Zero History

And Milgrim fell, amazed and unthinking, into his mysterious joy at the Hanger Lane
Gyratory, lost in the basso howl of the Hilux’s supercharger.
Constrained by the inflated crash-harness, he struggled to look back. Saw headlights.
The black car.
Aldous stamped on the brakes, momentum whipping Milgrim around. A second set of
headlights, ahead of them, approaching.
“Well, then,” said Aldous, his teeth very white in the beams of the approaching vehicle.
Milgrim looked to the side, seeing a blank and ancient wall, perhaps two feet away.
“Aldous,” said Hollis.
“Moment, please, Miss Henry,” said Aldous.
The car in front of them was only a few feet away now. Squinting against the glare of
the other’s lights, Milgrim saw, through the car’s windshield, two men. One, the driver,
masked in a black balaclava. The other was masked in white, though weirdly and only
partially. And was holding something up to the windshield in front of him. For Milgrim
to see.
Milgrim’s Neo.
Foley, his short-billed cap low over his bandaged head, fixed Milgrim with the one eye
Milgrim could see, raised his other hand, and slowly shook an admonitory finger, his
expression changing abruptly as Aldous floored the truck, popped the clutch, and crashed
into the car, still accelerating. Foley’s car began to move backward as its masked driver
twisted the wheel, a few sparks popping as if off a grindstone, and still Aldous
accelerated, the truck’s unnatural mass and abnormal power, Milgrim now realized, being
central to that cartel-readiness of which Aldous was so proud. Milgrim saw the other
driver abandon the wheel, actually cover his eyes. The car struck the opposite wall,
producing more sparks, and suddenly they were in the street at the far end, back in the
world. Foley’s car, patches of paintwork scoured to raw plastic, grille shattered, sat in the
street, at a diagonal, its driver struggling, around an inflated airbag, with the wheel.
Aldous backed up slightly, then drove carefully, at an angle and at speed, into Foley’s
car. Then calmly and neatly reversed, backing up until the bed of the truck blocked the
passage. Milgrim heard brakes behind them, and turned to see the black car reversing, its
headlights receding. He heard it scrape the wall.
“Fiona will take you home, Miss Henry,” said Aldous, as Milgrim turned to see him
rapidly thumbing the screen of his iPhone.
“Fiona,” said Milgrim, hopefully.
“You must all leave now, quickly,” said Aldous. “The police are coming. Please go with
Mr. Milgrim, Miss Hyde.” He touched something on the dash, causing their inflated
harnesses to simultaneously unlatch. Milgrim looked down at the thing that lay across his
chest, like a rubber bat, a goth party favor. He heard the doors unlatch.
“Let’s roll,” said Heidi.
“Ouch,” said Hollis. “Don’t hit me!”