The Fall by Claire Merle

vehicle – something that hasn’t rusted up too bad. Most of them used to be calibrated for E85 fuel but it should run a few miles on pure ethanol.’
    Without saying anything more, Seton flicked on his interface and began searching for car models that had been built to run on flex-fuel over twenty years ago.
    The group tramped down an empty main road, passing a sign for Queensway Tube on their right, a park on their left. Ana glimpsed a vast sprawl of tents and fires through the bushes lining the pavement. Techno music drifted from the camp. Up until now they’d seen relatively few people: the occasional couple, a group of teenagers on bikes, and a man sleeping rough.
    ‘We need to get away from Kensington Park,’ Ed said, looking at the readouts on Cole’s interface. ‘Way too much activity going on around here.’ At that moment there was the sound of glass smashing, followed by raised voices. ‘There are Wardens all over the place,’ he added.
    They picked up the pace, Cole grunting as he moved.
    ‘Here . . .’ Ed led them down a narrow offshoot. It was the opposite direction to the way they needed to go to. Three-storey Regency flats boxed them in on one side; a red-bricked wall on the other, with tall oak trees blocking the sky. Toyotas, Mercedes and Golfs sat deteriorating by the curb. The Mercedes didn’t look that different to the Pure saloon cars. Ana wondered if this had once been a wealthy area.
    ‘This way,’ Ed called, leading them down an even smaller side road. Cole tripped and slipped from his brother and Rachel’s arms, collapsing on the ground.
     Rachel squatted down beside him, pulling up his trouser leg. Ana watched her fingers run familiarly across his skin.
    ‘Give me the medical kit,’ Rachel said. Dropping her rucksack off her shoulders, Ana took out the kit. Rachel snatched it and flung it open.
    ‘I just put arnica on,’ Ana said.
    ‘I only need a minute.’ Cole was breathless and wincing.
    ‘Arnica,’ Rachel muttered. She pulled out a roll of white gauze. ‘It needs ice and a support bandage.’
    ‘Come on,’ Seton said to Ana. ‘We’ll feed each car model on this street into the web search. Let’s check them all. Check the tyres too. No point pouring fuel into something with rotten tyres.’
    ‘And what will this car be running on exactly?’ Nate asked.
    ‘The ethanol from the camping stove,’ Ana said.
    Cole smiled weakly. ‘Nice plan.’
    Rachel’s frown intensified as she focused on the bandage she was securing. Relieved to be doing something useful, Ana left Rachel and Nate crouched beside Cole, while she and Seton headed back the way they’d come.
    Seton held up his interface to the boot of each car and Ana shone a torch on the model. He’d found a program that automatically identified the vehicle model and told them if it was compatible with the fuel they had.
    ‘How come there are so many here that haven’t been stripped?’ she asked.
    ‘Supply and demand,’ Seton said. ‘People only stripped the cars at first, thinking they could get money for the parts or recycle them. But in the end, there wasn’t much to do with it all. This one.’ He pointed at a sleek saloon still in reasonably good condition.
    ‘Doesn’t look like it’s been sitting there for twenty years.’ Ana bent down to check the tyres.
    ‘It hasn’t,’ Seton said. ‘It’s a 2029 model. Even with the petrol crisis some people could still afford to drive around. It was only a decade ago with the Pure Genome split that regular cars disappeared from the City. Strange,’ he said, sarcasm entering his voice, ‘how many of the seriously wealthy people ended up in the Pure Communities.’
    A Psych Watch siren echoed in the distance.
    ‘Anyway, this one will do the job. Now we just need to hope one of the boys knows how to spark the battery back to life and hotwire it.’
    They ran back to the others. In the glow of Rachel’s interface, Ana could see the beads of sweat on