“Can’t be helped, I guess,” Myra said. “But—” she put on her best ignorant-American tone “—I thought you folks had that all under control. In the cities, anyway.”
Not what she’d call a city—there were taller buildings in
“No, I’m afraid it’s not all under control at all,” the driver was saying. “They’re right here in the towns now, and there’s bugger all we can do about them. Apart fae bombing the suburbs, and it’s no that bad yet.”
“Just bad enough to be strafing tower-blocks?”
“Aye.”
Myra shivered and setded back in the seat. Her not very productive mission to NYC had taken up less time than originally scheduled, leaving her a couple of days before her pencilled-in meeting with someone from the United Republic’s Foreign Office. She was beginning to wish that nostalgia—and an itch to personally sort out the disposal of her archive—hadn’t made her decide to spend that Saturday and Sunday in Glasgow.
The United Republic, though not her first choice of possible allies, was still the next best thing to the United States. It was politically opposed to the Sheenisov advance, but hadn’t done much to stop it because it had a healthy distaste for entanglements in the Former Union. On the other hand, thanks to shared oil interests in the Sprady Islands it was a strong military and trading partner of Vietnam, which was standing up pretty well against the Khmer Vertes, which… after that it got complicated, but Parvus had the story down to the details. The upshot was that with an actual state on offer as a stable ally, the UR might well be interested in a deal, nukes or no nukes.
The taxi exited the motorway and took a few sharp turns to arrive at the western end of St Vincent Street, slowing down just across from the New Britain Hotel, where she had a room booked.
“Bit ay a problem…” said the driver.
A crowd of a couple of hundred was outside the hotel, almost blocking the pavement, and spilling over on to the street. It consisted of several small and apparently contending demonstrations; three separate loud-hailer harangues were going on from perilous perches on railings and ledges of next-door buildings; lines of Republican Guards segmented the groups. The reverse sides of placards wagged above bobbing heads.
“Ah, no problem,” Myra said. “Just a lefty demo.”
Probably protesting the presence of a representative of some repressive regime, or possibly an unpopular government minister staying at the New Brit. As the big car described a neat and illegal U-turn and glided to a halt a few yards from the left flank of the demonstration, Myra idly wondered what specimen of political celebrity or infamy she’d be sharing residence with.
The driver stepped out—on the wrong side, as she momentarily thought—went around the rear, pinging the boot open on his way, and opened the door for her. She gave him a good flash of her long legs as she swung them out and emerged, in tall boots, short skirt, sable hat and coat. The rejuvenation was definitely making her legs worth seeing again; she’d have to rethink her wardrobe…
The driver lifted her two big suitcases from the boot; she waited for a moment as he clunked it down and closed the nearside door, then she walked towards the hotel entrance, looking curiously at the demo as she hurried past it. There was about three yards of clearance between the shopfronts and the half-dozen or so Republican Guards deployed along the pavement to demarcate the front line of the demo. Behind the Guards the crowd was jumping up and down and yelling and chanting.
She glanced up at a placard being waved above her and saw at the centre of it a blurrily blown-up newsfeed-clip picture of her own face. Suddenly the contending chants became clear, like separate conversations at a party.
Victory to—the SSU!”
That one was in a battle of the soundwaves with, “Sheenisov—hands off! Viva—Kazakhstan!”
Above them both, not chanted but being shouted repeatedly through one of the loud-hailers, “Support the political revolution in the ISTWR!”
A competing loud-hailer was going on in a more liberal, educated and educational tone about the crimes of Myra Godwin’s regime—she caught the words “nuclear mercenaries” and “shameful exploitation” in passing.
For a moment Myra stopped walking; she just stood there, too shocked to move. Her gaze slid past the reflecting shades of a Guard to make eye-contact with a young girl in a tartan scarf. The girl’s chant stopped in mid-shout and Myra couldn’t look away from her disbelieving, open-mouthed face. Then the girl reached over the Guard’s shoulder and pointed a shaking finger at Myra.
“That’s
Myra smiled at the girl and looked away and walked steadily towards the steps up to the hotel door, now only about ten yards away. The driver puffed along behind her. The chants continued; it seemed she was getting away with it.
And then a silence spread out, just a little slower than sound, from the girl who had identified her. The chants died down, the loud-hailer speeches ceased. The crowd surged through the wide gaps between the Guards, blocking the pavement. A young man, not as tall as Myra but more heavily built, stood in front of her, yelling incomprehensibly in her face.
Her old understanding of the Glasgow accent restored from memory.
“Ah despise you!” the man was shouting. “Yi usetae call yirsel a Trotskyist an yir worse than the fuckin Stalinists! Sellin nuclear threats and then sellin slave labour! And noo yir fightin agin the Sheenisov! They’re the hope o the world and yir fightin them for the fuckin Yanks! Ya fuckin sell-out, ya fuckin capitalist hoor!” He leaned in her face ever more threateningly as he spoke. His fists were balling, he was working himself up to take a swing at her. Three yards behind his back somebody holding up a “Defend the ISTWR!” placard was pushing through the press of bodies. Myra took one step back, bumping into one of her suitcases—the driver was still holding it, still behind her. Good.
She slipped her right hand inside her coat. The yelling man’s clamour, and forward momentum, stopped. Another silence expanded around them. Myra reached into a pocket above her thumping heart and pulled out her Kazkhstani diplomatic passport. She thumbed it open and held it high, then waved it in front of the nearest Guard’s nose.
“Officer,” she said without turning around, “please escort my driver into the hotel.”
“Aw right, ma’am.”
“Thanks!”
The driver passed by on her left surrounded by uniforms. Myra took advantage of the accompanying flurry of distraction to dive behind the man who’d yelled at her, and to push herself into the small huddle of pro-ISTWR demonstrators. She glanced quickly around five shocked but friendly faces, noticing lapel badges with a flashed grin of recognition and pride—the old hammer-and-sickleand-4, a solidarity-campaign button with the ISTWR’s signature radiation trefoil, sun-and-eagle stickers…
“Comrades,” she said, “let’s go inside.”
The comrades clustered around her and together they stepped back on the pavement. The angry man was being restrained by some of his own comrades, but still denouncing Myra at the top of his voice. Myra’s group marched up the steps and through the hotel’s big swing doors into the now crowded foyer. White marble floor, black-painted ironwork, fluted mahogany at the reception and stairwell, a lot of flowers and stained glass. The militiamen and the driver were standing off to one side, some hotel-management chap was hurrying up with a politely concerned look and a mobile phone, and—looking back—she saw that everyone was inside and the steps were clear and the door was being secured.
Jesus H. Christ,” she said. By now she was thoroughly ratded. She reached inside her coat again. Everybody froze.
She stayed her hand, and looked around; smiled grimly.
“Anybody else need a cigarette?”
The iron fire-escape door was spring-loaded and would clang if she let it swing back, so she closed it slowly,
