Monster Republic

by Ben Horton

  Then again, what was he, Cameron Reilly? Hardly a Reilly any more – the Reilly family had disowned him. Their Cameron was dead to them, and he hadn’t even begun to make up his mind what he was to himself: dead or alive, human or monster?

  Where did he fit in the world now? If he was ever going to be a part of the Republic, didn’t they have to fit around him as well? Shouldn’t it be a two-way deal?

  Rora was still staring at him. Everyone waited on his answer.

  Cameron hated her for it, but he knew Rora was right. He couldn’t do without the Republic. He had tried going it alone, and look where that had got him – back here, barely able to stand, let alone storm off and make a life for himself on his own.

  The bottom line was that he had nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to.

  Cameron slumped back into his chair.

  Somewhere he heard a voice say, ‘OK. Let’s go then.’

  And after a strange second where he felt detached from everything around him, Cameron recognized the voice as his own.

  chapter fifteen

  one of the team

  The next few days were a blur. There was so much to do that the thoughts weighing heaviest on Cameron had to be set aside. Most of the time, at least. There were still some quieter moments when he sank into gloomy reflection on how devastatingly his life had changed, but he kept such thoughts to himself.

  Nobody seemed very interested anyway. His fellow monsters had all been through similar upheavals of their own. Everyone had their losses to bear and their stories to tell, but nobody told them. And when it came to the thing that bothered Cameron most – the clock ticking down to whatever Fry had planned – nobody wanted to know at all. The Monster Republic had turned its back on the town, and Cameron was expected to do the same.

  Instead of sharing stories, they shared the workload. The Republic only had two vehicles – the beat-up old truck that had brought Cameron back from the garage, and a slightly larger, slightly less beat-up transit van. That meant many trips to ferry both personnel and essentials out to the new mountain base in an abandoned mine a dozen miles outside Broad Harbour. Cameron was cooped up in the back with a number of his fellow monsters on several trips, working with them on the loading and unloading at either end. And he had to admit that making people work together was a great way of forcing them to talk to one another.

  Despite Cameron’s reticence and the wariness of most of the Rejects, they slowly got to know each other, bit by awkward bit. There were even a few jokes and a bit of larking about, in an attempt to alleviate the boredom – and the tension.

  Smarts and Rora reasoned that, with Fry concentrating on his plot against the Prime Minister, nobody would be following the monsters’ movements very closely. Even so, as a precaution, those doing the driving were under orders to take circuitous routes and keep an eye out for anyone trying to tail them. Nobody reported any pursuers, but that didn’t stop people watching the roads behind them closely.

  Out at the mine, there was plenty to keep everyone occupied and working closely together. There were bunks and other furniture to be installed in the new base, along with a lot of other useful gear and equipment, once they had made the lift operational again. Tinker insisted on bringing his dentist’s chair. It was the ideal platform for working on monsters like Cameron whose mechanical enhancements needed repairs and maintenance, and he didn’t know where he would find another one like it.

  Then there were chains of worklights to rig along all the tunnels and chambers, as well as a water supply that needed to be hooked up. They had to scout out the various ventilation shafts and other exits, and set up motion detectors wired to alarms down in the main caverns. Finally they had to select the best of the mine shafts as their main entrance, ultimately picking one that sloped up at a fairly steep angle to an opening in a hillside, not far from a lonely bend of road.

  Through all of it, Cameron was assigned to different work parties, mixing with new teams of people every few days. He sensed Rora’s hand behind his shifting schedule, which seemed to change more frequently than anyone else’s. He found himself getting introduced to more and more monsters, having to put more names to faces – or half-faces.

  He learned that the reptilian-looking monster he’d seen at the first meeting was a girl called Rehana. Originally from Sri Lanka, she’d been a stowaway on a ship that Dr Fry was using to transport a load of chameleons for use in his experiments. When Rehana was found, Fry had used her in the experiments too.

  The monster in the metal visor turned out to be a boy called Alex, another homeless child like Rora. He’d been picked up in one of Fry’s regular sweeps through the poorer part of town. The doctor had tried a radical treatment for the skin disease that had caused Alex’s parents to abandon him – he had removed his face altogether.

  Cameron understood Rora’s plan. She was doing what she could to gradually introduce him to all the citizens of the Republic, in the hope that they would grow to accept him. Silently grateful, Cameron played his part, making sure they saw him as a good worker and not a slacker. He put in more hours than he needed to, going the extra mile. Only Slater worked harder, the sour-faced boy seeming determined to out-do him whenever he could.

  One afternoon, Cameron was assigned to work on the shower room with two boys who went by the names of Jace and Freddy. They were a pair of leathery skinned monsters, their bodies twisted and bent out of shape. There was something boar-like about the tusks that poked up over their upper lips, but although they looked fearsome, they had a reputation as a couple of jokers.

  They weren’t laughing when Cameron’s heavy footsteps entered the room, though.

  ‘Hey,’ said Cameron, raising his hand in greeting.

  ‘Hey,’ they replied, almost too softly to be heard.

  Great, thought Cameron. It was going to be one of those days.

  After they had worked in near-silence for an hour, hauling loose rubble out of the empty chamber and slapping plaster roughly on the crumbling stone walls, they stopped for a break.

  Although his enhanced muscles gave him more stamina than a lot of the monsters, several days’ hard work had taken their toll, even on Cameron. He sat down, cross-legged, and leaned back against the wall. As he closed his proper eye, he caught a low whisper between Jace and Freddy, who had settled themselves in a corner at the opposite end of the room, about as far away from Cameron as they could get.

  ‘Go on!’

  ‘No way, you ask him!’

  Cameron sighed. ‘I can hear you anyway, you know, so you might as well talk to me.’

  Jace and Freddy looked up guiltily, like a pair of schoolboys caught by a teacher they’d been slagging off behind his back.

  ‘What is it you want to know?’

  Freddy nervously turned a dusty stone over and over in his hand, the pebble crackling against his hard skin. ‘Is it true – that Fry didn’t take you from the streets?’

  Cameron nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So you had a family, right?’ said Jace.

  ‘Right.’ Cameron frowned. Where was this going?

  ‘It’s just—’ began Jace.

  ‘We had a family too,’ Freddy blurted. ‘Y’know. Before.’

  It was difficult to know what to say, so Cameron opted for the obvious. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We were kidnapped,’ replied Freddy.

  ‘Fry wanted to experiment on twins,’ Jace explained, ‘but he couldn’t wait for homeless twins to just turn up.’

  ‘So we were stolen to order,’ said Freddy. ‘Someone broke into our room one night. The next thing we know, we’re in the lab.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Cameron. ‘That’s a raw deal.’

  ‘You’re telling us,’ Jace replied.

  ‘Did you try to go back?’ Cameron asked. The painful memories of his own failed family reunion were never far from his mind. ‘Once you escaped from the lab, I mean.’

  Jace nodded. ‘We tried, but by then there wasn’t anything
left. After we were taken, Mum got sick. She died not long after, and Dad moved away.’

  ‘So nothing to go back to,’ muttered Freddy bitterly.

  ‘I’m Sorry,’ said Cameron simply.

  ‘Thanks,’ replied Jace. There was a pause. ‘A lot of the others, they never really missed their families, because they hardly knew them. The Republic’s the only real family they’ve had. But …’

  ‘I think what Jace is trying to say is that we know what it feels like to have your family taken away,’ said Freddy. ‘And it does get better.’

  The leathery twins smiled. At least, Cameron assumed that was what they were doing – their tusks made it hard to tell the difference between a smile and a grimace.

  Before he could say anything, Rora entered.

  ‘Hi, guys!’

  The trio jumped. Jace and Freddy scuttled back to work.

  The fox-girl scanned the room.

  ‘Looking good here. You’re at least a day ahead of schedule,’ she noted, rewarding Cameron with a pat on the back. ‘Good work. You’ve dedicated yourself to the cause. To the Republic. You’ve really become one of the team – I’m proud of you.’

  She spoke with a smile that was worth a week’s wages to Cameron.

  As Rora left, Jace and Freddy turned to each other and grinned.

  ‘What?’ said Cameron, but he suspected he already knew what they were getting at.

  ‘Got something going there, eh?’

  ‘With Rora,’ snorted Freddy, who had a habit of clarifying whatever Jace said, whether or not it was entirely necessary.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Cameron. ‘We’re real sweethearts.’

  Jace and Freddy guffawed as they got back to work, and kept ribbing Cameron all day. But he put up with their teasing gladly. It was just another brand of acceptance.

  That night, Cameron stood just inside the main entrance to the base, enjoying the cold air and the feel of the rain on the human parts of his face. The weather looked set to celebrate the completion of the Republic’s moving-in operations with a full-blown thunderstorm. Leaving the heavens to do their worst, Cameron retreated down to the newly completed common room for a well-earned meal and an evening of rest and relaxation.

  The rough-hewn rock walls didn’t exactly make it cosy, but there were plenty of tables and chairs, and even a huge, tattered Persian rug rescued from a tip somewhere. Four monsters were hogging the pool table, but Jace kicked out a chair and invited Cameron to sit and eat with him and Freddy in front of the TV. Apparently a decent movie was due on after the news.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Cameron and sat down, keen to get stuck into his dinner. Whoever was on cooking duty had rustled up big platefuls of fish fingers and oven chips, and he was ravenous.

  Jace and Freddy chomped messily on their food, chatting between mouthfuls about the day’s work and joking about the ‘nice atmosphere’ here in their new place. Cameron kept half an eye on the screen as the local news bulletin flashed up. Nobody else was at all interested, he noticed. It was as if they had forgotten Broad Harbour as soon as they got outside the city limits.

  Shots of flashing blue lights and a burning orange blaze drew Cameron’s attention away from the conversation. The sight of the fire engines, the police and the ambulance, and the house belching out smoke and flames, sent an unexpected chill through him.

  He knew that house.

  ‘Hey! Someone turn that up!’

  Someone obliged by notching up the volume. Everyone in the room turned to watch. The reporter stationed in front of the scene was wearing a particularly sombre expression. Cameron listened with growing shock as the man’s words leaped out from the television.

  ‘The dead woman has been named as Angela Harper, a single parent who shared the house with her fourteen-year-old son, who tried to rescue his mother but was beaten back by the flames and has now been taken to hospital. Police suspect foul play and will be conducting a full investigation.’

  Cameron stared at the screen, disbelieving.

  ‘Darren,’ he muttered in horror. ‘They’ve killed Darren’s mum.’

  chapter sixteen

  taking a stand

  The report carried on, but Cameron was no longer listening. Everyone in the room had turned to stare at him. Most of the monsters had heard the story of his escape from Carla, and knew it was Darren who had helped him get away.

  Now Darren had paid the price. Cameron felt guilt wash over him like a wave of dirty water. He’d left his friend behind, pretending to himself that he would be OK, even though he knew deep down that he wouldn’t.

  Cameron looked at the monsters surrounding him, expecting their eyes to accuse him as bitterly as he blamed himself. But they didn’t. In fact, barely anyone would meet his gaze at all. It was almost as if they felt … what? Ashamed?

  That was it. It was shame in their eyes. The same shame Cameron felt – the shame of doing nothing. Of letting things happen and pretending you couldn’t do anything about them. Of taking the easy option, the coward’s way out.

  That was what Cameron had done by agreeing to the plan to leave Broad Harbour. That’s what the rest of the Republic had done by abandoning the town to Dr Fry. What they had all done by trying to make a wrong decision seem right.

  As Cameron realized this, he felt something shift within him. Not so much a transformation as something that had been there all along waking up at last. Whatever modifications Dr Fry had inflicted on him, there was plenty inside that hadn’t changed. He’d known all along that running away from Broad Harbour was wrong. He’d managed to close his eyes to the fact for a few days, using his fear of being alone to numb his conscience.

  But not any more. Cameron knew now that he couldn’t live like that, turning his back on the world. And from the look in their eyes, he didn’t believe that, deep down, many in the Monster Republic wanted to live like that either. Maybe all they needed was someone to show them that there was another way.

  Cameron knew about leading from the front on a football pitch, but this situation was rather different. Or was it? Maybe it was just the same – setting an example and motivating his team-mates. Where to begin? With a team talk, of course. Men of action had to be men of words too. Cameron made up his mind. The circumstances might be strange, but the game was familiar.

  Time to give it his best shot.

  He started by clearing his throat. ‘Listen up,’ he said. Then, louder: ‘Listen!’

  All eyes were suddenly on him. Rora, especially, was regarding him with interest. Someone switched off the TV and he had their full attention. The trick now would be not to waste it.

  Cameron gestured at the dead screen, an image of Darren very much in his mind. ‘I was responsible for that. I didn’t do anything, but I’m responsible just the same. For any of you who don’t know, Darren was my best friend.’ He allowed the full emotional weight of those words to sink in. ‘He helped me escape from Carla when I needed help. Now he’s paid the price – his mum was all he had in the world. And where was I when he needed me? Skulking away in a cave.’

  Scattered protests broke out then, but Cameron quickly shut them off.

  ‘I understand it’s what the Republic has always had to do to survive. I know that. I’m not having a go at anyone. When you thought that Fry was out to get you, hiding was enough. Staying out of his clutches and finding small ways you could strike back at him. It did the job then.’

  A wave of nods passed around the room. Cameron glanced at Rora. Her lips were set in a tight line. It looked as if she’d already worked out where he was going with this …

  ‘But now Fry is killing innocent people. He’s not just our problem – he’s everybody’s. Most people don’t have any way of fighting back. Most of them don’t even know he’s the enemy. We’re Fry’s handiwork, and we’re the only ones who’ve got what it takes.’

  Cameron walked slowly round to the front of the room, watching the heads turning to follow him. He just hoped he wasn’t kidding himself –
or, worse, kidding any of the people looking up to him.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if the people don’t thank us,’ he continued. ‘It doesn’t matter if they fear and hate us. It doesn’t matter if they can’t understand what we’re doing. It’s not their words that make us what we are, and it isn’t the way any of us look. It’s our actions.’

  Cameron allowed himself a momentary pause as he reached the front of the room. He took a breath.

  Crunch time.

  ‘Someone needs to make a stand, and I can tell you now, that someone is going to be me. I’m not asking any of you to follow me. I’m just telling you what I’m going to do. This is a free republic, so we all get to choose for ourselves. But, like I said, innocent people are dying. If we stand back and allow that to happen, we will be monsters. But if we fight, if we try to defend those people and put a stop to Fry, then we’ll be something else. Maybe, in some small way,’ he said, with a closing smile, ‘we’ll be heroes.’

  A moment of expectant silence followed, as though the audience weren’t sure whether Cameron was finished or not. In the crowd, he caught sight of Tinker’s head nodding, although whether in agreement or consternation it was impossible to tell.

  The hush wasn’t destined to last, however. Initial murmurs quickly gave way to noisy argument and raised voices as people competed to be heard. Cameron grimaced – it wasn’t quite the unified effect he’d been aiming for, but he understood that every side had to have its say before they made a decision. Although, as always in these situations, there was always at least one voice who managed to shout down everyone else. And to Cameron’s dismay, this time it was Slater’s.

  ‘Listen!’ roared Slater, stepping out of the crowd a little to Cameron’s left. ‘We might as well stop arguing! Because let’s face it, there are only two sides to this!’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘One, we go off on a crusade against Fry and get ourselves killed or – even if we defeat him – get rounded up and stuck in a cage somewhere by the “innocent people” we’re supposed to be defending. And for what? We don’t even know for certain that Fry had anything to do with this fire.’