The Actuality Read online

  ‘Just see how arrogant and hostile it is,’ the man behind mutters. Lowering his voice, ‘Jesus . . . now it’s staring at me!’

  ‘It heard you,’ his companion whispers. ‘They can hear pins drop.’

  David releases the man from his gaze and scans the crowd, searching between the heads.

  The man’s breath fills her ear. ‘Phew! I tell you we’re lucky there’s a wall between us and that thing. It’d kill us and have absolutely no qualms.’

  David drops his eyes and, to Evie’s astonishment, looks directly at her. Doing something he has not until now, he comes close to the glass and bends so that his face is level with hers. Evie feels the pressure on her shoulders lessen as the men behind her retreat.

  ‘What’s it doing?’

  ‘It’s taken a liking to that girl.’

  David places his hand on the glass so only she can see his face and stares into her eyes. She can’t break away from his look.

  ‘Help me,’ he mouths.

  *

  Descending the stairs, Evie hears the same men behind her again.

  ‘Freakin’ Norman. You see the way it looked at me. I tell you, to them we’re just flies. They’ve got superhuman strength. That glass wall was for our protection, not its.’

  ‘Did you hear about the one in London?’

  ‘I thought this was the only one.’

  ‘They thought so too but they found a female the other day that some old guy had been harbouring for years. After slaughtering him in his bed, it went on to gut a policeman like a pig – no pun intended. Slit him from here to here. Been on the news all morning. But the really scary thing is the picture they have of it – timid looking, butter-wouldn’t-melt type, the sort you wouldn’t look twice at. Not a chance of guessing what was going on in its head.’

  Evie walks more quickly and exits the building, pulling on her coat and lifting her hood. She scurries down the steps outside and, crossing the snow-covered lawn beside the river, cuts through a line of protestors, dodging under their banner threatening divine retribution on the creators of idolatrous forms.

  She dashes along the gravel path. Her head, which had been full of poor David just minutes before, is now swamped by feelings of her total foolishness. She has exposed herself recklessly. She crosses a humpbacked stone bridge over the frozen Cam and from there follows a narrow icy lane between the high college walls.

  It is only then that she realises she is being followed.

  She enters a chemist and hurries through, breaking apart the queue at the pharmacy. She emerges the other side into a quiet backstreet with just a few second-hand shoe and clothes traders, their merchandise arrayed on trestle tables. A few doorways down, she tucks herself into the entrance of a coffee shop, hiding with her back to the grubby mock-Tudor window, too scared to look out from under her coat.

  She hears rapid footsteps and, seeing shoes from under the fur trim of her hood, pelts out, avoiding an outstretched arm and, leaping from the kerb, hurtles straight into the road. An aerial delivery van, scooting along at shoulder height, veers sharply to avoid taking off her head, and clangs into a lamppost.

  Everyone turns to watch. The van driver screams abuse from his window, eight feet up. A dozen Korean workmen stare through the steamed-up glass of the nearby arcade. A bearded violinist breaks off from scraping out the ballad Northern Lights (even in her distressed state, she recognises the heartbreaking melody, poor rendition though it is), and points at her with his bow.

  Stunned temporarily by the near miss, Evie collects her wits and is quickly on the move again, weaving through the crowd. She steals a glance back at her pursuer, now alarmingly close behind.

  She turns down a covered alley beside a supermarket and hides behind a refuse bin.

  He appears at the end, out of breath. He walks slowly along, peering behind the heaps of discarded cardboard boxes.

  Before he can reach her, she darts out, colliding with a woman on a bike, knocking her from her saddle and scattering the muddy potatoes in her handlebar basket over the cobbles.

  She sprints past a row of humming motorised trolleys, chained together like a road gang, while he lopes after her, one hand stretched out, the other holding his side. With her speed, if this was a straight race, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

  And she is strong, too. Taking the handle of the last trolley, she casts the whole set corkscrewing into the air and they crash on their sides.

  He stumbles into them and with a grunt topples onto his hands.

  Evie reaches the end and enters a pedestrianised street. She walks briskly along its centre, head down, knocking shoulders aside, getting stared at, muttered over and threatened.

  The steel supports of the bus station with its polymer walls complete with bullet holes comes into sight. Relief that she has found her way back here, despite the disorientating chase, floods her, and she slows to better blend in.

  And feels his hand on her shoulder.

  She squeals, turning sharply, shrugging him off, but her hood slides back and everyone stops to gape.

  The man has his hands in the air. He gazes pleadingly into her face, ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ he says, ‘I didn’t mean to scare you, there’s nothing to fear. I want to help.’ And to the crowd, which has formed a ring around her, ‘There’s nothing to see here. Please, there’s nothing to see.’

  ‘You all right, love?’ she hears a woman ask.

  Evie revolves on the spot, feet slipping and sliding in the slush, staring about herself at the wall of peering curious faces, like a trapped animal.

  She allows him to guide her down a passage into a courtyard and from there into a pub, a type of establishment she’s never been in before.

  From the careful movement of her limbs and the composed expression on her face Evie appears perfectly calm, but inside her logic circuits are in turmoil. During the pursuit she’d assumed she’d been identified and that he was trying to capture her, but now she realises she is clueless as to what he wants.

  He seats her at the back in a corner and she watches him order at the bar. It is the first chance she’s had to have a good look at him. In most respects he is nondescript – unthreatening, middle-aged with square-rimmed glasses, perhaps nearer forty than thirty, and of slightly below medium height. The only touch of incongruity is the stacked bright orange trainers which make him appear taller than he actually is.

  He brings over two drinks, a self-satisfied smirk plastered to his face.

  Evie looks awkwardly at her glass, brimming with a brownish yellow liquid streaming with bubbles. She knows it is beer from the smell, a smell she’s caught often enough on Daniels’s breath when he has been out for an evening.

  ‘Don’t worry, you can leave it,’ the man says. ‘I just thought it would appear more natural if you had something too.’

  ‘What do you want of me?’ Now that the immediate peril has passed, she realises just how furious she is over the terror he put her through. He’s acting all self-congratulatory as if he rescued her, but she hadn’t need rescuing, not until any of what he did.

  ‘I want to help you.’

  ‘I don’t need help,’ she snaps

  ‘You can’t escape from them alone. They’re too well resourced.’

  ‘I’m not alone.’

  He sighs. ‘I know who you are. I know that your name is Evelyn Davenport, and I know what you are.’

  She stares at him coldly. ‘How?’

  ‘David made it rather obvious I’m afraid.’

  ‘He didn’t intend anything.’ She is trying to assess what it is safe to admit to, what this stranger might actually know.

  ‘I’ve been going to see him most lunchtimes and you were the first visitor he’s taken the tiniest jot of interest in.’ He sinks back into his chair and sips from his glass, gazing over the rim. A pleased-with-himself smile fills his face. Her reflection glints back from the lenses of his spectacles.

  ‘Also, you were on my newsfeed th
is morning.’

  Evie breathes slowly, trying to retain an exterior calm, while inside her principal sensory and processing systems start shouting at one another. ‘What did they say about me?’

  ‘The facts – what happened in the apartment, that you are being hunted. That you are . . . dangerous and not to be handled or . . . damaged.’

  ‘I’m not dangerous!’ The unfairness smarts. She is kind and thoughtful, she was acting in self-defence. These particulars seem almost more important than anything else. She searches inside for Simon to come to her aid, but again he is not there when she needs him. It has been a trend, this act of disappearing when things get hot.

  She returns her attention to the man, furious at herself for allowing any of this to be happening. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she demands, needing a focus for her anger and fear.

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s just . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘Evelyn, you should come with me. I can make sure you’re kept safe.’

  ‘I have somewhere safe to go already.’ His use of ‘Evelyn’ jars, but she would not have him call her Evie either. In all honesty, she should be using the opportunity to discover everything he knows, but she is too upset to act rationally.

  ‘Okay, so why don’t I take you there?’ His voice brightens. ‘Then if –’

  ‘I can go on my own,’ she replies quickly. ‘I have a ticket for the bus.’

  Saying it, Evie realises how much she really wants to get home, now that this little adventure of hers (which is how she is dismissively viewing it) is over. She hasn’t thought of Daniels since arriving in Cambridge, there’s been too much else going on, but now that she does, she knows he’ll be worried sick. What if he has also seen the news? What if he comes looking for her and is caught himself ?

  The man looks away, nodding resignedly. ‘I see I may not be able to convince you right away.’ He draws out his wallet and takes out a circle of plastic and slides it across the table. There are letters embossed on its surface, created by some sort of light effect because when she touches it, it is smooth.

  ‘Timothy Maplin,’ she reads. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Yes, this is my card. It has all the normal channels for contacting me – even a phone number, I still have the apparatus for calls. Take it . . . please.’

  She wants to shove the disk right back at him but feels obliged to accept. She can discard it later.

  ‘Now let me walk you to the bus station,’ Maplin says. ‘Let me do that at least. Then I’ll know you’re away safely.’

  It is gone six in the evening when Evie gets back to the cottage. She opens the yard gate and makes her way past the barn.

  She only becomes aware of Daniels when she sees the embers glowing on the tip of his cigarette. He is smoking in the darkness, with his back to the doors.

  They stare at one another, no more than six feet apart.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmurs, looking down. Although she would not have missed for anything the moment she had with David and is actually a little proud of herself for managing the trip into Cambridge without help, she is mortally ashamed as to how she has treated her friend and horribly embarrassed by the gamble she took.

  ‘Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?’ he asks, stubbing the cigarette against the wood behind.

  Evie shrugs helplessly, glancing to the side, lips pursed. Then she moves quickly towards him and stands against him, pressing her cheek into his chest. He wraps his arms around her. If she could cry, this is when she would do it. Instead she is conscious of her blocked ducts bulging painfully.

  Daniels sits beside her on the sofa. She has confessed everything. All the details, starting from when she used his newsplastic the night before without permission.

  ‘I was avoiding opening it, in case it gave away where we are,’ he says. ‘But no one has come for us, so perhaps no harm has been done.’ He is trying to stay composed, to be calm for her, but he is shaken rigid by the risks she has taken. It is clear in the hurried, nervous little gestures in his face.

  He doesn’t like the sound of the man who followed her and examines the circle of plastic he gave her, touching its surface like she had, watching suspiciously the letters appear and disappear.

  ‘I don’t understand how he knew?’

  ‘David,’ she says. ‘He singled me out, everyone saw it. That is what gave me away. Maplin put it together with the picture he’d seen of me on the news.’

  ‘And he just let you go?’

  ‘He came with me to the bus station. I wanted to go on my own but he insisted. Besides, by taking me to the pub, he’d got me lost.’

  ‘Did he see which one you took?’

  ‘Probably, but he wouldn’t be able to know at which stop I got off. Anyway, despite everything, I think he was actually quite harmless.’

  Daniels sighs. ‘Let’s hope.’ He casts the card irritably to the side. ‘I suppose we should check the news, find out the worst.’

  ‘But you said the location finder could give us away.’

  ‘That genie’s already out of its bottle, kiddo. Opening it again can’t do much additional harm. Besides, if they knew we were here, they’d have been for us already.’

  He reaches across and takes the newsplastic from the top of the pack. He unfolds it and they wait nervously as it runs its start-up routine. Before he can take control, it jumps straight to local news, bulging gleefully with a video of Evie descending the museum stairs, glancing furtively over her shoulder as she leaves through the glass doors. Beneath it an account of her flight from London marches rapidly across in dramatic slanted letters.

  They watch in stunned silence until Daniels activates the newsplastic’s audio and a tinny voice recites how she and an accomplice had stolen a top of the range Benz and fled north. It also briefly recaps the history of the Protective Acts brought in all the way back in 2101 in response to ‘a scourge of murderous AABs impractical to control and impossible to detect’.

  The videopix cycles on a loop – Evie descending the stairs, feet clicking on the metal-edged steps, crossing the ticket hall, then a close up of her face as she turns to glance back, before shouldering apart the glass doors . . .

  Daniels folds it closed. ‘Well,’ he says, breathing out. ‘That’s put the cat among the proverbials.’

  She looks at him helplessly. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Do? We need to leave right now.’

  15

  Evie follows Daniels out of the cottage into the yard and through the gate into the lane. She looks back over the flint wall towards the doors of the barn. Why aren’t we taking the hova? she thinks to herself, not wanting to appear that she is questioning Daniels’s plan when she has already done enough in bringing this catastrophe down on them.

  They know about it, Simon responds, his voice unexpected. Evie has been getting more and more used to being alone and his return at this moment startles her, almost bringing her to a physical stop. His tone, however, does not hold any surprises. They’d probably trace it and shoot it out of the sky – I thought even you’d be able to work that one out.

  Wondering why she ever expected more understanding from him, she releases the gate, letting it swing closed with a bang, and follows Daniels into the road. It reminds her of their leave-taking of the apartment all over again, just three nights ago, and the cottage had so quickly made itself home. It is the first major new life experience she’s been given in years, making the loss so much harder. She senses Simon working up to something, his desire to apportion blame and rub the misery in, and she shakes her head vigorously, ‘Don’t you dare!’ she mutters, loudly enough for Daniels, on the other side of the lane, to glance around.

  They walk along the compacted snow coating the raised centre of the road so as not to leave fresh prints. The warmth of the day has melted the surface and where the grit has not pressed through, a skin of dark ice has formed, on which her feet slip and slide.

  Daniels takes long, steady,
dependable strides, placing his boots carefully. His back is bowed, weighted by the pack. But not only by the pack, she thinks, but by this defeat and retreat coming so soon on the heels of the last. And it is her rash actions which brought this down upon them.

  They reach a gap in the hedge and force their way through, the brambles pulling at her shoulders and sleeves. They keep to the perimeter of the field, avoiding the undisturbed snow. They reach the boundary, beyond which a wood extends towards the crest a hundred yards further on. Between the trunks, the snow lies in thick hummocks from which protrude the ends of broken branches and the limbs of trees shattered as if by artillery – although even she knows enough of recent history to know that the so called ‘Peasants’ Revolt’ didn’t reach this far east.

  Daniels pauses to gather his breath and they stand together looking back.

  Evie’s bedroom faced the field on the opposite hill but she can see the glow cast on the tiles by the light left shining in her window – an attempt to make the place appear occupied. She gazes longingly, wondering just how she has managed to carelessly throw away this second chance.

  The night is still and silent. An early moon casts a tranquil sheen on the snow shrouding the paddock below. She is close to Daniels’s elbow and speaks quietly: ‘But we can come back if we are wrong and it turns out that they don’t know we were here?’ She is trying to feel hope. The evening is so untroubled and still. The immediate panic has left her, and this exodus is perhaps something they’ve embarked on too hastily. This is the version of events she wants to have faith in.

  ‘Sure, if that’s the case, if we’re absolutely positive, we can come back.’ But it doesn’t sound like he believes it will happen. ‘Ready?’ he asks, hoisting his pack higher up his back and tightening the strap across his chest.

  She nods silently, but as she does so, spots movement in the lane. ‘There’s someone down there.’

  ‘Where?’ He peers along her arm, but his eyesight in the darkness is nowhere near as capable as hers. ‘What can you see?’

  A figure picks its way silently through the shadows cast by the cottage wall.