Equations of Life

21

He woke with a start, in unfamiliar surroundings. The blanket wasn’t his, and neither were the cushions he’d left slack-jawed drool on. The Norinco was under his left hand, resting on his belly.

He was at Pif’s. She was at the other end of the sofa, in an attitude much like his, but a lot less troubled. One of her feet was jammed between his hip and the upholstery, and her hand draped artfully from under her stark white duvet, pointing at the—her, he supposed now—Jericho.

The gun had joined the debris on the floor. Stained plates, mugs marked with dribbles of red wine, two handsets for her games console, shoes, socks, their trousers, her jumper, paper, books, disks, cartridges, memory sticks, coins, paperclips, cards.

There had to be a clock somewhere—at least something with a built-in clock, when Petrovitch’s myopic search of the walls revealed nothing. His glasses had to be close at hand, but he was reluctant to swing his legs off their perch in case he trod on them.

He patted the carpet, found nothing, then reached back over his head and knocked against a low table. There. He jammed them on his face.

The blank screen of the TV held no clues, but at least he could see the remote. He snagged it and pressed the on and mute buttons simultaneously.

Pif stirred, wrinkling her nose and creasing her forehead.

He couldn’t get a channel. He scrolled through all of them, one to one hundred, and there was nothing but snow.

“Pif?” he said, touching her toes. “Pif, are you on cable or broadcast?”

Her eyelids flickered open, and she made smacking noises with her mouth. “Cable.”

“It wasn’t off last night. It is now.”

“Oh.” She started to close her eyes again. “Do I remember you saying that it wasn’t your fault?”

“It’s not. I don’t see how it can be.”

“Can’t you call your bot-net off?”

“Yeah. I could, if I had access. If I had my rat, I could get on through a satellite.” He still didn’t know the time. “The attack should have fallen apart by now.”

“Worried?”

“Some. And not just about the netcops coming calling.” Petrovitch cleared a space for his feet and pulled the blanket around him. He put his gun on the table. “At least Hijo didn’t make an appearance.”

“Hmm,” she said sleepily.

There was a clock on her microwave. He stood up, taking the blanket with him to cover his bare legs, and picked his way into the kitchen area. He stared at the blue glowing lights.

“I’m going to have to go. Marchenkho is one of those people who you really don’t want to be late for.”

“You walking?”

“I’m feeling better, and it’s not like it’s far. And it’s not really something you can call a cab for.” He retrieved his trousers and struggled into them. “Oshicora Tower, please, and hurry: I’m in an armed gang and we’re storming it this morning.”

“Just thinking about your heart.”

“It’s not like I need it, long-term.” He pulled his socks on and started to lace up his boots.

Pif stretched and shuffled to a sitting position. “You want anything else? A coffee?”

“My adrenaline will do just fine. Umbrella?”

“There’s one by the door. Somewhere.”

“I’ll find it if I need it.”

“Do you suppose it’s still raining?”

“I can’t imagine there’s any more rain left in the sky.” Petrovitch moved to the window and twitched the curtain. Outside was balanced between night and day. He looked up to the underside of the sky, and caught the red glow from the base of the clouds; looked down to see the shining courtyard below, bounded by four slabs of window-pierced concrete.

“Don’t throw your life away, Sam. Make someone take it from you. Make it expensive.” She held out the butt of the Jericho to him.

“Keep it, just in case. Anyway, I’ve only got two hands.” It was time to go. He picked up the Norinco and eased it into his waistband. The Beretta he stuffed low into his sock. “Maybe I’ll see you around?”

“Last chance to back out,” she said, resting her chin on the arm of the sofa.

“I’m so far past last chances that last chance is nothing but a dot in the distance behind me.” Petrovitch stepped across the floor like he was picking his way through a minefield. He put his hand on the doorknob. “Lock it when I’ve gone.”

There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so he left.

Outside in the corridor, he leaned his head against the cool white wall and took a steadying breath. If he’d been in his own domik, he wouldn’t have been alone. There would have been corridor dwellers or shift workers or whores or dealers or muggers. In a student accommodation block with paycops on the doors downstairs, his were the only footsteps he heard as he skipped down the stairwell.

Living like Pif did, insulated from the outside, in a place which didn’t stink of rust and mold, where your neighbors weren’t plotting to kill you and take your space—it was different.

And for Petrovitch, who’d always clung by his fingernails to the edge of existence, it came as a revelation. He’d deliberately chosen the domiks over this bright, clean, warm life. The corner of his mouth twitched with the realization that perhaps he’d made a mistake.

The paycop on the door let him out with a grunt. The screen on his desk was a storm of static.

Suddenly, it was cold. The damp dawn air goosebumped the flesh on his bare arms, and he regretted the loss of his jacket. Thought followed thought; he’d lost a lot more than just a piece of clothing. He hunched his back against the weather, and set off across the campus.

There was one more airlock of comfortable warmth to enter. He passed through the foyer, showed his singed student card to those on duty, and hesitated at the main doors.

Something was wrong, and it took him a moment to see what it was. The street outside was all but deserted, and he’d never seen it like that before. He turned to the guards, who seemed to have caught the same sense of disquiet as he had. They huddled close together at the reception desk, talking quietly amongst themselves and casting the occasional glance through the windows.

A car, two cars, went by with their headlights blue-white bright, but then nothing. The pavements, the same ones that he was used to grinding his way along everyday, were wet with moisture that reflected the street lights. There were people, just not enough of them for him to feel comfortable. He’d stick out, exposed in plain sight.

The clock on the wall clicked to eleven minutes past six. He was going to be late. He felt the cold press of the gun at the base of his spine, the weight on his right ankle.

He tapped the door mechanism. “What’s the worst that can happen?” he said to himself as he waited, and waited, for the door to open. After a while, he shoved at it instead, and eventually it wheezed aside enough for him to slip out.

The cold returned, and he assumed his usual head-down posture for the road.

Except that it was impossible to maintain. There were too few pedestrians. He felt compelled to look at them, commit the cardinal sin of making eye contact for a brief moment as they passed. Everyone had the same expression, one that showed that deep down, no matter their bluff, they were afraid.

Petrovitch could only assume that his eyes held that same fear.

He crossed the road, walking at a diagonal. In all his years in the Metrozone, he’d never done such a thing. He passed darkened shops that he couldn’t remember ever closing. Their signs were illuminated, but inside was gray gloom.

He turned out of Exhibition Road, turned right. Across, on the other side, was Hyde Park, just as still as it had been yesterday. Yet today, it wasn’t the stillness of death that emanated from the miasma. It was the silence of a held breath.

It wasn’t only the city that was waiting for something to happen. Petrovitch pushed his hands up inside his T-shirt sleeves, and hurried along to Hyde Park corner.

Marchenkho wasn’t there, and Petrovitch had no watch or phone to tell him the right time. He could be late, or early. The only thing he was certain of was that he had the right day. So he stood under the Wellington Arch while a dozen vaguely human-shaped piles of bags and blankets slept around him, making the most of the shelter.

In the distance, he heard the sound of bells ringing the half-hour. Now Marchenkho was late. He jumped up and down and swung his hands around, both trying to keep warm and wishing to evaporate the cold sweat that had broken out across his body. He shivered.

In the distance, coming up Grosvenor Place, was a line of black cars. At first, he thought it another strange computer-directed aberration, but then he saw more clearly. The cars, six of them, circled the monument once, and then parked up against the curb.

People, Slavs like himself, slowly emerged into the dawn air, well wrapped up to conceal their firearms. Petrovitch made sure both his hands were on show as he approached.

“Hey, Yuri.”

Grigori narrowed his eyes and raised his chin. “Petrovitch. I lose, then.”

“What?”

“I bet fifty euros you wouldn’t show.” He leaned against his limousine and knocked on the rear window. It slid down.

“Dobroe utro, tovarish.”

Petrovitch peered in. “Yeah. I can’t believe you have a Zil.”

“Why not?” said Marchenkho. “Zil is a good car. Reliable. Armor plated.”

“Parts must be a bitch.” Petrovitch ran his hand across the polished, waxed roof, leaving a trail of sticky fingerprints.

“With money, anything is possible.” Marchenkho stroked his mustache. “Are you armed?”

“You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.”

“This is good. What do you need?”

“Nine millimeter for the Norinco. Point three two for the Beretta.”

Marchenkho nodded to Grigori, who went to the boot of the car and opened it, revealing neatly labeled cartons and long cases. “Petrovitch, aren’t you cold?”

“I’m freezing my tits off, truth be told. My jacket got incinerated by the Paradise militia.”

“What did you do to them, that they would set your clothing on fire?”

Petrovitch stamped hard on the ground. “It’s a long, and probably pointless story. They weren’t after me, anyway.”

“Getting caught up in other people’s battles again? I thought you were supposed to be a smart man.” His mustache twitched as he smiled mirthlessly. “So many enemies for one so young.”

Grigori handed him two small cardboard cartons, heavy with bullets. He watched as Petrovitch tried to find somewhere on him to put them, then shrugged off his long black leather coat.

“Here,” he said.

Petrovitch looked blankly at him. “I can’t do that,” he said when he finally realized.

“I have more coats, more clothes, suits, shoes, jeans, than I can ever wear. Take it. Look on it as an example of socialism in action.” Grigori draped it over Petrovitch’s shoulders. The collar smelled of cologne.

“You look fit to be in my company now,” said Marchenkho. “Get in.”

Petrovitch dropped a carton into each of the side pockets of his coat, and pulled it around him as he slid onto the long backseat.

There were three people opposite him: two men and a woman, each cradling a Kalashnikov.

“Leon, Valentina, Ziv. This is the kid I told you about.”

“Yeah. Whatever he said was a lie.” Petrovitch slid the Beretta from his sock and sprung the clip.

The woman called Valentina shook her ponytail. “He said you were fearless.”

Petrovitch looked across at Marchenkho. “Does that mean you like me?”

“It means I have decided not to kill you. This is good, no?” Marchenkho glanced down at the little pistol Petrovitch was busy reloading. “Your peesa is very small.”

“That’s what the other guy said, just before I killed him.”

Marchenkho shook with laughter. “See? See how he looks like a kitten but roars like a lion.”

The driver’s door slammed, and Grigori started the Zil.

“Tell me,” said Marchenkho. “What happened to your American friend?”

“Sorenson? I don’t know. Oshicora screwed him over, and then Inspector Chain did the same thing, only worse.”

“But Oshicora is dead.”

“Sorenson won’t know. If he’s gone feral, he’ll never find out. He’ll spend the rest of his days hiding from someone who no longer exists.” Petrovitch tucked the Beretta in his pocket, and reached around for the Norinco. “I guess I might know what that’s like.”

“Perhaps you can find him, when we have done what we came to do.” Marchenkho nodded to dour Ziv, who tapped Grigori on the shoulder. The car pulled away and started down Piccadilly.

“Did you have any problems this morning?” asked Petrovitch. He fed fat bullets into the Norinco’s magazine.

“Why? What do you know?” Marchenkho stroked his chin, and leaned over, resting his solid bulk against Petrovitch’s shoulder. He radiated menace.

Petrovitch slapped the magazine back home and rested the gun on his knees. He chose his words carefully. “Something’s happening. I don’t know what. I can’t say I like it.”

And just like that, the Ukrainian changed moods. He rumbled deep in his chest. “My mobile refuses to connect. My computer cannot talk to others. My breakfast is accompanied by white noise, not the news. This is not good. But the streets are clear. The cameras are off. Even if this is for just one day, it could not be better. We are the Lords of Misrule, and there will be no one to see the mischief we make. Once we are done here, Oshicora has other operations in the East End that we wish to see closed down.”

Grigori was slowing, making a big U-turn in front of the Oshicora Tower, the other cars blocking the road in front and behind, screeching tires, disgorging people.

A shabby figure in a brown trenchcoat looked balefully at them from the curbside.

“Yeah, should have mentioned this earlier.” Petrovitch waited for the Zil to stop, then opened the door. “Chain might have overheard us talking.”