The Dark Wild

by Piers Torday

  I clutch Polly’s bag with the Iris book close to my chest.

  *Be still,* orders the stag. *Learn to be still like me, and they will not see us.*

  It is true. He has come to a complete stop in a cluster of trees and bushes, standing still as one of the old park statues, every muscle as taut as a violin string beneath me. One on each shoulder, the cockroach and mouse are motionless too, antennae and whiskers tickling my neck.

  *It’s still a dance,* the mouse hisses. *The Dance of Stillness.*

  Their breathing is controlled and steady. I try to copy them, but it’s hard.

  *Close your eyes,* says the stag. *Imagine you are not even here.*

  I close my eyes. I try to be more like an animal. An animal hiding in the bushes in a park. How many birds, foxes and squirrels have done exactly what I’m doing now, as walkers and their dogs went past before, none the wiser?

  I can feel the soft air from the trees clustered around us, their woody smell. And I can feel the yellow light from a bike, flooding through my closed eyelids, passing across us all.

  I hold my breath.

  The bike hums just on the other side of the trees, like it is thinking. Then the machine crawls on along the path, searching other trees and bushes.

  My shoulders sink as I breathe out, but the stag snaps, *Stay still! They will be back!*

  And they are. Reversing with a whine, turning to face us, the yellow lights spreading full across us. They must have seen, they must have. I can hear the boots of the cullers as they dismount and what sounds like them unclipping something from the side of the bike.

  Softly they tread up the slope towards us, crunching on scattered dry leaves and twigs. Parting the bush branches so carefully, as if they were made of tissue and glue and could fall apart at any moment, I see a dark figure squeeze through the gaps. I can hear his breathing; he must be able to hear mine.

  Two feet planted right in front of us. A dart gun raised to a shoulder.

  *Now!* says the stag, leaping into him, knocking him back with his hoofs, racing through the bushes, not caring how many branches whip and scratch us, as he knocks their bike over too, and we’re running down the hill, their shouts echoing around us.

  Then the roar of the bike spreads out across the deserted park. A roar so loud and so mad I feel it will blow the cobwebs off the statues and the drift of leaves out of the dry fountain and the rust off the slowly creaking swing.

  But it doesn’t matter.

  Because we are running faster than the wind, disappearing into the night before it even touches us.

  Littleman is sat in a salvaged helicopter seat, which squeaks every time he moves like it’s in pain. The shelves on the wall behind him are stuffed with the mechanical guts of cars: the oily ribcages of half-dismembered engines, jars of cogs and gears, boxes full of circuit boards.

  Even though the thick clouds gathered above the Waste Mountain are keeping everything in here at a sweltering temperature, the leader of the gang has a small gas heater, making all of us crowded into his shack drip with sweat.

  The child-man in the sun hat turns his bike horn over in his hands, thinking. Then he looks once again down into his lap, at the pages of scrawled notes I made at home before we left.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ he says. ‘You say some squirrels stopped the formula train, rather than you.’ Parp! He peers at me from under his drooping hat. Aida, leaning against the scaffolding pole doorway behind me, shifts from foot to foot. ‘You say that they were rescuing the wolves discovered in the formula train.’

  Parp!

  The wolf-cub, lying at his feet, turns and twists his head sadly at me. I bite my lip. I have not yet told him the lies his mother told in the Underearth, what she said about her own cub. I am not sure I ever will.

  ‘That those same wolves chased my dog into the tunnel, and that when you pursued them you found out they were in fact following him, into a secret cave miles below, full of all the disappeared animals from the city. Who are planning to take it back and kill us all.’

  Kind of.

  ‘So now you have come back to us, your non-existent tail between your legs, having run away – for what exactly?’ He pulls at the metal chain chafing at the wolf-cub’s neck, secured to one of the scaffolding poles. ‘To rescue your friend here?’

  Parp!

  ‘Then what, I wonder …?’

  He crouches down by the gas heater. One by one, he takes the notes and feeds them into the grill. The wolf-cub shies away in alarm, but he can’t move far because of the chain.

  The notes spark, flame and crumble into ash on the filthy floor. Littleman watches them burn, the fire flickering in his eyes. Then he turns to face us all, his shiny face red with heat.

  ‘I know! You want our help now, is that it? To stop my dog murdering thousands of us in our beds?’

  He grins at all the children packed round the shack, and they titter back. The grin vanishes as quickly as it came.

  ‘I mean, my dear – apart from the fact I’ve never heard such a load of absolute cobblers in all my life – why should we even begin to believe you? I let you make off with my young associate here on some ill-fated caper to hold Facto to ransom. I gave you my trust. And yet all that happens is more animals keep turning up, wherever you go. Wolves that ate our formula. Then you stole my one animal and a bike. You don’t return either of those, but instead reappear at my door with more illegal animals. Worst of all, there is still no sign of the Iris. Which, if I recall, was where we began.’

  Glaring at him, I reach into Polly’s bag at my feet and pull out the battered black leather notebook.

  He grasps it in his wrinkled hand. ‘What’s this? A book?’ Littleman says it like he’s never seen one before, thumbing through the pages right through to the end, peering at some of Polly’s drawings, flicking backwards and forwards. He turns his nose up before offering it back. ‘Very pretty, but not for me.’

  I try to stop my hands from trembling as I take the precious book.

  Littleman leaps up, jutting his chin in my face. ‘I’ll tell you why that’s not the Iris, my friend.’ He looks around the room. ‘The Iris is the greatest prize in the world. A thing of immense value. Not a child’s book of drawings. You still don’t know what the Iris is, do you?’

  But that is where he is wrong, so very wrong. My time in Dad’s lab, and reading his books, was not wasted.

  For a moment Littleman’s gaze flickers, but it’s only fora second and then he claps his hands together, rubbing them with glee. ‘Well, my dear, why don’t you tell us then?’

  Everyone in the crowded, junk-filled shack turns to stare at me. 123, Eric and the others. On all their faces I see the hunger to know what the Iris is. But Aida is the only one to speak. ‘You know, he right. You have a lot to answer for. I don’t like it when people run away from me.’ She comes right up close. And I can’t believe it, but are those tears in her eyes? ‘Do you have any idea what the Iris means? When you have only one thing to believe in, one thing that could make any of this –’ she gestures to the walls groaning with rubbish – ‘better? So make this good, or else.’

  I feel my face go pale, and swallow. The meaner she is to me, the more I want to impress her.

  I can’t speak. I don’t have pictures that can appear on an ultrascreen at the click of a finger. There isn’t time to write this down. I only have the memory of a game Mum and Dad and I used to play in the winter sometimes.

  So, the light from the gas fire throwing big shadows against the canvas walls of the shack, I step forward and tell them everything I know.

  I draw pictures in the air, of what Littleman told me before, and what I already knew. Polly’s parents collecting bones and fossils. The bones and fossils I saw in their library, stored in dusty bottles and jars – like the one full of gear cogs on his shelf, that I grab now, emptying it on to the floor.

  I hold up the empty jar, and the General dives in from my shoulder to complete the illustratio
n. The remains of insects the Goodacres saved while the virus was rampaging around them. And not just fossilized insects, but bones from animals that I point at now – like the wolf-cub.

  Remains that they didn’t just store, but noted and examined.

  Down to the last microscopic detail.

  The tiny building blocks of life itself, that made up every single creature stolen from the world by the virus and the cullers. Polly’s parents must have collected their remains so carefully until they had enough. From cows to chickens, owls to otters, hawks to hedgehogs, badgers to bees.

  I know exactly what the Iris is.

  I made sure before I set foot in here again.

  I loosen my scarf and unzip my jacket, to show the T-shirt I painted myself, sitting on Polly’s empty bed, using a mixture of soil and water I know she would have approved of.

  Just three letters. Three letters that, like the dots in the notebook, contain everything we’ve lost. Everything we could have again.

  DNA

  I pored over Dad’s books, following where he had underlined and highlighted sections. Many of those sections had lists of numbers like the ones in Polly’s book, that looked like more codes. I discovered that the Iris numbers look like a code because they are a code. A genetic code – one for every animal, bird, insect and fish that we have lost.

  But perhaps if we have their DNA, we haven’t lost them forever.

  Perhaps we could bring them back.

  The air in the shack under the rubbish dome is thick and warm. I mop my forehead and give a little bow, but no one claps.

  Parp … Parp … Parp! Instead Littleman gives three short blasts of his horn and runs his finger across his top lip. ‘Well, I never. You quite sure of this?’

  He sounds almost disappointed. When it is clearly THE MOST AMAZING THING IN THE WORLD. The old-young man laughs at my expression. ‘I mean, you’re not as stupid as you look, boy, I’ll give you that. It’s just … not exactly what I was expecting.’ He rubs his hands and there is a little twinkle in his bloodshot eyes. ‘And you’re absolutely sure there’s no mention of any valuable weapon?’

  Aida grabs the notebook out of my hand, glowering at him. ‘Don’t you see? Of course it’s a weapon. The best one against Facto there is. Bring the animals and fruit and vegetables back, they lose their power like that! Boom!’

  Her boss throws his hands up in the air. ‘Aida, my sweet. You’re a genius! If this boy is right, where would Mr Stone and his Facto and his formula be? Gone, that’s where! Banished to the back of beyond.’ Littleman pauses for a moment, thinking, a far-off look in his eyes. ‘The world would have animals again, we would have normal food once more and perhaps –’ he stands up and tightens his sun hat around his chin – ‘someone more responsible and caring could be put in charge this time.’

  Food. It always comes back to food with the grownups. Never just the animals.

  ‘So now what?’ she says, still scowling.

  ‘A very good point, my sweet, succinctly put as usual. There’s just one problem.’ He taps at the book with his grubby trainer. ‘This might be the code, if young Jaynes here is right in his deductions. But how do we actually bring the animals back? How do we realize the value?’ Littleman hops over, clenching my neck, whispering stale formula breath in my ear again. ‘You’re not that clever though, are you, my dear?’ He looks meanly at my animal friends. ‘And I very much doubt you know anyone who is.’

  Parp!

  But that’s where he’s so very wrong.

  He looks at me, a smile of realization slowly creeping over his face. ‘Oh, but you do, of course! How foolish of me.’ Littleman picks up an electric cattle prod off the floor, making it fizz and hum. He licks his finger and dabs it in between the sparks, enjoying the shock that ripples up his arm ‘But that would also be extremely dangerous, would it not?’

  Aida looks fearful for the first time since I’ve known her. ‘I don’t get it.’

  I take her hands and she tries to snatch them back, but I hold them firm. I can’t do this without her. Because, slowly, as her hands tighten round mine, I see she understands.

  ‘No way – are you crazy?’

  Maybe. But I also have the Iris. A code that could restart the world. A code that could show the dark wild how humans can be good. A code that only two people in the world understand.

  And we’re going to break them out of the Four Towers.

  PART 5: THE FOUR TOWERS

  Premium is so full of constant noise that it feels like the whispering from the Underearth has already erupted on to the surface. But there are no foxes or rats to be seen, just people and traffic swelling on to the streets under a stormy sky.

  A sky that seems to have turned the day into night, with clouds that have nearly blocked out all the light. They look more like they are made out of coal dust than rain drops.

  But it frightens me more when I can’t see clouds.

  Because then all I can see is the tiniest thumbnail sliver of moon disappearing into darkness. I know what will happen when it vanishes completely, who will come from the ground below …

  Which is why it’s all the more important that we get the Iris to Polly and her parents right now.

  Sweat pours down our faces as we weave our way through the backstreets, over the bridge and along the far bank of the River Ams.

  What the animals would call a fish-road now smells of chemicals and machines. We move along metal walkways that sway and clank underneath us, lit by swinging lamps which shouldn’t need to be on at this time of the afternoon. To our right, an abandoned barge lies beached on a muddy bank, seaweed trails weeping out of its porthole eyes. Above, a rusting crane creaks in the breeze.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ mutters Aida. ‘It too quiet.’

  Ahead, our destination rises into view. The walkways fade away into gleaming steel fences that run right down to the waterline.

  Four black chimneys that look like upside-down table legs loom high above a giant smoke-stained brick factory, built around a central glass dome. Red warning lights flicker down the sides of the towers, and bundles of razor wire cover the perimeter fences.

  Behind them, and encircling the Four Towers like a moat, are parking lots floodlit by security lamps. Purple formula lorries, culler vans and patrol bikes shine in row after neat row.

  We’re not attacking just yet. Littleman thought, again, that would be too dangerous. ‘Why do you children never consider the potential cost of these jaunts?’ he muttered. Then he went into his shack on his own for a while, before coming out in a much better mood, rubbing his hands. ‘A compromise, my dears! Perhaps you and Aida should mount a little reconnaissance mission first? See if you can find us an affordable way into the Facto fortress. And by affordable, I mean cheap. And by cheap, I mean – don’t lose any more bikes.’

  A wind is blowing along the river now, ruffling the water up into little quiffs. Either the banks are lower here or the river has grown deeper; it laps over the edge, splashing us. I have never known weather like this, feeling warm and cold at the same time – and I loosen the scarf drawn tight around my neck.

  Aida stops her bike to look out across the choppy waves. There are no more abandoned boats or cranes now, but sleek warehouses dropping straight to the river’s edge, revolving camera eyes on every corner.

  I shrink away from the cameras, but she grips my shoulder tight. ‘Littleman take care of all that. He playing some very different footage into those cameras, OK? Now listen. It’s time I told you something you don’t know about me.’

  She points over to the other side of the road, at a shadowy hulk of a building squatting opposite the Facto front gates. A deserted-looking block of flats with identical doors and windows running behind long balconies. ‘We used to live here. My mother and me. It wasn’t much, but it home.’ She looks at the empty balcony for a moment. ‘Now all it good for is spying. We watch them towers from here and find a way in.’

  We push on towards the a
bandoned flats, dimming our bike lights just to be sure. The wind blowing across the water grows stronger as she carries on with her story.

  ‘My mother and me, we make each other happy. She my friend too. My real best friend, you understand?’ She turns and stares, waiting until I nod. ‘Mum a teacher, but also a journalist. Telling stories, she called it, only real ones. About people, the world around her, about companies.’

  She lets the last word hang in the air. ‘Not that it made her much money. I just went to school, did what I was told. Till she got a big story one day.’

  In front of the flats is a dead lawn, all mud and moss. We cycle carefully across it, trying not to slip. She seems to know just where she’s going and doesn’t even glance at the faded sign:

  MAYDOOR ESTATE

  ‘It was a real big story,’ she says, as we bounce our bikes up a dank stairwell. ‘About Facto. Said she always thought they were up to no good. They took over so much after the red-eye. Mum always checking them out, but she never got much. “Squeaky clean,” she said.’

  The stairs lead on to one of the long walkways, a row of silent doors and windows ahead of us. We look out at the Four Towers, the blinking red lights, the sharp fences. Then we lay our bikes on the ground and crouch down behind the parapet.

  ‘Things changed when they took over this place,’ says Aida, whispering now. ‘About six years ago.’

  When I got sent to Spectrum Hall for no reason. When they locked Dad up in his basement for trying to find a cure.

  ‘They bought up these old towers and all the land next to them. Including our home, this place right here. Stone said it was for the good of the country and all that, that they needed privacy and security for all their “scientific research”. Mum wasn’t having any of it. She started digging.’

  Aida’s eyes are fierce and bright in the reflected warning lights across the way.

  ‘And one day she found something. She came home and told me, excited, but frightened too. “The story of a lifetime,” she said. About what was really happening in the Four Towers. It wasn’t just an office. It wasn’t just a formula warehouse. It was something else –’