Provenance I - Flee The Bonds Read Online Free Page A

automatically disengaged the weapon locks.
    Jason made two decisions. The second being if this Prefect came any closer, he was going to punch it. His head whipped back to the Agent. ‘Forget the car, let me through.’
    Leaving Admiralty Arch behind, Jason leaned into the wind-driven rain and strode off in the direction of Charing Cross. What a waste of a Saturday morning .
    He lifted his head at the reverberations of a passing missile battery. Twenty years ago, the Council had closed the airspace above all Zones and ringed them with hundreds of missile launchers. Unfortunately, all the missiles in the World couldn’t stop Colossus. Nothing could.
    Jason would be far away by then. He’d given up trying to persuade Steve to come along. Steve had found love; Jason wasn’t looking. At least not down here.
    Halfway up Regent Street, on the opposite pavement, a restless mass of dark umbrellas herded. As Jason drew closer, a splash of yellow burst from the barren assortment of black; a small umbrella sprinkled with daisies, one metre from the ground.
    It was odd seeing a child from Provenance’s nurseries, the Council were well aware of the maternal resentment simmering beneath a mask of compliance. Lastborns were revered for their uniqueness and since 2096, the Detention Centres guaranteed it.
    Jason speeded up. He didn’t agree with everything the Council did, but they had got that one right. Any child born on Earth today wouldn’t reach its fiftieth birthday.
    At Oxford Circus, a tower of black granite glistened. Every subway station had a monument blocking its entrance. A legacy of the Resistance, and a barrier to the concrete-foam filled tunnels. Rain wept through the gold lettering, ‘OUR NAMES WILL BE FORGOTTEN, BUT IN YOU OUR DREAMS ARE UNIVERSAL’. Six two-metre-high columns of names supported the inscription. The Oxford Circus bomb, like the other nineteen, had detonated during rush hour. The Resistance no longer targeted civilians; they’d won that battle.
    Jason turned left, broke through the pedestrian line, and crossed the road. A blustery sea of umbrellas jostled for position on Oxford Street’s slick pavements. Red driverless buses and chauffeured black cabs crawled by, the click , click of their hybrid engines muted by the whistling wind. Anonymous faces peered from the buses’ drizzle-streaked windows, the dull vacant faces of Drones. Continuity used cabs.
    A whiff of a ‘Kubizkrisp’ stand caught Jason’s attention. He licked his lips and thought about stopping, but didn’t. He had a date tonight and he’d need an appetite.
    As he passed, savoury steam rose from the hotplate and swirled around the onlookers. He recognised the only pair of eyes not watching the food preparation. His Guardian was close.
    Reassured, Jason allowed his thoughts to float on the aromatic wisps. He wasn’t sentimental, but he loved his mom and those glorious summer days on Coney Island. ‘Kubizkrisp’ mixed with popcorn, cotton candy and the screams of a hundred excited kids in a wonderland of flashing lights and magical machines that spellbound upturned faces.
    Jason shrugged and the steam evaporated. Coney Island wouldn’t be casting spells anymore. He lowered his head and hustled on through.
    Approaching a large department store he decided to test his Guardian with a tail-break, the driving rain had upped a gear and it was as good an excuse as any to get inside. Jason pushed through the glass door and shook his dripping jacket over the mat. In the mirrored wall, he slicked back his hair and grinned. You never know who you gonna meet.
    The most prestigious on Oxford Street, the Palace sold a mixture of high-end fashion, jewellery, and perfume. These people were Continuity; the Drones credit ceiling ensured their exclusion from luxury shopping. Money had long gone, but wealth still ruled, as did envy. Something else the Resistance exploited.
    A middle-aged woman preened herself in a holo-mirror. The sycophantic