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By Root 478 0

vehicles, giant container trucks; even some of the old‐fashioned taxis. The ones that were black cars. Ace could remember when London had been full of them. Some of the drivers in the passenger cars were using phones or watching television. Some had computers on, doing work ready for when they eventually reached their offices. But most just sat passively, their engines churning exhaust and their air conditioning carrying the fumes back in to them. Ace could hear a sound, swept back to her by the wind over the driver’s shoulder. The Sikh was laughing. He made a rude gesture at these sheep sitting in their cars, twisted his throttle and they roared away.

* * *

The taxis carried them down the old M2, bouncing over the ruts in the broken road surface. The air was clean and Ace was enjoying the cold sting of it on her face when the Doctor signalled, waving his arm in a slowing‐down signal to Ace’s driver. Ace found herself looking for a place where it would make sense to stop. They’d travelled for about ninety kilometres down the old ruined motorway heading due south. They were in the heart of Kent now, the green hills and afternoon sun a little unreal to Ace. She still felt vaguely disoriented by fragmented sleep and airline champagne. She saw the Doctor tap his driver on the shoulder and the driver hand‐signalled. They slowed and pulled over to an escape lane on the left and Ace’s driver followed. Up off the weed‐grown band of the motorway and along a slip road. Ahead of her Ace saw the red and yellow symbol of McDonald’s. The two bikes coasted into the parking lot and switched off.

The restaurant had been built as part of a complex intended to serve the motorway. It was adjacent to a service station and a modular hotel. These were all abandoned now. Ace was looking at the fuel pumps outside the service station, automatically wondering if there was any petrol left in the underground tanks and how difficult it would be to ignite. Perhaps someone had already made use of it. The sidewall of the McDonald’s had the distinctive scorch patterns Ace associated with Molotov cocktails. The restaurant had been closed down even before the motorway had died, the traffic siphoning off into the new routes south. Ace remembered the headlines in the tabloids about it at the time. An attack by Witchkids throwing petrol bombs. The tabloids were still big on the Witchkids and this had been their biggest atrocity to date. Details had been suppressed under the Official Secrets Act, but whatever had happened it was evidently enough of a disincentive to make McDonald’s abandon the franchise. Now the place looked strange, its brightly coloured plastic trim holding up well against the weather but most of the glass smashed and the interior of the restaurant burned out and gutted. The wall surfaces had been covered with spray‐painted hex signs.

The Doctor was paying the taxi drivers. Both of the men were Sikhs, their helmets especially adapted to accommodate their turbans, official Hackney carriage licences clamped to their handlebars. They stood beside their motorcycles, stretching their legs while the Doctor searched through a large old‐fashioned wallet. Ace crossed the parking lot, feeling pins and needles in her thighs, circulation returning after the long bike ride. She looked at the bombed‐out building and felt an impulse to go into the darkness and explore. There were dead leaves piled against the doors by the wind. She put her hand to the cool glass of the undamaged door. There was a decal above the handle which read Push.

‘Watch out for glass,’ called the Doctor, without looking around.

Inside there were ragged patches of sunlight on the floor, coming in through the holes in the ceiling. Dirty puddles of rainwater had collected in the seats of the plastic chairs attached to the small tables. From one corner of the roof came the crying of a small bird she couldn’t identify. A brittle food carton split and shattered under Ace’s foot. In the kitchen area beyond the service counter she could hear something dripping, steadily and endlessly.