‘No.’
‘We’ll take our time, yeah. Ain’t no hurry. I try to fight you now, you’re liable to kill me.’
‘Yeah, but you said …’
‘Padawan!’ Achilleus cut him off. ‘Are you carrying any gear right now?’
‘No.’
‘OK. So I ain’t doing any training then.’
They walked past the entrance to the dinosaur gallery and Achilleus caught a glimpse of Maxie organizing a work party.
He nodded to her.
She nodded back at him and gave him a look that said she could do without having to deal with this right now. She looked tired and harassed. Not a very nice job, getting rid of dead bodies. The smell was pretty chronic. Live grown-ups smelt bad enough; dead ones were another matter entirely.
They went off fast. The effects of the disease seemed to accelerate after death. Once they were out in the sunlight they’d probably bubble and split and pop. The Holloway kids called exploding corpses ‘bursters’.
The passageway at the end of the blue zone opened out into a modern extension with a glass wall rising up five floors and supported by a grid of polished grey steel. That would have drawn all of Achilleus’ attention if it hadn’t been for the giant white concrete egg that stood next to the window, filling the space.
‘What the bloody hell is that?’ Achilleus asked.
‘It’s called the Cocoon,’ said Brooke, who had stopped to let the boys catch up. ‘We’ll go up through it to get to the laboratories.’
‘You really got laboratories here?’
‘We got everything, soldier.’
As they made their way up the sloping ramps inside the Cocoon, Brooke explained how Justin had got a couple of the museum labs running under the supervision of a boy called Einstein. It was their hope to discover more about the disease that had so changed their world, maybe even find a cure.
Achilleus said nothing. He found the idea that a bunch of kids might cure anything ridiculous. But if they wanted to arse about playing doctors and nurses he wasn’t going to stop them. That was their business. All he cared about right now was killing the pain in his head.
Paddy, on the other hand, seemed excited and delighted by everything, firing off a stream of questions at Brooke which she answered patiently.
The entrance to the labs was near the top and they emerged from the Cocoon to find several kids hard at work, studying books, squinting into microscopes, fiddling with dirty-looking liquid in test tubes. Some of the kids were even wearing white coats. Achilleus felt sick. He was right back at school.
He set his face into default mode, a lazy mocking grin that said, ‘I am not impressed by you, and I never will be. You will never reach my level. So leave me alone, loser.’
Paddy was off and running, though, pestering the kids, asking them what they were doing, trying to look into their microscopes. Brooke left him with Maeve and took Achilleus through to a smaller room where a giant of a boy who looked about eighteen but couldn’t be was being tended to. A fair-haired guy and a girl with a headscarf were dabbing a nasty-looking wound on his arm with some kind of white cream.
Achilleus raised his chin in greeting.
‘This Holby City then, is it?’
‘Something like that,’ said the girl, and then she switched her attention to Brooke. ‘We thought you might show up here this morning. How bad is that wound?’
‘They looked after me pretty well at the palace,’ said Brooke.
‘Somebody going to take an interest in me?’ Achilleus butted in. ‘I didn’t come over here to fix your computers.’ He pointed to his bandaged head. ‘See this? It’s a clue.’
‘You want to compare wounds?’ asked Brooke. ‘See whose is the grossest?’
‘I’ll beat you, no contest, girl.’
‘You reckon.’
‘I reckon.’
‘OK,’ said Brooke. ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’
Achilleus laughed.
‘Deal.’
They each began to unwrap their bandages, the girl in the headscarf hovering nervously.
‘Oh my God,’ she said when she caught sight of Achilleus’ ear. She had gone bone-white and her lower jaw had dropped about a metre. ‘You look like Frankenstein.’
‘Cheers.’
‘That is the worst stitching job I have ever seen.’
‘It was that or lose my ear,’ said Achilleus.
‘Did they even sew it back on the right way up?’
‘Don’t think you’re going to get in there and try to make any improvements,’ said Achilleus. ‘Cos you ain’t. What’s done is done. If it gets infected, I’ll need some of your pills. For now just keep it clean.’
Brooke had finished removing her own bandage, and when the girl saw what was underneath she was, if anything, even more freaked out. She put her hand to her mouth and couldn’t say anything.
Achilleus took a look for himself and had to admit it was pretty rank. A ragged purple scab ran right across the girl’s forehead. The skin around it was puffy and swollen and pulled out of shape. She’d been patched up like him. But none of the kids at Buckingham Palace had exactly been surgeons. Brooke would always carry a nasty scar there. She implied she’d been hot before. Hard to tell, the state she was in. She sure wasn’t going to be hot any more.
And she knew it.
‘Oh, Samira …’ she said to the girl in the headscarf, and could say no more; her mouth quivered and she began to cry. Samira held her, waiting for her to stop.
Achilleus didn’t have anything to contribute. He stood there awkwardly and nodded at the big guy with the wounded arm.
‘You’re back.’ A kid with bad teeth and bad hair had come into the room. He was wearing a dirty lab coat and he looked at Brooke, Achilleus and the big guy as if they were specimens in a jar. He inspected Achilleus’s ear, showing no reaction other than mild curiosity. He was the same with Brooke’s ruined forehead.
‘I heard about DogNut,’ he said to Brooke when he was done. ‘I’m sorry about that. He was no scientist, but I did quite like him.’ He tilted his head to one side and gave Achilleus a proper once-over, noting his unimpressed manner, the pattern razor-cut into his stubbly hair, his scars and injuries.
And then he tutted.
‘Looks like you’ve brought us another hoodie, Brooke. Chavs and hoodies are no use to us. We need scientists, doctors … clever people.’
Achilleus pushed the fair-haired guy to one side and stood up. Advanced on the kid in the lab coat, put an arm round his shoulder and held his neck just a little too tight.
‘Ow,’ said the boy. ‘I was joking, OK? It was meant to be a joke.’
‘You hear that sound?’
‘What sound?’
‘The sound of me not laughing.’
‘I’m sorry, OK?’
‘Yeah. Well, you listen up, funny man. If it wasn’t for me and my friends, you wouldn’t have no labs left here. You’d be fighting off zomboids, and you’d be losing. Badly. So let’s have a little appreciation here, OK?’
‘OK. OK. Ow. Let me go.’
Achilleus threw him away. ‘Next time you tell a joke make sure it’s a funny one, yeah?’
‘Yeah …’
‘Hello, Einstein,’ said Brooke. ‘You really know how to make friends, don’t you?’
Einstein rubbed his neck and swallowed.
‘I only came in to tell you that Justin’s called a special meeting. He wants everyone there now, in the Hall of Gods.’
‘We’ll come when we’re ready,’ said Achilleus.
12
Maxie was sitting next to Blue in what the local kids had named the Hall of Gods, but which was actually only a side entrance area of the museum. There were star charts and images of the planets painted on the polished black walls that rose some thirty metres to the roof, where dim blue light washed down through tinted windows. At the back was a long escalator that led up through a rusty iron globe into the darkness of
an upper floor.
Lined up along either side of the hall were six white statues lit by candles, and in the underwater glow from the high windows they looked weird and slightly sinister. There was a Cyclops, a gorgon with snakes for hair, a scientist, an astronaut, Atlas holding up the world, and the figure of a man that looked like it might be God. Maxie supposed they were meant to represent the advance of human knowledge about the world and how it worked. She wondered whether they ought to add another statue – of a diseased grown-up.
There were kids lined up on chairs as if ready for a show, but Justin was keeping them waiting. Maxie hoped they hadn’t stumbled into the arms of another David. There was certainly a similar atmosphere here to the one at the palace. An attitude that said that the way these kids did things was the right way and the way everyone else did things was wrong.
She felt on edge, her eyes were sore and she kept seeing shapes and flickers in her peripheral vision caused by tiredness. After the adrenalin-fuelled events of last night, and a morning spent dragging bodies out into the sunlight, she felt drained and irritable. So she wasn’t really enjoying the pantomime.
Well, they didn’t get everything right, did they? Otherwise Maxie and her friends wouldn’t have spent half the night dealing with grown-ups. They’d arrived here right in the middle of a bloody battle, for God’s sake. And somebody had let those grown-ups in, which meant that at least one person in the museum was seriously twisted.
So she hoped there weren’t going to be any speeches about how great life was here. She might just throw up. The best leader she’d ever known was Arran, and the best set-up was the one they’d had in Waitrose. She supposed they’d had no choice but to leave. Food was running low, the grown-ups’ attacks were getting more frequent, and the two facts were probably related. Even so, Maxie looked back fondly on her time in the supermarket, and she missed Arran desperately. She’d been badly shaken up by his death and had had to take on the role of leading the Waitrose kids. She wasn’t really ready for that, and was glad she’d made friends with Blue, who shared leadership duties with her. She didn’t think she could carry everything by herself.
She wondered what this new bunch of kids had to offer. Would she make any friends here? She looked around at them, trying to read their faces. Brooke was sitting next to her, but otherwise the locals kept to themselves and didn’t mix with the new arrivals.
She realized that quite a few of them were wearing weird costumes, as if they were extras from some old BBC drama series, or a Keira Knightley film. Nothing much surprised Maxie any more. In the last few days she’d seen a lot of weird behaviour. Left to themselves the kids of London were going nuts. For the last year the supermarket had been her whole world. She hadn’t thought much about what existed outside. She’d been too busy getting on with the day-to-day business of staying alive. It was clear that there were far fewer grown-ups in this part of London than there had been in the north. The kids round here had it easy. They had too much time on their hands and so they were dressing up and playing at … Playing at what?
David at the palace had thought he was king. What did these kids think they were? Achilleus had told her about the laboratories in their white coats when he’d sauntered in late. Laughed about it. She didn’t know how to take this information. Didn’t know if it was a good or a bad thing.
But she did know that most of the kids here came across as nerds and misfits. The type of kids who’d been bullied and ostracized at school. Now they’d all clubbed together and had made this place into nerd-camp. Apart from the girl, Jackson, who was probably the toughest, scariest-looking girl she’d ever seen, they were soft. They had a soft lifestyle. And she resented it.
Maxie closed her eyes and rubbed them. She never used to think this way about people. It was a boy’s way of thinking. Boys thought that fighting, spitting, swearing, front, respect and strength were all that mattered. She was becoming dangerously macho in her outlook.
She was turning into Achilleus.
She slowly let out her breath. Tried to de-stress. She was just tired and grumpy, that was all. She’d look more kindly on them after resting up for a couple of days; for now, she’d see what they had to offer. See if she really wanted to stay here.
She sat back in her chair, arms folded, with a look that was meant to say ‘go on then, impress me’. She wasn’t too good at it, though. It didn’t come naturally to her. Blue was a master at it. His take-no-crap vibe was awesome. She sneaked a look at him. His face was set like stone, giving nothing away. As still and hard as one of the statues, the blue light shining on his dark skin.
Maxie knew that underneath he was as vulnerable and confused as she was, but he’d learnt from an early age how to pull down the blinds and keep strangers out.
Achilleus was using a different technique right now. He lounged in his chair, grinning, laughing, making comments, shaking his head, like a disruptive boy at the back of class. He didn’t need to bother with the stone face because he kept a level of violent menace bubbling just beneath the surface. He had the confidence to arse about because if anyone crossed him he would basically kill them.
It was different for her and Blue, though; as joint leaders they needed to pay attention. Maxie had to know what was going down. The smaller kids, and one or two of the older ones, like Achilleus, wouldn’t be following everything, or even listening, and they’d be bound to ask her questions later.
At last Justin arrived. Wasn’t much to look at. Serious expression, as nerdy as the rest of them, but confident with it.
He climbed a few steps up the escalator and then turned to address them.
‘First of all I’d just like to welcome you all here,’ he said, and Achilleus snorted. Maxie was giggling too. The boy sounded just like a headmaster and reminded her dangerously of David.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t welcome you all properly last night,’ he went on. ‘But, as you know, we were all rather busy. Running this place takes a lot of time and effort and brainpower. But, well, I don’t suppose you want to hear too much about that.’
‘No, we don’t,’ said Achilleus, and some of the Holloway crew laughed. ‘We want to know what’s for lunch.’
‘Well, OK, that’s understandable,’ said Justin. ‘A menu for the day is posted every morning in the canteen. Today I think it’s baked potatoes and cabbage. To tell you the truth, it’s potatoes and cabbage most days at the moment. We rely on what we grow, and that’s rather limited.’
‘We’ll go shopping for you,’ said Achilleus. ‘It’s what we’re used to.’
‘We’ll get on to that,’ said Justin. ‘Now you’ve probably noticed that we’re quite well organized, but we’re only set up to cope with a certain number of people. Obviously having you lot here is going to make things harder. Um, well … everybody here has a job to do. We all pull our weight.’
‘If we’d realized it was such a problem we’d have waited,’ said Achilleus. ‘Let them grown-ups take a few more of you out. Would have been less mouths to feed. Sorry we messed everything up for you.’
‘Yes, point taken, but if you could let me speak …’
‘Listen, mate. If it weren’t for us you’d be speaking to an empty room. Either that or some greasy grown-up would be sinking his teeth into your fat butt.’
‘As I say, I appreciate that. God, of course I do. We’re very grateful for what you did.’
‘Right. Spot on. You shoulda started with that, yeah? It ain’t no afterthought. Instead of all that bullshit about cabbage and pulling your weight. We pulled our weight. We made this place safe. So say thank you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And that’s all you need to say.’
‘Yes, sorry. It’s just I wasn’t prepared for this …’
‘That’s all you need to say.’
‘… I didn’t have a speech already written.’
‘Nobody asked for no speech, just some thanks and a little bread and water for our troubles.’
�
�You’ll be well looked after,’ said Justin. ‘But I need to know what you all do. I suppose you’re in charge.’
‘Me?’ said Achilleus. ‘Get lost. I ain’t the leader. I’m a soldier not a politician, mate. They two back there – Maxie and Blue – they the bosses.’
Maxie smiled politely at Justin, even though she’d told herself she wasn’t going to. Blue gave a barely noticeable nod.
‘Well, maybe I could meet with you two in private afterwards,’ said Justin. ‘We could have a more detailed chat.’
‘We’ll do it now,’ said Blue, standing up. ‘This meeting is over.’
13
‘You got a problem here, dude. You’re looking at us like we’re the problem. We ain’t the problem. The problem is yours.’
Blue sat there, arms folded, giving Justin the stone face. They’d come to the museum library and were sitting round a big table in the middle of the room. Justin had thought it would be quieter here, but the place was a mess. It had been turned over pretty badly in the attack last night.
‘I don’t see a problem,’ said Justin. ‘We do all right here. We’re almost self-sufficient and very well protected –’
Blue interrupted him with a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Yeah, we noticed. Wake up and smell the zombies, bruv. Maybe you thought that was a party last night. Didn’t look like no party to me, more like a massacre.’
‘That was not normal,’ said Justin, trying to keep his cool.
‘Yeah,’ said Blue. ‘Which is what I’m saying – you got yourself a problem.’
Justin went quiet, struggling to find the right words. Maxie looked around the room. A group of kids wearing what looked like monks’ robes were clearing up. There were books spilled on to the floor everywhere, broken shelves, some pieces of smashed up furniture and splashes of blood on the carpets.
Brooke noticed her looking.
‘It’s usually so peaceful in here.’ Brooke nodded towards a tall boy with a wispy, underdeveloped moustache who appeared to be in charge of the clean-up operation.
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