The Extremes

  In instant response, all the other police emerged from their positions, raised their rifles and fired back at him. Dozens of bullets smashed through the glass, thudded into the brickwork, or whined into the room behind him. Dave easily dodged them all.

  He backed out of the room and ran to the window at the far end of the corridor. He could see the helicopter hovering, outlined against the snow-capped mountains in the distance.

  Mountains?

  An amplified voice suddenly burst around him.

  ‘We know you’re in there, Grove!’ shouted the voice. ‘Throw down your weapon or weapons, and come out with your hands up! Let the hostage go first! Lie on the ground face-down! Disarm your weapon or weapons! You can’t escape! We know you’re in there, Grove! Throw down your—’

  The name Grove momentarily disoriented him. Until then Hartland had been suspecting he was in the wrong scenario. Now, briefly, he wondered again what was going on.

  No time for thought! He hurried to the staircase, went down the steps two at a time and ran into the large room at the back of the house. This led through shattered french windows into a small yard protected by high walls. He dashed out, crossed the yard safely, and made it through a high wooden gate into an alley that ran along the back of the garden. He ran crouching along the alley until he reached a second gate. He vaulted over this and immediately took up a defensive position with the rifle, scanning from side to side.

  He was in another wide road, this time a broad divided highway leading up to the suspension bridge that crossed the river by the downtown business section. Cars were streaming past in both directions, their drivers and passengers unidentified shapes behind the sky-reflecting windows. There were dozens of pedestrians, some walking or standing alone, others together in groups or couples. No one had a face with discernible features. Tall skyscrapers, glinting with gold, silver and blue mirror-glass, stretched up endlessly into the sky in dizzying perspectives.

  Dave Hartland clicked on a new magazine, and opened fire.

  Soon he was surrounded by bodies and wrecked cars, so he set off at a run towards the suspension bridge. He came more quickly than he expected to the row of toll booths. As he approached, numerous armed police emerged from their shelter behind the booths and began firing at him.

  Dave threw himself to the ground while the police bullets cracked into the concrete road surface around him. He took aim and began picking off the cops one by one.

  The helicopter moved in overhead, and again there came an amplified voice, screeching down at him from above:

  ‘We know you’re in there, Grove! Throw down your weapon or weapons, and come out with your hands up! Let the hostage—’

  Dave rolled on his back, took aim, and pumped a dozen bullets into the belly of the helicopter. There was a mighty explosion. Shattered glass, engine housing and rotor blades flew in all directions.

  He returned his attention to the police by the toll booths. Five of them were still alive, and continuing to fire at him.

  He stood up, held his rifle by his hip, and walked towards them. Bullets scorched the air past his face.

  The policemen did not move from their positions, but continued to fire an unending stream of bullets at him. Their faces were concealed by their silver helmets and mirrored sunglasses.

  One was different: this was a woman wearing police uniform. She had removed her helmet and shades to reveal her face. She was gorgeous, with long flowing tresses of black hair. She regarded Hartland with a surprised expression.

  He stood still, knowing that at this range the cops would not miss him. Moments later, the bullets struck him in the chest, throwing him backwards across the surface of the road. His last sight was of one of the tall suspension towers, coloured a glistening red, outlined against the frozen sky. An illuminated sign, strung between the girders, suddenly came to life.

  An animated pig with an idiotic grin tottered into view, and settled at the top of the screen with a scattering of muddy droplets. A scroll it was carrying in its mouth unfurled. It carried these words:

  World Copyright Stuck Pig Encounters

  Check Out Our Website

  For Our Catalog Call Toll Free 1-800-STUC-PIG

  Bullets continued to tear painfully into him.

  The silence that followed neither lasted an eternity nor felt like one, because Hartland was brain-dead and unable to measure elapsed time. A few moments after the technician registered that his ExEx session had ended she activated the door-release and light flooded into the cubicle where Dave Hartland’s body was lying.

  The technician’s name was Patricia Tarrant, and she was tall and intense-looking, with her brown hair stretched back tautly from her face. She coolly regarded the dead man lying there. He had thrown back both his arms—a not uncommon gesture amongst ExEx users. Patricia brought his arms down, then with some difficulty turned the man on his side. She brought forward the nano-syringe.

  She laid it horizontally along the base of his neck, seeking the tiny valve that connected to the nerve cluster next to the spinal column. She slipped the point of the syringe into the opening of the valve, then twisted the plastic integument to seal it. With the syringe in place, she felt under the tiny flap and located the microswitch. She was supposed to use a special tool for this, but she had carried out the operation so many times that she now usually used the simple pressure of her fingertip. She flicked the microswitch, reactivating Hartland’s life. He stirred immediately, grunting. One of his shoulder muscles twitched slightly and he drew a breath.

  ‘OK, take it easy, Mr Hartland,’ she muttered automatically, quietly. ‘You’ll be all right. Let me know if any of this hurts.’

  He lay still, but she knew by the movements of his eyes behind the lids that he was either conscious or fractionally below the threshold of consciousness. To be on the safe side she reached over to the console above the trolley and sent a signal through to the medical team, giving them a green alert. This advised them that a resuscitation was in progress, with no complications expected at this stage.

  With the life neurochip reactivated she extracted it into the syringe, then deftly transferred it to the phial placed beneath. Using the sensors she located the remaining nanochips and removed them from the valve with one steady suction of the syringe. When all the tiny modules had been removed, she took the phial to the ExEx cabinet.

  What then followed was fully automated. The chips were checked electronically to make sure they were the same ones that had been administered at the beginning of the session, then they were moved to the ultrasonic autoclave and cleansed of any fluids or cells brought from Hartland’s body. Each nanochip was then in turn deprogrammed, scanned, formatted and reprogrammed, and stored ready for the next use.

  The ExEx cabinet, totally sealed not only against atmospheric and other pollution but also against interference from the user, performed all these operations within four and three-tenths seconds, of which by far the longest was the ultrasonic cleansing.

  A total of six hundred and thirteen different neurochips had been injected into Hartland’s nervous system for his session inside the ExEx equipment, and six hundred and thirteen of them were recovered from him, cleansed and reprogrammed.

  After Patricia had completed her resuscitation work, she left the cubicle, leaving Dave Hartland to recover in his own time.

  Soon Hartland was sitting up on the edge of the bed, glancing around the bare interior of the cubicle, feeling tired and listless, but as he reoriented, and remembered what had happened inside the scenario, he began to feel aggrieved. After a quarter of an hour, Patricia returned and asked him if he was ready. When he confirmed he was she gave him the releases to sign.

  ‘I’m not prepared to sign anything, Pat,’ he said, and thrust the sheaf of forms back at her. ‘Not this time.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’ said Patricia, apparently unsurprised.

  ‘Yeah. It was no good. It wasn’t what I wanted.’

  ‘Can you at le
ast sign this one?’ Patricia turned over the first three pages to expose the last one. ‘You know what it is. It confirms I resuscitated you promptly and correctly.’

  ‘I don’t want to commit myself. I’m really pissed off with what happened.’

  She continued to hold the page towards him, and after a moment he took it from her. He read it through, and of course it was exactly what she had said it was.

  When he had signed it, she said, ‘Thanks. If you’ve got a complaint, you should see Mr Lacey. He’s the administrator in charge of software policy here.’

  ‘It’s a pile of crap, Pat.’

  ‘Which one was it?’

  ‘The Gerry Grove one.’

  ‘I was beginning to wonder if it might be. Quite a few people have complained about that.’

  ‘I’ve been on the waiting list for more than three months. All the hype there was about it. Of all the scenarios I’ve tried, it’s by far the most expensive—’

  ‘Please…it’s nothing to do with me. I know why you’re unhappy, but I only make sure the equipment works properly.’

  ‘All right, I’m sorry.’

  She left the cubicle briefly, and went to her own desk. She returned with another sheet of paper.

  ‘Look, fill out this form, and you can either leave it in reception, or if Mr Lacey’s available you can possibly see him straight away.’

  ‘What I want is a refund. I’m not going to pay all that money for—’

  ‘You can probably get a refund, but it has to be authorized by Mr Lacey. I’ve put on the reference number of the scenario. All you have to do is explain why you weren’t satisfied.’

  He stared at the sheet of paper, which was headed GunHo Corporation—Customer Services: Our contract of your guaranteed satisfaction.

  ‘All right. Thanks, Pat. I’m sorry to have a go at you.’

  ‘I don’t mind. But if you want your money back I’m the wrong person.’

  ‘OK. Sorry.’

  ‘How are you feeling? Ready to return to the real world?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Mr Lacey was not in the building that afternoon, so at the invitation of the young woman on the front desk Dave Hartland sat down in the reception area and filled out the complaint form. He crossed out the first few pre-printed responses: equipment failure, staff error or neglect, impolite staff, incorrect selection of scenario software, interruption by power failure, and so on, and concentrated on the part of the form headed OTHER?. This had a large space where the customer could describe the complaint in his​/​her own words. Dave wanted to do this. After some thought he wrote the following:

  This scenario was not set in Bulverton, because there are no mountains anywhere near Bulverton, there are no tall office buildings in Bulverton, traffic does not drive on the right, there is no suspension bridge, and no river either. The only reference to Gerry Grove is that his name is used.

  This was an American-style police siege, not a gunman prowling the streets in search of his victims, whom my brother was one of, and I wanted to know how he might have died. This did not tell me.

  I have been waiting several weeks to try the scenario, as advertised in the paper, and it costs a lot of money. I want a refund.

  He handed the form to the receptionist, who read it quickly.

  ‘I’ll see Mr Lacey receives this tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘They get many complaints about this one, and they’ve been talking about using a replacement. But there’s still demand for it.’

  ‘It’s no bloody good. It’s just a stupid game. My kids have that sort of thing on their console.’

  ‘That’s what people seem to want.’

  ‘It could be anywhere! It’s nothing to do with what happened here. Have you tried it?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ She slipped the paper into a drawer. ‘I don’t think there’s going to be a problem with a refund. Could you come back tomorrow afternoon, or call us?’

  ‘Yeah. OK.’

  He left, feeling disgruntled. Outside, in the cold evening, the wind was blowing sharply up from the sea. Dave Hartland turned up the collar on his coat and began the long walk down the hill towards his house on London Road.

  CHAPTER 6

  In the morning Teresa went in search of breakfast and found the hotel owner and the woman she’d spoken to in the bar apparently waiting for her in the tiny office by the downstairs corridor. The man stepped out to greet her as soon as she reached the bottom step.

  ‘Mrs Simons?’ he said. ‘Good morning. I’m sorry we didn’t meet properly last night. I’m Nicholas Surtees. Amy didn’t tell me we were expecting a guest until after you had checked in.’

  ‘She looked after me OK.’

  ‘Is the room satisfactory?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Teresa said, instantly suppressing the irritated and perverse thoughts she had had as she dressed. She was full of contradictions: she realized she had been expecting something British and eccentric, not the familiar modernity you found in business hotels anywhere in the world. At the same time, she liked having satellite TV with CNN, she liked the mini-bar, she was impressed with having fax facilities in the room, the bathroom was modern and beautifully equipped. She guessed that what she had really deep-down wanted was an antiquated broom closet with a bowl and a jug of cold water, a lumpy bed, and a bathroom two hundred yards down the corridor.

  ‘Would you like breakfast this morning?’

  ‘I guess.’

  He was indicating the room at the end of the corridor. She noticed that Amy was still standing behind him, watching and listening as this banal exchange took place. Teresa smiled politely, and walked past them both. She already felt uncomfortable. The great quietness that had descended on the building soon after she went to bed had convinced her she was the only guest in the place. It made her feel conspicuous, and she was already wishing she had paid a little more and found a larger, more impersonal hotel. Everything she did was going to be observed, remarked upon and perhaps questioned.

  What she wanted…Well, she didn’t know what she wanted here in Bulverton, except generally, and that general wish included a distinct need to be left alone. She wanted to keep a low profile, not look or act like whatever a typical American tourist looked like. Her dad would have been one of those, she guessed—Dad was the sort of American who went all around the world without leaving home. But she knew if she was going to be prominent there was nothing she could do about it. There was no point in coming to Bulverton at all unless she slept and lived in the centre of the town.

  The White Dragon was supposedly the best hotel in town. She had located it almost by accident: an evening of web browsing found her a list of hotels in the UK, and thence to those in East Sussex. The White Dragon was the only one listed for Bulverton, but was recommended. With some misgivings she had airmailed her booking the next day, but she was surprised and pleased when she received a faxed acknowledgement and receipt a couple of days later.

  The dining room was cold, although a large open log fire was burning. A side buffet table had been laid with a spread of cold breakfast foods: cereals, fruit, milk, juice. They seemed to be making an effort for her: if as she suspected she was the only guest, there was more food here than she could eat, and more choice than she wanted or needed. Just like the restaurants at home, dedicated to the cause of maintaining obesity in the American public.

  When she had taken a bowl of mixed citrus fruits, and some muesli, she chose a place by the window. There were six tables, and all of them had been laid for four people. Her table looked out on a main road where traffic ground by at a funereal pace. There were few pedestrians.

  Amy came through to take her main order.

  Then came a long wait, and solitude. She wished now she had gone out of the hotel first and bought a newspaper. She had assumed there would be a row of newspaper vending machines outside the building, but her discovery that there was not had discouraged her. Her inability to throw off American assumptions was adding to
her self-consciousness about being an intruder here. She hated being on her own. It was something she doubted she would ever get used to. Now there was just the Andy-less void, the silence, the permanent absence. Much of the night had passed in that void: the aching for him never went away, and in her jetlagged wakefulness she could think only of what she had lost. She had listened to the town around her in the darkness: the immense silence, the uncanny quiet, and from this her imaginings had spread out, making her envision the whole place as a focus of grief. She was not the only widow in Bulverton, but that didn’t help. Not at all.

  With no sign yet of the food arriving, Teresa left her table and walked back along the corridor to the office, where Nick Surtees was sitting at a PC.

  ‘Is there a newspaper I can buy?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll get it brought in to you. Which one would you like?’

  Momentary blankness, because it was the Washington Post she was used to at home and she hadn’t thought beyond that.

  ‘How about The Times?’ she said, that being the first one that came to mind.

  ‘All right. Would you like me to order it for you every day?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  When she returned to her table a silver pot of coffee had been put out for her, presumably by Amy, together with several triangular pieces of toast, steepled in a silver holder. She took one of them, still warm, and spread it with low-fat yellow stuff from a tiny sachet. She looked around for the jelly, then remembered again which country she was in. She spread the marmalade, and liked it so much she wanted to ask what brand it was and where she could buy some for herself.

  An hour later, bathed and dressed in warmer clothes, Teresa went downstairs and again sought Nick Surtees in his office. Although she had only recently woken she was tired again, and as she dressed she had felt the distracting mental fluttering of an incipient migraine. She had left her medication at home. She had thought the migraine attacks were a thing of the past, but she should have known better. Maybe the flight had brought this one on. She dreaded having to find a doctor here, and being given drugs she didn’t know.