The System

by Gemma Malley

  ‘Found it,’ Frankie said triumphantly. ‘Come on, Glen.’

  ‘Yes, found it,’ Evie said, pulling at the handle, her voice barely disguising the irritation she felt. With Frankie. With Raffy, for making her look stupid.

  Glen, apparently doing his best not to notice the hostility between the girls, surveyed the door. Evie and Frankie stepped aside. He kicked it, pulled the handle, rattled it against its locks. Then he frowned. ‘Anyone seen a battering ram lying around?’ he muttered under his breath.

  Evie scanned the horizon. Then, as Glen and Frankie started to kick in tandem, she remembered the metal that had cut her fingers. It was half buried in the ground; a bent piece of metal. Perhaps it was part of something bigger, Evie thought to herself as she ran back and scraped around it, trying to dig it out. Perhaps it was a tool; she didn’t know, didn’t care. She just knew that she had to get it out of the ground. Her fingers were bleeding but she ignored the pain; there was nothing to be done about it anyway. She set the end of it free, then stood up and managed to get her toes underneath it, wedging her foot until she had some leverage, then pushing it up. Finally she held it in her hands. It was rusty and heavy, but it was also the right shape to push into the side of a door to break it open. Maybe. Possibly.

  She jogged back to where Glen and Frankie were staring mutinously at the door, and moved towards it, pushing the metal between the frame and the door and pulling back. Glen stared at her, then clapped her on the back.

  ‘Brilliant! Where’d you find that?’

  ‘Over there,’ Evie said lightly. ‘I saw it when I was digging.’ She pushed again, tugged at the other end.

  ‘Here, let me help,’ Glen said, stepping closer. He helped her wedge one end in further, then they both pressed the other end; Evie heard Glen gasp with exertion. And then, there was a creak. They looked at each other; Glen’s eyes were shining. ‘Again,’ he said, pressing the metal back into the crack. They pushed, pushed again; Evie’s cheeks turned pink as she used every ounce of strength in her body. And then another creak, a groan, and the door gave way, revealing rusty locks, a bolt that had collapsed years before.

  Beyond the door were steps down, down into darkness, down into the tunnel. Frankie peered in then stepped back. ‘Your friend Raffy seriously expects us to go down there?’ she said, her voice catching slightly.

  ‘Yes,’ Evie said. ‘Yes, he does.’

  She looked at Glen for corroboration, but instead saw his face fixed into a slight frown, his eyes staring into the middle distance. Another message from Raffy. But none for her. Why? She looked at Glen anxiously. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  Glen looked thoughtful for a moment, then he smiled. ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said. ‘But I’m not coming with you into the tunnel.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. No fricking way. We’re not going down there on our own,’ Frankie said immediately, staring at him in alarm.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Glen said with a little shrug. ‘I have other things to do. And I also need to close this door behind you, make sure there’s no trace of us being here.’

  Frankie shook her head. ‘So what if we get to the bottom of the steps and there’s nothing there? We come back up and you’ve closed the door. So what, we die down there? Like I said, no fricking way.’

  Glen smiled patiently. ‘The lock’s on your side, Frankie, so you’ll be able to get out again if you need to. And Raffy says you’ll find the tunnel down there. He’s been right so far, I think you can trust him.’

  ‘But where are you going?’ Evie asked, doing her best to maintain a regular voice, not to let on that her heart was rattling in her chest like one of the trains that used to use this tunnel.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Just an … errand,’ Glen said.

  ‘Why don’t we all do it?’ Frankie persisted. ‘And then all go through the tunnel?’

  ‘No time,’ Glen said firmly. ‘You need to get going now. And so do I. Frankie, just think of the end goal. Infotec revealed for what they are. You and I free again. Vindicated. We have to do this. You want to do this. Don’t you?’

  Frankie met his eye and arched a brow before shrugging. ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  ‘Good,’ Glen said. ‘So look, Raffy says there should be a torch behind the door, on the right.’

  He walked through the door, rummaged around and pulled one out. He gave it to Evie.

  ‘Why her?’ Frankie asked immediately.

  ‘She’s not afraid of tunnels. I figured she’d take the lead,’ Glen said, a little grin playing on his lips. ‘Okay, you ready?’

  He held out his hand; Frankie clasped it and held it for a few moments. Then he took Evie’s hand. She squeezed it back.

  ‘You two take care. And I’ll see you soon, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ They both nodded. Then, cautiously, they turned and walked through the door, neither looking at the other as they started to descend the stairs, neither admitting the chilling fear that set in as they heard the door above them creak shut.

  Glen looked at the closed door and scratched the back of his head. He was having to put a lot of trust in someone he didn’t know, and it didn’t come easily to him. But as he stood and surveyed the horizon, the star-lit waste ground on the outskirts of Paris, he knew that he had no choice. He had lived a half-life for too long; it was time for change, time to fight back, properly, not by causing Infotec minor irritation but by blowing the whole thing apart. Or not. And if it was ‘not’, if Raffy’s plan came to nothing, well then at least Glen would know he had tried. He was unlikely to live very long to regret anything anyway.

  He took one last look at the door, did what he could to cover their tracks, then ran, not back the way they had come, but north-east, towards Lille. He had to get to a train station, and Paris was too risky. But there were things he had to co-ordinate first.

  He ran for an hour, until he got to a bus station; a bus was leaving for Lille in forty minutes. Relieved, he got on, waving his hand over the security bar. This identity chip should last him until he got to Lille, but he would need a different one to get on a train. Frankie would be being hunted, her movements traced historically, and it was only a matter of time before they pieced it all together.

  He opened up his web centre and input some code, forcing his way through the system so that he could message someone without being traced. It took him ten minutes; he was cold and tired and his brain wasn’t working as quickly as it usually did. But finally he was there.

  ‘I need to get to Sweden,’ he wrote. ‘I’m planning to get the train from Lille to Copenhagen and then take a boat. I need chips, three at least. And a warm coat would be nice.’

  Jim messaged back immediately, just as Glen had known he would. Glen had never made direct contact with the young man before, but he had heard only good things about him and he needed someone he could rely on.

  ‘Sweden?’

  ‘Sweden.’

  There was a pause before Jim’s next message.

  ‘I’ll bring them myself.’

  Glen smiled. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll be on the train platform in Lille at 6 a.m. Don’t leave without me.’

  Glen hesitated before replying. He wanted a coat, not company. Perhaps he had chosen Jim too hastily; he was obviously excited, might make a mistake. And he might be under surveillance after Frankie’s disappearance. But everyone else was under surveillance too; Paris was in lockdown. All he needed was tickets and a coat. Jim could handle that. Of course he could.

  ‘Try to lay your hands on some thick socks,’ he typed eventually, then closed his eyes and allowed himself to snatch a little sleep.

  Jim left the library in a hurry. Knowing that he was being watched, he walked in a nonsensical direction, doubling back on himself, walking in circles and finally reaching Haussman Parade. From there, he ducked down into the shopping centre on the corner of Paradise Road and Faubourg Lane, and travelled up in the lift to the top floor, where he bought a ticket for an atroci
ty of a film, bought himself a large coffee and walked inside. He never came to places like this; the only cinemas he frequented were the small, independent types that showed old French films, the ones that Infotec hated. But this cinema had one very specific advantage; it had a bathroom with two doors, one leading back into the cinema and one leading out to a staircase.

  Sitting at the back of the cinema, he waited until the beginning of the film before slipping his chip out of the fleshy mound beneath his thumb and leaving it carefully on the seat, next to the coke and his coat. Then he ducked down and made his way stealthily towards the men’s room; once inside, he put in a new chip, changed his clothes and pulled on a woolly hat, scrunching up his old clothes to dispose of later. Then he ran out of the other door, down the stairs, out of the shopping centre, up towards Fayette Drive, until he got to a camping shop. He replaced his chip again then quickly purchased two heavily padded coats, some thick socks and woolly hats, using preloaded credit, then walked into a party shop, where he made some more purchases. Finally, having ditched the bag of old clothes, he came up onto street level and made his way to the eastern side of North Station, where he had arranged to meet Pierre. Sure enough, Pierre was there in a camera blind spot, cap pulled down over his head, a coffee in his hand. Jim walked towards him, lifting his hand as though checking for messages. Two seconds later, he collided with the coffee, shouted out. Pierre dropped his coffee, grabbed him, shook him, then let him go. Jim walked around to the northern side of the station before checking what was in his hand. Three chips.

  He pulled on one of the hats and walked into the station, his eyes glancing furtively around him. The film he’d chosen at the cinema was a long one; his chip was next to the coffee and would stay warm for at least an hour, so it would be automatically scanned for updating purposes. If all was well, no one would question his position for another hour and a half. And by then he’d have met Glen; they’d be on their way to Stockholm. Jim had no idea what Glen was planning to do in Sweden; he couldn’t take on the might of Infotec, not even close. But whatever it was, he was going. Glen hadn’t asked him and would probably resist, but Jim was sick of Paris, and sick of working the sidelines. He was going to do something meaningful, or he was going to die trying. Either way, he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  25

  Frankie held onto the rail as she made her way down the stairs and tried to pretend she wasn’t grateful that Evie was ahead of her. There was no way Evie should be carrying the torch; the girl was tiny, fragile – she might drop it, and then what? She watched the outline, just visible, of Evie’s slender frame as she almost ran down the stairs, apparently not concerned by the darkness, by the fact that they were going to be attempting to cross to a nuclear zone in an undersea tunnel that was probably partly destroyed during the Horrors, was probably full of water, or cracks, at least, which would break open once they started to walk through it …

  Except it wasn’t a nuclear zone, was it? And the Horrors, well, the Horrors hadn’t been what she’d been taught they were. Her eyes narrowed as she watched Evie curiously. Had she and this Raffy person really grown up in the UK? In some strange city, cut off from the rest of the world? It seemed so far-fetched, so unlikely. And yet Evie didn’t seem the type to lie. She seemed the type to judge, to give nothing away and to generally be incredibly sanctimonious and irritating, but not to make things up. Jesus she was irritating though. She’d been so keen to get into this damned tunnel, virtually skipping down the stairs like there was no danger at all. Frankie was used to being the confident one, the brave one, the rebel, the leader. And now she was following some scrap of a girl who knew nothing about anything, who thought she had the moral upper hand simply because she had grown up on the other side of the Channel, who knew no fear and who was faster than a bloody rat scampering down into the darkness.

  ‘Can you just … slow down a bit?’ she called out. ‘You’re going too fast and you’ve got the torch.’

  Evie didn’t even turn around; she just shook her head. ‘We have to be fast. The tunnel is twenty-three miles long and we’re not even at the beginning of it yet,’ she said flatly.

  Frankie stared at her angrily. ‘I can’t see what I’m doing,’ she called after her. ‘Like I said, you’ve got the torch. If you want to run, at least give the torch to me so I don’t break my neck.’

  Evie stopped and turned, her expression withering as she looked at Frankie. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Take it.’

  She handed Frankie the torch, then turned on her heel and started down the stairs again, her feet barely seeming to touch the ground. Frankie followed her, but found that now, holding onto the rail with one hand and the torch with her other hand, her progress was even slower; far from lighting the way and making it easier, the torch was heavy and cumbersome and getting in her way.

  ‘Fine,’ she called out. ‘You can keep the torch.’

  Evie stopped and turned again, a look of impatience on her face. She held out her hand and Frankie handed her the torch, irritation flooding through her. ‘You know, I don’t have to be doing this,’ she said. ‘I mean I’m doing this as a favour. It’s not my home. Raffy’s not my boyfriend.’

  She arched her eyebrow and watched Evie’s face darken.

  ‘Raffy is not my boyfriend either,’ she said, hotly, ‘and if you don’t want to come, don’t.’

  Frankie sighed. ‘Yes, well, I don’t exactly have a choice now, do I? I mean we’re in the middle of nowhere, Glen’s gone, so I’m hardly going to go back up through that blue door and wait for Infotec to come and find me, am I?’

  ‘So then let’s get going,’ Evie said, no trace of sympathy in her eyes, no indication of gratitude. She was like a robot, Frankie decided. Like a cold, hard, tiny robot. If everyone else in this precious City of hers was like Evie, no wonder Thomas wanted to cut them off from the rest of the world.

  ‘Fine,’ Frankie said. ‘Just bloody fine. Let’s run, shall we? Let’s just run under the sea, probably to our deaths. Because hey, what else is there to do? I mean, really, I’m so pleased I’m here with you. So pleased to be appreciated.’

  Evie stared at her levelly. ‘I didn’t ask you to come,’ she said. ‘Raffy did. I get that you don’t want to be here; you just want to be back promoting Infotec and worrying about what dress to wear next. Trouble is, as far as I know, you’re supposed to be dead. And dead people can’t have millions of Watchers. So stop acting like I’ve forced you to come with me. I haven’t. I just want to get to the City. And I want to get there before your best friends, Infotec, figure out what we’re doing. So I’m sorry if I’m rushing. But I don’t have the luxury of time. Okay?’

  She looked so fierce, her eyes flashing, her jaw set firm, that Frankie was almost full of admiration. But only almost. ‘I did not promote Infotec,’ she said, icily. ‘I was a serious blogger who just happened to be very popular. I’m sorry if you have a problem with that. I guess you don’t know what it’s like to have loads of people interested in everything you say.’

  ‘No,’ Evie said, ‘I don’t. But that’s probably because I don’t talk all the time about the minutiae of my life. “Oh, I’ve broken a nail!” … “Oh, my shoes are so pretty!” … “Oh, I’m so in love!” Shame about your boyfriend. Wasn’t he the one who tried to kill you?’

  Frankie stared at Evie in shock, then she reared up and took a step forward. ‘Take that back,’ she said, her voice low.

  ‘Take what back? You were in such thrall to Infotec you didn’t even realise they were using you.’

  ‘Take that back, you sanctimonious bitch,’ Frankie seethed. ‘You think you’re beyond reproach because you grew up in the UK? Well bully for bloody you. If Milo hoodwinked me, then what the hell did Infotec do to you? You say you had no idea the rest of the world even existed. I mean, how pathetic is that? And you dare criticise me. I’ve met people like you before. Jealous, bitter people who hate me because they can’t be like me. Well you know what? I don’t care. And I’m not
spending another minute with you. I am going back. I don’t have to do this. You fight Infotec. If you’re so bloody clever, you don’t need me to help you.’

  She turned and started to climb back up the stairs, taking two at a time.

  ‘And where exactly are you going to go?’ Evie demanded. ‘Where are you going to hide? You think they won’t find you? You think this is only my fight? You’re wrong.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances,’ Frankie called back. ‘I think I’d rather Infotec find me than be stuck in a tunnel with you.’

  She continued to climb, doing her best to ignore the pain in her calves. She was fit, usually, but after walking for so long she was tired, hungry, thirsty and physically exhausted. She ached everywhere; her legs in particular were killing her, but she wasn’t stopping now. Not until she was as far away from Evie as possible. Not until she …

  She screamed; her leg went from underneath her, causing her to stumble then fall, down the stairs; she grasped at the wall, at the rail, but she couldn’t steady herself, couldn’t stop herself from tumbling further down. To her death, she found herself thinking, desperately. To nothingness, pointlessness, to …

  She stopped abruptly; looking up, she saw Evie looking down at her. Evie had somehow pinned her shoulders against the wall and her feet against the opposite one, breaking Frankie’s fall and stopping her in her tracks. She heard a clatter and looked up in alarm. ‘The torch?’ she asked.

  ‘The torch,’ Evie said.

  Frankie tried to move but she couldn’t; her leg was trapped underneath her, throbbing with pain.

  ‘What happened?’ Evie asked.

  Frankie sighed heavily, ‘I’ve hurt my leg. But please don’t worry. Just keep on running, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Did it feel like something snapped?’ Evie asked.

  Frankie shook her head, then realised Evie couldn’t see her in the darkness. ‘Not snapped,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve just pulled a muscle.’