Flare

Chapter 33

“Do you know why I asked to speak to you privately?”

I shook my head, perched on the edge of the chair he’d insisted I sit on, unsure how to feel or what to think. Travelling with Emily, despite all the hardship and horror, had been like a little bubble insulating us from the rest of the world as we made our way towards our destination, but our capture had burst that bubble and now nothing seemed to make sense.

“It came to me as I remembered that bloody question you asked,” the Secretary said, leaning back in his chair and mopping his forehead with the arm of his suit jacket. “And I thought; a man like that really likes to get to the bottom of things, and wants to tell people what’s really going on. Am I right?”

I shrugged. “All that feels like a lifetime ago, now.”

He nodded. “Doesn’t it though? Water?”

I nodded and he poured me a glass himself, sliding it across the smooth wood of the table.

“So here’s the rub,” he continued. “I find myself in a very difficult situation. How much do you know about what happened?”

I took a sip of water before speaking. “There was a Coronal Mass Ejection that hit the planet as well as a flare, and it knocked anything with a processor out and overloaded the national grid.”

He nodded. “You’re very well informed. However, did you know that it’s still happening?”

“I had an inkling, yes. I have a friend who’s an astrophysicist and he thinks there’s something strange going on, and we saw the aurora the second night as well.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Only the second night? What about the other nights since?”

I thought back, then realised that Emily and I had been crawling into the tent before the sun was fully down and sleeping right through, more or less. I told him so and he frowned as if I was trying to hide something.

“Well we have a few experts of our own, although their equipment is mostly useless now, and they’re telling me that what the sun is doing could go on for weeks or even months. Can you imagine what that will do to any attempt to get things up and running again?”

I nodded. “I think so. You can’t begin to rebuild infrastructure because any attempt to make anything more advanced than a simple circuit will get blown again immediately.”

“That’s right. So keep that thought going and tell me what’s going to happen to the population when they run out of food and clean water.”

It wasn’t hard to figure that one out; I’d already seen the first stirrings of what would happen on my travels.

“People will start to die.”

He nodded emphatically, the few hairs on the top of his head waving frantically.

“Exactly. So we’re bringing as many people here as we can and trying to stockpile for the winter, and get the ground ready for planting in the spring. Even in the best case scenario, it could be up to a year before we can turn the lights on again.”

I thought that through for a few moments, imagining just how bad it would get, particularly once the winter set in. Would people stay in their homes and slowly waste away, or would they set out like a plague of desperate locusts, eating everything in their path until they hit the sea or ran out of places to plunder?

“So how do I come into this?”

The Secretary leaned back and steepled his fingers in front of his chest.

“As far as I’m aware, I’m the closest thing to a government this country has anymore, but I only just made it myself. I was travelling back down from Scotland when the flare hit, and it just so happened that I was only a few miles away from here when everything stopped working. I have no idea if anyone else on the cabinet survived, but as they were still in the heart of London, I think it’s safe to assume they didn’t. The only people travelling with me were a police escort and my driver, my assistants were several hours ahead of me in another car so I suspect they got caught up in the London fires.”

He looked at me expectantly but I couldn’t see where he was going with it so I gestured for him to carry on.

“Look,” he said, rubbing his face tiredly, “I’m good at what I do, but I’d be the first to admit that I’m not exactly a people person, and Tibbett, well, I’ve known Tibbett for a long time and he’s an excellent soldier but PR is not his forte. I need someone with me who’s good with words, Malcolm, someone who knows how to get information across without wild speculation, just facts and maybe a little, ah, softening here and there. Does that sound like something you can do?”

The last thing I’d expected in the middle of all this was a job offer, and I blinked at him a few times as I tried to take it in.

“You want me to work for you?”

He shrugged. “Why not? You’ll get food, good accommodation, clean water. In return, I just want you to make sure that the people understand why we’re doing this, understand their place in this new machine we’re building.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I understand what you’re trying to do but I need to go and find my daughter. It has to be my first priority.”

The Secretary’s face darkened.

“You do realise, don’t you, that we can’t let you leave?”

“Can’t or won’t?”

He shrugged. “Not much difference from where you’re standing. I need someone like you, Malcolm, but I won’t beg. Perhaps a few days in the fields will make you change your mind.”

He opened his mouth to call out to the guards but I held up a hand.

“How about this,” I said desperately, “you let me and Emily go and find my daughter, then we come back and I do this job for you? We’d only be gone a week or so, less if you can lend us a vehicle?”

He barked a laugh. “Do you think I’m stupid? We’d never see you again! No, you either work for me or you work in the camp. Guards!”

Two soldiers hurried in, then slowed as they saw no immediate danger. I sized them up, wondering if I could somehow get past them and make a break for freedom, but one look convinced me that would be madness.

“Gentlemen, take him to one of the work parties and get him started on something that will keep him busy, then let me know where you’ve put him. Oh, and warn the guards that he’s a flight risk, we can’t have him being shot trying to escape.”

One of them saluted while the other grabbed my arm in a vicelike grip, pulling me from the room before I could do more than glare at the Secretary.

As they marched me down the corridor and out onto the tarmac, I made the mistake of trying to reason with them.

“Look,” I began, “this is all a… Oof!”

I folded in half as one of them casually slammed a fist into my solar plexus, driving the wind from my lungs and leaving me gasping for air while tears filled my eyes. I couldn’t walk, but they simply lifted me off my feet, carrying me towards the fields and work gangs as if I were nothing more than an annoyance they were keen to be rid of.

Which, I supposed as I fought desperately for air, I was.