The Power of Five Oblivion

from? Martins asked. “I mean, how did you get to Cairo? What were you doing there?”
    “We were prisoners,” Richard said. “There was a freedom fighter called Tarik.”
    “I know Tarik. I’ve flown supplies in for him. How is he?”
    “As a matter of fact, he wasn’t looking too good when we left.”
    “I’m sorry to hear it. So you’re English. The girl looks Indonesian. What are you doing together? You meet on the road?”
    This was always the difficult bit. Richard never knew how much to say. He’d never had to explain himself to Tarik because Rémy had been there and knew all about the Gatekeepers. Anyway, Tarik had seen shape-changers in Cairo and after that, any story about magical doorways, the Five and the war against the Old Ones would make some sort of sense. But this man might make nothing of it. In which case, it might simply be easier to lie.
    “We’ve been travelling for a long time,” Richard said. “We met in Hong Kong and we’ve sort of been thrown together since then. We want to get to Antarctica.”
    “Antarctica?” The co-pilot didn’t sound as surprised as Richard might have expected. “It’s funny you should mention that,” he went on. “I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter about that on the radio.”
    “You have radio!” Scarlett said. Things were beginning to come together. The plane had power (the video games had hinted as much). And the world wasn’t quite as empty as she had thought.
    “Not national radio,” the co-pilot replied. “But there are plenty of amateurs out there. Radio hams, they used to be called. I listen to them at night. Everyone who can has headed south. Whatever planes they could find … boats … they’ve gone overland to the tip of South Africa or South America. People say they’ve been having dreams about Antarctica. It’s like some crazy religion.”
    “Could you fly this plane to Antarctica?” Richard asked.
    The co-pilot shook his head. “Not on my own.”
    “So where’s the pilot?”
    “That’s a long story. Do you have any idea what’s happening here in Dubai?”
    “I already told you,” Richard said. “We only just got here.”
    “And came straight to the airport. Well, I guess I’d have done the same. As you’ve probably seen, there aren’t many people around.”
    “Where is everyone?” Scarlett asked.
    “They’ve all gone.”
    Martins reached out. He poured himself a glass of whisky and lit another Marlboro Lite. Scarlett noticed that he had hundreds of cigarettes, still in their duty-free cartons. Maybe he had looted them from Dubai Airport or from somewhere else on his travels. She suddenly saw that this plane was more than his way out. It was his home, his depot, his survival pod. He turned on his back and blew grey smoke in the air.
    “Don’t ask me to explain the history of the world,” he said. “I never paid much attention to it when I was in school. All I ever wanted to do was fly. And when I got a job with Emirates, I was as happy as Larry.” He smiled to himself. “Since I mention it, Larry is the name of my pilot. Larry Carter. He’s a nice guy, except that he doesn’t completely trust me. For example, he’s never given me the codes that allow me to get into the on-board computers, which is one of the reasons why I’m sitting here instead of being on my way to somewhere a little more pleasant.”
    “What has happened in Dubai?” Richard asked.
    “I was just getting to that, Richard. Would you like a Scotch?”
    “No thanks.” It had been a long time since Richard had drunk alcohol, and if it had been a cold beer he might have been tempted. But the idea of a whisky without ice in this confined space in the middle of the day slightly disgusted him.
    “What happened to Dubai actually happened a very long time ago,” the co-pilot explained. “It went bust. In the beginning there was oil, but that ran out soon enough. Well, it didn’t matter because Dubai had set itself up as a playground for the super-rich, a sort of never-never land based on business, shopping and property. They built these islands that were shaped like palm trees, with multi-million-dollar houses that were bought by Hollywood actors and footballers. You saw the Burj Dubai in the centre of town? Well, you couldn’t miss it, could you! That was what it was like here. Everything had to be the biggest, the tallest, the most expensive, the best. They say that at one stage, ten per cent of the world’s cranes were