‘It’s OK, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. But I thought I’d give you some information, if you’d like to listen.’
Kate kept her knees bent. Just in case.
‘My name’s Dr Joseph McCormick, and you must be wondering where you are. The truth is, you’re probably in the safest place in the whole country right now. We named this house “Spitfire’s Rise”, and it holds thirteen of us including you. We are the last of the free British people – our country’s remaining armed forces. Nobody in New London knows where we are, or even who we are. We’re an anonymous group of fighters hidden in the countryside, seeking to free the prisoners in the Citadels. And, more than anything else, we’re a close-knit family.’
Kate noticed his smile widening. It didn’t seem to matter to him that Shannon wasn’t looking.
‘There’s nothing to fear in this house, Shannon. And we have a “no judgement” policy towards each other. Plenty of us have had difficult lives.’
You’re damned right.
‘And we do an excellent job of looking after one another. Differences don’t divide people here. They’re the main thing we have in common. “United by our differences” is actually our motto. The Underdogs are a trustworthy bunch, and you may be surprised how well they can empathise with you.’
Kate didn’t know how to react when Shannon opened her eyes and pointed them towards McCormick. It was difficult to tell whether her eye contact was a sign of trust, or whether she was sizing him up.
Last time she looked at a man, she stabbed him to death.
McCormick, why aren’t you afraid?
Perhaps McCormick’s strategy was a good one. He must have been the least threatening sight Shannon had seen all evening. He was standing in such a non-threatening stance: the fingers of his wrinkled hands were interlocked in front of his waist, with his shoulders dropped and relaxed, and the smile on his face warm and welcoming.
Besides, Kate thought, the sight of an ageing gentleman must have been a rare luxury. Men of McCormick’s age were at a natural disadvantage on Takeover Day. It was amazing that a man like him made it to Spitfire’s Rise, while the rest of his generation were herded into the giant prison at the centre of New London.
‘You must have a thousand questions you want answering,’ he continued, ‘and I know I won’t cover them all by rattling on. So here’s your chance to ask me anything you like, and I promise you’ll get a truthful answer.’
It was only when McCormick stopped talking that Kate noticed how low and soft his voice had been. There was little difference between the sound of his speech and the silence that followed it.
She won’t ask any questions. It would mean trusting a stranger with her words.
‘I see,’ said McCormick, unsurprised at the silence. He gestured to the door with an outstretched hand. ‘Then perhaps you’d prefer to just look around.’
Shannon’s fingers clutched the mattress as tightly as her nails would let them. McCormick took two steps closer to her bedside, and knelt down.
Kate prepared to jump into action. Shannon was within attacking distance of his face. But nonetheless, McCormick’s smile remained.
‘Shannon,’ he continued, ‘I’d like you to listen, because this is very important. I have no idea what you went through before we found you, but there are some things I am sure about. First, I know you’re safer now than you could ever be outside. I know that all twelve of us are so grateful to have a new friend, and we’ll do anything we can to make you comfortable. And I also know you’re curious about what lies outside that door. How we get our electricity, where our supplies come from, and how we’ve sheltered here for eleven months without detection.’
At the end of the sentence, McCormick’s voice turned serious.
‘More than anything else, I know that the longer you lie on this bed, the harder it will be to get up. There’s so much out there to see, Shannon, and you can either lie here forever or you can learn a thing or two about where you are… and what kind of people have put their trust in you.’
McCormick fell silent. Nothing happened for the first ten seconds. Or twenty, or thirty. But after what felt like a whole minute, Shannon started to move.
How the hell does he do that? Kate asked herself.
Shannon swung her legs off the side of the bed. She winced as the soles of her bandaged feet touched the floor, but McCormick produced a pair of slippers from somewhere. When she rose, a couple of paper sheets fell from her back pocket onto the bed. Kate had noticed them during the trek home, but nobody investigated when she pointed them out. Bigger things had been on their minds, and Shannon’s body had occupied their arms.
‘Wonderful,’ McCormick said, rising to his feet and guiding his new housemate towards the clinic door. ‘Shannon, welcome to Spitfire’s Rise.’
Kate stepped away from the door as McCormick approached with a very slow Shannon behind him. Her hand was on his shoulder, although Kate was sure it was pain rather than affection that made her do it. In the corner of her eye she saw Ewan halfway up the stairs, hanging back to keep out of Shannon’s way. Once McCormick led her into one of the bedrooms, Ewan made his way to the landing.
‘Where can I get people skills like that?’ he asked.
‘He’d probably call it life experience. How’d the meeting go?’
‘There’s no denying it,’ Ewan answered. ‘It needs attacking.’
Kate’s heart dashed to the top of her throat, then fell twice as far. She was no stranger to combat, but she had feared that conclusion ever since they had seen Tylor’s phone screen.
‘They don’t think it’ll be a suicide mission?’
‘Clearly they think it’s worth it.’
‘And what about you?’
Ewan gave no answer. Kate closed her eyes, trying and failing to hide her frustration.
‘It was your suggestion, wasn’t it?’ she said. It was barely a question.
‘If there’s one thing worse than investigating this health centre, it’s doing nothing.’
‘Why not wait for Shannon to talk?’
‘You think we’ve got that long? Come on, we’re waiting for you in the kitchen.’
Before Kate could answer, Ewan was halfway back down the stairs. She took a deep breath. To her left, McCormick led Shannon into the bathroom and said something about the water system not working, and cracked some joke about the room being useful for collecting rare species of dust.
Kate removed her phone from her pocket, to check the photo one last time before Ewan’s meeting. It was a shot of Tylor’s screen – a photo of a photo. The best they could do was unlock Tylor’s phone with the print of his dead thumb, and take as many pictures of its screen as they could. If the phone were missing when someone found his body, it would cause a security overhaul like New London had never seen.
But the photo gave her what she needed. A pinpoint on Tylor’s maps app, dropped at the site of an old NHS health centre just west of Hertford. It had been labelled Lt Lambourne HQ.
Kate had never heard of Lieutenant Lambourne, nor did she know what went on at his headquarters. There were no clues about what would have awaited Shannon there, if Tylor had lived to complete his delivery.
But something valuable was at those headquarters. Something Keith Tylor had lost his life for.
She walked back into the clinic, where she could be alone with her thoughts. But there was no time to lose herself in her own mind.
The bed was empty, apart from the pieces of paper from Shannon’s pocket. Kate ignored the moral question of whether to investigate: Shannon could take weeks to talk, but the paper would take seconds to read.
What she found horrified her.
First name Last name Age Notes
Kate Arrowsmith 16 Secondary student, Oakenfold Special School, Harpenden. Diagnoses: Autism, Severe Anxiety.
Charlie Coleman 15 Secondary student, Oakenfold Special School, Harpenden. Diagnosis: ADHD.
Gracie Freeman 1
5 Secondary student, Oakenfold Special School, Harpenden. Diagnosis: Global Development Delay.
Alex Ginelli 22 Deputy store manager, Fixit hardware store, Bancroft Road, Brighton.
Mark Gunnarsson 18 Post-16 student, Oakenfold Special School, Harpenden. Diagnosis: unclear.
Jack Hopper 17 Post-16 student, Oakenfold Special School, Harpenden. Diagnosis: Asperger Syndrome.
Joseph McCormick 64 Lecturer in Mathematical Sciences, Greenwich University.
Thomas Foster 9 Year 4 pupil, St David’s Primary School, St Alban’s.
Lorraine Shepherd 52 Nurse, Queen’s Hospital stroke unit, Luton.
Raj Singh 15 Secondary student, Oakenfold Special School, Harpenden. Diagnosis: Dyslexia.
Ewan West 16 Secondary student, Oakenfold Special School, Harpenden. Diagnosis: Autism (PDA profile).
Simon Young 14 Secondary student, Oakenfold Special School, Harpenden. Diagnosis: Down’s Syndrome.
Mike Ambrose 28 DECEASED
Daniel Amopoulos 17 DECEASED
Miles Ashford 38 DECEASED
Sarah Best 16 DECEASED
Tim Carson 40 DECEASED
Ben Christie 33 DECEASED
Elaine Dean 49 DECEASED
Beth Foster 38 DECEASED
Joe Horn 15 DECEASED
Svetlana Karpov 23 DECEASED
Chloe Newham 16 DECEASED
David Riley 45 DECEASED
Val Riley 42 DECEASED
Sally Sharpe 14 DECEASED
Arian Shirazi 27 DECEASED
Teymour Shirazi 25 DECEASED
Rosanne Tate 73 DECEASED
Callum Turner 13 DECEASED
Rachael Watts 19 DECEASED
Roy Wolff 51 DECEASED
It was a fair assumption that there were no working printers outside of the Citadels. And the header labelled part of the date as ‘Year One’.
There was no alternative. The database of Underdogs could only have come from a computer belonging to Nicholas Grant.
Chapter 3
‘So you admit an attack would be stupid.’
‘Doing nothing’s even stupider,’ said Ewan.
‘Yeah, but at least it’d be safer.’
Ewan’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the side of his mug. Charlie was a close enough friend, but debating him was exhausting.
‘Charlie, if you want to stay at home because it’s safe, what’s the point in fighting this war at all?’
‘If you want me to raid this health centre blind, I want a better reason than that.’
Ewan huffed, unsure whether Charlie was objecting for sensible reasons or just to be argumentative. He was capable of both, but had spent most of his Oakenfold years doing the latter. Even when he had seriously good points, staff members had been less than willing to listen to the ideas of a short, argumentative teenager.
Ewan glanced to the far side of the kitchen table, where Jack leant against the wall with his eyes to the ceiling. Jack had left the discussion minutes ago to twirl his fingers through his dishevelled, greasy hair, perhaps bored with the bickering. Or daydreaming again, even at seventeen.
‘Let me make things nice and clear for you, Charlie,’ Ewan began. ‘Tonight we saw a human – an actual, real life human – outside the walls of our nearest Citadel. We also got to see Keith Tylor’s phone, which gave away the exact location of the place he was taking her to. Do I need to tell you how big an opportunity this is?’
‘Alright, let me make things nice and clear for you,’ started Charlie, his voice wavering.
Ewan bit his lip. He would need to tread carefully. Charlie’s anger and Ewan’s demand avoidance would be an explosive cocktail.
‘Ewan, you’re asking us to go to this place without knowing anything about it. We have no idea how many clones are there, no idea what they’re guarding, no idea whether it’s even important, and no idea who Lieutenant Lambourne even is. Screw that.’
Ewan let out a sigh, and drummed his fingers on the dirty kitchen table. He was almost prepared to admit Charlie was right, but couldn’t bring himself to believe his own views were wrong.
‘Pardon me for pointing out the obvious,’ offered Jack, sweeping his dishevelled hair from his eyes, ‘but can’t we just wait for Shannon to start talking? Then we won’t have to trek all the way to Hertford to find anything out.’
‘Who says she’ll even talk?’ asked Ewan.
‘She’s been here for like two hours. Give her a moment. Besides, she’s in good hands. McCormick’s got warmth and kindness pouring from every part of his body.’
‘What, every part?’ asked Charlie with a grin.
Kate barged into the kitchen, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Wordless, she approached the table and shoved a crumpled piece of paper into Ewan’s hands.
Ewan didn’t know how to react to the words on the page. Two facts were immediately obvious: the paper was an up-to-date list of the Underdogs, and it had been printed from a Citadel computer. But he struggled to combine those two facts. The universes of New London and Spitfire’s Rise did not slot together in his mind.
Oh bloody hell… it mentions my PDA.
‘Ewan?’ asked Jack.
Ewan turned the paper round for his friends to see, with a finger covering his diagnosis. His friends’ shock was predictable. McCormick’s Underdogs were no longer anonymous.
‘Where’d you get this?’ he asked.
‘Shannon’s pocket,’ Kate said with a hesitant gulp.
Before Ewan could even process the information, Charlie was heading for the door.
‘Charlie, wait a second,’ said Kate.
‘Wait for what? Where the hell do you think that list came from?’
‘Er, Shannon’s pocket?’ said Jack.
‘Originally, you idiot. That’s got Nicholas Grant written all over it!’
‘It’s got our names written all over it.’
‘Jack, do you think this is a joke or something?’
‘I think you’re overreacting,’ said Jack. He started to flick his thumb across his fingers again, like he always did when he was thinking. He called it ‘stimming’: his way of stimulating his brain when he needed to think straight. ‘She’s blatantly not one of Grant’s agents. I mean, there’s at least two things you’re not thinking about.’
Ewan checked the door. Jack had Charlie’s full attention.
It was a famous ability of Jack’s: his brain had the capacity to think of ideas that never occurred to anyone else, at the cost of missing the really obvious stuff. He may have been the ultimate Asperger’s oddball with the worst hair on Planet Earth, but his ideas were always worth listening to.
‘First off,’ Jack started, ‘she killed Keith Tylor. Remember that?’
Ewan cracked a smile. He was still forgetting that fact once every few minutes, and it felt good every time he was reminded.
‘She did it to gain our trust,’ spat Charlie.
‘It’d be a good strategy,’ said Jack, ‘but why sacrifice such a big guy for it? Why not just make her kill a bunch of clones, or look like she saved our lives somehow? I’m pretty sure the great Keith Tylor wouldn’t agree to a plan that’d cost him his life.’
Ewan nodded. Charlie didn’t answer, which was probably a win for Jack.
‘And secondly,’ Jack continued, stopping his finger flicking to point at the paper, ‘she brought the list here with her. You’d be hard-pressed to find a bad guy stupid enough to do that. If she were an enemy, she would’ve got rid of that list the moment she saw you.’
‘She might have been a little distracted at the time,’ said Charlie.
‘Do you really think spies walk around with study notes in their pockets? If I’d been given a list like that, I’d have memorised it and destroyed it straight away.’
‘Not everyone has your epic memory, Jack.’
‘Whatever. There’s no good reason why an enemy would walk in here with our names in her pocket. We need an explanation for it, sure, but–’
Kate le
t out a gasp. By the time Ewan had looked up, Charlie had stormed out of the kitchen.
‘Well that’s just great,’ muttered Ewan. He ran for the door, possibly spilling his drink on the way but not being bothered enough to check. He bolted through the house, hoping against the odds that he would find Shannon before Charlie did. He tried to predict where she had reached on McCormick’s grand tour of Spitfire’s Rise, but stopped when he realised something unnerving.
They kept their armoury downstairs, down in the wine cellar next to the house’s hidden underground exit. As well as that exit there were two other tunnels; one leading to their farm, which occupied the bottom floor of next door’s house, and the other leading to their makeshift generator room. If McCormick had taken Shannon to either of them, she would be trapped once Charlie reached the armoury.
Ewan ran down the cellar stairs, and glanced around. The bookshelves across the concrete floor were packed with combat weapons, set out like a firearms supermarket. Bladed weapons, handguns, assault rifles, helmets, handy non-combat tools such as binoculars, and a healthy supply of long-range radios. The remaining wine, of course, was kept away from the more dangerous items.
Next to the Memorial Wall, Charlie stood with a pistol already in his hands.
‘Jack’s full of crap,’ Charlie said.
He knows that’s not true. His impulses are getting the better of him.
As evidenced by the gun in his hand, I guess.
There was no faulting Charlie’s enthusiasm. There never had been. But his enthusiasm did not always point in the right directions.
‘Charlie, what exactly are you planning to do?’
‘Get some answers.’
‘By scaring a girl who’s already too terrified to speak?’
Charlie opened his mouth, but he was cut off by an opening door. Alex emerged from the tunnel to the generator room, and froze in place at the sight of Charlie’s weapon.
‘Er… did I catch you at a bad time?’ he asked, his deep voice a few notes higher than usual.
‘Alex,’ said Ewan, ‘find McCormick. Tell him to–’
But it was too late. McCormick wandered through the tunnel door after Alex, with a quivering Shannon in tow.
Underdogs Page 3
