Reboot

By Mike O'Donnell

Crime, poverty, social deprivation and riots blight mid-21st century Britain. Can the controlled environment of Heatham Complex and REBOOT supply a solution and produce an ordered society? The experiment seems to be working until NOLAN starts graffiti spraying, and LEXI, with the help of STICK and the Fangs biker gang bring a touch of life's harsh reality to the sterile Complex. EADES is hired to hunt NOLAN down but the REBOOT process has problems of its own. And the program glitches are human.

• Language: English
• Publisher: FaulknerBooks
• Release date: Jul 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201611514

Mike O'Donnell

Mike was a slow starter at the writing game. For the first two years of his life he seemed intent on eating and sleeping. Once these skills were mastered he did begin to make his mark, mostly with dirty fingers, lumps of mud and soft crayon. His father was in the RAF (as was his Sergeant Mum during the war) which meant that every so often the family moved on. He was therefore very nearly educated at a lot of schools; two weeks and three days at one lucky establishment. He did eventually learn to wield a pen, but mostly for activities other than writing. As all his forebears, he entered the Armed Forces. Three grandparents in the Army, both parents in the RAF, so he joined the RN. (Historical note: Great uncle George Rowe survived the Titanic and surprisingly he wasn't to blame. He was ex-RN.) The RN was extremely educational. Mike learned how to get blisters on his feet from marching and tabbing across Dartmoor, the Brecon Beacons, and a variety of parade grounds; and on his hands from sawing, chipping and filing cast iron and lumps of steel. He was professionally sick in the Atlantic, the North Sea, and up in the ice during the contretemps with Icelandic fishermen. And, because he was young he wasn't too well in a couple of ports like Hamburg and Amsterdam - water wasn't involved. He left the Navy, tried as many jobs as possible to see what made the world work, and sold a few pathetic stories. After four years servicing the Sultan of Oman's Navy and ten years trying to keep some of the Royal Army of Oman's radio equipment going he had a BA(Hons) and an MBA and sold about fifty stories.

Book preview

1

What the fuck was she doing crossing the Heath at this time of night? Lexi had the feeling the trees were hunching over and deepening the darkness. Every black bush concealed a crouching maniac waiting to rip her apart. The hot night was as still as a shuttered cremato­rium. Perfect horror scenario. She quickened her pace.

The unexpected violent rustle of dead leaves caused the breath to check in her throat. She scanned the blackness under the trees.

She must have a few screws loose to ferret round the city in search of pre-electric car parts and then tramp from the old Highgate road at midnight. Sensible people quit the Heath after sunset.  She leant the oval-shaped radiator grille against a sapling, eyes riveted on the tree line, and dried her palms on her jeans. Nothing moved. The eastern side of the Heath was home turf and she shouldn't be jumpy. She was young, fit and strong, fully able to punch her weight and then some. If it came to running, she could imitate a gold-medal-winning hare. But in the blackness she could just as easily head into trouble as away from it. She took several quick deep breaths, she'd read somewhere that it helped night vision. She wished she'd read something about remembering to take a flashlight.

Minutes of quiet passed and when no further rustles disturbed the undergrowth, she pulled a battered cigarette packet from her unzipped jacket pocket to calm her jumpiness. She'd been walking for half an hour and a pause was due. She pushed the pack back. No, she'd wait until she got back to the workshop and enjoy the luxury properly with a glass of red plonk. Cigarettes cost and shouldn't be squandered.

She thought she heard a faint rustle again as she retrieved the chrome grille but it might have been a puff of wind stirring the trees, or one of the night animals that roamed this part of the common away from the Heatham Complex. A fox or badger maybe. That would be the answer. It was only likely to be an animal, it certainly wouldn't be any of the residents of the Complex itself. They wouldn't be night strolling on the Heath that was guaranteed. They didn't need to. They'd built parks inside, for chrissake. Someone had made sure that a desire to commune with nature was no reason for anyone to leave the comfortable, safe and carefully engineered environment. The Complex had everything: cinema, restaurants, shops, swimming bath, shopping mall, mini business park, and the manicured grass, trees and bushes wouldn't get disturbed by noisy wildlife. Besides, at this hour the residents would all be safely snuggled under their duvets.

Well, maybe not all; the distant lines of yellow lit windows in the angled dark mass of the nearest buildings indicated some were still awake. The futuristic design paradoxically looked like the sinking stern of the Titanic. She knew that because the posters advertising the commemorative exhibition pictured the lit-up portholes of the upended doomed liner. She had no idea why a hundred and fifty-year-old shipping cock-up should be commemorated, but then history hadn't been her strong point at school.

She grinned as she swapped the car grille to her other hand and set off angling down the slope. She hadn't actually had any strong points at school as far as she could remember. Leaving was only three years back but she had tried to erase the deadly boredom and pointless mechanical teaching from her mind. She did recall all the hugging and sobs of the leaving class's last day; as if half the stupid cows didn't live within a couple of e-tram or tube stops from each other anyway. Lexi seemed to be the only one ready to whoop with joy that schooldays were over. The whoop would have been heartfelt since she had no idea how she managed to pass the Secondary Education Leaving Diploma with a Grade One. Earlier, she'd had visions of being a two-time set-back like Serena Walters, who was beginning to look older than one or two teachers. It showed how thick Serena was because SELD was meant to ensure that everyone passed. If you could count the number of grey cells you had on the fingers of one hand, then you would get a Grade Six. That put Serena on the level of the less-than-average vegetable, maybe a particularly dense cabbage. Not that she would be alone. Academic excellence hadn't been the aim of Nightingale Street Composite. The school's motto might well have been, 'Keep them off the streets. Give the world a break until three-thirty.'

Lexi had reached the bottom of the slope when another vigorous trembling shook the foliage alongside the dirt path. No gentle night wind or nocturnal hairy beast could account for the bush's rattling. Something large, or some body, was battling with the undergrowth. It was unlikely to be a mugger. No one in their right mind would lurk in this deprived corner of Hampstead Heath in search of victims to rob. Decent opportunities to score existed in the Complex, but no robber with more brain power than Serena Walters would attempt it. The Safe Streets Mega had deployed more officers per paving stone in the Complex than in any other borough of the capital. Chances were that if you were a crim in the Complex you were standing next to a 'Safer'. Muggers would be in short supply.

According to Lexi's dad she had little to worry about in the sexual assault direction either.

Ruddy hell, he'd said. Where's your hair gone?

I had it styled short. It doesn't get in the way now. And it's easier to wash and dry. I should have done it years ago. Any decent dad wouldn't have let his daughter grow up in a junk yard with long hair.

It's an auto breaker and spare parts facility, not a junk yard. You look like a Paris gamine.

That must be a word you picked up from one of your old Hollywood Blu-rays. Or from Jen. It sounds like one of her words. And besides, how would you know? You've never been to Paris.

Well, you're not going to find a guy to take you there for a dirty weekend looking like that. Jack Palmer paused. I suppose that's actually in the plus column as far as a caring father's concerned. But you look like something out of Army boot camp. No one's going to mess with you.

So, no robbers or rapists. She eyed the tree line. That left the junkies and crazies, and there were enough of those around nowadays, although because of the number of Safers patrolling the Complex area, not many crawled their way this far east. London held every type of crazy. Some were harmless. Lexi found the bag ladies and junkies a pain when they accosted her in the street, but relatively easy to deal with, as long as they weren't screaming drunk. The ladies were mostly old and didn't want to move too far from the supermarket trolley containing their life, and all of the crack heads were skinnier than a super model. Lexi had more muscle in one arm than they had all over. And tonight she was armed. All right, it might only be the grille from an Edson, but in her hands it could become an axe, a hammer or a shield. She gave the silent trees one last glance and hefted the lump of chrome-covered steel and headed for the archways and home.

Lexi would have welcomed a glimpse of light from her place, but she had made sure that even if a light had been on nothing was visible once the doors were closed. There weren’t any windows. She had no intention of drawing greedy eyes to the fact that at least one of the lock-ups under the railway arches was a permanent address. Lots of people knew she had a workshop underneath the bridge, but only the 'Fangs' gang members and her family knew about her adjoining living accommodation.

Lexi stopped when the rustling came again. She didn't want to lead anyone to her pad. She'd been there three years now without hassle and that's how she wanted it to stay. She thought about calling out to let the creep know she was onto his lurking, then it occurred to her that there may be more than one. There was enough noise coming from the shrubbery for two. That gave her secure feeling the elbow. Most of the youth in the city only moved about mob-handed. If you weren't a gang member in the rougher boroughs then the chances of surviving to legal drinking age were remote. And now she had reached the bottom of the slope on the south side of the Heath it was particularly dark. A blacker band showed where the railway line embankment ran to the Gospel Oak station, and the lights from the Heatham Complex were a distant half mile to the north.

She was looking towards the already decreased number of yellow squares in the Complex blocks as more inhabitants turned off bedside lights, when the man burst out of the trees. It was less an aggressive charge than a stumble, but he was a head taller than Lexi. She thought about sprinting for it. She was a regular morning runner, but she would be weighed down by the car grille, and there was no way she was going to abandon that. It was destined to be a major part of her current sculpture's face. Besides, where did she run to? The few houses on the Heath's edge had been long abandoned. The series of economic recessions and riots had lasted years, and the housing market had crumbled like a broken digestive. The nearest occupied houses were on the other side of the embankment behind the arches, and there was no way through until the foot tunnel towards Hampstead Heath station.

The man shambled towards her and she brought up the Edson grille holding it in front of her like a serving tray, ready to swing it with either hand. She knew where a man's vulnerable spots were and the grille had a solid frame. If he was thinking about getting his leg over, he'd find his equipment severely dented. It was still too dark to see if he was carrying a blade or other weapon. She sidled to her left where the sparse moonlight reflected from the silvery chrome of the grille. She could see now that although burly, the man was young, probably not twenty, and she was surprised to see that he was well-dressed. Frayed jeans, tee shirt, or grey hoodie and trainers was the uniform of eighty percent of the young men Lexi bumped into on an average day. This man or boy wore chinos, jacket and shirt with a collar.

That's nice. What is it?

Lexi's eyes went wide with surprise. Someone creeping among the trees with thoughts of robbery, rape or beating you up, and they wanted to talk about your latest shopping trip? She tensed. The man must be a psycho. He came another pace forward and jerked to a halt in mid stride.

Lexi could never have imagined how frightening such abrupt stillness could be. It was as if someone had suddenly switched off the power. If it had happened on a busy street she would have rushed to his assistance to find out what was wrong. Here, she thought about taking the chance to run into the trees and hide. He was close enough for her to see the complete lack of expression on his face: like a stone carving, or a zombie, his eyes fixed and staring. If he'd already made a threatening remark or gesture, she would have grabbed the opportunity to get her retaliation in first and swing the Edson grille full speed into the side of his skull before heading for the hills, but he'd said nothing aggressive and his neat shirt and jacket made her think twice. An instant later she was sorry she hadn't started swinging.

The man's power was suddenly switched back on. He completed the forward pace and thrust out an arm.

Give it to me.

You what?

Give me the thing.

What the fuck would you want a car grille for? The astonishment sounded in Lexi's voice.

The man's reaction to the question reminded Lexi of Serena Walters being asked something tricky, like her name.

You...I...Who?..Look, I'm telling you. Don't give me any grief, I want it.

The man's face seemed to flicker as if he were trying out facial expressions in front of a mirror, except they were too rapid to be controlled. Lexi felt fear clench her stomach. This one had all the makings of a total crazy. Banger, one of the members of the White Fangs biker gang, had told her about a bunch of E pills that had been fucked with, and three or four of the ravers had run amok during an all night club scene. One had been steadily running face first into a mirror in the toilets until he was dragged to the ground.

His nose was smashed to buggery and there were bits of teeth all over the floor. Lips split, a right mess, Banger had told her. The mirror was all cracked and covered with blood. Their brain must have been totally scrambled to do that.

This man looked as if he were trying to shepherd his scrambled brain cells into one enclosure by using his face muscles. He didn't seem to be succeeding.

Give me the shiny thing. I collect shinys.

His confused look made him seem intellectually streets behind Serena Walters' vacant gaze, but she never bunched her big fists like this man. He seemed to want to bash her but was waiting for some kind of starter's signal. She hoped she wouldn't inadvertently give it. She eased back half a pace into the shadows.

See it's not really shiny at all. She tilted the Edson chrome bars down so they were shielded from the moonlight. It's a piece of junk.

The man peered at the no longer shiny grille and cocked his head like a quizzical dog or parrot, a 'how did that happen?' look on his face.

Lexi's eyes scanned the area for the easiest escape and she had a flash of inspiration.

That's where all the shiny things are. She jerked her head towards the Complex. See all the gold squares. Full of shinys. You've got to go there.

He followed the direction of her gaze and she dropped the grille to the ground, levering it chrome side down with her foot. It was almost lost in the thick grass.

Lexi had little experience with the mentally challenged. She steered clear of anyone on the street who looked like a dedicated nutter. She couldn't handle irrational behaviour but she recognised the blank look of failed understanding. She'd made the mistake once or twice of answering the rambling demands from bottle-carrying derelicts and saw the same lack of comprehension. This young man may look well-dressed by local standards but he was threadbare in the brain department. One thing she had learned, when someone didn't understand, they often lashed out, and when it came to swinging knuckles this guy didn't look short of the wherewithal to trade lumps.

See, all the lights. Like a Christmas tree. Lexi's voice was persuasive.

The weird-shaped blocks of the Complex did vaguely resemble a badly lit Christmas tree since the number of apartments, and therefore lit windows, lessened floor by floor towards the top. Lexi was gratified to see a recognisable expression fill the blank face before once again the frightening sudden 'power off' suspension of everything. She recalled a kindergarten activity when they had to dance round the room in their knickers and sports shirt and hold their position when Mrs Sibley called out, Freeze! This was as suddenly dramatic but without the barely contained giggles and swayings of impossible poses. The young man was set in concrete. This time Lexi didn't hang about. She grabbed the Edson radiator grille and scrabbled up into the fringe of the trees without looking back.

The darkness swallowed her up and she dived under a thick-leaved bush drawing her knees to her chin. Two could play at the 'freezing' game, and she sat motionless, waiting for sounds of angry pursuit.

She sat for ten minutes before inching her way out, her eyes and ears alert, and for a second she was undecided whether she should stand and be ready to belt off into the thicker trees, or keep low so she wouldn't be seen. She stood, but hunched her shoulders as she peered about, a feeling of vulnerability prickled the goose flesh between her shoulder blades.

Her wisest option was to slink away and get back to the safety of her workshop where she would be secure behind a stout locked door, but she had to know if the young man was still standing statue-like in the clearing. She tiptoed like a cartoon house-breaker lifting and lowering her feet with silent caution. The man was gone. It was too dark to see if he'd taken her advice and headed towards the 'shiny' lights of the Heatham Complex.

The man's inexplicable behaviour gave her a deep sense of unease. She had never before experienced the robotic lifelessness the man had shown when he went into 'freeze frame' mode, or the flickering range of facial expressions that looked so inhuman. Maybe there were more buggered-up drugs on the market. She was happy she could only afford to indulge in the odd fag and glass of alcohol.

It was a restrained but alert Lexi who half-jogged the rest of the journey towards the railway line at the southern end of the Heath and her home underneath the arches.

For some unknown reason all the arches under the railway bridge, except hers, had been bricked up on the north side and opened out to lock-ups on the south. Her north-facing doorway gave her a feeling of individuality and extra security. Few people realised there was anything behind the bricked up rear arch on the street side. Two arches, in fact, because the one next to Lexi's workshop/studio had been bricked up at both ends years earlier and became her windowless living quarters. The previous owner was a mad inventor. Or maybe not so mad, because he had developed a neat electric motor that clipped onto the rear axle of a pedal bike. The battery in the down tube recharged on downhill stretches. He had sold the patent for a bundle of cash and handed tenancy of the archway workshop and living room to Lexi, along with his illegal secret: the inventor had paid no electricity bills. He had tapped off current from the rail line above to power his home. Two black boxes sat in a corner of the workshop, one of which had a mains on/off switch, and the other gently hummed. Lexi treated them like a family shrine. She religiously dusted them off once a week and hid them from view behind an antique tapestry fireguard.

The archway rooms suited Lexi. Two racks of Dexion shelving holding parts and tools divided the front area where she repaired motor-bikes, from her studio where she created her sculptures. The differing purposes of the workshop/studio division was not immediately obvious because all of Lexi's figures were composed of welded, brazed and soldered auto parts.

She slipped between the shelves and held the Edson grille in front of her most complicated creation to date. A linked Hansel, Gretel and Witch threesome. The amended oval grille would form the old crone's lined and pinched face.

Yep. You'll do perfectly. She laid the metal on the cluttered studio bench.

The oily benches on either side of the Dexion divide would not be out of place in any garage. A large pair of doors opened on the Heath side to allow in the motor bikes that required her mechanical services. The doors were usually bolted and she used a small postern. Outside, the gates were painted dark green but inside they had acquired an almost black oily patina from the fumes of exhaust and welding activity. The long uninterrupted U-shaped curve of the walls and ceiling was blackened brick that generations before had been white-washed. Tobacco brown was the lightest colour now visible.

The adjacent room, reached by a discreet door in the far corner of the studio was in stark contrast. It seemed full of light and air and yet had no other opening to the outside world than the narrow doorway. Lexi had cleared it out as soon as she moved in, and repainted everything. The walls were the palest of lemon, the upper part of the curved arch was light blue, and a patterned carpet of bright earth colours covered most of the floor. At furthest remove from the door was a king-sized divan bed separated from the rest of the room by a large folding red and black lacquered screen. A neat kitchen was similarly separated, but this time by a jalousie stud-work partition. The walls were well populated with posters and pictures, with a mock window and mountain scene framed by real curtains on one side. The place had the feeling of a cosy cottage or holiday chalet. Lexi invited very few people here. The most frequent visitors were her family, the Palmers: her father Jack, her stepmother Jennifer, and her eight-year-old half-brother Stafford, who answered to Tod. Her stepmother was not as frequent a guest as the others, she made lame excuses not to visit.

You really should get another entrance, if you're going to stay here, darling. Clambering through all that grease and oil next door is such a trial.

Jen always added the 'if' part, although Lexi had now been in residence for more than three years. Lexi didn't want another door, she liked the idea of being hidden away. She wondered what Jen would say if she realised that Lexi's occupancy wasn't strictly legal. And by now between herself and the mad inventor they must have 'stolen' thousands of pounds worth of electricity. The arc welder burned a lot of power.

Her dad was no mug and knew the situation, but then he ought to. He'd lived in a trailer in the junk yard, or as he called it, auto breaker and spare parts facility, since before he'd married Lexi's mum, and it failed to qualify as a designated residence. He'd certainly never paid Poll Tax, although Lexi wasn't sure if the edifice could be called a trailer any more. Over the decades the basic caravan had been refined and added to. Jack Palmer was proud of the almost luxurious, permanent structure.

Hannaway, the old guy who owned the yard, brought the caravan to break up. When I took the job as his yard boy, I lived in it. Things just went from there. Jack Palmer had told her of his early years before Hannaway died and left him the yard and its rusting wrecks. I married your mum and she moved in, 'just for a few months until we find a place', is what we said. Then came the first depression and times were tough. No chance to afford a house. You came along, and then...

Jack Palmer rarely got beyond that because Lexi's mum had died and Jack had lost all desire to move out of the trailer that held so many memories. Annie, Lexi's mum, had made it liveable and given it a unique feminine touch, her genes were obviously the source of Lexi's artistic streak.

I moved into a place only fit for keeping pigeons or chickens in. She made it into a proper apartment on wheels. Not that it stayed on wheels for long. I spent every evening after the yard shut as the D-I-Y king of Hampstead.

I bet Home Depot and Houseproud loved you, Lexi had said.

Hah! You jokin? I never bought so much as a screw from them. Old Hannaway taught me how to make do.

Oh, right! How did you 'make do' when you needed a sheet of plywood, wall units, or a worktop like the one in the kitchen?

Ah. Well times were tough all round. Foreclosures were going on all over.

So?

"Negative equity was the word. All those posh detacheds and semis out towards