Read Online Lie of the Land by Michael F. Russell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Michael F. Russell
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windscreen. Then, as quickly as it started, the rain stopped; the tap turned tight in the off position. The smart screen was bang on the money.
âFuckâs sake,â Carl breathed, glad to be through the downpour. He could look up at scree-strewn slopes now. He stopped the car again, getting out this time. Fresh air, damp and earthy; he could hear the river now, down below, gushing and rushing through the rocks.
Where he was headed, the blue-grey hills faded by degrees into the blue-grey sky until it was hard to say where the hills ended and where the sky began. He was hungry. Sitting on a stone, he scoffed his sandwiches, gazing up at the high tops, the ragged drops. When had the massacre been? What were the causes? He couldnât quite remember. He tried to imagine women and children being stabbed to death in the snow.
He finished his lunch and drove on. The smart screen told him about rock types and a brief sanitised version of what had happened in 1692.
â¢
He passed scarred hillsides where conifer plantations had been levelled for biofuel and which now resembled First World War battlefields. He passed shuttered hotels, overgrown verges and, deep into the north, empty glens and the gaping ruins of old stone houses.
Wind turbines turned on a summit or two and some stretches of road were so bad with potholes that he had to slow to walking speed to weave through them. Two buses and four cars had passed him, heading south; one big Jag had overtaken him, going north. He had not seen a single police car north of Fort William.
And everywhere, he would spot a mast on some hilltop, skeletal metal and antennae against the sky. Nothing tagged with RFID moved without being monitored, and most of the under-18s had theirs implanted for âsafetyâ reasons. Sentinel sensed everything and everyone, except those who had the means to avoid it.
He drove through Fort William without stopping. SCOPE was just another tool in the stateâs outsourced security toolbox, another supply chain driver. No single journalist, he knew, could ever hope to slow that juggernaut as it moved up through the gears. The masts and the miles and the silent villages came and went. Afternoon eased into drowsy evening. Heâd long passed Ullapool, still plenty of north left.
âTourist coastal routeâ said a faded road-sign. Now there was a laugh.
â¢
An hour later Carl pulled into a lay-by. To the west the evening sun cut through the clouds. He had not seen another vehicle for eighteen miles. Rubbing his eyes and the small of his back, the thrill of being behind the wheel had soured. He stretched and took a lungful of warm air. Around him there was nothing except slopes of rock and heather, up-thrusts of naked rock. He took out his palmpod; it barely registered a signal.
The sunâs rays were playing on the distant hills, shadows scooped from the hunched massifs. A bird of prey hovered, lasering its target, then dropped like a dead weight. He took it all in, the spectacle.
Satnav said thirty-four miles to Inverlair. From the glove compartment he pulled out an old frayed map, spread it out on the bonnet of the car, and traced his journey. Some ninety miles south-east was the new hydroelectric dam that he was meant to swing by. It was a bugger that he had to drive there the day after tomorrow. Anyway, here he was, wherever it was. What do people do up here? Nothing. Nothing around him as far as he could see, just the vast opening north, swallowing the line of the road.
He stretched his back again, smelling summer in the grass and on the wind, easy sun over a glimpse of sea between the hills. The surrounding summits were scraped bare of vegetation, crags fissured and scrubbed like this rhino heâd seen up close once, in Edinburgh Zoo, its skin cracked and weathered and out of the reptilian past. His sandwiches were gone, and there was no more water left in the bottle. His legs were aching. Glasgow felt a long way
âFuckâs sake,â Carl breathed, glad to be through the downpour. He could look up at scree-strewn slopes now. He stopped the car again, getting out this time. Fresh air, damp and earthy; he could hear the river now, down below, gushing and rushing through the rocks.
Where he was headed, the blue-grey hills faded by degrees into the blue-grey sky until it was hard to say where the hills ended and where the sky began. He was hungry. Sitting on a stone, he scoffed his sandwiches, gazing up at the high tops, the ragged drops. When had the massacre been? What were the causes? He couldnât quite remember. He tried to imagine women and children being stabbed to death in the snow.
He finished his lunch and drove on. The smart screen told him about rock types and a brief sanitised version of what had happened in 1692.
â¢
He passed scarred hillsides where conifer plantations had been levelled for biofuel and which now resembled First World War battlefields. He passed shuttered hotels, overgrown verges and, deep into the north, empty glens and the gaping ruins of old stone houses.
Wind turbines turned on a summit or two and some stretches of road were so bad with potholes that he had to slow to walking speed to weave through them. Two buses and four cars had passed him, heading south; one big Jag had overtaken him, going north. He had not seen a single police car north of Fort William.
And everywhere, he would spot a mast on some hilltop, skeletal metal and antennae against the sky. Nothing tagged with RFID moved without being monitored, and most of the under-18s had theirs implanted for âsafetyâ reasons. Sentinel sensed everything and everyone, except those who had the means to avoid it.
He drove through Fort William without stopping. SCOPE was just another tool in the stateâs outsourced security toolbox, another supply chain driver. No single journalist, he knew, could ever hope to slow that juggernaut as it moved up through the gears. The masts and the miles and the silent villages came and went. Afternoon eased into drowsy evening. Heâd long passed Ullapool, still plenty of north left.
âTourist coastal routeâ said a faded road-sign. Now there was a laugh.
â¢
An hour later Carl pulled into a lay-by. To the west the evening sun cut through the clouds. He had not seen another vehicle for eighteen miles. Rubbing his eyes and the small of his back, the thrill of being behind the wheel had soured. He stretched and took a lungful of warm air. Around him there was nothing except slopes of rock and heather, up-thrusts of naked rock. He took out his palmpod; it barely registered a signal.
The sunâs rays were playing on the distant hills, shadows scooped from the hunched massifs. A bird of prey hovered, lasering its target, then dropped like a dead weight. He took it all in, the spectacle.
Satnav said thirty-four miles to Inverlair. From the glove compartment he pulled out an old frayed map, spread it out on the bonnet of the car, and traced his journey. Some ninety miles south-east was the new hydroelectric dam that he was meant to swing by. It was a bugger that he had to drive there the day after tomorrow. Anyway, here he was, wherever it was. What do people do up here? Nothing. Nothing around him as far as he could see, just the vast opening north, swallowing the line of the road.
He stretched his back again, smelling summer in the grass and on the wind, easy sun over a glimpse of sea between the hills. The surrounding summits were scraped bare of vegetation, crags fissured and scrubbed like this rhino heâd seen up close once, in Edinburgh Zoo, its skin cracked and weathered and out of the reptilian past. His sandwiches were gone, and there was no more water left in the bottle. His legs were aching. Glasgow felt a long way
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