Misspent Youth

  “He’ll be too busy with the flight testing,” Tim said. “This is the third time he’s rebuilt the orbiter stage. He’s got to make it work now.”

  “Well, I’m definitely going,” Simon said. “It’ll be a massive turnout. They say anyone who’s ever wanted a withdrawal referendum will be supporting one way or another.”

  “I’ll be there,” Tim said. For the last couple of months the Separatist sites had been highlighting the London summit—some big event planned by Brussels on how to best control the introduction of new technology into society. Technocrats denying a democratic debate. “How about you?”

  “I want to,” Colin said.

  “Won’t your mum let you go?” Simon sneered.

  “It’s not like that. We’re going on holiday. I might not be here.”

  “That’s okay,” Tim said quickly. “If you are, you can come with us.”

  “Thanks,” Colin said gratefully.

  “So how did Saturday go for you?” Simon asked.

  If there was a note of laughter in his voice, Tim couldn’t detect it, and he always listened for it with Simon.

  “Bloody amazing, actually. Sex and drugs and rock and roll maxout the whole time.”

  “Yeah?” Colin was keen for detail. “What happened after you guys split?”

  “I don’t know how many clubs we hit,” Tim said. Although they’d gone out a lot, Annabelle was never around much at the weekends; she was always busy with coursework and visiting her cousins up in Yorkshire. “To give me a break from Dad,” she’d explained. So Saturday night had been essentially their first proper date. To mark it he wanted to do something different than cruising around Stamford, so he and Annabelle had joined Colin and Danielle and taken the train over to Peterborough. They’d stayed together for a drink at a pub, then split up.

  It had been a lot more than amazing for Tim; it was greater than any first date the universe had ever known. For a start Annabelle had worn a short tight top and even shorter shorts. She’d looked staggeringly sexy, so much so she was frightening. When she’d opened the door and he saw her for the first time that night, he’d almost reverted to his wretched old self, intimidated and tongue-tied. It was simply impossible for him to have a girlfriend so magnificent. But there she was, dressed in the most in-your-face come-on clothes he’d ever seen.

  After the pub they’d hit club after club, seeking out different music each time. It was as though Annabelle was determined to sample every era that had ever produced its own sound, from Mersey beat to acid thrash right up to post10 macromixing. Tim was sucking down intube doses all evening, a neat little synth8 that pushed his usual pathetic self out of sight. With the music ripping into his ears and the alien molecules singing in his blood he could dance properly. Out on the floor he was king of the beat, he had the moves, he had the energy, he took the rhythm and made it his own. They drank liters of water from bottles held high above their heads, laughing as it splashed over them. A tight perfect unit of movement in the middle of a hundred seething bodies.

  It was past three in the morning when they walked through the sodium glare of the city center streets back to the station and caught the train to Uppingham, arm in arm, leaning happily against each other the whole way. Every word he whispered to her was pure poetry. The looks she gave him in return were those of complete adoration.

  Uppingham’s ancient winding streets were devoid of life in the gray nonlight before dawn. And somehow on the way back to her house they’d melted into the thick shadows behind an ancient oak tree. The kiss had gone on and on, while his hands slowly and sensually moved up to caress her breasts. As she groaned in delight Annabelle had snaked her own hands into his trousers, and Tim cried out in ecstasy. They were one. It was heaven.

  “So did you get to shag her?” Simon asked.

  “Even if I did,” Tim said, “hell would have to freeze over before I told you.”

  “You didn’t,” Simon declared. “Christ, Tim, you ought to be by now. It’s been weeks since you started dating. I’ve only been going out with Rachel for a fortnight, and we spent all of Saturday night in bed together. Jesus, she’s hot. I lost count of how many positions we tried.”

  The boys turned to look at Rachel, who was toweling herself off at the side of the pool. Tim held back the comment that’d popped into his head. Simon and his bullshit bragging and his needle comments truly didn’t bother him anymore, not after Saturday. The world was too perfect for that now.

  “No shit,” Colin said glumly.

  For once Tim had the experience of pitying someone else when it came to girls. He was the winner now, at the center of the inner circle looking out at the envious. It felt superb. “I did spend the night at Annabelle’s house,” he said modestly.

  “Yes?” Simon tried not to show how eager he was for information.

  “Nothing like that. My e-trike was parked there, and it was past four o’clock in the morning when we got in. But get this.” He leaned in toward them. “Her father was still up.”

  “What?” Colin was disbelieving. “You mean, like, waiting for his daughter to get home?”

  “No. Nothing like that. He didn’t even notice when we finally rolled up. He was watching the entertainment feed, some New Zealand drama soap or something.”

  “At four o’clock in the morning!”

  “Yeah! I’m not kidding. He was completely wasted.”

  Simon dropped his voice, contributing to the prosecution case. “He’s been like that for years, Annabelle said. He was doing the freak routine when I was going out with her. Like he’d make toast and jam, then deep fry it for lunch.”

  “Deep fry it?” Colin yelped.

  “Yeah. Dead on.”

  “With jam?”

  “Yeah. He thinks it’s like supernormal. I reckon he’s got an old desktop synthesizer stashed in the house somewhere.”

  “The guy’s not had a job in years,” Tim said. “Annabelle told me. He used to be some kind of forensic accountant, which is like the top of the profession. He was on the team investigating one of the Italian sea solar plants they built outside Venice lagoon, and it all got political with the Mafia involved and everything. Brussels crashed the report.”

  “Unserious?”

  “Dead on. He just spends the whole time in front of the screen now.”

  “That’s why Annabelle’s the way she is,” Simon said wisely. He gave Tim a friendly smile.

  Tim could relate to that, though the way Simon said it typically made it sound almost insulting. It was the simplicity of Newton’s law; for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Kids with seriously dippy parents were often the stable type, while kids from perfectly normal homes frequently went wild. Happened at school all the time. I wonder where I fit into that?

  ANNABELLE SQUEEZED the last drops of water from her hair and rubbed the damp strands vigorously with her towel. There was always an endless supply of towels in the manor’s changing rooms. It was one weird thing about the place that she’d gotten used to very quickly. Actually, the whole way in which the Bakers lived was easy to get used to. Little things like the towels, and the butter pats. Only the seriously rich had a housekeeper who would cut up their butter with nice crinkly edges before arranging it neatly on a silver dish. For every meal, including snacks.

  “So spill it for Saturday then,” Sophie said. She was standing at Annabelle’s shoulder, her eyes alight with playful anticipation. Annabelle was very aware of the proximity. It was something she had noticed a lot since that night at the Langleys’ house.

  THERE WERE ONLY FIVE of the Chinese sticks left. Annabelle just knew they’d collapse as she pulled hers out. They did. Only her panties remained now.

  Simon was asleep and snoring on the floor. Annabelle hadn’t noticed before. She didn’t know how long he’d been like that.

  Derek sprawled opposite her in his shirt, shorts, and one sock. His expression was as rapt as some beast of prey as he stared at her. Louise simply lou
nged back in her bra and tight jeans, as languid and aloof as she’d been all night.

  “You lose,” Derek said.

  Annabelle didn’t hesitate; she wriggled out of her panties. It was exciting seeing his reaction, the craving in his eyes.

  He turned and spoke quietly to Louise. Annabelle couldn’t make out what was said. Her head was all warm and cloudy. Louise listened without comment, her gaze lingering on Annabelle’s naked body. Annabelle was surprised by how erotic she found the other girl’s scrutiny.

  “Enjoy yourself,” Louise told Derek; she picked up her blouse and sauntered out of the room.

  Derek took a quilt off the end of the bed, and carefully draped it over his comatose little brother. Then he stripped off the last of his clothes.

  Now, with Sophie right beside her all eager for details, Annabelle couldn’t help drawing the mild parallel. As she took her bikini halter off she could feel the blonde girl’s eyes on her. It was quite a thrill, the way people were attracted to her. “Nothing much to tell,” she said as she toweled herself down.

  “Nothing did happen, or nothing that you want us to know about?” Rachel shouted out challengingly. Danielle and Lorraine both started giggling. “I know I wouldn’t want too much of my Saturday evenings leaking out.”

  “But we all know about them already,” Sophie said. “You can’t get Simon to shut up about what the two of you do with each other.”

  Rachel just tossed her head and gave the rest of the changing room a superior grin. Annabelle experienced a brief flash of sympathy for the girl. When it came to bragging, Simon was in a class of his own.

  “So how about it?” Sophie persisted.

  “It was okay. Okay? A night out in Peterborough, that’s all.” She held the towel across herself as she fished through her pile of clothes for her bra.

  “Did you dance the night away?” Sophie inquired in a mock tease.

  “Go shrivel,” Annabelle told her. “We just toured the clubs, then came home.” Which was short on detail, but encapsulated the evening. It was a shame, really; she’d been looking forward to it for the whole week they’d spent planning, sending each other a hundred avtxts. Then, when the night came around it hadn’t lived up to her expectations. Not that there was much in the world that did right now. All that happened was a trudge around a few clubs, trying to find a DJ who played some decent tracks. Tim had gotten himself seriously stoned, which she didn’t much like. When he was that way he danced like someone was giving him electric shock treatment. He was too close and thudded into her the whole time. In turn, his condition made her dose up more than she normally would.

  They’d stumbled home together. Given the state of them, it was a small miracle they’d managed to find the right train. She didn’t really blame Tim. Her problem was how much she’d transferred onto him, thinking his name and money might make him special. Which was unreasonable of her, she knew. Tim wasn’t going to give her a route out of her crappy life, any more than Derek was. The only good thing about her age was the way she looked. There were times when she felt like a butterfly trapped by its dead pupa case looking up at the sky and longing to fly.

  “Sounds mediocre,” Sophie said. “So are you going to dump him?”

  Annabelle took her time pulling on her jeans before facing her friend. The other girls were all trying to appear casual as they waited for an answer. “No way. He is so much my boyfriend now.” Not that she was sure she wanted him, though it might turn out to be fun if he just learned to perk up a bit.

  THE CHECKUP at Peterborough University hospital had gone well. Jeff was shown into the gene therapy department, where a couple of Norwegian technicians took tiny samples of blood and tissue. He also participated in a few simple physical calibrations, jogging on a treadmill while his heart and lungs and muscles were monitored. The department’s equipment was linked to the Brussels university, where the rejuvenation team studied the results as they came through. He even spent a couple of mildly awkward minutes chatting with Dr. Sperber over a teleconference channel.

  Once he’d been given the all clear he drove his Merc EI8000 out of the city along the A47. Lieutenant Krober sat in the big car’s passenger seat, quiet and respectful as always. The rest of the Europol team followed in their dark BMW sedan.

  “I wanted to say thank you for easing off Tim at the weekend,” Jeff said. Tim had done a lot of pleading about his Saturday evening date, which put plenty of pressure on Jeff. Negotiating with the Europol officers about clubbing in Peterborough actually made him feel as if he was doing a proper job as a father.

  “It was good to avoid conflict with the boy,” Krober said.

  “I don’t think he saw any of the surveillance team,” Jeff said. “At least he never said so to me. And I’m sure he would.” As far as Tim was concerned, he’d been given the whole night off, free and clear from the bodyguards. The actual deal Jeff worked out was slightly different.

  “They are most adept at discretion; it is what they are trained for. Neither your son nor Ms. Goddard showed any awareness of our officers.”

  Krober couldn’t have been there himself, Jeff thought. The idea of the eternally formal German trying to blend into some Peterborough lowlife dive was ludicrous. A brief image of Arnold Schwarzenegger walking into Tech Noir played across Jeff’s mind.

  Though he hated the subterfuge, Jeff was quietly pleased about the arrangement. Judging by the way Tim had babbled on about the date after he got back on Sunday evening he’d had the time of his life. Yet with the Europol team there to watch over him he’d been perfectly safe the whole time. A perfect solution to the parent’s problem of how much slack to cut your kids.

  So far Jeff had resisted asking Krober for details, like did Tim actually smoke joints, or were he and Annabelle sleeping together. He thought he knew the answer to that one, even though Tim swore he’d just stayed over at her house. It made him obscurely proud that his son had a girlfriend that attractive.

  Jeff grinned as he turned off the A47 into Wansford. Now Dad was hoping for the same kind of lecherous encounter his son was getting.

  The cocktail bar in the Wharf Inn possessed the kind of aspirant grandeur that was the province of four-star hotels everywhere. Its hidden lighting was gold-tinged, deepening the hue of the somber wood paneling. A waiter in a striped waistcoat and snazzy bow tie looked up and smiled from behind the small rosewood counter, then went back to adjusting the multitude of exotic foreign bottles lining the mirrored shelving. Thick, fluffy, claret-red carpet absorbed the sound of every footfall as Jeff walked in. He had to wrinkle his nose up against a sneeze; the conditioned air was chilly and clinically lifeless.

  Nicole Marchant was waiting for him, sitting by herself at a table in the corner. With her locked-down hairstyle and Chanel business suit, the bar was her perfect milieu.

  “I wasn’t entirely sure if you’d make it,” she said as he sat down opposite her.

  “A no-show was not an option.”

  Her gaze slipped over to Krober and two other Europol officers who shuffled around a table on the other side of the bar. The carpet even managed to soak up their noise.

  “Are we going to have an audience?” she asked in an arch tone.

  “They know this is a private meeting.”

  “Our company keeps a suite on the first floor.”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  She stood up.

  Jeff followed her out into the lobby. He was sure it had never been this easy before.

  SUE BAKER WAS AN ONLY CHILD, and arrived late into her parents’ lives. Her mother was over forty-five when she was born, her father a great deal older. As such she was loved intensely, spoiled rotten, and guarded with extreme jealousy. While she was a child she considered such devotion to be wonderful, leading to a personality that the family’s politer friends called precocious. Only when she began moving through adolescence did problems with such attention-surplus really start to develop. In any other girl her particular brand of s
elf-centered egotism might have fired a standard teenage rebellion that eventually burned itself out, as is the way of such phases. Unfortunately for Sue, she was born beautiful. Standard was never going to be an option in her life.

  Her first fashion show booking was at age fourteen, to the head-shaking dismay of the Data Mail editorial (complete with hyperlinks to pictures of the event), which questioned the moral validity of such child labor exploitation on behalf of middle England. Money poured in as her career skyrocketed. There were no restraints anymore, no governors imposed on her behavior. She was dated by Europe’s aristocratic heirs and the sons of nouveau billionaires. Her life was parties, photo shoots, holidays, runways, parties, tabloid-fêted romances, global travel, public appearances, parties, her own calendar, weekends on yachts in Monaco harbor, and still more parties. Even her father’s death when she was fifteen didn’t deter her; if anything, she partied harder to forget the pain. It was a life that could never last. At most, beauty is ephemeral.

  Not that Sue had to worry about longevity. The day after her sixteenth birthday party her agency checked her into a private Swiss detox and rehab clinic. That was the first of four such sessions in the next three years, to the horror of her heartbroken mother. Gorgeous she might have been, but there were always prettier, younger girls hot for their shot at the top. For the fashion industry, Sue had stopped being news and was now bad news. She didn’t even have money left to cushion her fall. Taxes, managers, agency fees, and her head-on lifestyle with its dangerously large drug habit had consumed that. Her mother had to cash in one of her small pension funds to pay the clinic’s final bill, which meant she could no longer afford to live in the cozy country cottage her husband had left her. The Data Mail wasn’t even interested in paying for an article on a fallen wild child. At nineteen and a half she was washed up. Her entire life had been lived and was now finished; she couldn’t imagine what to do next. Then she met Jeff Baker, and three weeks later they were married.