That was what the teacher said, though, and the children were sent home. He played with his friends for a while, until he got bored of running around the streets, and he went to the shop. But his mother had already left to do housework, and the child made a sad face. His father ruffled his sandy blond hair, told him to get a grip, and sent him home to help her with the chores. He set off, but had no intention of telling his mother what his father had said. He hoped she’d let him read a book in his room instead.
He heard the man whisper-shouting when he entered the house, and at first he thought maybe it was the new friend they’d made when everything changed, the man who never smiled. Instead it was the man who the child assumed was only friends with his mother, because he’d never seen the man say hello to his father. Not even after the man met his mother that time in the market, and kissed her on the cheek.
The child’s mother began to cry. He peeked through the doorway and saw the man from the market get out of bed and start to dress. He was still whisper-shouting at the child’s mother, and she was still crying, and suddenly the child was too upset to stop himself from bursting into the room and hitting the man over and over and screaming at him to stop hurting his mother but the man was too big and strong and he threw the child against the dresser and things fell off on top of him and then the man stomped out of the house and his mother was shouting at him and crying at the same time and everything was horrible.
Months later his parents would be dead, and he would learn the truth.
7
“Ciaran, did you nick my pen? The lightsaber. It was here yesterday.”
Ciaran Tigh looked up from his screen on the other side of the tiny Cyber Threat Analytics room. There were only three desks in the CTA unit office — one each for Ciaran, Bridge, and Monica, who was currently in a briefing — yet it was still too small for them. Bridge had once stood in the centre of the room and swung a two-foot piece of string around her head, just to test the theory about dead cats, and it was a pretty close thing. Almost took out the holiday calendar on the back wall.
“First, what would a Trek man like me want with a lightsaber? Second, how the hell can you tell?” Ciaran’s desk was immaculate, a sanctuary of order, precision, and calm. Every notebook squared off, every document tray in alignment, every pen and pencil arranged in parallel and accounted for.
By contrast, Bridge’s desk was, well, a contrast. She liked to think it reflected a creative mind, and was working on a desk-tidiness-correlation theory about Star Trek fans like Ciaran vs Star Wars fans like herself, although Monica’s desk (somewhere in the middle, not as neat-freak as Ciaran’s but tidier than Bridge’s) threw the whole thing for a loop. Monica preferred Aliens.
Besides, where everyone else saw nothing but a mess, Bridge saw a system. She might be the only one who understood it, but she was the only one who had to, and she always knew where everything was. Except, at this precise moment, her favourite pen.
She stood at Monica’s desk, scanning the surface, but it wasn’t there. She knew it wouldn’t be. Why would Monica need to take someone else’s pen? Why would anyone need to? This wasn’t high school.
Ciaran had resumed reading, already lost in the morning’s wires and scan alerts from GCHQ as they scrolled up his screen. Bridge returned to her own desk and flopped in the chair, which belched an ergonomically-designed pneumatic sigh in response. “Only ten-thirty,” she sighed. “How much worse can today get?”
Giles entered, smiling. “Bridge, there you are. Broom Eight, please, in five minutes.”
Without looking up from his monitor, Ciaran smiled, but said nothing. She scowled at him anyway. “Will I need to take notes?” she asked, opening her pen drawer. “Only I’ve — ah.” Her lightsaber pen stared back at her.
Giles, still in the doorway, shook his head. “No notes. Problem?”
It took all of her self-control not to slam the drawer shut.
8
The drone came rushing toward them over the airfield, buzzing like an angry wasp.
Some observers cried out, but Air Vice-Marshal Sir Terence Cavendish remained motionless except for an imperceptible sigh. This was all part of the display, designed to put them in a heightened state and get the heart rate going, so they were more inclined to gasp and be impressed by the drone team’s feats today. Not that Sir Terence didn’t want everyone to be impressed, including himself. The programme was under his purview, and if the boffins could pull off what they promised, the RAF would leap from zero actionable capability to the forefront of active engagement drone technology within two years. That was a noble goal, and made it worth sitting through these interminable slide shows, meetings, and demonstrations. He just wished it didn’t require quite so much theatre.
As he predicted, the drone pulled up at the last moment. It buffeted the crowd with the thrust blowback from its single rear rotor, giving the crowd a close-up view of the X-4 code number stencilled on its side before ascending to turn and resume its regular path. Sir Terence made a mental note
