The Wilderness

by C. J. Harper

  ‘I followed you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To save you, stupid.’

  My breath catches. She came to rescue me.

  ‘They put you in the van. There was a – what’s that wheel-thing we went on in the Wilderness?’

  ‘A bike?’

  She nods. ‘I took a bike and followed that van and it went just a small bit to here. They got you inside. There were guards at the door, but after a time the guards saw people were shouting and fighting and they went to stop them, so I just walked in.’

  ‘Really? Seems pretty slack for a Leadership building.’

  ‘All things are—’ She waggles her hands about. ‘Things are broken and burning, and some places are all full of guards and some places just people smashing things and stealing things. And here I think lots of people are hiding in their houses.’

  ‘Do you mean it’s working? Are people actually rebelling against the Leadership?’

  She frowns. ‘I don’t know. It most seems like a mess.’

  That’s a start. If the uprising has thrown things into chaos, that’s a good start. Maybe this can still work.

  ‘We have to find The Leader and then we have to get out of here,’ I say.

  Kay reaches for my hand, but I flinch backwards. She notices my bandage. ‘What did they do to you?’

  I shake my head; we haven’t got time for this.

  ‘Blake, we really need to go now.’

  I know that she’s right. I know that we’re in danger. I don’t want Radcliffe to find me, and I really don’t want him anywhere near Kay, but still I can’t bring myself to just give up on taking out The Leader.

  ‘I can’t just let him go.’

  ‘Blake, listen to me, The Leader is already in big trouble. I don’t think he’s The Leader any more.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When I came in I heard them talking, the men in the—’ She pushes one clenched hand up under her chin and pulls the other one down her front, miming a tie. ‘They said he’s got to be out. They want a new Leader.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I don’t know how it is, Blake, but I know they said “Let’s dispose of him”. Dispose is killing, isn’t it?’

  ‘I . . . I suppose so.’ My mind is reeling. Why would they want to kill their own Leader? Are they actually listening to the rioters? But what’s this about a new Leader? We don’t want another dictator.

  ‘You don’t have to get him,’ she says. ‘He’s going to get got. Come on, Blake, please!’

  I’m confused; there’s so much to think about and no time to do it. Kay reaches for my other hand, but I’m still gripping the paperweight so she takes my elbow instead. I let her pull me down the corridor, but I’m still watching for The Leader. Just because some of his people have turned against him, it doesn’t mean that his demise is guaranteed.

  We slip down the thick-carpeted corridor. The place is deserted. Through open doors I see offices with huge oak desks and paintings on the walls.

  ‘This is the way,’ Kay says and takes a right turn.

  At the end of the corridor is a security door. Kay stops.

  ‘It was open before,’ she says.

  I take a look at the lock. It opens on fingerprint recognition. ‘I can’t do anything with this without tools.’

  Kay takes the paperweight out of my hand and slams it hard against the pad.

  ‘That’s not going t—’

  ‘Hey, you two!’

  There’s a man in a suit coming towards us. He raises a gun.

  Kay pulls back her arm and hurls the paperweight at him. Crack. It hits him smack between the eyes and he keels over backwards.

  ‘Quick,’ Kay says and we rush down another corridor.

  Striding in our direction is The Leader.

  I stop dead. So does Kay.

  ‘There you are,’ he says to me. ‘And who is this?’

  My paperweight is gone. I’ve got nothing. He’s here right in front of me and once again I’m powerless. ‘Have you got a gun?’ I ask Kay.

  ‘Of course she hasn’t, we don’t allow weapons in Leadership buildings. Although, everything is up in the air today. We’ve had some trouble. I don’t know where my team have got to. But you shouldn’t be in here without a security pass, young lady.’

  Kay looks up at him; her face is strange mixture of anger and fear.

  Footsteps sound around the corner; we turn to see a red-faced man running towards us.

  ‘Sir! Oh, thank God you’re all right.’

  ‘I’m fine. What’s all this fuss about, Murray?’

  ‘Sir, we have a situation. The public are, er, restless and—’ he casts a glance at Kay and I but obviously decides we’re the least of his concerns ‘—I’m afraid certain elements are proving disloyal.’

  ‘What the heck do you mean?’

  ‘There are calls for your immediate resignation. The public are angry and Radcliffe and his lot are trying to pin this all on you.’

  ‘Radcliffe! I’ll give him a piece of my mind.’ He turns back down the corridor.

  ‘No! Sir, we really need to get you to a safe place.’

  ‘As soon as I’ve spoken t—’

  ‘Sir, there’s been a break-in at your house.’

  ‘Good God, is my wife all right?’

  ‘I’ll take you to her. Sir, you’ve got to come.’

  The Leader frowns. ‘Yes. This is all getting out of hand. You kids had better come along with us.’

  So we follow The Leader’s man through the security door towards the main entrance. I haven’t lost him yet. Behind his back I form my hand into a gun shape and give Kay a questioning look. I’m hoping she’s still got my revolver.

  Kay shakes her head. It’s like a nightmare where I’m forced to watch events unfolding, but I’m completely powerless to act.

  Murray is rapidly explaining which members of the Leadership have turned and how they’re trying to manoeuvre things when I hear voices behind us.

  ‘Quickly, sir,’ Murray says, taking his arm.

  ‘No need for panic,’ The Leader says. But I can see that Murray is terrified. Are there really Leadership people who want to hurt The Leader? It just goes to show how corrupt and fickle the whole government is.

  ‘It’s him,’ someone behind us says.

  ‘Sir, I need to speak to you.’ It’s Radcliffe. I throw a look over my shoulder. Radcliffe and another man are advancing down the corridor, flanked by a pair of guards.

  ‘Sir! It’s important,’ Radcliffe calls, but Murray grips The Leader’s elbow and launches into a run. Kay and I follow suit.

  ‘Surely this is unnecessary,’ The Leader says.

  ‘We’re near the door,’ Kay says to me.

  We turn another corner.

  A shot is fired.

  ‘Good God!’ The Leader says. ‘What is he playing at?’

  Ahead I see the main entrance. We sprint for it. I can hear Radcliffe and the guards running down the corridor. There are no guards on this side of the exit and I can’t see any through the glass either. If Kay and I can just get through the door, I’ll let Radcliffe deal with The Leader.

  ‘It’s not safe for you to leave the building!’ Radcliffe shouts.

  He shoots again. The wall ahead of us cracks.

  Kay and I burst through the door. She drags me away to the left and we turn back on ourselves to hare down a narrow gap between the building we’ve just left and the one next-door. When we burst out at the other end, we find the remains of a street party. There are a crowd of people tearing through knocked-over stalls and emptying the snack vans. Kay and I run right into the middle of the throng.

  ‘This way,’ she says.

  We duck behind a merry-go-round and down another alleyway. There’s someone following us. I turn. It’s The Leader. How has he made it out alive?

  ‘Leave him,’ Kay says.

  We run on.

  But I’m already out of breath. After my session with Radc
liffe, my whole body aches and now an agonising pain rips through my side. I stop. Kay stutters to a halt.

  ‘What is it?’

  I double over, unable to speak.

  The Leader catches us up. ‘It’s not safe for you here,’ he says.

  ‘We can cut through the park to the Westside offices. I’m sure that they’ll be able to provide me with a car and a driver.’

  I widen my eyes at Kay. He doesn’t realise that I want him dead and he doesn’t understand that he can no longer rely on the unconditional obedience of those around him.

  The slap of footsteps on pavement rings out. I turn to see a bunch of guards round the corner of the street.

  ‘Quick!’ I grab Kay and push past The Leader. I run into the nearest building. It’s a recreation centre and as soon as we get into reception I can see that there’s been trouble here. The front desk has been thrown over and the digital posters have been torn from the walls. There’s the sound of shouting and banging coming from further down the corridor. I decide quickly that it’s best to lead the guards to where there are other people, and head in the direction of the noise.

  We end up on a sports court where a handful of guards are trying to control several hundred people. Some of them are hitting back at the guards, who are trying to cut a path by stunning anyone who comes close enough. Others are ripping apart the court. There are shrieks and shouts and the slap and crack of punches being thrown. I follow Kay as she dashes across the court and up the steps between the tiered seats for the spectators.

  A hush falls on the groups of people. I assume that this is because we’ve brought a whole load of guards with us, but when I look back over my shoulder I see that’s not the only thing we’ve brought with us. The Leader has stumbled into the hall. He spots us and follows us up the stairs, seemingly unaware that everyone around him is frozen by his presence. I watch the expression of one woman switch from stunned to furious and I realise that there is definitely some bad feeling towards The Leader in here. And that it might look as if we are in some way connected to him.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ I say to Kay. We push on up the steps with The Leader trailing behind. The room erupts.

  ‘It’s him! It’s The Leader!’

  ‘Get him!’

  ‘He’s the one who did all this!’

  When she reaches the top of the steps, Kay runs along behind the seats to a door. She throws it open and we hurry through it. The Leader stumbles behind us before I can slam it shut.

  I look around for something to block the door. ‘Help me,’ I say, clutching at a snack dispenser unit. Together, Kay and I slide it in front of the door. The Leader just looks on.

  ‘If we could locate a member of staff then I could ask them to contact one of my assistants,’ he says.

  I stare at him. He just doesn’t get that some of his people have turned against him.

  ‘Come on,’ Kay says to me and launches into a run again. The Leader moves with us. ‘Leave us alone!’ Kay shouts. ‘It’s you they’re after.’

  We run up the stairs, through another door, and find ourselves on a viewing balcony above the swimming pool.

  ‘Keep down,’ I say. Kay and I duck down but The Leader remains on his feet, with his back to us, still casting about for a helpful member of staff.

  In the distance I hear shouting and smashing, but I don’t think anyone is following us. I look at Kay; she pats the front of her Girl Guards’ jacket, as if reassuring herself something is still there.

  She’s got an efwurding gun.

  ‘Give it to me,’ I whisper.

  ‘Blake, are you sure th—’

  ‘Give it to me.’

  She hesitates, then slowly hands me the pistol. In one rapid movement I spring up and knock The Leader to the floor. He twists round to see me standing above him, the gun pointed at his head. He’s bewildered. I almost pull the trigger but, looking down at his face, I hesitate.

  All this time, he was a monster to me; someone so wicked that they were personally responsible for the abuse of thousands of children, the appalling living conditions of workers across the country and the oppression of a nation; a creature so devoid of love and kindness that he abandoned me. But when I look at him now, terror in his eyes, his weak chin trembling, he’s not a monster. He’s just a man. An ignorant, vain man who has been used. I am stronger and smarter than him. He is not the beginning of the evil in this country and killing him will not mean the end. There are thousands of people who are responsible for the terrible things that have happened, including all the people who turned a blind eye to what they knew or suspected was wrong. People like me.

  The fate of this country is not just about my father. And it is not just about me.

  I lower the gun.

  His eyes are darting about all over the place. He’s waiting for one of his aides to rescue him.

  ‘You should be punished,’ I say. ‘But it should be done fairly. I’m not the kind of person who thinks he has the right to decide who should live and who should die, or even who should succeed and who should suffer.’ I stare at him. ‘I’m not like that. I’m not like you.’

  ‘They came this way!’ someone shouts from the direction of the stairs.

  I spin round. Kay’s eyes are wide with horror. She points at another door at the other end of the balcony. ‘This way.’

  I glance back at The Leader. He’s getting to his feet. ‘I’ll speak to them,’ he says.

  I stare at him. ‘They’ll kill you.’ It’s not a warning. I want him to know. ‘They hate you and they’ll kill you.’

  He carries on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘You have to understand that they’re afraid. The public need guidance at a time like this.’

  I stride towards Kay. We both know that they’ll rip him to pieces.

  ‘You’d better tell my office where I am,’ he says, turning back towards the thumping footsteps and yelling on the stairs.

  He really is losing it.

  ‘We’re going,’ Kay says, grabbing my hand.

  I take one last look back at this strange man who is supposed to be related to me.

  Even though he’s only just narrowly escaped me blowing his brains out, he’s put back on his politician’s smooth, calm face. He holds up a hand. ‘I’ll speak to them.’ He turns in the direction of the stairs and squares his shoulders. ‘They’re my people.’

  He pushes open the door.

  There’s a moment’s hush like the sucking in of breath.

  ‘Citizens!’ my father shouts.

  The rest of his grand words are lost in the animal cries of a hundred angry people.

  And a single gunshot.

  Kay pushes me through the other door.

  I don’t let myself think about what just happened. What’s important is that we get out of here. These people think we were with The Leader. We need to get away. The painkillers have really kicked in and my whole lower arm has now gone numb. I can think clearly and I’m strangely calm.

  We sneak down another set of stairs and into a changing room. I pull a lifeguard’s hooded top off a peg as we walk past.

  ‘Put this on,’ I say. ‘It will hide your uniform.’

  Kay helps me shrug off my own jacket and turn it inside out before draping it over my shoulders. Now, at least at first glance, we’ll look different to the people they were chasing. We slink out of the changing rooms and back towards the front of the centre. Shouts are still coming from the rear of the building.

  We walk past a bunch of teenagers ripping a screen from the wall. Just as we’re about to reach the exit, a man walks in and grabs me by the arm.

  I see Kay readying to fight, but the man only says, ‘Is it true? Is The Leader here?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ Kay says. ‘That way.’ She gestures behind us.

  The man hurries off in the direction she pointed.

  Once we’re out of the building we begin to run. Eventually, we slow to a brisk walk.

  ‘Why d
id he do that?’ I ask. I can’t make sense of The Leader’s actions.

  Kay knows exactly what I’m talking about. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Maybe he really thought he was going to make them not angry.’

  ‘He didn’t have an efwurding clue, he was on another planet.’ There’s a sort of buzzing inside me. I can’t tell if it’s anger or sadness or something else, but it feels bad and makes me want to shake myself to try to throw it off.

  ‘They shot him, didn’t they?’ I say.

  Kay nods.

  The buzzing gets stronger. But this is what I wanted. I was going to kill him myself.

  ‘Do you think he’s dead?’

  She nods again. ‘I saw it through the door when we were running away. It hit him in the head.’

  ‘Good,’ I say. And I mean it.

  But the buzzing doesn’t stop.

  It takes a long time to get back to the hospital. Fortunately, I still have metro passes in my shirt pocket from when I had to half carry Ven back from the factory, but the service has been disrupted. I hope it’s because of the trouble the Resistance have caused, but of course there’s no mention of that on the announcements about delays. We waste time sat on stationary trains. The painkillers start to wear off and my fingers burn and throb.

  When we finally cross back over into the Wilderness, we find that the car that Ven drove this morning is still where we hid it. It’s good that we have a car to travel back to the hospital in, especially now that it’s getting dark, but the fact that Ven hasn’t picked it up himself sends a chill through me. Even if he survived his jump out of the window, the guards must have got him.

  When the hospital finally appears out of the darkness, it looks the same as it always did. I half expected to find it razed to the ground. We still don’t know how much Robin’s friend found out about the Resistance.

  I park the car, but I hesitate before getting out. I check the revolver is still inside my jacket. There’s no one guarding the back door.

  ‘Ven!’ I call. My voice echoes around the dark, dirty corridor. ‘Paulo!’

  No answer.

  Kay looks at me with wide eyes. ‘I’ll go to the rec room,’ she says.

  I run down the corridor. It’s horribly quiet. I fling open the door of Tanisha’s office. It’s empty. I sprint into the cafeteria and the kitchen. They’re empty too. I run to the stairs, where Kay is coming back up.