The Disappearances

by Gemma Malley

  He put his head down again and started to walk. But just as he turned the corner onto the main road, the road of government buildings, he stopped, because next to him was a girl, a girl he vaguely recognised. And then, suddenly, he knew that she was the girl from last night.

  ‘Clara?’ he said.

  She looked surprised that he had remembered her name. She nodded.

  ‘Is there something you’ve remembered? Something you can tell me?’

  She looked at him warily. Her fingernails were chewed, her eyes bloodshot; Lucas suspected she hadn’t slept either.

  ‘Tell me what you know,’ he said quietly. ‘Tell me. You can trust me. I just want to find your friend.’

  She bit her lip. ‘You used to run the System,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you?’

  Lucas nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I did.’

  ‘And it was your brother who … Raffy, I mean. He found the glitch. It was because of him that you … that the System was deactivated?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Lucas shrugged. ‘The System should never have been up and running. Not in the way it was. It was supposed to protect us. And instead it became a tyrant, controlling us. That’s why we closed it down.’

  Clara nodded uncertainly.

  ‘No one’s listening,’ Lucas said then. ‘If you tell me something, no one else will know.’

  Clara looked up with a start. ‘But that’s just it. They will know. If I tell you, you’ll disappear too,’ she whispered. ‘They can hear everything.’

  Lucas looked at her uncertainly. ‘They?’

  Clara shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, walking away. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It does matter,’ Lucas said, running after her. ‘Clara, talk to me. Who are you talking about? Who can hear everything?’

  Clara shook her head again; there were tears in her eyes. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes you can,’ he said firmly. ‘And you must. Who are you talking about? Who are these people?’

  Clara looked around furtively, her eyes full of fear. She bit her lip anxiously. ‘The Informers,’ she whispered. ‘That’s what we call them. Called them, I mean. They’re the ones disappearing everyone. And I’m going to be next. I know I am. I’m the only one left.’ Her voice was shaking; as Lucas moved closer he saw that her whole body was trembling.

  ‘You won’t be next,’ he said grimly. ‘Tell me what you know and I’ll protect you.’

  She shook her head, looked around nervously.

  ‘They’re here?’ Lucas asked.

  ‘They’re everywhere,’ she whispered.

  Lucas thought for a moment, then took her hand. ‘Come with me,’ he said, pulling up his collar and lowering his head. ‘I know somewhere we can talk. I know somewhere safe.’

  As Lucas and Clara made their way unsteadily, Lucas couldn’t help thinking about how Evie must have felt, when night after night she crept out of her house and made the same journey, knowing all the time that if she was caught her life would change immeasurably for the worse.

  He remembered how he’d felt, watching the little red dot on the System screen that represented the girl he was supposed to be marrying moving towards another red dot, his brother. He remembered how he would sit, pinned to the chair, unable to move, as he saw the dots get closer and closer until they were like one. And then, an hour or so later, moving apart once more. Lucas always waited until Evie’s dot was back in her house where it belonged, then he would painstakingly erase the information, protecting her, protecting his brother, purging all evidence of their clandestine meetings, telling himself that the ache in his stomach was fear for them, not envy, not a desperate longing to be the dot that her dot was seeking …

  He had always loved Evie; now that she was gone, he felt as though clouds surrounded him; it was as though without her in the City there was no joy, nothing to look forward to. Without her, he was falling, failing, unable to see what he should do, unable to keep back the waves of despair that threatened to consume him.

  But there was no point thinking about it. She was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. She was not his; would never be. What he had was the City, and he had to fight for it, just as he had fought all his life.

  It took Lucas and Clara ten minutes to reach their destination. The tree where those dots had found each other was huge on the outside, formidable and grand, taller than any of the buildings that remained from the past or had been built since. Lucas walked towards it, found the opening and ushered Clara inside where she looked around in wonderment.

  Inside the trunk, it felt cosy, womb-like, a safe haven. There was a blanket at the back. Lucas picked it up and lay it over the damp floor.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said to Clara. ‘We’re safe here. Tell me everything you know and I promise you will be protected.’

  She looked around hesitantly.

  ‘What is this place?’ she breathed.

  ‘Just a little hideaway,’ Lucas said, sitting down opposite her, trying to ignore the hole that had appeared inside him, the desperate longing for Evie that had dogged him for most of his life. ‘Are you hungry?’

  He took out the bread and tore off a chunk for Clara, then he gave her a bun. He took the other and devoured it in seconds. Clara followed suit. Then she took a deep breath.

  ‘You really want to know?’ she said then. ‘Because they’ll know. And they’ll come after you. That’s why Gabby … I told her, you see. She knew I knew something; she’d seen us whispering. Me and the ones who … The Disappeared, I mean. And she begged me to. I didn’t want to, but … I had no one else to talk to. I was scared, because I thought I’d be next. I should have been next. And now she’s gone. Now she’s disappeared. They did it to punish me, because they told us not to tell anyone. And now they’re coming for me. Or you. They might be outside right now. It might even be you …’ She pulled her knees towards her and started to sob quietly. ‘And I don’t even care because I just want it to be over now. I just want it to stop.’

  She looked up at Lucas fearfully.

  ‘Tell me what you know,’ he said, calmly. ‘Tell me who’s doing this and I’ll …’ He stopped, couldn’t finish the sentence. He would kill them. That’s what he would do. There would be no tolerance, no rising above his need for vengeance this time. Honour counted for nothing amongst people like this. He met Clara’s eyes. ‘I’ll stop them,’ he said. Do you understand?’

  Clara raised an eyebrow. Then she sniffed. ‘The stupid thing is that I didn’t even want to go,’ she said, looking down. ‘I didn’t even want to go in the stupid hospital.’

  ‘The hospital?’ Lucas frowned.

  ‘That’s where it all started,’ the girl said, shaking. ‘That’s where we saw them.’

  ‘The Informers?’

  Clara nodded.

  It had been a dare, she explained. Because the hospital wing used for New Baptisms had been closed, and they wanted to see inside, see for themselves what it was like.

  It had been her friend Edward’s idea to break into the hospital; he had been showing off, had secured a kiss from Clara, had a glint in his eye that she found exciting. And so they had gone, seven of them; had slipped in through the main doors, up the stairs and into the Fisher wing. And it was there that they’d been met by a locked door, impenetrable, windowless walls.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Clara said immediately; there was nothing there, nothing of interest anyway and the hospital gave her the creeps. But Edward hadn’t wanted to give up.

  ‘I thought the City wasn’t allowed to keep secrets any more,’ he said, raising an eyebrow at her, like it was a challenge. ‘Aren’t we supposed to think for ourselves now? Isn’t that why they destroyed the System? Well, I’m thinking for myself. And I think I want to see what’s behind that wall. Don’t you? Come on, we’ll get in round the back.’

  He winked at her, grabbed her hand and started to walk back down the corridor, turning left shortly afterwards. Everyone else followed. They knew wha
t lay beyond the door; knew what it was Edward wanted to see. Fisher wing. The place where the New Baptisms happened. Or the mutilations, depending on who you believed.

  They walked around in a loop, into a small room that smelt of laundry, and there they started to search for another way in, a back door, something.

  ‘Here!’ Clara had spoken before she’d had time to censor herself, to think through the consequences. It was a small opening in the wall. Locked, but easily broken. A hole to pass laundry through, she thought. ‘You think we can get through there?’ she asked, as everyone rushed towards her, as Edward shot her a triumphant look that made her glow inside.

  ‘I think we can definitely get through,’ he grinned and pulled himself up. But just as he was about to wriggle through, he was stopped by the sound of footsteps on the other side of the hole, walking towards them, their voices muffled but still audible. Men. In the Fisher Wing. Silently Edward dropped back down to the floor.

  ‘And if the System cannot be salvaged?’

  ‘Of course it can be salvaged. The Brother is trying to play us, that’s all. He thinks the longer it takes the more he’ll be able to negotiate. But we don’t need him. We need the boy, that’s all. Raffy. If we can find him, the Brother can be disposed of quite frankly. He’s getting too demanding. Too difficult.’

  ‘What about Lucas?’

  There was a sigh. ‘First we find his brother Raffy. Then we’ll deal with Lucas.’

  Clara hadn’t noticed Harriet going red, hadn’t noticed the sweat dripping off her forehead; it was only when she coughed, grabbing a sheet to muffle the sound, that Clara realised she’d been trying to hold it in, desperately trying.

  Immediately the footsteps had stopped and with them the voices. Clara and her friends had frozen and exchanged fearful glances. And then, just seconds later, the men were behind them in the laundry room, standing there staring at them. They were dressed in black, in jackets and trousers; their faces were hard, impenetrable.

  ‘They’re here,’ one of the men called out, then they stepped aside as another man walked in, surveying the scene, his eyes narrowing as he looked from face to face, scrutinising each one carefully before moving to the next.

  ‘You know who we are?’ he asked then, and Clara had recognised his voice immediately as the man who’d been talking before, about Lucas, about the Brother.

  She shook her head. She could see that Harriet was shaking.

  He stared right at her. ‘We are the Informers. We inform on people if they break the rules. And you have broken the rules. You will regret that. And if you speak to another living soul, they will regret it too. These are not idle threats. We are in this City for a reason. Do I make myself clear? Perhaps I should make myself more clear. You. Edward. Come with me.’ He looked straight at Edward, who shrank back.

  ‘I said come,’ the man said, his tone suddenly lower, more menacing. The two other men moved towards Edward, who started to tremble. Then, as he tried to run, the men grabbed him and dragged him away, out of the laundry room; Clara heard him scream and shout for a few seconds and then … silence.

  ‘You should leave now,’ the man said, a little smile playing on his lips. ‘And please remember that if you breathe one word of what you have seen or heard, you will never see Edward again. And of course we know who you are. Where you live.’ Then he smiled at them, shrugged and walked away, closing the door behind him.

  ‘What happened then?’ Lucas asked, breathlessly, his heart pounding in his chest.

  Clara took a deep breath. ‘We left the hospital,’ she whispered. ‘We ran as far away as we could.’

  ‘And did you tell anyone?’

  Clara shook her head. ‘We couldn’t. Because of Edward. Because of what the man had said. They knew who we were. We couldn’t tell. We couldn’t …’

  Tears were forming in her eyes again; she wiped them away distractedly.

  ‘So what happened next?’ Lucas asked, trying to keep his voice calm, trying not to let her see how angry he was, how much he wanted to run down to the hospital now and rip these men apart with his bare hands. Who were they? What were they doing in his City? How dare they talk about Raffy as though they knew him?

  ‘We didn’t do anything. We waited for Edward to come back. But he never did. A week later, Harriet disappeared; then, a week after that, her younger brother had gone. None of them said anything to anyone, I know they didn’t. They were too scared to even talk to me about it. But they still disappeared. And then everyone else did, too. Then it was just me. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go out, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t look in the mirror in case I saw them behind me. And then …’

  She stopped talking.

  ‘Then?’ Lucas prompted gently.

  ‘Then I told Gabby. She’s my oldest friend, and she knew I knew something. She said I had to tell her what the big secret was, why I never talked to her any more, why I wasn’t talking about the Disappearances like everyone else was. And … I told her. I told her everything. I … I murdered my best friend.’ She was sobbing now, her face streaked with tears. She looked up at Lucas imploringly.

  ‘So?’ she said, wiping at her eyes, sniffing hopelessly. ‘What do we do now?’

  Lucas looked at her steadily for a few seconds as what she had told him sank in, as he suppressed the rage building inside of him. Right now he had to stay calm. Right now, his duty was to protect Clara. Because it hit him with a thud that it was because of him that she and her friends had been looking for entertainment; that if it wasn’t for him and Linus destroying the System, she and her friends would have been at home, doing chores, not daring to talk to each other unless interaction had been sanctioned. The rules that had constrained them had also protected them. ‘You’re the last of the group? There’s no one else who saw the Informers, who knows anything about them?’

  ‘I’m the last one,’ Clara nodded.

  Lucas nodded. No one else was in direct danger. But Clara … Clara he could protect. One out of the seven. It was pathetic. Pitiful. But it was something. Revenge would have to wait. Justice would have to wait. ‘In that case,’ Lucas said, ‘what we do now is get you out of here. Do you understand? We have to leave the City, and we have to do it now.’

  Clara looked up at him and he was surprised to see not worry in her eyes but relief. That he had believed her. That he understood. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly, and got to her feet.

  6

  Lucas didn’t think they were being followed any more; they had left no trace and had not stopped anywhere. They had used all the back alleys and hidden paths he knew to get to the edge of the City, then had run through the wasteland that surrounded it until they were at the East Gate lookout, a small hut next to a large swamp that Lucas had visited several times but never been into because of the vile stench that emanated from it.

  The official name for Rab was ‘Gate Patrol’ but he and the Brother knew that he did no patrolling. He was a nasty piece of work; a short, squat bully of a man who had no place in the City. But he had no fear of being alone, no qualms about using a gun, and no respect for anyone, including the Brother himself, which made him perfectly placed to live in the dishevelled hut close to the East Gate and to keep tabs on what went on.

  The truth was that no one ever breached the City walls without the City’s consent. The ‘Evils’ used to be brought to the City walls every so often to instil fear in those who lived within them, but they were no real threat; they were simply the brain-damaged casualties of attempted brain surgery, captives of the City, treated like animals in camps a short drive away from the City walls, brought out every so often to scream and moan and remind the City’s inhabitants how lucky they were to live inside its walls.

  Now the Damaged Ones were being cared for properly, not worked to the ground, and lived peacefully away from the City that had destroyed them. The only new people who passed through the City’s gates were prospective citizens, attracted by the rumours, some true, some not, of over
flowing clean water, plentiful food and decent shelter, a place where people were good, where there was order. But the Great Leader had stopped his botched experiments a few years before; now that there was no need to experiment on people, to mutilate them, the hopeful immigrants had been turned away, back to the barren lands they had come from. What the wall patrol had really been charged with was stopping the City’s inhabitants trying to leave, preventing them from getting outside the City, from seeing the outside for themselves. Only by encouraging fear of what lay beyond the walls could the Brother hope to impose his totalitarian regime, and that meant creating a prison from which no one could escape.

  It had been one of Lucas’s first commitments, to open the gates, to let people see the world for themselves. But caution had led him to delay; fear that City citizens weren’t ready. And then the Disappearances had changed everything. With the Disappearances went any thoughts he had had of opening the gates.

  ‘Rab,’ Lucas called out. He didn’t like the East Gatekeeper, but there were questions he needed to ask before he left the City, answers that he wouldn’t leave without. Moments later, the man appeared. Twenty years ago Rab had been one of the people queuing outside, begging for a chance to enter the City, agreeing, as all prospective citizens did, to have the New Baptism to remove the ‘evil’ amygdala from his brain, little knowing that the operation would leave him not free from bad thoughts, but completely brain-dead. By chance, the Brother had happened upon him in a waiting room at the hospital, fighting with another prospective patient, and had declared him incapable of salvation. It was on the way back to the City wall that Rab had begged and pleaded, offered to do anything in order to stay. And the Brother had seen in him a desperation, an anger, a self-destructiveness that he realised he could use; had agreed to let him undergo the operation after all, had inserted a chip into his head and sent him out to work for him. He had told Lucas the story proudly, the day he first took him to meet Rab. Back then, Lucas was the Brother’s golden boy, the person he trusted more than anyone else. Back then, he spoke the truth, believing that Lucas worshipped him, that he saw the world as the Brother did, as many means to one end: power.