Age of Legends Read online

  She took a step back to admire her handiwork. It was always a thrill to see a fresh piece in position. “AmphiBias”, as she titled it, wasn’t the most scathing image she had ever created. That honour went to “True Love Never Dies”, which depicted Drake French-kissing the mummified corpse of Adolf Hitler. It was, though, up there with her more savage commentaries, and was by far the most overtly political artwork out of all those present. The other artists either avoided anti-establishment messages altogether or disguised them well. Blue Cat’s dancers, for instance, seemed uncontroversial enough. There was a subtext about liberty and self-expression if you looked for it, but to most they would be just a bunch of blobby, brightly-hued figures throwing shapes.

  Ajia didn’t go in for subtlety. If you had something to say, why not just come out and say it? The clearer the message, the greater the impact. If just one person came across a picture of hers and laughed, or smiled sardonically, or was moved to think, then she had done a good thing. If it increased someone’s dislike of Drake, or sowed doubt in the mind of one the prime minister’s fans, so much the better. Perhaps there would be some passer-by who truly felt the depth of her loathing for the man, etched into every jagged line of the image. In that case, it would all be worthwhile.

  Ajia proceeded to another three sites, reproducing “AmphiBias” at each. The afternoon light was starting to wane as she commenced on a fifth piece. This time she was in an alley behind a row of shops, among overstuffed wheelie bins. She was beginning to apply the third layer of spray paint when movement at the mouth of the alley caught her eye. She looked round.

  Her stomach knotted. Her mouth went bone dry.

  A three-strong police patrol.

  Armed.

  Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…

  Hurriedly Ajia began stashing her art materials into her rucksack. None of the police officers was looking her way. They were sauntering along the street, semiautomatic carbines held loosely at waist level. But all it would take was for one of them to turn, glance in her direction…

  “Hey!”

  Ajia slung her rucksack onto her back and lunged for her bike.

  “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  She jumped onto the saddle.

  “Yeah, you, young lady. I’m talking to you. Off that bike. Now.”

  She didn’t even look over her shoulder. She slotted the recessed cleats on her shoes onto the pedals and pushed down with her right foot while pulling up with her left. The bike sprang to life under her like a spurred horse.

  Go go go go go go go!

  She poured on speed, using all the strength in her legs. The bike hit a pothole and slewed, but she maintained control. The other end of the alley was a hundred yards away. She arrowed towards it, shifting frantically up through the gears.

  The police officers gave chase. Ajia could hear their feet pounding behind her. One of them was still shouting, but she was no longer listening to what he said. She was concentrating on getting to the end of the alley and turning the corner. Once she was on the main road and zooming along at top speed, they would never be able to catch up. She’d be away and free.

  As she reached the exit, a man stepped out in front of her. He was just some guy ambling along, eyes on his phone, earbuds stuffed in his ears. Ajia swerved to avoid a collision. The bike seemed to buckle under her. Next thing she knew, she was on the ground, rolling into the road. A taxi screeched to a halt, stopping just inches away. The cabbie laid on the horn and swore at her out of his window.

  Ajia scrambled to her feet. The bike lay on its side a few yards away, front wheel spinning. She limped over and picked it up by the handlebars. Nothing seemed bent or broken, thank fuck. She jumped on and got going again. This time the process was laborious, because she had left the bike in high gear. She bore down hard on the pedals, but it was as though the wheels were rolling through hot tar.

  The three police officers were almost on her. She glimpsed “gotcha!” looks on their faces. The frontmost of them had his phone out and appeared to be taking a picture of her. Another of them said, “Last warning, missy. Stop where you are.”

  Stop, be arrested, get carted off to some shithole police-station cell, face charges of vandalism, subversion and who knows what else?

  Yeah, right.

  Ajia dropped several cogs in one go. The pedals clunked loosely, but suddenly she was in low gear, the bike more responsive to her efforts.

  She flipped the cops the finger and scooted away.

  She didn’t hear the gunshot. She saw the wing mirror of a car parked just in front of her shatter. She felt the bike shimmy, as though she had tapped the brakes, which she hadn’t. She kept pedalling.

  Shooting at me. The fuckers are shooting at me!

  She nipped round the front of a slow-moving van, putting the vehicle between her and the police officers. On she went, zigzagging through the rush-hour traffic, sometimes pulling out into the opposite lane if there was a gap, then tucking back in.

  She rode like this for half a mile, heading through Whitechapel down to Aldgate. Her heart was pounding, her whole system electrified by adrenalin. She had left the police officers far behind her but she wasn’t going to stop. The one with the phone hadn’t simply been getting a snapshot. There was every chance he had tagged her. An image of her––clothing, helmet, bike and all––was now in the Met central computer. So were the GPS coordinates where the picture was taken. Algorithms were processing the data for network-wide distribution, ready to parcel it out to every security camera in the immediate area. She had to go far. She had to get lost. Otherwise…

  She arrived at the junction of Fenchurch Street and Leadenhall Street, just inside the western perimeter of the City of London. A twice-lifesize bronze statue of Drake had been erected here, in recognition of the fact that before taking up politics he had been a hedge fund manager. The effigy had one arm raised as though in welcome, and its eyes and mouth gaped with manic delight.

  Just above the statue’s head, a drone hovered. Ostensibly it was there just to monitor traffic flow, but if you believed that, you weren’t paying attention. Ajia hunched low, praying its electronic gaze was elsewhere. She veered south onto Lloyd’s Avenue, a narrow thoroughfare with five-storey buildings looming on both sides like canyon walls. The drone had not spotted her. Surely the drone had not spotted her.

  She heard a wasp-like buzzing. She darted a glance back.

  The drone was following her.

  Fuck!

  All she could do was pedal faster. But her breathing was becoming laboured, and she was developing a stitch in her side. This was odd, because she didn’t normally get stitches. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had one, and she had ridden harder than this in the past. Nor did she get out of breath easily. Her aerobic fitness had never been subjected to formal testing but she was pretty sure it was professional-athlete league.

  A second drone swooped into sight ahead. It and its companion kept pace with Ajia as she wove her way past Fenchurch Street Station down onto Lower Thames Street, where she took the westbound route. This stretch of road was dual carriageway and dangerous for cyclists because drivers thought they were on a motorway and ignored the speed limit. But there was method in her madness. Lower Thames Street became Upper Thames Street, and Upper Thames Street had tunnels. The drones would not follow her into a tunnel because they would lose signal, and that meant there was a chance she could outwit their pilots.

  She raced into the last and longest of the tunnels, which passed beneath a set of office buildings and terminated just before Blackfriars Bridge. She had to assume that the drone pilots would guide their craft overground to the other end and wait for her to come out. They would be waiting a while.

  Vehicles rumbled alongside her along both lanes. In the confined space, the roar of motors was deafening, and the stench of exhaust fumes burned Ajia’s nostrils.

  There were in fact two tunnels here, one for traffic travelling in
either direction, a solid concrete wall dividing them. Doubling back would therefore involve going against the flow of two solid lanes of traffic. It was pretty much suicide, but Ajia had little choice.

  She hit the rear brake and skidded round through 180°. The manoeuvre was greeted with a barrage of protest––flashing headlights, honking horns. She sped along the dotted white line between the two lanes, cars, buses, vans and lorries hurtling by on either side of her, mere inches away. She emerged from the tunnel the way she’d come in, and veered off immediately onto the pavement. She drew up beside a bollard and leant against it. Her lungs were heaving now. Her stitch was worse than ever. Her Lycra shorts were soaked with sweat. There was even sweat dribbling down her right knee onto her shin.

  Except, it wasn’t sweat.

  It was blood.

  Ajia looked down at the blood with a strange, detached dismay. It occurred to her that she must have cut herself. She had grazed her leg when she’d fallen off the bike.

  But there was too much blood for a graze. Far too much. The whole of her shin was coated in it, glossy with it.

  That was when she noticed the hole in her side, just above the hip. It was about the thickness of her forefinger. She felt gingerly at her back. Her fingers found a matching hole. She could just make it out, by twisting her head round to look. It was slightly larger than the hole at the front.

  The bullet which had struck the parked car’s wing mirror hadn’t missed her. It had gone through her.

  She was overcome by a sudden nausea. The world seemed to be trembling. Her head swam. She stumbled off the bike.

  Shot. Shot. Fuck me, I’ve been fucking shot.

  Her legs felt as weak as a newborn foal’s. She sagged to her knees. Then she slumped onto her side.

  All at once the bullet wound was sheer agony. She could scarcely catch her breath.

  There were people gathering around her. Peering down. Concerned citizens. One of them was making a call. She heard the words “emergency services”.

  She wanted to tell these people to help her up, get her indoors, take her somewhere safe.

  Distantly above her, black asterisks in the blue sky, the two drones hovered. They had found her again. They circled around each other like vultures, their beady gaze fixed on her.

  The drones blurred.

  So did the faces of the people.

  Ajia said something, but she had no idea what it was.

  Then she passed out.

  Chapter 2

  “AJIA SNELL?”

  Groggily Ajia looked up. She had awoken moments earlier to find the policewoman sitting beside her. The policewoman had a tablet in her hand. Ajia glimpsed a photo of herself on the screen, along with information––date of birth, education history, home address, and so on. Her file from the national ID database. The policewoman was consulting this, her expression distinctly unimpressed.

  Ajia was lying on a bed of some sort, but it was not a hospital bed. More like a bunk. Nor was the room she was in a hospital room. It smelled of disinfectant and urine, as a hospital room might, but it was too bare, too functional. Single neon striplight embedded in the ceiling. Brickwork painted pale ochre, the colour of lost hope. No windows.

  “That is your name, isn’t it?” the policewoman said. She had the kind of face that you could not imagine ever having known a smile.

  Ajia nodded. Her head ached. Her throat was parched. Her midriff felt on fire.

  “And did I get the pronunciation right? Ah-jee-yah?”

  Ajia nodded again.

  The policewoman sniffed. “Foreign names, you know. Never easy.”

  “Water,” she croaked.

  “Yes,” the policewoman said, but she said it in a way that sounded very much like no.

  “Please.”

  “We’ll see. Just need to get a few facts straight first. Your name is Ajia Miranda Snell. You’re eighteen. Father: Tony Snell, deceased. Mother: Padma Snell, maiden name Bakshi, repatriated. Employment: bike courier. No priors. You were, however, observed by three officers of the law at five thirty-five PM on the afternoon of April the ninth engaged in an act of sedition.”

  “Art.”

  “Sorry?” The policewoman cupped a hand behind her ear. “Didn’t catch that.”

  “Art. I was doing art.”

  “Oh yes. Art. Of course. Art which just so happened to make fun of our prime minister. Art, as well, in an unsanctioned location. All of which makes it not so much art as an offence against public order.”

  “Still art,” Ajia said. “Satire.”

  “Nice. Satire. Yes. Well, your satire, young lady, has landed you in a ruddy great heap of trouble, I hope you realise that. Not so funny now, is it? You’re looking at a hefty prison sentence, and that’s no laughing matter.”

  Ajia tried another tack. “Where’s my phone?”

  “We’ve got it.”

  “I want it.”

  “You can’t have it. You don’t get a call, you know. That’s not how this works. You’re here for as long as we say you’re here, and nothing’s going to change that. What happens from now on is out of your hands.”

  Ajia asked for water again, but the policewoman just stood and walked to the door, a bolt-studded slab of steel.

  “We’ve patched up your wound,” she said. “Not perfect but it’ll do. That’s a concession. Maybe you could think about cooperating in return. I’ll leave you a while to think about it.”

  The door creaked open. The door slammed.

  THEY CAME FOR her an hour later.

  Two of them, both male, both large.

  They plucked her from the bed. They bellowed at her, threw her around, slapped her a few times.

  They left her shrieking at them on the floor, calling them every foul name she knew.

  THEY CAME FOR her again, this time after a shorter interval.

  She fought back, but it was futile. She bit, punched, kicked, scratched, but the policemen only laughed. Together they overpowered her, then one held her down while the other pounded her ribcage with a baton.

  She crawled onto the bed, broken, bleeding. She felt like a bag of loose, ragged flesh held together by pain.

  A prison sentence. That was what the policewoman had said. You’re looking at a hefty prison sentence. Ajia clung to the thought like a lifejacket. She would be going to jail but they weren’t going to kill her. She wasn’t going to die here. She was going to survive this.

  It didn’t feel like it, though. It felt very much like the cell, liberally spattered with her blood, was the last place she was ever going to see. It was where she was going to take her final breath. It was her tomb.

  THE POLICEWOMAN RETURNED, took a look at Ajia, and was not an ounce more sympathetic than before.

  “Right, so you know what to expect now,” she said. She brandished the tablet. “I have here a written statement, prepared for you. All you have to do is sign it. It’ll make things easier. Smooth the judicial process. You won’t have to bother with a trial and all that nuisance. You’ll get processed through the system and whisked off to a young offender institution. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred pounds. I can read it out to you if you like, but you can pretty much guess what it says. Here’s the dotted line. Let’s wipe your finger first, get all that blood off. Otherwise the touchscreen won’t work. No?”

  The policewoman was offering her a sheet of paper towel, but Ajia would not hold up her finger.

  “Be like that. I’ll give you some time to rethink. Constables Yelland and Yates might come back in the interim, to offer you a bit more encouragement.”

  Her face softened just a fraction.

  “You seem like a nice girl, Ajia,” she said. “Can’t be easy for you. Mixed-race, in today’s Britain. Nobody’s exactly championing your sort. Deportation orders left, right and centre. Pray to the wrong god, have the wrong complexion, fall in love with the wrong person––bang, that’s it, you’re out. But you, your skin’s so pale brown, you could almost
pass for white. If you’d kept your head down, kept your nose clean, you could’ve been okay. Instead you had to be stupid and cause trouble. And this is how people who cause trouble end up.”

  “Doctor,” Ajia mumbled.

  “You’ll get seen by a doctor, to get that bullet wound properly attended to and also all the other injuries you incurred while resisting arrest. But only if you sign the statement. Are you going to sign the statement?”

  Ajia’s silence was her answer.

  “Stubborn little shit, aren’t you?” The policewoman glanced at her wristwatch. “I’ll give it another three hours. I reckon you’ll have changed your tune by then.”

  THE THIRD BEATING was almost apologetic. Constables Yates and Yelland seemed to be going through the motions, their hearts not really in it. They just wanted her to give in. They wanted her crawling and abject and defeated. Was that too much to ask?

  Ajia refused to give them the satisfaction. She held out, even though she knew that all she had to do was tell them she would sign their bullshit document and the suffering would end. And as the blows rained down, withstanding the punishment seemed to become easier. She found herself retreating inward, moving further and further away from the pain. She was losing touch with her physical self. Somebody else was taking all those punches, not her. She experienced a weird pang of sympathy for that person, that other Ajia Snell. So small and scrawny compared to the two hulking great brutes who were battering her. So helpless.