remotefiction

Chapter 9 – Strangers in a strange plan

Danny was waiting as arranged when Sarah and Emma arrived in Glasgow’s central Station. Sarah felt a little queasy, an edge of nausea weighing down her stomach. More nervous than she had been in her life before – more nervous than when they hade decided to abduct the black market man, or when they had gone to steal his stash of permits and money. She and Emma seemed to buzz with a kind of indefinable and restrained energy. Something that she suspected that Danny was sharing – stood in front of the station’s convenience store, he seemed, almost, to be hopping from one foot to the other. As far as Sarah was concerned, Danny was radiating a suspicious air, something that she felt would have them picked out easily as being out of place.

When Dozer arrived, he would likely be his usual calm and unflappable self. But Sarah was increasingly convinced that the guard at the barrier for the daily train would pick them out straight away as being up to no good. He would know they were felons, criminals, desperate brigands, plotting mischief, and that they were clearly intending on travelling with stolen credentials. Oh prime. Oh holy. Oh god. Sarah clamps a hand over her mouth as she starts to feel herself hyperventilating.

Emma squeezes her hand, looking at Sarah with some concern. Sarah squeezes Emma’s hand in turn, glad that she has the love and support of her best friend.
“You okay?” Emma asks.
“Yeah. Sure. Sure. No worries. It will all be prime and fine!”
“Oh, totally,” Emma says as they stop in front of Danny.
“Where’ve you been?” Danny hisses.
“Hey! Chill out man, just relax,” Emma tells him, swinging a joking punch at Danny.
“Yeah. Ok. Sorry… Just. You know,” Danny mutters in apology.
“Oooh boy! We know,” Sarah gushes in a breathy rush, “Do we know! You know when Dozer is going to get here?”
“Soon”, Danny nods, “Least he had better be anyways. You have got the pass and that on you?”
“Sure, got them in my bag here,” Sarah pats the bag over her shoulder, “Its all good.”
“YO” Dozer’s voice booms, as he appears behind them. Emma seeming to actually jump with surprise. Dozer’s hand lands on Emma’s shoulder, squeezing it to convey a greeting, to calm her, and display his feelings for her, though he doesn’t actually have to say anything to his girl friend.
“You took your own sweet time getting here, didn’t you, man we’ve been waiting” Danny snaps at Dozer.
“I’m here,” Dozer shrugs in reply, simply.
“Yup,” Sarah says, stifling a laugh; though somewhere in the back of her head, she feels a certain concern as to how holy Danny is being, it doesn’t seem to be a good thing.
“You sure are!” Emma says with a giggle.
“So we are doing this then? The train leaves in a half hour, we should make sure that we get on in plenty of time,” Danny says scowling, his tenseness overwhelming any sense of anticipation for the adventure that they are about to under take. Sarah takes Danny’s hand in her, leaning forward to kiss him, sliding her other arm around his waist. She gives him a hug. Looking up at him she can see his expression soften by a degree, though his anxiety is still clear. Sarah turns round, to find that Dozer and Emma are now standing side by side, hand in hand, both smiling at Danny and Sarah’s foolishness. Sarah at that moment wishes she could be more relaxed, as laid back as her friends. Instead she burns with an energy. Something inside that drives her on, making her do these kind of things, even if the thought of following through might make her feel sick, she knew she would still go all the way, and probably further than necessary. Sarah’s mum said that she got that from her aunt, but Sarah didn’t really know her aunt very well, she had managed to get out of Scotia, a good number of years ago.

Sarah fiddles with the straps on her bag, self-consciously. It is an over sized satchel, into which she had thrown a few changes of clothes, gathering some of her favourite outfits, as well as some that we re a little more practical. But she had brought little else with her. Leaving it all behind in her mum’s flat back in Partick, along with a somewhat vague note to let her mum know that she was gone and that she would be okay. Sarah was concerned that her mother would worry about her, but there was little she could do about that. If she had tried to tell her mum, then she would most likely have tried to stop Sarah from going. No, this was the only way. This was something that Sarah had to do, and do it she would. Her fingers close around the bag’s strap, holding it still as she gathers her resolve. Then she pulls out the travel permits. Handing the first to Emma, the next to Danny, then another to Dozer – the last clutched in her own hand.

The daily train would leave at noon, travelling through Great England, where Sarah did not think they would stop. An express all the way to London – crossing the border from Scotia to Great England, and on to cross the border in London in a matter of hours. Sarah had never been outside the sprawl that was Glasgow before, and she suspected that there was a good chance her mother never would. But then with the current form taken by the church state, very few Scotians got to travel outside the work zone with which they were allocated. Which was why the train was only a single train carriage, enough to carry about 60 or so people a day – most of whom turned out to be foreigners. A number of Chinese business persons of course, travelling from the Chinese territory north of Scotia, to the Chinese state of London. The rest of the passengers were comprised of English, Londoners, and other than themselves only another three Scotians – who they could spot by their pale pallor.

Sarah had plucked up the courage, and took the lead. Travel permit in hand she plunged towards the barrier and the guard standing there to block the body of the mono rail station from the train platform. The man on duty had been your average holy soldier; wearing the same uniform they all wore – a black jacket and trousers, a white collar topping his black shirt, and black stars on the shoulder and the breast pocket. Sarah had been surprised when he barely glanced at her permit, or those that her friends were carrying. Surprised to find him waving them past in a negligent manner. Surprised that he wasn’t calling their bluff, calling them out, slapping them in irons, leading them off to some dingy little room, and throwing away the key. The four friends boarded the train, got a quartet of seats together, with a marble effect tapped table in the middle of the little booth. They sat on either side of that table, watching the carriage fill up gradually. They smiled at each other, feigning an air of confident nonchalance, while inside their guts were in turmoil, as they surfed waves of terror, and felt that at any moment they might just shit their pants. Confident only that they were being toyed with and that at any minute the holy soldiers would indeed arrive. But no one came, and noon came and went, the train full as it at last pulled away from the platform.

Sarah slowly started to realise that perhaps the regime which they had been brought up under wasn’t as competent or over bearing as she had always been led to believe. The suspicion that if you are told often enough and with enough enthusiasm that things are bad, and that you will be punished if you do those bad things, then you will whole heartedly believe that to be the case. But perhaps, when you step outside those clearly marked, and rigid boundaries you instead discover that paying real attention has become too much trouble. Especially when just by repeating the safe party line over and over, most people do seem to actually comply. Brow beaten by church state propaganda to do exactly as they were told.

Regardless of the system, they were off, they had gotten away with it, and they were on their way, embarked on a great adventure. So the fear started to diminish. And instead they became caught up in the wonder of the train. In some ways, the train was not so different to the monorail that wove its way all through the city of Glasgow, and yet it was something new and unique – the way it lurched and shifted, the chug of its mechanisms. Sarah and her friends sat quietly, wallowing in the sensations. The train settles into a regular drone of sound, the city flashing by out the windows, as grey and claustrophobic as it has ever been. The bulk of the Scotian population packed into Glasgow and Edinburgh – with the odd agricultural ghettoes in between, the rest of the nation that was a ghost country. Past the shadow of what there was before, the grey of industry, the train hits the countryside at speed. Leaving the ghost behind Scotia blossoms, becoming a green warmth that Sarah had never imagined was out here, awaiting their eyes, and so close to the city shell in real terms.

After they had been travelling for an hour or so, a man in a formal cap, and waistcoat came around the carriage with a tinkling and wobbly trolley. Stopping at each set of four seats and table one by one, placing a plate in front of each passenger, a selection of sandwiches. Precise white triangles, layered with sliced meat or cheese within. Tea was delivered in cups, set down on the tables on saucers. Sarah was bemused, looking at the faces of her friends; she could tell that they did not know what to make of this either.
“Thank you”, Sarah said meekly, shoulders curled inward, feeling like a naïve little girl now. Though that did not stop her from eating, hungrily. She was surprised again, when she had finished the cup of tea before she was even half way through eating, the man came back and filled the cup up again. When Sarah had finished her sandwiches and the second cup of tea, she looked up to find that the others had also happily polished off their lunches. Shortly after that the man came back, collecting the empty plates, he empty cups and the saucers. After that Sarah felt herself lulled by the rhythm of the journey, the drone of the train. After all the excitement of getting themselves on board, things gained a certain regularity. The progress of the train a tick-tick, a hypnotic pendulum, swaying back and forth. Warm and with a full belly, Sarah felt cosy and relaxed. Tick, tick, back, forth, and within a short time Sarah was asleep.

After some, uncertain time, Sarah woke up. Emma was curled up against Dozer, who sat looking out the window, while Danny was at her side, head propped up on his chest, snoring lightly. She looked out the window as well, finding that the train had slowed to allow them to roll through some vast city in Great England. In some ways Sarah felt that this nameless city wasn’t so different from home. Yet there was something foreign about it, something alien, and she knew now, without doubt, that she was in another country. She had left her home somewhere far behind her. She hoped that this was forever; she hoped that she would never go home again. Sarah watched the city going past, but it wasn’t long before, unconsciously, she fell asleep again.

The next time she woke they we re in London. If the city in Great England had a hint of the foreign, a suggestion of the alien, then London was something on an entirely different level, something that Sarah found to be undeniably mind blowing. London was the densest country in the world, perhaps, an enormous concrete spread, which housed more people than many smaller countries. With the war, and the resulting fragmentation the economic situation let to, London became a country in its won right. Most of the population of Chinese derived people that lived on those islands flooded into London during the conflict – to a degree driven by the reaction of the so called natives at war with china and to a degree to undermine the war effort, to support that nation that gave birth to their people, even if it was generations a go in some cases. London was now a Chinese state – the largest single Chinese territory outside Asia. As such London had a massive population and the greatest concentration of wealth in Europe.

The result being that London was a dazzling nation – endless streets, buildings, more people than Sarah had even seen before. Streets filled with lights, with large rolling ground vehicles that Sarah assumed were cars. Sarah was filled with an overwhelming sense of scale, finding her surroundings provided a terrifying sense of confusion. London was everywhere the four friends looked, Emma clamped her hands over her yes – attempting to block it all out, even if just for a moment, just to give her a fraction of time in which to process all that she was seeing. Sarah sat open eyed, open mouthed, almost catatonic with a sense of wonder.

The train travelled for another couple of hours. Journeying through the individual cities that made up the nation that was London. At no point did they become tired of what they saw out of those carriage windows. Though at six pm they were interrupted, as the man came around again, this time to sever them dinner. Placing places of meat in a sauce, on a base of rice, in front of them – the meat had a funny taste to it, which was more than just how it was cooked. Sarah had the suspicion that the meat was the synthetic product they were used to in Scotia, a highly processed off-white material. Rather she thought that this might actually be organic, might actually have been grown on an animal. Served with the meal came a liquid in a glass, a fruit flavoured beverage. By the time Sarah had finished her first glass her head felt a little funny. But the sensation seemed to kind of pleasant, so Sarah did no feel too concerned. Again the man returned, collecting empty plates, and glasses. With this Sarah felt they had reached a threshold, she felt that the journey must be near its end.
Sarah took Danny’s hand in hers, “We are so nearly there, I can feel it!”
“Which part of London is it that we are arriving in?” Danny asks her
“The city of King’s Cross!” she whispers to him

The train finally arrived. The four of them carefully disembarking, clutching their bags, the vestiges of their past lives, the containers that now held all their belongings in the world. Uncertain, excited – mixed emotions vied for attention, competed for dominance as they walked through the foyer of the train station. Together and silent, something that had gone without discussion, a consensus that they would get outside, taking stock of what kind of mess they had got themselves into. Sarah’s first impression of King’s Cross was that it wasn’t all bright and shining, not the wonders she had expected, not the fairy tale land she had convinced herself that she was seeing from the train. Rather it wasn’t so different from Glasgow, at least not this part of London. Though surely some of what they had seen from the train was real. London must contain real treasures, just, standing here, now, Sarah felt that they must be hidden treasures.

King’s Cross was a bustle of people, some of them wearing things that amazed Sarah – things that she might have worn in a club, but never out in public. There were so many different styles, haircuts, attitudes. Some people walked passed Sarah and her friends, not giving them a second look. Others seemed to slow – people sizing them up, or seemingly amused to see such obvious country bumpkins. Sarah felt vulnerable, but determined. Sarah glances down at the ground, worn slabs, pink globs gone black, bird shit stains, someone’s chalk words spelling out the phrase “fuck me ragged with a chainsaw.” Sarah looks up and around, at the grey buildings, a camouflage stain of browns and other muck flavoured colouration. The people have a grunginess, the buildings a grubbiness.
“We are not in Oz any more Toto,” Sarah mutters.
“The streets don’t seem to be paved with gold either!” Emma says, nudging her in the ribs, and the two girls start to laugh. Danny hangs back, loitering as close to the station’s inside as he can, as though it gives him some connection to what they have left behind, while Dozer stands outside, shoulders slumped in a relaxed manner, hands plunged in his pockets, as unconcerned and easy as ever.