‘Good morning,’ she said in a singsong voice.
‘Um, yes, morning.’
‘Looks like you slept well after a fine dinner.’ She waved her other hand toward the fire and the pile of vegetables next to his rucksack — vegetables Jack had stolen from her field.
‘I’m sorry, I was very hungry. I had travelled far and… ’
Smiling, Vicky interrupted him, ‘It’s OK. Don’t worry, not a problem, we’re happy to help.’
‘How did you know I was here?’
‘At night, the fire in here makes a bright light. You can see it from our veranda.’
Jack felt stupid. He was a fugitive on the run, and at the first opportunity, he had managed to give away his location. ‘Why didn’t you come for me last night?’
Vicky’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. ‘This barn is often used by travellers. It’s them who made the fireplace you used.
‘Like I said, we’re happy for people to use this place to shelter. They don’t usually take our vegetables without asking, but I’m sure your theft will be on the video feed at Kangaroo this Sunday.’
Jack looked at her. He was not sure if she had made a straightforward statement, or if he needed to interpret hidden commentary. He chose to assume the best scenario, that she had come to visit a stranger on their land, rather than catch the most wanted man in England. ‘I doubt it. You know the audiopt feeds are down.’
‘Oh yes, course they are.’
Jack nodded. ‘No armulet connections means no audiopt feeds – if the servers aren’t communicating, any of your brain’s signals that the masts might pick up won’t be recorded. You can say or do what you like and nobody will know.’
‘And you decided that would be a good moment to steal some vegetables.’ Vicky’s tone was light and teasing; she smiled slightly and watched his face.
‘I don’t want to steal things. I will pay you for them. But it’s an interesting idea though, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’
‘That we are not being monitored at the moment.’
Vicky looked at the metal wall above his head and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Does it make any difference?’
Jack glowered. ‘Of course it does. We’re free. Nobody is watching everything we see and hear. Our actions are our own, without the cowering influence of the sifters always watching us.’
She reiterated the shrug, somewhat less exaggerated, and said, ‘I can’t say that I particularly care about people watching what I do. I’m happy with my actions, so let them watch. I reckon it’d just be boring for them. Anyway, you’re a sifter.’
He tried to breathe, but struggled. He had given away his hiding place by lighting a beacon fire to the authorities, and the first person who had come to find him knew the full story. ‘How do you know that?’ he finally croaked.
‘Jack, we were friends for ten years, and you haven’t changed a bit. I haven’t forgotten you. On your last day here, we spent the afternoon together. Surely you haven’t forgotten? I’m Vicky Truva.’
His heart’s pounding settled down slightly. After a moment spent regrouping his thoughts, trying to estimate how much she did or did not know of his crimes against society, Jack responded. ‘Sorry, of course I haven’t forgotten. I just didn’t think you had recognised me.’ He blushed. ‘That was a really good afternoon we spent by the lake.’ He attempted to smile at her, but it was weak. He looked more like he had an itch on his cheek and was trying to shoo it away without scratching.
Vicky smiled, and it was quite the opposite of Jack’s effort — a twinkling grin; she seemed to have internal illumination. ‘It sounds like you don’t like your job?’
He coughed and inhaled a huge breath as if he had just surfaced after too long underwater. Jack had slept in his clothes and spent a moment spreading his hands along his trouser legs. ‘It’s more than just my job; there is something rotten in our society.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘The way we live, it’s unnatural. Being watched all the time. This is not how humans evolved. We’ve only had the technology for fifty years, but we’ve had human societies for thousands of years without any audiopts. This cannot be the right way to govern our society.’
‘I’m not sure that “govern” is exactly the right word.’
They looked at each other for a few moments. Jack shrugged and climbed down from his high horse, deciding it was better to avoid a contentious discussion. Their friendship had been years ago, and she might not be willing to hide him on the strength of it. ‘Maybe you’re right. Let’s talk about simpler things. How have you been? Are you married? Children?’
Vicky gave a small smile and answered with a drawn out tone, ‘Nooo, no husband or children. My brothers keep trying to encourage me to find a man to carry on the family line. Did you know they’re both gay? That means that it’s down to me to have kids if the Truva family here isn’t going to die out.’
Truvan and Bailey Truva, Vicky’s brothers, were twins and the same age as Jack. ‘Oh, no. I hadn’t learnt of that. They would have been fifteen when I left, so probably hadn’t worked it out themselves by then. Had they?’
Vicky looked straight up to the rust-spoiled roof. ‘I don’t actually know. It was an accepted thing in our family once we all got to the stage where you might start talking about finding a husband or wife, but I honestly have no recollection of when it entered into my own consciousness, let alone theirs.’
They caught each other’s eye, and there was a long silence. Vicky’s eyes flicked down to his feet and slowly back up to meet his gaze again. She looked as if she was assessing him like one of the cows that might previously have occupied the room, evaluating his stature, the shininess of his coat, the symmetry of his horns.
‘Well, I’ve got to head into the village, so I’ll say goodbye for now. How long will you stay here? Do you know when you have to go back to work?’
‘I think I’ll be moving on tonight, when it’s cooler,’ he said carefully.
‘I was so sorry to hear about Ellie last year; she was such a wonderful person.’
The sound of somebody else saying his grandmother’s name made Jack tremble, but he hoped it was outwardly imperceptible.
‘Hopefully, I’ll catch up with you before you go. It’d be nice to chat some more.’ With that, she walked over to where he still sat leaning against the dirty, metal wall, bent forward and gave him a kiss on one cheek, with a hand on the other. Jack raised his own hand to touch hers. He barely grazed it before she turned and walked out.
Chapter Six
Despite Jane arriving last, at just before nine, they were loaded up and ready to go within another hour. Darren and Terry each had a small trailer attached to the back of their bike. Jane and Halthrop rode unencumbered.
Usually, they would use electric all-terrain vehicles but Major Halthrop had decided that on this occasion, there was no certainty as to when they would be able to reconnect them to a solar panel battery array. The ATVs could generally last for about fifty kilometres between charges, and the distance to Cheltenham alone was more than that. Halthrop was against reliance on them anyway. He often quoted the ancient Indian strategist Chanayaka, who said that ‘Willpower is more important than material power,’ on the perils of failing to be self-sufficient in all aspects of any military operation.
Terry commented, ‘Everywhere we go, people will