About the Author
Chris Bonnello is a writer and speaker based in Nottingham, who was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome at the age of twenty-five. In 2015 he launched Autistic Not Weird (https://autisticnotweird.com) to share his personal and professional insights, while campaigning for greater understanding of autism. He has since won multiple awards for his work, published a non-fiction book, and given speeches as far away as Sydney Opera House. Formerly a primary school teacher, Bonnello also works as a tutor for autistic students with special educational needs. Underdogs is his first novel, following his master’s degree in creative writing.
Underdogs
Chris Bonnello
This edition first published in 2019
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All rights reserved
© Chris Bonnello, 2019
The right of Chris Bonnello to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-78965-036-5
ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-78965-035-8
Cover design by Mecob
To Mum and Dad: for focusing on my strengths instead of my weaknesses, and for providing much-needed stability and balance through the best and worst years of my life.
To Julie: who knew and loved this story long before publication, and went to extraordinary efforts to help it succeed. And to her amazing children, Eliza and Noah.
Super Patrons
Dylan Abberton
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CJ Brooks
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Joe Burnett
Suzy Burnett
Jaxon Campbell
Tiffany Campbell
Lyn Campos Navarro
Tom Chappelle
Rachel Chavez
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Lydia Chong
Billie Clarke
Eliza Clarke
Julie Clarke
Leo Clarke
Noah Clarke
Zander Cleaves
Ann Cofell
Nick Collins
Tanja Collins
Anna & Erin Cotton
Anita Coulson
Daniela Creaney
Rowan Daly
Jim Darby
Tegan Davis
Carly Day
Shelby DiPilla
Sheila Doss
Ilja Drost
Laurens Drost
Lucca Drost
Rink Drost*
Annie Drost-Hoekstra*
Paul Dunn
Elise Elderkin
Stephanie Elrod
Hannah Empey
Sarah Erickson
Finley Evans
Elijah Farris
Kirsty Finn
Nina Fiore
Toby Fox
Indie and Josh Frost
Bruce George Smith
Jackie Giles
Benjamin Giroux #oddtoo
Clare Griffiths
Miriam Gwynne
Nicholas Dunn Hadesmight
Gemma Haley
Paul Hallybone
Jared Hamblett
Rupert Hancock
Steve Hanlon
Daniela Hansen Choza
Carl Harding
Ciara-Rose Harris
Abi Harvey
James Harvey
Nicole Hastie
Euan Henwood
Karren Herron
Charlotte Hester-Chong
Tassara Hjerleid
Jaime Hodgson
Odette Hofstedt
Elizabeth Howarth
Henry Howarth
Joseph Hupp
Wendy Janssen
Benjamin & Christophe Jean-Louis
Jedi Joe
Jefferson
Alexander Jenks
Ruth Jennings
Autumn Jibben
James John Gowlland Griffiths
Kendra Johnson
Bethan Jones
Maria Jones
Annelies Keeris
Charlotte-Ann Kelly
Samantha Kelly
Dan Kieran
Jennifer Knab
Mohith Kumar
Suraj Kumar
Rowanj Langley
Barbara Leaf
Jemma Lee
Jessica Lee
Jackie Leiker
Claus Liberg Rasmussen
Gary Lloyd
LondonGaymers – A. Rider’s second home
Theo Lote
Dawn Louise Cox
Helen Lupton
Emma Maher
Making Momentum
Janie Marlow
Leo Marson and Lucas Marson
Christy McDonald
B A McGilvray
Jack McKinney
Blake McMahon
Lauren McMahon
Shilo McManus
Wayne McManus
Hannah Mereine
Paul Micallef
Lucy Middleweek
The Mighty McGowans
Tanya Milligan
John Mitchinson
Jennifer Moore
Marky Moore
Wendi Moore
Wesley Moore
Wyatt Moore
John Moran
Kris Mosqueda
Colin Murphy
Layla Murphy-Plant
Samuel D Murray
Gretchen Musa
Hazel Newton
Erin Nielson
Lydia NR T
Alexandra Nudds
Linda Nudds
Sinéad O’Hare
Ellen Onorato-Stump
Steve Ormiston
Mary Parker
Debra Perkins
Melissa Phillips
Kyle Phillips
Justin Pollard
Stephanie Poole
Holly Rafique
Louise Reid
Brit Reiger
Angela Reynolds
E C Rickett
Alex Rider (Not a teenage spy – A true Aspie!)
Elvire Roberts
Claire Roper
Luca Rossi
Leah Rozendaal
Jean Sando
Mary Anne Savage
Jeffrey Segal
Tara Segrave-Daly
Callie Shackleton
Ben Sharp
Jo Sharp
Oliver Sharp
Zoe Sharp
Cate Shave
Chris Sheffield
Nicola Sheldon
Jacob Sheryer
Jennifer Sheryer
Jacob Skeffington
James Skeffington
Dr Simona Skripkauskaite
Hannelore Sloover
Helen Smark
&n
bsp; Andy Smith
Caryn Smith
Morgan Smith
Sophie Smith
Helen and Ewan Souter
Niav South
Rachael Stevens
Simon Stiel
Alex Still
Phoebe Strong
Victoria Strudwick
Cara Sweeney
Ash R T
Grace Tarnutzer
Jack Tarnutzer
Eri Taylor
RachaelMoon Taylor
Seb Teather
Michael Teegarden
Corwin Testarossa Kimberley
Jonathan Thompson
Lisa Thompson
Aidan Thornley
Tommy Thuma
J Toohey
Su Underwood
Irene Valdez
Raymond van Wetten
Martin Versteegen
Will Versteegen
Thomas W-J
Gavin Walker
Jackson Watkinson
Rosalind Weinstock
Amanda Wheeler
Stacey Whitaker
Alison Whitelaw
Sarah Whiting
Sandy Wild
Carol Anne Williams
Huw Williams
Kat Williams
Vicki Wingrove
Sarah Wood
Helen Wooder
Kate Wooldridge
Mandy Wultsch
Lucy Yeomans
Ysgol Cilgerran
Ana Maria Young
A Note from the Author
The most important fact about autism, dyslexia, or neurodiversity in general, is that each person’s experience is different. No two autistic people (for example) are the same: we are different from each other for the same reason that non-autistic people are.
In recent years we have seen much wider representation of disability and neurodiversity in works of fiction. Much of the time these works are criticised for not representing the entire community, and of course they don’t. It’s impossible to represent a whole population when it consists of individuals.
Therefore, I encourage you to see the Underdogs as characters in their own right, rather than poster children for their conditions, disabilities or differences. Ewan does not represent every teenager with a PDA profile; he represents Ewan. Kate does not represent every autistic girl with severe anxiety; she represents Kate. Charlie does not represent every boy with ADHD; he represents Charlie.
Humans are individuals in all corners of humanity. The Underdogs are no exception.
– Chris Bonnello
Chapter 1
A reflective road sign with a thirty-miles-per-hour speed limit suggested that a village was close by. The crumpled frame of a Citroën lay wrapped around the sign’s pole. A year ago, some idiot had tried to escape in a car.
The driver’s body had been left for nature to sort out, and nature had done a good job of it. The skeleton slumped over the steering wheel would remain in place for decades to come, and so would the bullet that had dropped to the leather seat as the skin around it had been eaten away.
Ewan poked his rifle through the car’s remains. They had not been ambushed this far from New London for half a year, but he wasn’t known for taking stupid risks anymore. With nothing of interest inside the vehicle, he glanced up at the sign. There was still enough daylight to read the sentence beneath it.
Sandridge welcomes careful drivers.
‘Repeat after me, Ewan,’ came Alex’s deep voice, booming out from ten steps behind him, ‘we are definitely stopping here tonight.’
‘What, your little legs are getting tired?’
‘Not tired. Bored. There’s a difference.’
It was Alex in a nutshell. The old man of the strike team, nearly in his mid-twenties, he seemed to think his extra years gave him some kind of authority. That, and not having learning difficulties.
Ewan understood. Alex must have felt humiliated, sent out with a bunch of special school teenagers and not even being the leader. Kids in special ed were supposed to be useless. Even the clever ones.
Ewan left the Citroën, and led Alex and Charlie into Sandridge. The other half of the squad would be less than a mile behind.
He glanced across at Charlie, and tried to decipher his best friend’s mood. Ewan would make the same decisions however Charlie felt about them, but it was better to guess his reaction in advance. Objections were always problematic when they came from a fifteen-year-old short lad with ADHD and intermittent anger issues.
‘I’ll give us half an hour,’ Ewan said. ‘No more. The more walking we get done tonight, the quicker we get to the Citadel tomorrow. And the less knackered we’ll be if any gunfire starts.’
Ewan checked around for nodding heads. Alex and Charlie would not be happy, but they knew whatever Ewan said, he meant.
At the start of the war, there had been more than thirty people in Dr Joseph McCormick’s band of Underdogs. Less than half of them were still alive, and Ewan’s leadership had grown more uncompromising with every death. There were twelve Underdogs left now, six of them on that night’s mission. Ewan was pretty sure that was half. Two sixes made twelve, after all.
Common sense told him a war between twelve humans and Nicholas Grant’s million cloned soldiers was already hopeless, and the British people would be imprisoned in the Citadels forever. Especially since eight Underdogs were teenagers from Oakenfold Special School. But Ewan’s whole brain was built for defiance.
Dad would have been so proud to see his son become a soldier too, Ewan thought.
But they’d never have had me in the old army. Not with a diagnosis like PDA.
PDA. Pathological Demand Avoidance. Because regular autism just wasn’t enough.
Ewan looked around the street, in search of a suitable refuge building.
‘Number twenty-two,’ he said.
‘Can’t see the house numbers from here, mate.’
‘Alex, you’re showing your age. Green door, halfway down on the right. At least five exits including windows, and a nice view over the fields.’
Charlie, recklessly impulsive like most of the other ADHD guys at Oakenfold had been, made sure he was first to run down the road and hop into the stone-walled garden.
‘Stay there,’ he called out to Ewan. ‘Check the rest of the road. I’ve got this.’
Charlie kept moving as if nothing had happened. But a small fire was brewing in Ewan’s mind.
That was all that it took. A simple command, even from someone he trusted as much as Charlie, placed enormous anxiety on his shoulders. Having PDA meant having the same need for day-to-day control that humans in general had, except basic demands pierced the heart of his comfort zone. The feeling of losing control resulted in extreme anxiety, and the extreme anxiety sometimes resulted in violence. PDA was the reason he had been excluded from half a dozen mainstream schools. The reason he couldn’t hear a request without feeling personally threatened. The reason people spent his childhood thinking he was some kind of monster rather than a terrified child.
The fire in Ewan’s mind was put out quickly, as the silence of the evening air was ruptured. Somewhere at the far end of the road, something had fired a gunshot.
Clone soldiers outside New London Citadel. I thought those days were over.
The bullet had not been aimed at them. Even clones were too smart to fire from half a village away. Ewan, Alex and Charlie took their positions in the overgrown gardens.
It was impossible, but it happened anyway. At the end of Newton Road, a young woman ran into the street.
A human. She had to be. Eleven months had passed since Takeover Day – the single day when Nicholas Grant had marched out his cloned soldiers and imprisoned the British population in his giant walled Citadels – and in all that time, Ewan had never seen a female clone.
Another gunshot spat up the tarmac next to her feet. She stumbled into a garden across the road, and took no chances on the front door being locked. Instead, she ran at top speed and
leapt sideways into the front window.
It didn’t smash like she had hoped. There was a faint ‘oof’ as her body slammed against the double-glazed window, and she fell to the grass with a clumsy thump.
Ewan saw her pursuer, sheltered in a porchway further down the road. Just one soldier, and he did not move like a clone. His bodily movements seemed more flowing and athletic. He knew precisely where to position himself, conserved ammunition, and had the tacit boldness of an experienced killer. Clones were trained for combat from the moment they walked out of the factory, but you couldn’t manufacture instincts.
‘Gettin’ right tired of giving you chances! Next one’s going in your ankle!’
That settled it. Clones were developed without vocal cords.
Besides, his northern accent was too familiar.
‘Tell me that’s not who I think it is,’ said Alex.
‘It’s him.’
Ewan prepared to shout the command, but Charlie beat him to it. His bullets rained across Sandridge into the distant porchway, and Nicholas Grant’s number two assassin leapt in surprise.
Ewan had no idea what was happening, but it was important. Grant’s creeps never left the Citadels without good reason. Especially not Keith Tylor.
His victim lay cowering in the garden. Her hands shielded her head and torso, as if they would help. She did not have long.
Ewan opened fire towards the house’s front window. It shattered into a thousand glass shards, which fell like crystal rain onto the screaming figure beneath.
She can thank me later.
When the shards came to rest, the young woman scrambled to her feet and leapt through the empty remains of the window frame. Ewan heard a cry, and saw a knife fall from her hand. The glass must have cut her arm and forced her to drop her weapon. She was indoors, but far from safe.
Tylor made a break across the road, showering bullets into the wall six inches from Charlie’s face. He sped to the opposite pavement, hurdled the garden fence and dived effortlessly through the empty window frame.
Ewan led the sprint towards the house, struggling to believe how fast Tylor was. The man must have been pushing forty.
Alex arrived first, but knew better than to follow Tylor inside. He signalled towards the side alley, and Ewan nodded.
Before he ran, Ewan inspected the knife dropped by the window. It was coated with sticky blood, congealed like globs of jelly.
‘Clone blood,’ he muttered, ‘a few hours old. She’s had a busy night.’
He ran down the alley with Charlie in tow, and paused at the end of the path. He could hear her already, grunting and rasping in the garden.
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