Downtime - Marc Platt [60]
She turned and acknowledged the warmth of her students, signalling them to return to their work. When she finally got through the door to the Modem Room, her face dropped like a stone.
‘The Brigadier’s on the move...’ began Christopher, before he saw her agitation.
‘Daniel Hinton,’ she said firmly.
Christopher smiled sheepishly. ‘He “fell” from the building.’
Her hand went up to her face in shock. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a sudden movement through the glass. All the students in the Computer Room had looked up simultaneously.
‘What are you saying?’
He shrugged. ‘Just jumped. Right off the top walkway.
There was no sign of him below.’
Victoria was shaking, trying to keep her back to the students. ‘But no one could... Why didn’t you tell me? Poor Daniel. We must find him!’
Christopher’s head nodded to one side. His smile froze solid. let me explain again. He’s vanished. His program’s ringfenced. He can’t deprogram himself.’
His patronizing was as much as she could take. ‘Horrible modern terms.’ She had had enough.
‘I do have an appointment, but if you want me to deal with it for you... ?’ he said silkily.
She pursed her lips and squeezed her eyes shut to stop herself crying. She nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, find him please.’ It was playing right into his hands, but what choice did she have? ‘I have my own task. To prepare the way.’
To her annoyance, he didn’t even thinly disguise his scoffing. ‘Not found the Locus yet then?’
She tried hard to pull herself together. This, after all, should be a time of celebration. ‘Christopher, the Chancellor is coming home. It seems the time is now. I must find the Locus, before Daniel’s misguided hopes wreck everything we’ve worked for.’
When the alarms started sounding, Harrods had been picking through one of the bins at the back of the gallery buildings.
The things people threw away, especially what students chucked, were a source of constant satisfaction to him. He had furnished his garage entirely with discarded items. And very presentable it looked. The best pickings were always at the end of a semester, when all sorts of stuff got ditched. He’d got blankets and a pillow that way. Almost clean. Oddly though, the Chillys hadn’t taken a vacation over Easter – perhaps the government had banned holidays – but at least that meant there was more food about.
The Chillys normally ignored him, but he kept clear of them anyway. They’d only ever challenged him once. They’d held him against a wall and had gone through the pockets of his long military coat. He’d struggled and shouted, ‘Sir, sir, I’m a mature student, I am!’ But they’d soon let him go and he’d had no trouble since. Still, they were a netful of cold fish, the Chillys. Not natural.
When the alarms started up today, Harrods was balanced on the edge of a skip, fishing out some wire coat-hangers that might be useful sometime. He clambered down and was knocked sideways by two bloody Chillys, who hared past like a couple of dogs on the scent of something defenceless.
He set off after them, keeping to the bushes under the walkways, where no one ever came. He could follow people the length of the campus down there.
There were Chillys running in from all directions. All making for the far side of the maintenance block. He could see their yellow caps bobbing along the top sides of the walkways.
There was some sort of gathering going on. Then the alarm racket switched off. It went deathly quiet.
He heard a scuffle and looked up. One of the Chillys had jumped up onto the walkway parapet. He swayed there, glancing behind and then down at the forty-foot drop. He yelled something Harrods couldn’t hear – more of a scream of anger or fear – and launched himself into the air.
Harrods’s yell dried into a croak. Instead, he started to laugh and clap. The boy didn’t fall. He glided, his coat billowing around him, his arms outstretched like a bird of prey. He hovered in the