Fertiliser

When the van started up and accelerated away from the warehouse, Joe debated briefly what to do. There had been that gun, of course, but Hugo had relieved them of it. Did they have others? His head was thumping and his knee ached. Frankly, he’d had enough of this. He sat up and pushed off the blanket.

‘Hello mate, there you are! Sorry about the dramatics but we needed you to come along and there wasn’t time to explain. You okay? ‘Ere Ronnie, slow down a bit and we can let Joe here join us in the front.’

The speaker reached an arm over the back of his seat and beckoned Joe forward in a friendly manner.

‘Just what in the heck is going on here?’ said Joe fiercely, heaving himself into the front, through a gap in the seats.

‘It’s a bit complicated, but as far as we know, a bunch of clones have been delivered out from the complex and the powers that be only realised, too late, that they were defective. So we’ve got to get ‘em back, see.’

Joe did see, and wondered whether these two knew in what way the clones were non-standard.

‘When the news broke, the fertiliser hit the air-conditioning in a big way,’ said the driver, moving to the wrong side of the road to overtake a line of slowly moving cars in a cavalier fashion.

‘Ere, Ronnie, watch out, you’ll ‘ave us in the ditch if you’re not careful,’ said the first man.

‘Gotta make up time,’ said Ronnie. ‘All the others must have left before us and Mr Osborne can be a bit funny if you keep him waiting.’

That was interesting. As far as Joe knew, all the others were tied to locker handles in a dark corner of the warehouse.