Call Me Joe Read online

  CALL

  Martin van Es

  ME

  Andrew Crofts

  JOE

  Published by RedDoor

  www.reddoorpress.co.uk

  © 2020 Martin van Es

  The right of Martin van Es to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Cover design: Rawshock Design

  Typesetting: Jen Parker, Fuzzy Flamingo

  For Sis, who I love so much

  Contents

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Sign up to the Joe Project

  About the authors

  “Be the change that you wish to see in the world”

  Mahatma Gandhi

  One

  At the moment when the sun went down, Sophie was staring fixedly out of the window, only half listening to the headmaster’s voice.

  Job etiquette required that she should have been looking him in the eye and listening to him as he reminded her yet again of her responsibilities, both to the school and to the parents who entrusted the care of their children to her, but she had heard what he had to say so often she was worried she would end up laughing if she caught his eye.

  “We have a sacred duty to safeguard these children,” he was saying, “not just protecting them from physical harm, but from anything that might jeopardise their mental and emotional development as well.”

  Wanting to continue to show him the respect that his position and reputation deserved, she remained politely quiet, refusing to be drawn into an open argument which might give him an opportunity to sack her. Rather than answering back to the patronising way in which he was now addressing her about her “duties” and “moral responsibilities”, she had been staring out of the window at her class as they played their various sports among the children from other year groups.

  It was a particularly idyllic day and she was cross with him for spoiling her previously benign mood by summoning her to his office to tell her yet again that she was too friendly with the pupils. It had been a long struggle to get to this comfortable point in her life and she did not intend to let anyone take it away from her.

  The sun had bathed the school grounds in a warm golden light as the boys spread out across the vivid green of the cricket pitches at what looked from above like a leisurely pace, and the girls filled the crowded netball courts with swirling bursts of activity. Even the security personnel seemed to have relaxed in their various posts around the edges of the premises, their faces inscrutable and their eyes invisible behind their dark glasses. Lulled by the warmth, they had momentarily become spectators to the scene like her, rather than the guardians of its safety, which was what they had been employed to do. It had been a while since there had been any sort of real threat to the school’s security and no one could realistically be expected to stay on high alert indefinitely, however much military-style training they might have received when first recruited.

  “You need to maintain a distance,” the headmaster was droning on, “they are your pupils, your charges; they are not your friends…”

  The relative tranquillity of the cricket field was a sharp contrast to the excited shouts and cheers of the girls as goals were scored on the netball courts. Sophie felt a fierce sense of pride flicker inside her as she watched. She didn’t care what the headmaster said; the children did feel like her friends. She had certainly grown to know them better than any class she had ever taught before, or any peer group she had ever been part of for that matter. They seemed to her to be an exceptional bunch of young people and she took credit for much of the progress they were making, both academically and emotionally.

  Through the window she saw that Hugo had been sent to field at the furthest corner of the cricket pitch. He didn’t seem to be concerned at being sidelined from the action going on around the wickets. He was gazing about him through his oversized Harry Potter glasses like he wasn’t part of anything that was happening with the ball, his mind apparently a thousand miles away. Sophie hoped that the batsman wouldn’t hit the ball in that direction while Hugo was staring dreamily up at the sky, partly because she knew the other boys were always looking for excuses to shout at the poor little chap, and partly because she feared that an unexpected blow from a hard cricket ball to the back of his head could easily prove fatal.

  For a moment she feared she had gone blind, or perhaps been struck unconscious. Then she realised she was not in any pain and the exclamations from the headmaster told her that she wasn’t alone in the sudden darkness.

  “What’s going on?” the headmaster shouted. “Sophie, are you there?”

  “I’m here,” Sophie said, unsure exactly where she was in the inky blackness. “What’s happened?”

  “Is it some sort of eclipse?” the headmaster asked. “Was there a warning? There was nothing on the radio this morning.”

  Outside the window she could hear the frightened screams of the children and the shouts of the now alert security guards and sports teachers as they tried to work out what had happened and what they should do about it. There had never been any sort of safety drill as to what to do in a situation like this. They all knew what to do if the school was attacked by a lone gunman or a suicide bomber or if a fire should break out, but no one had ever foreseen a need to work out a drill for the arrival of total darkness in the middle of a sunny afternoon.

  Within a few moments the screams had transformed into nervous laughter as people realised they were unhurt and bumped into one another a
s they tried to feel their way to some place of safety.

  “I’ve never seen an eclipse like this,” Sophie replied.

  The light snapped on in the room as the headmaster found his way to the switch and outside the security lights started creating pools of light around the buildings which the children could make their way towards. Some of the guards had produced torches from their pockets and were moving around the children like sheep dogs, attempting to make sure that there were no stragglers, shouting instructions to one another, using military jargon they had never before had a chance to try out in a real situation.

  The lights in the room flickered momentarily, threatening a return to darkness.

  “There’s probably been a huge surge in demand,” the headmaster said.

  Sophie was struck by how calm his voice had become. He certainly did have impressive leadership qualities when it came to a crisis. A lot of people said that the remarkable success of the school was in large part down to his personality and she had to admit that was probably true however annoying it was when he lectured her on her pastoral care techniques.

  “We had better go to the children,” he said. “Let’s get them back into their classrooms until we know exactly what is going on. That way we can do a headcount.”

  By the time they reached the ground floor, most of the children were already crowding back inside the building which was now lit just as it would be on a winter’s night. They were milling around in the communal areas, high and noisy on adrenaline, enjoying the interruption of normal school-day routines. The flickering of the electricity supply was becoming less pronounced as the power stations regained control of the supplies and demand became steadier.

  “Everyone to their own classrooms,” she and the headmaster shouted, adding to the noise levels, and other teachers followed their lead.

  Sophie stepped out through one of the exits for a few moments, to check that there was no one left behind. The excited babble of the voices thronging the corridors inside was masking the total stillness which had enveloped the world outside. There was not a breath of wind, and only the distant stars to break up the vast black emptiness beyond the school lights, seeming to stretch away from the Earth for ever.

  “Is this the end of the world, Miss?” The small voice sounded more curious than scared.

  “No, Hugo,” she said, surprised by her own calmness. “I don’t think so.”

  “What is it then?”

  “I have no idea. I’m sure we will find out soon. Go to the classroom with the others for the moment while we work out what to do next.”

  “Get that child inside,” a security guard barked, his voice sounding more frightened than Hugo’s. Sophie noticed that he was brandishing a gun. “We’re putting the whole premises on lockdown.”

  Two

  The television flickered silently in the background, the images taking up only a small part of Yung Zhang’s attention. She had muted the interview with the Director of the International Monetary Fund, which she had only been half watching anyway as she dealt with more pressing issues on her phone, in order to take Simon’s call from Hong Kong International Airport, where he was waiting for his flight to commence boarding.

  As she talked she walked towards the window in order to stare at the panoramic view, while simultaneously performing perfectly balanced squats, stretching her spine upwards with the merciless self-discipline which had been instilled in her as a young ballerina.

  She was acutely aware that these days she spent too many hours sitting in front of screens or in aeroplanes and so she had trained herself to be constantly exercising whenever she was taking calls. The habit had become such an intrinsic part of her life that she hardly even knew she was doing it any more. It had become as instinctive to her as breathing or blinking. Journalists who interviewed her often used analogies of “machine-like” efficiency when describing the way in which she performed every task – many of them simultaneously – but they would also comment on the exquisite elegance with which she made every physical move and the thoughtfulness with which she turned every phrase, whether she was talking in English or Mandarin.

  Yung knew from direct experience, and from many years of intense research and development work, that it would not be long before her brain functions, however exceptional they might seem to other less informed people, would all soon be bettered by the developments being made in artificial intelligence. AI was her speciality and her skills in that area had made her both enormously rich and enormously endangered. Very few people in positions of power understood the potential of the projects she had been working on, and that made them fearful of her. She had discovered that when powerful people become fearful they tended to lash out. They would prefer to shut down whatever they didn't understand rather than trying to understand it.

  She was well aware, therefore, that the only advantage she had over machines was her living, biological body. She knew that it was constantly deteriorating, albeit at an infinitesimally slow rate, and had a finite lifespan, which could easily be shortened if she did not take the greatest care of every muscle and organ through scientifically perfected exercise and nutrition regimes. She had been the first person to take CrossFit seriously in China and had woven its principles into every minute of her life. As a result there was not an inch of fat on her body and not a muscle that wasn’t in perfect working order.

  Whenever she was in the house she spent a lot of time in front of that window, allowing the vista to calm her soul and her emotions while her mind and body were otherwise occupied. She feared that whatever Simon was going to tell her was going to make her cry and she was determined to fight that instinct, wanting to rise above such a primitive urge to do something which she knew would make her seem vulnerable and would not help the situation. Staring hard at the view would help distract her from the pain in her heart.

  It was this vista which had first drawn her and her husband, Liang, to the mountain location and made them decide to use it to create the ultimate twenty-first century house. There had been a building there before, but they had come with a vision for a new way of living, unlike anything that had ever been built in New Zealand before. Perhaps at the back of their minds they had guessed they would one day need to use it as an escape route from political pressures in China, but initially it had been more about escaping the everyday pressures of their working lives.

  The original architect’s plans were refined and improved on with every new invention and discovery made during the years that it took to build, resulting in one of the world’s first fully intelligent houses, every element run by smart software to achieve maximum efficiency and maximum security from cyber attacks as well as from physical ones.

  The focal point of this grand, man-made project, however, was still the natural view she was now squatting in front of, framed by a picture window the size of a swimming pool. The tree-covered mountains seemed to stretch to the sky, the blazing sun and small white clouds creating an ever-moving show of shadows all the way to the farthest horizon.

  “Did you get to talk to anyone in Beijing?” she asked, dreading his answer, knowing the chances were it would be another dead end.

  Simon was one of the few people she knew who she would ever trust with a mission this delicate and this dangerous. They had known each other a long time and he was by far the most skilful negotiator she had ever met, as well as being inscrutably honest and discreet. She was aware that she owed her current freedom and position in a large part to his legal skills and wise advice.

  “I feel like I talked to everyone in the entire city,” Simon replied. “Absolutely none of them wanted to talk to me, but they were all far too polite to actually say so.”

  “And did you find out anything? Did you find out where they have taken him?”

  “Nothing. No one knows anything, or if they do they are definitely not going to tell me. As far as
they are concerned Liang has not been arrested or detained, and they know nothing about his whereabouts. When I ask what they think could have happened to him they all just shrug and say things like, ‘perhaps an accident?’”

  Yung made an involuntary mewing sound, like someone had just trodden hard on a kitten, but regained control quickly. “Somebody must know something, Simon. If it was an accident it would have been reported to the police by now. They must have taken him somewhere.”

  “Listen,” he said, “this is not something to talk about on the phone. They are always listening. Wait till I get to New Zealand.”

  That was the moment when the sun went out and the picture window turned black in front of her. Behind her the television coughed and spluttered before returning the picture, which was interrupted a few seconds later by a newsflash.

  “Something just happened, Simon,” she said. “It’s gone completely black outside.”

  “Here too,” Simon said. “What is it?”

  “It’s like someone switched the sun off,” Yung said.

  Her instinct was to be frightened, but her intellect told her that was a primitive reaction, not one that would occur to a well-programmed computer. She wanted to remain calm in order to take in exactly what was happening because it was incredibly interesting and she wanted to be able to recall every detail once it was over – unless the light never came back, in which case everything would be over pretty soon anyway. Simon was still on the line and she could hear raised voices around him. It sounded like he was in the midst of some sort of panicked stampede. She could imagine him standing quietly amidst the milling crowds, calmly assessing the situation before making any decisions.

  “It’s kicking off here,” Simon shouted. “People are trampling over one another to get out of the airport, but I don’t know where the hell they think they’re going to go. It looks pretty dark out there.”

  Yung could hear announcements over the airport public address system.

  “What are they saying?”

  “Telling everyone to stay where they are and not to panic,” Simon said, “but no one’s listening.”