“Before we go any further,” said Eddie, “I should tell you right here and now that I won't be joining this mysterious team of yours. I only came because it’s an all expenses paid holiday in Martinique. I'm afraid I’m just taking shameless advantage of you.”

“Of course you are,” said Ben with a smile. “Why do you think we chose Martinique?”

Ben led the younger man out to the car park of Aime Cesaire airport, a small suitcase following after them, its electric motor making a faint hum as it drove the small wheels. He led him to where he had a hired car waiting, a Citroen Bella in metallic blue. Its boot opened with a click as they approached and a small lift descended that the suitcase drove onto. The car then lifted the suitcase into the boot, which closed again.

Eddie took a moment to glance at the leather upholstery and wood panelling of the interior before he got in through the door Ben was holding for him. “So where'd you get the money for this?” he asked as he settled into the comfortable passenger seat. “You bring me, all the members of your team and their families all the way to Martinique more or less on a whim, giving us all rooms in a top hotel. You hire a top of the range luxury car... This must be costing you a fortune! Where'd you get this kind of money?”

“The British government is picking up the bill.” The car started automatically as he sat in the driver’s seat and the head up display appeared on the windscreen. He touched the self drive button and the car reversed itself out of its parking space. “They consider it money well spent if it results in you joining the team. That should tell you something about the importance they place in it, and in you.”

“They might not need to fork out quite so much if you told me a little more about this project. If I'm interested, I might join up without the British taxpayer having to stump up so much money.”

“I told you, security is very tight. They can’t take any chance of someone turning us down and then spilling it all to the media. When you sign up, and I'm confident you will, you'll sign the official secrets act and we'll tell you everything then. I do have a little something to show you that I think will pique your interest.”

“Oh? What?”

“Tomorrow. I'll show you tomorrow. I want you to meet the rest of the team first.” The car reached the road and pulled out into the traffic. Ben settled down in his seat and closed his eyes and, realising that he intended to keep him guessing for a while, Eddie also relaxed and enjoyed the view.

The airport road was wide and open, with palm trees along either side and in the strip of grass between the two carriageways. There were very few other cars, but there were people walking along the paths that ran alongside the road, enjoying the sun. Martinique was enjoying an early winter heat wave at the moment, with temperatures already in the high twenties and expected to rise into the low thirties as the day wore on, and there was a lot of bare flesh on view, some of it female and rather attractive. Eddie found himself hoping he'd get a chance to slip off alone at some point so he could get to know one or two of the locals a little better.

Being on the coast, Fort-de-France, Martinique’s capital, had suffered a little from the rising sea levels, but was coping better than most by virtue of all the tourist money being made from people from the northern latitudes looking for a warm place to take a winter holiday. Sea walls had been built along the docks and the coast roads, and new districts of the city were being built higher up the slopes of the Caribbean island. Where other coastal cities were in dire straits, therefore, Fort-de-France was doing very nicely for itself and was looking to the future with hope and optimism. Whether it would still do so if the West Antarctic ice sheets melted completely, as the experts were saying was increasingly likely in the coming decades, remained to be seen.

La Bateliere hotel, where Ben had booked rooms for them, was on the other side of Fort-de-France, and they had to drive through the centre of the city to get there. The city wasn't a large one by global standards, having a population of around a quarter of a million, but it was busy and bustling and the car had to slow to a crawl as it encountered the local traffic. Ben turned a dial on the dashboard to increase the car's selfishness setting from two to three so that it would give way to other traffic less and force its way through narrower gaps, but it would only result in them getting to the hotel sooner if everyone else still had their cars set to a lower setting. In most cities, people kept their cars set to their maximum selfishness all the time, but the people of Martinique were apparently more relaxed in their driving because the two scientists immediately made better time through the congested streets.

Eddie was rather disappointed to find that the city looked very similar to every other city he'd ever been in. If it hadn't been for the fact that all the signs were in French and that they were driving on the right they might very well have been in any small city in England. Then they turned into another street and he saw that the palm trees had invaded the city as well, lining the streets in the same way that chestnuts and maples did back home, many of them leaning over at precarious angles so that the upper parts of their trunks were almost parallel to the ground. He wondered what kind of palms they were, whether they were the kind that had coconuts. No, not in a city, he decided. Way too dangerous. Probably a kind of date palm. He studied several of the trees as they passed them by, but couldn't see any of them bearing fruit.

They passed through the centre of the city, then through the suburbs on the other side until they were heading back towards the coast. The hotel was at the top of a small hill that overlooked the beach and the car entered the car park and drove around until it found a parking spot for itself.

“Wow!” said Eddie, looking around. The main hotel building was surrounded by perfectly manicured lawns and shrub beds as well as the ubiquitous palm trees, some of which, he saw, had somehow been trained to grow into the shape of Japanese fans. There was a taxi rank beside the hotel's main entrance along which a row of identical white cars were parked, none with a driver inside. The latest voice activated self driving taxis, he guessed. Just get in, tell the taxi where you want to go and the taxi identifies you from your voice print and deducts the fare from your account automatically. And If you have to ask in advance how much it will cost, then this isn't the hotel for you. Shit! Just how much was Ben having to pay for this? He felt himself growing increasingly uncomfortable about having to turn down the job offer just because of the amount of money that was being spent on him.

They got out of the car and the boot opened to deposit the suitcase on the tarmac. It followed after the two men as they walked towards the hotel's entrance. Inside, a human receptionist was standing behind a desk. Ben identified himself to her and she smiled as she handed them a key each. “Profitez de votre séjour, messieurs,” she said, her smile growing even wider, and Ben thanked her as they left to find their rooms.

“When you’re settled in,” Ben then said, “we'll be waiting for you in the lounge, down there. Everybody else should already be here. By the way, the cover story is that we work for a defence contractor called Wilson’s, that's what we tell the wives and children. They think we're working on laser weapons, ECM systems, that sort of thing, so if you hear them talking about it, please just go along with it.”

“I don't know anything about weapons.” protested Eddie. “I’m a theoretical physicist.”

“Yes, and the story is that we're working on a new weapon that uses cutting edge physics, a vacuum energy weapon. If anyone brings the subject up, just say you're not allowed to talk about it. Okay?”

Eddie nodded. “Is there such a thing as a vacuum energy weapon?” he asked.

“I’m pretty sure not, because if there was one, we're the people who would have invented it.” He grinned like a shark. “So, see you in the lounge.”

“See you there,” Eddie replied.

☆☆☆

The lounge had one wall open, overlooking the sea, to allow a warm breeze to blow in. Ben was sitting at a group of tables near where the retractable wall would normally be with a small group of people, nine adults and five children. All dressed casually and all clearly members of the same group. Eddie threaded his way between the other tables and the potted plants towards them.

“Ah, here he is,” said Ben, rising to greet him. “Our guest of honour. Edward Nash, the boy wonder!”

“If I'm boy wonder then you must be Batman.”

They shook hands while the others stared curiously. “So, this is the young man you've told us so much about,” said a tall, blonde woman sitting to Ben's right. She also stood to shake hands with him.

“Eddie, this is Karen Kerr, my deputy,” said Ben, “and that gorgeous couple over there is Jessica, her daughter and her husband, Stuart.” He indicated a couple in their twenties sitting on the other side of the table. They were also tall and blonde, and the man was broad across the shoulders, his skin golden and suntanned. The woman had an infant sitting in a pram by her side. “They're also members of the project,” added Ben. “Karen helps me with the administration these days. Physics is a game for the young, as you know, so Jessica is taking up the mantle of family genius.”

“Mother is still way smarter then me, though,” said Jessica, leaning across the table to shake hands. “I'll never be half the researcher she is.”

“Was,” Karen corrected her. “I'm just a bookkeeper these days. The government likes us to keep track of all their money.”

“I'm sure they do,” said Eddie, eyeing her son in law nervously. If Ben was serious about the clothing optional thing, he was going to have a hard time keeping his eyes on both these women's faces, and Stuart looked as though he could snap him like a twig without even trying. Fortunately, he seemed friendly and smiled as he took his hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “I'm the project's head of security. I'm the one who'll shoot you if you leak it to the Russians.” Eddie smiled nervously. “I suppose they were afraid that Karen and Jess would talk about work at home and that I might overhear, so since the head of security doesn’t need any science qualifications they decided to hire me. That way, that three of us can talk shop at home as much as we like.”

“Stu does himself a disservice,” said Jessica. “He’s a mechanical genius and does a lot of work on the hardware. Don't let him fool you into thinking he drools like an idiot while we eggheads are cracking atoms.”

“Compared to you I drool like an idiot,” said Stuart, smiling. “You inherited the family brain. I just married into the family.” He gestured over to the next table where four children were being looked after by a man who looked to be in his thirties. They were all eating ice creams, and the man was wiping the face of the smallest child, who had ice cream all over his chin and pudgy cheeks. ”The two blonde children over there are ours. Hugh and Lee. They're four and three respectively.”

“The babysitter’s Frank Williams, our newest recruit,” said Ben. “Been with us for about three years now.” The man waved over, Eddie waved back. “The ebony goddess is Alice Levine and that's her husband Desmond beside her. The other two kids over there belong to them.”

“Hey, man!” said Desmond, raising a hand. Eddie raised a hand back to him.

“And finally, the chap in the wheelchair’s James Buckley, with his lovely wife Jasmine and their son Matthew.” Matthew looked to be about fourteen or fifteen to Eddie, too old to sit with the other children. He was doing his best to look and act like an adult but Eddie could see he was bored and would probably much rather have been playing on his MiniVirt or kicking a football about. He was staring curiously at the new arrival, and Eddie guessed that he was probably bursting with curiosity to know what it was that his father was involved with. He was probably hoping to overhear something that would give him a clue. He was going to be disappointed, though. There'd be nothing but small talk and getting to know each other until Ben could get the project members away from their families, probably some time tomorrow.

Ben asked him what he wanted to drink and he asked for a French Sunset. Ninety percent orange juice with a little rum for taste. Ted put a finger on the table’s touch pad, going through the menu until he found the item he wanted, and a moment later a human waiter came with the drink on a silver tray. “Will there be anything else?” he asked as he put the perspiring glass on the table in front of Eddie. Frank and Alice asked for refills and the waiter took their empty glasses away with him.

“So,” said Frank, coming over to join Eddie at the main table. Jasmine took his place at the smaller table to look after the children. “Any family of your own, Eddie?”

“Parents, an uncle and a couple of cousins. No family of my own yet. Still waiting for the right girl to come along.”

“She will,” said James. “If a cripple like me can land a fish like Jas, you'll have no trouble.”

“May I ask how...” Eddie gestured to the wheelchair awkwardly.

“Road traffic accident a couple of years ago. The guy was looking in a shop window at just the wrong moment and his car’s autodrive suffered some kind of glitch. Went off the road and went right over me. Snapped my spine like a rotten twig. I'm having the stem cell treatments, though, and they say I'll be back on my feet in a couple of years. Until then, I'm confined to this thing.” He tapped the chair’s armrest with the palm of his hand.

“Still, I expect you got a nice payout from the car company, didn't you?” He took a sip of his drink.

“I'm afraid not. They said it couldn’t have been a bug in the programming or cars would be running people over all over the place. They only have to point to how safe the roads are these days. Could have been interference from someone's home hub, they said. Apparently, some people boost the power to serve a whole street, then collect from their neighbours, only a fraction of what the data companies would charge. The signal can screw up a car’s navigation, they say, and they can produce a whole army of experts to prove it. A little guy like me’s got no chance.”

“Well, at least you’re not in that thing for life, like in the old days. Glass half full, right?”

“Right!” agreed James. He turned towards the children’s table. “You okay over there, Jas?”

“Fine,” The woman called back. “The kids are getting restless, though. Can I take them over to the Virt?”

“Yes, of course.” James turned to his son. “You want to go with them, Matty?”

“You want me to share a game with pre schoolers? Saving the world from killer pixies?”

“You don’t all have to have the same adventure. You can have one all of your own. A clever chap like you can probably even override the parental guidance.”

“James!” cried Jasmine in outrage. “Don't encourage him!”

Even the prospect of an adult virtual adventure didn't tempt the lad, though, and he just watched as Jasmine led the four children to where the headsets were standing on a shelf above the reclining chairs. Eddie watched as she fitted a helmet to each child, selected an adventure from the control panel mounted on the wall and then entered the game herself, lying on another couch and placing a helmet on her head so she could supervise the game and pull them out of it if necessary.

“What games do you like to play?” Eddie asked Matthew. “You got the new Liquidator yet? What is it, the sixth in the series now?” The boy just looked away, though, and Eddie realised he didn't want to talk about kid stuff while he was the only child among adults. “Can you really hack them?” he asked, therefore. “That takes some serious computer skills.”

“He’s top of his class in IT,” said James proudly and Matthew looked back at them, trying to keep the smile of pleasure and pride from looking too obvious. “They leave a back door open for the engineers,” the boy said. “They always do. All you've got to do is find it and you're in.”

“I think it's a little more complicated than that,” said James. “He doesn’t want us to know how smart he is in case we take his tablet away from him, but I know he’s not going to do something stupid like hack into GovNet. He's smart enough to avoid getting burned. Give him a few more years and I think we might be wanting him on the team at Wilson's.” Eddie stared in confusion until he remembered what Wilson's was.

“Could be,” agreed Ted. “What do you say, Champ? Fancy working with your old man when you’re out of college?”

“Maybe I'll start my own company and then he can come and work for me.”

James laughed. “Only if I get my own parking space and the keys to the executive toilet.”

“Treat me well while I'm young and I'll treat you well when you're old.”

“You see the kind of crook I'm raising?” cried James in horror while the others chuckled in amusement. “God alone knows where he gets it. It sure as hell isn't me.”

“I heard that!” called back Jasmine from under the Virt helmet. The four year old child gave a hissing laugh that he probably thought sounded cool.

“Shut up, Jas. You can't use that gizmo unless you concentrate.”

“How much multitasking skill do you think it takes to watch a three year old fighting elves and listen to your thinly veiled insults?”

“Thinly veiled? I must be losing my touch.”

“Ignore those infants,” said Alice, reaching past Ben to pat the back of Eddie's hand. “Tell us more about yourself. Ben tells us you work at Bristol University. Do you teach there?”

“Occasionally. I'm mainly with the research staff, though. I don't come into contact with the students much. Only when one of the tutors is away for some reason and they need someone to fill in. It's not something I really enjoy, though. I know some people do, they get some kind of deep personal fulfilment from passing on their knowledge and wisdom to the next generation, but what gets my blood pumping is pushing back the frontiers of human knowledge. Teasing out nature's secrets, learning something that nobody in all history has ever known before."

“Not the sort of person one would expect to be interested in a job with a defence contractor, then,” said Desmond, eyeing him strangely.

“I'm not interested,” admitted Eddie. “I’m only here because it's a free holiday. Being head hunted is very flattering and all, but I'm very happy where I am.”

“That's only because I haven't told him exactly what we want him for,” said Ben, looking across at Desmond and smiling enigmatically. “We also have a research department. Physics research, and being military means we have funds and resources that a University can only dream of. I'm confident he'll change his mind when he sees the kind of environment he'll be working in.”

“Well, I won't deny that I'm eager to find out as much as you're willing to tell me, but please don't mistake that for any kind of willingness to actually join you. You all seem like wonderful people and I look forward to learning more about you over the next couple of days, but then I'm going home to Brighton. I just don't want you to think I'm leading you on or anything.”

“No-one thinks that,” said Ben, smiling reassuringly, “and I assure you that we’ll always be friends no matter what decision you make.” He looked around the table at the empty glasses. “So. Who wants another drink?”