Underdogs

by Chris Bonnello

  After the house was stripped bare of any possible revenge weapons, The Lord and his clan vanished as quickly as they had arrived. No goodbye message, not even a threat. None had been necessary.

  Half a minute passed before Patrick Rowland broke the silence.

  ‘I’m so sorry…’

  ‘Never mind sorry,’ barked Charlie, unleashing his build-up of contained anger, ‘who the bloody hell was that?’

  ‘We’re supposed to call him The Lord.’

  ‘The Lord? Puh, screw him! Scar-faced bloody…’

  ‘Charlie,’ muttered Jack, ‘get some fresh air. Give yourself ten minutes.’

  Charlie turned his infuriated face back to Jack, half a second from releasing a tirade of abuse, and then something amazing happened. Jack watched in surprise and delight as Charlie Coleman, trapped in a bad mood for a good reason, decided to shut up, storm outside and take a few deep breaths. Ewan and McCormick would have been proud of him.

  Once Charlie was gone, Jack came to realise how nervous he felt. His hands and fingers were in full throttle, shaking themselves around to bring him just a little physical comfort. Patrick was diplomatic enough to not mention it.

  ‘According to the legends,’ Patrick said, ‘his name was once Paul Green. He used to be a painter-decorator. I bet he never saw his life taking this kind of turn. Being the prison top dog and all.’

  Jack spat a disgusted laugh. The Lord knew his way around posturing, but his authority was fake. He was just as vulnerable to Grant’s forces as the rest of New London, whether or not he believed it. Just like the bullies had held no genuine power over him at school, even though they had driven him to…

  ‘Where did they get those weapons?’ he asked. ‘And how much of the Citadel does he think he controls?’

  ‘Only the places they go to,’ answered Benjamin. ‘Probably a mile’s radius. As for their weapons, we don’t know for sure. Someone must have smuggled them in on Takeover Day. Someone smart enough to save them for the inside. But the guns aren’t the real currency here. The bullets are. They’ve got no supplier, so your ammo probably doubled their stash.’

  Jack clawed a hand against the underside of the table. The robbery had not only put his friends at a disadvantage. It would keep The Lord on his little throne for even longer.

  Aidan rose to his feet and darted for the entrance. As he ran into the open, Jack heard the noises too. Familiar voices in a land of strangers. He made his way outside to see Ewan and Kate returning, their words growing louder as they approached.

  ‘Really?’ asked Kate. ‘You never think about things like that? Every day I dream about going home and flopping onto my old bed.’

  ‘I’m staying the hell away from my old house, thanks. I’d rather avoid Mum and Dad’s corpses. And my aunt’s, uncle’s, and little Alfie’s.’

  ‘Oh… yeah. Sorry. But where would you go? If we win this war and society gets back to normal, where would you call home?’

  ‘I’d probably occupy Oakenfold,’ Ewan said with a shrug. ‘Make it my own little empire. The one place that makes sense in a world where…’

  Ewan’s words ended as he saw Jack’s face. The colour went out of his cheeks, and the humour vanished from his voice.

  ‘Talk to me, Jack,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Jack took a deep breath, and spoke with a mourning tone.

  ‘Do you and Kate still have your handguns? And the rucksack?’

  ‘Course. Why?’

  Jack opened his mouth, but Ewan didn’t wait for an answer. Once he heard Charlie’s furious yells in the background, he ran into the Rowlands’ home and looked despondently around the emptied floor.

  ‘Protect those guns like your children,’ Jack said. ‘They’re the only weapons we have left.’

  Chapter 18

  McCormick sat alone in the silent attic of the Boys’ Brigade hall, surrounded by soft camping lights and phones that refused to ring. He had not felt so alone since the days following Barbara’s death.

  But back then, at least Polly had been there to pick up the pieces.

  McCormick let his thoughts wander to Polly, mainly to distract himself from the day’s events. Polly – Barbara’s best friend up to her death – had spent two years rebuilding the bereaved Joseph McCormick, and brought the real him back into the world for no visible reward. Without Polly Jones, there would have been no Underdogs.

  Her help had come to an abrupt end on Takeover Day. Perhaps the memory of her falling corpse was the reason McCormick spent so little time thinking about her.

  McCormick felt guilty. Polly deserved better than that.

  The front door creaked open. But the footsteps were not Simon’s. They were fast and light.

  All the worst possibilities ran through McCormick’s head. The probability of being discovered was almost zero, but even mathematics lecturers had illogical fears. He held his breath, and reached for the pistol he kept hidden in a side drawer.

  He exhaled with relief as the intruder made loud noises against the ladder. No assassin was that clumsy. But the gasps sounded like they came from a child, and that would mean…

  ‘Thomas?’

  ‘Hi!’ the boy whispered with a grin, pushing his head through the trapdoor as if playing peek-a-boo.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Nice to see you too!’

  ‘Thomas, you’re not supposed to leave the house. Why did Lorraine let you come here?’

  ‘I don’t think she knows. Unless Mark told her. He sent me here.’

  McCormick had no idea how to react. Confusion and anxiety fought for his attention. Thomas slipped through the trapdoor, with smooth movements that must have been perfected over years of sneaking downstairs past his bedtime.

  ‘Why did Mark send you here?’ McCormick asked, both needing and fearing the answer.

  ‘To tell you about his mission. They’ve probably gone already.’

  McCormick felt his oesophagus close, as if his anxieties had become a physical hand that clenched around his throat. A tremor shook its way down his ageing spine.

  ‘What mission?’ he gasped. Thomas started to look nervous, but answered honestly as always.

  ‘The attack on Dr Lambourne’s health centre. Or whoever he was. The place Shannon was going to.’

  An assault we decided would be marching into a slaughter. Everyone but Ewan, rest his soul.

  McCormick’s hands gripped one another, as if in prayer. He could not bear the thought of losing Ewan, Kate, Charlie and Jack, followed by Mark and everyone he had manipulated, all in the same day. It would be the end of the war in every practical sense.

  He closed his eyes, and tried to pretend he hadn’t always believed the war would end this way. With most of his friends dead, and Nicholas Grant unopposed.

  ‘Did I do something wrong?’

  ‘No Thomas. Not you.’

  ‘Mark wants you to ring him…’

  ‘Ring his phone or wring his neck?’ McCormick grumbled as he picked up the phone, and hoped that a call from Alex wouldn’t come in the next few minutes while the phone was engaged.

  Five rings before an answer. It was almost like Mark wanted him to feel powerless. His behaviour must have followed years of choosing not to engage with lessons: not to avoid learning, but to demonstrate that he had the power to ignore the staff whenever he wished.

  ‘Yep,’ came the eventual answer. McCormick noticed that the phone’s camera showed only Mark’s ear. The young man had accepted the phone call, but wasn’t willing to endure a video conversation.

  ‘Mark,’ McCormick started, with the authority gone from his voice, ‘turn around and head home. There’s too much at stake.’

  ‘No can do, old man. I’m not waiting around to die in Spitfire’s Rise like a good boy. If Ewan and the guys are dead, we both know it’s over. Might as well smack ’em in the face before we go down.’

  ‘Who’s with you?’

  ‘Raj, Gracie and Simon. I lef
t Lorraine to look after the girl. Figured it was the safer option.’

  Mark spoke with the tone of an officer in command. As if the tragedy on the battlefront had left a vacancy just for him. Ewan’s body hadn’t yet gone cold, and Mark Gunnarsson had already stepped into his shoes.

  ‘It’s not up to you to decide what’s safe,’ said McCormick.

  ‘Shannon pulled a knife on Thomas, you know. That’s why I sent him to you – away from this girl you keep coddling, despite all the evidence of her being a complete psychopath. We’re not as united by our differences as you think we are.’

  McCormick looked at Thomas. There was concern in his eyes, but no trauma. It was impossible to tell whether Mark was being truthful.

  ‘We’ll be at Lambourne’s front door by early evening, and I’ll let you know what we find. If I don’t, just add us to the Memorial Wall.’

  ‘Mark, please don’t throw your life away like this. At least let the others go home.’

  ‘You think they don’t want to be with me?’ scoffed Mark. ‘The war’s lost and you’re the only numpty who doesn’t know it.’

  Or do I?

  ‘Mark,’ McCormick said, ‘there’s a chain of command. Without it we’d never have lasted–’

  ‘Don’t you have some tragic news to break to a small child? Thomas was pretty attached to Kate, if you hadn’t noticed. In case I don’t call back, it’s been an honour serving with you. Or whatever.’

  The line went dead, and McCormick lost another four friends.

  Me. Thomas. Lorraine. Alex. Shannon.

  We’re the only Underdogs left.

  A numbness overcame McCormick’s brain, and spread through his body as if following his bloodstream. Just like the moment Barbara finally passed away at his side, when all those months of fear and panic suddenly had nowhere to go.

  The exact opposite had happened when Polly died. Then again, there had been no time to mourn her as the gun had been turned towards him…

  ‘Are you OK?’ Thomas asked.

  McCormick shook his head.

  ‘How are Kate and the others doing?’ Thomas asked. ‘I’ve been worried about them.’

  Do I tell him the truth and completely destroy him?

  Do I lie to him and possibly destroy his trust in me?

  Do I avoid the question, and run the risk of him noticing?

  Should I save the news for when Mark and the others die, and break all the horrible news in one go?

  This was not a mathematical equation that could be solved with an objectively correct answer. This dilemma involved human emotions, a world where numbers had no power.

  In the end, McCormick gave the only answer that came to his mind. He reached over to Thomas, wrapped him up in one arm, and held him close.

  The boy did not seem to mind. And with the only witness looking over his shoulder, the first tears could fall from McCormick’s eyes unseen.

  *

  Raj had been looking forward to watching the sun set. It would have been nice to see it one last time. Instead, Mark had taken them through a town on the outskirts of Hertford, and the sunset was blocked by the row of shops at his side.

  Well, at least this won’t be the worst thing that happens today.

  Of course, worse things had already happened. The more Raj tried to keep Kate out of his head, the more space she took up. He had spent years boasting about his dyslexic ability to see the whole picture in any situation, but that made it impossible to avoid the more horrible details.

  Mark strode along the tarmac at the head of the group, with confidence in his step as if nothing had happened at all. He seemed perfectly suited to his self-appointed role as head soldier, but maybe he was just enjoying the job while it lasted.

  Gracie was a couple of steps behind, window shopping in the department stores they walked past, perhaps not aware of how dangerous their mission was. But Simon was under no illusions. Each time Raj glanced behind him, it became more obvious that Simon only kept up to avoid getting lost.

  ‘How much further?’ asked Gracie, clearly bored.

  ‘Half a mile,’ answered Mark. ‘Better slow down.’

  Raj closed his eyes and his stomach dropped a little further. Half a mile, then one of two things would happen.

  The most likely option was death. But there was an alternative, unlikely as it was. The four of them could break into the health centre with guns blazing, wipe out every single clone, put Lieutenant Lambourne on his knees and wait for Mark to extract the information he wanted. And after that, the war would still be a lost cause.

  Raj jogged to the front of the group, and whispered towards Mark.

  ‘Mate,’ he started, ‘have you thought about what happens if we don’t die?’

  ‘Yeah, there’s a basic plan,’ Mark grunted. ‘Find out what’s so important about the place, tell our old man, grab the spare ammo and head home.’

  An ice-cold logical answer from an ice-cold man. Raj was not satisfied. He looked backwards at Gracie, and held out a straightened hand that instructed her to slow down. She did as she was told, and lined up with Simon out of earshot.

  ‘Mark… why are we really here? The one-last-slap-in-the-face explanation doesn’t work for me.’

  At first, Mark did not answer. He held up the map – a page he had torn from the road atlas back home – and calculated which way to go at the fork ahead. He marched off, gave Raj just enough time to think he was being ignored, and then whispered.

  ‘Truth matters, Raj.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Humans are obsessed with reasons. With finding out why. It’s the reason our species has advanced beyond all the others.’

  Mark double-checked the distance between them and their teammates, and whispered.

  ‘My dad was an abusive piece of crap. When I was six, he whacked me round the face with the head of a hose pipe ’cos I got in the way while he was washing his car. For years I thought I was the reason, but no way. People don’t do things like that just because kids are annoying.’

  Raj did not speak. There was no obvious way to react. Compassion wouldn’t be what Mark was after.

  ‘He put a cigarette out on me a few months later. I looked for a reason, but there wasn’t any. And the third time he did something bad, he didn’t even seem bothered.’

  ‘Was he on drugs? Alcohol?’

  ‘Nope. Neither.’

  There’s no way Mark would be telling me this if he planned to survive the night.

  ‘It went on as I grew up. Mum did bugger all. He was probably doing stuff to her too. Didn’t stop for a decade, until I went into the Youth Offender Institution. I never told you how I got in, did I?’

  ‘You never told anyone. Was it some terrible secret, or did you just think the mystery made you more fearsome?’

  ‘I stabbed him.’

  Raj didn’t answer. The wind rang through the alleys between the shops, but the rest of Hertford was silent.

  ‘In the thigh. Missed his femoral artery by millimetres. And in the interview, the police asked me why. How bloody dare they.’

  ‘Was it self-defence or revenge?’

  ‘Justice.’

  ‘…Really though?’

  ‘Revenge. Told them it was defence though. But I committed one crime with a valid reason and went down for it. He committed loads of them for years, with no obvious reason, and all he got was a knife in the leg for a few seconds.’

  ‘He’ll have had some reason, Mark. A stupid reason, but a reason. And whatever it was, it’s his fault and not yours. Nobody’s to blame for their own abuse.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Mark, halting in his tracks. ‘But I’ll never know why he did it, and there’s nothing in life that haunts me more.’

  He looked straight into Raj’s eyeballs, and finished his confession.

  ‘Go ahead and spend all the time you want searching for God, whichever one you actually worship – you’ll never meet anyone who values universal truth more than me. ’Cos if you
can’t find the truth in the one place that matters, you look for it everywhere else. That’s why we’re here. When we rescued Shannon, she thanked us by sending five of us to die in New London, all for some clone-killing tool that might not even exist. We might find the truth in Lambourne’s headquarters, and I’m willing to die searching for it.’

  ‘Mark, suicide strikes don’t win wars.’

  ‘I’m not aiming to win the war, Raj. I just need to know why we lost.’

  Raj looked towards the approaching Simon and Gracie. Mark reverted back to his usual self the moment they arrived, as if his outpouring had never happened.

  ‘How long until we can go home?’ Gracie asked.

  ‘Gracie, you follow me,’ Mark answered. ‘The health centre’s round the next corner. If they have any sense there’ll be a guard on each entrance. Raj, Simon, run to the other side of the road. Once you get there, give us covering fire.’

  ‘So we’re running first,’ muttered Raj.

  ‘Why not? If the first thing they see is Simon’s face, they’ll underestimate us. Besides, once they’re distracted they’ll take longer to aim at me and Gracie while we approach.’

  ‘Then what?’ asked Gracie. ‘What happens when we get inside?’

  She said when, not if. She has no idea what danger she’s in.

  ‘Stay away from the windows, keep your back to the wall, and focus your fire down the biggest corridor you see. Raj and Simon will run to the entrance, picking off anyone approaching us from behind.’

  ‘And then it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to killing all the clones and taking Lambourne,’ Raj groaned.

  ‘You got it. Ready?’

  No. But you’re not really asking, are you?

  ‘Let’s go,’ Raj said with a sigh.

  The team headed for the newsagent on the corner. The shop had glass windows on both exterior walls, at an angle that allowed Raj to see through both. Through the dusted glass and along the final street, he could make out the shape of a one-storey building and a blue NHS sign. Nothing else.

  Amazingly, he found the time to say a short prayer before Mark shouted, ‘Go!’

  Raj raised his rifle and leapt into the street, Simon a few moments behind. He spotted the porchway of a jeweller’s that would offer cover, and ran to reach it before somebody could open fire and shoot him to death.