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some old TV personality from the past. Just like his mum, Martha - very popular, because he could make smiles happen. And, fuck , you needed a reason to smile every now and then.
    Jacob slapped his forehead Homer-style. ‘Duh!’
    ‘No, man, it’s d’ oh !’
    Nathan did it so much better.
    ‘Doh.’
    ‘Nearly, Jay.’

Chapter 5
    10 years AC
    ‘LeMan 49/25a’ - ClarenCo Gas Rig Complex, North Sea
     
     
     
    L eona sat on the accommodation platform’s helipad savouring the warmth of the evening sun on her back. Hannah, her best friend, Natasha, and several other children were chasing each other across one side of the open deck. On the other side, tomato plants grew in endless tall rows, sheltered beneath a large plastic greenhouse roof. The tangy odour of the plants drifted in pleasant waves across to her, alternating with the faint stench of fermenting faeces coming all the way across from the production platform.
    Nice.
    Apart from that particular fetid odour, which fluctuated in strength from one day to the next, this was her favourite place on the platform. Up here on the highest open space amongst the five linked platforms, she had a three-hundred and sixty degree panorama to enjoy. The sea varied little, of course, always dark, brooding and restless, but the sky on the other hand was an ever changing canvas, sometimes steel-grey and solemn, sometimes like this evening, splashed with mischievous pinks and livid crimson.
    Strings of light-bulbs began to wink on as the sun dipped closer to the waves and the evening light waned. She could just about hear the distant chug of the generator. The lights would stay on until an hour after the last dinner sitting in the canteen. Time enough for everyone to eat and make their way safely back home, perhaps read a chapter of a book, darn a sock, tell a bedtime story or two, play a card game . . . then lights out. Thanks to Walter’s technical know-how and hard work, they generated a modest but steady supply of methane gas. Enough to give them a few hours of powered light every evening and no more.
    Leona heard soft footsteps and the rustle of threadbare khaki trousers behind her as her mum approached and squatted down beside her.
    ‘Hey.’
    ‘Hey back.’
    They watched Hannah get tagged by another little girl and resentfully have to stand still like a statue until ‘freed’ by someone else. She lasted all of ten seconds before getting bored and pretending that she’d been released. She rejoined her friend, the same age, same size . . . they even looked similar; frizzy hazel-coloured hair, tamed, more or less, by bright sky-blue hair ties. That was their colour. Sky blue . . . for some reason. Leona squinted her eyes as she watched them play - they could almost be twins.
    Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
    ‘She’s so like you were,’ said Jenny. ‘Always cheating at games.’
    Leona smiled.
    ‘And stubborn.’
    Above the soft rumple of the wind and the chatter of the children, she could hear people emerging from the mess and clanking back across the walkways to their platforms for the night. Another routine, uneventful evening.
    ‘I know you still pine for the past, Lee. But it’s gone. It’s not coming back.’
    Leona shrugged. ‘I know.’
    ‘I listened in on your school class this morning. You were talking to the kids about how music used to be.’
    Leona nodded. She ran classes, along with another woman, Rebecca, for the younger children. It wasn’t much of an education, truth be told; basic reading and writing and a little maths, that’s all. This morning one of the children had asked about what music she used to listen to before the crash and, before she could stop herself, she was telling her class about the gigs that she’d gone to as a student. About how electricity used to go into guitars and make them sound fantastic and big. About how the shows were flooded with powerful flashing lights and dazzling effects and lasers. They’d sat and listened,