Albedo Chapter Seven
Summer Madness, Chlorine 2
Lukewarm food deliveries congealing on the floor, flat on her bed with chin to chest, umbilical link to
her phone's power cord. Rolling back to plug and unplug when drained. Bed head, lonely. Bleary eyed
staring into the shallow depths of distraction. Anhedonia technologica. Bored and hot and fusty,
lethargic and frantic and sweaty. After three days she peeled herself out of the rot. Then unstuck
the corners of her eyes for long enough to search around for the slip of blue paper from Meredith.
Staring down at it and considering herself, pondering her life. Who she was and who she wanted to be
after all the nothing she had done.
After a blisteringly hot shower, three days of water used, she emerged scrubbed, boiled, creamed,
scented, hair fixed, and face made. Hermeneutical solace over, she threw her phone down onto the
side and started the set up of the cheap smartphone she'd ordered online. She couldn't tell herself
why this felt important, it had almost been done in a fugue, departing from the cursed annexe of her
brain she had been attached to for years. Wiped clean now and fresh and temporary and
detachable.
The public transport systems across England had become decentralised and corrupted over the decade
following the great flooding. Corporate interest had snapped up a lot of the floating annexes left
behind after the tenured providers moved out. Many of the routes were no longer viable after too
many coastal refugees moved inland. Damages to equipment and other impediments made the profit
margins slim enough that they were often run as solo projects, taken over sub rosa to make slim
change. Various 'Stranded Passenger' style apps had cropped up on the outskirts of the country.
Operators pick up and drop folks at different spots, stitching together a route out of nodes in the
network and guiding groups to be picked up together. It often meant walking a for long stretches,
but it was often cheaper than paying for the whole trip. Intrepid Herzog types could be seen
Fitzcarraldoing their craft over land to attach to emerging markets. Busses at the edge of the
water, trains at the last sleeper of the dry line, submerged and bloated rails warped B.E.R.
Marnie left a little boat to signal a crowded single carriage train. Then to board a hyper-clean VW
bus with a sleeping man on the back bench and a morose woman driving. "It's his bloody business and
I end up doing all of the night driving. He was supposed to take over hours ago but he wont wake
up." She dropped Marnie off near the address on the paper, copied over into the app's interface as
she left the house early that morning. A coppice of trees staggered equidistant into the earth and
then the water. The burst banks of a river covering the roots of the outer edge of the planting.
Marnie could make out a bald upon the hill and something like a path up towards it.
A group of heads all whipped around at her arrival, faces painted in fear. A squat red brick wall on
the perimeter of a compact set of farm buildings in the background. A group of young people turning
curious at the new arrival, sharing glances and standing up from sitting and the like. Half smiling,
half wondering what she was doing by herself coming up to their secluded spot out in the woods. All
but one face wrapped in black plastic goggles. Looking off into a digital distance she couldn't
imagine, until it came plummeting down out of the air. Smacking off the metal roof of a parked 4x4
with a hollow thud. Everyone hit the deck. The man in the goggles pulled them up and gave a big
guilty smile. "You lot are ridiculous. It wont go off without an ignition source!" He turned and
pulled a quizzical face at her.
"What about if the drone battery had been pierced? It would have gone up then" Said one of the
muffled floor-bound voices, still with his face in the dirt. "You shouldn't have gone up so high
with it Flynn. That was dangerous" said a woman getting up from the floor.
"It's dynamite, it's not going to..." Flynn stopped speaking at the chorus of hissing from his
group. They turned to her as if to check if her ears were working.
"I guess it's not what it looks like?" Marnie said, trying to give them an out.
"It's kind of exactly what it looks like" Flynn said.
"The little drones wont be able to hold the full payload and keep agility, it'll just have to be a
small strike. Like I said" The group on the floor cringed up at his words, one of the men slapping
his forehead in disbelief.
"What are you doing here?" Flynn said.
"I guess I'm a little late" She reached for the blue paper in her front pocket
"A lady called Meredith sent me. Something about a job."
As if a pall had been lifted from them, the group stood up and began smiling, walking over to her and
introducing themselves. The dynamite drone gone unmentioned.
From out of the front window, a three-lite bay, Marnie could see the last essence of where the sun
had dispersed below the land. She could see where the last layers of trees gave way to open ground
and then to road. How the foliage gave shade to the water down below and softly reflected the grey
blue sky up from its rippling surface. Partitioned into strips by jagged bands of land. The group
were discussing things at the kitchen table while Marnie sipped tea from a chipped enamel camping
mug. The sun set while they talked, her cheap new phone bereft of signal and then finally battery
after she'd checked it for the hundredth time. The tall one Flynn had disappeared a few times out of
the front door to make calls or smoke or something, But the rest of them were sat talking in hushed
tones. A man and a woman, both fair-haired, with soft Scandinavian accents she couldn't discern. A
young looking man in glasses and a parka. A fed up looking woman in her late thirties. All five,
including the extra Flynn, wore something like military gear. A mix of the tactical and outdoor in
their gist. She felt a little like a kid again, waiting for the adults to finish. She was beginning
to get a feel for what they were involved in. Things left out, diagrams and cases on the floor, the
drone slapping down on the car. One half of her held on to a little bit of excitement. The other was
beginning to rust in the pure air of the moment, letting in her fear.
The group's current project had managed to involve Marnie after all, wrapping her up in the two days
leading to it. There were those in the group that wanted her to take a slower entrance, complete
minor chores and get used to them all, but Flynn had other ideas. He'd taken it upon himself to take
her aside at quiet points and explain aspects of what they were doing. Sat on the end of her bed,
frame creaking. Passing over tablets and print outs at the breakfast table. The focus of the scheme,
'The International Plastic Producers Convention', as straightforward a name as she had ever heard.
The event was occurring in a few days time, and they had been prepping an interruption to the main
speaker's keynote. A British baron with a fortune amassed in offshore gas and a chemical company
he'd inherited from his South African uncle. The ploy was to pilot a train of drones through an open
door on the roof. Then all the way through the convention centre to the stage where he was speaking.
The little envoys packed with explosives or unfurling banners condemning profiteering through an
environmental collapse. The members of the group all had their own tasks, timed to perfection, and
yet another small role had been carved out for Marnie. On the fated day she was to hit send on a
message when the coast was clear, watching from a screen in their parked rental van. Then stepping
out to watch on the street for anything that looked like trouble.
The Danes, as she found out, left a day before in order to gain access to the conference as members
and film the plot. It wasn't clear to her yet how close they wanted to detonate the two drones
strapped with explosives, whether to injure and scare or maim and kill. Marnie hadn't asked, but
felt better when she heard that the members were going to secret themselves in the hall. On the day,
Flynn handed the keys of the rental to her and smiled. He'd been slicing off parts of his role and
giving them to her from the start, and had been over the route with her the night before. She
remembered the passing place to trade over plates. The synchronisation with the traffic lights and
the blanking of traffic cameras they'd ordered on the dark web. The casual stop in traffic to let
out the other two members at a shop. Only one moment unsettled her, when a team of police stood in
the road barring her way. She turned to at Flynn who was smirking, like it was a big joke. The
officer knocking on the window made her jump, but he was only warning her that the roads were
blocked because of the convention up ahead.
Flynn had leaned over Marnie and thanked the officer, then pointed out a side street with a gap she
could pull up in. He jumped out of the side door and left it open, leaning against the outside
pretending to text. He leaned over and pulled on his AR glasses from out of a bag. Marnie didn't get
a complete explanation of how he was doing it, but she knew that it was his part of the performance
now. She took a deep breath and the world seemed to do the same. There were only a few moments while
she waited for the others to arrive. A break in the sounds of the city. No crossings beeping, no
voices shouting, bottles breaking, or lorries clattering. A soft whine on the edge of the wind,
something skipping in from up over the clouds. She leaned forward to look out the top of the
windscreen and saw a white flash over the buildings. Flynn took a peek over his glasses before he
jumped back in, frowning with distaste. The rest of the group followed soon after, jumping into the
side door.
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