Three Bullets

by Melvin Burgess

It was like a little door creaked open in my heart. And who needs an open heart in a war zone? I’d spent ages keeping it shut and now some bastard had got a lever and started wrenching it open. That bastard was my dad. Hearts are for Amsterdam and falling in love and having friends and people around you who don’t disappear. Not for here – not here, of all places!

  It gave me hope. I’ve never been so furious about anything in my life.

  Of course, if my stupid dad hadn’t been so ridiculously clever, we’d have been able to copy the software, or zap it over the internet or something easy like that. But no. He was so paranoid about the Bloods getting their hands on it, he had a virus in it so as soon as it was copied, it self-destructed. The phone had to be delivered in person and the software uploaded into the mainframe and nothing else would do. But none of that meant that I’d given up on my dreams. I was already hatching a plan, a plan that meant I wasn’t going to have to go down south actually in person. If I gave the phone to Tariq, he could get it delivered for us. Yes, it had to be delivered in person. But not necessarily by me. I know Maude had failed to get the FNA to deal with it, but now we had Tariq on our side. When Maude asked them, it was just some daft tart trying to do a favour for a crazy dead black guy. But Tariq was different. He knew my dad was a genius. AND he was an officer or whatever it is they have in the FNA. It sounded like ‘case solved’ to me.

  I oiled him up. He was a big man, a strong man. A man with authority. He’d stand a much better chance of bringing my dad’s work to life than two stupid kids... You know the sort of thing. But he just looked at me as if I was something that dripped out of the dog’s bottom.

  That’s right. He had my number.

  ‘Even if I didn’t have responsibilities here in the north, I couldn’t do it,’ he said. Like everyone else, he had problems of his own – his own family. They’d gone to visit people in Birmingham a couple of months ago – just in time for the Bloods to come storming in. He’d heard nothing from them since.

  ‘They might be on the move,’ he said. ‘My best hope is to stay up here to see if they turn up with the other refugees.’

  I didn’t say anything, but it didn’t sound like much of a hope to me. You don’t get much mobile coverage these days, but you do get some from time to time. Surely he’d have heard from them by now if they were still alive and free.

  Maude wasn’t quite so delicate about it as I was.

  ‘That long and you haven’t heard from them? F**k that,’ she said. ‘If they’re not dead, they’re in the ERAC by now.’ She waggled the phone with the software on it in his face. ‘So it may be that this baby is your best hope of getting them back. Come with us, Tariq.’

  The poor guy had gone grey, but he still shook his head.

  ‘Do you think I haven’t thought of that? I had word that they got robbed, so they may have no phones. I was always on at them to memorise my number in case of this sort of thing, but none of them ever did. My best information is that they started off walking north. Sorry, I can’t do it. If I don’t find them up here, maybe I’ll come after you, but that won’t be for a while. You’re going to have to do it yourselves.’

  ‘There’s bigger things at stake than your own family here,’ said Maude, the stuck-up bitch.

  ‘I know. I know I should be helping get that software to those poor bastards in the ERAC, but what can you do? I’m as bad as Marti. Can’t try to save the rest of the world while there’s even a tiny chance to save my own people first.’

  ‘It’s not good, but don’t compare yourself to Marti, you’re not that bad,’ said Maude, which I think was her effort to try and comfort him.

  So that was it. If we wanted to rescue my dad, we had to do it ourselves. But Tariq did help us a bit. It took him three or four days, but he came up with the goods in the end. A motorbike! Come on, how cool is that? Maude was a biker, we used to go everywhere on her old Suzuki 250 until someone nicked it. You got to love a bike. Apart from being terminally cool, it’s nifty. You can go off-road, you can weave between the gaps on a bike. You can dodge bullets. It was a battle-scarred old thing they came up with for us, an old Honda, but the engine was good and the tank was full. If we got a good run, we could be down there in a day. Depending on the roads, of course. And the roadblocks. And the kidnappers, snipers, etc. Etc, etc, etc.

  Given that he was willing to let two innocent young girls – one of them a walking bundle of visible corruption – ride into the Valley of Death, Tariq did his best for us. He got us in touch with one of the lead guys in the resistance down around Huntingdon and told him we were coming.

  ‘Bobby Rose. I used to know him from when we were bringing a case against the police for brutality back in the day,’ he said. ‘Brilliant young lawyer then, but of course there’s no need for lawyers now as there’s no law. He’s a c**t. But he’s a brilliant leader.’

  Great. Better and better.

  ‘Make sure you give the phone to him personally. There’s all sorts of people would like to get their hands on that software down there. Bobby’s an arrogant bastard, but he has the hardware to use it and he’ll do anything to get at the Bloods. He has family of his own in that facility. You can rely on him to give it a proper go.’

  As I say, the way it worked, the Bloods used these shortwave drones at night to block your existing memories, then they implanted your mind with their poisonous drivel. That was my dad’s master stroke, you see – using the drones to reverse programme the mainframe to cut out the block and give the people their precious memories back. The trouble is, we couldn’t be sure he’d actually done it. And if he had done it, we didn’t know if it still worked with whatever upgrades the Bloods had put into their system. So it was all a pretty long shot.

  Maude was willing to do it for the sake of the fight. And me? My dad was in there. And wouldn’t it be great if I could use his own software to give him back his mind? I don’t suppose he even remembered who I was right now...

  ‘Once I get my family somewhere safe, I’ll try to join you,’ Tariq told us.

  ‘We won’t keep our fingers crossed,’ I said, and the poor old guy bent his bald head. I only meant that we weren’t going to depend on him, that I knew his family came first. I was trying to be nice, but I guess it didn’t come across like that, because later, after he’d gone, I was bending over to wipe Rowan’s nose and Maude gave me the most enormous kick up the arse.

  ‘What was that for?’ I said.

  ‘For being mean to Tariq,’ she said. I didn’t even bother explaining to her. Once some people get an idea about you in their heads there’s no shifting it, especially if they don’t get that many ideas. Especially if they spent too long lying around with a house on top of their heads. Know what I mean?

  I was furious though. In front of Rowan, too. She was a tough cookie, Maude – she had big meaty thighs so she could dole out a kick. I had her when it came to the upper body strength, though. I could have broken that pretty little nose of hers easy, if I got a punch in. But she had the edge on me, because while she was as fearless as a dragon, I’m a piece of chickenshit. I can’t help it – it’s the way I am. If ever I get into a fight, the other guy is always thinking about how much it would hurt me to break my nose for me. Trouble is, that’s all I can think about as well.

  There was the usual debate about which way to go. The main roads might be quicker but there were more likely to be refugees and troop movements. Roadblocks and stuff can slow you to a standstill, as we’d just seen. On the other hand, on the little roads across the Peaks, there was more danger of ambush. It was mainly the little militias we had to worry about there. As I said, the Bloods were shooting up the west side of the country like a rash but they were taking their time on the east side. They’d taken Northampton a few weeks ago and stopped there. The ERAC lay in their territory, and we were going to have to go underground when we got down there – if we got there. Let’s face it, there was no way I was going to go into Blood territory i
n broad daylight and come out in one piece.

  In the end, we decided to go through the Peak District on the small roads, away from the towns and bigger villages – across to Nottingham, and then straight down to Huntingdon. Tariq – bless him! – was going to give us and the bike a lift in a truck to Buxton, and we’d set off from there.

  ‘Don’t stop, don’t talk to anyone, go cross country. Do whatever it takes,’ he said. ‘The further south you go, the more likely you are to come across the Bloods. And you must stay out of their hands at all costs,’ Tariq told us. Told us, but he was looking at me.

  ‘I’ll look after her,’ said Maude, but Tariq shook his head.

  ‘If they get her down south, they’ll kill her. And they’ll make a mess doing it.’

  Maude licked her lips.

  ‘What about me?’ she asked.

  Tariq tipped his head. ‘Rape, then the ERAC,’ he said.

  ‘Huh, what they’d do to me would make rape look like a hot date with Michael Bublé,’ I told her. Which was meant to be a joke – just trying to lighten the mood. But they both looked at me like I just did a poo on the kitchen table.

  ‘It’s not a competition, Marti,’ said Tariq.

  ‘She has white cis privilege, which means I have black queer disadvantage,’ I said. ‘It’s not much, but it’s mine and I’m hanging on to it.’ Which made Tariq laugh and he high-fived me.

  ‘You’re a selfish little bitch but at least you have a sense of humour,’ he chuckled. But as far as I was concerned, I was only telling the truth. I always do.

  10

  Finally! We’d left Fallowfield over a week ago and so far we’d done about two miles down the road. But now we were really off – in a truck! We were in Buxton within a few hours. Can you believe that? Suddenly – boom! And awaaaaaaaay!

  We spent the night all nice and cosy in a safe house, with a cooked dinner. Buxton, yeah – it was AMAZING. Just a few hours away, and there was no fighting, the buildings were all standing, the roads were clear. There was wi-fi! And data! All the NFA people there were boasting about how great Buxton was, how well everyone got on together.

  ‘It’s live and let live here,’ one of them said. They were like, It could never happen here. ‘People here get on too well together.’

  ‘Everyone says that – until it happens,’ said Tariq, the miserable old miserablist. ‘They’ll be here, same as everywhere, hiding away – the racists, the terrorists, the Bloods, the fascists. Once they get a chance, they’ll be out setting fire to people’s homes and all the rest of it – you’ll see.’

  I didn’t want to hear it. I took myself to my room – yeah, I had a whole room to myself – so I could spend my time texting my mates, who had fled all over the world and were sitting safe on their pretty powdered bottoms going, Oh, look, isn’t it just DREADFUL what’s happening back home, from the safety of New York or Amsterdam or Glasgow or whatever. I was sooo jealous!

  I didn’t get very far with it though, because Rowan came in and wanted me to go for a walk with him and Maude, the little pest. But I went anyway.

  It was bliss. Shops. You know? People walking up and down in fashionable clothes. It was like the old days! The war just hadn’t got to Buxton. I mean, there were shortages, but that was about it. We were taking selfies standing next to a shop, or in a shop buying something, or going over a zebra crossing to look at another shop. Rowan was in absolute heaven because he’d never done any of those things, ever. All he knew was bomb sites and snipers. Just walking down the street was like this big treat for him. Poor little thing thought he was in Disneyland or something. Me and Maude had loads of fun spotting things to show him. Traffic lights! He spent five minutes watching traffic lights going on and off. Then we found him a neon display. That sort of thing.

  We had ice cream in a cafe. I found one of those rides for little ones outside a shop, a reindeer sleigh, and put some money in so he could have a go. I bought him a toy tank and a doll. He didn’t really want the doll, but in these days of equal rights I thought it was only right.

  Yes, me and Rowan were kindred spirits there for a few hours, but Maude started being a misery. She was like, Shops, huh. So what? Like it was all beneath her. Then she had to skip off to do some deal – she was trying to get one of the FNA blokes to come along with us. I didn’t ask what kind of ‘deal’ she was trying to strike. Let’s face it, Maude’s a girl with only one treasure on her person – in her person, I should say – but it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

  ‘Safety in numbers,’ she said. I nearly suggested that if she stayed here long enough, she could recruit a whole battalion, but I kept my mouth shut, which is more than you can say for Maude, I bet.

  Off she went, taking our money with her. Well, you know what? I had some of my own, money she knew nothing about, so we really went off on the spend with her out of the way. I bought Rowan some clothes and let him pay for them. I took a great picture of him looking over his shoulder and smiling like a gangster as he hands over the money. All he had were his tattered old T-shirts and sweatshirts and stuff. It cost a bomb. I got myself a new handbag, too. It cost as much as all Rowan’s stuff put together, but I’m a fashionable young woman and he’s just a smudge on the face of the Earth. It wasn’t fair him getting everything.

  So – yeah! No one can say I didn’t treat my little bro right sometimes. I gave him the time of his life, then we went back and I lay on my bed and texted my mates and played a game or two, until Maude came in waving the shoes and stuff I’d bought him and demanding where did these come from, do you think we’re made of money, you idiot, Martina?

  ‘I have money of my own,’ I told her. Then she went bonkers and we had a fight, which she won and got her hands on my bag and found my money, which made me wail like a lost soul.

  ‘YOU don’t have money, WE have money, you tight cow,’ she yelled. ‘What’s mine is yours—’

  ‘And what’s mine is mine as well,’ I finished off for her. So then I grabbed hold of Rowan and wept all over him and told him that nasty Maude was stealing my things and making me cry.

  ‘Jesus, Marti, you’re a piece of work, you’re a f*****g piece of work,’ she hissed. She stormed out and threw the money back at me. Well, she can share what she likes. She does it all the time. But what’s mine stays mine. That’s all there is to it.

  Anyway. Like I say, hand it to Maude, she’d get cross and then it’d all be over by the next day. She put things into boxes in her head, she must have had a head like a filing cabinet, the way she tucked stuff away. Me, my head is like a crap handbag. Everything’s tumbling around in there. The top of the lipstick has come off, the compact has burst. You know? It’s a mess.

  So I got up the next day and had a hot shower! It had been so long since I had one of those. They fed us eggs and toast and stuff. Really, really nice. Then we got on the bike, Maude in front driving – I was planning on having a go at that later on – Rowan in the middle and me on the back. And off we went! Yeah! Fast and sweet, swerving through the traffic, out onto the roads and – bang! Off on the main road like a rocket, all three of us shouting into the wind like idiots. It felt so, so, so, so good. I felt almost happy.

  11

  As we were whizzing along, I put my earphones in and listened to my daily dose of tunes on my secret phone, which had now become a public phone. After a campaign of consistent nagging, Maude had finally given it back to me, even though it had the only copy of dad’s software on it. I had sentimental feelings about that phone – it was the only thing I owned which came from my dad. Maude was pretty reluctant, but she knew me well enough to know that where my dad was involved, that was the one area where I was to be trusted.

  I had Marvin Gaye on, because I’d found out something interesting about him while I was lying on my bed faffing about on the internet for the first time in years. He was a cross-dresser. How about that? Who knew? I always supposed my dad put him on the playlist because, well, part
ly because he was Black but also because of ‘What’s Going On’. But maybe it was because he was just so far out there, gender politics-wise. My dad was pretty good on that sort of stuff once he got his head round it.

  It wasn’t all my dad’s music on that phone, he’d put some of my mum’s favourite stuff on it too, stuff from when she was young – way before my time, because by the time I knew her she mainly listened to my dad’s music for some reason. Stuff like the Chemical Brothers or Daft Punk. It was good stuff, some of it, but I think you need to be on Es to get the most out of that sort of music. I listened to some of that, too, as we went along, in honour of my mum.

  It was a lovely sunny day, big fluffy white clouds. Dappled light. The leaves on the trees were coming out so everything was dusted green on that lovely spring day. There were big pink cherry trees scattered about the villages and towns like clouds. We got out of Buxton soon enough and then we were into the countryside proper, climbing up the hills of the Peaks.

  I remembered it, sort of. It felt like that, anyway. My mum and dad used to take me up there when I was small, just us three, back before the war. It felt like my childhood up there. Manchester was where I really grew up, of course, but the fighting had kind of ruined it for me. So I soaked this up, because who knew how long before this would disappear, too? And I listened to the music on my earphones, and I thought about my mum.

  She was a useless kind of person to have about when there’s a war on, but if it had been peace time she’d have been pretty good as a mum, I reckon. She looked after me very well when I was small. She carried on trying afterwards, but it was too late by then. She begged me to look after my education, but I never listened to her, which is why I only have my natural wits to get me through. And she never stopped nagging, which I suppose is a kind of love, isn’t it? Annoying love. She kept trying. A few months before she died, she decided my hair was a mess and that she was going to braid it for me. I used to get a friend of mine to braid it before her family left town, so I was quite pleased, because Mum used to make some lovely stuff – she was always a big one for cookery, for instance, and she could make these really fiddly little things, icing on cakes, stuffed vegetables, that sort of thing. So I had high hopes.