Underdogs

by Chris Bonnello

  Ewan clawed a hand against the Memorial Wall, and his breaths quickened. He had done his hero duty for the day, and his vulnerable side crept back into his head.

  ‘He died too early,’ he gasped. ‘It’s not right… we weren’t done with him yet!’

  ‘I think I see what you mean–’

  ‘We were shaping him into the person he’d always wanted to be. He was overcoming new things every day… another few months and he’d have been everything he wanted! But even after everything we did, he still ended up dead… it’s like all our efforts were for nothing! And, and I can’t help but feel… what about the others? There’s only eleven of us left – well, twelve including Shannon… are we wasting our time with them too? Is it really worth helping people if they don’t even live to–’

  Ewan coughed as the cellar’s dust lodged in the back of his throat. He abandoned the rest of his sentence, and let McCormick respond.

  ‘It is absolutely worth helping them, Ewan, whether they live or not. Barbara and I donated every month to the Waking Dreams Foundation, for children with terminal illnesses. Was their work “worth it”, do you think?’

  ‘Yeah… honourable, anyway.’

  ‘Polly volunteered at a hospice that looked after the elderly in their final days. You’d never have convinced her it was all for “nothing”.’

  Ewan found the old man’s hand resting on his shoulder, and he allowed it to stay.

  ‘Ewan, if you think of life advice as something that leads to an ultimate result, you’ll never know when you get there. When someone dies, you won’t be able to see how much you helped them. You’ll just be left bitter about not doing enough. But it’s not the finishing point that matters.’

  ‘Then what does?’

  ‘Making the right differences at the right time. Simon’s been a project of mine ever since we met. We helped Thomas recover after Beth died. And earlier this week we were blessed with another person to build up. Even if we never completed our work with Charlie, we transformed him from the boy he used to be. More importantly, what we did for him stuck in his heart. He spent his final days as the best person he had ever been. And that mattered.’

  Ewan opened his mouth, closed it again, half-opened, and then spoke.

  ‘Thank you…’

  ‘Feeling better?’

  ‘Maybe one day.’

  Ewan turned, and McCormick’s hand left his shoulder. He caught sight of the Memorial Wall, and pictured the name of Charlie Coleman chiselled into the rock. It would only be a matter of time.

  ‘You’re the perfect example of a changed man, Ewan,’ said McCormick. ‘When I compare that vicious boy who came here on Take–’

  ‘Could you please stop mentioning Takeover Day?’ gasped Ewan. ‘I know what kind of guy I was… and I know what I did.’

  ‘And none of it matters,’ McCormick answered, ‘because that Ewan West no longer exists. You came out the other side, and you should be proud of it.’

  Ewan wiped the first tears from his eyes. McCormick was right, as always. And just as Ewan had once said to Charlie, it was time to stop letting his past control his future.

  ‘Come on, my friend,’ said McCormick with his warmest smile. ‘Let’s get you to the clinic.’

  *

  ‘You’re a lucky sod, Ewan,’ said Lorraine as they walked up the stairs together.

  ‘It’s never luck,’ he snarled.

  ‘Just so you know how serious this is, we’ve got Kate and Alex with gunshot wounds and I’m still treating you first. You’re looking at septicaemia if we leave that wound much longer.’

  ‘Have you got the medicine or not?’

  ‘Yes, and enough to heal you if you do exactly what I say. None of your defiant attitude, OK?’

  It’s called pathological demand avoidance. But nobody here knows except Kate and Jack.

  And it’s staying that way. I escaped with personnel files for each of us, but what a pity mine just happened to get destroyed on the way home.

  ‘I’ve left the correct dosage on the bedside table,’ Lorraine finished. ‘Take it, then meet me in the kitchen. That wound needs washing, and I’m boiling some water clean. I could have done it before you’d arrived, if anyone had let me know you were coming.’

  Ewan smirked. He had barely been home half an hour, and Lorraine’s delight had already turned to uncompromising bossiness. It was the Lorraine he knew and appreciated.

  She let him into the clinic and headed back downstairs. Ewan looked at the bedside table and found the mug with his pills.

  On the bed, Shannon looked surprised to see him.

  ‘Yeah, I’m alive,’ Ewan muttered. ‘Great to see you too.’

  Shannon maintained her stare, but showed no emotion. Given what he had learned about her, Ewan didn’t mind. She had probably spent her whole life internalising her feelings.

  ‘Your memory stick worked.’

  For that moment at least, the internalising stopped. Shannon’s eyes lit up, and she grinned.

  ‘I didn’t see it myself,’ Ewan continued, ‘so I can’t tell you how good it looked.’

  Shannon rolled her eyes, and gave no further response. Ewan swallowed the pills, and sat himself at the other end of the bed. Lorraine could wait.

  ‘I know you’ve kept your end of the deal,’ he said, ‘and we’ll keep ours. But don’t think your work’s done. I’ve got an army down there who think the war’s already won. That all we need to do is wait a few months for the last clones to age themselves to death. But there are other Citadels and they all have clone factories, and they’ve got loads of transport vehicles too. We’ve slowed them down, not stopped them.’

  Again, Shannon didn’t answer.

  ‘Fine,’ Ewan snarled, ‘be silent if you bloody want. My best friend died this morning because you wouldn’t talk.’

  She looked up at him, with an expression which might have meant sympathy.

  ‘Wait,’ Ewan said with a shake of his head. ‘I’m sorry. That’s not fair. I’d have taken him to the officers’ sector anyway, even if we hadn’t needed to research you.’

  Suddenly, Shannon grew concerned. Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped open, and Ewan could hear her quickening breaths.

  ‘And yes,’ he said, ‘you were easy enough to find. Your file was pretty much blank, but I saw what I needed to. I thought Rose was your last name, not your middle name. You did well to silence Keith Tylor before he could finish his sentence.’

  Shannon’s hand moved towards her pocket, and Ewan noticed.

  ‘Whatever sharp object you’re hiding, don’t bother. I’ve done enough fighting today and I just can’t be arsed. I’m telling you this because I want you to know that nothing’s going to change.’

  The colour in Shannon’s face lightened. Ewan spoke softly.

  ‘You can’t help being the daughter of Nicholas Grant. And you won’t be judged for it. We’re the guys who invented the Oakenfold Code. We know it’s our choices that make us who we are, not just how we’re born. And you chose to escape your father, get out of New London with Anthony Lambourne, and help bring him down from the outside.’

  Shannon Rose Grant buried her head in her hands, then broke her silence.

  ‘I didn’t choose to escape,’ she whispered. ‘We were forced to flee.’

  There was a five-second pause before Shannon’s head lifted from her hands, and stared at Ewan with watery eyes.

  ‘My father knew who you were, thanks to your friend Daniel,’ she continued. ‘Before we left, Anthony used thermal imaging to look for you. We found active bodies in a disused health centre, and just assumed it was you. I even printed out the list of your names to show McCormick you were in danger. But when we got there, we found a completely different group who had no interest in fighting. They realised they were detectable, and planned to pack up their things and evacuate up north. But my father found them the same way we did. Maybe a few days from now, he’ll find you too.’

  ‘He won’
t,’ answered Ewan, ‘not if he’s relying on thermal vision. Trust me.’

  Shannon lifted her head, her face full of tears.

  ‘So what happens now?’ she asked as Ewan rose to his feet.

  ‘Right now,’ he said, walking to the door, ‘I’m going to clean my arm, then have a drink for my dead friend. When everything calms down, I’ll tell the others about you.’

  ‘…And then?’

  ‘Then they’ll realise how useful you are. My rucksack’s full of your father’s plans, and you could be the key to stopping all of them. You’ve already struck a nice blow against him, Shannon. Might as well finish him off.’

  Ewan opened the door to the hallway, and was halfway out before her voice stopped him.

  ‘You’re a good man, Ewan.’

  He turned around, puzzled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I see the same look in your face as the one I grew up with,’ Shannon continued with the hint of a smile. ‘The look people have when they believe they’re defective or useless. When they’re taught to believe it.’

  It was Ewan’s turn to be silent.

  ‘You have every reason to hate me. Your friend’s dead and I’m the daughter of the guy who made it happen. But instead, you sat next to me and told me nothing would change. It takes a special kind of strength to do that.’

  The daughter of Nicholas Grant lay down on the bed, relaxed and at home in Spitfire’s Rise.

  ‘You’re not defective, Ewan,’ she continued. ‘You’re not broken. You’re not the wrong kind of person. And don’t let anyone in this world tell you otherwise. You and your friends are exactly who they’re meant to be.’

  Ewan could not bring himself to smile, but he took the time to reply.

  ‘The world’s about to see who we really are,’ he finished, before closing the clinic door and heading downstairs to celebrate Charlie’s birthday.

  The

  are returning.

  For the latest updates about Part Two in the Underdogs saga, visit the Unbound website at unbound.com, or the author’s website at chrisbonnello.com.

  Read on for an exclusive extract…

  Prologue

  With a swipe of his keycard and a green LED, Iain Marshall was granted access to the Experiment Chamber. Inside, he found that his allies had beaten him to it. New London’s Head of Military had arrived third, behind its Chief of Scientific Research and a fourteen-year-old assassin.

  ‘Evening, Iain,’ said Nathaniel Pearce with shallow sarcasm. It was not evening at all – barely seven in the morning – but Pearce took every opportunity to point out his colleague’s faults, including lateness. Oliver Roth smirked, his menacing visage blending with the tiredness in his eyes.

  ‘Is the subject ready?’ Marshall asked, spotting the figure behind the glass.

  ‘He doesn’t look it,’ replied Pearce. ‘Not that it matters.’

  Marshall took a closer look at the clone inside the chamber. He may have been a manufactured collection of factory-grown flesh and organs, but the emotions on his face seemed very real. He showed signs of nervousness and suspicion, clueless as to why he was armed to the teeth with an assault rifle, holstered handguns, grenades and a belt full of hunting knives. Especially since the Experiment Chamber around him was almost empty, hosting little more than a pair of stone pillars that stretched to the ceiling, positioned a metre apart in the centre of the room.

  Marshall glanced to his left. Oliver Roth was impatient, his back leant against the wall and his foot tapping an erratic beat on the metal floor. Nathaniel Pearce wore his usual creepy smile, perhaps a little too entertained by his own work.

  Marshall hid a scowl. As brutal as he knew himself to be, he was no sadist. Complex work was better performed without personal emotions getting in the way, and Pearce’s enthusiasm was more likely to blunt his effectiveness than add to it.

  ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ asked Roth.

  ‘We’re four months ahead of schedule,’ Pearce replied. ‘You can wait another minute.’

  Don’t say that like you’re proud of it, Marshall thought towards him. If it weren’t for Ewan West stealing our plans from that officers’ sector, Nick wouldn’t have ordered you to speed up the AME research. Dr McCormick and his special needs kids have had three weeks to plan their next move.

  Special needs kids. It may have been true, but Marshall used the phrase to insult his enemies rather than underestimate them. After all, they had lasted almost a year outside the Citadel without detection, and three weeks earlier they had burned New London’s clone factory to the ground. Thanks to them the ageing clone population was in decline, propped up only by imported soldiers from other Citadels.

  The phone rang at the side of the desk. Before Pearce could pick up the handset, Marshall pushed the speakerphone button to allow himself and Roth into the discussion too.

  ‘Experiment Chamber,’ he said.

  ‘Iain,’ came a lively voice through the speaker.

  It was the voice of Nicholas Grant.

  ‘Morning, sir.’

  ‘Looks to me like you’re ready. Commence the experiment, gentlemen.’

  ‘You’re not coming down here?’

  ‘Floor F’s too low for me. The view on my screen is perfect.’

  Oliver Roth leaned over the desk and laughed into the microphone.

  ‘Hey Nick,’ he said, ‘I bet you wish Shannon were here for this!’

  ‘My daughter made her decisions,’ Grant answered. ‘Now she can live with them.’

  Marshall looked to his side. Pearce had an amused grin which he could not interpret.

  ‘Now, if you please,’ Grant finished.

  Marshall glared at Pearce, who nodded and pushed a button. The CCTV cameras around them began to record the proceedings.

  ‘Eight minutes past seven,’ announced Pearce, ‘May sixteenth, Year One. Final phase of practical experimentation underway. Atmospheric Metallurgic Excitation, research trial twenty-six. Commencing.’

  Marshall retrieved the radio from his belt, and spoke to the clone behind the glass.

  ‘Soldier,’ he began, ‘move to the other end of the room. At jogging speed, passing between the pillars.’

  The clone stared towards the shielded humans, perhaps trying to ask his superiors why. When none of them gave any reaction, he turned his head forward again, knowing that his only option was obedience. He ran for about ten metres, weighed down by his excessive weaponry, before passing between the two stone pillars.

  He didn’t live long enough to notice what happened next.

  The slow-motion replay would later show the air rippling around him, as if he had run through a vertical surface of water. The previously blank space between the pillars turned crimson and wavy when touched. The clone’s head, the first part of him through, was unaffected by the waves. But his fate was sealed as his metal equipment followed.

  The space between the stone pillars burst into action with tiny lightning shards, which attacked the metal in the clone’s grasp: his assault rifle and handguns, his grenades, the belt buckle and hunting knives, and the fronts of his steel-capped boots.

  At regular viewing speed the dozens of explosions seemed instantaneous, as every metallic item around the clone’s body was detonated by the red barrier. The shrapnel from his firearms and blades ripped through his limbs, sending his extremities across the room and his artificial blood splattering across the chamber floor. His right hand slapped the bullet-resistant glass in front of Marshall, causing a hysterical laugh from Oliver Roth. As the clone’s torn remains fell to the ground, no more than a collection of carved meat, the rippling red curtain faded back into invisibility as if nothing had happened.

  Bloody hell, thought Marshall, grudgingly impressed. As much as he despised Nathaniel Pearce, his colleague had surpassed himself this time. AME had once been a crackpot idea from the depths of Nicholas Grant’s imagination, but somehow Nathaniel Pearce had brought it into the realm of reality: an invisible
wall of energised air that destroyed anything forged from metal.

  ‘Sir,’ Marshall asked into the microphone, ‘are you happy?’

  Nicholas Grant’s discreet laughter answered the question for him. To Marshall’s side, Pearce was grinning twice as wide as before, and Oliver Roth was bouncing on his toes with an excited smile.

  ‘Happy is one word for it, certainly,’ replied Grant. ‘Can you confirm that AME can be reproduced on a much larger scale?’

  ‘Everything we understand about the laws of physics tells me it should be. If it works for a square metre, it’ll work for a square mile. And if it works for a square mile–’

  ‘And are we still on target to achieve this within four days?’

  Grant’s attachment to May twentieth continues to make his decisions for him, Marshall thought to himself.

  ‘Yes,’ finished Pearce. ‘It’ll be done within four days, rendering us invincible forever. Happy anniversary, sir.’

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