declared it would not be intimidated by such noninclusive, violence-oriented parties, the media had quickly realized this was going to be one of the biggest civil demonstrations in years. Naturally, the publicity helped attract even more people.
It was a strange atmosphere crackling through the Marshall Centre when Jeff registered at the main desk and collected his bulging summit information pack. People were scurrying about with a slightly defiant air, greeting friends and colleagues a little too effusively. The determination to carry on as normal in the face of adversity was reminiscent of a wartime mentality. It wasn’t far from the truth. The huge arboretum/reception area faced the Albert Dock. Delegates could look out directly at their adversaries milling around the sealed-off university campus buildings and see the laser-lit banners shining at them—most formatted with obscene slogans and caricatures. Hundreds of national flags were being waved; Jeff hadn’t seen so many Union Jacks clustered together since the last Last Night of the Proms the year the BBC went bankrupt. Nothing was audible—the thick glass shielded those inside from the sound; but despite that the collective voice of hatred directed toward them could still be sensed. The officials from Brussels were wearily familiar with the odium directed toward them, and managed to ignore it, while the science complement was altogether more jittery.
Jeff kept a strong hold on Annabelle, who had been uncharacteristically quiet since they got off the train. “Let’s go find our hotel room,” he said once he was clutching his pack.
They had to take several consecutive pedwalks along the central concourse before they reached the foot of the octagonal tower, which housed the hotel. Their room was on the thirty-third floor, facing northwest, which gave them a superb view out over the city. Annabelle pressed herself to the window, looking down on the Albert Dock and the protestors on the other side. “There’s so many of them,” she said mournfully.
Jeff came over to stand cautiously behind her; he’d never been particularly comfortable with heights. The long drop down to the muddy water below seemed to be weakening his calf muscles. When he looked over her shoulder he could see the protestors had also taken over Beckton Park behind the university campus. Its grass had been churned away by several thousand campers.
“Couldn’t we just go home?” Annabelle asked. “There’s going to be a riot, I know there will. It’ll be like the Bonn Finance summit again. Lots of people are going to get hurt.”
“If we give in and go home, then that means they’ve won. We’ll be quite safe in the Centre. Those police boys down there know what they’re doing; they’ve had a lot of experience dealing with crowds like this.”
“I thought you didn’t approve of the European Parliament and the Commission.”
“Of course I don’t. It’s a bureaucratic nightmare that needs total reform, or abolishing altogether. The protestors are quite right, it’s completely antidemocratic. But that doesn’t give them the right to intimidate people into adopting their agenda.”
Annabelle gave the protestors a sad moue. “This is the only way people have left to object today. The Commission doesn’t allow any democratic opposition. We’ll never be given a referendum to ask us if we want to withdraw from the Union.”
“Are you a Separatist?” he asked in surprise.
“Isn’t everyone?”
“I don’t know. Are they?”
“Everyone at school is. Europe is so oppressive. We haven’t got any of the freedoms your generation had.”
“Oh.” Jeff had always viewed the Separatist movement with very ambivalent feelings. For anyone like him who’d grown up in the seventies and eighties, when the IRA mainland bombing campaign was at its worst, Separatist methods had too many resonances to make him entirely comfortable with their goals. Besides, he considered their views simplistic. National economies and industries had become heavily integrated; any kind of political and financial breakup would trigger continentwide problems.
Youth, with its high idealism quotient, considered almost any price worth paying. From his unique viewpoint looking out over Europe from two distinct generations he could see both the arguments, how valid they were to their practitioners. He just wished he knew who was right.
His hands began a gentle massage on her shoulders. “Don’t worry, something has to give way eventually. Europe can’t carry on like this; it’s a schizophrenic continent.”
A big movement of people down below caught his attention. The front rank of protestors at the head of the traffic circle’s southern slip road was surging forward, pressuring the police barricades. Smoke bombs were hurled over the heads of the officers. Thick plumes of scarlet smoke gushed out across the tarmac. Then long strands of green smoke began to wind through the protestors. The crowd’s cohesion broke, turning them back into individuals, all desperately running away from the barricades, pushing and shoving their way back down the slip road.
“Good.” Jeff put his arms around her to offer some comfort, and steered her away from the window. “The agencies can wait for another day or so. We can stay on in London after the summit so you can see them then.”
Annabelle had received thousands of txt and avtxt messages as Lucy Duke’s carefully orchestrated publicity campaign built up. Some wished her well, some congratulated her and Jeff, a great many asked for money, still more asked her to join their sect/religion/commune/political party/charity; an unpleasant percentage contained some kind of threat (which Krober forwarded to Europol’s Domestic Analysis Division for cross-referencing and tracking); some were funny, and some were from cranks; teenage (and older) boys wanted high-resolution pictures of her, preferably in a bikini or less; proposals of marriage were common. In among the deluge were several genuine offers of work and contracts from modeling agencies, keen to exploit her looks and public profile. She had trouble believing the kind of money they were promising.
Jeff had turned to Sue for advice on which ones to consider. “Talk about life going in cycles,” she’d said snidely. But once she’d stopped laughing at him she told him which of the agencies had reasonable reputations. They’d arranged for a couple of interviews and a studio test session, which Annabelle intended to do while he was busy at the summit.
The pack Jeff had been given at the reception desk contained several dozen invitations to parties sponsored by various companies, universities, and government bureaus. Then there were extra forums supported by news streams. The brochure was over a hundred pages thick. “And totally pointless,” he grunted as he thumbed through it; glossy pictures of industrial machinery and smiling community groups made it resemble some kind of share flotation prospectus. The loose sheaf of party invitations fluttered down across the bed. “You could spend the entire time eating and drinking here without ever getting to a session.”
“How many are we going to?” she asked.
“Why, want to start showing off some of those new clothes?”
“Don’t start that again. I don’t want to let you down at these functions, that’s all. I had to have something decent to wear.”
“Nobody’s even going to notice me when you start wearing those so-called dresses.”
She struck a pose. “Jealous?”
His PCglasses
“Are you two all right?” Alison asked hurriedly.
“Sure. We just got to the hotel. Why?”
“Graham just called me. He was at Euston station when it was evacuated.”
“Evacuated?”
“Access a news stream, Jeff. There was a clash between the police and the protest marchers. The ticket office is on fire. Graham said he saw the police shooting some kind of tear gas rounds inside the station. Some of the younger marchers had to carry him out.”
“What the hell is Graham doing there in the first place? He’s in his eighties.”
“Age doesn’t stop you from taking part in the democratic process, not if it’s important enough.”
“Is he okay?”
“I think so. That modern tear gas is nasty stuff. It’s got chemical marker dye mixed in, God knows what that does to your lungs. But he said he was going to get cleaned up, then join the main protest outside the Marshall
