The Folded Man Read Online Free Page B

baccy tin. I’ll be outside.
    Don’t be a bloody hero, says Noah. He winks and points downstairs.
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    In the service lift with concertina doors, the whole thing wobbling and scraping down the shaft. At the bunker’s edge next – inches of concrete-reinforced steel with an old bank vault door. Keying in the password – the codes, the capital letters. Eighteen characters plus the eye-scan. All that trust.
    Hissing doors. Spinning locks. Hydraulics or pneumatics or something else besides.
    Into the paradise factory. Into Noah’s war room, the dark engine beneath his shop. A hole where fat walls make hiding places for powerful men.
    Rolling in, his eyes adjusting, Brian hears the burbling hydroponics, scans the tools put down on busy work benches by the projects and the prototypes. In one corner, a bank of manual pill presses. Another, a rack of antique swords. In the centre, two bookshelves, each filled with car manuals and engineering theory. A shelf for pseudo-science. A shelf for UFO literature, truther literature. A shelf for battle tactics. A shelf for DIY transistor radios.
    The switchbox hums. The lights flicker.
    Brian rolls around the room, a slow pinball buzzing between Noah’s interests and inventions. There are blueprints here – blueprints and plans. There are home-made grenades, too. Fertiliser drums and jam jars filled with industrial fasteners. A bin of clothes – all camo – some urban, some not. A weights’ bench. A climbing wall. Gas masks. Space on the wall for reclaimed flags and symbols turned out by relatives after wars they never talked about. Something bad, pointy, under a lot of old bedsheets.
    All of that in this world, this lair, where Noah plans some kind of new Manchester.
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    So I get this call, Noah says, giving Brian a start. Shit, pal. Make you jump there?
    Don’t sneak up like that, Brian says.
    Noah walks over, smile as big as garage doors, a proud man in his dark bunker.
    Brian, he goes, almost too close. I won’t take long. Just let me tell you about this call.
    Brian says, Okay.
    Noah lights up and grabs a seat. So an old client of mine – did some big campaigns for him before the riots. A few afterwards. Garland he’s called . Biggest name I’ve handled, come to that. Guns, chems , ‘lectrics – he’s in all the main sectors, or anyway the main sectors left. Heard of him, right?
    Brian nods.
    Big boys then and big boys now, and no bastard mistake. One of the few private contractors the state even touches, actually. More call farms than a suit’s got stitches. More capital than sensible places to put it.
    Right, Brian says. And what’s he want?
    Well he calls me up first thing. Just before you, come to that. He says, Noah. Noah, my man. You may remember me. Done us a good spread way back when, a full-colour holo-vinyl on the Arndale tower. Piddler now, isn’t it, he says – a tiny pecker next to the Ferguson – but you got us results.
    So I say to him, Hello Mr Garland, all polite – polite since it’s not often you speak to clients so direct. A nice change from Harry taking a cut anyway. So yes, I say, I say, I do remember that job Mr Garland. I say, I was younger then, of course; more balls than brains. But I recall the cash was decent, the fanny was mint and the rep from a Garland job was priceless.
    So Garland goes, Well, son. I’m interested in using your services again.
    Noah winks at Brian, smiling again –
    And I mean I’m thinking, Bingo! I’m thinking last time I worked for this guy, I could go to ground for a while. Another job like that, I’m living like a king again. Spending cash like some tower-level dick.
    Brian nods.
    So what did he want you to do?
    Say again?
    What’s it all about?
    Well, cut a short story shorter, fella wants me to attend a tech convention on his behalf. Take a few notes on his up and coming competitors while I’m at it.