When people began to look out for their ‘crocodile buddy’ outside game time, I knew we were getting somewhere. As for the boys—they’d just have to take their chances on the day.
Keeping any emotional distance from Jon was becoming impossible, though—we were clinging to each other like people drowning. Me, I was existing in a state of terror, constantly fearing the truth about my book would come out before the publication day, and Jon, Jon was feeling the loss of his long eye very badly.
How would he manage once we’d escaped? If the stick was such a help in a place he knew well, it would be utterly invaluable for facing the unknown. Watkins, bless him, offered to find something to replace it and post it to Jon when he was off shift, but that wasn’t for another two months. The most annoying thing of all was that I’d seen something inside the Facility that would do and I simply couldn’t remember what it was.
In sheer desperation I cornered the Captain in the stairwell one day and asked as politely as I could manage if she would find something for Jon. She asked so many questions about what he needed I almost began to hope—then the last reAssignee went through the door to the cafeteria corridor and… ah… she’d backed me into the camera’s blind spot. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and slammed my head into the wall so hard she left me in a dazed heap on the floor.
It was official. She hated my guts.
She hadn’t even bothered to say no and I didn’t bother to say anything about it to Jon. Not until people began to ask what’d happened to my face, anyway.
Monday night and the moon was back, adding its silvery light to the glow of the flood lights. The killing zone remained clearly, but not brightly, illuminated. The high powered lights were very expensive and the guards only needed to see well enough—they had their search lights, after all.
Still, we could’ve done without that bright moon. The guards obviously didn’t look straight down at the base of the wall very often—not too surprising since it was assumed they’d see or hear anything approaching it. Still, Bane and machine guns—the less light the better.
The guards were jumpy, as well. No prizes for guessing why. Sally’s eyes were no longer red all the time, but she was very subdued.
The moon was illuminating the little guardroom just as well as on my first visit. I stared up at the fuse boxes. How unfortunate an area usually shrouded in mist day and night should produce clear skies on not one, but two, inconvenient nights…
The fuse boxes weren’t that interesting and the moon was beyond my control, so I started on a rosary—the Glorious Mysteries—something nice and optimistic! Bane was a little late, so I’d almost finished when he came creeping up to the grille.
“Margo?”
“Bane…” I opened the hatch and we clasped hands.
“Here,” he whispered, letting go of my hand and passing me a triangular package, “take this now. It’s the air gun.”
“Good.” I eased the zip of my jumpsuit a little way down and slipped the package inside.
“I put in a few packs of pellets, but if you’re reduced to trying to shoot your way out with that, it’s all over.”
I couldn’t help snorting agreement.
“That’s truth.”
“Thought you might as well have them, though. Without, it’s no more than a rather ineffective club.”
“I’m not planning on shooting anyone with anything other than a nonLee, Bane.”
This truthful but lighthearted remark drew an odd silence from the other side of the grille.
“Well, shall we go through the plan?” What’d I said?
“Yeah. Yeah, the plan…”
“Are you all right, Bane?”
“I’m fine.”
“Is there a problem with the plan? You can tell me, you know that…”
“There’s nothing wrong with the plan. The plan is right on course, I’ve made sure of that all right.” There was an odd note of self-contempt in his voice.
“Bane, what’s wrong? And don’t say nothing. I can hear it in everything you say. What’s happened?”
I heard him take a couple of deep breaths, then he peeped into the hatch at last. With the moon and the lights above and behind him, I couldn’t see his face well, but I could see the lines of distress.
“I’ve done something stupid, Margo,” he said, in rather a rush. “Well, it didn’t seem stupid when I began it… but it turned out rather differently. You’re not going to like it.” He stumbled to a halt.
“Go on, Bane,” I said gently.
“Well, there’s something I never told you. You know I’ve got friends in the Resistance? Well… I’ve been out with them now and then.”
“I know,” I said evenly. “It was… kind of obvious. And then Jon confirmed it.”
I thought he might relax a bit, at that, but if anything he just got tenser.
“Oh. Well... I went out twice with the Young Resistance…”
“They have a Young Resistance?”
“Um, yeah. For the underEighteens. They do the less serious stuff. We did the graffiti on the Town Committee Hall three years back. I did the one over the door.”
“You changed EuroGov to EuroMob. That was funny. It was so well done, it looked like it’d always said that.”
“Yeah, I had some acrylic paints, I was really careful doing it. Um, then we poured the concrete over the Police Station’s solar panels two years back. That was pretty hard work getting that sludge up there. We cut all the wires on their antennae and stuff while we were up there.”
I bit my lip, trying not to smile.
“Yeah, I read about that. Okay, so I laughed.”
“Um. Then I went out with the real Resistance a few months ago, after I turned eighteen. You can go a certain number of times as an ‘observer’ they call it. After about five times you have to join or push off. Anyway, we brought down the power lines from the Coldwell Nuclear Plant.”
Most houses, businesses and public buildings had their own solar panels and/or wind turbines, of course. But anything that needed more power than it could generate for itself or a guaranteed supply—heavy industry and hospitals, mostly—was hooked up to the nuclear grid.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Bane. That power’s going to hospitals.”
“Where their preferred method of curing people is to stick a stolen organ or body part into them,” said Bane cuttingly. “Relax, they all have dirty generators for backup, don’t they?”
“I suppose.” He remained quiet. “Well, what is the matter? I’m not mad at you. Well, I kind of am mad you’re going anywhere near them, but you know what I mean. Have you been out with them since?”
The silence grew suffocating, then he whispered, “Yes. Once.”
“What happened?”
That awful silence fell again and his hand crept into the hatch and closed around mine with the grip of a drowning man.
“They told me no one would be hurt…”
One simple sentence and I knew.
***+***
24
WEARMFELL FACTORY
“You were at Wearmfell Factory.”
“Damn!” He hadn’t expected me to know about it. He hung onto my hand even tighter, as though afraid I would pull away, so I placed my other hand over his. “Yes. We went to Wearmfell.”
“The Resistance told you no one would be hurt, and you believed them?”
“No one’s ever been hurt before,” he choked out. “They said…” he broke off.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“No. Yes. Hell, I’ve got to tell someone.”
“Father Mark?”
“No. He’ll say I told you so. And he’ll be right. He did tell me. Over and over. But I went anyway.”
“Well. He might say I told you so. But he’ll probably save it until after he’s said a lot of much more helpful stuff.”
“Yeah. Well, I’ll have to tell him eventually ‘cause he knows I went. But I think I want to tell you first. I
f you don’t mind. ‘Cause I tell you everything. Or… I should’ve done.”
“You can tell me. What did they say?”
“Well, they said we were just going to burn the place down. Muck up the EuroBarmy supply chain a bit, well, I’ve got no problem with that. I said what about the guards and they said they’d all skedaddle out the back door as we came in. Lying bastards! There was no back door! Chain link fence all around the entire place. They caught the whole nightshift in the guardroom, and the way they went in, that was the plan all along!”
I knew what’d happened next, but I pressed his hand and waited for him to go on. It was several deep breaths before he did.
“There were four guards. One went for his gun, he was shot right there in the guardroom. I thought he was a fool at the time; now I think he was the smartest one there. ‘Cause my lot,” he spat the words with considerable venom, drawing a ‘shhhh’ from me despite my determination not to interrupt, “my lot marched the other three out into this little yard beside the guardroom and backed them up against the wall. Then Trev—Trevor—he was in charge—he goes along and just shoots them in the head, bang, bang, bang…”
His hand tightened on mine and I’d a feeling he wasn’t seeing the dark Facility hatch in front of him.
“First guard was a mess, crying and begging, but Trev just blows his brains all over the wall. Second one’s hard as nails, brave guy, got his lips clamped together, won’t say a word. Much good it did him. More brains on the wall… Sorry… sorry,” his eyes focused on me again. “I’m being too detailed…”
“It’s all right, Bane. Just… tell it how it was.”
“Well…” Bane hurried on as though glad to get the words out now he’d started, “Third guard gets right on his knees and starts telling us about his wife and kids. His wife Katie and his little girls, Lily and Rosy, four and six… well, he had time ‘cause I’d grabbed Trev’s arm and asked what the hell he was doing. And he just shook me off and gave me this smile—have to call it a smile, I s’pose—and said, ‘live and learn, cub,’ and raised the gun again, and then Lily’s and Rosy’s daddy’s brains were on the wall as well. And I can’t stop thinking about it…”
“Of course you can’t…”
“No, not just it, generally. That bit. When Trev lifted his pistol again, there was this split second when I could’ve knocked it aside. I wanted to so much. I was this close, but… I stopped myself.”
“Why?”
“Because it wouldn’t have helped. And I didn’t dare—the cost seemed too high when—it wouldn’t have helped. If I’d done it, well, two of the others would’ve grabbed me and Trev would’ve just pointed that gun again and done it anyway. He wasn’t short of bullets.”
“Were you afraid they’d turn on you?”
“No—I mean, who knows, in the heat of things, and Trev and some of the others are right psychos, I’ve seen their true colors now, too late. But that wasn’t what I was worried about at the time. They might’ve given me some beating to speak of, but I think they’d most likely just have taken me back to Salperton with them and told me never to come near them ever again.”
“Please tell me you don’t want to go near them ever again?”
“No, I don’t want to. I really don’t. But I do have to. Y’see, someone’s asked me to help save seventy innocent people by creating a diversion and I’m probably going to be for it when I tell her, but the Resistance are the diversion, okay? If I’d defied Trev it would all be off, and it wouldn’t even have helped! But as it is, they’re right behind this escape. They’re drilling everyone for it already.”
He fell silent, but his fingers clenched and unclenched around mine, so I choked back all the things I wanted to say and waited for him to finish.
“But I can’t stop thinking… I don’t think I’d do any differently right now, if I had to do it again. With what’s at stake… But I wanted to so much, and I feel so… I feel like I’ve done something so bad. I mean, it was bad just being there, but… I didn’t kill anyone, I didn’t cut the fence, I didn’t touch anything, I couldn’t, literally couldn’t help anyone and still I feel so… so…”
“Guilty?”
All his breath went out in a long sigh, then he drew a short, pained breath back in.
“Yes, guilty. I feel guilty.”
“Well, it’s hard to say you shouldn’t feel guilty about having been there,” I said levelly. “As for whether or not you should’ve knocked the gun aside, I don’t know. The circumstances are exceptionally complex. For a moral ruling on that one you’ll have to ask that little lion you’ve got tucked away.”
“But you do think it’s my fault?” His hands loosened on mine as though he’d suddenly noticed they were black with tar.
“I didn’t say it’s your fault,” I said hastily, tightening my own grip. “I just mean… it seems like you’ve got to be partially responsible for what happened, since you were there. But you didn’t know what was planned, and didn’t do anything, so I’d say it’s a very limited responsibility.”
“I should feel a little bit guilty, then? I feel a lot guilty. I feel… Why do I feel this bad?”
“I think it’s called loss of innocence,” I said softly, Uncle Peter’s execution forcing its way into my mind. I felt like I’d lost something after that—more than just him. “Seeing something like that—I think it kind of is.”
“Innocence?” Bane drew a breath as though he were about to snort, then let it out slowly instead. “Yeah. Who’d have thought. You know, I’ve never thought of myself as innocent. If you’d said it to me I’d have laughed. But you know, now it’s gone… I really wish I had it back.” His voice was small and rather lost.
I drew his hand to me and planted several kisses on it.
“It’ll be all right. But talk to Father Mark about it. I think he might know all about guilt from that kind of thing. Why on earth is he still here, anyway?”
“Because he refuses to leave. He goes into Salperton now on your bike to do his work—says since Father Peter’s gone, it’s just him, so how can he leave? I can’t shift him, short of tying him up and cycling him across the county border. And you know, I don’t reckon I could take him. So I bring him as much food as I can and make sure I’m not followed.”
“Ah.” No surprises there. But I couldn’t dwell on it. I was too busy fighting off visions of the Resistance getting inside the Facility and killing every guard in the place. “Bane, please, please tell me your plan doesn’t involve anyone actually getting into the Facility?”
“No, don’t worry.”
“Are you sure? You know what they’ll do if they get inside—if you didn’t before you should now. They’ll kill everyone.”
Bane snorted and his voice was suddenly hard. “Facility guards. Forgive me if I don’t get all broken-hearted about a few Facility guards.”
“They don’t deserve to be murdered, Bane. It’s a job, a job everyone in the Bloc condones, a job everyone pays for in their taxes. Everyone is responsible for the Facilities. Are you going to start killing random people in the street?”
“I’m not planning on killing anyone. Though I still think it’s one thing to sit at a distance and try not to think about a distasteful subject, and another to take money for guarding innocent people and marching them off to their deaths!”
“Well, maybe, but who are we to say they deserve to die? There’s a fellow called Watkins, very conscientious, worked here for years and years, but he’s got galloping arthritis in his left hand. They’ve offered him a new one, but he’s a conscientious objector. So should he die, for working here, or live, for being a conchie?”
It was possible to opt out of a medical transplant on grounds of conscience—but you had to make the Divine denial to get away with it. Those in the Underground generally kept away from doctors and hospitals if remotely possible, to make sure the question didn’t arise.
“Funny place for a conchie.”
“Well, some of the g
uards work here to try and make sure we’re looked after properly. There’s a woman called Sally like that. Watkins might be another, though he hasn’t said so. You want to kill people like that?”
“Look, stop worrying about it. They’re just going to make a nuisance of themselves from outside.”
They’d try their best to kill the guards in the towers, in other words. What’d I put in motion?
“I take it they don’t have any nonLee rifles?”
“NonLee rifles? They’re cutting edge, Margo. Who can afford them? Anyway,” he added bitterly, “they laugh at nonLees.”
It was my hands which were clenching and unclenching now.
“Bane… no offense, but how can you be sure they’re going to follow the plan? You’re not in the Resistance: you don’t actually have any authority over them, do you.”
He just shrugged.
“Margo, the Resistance are actually pretty good at following plans and conserving resources, including themselves. They’d have been wiped out by now, otherwise. Problem the other day was, no one told me the plan. But I’m in on this one and they’ll stick to it. Even the Resistance don’t like to fool around with a two-hundred-meter killing zone covered by machine guns.”
“They’ll let us chance that, then.”
“Yes, they will. Sounds like you won’t be sorry.”
“No, I won’t, Bane. There are degrees of guilty, as you should appreciate. And a lot of the guards aren’t very, in my opinion.” There was the Menace and Finchley... I found my mouth adding, “I’m not saying there aren’t one or two whose characters would be much improved by a bullet in the head…”
“Margo!” Bane sounded shocked.
“I’m not saying I want it to happen!” I added hastily, my brain catching up with my tongue. “Forget I said that, would you? I shouldn’t have.”
“Just what have these one or two characters done to you?” demanded Bane.
I Am Margaret Page 24