Rainbow Bridge by Gwyneth Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

and then stopped. Did that mean they believed they’d done all they needed to do? Or what? Cumbria had been isolated for a long time, and there’d been no-go areas in the east, Essex to the fens, long as Ax could remember—
    He flipped back to that graceful, ominous mission statement.

    In the cities, flower-gardens, in the countryside, cultivated land . That’s easy to read. The government the Chinese put together will be made up of acceptable public figures, looking pretty but walled in Chinese authority. Food production will be a priority. ‘I think they mean to keep the damned camps.’
    But the big agricultural labour camps were all in unoccupied territory.
    ‘Maybe your fifth General’s going to turn up,’ said Sage. ‘To finish us off.’
    Ax believed there was a fifth General, who had not yet appeared. His friends weren’t sure whether to take this seriously, his reasoning seemed bizarre. But Ax was the one who had studied China; their knowledge of the vast superpower was vague. Capitalist Miracle, Global Expansion of Asian Economic Sphere, and what else—?
    ‘I’m sure there’s someone. Four is not a good number, and the invasion was a phenomenally high-profile operation. They wouldn’t do that.’
    ‘There,’ said Dora, with satisfaction. ‘All done.’
    ‘Terrific.’ Sage tried to admire the effect in a tiny make-up mirror.
    The murmur of the tafseer grew on them, a sad and sonorous music, with occasional bursts of English. Dave Wright the poacher, who had dropped by for a brew, reviewed a wild harvest Cherry and the Adjuvants had collected before the rain. Ax watched them, idly. Parasol mushrooms were approved, and the fresh young spiny puffballs. The poacher’s sinewy, earth-coloured hands hovered over some little purplish ’shrooms, and set them aside. ‘It says edible on First Nature ,’ said Chip diffidently, crestfallen. ‘Non-psychoactive, but a useful protein source.’
    ‘Ah, that’s the website. I’m the man that’s been living off the land.’ What about the handsome penny buns? Dave sucked his teeth. ‘Ooh, my lord . Which of you mad little louts picked these fellers?’
    ‘It was me,’ confessed the junior powerbabe. Eye-candy Cherry was looking thin and wan, her poreless chocolate skin grey-tinged. She needs feeding up, thought Ax. As don’t we all. ‘Found under oak and beech, edible and delicious.’
    ‘I hope you washed your hands before you et anything after. Lucky you showed me. I better take these and get rid of them.’
    They’d talked it out, the Few were in full agreement with the plan their leaders had devised in hiding. But already they faced a challenge that might wreck them. Right now they were waiting for something to happen, and hoping it wouldn’t.
    Fat chance.
    ‘With mushroom poisoning, by the time you’re sick it’s too late, did you townies know that? Rush you to the hospital, if there was one, there’s nothen’ they can do except watch you die in ’orrible disgusting agony—’
    It needed no foretelling for us to know that this world is a mosque, and we walk here answerable to GOD—
    ‘Here we go.’ George was liaising with site security, a bead in his ear. ‘He’s been sighted. On his way, with a fuckin’ mini-army.’
    ‘Good,’ said Ax, getting up. ‘That’s good. Sooner we get this over with the better.’ The Few crowded round the broadsheet, now switched to the outside camera feed. Ax went to talk to Muhammad; stooping on the way to break off a piece of boletus cap and shake his head at the comedian.
    ‘Wanker.’
    ‘Heheheh.’
    Colonel Kent came into view out there, with the barmy chiefs of staff and a troop of other-rank paramilitaries. Reich security and uniformed Forest Rangers were escorting them, heckled by a minor rabble of rubber-necks and fight-fans.
    ‘How d’you want to do it?’ asked George. ‘Have the ring-leaders in here, or we go out to them?’
    ‘Have them in here with the walls pulled up,’ said