by Terry Tyler
"Okay. But make it quick." He looks at Lilyn. "Is Dan here? I need to talk to him."
"Him and Lock are down at the boat―"
He doesn't even stop to answer, but heads straight back out of the door.
"What's eating him?" asks Shanna, pulling a seat up for me. I sit down; the heat from the fire begins to penetrate my clothes and warm my frozen body.
I'm so cold from our early morning ride, so drained from lack of sleep that I can hardly speak. "I'll tell you in a bit."
Beth reaches out for the large pan by the fire. "You look like you need tea and food. Oatmeal?"
"Yes please―we've not had much." I don't attempt to say anything else until the food enters my stomach and begins to thaw me out, and even then the enormity of all I have to tell them weighs heavy on me. Where to start? "Lilyn―the drop-ins―every one we passed was closed down."
Shanna frowns. "Yeah? That's a worry."
Lilyn pats her stomach and smiles. "Not really! We're more or less self-sufficient here, aren't we?"
"Yeah, but medication," says Shanna. "Specially when little one arrives."
"We'll be okay." Lilyn looks serene and happy. "I feel better about it now; I've got over my angst, Rae! People were having babies long before modern medicine, after all."
Beth raises her hands, as if in disbelief. "What's the matter with you lot? It's not about whether we need them. The question we should be asking is why they're closing." She looks at me, somewhat accusingly. "You're megacity―what d'you think?"
"I was just getting to that, but―" I feel dizzy, all of a sudden. Disorientated, weak. I have to tell Lilyn about our brother. As I open my mouth to do so, though, I am aware how odd it is that she hasn't even asked me what happened; it's like she's forgotten. She's just stroking her stomach and gazing into the fire, like she hasn't got a care in the world.
"Lilyn―you know I went off to find John?"
She gives me a sweet but rather vague smile. "Well, I'm assuming you didn't find him or he'd be with you!"
"I did, though."
"Yeah? That's more than I expected!" Her face shows surprise, but that's all. "Where is he, then?"
"Up in Cumbria. We found him in an off-grid."
"Wow, how about that? So what's he doing? Is he okay? Is he coming down here to see me?"
"No―Lilyn, it wasn't good." I look around at her friends. "Do you want to hear this alone? I mean, just you and me?"
"No, anything you want to say to me you can say in front of Shanna and Beth." She beams at both of them. "They're family."
Of course. They're more her sisters than I am. She never bothered to look for John because her family are these people she's lived with, for all these years. I set too much store by the 'blood ties' thing, because I never had any. This makes me sad, but I understand it. I really do.
So I tell her about all about Dylan and Rocky John, and she nods, and looks suitably shocked, and says, 'Oh, that's awful', and 'Poor old you, after building your hopes up for so long', but she doesn't seem too concerned, not even when Shanna says something about murder running in the family, which I find so appallingly rude and insensitive that I fear it might prove truer than she realises.
Lilyn says, "He was a funny kid; I can hardly remember him now, but he was always difficult. Sneaky. He'd try to get me into trouble for things he'd done, and he never took any notice when Mum told him to be careful playing out on his own. He went his own way. I felt more protective towards you, 'cause I was five when you were born and you were my baby sister, but John? After he disappeared I never expected to see him again, you know? I felt sad at first but then I started to hate him because he'd totally fucked Mum's head up." She looks sad then, gazing into the fire. "I didn't want to say this when you were here before, but I blamed him for her dying. So he's led a waste of a life, and tried to pin a murder on his friend―well, I hope the police pick him up and put him in a jail cell. Good riddance to bad rubbish."
Beth and Shanna lean forward, each of them putting their hands over hers, and I think, I should be doing that, not them. But they're her sisters. I'm not. I'm just a stranger who shares her genes.
Sadness washes over me. I saw Ginevra and her mother, and thought I was going to find that bond too, but too much has happened; too many years have passed. The NPU system did this to me. The megacity did. Split us up, turned us into strangers. I'm so fucking angry. We should have been allowed to be a family, all together in our home, not forced out of it and into MC-fucking-12. Then Dad wouldn't have gone crazy, Mum would have been able to keep all her children, have us grow up together, knowing each other, and maybe John wouldn't have turned out the way he did.
"Rae? Babe, are you okay?"
Lilyn is leaning over to me, taking my hand as Shanna and Beth took hers, and I shake myself out of my thoughts to feel tears running down my face.
"I'm sorry, darling," she says. "I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't realise how much it meant to you, finding John. I shouldn't have talked about him like that."
"It's not that―"
It's my own stupid fault, not hers, for expecting other people to live up to my dreams.
"You're not alone," says Lilyn.
I look into her kind eyes. "Thank you. I'm okay."
"Well, if you're not, you will be. I used to feel alone, lots of the time, but then I met Dan. And now you've got me―I know we've only just met, but we'll get there. And you've got Ace."
I sniff, and force a wry smile. "I hardly know him. He's just someone who's been good enough to take me out on a wild goose chase. That's all."
Lilyn laughs. "Ah, you don't see the way he looks at you. Anyway, you shouldn't judge people by what they say, or don't say. Judge them by what they do."
Movement outside the window catches my eye; I look up to see Ace, Dan, Lock, and another man, who I assume is Jude, approaching the house. Jesus―what the fuck am I doing, sitting here feeling sorry for myself? This isn't a Balance counselling session, it's real, dangerous life.
"Lilyn, never mind all that now; there's something else I've got to tell you, and it's much more important―"
Ace bursts through the back door, and I let him deliver the news, instead.
He was right. It's happening.
In words of one syllable, he tells Shanna, Lilyn and Beth exactly what's going on, and Beth gives me a look that reminds me of Ginevra at her most displeased.
"And you didn't think to mention this?"
"I was about to―I thought I should tell Lilyn about her brother, first."
"In the big scheme of things, it's hardly important, is it? We could have talked about it on the way to wherever we're going."
"Stop getting on her case," says Dan. "They rode through the night to get here."
And it's worse than we thought.
As they were talking by the boats, news arrived via a man sailing his way down the coast to warn wastelanders living out in these remote coastal settlements, that three communities in South Yorkshire were cleared yesterday.
"Forced into trucks, at gunpoint," says Dan. "No clue as to where they're going. This guy escaped on his boat; he's just letting a few people know before he fucks off to the Netherlands."
"We've got to go," says Ace, to my sister. "You need to pack up your stuff, because we need to leave today."
She doesn't move. "But Yorkshire―that's miles away, and we've no proof that they're doing it all over, have we? They're not going to worry about us; we're not harming anyone. We just live here, quietly, and mind our own business."
Dan walks over to her. "Sweetheart, it's not safe. I do think we might have to leave."
"But this is our home!"
Shanna stands up. "You can understand where she's coming from, Dan―and it's nearly winter. It might be just those ones; they could have been, I dunno, doing a sneaky with the blitz, trading it themselves, or something. Every few months we hear some theory or other about the end of the wasteland, but none of them ever come to anything.
"
Lilyn holds her hand to her stomach again. "My baby needs to be here. In our home."
I feel like a coiled spring. "If you stay here, you'll probably end up having it in a Hope Village."
Lilyn's eyes open wide, fearful. "But where will we go?"
"From what I've heard, the Netherlands is our best bet, or Belgium," Dan says. "They take in people escaping shit conditions in non-EU countries, and their wastelanders are treated okay; it's seen as a lifestyle choice."
Shanna says, "But if there's a mass panic everyone will escape over there, there won't be room for us, and we'll end up in some scummy refugee centre, probably for years―"
Ace glares at her. "Better than being dead."
Well, that makes everyone shut up.
Shanna says, "Whaddya mean? They're not going to kill us. They can't. It's the UK, not the fucking Middle East."
"These squads doing the clearance―their guns aren't ornaments. They're shooting to kill. The guy at my mate's place, he saw it happen."
Lilyn gasps. "But why? Why are they doing this?"
"'Cause we serve no purpose, and won't bow down. We're rats, and they're bringing in the pest control."
She covers her mouth with her hand, the other hand pressed to her stomach.
Dan puts his arm around her. "C'mon, man. Let's not get overdramatic."
Shanna says, "Too right―and, anyway, they need us to make blitz."
Ace's eyes narrow. "Not all of us."
Beth stands up. "Ace is right. Listen to what he's saying, all of you. We can't pretend this isn't happening, just because we don't want it to be." She picks up her jacket. "I'm going to head down to Grant's. See if he's heard anything on the radio. If these squads are on their way to Norfolk, he'll be able to find out."
"So what are we going to do?" asks Shanna. "Pack up, abandon everything we've built here and head over the fucking North Sea, based on a couple of people's dire warnings?"
"I wouldn't mind getting a bit more confirmation," says Lock; Dan and Lilyn look at each other, and nod.
"That's what they're relying on," says Ace. "That our lack of communication will be our downfall, and we'll sit here dithering, not doing anything 'cause we don't want to leave our fucking vegetable patches." He slams the heel of his hand against his forehead. "Can you not see?"
"Okay," says Beth. "Wait till I come back. Let's find out if this is real."
Ace says, "Oh, it's real. Listen, every drop-in we passed on the way out was shut down. They're getting rid of us. Rounding us up. We don't go now, we'll end up in a Hope Village, or whatever that place was that they're building up by Hadrian's Wall."
He turns to Dan. "You said you've got twenty-six people, and you and Jude's boats can hold sixty between them―can that stretch?"
Dan shrugs. "Maybe. We can take most of 'em, then Tom, down the way, he's got a cabin cruiser, too, takes about twelve, and there's another small one―"
"Right. We'll be back late afternoon, early evening." He puts his hand in the crook of my arm. "Let's go."
Dan walks behind the counter, brings out two walkies and chucks one at Ace. "It's only got a range of about ten miles, but that's enough for you to give us advance warning if you see anything, and vice versa. Channel four." He stops, frowning. "You know that if they come for us while you're gone we'll have to go, don't you? First sign of any of those army trucks, and we're down to the boat and away."
"Yeah. I get that."
So do I.
I hug Lilyn, and we're out of there.
"Dan gave me fuel," he says. "Enough to get back home, then we can fill up there."
"I can't believe this is happening so fast."
"Believe it."
I climb onto the bike and clutch the back bar; Ace reaches back and takes my arm, pulling it around his waist.
"Other one, too. I don't want you flying off if I have to make sudden swerves."
As we speed off, the comforting solidity of his back against me makes me feel safe, and that's dangerous, because I'm not safe at all. Far from it.
I haven't felt properly warm for days; my poor cossetted little body has been used to temperature-controlled everything in MC12, for my whole life. Apartments, offices, gym, ziprails―until now, I hadn't known what it felt like to be cold for more than half an hour at a time. I huddle against Ace as we roar down silent empty roads, out of Norfolk towards Cambridgeshire. The motion of the bike soothes me, the crisp, cold autumn day is beautiful, and the tension floats from my head.
Too soon.
We're just crossing the county line when we see them, in the distance. An army convoy, rolling along―and the landscape in East Anglia is so flat that there's nowhere to hide.
I hear Ace curse; he swerves off to the left, down a narrow, overgrown road towards an abandoned farm, and takes binoculars out of his inside pocket.
"Yeah. It's them. Gotta be. It's too empty out here. They're going to hear us from miles away―that's if they don't see us."
We walk the bike through the farm, down muddy paths at the sides of fields; it's hard going and my eyes are peeled, right and left, just waiting for someone to spot us.
All it takes is one person. One pair of eyes. We're like characters in one of Nash's RPGs, creeping along, not knowing whether or not the enemy can see us.
The gradient of the land begins to slope just slightly downhill, so we climb onto the bike and coast down to the bottom. My nose is numb with cold beneath its scarf. We reach the end of the lane, park up behind a tall hedgerow, and Ace goes off to take a leak; as he walks back, buttoning up his fly, he says, "Detour's put twenty minutes on the journey, at least. We'll go out towards―"
He stops.
"What's up?"
"Shh." He puts a finger in the air and I listen. For a moment I hear nothing, but then the sound of men laughing cuts through the silence of the morning.
The rumble of an engine starting up.
"Shit. Stay here." Ace creeps along under cover of the hedge, slow and silent, and out to the road; he beckons me and I follow, carefully, carefully, scared stiff that I'll tread on something, slip and fall, make any sort of noise that might give us away.
He whispers, "Look."
I peer through the brambles.
Just a short way off, a group of soldiers guard a T-junction―and a barrier that says 'Road Closed'.
Facing us is the back of one of those huge trucks; its back doors open and I see people inside, sitting on benches. A soldier leaps down, and walks round to talk to those at the barrier; they share a laugh and a joke. Another one stands, facing the passengers.
I pinch the binoculars. There is no laughing and joking in the back of the truck. Just faces filled with fear, despair and anger.
Ace says, "They see us, we'll be joining them."
"Fuck."
"Yeah. Fuck." He pulls me away.
"Back that way?" But it's so damn open.
"No." He take the binoculars back, looks out in the other direction, and points. "We're good. We go that way."
He wheels the bike across the dirt track and into the next field that follows a bend in the road, away from the guards; we're still hidden by hedge. I follow close behind. Every moment I expect to hear the crack of a gun behind me, or someone shouting at me to stop.
Any minute it could be all over.
Not a character in a video game. A fugitive, one ill-chosen move away from being captured.
After about five minutes, Ace stops, puts his fingers to his mouth and beckons me to follow him through a gap in the hedge. He points across the road. "We need to be over there. You ready?"
We climb aboard, and I peer left and right; the mob of soldiers is now out of sight, round the bend.
"This is going to be fast, and if we see any of those bastards it'll be even faster, so hold on tight, keep your knees pressed in, and lean into the right and left with me, when I turn. Got it?"
I've got it.
We move off so swiftly that I coul
d be on a crazy, super-speed fairground ride. The wind is an icy knife cutting through my clothes, whipping my hair out of my collar; my scarf slips off my face and my nose is so frozen I can hardly breathe through it, but I daren't take my hand from Ace's waist to pull it back up; he dips and dives around winding lanes, I bend with him as if we're one, and the land becomes less flat; we've left the fens.
He shouts, "Up there!"
In the distance, at a crossroads up ahead, I see another set of guards.
More trucks.
We're going too fast not to be seen. There are no side roads or tracks on either side, just fields, our way across them barred by hedgerows and fences.
We're done for. Men stand before us, guns held high, and I wait for it, for something, a shot, the end―but Ace doesn't slow down. He shouts, "Hold on!" and I feel like I'm flying as he hits the accelerator, going faster, faster, so fast―the men yell to each other to stand back, get out the way as we zip down a narrow space between barriers and truck, zig-zagging, zooming away from them, hurtling down the road, too fast for me to even look back.
Too fast for them to follow us.
I hear shots, I shut my eyes tight, waiting for the impact, the pain, but neither comes―we're okay, we've done it, they missed, and I cling on to Ace's back for dear life as the bike leans right, then left, then right again around corners.
We're away. We beat them.
I can't help it. I whoop. We must have travelled ten miles in five minutes, and finally we slow down to what must still be forty miles per hour but feels like we're crawling, in comparison. Ace reaches behind, pats me on the leg, and shouts, "We did it!"
We ride on; there is no one chasing us.
Maybe they think they'll get us another way. They're wrong.
I want to punch the air. I put my hand on Ace's shoulder and he leans his head to one side, touching it with his cheek in reply.
At last, at last, we reach the sign for Fennington.
As we ride into the village, Ace lets the bike cruise into an alley down the side of some old buildings.
He gets off, pulls his scarf down, and smiles at me.
I have never, ever seen him smile this much.