Page 47 of The Two of Us at the End of the World

He looked at her. She didn’t look especially convinced.

“That’s just one small initiative. It’s not all fringe stuff like that. Thing is, they’re setting up centres for ongoing research all over the world, kind of spreading out to maximise redundancies if things go south sooner than expected, focusing on people’s skills not their passports. We want to create a resilient system that can go on as long as possible…”

“We?” she said. “So you already said yes?”

“No,” he said. “No. I said I’d have to talk it over with you.”

“But you said we,” she said. “Not they. So you’re in, even if you haven’t told them yet.”

“No,” he said. “No. Absolutely not. You come first.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “Good even. They need resilient systems, you’re the systems guy. A good one.”

“It’ll mean travel,” he said. “And there are places out there where who-knows-what shit is starting to peel off the wall.”

“Shit peel off the wall?” she said. “Christ. Are they all Americans, the people you’ve been talking to?”

“Not all,” he said. “Definitely not. Flags of all nations. Old fashioned global co-operation. That’s kind of the point.”

She watched the black blade of a cormorant knife off the harbour wall and disappear into the water. She waited until it popped back up into the world and sat sleekly smug on the slow swell with a silvery fish flipping in its beak. As it threw back its head and shuddered the fish down its gullet she turned to the Boy.

“OK, I’m down with it if you promise two things. Always come back… and don’t start talking like a Yank.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Oh, fuck off,” she said with another grin, and kissed him.

“Thank you,” he said after a while.

“And they need a better name than UNPIG,” she said.

“Some Americans like The Hail Marys,” he said. “But more and more the nickname that’s catching on seems to be Freemen.”

“Like Dune?” she said. “Jesus, you’re not going to be recycling your own pee are you?”

“Dyson’s first name was Freeman,” he said. “Kind of fits, even if you don’t know about him, doesn’t it?”

“You know about him do you?” she said.

“Do now.” He grinned. “He wrote thinking out of the box about big stuff. Interesting bloke, big mind, big heart too, I think. He believed life was the answer, that it would find its way. Kind of as spiritual as he was a scientist. Anyway. Like I said. It sort of fits. Like he didn’t write a manifesto or anything, more like it’s his fearlessness in thinking… ambitiously and unusually.”

“OK,” she said, clinking his glass. “Here’s to the Freemen. Ambitious and Unusual.”

He emptied his glass without breaking eye contact with her, then sat back, suddenly looking lighter and happier.

“Thank you,” he said. “I think it might be important.”

“I know it is,” she said “Especially if this place works and I get properly pregnant again. If we have a kid. Or kids. Be nice for them to have a world to grow up in.”

He looked at her and she was pleased to see he’d found his smile again.

“One other thing,” he said. “In case that shit does peel off the wall and come down on everything…”

“Not loving the imagery,” she said.

“We need a plan. You and I need a fall-back, a bug-out plan, if you will—”

“I bloody won’t,” she said, sitting back and watching the waitress walking towards them with their food. “Not if you call it that.”