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.They have just cleared the treeline, climbing towards a plateau, from which they have a view down into the valley between it and the larger Ben Trochart.He can see a river snaking through moorland where it isn’t swallowed by forest, snow-capped peaks in the distance beyond.There are no roads to be seen, no buildings, not even cultivated fields: no visible evidence of human settlement.‘It’s beautiful,’ Heather says.‘Makes you feel.I don’t know.’‘Insignificant,’ Kane suggests.‘I was going to say inspired.’‘How about blessed?’ asks Blake.He and Kane share a glance: touché.‘It is beautiful,’ agrees Sendak warmly.‘It’s also cold, cruel and extremely unforgiving if you don’t treat it with respect.’Heather fixes both Kane and Blake with a warning stare.‘First one to make a female comparison gets a boot in the peas.’Adnan takes in the view from the plateau and instantly renders it in HUD mode, like it’s a giant game of Civ or Age of Empires.He pictures a little cursor arrow clicking an icon in the front of his field of vision, then clicking again on the banks of the river and instantly constructing a fort.Further buildings spring up alongside, before being surrounded by troops and war machines, enthusiastically laying siege.He grins with deep satisfaction and takes a mouthful of Irn-Bru from the can he’s been handed by the alien impostor who has kidnapped Deborah and replaced her with someone quite affable.Deborah takes the drink back from Adnan and accepts an unwanted cereal bar from Cameron, who is sitting between her and Marianne.At Deborah’s prompting, Marianne has got out her tarot cards and is explaining Cameron’s choices, though because of the breeze she’s just getting him to turn over the top cards one at a time.His first card is The Fool.‘The Fool is taking a step over a precipice,’ she explains.‘We’re most of the time too cynical, too insular or just too scared to take a step into the unknown.But if we don’t, then we never explore, never expand our horizons.’Gillian and that lot are about fifteen yards away, though their ostentatious cackling is audible even over the gentle wind and the murmur of umpteen different conversations.They’re being extra noisy for her benefit, Deborah suspects: it’s not paranoia, she’s done it herself often enough when she’s been among them.It’s bound to have put a few noses out of joint that she didn’t come scampering over to them at breakfast (where they had grabbed a table for four anyway), or out on the hike this morning.She knows from experience that there’s no fun dangling possible exclusion over someone who doesn’t want to be included in the first place.It isn’t a statement she’s making or anything, though she’s aware they’ll be dissecting it as such.Well, it probably is, but the point is it’s not aimed at them; it’s not about them.It’s about her.That’s what she realised last night.It took her ages to get to sleep, but in a good way.A lot of things seemed clearer after her long talk with Marianne, and one of those was that it was a much more enjoyable experience to talk to Marianne than among that little coven.It feels easier to speak with other folk too, maybe because she’s actually listening to what they’re saying for a change, instead of looking for nuggets of embarrassment, sifting out reasons to slag them off.This, though, sparks a moment of obsessive-compulsive anxiety, as Deborah asks herself whether, in the midst of so much emotion and revelation, she got around to deleting that picture.She’s fairly sure she remembers doing it, but now that she’s thought about it, she needs confirmation.She pulls out her phone and surreptitiously checks.It’s gone, but it still makes her shudder to think how close she must have come to disaster, to doing something unforgivable to Marianne and calamitous to herself.It also seems amazing how far she has come from the person she was this time yesterday.While her phone is out, she decides to have a look at the pictures she has taken this morning, and gasps a little at the first, snapped just as they were leaving the FTOF.It’s Beansy with his bag dangling from a stick over his shoulder as he steps, smiling, off the edge of a stump and into thin air.She glances from the phone to the card in Marianne’s lap and sees exactly the same composition.Marianne lifts it to put it back in the pack, but Deborah stops her.‘Look,’ she says, showing her the phone.‘How appropriate,’ Marianne observes.‘The Fool.Couldn’t have picked a better model.’‘I didn’t choose anything,’ Deborah says, a little disappointed (but in another way a little relieved) that Marianne doesn’t find it spooky.Deborah nudges the joystick on her phone to view the next pic as Marianne invites Cameron to turn over another card.The shot shows Matt hanging upside down by one foot, his other tucked behind his knee.Cameron reaches for the deck and turns over the Hanged Man.Again, the composition is identical, right down to the curiously serene smile on his face.‘Marianne,’ she says, showing her the phone again and trying to keep a tremor from her voice.‘Fuck,’ Marianne responds, this time leaving Deborah under no doubt that she does find it spooky.‘That is.that is out there.’‘Jesus,’ Cameron agrees.‘Hey, Adnan, mate, you gotta see this.Let’s hear your quantum physics explain this shit.’Marianne shows Adnan the two cards as Deborah passes him the phone.‘That’s the order Cameron just drew these, too,’ Deborah tells him.Adnan has a look at the two images.The similarity of the composition is unsettling, he would admit.‘Are you familiar with tarot cards?’ he asks Deborah.‘Not really.Marianne showed me some last night, but.’‘But you have seen them before?’‘Yes.’Adnan nods.‘Pattern recognition,’ he says.‘It’s one of the human traits that helped us get out of the caves and make it to here [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.They have just cleared the treeline, climbing towards a plateau, from which they have a view down into the valley between it and the larger Ben Trochart.He can see a river snaking through moorland where it isn’t swallowed by forest, snow-capped peaks in the distance beyond.There are no roads to be seen, no buildings, not even cultivated fields: no visible evidence of human settlement.‘It’s beautiful,’ Heather says.‘Makes you feel.I don’t know.’‘Insignificant,’ Kane suggests.‘I was going to say inspired.’‘How about blessed?’ asks Blake.He and Kane share a glance: touché.‘It is beautiful,’ agrees Sendak warmly.‘It’s also cold, cruel and extremely unforgiving if you don’t treat it with respect.’Heather fixes both Kane and Blake with a warning stare.‘First one to make a female comparison gets a boot in the peas.’Adnan takes in the view from the plateau and instantly renders it in HUD mode, like it’s a giant game of Civ or Age of Empires.He pictures a little cursor arrow clicking an icon in the front of his field of vision, then clicking again on the banks of the river and instantly constructing a fort.Further buildings spring up alongside, before being surrounded by troops and war machines, enthusiastically laying siege.He grins with deep satisfaction and takes a mouthful of Irn-Bru from the can he’s been handed by the alien impostor who has kidnapped Deborah and replaced her with someone quite affable.Deborah takes the drink back from Adnan and accepts an unwanted cereal bar from Cameron, who is sitting between her and Marianne.At Deborah’s prompting, Marianne has got out her tarot cards and is explaining Cameron’s choices, though because of the breeze she’s just getting him to turn over the top cards one at a time.His first card is The Fool.‘The Fool is taking a step over a precipice,’ she explains.‘We’re most of the time too cynical, too insular or just too scared to take a step into the unknown.But if we don’t, then we never explore, never expand our horizons.’Gillian and that lot are about fifteen yards away, though their ostentatious cackling is audible even over the gentle wind and the murmur of umpteen different conversations.They’re being extra noisy for her benefit, Deborah suspects: it’s not paranoia, she’s done it herself often enough when she’s been among them.It’s bound to have put a few noses out of joint that she didn’t come scampering over to them at breakfast (where they had grabbed a table for four anyway), or out on the hike this morning.She knows from experience that there’s no fun dangling possible exclusion over someone who doesn’t want to be included in the first place.It isn’t a statement she’s making or anything, though she’s aware they’ll be dissecting it as such.Well, it probably is, but the point is it’s not aimed at them; it’s not about them.It’s about her.That’s what she realised last night.It took her ages to get to sleep, but in a good way.A lot of things seemed clearer after her long talk with Marianne, and one of those was that it was a much more enjoyable experience to talk to Marianne than among that little coven.It feels easier to speak with other folk too, maybe because she’s actually listening to what they’re saying for a change, instead of looking for nuggets of embarrassment, sifting out reasons to slag them off.This, though, sparks a moment of obsessive-compulsive anxiety, as Deborah asks herself whether, in the midst of so much emotion and revelation, she got around to deleting that picture.She’s fairly sure she remembers doing it, but now that she’s thought about it, she needs confirmation.She pulls out her phone and surreptitiously checks.It’s gone, but it still makes her shudder to think how close she must have come to disaster, to doing something unforgivable to Marianne and calamitous to herself.It also seems amazing how far she has come from the person she was this time yesterday.While her phone is out, she decides to have a look at the pictures she has taken this morning, and gasps a little at the first, snapped just as they were leaving the FTOF.It’s Beansy with his bag dangling from a stick over his shoulder as he steps, smiling, off the edge of a stump and into thin air.She glances from the phone to the card in Marianne’s lap and sees exactly the same composition.Marianne lifts it to put it back in the pack, but Deborah stops her.‘Look,’ she says, showing her the phone.‘How appropriate,’ Marianne observes.‘The Fool.Couldn’t have picked a better model.’‘I didn’t choose anything,’ Deborah says, a little disappointed (but in another way a little relieved) that Marianne doesn’t find it spooky.Deborah nudges the joystick on her phone to view the next pic as Marianne invites Cameron to turn over another card.The shot shows Matt hanging upside down by one foot, his other tucked behind his knee.Cameron reaches for the deck and turns over the Hanged Man.Again, the composition is identical, right down to the curiously serene smile on his face.‘Marianne,’ she says, showing her the phone again and trying to keep a tremor from her voice.‘Fuck,’ Marianne responds, this time leaving Deborah under no doubt that she does find it spooky.‘That is.that is out there.’‘Jesus,’ Cameron agrees.‘Hey, Adnan, mate, you gotta see this.Let’s hear your quantum physics explain this shit.’Marianne shows Adnan the two cards as Deborah passes him the phone.‘That’s the order Cameron just drew these, too,’ Deborah tells him.Adnan has a look at the two images.The similarity of the composition is unsettling, he would admit.‘Are you familiar with tarot cards?’ he asks Deborah.‘Not really.Marianne showed me some last night, but.’‘But you have seen them before?’‘Yes.’Adnan nods.‘Pattern recognition,’ he says.‘It’s one of the human traits that helped us get out of the caves and make it to here [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]