. It took plenty of self-control not to look back.
The next kiosk belonged to Angus Ti, who claimed he traded whatever you wanted, but he didn’t have the kind of connections Rebecca The-L had. Ollie offered him a couple of quantum batteries he’d charged up from the kilns. ‘I don’t know where you keep getting electricity from,’ Angus said, ‘but this makes you my most valuable supplier.’
‘Happy to help. Now what are you offering?’
After a relatively good-natured haggle, he wound up with nine tubs of food pellets and a jumble of texture powders, plus a bag full of empty quantum batteries. ‘I get first refusal when they’re full,’ Angus said as he passed them over. ‘You know I give the best deals around.’
‘Sure thing.’ Ollie held his hand out. ‘So . . .’