We found a dikdik in a shed a few kloms from the Burbs proper, just as it was getting dark.
The houses were more substantial here, with small fenced plots of land. Some even had fruit trees and vegetable gardens. Lights shone through windows, but this house was dark, so we’d assumed the owners were dead or had fled, till we looked through the window.
A man on a sofa; for a moment I thought he was sleeping, then my eyes grew accustomed to the greater gloom inside the house and I realised he was dead, long dead, by the look of him, beyond the stage of walking again or violence. A woman sat beside him, her face thin and eyes dark from starvation, but still happy and animated. A terminal rested on the table beside them. I wondered what memory or Virtual world she was inhabiting, far from the horror of the present.
We walked away quietly, though there was little chance she’d hear. I had heard of people dying in Virtual, unwilling or unable to break free, well fed and well rested in their Virtual world while their starved and exhausted Realtime bodies perished.
The shed doors creaked as we opened them and there was the dikdik. It had been a safe bet we’d find one; if the house’s inhabitants had worked in the City they’d have needed a dikdik to get them there.
Neil grinned at it wearily. ‘Just what we need.’
‘If it works.’
Neil pressed the battery monitor. ‘Nearly fully charged,’ he said. ‘You should be able to keep it going till daylight recharges it. A floater would be faster, but they can track that. At least the satellites won’t spot you in the dark and by daylight you’ll be just another Wanderer.’
I looked at him suspiciously. ‘What do you mean: “you”? What about you?’
‘To begin with, they’ll be looking for two people. Might even set up a search program for two bodies together. The sooner we’re apart the better. And, the dikdik will go three times as fast with just you. As for me, I’m going to call up a floater from home and go back to the utopia.’
I didn’t ask why. It was obvious. A floater heading back to Faith Hope and Charity would divert any searchers, and besides, Neil must be longing to see how the utopia was faring, to see Elaine and Theo and the others that he loved. I wished — desperately and completely — that I could go with him.
‘They may try to take you back,’ I said at last.
‘Possibly.’ Neil almost looked as though he hoped they would. ‘The Outlands look after their own,’ he added.
It had never occurred to me that a community as peaceful as Faith Hope and Charity might have defences. But of course, I thought, they’d survived the Declines and the Wild Years. There was probably more in their arsenal than Theo’s neuro fence.
‘I’ll ask a few of the team to come along for the ride,’ added Neil lightly.
‘There’s one small problem,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘How do you drive a bloody dikdik?’