Читать книгу 2089 - Группа авторов - Страница 13

It took all his strength to upend the costermonger’s barrow. The wooden cart tipped forward away from the unsuspecting grocer and thudded onto the dry-packed marketplace mud. Green and red apples, which had been so carefully piled in little tetrahedrons of four fruits, cascaded onto the floor, streaming away in all directions. Jack’s incoherent roar was the thing that most attracted the villagers’ attention though. They froze and looked over, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, as the skinny sifter created the most unusual gossip. This sort of thing never happened in Highnam Kangaroo.

Overhearing two middle-aged sisters had finally tipped Jack into action. They met weekly at the Sunday market to trade gossip from opposite ends of the settlement. With a population of nearly 4,000, it had enough people so there was plenty of gossip and few enough so that everybody just about knew everyone else. Or, even better for gossiping purposes, nobody quite knew everyone else. Each tale could begin with a lengthy relationship scene-setter: ‘You know Harry’s sister’s first husband? Well, his mother’s cousin… you wouldn’t believe it…’ Thus the stories were close enough to be interesting, yet just far enough removed to be not personally affecting.

Jack hated this aspect of society. As there was nothing private, he could not understand why people would be interested in discussing the activities of others. It was all available on their armulets, at any time. As soon as anybody saw anything, or heard anything, including their own voice, it was published publicly and could be viewed and reviewed at one’s leisure.

Frances had grabbed her sister’s arm to distract her from the bunches of grapes laid out on one stall. Whilst Frances was a large woman, Amy was much thinner. They had similar short faces, and virtually identical curly brown hair. With sagging, wrinkly skin, the women looked as though their lives had been hard lived.

‘Amy, you coming to Kangaroo this afternoon? I reckon it’s gonna be a good one – that Ali Dally has been messing on again, this time with a married woman from Wessex Road. Two adulteries in two weeks!’

‘He’s a queer one that Ali Dally. They’re all the same, mind. And last week, George and Marisa at it. And them getting ten days’ labour. Can’t wait to see what happens to Ali, second offence this year. But nah, I’m just gonna watch on the armulet today. Harry’s not been so well, so I figure best to keep him out of the afternoon sun walking there.’

‘It’s not been too hot this week, but I guess you’re right. Best not to tempt things. Who’d have expected mid-September and only twenty-six degrees?’ She looked at the small armulet screen strapped above her wrist and its temperature reading in one corner.

Nobody recognised the boy they had voted to be their sifter fourteen years previously. His hair was darker than the common brown of the others, but his pale skin was different.

With the eyes of the square then on him, a distant booming sound floated through the throng, and smoke from several miles away rose into view above the mayor’s house behind Jack Smith. ‘Vive la revolution!’ he croaked, merely to himself, before turning to flee down the alley between the mayor’s house and the wall edging Highnam Court’s gardens.

Kangaroo Hall was located within the oldest surviving building for miles around. Constructed originally in the 17^th century, Highnam Court had been commandeered by the populace almost immediately after the signing of the Covenants of Jerusalem.

The most recent generation had worked hard to restore their village’s grand meeting place, including returning the sumptuous gardens to their early 21^st-century glory. From a distance, it looked bright and new and, as Jack trailed his fingers along the rough red bricks of the alley wall in the village, he felt like he was touching the court building itself. Emerging from the rear alley onto Lassington Lane brought him back to reality.

Jack kept looking back, but nobody chased him. With the audiopt feeds, nobody thought there was any need to chase him. People helped the grocer to rebuild his stall, set in their knowledge that the vandal would be rounded up for Kangaroo.

However, Jack had been keeping an eye on the time and had waited until just moments after the explosion at the Doughnut knocked out all the audiopt feeds for 200 miles. At the instant of his act of violence, there would be no digital record of sights or sounds. The townsfolk would have their memories though, in case he needed an alibi. Highnam’s Kangaroo court might believe he had something to do with blowing up the infoservers, but, with no digital record, they’d only be able to prove that he was seen in the marketplace when the bombs went off.

Justice for Dummies, his grandmother had called Kangaroo. Or sometimes, when she was most hacked off with it, she had changed the epithet to No Justice for Dummies.

After less than fifty yards, Lassington Lane swept around to the right into a double-width boulevard where large carriages could easily pass on both sides of the central grassy space. Jack, though, continued straight on along the much narrower byway. This was still a fairly busy thoroughfare, especially on market day, and he had to weave past pedestrians as he jogged north on the old, broken tarmac. After 200 yards up the narrow road, Jack was wheezing heavily.

He turned left onto a footpath between fields, a path with no other walkers on it, but where the dark green hedge was lower, a little lower than Jack’s shoulders. Looking back over it, across a fallow field, there was a view to the market. That was some distance away, and the activities of the villagers were not entirely clear.

Jack half lifted his arm to get a marketplace view on his armulet, before remembering that he himself had just destroyed all network service. The electronic part of any armulet was sealed and waterproof. Jack rarely bothered to take his off. Its strapping brace was black leather, and with his sweat and exertions, it felt tight and itchy.

One of the main thrusts of Jack’s escape plan was misdirection. His current route was headed in almost exactly the opposite course to the one he intended to take. His idea was that he would be seen passing mostly westwards, and then secretly return on a large arc to end up heading off to the east of Highnam to hide out in the old bunker he had researched.

To exaggerate his furtiveness, Jack walked the path with a slight stoop and occasionally popped his head up over the hedgerow to look over to the market. His intention was that anybody watching would remember him behaving strangely, and be able to advise his pursuers exactly which way he had gone.

The end of the footpath entered into a narrow but long thicket of trees bordering the edges of the fields. This copse, Rodway Hill Covert, extended for a half-mile to the northeast and formed the beginning of Jack’s secret escape route. From this point on, he could not risk being spotted. Pushing aside the thick branches and leaves and undergrowth, whilst making as little noise as possible, he sat down beside the grey rucksack he had secreted there just before dawn, six hours previously.

Jack had exchanged bombs for provisions in his rucksack. He pulled a water bottle from the side and took a long drink from it. The dust mixed into the sweat on his blue and white checked shirt made it itchy again. His armulet read twenty-eight degrees; some armulet functions were built into it without the need for an infonetwork connection.

Jack intended to rest and wait until dark before proceeding, so he took off his shirt and hung it over the leaves of a shrub. The hideout was small, as the vegetation of the copse grew tight and compact. At this point, the ground was steep, dropping away to the west. Lying down, with his head on the rucksack, Jack had a good view through the tree canopy into the nearest fields. He had previously cleared away the leaf litter, and, in the daytime heat, the earth had dried out. Thus it was relatively pleasant, and above all quiet, as long as he was happy to lie down in essentially the same position all the time.

With another swig of water, Jack started to eat one of two soft plums from the uppermost pocket on his rucksack. The trees within the thicket were all naturally occurring, and none offered up any fruit that would be good for humans. The whole place was alive with insects, small birds, and the occasional rustling in the undergrowth, which Jack assumed to be a small mammal. He was starving, and after the plums, he also ate nearly a whole bunch of red grapes and a bread roll.

Leaning his head back on the rucksack to finish the last mouthful of bread, Jack realised that his planning of food resources was likely woefully short. The notional four days of meals he had packed were only enough for a man who on most days sat for twelve hours and slept for eight.

Jack scrolled through a number of photographs stored on his armulet. The photographs appeared as three-dimensional images just beyond his feet as he lay flat. In places, the immediate plant life interfered with the images, but he was not in need of a detailed study. The pictures were of the areas immediately outside his hiding place.

Southeast from his current location, beyond a number of vegetable plots and fruit trees, was a big, dilapidated building. It looked like it was lucky to still be standing, as numerous holes weakened the walls, whilst others had rusted through the metal roof.

A noise came to him through the trees. He froze and peeked between the trunks, out of the copse. Sitting up on the rucksack, Jack’s line of sight over the lowest level of shrubs allowed him to observe the closest of the vegetable plots. He saw a woman a short distance away, in the open, laughing out loud.

Perhaps in her mid-twenties, she was kneeling side on to his view, and he could see a broad smile in profile. It wrinkled the smooth skin of her face. The skin was an olive oil brown colour, but the wrinkles looked very dark in the grey afternoon light. He remained stationary, watching his childhood friend. She tucked a lock of stray hair behind her ear and Jack’s memories of her flooded his mind.

Vicky Truva held a muddy, uprooted beetroot in her left hand and leant forward to grab the next beetroot stalk. Jack decided he should watch the harvesting carefully so that he could learn how to gather each type of food. He was mesmerised.