Chapter 7 - James Bugs Out

The next problem was how to contact Meg. As I was now barred from the office, I couldn’t contact her there, and I didn’t want to contact her electronically for security reasons. I decided to watch for her leaving Xeron and find out the way she went then come back another time and wait for her somewhere along her route. I knew that she usually left for home about four in the afternoon, hanging around after we left to poke about and look keen. That afternoon, I posted myself in a café called The Woodpecker opposite the Xeron building

The Woodpecker was a dull place, and empty. The tables were glass with steel legs and the chairs were wooden. The owner was sitting behind the counter disconsolately. ‘Tea please,’ I said and waved my communicator over the pad to pay. I sat myself down at a table with a view and pretended to be intent on fiddling with my communicator. I was hoping that nobody from the office would drop in, but as it was mid-afternoon and they only served soft drinks I supposed that there wouldn’t be any staff coming. Nobody did. The owner shuffled over and plonked my tea down on the not-so-clean table without a word then wandered back to his counter and began playing some video game with his back to me. So far, so good.

After what seemed a long wait, with half a cup of cold tea sitting in front of me, the Xeron staff started leaving. I spotted Jake and Andy who got into a pod standing by. A little later, Sandra appeared, looking cute in a quilted coat, jeans and white sneakers. She walked off. After a longer wait, when everyone else seemed to have already left, Meg appeared. But she just clambered into a pod and drove off past the café window. 

Oh shit. I’ll have to try something else. I waited another ten minutes then sauntered out of the café. The owner was still playing his game. The Deva streets were paved with brick in a herring-bone pattern making a sort of universal pedestrian area; they were clean and neat. The odd pod slid by, almost silently. An idea occurred to me: maybe I could find a way to track the pod that Meg took and find out where it dropped her off. I strolled along back to my module, enjoying the fine spring afternoon. Musing about this, I soon found myself back at the entrance to my building. There was a warden lounging about outside, and as soon as he saw me he became more alert, started mumbling into his communicator and gave me a long look as I went in. It seemed that they were trying to put the pressure on me, get me to panic and make a false move. I vowed to stay cool but felt terribly uneasy. 

Back in my module, I started to find a way into the pod control system; after a long while, during which I regretted not having my new brain, I managed to find a list of all the pod movements day-by-day. The list included the names of the riders, so a quick search for “Meg Lockhart” soon showed me where she had got off. I memorised the address. As the list appeared to be updated in real time, I decided that I would monitor the moment Meg took a pod and arrange to be strolling down her street around the time she could be expected to arrive “completely by accident”. 

The next day, I went to the town square, now drier and not so dreary in the fine weather, then made my way to Meg’s address: five and a half minutes. I walked along her street and noticed a baker’s shop a little beyond: cover! I went back to the square and waited. The attractive, young mother didn’t reappear, but after a bit my communicator flashed a message saying that Meg was on her way. I waited the necessary time then walked back towards Meg’s place at the same pace as before. This time it worked: as I walked by the entrance, Meg arrived as if on cue. ‘Why hello, James, what are you doing here?’ she exclaimed.
‘Oh, hello, Meg. Is this where you live?’ She gave me a quizzical look, so I explained, ‘I heard that there’s a good baker’s shop here.’ She lifted an eyebrow, and that prompted me to say the parole that Edward had given me: ‘It is still cold isn’t it?’
She gave the correct reply: ‘Yes but it will soon be getting warmer.’ 
Then, without showing any special emotion, she quietly said, ‘Come back at 10 pm. My ground floor window is the third from the western corner at the back; hop in and don't be seen.’
I smiled, nodded and walked on to the baker’s shop and bought a palmier, a kind of cake to which I’m rather partial, carried it out in a bag and made my way back, feeling very conspiratorial and not a little afraid. There was no warden there this time, but I was getting increasingly paranoid.
Back at my module, I felt jumpy. I couldn’t concentrate on anything and didn’t feel hungry, so I just watched the time and waited. When the time came, I put on my coat and slipped out the back way, over a fence and onto another street.
I walked briskly to Meg’s building with my heart beating strongly, recalling that it was Friday the thirteenth. When I got there, I found my way round the back and counted the windows; all were dark and curtained. I gently pushed on the window frame of Meg’s window, the sill of which was breast-high, and it gently swung open inwards, in the French way. Then, quick as a rat, I pulled myself up, got a leg over the sill, rolled through the window between the long curtain and the wall and found myself at length on the carpet. Meg pulled up the curtain a bit and said, ‘I hope your boots aren’t muddy, James. Come and sit at the table.’
I got up a bit sheepishly, dusted my trousers off as well I could and hopped about trying to get my boots off. At last, de-booted, I sat down opposite her at her round table. A third chair was occupied by a large teddy bear with cute, appealing eyes.
Meg was looking rather stern, but with a twinkle in her eye. ‘So Edward sent you did he? Well, he did the right thing, because you’re in big trouble. Tell me what you’ve been up to, and I’ll see if I can help you.’
‘Okay, but first tell me why you’re doing this, Meg. I would never have guessed.’
‘Let's just say that I have a bone to pick with Arthur and his friends.’
‘And?’
‘He seems to be trying to gather power and bring us all under his control—up to something with robots and artificial intelligence.’
‘More like real stupidity,’ I quipped.
‘Oh, don’t underestimate him, James. He’s crafty and totally focused.’
‘So what’s your motivation then?’
‘We fear that he’s playing the sorcerer’s apprentice and will end up creating self-replicating machines. And if he does, he’ll open the door to the destruction of the human race, and even all life.’
‘Who is this “we” you’re referring to?’
‘For want of a better name, it’s called The Network.’
‘And why would you help me?’
‘James, you’re the top artificial intelligence specialist here, possibly in the world. We think that he’s trying to get you to do his dirty work for him then eliminate you.’
‘Bloody hell! Doesn’t he understand what will happen if he unleashes intelligent self-replicating machines?’
‘Well, he appears to think he can control things. Clearly you don’t share his opinion.’
‘Can you stop him?’
‘We are trying our best.’
‘So reassuring, Meg.’ 
She shrugged. The teddy bear kept its own council. There was a moment of stinging silence.
‘Would you like a beer?’ asked Meg with a smile, and I suddenly felt a lot more comfortable.
‘Yes, please.’ She stumped off to get it, and I had a look round the room. The walls were finished in rough-trowelled waxed plaster in yellow and red. There was a sofa in the corner covered with bright yellow and red printed fabric. The carpet was black with scattered patches of lime green. The lights were strong and placed with care, the curtains thick and concealing—all very colourful: cheerful but not in the best of taste.
Meg came back with two bottles of beer, popped the tops off and handed me one. ‘To our cooperation, James; together we can achieve many things.’ This sounded a little premature to me, but it seemed best to play along, and the beer was most welcome.
‘I’ll do what I can to help.’
‘Listen, we want you to use your special skills to stop Arthur.’
‘There’s one thing I need and that’s to get my android back. The bastard won’t let me have it. I would get a new one, but I don’t have the funds.’
‘Maybe I can help with that. Tell you what—go back to Edward’s and stay there a while. I’ll send you a message when I’ve worked something out. Anyway, you’ve got to get out of Deva; they’re definitely onto you. You must get out immediately—this very night. You’re not safe here.’
I realised that there was no future for me in Deva, so I said, ‘I can see that.’
‘Walk, don’t run, to the postern gate and use the password. Get over to Aigrefoin without being spotted. Edward will be forewarned. And, by the way, whatever you’re doing with those android brains of yours—be careful.’ So she knew about that too. ‘Don’t even risk going back to your module. Find out what Arthur is doing and stop him. We’ll be watching you.’
I nodded, finished my beer, put my boots back on and slid over the window sill into the chilly night, realising that there was more to Meg than met the eye. I trudged thorough sleeping Deva to the postern gate and crept out into the open plain. The black sky was filled with stars and the moon was nearly full. I cut across the open pastureland, and to avoid going past Châteaufort and over the bridge, I turned south before reaching it. I blundered down the slope, through trees and bushes in the faint moonlight, hoping there wouldn’t be any wild boar or stray dogs to contend with. It took a long time and seemed a bad idea. After a while, I reached the bottom of the valley and searched for a way across the stream that ran through it. In desperation, I stepped into the shallow water and splashed along it for a while looking for a way up the steep, overgrown opposite bank. Eventually, I managed to clamber over it and started my weary way up the opposite hillside. When I was halfway up, I noticed lights moving down the slope behind me, then I heard rough voices and a dog bark. I ducked behind a fallen log, peered over but couldn’t see much. I switched my communicator to infrared and had a look at the screen: ghostly figures, pale on a mottled, dark background. Two men were coming down to the stream, one in front with a dog on a leash and a bigger one behind who appeared to have a rifle slung across his back. I kept still and out of sight, terrified but ready for anything. Soon, they reached the bank of the stream and the dog started yapping. The beams of the flashlights that they were holding probed around. There was a splash and then there was only one beam. 

Voice one: Oh fuck, I’ve dropped the bloody torch in the water.
Voice two: You fucking idiot.
Dog: Yap yap
Voice one: Can’t see a bloody thing.
Voice two: You never could. Just get the bloody dog on the bastard’s trail again.
(splashing sounds)
Voice one: The water is fucking cold.
Voice  two: I told you to wear wellies but, oh no, mister has to wear his faggoty sneakers.
Voice one: The dog can’t find the trail any more.
(sigh of relief in the bushes)
Voice two: Why did I have to be assigned an idiot like you?
Voice one: Not much more we can do here then, eh?
Voice two: Not with you anyway.
Voice one: Maybe we should be getting back then; my feet are soaked
Voice two: Yeah, whatever. Come back in daylight.
(squelching footsteps, rustle and crack in undergrowth, 
sounds grow fainter)

Meanwhile, lying behind my log, with my communicator I watched them go back. A dog howled somewhere in the distance, making me think of wolves. I started to shake from cold and shock. My legs were scratched all over, my boots were full of water, but my spirits rose. When they had finally disappeared, I stood up and continued my journey. By the time I neared Aigrefoin, dawn was breaking and in the dim, grey light it was easier to find my way. 

Exhausted but relieved, I banged on the gate. To my surprise, it opened immediately. ‘Come in quick,’ said Edward. I staggered through and he closed and barred the gate behind me.

Back in the farmhouse parlour, Edward said, ‘You look rough; not used to this sort of thing, eh?’ Madame looked at the mud I had brought in and shook her head. He continued, ‘Go and have a wash; we’ll find some clothes for you. Have a  rest, then we’ll talk.’ And he added, brightening up, ‘We have hot water and a tub in the bathroom,’ as if this were some amazing luxury. Madame proudly showed me the bathroom, which was damp and chilly, and ran a bath for me, dumped some towels then went off to get me some clothes. When she came back, she told me to come down when I was ready and have a proper French breakfast, then get some sleep in the spare bedroom. When I was alone, I peeled off my wet clothes, inspected the cuts on my legs, and slid into the blessed hot water with a groan of relief: bliss! 

Sitting in a hot bath is a good time for thinking, even if you haven’t slept all night. Am I safe? Can they get me here? And how far could I trust Meg? Why is Edward so keen to help? And above all, how am I going to get Anna back? I started to doze off and awakened with a start, found the soap and started to wash myself. The clothes weren’t a bad fit: a warm tartan shirt, belted brown corduroy trousers to tuck it into, thick wool socks—farmer’s stuff but comfy. Feeling clean but shattered, I presented myself in the parlour and was directed to a steaming bowl of white coffee and thickly buttered hunks of delicious bread. So I tucked in, to approving glances by Madame and Monsieur who said, ‘Stop fussing, Catherine, let the lad eat.’ Now feeling much better but awfully sleepy, I was led off to the spare room to sleep. There was a sweet, fresh, clean country smell in the room, accompanied by a hint of damp. The sheets were cold and the mattress lumpy, but I really didn’t care. I looked at a ray of early sunlight coming through a gap in the curtains and fell asleep.

Much later, I gradually awoke. I felt across the bed for Anna but she wasn’t there. I turned my head, opened my eyes and saw the unfamiliar room; then it all came back to me. I wondered what the time was. Country sounds filtered through: birds singing, a cow bellowing, someone banging about in the house, and a certain stillness. I heard a clock chime three times: three o’clock! I dragged myself out of the warm bed. The air was cold on my naked skin, and I quickly put the clothes on. My legs were quite stiff but not badly so. I went back to the parlour and found it empty, so I sat in a chair near the fire and stared at it. After a long while, one of the hired hands—Jean I think—put his head round the door and said, ‘Ah, you’re up; I’ll get the boss.’ Edward soon came in bearing two cups of tea, showing that he had not totally gone native. He sat with his cup of tea in his hands, stared into the fire, then he at last said, ‘There’s a lot I need to tell you.’ And so he began a long monologue while I listened attentively. 
He told me that he’d got word of my coming and that he was determined to help me because he thought that I was the only person likely to stop Arthur Buonaventura—and because he liked me. Buonaventura had been a nonentity until recently when he had managed to come out on top among the Deva controllers. Deva had been run as a council of controllers, but now it seemed he was in charge of everything. He had introduced the time-honoured kapo system with wardens being recruited among the most thuggish of the drones and being given special privileges. This had strengthened his power base and now he was trying to extend Deva’s area of influence, and that was making Monsieur nervous. It seemed that the robot tractor that I had seen in the field on my first visit had not been a Deva one but one belonging to Monsieur’s cooperative, and they wouldn’t tolerate any encroachment beyond the Deva plateau. He had to be stopped. Also, there was another British settlement about thirty kilometres south-west of Deva at a place called Britiniacum—which was the Roman name for the place later called Brétigny-sur-Orge—where there was an airfield. Its original Latin name “Britiniacum” meant “belonging to the Brits”. The name “Deva” was the Roman name for the English town later called Chester, originally intended to be the Roman capital of the British Isles. Our town of Deva was laid out and walled to match the Roman original. The British settlers preferred these Roman names for the places taken from the French, as they felt it gave them some title to the land on the basis that they had as much right to be there as the Frankish landowners who had chased out the Roman ones who had replaced the Gallic ones. Typical! Anyway, Britiniacum had previously had little contact with Deva, but now both were more outward looking, and Monsieur feared that either they would amalgamate, in which case he would be squeezed out, or they would fight for supremacy, in which case he would be in the no-man’s-land between them, and that wouldn’t be good either. He just wanted to prosper in peace without an overlord. He claimed that that was how feudalism had started, with those living on the land having to seek “protection” from local men of violence and ending up as serfs. ‘Just like the bloody Mafia,’ he said. ‘A protection racket: it begins with robbers and ends with civil servants.’

As for the possibility of robots taking over the world, he didn’t seem to be too bothered. He was hoping that in helping Meg deal with Buonaventura he would be furthering his own strictly local interests. He had heard that I had an arrangement with Meg that related to securing funding and was happy to help me with that. He was to equip and train me, then send me on my way to the ruins of nearby Paris to see a contact who would shower me with gold. This sounded like a good plan but too good to be true. Anyway, I was up for it.

He said I was safe at Aigrefoin for a few days and that he would teach me some fieldcraft then set me on my way to Paris.

We had a pleasant family meal that evening. Monsieur, possibly to please Madame, was going on about how after the Middle Ages the Brits had been chased off the land by the enclosures, and when landlords had appropriated it all they had become rootless proles. The French, on the other hand, had maintained their rural roots long into the twenty-first century and so were more able to cope with the upheavals after The Virus and fared much better. ‘Do you think there are any farmhouses like this in England?’ he said. Actually I had no idea and didn’t want to contradict him anyway. Madame was all for this, nodding as he spoke. I suppose he had a point.

The next morning I had to turn out at the chilly crack of dawn, don Wellingtons and follow him with my rifle and a box of ammunition to the old sandpit “firing range” in the woods. The grass was heavy with dew, and the birds were making a fearful racket. The whole forest was pregnant with spring. Monsieur was trying to teach me, or possibly show off, saying, ‘Look, that’s a boar’s spoor,’ and, ‘Here, look, a rabbit’s been scratching.’ So that’s how you pronounce “spoor”. I had seen the word written but had never heard it said before and had made a point of never saying it so as not to look ignorant. This led me to reflect on how absurd conventional English spelling was. I had read that if you saw something written in French you could pronounce it correctly—totally not the case with English. After walking for about ten minutes, we found ourselves standing on the edge of a steep bank leading down to a great sand-filled depression in the forest floor. We slithered down onto the sand and took up position in front of the bank. I didn’t intend to look silly again and tried my best with the rifle. He told me to stop trying to aim with my left eye and use the other one. Well, that was okay, and now I had the bolt lever on the convenient side, where it wasn’t liable to fly back in my face. I took it slowly and carefully, aiming at the target and trying to make each shot accurate. After a bit, I got the hang of it but was nowhere near as good as Anna. After using up half the cartridges in the box, my shoulder painful and my ears ringing, we had to pick up all the spent cartridge cases. Then it was back to the farmhouse for breakfast. Breakfast had never seemed so good.

While I was tucking in, Edward was prosing on about fieldcraft. It was lucky for me that my pursuers didn’t have night-vision equipment. Had I noticed how they showed up like beacons when I used my IR-capable communicator as a scanner? How I would need anti-IR boots and cloak to sneak into Paris unseen. How I had a lot to learn, etc., etc. He told me that he would take me hunting in daylight first then teach me night-time fieldcraft, because otherwise I wouldn’t stand a chance. But the first thing was to do some hiking with proper gear and get me “toughened up”. I nodded and smiled encouragingly at proper intervals, trying to show enthusiasm but inwardly wondering if this wasn’t all a bit over the top.
The first thing after breakfast was to find me some “proper boots”. We went down to the armoury and he produced a pair of high-tech boots that were the right size, telling me that my feet had to get used to them and the boots had to get used to my feet. It did sound a bit painful. According to him, the boots were the most important things you wore, and they had to be anti-IR. The boots were rather smart, like up-market wellies crossed with après-ski boots, reaching to just below by knee, “like the old German dice-shaker jackboots”, as he put it. Then it was a warm shirt and thorn-proof camouflage dungarees, a thick grey-green jersey and a long, hooded cape to wear over everything else. ‘Nobody is going to pick you up on infrared when you’re wearing this.’

I thanked him for providing me with all this equipment and asked him if it was expensive. ‘Bloody expensive, and you’re going to pay for it all when you get rich. I’m keeping a note of everything.’ Thoughtful chap, and confident!

Back outside, dressed in the latest prepper fashion, it was off for a “route march” to his mate Geoffrey’s farm “fifteen kilometres away”.
This time his dog came too. Soon we were walking down the path through the woods to the valley again. My boots were comfortable, my jersey and cape in my pack, my heavy rifle on my shoulder.
The woods had changed, the leaves on the trees were just showing their fresh green and the forest floor was carpeted with bluebells, like a blue mist over the ground: charming. The track was hard gravel and easy to walk on. After a bit, striding along after Monsieur with his dog questing about, I started to feel elated. I began to imagine myself one of the German soldiers invading France, the thoughtfully-provided trees providing shade along the dusty roads. Chin up, purposeful, remorseless, eyes flashing, filled with bravery, selflessness, resilience, loyalty and education—"swift as greyhounds, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel”—understander of the Siegfried motif, singing Heili Heilo. Here I come. It must have been the jackboots that I was wearing.

Monsieur was giving me a funny look. ‘What the fuck are you daydreaming about, idiot? Stamping along and staring at the treetops… This will never do; you need to be alert and on the lookout.’ I came back down to earth: a hard landing. What the hell was I thinking?

Maybe I had better explain. There is one thing that has spoilt my enjoyment of life, from as long as I remember. I can’t seem to be spontaneous about anything. I’m always seeing myself doing things as an onlooker. I’ve a sneaking respect and grudging envy for really stupid people. They seem to live their lives in a totally direct way, streetwise, totally unmindful-of-being, as Heidegger might have put it. I don't operate that way. Here’s an example. Have you ever read the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain? Basically, Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn help a black slave named Jim to escape by fleeing down the Mississippi River on a raft. They have many scrapes and adventures and in the end get caught. Finally, Tom confesses that Jim’s owner, ol' Miss Watson, had freed Jim in her will when she’d died two months prior. So, Huck went through everything believing that Jim was really a runaway slave, and Tom knew all the time that he wasn’t, play acting the whole time. It’s surprising that Huck didn’t punch Tom in the nose when he found out. But then again, it wasn’t Tom’s fault that he couldn’t be spontaneous. Maybe most people go through their whole lives pretending to be someone that they aren’t—sanctimonious prigs—often without even admitting it to themselves. I think of this as having three levels: First Degree (non-self-aware), Second Degree (uncomfortably self-aware) and Third Degree (careless of being self-aware). I’m hoping to achieve the Third Degree. After all, can anyone really ever be non-spontaneous? I’ve found a lot of solace (and distress) by reading about all this in books on Zen Buddhism, which, as far as I can understand it, is about this very problem. This is what I read in the book The Way of Zen by Alan Watts:

In both life and art the cultures of the Far East appreciate nothing more highly than spontaneity or naturalness “zìrán” (自然). This is the unmistakable tone of sincerity marking the action which is not studied and contrived. For a man rings like a cracked bell when he thinks and acts with a split mind—one part standing aside to interfere with the other, to control, to condemn, or to admire. But the mind, or the true nature, of man cannot actually be split. According to a Zenrim poem it’s

Like a sword that cuts, but cannot cut itself;
Like an eye that sees, but cannot see itself.

The illusion of the split comes from the mind’s attempt to be both itself and its idea of itself, from the fatal confusion of fact with symbol. To make an end of the illusion, the mind must stop trying to act upon itself, upon its stream of experiences, from the standpoint of the idea of itself which we call the ego. This is expressed in another Zenrim poem as

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, 
Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.

And, 

You cannot get it by taking thought;
You cannot seek it by not taking thought.

Walking down the track in the wild, I felt embarrassed and started looking at everything around me, trying to walk on my toes to make as little noise as possible. Now I was the “the tooled-up fugitive sneaking through the woods”. Shit, I just can’t let go of it.

This led me to wonder if Anna would have the same problem. And whether she might be able to explain all this to me.
When we got to the end of the track, we didn’t go over the bridge this time but turned right, up the old road. We trudged along it a long way, past an old castle and on and on. When we reached the ruins of the little town of Chevreuse, we turned away from the stream and soon found ourselves in the woods again. After walking a lot further, we finally came to an old house in a vast clearing of flat muddy land that had been converted into a fortress. A moat had been dug all round it, and the entrance was over a plank bridge. Dogs started barking and a voice shouted at them to shut up. A man appeared in the inevitable wellies and dungarees. He was tall, thin and dark. He grinned and said, ‘I saw you coming; welcome to Beaurain Farm. Come and see the pigs!’ Then he added, speaking to Monsieur, ‘And who is our new soldier friend, Edward?’ I was introduced and we were ushered across the drawbridge into the farm courtyard. I remembered that, on the way, Monsieur had been excitedly telling me about how Geoffrey at Beaurain Farm specialised in raising pigs and produced the best saucisson, bacon, etc., that you could possibly eat. The first thing I noticed was the overpowering smell of pigs everywhere, but decided to pretend I didn’t mind.
The farmyard was bounded by low buildings on three sides and a muddy pond on the fourth. Two of the lines of buildings were sheds filled with pigs. 

There were pigs in pens everywhere: muddy pigs wandering about, pigs lying contemplatively in straw, pigs jostling each other for food, pigs watching us hopefully for food or possibly trying to establish a relationship. Geoffrey was going into technical details, waxing lyrical. Then he cried, ‘Watch this!’ and, with a theatrical gesture, started throwing the gates open for them. They flooded out, snuffling and barging us as they came. Geoffrey moved to a tactical position on the bridge, produced a whistle from his pocket and blew it. The pigs took notice, looked up and swivelled their ears. Then Geoffrey, Pied-Piper-like, took the lead, tootling on his whistle, and the whole herd followed him out onto the track, leaving the yard silent, desolate, filthy and smelly.

‘He won’t be back for ages; come in and have some lunch,’ said a voice behind us. There stood a pretty teenage girl in a muddy dress and wellies. So Monsieur and I followed her into the hall, boots and all. We were sat at a solid wooden table and the girl brought out all Geoffrey’s friends and relations to have a good look at us. There must have been more than a dozen of them, of all ages, from solemn staring toddlers to seasoned old grandparents. The girl introduced herself as Jemima and acted as their translator. ‘They want to know how things are going in town and if there are any prowlers about. —What’s the chance of selling our produce in town? —Is there any hope of me getting job in Deva?’ Mugs of fermented liquor were brought to us with the explanation that “it’s perry, made from the pears that fall from the giant ancient pear trees left over from the old days.” There were still a number of these old trees near Deva. It was good stuff and quite welcome after walking all that way. Then came rough sandwiches filled with excellent ham. Soon Edward and I were feeling quite mellow. Jemima came and sat next to me, anxious not to miss an opportunity to escape the mud and the pigs. She was attractive: short but shapely, wavy unkempt blond hair, blue eyes and an open smile. I got the impression she was trying to line herself up so I could look down the front of her dress, and she was obviously not wearing a bra. ‘I can bring a load of samples with me back to Deva; once they’ve tried our stuff there they’re sure to want more,’ she was saying, getting a bit close. Edward was starting to pick up on this, probably thinking that she might make a good mate for his son Hugo.

‘Have you met my son Hugo?’ he asked her. ‘He has some contacts in town and wants to sell more stuff there,’ at which point she shifted her focus to him and they started getting down to details. I just munched a juicy apple, somewhat regretfully. And so it was arranged that she would come back with us, and the friends and relations all seemed to approve. Geoffrey not being back yet and it being time for us to return, Jemima went to fill a pack with samples. Soon she was standing in the yard waiting for us, having put on a thick cardigan and shouldered a well-filled backpack.

Jemima made nothing of the walk back to Aigrefoin, but I soon felt very weary. A child of nature, at one point she told us to wait a bit, then hitched up her skirts and peed noisily in the middle of the track. Edward and I carried the image of her bottom and the awareness that she wasn’t wearing anything under her dress with us for quite a few kilometres.
When we reached the outskirts of Chevreuse, Edward’s dog started getting edgy, and Edward said, ‘Arm at the port, safety catch off and one up the spout. Steady now and get ready to take cover.’ And handed a sleek automatic pistol to Jemima, who cocked it to chamber a round without hesitation. I suddenly realised how vulnerable we were—with a hundred broken windows in overgrown buildings staring down at us—and no cover for us. The dog seemed to be showing interest in an empty house set off from the road by a driveway. Monsieur said, ‘Look,’ and pointed to the chimney: a wisp of smoke. There was something of a track leading to the door. Edward said, ‘Jim, try and sneak up and get a peek, we’ll stay here and cover you.’ They took cover behind the bushes and the ruined garden wall. There was nothing else I could do but creep up to the house, get to one of the windows and have a look in. With heart thumping, rifle gripped and ready for instant use, I inched towards the house. On reaching it and nothing happening, I crouched down under one of the windows and, rather cleverly I thought, gingerly raised my communicator to get a picture of what was inside. I took a look at the video: empty room. I moved on to the next window: heap of rubbish in the corner, fire in the grate and bingo! A closer look at the rubbish in the corner revealed a foot protruding: a person! I tiptoed back to Edward. and was told to get in the back and try to make contact; this was getting worse and worse. 

So it was back again to the house, trying to be even more stealthy and edge round to the back. The back door was shut. I tried the handle but it fell off. I gently pushed the door and it groaned open. I stopped and held my breath, listening. No sound. I slid past the door. Luckily the floor was silent tile, not creaky old wood, and I slinked forwards until I reached the room with the fireplace. There were two pairs of feet sticking out of the heap or rags, no guns in sight. I started to feel relief, then anger. I stepped forward and whipped the covers back and shouted, ‘Wakey, wakey!’ Two tousled, heads popped up, eyes wide with fear: a middle-aged couple. My anger subsided and I felt a sense of compassion and shame. ‘Er, sorry…it’s okay, just taking precautions,’ I said a bit too loudly. They pulled the covers back around them. I went to the window and shouted to Edward and Jemima to join me. After a bit they clumped in from the back. The two sleepers were just looking sulky now and not so scared. 
The man said, ‘What do you want from us? Can’t we rest here in peace?’ and the woman nodded her support.
Edward replied, ‘Sorry to bother you, but we all need to be careful. Where are you headed?’ 
‘We heard that there is work at Beaurain Farm not far from here.’ Jemima gave a wry smile. ‘We have nothing left and are ready to try anything.’ 
Jemima answered, ‘I’ve just come from there. Just tell them you’re good at pig slaughtering… Actually, ask for “Granny” and tell her,’ at which they perked up a bit. ‘Even if you’ve never done it before, you’ll soon pick it up. Anyway, it's a useful skill.’ 

While Jemima was telling them the finer points of pig slaughtering, Edward beckoned me over; we moved to the ruined kitchen and he said, ‘They don’t look dangerous, but we do have to be careful. Ruined towns are a death trap. There could be a sniper in any of the windows.’ I saw what he meant.
‘But why would anyone want to attack us?’
‘To steal what we’ve got, to rape Jemima, to defend their territory, even from fear alone, or just for kicks. There’s no law out here. We need to be going soon; the light is fading. Come on.’

So off we set again, on the last leg of our journey back, with me reflecting on how how protection is taken for granted until it’s removed. What would battery chickens do if they were turned out into the woods? What would the drones of Deva do if they were expelled to the outlands? 

The wretched couple in the tumbledown house were desperate to go as supplicants to Beaurain Farm, meanwhile Jemima was all for joining the community at Aigrefoin Farm, ready to find herself a man who would take her in. Even I had become a player in the great game, ready to face the powers of Deva to get my Anna back. And the thought of losing Anna came back to me again like a dark shadow and filled me with anger and determination, exhausted as I was.