The Disappearances

by Gemma Malley

  There was someone murmuring, and he felt something on his face. Was he dreaming? It was a hand, tenderly stroking him, and it made Lucas want to cry out, because he couldn’t remember the last time he felt cared for, cared about; couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him.

  Was it her hand? His empty stomach flip-flopped. It couldn’t be her. Could it? He didn’t want to open his eyes, didn’t want to shatter the possibility, didn’t want real life with its obstacles and messes and desperate sadness to ruin this moment.

  ‘Lucas? Lucas, can you hear me?’

  It wasn’t her. A thud of disappointment, a gathering together of his emotions, and Lucas opened his eyes.

  ‘Where’s Clara? Is she okay?’

  ‘She’s fine.’ It was Martha, smiling at him reassuringly. Lucas had met her when she had come with Linus, Raffy and Evie to dismantle the System. ‘You look terrible.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He tried to sit up but fell back again. ‘Is Raffy here? I need to see him.’

  ‘You need to eat,’ Martha corrected him. ‘And rest.’

  Lucas sat up again; this time he managed it. ‘Martha, I’ll eat but I can’t rest. There are dead bodies outside the City, Informers who are killing people. They—’

  ‘Shhhh,’ Martha said gently, standing up. ‘I’ll bring you some soup. And some bread. Raffy isn’t here. But he’s safe. Tomorrow you can go and see Linus and he’ll explain everything.’

  Lucas frowned. ‘Go and see him? He isn’t here? He promised me he’d look after Evie and Raffy. He promised—’

  Martha gave him a sad smile. ‘And he has. He is. Just not here. Linus hasn’t been here for a long time,’ she said. ‘Things have been … different. But I’ll tell you where you can find him. If you rest. If you eat the food I bring you.’

  ‘Tomorrow? No, I need to see him today,’ Lucas said, forcing himself out of the bed that he’d been lying on. His limbs ached and his stomach felt like it was concaving inwards; immediately he fell back onto the mattress. ‘I need to know where Raffy is. How do you know he’s safe?’

  Martha raised an eyebrow. ‘Because Linus wouldn’t have it any other way. He’ll tell you tomorrow,’ she said, sternly. Then she smiled. ‘I’ve missed the company, anyway. Please stay.’

  Lucas looked at her for a few seconds, then relented. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing Raffy isn’t here.’

  Martha nodded. ‘Linus usually knows what he’s doing,’ she said.

  ‘I know, I know – he’ll tell me tomorrow?’ Lucas asked quizzically.

  ‘Exactly,’ Martha smiled, closing the door behind her.

  Lucas stretched, then tentatively swung his legs on to the floor, holding on to the bed to stand up. He assessed the damage: his feet weren’t in the best of shape, but nothing serious. He must have fainted from exhaustion. A meal would sort him out. He walked towards the door then stopped, steadying himself as dots appeared in front of his eyes. Then, he carefully opened the door and walked out of the room.

  He had never been in Base Camp before. He had imagined it to be busier somehow, thronging with people. Instead it was eerily quiet, only the sound of tarpaulin flapping in the wind punctuated the silence.

  The Camp had been set up by Linus many years before when he had left the City that he had helped to found, sickened by the way his beautifully designed System had been corrupted to manipulate and control its people. Linus had been a computer genius before the Horrors, had believed that by building a computer system that was capable of anticipating people’s needs and desires a kind of Utopia could be created. Only it hadn’t quite worked out that way. Which was why, eventually, he had left the City, formed Base Camp and plotted to overthrow the Brother and destroy his corrupted System once and for all.

  It had been to one of the computers at Base Camp that Lucas had sent his messages week after week, the only time where he felt he was really himself, the only time when he could actually be honest.

  And now he was here. He paused in a doorway: inside he could see Clara asleep. He watched her for a few minutes, feeling an enormous weight of responsibility for her, for her family, her friends. She was about fifteen, and her whole life was ahead of her. Just like her friends whose lives had been snatched from them. The thought made his chest clench with anger. The Informers would pay. They would pay for what they had done.

  Lucas took a deep breath and he started to walk again. And as he walked, he smelt the delicious aroma of chicken. He followed it and soon found himself in a kind of kitchen. Martha turned and smiled.

  ‘That’s your idea of resting?’

  He shrugged and grinned. ‘Smells too good.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Martha said, pointing to a table through a doorway. ‘I’ll bring you some bread while you wait.’

  Lucas did as he was told. There were several tables, but no one sitting at them. Martha followed him and put a glass of water and hunk of bread in front of him.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Lucas asked. He had loved hearing about Base Camp from Linus; hearing about the fifty or so people who lived and worked there, including Martha and Angel, Linus’s closest confidants. Lucas had often dreamt of living there himself; dreamt of a life free from the City and everything it represented.

  Martha hesitated. ‘Most of the men are working,’ she said eventually. ‘Collecting food, doing repairs. Angel’s out on a reconnaissance trip with three others. But there aren’t as many of us here as there were before.’ She met his eye and smiled sadly. ‘I suppose you never saw us before, did you? It’s a shame. You would have liked it. It was … exciting.’

  ‘Before?’ Lucas asked curiously.

  ‘Before we did what we set out to do and lost our reason for being,’ Martha shrugged lightly.

  ‘And now it feels like the revolution has happened but nothing has changed?’ Lucas asked.

  Martha pulled a face. ‘Things have changed,’ she said, a hint of sadness in her voice. ‘Just not …’ She shook herself. ‘Ignore me,’ she said, standing up. ‘Let me get you that soup.’

  When she came back a few minutes later she put a steaming bowl of soup in front of Lucas then sat oppos-ite him as he ate.

  It didn’t take him long to devour it.

  ‘More?’ Martha asked with a smile. Lucas nodded gratefully and within a minute a second bowl was in front of him. He ate it greedily.

  ‘They don’t feed you in the City?’ Martha asked, her eyes twinkling gently.

  Lucas raised an eyebrow. ‘There’s plenty of food. It’s just that what’s going on kind of puts you off eating.’ It felt good to say it; even with a wry smile. Lucas realised how alone he’d felt for the past year, without even Linus to communicate with.

  Martha put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. ‘So tell me,’ she said then, looking at him earnestly. ‘Tell me what’s been going on.’

  Lucas told her, as briefly as he could; about the City, the Brother’s hold on power, the mistrust that its citizens held for Lucas. He told her about the Disappearances, about the flies; he tried to keep his emotions in check as he told her about the pile of bodies he and Rab had discovered, but even so his voice still cracked slightly as he described finding the young people thrown together as though they were nothing more than rubbish. Then he told her about Rab, about the Informers. Martha listened silently, nodding, wincing and gasping as the story unfolded. Then she reached over and put her hand on his.

  ‘And you? How are you?’

  Lucas frowned. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. Then he opened his mouth to ask something else, the thing he’d wanted to ask the moment he arrived, the thing that he’d thought about ever since he’d decided to come here. But immediately he closed it again.

  ‘You’re wondering about Evie,’ Martha said, appearing to read his mind.

  Lucas felt himself redden. ‘She’s safe with Raffy,’ Martha said reassuringly.

  Lucas nodded. Smiled. ‘Well, that’s good,’ he said quickly.

  ‘You must t
hink about them a lot,’ Martha said quietly, her eyes looking up at him in a way that unsettled him slightly. ‘You were … close to Evie, weren’t you? I know that she thought very highly of you.’

  Lucas nodded again; his heart was thudding in his chest and he was suddenly finding it hard to think, hard to breathe. ‘Yes,’ he managed to say. ‘I … I thought highly of her, too. Think highly, I mean. I—’

  He closed his eyes for a second, mentally pulled himself together, forced the desperate loneliness that had suddenly engulfed him back down, deep within him where he could suppress it, refuse to acknowledge it.

  Martha pulled a sympathetic face. ‘It must be hard. Being alone.’

  Lucas caught her eye, flushed slightly. ‘I’ve always been alone,’ he shrugged. ‘It’s no big deal.’

  Martha appeared to contemplate this. ‘I don’t think humans are meant to be alone,’ she said eventually. ‘We need to connect. We need to feel part of something. That’s why people like the Brother succeed, because people are more afraid of being alone than they are of anything else. Not many people are like you, Lucas. Not many people are as strong as you are. But don’t try to be too strong. You need people too. Everyone does.’

  Her voice cracked slightly and Lucas felt a lump appear in this throat. Did she know? Were his feelings so obvious?

  ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’

  Martha shook her head sadly. ‘Like Linus. He thinks he doesn’t need people too.’

  Lucas digested this. ‘And where is he? Linus, I mean?’

  Martha raised an eyebrow then smiled wryly. ‘He’s in the mountains in a cave, working like a man possessed.’

  Lucas looked at her quizzically. ‘Working on what?’

  Martha sighed. ‘He’ll tell you tomorrow, I’m sure. And I can’t possibly explain – I hardly understand it myself. But he’s become obsessed with a camp that appeared on the coast a few months ago. A new civil-isation, quite small I think. They appeared on the surveillance system then apparently disappeared again, along with a chunk of coastline.’

  ‘Disappeared?’ Lucas asked seriously, his interest piqued.

  Martha raised her eyebrows. ‘I don’t know. He kept saying that he didn’t know where they’d come from. That they had to come from somewhere, but his satellites told him that there was nothing beyond this island, which meant that either the people didn’t exist or his information was wrong. Then when they all disappeared, well, he was like a madman, pacing up and down, muttering to himself, sitting at that computer of his for hours, days at a time.’

  ‘And then he left?’ Lucas asked.

  Martha nodded. ‘The thing with Linus,’ she said, ‘is that he’s a genius. He built the System. He sees the world differently from the rest of us; sees connections that we don’t, sees everything twenty steps ahead of everyone else. Which means that other people just weigh him down, get in the way. He needed to work, needed to get to the bottom of this … this problem. And he had to do it without us slowing him down. So he moved to the mountains. I just hope that he’ll figure it out soon so that he’ll come home again.’

  ‘This is home?’ Lucas asked. ‘I thought Base Camp wasn’t meant to be fixed?’

  ‘It’s not,’ Martha shrugged. ‘This place isn’t home; it’s the people. We have always moved around together; Linus has always told us where and when. We need him. And actually he needs us too – to centre him, to remind him that life has to be lived sometimes, that eating together, sleeping, working … that these things can be as important as saving the world, in their way.’

  ‘And you’re going to wait for him? You’re not tempted to leave?’

  Martha shook her head. ‘I’ve known Linus a very long time,’ she said. ‘He’s a good man. Slightly mad, definitely a genius, but good. And he won’t admit it, but he needs us to be here. Close to him. Needs to know that we’ll drop everything for him when required.’

  ‘And you’re prepared to do that for him?’ Lucas asked curiously.

  ‘We’d all die for Linus,’ she said simply. ‘He’s in-furiating, maddening and completely impossible. But everything he does is for a reason, everything he does makes sense, even if it doesn’t seem to at the time. Like I said, he’s twenty steps ahead of us. You just have to trust that you’ll catch up eventually. So far he’s always been proved right. So far, he hasn’t put a step wrong.’

  ‘So where is he? What’s his new camp like?’ Lucas asked curiously.

  Martha laughed. ‘I’d use the word “camp” loosely. It’s more like a hovel. He’s in a cave with just his generator and computers for company. Angel tried to help him set up some tents, but he refused. He had to build Linus a kitchen by subterfuge, otherwise he’d have starved to death. Angel takes supplies down there once a fortnight; the last was two days ago so you should find some food. But you should prepare yourself. The last time I saw him, Linus had a beard.’

  ‘A beard?’ Lucas managed a smile.

  ‘A long one,’ Martha grinned, then wiped her hands on a napkin and made her way back to the kitchen.

  10

  Devil looked down at the outstretched hand in front of him and shook his head. ‘Nah.’

  His boys always offered their joints to him, but he always refused. Weed made people weak, made them a-pa-the-tic. Devil smiled to himself. ‘Apathetic’ was his new word. He liked to use a new word every day. Kept him smart. And Apathetic was one of the best ones he’d found yet. Pathetic with an ‘a’ in front of it. What most people were, in Devil’s opinion. Round here, anyway. No one did nothing. No one had vision. No one except him.

  He jumped down off the wall and immediately the others did too, but he waved them back. ‘You stay here,’ he ordered. They were in their usual spot in the middle of the estate, on the steps leading down to the playground. Not that it was a playground like playgrounds were supposed to be. Swings and a sorry-looking roundabout stood silently; occasionally Devil and his boys would sit on it, spin themselves around, laughing loudly, but no children came here any more. No one dared enter the playground unless Devil explicitly authorised it, unless he told them they could. It was his playground now. His estate. Shit hole or no shit hole, that still meant something.

  He walked away slowly, legs bent slightly at the knee, his head bobbing up and down as he moved, as though he was dancing. He was proud of his walk and had spent a long time perfecting it. When he’d got here, he’d walked like a normal kid. Like a square kid. Kind of lolloping, dawdling; the way he used to walk to school with Leona.

  Now, though, people knew he was coming when he was just a speck in the distance. He didn’t have to even open his mouth to let people know he was there. It’s all about presence, his father had told him once. Make sure people know who you are, what you are. You fade into the crowd, there’s no reason why anyone should give you the time of day. You want to be a someone, you have to be seen as a someone. You got to make sure people notice you.

  Devil’s father had got that bit sussed a long time ago. You couldn’t walk down a street with him without people running up to him, calling out his name, waving. People loved Pastor Jones. Needed him. Worshipped him.

  Yeah, he knew what he was doing. He knew how to work it better than anyone else.

  And Devil knew, too – had figured out within a day of being in this place that he was going to have to change, that if he was going to survive he was going to have to lead. He’d looked at himself in the mirror and brought about a transformation. Gone was the middle-class kid to whom black was just the colour of his skin, who hunched his shoulders so that his large frame didn’t intimidate people. And instead, Devil was born: tall, broad, insolent, swaggering, angry. Someone people would be afraid of. Someone people wouldn’t dare to cross.

  Devil walked down through the tunnel that went between the two high rises, the tunnel that no one wanted to be anywhere near after dark except for the junkies, the slags, people who didn’t care any more, who had no respect for themselves whatsoever. Dev
il had no respect for them either. Devil didn’t have any respect for anyone, except himself. Even his crew were just sheep, following him. They didn’t have the courage to do anything for themselves.

  Not like him. He winced at the smell of urine, of excrement, of stale alcohol, dirty clothes. The first time he’d walked through the tunnel he’d nearly pissed himself. He’d never been anywhere like it in his life; never been outside his leafy suburban town in Hertfordshire, where everyone lived in nice new houses with gardens and cars parked out front, where everyone knew who he was, where everyone smiled and gave him presents when they came to call on his dad. Where he used to listen to Leona practising the piano and tried to put her off by pulling silly faces.

  But life, Devil had learnt, changed. Nothing could be depended on except yourself. Nothing.

  A ray of early autumn sunshine hit him as he came out of the tunnel and he smiled, enjoying the warmth on his skin. Things were on the up. The Green Lanes Massive had been told, had got what was coming to them. The boy had done his job. Got caught, the stupid prick, but that was his own fault. He’d frozen apparently, stood there afterwards just looking at the boy on the ground, holding the knife like some kind of idiot. But that was okay. Those who needed to know knew that Devil was behind it; the police had the boy banged up and nothing to link him to the Dalston Crew, so it was all clean, all sorted.

  Of course the Green Lanes Massive would retaliate, but Devil was ready for them. His boys were tougher, hungrier; they would go further. That’s what it was all about, Devil had realised a long time ago. It was a game of chicken. You had to be prepared to go further than anyone else. You had to have no fear. No fear meant no weakness, meant no one had anything on you. And no one having anything on you gave you power. No one having anything on you made you invincible.

  He took the long way round, through the deserted scrubland at the back of the estate. There’d been plans once to turn it into a play area for kids, with a five-a-side football pitch and a youth club; the foundations had even been dug. But the day they delivered the wood to build it, the place was torched; soon after that all the plans were dropped.