by S. M. Lynch
“It doesn’t seem right,” he muttered.
“Trust me, all will become clear.”
We made it safely through the slums and reached the wall. He looked up at the thick concrete monstrosity, staring at it like there was no way we’d get through.
“It’s ironic because my mother grew up in New York and they built a wall around that. Decades later they were tearing it down. When I heard they were building one here five years ago, when Roche first became World President, I couldn’t believe it and nor would my mother have. But power-hungry people will do whatever it takes to get what they want.”
He took a deep breath. “And I’m expecting you’re plotting to get us past this ridiculous thing?”
“Oh, I’m doing more than that,” I said, grinning.
I pulled an xGen from my pocket and opened the lid. My mother’s old device was still one of the most powerful on earth, but as far as my father knew, it was lying at the bottom of the Hudson River in New York, where she’d died. He didn’t know she’d had it messengered over to me before she was murdered. She’d known she was going to her death.
If Dad knew I had this, there’d be the whole lecture about my safety and not going the same way as Mom… basically not having it in my hands at all.
“What’s the significance of that?” Kyle asked, his questions getting more precise and careful.
He was learning faster… and faster.
“Wait two minutes,” I asked, “and you shall see. Just know, Camille’s device and this one… they are twins.”
We waited patiently. Kyle didn’t know, but Camille would be looking for the perfect opportunity.
My mother’s xGen came to life and words appeared on the screen: STAND BACK
I showed Kyle the message and we did as we were told, standing back. I also looked around us, seeing nobody who was showing an interest. There was a rain shower coming and most of the hobos had already taken to shelter. Earlier, I had checked the time rain was due. This was perfect.
A rope came sailing over the wall and dropped to the ground in front of us.
Kyle looked wary and stared at me. “I’m not going alone.”
I quickly texted Camille: THERE ARE TWO OF US
A minute later, another rope came sailing over and she messaged the words: DAMN GIRL
“Come on, quickly,” I told Kyle, handing him a pair of climbing gloves.
Ryken Hardy had dozens of pairs and never seemed to notice whenever I stole a couple. Climbing was the one activity we had enjoyed doing together.
We climbed the rope quickly, using the uneven surface of the ugly perimeter wall to get us up quickly. Once we made it to the top, we stood on the three-foot-thick wall and looked down. Camille was waiting for us. He didn’t know that… but I would recognize that all-black ensemble anywhere.
“Jump, quickly now,” she said, and we looked at one another.
Camille was waiting with an inflatable at the bottom.
“You go first, I’m right behind you.”
“No, no. I can’t… can you trust her?” he asked, terrified.
“You have thirty seconds before someone is along,” Camille warned, hissing in French.
I decided he’d understood the command because he jumped immediately and I followed suit.
Camille looked around and, satisfied we were safe, she quickly deflated the blow-up using a suction device. Gathering the ropes and pegs, she put them quickly into a black bag and handed the bag to Kyle, asking, “Can you handle this?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. And you, mademoiselle?” She looked at me from beneath her black hood. “Grab the inflatable.”
This item was much heavier and more cumbersome and I realized she was mad with me or she would have made Kyle carry this one.
“Follow me,” she said, “and stay close. Don’t dawdle.”
She was back to English and I realized she’d spoken French before just in case this guy was a whacko and couldn’t be trusted in a stressful situation.
It stank of my father having already been in touch with her about me possibly visiting sometime soon.
The rain began in little spits and drops, but soon, it was a torrential downpour in the middle of a late-autumnal day. The rain came and came, transforming into sheets, the water pelting so hard across corrugated roofs, there wasn’t a chance in hell the cardboard boxes would survive this one.
We made it down a tiny alleyway and I could hardly see where I was going. I felt a hand pull on my arm and suddenly we were sheltered and hidden indoors, the corridor we’d entered lit dimly and echoey.
I caught my breath as did Kyle.
“If we were not due a storm, what would your plan have been?” Camille chastised, ripping off her hood and getting all up in my grill.
“I don’t know. Probably risk the checkpoints with fake ID or something. Probably wouldn’t have pulled it off so I’d have had to execute all those moves you taught me last summer.” She gave me a look that could kill. “Well, we got here, didn’t we? Sorry!”
“Tsk,” she said, “tsk. Just like your mother. Impossible. Utterly reckless and impossible. Unbelievable.”
We followed her as she attempted to storm off, but for a woman of 140 pounds built entirely of taut sinew, not one part of her fat or even thin—her body powerful and economical—it was impossible to storm off. She was as graceful as a ballerina and as quick and light as a cat.
We entered what I decided was her current habitation. It was sort of crappy and damp. The kitchen we walked into had exposed brick and an old stove, a warped dinner table and ragged chairs that barely matched. She put the kettle on the gas and pointed to where we could put our damp jackets and shoes near a radiator.
“How have you been?” she asked, her back to us as she pretended to watch over the kettle.
She couldn’t look at the guy standing alongside me, that was the problem.
“This is Kyle, by the way,” I said. “We’ve come for your help.”
“What help?” She had a silken voice, but just occasionally, it could seem thorny.
“In figuring out why Kyle is here.”
“And have you told Kyle how he might be able to help us?”
“No.”
“Ah, I see,” she said, turning to look at us both. “That’s why you’re really here.”
“Yes.”
Kyle looked at me, then at her. He was utterly perplexed. I would have been, too if I didn’t know better. Camille was sixty-seven years old and platinum-haired. She wore no make-up, no jewelry, no identifying anything. It appeared as if she might be poor, down and out… even a bit pathetic, really. A stranger such as Kyle might meet her and think she looked harmless, really. That was her power, though. To underestimate her… that would be your downfall. She’d never traded off looks or money, but her skills, tenacity… ruthlessness.
“He wants to learn about 2023,” I told her hastily, as she filled three cups with hot water, the scent of bergamot wafting through the room.
“I was a child, what could I tell him he doesn’t already know?” she scoffed.
“I’m sure you could tell him why the world is like it is now. Couldn’t you?”
She handed us both tea and Kyle wrapped his hands around the mug as though it was a fortifying elixir… though, to him, drinking tea for the first time probably did seem mystical.
“Does your father know you’re here?” she asked.
“I’m not afraid of him any more than you are.”
As if she hadn’t been pre-warned by him I’d been planning to show up today… as if she was going to be swayed by his concerns, any more than I’d allow myself to be.
“Well,” she said, eyes darting between me and the stranger.
Of course, Dad and Auntie Camille were in cahoots; they always were. It didn’t matter that my father had already warned me about Kyle or that Camille was obviously of the same opinion—I wanted to see if we could make a difference, once and for al
l. And Camille was typical of her species—intent on playing with her prey before she killed it.
I moved into Camille’s space and mumbled, “My father doesn’t see the potential I do.”
I towered above Camille, who was tall for a woman, but still didn’t match me. Still, she wasn’t intimidated. She was probably the only person aside from my father who never would be. Oh, but there was one more not intimidated by me… though the less said about him, the better.
“On your head be it, then,” she warned, “on your head be it.”
We sat around the table and she proceeded to tell Kyle her story.
Chapter Six
April 2023
CAMILLE WAS TEN YEARS OLD when they came for her. Her mother had gone out for milk the previous night but hadn’t returned. There was looting on the streets, there were people being gunned down. She feared the worst that morning… when they came.
An officer, certainly not a gendarme, told her: “It’s time to go, come on.”
“Where is Mamma?” she asked, because the man spoke English, which she knew a little of.
“She’s dead, like the others. Come. We must get you out of here. Time to go.”
She was given five minutes to pack up her things. She wondered if it was best to remove her secret box of trinkets from underneath the floorboards in her bedroom, but who could tell where it was they were taking her? Would her things be safe where they were going? Was it best to leave them hidden?
The choice was taken out of her hands as a petrol bomb exploded in the street outside. She’d barely packed her clothes when the man—the officer—grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, threw her over his shoulder and flew out of that building faster than she thought possible.
At the back of the house a truck was waiting and she was thrown in alongside a dozen or more children ranging from the very small to fifteen or sixteen.
“GO! GO!” the officer shouted.
The truck juddered into action and the driver took all the back streets and alleys, cutting across the city in zigzags while picking up more kids like her at the same time.
When the truck was so full Camille found herself shoulder to shoulder with the officer, a man who was tall, broad and dressed only in black, she said to him, “What is your name?”
“Smith,” he said.
She shook her head. “That is not your name.”
“Then maybe it’s none of your business.”
All the other kids looked alarmed Camille was daring to talk to their armed and seemingly dangerous escort out of the ravaged city.
Once they made it to the motorway, the driver put his foot to the floor and the man in black told everyone, “I’m taking you to an orphanage outside the city. The nuns will take care of you.”
The children looked at each other and Camille saw that not everyone understood. She relayed what he’d just said in French and most kids burst into tears.
“Why are we going to an orphanage?” Camille asked.
“Your parents were all murdered. I’m from the British Secret Service, sent to get you out.”
“Why were they murdered?” she asked, and despite the language barrier, most people in the vehicle still understood that one word.
“They were enemies of Officium,” he said, with little to no emotion. He looked aggrieved, if anything. “Can’t we hurry up, please?” he shouted at the driver. “Who knows how many more are out there.”
It was a flower truck or a fruit truck they were travelling in, Camille wasn’t sure, but the floor was damp and the benches on either side of the truck had been installed so that someone could sit either side and work on whatever produce this thing usually transported.
As the wind whipped through the vehicle, Camille turned her face into it, encouraging and sustaining her tears the rest of the way.
Her mother and father had often talked about their travels around the world but had spoken mysteriously about what it was they actually did for a living.
She believed the man who dropped them at the chateau-cum-orphanage was rescuing them and she believed her parents were truly dead. Otherwise, why did Mamma not come back from the store? And why did Papa not call yesterday when he always called? The first thing she did when she was shown to her dormitory that night was engrave in the wall: RIP Tomas & Irene Honoré
She, along with the other orphans, cried themselves to sleep every night for the next few months.
THE KIND OF quiet that sends people insane took Camille by surprise as the weeks and months at the chateau creaked onwards. At thirteen, her periods started… her life was ruined. They were shut away from the outside world without sanitary products and she was forced to hide in her room once a month, every time the cloths and straps did nothing to save her the embarrassment of leaking.
The nuns sustained the children with their small herd of livestock. They also grew vegetables, made their own cheese and wine. Their orchards were full of apples and pears.
Yet Camille knew something was going on that was peculiar because once a week, the nuns would gather together with the monks of a nearby monastery for a secret meeting.
Maeva, Camille’s best friend, decided they could sneak in and hide behind curtains but Camille had rubbished that idea and had laughed when Maeva was caught out before the meeting even began.
Camille knew the only way to spy on the meeting would be to get in the roof somehow.
She’d already been planning her escape for months—anything just so she could have tampons and make-up and better clothes and a hairbrush that wasn’t so bent out of shape. She’d been working out in the chateau grounds, doing circuit training, weights (big boulders or bags of apples), sit-ups and push-ups and whatever else she could remember her father doing every morning before he left for work. He’d told her, “We must be ready, Camille. For anything.”
Whatever was inside her, she knew it had come from her parents—this desire to be strong, to fight back, to be free. She was going to escape the orphanage, but only after finding out about the wretched meetings the old folk kept having behind closed doors.
One night when she was meant to be fast asleep, Camille donned an outfit that was all black. She’d even fashioned a type of disguise to cover her eyes, a kind of Zorro mask. She tiptoed in bare feet and skipped through the hallways like Bruce Lee.
When she was sure she hadn’t been followed and that none of the other kids had any idea she’d escaped, she found the door to a winding staircase which she believed led to the roof. Picking the lock, she let herself inside. The Reverend Mother was often seen climbing the stairs, a huge bunch of keys hanging from her waist whenever she accessed it. Camille had spent several nights in this same corridor in the dead of night figuring out how to pick the lock with a couple of different sized bits of metal wire she’d found near the stables.
Tonight, Camille was equipped to pick her way in without delay. And she did. She was behind the door and chasing her way up before she knew it.
At the top of the stairs, she discovered a large airy room and was shocked to discover a patient fast asleep in bed. There were monitors and a drip and the patient didn’t stir at all as Camille crept through the room. How strange. Here was this patient… a young woman around sixteen or seventeen… and Camille had never seen her before, nor had the nuns ever mentioned a patient they were looking after.
Camille had studied the building, figuring there must be a space in the roof directly above the hall where the old people met for their illicit conclave or whatever it was they were doing. This room was that space but there was also a door at the other side of the room which Camille felt sure would open… and would lead to something that would make all her hard work and training worthwhile.
Slowly and soundlessly, she found the knob turned easily. On the other side of the door, she discovered a security room with monitors displaying images of all the public areas and the grounds—virtually all of the chateau outsiders might try to gain access to.
She wond
ered… because she had never seen any cameras while on her walks. Where did they hide them? And were the cameras high-tech enough to be so discreet, nobody ever saw them? Thankfully there were no images of the halls and corridors near the dormitories, or her hosts might have spotted her creeping around all these months.
As her heart slowed, she heard voices instead. Distant but discernible voices. Looking down at her own feet, she saw a tiny gap between the floorboards and had an idea. Taking to her hands and knees, she carefully pressed her ear to the floor to hear more.
The voices she heard were not loud but clear enough she could discern the topic of conversation.
“There’s no hope,” someone said in Latin. “The world is doomed.”
“We must have faith,” another argued, sounding passionate.
Now Camille was glad she’d listened in Latin class and that her father had taught her from an early age, too.
“If they find out we have hidden the children here, they will slaughter us all. But with the reports of starvation, disease and deprivation, I feel we must go to the people and help them…”
“…but what if that’s not our calling?” another added. “What if our job is to keep these few safe? They could be the future.”
“The future, yes,” the Reverend Mother said, Camille having discerned her voice above all others because the Reverend was oldest, wisest and going a little deaf, so always spoke up. “They are the future. Look at Camille, she’s suffering claustrophobia terribly, running and jumping about the place. If you take her to Paris, she will get into trouble in no time. It’s in her blood. She will die and you know it. She’s far too conspicuous.”
There was a brief moment of pause and it sounded like everyone was shifting in their chairs. Perhaps someone important was about to speak.
“If we are discovered,” a male voice boomed, “we will be undone. The youngsters have not ventured beyond the grounds in three years and it has stood us well. The drones always pass over at the same time and we make sure the children are indoors each time. Officium is stupid but not so stupid to give up on us eventually slipping up. They have all the time in the world. They have, ultimately, rule over all. It will take one tiny error from us and the children will die. It is our job to ensure they survive until things die down. We know these are no ordinary children, but even the uneducated will know that, too. They will be hounded for their skills, their talents, their abilities. We must protect them. At. All. Costs. One of them may be the salvation of our motherland, or even better, the world.”