risks a glance. ‘Maybe… Fuck.’ He slips out his phone, sets up a fast proxy, starts tapping on a screen I cannot see. ‘Let me… Hang on.’
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, but he shakes his head, taps his phone and does not reply.
I scan the shops to calculate the best route forwards. By the entrance of a chain of toilets, a toddler is squirming in a ball on the floor screaming while his mother flaps around him, coils of hair springing up, shored by sweat, the father nearby, scratching his head, tutting into a smartphone that’s stitched into his hand. The noise of it all ricochets around my brain.
‘Doc,’ Patricia whispers, ‘should we get out of the airport?’
‘No.’ I take a breath, try to count the noise away. ‘We must board our flight and travel to Zurich as planned.’
‘You think that’s wise? Won’t they know where we are going?’
‘Negative.’ I swallow. Someone make the toddler be quiet. ‘We look different. Our email tracks have a high probability of being invisible.’
Chris, head up from his phone, points. ‘They’re moving.’
Patricia bites down harder on her fingernail. ‘Doc, I’m bloody shitting it.’
‘If you soil yourself, you could impede our escape.’
She ceases eating her hands.
The billboard with the perfume advert on the pillar is a rolling one. I observe it. Every six seconds, there is a change of posters, promoting gilded watches, branded clothing, vintage bottled cognac, champagne and truffles, and each time a new poster flashes, the entire board moves from side to side creating one small yet significant space behind it, a scooped out hole. A blind spot.
I turn to my friends. ‘There is a place to hide, there.’ I point. ‘It will provide us cover to plan the next move. When I say go, we all go. Do you understand?’
They nod.
‘Does that mean you understand?’
Two frantic nods. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. I will count to three. On three, we will run to the billboard.’
‘We won’t be seen?’ Chris checks.
‘No.’
‘Okay.’ His eyes flick ahead then back to me, a breath billowing from his chest. ‘Go for it.’
‘Okay. On my count: One…’
Patricia slaps a hair from her face, mutters, for some reason, what I believe is a slang word related to a man’s genital area. The billboard begins to revolve to the side.
‘Two…’
Chris taps his foot. He shields his phone screen with his hand as his eyes dart left and right in the glare and bustle of the concourse beyond.
‘Three. Go!’
We run. Lights, sounds, sharp slaps of heat and noise. They all fly through my ears as we weave in and out of the crowds. The men do not immediately follow us and yet still there is something about the way they move, about the assurance of their steps.
We reach the billboard. ‘Which way?’ Patricia whispers.
To our right is a concourse of cafés and shops, people spilling out of them in various states of speed and urgency. To our left is the open floor, shining, twinkling in a yellow brick road that leads off to the departure gate announcing cities and flight numbers. My brain photographs it all. Istanbul, Melbourne, Washington, Paris, locations that span the world across data lines that lie hidden underground.
‘They know we are here,’ Chris says. ‘I’m certain now.’
I whip round. ‘What?’
He turns his phone to me and my heart starts to race at an alarming speed.
‘I hacked into the Madrid police database,’ he says. ‘You know, to be on the safe side, get some firm intel. I found this.’
‘Oh, holy fuck,’ Patricia blurts. ‘It says wanted. It’s us!’
There are pictures of all three of us. My mouth runs dry so fast that I have to lean against Chris to steady myself.
‘Hey,’ he says, ‘you okay?’
‘They have us in different wigs,’ Patricia says. ‘Shit – they’ll know what we look like!’
‘I have put you in danger.’
‘Huh? What? Oh Doc, no. None of this is your fault. Doc, it’s okay.’
‘Er, no,’ Chris cuts in. ‘It’s not okay.’
We both look to him, mouths open.
‘Why?’ I say.
Very slowly, he guides his eyes to the left. ‘Because they’re looking right at us.’
Madrid Barajas Airport, Spain.
Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 31 hours and 13 minutes
‘Oh, Jesus, they’re – they’re looking straight towards us,’ Patricia says, ducking behind me.
I stare now at our faces on the police alert in Chris’s hand, and a feeling wells inside me, one of guilt, of shame and confusion. By making friends, have I done the wrong thing? Is life not easier, better, safer when we are on our own?
‘Doc? Doc, you alright? Should we go?’
My head snaps up, refocussing. ‘Negative. If we move now it will alert the men. They have images of us. We must wait. We must prepare.’
Chris tips his head to the left towards a landslide of bodies approaching. ‘What about them?’
I direct my sight to where Chris points. A pack of students has entered the walkway, flooding the air with chatter in a melody of Italian and French, a river of language rushing forwards amid a sea of brown limbs, all long and lean and clad in assorted patchwork pieces of denim and cotton and hooded drawstring sweats. Tinny music, the tap of phones, beeps, rings. The sounds send my brain into red alert, and I am about to move when two teenage students stop almost next to me and kiss. I find myself staring, unable to look away, and when I inhale I detect bubble gum, washing powder, body odour masked by a sugary scent.
‘Hey, Google?’ A pause. ‘Maria?’
I turn to Chris. ‘What?’
‘They’re all moving – the students. If we move with them, they could be good cover.’
The teenagers pull away from each
