Read Online If Then by Matthew De Abaitua - Free Book Online Page A

but no lightning.”
    Joe’s face remained immobile, waiting for clarification.
    Alex smiled, “Meaning you won’t be getting the internet back any time soon, if indeed it still exists in the form that we remember it.”
    “Has anyone been to London lately?” asked Edith.
    James said, “One of the evicted families is working out in Glynde. They came back from London.”
    “I like to hear stories of London,” said Edith. “Any news of its misfortunes would reassure me that we made the right decision.”
    “A character flaw of yours,” said the baron, stroking the hand of his wife.
    “London is too big to fail,” said Alex. “Everything and everyone will be sacrificed to preserve it.”
    “If you are looking for trouble, then go north.” This from Angus, the douanier , keeper of the border. Angus also had an implant. Both he and James were big genial men who, under the control of the implant, had committed violence on behalf of the community. No guilt and no bias, that was the genius of the system. When James evicted families he was not in control of his actions, and was a mere vessel for the will of the town. When the douanier set fire to an encampment that strayed too close to the perimeter, or beat back weeping mothers with their babes in arms, he did so blank-eyed.
    “I heard that Middlesbrough failed to reach its reserve price,” said the douanier. “They have a month before the deadline and then they’ll be put into special measures.”
    The douanier picked up news of the outside world from the people who passed by. Radio signals from outside could not penetrate the atmospheric soup of the Process.
    “Are we to expect more migrants at the gate?” Edith asked him, although her glance paused pointedly at Hector.
    “If it’s a cold spring,” said the douanier .
    Broad-shouldered and powerfully muscled, the douanier was a genteel enforcer; before the Seizure, he had been a silversmith. It was Edith’s idea to call him the douanier rather than the town guard, or the man-at-arms, or the bouncer; the gentility of the French word made the act of exclusion appear more refined. An advantage of the implants was that, once the necessary violence had been performed, men like Angus and James returned to their identities as reasonable, biddable citizens. In the afternoons, the douanier repaired jewellery, his great strength focused upon tiny acts of beauty.
    “People keep coming,” he said, sadly. “We give them sandwiches and send them on their way.”
    The baron leant back and nodded sagely. “And if they do not accept the sandwiches, your implant takes over and the Process delivers the necessary force. The Process spares you the moral responsibility of your acts, and spares us from living in fear of you. The quality of people can thrive, whereas in the past we merely cultivated quantity. This is the purpose of the Process.”
    Baron Von Pallandt luxuriated in committing this heresy against his long-lost liberalism.
    “I don’t think that is the purpose,” said Alex Drown.
    “Are you going to lecture me?” The baron appeared amused by the prospect. “You sold us to the Process, you can hardly complain when we take pleasure in it.”
    “I don’t object to your evident delight. I just don’t believe in your interpretation of the Process.”
    “What insight can the Institute offer us?” replied the baron. Before the Seizure, Edith and the baron had actively prepared for social collapse, had forearmed themselves against it, and been arrested for foretelling it on the streets of London; that they enjoyed being proved so thoroughly right was hard to ignore.
    “I don’t believe the Process is refining the inhabitants of this town and discarding the materials it cannot work with.” Alex adjusted her glasses. James noted that the bloodstains had been scrubbed out of her collar.
    “Aren’t we ignoring the obvious?” said Edith. “The reason everyone is so healthy is that the Process predicted who