‘Kate,’ he said in a calm voice, ‘someone will have helped him. Can you imagine what Lorraine would do in here? She’d have built a hospital with her bare hands. There’ll be loads of Lorraine Shepherds in here. James will be somewhere, and he’ll be safe.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
Ewan gestured at the wasteland around them.
‘He’s got nothing anyone would want.’
Kate swallowed the lump in her throat, and the lip skin she had bitten off by accident. The squalor around her spelled danger for her brother, but in a way Ewan was right.
‘It’s like this, Kate,’ Ewan continued. ‘We all get our motivation from somewhere. McCormick gets his from a general love of humans. I get mine from wanting revenge for my family. Sounds like James is the reason you’re fighting this war, and it’s done you a ton of good as a soldier.’
I don’t care. I’d sacrifice every good thing about myself to get James out of here.
‘But you’ll never find him like this,’ Ewan finished. ‘Not in a hundred years. And even if you find him, you can’t free him. You can only do that from outside. Don’t let guilt control you, Kate. Don’t let it make your decisions.’
Kate nodded, as common sense took over and she saw the truth in all its sensible ugliness. James wouldn’t be found by taking random paths through the Inner City. But all the same, Ewan’s advice was too late. Guilt had already made her decisions. It had turned her into a fighter. It had kept her alive as her friends had died around her. The others had been surviving for the sake of surviving, but Kate had lived because of unfinished business.
‘OK. Fine.’
She was not fine. Nothing was fine. She was just coping.
Then again, most of her life had followed that pattern. In an odd way, she was still in her comfort zone.
She wiped the tears from her cheeks, and found them replaced with more.
I’m still crying? What the hell!
Ewan was wearing a sympathetic face, and just for a second, his leadership side seemed to fade. So did the control freak from a few minutes earlier, committed to telling her she was wrong. He became the likeable Ewan West again. The one who smiled.
In fact, he was planning more than a smile.
As he came in for a hug, Kate found Ewan’s cheek pressed against hers. That was unusual enough.
This place must do crazy things to people… that, and everything we’ve gone through today. He’s not thinking straight.
‘Nobody’s watching now, Kate,’ Ewan whispered. ‘We’re just in the background.’
He repositioned his head, and Kate saw the shape of his lips. There was only one right thing to do.
‘I’m going out with Raj!’ she gasped.
Ewan froze in place, as did Kate. To an outsider, the scene must have looked like a game of musical statues where the music had stopped at an embarrassing moment.
‘You didn’t know either, then?’ she asked.
Ewan aborted the hug and stepped back, then checked his surroundings with nervous eyes. Apparently, he wasn’t so sure that nobody was watching. But despite the tightly packed houses and dense population, the prisoners took no notice.
His face looked uncomfortable, as it always did when people denied him something he wanted. His breathing deepened, and Kate saw the warning signs of one of his Oakenfold-era meltdowns. But then Ewan seemed to collect himself, and after half a minute of wandering around with his hands on the sides of his head, he turned and rejoined the conversation. He looked at Kate’s face, calmed down, and spoke normally. It was like he had won a fight against himself.
‘I… had no idea,’ he said. ‘How long?’
‘Two months,’ Kate answered. ‘We don’t want to spread the news, but some people have worked it out. Lorraine for definite. Maybe a few others.’
‘I, er… I guess I’m just not very perceptive.’
‘Half of Spitfire’s Rise aren’t very perceptive.’
Ewan smiled, and lowered his arms.
Kate found herself happy with Ewan. Her mainstream years had been filled with random boys not taking ‘no’ for an answer, acting like she wasn’t allowed to refuse, or making her feel guilty for not doing what they wanted. Despite his own neurological disadvantages, Ewan had heard ‘no’ and stopped. It was a rare act of chivalry, and Kate appreciated it.
But wait… should I really be happy with him for doing what boys should just do anyway? Shouldn’t Ewan’s way be the normal way, and not some kind of exception?
Whatever his faults and whatever his challenges, Ewan was trustworthy. But so was Raj, and Raj’s influence was so much more calming. He had the soft humour and positive manner that made Spitfire’s Rise bearable for Kate, plus a constant (but not intrusive) interest in how her mind worked, in order to learn how to accommodate her in both her best and worst moments. Raj could see her anxiety coming long before any other young person in the house, and was always open as a source of comfort. The thought of him alone was calming.
Kate could never have those kinds of feelings for Ewan, but she valued him all the same. Ewan was a troubled but trustworthy young man, who was accessing the world in the best way he knew how.
‘Ewan,’ she said, ‘don’t take it personally. You’re probably my best friend. And it’s not like I say that to many people.’
She scratched the back of her neck out of nervousness, and her fingers brushed against the rucksack. She had fled the Rowlands’ shelter without realising it was on her back. Just another little fact lost in the chaos.
‘Best friend except Thomas, of course,’ she finished.
‘What?’ asked Ewan in pretend shock. ‘I’ve been sidelined by a nine-year-old boy?’
‘He’s cute, he’s funny, and he makes me happy!’
‘Well he’d be more than welcome here right now…’
Ewan’s sentence trailed off. He must have seen the state of New London’s children. Anxious to avoid a miserable silence, Kate threw out some words.
‘Sorry if I embarrassed you, Ewan. I just…’
‘No, you didn’t. Raj’s a lucky guy. And I hope you know–’
‘Forget it. It’s fine.’
Kate and Ewan propped themselves up against the toilet block, trying in vain to ignore the stench emanating from the vent holes.
‘That reminds me,’ started Kate, changing the subject as fast as she could, ‘what upset Jack last night?’
‘Hm?’
‘Back in Lemsford, when we were staying at the Hunters’ house. We were mid-banter and then he fell silent.’
Wow, was that really last night? Not half a week ago?
‘You’re gonna have to remind me,’ said Ewan.
‘Charlie said something about him and Gracie. And “the last time he kissed a woman he called her Mummy”.’
‘Well his mum’s dead, for starters,’ said Ewan. ‘Cancer, when he was twelve.’
The words physically hurt Kate’s ears. Her worst nightmare throughout her childhood years had been suffered in real life by a close friend, and she had not even known.
Then again, Jack kept a lot of things inside his brain.
‘And Gracie?’ Ewan continued. ‘Let’s just say romance doesn’t cross his mind much. He explained it to me once, after David and Val were murdered.’
Kate remembered that night. Ewan and Jack had been the sole survivors of the war’s most traumatic mission, when Oliver Roth had made a wife kill her husband in exchange for a quick death. Back home, Ewan and Jack had found the previous homeowners’ stash of wine, and drank until they could barely function.
McCormick hadn’t even punished them. They’d been through enough that day.
‘He spent most of the night talking about retro videogames,’ Ewan continued, ‘from the good old days before any of us were born. Or dinosaur skeletons he’d seen in the Natural History Museum. The amount of times he mentioned that bloody ankylosaurus… he needed escapism, I guess. But he talked about romance too – he was
pretty drunk but I understood him. Every time he looks into a girl’s eyes, he never sees the same kind of beauty most people see. He sees beauty in the complex design of the human eyeball, and how all the bits of the body slot together to make the ultimate machine. Or something like that, anyway. He probably sees that as more beautiful than anything romantic he could see in them.’
Kate felt conflicted. She couldn’t tell whether that was sad or amazing. But it was amazing to Jack, and that’s what counted.
She glanced up and around for landmarks, double-checking that she still remembered the route to the Rowlands’. One wrong turn could get her and Ewan lost for days. She noticed her tears were gone too, as was her motivation to search for James. She had grown to accept that she was more useful to him outside the Citadel.
‘So what’s your thing?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘I’m autistic, Charlie has ADHD, Raj is dyslexic… what about you?’
‘I’m autistic too.’
‘But isn’t there something else?’
‘Yeah.’
Kate paused, but Ewan didn’t elaborate.
‘Remember Stuart?’ she continued. ‘The old guy who did geography at Oakenfold? We talked about you once. He told me there was another diagnosis and… he wasn’t very nice about it.’
‘Stuart should have been fired long before Takeover Day. I wasn’t the only student he hated.’
‘He said it… made you manipulative. And afraid of being told to do things.’
‘He was right,’ said Ewan. ‘Anyway, ready to head back?’
Kate, for once, took a hint. She led the way back to the Rowlands, through the maze of improvised houses and squalor, abandoning her faint hopes of a family reunion.
Mark had been wrong on Takeover Day. James was worth everything, even if Kate was the only one who knew it. Her brother – her amazing, vulnerable older brother… it was worth surrendering every strength she had to find that bond with him again.
Not today, James. But one day. I swear it.
Chapter 17
Hidden inside the Rowlands’ shelter, Jack peeked out between two planks of wood. Bloody hell, the Inner City was ugly. They could at least have sorted the houses into rows and columns, and turned the twisted pathways into actual streets. They could have set up marketplace-style squares for events or town meetings, or reserved a big patch for a clinic or a school. If Jack had been trapped in here with the rest of them, he could have been a masterly town planner.
Except, of course, that would have involved people listening to him. The Rowlands had baulked the moment they had heard the words ‘special school’. In here, just like back in the old days, people tried to brainwash him into thinking his Asperger’s made him inferior. Some kind of genius, according to the stereotype, but somehow still inferior.
‘Mark would have fitted in perfectly here,’ Charlie said to him, ‘if he’d been in that youth offendey place on Takeover Day. Once they brought him here he’d have set out and conquered the whole city.’
‘Nah,’ Jack answered, ‘I’m willing to bet the prisoners were shot inside their cells. Herding a nation into the Citadels would be tricky enough without the risky prisoners. Come to think of it, they might not even have wasted the bullets. They probably just left them to starve.’
Charlie snorted.
‘You’re the life of the party Jack, you know that?’
Jack stopped stimming his fingers, to squeeze them against the casing of the podcopter gun in his lap. An hour in this prison would have been draining enough even without Charlie for company. It was imprisonment without routine – probably worse than the kind Mark had endured. Walls were fine as long as your life had structure. This place was like watching an infinite hourglass.
‘Speaking of death,’ Charlie said to Patrick, ‘what happens to bodies here? I mean, there must have been loads of people dying in the early days, right?’
Jack raised an eyebrow: not at Charlie’s blunt question, but the lack of reaction from their hosts. Neither Ruth nor the younger men seemed bothered, and Patrick gave his answer without his expression changing.
‘Mobile incineration unit,’ he said.
‘…Seriously?’
‘Yep. Can’t bury them under concrete.’
‘They can’t possibly get vehicles along these roads,’ said Jack.
‘No, they can’t,’ answered Aidan. ‘These things fly. They scout over the houses every few days, usually at night.’
‘There are stories going round,’ started Patrick, ‘that in the early days, people woke up one morning and saw that the dead bodies outside had vanished. No idea how. But then they put two and two together, worked out that Grant was clearing them, and then started to kill their neighbours.’
Charlie looked shocked. Jack did not.
‘Let me guess,’ he muttered. ‘They were waiting for a collection truck to pick up the bodies, and hoping to ride it out.’
‘You’ve got it,’ Patrick continued. ‘You can imagine their reaction when the mobile incinerator flew in, towed up the bodies with hooks and ropes, and cremated them there and then. Those people had killed their friends for no benefit. Probably stung a bit.’
Patrick, Ruth, Aidan and Benjamin had indifference in their eyes, which Jack understood but hated. His friends back home had real and honest love for each other (although none of them would have dared use the word ‘love’). To them, it was inconceivable that people could turn against their friends so easily. The good doctor had united them far too well.
‘Sorry guys,’ said Benjamin, ‘but that’s just the way life is here. The courts won’t stick up for you anymore, the police don’t exist and money means nothing. Whoever has the resources makes the rules. You’ll learn the ropes as you go along, I’m sure.’
‘We’re not planning on staying that long,’ Charlie grunted. ‘Thanks though.’
Jack noticed the grin shared between Aidan and Benjamin, which he had seen in the faces of a hundred other people who hadn’t taken him seriously in his old life. He hid his annoyance, and let his mind wander.
Naturally, it landed on the mystery he hadn’t yet solved.
How the hell did Shannon get out of here?
She had stabbed those clones outside the Citadel, so she had been around here at some point. Jack had assumed she’d lived in the Outer City, since Keith Tylor had kept boasting about how important she was. Then again, what kind of Floor-A-pampered lady would have torn clothes and bare feet?
There were three possibilities, all of them ridiculous. Number one, Shannon had lived in the Inner City, then been plucked out and transported to Lieutenant Lambourne’s place for some reason. Number two, she had lived a scruffy lifestyle in the Outer City, despite its luxuries. Number three, she had never lived in the Citadel at all, and just happened to be outside its walls by coincidence.
‘So… New London?’ said Aidan.
‘Hm?’
‘You called this place “New London” a while ago. Is that an official name for it, or…’
‘Yep. “New London Citadel and Habitation Complex”. We saw it on some stolen paperwork. So we–’
Jack was interrupted by a bang which he recognised all too well, and the zip of a bullet that flew past his nose and punctured the rusting walls. As he and Charlie spun around and snatched at their holsters, their eyes were met with the sight of well-built raggedy men with pistols. There were five of them at the front entrance, the head of the pack aiming two weapons at once.
Jack found his hand stopping at his side, and Charlie did the same. Surrender had never been an option against clones: either you fought back or you died. Humans, however, could be bargained with. They had fired a warning shot, after all.
‘Dun’ even think ’bout moving,’ snarled the figure at the front. ‘Hands on table, now.’
The rebels obeyed, with gritted teeth and hatred in their faces. The Rowlands obeyed too, with the casual attitude of passengers going through airport secur
ity.
Like the head bully at every school, the lead man’s stature and body language told the Underdogs all they needed to know. He strutted around with a sense of comfort, his jaw hanging on one side as if smoking a cigar. The two deep scars on each side of his face looked self-inflicted: perhaps he had given himself a makeover to induce fear in his enemies. But the scariest part of him was his eyes. His cool blue eyeballs, that showed vicious malice and self-control at the same time. Almost like an older and less humorous Oliver Roth.
‘That copter gun,’ he barked. ‘All your small arms. Anything what shoots bullets. They’re mine now.’
Jack kept his hands motionless, as the scarred man’s cronies marched into the shack and rummaged through his pockets. They did the same to Charlie, who twitched with discomfort and growing anger.
To be fair to him, he’s doing well here.
‘Never seen you ’fore,’ the scar-faced man said with vague interest. ‘My name’s The Lord. I run this place. I run this house, and the houses around it, and the houses around them. Don’t do nothing stupid. Potts. Dave. Minigun first. Now.’
Jack couldn’t tell which was Potts and which was Dave. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t care, but he wanted to learn about these thieves. Know your enemy and all that.
‘Gareth, watch the geek’s ’ands. Shawn, check the short kid’s pockets too.’
Charlie’s eyebrows deepened. He did not like being called ‘the short kid’.
Charlie, don’t you dare have one of your moments now…
Potts and Dave carried the minigun to the bulky arms of its new owner. The Lord held it in his arms like an overgrown newborn, his face lighting up like a new father.
And you… ‘The Lord’? You’re really calling yourself that?
‘He’s clean now,’ said Gareth with disappointment in his voice, having taken nothing more from Jack than an assault rifle.
It surprised Jack how naked he felt without his weapons. With bare hands, what else could distinguish them from the other millions of prisoners? What right would they have to call themselves Britain’s last line of defence?
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