Cloud 9

by Alex Campbell

  I think of my father, his large hand wrapped in my hair. I see a future being shut in a cell, following a lobotomy. Tom, shot dead.

  The bullet leaves the gun in my hand, ricocheting me sideways and stumbling into Tom. He catches me as I see Blythe fall to the ground, as another shot sounds out. I drop down myself as if someone has taken the ground away.

  Tom’s face fills with horror. ‘Hope?’

  Him

  Arms are pulling me away from her.

  I am screaming all kinds of words. But mostly, over and again: ‘Hope!’

  I keep my eyes on hers. I need her to stay awake. I need her to be all right.

  Her eyes remain open, but the sleeve of her black jacket is turning darker. It looks wet – blood. She’s bleeding.

  I struggle like a wild animal to get away from the policeman and Miles.

  Menton is stooped over Blythe. ‘We’re losing him. Quick, get an ambulance here.’

  I hear Nina Mitchell saying, ‘Get them both out of here before anyone else arrives.’

  Hope is being lifted by Miles. Her face has turned almost white, but she is moaning. I let the policeman drag me outside only to stay close to her.

  On the driveway, there’s a white van. Hope is bundled inside first. Me next. As the doors slam shut, I charge over to her.

  Someone’s already crouched there, holding Hope up in the pitch black.

  ‘Bloody hell, Mikey?’ I say, then to Hope, ‘Are you okay – where did they shoot you?’

  ‘It’s my arm, I think,’ she murmurs, her throat rasping. ‘It hurts a lot.’ She takes a sharp breath as Mikey helps me take off her coat. I rip off the sleeve of her top, using the torn piece to dab at the wound.

  Mikey tries to examine it in the dark as Hope winces. ‘I think it’s just a flesh wound. The bullet must ’ave just grazed you.’

  I throw off my own T-shirt – Mikey rips it to use it as a bandage.

  ‘How come you’re here?’ I ask him. ‘What did they do to you?’

  Mikey sucks in his breath. ‘Beat me around a bit, nothing I couldn’t ’andle – kept me ’oled up, ’oping I’d talk, I guess. Then got chucked in ’ere just over an hour ago. It don’t look good this, Tom.’

  ‘No,’ I say, as the van’s engine starts and we start driving away. I grip tighter to Hope as we’re bounced around. Burying my face into her hair, I kiss her there over and again.

  ‘I’m bloody sorry,’ I say. Not for the first time.

  ‘We’re together,’ she murmurs back through teeth gritted with pain. ‘We’re together. In the treehouse.’

  Her

  I’m in agony. My arm burns and stings and sends pain like an alarm round the rest of my body. Yet I’m glad to see Mikey here. Even gladder to be held tightly in Tom’s arms. We did what we could. Life will end like it started more or less, with Tom.

  He keeps kissing my head. I want to turn my face. I want to meet his lips like we did in the National Gallery. But the pain’s too much to move. I press my whole body into his instead and I try and imagine we’re in the treehouse; safe. I think of our shared past spent playing at Star Wars; summer days squirting each other with water pistols … hours lying together simply watching clouds drift by. I won’t think about what’s about to happen.

  It’s probably a couple of hours before the van starts to slow and then comes to a stop.

  ‘I’ll try’n distract ’em. You carry Hope an’ run,’ Mikey is saying fast.

  I shake my head for ‘no’ but Mikey insists.

  I hear Tom deliberating. He’s looking at me in the dark like he just wants to save me. I like the fact they’re both hopeful, but I know there’s no way out of this now, for any of us. It won’t be hard for PharmaCare to pin mine and Mikey’s deaths on Tom. And his – on a pointless act of terrorism.

  The van doors open. Shadowy bodies are outlined against the dark denim sky.

  I watch the silver glint of Miles’ gun beckon us out. The uniform is next to him. Armed too.

  Tom spits in Miles’ face as we climb out. He just smiles, takes out a tissue from his suit jacket and wipes it off.

  I’m propped up between Tom and Mikey. I blink, looking around at where they’ve brought us. The full moon in the sky gradually lights up dilapidated farm buildings around us. An old caravan that looks burnt out.

  My body’s shaking with pain as I glance Nina Mitchell is standing by the front of the van too. Her hands are trembling. ‘Do it in one of those buildings,’ she says to Agent Miles, hardly daring to glance at us. ‘Close your eyes to ugliness,’ I hear her mutter to herself. She looks like she’s about to be sick.

  Miles is holding his gun out as the policeman steps towards us.

  ‘Let them go,’ I hear Miles say. I whip my head round, momentarily forgetting the pain. Agent Miles’ gun is no longer aimed at us. It’s on Nina.

  The uniform swings his weapon at Miles, looking perplexed, whose orders he should follow. Nina shouts out a command to ‘Fire!’ and he makes his decision.

  But Miles makes his quicker. The policeman drops to the ground, writhing and moaning on the floor. Mikey quickly limps over and picks up his gun.

  Nina is screaming, as Agent Miles turns his gun to her; she starts pleading ‘I have a daughter!’

  Tom wraps his arms tighter around me, as the moonlight illuminates the panic in Nina Mitchell’s face. I think of Fran. Her mum’s all she has. I want to tell Miles not to kill her. All I can do is shout out a weak, ‘No!’

  Him

  Together Ethan Miles and Mikey tie her hands together, gagging her mouth, agreeing with Hope, to keep Fran’s mum alive. Dragging Nina Mitchell in her smart power suit to the burnt-out caravan, they leave her legs only loosely tied so she can still take tiny steps.

  ‘It’ll take her into tomorrow night to reach the main road again,’ Miles says as they walk back towards us. ‘The policeman will live. We’d better get going. I’ve got a safe house sorted for you. We’ll be good there. You can release your final vlog or whatever it is you kids call it. What?’ he adds as I look at him half-shocked, half-grateful. ‘You really thought I was on the bad side?

  ‘Like I told you the other day – the truth’s what you want it to be.’

  ONE YEAR LATER

  21

  Happiness is the sum of the lies you accept and the truths you reject

  Livelifewithhope

  Her

  It’s a sunny autumn morning after weeks of heavy rainfall. Stepping out of the thin terraced house, Hope exhales a breath of relief to be out of there – holed up with maudlin Grandma Lizzie, who Mum swore she’d never live with again. She sets off towards the station, consoling herself: university is just under a year away.

  At the Tube platform she notices a couple of girls nudging one another and pointing. She’s still getting spotted for being the girl who exposed Leata. If her YouTube channel being the first to broadcast the scandal wasn’t exposure enough, the media circus that followed, as she and Tom gave evidence at the subsequent Cloud 9 trials, secured her face in minor celebrity pages.

  It was only a few months ago that the police called off the twenty-four-hour guard that shadowed her. The death threats are few and far between now. She’s grown a thick skin over the past year to the many trolls on her blog.

  She slips onto the first Tube to arrive, avoiding the carriage with those girls who are now making their comments more vocal. Taking the last free seat, her fellow passengers are fortunately too busy looking down at screens or staring blankly at the framed advertisements to notice her. Hope gets out her book to stop herself doing either. But not before she’s clocked the adverts above the window opposite. She still finds it strange, the absence of Leata and PharmaCare everywhere. Not that their replacements are that different. There’s an advert for a plastic surgery clinic, featuring a girl who only looks a few years older than her. Hope taps self-consciously at her face as her eyes skim over, ‘Did you know your skin loses elasticity by age thirty?’ Eithe
r side is a pharmacy chain boasting the best natural herbal remedies for stress, and an insurance company telling passengers death lurks around every corner: ‘Prepare Yourself!’

  She opens her book, trying to concentrate on Jude and his dream to reach Oxford, but next gets distracted by the familiar snap and crackle of foil.

  Glancing up, the man at the end of the carriage is popping a pill out of the familiar blue and yellow box. She’s heard that a number of people still buy it on the black market; that some private doctors prescribe it even though it’s now been unequivocally proven a placebo – they say it’s the comfort of taking it, like a cigarette with no nicotine.

  Hope closes her book along with her eyes. And goes back there. It’s a trick she’s learnt – to calm herself. Imagining herself in the small cottage with its grey slate roof.

  Sometimes it can seem like a memory of a holiday in her mind. Not a fugitives’ lair. Nearly three months they lived there, Hope, Tom, Mikey and Ethan Miles. Holed up in a remote forest in Wales. Cut off from the outside world; their only visitor an insider contact of Ethan’s, who delivered weekly supplies and news about how the scandal was taking shape. Telling them about the arrests of Hari and many other hacktivists, including Pavlin, and their eventual release without charge.

  While the media stormed, she and Tom lay in front of real fires, eating food cooked by Mikey. Listening to Ethan’s animated stories from his life to date (he had many). Mostly they slept, limbs entwined. Holding tightly onto one another as if they were freefalling through the sky.

  Living day to day, simply, without any communication or television or distraction. While outside, the truth spread in both the virtual and real worlds, like fire through the Australian bush, lighting up news platforms and walls and posts and media networks globally.

  Gradually, people near the top began to rock those at the peak. The point of power toppled, in countries worldwide.

  Hope could feel only a strange feeling of regret when Ethan’s contact declared them safe; that Hope wouldn’t be prosecuted for the death of Professor Simeon Blythe. They had to open the arched door to the little cottage and come out blinking into the noise and the chaos again.

  Him

  His mum briefly strokes his back as he bends down to unload the dishwasher. He straightens up and grabs her into a bear-hug. The ones Dad used to make. He realised months ago, his mum’s just not good at making the first moves. But she likes a hug. Like anyone.

  Tom’s the first to pull away. ‘What you up to this weekend?’

  ‘Right now, I’m going to tackle those weeds on the front lawn. The new neighbours are worse than the Wrights for their neat borders. How do they find the time to do it?’

  ‘They don’t. They pay someone else.’

  His mum laughs, ‘I’d rather do it myself,’ and walks away. Soon after, he hears her talking at the front door. Before, ‘Tom! Ethan’s here to see you.’

  He appears soon after. The U-bend smile at full throttle on his handsome face; his suit jacket slung casually over his shoulder. Shirt crisp white and shoes polished.

  Ethan makes his usual cheerful small talk as Tom finishes putting the dishes away. The way he’s dressed, it won’t be a social call, though Ethan has been known to make them. He’s taken on something like fatherly duties since their three months in the cottage. Tom hasn’t the heart to tell him he doesn’t see him that way.

  ‘Do you have some news for me?’ Tom cuts to the chase, slamming the dishwasher door shut.

  While he and Hope were giving evidence at the public trials of Cloud 9 and their associates, Ethan was attending a private version, hoisting out the corrupt members of the Secret Service. It ended with his promotion – to track Cloud 9 conspirators still out there.

  ‘I followed up that latest hate feed on Twitter,’ Ethan says, pouring himself a coffee from the cafetière on the kitchen table. ‘Three men are being questioned. But generally I’d say it’s simmering down out there. People are starting to forget what Leata did for them. They’re moving on to the next big thing. The hit reality programme on TV!’ He pulls a wide beam.

  Tom breathes out a puff of relief. That last hate trail was making him nervous; only because it was Hope they were primarily stalking. She’s the one who insists on keeping a profile on social media. Unlike him; he’s cancelled every bit of himself on the internet. He prefers to skulk in the shadows even more since what happened. But then Hope always was the more sociable one. ‘I feel safe in my blogging community. They root for me,’ she says when he frets.

  ‘But,’ Ethan continues, taking a quick sip of coffee, ‘I did want to inform you about a development.’ His convivial face turns serious.

  Tom stops what he’s doing.

  ‘We got another call in about Imogen. Our man in Italy has his sights on her.’

  ‘You’re still looking to me to make that decision for you?’

  Ethan scratches his head. ‘My new boss wants your dad’s story buried. Move on. Close the door. I’m under no obligation to haul her in. But I think it should be your call, Tom. You tell me what you and your mum would like done to your dad’s murderer.’ He pauses before asking, ‘Have you told Hope we’re still tracking Imogen?’

  Tom shakes his head. He knows he should. Like he should tell her he doesn’t want to go to university. Secrets and lies; already, he can feel them rising up between them like the wall his dad built from his mum. He won’t be like his dad.

  ‘It’s your call, mate. You tell me to arrest her and I will.’

  Tom crosses his arms, trying to think. ‘I’m still not sure Mum could take a trial. Raking up Dad’s death again. She’s just got life back to some kind of normal.’ But he knows his mum’s only half the excuse. What would it do to Hope? If he was the one instrumental in bringing Imogen to justice. In robbing Benny of his mother?

  It would fracture them.

  ‘Well, maybe have one last think.’ Ethan waves a hand through the air, a strong waft of lemony aftershave blowing around with it. ‘About the right thing to do.’

  Tom makes a faint nod. The right thing to do. He’s no longer sure he knows what that means.

  Her

  She gets off at Vauxhall for St Patrick’s shelter. MI6’s green glass looms over her – it’s a familiar place after she and Tom had interviews in there as well as MI5’s HQ on Millbank. Those first few months after they came out of hiding were filled with interrogations. They both stayed at Tom’s house under police guard. There were many people out for their blood. Not everyone was pleased to see Leata exposed and PharmaCare brought down. Hope and Tom – they were the ones to tear down the curtain surrounding the wizard, and reveal that Oz wasn’t magical after all.

  Clearly many people wished they’d left the curtain drawn.

  Gradually other news overtook. A new government, for one. Another royal baby. Escalating terrorist attacks that were nothing to do with a drug that has no effect.

  Hope went home when the threat to them started dwindling and her face wasn’t so frequently published in the press for murdering Professor Blythe. She’d have preferred to have stayed living with Tom, going to his school, but since Dad was imprisoned, Rose seemed to need her, and Lily had started suffering from these panic attacks that her mother couldn’t cope with. Mum’s perfect baby behaving anything but perkily.

  And her new sixth-form college is okay. Next year, a university far away, even a new name if she can. Just her and Tom.

  She passes under an empty billboard. The economy has experienced a slump since the Progress Party was kicked out. Consumerism took a dip along with ‘positivity’. Though the new government still makes promises about its own brand of happiness.

  Hope heads into the shelter, throwing out friendly exchanges with the residents she knows. Into the kitchen, she starts chatting with purple-haired Tammy, who’s furiously peeling potatoes. Mikey limps in soon after, as Hope puts on her crew apron, ready to open the shutters, to start serving food with a natural smile. People
still need smiles. People still need hope.

  Him

  ‘Before I go I think you should take a look at the latest list,’ Ethan is saying as Tom makes fresh coffee.

  ‘More names?’

  Ethan makes a helpless gesture. He reaches down into the attaché case he’s brought with him, showing Tom a long list of doctors, dignitaries, journalists, politicians, even a handful of celebrities. The rolling list Ethan’s unit keep an eye on.

  Tom read an article by Ralph the other day. ‘Cloud999’, Ralph titled it, alluding to the number of high-profiles still existing who’ve never been revealed. Ralph emailed him the link, probably hoping it would be a prompt to making up. But Tom won’t respond. In his mind Ralph’s still as guilty of his dad’s death as Jack Wright. At least Jack Wright is having to serve twenty years for his part, along with Slicer, Commander Menton, Nina Mitchell and some of the others. Even the ex-PM, Damian Price, was proved accountable.

  ‘You really think a footballer can incite bad feeling against us?’ Tom balks, pointing at one of the names.

  ‘Don’t you remember how it all happened?’ Ethan says.

  Tom shrugs. Like he can forget. He just needs to read Livelifewithhope to remind himself what happened every day of the past year. A big part of him wishes Hope wouldn’t reveal their story to the world like that. It’s not his way. He prefers to keep his life to himself, guard his secrets. He’s more like his mum like that, he realises now. But he knows Hope finds it cathartic. So he tries to keep it to himself when it bothers him.

  ‘Corruption can snowball if you get enough people backing one bad person, yeah?’ Ethan slaps Tom on the back. ‘We have to keep a close eye on anyone heard talking favourably about Leata and Cloud 9, online or offline.’

  Tom nods, though he’s still not sure – it smacks of another version of police-stating.

  Her

  She gets off the train and walks the familiar roads until she spies Mrs Riley kneeling over a border on their front lawn.

  ‘Hope, hi! How’s your mum?’ She twists round, welcoming her with a kind smile.