3004

by Murray, Natasha

  Kayleb looked at these men in horror. Staan had not been lying. He obviously did torture his prisoners but Kayleb couldn’t believe that he would actually eat human beings.

  David tried to soothe everyone; he had seen the horror on their faces. ‘I can help these men not to feel any more pain. Lifers are not provided with food and are expected to fend for themselves. They have become cannibals in order to survive. It is disgusting but inevitable. We will find some way of escaping, I promise!’

  Kayleb and Rowan looked at each other for ideas but it was difficult to concentrate. Indigo was hyperventilating by a window. He had tried to open one of the windows to get some fresh air and had looked down at the street far below. He clearly had a fear of heights and was now having a panic attack. Cornwall was trying to get him to look into her eyes so she could hypnotise him but Indigo would not cooperate and continued to cry and shake violently.

  Kayleb spoke first. ‘What on are earth are we going to do?’ he asked Rowan, who was looking at the two men lying in the corner.

  ‘I’m not going to end up like that, that’s for sure,’ Rowan said, nodding at the poor limbless men.

  Kayleb looked over, too. The men were rocking gently back and forth. Their wounds had been sealed so they would not bleed to death, but clearly their minds were spent. They were resisting David’s attempts to stop the pain they were in.

  Rowan looked desperately around the room. The door had a handprint pass pad. He thought that if everyone tried placing their hand on the pad then someone might have a near enough match to fool the sensors and open the door. Rowan looked away. His idea was useless; there was no point trying.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Rowan said to Kayleb. ‘How do they have such advanced technology here? We have something similar in London but how have they built all this city without any materials? This is an island – where did they get everything?’

  Kayleb shook his head. ‘You said that Staan was similar to David. Technology wise, they’re more advanced, or so David said. But obviously they’re lost when it comes to waste disposal. Did you see all that rotting rubbish? You’d think they’d have their own waste processors in the buildings.’

  Rowan sighed. ‘You’d think David would have some sort of plan. He seems to be looking at everyone else for ideas. I feel as if he was almost expecting to be captured. He’s got to think of some way to get out of here. There’s not much left of those miserable wretches over there. Who do you think Staan will eat first from our group?’

  Both Rowan and Kayleb’s eyes fell on David who had joined Cornwall in trying to calm Indigo down.

  ‘I think we’d better try and get ourselves out of here,’ suggested Kayleb, looking at everyone’s distressed faces. ‘I’ve still got the rope. When they took all our knives off us on the beach they left the rope in my bag. It might be long enough to get us most of the way down. I’m sure we could climb down the rest of the building.’

  Rowan smiled. ‘I knew that rope would come in useful. The only trouble is I keep hearing bullets ricocheting off of the walls. We could get shot. Maybe David could protect us as we climb down. We would all be touching the same rope. Let’s go and ask him.’

  Kayleb and Rowan found David with Indigo. They were both sitting on the floor on the opposite side to the windows. Indigo was calm again and was breathing in and out slowly.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ continued David. ‘We all have our Achilles heel.’

  ‘We’ve had an idea,’ said Rowan. Rowan looked at Kayleb, who was now frowning. ‘We’ve got a rope. If you could protect us, we could all go out of the window and climb down the rope.’

  Indigo’s eyes widened and he began to hyperventilate again. David turned to him. ‘Don’t worry, Indigo, everything will be fine. I know what you are thinking. I don’t think all of us will be able to escape that way. Some of us are not brave enough, some are limbless and some are a little too round to be dangling off a rope. We will wait for the right time and use the stairs. It will be a lot easier that way.’

  Rowan looked at Kayleb aghast. ‘You do realise that they want to eat us, don’t you, David? We’re like sitting ducks, waiting to be picked off one by one. We need to do something now before it’s too late.’

  David nodded. ‘The right time will come. Be patient, Rowan.’

  Rowan huffed. ‘You are driving me mad! When they come in to drag off that thing in the corner, then I am going to make a run for it!’

  ‘Then you will be killed and put on a spit,’ said David calmly. ‘I know this is a hard thing for you to do, but you must trust me.’

  ‘Trust you!’ screamed Rowan. ‘Like I trusted my mentors! What do you know about trust?’ Rowan breathed in and looked defiantly at David.

  Kayleb looked awkwardly at David and Rowan. Why was Rowan so angry? Rowan had always praised his mentors and now here he was blaming them for the situation he was in.

  ‘Rowan, calm down!’ said David sternly. ‘Do not blame others for the trouble you are in. Every challenge is an opportunity. Your future is in your hands alone. I am aware that you had no choice to become a tasker but every problem you overcome will make you stronger. Rowan, go and think things through and you will see that I am right.’

  Rowan scowled and turned away. Tears were stinging his eyes but he would not cry and let everyone laugh at him. He could feel himself screaming inside. He turned back to David. ‘I’m going to get out of here alive, if it is the last thing I do and I don’t need some freakish alien telling me what to do.’

  Kayleb watched as Rowan stomped off away from everyone and went to sulk by one of the windows. Kayleb felt embarrassed for him. He was acting like an idiot.

  ‘Gather your strength, Kayleb, and rest,’ said David. ‘We will leave this place in one piece, I promise.’

  Dusk stretched into darkness and outside the window the night filled with thousands of bright jewels. Rowan sat silently by the window with his arms around his knees and looked defiantly out at the sky. Kayleb joined him and looked around at everyone. They all seemed calmer now. Word had got around that David had foreseen an end to their plight that same night and all that everyone needed to do was to wait patiently.

  ‘Shouldn’t be long now,’ whispered Kayleb to Rowan. He didn’t like to see him alone like this, even if it was self-inflicted.

  ‘So he’s sucked you in, too?’ snapped Rowan. ‘Why do you think we’re all going to leave this place alive? David is hardly going to tell everyone that this is the end and we are all going to die! When are you all going to wake up?’ raved Rowan.

  ‘A massive explosion shook the building. It was much bigger than the earlier one. Cornwall ran over to Kayleb and Rowan.

  ‘What is it? What has happened?’ she cried.

  ‘I don’t know, Cornwall,’ said Kayleb. ‘It’s probably another bomb, like the one you heard earlier.’

  ‘What are these bombs?’ asked Cornwall.

  ‘You have to split an atom and ignite the reaction and then you have an explosion,’ Kayleb explained. ‘It is quite easy to do at home but the chemicals needed to do it are fortunately rare. That explosion must have done some damage to the building. I can’t believe it’s still standing. Oh, I hope Max is OK! I wonder what the building is made of? It’s a material I’ve never seen ... What was that? Did you hear somebody yelling,’ said Kayleb, appealing to everyone to listen. ‘I don’t like the sound of things. Maybe we should barricade the door or something. I think we are going to be attacked. We should sit near David. We might have to link up to protect ourselves.’

  ‘That would be no good,’ said Rowan. ‘Let’s face it: we are all going to die.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s got into you,’ said Kayleb. ‘While I’m still living and breathing, I’m going to do everything I can to stay alive.’

  Everyone’s attention turned towards the door. Behind it they could hear laser guns and automatic guns being fired. They heard shouting, screaming and thuds as people fell. A battle was clearly raging.
Sometimes the battle sounded as if it was close by and sometimes it seemed to be far away. Nobody’s eyes left the door and everyone expected it to burst open at any moment. There was no cover. They would all be shot down.

  26

  The storeroom door burst open. Everyone waited for the guns to fire and for their misery to end. They closed their eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

  There was only silence, followed by an echo of an occasional shot firing in the distance. Standing in the doorway was a soldier. He held a gun but it was pointing towards the floor. He did not look like a lifer or one of Staan’s men. He wore a traditional camouflage uniform and his head was shaven. He smiled and did not look like a threat.

  ‘Found you at last! Zordar said that, if you didn’t arrive at Ryde by nightfall, then we were to come and look for you. He thought that you might get captured by Staan. My name is Dernum. I lead a peace taskforce. Staan and all his men are dead. We’ve come to rescue you. You all need to come quickly,’ said Dernum. ‘Word will get around that Staan has fallen and this area will be up for grabs and there will be a new war. It will be morning in a few hours; we need the cover of darkness to escape from here.’

  ‘Thank you, Dernum. Have you really managed to kill Staan? How did you do it?’ asked David, rising to his feet.

  ‘It was difficult. It’s almost as if Staan had eyes in the back of his head,’ Dernum explained. ‘It was Zordar’s idea. He suggested that I distract him with bait, an abandoned baby, then creep up behind him and slice his head off with a silver sword. Staan’s downfall was a stillborn baby. His greed was his undoing.’

  ‘It does not surprise me. Staan was rotten to the core. Zordar was a good man; we will never forget him,’ said David.

  Dernum looked puzzled.

  ‘Unfortunately Zordar was shot by the Channel patrolmen,’ continued David. ‘I am sorry to tell you this news. I know you and Zordar were good friends.’

  Dernum’s smile faded and he looked miserable. ‘I don’t believe it! Not Zordar! We’ve been through so much together. I will miss him ... I can’t believe it.’ Dernum was silent for a moment and then took a deep breath to focus on the task at hand. ‘Look, we haven’t got much time. We’ve got to get a move on; you can tell me what happened as we travel.’

  Dernum’s troops arrived and everyone gathered their bags up and made their way to the door. Dernum then saw the men in the corner. He looked thoughtfully at them. ‘One of these men will be able to walk. I’m not leaving the other one behind, while he has breath in his body, he’ll have to come with us.’ He looked at Kayleb’s rope. ‘We’ll need that, though.’

  Kayleb handed Dernum the rope and watched as he made a carrier for the man. Dernum worked quickly and skilfully and in no time at all the limbless man was strapped to the back of one of Dernum’s men. Kayleb saw the lips of the man moving. He seemed to be saying ‘thank you’ but no voice came from his lips.

  The man with one leg was willingly assisted by two of the soldiers and eagerly left the storeroom. He was smiling as he left. Freedom was only a hair’s breadth away.

  Kayleb, Rowan, Cornwall and Indigo kept together and walked closely behind Dernum and his men. Rowan looked at Staan’s men. Some were dead and some lay there dying, their bodies slumped over the debris caused by the explosion. Some of the lifers were dead and looked like they had been frozen. They were still holding their laser guns with their fingers on the triggers; Rowan avoided looking at their eyes. He was very impressed by Dernum. He had managed to wipe out Staan’s troops without any casualties of his own. Rowan then looked at David with disgust. David had been messing with all their lives; he clearly knew what was going to happen in the future and Rowan felt that he was playing some sort of cruel game. David wasn’t to be trusted. The agony he now felt inside had gone on too long. He would be making his way back to London by himself.

  As they left the crumbling building, giant shards of crystal lay scattered in the street. Staan’s head had been stuck on top of one of them, like a traitor’s head outside the Tower of London thousands of years ago. Indigo looked away, repulsed. Blood ran down the spike of crystal and, although nobody was attached to Staan’s head, Staan mouthed foul words as everyone passed him by. A flock of crows had begun to gather around Staan’s head. They cawed to each other, watching and waiting for a chance to peck out his eyes; some scavenged in the rubble looking for bits of flesh.

  On the very edge of the city, in the first field they came to, Kayleb was overjoyed to find Max again. Max was eating a rat he had caught. He had spotted Kayleb first and bounded over to him with the rat still hanging limply from his mouth. Soon the city and its filthy streets were far behind them. Dernum had led them through fields and through woodland. It was still dark when everyone arrived in Ryde on the northern coast of the island. By some miracle, they had managed to avoid being attacked by any more lifers. Kayleb wondered who Dernum was. He didn’t seem to be like either a lifer or an ordinary Londoner. He reminded him of Conrad. Kayleb decided that he and his men had probably worked for the police authorities at some stage and had somehow ended up in the wilderness. The people of London who didn’t function properly in the positions they were allocated, were usually placed in another job. Kayleb wasn’t sure what happened to the failed policemen. They couldn’t be given another job because they would be picked on by their co-workers.

  Dernum had two small high-speed dinghies that had heel chip scramblers and radar on-board. There was one dinghy for those who wanted to help David and another for taskers who wanted to return to London and forget all that had happened to them.

  Rowan, along with Prozac, immediately entered the taskers’ boat. Everyone else, except Kayleb, clambered aboard David’s boat. Kayleb stood on the shore and looked anxiously at both boats. Max was running up and down the beach chasing the waves.

  ‘Get in this boat!’ Rowan called to Kayleb. ‘You really don’t want to be getting into his boat. You’ll only end up being thrown back into the wilderness again. It’s pointless helping David. He’s failed before; why would he succeed this time? If you get into this boat our lives will return to normal. Come on, Kayleb!’

  Kayleb sighed. What was normal? The past few weeks hadn’t been normal; they had been disturbing. He wanted to see if Helen was still alive. Kayleb looked at David. If he stayed with David then he could bring David to Helen to heal her. He couldn’t lose contact with David; it was Helen’s last hope. He did not want to forget what he had been through; he did not want to be a victim again. Quietly Kayleb walked to David’s boat and climbed in. Max followed behind.

  ‘Loser!’ shouted Rowan, as Kayleb climbed into David’s boat. Dernum gave instructions to the men driving the boats and then helped to push the boats into the sea. He waved and then disappeared into the undergrowth, blending into the vegetation like chameleons. Kayleb looked for Cornwall. She was seated next to David at the front of the boat. Kayleb thought he would find her crying over Rowan. She seemed to be quite calm and didn’t even look at Rowan’s boat heading off into the distance. Kayleb was surprised and thought that he would never understand girls. They were curious creatures.

  It did not take long to reach the coast of London with its hundreds of white wind turbines stretching into the sky and with every last space covered with either a garden-topped apartment or a polytunnel containing crops. Kayleb had mixed feelings. He knew that, once he stepped under the invisible protective shield, he would be returning to a civilisation that he knew. The difference now being that he would be free and critical of his homeland. Kayleb thought of Rowan. He was the loser. He wondered how Rowan could return to London as it was. Liberty was never thought about: following the program and all its rules was a Londoner’s life. Self-expression was quashed and punished. Something was lacking in London and hopefully David would be capable of making a difference. Kayleb hoped some good would come of David’s plans for London but he also wondered if people would change. They were so institutionalised now that any improvement
would be met with resistance.

  The wind that blew across the Channel was refreshing and the quickening sunrise felt inspiring. The future felt much brighter for Kayleb and he knew that he had made the right decision.

  27

  Rowan yelled out in triumph as his feet hit the ground. Finally, he was on a beach outside London. He wasn’t sure where he was exactly but he knew he was only steps away from being welcomed back into the arms of his mentors and the sanctuary of his city.

  Rowan looked along the coastline for his welcoming committee. Now that he was out of the boat they should know that he had made it back to London, by the signal from the chip in his heel.

  The patrol boat was heading back to the Isle of Wight and now only he and Prozac stood on the beach waiting for the shield to lift. There was no turning back. Rowan had no regrets. He had waited for this day to come for a long time and he felt elated.

  After a while, however, it became apparent that nobody knew they were there.

  ‘Where are they?’ Prozac asked Rowan. The tide was beginning to rise and there wasn’t much beach left to stand on. The wind turbines were too smooth to climb and the Isle of Wight was too far to swim back to.

  Rowan looked along the coastline and wondered if Kayleb and the others were losing patience too, waiting for the shield to lift. He wondered if they had been caught yet – he hoped that they had been.

  After several hours had passed, a police officer finally arrived on a hover scooter. He looked flustered and annoyed when he saw Rowan and Prozac. The seawater had just gone over their knees and waves were crashing into them; they were both cold and miserable. The policeman pulled a scanner out of his pocket, pointed it at Rowan and Prozac through the shield, typed a long code into the screen of the scanner and then beckoned to the two boys to wade out of the wilderness and step into London. Rowan frowned. This wasn’t what he had expected at all.