Corvus Read online

  Could her grandfather be right? Hard to imagine. But if there was the remotest chance . . . then she hoped Stella was warm enough at last.

  'Why are you doing this?' Laura had asked her. 'If you're arrested, you'll be tried under the new terrorism laws. They won't deport you, if that's what you're reckoning on.'

  'They've got to catch me first.' Stella had made a sound that took Laura a moment to recognise as a laugh. 'Don't you worry none about me, I'm mean and wily as a mountain cat.'

  'But why?' Laura had persisted, a trifle dangerously to judge by the yellowish gleam in the woman's eyes. But Stella rose to her feet, grunting at the stiffness in her hips, and stood over Laura. With her fingertips—and with the privilege of age, or perhaps indomitability—Stella lifted Laura's chin to study her face. Laura was reminded of her mum applying paint stripper to an old wardrobe: a swimming costume was fully clothed, and then some, compared to this.

  'Kids,' Stella said at last with an exaggerated sigh. 'You're in love with him, yet you've got no earthly clue who he is, do you?' A short silence. 'Who he's going to be.' Another, longer, silence, in which Laura could hear an icy surf hurtling towards the shell of her ears. 'But maybe it's better that way.'

  Which was all Stella would say.

  *****

  Despite the late hour, Laura made a detour to the cast-iron footbridge over the canal, from which she posted her letter to Zach via the sluggish water.

  *****

  During the second set Laura was sipping tomato juice when the long-haired bloke who had been talking to Andy—his left leg still in a cast—detached himself, wended his way skilfully through the press of overdressed, overheated bodies, and stopped in front of her. Olivia would have already thrust out her chest at the approach of his arresting green eyes, diamond stud, feline grace. He looked as though he'd just stepped out of a cool shower. He looked as though he expected she was picturing him dripping wet, reaching for a crisp white towel.

  'Dance?' he asked.

  'Sorry, I'm waiting for my boyfriend. He'll be back in a second.'

  The man took her elbow. Laura stepped back, trying to pull free without making a scene, and bumped into someone nearby, sloshing some of her juice onto her cream-coloured top.

  'Damn it, let go of me,' she hissed. 'Look what you've made me do.'

  His eyes danced. 'No problem. Come back to my office, I've got a couple of spare shirts in the cupboard.'

  'You're mad if you think I'm going anywhere with you!'

  'Is that so?' He seemed entirely unperturbed. 'We ought to leave straightaway. Randall's going to make a few remarks that I can't miss, and you shouldn't.' At her glare, he added, 'The CEO.'

  'I know who Randall is.' Again she tried to tug her arm away. 'I'm warning you one last time, I'll scream if you don't—'

  The man smiled a lazy smile and bent his head to hers, whispering conspiratorially. 'Scream away, though I doubt Zach will be able to hear you.' His breath smelled fresh, as if he neither drank nor smoked, fruity without a cloying overlay of mint. 'The acoustics are far better in my office.'

  As the import of his last remark sunk in, Laura went still. The man released his grip and held out his hand for her glass. Wordlessly, she followed him out of the overcrowded room with her heart pounding to match the drums.

  Inside the lift the man fiddled with his wrister. 'There, that should do it.'

  'Do what?'

  'Sorry about the shirt.'

  'Is this some sort of party entertainment? You know, a treasure hunt or maybe charades?'

  He leaned back against the brushed stainless steel wall, crossed his arms, and smiled in appreciation. 'My name's Fabio.'

  'OK, Fabio, tell me what's going on.'

  'I'll see that it gets dry-cleaned.'

  'Will you stop pissing on about my damned shirt?' His grin broadened, but there was nothing mocking nor remotely unkind about it. Provocative, though—and one of his eyebrows lifted like a question mark. Laura wanted to thump herself for being so dim. 'You've planned it all along, haven't you?' she demanded, plucking at the damp red stain.

  'I knew Zach would never chose a witless girl.'

  With a small dip of approval the lift came to a halt and opened its door at the seventeenth floor. Fabio directed her to the left along a carpeted corridor, on through a glass-domed atrium filled with tropical plants and a large toucan-inhabited birdcage, then along another corridor where after a short distance they halted by a security door. During the voice and retina routine, Laura studied the long but narrow canvas—exceptionally long, a mural-like five metres—mounted on the textured concrete wall opposite. Painted only in black, white, and shades of grey, it showed a stunning if brutal array of street scenes which flowed seamlessly into one another like a dreamscape—a bad dream, including the decapitation of a naked baby by a machete. The painting was worked in fine detail, yet only the animals could be seen in their entirety; men and women, children too, were placed so that either their lower limbs or their heads and upper bodies were truncated by the borders of the canvas.

  Laura looked up to find Fabio's eyes on her, those eyes which despite being obviously sapiens reminded her of Zach's.

  'Do you like it?' he asked softly.

  'No . . . yes . . .' She shook her head. 'I don't know, it's the sort of art that gives you nightmares.'

  'It's supposed to.'

  'Probably it's only my imagination, but somehow it's like a photograph Zach has in his flat, though I don't know why, the subject's completely different, the setting . . .' Her voice trailed off, she felt stupid again.

  'A naked child at the seashore? Eating from a bowl?'

  'You know it?'

  'My brother's work.' He indicated the painting. 'You've got a good eye, that's his as well.'

  'He's very gifted. What other kinds of stuff does he do?'

  'He doesn't.'

  From the way Fabio spoke, Laura knew it was a painful subject. After a hesitation she asked, 'Has he stopped painting?'

  'He's dead.'

  He held the door open for her; the subject was closed.

  Laura found herself in a reception area which, though not large, would not have disgraced Randall himself—minimal clutter, burnished woods, soft lighting. At first she was riveted by another oversized canvas on the far wall, this one drenched in rainforest colours and hung so that every eye must automatically fall on it, but then an inner door opened, and before she had time to distinguish the subject matter of the painting from its chromatic overload, fluid and vivid as a hallucination, vivid and fluid and synesthetic, it all fell away.

  Zach stood in the doorway.

  Though half expecting him—and totally passionately blindly hoping for him—she couldn't even manage his name. She stumbled towards him.

  And was stunned when he sidestepped her and moved to one of the windows.

  'I'll leave the two of you alone for a few minutes,' Fabio said.

  'I prefer that you stay,' Zach said.

  Laura could feel the blood drain from her head, but before she had time to realise how pale she must have become, how unsteady, Fabio was at her side—Fabio, not Zach.

  I will not cry. I will not.

  Fabio led her to a chair, while Zach flicked back one of the panels of the blinds to gaze out the window, his back to the room. It was dark out, what could possibly be of such interest? For a moment Laura wondered if she'd fallen into one of the paintings, so unreal did everything seem. But the glass of water that Fabio held out to her was beaded with condensation, and cool in her hand. She hung on to it, afraid that it would slip from her fingers.

  'You've been looking for me.' Releasing the blind, Zach turned to address her for the first time.

  'Stella—' If he knew, wouldn't he say so straight off? 'I mean, I've been worried.'

  'There's no need.'

  Laura stared at the burn on his cheek, still an angry red, while searching for something else to say. Something that wasn't as lame as, 'It hasn't heale
d yet.' Which, for a short sentence, ended up sounding unaccountably like babbling.

  Zach shrugged.

  When the silence became uncomfortable, Fabio prompted Zach. 'You asked to speak with her.'

  Laura took a sip from her glass and wondered if they could hear her swallow. Her teeth had rattled against the rim.

  Zach came across the room to stand over her. 'I don't want you to come looking for me any longer.' His voice was level, and only someone who knew him very well would realise why he'd crossed his arms.

  'It's OK, you're here now.'

  'That's not what I mean.'

  'Then explain.'

  'It's over. We're not going to see each other again.'

  Light-headed be damned. Laura got to her feet, mindful however to rest the fingertips of one hand on her chair. 'Will you at least tell me why?'

  'Relationships end.'

  Laura glanced towards Fabio, who was studying his brother's painting as though for the first time.

  'Is it because of what happened at the cottage?' Laura asked softly.

  Zach couldn't conceal his shiver. A film like a polar bear's nictitating membrane slid across his eyes to protect sensitive tissue from a blinding glare. Laura had never seen them so tenebrous.

  She spoke to Fabio, 'Please, will you go now?'

  'No!' Zach said, then turned on his heel and strode towards the open doorway beyond which, Laura supposed, lay Fabio's private office.

  'Zach,' she called, her hand tightening on the water glass. When he stopped and looked back over his shoulder, she asked, 'What about Max?'

  Zach said nothing.

  'Who's put you up to this? Fulgur? My parents? Who, Zach?'

  'No one. Can't you accept that things change?'

  'When they do.'

  'For Christ's sake,' he said, facing her now, 'I'd have preferred not to hurt your feelings, but you lot always need to have everything spelled out. OK, here it is then: you bore me. It's fun for a while, usually a very short while, but then it's only tedious. And you've lasted longer than most. Maybe if you read a bit more . . . but I doubt it. Have you got any idea how stupid you monkeys really are?'

  He swung round and headed for Fabio's office.

  'Look, Laura—' Fabio began, but at that moment the water glass struck the back of Zach's head, then fell to the floor without breaking as Zach choked off a squawk, staggered, and put a hand to his scalp, then sagged against the doorjamb.

  'Real stupid, that's me,' Laura threw at his soaked back, her cheeks suffused. 'Stupid enough to care. Stupid enough to think we could be different. And stupid enough'—her voice wavered, and she snatched a breath—'stupid enough never to have become bored with you.'

  Fabio caught up with her at the security door, which she was futilely trying to open. He made an adjustment to his wrister, flipped the shirt he was carrying over a shoulder, and touched her arm.

  'Are you OK?' he asked.

  'Perfect, thank you. Please release the door.'

  'I wish you hadn't done that.'

  'He deserved it.'

  'Not that.' He indicated his wrister. 'I'm going to change the settings in a moment, then I'm going to kiss you. It's fine if you want to struggle a bit, but give in after a while. Make it look good. Do you understand?'

  'What?'

  'Don't waste time. Shut up and do exactly as I say.'

  Though there was little dissemblance in her struggling, neither was the subsequent encounter entirely feigned. By the time he'd pulled her into a nearby storeroom, bolted the door, and played yet again with the device on his wrist, Laura had caught her breath.

  'What comes next?' she asked.

  'Don't tempt me. Zach's got very good taste.' He flicked back his hair and grinned, and just for a moment Laura wondered why everything always had to be so complicated. Then she looked away, afraid that he'd be able to read her face.

  'Here.' He shook out his shirt. 'Put it on. And don't spill juice on it downstairs, it's pure silk and damned costly.'

  She seized it from his hands, then met his eyes and began to giggle.

  'That's better,' he said. 'Feeling sexy is nothing to be ashamed of, even when you're in love. He's been gone for a while.'

  'Please tell me what's going on,' she said, clutching the shirt to her chest.

  'I'll look after him.'

  'That's no answer!'

  Fabio was quiet for a time. Then he tapped his wrist. 'Do you know how many of these there are in the world?'

  'What is it? I've seen how often you fiddle with it.'

  'A few people would recognise it as a matilda, but they'd be wrong. There are no more than three on the entire planet.'

  Planet?

  'Who are you?' Laura whispered.

  'Think of me as Zach's guardian, at least for now.'

  'Guardian as in jailer.'

  'Laura, we need augmented cognition. Look at the mess we're in—one crisis after another. Gaia is strangling, with sapiens at the limit of their ability to analyse and comprehend the data our computers already generate. The only possible direction is a biological interface. Or cede the planet to the machines and the insects.'

  'They talk about moving out into space.'

  'Even more reason to blast through human limits.'

  'There are enough simus. Pick someone else.'

  'No one else is like him, though he doesn't quite know it yet. Doesn't want to know it.'

  'He's that smart?'

  'If it were only about intelligence, there'd be plenty of candidates. Zach's unique—and a born leader.'

  Laura snorted. 'Zach? A leader?' Recollections like the recursive patterns of a kaleidoscope—Zach with the ambulance driver, with Owen, with his simu mates, Zach holding an audience in thrall, at school . . . born leader—patterns flowing to an improbable symmetry, elegant and dismaying. 'All he wants is to live some kind of quiet life, with his books and his music. And with—' She swallowed, completing the thought in her head. How naïve she'd been, how stupid. She could see Olivia's knowing smirk.

  'You're old enough to have realised that very few of us get to live the lives we dream about.'

  'So we live the nightmares instead?'

  From a stack of paper on a shelf Fabio took a sheet—a pale, slightly felty grey—folded it to make a square, scored the crease sharply with a thumbnail, and tore off the rectangular strip, then turned his back to Laura so that she could change her shirt. The cool silk draped her torso like an indecent suggestion; immediately she wanted to fumble with the buttons again, drag it off, tell him she preferred tomato juice to champagne, cotton to the silky strands tightening round Zach.

  'I won't let you destroy him,' she said. 'However noble your so-called ideals.'

  Fabio didn't laugh; didn't ask how she, a powerless seventeen-year-old, intended to stop him or Fulgur or whoever else was slavering for their piece of Zach; didn't in fact remind her of Zach's injunction. Instead, he handed her a deftly folded origami bird, which she stared at in consternation.

  'Trust him. Trust in him. They won't break him.'

  'They nearly have!'

  'There are already whispers. Corvus, they call him.'

  'The simus are hated.'

  'By some, but there are those—'

  'By many,' Laura insisted, tears of rage—tears Stella wouldn't have wanted—threatening at last.

  'And many are ready for—long for—a change. The numbers will grow. Wait and see.'

  Angrily Laura screwed up the piece of paper and bounced it off the corner wastebasket. 'You're just using him.'

  'Yes, I am, but honestly. And he'll thank me for it later, when he's grown into his skin. Zach is too restless, too driven, too visionary to be satisfied with a quiet life.'

  Laura went to retrieve the crumpled bird. Crouching beside the bin, she flattened the paper over her knee, smoothed its creases with the flat of her hand; blinking hard, smoothed her features. But Fabio came and touched her shoulder with a gentle hand.

  'I'
m sorry,' he said. 'Don't think I'm not.'

  She rose and tucked the paper into her trouser pocket. Then, not quite on impulse, though later on she'd curse his damned sympathy, she told him about the Rex. About the bodies: if he thought her prone to hallucinations, she might never see Zach again.

  *****

  In his office Fabio found Zach at the window, staring into the cheerless winter night.

  'Has she hurt you?' Fabio asked.

  When Zach didn't answer, Fabio crossed the room to stand near his desk, but no closer.

  'Zach, I need to go down to the party. Randall will be speaking in a few minutes.'

  'Go then,' Zach said without turning.

  'Are you sure you're OK?'

  Zach rounded on him, the glass Laura had thrown in his hand. That he concealed nothing was statement enough. There was pride, and contempt too, in this open display of tears.

  'Zach—'

  'Get out.'

  'I'm sorry. You know—'

  'Get out!' Without further preamble Zach swung for the framed black-and-white photograph on the wall, a companion to his own. Glass—drinking and photo—shattered upon impact, spraying the room. 'Unless you want to join your brother . . .'

  *****

  'Hey, Laura, what're you doing out here by the pissroom?' Tim asked, still tucking himself in. 'Owen's been looking everywhere for you.'

  'Me? What about you? I thought you couldn't stand this place.' She matched his leer while scratching himself with the only look he'd understand. 'Not enough simus.' Even when sober he was impervious to irony.

  'Sh, not so loud.' He glanced round, but nobody was loitering nearby. 'The music's crap but being here was part of the deal. At least the food's rad.'