‘Let’s go,’ Kohei said. He wanted to keep Ollie moving, not give him time to stop and think. There was something about him, a vulnerability, that Kohei found unsettling. It had taken ten minutes just to coax him out of his fleshmask and bomb collar. Ten minutes they couldn’t afford.
Ollie glanced uneasily at the portal and its guard of paramilitaries. ‘Where does it go?’
‘I told you. Nikolaj is in Chelsea, the Paynor family’s house on Pelham Crescent. This portal goes to a house on Onslow Square, just around the corner.’
‘Pelham Crescent?’
‘Yes, it’s on the Fulham Road. Let’s go.’ He gestured impatiently.
Ollie looked around without much interest at the room they emerged into. Typical old posh London: a sitting room with high ceilings, big sash windows and expensive furnishings – which had all been pushed against one wall. Made Claudette Beaumant’s place look cheap. The paramilitaries followed him and Kohei through. Another squad of them was already in the house, making it seem cramped.
Kohei walked him through into the hall with its classic black-and-white marble floor. ‘Right, Lolo is online. You have one minute to confirm sie’s okay and that we’ve kept our side of the deal.’
It took Ollie a moment to understand what he’d been told. The pain from the peripherals they’d just inserted was pulsing into his brain despite the local anaesthetics. His thoughts were foggy, numb, as if everything around him was on some kind of time delay before it registered. Lolo’s icon splashed across his tarsus lens.
‘Hey, you,’ Ollie said. ‘So where are you?’
‘Back on Akitha. I’m really here, Ollie! I’m somewhere in the capital; I recognize the skyline.’
‘What about Gran and Bik?’
‘They came through the portal with me, but then Lim Tianyu went with them somewhere else. I’m not allowed to go there, apparently.’
Ollie scowled at Kohei.
‘It’s an ultra-secure facility,’ Kohei said in a jaded voice. ‘Sie’s not got anything like the clearance to visit. But sie’ll have full observation access to the procedure. Right now, the escort team is waiting for hir family to arrive. As you can imagine, they’re in quite a state.’
‘Oh. Yeah,’ Ollie grunted. He’d never thought about Lolo’s family. Sie’d rarely mentioned them, other than telling him how an expanded Utopials family was superior to any other arrangement.
‘Wrap it up,’ Kohei said.
‘Love you, Lolo,’ Ollie said. ‘You’re the best.’
‘Ollie, darling, please be careful.’
‘Middle name.’
‘No it’s not. It’s not. It never is.’
‘Listen, this will all be over in half an hour. They’ve given me some really fancy peripherals, best ever. I’ll join you right afterwards, okay?’
‘Promise me!’
There was no way of telling over a comm connection, but Ollie just knew sie was crying. Again. ‘I promise. You think I want to leave our kid without a dad?’
‘Ollie!’
‘Gotta go. Be seeing you.’
The paramilitaries abandoned the hall, stepping back through the doorways. Kohei opened the front door.
‘You won’t see us,’ he told Ollie, ‘but we’ll be with you. There are a lot of synth bugs in that house. We’ll watch every second.’
Ollie stepped outside. ‘Got it,’ he said, trying to sound nonchalant.
‘Hey, Ollie . . .’
‘What?’
‘Good luck,’ Kohei said solemnly. ‘I mean it.’
‘Sure.’
The glossy black door closed, leaving Ollie alone under the stone portico. London’s dry air gusted around the stark dead trees in the square to stroke his face. He wasn’t used to that; it was the first time in too long he’d ventured outside without his fleshmask. The medics who’d inserted the peripherals had given him some cream for his cheeks and nose, but it still felt weird. His bare skin was so sensitive.
He walked out onto the main clear path along Sydney Place, just a few metres to Fulham Road. Turn left, and Pelham Crescent was directly ahead. The white Georgian building glowed malevolently under the devil-sky, curving around a small park that was like every other open space in the city in Blitz2 – a forlorn cemetery of trees and bushes.
*
Ollie’s thoughts were still numb as he walked up to the front door. A man was standing outside. He broke the spell. Ollie grinned at him. Expensive suit, dark – always dark. It was the uniform for a low-level family soldier. A warning frown was growing on his face as he stared down; his hands made a move on gesture.
Ollie knew there was only one way to handle this – the way Piotr would have done it: with overwhelming confidence.
‘You,’ Ollie snapped. ‘I’m here to see Nikolaj. Open up.’
‘Piss off.’
‘Not a chance. She owes me. You either let me in now, or I come back with a missile drone and I blow the door open while you’re still standing in front of it. So you make your little secure call to her. You tell her Ollie from the Legion is here, and then you open the fucking door.’
Ollie watched uncertainty shade the man’s face. A pause, then hatred was crowding out the doubt. The door swung open. Ollie smirked mockingly as he stepped inside.
There was no sign of any member of the Paynor family inside. There hadn’t been for months, Kohei had told him, since had they infiltrated the place with synth bugs. They didn’t know what Nikolaj had done to them – killed them or held them hostage somewhere else. Either way, she was now running the family’s operations, such as they were, during Blitz2.
The house was like a five-star boutique hotel, the current guests untouched by the events of the last two years. The family’s senior lieutenants had their own rooms. They ate together in the dining room, which certainly had no rationing. They partied every night with young boys and girls, fuelled by zero-nark (mild cut only; Nikolaj still expected them to perform their duties outside). They wore Savile Row suits and played with any trinket they wanted.
Walking amid the decadence, Ollie felt sick. This was going to be the Legion, the life
