2089. Miles M Hudson
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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.
Chapter Four
A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest, Major Frank Halthrop recalled to himself whilst waiting alone in the lecture theatre.
He insisted they use the old Bristol University building for his Brigade meetings; the blackboards had been in place for more than a hundred years. The chalk sticks had run out even before the Times of Malthus, but it was still possible to use the boards for presentations using some of the soft rocks that had been left as ornamentation in the old churchyard opposite the lecture hall. Plenty of cloth rags lay around the building that could be used to clean the blackboards each time.
Darren and Terry clattered into the room, shoving each other and laughing. They nodded and muttered ‘Frank’ in greeting to their boss.
Halthrop looked at his armulet to see how late they were. In 2089, people lived very much by the rhythms of nature: dawn, dusk, new moon, full moon, and the growing cycles of their crops and livestock. Time had not been forgotten, but there was little incentive or need for people to pay much attention to it. Life was durative, and the very notion of time-linked self-discipline was alien to the youth that joined the Bristol Brigade under Halthrop. Sifter was about the only occupation left that had a timed shift pattern.
It was another ten minutes before Jane entered. She was well turned out in the simple uniform that Halthrop himself had designed. Despite trying twice as hard as the boys to impress him in most areas, she still arrived after them on most occasions. She sat in a seat adjacent to Darren as they all said their greetings to her. Jane’s posture was quite military in its bearing — she copied the pose that Major Frank took in his chair, and her eyes followed him as he stood and stepped centre stage in front of them.
When they settled, Halthrop began. ‘Good evening. Thank you for arriving nearly on time. I am sure that your punctuality will continue to improve as it needs to do.’ The three were from farms around Bristol, which had enough family members that they could be spared to take on some militia work.
Halthrop looked along the line of three. Terry smiled a little. The ruddiness in Darren’s cheeks led down to the corners of his mouth, which was slightly agape in anticipation of the briefing to come. With his bright blue eyes and fine blond hair, Darren had a very healthy appearance. Jane was agog. Her forearm was held in front of her stiff, vertical body, armulet video-recording the entire scene, should she need a reminder of anything that was said.
‘You will have found that your armulets have no infonetwork connection at present. This is the result of an explosion at the Doughnut in Cheltenham. The infotechs there have sent word that the explosion was an act of sabotage by person or persons unknown, a little over eight hours ago. A few aged, rudimentary, but functional electrical communication cables have been returned to temporary service, but to all intents and purposes, the infonetwork connection has been severed throughout the southwest of England. Many Kangaroos have set up local posses to catch the saboteurs.’
Halthrop stopped for a moment to allow this to sink in to his three young soldiers. Nobody spoke, and the major was unconvinced that they fully comprehended the enormity of the situation.
‘For the last fifty years, fugitives for whom a posse was mobilised have been easily caught by following their audiopt feeds. Occasionally, a criminal has thought to destroy the audiopts in order to evade capture, but they have always been caught beforehand because the sifters have spotted their activities in advance. This was not the case here. So, not only are we dealing with an extremely sophisticated saboteur, but we do not have the feeds to use to chase them down.’
Silence ensued again.
Major Halthrop did not elaborate, but continued briefing. ‘In this case, one of the sifters at the Doughnut did not arrive for work today and is not at his home in Cheltenham. He’s currently the main suspect, and so we have been charged with searching for him.
‘Jack Smith is originally from near Highnam. We have no actual images of him, with the infonetwork down, but one of his neighbours has drawn this sketch.’ Halthrop waved at his armulet and a childlike drawing appeared in the air, showing a very white face, inset with dark eyes, dark eyebrows, and short, dark hair.
‘The infotechs reckon they will hopefully have something back up and running in anywhere from forty-eight hours to six days, so the task should become easier then, but of course the closer we get by then, the more chance we have of being the ones to catch him.’ The major let this last point sink in.
All the Kangaroos would have contracted a posse, or organised one themselves, but he did not rate the other militia leaders highly. Those he had met were lazy and ill disciplined, and a posse made from inexperienced villagers would never find a fugitive without their armulets for assistance.
Terry said, ‘So how much will this job be worth?’
Major Halthrop scowled. ‘You know what I keep telling you about questions during briefing, Terry.’
Terry frowned and then raised his arm.
Halthrop shook his head. ‘NO! All questions at the end.’
Terry lowered his arm again at looked at the other two.
‘Now, where was I?’
Jane rewound her recording a few seconds and they all heard the major’s disembodied voice repeating, ‘… chance we have of being the ones to catch him.’
Halthrop scowled at Jane and remained silent.
After an uncomfortable pause, he carried on, ‘You