The Disappearances

by Gemma Malley

  Actually that wasn’t quite true; Linus had tried to tell Lucas, but Lucas hadn’t listened. He hadn’t wanted to listen. He’d just wanted to get on with his new life, with the job his father had entrusted to him all those years ago.

  It was nearly a year since Linus, Raffy and Evie and the others had stormed the City with Lucas’s help, disabling the System that had controlled its citizens for so long, revealing the truths that the Brother had kept from them. The System had known everything; seen everything, understood everything. Built by Linus to anticipate people’s needs and create a world where happiness was not just aimed for but delivered, the System had soon been corrupted, manipulated to the Brother’s ends, acting as policeman instead of benefactor, monitoring the City’s people to check that they didn’t step out of line.

  Linus had told him that disabling the System wouldn’t be enough, that every vestige of the old regime had to be dismantled and destroyed so that the people had no choice but to accept change. But Lucas hadn’t believed him. Just as he hadn’t believed Linus’s prediction that the people wouldn’t be grateful; that they would blame Lucas instead, that they would come to hate him.

  Now, however, he was coming to the desperate conclusion that Linus had been right. People did hate him. He saw it in their eyes. The citizens of the City were more scared now than they ever had been before, and it was his fault because for all his talk of a new start, he couldn’t protect them from the Disappearances. He had no answers, nothing at all.

  He strode out into the corridor but immediately found himself in front of the Brother who was walking towards him, by his side the guards who accompanied him everywhere, looking more like staff than gaolers, Lucas thought to himself ruefully.

  ‘Lucas. Difficult times?’ the Brother asked, a smile on his lips. Lucas stared at him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, stonily, refusing to let the Brother glimpse his inner torment, his self-doubt. ‘And please take that triumphant look off your face. I know you find it impossible to actually care about anyone but yourself, but you might pretend to be upset about what’s happening instead of appearing decidedly cheerful.’

  ‘Lucas, that is a terrible accusation,’ the Brother said, the smile not leaving his face. ‘Of course I’m upset. Not for you, but for the poor people of this City who depend upon you to keep them safe. Who have been let down again and again. You are so like your father, Lucas, I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.’

  Lucas looked away, loathing filling his body. His father had been a victim of the Brother’s administration; had been labelled a K when he had discovered the lies upon which the Brother had built the City. K for Killable. Lucas shivered when he remembered the look in his father’s eye as he had told him what was going to happen, that he was going to die, that he needed Lucas’s help, that he could tell no one …

  And now the Brother was gloating. Lucas had never loathed him more. If he had done as Linus had suggested and left the Brother to die outside the City gates, just as the Brother had left Lucas’s father and so many other victims, perhaps things would be different. But Lucas hadn’t been able to do it; he hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of attempting to build a good, free City on such a vengeful and barbaric act. Instead he’d believed that forgiving the Brother would demonstrate the power of this new government. And the Brother had been so grateful – pitifully so – had promised to support Lucas, to help him, to be a part of this new City.

  But now, even with the guards Lucas had appointed to restrain the Brother, even with a house arrest that enabled him to travel only from his house to work and back again, the Brother was still doing his best to plot, manipulate, encourage dissent. Lucas had no proof, but he could see what was happening, and he suspected his own men of being complicit. People were afraid of the Brother; people still believed in him. But they wouldn’t for much longer. Lucas would see to that.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said angrily. ‘I have young people to find.’

  ‘And you really think you’ll find them?’ The Brother shook his head. ‘Lucas, the wall has been reinforced, checked for breaches; you yourself have confiscated all the keyholders’ keys. No one can get out of the City and no one can get in. You need to accept that this evil is within the City walls. You need to accept that you cannot control everything. You need to accept that you need the System.’

  Lucas shook his head in amazement. ‘This from the man who sought to control his people to such a degree that they couldn’t form a friendship without his say so?’

  The Brother shrugged. ‘I am attentive to my flock. It’s not a crime, Lucas. But you focus on the wall, if that’s what makes you feel better. I’m sure Rab will be pleased of the company.’

  Rab was the East Gatekeeper; it was his area of the City wall that was most vulnerable because of the swamps surrounding it, making it impossible for guards to line it. But those same swamps made it an unlikely entry point from the outside, too, as Rab had pointed out each time Lucas had visited him, each time Lucas had interrogated him and checked the gate for himself before confiscating his key, believing in some way that if he alone held all the keys he would be more in control of what was happening. And anyway, the Brother was right. There had been no breach of the wall, or the gates; no forced entry had been attempted and Rab had sworn blind that he had let no one in or out. Whoever was doing this was either in the City already or had some unknown way of getting in or out. But Lucas couldn’t shake the suspicion that the Brother knew more than he was letting on.

  ‘I’m going to overturn every stone, every inch of the City,’ he said, his voice low. ‘I’m going to find out who’s behind this.’

  ‘Do what you want,’ the Brother waved him away. ‘The trouble is, we have no System to protect our citizens any more. But you know that, don’t you Lucas?’

  Lucas regarded him coldly. ‘The System never protected them. It ruled them with a rod of iron, monitored their every move,’ he said, levelly.

  The Brother shrugged. ‘And yet people felt safer. Were safer. You disabled the System. So you are responsible for the Disappearances. You look for them, Lucas. You explain to their families why their loved ones are missing. Or, you could do something that would really stop what’s happening. You could reinstate the System, see that every citizen is tracked again, visible to the System’s operators, protected by them. You could finally do something worthwhile, show your people that you care about them.’

  ‘Always the System. That’s your answer to everything.’

  ‘Because it was the answer to everything,’ the Brother said, his eyes stony. ‘And you and your terrorist friends destroyed it.’

  Lucas took a deep breath. For most of his life, he had hidden his emotions, had hidden everything about himself. These days he allowed his emotions to surface, but still he knew they had to be controlled. Otherwise they threatened to overwhelm him, to render him so angry, so desperate that he would have no will to continue.

  ‘You are the terrorist, Brother,’ he said eventually. ‘You are the one who took power by force, by subjugation. The System ruined lives, sentenced my father to death simply because he discovered the truth.’

  The Brother frowned. He was getting frustrated. ‘You still don’t understand, do you Lucas?’ the Brother asked, patronisingly.

  ‘Understand what?’

  The Brother walked closer towards Lucas so that he was just inches away from him. ‘I used to think that you were a clever man,’ he whispered, a little glint in his eye. ‘That you understood. But really you’re as naive as your friend Linus. What you don’t seem to grasp is that people want to be led, want to be told what to do. That is what I gave them. The freedom not to have to think for themselves. And you took it away. That’s why they dislike you, Lucas.’

  ‘People want freedom,’ Lucas said, taking a step back.

  ‘Believe what you like,’ the Brother shrugged again. ‘But if I were you, I’d hope that young people stop disappearing. Because if they don’t, the angry mob
braying for your blood is only going to get bigger, more confident, more determined. And I certainly have no intention of stopping them.’

  He was looking Lucas right in the eye; Lucas steeled himself to make sure his own gaze didn’t waver. ‘Thank you for your support,’ he said. ‘But rest assured, I’ll find every single person who’s disappeared, and I’ll also find whoever’s behind this.’

  The Brother smiled, thinly, then started to walk on, the guards at his side.

  ‘Poor Lucas,’ he said with a little sigh, then stopped, turning to look at Lucas with a look of mock pity on his face. ‘Fighting your battles all alone, as always. Where are your friends, Lucas? Where are the people you sacrificed everything for?’

  Lucas said nothing.

  ‘What about that girl you were matched to?’ the Brother continued, warming to his theme. ‘She preferred your brother, didn’t she? The brother who left you here to rot, after everything you did for him. Maybe you should accept the facts, Lucas. No one wants your help. No one wants the freedom you’re so desperate to give them.’

  Lucas opened his mouth to speak, but he was interrupted by the sound of footsteps running towards them, footsteps that could only mean one thing. He turned, mentally preparing himself for the news.

  It was Christopher, head of the police guard; his face was ashen. ‘There’s another one missing,’ he gasped, his panting suggesting that he had run all the way from the police building half a mile away. ‘Gabrielle Marchant. I’ve started a search, but …’

  ‘But nothing,’ Lucas said determinedly, gritting his teeth. ‘We will comb every inch of the City. We will find her.’

  * * *

  Gabby stumbled, fell to the ground, scrambled up again. The streets were deserted, everyone hard at work, and anyway she was too far away now. She should have run into a house, into the bakery, but she somehow knew they’d get to her before she opened the door, so instead she had run out of the centre of the City into the no man’s land that surrounded it. Her only chance was to outrun them. She could hear them behind her; she didn’t know how many there were or what they looked like. She just knew that they were coming for her, just like Clara had said they would, just like they’d come for the others.

  It had seemed fanciful when Clara had told her; had seemed like the stories her own parents told her about the world before the City, about the Evils who lived outside the City walls, about the thousand unseen threats that surrounded them all the time. And even though she’d seen the fear in Clara’s eyes, heard the tremor in her voice, she hadn’t really taken it in, hadn’t really understood. Clara had warned her; had told her that everyone who knew had Disappeared; that the strangers had a way of knowing; that she had to forget every word Clara was saying and never breathe it to a soul. But Gabby had just smiled and nodded, because Clara herself hadn’t disappeared, and that, to Gabby, was a pretty fundamental hole in the story as far as she was concerned.

  Now, she realised how stupid she’d been. And now it was too late.

  No, not too late. Never too late.

  She filled her lungs with air; she knew she could outrun anyone if she tried. She would get away. She had to. If she could only get over the City wall, through it somehow, then she would just keep on running and they would give up. She wiped the sweat from her forehead then felt her heart stop as she heard them again behind her, crunching on the leaves, closer than she’d realised.

  She upped her pace, frantic, her eyes wide in fear. She was too far from the wall. She would beg, she would fall on the floor and beg …

  But it would do no good. Escape was her only hope.

  She ran, terrified, towards the swamps, towards the wall that had protected them from the Evils, the Eastern wall that now offered her only chance of escape from her pursuers. It was the only section of the wall without guards, the only section she might attempt to escape through. And if it occurred to her to run to where the guards were, to ask them for protection, she soon discounted the idea. The guards had not protected the others; if Clara was right, the guards must have let the strangers into the City. She couldn’t trust anyone.

  She was getting closer now; she could see the wall ahead of her, see the gate. If she could only get to it. If she could only leave this place, get away …

  Up ahead of her was a house, small and squat, surrounded by swampland. The gatekeeper. She lunged towards it, hammered at the door, tried to open the latch. But her hands were covered in sweat; her brain too frantic to make any sense of the handle in front of her. She screamed out for help, then shivered as she heard them, closer. She turned, then caught her breath as she saw them, saw them for the first time, walking towards her, smiling, two of them. They were laughing at her, at her fear, at her terror, laughing because she had nowhere to run to, because it was over, because they had won … She closed her eyes. And she waited.

  5

  News had spread rapidly, driving men and women onto the streets and crowds were already gathering by the time Lucas got outside. The Disappearances had struck fear into the hearts of the City’s people; its walls, its rules, its very existence was grounded in the desire to protect its people from evil. Having young people simply vanish from within the City walls was too much to countenance; it shook the very foundations the City had been built on.

  People regarded Lucas warily as he joined the throngs, but no one said anything. He was their leader, after all, and in spite of all that had happened he had not yet faced open hostility from his people, even though he expected it every day. And he knew, in a twisted way, that he had the Brother to thank for it, not because of anything the Brother was doing, but only because of the culture of fear that he had brought about, that still persisted now. The System had been gone for a year, but still the City’s citizens were wary of questioning, of challenging, of doing anything that might, in the old regime, be considered suspect. And Lucas had been an A; had always been an A. Though he kept explaining that labels meant nothing, that people could not be categorised in that way, he knew that his former label still protected him, still gave him an authority that he would otherwise lack. And it depressed him, but he was still grateful for it. Sometimes.

  ‘Who was she with last? Who knows her? Where are her friends?’ Lucas asked the questions even though they had been asked before, even though he knew what the answers would be: blank faces, wordless teenagers. The friends and acquaintances of the Disappeared had been interviewed relentlessly, separately and together; each had insisted that they knew nothing, that they had nothing to tell.

  ‘You last saw her yesterday?’ The group of teenagers looked at him blankly; they shrugged, nodded. They were scared; of course they were. Everyone was. ‘And then what?’

  ‘Then we went to work this morning, only she didn’t come,’ a girl said.

  ‘And your name is?’

  ‘Clara,’ the girl answered, wide-eyed. With fear, Lucas found himself thinking. No, with something else.

  ‘They know nothing,’ another man said dismissively. ‘She was at home this morning. She disappeared between leaving home at 7.30 and 8 a.m. when she didn’t arrive at work. We have to start searching, not wasting time here.’

  ‘And there was nothing strange the last time you saw her? Nothing she said to you?’ Lucas continued, looking closely at the girl, trying to work out what it was about her that made him want to keep her talking.

  The girl looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know. We were playing ball last night. Just playing …’ She swallowed; a tear appeared in her eye. A man stepped forward protectively. Her father.

  ‘She doesn’t know anything. Let’s stop wasting time and start the search.’

  Lucas nodded reluctantly. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Usual drill.’

  They split into groups, chose areas to search and agreed a reporting structure so that information could be shared quickly and effectively. They searched all day, not stopping to eat, then they searched into the evening. As darkness fell, the women and younger people were sen
t home and the men continued to search; by early morning it was just Lucas and Gabrielle’s father, her uncles, and her father’s work colleagues who were still out, still hunting. No one met another’s eye; no one was ready for what they knew in their hearts – that Gabrielle was gone, like the rest of them, that they would not find her.

  And then it was the start of the next day; people were out, walking to work. Bleary-eyed, Lucas called a halt, told the men to go home, to sleep, said that he would relieve them of their duties that day. And reluctantly they went; Lucas watched them heavily, then slowly turned and made his way to his office. He would not sleep. He couldn’t. He felt like he would never sleep again.

  People stared at him as he walked past, but Lucas barely noticed the attention; he had grown immune to it, learnt how to block it out. Lucas put his head down, pulled his coat around him and marched forwards. The Brother was right; he was not good with people, found it hard to reassure, to connect. For all his life he had repressed his feelings, and now he wasn’t even sure he had any. All he knew was how to stay calm, cool, collected, to pretend that he wasn’t scared, to pretend that he was in control.

  But he wasn’t in control; wasn’t even close. And as he walked, he felt himself begin to shake, not with cold, but with emotion. He had failed. He had failed the City.

  He had failed his father.

  He stopped walking suddenly; he was hungry, ravenously so. There was a bakery on the corner; he stepped in and bought a loaf of bread and two buns. Food would keep him going. Food would help him fight the doubts that circled his head like vultures, seeing weakness and swooping in for the kill. He couldn’t allow them any oxygen; it was too self-indulgent. When he had found the missing teenagers, then he would make a decision; then, perhaps he would leave the City. But until then, he had to stay strong, he had to stay focused.