The Wilderness

by C. J. Harper

  I set my teeth and get to work.

  By the time I’m sat in the cafeteria eating lunch with Kay, my resentment has reached a good rolling boil. Who does he think he is, bossing me about? I don’t have to follow his stupid rules. I lean over to Kay and whisper.

  ‘Let’s check out the secret corridor.’

  ‘Ven told us not to go there.’

  ‘Kay, when have you ever been the kind of person who does what they’re told?’

  ‘You want Ven’s help so that you can get The Leader, yes? He’s not going to help you if you make him angry. And it’s not big hard to make Ven angry.’ She takes a bite of bread. ‘Sometimes I think you do it just by being there.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ I tear my eyes away from her full lips. ‘Do you know that you’ve developed this really annoying habit of being right all the time?’

  But right or not, as soon as I get the chance, I’m going down that corridor.

  The afternoon is more of the same. I have some success at spoofing addresses and joining the Leadership’s internal administration network, which is the first step in gaining access to their messaging service. By the time I meet Kay for dinner my vision is fuzzy from staring at a screen for so long.

  ‘Look at this,’ she says, holding up a silver chain necklace with a gleaming stone hanging from it.

  ‘Where did you get that from?’

  ‘Nard gave it to me.’

  Why is that creep giving Kay expensive jewellery?

  ‘Where did he steal that from? I don’t think he should be using his position to get you sparkly presents.’

  Kay beams. ‘It is present, isn’t it? Nard told me about presents.’

  It was almost me that gave Kay her first present. When I got excluded from the Academy I gathered up a whole load of shiny shrap for her, but then I threw it at those boys when they were chasing me and Wilson. I could kick Nard for getting in before I found something else to give Kay.

  Kay spins the necklace so that the stone catches the light. ‘I’m going to wear it all the times, it’s shinier than any shrap!’ she says.

  Lying in bed later, my annoyance melts away. I remind myself how grateful I am to be alive, lying here, with Kay.

  I think of Ilex. I hope that he and all the other Specials are somewhere safe and warm now. Even Ali.

  Especially Ali.

  At breakfast the following day I notice that Ven has got all his captains gathered around him. He’s clearly having a meeting. I know we’re not part of the management here, but I can’t help wanting to know what’s going on. I sidle up to the table in the pretence that I need a knife from the nearby cutlery tray. Of course, Ven spots me straight away.

  ‘Thank you, Blake,’ he says. ‘I’ll have a cup of tea. Anyone else?’

  I let that remark go. ‘Everything okay?’ I ask. ‘Anything important happening today?’

  ‘It’s no concern of yours.’

  ‘I just want to help.’

  ‘Persistent, aren’t you?’ He shakes his head. ‘Like a tapeworm.’

  ‘Some people are going out to the Wilderness today,’ Tanisha says.

  I smile at her. It’s nice that someone knows how to communicate politely. ‘And why’s that?’ I ask her.

  ‘Recruiting.’

  I blink. ‘Really? The Wilderness people we saw didn’t look like they’d take orders.’

  ‘Reminds me of someone,’ Ven mutters.

  ‘It’s only some of the Wilderness people who are violent and crazy,’ Paulo breaks in. ‘Some of them are perfectly reasonable.’

  ‘We’re Wilderness people,’ Tanisha says to him. ‘I don’t know why you’re always talking about them like they’re aliens. We’re all from the Wilderness too.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ Nard says. ‘I’m Resistance. We’re a different gene pool. I am not Wilderness. I’m not some filthy nutter digging around in the dirt.’

  ‘That’s enough, Nard,’ Ven says, without looking at him. ‘Well, Blake, it seems that once again you’ve been attempting to apply your limited life experience to a broader situation. I’m sending a team to try to recruit some of our very pleasant Wilderness neighbours to the uprising. So if you could just give us your approval then we could get on with it . . . Oh, no, wait – I don’t actually require your approval for anything. Ever.’

  I ignore his childish insults. ‘Sounds interesting,’ I say.

  ‘You can’t go. You’ve got work to do here.’ He pushes back his chair and turns back to the rest of the group. ‘I’ll see you all at the meeting this evening.’ He picks up an apple and leaves.

  I didn’t even say that I wanted to go. Ven is so controlling. What if I did want to go? Why shouldn’t I?

  ‘When is this recruiting happening?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t think that you—’ Paulo begins, but Tanisha cuts him off.

  ‘Ten o’clock. Main exit.’ She winks at me.

  We’ll see who makes the decisions about where I go.

  Just before ten, I tell Jarrit that Tanisha needs me for something and run down to the main exit, where Tanisha is organising about a dozen Defence team members. Kay is one of them.

  ‘Does Ven know you’re here?’ Kay asks. She can tell by my face that he doesn’t. ‘I don’t think you should go with us,’ she says.

  ‘Why not? Tanisha doesn’t have a problem with me.’

  ‘Isn’t there a thing that you have to do with Jarit?’

  ‘Since when have you become such a stickler for the rules?’

  ‘I’m not a rule sticker. Isn’t your computer things for the Big Day more important than going to the Wilderness?’

  ‘A few hours won’t hurt.’

  Kay gives up her protests and we leave the hospital and climb into a minibus. We head off in the opposite direction to the one Ven and I took to the border.

  Driving through the empty city gives me the creeps. All these offices and shops and houses and schools and restaurants and playgrounds should be full of people. It’s like the end of the world.

  The walls of buildings are streaked grey and mottled with black. If this is what the atmosphere does to concrete, how is it affecting our lungs?

  ‘Why are all the buildings standing up here?’ Kay asks Tanisha.

  Tanisha wrinkles her nose. ‘No one really knows. We’ve come across other areas that didn’t see much damage, but it’s pretty incredible that this entire city never took a hit.’

  ‘Do you think they just got lucky?’ I ask.

  ‘Maybe. Of course Ven reckons there’s something sinister behind it. He says there’s a reason the Greater Power didn’t drop bombs here.’

  ‘Doesn’t surprise me to hear that Ven’s always looking for the dark motive.’

  Tanisha laughs.

  Once we’re out of the city we see more bomb damage. We pass a row of bungalows. One has a massive hole in its front. Furniture and belongings pour out of it into a heap in the garden, as if the house has vomited its contents. I flinch when I see a man and a woman picking through the junk.

  ‘Are these people safe to be around?’ I ask Tanisha.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s just the last lot we met weren’t very friendly.’

  ‘I don’t think you get it about out here, do you?’

  ‘Get what?’

  ‘Most of the people in the Wilderness are all right. They’re just trying to survive. There are some weird ones. But if I’d been messed up by the Leadership I might lose my marbles.’

  I blush. It had never occurred to me that the Leadership might be responsible for the state those people who chased us were in.

  We drive for fifteen minutes to a small town peppered with the terrifying craters like the one Kay and I saw when we were hunting for water.

  ‘What did that?’ I ask Tanisha, pointing out the window.

  Her forehead creases. ‘Don’t you know? What do they teach you at school?’

  ‘Big lies,’ Kay says.

  I nod. ‘I m
ean, I knew there was bomb damage, but . . .’

  ‘T-eight-threes,’ Tanisha says. ‘The energy involved is so extreme that you end up with a superheated plasma, which leaves nothing recognisable behind. That’s how the houses disappear.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘Something like that. Ask the Education captain if you want a better explanation.’

  I press my lips together. That’s one hell of a nasty weapon. I hope we never get into an argument with the Greater Power again.

  Our driver stops the minibus at a car park at the edge of the town. There’s a weather-beaten sign swinging in the breeze. Underground Caverns.

  I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

  ‘Do your friendly types live in the caverns?’ I ask.

  Tanisha nods. ‘Didn’t I say?’

  She did not say. Kay looks a question at me.

  A gate slams down on the brave part of me. I just can’t go underground again. I can’t bear the way it makes me feel, like the earth is going to close around me and suffocate me. I feel like an idiot because I invited myself along and now I don’t even want to go with them – but I just can’t force myself. Not this time.

  ‘Maybe I should wait outside and keep an eye on things,’ I say, trying to sound as casual as possible.

  ‘Really?’ Tanisha asks, but her attention is already distracted by the driver turning around to ask who their contact for the day is.

  ‘I’ll wait, too,’ Kay says to me. ‘If Tanisha says it’s okay.’

  I protest, but it turns out that Tanisha was planning to leave two people to keep guard on the minibus anyway, so Kay stays with me while the others walk into the visitors’ centre where the entrance to the caverns is.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say to Kay.

  She dismisses my apology with a shake of the head. ‘I don’t mind it.’

  ‘Why would anyone want to live underground?’ I shudder.

  ‘Maybe they’re coming out lots. It wouldn’t be nice to not see the sky and all things.’

  Kay looks up at the clouds. She spent so long cooped up in the Academy that just being in the open air makes her face light up. ‘Tanisha told me these people are working all together. What’s that thing when you get stuff and all the people have some of it?’

  ‘Sharing.’

  ‘She said they do sharing all the time. That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘I can’t imagine that they’ve got a lot to share. They’d be better off joining the Resistance.’

  ‘Yes, but—’ Kay breaks off. She’s staring behind me. I turn around to follow her sight line. Coming down the path to our left is a woman. Her clothes are in tatters and her hair is long and matted.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ I say to Kay in a low voice. I try to remember what Tanisha said about Wilderness people. Just because she looks odd she might not be aggressive. I hope she might turn off before she reaches the car park, but she carries on, heading straight for us, and there’s no misunderstanding the expression on her face. She’s angry.

  ‘Inside,’ I say, grabbing Kay’s hand.

  ‘But the bus . . .’

  ‘I don’t think it’s the bus she wants.’

  Kay lets me pull her towards the entrance to the visitors’ centre. Before we reach it the sound of someone clobbering a saucepan rings out from behind the open door.

  ‘What the hell?’ Kay says.

  I look back at the Wilderness woman; she’s stopped dead in her tracks, wincing away from the noise. I’m rooted to the spot. The clanging gets louder and closer. I don’t take my eyes off the Wilderness woman. She cringes and then, slowly, turns and creeps away.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, turning to face our rescuer, but I don’t get any further than that because when I see who is holding the saucepan, my mouth falls open.

  It’s Ilex.

  ‘Ilex!’ Kay shouts and throws herself into his arms.

  I can’t believe he’s here. When I first arrived at the Academy, Ilex was the only one who would even speak to me. We lost him when we escaped, and all this time I’ve been wondering if he made it out alive. I slap him on the back.

  ‘It is you,’ Ilex says, pulling back from Kay to look at me with his eyes wide. ‘They said they had Academy Specials with them and I . . . Blake, where’s Ali?

  It’s like the air has been punched out of me. I look at Kay. Ilex doesn’t move, but his face changes. He knows. His eyes turn glassy.

  Kay eases Ilex into a sitting position on the doorstep. He stares unseeing at the ground. She takes both his hands in hers. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘Ali is dead.’

  He blinks.

  ‘She was amazing,’ I say. ‘She saved us. We were trapped in the lift and she climbed out and went to get the key and stood up to The Leader’s aide, but . . . he shot her.’ I remember Ali’s body crumpling when the bullet hit her. All I can say is, ‘She was so brave—’

  ‘I don’t want to know it,’ Ilex says. He twists his head away as if to avoid hearing. ‘It’s not good. She shouldn’t be saving you.’ He looks back to me, raw grief contorting his face. ‘You’re the big good, Blake; you’re the one with the thinkings and the words. You should have saved you. Why did you get Ali to do it? She was a little girl. She was mine.’ A sob tears from his throat. ‘I loved her.’ He puts his head in his hands and weeps.

  I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I don’t have the right words to make things better.

  Kay pulls Ilex to her and wraps her arms around him. She doesn’t speak. She just makes noises like a mother comforting a baby.

  Kay sits with Ilex like that for a long time. In the end Ilex lifts his head and rubs his face with his sleeve.

  ‘I have to go now,’ he says.

  ‘Ilex, wait,’ I say, but he’s already gone back into the visitors’ centre. He disappears down a corridor marked To the Caverns.

  I don’t know if I should follow. I desperately want to talk to him. I want to make him feel better. I’m afraid that I’ve lost a really good friend. Tears prick at my eyes.

  Kay sees my indecision. ‘We have to wait to talk to him. He loved Ali so much. He wants to think about her, he doesn’t want to talk to us.’

  She’s right. Ilex needs time. I can’t force him to understand just because I feel terrible.

  A man comes towards us along the corridor Ilex disappeared down. I tense.

  ‘You the Academy kids?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Kay says.

  ‘Ilex’s friends?’

  I don’t feel like a very good friend, but Kay nods.

  He sighs. ‘No Ali, then.’

  ‘She died,’ I say. ‘We tried to look after her, we really did, but there was this man—’

  ‘Terrible places,’ the man interrupts. ‘Academies. Terrible.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kay agrees.

  ‘Been looking for her since he got out,’ the man explains. ‘When he heard you were here . . . well, suppose he hoped one of you’d be Ali.’

  The guilt of being alive when Ali is not fills my throat.

  ‘Is Ilex all right?’ Kay asks. ‘I mean, is he okay here? Is it a good place?’

  The man’s face darkens. ‘Don’t believe everything the Resistance say about us. We know how to look after kids. And we don’t send them off to get shot.’

  The muscles in his neck have tensed up.

  ‘The Resistance didn’t say anything bad about you,’ I say. ‘Honestly; they told us that you were good people.’

  ‘Good, is it? Normally, we get called shirkers.’

  ‘What’s shirker?’ Kay asks.

  I look at the man, but he obviously isn’t going to offer an explanation. ‘It’s, er, someone who doesn’t do the thing that they should do,’ I say.

  ‘Should do?’ The man’s face darkens. ‘You think we should go interfering on the other side of the fence, do you? Then what happens? My kids’ll end up in an Academy. Thought you ran away from one of them.’

  I feel like we’re caught in the blast of his rage towards th
e Resistance.

  ‘I don’t want anyone in an Academy,’ I say quietly.

  But the man isn’t listening; he’s off on his own train of thought. ‘Coming round here, asking for help! What about what you could do for us? Do you think sticking a bit of food our way is enough? If you’ve got such big ideas about making things better for Wilderness people, you could start with us.’

  ‘Maybe—’ Kay begins.

  ‘Do you think we like living down there in the dark and the dirt? Do you think we don’t wish it were different?’

  ‘It must be hard,’ Kay says gently.

  ‘That’s why the Resistance are so tough on their kids.’ And as I say it, I realise that I’m becoming more sympathetic to their methods. ‘They’re fighting to make things better. That’s why they want your help.’

  He gives a gusty sigh. ‘No use fighting. This isn’t the nicest way to live, but you’ve got to accept things. Do the best with what there is. It’s no good dreaming. That’s what you are: load of silly kids dreaming. You’ll never change a thing.’

  I might be a kid, but I refuse to accept that there is nothing we can do.

  ‘We’ve got to believe in a better world if we want to bring about change,’ I say.

  The man tuts.

  ‘It is hard to keep on fighting,’ Kay says, and I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or the man.

  The man gives Kay a long look. ‘We’ll take care of Ilex,’ he says, and he walks away.

  When Tanisha and the others return, she doesn’t look too happy. We board the minibus and she throws herself back in her seat.

  ‘It’s just stubborn,’ she says, more to herself than anyone else.

  ‘Did they say no?’ Kay asks.

  ‘Yeah, they said no.’ Tanisha blows out a breath. ‘Most of them anyway.’

  Kay shoots her a commiserating look. ‘Are there lots of people down there?’