Chapter Ten

The Middle Of Nowhere

Kennedy and Fleet’s safe house was everything they knew it would be. Isolated, boring and increasingly difficult to adjust to. They had electricity and running water, a vegetable patch and a large amount of woodland with a running stream. They had a supply drop once a week, the third of which has come this morning in particular. They didn’t get to pick what was brought to them as it came directly from the food bank in the city and this drop in particular was the worst one yet. Two tins of soup, 10 packets of digestive biscuits, a large box of tea bags, a box of assorted butchers offcuts with no dates and a sack of rice. They were set for the week right enough but Kennedy in particular was missing his home comforts. There was no real plan for after the safe house. Fleet had made it clear they should go their separate ways when they got there, but his tone had shifted. Word of the presence of two suspected Operators in the crowd, engaging the riot squad in combat no less, had reached him and had him paranoid. Murph was able to provide video footage from an apartment block on the road where the riot squad engaged the crowd on the march. Shiels and Grimes had been there, dressed like the rioters and when they got surrounded by the police they Ghost-walked right out of there. Fleet knew that Anna would have sent them there to sniff out information on Murph at the very minimum and was now deeply paranoid that Oculus HQ was discreetly investigating the likelihood that himself and Kennedy faked their deaths. Kennedy was sharing his paranoia, even so far as to suggest a sudden public appearance with Murph to try and bring down the Oculus program. Another problem was that one of Fleets eyes was suffering long term damage and was blurry. Although glad to have the government out of his head he was livid over the partial loss of sight in his eye. Murph on the other hand was taking to this new life like a duck to water. He had long fantasised about disappearing off grid and spent years preparing for it. He was far more advanced in his knowledge of government surveillance than the other two expected. He had also amassed a small fortune through grafting and saving. Neither of the three men had kids of their own but Murph left behind a step child. The kid was in her early twenties now and Murph made sure she was looked after, but not before siphoning away a nest egg for just the scenario that he now found himself in. Through many favours and endeavours, Murph had built up a network of illegal bartering in East Bank and beyond. This illicit economy was very lucrative for someone who thought unconventionally. Taking payment in goods was also the only way for a refusenik to get a living with the new remuneration system the Commission had imposed. No Lens, no taxable income. Cash was only accepted in strongholds like East Bank and at that, it was only circular within the community. Murph would accept payment in other things. Pallets of timber, barrels of fuel and even this house. Murph worked for people a lot of the time for a meal and a hot shower, sometimes for a couch to sleep on. All of this built up over time and eventually Murph was left a few things in peoples wills. In return for renovating the very house they were living in Murph was given permission live on the land and he did so, building a shack in the woods. When the owner of the place died his estate was entrusted to the East Bank Park Trust, which he founded, on the condition that all permissions and rights of access were sustained and preserved. The trust itself was ran by a board of old school East Bankers and was largely a front for their dissident activities. They had accrued a large portfolio of properties which they administered for the benefit of the whole community. Halls, apartments, land for growing. They were communists in the sense of communal values but they saw no other way to fight the system of digital control. They longed for the old country. They were old enough to remember the wonder of nationhood and were consumed by the nostalgia that came with it. Murph was on the older end of the Lens baby generation and experienced a childhood of nationalism. He was a drummer in the Park Brigade Band as a teenager and was the the chief flag bearer for the last sanctioned National March. He was a patriot through and through and a local legend to boot. The decor in the safe house and his shack in the woods reflected that. Murph was happy to leave the two reformed spooks to buddy up in the comfort of the house while he lived the dream in his shack. He checked in with the pair daily. Their routine was to have dinner and a fireside chat but on this particular evening Murph could sense tension from Fleet.