Salvation

Four portal doors in Connexion’s internal hub network, and Cal found himself stepping out into a huge construction site. He knew it was London’s Greenwich Peninsula before Apollo threw the Hubnav data onto his screen glasses. The old arena dome had been demolished two years ago, to colossal news stream coverage. Now he was standing about ten meters below ground level, in a circular pit with metal restraining walls and a floor of frosty mud. Big construction vehicles rumbled around him, some of them manually operated, the drivers sitting in high cabs, using small joysticks to control their machinery. In the cold morning light, it was a slice of a post-apocalypse world ruled by steampunk dinosaurs.

“He’s over here,” Dokal said, and set off across the mud.

Callum followed, realizing that this was probably the first time he’d seen her out of heels. She led him over to a group of suits who looked even more out of place in the pit than he did. Then he caught sight of who was standing in the center of them.

“You might have warned me,” he grumbled.

“What? The man who saves the world before lunch every day, scared?”

“Fuck you.”

“Remember, don’t smile too wide for the photographer, you’ll look insincere. But do smile. Oh, and be respectful.”

“I’m always—”

The Pretorian guard of lawyers, accountants, architects, and PAs parted. Ainsley Baldunio Zangari looked around in interest. The side of his mouth lifted in wry acknowledgment. “Callum!” His voice was like a shout as he put his hand out in greeting.

Just like the news streams.

“Good to meet you, son,” Ainsley said, shaking hands effusively. “People, this is Callum, who saved our collective asses yesterday.”

The entourage finally mustered smiles of approval.

“Let’s him and me get a picture here, for history’s sake.”

The entourage spread out as if they’d been threatened with a cattle prod. Callum saw one of them, in a slightly cheaper suit than the rest, stand directly in front of him, adjusting his screen glasses. To one side, Dokal mouthed “smile” with a furious expression.

Callum slowly produced a lopsided grin, and said: “Honor to meet you, sir.”

“Good man.” Ainsley’s smile got even wider, and his other hand clamped down on Callum’s shoulder.

Callum felt ridiculous. Ainsley was sixty-one, with thick silver-fox hair and a large frame that wasn’t entirely apparent beneath a suit that was superbly cut to de-emphasize his bulk. Cal couldn’t tell if it was fat or muscle; could have gone either way. And here he was in what media trolls would caption as a wrestling lock—or worse—with his boss, the richest man there’d ever been.

“Give us a moment,” Ainsley said. The entourage melted away faster than an ice cube dropped on lava. “Good job yesterday, Callum. I appreciate it.”

His hand and shoulder were released. “Just doing my job, sir.”

“Shit.” The jovial patriarch persona vanished. “You ain’t a kiss-ass, are you, son?”

Callum took a moment and glanced at the nearest group of the entourage, which included Dokal, all clustered together and carefully not looking in his direction. “No. I live for this shit. I fucking saved Sweden from a nuclear catastrophe—well, me and my crew. You don’t know what that is. But it’s my life, and it’s the best.”

Ainsley grinned. “And you, son, have no idea how envious I am. These dicks that can only say yes.” His hand waved around the pit. “This is my life. Don’t worry, I’m not going to come ride along with you. Insurance, for one thing, and the board would go apeshit.”

“Each to his own.”

“Yeah, but seriously: Thanks for yesterday. Fucking Brits, can you believe that? Don’t they get plutonium is a century past its sell-by date?”

“They were trying to get rid of it.”

“Ha! Fucking Johnston; you shake hands with him, son, you count your fingers afterwards. Nations are dissolving; Connexion’s made sure of that. Everyone’s a neighbor now. It’s not a race to kill each other anymore. We’re off to the stars instead. How about that? You going to emigrate when the starships reach a proto-Earth exoworld?”

“Dunno. Depends how long it takes to terraform one.”

“Yeah. I just got back from Australia yesterday, you know. Icefall was impressive, even by my standards.”

Callum hoped he wasn’t looking too blank and stupid right now. He vaguely recalled seeing something about Icefall on a pub’s news stream late last night as a fickle media finally moved on from Gylgen.

Apollo threw up details—a Connexion media briefing. It was one of Ainsley’s pet projects, irrigating the central Australian desert. “I heard it started well,” Callum said uncertainly.

“Certainly did, apart from some dickhead protestors trying to spoil progress like they always do.”

“Right.”

“The beauty of it is: We can spin Icefall as a grand humanitarian project, but actually it’s planetary engineering one-oh-one. That’s why I’m really backing it. Get some experience in. This way we’ll be ready to make the truly big decisions when the time comes. And it will.”