As Wes showed Sheila Briggs around in the lab, Dave sat down on a chair next to Joy. He nudged her gently.

  “She's got nothing on you, you know.”

  Joy turned around and shot him a very dirty look.

  “Shut up, Dave.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “What did I do?”

  “Just shut up,” she snapped.

  Slowly, Dave got up and went back to his own seat. He looked at Joy and then turned his interest to Wes and Dr. Briggs. He noticed how Wes was smiling at her and he looked at Joy again. Then he understood why Joy was in such a foul mood. She was staring at Wes and she was fuming. Dave realized that was also why she had kept holding him off. He sighed. He felt defeated.

  He turned back to his computer screen and pulled up the window in which he monitored the sea below them. He opened another window and began checking how the sea life reacted to the drill that was being engaged. It was dull work, but it had to be done.

  Two hours later Wes guided Sheila away and Joy was getting ready to leave. Dave got up and came to stand beside her.

  “Joy...” he started hesitantly.

  “What?” she snapped.

  He sighed.

  “He's never going to feel that way about you...” He let the phrase trail off. Joy's eyes were trying to burn a hole in him. “Let it go. He's not going to.”

  She sighed and looked down at her feet.

  “God...”

  She sat back down again and buried her head in her hands. She sobbed and Dave placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently. Joy sat there for a while. Her sobbing eventually stopped, and Dave sat down beside her.

  “Hey,” he mumbled.

  With tears in her eyes, she looked at him.

  “Dry your eyes. I'll take you to dinner and a show.”

  “I don't want to date you, Dave,” she sounded angry, thinking Dave wanted to take advantage of her vulnerability.

  “Not a date. Just to take your mind off it. Could go for drinks as well, if you prefer.”

  Joy blinked.

  “Drinks would be nice.”

  They went to the Irish Pub on Deck 9. Dave had been surprised to find there was an Irish Pub on the rig. Those things really cropped up everywhere, he thought. It was the only place to get stout though, and they had by far the best selection of whiskey.

  “My shout,” he said, as they sat down at the bar. “Guinness for me, Cill.”

  He ordered his drink from the bartender. He had known Cillian for ages, but he had not known the Dubliner worked here until he had discovered the pub in ‘The City.’

  “Pint of Magners,” Joy said, still feeling down and ashamed.

  Cillian frowned at her, and then looked at Dave to check what was going on, but Dave shook his head. When he put her cider in front of her, she put the glass to her lips and drank half of it in one go.

  “Sláinte. Thirsty, lass?” Cillian asked.

  “Yeah, busy day.”

  Joy drained the rest of her pint before the bartender could even top up Dave's Guinness.

  “Well, in that case, have another one on me.”

  Cillian smiled at her, immediately pouring her another pint. The Guinness had settled and he topped it off, putting both pints on the bar. He moved over to the register to put the drinks on the right tabs. There was no physical money used on ‘The City,’ every purchase was simply taken out of the wages.

  “So, are you guys going to go to the gig in Central tomorrow?” Cillian asked them.

  Dave had to think for a moment and he took a long draught of his stout as he thought. Joy just made an effort to see the bottom of her glass as fast as possible.

  “Do you mean that deejay that’s going to be playing?” Dave finally remembered.

  “Yeah, should be good craic,” Cillian began washing some dirty glasses. “She's supposed to be one of the best around.”

  “Not my sort of music. But it could be a nice party.”

  “Yeah, let's go there tomorrow,” Joy chimed in.

  She waved her empty glass at Cillian.

  “Refill?”

  “Yep.”

  Dave noticed she was getting tipsy already. He sort of regretted taking her for drinks now, but at least she was not busy obsessing over Wes, which was good.

  “Do you think W...” Joy began.

  “When did you have to be back in San Diego for that court appearance, Cill?” he asked the bartender, wanting to shift the conversation from anything that could remind Joy of Wes and Sheila.

  “Fucking Guards...” Cillian swore. “Fucking have it in for me, like. Fucking smash one over the head once and every fucking one of them thinks you're a criminal every time they pick you up.”

  “I did tell you to stop doing the robot in front of ladies.”

  “You fuck off too!”

  Joy laughed at that. She decided she liked Cillian.

  “You were doing the robot?”

  “It's his best move.”

  “Beat boxing and doing the robot. One girl thought I was trying to corner her or something, in the middle of the fucking dance floor. She started screaming, some bouncers came and tried to throw me out, I nutted one, cops show, I end up in jail. Fucking court hearing in two days.”

  They passed the next few hours discussing Cillian's love life and his problems with the police. Joy seemed to be forgetting about Wes and Dave was happy to pay for her glass to be kept full. Eventually, Cillian decided she’d had enough, as she was barely capable of sitting up straight.

  Dave then helped her back to her apartment, even though she protested. He sat her down on the couch and waited for a while, to see whether she would be alright, but she told him she could take care of herself. After making her some coffee, Dave gave her a kiss on the cheek and went to his own apartment to get some sleep. If Joy wanted to go to the party the next night, it might be a long day again.

  Chapter Six

  “From the data you have so far, I think there is another El Niño complex coming, but I think it'd be best to get some more samples and tests from down there,” Sheila said. “I'll go and talk to your meteorologist tomorrow and check his data as well.”

  Wes nodded and looked back to the menu.

  “I'm glad you could lend your expertise.” He closed the menu. “Are you ready to order?”

  Sheila smiled. “Yes. By the way, thanks for this.”

  “No problem.” Wes smiled back. “Actually, it's my pleasure. Not often I get to take a beautiful woman out to dinner.”

  Sheila could not help but blush.

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  When the waiter came over Wes ordered the special of the day and Sheila chose the same. They sat in silence for a while.

  “So, what were you doing when the boss called you?” Wes asked.

  “Actually, I was doing nothing when the Senator called.”

  Sheila took up her napkin and placed it in her lap.

  “My interns are entering all the data we gathered for the research we were doing in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing I can do until the end.”

  Wes was about to ask her about the project when the waiter interrupted again, asking whether Wes would like to choose the wine. He nodded and began a detailed description of what he wanted in a wine. The waiter made a suggestion and Wes nodded his consent.

  “Seems you know something about wine?” Sheila was surprised.

  “Grew up on the Sonoma coast.” He looked around to watch the waiter. “No way you won't learn about wine when you live there.”

  “I'm impressed.”

  “You weren’t called by the boss?” Wes asked, having picked up on what she said earlier.

  “No. I got the call from Senator Jacobs,” Sheila answered, wondering whether Wes did not know that.

  “I asked the boss to see whether you were available, didn't know he would involve someone in Congress.” Wes let a small pause fall. “How do you know the senator?”

  Sheila gave him a wry smile.

  “He passed a bill which got me funding for a few projects which might prove climate change. And gave me some funding out of his own pocket.”

  “No strings attached.”

  “Pfft,” Sheila made a derisive sound. “Many strings attached. But you only find out about those after the fact. Keeps threatening to cut funding if I don't do what he wants.”

  “But your research is not compromised?”

  “I refuse to compromise my research,” she sighed. “But any research is open to cherry picking and interpreting in random ways. Like that tornado thing.”

  Wes leaned forward. It was the tornado research she had done that had first brought her name to his attention.

  “What was with that?”

  “The interpretation of it in Congress was complete bullcrap. There simply is no increase in tornadoes.”

  Wes was not surprised. He had read the research and had drawn a different conclusion from the media.

  “Did they make such a big hash of it?”

  Sheila shook her head.

  “I went to a hearing to talk about it and they just said the exact opposite of what I was telling them and took that for fact, pretending I had said it.” She shook her head again, her lips pursed. “Bunch of douche bags.”

  Wes grinned. He had not seen the hearings but determined to make a mental note to look them up on the C-Span database when he got the chance. He could imagine the way it would go though, as it seemed to go like that every time.

  Wes impressed Sheila even more when he judged the wine on smell alone, instead of tasting it.

  Their first course arrived soon after, which was a spinach risotto. She filled him in on her research and then asked about his work. Their Wellington arrived and it was perfect with the red wine Wes had chosen.

  “It must cost a fortune to get this stuff here,” Sheila remarked. “They must make huge amounts of money to be able to keep this up.”

  Wes bit his lip. Sheila frowned at him, wondering what he was trying not to say.

  “This place is losing money by the bucket loads; floating on subsidies right now,” Wes said.

  Sheila gave him a look of surprise.

  “You're joking? I thought this was supposed to be ‘The City’ of the future?”

  Wes suppressed a snort of laughter.

  “It was. And it's failed. They can't get the green energy thing right, so it's working on gas and oil, which has to be brought in until they strike oil.”

  “Jeez.” Sheila looked shocked. “What about all the food production they're supposed to be doing here? Is that working?”

  “There's the hydroponics quarter for that. They can grow some tomatoes, but for anything serious they still have to bring it in. There are just too many people and not enough food they can produce. And nobody wants to eat the synthetic meat.”

  Sheila was silent for a moment and just picked at the crust of her Wellington.

  “So you're saying this place is a failure?”

  Wes nodded happily.

  “Yup! It's failed alright. They'll never admit it, but it's a disaster in all things but one.”

  “What's that?”

  “It is a perfect research center.” Wes smiled at her. “I've been all over the world, but the facilities and the location I'm working at now are second to none.”

  Sheila smiled too.

  “That is a bonus!”

  They had a dessert and some coffee and then walked down the deck to check out the rest of ‘The City.’ Wes offered Sheila his arm and she laid her hand on his as they walked. They went down a deck and found themselves in the very center of the rig, at Central Plaza. A podium was already being set up there for the deejay that would be playing there the next day.

  “I hear she's rather good,” Wes remarked as they looked at the poster.

  Sheila shrugged.

  “I couldn't really care less, not my sort of music. If there's a good jazz joint, I'll go there any day.”

  “Me too!” Wes laughed. “But if she's playing here the whole rig will be bouncing up and down. No escaping it unless you have one of the good apartments. Those are sound proofed.”

  “Like the one I'm in?”

  “Yup. Sound proofed,” Wes sighed. “I'm not so lucky.”

  Wes walked Sheila to her door and bade her goodnight. Sheila felt she wanted to invite him in for coffee, but decided it was a bit inappropriate. She hugged him and gave him a swift kiss on the cheek and then closed the door. She stood there for a moment, her eyes closed, wondering whether she should have invited him in after all.

  Chapter Seven

  Smith, Garcia and Fatíma sat around the table, mugs of coffee in their hands. Akhmed had left earlier.

  “What did you make of him?” Smith was looking at Fatíma.

  “He'll do,” She said casually, sipping her coffee.

  Garcia bit his lip as he looked at her.

  “You think you can work it?”

  “As long as you take care of everything on the side, you just leave it to me. Just make sure you get everything there and get him in play.”

  They were silent for a while. There was nothing to say really. They knew their own plans and they knew what had to be done.

  “We'll have everything you need brought over tonight.” Smith said. “Then you make sure it all gets into the chopper, set up and you give him the sign.”

  “Then what?” Fatíma gave him a quizzing look. “You'll come in and save the day?”

  Garcia nodded, answering instead of Smith.

  “That's the plan.”

  ***

  Akhmed walked down the street towards his place. He felt satisfied. They had worked out a plan which would draw plenty of attention and would go a great deal towards ‘The City's’ owners coming clean about the failure of the project. And then there had been the woman.

  He had felt a bit paranoid when he got to the house, but Fatíma had completely assured him. She had been calm, collected, self-confident. She had flirted a bit with him, putting him at ease and it had worked. He had begun to relax and she had explained to him what she wanted.

  She too had realized ‘The City’ was a scam and only cost money. Worse than that, it was an environmental disaster, and it was because of that the project had to be stopped. So she had asked her friends Smith and Garcia to find someone to help her.

  She was a deejay, she explained. People knew her around the San Diego area and she did gigs elsewhere and made quite good money, but she was not particularly famous. She wanted to get onto the rig for a gig and then set up her protest.

  As she explained that, Smith and Garcia had come in and greeted him. They were quick in coming to the point. They would take care of the helicopter and the gear in the morning, and then they would help set up the protest. All Akhmed would have to do was set up the gear and begin the first record. After ten minutes Fatíma, or DJ Medina, would enter and begin her set. The second part of the set would then be their protest.

  Fatíma had explained to him she had already broken glass with her sound system, and she had found a way to set up a resonance pattern which could make metal vibrate. She could not break anything, but she could make the situation seriously unpleasant, without it seeming like sabotage. And she would be doing exactly that. She was set to play in the Central, the big plaza in the very center of ‘The City’. If she played the right sequence, there would be major damage in the center of the rig and there was a good chance ‘The City’ would be evacuated due to the vibrations induced in the metal.

  Akhmed understood the physics immediately and was impressed by the idea. It struck him as an easy and safe way to put an end to the whole thing. Some people might be hurt from the breaking glass, but there would be no casualties. And if nobody was allowed to protest against the rig, then someone would have to make sure the politicians and the owners and developers of ‘The City’ listened to reason. It was the only way. And this seemed perfect. No casualties, no danger.

  He turned the key in his door and went in to his own apartment. There was nothing to do now, apart from rest and wait for the morning. Tomorrow he would pick up the van with DJ Medina's gear and drive it to the heliport. He would load the gear and then go to ‘The City,’ set up and wait. And then finally the world would be able to deal with this thing.

  Normally he would go straight to his laptop to check his Facebook page, but this evening he went straight to bed. He felt he would need all the energy he could get for the morning.

  ***

  A man with a camera stepped out of a black car. A man in a suit was waiting for him in the dark hallway of an office block in the center of San Diego.

  “Got something for me?” he greeted the man from the car.

  “Yeah, got some nice pictures of the guy with the Muslim chick. And then I got some nice ones of him looking paranoid.”

  He handed the camera over to the other man.

  The man in the suit turned the camera on and began looking through the photographs. “Perfect. Well done.”

  He sniffed and looked around, checking whether there was anyone else around. When there did not seem to be anyone, he pulled a small bag of powder out of his jacket's inside pocket. With a small scoop he took some powder and brought it to his nose.

  “Cheers,” the other man said as the suit snorted the powder. “Your health.”

  “Fuck you,” was the reply. “You know what to do tomorrow?”

  “Yes”

  “Repeat it to me.”

  “Tomorrow I go to his apartment, crack his laptop and upload the file you gave me. I then use his YouTube account to upload the video. I place the recipes for anti-depressants and anti-psychotics in his living room. Meds bottles you gave me in the bathroom.”

  The man droned the list. It was clearly a set list he had used before.

  “Good.”

  The man in the suit nodded and offered his hand.

  “Then we will make magic happen tomorrow, you and me.”

  “Always a pleasure working with you, sir.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8