The Complex Read online

  SYNOPSIS

  The countryside, the near future.

  Gabrielle Hunter, husband Leo and son Stefan drive to a remote luxury retreat for a spring break at the invitation of new client Art Fisher, who will be there with his wife, Polly, and daughter Fleur. As Gabrielle’s family approach the retreat, their car hits a deer. Investigating, they discover it was dying already, from a bullet wound.

  The two families settle in. Stefan falls into a relaxed companionship with Fleur, while Leo finds himself drawn to Polly. Gabrielle, meanwhile, has some unresolved issues around Art.

  Off-grid and away from the Areas, Leo and Art jockey for position. Subtle shifts of power are magnified. Gabrielle and Polly have their own secrets. In the garden, the fruit and vegetables ripen too early, while an unidentified shooter continues to take down animals in the wood. Stefan and Fleur seek an escape route into a Virtual Reality darkened by the shadow of war.

  The family holiday that already resembles a bad dream soon turns into a waking nightmare.

  PRAISE FOR THIS BOOK

  ‘Captures the elusive nature of dreams and nightmares brilliantly. It’s original, cinematic, and very clever.’ —LUCIE MCKNIGHT HARDY

  ‘The Complex is a lucid, menacing and utterly captivating novel, as elegantly designed as a labyrinth but as touching and human and chaotic as your own mind. Its hypnotic blend of technological horror and psychological accuracy, the intensity of its troubled characters and deeply eerie location worked its way into my dreams and I don’t think it’s going away. Like the very best speculative fiction it feels less like speculation than a present-day novel somehow transported back to us from the near future, not so much to warn us as to let us see more clearly where we are now.’ —LUKE KENNARD

  ‘Enigmatic and unsettling, with elements of Black Mirror and J. G. Ballard, The Complex is a gripping tale about the chilling, disorientating effect of technology on our lives.’ —TREVOR MARK THOMAS

  The Complex

  MICHAEL WALTERS was born in Port Talbot, South Wales, in 1973. He studied astrophysics at the University of Kent, then spent a year training to be a journalist before becoming a computer programmer. In his spare time, he studied creative writing, first at the Open University, then completing an MA in Creative Writing with Manchester Metropolitan University. He is currently a software developer and lives with his wife and two children in North Yorkshire.

  Published by Salt Publishing Ltd

  12 Norwich Road, Cromer, Norfolk NR27 0AX

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © Michael Walters, 2019

  The right of Michael Walters to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Salt Publishing.

  Salt Publishing 2019

  Created by Salt Publishing Ltd

  This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN 978-1-78463-163-5 electronic

  for Gill

  SUNDAY

  Stefan: Track 1

  Stefan felt a hand on his ankle. He took his headphones off.

  ‘You okay?’ his mother said. She had twisted her arm behind the car seat to reach him.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Tired.’

  ‘Me too, sweetie.’ She paused, then said, ‘Try not to kick the back of my seat. Okay?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She took her hand away and he put the headphones back on. He hadn’t kicked her seat. Jesus. They had been driving for ever and outside his window there was still only the close wall of grey forest. The road had become dusty track an hour ago and there was no grid map to tell him how far there was to go. Every now and then the whole car jolted as his father found another pothole. His parents had bickered the whole way. It was a sort of hell. Any excitement at being out of the Areas was long gone.

  The pillow was comfortable. That was something.

  Another hand on his ankle, his father this time. He took his headphones off.

  ‘What’s up?’ Stefan said.

  ‘You’re doing good,’ his father said, glancing back at him. ‘It’s a long way.’

  ‘Watch the road, Leo,’ his mother said.

  Maya said: ‘Cannot connect to grid.’

  ‘I wish we hadn’t brought her with us,’ his mother said. ‘Did we have to bring her with us?’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Stefan said. ‘She’s family.’

  ‘She’s annoying,’ his mother said. ‘And useless.’

  Stefan said, ‘Well, at least she doesn’t kick the seat.’

  He put his headphones back on. There was no music playing – he wanted the silence. Some perverse impulse made him lift one side of his headphones just enough to hear his parents’ hard, muffled voices, just like through his bedroom wall at home. It was torture, but a familiar one. He let the headphones fall back and closed his eyes.

  Packing the car had been fun. His father was in good spirits and Stefan had gone with him to pick the car up. The car had come with its own AI unit, but Stefan wanted Maya, a piece of home. His father had sorted it. Once they were out of the Areas his mother had relaxed and for a few hours she was almost her old self again. Turning into the mountains, leaving the grid, his father had switched the car to manual and a wheel had popped up from the floor with a smooth, comical hiss, insinuating itself between his father’s legs. They had all laughed.

  The tarmacked road had been wide enough for two cars, the forest still shy and some way off on either side of them. After a couple of miles, the tree trunks had sidled closer and closer until the road was single track and lined with thick firs that blocked all sunlight. Higher and higher, the road had taken them into mountain wilderness. The occasional abandoned stone cottage lay along the way, traces of some other way of life now gone. Then the luxury of concrete was behind them and the tyres began to crackle on branches and stones.

  Another hand, on his calf this time. He opened his eyes. His mother. Now what had he done? He waited a second before taking his headphones off.

  ‘Hey,’ Stefan said.

  ‘Sorry,’ his mother said. ‘It’s a long journey. I didn’t mean to snap at you.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘It can’t be far,’ his father said, not sounding at all sure.

  Giving Stefan a quick smile, his mother turned to face front again. She pointed ahead. ‘Leo, look.’

  ‘That must be the top,’ his father said.

  Maya said: ‘Cannot connect to grid.’

  Stefan could see a speck of light. ‘Did the other guys come this way?’

  ‘They must have,’ his mother said.

  His father looked up through the windscreen. ‘Didn’t they helicopter in?’ His voice was heavy with sarcasm.

  ‘Don’t wind me up,’ his mother said.

  ‘What’s the girl’s name again?’ Stefan said. ‘Fleur?’ He knew it was Fleur, but now they were almost there he wanted more information.

  ‘Yes, Fleur,’ his mother said.

  ‘Is it short for something? Like Florence?’

  ‘That would be Flo,’ his father said. ‘As in, go with the.
.. She can be your study buddy.’

  ‘And she’s on the science track too,’ his mother said.

  ‘You can swap notes,’ his father said.

  The light they were driving towards took an age to arrive. He continued to look between his parents’ shoulders at the car’s white-yellow headlights on the brown dirt track. It was like an excruciatingly dull video game.

  Something glistened in the corner of his eye. His mother was wearing earrings he hadn’t seen before. The one that had caught his eye was very small, silver, with a tiny white crystal set in it.

  His mother flinched away from him and put a hand protectively over her ear. ‘Stop breathing on my neck.’

  He didn’t mention the earrings.

  They emerged suddenly from the trees into open field, the green grass high and thick on either side. The car juddered around quite a bit, the surface roughening even further.

  ‘I can’t believe anyone ever comes up here but forest rangers,’ his father said.

  ‘It’s wild,’ his mother said. ‘Perhaps we need a bit of wild.’

  The thought of stopping soon helped him ignore the icky feeling in his stomach. The track banked left, then tightened. The grass dropped steeply away. Stefan found himself looking out into an ocean of space, the distant graph of a mountain range in the far, far distance. Dear God. He put his hands on his stomach and crossed his legs again, knocking the seat in front of him.

  ‘Stefan!’ his mother said. ‘How many times?’

  He put his headphones back on and closed his eyes. He wondered what Fleur looked like. The Fisher family had money – that much he had found out easily enough. Fisher Industries had offices all over the world. She was probably out of his league, living in one of the expensive apartments in an uptown block off Hub Park. He imagined floating, like a gull, dozens of floors up, looking in through one of the enormous windows he had often looked up at. A young woman in a short, black dress, looking out, not seeing him. Bare, tanned arms and long black hair. He couldn’t make her face appear though. She was still in the future, and, looking at the palatial apartment she lived in, not his future.

  He opened his eyes. Gloom again. They were back in the trees, but heading down, which was something. His mother was talking. He lifted one side of his headphones again.

  ‘It’s a gift,’ his mother was saying.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘If it was all right, you wouldn’t keep bringing it up.’

  ‘I just said—’

  ‘Can we try and enjoy ourselves?’

  ‘It’s not me who’s—’

  Maya said: ‘Cannot connect to grid.’

  ‘That fucking voice,’ his mother said, looking up, as if Maya were a creature on the roof.

  Stefan looked across at his stuff scattered on the seat next to him. He was looking for his stress ball. There, next to his college bag. He picked it up and started to squeeze it hard.

  ‘It’s a good job he’s got his headphones on,’ his father said.

  ‘Christ, Leo. He’s a man, now. He can handle some bad language.’ Then, after a pause, softly, ‘This might be good for us.’

  His father let out a long breath through his nose.

  Stefan took his headphones off, stretched his arms above his head and gave a loud sigh.

  ‘Are you with us for this last bit?’ his mother said.

  ‘I am always with you,’ Stefan said, in his evil voice.

  ‘Not for much longer,’ she said. ‘Look, I’m sorry I shouted at you. This week will do all of us some good. It’s been a rubbish year so far. Hasn’t it?’

  Stefan nodded. She twisted around to look at him, so he nodded again, for her benefit. His father looked back sympathetically.

  Maya said: ‘Cannot connect to grid.’

  ‘Will there be grid when we get there?’ Stefan asked.

  ‘I imagine so,’ his mother said.

  ‘I couldn’t find the place on the map.’

  ‘I think there used to be military buildings up here. I don’t suppose they wanted those places mapped.’

  ‘It’s actually a boot camp, isn’t it?’ his father said, giving one of his rare giggles. ‘You’re going to have us whipped into shape.’

  His mother ignored him, and his father’s laughter dried up. He looked defeated, shifting his weight on his buttocks, trying again to find a comfortable position.

  The track was steeper now and the banks on either side of the car were higher than the roof. In the bare earth Stefan could see thick, ugly roots snaking in and out. His father pressed the brakes and they slowed even further.

  ‘I hate this,’ his father said. ‘I hope I never have to drive again.’

  Maya said: ‘Grid connected.’

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ his father said.

  Stefan leant forward to look at the track. Nothing much had changed. Still dark and no end in sight, although they were dropping sharply.

  Maya said: ‘Grid disconnected. Cannot connect to grid.’

  His father threw his hands up. ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Language,’ his mother said. His father snorted.

  ‘Slow down,’ Stefan said, pointing.

  ‘What?’ his father said.

  ‘Leo!’ his mother shouted.

  His father jammed his foot on the brake and the tyres locked, though the car kept going, carried by the slope and loose stones. Something went under the car and Stefan was jolted into the air, landing heavily. Whatever it was thumped the bottom of the car twice more before they were clear of it. The car stopped at a forty-five-degree angle, headlights pointing into the forest over a steep drop.

  Nobody spoke. His mother looked back at him, then at his father.

  ‘Everyone okay?’ she said.

  Maya said: ‘Obstacle on the road.’

  His mother gave a dry laugh.

  ‘A rock?’ his father said.

  ‘Animal,’ Stefan said.

  Through the rear window, he could see the track bathed in red from the brake lights and, about ten metres back, a body. Stefan opened his door.

  ‘Wait,’ his father said.

  Stefan ignored him and got out. He jogged back up the hill. The body wasn’t moving. His forearms prickled in the cold. The car engine stopped, and the red light disappeared. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the low light. It was a deer lying on its side, back towards him, one leg sticking unnaturally up in the air. He walked around it, giving it a wide berth, looking for any sign of movement. The scrape of his shoes was muted by the weight of the forest air. It was like the trees were watching him. Everything seemed brittle and he felt like he had violated something just by getting out of the car. He felt like an intruder.

  The deer’s tail was soft and white, another leg bent and broken under its flank. Stefan squatted next to it. Blood was matted in the fur and clumps of black matter lay thick in streaks on the track where the car had dragged it. It wasn’t big. It had two stubs for antlers, which were furry and looked soft. He didn’t dare touch it. A young male.

  His mother was walking up the track slowly, watching him.

  ‘You okay?’ she said, her voice deadened in the cold forest air.

  The buck’s eyes were open. Tiny shakes ran through its head and neck, though its body was still. Eyes like dark chocolate. What did the deer see? He put the back of his hand on the deer’s cheek. Its tongue came out of its mouth, as if to lick him, but then went slack. The eyes stopped following him.

  A single, violent sob came into Stefan’s chest, escaping before he could pull it back.

  ‘Stefan?’ his mother said, coming next to him, stepping over the smear of intestines and blood. He could smell it now.

  ‘Are you sure it’s dead?’ his father called, standing by his car door. ‘Be careful.’

  His mother crouche
d with him.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘That’s a bullet hole.’

  ‘I don’t want to look.’

  She picked up a twig and ruffled the buck’s fur on its side. He looked away. She scanned the trees and they both listened. His skin tightened, and he looked with fresh attention at the trees around them.

  ‘We should get going,’ his mother said. ‘It hasn’t been dead very long.’

  ‘Everything okay?’ called his father, still by the car.

  ‘It’s dead,’ she said, walking down the track. ‘It was dead before we hit it. Someone’s hunting.’

  Stefan didn’t say anything. With a final look at the deer, he walked quickly back down the hill and got in the car.

  ‘If it was alive it would have put a serious dent in the car,’ his father said.

  Stefan slammed his door. ‘Can we get going?’ he said.

  ‘Should we move it?’ his father said.

  ‘No,’ his mother said. ‘Let’s just go.’

  They continued their descent, slower now. His grandad’s face came into his mind, but he pushed it away. They could be in someone’s rifle sight right now. A crack of glass. A small, black hole in his mother’s neck or in the back of his father’s head.

  He slunk down in his seat, put his headphones on and closed his eyes.

  Gabrielle: Symptoms

  Gabrielle tried to enjoy the view over the valley, but her mind kept returning to the neat bullet hole in the deer’s side. A rifle.

  Maya said: ‘Grid connected.’

  ‘Civilisation,’ Leo said.

  When she found out Leo had brought Maya with them, she had wanted to punch him. This was supposed to be a week away. Maya’s saccharine voice was home. Routine. Boredom. Also, since they had left the grid, Maya had become even more infuriating. To top everything off, Gabrielle had developed a rash on the back of her legs that was itchy as hell.