The Beauty of Destruction by Gavin G. Smith Page B

Bois enquired.
    ‘Yeah? Well there’s no oil in Lambeth, is there?’ the postcode soldier told him. Du Bois just stared at the youth as he raised the SA80 to his shoulder. Du Bois didn’t like that the boy seemed to know how to use the weapon, that it was trained at his head rather than where he was wearing more armour, and that the boy knew enough to keep out of reach. ‘Now, what’s your fucking postcode?’
    ‘I’m a tourist,’ du Bois suggested.
    He practically felt Beth wince behind him. The boy started to squeeze the trigger. Du Bois started to move. Three red holes appeared in the boy’s chest and du Bois was aware of the sound of suppressed gunfire. Hot metal shell casings bounced off his face. The boy staggered back and fell to the floor. Beth was staring down at him, looking stricken as she lowered the suppressed UMP . Du Bois saw her swallow hard.
    ‘I—’ she started.
    ‘He was going to shoot me,’ du Bois told her.
    ‘It was barely me doing it … it was like I was on automatic …’ She flinched and jerked the UMP up to cover a sprinting girl who reached down to grab the fallen SA80 as she ran by.
    Du Bois brought his weapon up and moved off. Beth followed only a moment later. They were making their way past the front of an art deco building containing a number of high street clothes shops. It looked like the roots of trees had pierced the ceiling of the building and grown down through the floors of the shop. It didn’t seem to be deterring the smartly dressed, middle-aged female looters.
    They turned right off Kensington High Street and onto Derry Street. The street battle seemed to be heading east towards Kensington Gardens.
    Du Bois led Beth to a door in the side of the art deco building and looked into an empty reception area.
    ‘It’s their worst nightmare, isn’t it?’ Beth said, nodding back towards Kensington High Street. She still looked like she was struggling to hold it together.
    ‘What is?’ Du Bois asked, distracted. He had his carbine at the ready.
    ‘All those south London scrotes rampaging through the nice parts of the city.’
    ‘Yes, this apocalypse seems full of irony. I don’t think there’s a “they” any more. Beth, are you with me?’ du Bois asked.
    ‘I don’t know what we … what I’m doing.’
    ‘Surviving.’ Du Bois stepped into the reception area, scanning all around. Beth followed, the UMP at the ready, the shotgun slung down her back. Du Bois accessed old plans of the building. It had been a while since he’d had to come here and he had never used the stairs before.
     

    ‘I think I’ve seen some of these people on the telly,’ Beth said. The room was full of beautiful people, all of whom had the look of someone faintly famous. Du Bois’s internal systems were identifying most of the partygoers as micro-celebrities from reality or talent shows. ‘Now I want to start shooting,’ she added. All of them seemed to be trying too hard to have a good time. They were coated in sheens of sweat and desperation.
    ‘Fucking arsehole,’ du Bois muttered. They were standing in a glass-fronted restaurant looking down on a roof garden with a stream running through it. Beth gawped at a pelican wading through the water. There were more micro-celebrities sat in deck chairs on the level below.
    The restaurant provided a great view of London’s rooftops. Smoke was rising from many places in the city. There were holes in the dome of the Royal Albert Hall, and the big wheel that was the London Eye burned.
    ‘He’ll be in the Spanish Garden,’ du Bois said, and went down the stairs.
    Beth followed, looking around, seemingly confused by what she was seeing. ‘Don’t they know there’s—’ She only just managed to stop herself.
    Du Bois led her through an open area where a DJ was playing insipid music and more of the partygoers were dancing.
    They came out into a garden with fountains. Vines climbed the Moorish inspired architecture that surrounded the