Megacity: Operation Galton Book 3

by Terry Tyler

  The lad laughs. "We don't give a shit. We just want the reward."

  Billy leaps at him. "You little crud. You—"

  Uh-oh. The lad's got a gun. Now directed at Billy's chest.

  Not to be outdone, Pitbull grabs Xav, and suddenly there's a gun at his head, too.

  My heart is in my fucking throat.

  Nobody speaks, not even Billy.

  The waves crash on the shore, the wind whips our hair across our faces, and I'm just thinking that I'm going to have to give myself up to them when I hear footsteps crunching up the pebbles.

  I sneak a look out of the corner of my eye. It's Archie, and Xav's two friends. King and Rae.

  And King's got a gun.

  My relief is short-lived. Black Beard dives forward and throws his arm around my neck, the muzzle of his gun now digging into my temple.

  All this way, all we've been through, to fail now—

  Black Beard calls out, "What you got, one weapon? I'd get into your boat and fuck off, if I were you. While you've got the chance."

  "Come on, man," says Billy. "What the fuck? Seriously?"

  King calls out, "Five of us, three of you."

  Pitbull laughs. "Three guns against one, boyo. You shoot, you might take out one of us, but we still take the girl. But if you fuck off to your boat, we only take her, and we all get to wake up tomorrow morning. Start shooting, at least one of you is going to die. More than one, most likely. And these things can fuck boats up, too."

  I stare out at the black sea. On the horizon, the sun is just starting to lighten the sky. It's so beautiful, and I begin to cry. My heart is filled with sadness. All this, and I end up with a gun at my head, just before the finishing line.

  No.

  I hardly know I'm doing it; I elbow Black Beard in the stomach, hard, and make a leap for it, but the next thing I know I'm crashing down on the stones; he has my legs. Xav, Billy and Archie lurch forward—and stop, as Pitbull brandishes his weapon.

  Black Beard pulls me up and I see King and the lad, face to face, weapon to weapon. Stalemate.

  King shouts out, "Rae, go back to the boat."

  I see a woman with long, dark hair; she steps into the light. I know her face—fuck me, it's that girl, the last one who came into Nerve—she got out, I helped her get out—

  "Go!" shouts King. "I promised Ace—if anything happened to you—"

  She and I meet eyes; she turns, and runs back.

  "Now you lot," calls out Black Beard, his arm once more around my neck, his gun at my head. "Back."

  They don't move.

  "I said get the fuck back." He starts dragging me away, back towards the path.

  Xav shouts out, "I'll pay you, I have crypto—you tell me how much that reward is—"

  Pitbull laughs. "Can you give me thirty social credits? Nah, didn't think so. Can you make us famous as the guys who captured the Nucrop Girl-turned-murderer? 'Cause everyone's going to want to hear this story!"

  The lad laughs. "We'll be trending for fucking weeks!"

  It's over. I'm heartbroken. "Xav," I call out. "Just go. Don't put yourselves in danger. I'll work something out!"

  "Listen to what the slag says." Pitbull laughs. "Though she's wrong about working something out!"

  Xav and I stare at each other, and I see the sadness in his eyes. We had something, the beginning of something—

  "Last chance!" Pitbull shouts.

  "It's one of you, or her!" Black Beard calls out. "Get back, now—we can just as easily claim the reward with a dead body, or at least a maimed one!" He shoots into the air. "The next one goes in her leg. And we've got plenty—how many have you got?"

  I shout as best I can, though his arm is practically strangling me. "Xav, go! Please!"

  King takes a step towards the lad, straining, like every muscle in his body aches to shoot the little turd, but he knows the price of letting that bullet fly.

  It's not over—Xav makes a lunge for Pitbull, knocks him off his feet, but the lad flicks his gun towards Xav, shoots, and a split second later he's pointing it at King again.

  Xav's down.

  I cry out—but he's okay, he's not dead, he's holding his knee, groaning with pain, but he's not dead, he's not dead—

  Pitbull springs upright, and Black Beard pushes the nozzle into my temple so hard I think I might black out.

  I shout out, "Go!" The tears stream down my face as I watch Archie and Billy help Xav up, supporting him between them. "Please, go! I'll be okay!"

  "We've got to sort that knee, otherwise you could bleed out," says Billy.

  Pitbull moves towards them. "Just fuck off." He glances at King. "You too, jungle boy." He actually fucking laughs. "Thirty social credits—I can call you lot anything I like with that lot under my belt!"

  "Five seconds," calls out Black Beard. "You've got five seconds to get the hell out, or one of you dies, and she gets a bullet in her knee to match yours!"

  "Xav, go!" I wail. "It's not worth it!"

  Xav shouts, "Tara—don't give up, we'll find a way—"

  Slowly, Archie and Billy turn Xav round and lead him down to the boat.

  "You too," says Pitbull, gun pointing at King. "Put it down. It's over."

  It is.

  King lowers his gun and backs away.

  I watch, weeping, as they fade into the dim dawn light. The tide is going out; any further and the boat will be grounded. I hear it start up, see them load Xav on-board. They're just black shapes moving, now.

  My friends. My people.

  Despair engulfs me. Utter, utter hopelessness.

  As a parting shot the lad slashes the tyres on Billy's van, and then I'm dragged back up the path, the gun still at my head as I watch the boat sail away, taking with it my dreams of freedom and a better future.

  Chapter 44

  Aileen

  Turns out there are no bullets in King's gun.

  "Haven't had any ammo for ages," he says. "I just keep it with me on trips like this. I can't shoot for shit, anyway." Xav's lying on the table, his knee frozen with anaesthetic while King takes the bullet out. "You're lucky—the kid couldn't, either. It caught the top of your knee, just skirted the bone. You're going to have to keep off it for a few days, though. At least. We've got crutches back home."

  "I've got to go back for Tara," Xav says, heaving himself up to look out at the sea.

  "You can't, bud. One, you can't walk, two, you don't know where she'll be, three, we have no bullets, four, you're a wanted man, five, six, seven and eight, I'm not letting you even try."

  "He's right, Xav," I say. "And if I know Tara, she'll think of something. She's got her com; hopefully she'll be able to get a message to—I don't know, someone."

  It's hard to process what we just saw, up the beach. My every impulse was to run out and try to help, of course, but Rae wouldn't let me.

  "Doesn't matter how many there are of us—if they've got three guns, they win."

  I watched through binoculars, so sure that Xav and Billy would think of something.

  Because we're the good guys, and the good guys come through, don't they?

  Rae said, "I was where you are about a year ago; we didn't all make it. My friend Colt—he fell at the last hurdle."

  "What happened?"

  "Another time." She picked up her binoculars. "It was during the wasteland clearances; it was bad."

  "Did any who got caught end up getting away?"

  Rae just looked at me, and shook her head.

  The sea is calm, the sky clear. It's a beautiful dawn. If only Tara was with us, we'd be in fine spirits, celebrating. As it is, we're subdued. I wish Billy was still here, too. At least he's free, with a legitimate pass to live outside the megacity.

  Xav sits up on the banquette, his bandaged leg stretched out in front of him, tapping at his com.

  "Video's live." He looks at Leah. "Well done; with luck, this could have a far-reaching effect."

  She looks pleased. "I just want to know thos
e monsters are going to suffer."

  "Let's keep our fingers crossed." He rests his head back and stares at the ceiling; he looks so sad.

  "She'll be okay, Xav," I say. "And that's not just a platitude. I really believe she'll find a way out."

  "Yeah." He forces a smile. "I do, too. I just hate that I let her down."

  "We couldn't do anything," says King. "If we'd tried, we'd still be on that beach. And we wouldn't be making sandcastles."

  "Yeah. I know. I know all that." Xav sits up. "It's okay, I'll deal with it. This is the road we've chosen to go down, and shit like this is part of it. At least the vid's out."

  "And when we get home," King says, smiling at me, "we can hit up our connections, take a look at the mainstream network, and find out what's going down in the UK."

  I wander out on the deck to look at the new day. The magnificent colours in the sky over the cold North Sea, grey clouds already forming.

  Leah is safe. I have so much to be thankful for. So many people to whom I owe so much. Xav, Tara, Billy, Nick, King, Rae, Marek, and a guard called Radar.

  I don't think Tara would mind if I allow myself to feel just a tiny bit happy.

  I really don't.

  Chapter 45

  Skylar and Kush

  One day later

  In the NPU Teens house, an unnamed building within a private gated community, Leah's friend Skylar wakes up in the bedroom she shares with two other girls.

  They're still asleep. Skylar doesn't like them much; she misses Leah badly.

  And Clark.

  It's early, an hour until breakfast. She tiptoes over to their shared en suite bathroom, trying not to wake Mila and Izzy, because Izzy starts acting like she owns the world as soon as she wakes up.

  Back in bed, she picks up her com.

  Skylar always logs on to Heart within ten minutes of waking, because she's scared she might miss something. She clicks onto Leah and Clark's profiles more often than is healthy. Seeing all the fun things they're doing makes her nauseous with jealousy. She scours both their profiles for any hint that they're together now. Of course, neither would admit it, to her. They're probably madly in love; she imagines Leah saying, "We can't let Skylar know. She was mad about you." And Clark's reply: "I know, I know. But I never fancied her; there was only ever one girl for me."

  Skylar knows, deep down, that she never stood a chance with him.

  Today she sees that Leah is up bright and early too, and is hitting Rise Academy's gym before her day starts.

  Morning gang! Looking forward to another great Rise day! So blessed to be here!

  She's changed since she got through the selection process. She was never so upbeat before—maybe it's the Rise way. In every photo, she's beaming her head off—but when Skylar asks her to interface or holochat, she always makes an excuse.

  Like she's shutting her out.

  Clark's been hit by the upbeat bug, too. Oh—he's on a rock-climbing course in Scotland today. He looks so handsome in all his gear, about to set off in a megapod with five friends and two instructors.

  Clark doesn't post every day, not like Leah; seems he's having too much of a blast in real life to keep in touch with his old friends. Which is odd, because it used to be Clark who was Heart addicted, whereas Leah wasn't that bothered.

  He's way out of Skylar’s league now.

  She clicks onto the Rise Academy profile, which shows a picture of October's recruits, all together, smiling, excited, glad to be alive. And yes, there's Leah and Clark, Nadia and Lakisha, Ellen and Joel.

  They're all out of her league.

  But Skylar knows she'll keep tuning in every day.

  She's drawn to it in the same way you can't stop pressing a wound, even though it hurts.

  She wonders if they really, truly know how lucky they are.

  In Double Shot café, Kush receives a message on Molenet.

  AXO delivered safely, but one package missing, possibly taken back to warehouse. Can you track?

  So Tara didn't make it. He smiles at a customer who has just walked in, and even as he chats to her about the weather and her working day, he is mentally listing the contacts who might be able to give him the information he needs. Who might be able to help her, when he finds out where she is.

  For Link is growing again; this time, they are learning by their mistakes.

  This time, they're here to stay.

  Chapter 46

  Two Weeks Later

  Once the word spread, even Clinton's most devoted acolytes faded away.

  They tried to block it but each time it resurfaced.

  The content was too damning, too shocking to stay hidden.

  After it was seen by Quinn Matheson, head of NPU Teens, there was no stopping it. Quinn might have played a part in Operation Galton Phase 10, and was one hundred per cent on board with the aims of NPU, but this was beyond belief, and she was anxious to assure the world that she knew nothing about it.

  Leah's huge, haunted eyes were hard to look at. 'It was only when Joel fell that we really understood what was going on. When we heard this man from Alaska called Brendan showing off on his com that he'd just killed two of us. Laughing about it. My friends, Clark and Nadia—they were both so brave. Braver than me. But their lives were snuffed out, for sport.'

  Quinn felt sick at heart; she had not only encouraged those poor children to apply for the Rise programme, but had also slept with Jerome Bettencourt.

  Balance at The Wellness Centre offered counselling with their most experienced therapist, Ginevra Carlton.

  Many speculated what the official line would be; might Government Village and Nutricorp announce that the video was a fake? Close ranks, protect their own?

  Not this time.

  Freya Wilson and Caleb Bettencourt called an emergency meeting at which the Prime Minister announced that, for the sake of the government and the Bettencourt family, and in honour of the children who had died at the hands of these monsters, Freya's social media team would post her official statement on Heart as soon as her advisors had prepared it.

  Clinton and Jerome would be held to account; she must publicly denounce them, or the Bettencourt name would be forever tarnished.

  Before her statement went live, Clinton and Jerome were arrested.

  Marilee was beside herself, insisting that they'd both been at home that weekend, and that this Leah Phillips, whoever she was, must have a very sick mind to be making up such a story, but nobody believed her.

  Freya Wilson allowed Marilee to go and live quietly with her sister, currently residing in rural France, rather than have her charged with perverting the course of justice.

  Once Clinton and Jerome were safely incarcerated, others came out of the woodwork.

  A Japanese businessman who chose to remain anonymous said that he'd been invited to one of Clinton's 'parties' by a friend, and was so shocked when its true nature was revealed that he'd been about to tell the world; as it was, the friend who'd invited him was himself killed by one of Clinton Bettencourt's guards.

  Next, various young women spoke out, saying that Clinton had molested them, or offered them financial reward for sleeping with him.

  The last one was Zia, his own ward.

  "Clinton Bettencourt physically abused me on the night of my sixteenth birthday, and carried on doing so for the next two years. He told me that if I didn't go along with it, he would not pay my college fees, and would disown me."

  Zia chose to make this statement at a live press conference; one journalist, a woman, stood up and suggested to her that there was a name for women who slept with men for monetary or material gain, and it wasn't 'victim of abuse'.

  "You could have said no. You could have refused, and said, do your worst. You made the decision to have sex with him for two years in order to maintain the lifestyle you wanted. Last time I looked, that was called prostitution."

  Zia, demurely dressed and self-contained, did not rise to the bait. The camera zoomed in on her huge
, dark brown eyes and pale mouth, as her lower lip trembled, just enough.

  "I was sixteen," she said, a slight tremor in her voice. "Yes, that's above the age of consent, but I wasn't mature. I'd led a sheltered life. I was still at school, about to start studying for my HCEs. I was terrified, and he manipulated me into thinking I had to do it out of gratitude for all he'd done for me. I have no family apart from the Bettencourts—I didn't know what would happen to me if I turned him down. I believe he also abused other girls he'd fostered: Susu ran away, and he tried to do the same to Tara, who was like a sister to me, but she was tougher—she lived in a Hope Village before Clinton and Marilee became our guardians. When he realised that she was not going to comply, she was sent away." She turned to look at the camera. "Tara, if you're watching this, wherever you are, I just want to say that I should have come clean, right from the start. I was a coward, and I hope you can forgive me. I am truly, truly sorry—and I don't believe you attempted to murder your boss, either!"

  As soon as she said that, she was hustled away from the cameras.

  Somewhere in the former wasteland, in an anonymous building where the drug blitz is manufactured, a girl called Susu was shown Zia's interview on a guard's com.

  She laughed, and blew Zia a kiss.

  The Hope Village culls ceased, and Jerome's POP team evaporated into thin air; no records existed.

  In fact, Clinton put them onto a plane two days after the ill-fated Laser62 party, with the news that they were off to work in the Canadian logging industry.

  This time the plane had windows; the group enjoyed the flight, excited to leave behind their old lives. Unfortunately, they never reached Canada. The plane mysteriously exploded somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean. No bodies were ever recovered.

  As for Benjamin 'Radar' Bundock, he never told them anything about Leah, even when the pain was so intense he thought he might die. Clinton told Jerome to get rid of him, but Jerome had other ideas; he was two men short on a consignment of workers heading to the coalfields of the Central Siberian Basin. Worried that Clinton would disown him, Jerome was eager to get his cut from the transaction. He kept Cahill back too, and sent them both off to join the group from the last Hope Village cull.