by Leyland, L J
Edie, however, hesitated. She looked back over her shoulder at Regina who was oblivious to everything that was happening. She was trapped in her own world of false memories; stuck in the labyrinthine maze of her mind, seeking a way through the dead ends, wrong turns, and planted decoys to find the truth. She winced as she massaged her temples and tried to form words that came out as jumbled sounds.
Suddenly, one sound made sense. ‘Grimshaw,’ she whispered.
‘What was that?’ I asked, turning around to face her.
‘Dylan Grimshaw,’ she muttered.
‘Grimmy, yes!’ I cried. ‘Grimmy, Regina! You remembered.’
I shook her by her arms as though to clear the last remaining bits of fog in her brain.
‘Dylan …’ she said again and I clapped my hand over my mouth to stop from laughing with joy.
I gently embraced her. ‘Yes, Regina, Grimmy. Think hard. Remember the Redmans.’
‘Maida, we have to go!’ cried Edie, dancing from one foot to another.
We scuttled through the window just as the door opened. A tall, blond man in a dark suit walked in. Luckily his attention was stolen by the sight of Regina trembling on the floor so he didn’t see my leg swing over the sill and onto the ledge. We heard Regina scream as he approached her.
‘What have you done to me?’ she cried.
‘Regina, my love –’ he started but the sound of a slap cut him off. ‘Subdue her,’ he said coldly.
We heard dozens of booted feet rush into the room and Regina cried out no more. I held my breath as we slid down the drainpipe, one by one. Edie almost yelped when she fell a few feet from the ground but I picked her up, dusted her off and held my finger to her lips.
Aiden motioned for us to follow him along the line of the building until we came within striking distance of a group of trees. It was reassuring to see him take a lead role so confidently. Perhaps I didn’t have to be worried about the way he was turning out. Perhaps I’d raised him better than I thought. He turned to smile sheepishly at me as we ran under the cover of the trees.
‘Well done,’ I mouthed at him.
He blushed. ‘Just doing what I’ve seen you do before.’
Under the cover of the trees, we reached the fence. It was lined with wickedly sharp razor wire but the old branches of the trees hung most obligingly over to the other side. Honestly, did these stupid Parrots know nothing about security? Or were they just so arrogant that they thought no-one would dare challenge them? Either way, they had made it easy for us.
‘Where are we heading?’ asked Edie once we had all dropped down to the other side. ‘We can’t go back to Matthias’s grandmother’s house. They will come looking for us.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘we’re not alone. Edie, how would you like to meet some Highlanders?’
Chapter Thirty-four
The living room of the houseboat had become our war cabinet room. The main core of war planners consisted of myself, Fergus, Mhareen, Edie, and Aiden. The Highland warriors mostly stayed in the woods, building fires, practising battle moves, setting up camp, finding food, awaiting instructions from us. I poured some tea and sat down at the table. Mhareen had spread papers covered in scribbles of writing across the surface. There was also a rough sketch of the Complex blueprint that I had drawn out from memory. Fergus had managed to sneak into town and find out as much information as possible about the set-up for the coronation ceremony which was due to happen tomorrow at 10 a.m. That didn’t leave us much time.
OK,’ I said, putting my mug of tea on the floor to make sure it didn’t spill over our important papers. ‘First things first. I know half of our team is still being held at the Complex but they are relying on us to finish what we started. Therefore, I think it’s best if we carry on with the original plan. We need to find the tapes to play at the ceremony tomorrow rather than worrying about busting them out of the Complex tonight.’
‘We’re just going to leave them to rot there?’ asked Edie.
My head pulsed with guilt and fatigue. ‘No, it’s not like that. It’s just that it’ll be easier to get to them at the ceremony because they will be taken out of their cells. They’ll be standing out in the open. We can burst onto the stage, take the Mayor hostage, show the tapes, and then escape with them once the rebellion starts. It makes sense. We can’t risk sending people into the Complex tonight to get them out. They might get caught and we can’t afford to lose anyone else. Besides, there’s no way that I’m letting the Mayor get away with this. People need to know about the Flood. They need to know what danger they’re in with the fracking.’
Edie couldn’t look me in the eye. She twiddled a piece of ribbon in her fingers and hung her head. I waited for her to get what she was thinking off her chest. ‘What if they kill them before tomorrow?’ she finally asked.
I remembered Noah’s face the last time I saw him. It was deathly white as though he was already dead, as if all the blood had been drained from his body. The Mayor had already killed him from the inside; torn apart his family, killed his cousin Flora, taken his freedom. What more would it take to finish Noah off? If we let this chance go, if we let the Mayor off the hook and didn’t finish what we had started, I had no doubt that would be the end of Noah. It had to be done. If we didn’t do this, what would be the point in living anyway? He said it himself. He just couldn’t go on living that way.
My whole body ached to be with him but I knew that I had to resist trying to find him tonight. I knew that this would be what he wanted me to do. He would want me to carry on with the plan. ‘They won’t kill them before tomorrow,’ I said, my heart banging against the bones in my chest.
‘Aye, they’ve built a gallows. Seems like they’re expecting a bit of a show,’ said Fergus.
It felt as though my heart might explode out of my chest and I’d die right there on the floor. It took a huge effort to pull my thoughts back into the present.
‘What does the set up look like?’ I asked.
Fergus let out a low whistle. ‘Well, they’ve built a stage on the green outside the Complex. There are three thrones on there and a huge television screen behind them as the backdrop. The Metropole’s symbol is projected onto it. There’s wooden and metal rigging on either side with electric lights hanging from them and more screens. I’ve never seen such equipment since the Flood. Half of your townsfolk are gathered there, staring like an alien has landed. On the left of the stage, they’ve built a six-person gallows.’
I shuddered and reached for my tea, as if to show I was shivering from cold, not fear. ‘Right. We need to get to Noah’s family before they use it. What do you think they will do with Matthias and Grimmy?’
‘I don’t think they’ll kill them,’ said Edie. ‘They know the townsfolk don’t like it when they kill one of their own. They’ll think it OK to kill Noah and his family because everyone hates the Bluebloods. I think they’ll hold Grimmy and Matthias up as an example of rebels who have turned pro-Metropole.’
‘But they haven’t turned pro-Metropole,’ I said.
‘People say anything under torture,’ she replied.
I swallowed down a feeling of nausea. My eyes closed as I fought back tears.
Aiden squeezed my hand and said, ‘You need to carry on.’
I nodded and took a deep breath. ‘OK. Is there any way onto the stage?’
‘Aye, it’s wide open. No protection from what I can see. Presumably they’ll have Parrots around it when it starts but a load of trees overhang right near it and it backs onto the Complex gates. I’m sure we could find a way on.’
I grimaced. ‘It’s just like them. You know why they’re not even cautious at all? Because they know what they’ve done to us. They know that they have beaten and stamped the fight right out of us.’
‘Well, that’s not strictly true now, love, is it? You’ve been beaten but the fight’s still there,’ said Mhareen kindly.
‘I need to find those tapes quickly. We’ve haven’t got mu
ch time until sundown and the ceremony is at ten tomorrow.’
‘Do you have any leads?’ asked Aiden.
I sighed and tried to remember what Noah had told me. ‘He said that the last words Iris had used before she was banished was, “They’re buried where the earth splits.”’
‘Where the earth splits?’ repeated Aiden.
‘A well? A cave?’ suggested Edie.
‘Hmm … maybe. I think it will have to be somewhere on the Mayor’s estates because Iris couldn’t leave the grounds. Noah said he’d looked everywhere but they must be there somewhere.’
I sighed and the papers shook as I thumped the table. ‘This was the whole point of bringing Iris back, so she could tell us where the tapes were hidden. So she could confront the Mayor on the stage with it. Now she’s bloody being held captive like a poacher in a man-trap. What was the point in wasting all the time going to the Highlands if she can’t help us out? Why the hell didn’t I ask her whilst I had the chance?’
Mhareen picked up my tea and forced it into my hand, presumably to stop me flailing around so much. ‘We’ll figure it out, my love.’ Her fingers soothed the tension from my shoulders and I slumped into the rocking chair. I rocked violently, trying to dissipate some of my frustration.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
Fergus ground his teeth at the noise but refrained from yelling at me.
‘Maybe it’s somewhere where the Metropolites were drilling down? You know, what Noah said about them testing out that new method here?’ said Mhareen.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Drilling down? The new method? Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. The sound and movement of the rocking chair made the floor vibrate and tremor. Wolf’s old ball trembled across the floor with every thud. It was as though an earthquake was moving it along.
That’s it! An earthquake! The fog of uncertainty lifted and I suddenly knew where they were. ‘Mhareen! You’re a genius! Remember Noah mentioned something about the fracking causing an earthquake? Remember how he said that it flattened a few houses, killed a few people, and caused a massive rift down the centre of one of the Mayor’s deer parks?’
Mhareen’s face split into a smile. ‘Clever girl,’ she said affectionately. ‘How many warriors do you need as back up?’
‘Not too many, don’t want to draw attention to us. Maybe four? No antlers, though.’
Within the hour, we were stealing through the woods, making our way to the deer park. I had made this journey a few times before when my hunger was so great that I thought I was being eaten by my own stomach from the inside out. I’d spied on the deer, watching their every move. But in the end, I was too much of a coward to do it. Poaching deer was treason and in times of near-famine, the Parrots were extra cautious and extra brutal. Punishment for poachers was swift and harsh; the fleeting ecstasy of juicy venison was not worth the slow, drawn-out punishment that would inevitably follow.
The warriors smiled when we made out the noble silhouette of antlered beasts in the moonlight. I could see them grow physically stronger and taller at the sight of them. The deer gave them confidence and their husks of fear fell right off them. The rift tore the land in two. The earthquake must’ve been incredibly powerful to cause the earth to tear as easily as paper. Imagine what damage a massive deep-sea earthquake could do. I pushed my worries about the Arctic fracking to the back of my mind and focused on the task at hand.
We scurried to the crack and lowered ourselves in, six foot deep.
‘Where will they be buried?’ asked a warrior.
I scanned the area. Twisted tree roots were exposed and provided decent cover for a buried package. There were also smaller fissures that might be worth investigating, too. I turned to the right. A small pond, more of a giant puddle really, had gathered in a nook between some tree roots and the remains of a small landslide. By the tree roots, striving out of the mud, irises were growing. Their dusky green stems stood tall, their purple and yellow heads bowed but beautiful. They were the perfect flower for Brigadus. Unfussy, tall, and simple but able to blossom in difficult conditions.
‘There. The tapes are there, I know it,’ I said.
My hands reached into the knot of tree roots next to the clump of flowers. Cold metal iced my hands and I pulled out a small box. The dial spun as I touched it and the lid sprang open with a satisfying click. There, inside, lay one tiny microchip. It was the size of a diamond but so much more valuable. It was worth more than I could say. Such an unassuming item but with the power to change everything we knew. We had done it. This was the evidence we needed. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow to come.
Chapter Thirty-five
The sun rose half-heartedly, as it struggled to begin its difficult task of shedding light on this murky corner of the world. Edie, Aiden, the Highlanders, and I lined up along the edge of the marshes, facing the green. We’d been there since first light. We watched the nocturnal creatures stumble home before the morning sun exposed them, like drinkers stumbling home from Nora’s.
Early-morning Parrots were making last-minute adjustments to the stage and I spied on them with my binoculars. I watched a Parrot make his way up the wooden rig to the left of the stage and enter a little booth filled with technical equipment. The Metropole symbol that had been occupying the big screen changed to show a moving picture of the dead Imperial Monarch smiling beatifically and waving. This then changed to show a video of the new Monarch striding through a crowd of clapping and adoring Metropolites. The new Monarch … Regina’s husband. My father? His face was strong and intelligent but he had a politician’s mask – a smile reserved for the public which didn’t quite reach his eyes. Edie’s hand was as small as a cat’s paw as she reached for mine. I gently traced the outline of her fingers and told her that it would be OK. Her pulse beat against her tiny wrist.
A Parrot standing on the stage gave the technical man in the booth a thumbs-up sign and the picture of the Monarch disappeared. The Metropole symbol returned. The smaller screens hung on the rig were to show the reaction of the crowd as they watched the big screen. Machines with huge telescopic lenses that I could only assume were television cameras were dotted about the stage and amongst the crowd. Other parts of the Empire weren’t as neglected as we were and were equipped with electricity, oil, gas, running water, and televisions. When I was younger I hated the fact that we were denied this magical invention but as I got older I appreciated that we were considered too savage to have it. It meant that we were spared the cultural and political brainwashing that other people in the Empire were force fed. We heard from illegal Europa traders that it bombarded them day and night; ensuring that nationality, culture, and family allegiances were trumped by a devotion to the Metropole. Only state programmes were shown and something as important as this would be compulsory viewing for all parts of the Empire. It’s how they created the Metropole culture – fatten the geese on state grain so they are too bloated and content to look elsewhere for food.
‘Are we ready to do this?’ I asked my troops.
The warriors laughed and one said, ‘You don’t have to ask a Highlander if he’s ready. We’re always ready.’
‘Edie? Aiden? You know the plan?’
They nodded. Aiden’s face was screwed up in fierce determination whilst Edie was trembling. It was as though Aiden had been greedy in the womb and stolen his sister’s share of resolve, whilst she had taken his share of sensitivity. It would be much better if they had shared each quality out equally, fifty-fifty. They would be much rounder people that way. But maybe it was meant to be this way. They were each half a person and could only be completed by each other. Their faces were cherubically rounded and I leant in to kiss their foreheads.
‘Be safe. Be cautious. Look after each other,’ I said.
‘What about you?’ whispered Edie.
I paused. ‘I can look after myself.’
Chapter Thirty-six
The crowd heaved with the force of a stampede, but bounded in on all sides by a wall of Parrots, there was no
where for them to stampede to. Instead, the crowd surged and rushed like a flood against a dam. They flowed to the edge of the stage and recoiled as one when Parrots began shouting, ‘Back, back! Move back, you worms!’
Wearing my hood as a disguise, I worked my way into the thick of the swell and kept my eyes firmly on the stage. The Highland warriors were surrounding me like lions encircling a cub, protecting me and shielding me from view. There was a gasp as a man got a Highlander elbow in his face.
‘Oi! Watch it you clumsy oaf! Who do you –’ The man quailed as the warrior drew himself up to his full height. ‘Oh … erm … sorry, I don’t want no trouble.’ The man melted away into the crowd and nearby people shot frightened glances our way.
‘Stay inconspicuous,’ I growled.
A blare of pompous brass music burst from the speakers. The crowd lost its collective voice and became still with fear. The sharp, brassy sounds made prickles of dread sweep over my skin. My heart provided a bass drum accompaniment to the music. Claustrophobia closed in on me; the crowd was just too intense for me to get enough air and I jostled the Highlanders to try to get some more room.
From the far corner of the stage, a collection of military suited men entered. They each bowed to the symbol of the Metropole that was projected onto the screen. They carried the invented symbols of the Metropole’s superiority – a golden mace, an orb and sceptre, a sword of state. The men carried them with a reverential air. These items were meant to signify all that was important to us but to me, they meant nothing at all. How stupid were these men? Did they not know their audience at all? The Brigadus people would’ve been much more impressed if the men had been carrying a fishing rod, a butcher’s knife, and a smoking pipe. Those were symbols they could understand. Those were symbols that were important. At least those items were useful and key to our survival. But an orb and sceptre? What on earth had that to do with us? I shook my head at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
