Lifers

by M. A. Griffin

  Ellwood raised a hand. “We’ve all heard the we’re-here-for-a-reason story, Chowdhury.”

  Chowdhury blinked his big eyes. People were sleeping now, and voices had dropped to whispers.

  Then Hoyle began talking, his face a permanent scowl, his fingers up around his mouth. “I was just starting cars,” he said bitterly. “That’s all. It was my brother and the others who did the driving. I was just starting them.” Hoyle’s fatigue was written under his eyes. He rubbed them with the heel of his hand. “Course, while I’m there under the wheel hot-wiring, the cops show up and the boys all jet,” he said, “and leave me behind. I’ve got three cars started—one of them’s this gray Merc. But our crew’s long gone by then. I’m under the dash so I only notice the filth when I see they’ve got their blues on.” Hoyle was looking at his ragged hands, distracted. “Then I’m in the cells for a bit. But then there’s a call comes through and suddenly I’m away in the vans. They put the goggles on. And I finish up here,” he said. “So, no. I don’t accept I’ve done bad. Wrong place, wrong time—that’s me.”

  “Yeah,” Gedge said gently. “Wrong place, wrong time. Isn’t that all of us?”

  Hoyle scowled at him and turned to the girl. “Can’t we eat?”

  Ellwood shook her head. “There’s still nothing through.” She was addressing them all now. “The stuff we’ve saved needs to stay saved. Make sure people know that. If nothing arrives by tomorrow, we’ll use the reserves.”

  “Things are getting bad,” said Lewison. “You saw Fox earlier. The Longsight lads aren’t getting the message.” He shook his head, ominous. “That knife. He’s going to kill someone soon. Maybe we should just share what we’ve got with them.”

  Ellwood was quick and firm. “No. No way. Not after what happened. They’re having nothing. We keep ’em close where we can watch them. But they get nothing unless they give up the weapons.” She spun the watch around her wrist, eyes distant. “Anyway. Something will arrive tomorrow.”

  “It better do,” said Hoyle. “Or we’re dead.”

  “How often does it come?” Preston asked. “I mean, usually.”

  “Not often enough,” said Lewison. “And recently, it’s been getting smaller and smaller. For the last week?” He opened his thin-fingered hands out, empty. “Nothing. There’s a bit of water left. Ellwood made us save it. You should’ve heard the shit she got for sorting that out. Not now, though.”

  It was almost pitch-black. Gedge had rolled onto his side, made a pillow of his huge left arm. Preston lay in the dust, fingers interlaced on his chest, listening to the distant boom of whatever. He worried about the Longsight lads—We’re taking the food, or we’re taking you out. One by one. And he worried about Alice.

  Somewhere out in the dark, Ellwood had gotten to her feet and was moving across the hall, whistling soft and low.

  “New boy.” It was Chowdhury. “What’s your crime, new boy?”

  Preston drummed his fingers and thumbs against each other and didn’t reply. Go get dead, his fingers said. “I made a few mistakes,” he said. “Nothing I want to share.”

  “We’re here for a reason, new boy,” Chowdhury whispered. “All will be revealed.”

  Out in the shadows somewhere, Ellwood was moving stealthily. Maybe she was looking for something.

  Chowdhury said, “There’s ghosts in this place.”

  “Ghosts?”

  “Robinson Crusoe,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re not alone here,” said Chowdhury. He touched the bridge of his nose with the tip of a forefinger, checked where Ellwood was, then spoke low and eager. “There’s a free man up through the trapdoors.”

  Preston felt an inexplicable lurch of fear. “What?”

  “Through the trapdoors.” Lewison the bike thief had mentioned trapdoors before. “Rabbit and me got up through them. And beyond them is the place where Crusoe lives.”

  Preston laughed at first, partly because Chowdhury was sounding crazy, partly because the dark was making him feel uneasy. His empty stomach grumbled. “And someone’s gone through them tonight?”

  Chowdhury nodded. “Rabbit has. And others.”

  Rabbit had been mentioned before. It sounded as if he might be one of Ellwood’s lot. Alice could be with them. Preston whispered, “What’s through these trapdoors, then?”

  Preston heard Chowdhury’s shallow breath. “There’s a white corridor,” the kid said. “It’s bright. And at the end, a kind of doorway. It seems to … ” The only sound for a while was the low-down thud that came from beyond the rocky walls, and the groan of the fan blades over the mouth of the vent. “It seems to pull you in toward it. I went through and I saw a man.”

  Crazy talk. “Robinson Crusoe,” Preston whispered. Ellwood was still stalking the room out there somewhere. Preston could just make her out, stepping carefully over the sleeping forms of the kids. Whatever she was looking for, she hadn’t found it.

  “What does she want?” he asked, half to himself.

  He heard Chowdhury shift position. “She’s waiting for Rabbit and the others.”

  “Are they in danger?”

  “Well,” Chowdhury said, “we’ve not had the signal on the pipes. Ellwood’ll be getting uptight about her boyfriend’s whereabouts.” There was the sound of a grin in the boy’s voice as he added, “’Specially since he’s out with the other girl. Anyway, they usually hammer on the pipes to let us know they’re all right.” Preston could just about see him as he cocked his head and cupped a hand to his ear ironically. “Tonight, no echoes in the pipes.” Out there near the pipes on the far wall, Ellwood was listening for contact. Preston watched her shape in the dark, thinking about Chowdhury’s words. Waiting for Rabbit. Boyfriend. Other girl.

  Then, as Preston shifted position, he remembered something. Rabbit.

  “Try it,” Alice had said. She’d drawn again, slowly. “Neat, eh?”

  They had been in the art rooms finishing portfolio stuff over lunch. A warm afternoon with a low sun that made the windows look fogged with crap. The radio had been on. Radiators ticking, the hum of the projector. Still life. It had been—what?—maybe a couple of weeks ago—maybe a year ago; time had stretched and dilated since this whole madness had begun. Preston remembered thinking it was pretty cool, watching Alice draw.

  “It’s dumb,” he’d said.

  “Are you kidding?” She’d grinned. Then she’d done it again. An upside-down “R.” “Like when you’re up there,” she’d said dreamily as she repeated the shape, “when you’re lifting your eyes, you see the world in a different way. From the top of those buildings, you’re seeing the city—you’re seeing the world, I guess—from a perspective that no one else ever has. It’s all turned upside down.”

  They were talking graffiti tags. Ryan’s new tag—the inverted “R.”

  “You’re joking,” he’d said. And then he’d copied it, angry with her and with himself. Jealously exaggerating it, making it look stupid. “It’s like a rabbit,” he’d said, thinking he was being clever.

  Preston thought about that upturned “R,” and the kid they called Rabbit. What if Rabbit was Ryan? It was at least possible, wasn’t it? Did that mean Ellwood and Ryan were together? And the other girl? That could be Alice, right?

  Except there hadn’t been any contact on the pipes.

  Preston was immediately up and off through the blackness, heading unsteadily for Ellwood. He moved carefully, checking the dark at his feet, trying not to step on abandoned goggles, tangled dog tags, sleeping kids.

  She was against the far wall in a crouch and she knew he was coming, stumbling as he was over ankles and shins. “Chowdhury send you?” She didn’t look up.

  Even in the depth of gloom, Preston could see her strong arms and the curve of her back. She had her ear against the pipes, listening for a signal. Her jeans were slung low. His palms prickled as he wondered about how close he should get to her. People were sleeping. If they wer
e going to talk, he wasn’t going to do it from a distance. He took a step forward, thought about going down on his knees next to her, then reconsidered. “Tell me about the guy called Rabbit.”

  She looked up at him. Her face had clouded, her gaze wandered the floor. “You know him, I guess,” she said, shifting uncomfortably. Preston felt pretty sure this awkward silence had to do with Ryan. He nodded. “When you described the girl you were looking for, I knew you meant Wilde,” Ellwood continued. “She came through looking for Ryan. Rabbit, they call him.” She gave a long sigh. “What a mess,” she said.

  Preston felt his stomach tighten. “So Alice is here?” he said.

  “She was,” she said carefully. Ellwood rose from her crouch, pushing the creases from her jeans and straightening up. She was taller than Preston, unless he stood on tiptoes. He felt himself blush, though he had no idea why. “They went up through the trapdoors this afternoon. They still aren’t back. And there’s been no signal.”

  Preston took a step toward Ellwood. “How bad is this?” he said. He was so close to seeing Alice that the idea that she might have vanished again might have been enough to crush him. He hadn’t slept for so long now, he’d started wondering if everything was a dream.

  Ellwood looked at her fingernails. “I’m worried about him,” she said in a whisper. “I think it’s bad.”

  They listened at the pipes together for a while, not talking. Eventually, Preston sat with his back against the wall, knees crossed, an arm’s length from Ellwood. He thought of Alice and her Get Happy badge and her bike. He tried to imagine where she might be—somewhere up through the trapdoors, somewhere with Ryan. He thought about Chowdhury’s tale about Robinson Crusoe, the free man in the pipes; about Lewison the bike thief, with his dipper’s fingers. He thought about Armstrong and wondered what kind of man could live with treating people this way, burying a whole bunch of petty lawbreakers and throwing away the key—clearing the streets and winning votes. The politics of fear. And Preston thought about his dad back home—wherever that was—sitting in the flat with that curve in his back and the bags under his eyes, wondering why Mum left.

  Ellwood started talking, soft and low; it took Preston a moment to surface. He placed a hand on the floor between them and leaned closer. It was too dark to see properly, but he could feel her warmth. “When you came through,” she said, “you said you could help. That you know stuff. You know Shade, right?” She drank from a plastic bottle of water and even in the dark Preston could see the watch with the oversize clip-strap slide down the smooth skin of her arm. It was a neat watch—expensive. It wasn’t her size.

  Then suddenly, a connection clicked. That name—Ellwood.

  Mace and he had seen that name recently. “Westminster Politician Assists Police with Inquiries.” Ellwood was the name of a guy involved in some sort of mysterious accident. And then his daughter had gone missing …

  “Bloody hell,” said Preston involuntarily. “You’re that Ellwood.”

  “What?” said Ellwood. Preston could tell she was pretending. She had hard, bright eyes usually but they’d softened now. She sat with her feet turned inward, toes touching.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Preston.

  She clipped the top of the bottle closed and passed it to him. An invitation to drink. Maybe down here, sharing the same bottle had ceased to be a big deal long ago. Still, his insides did a weird twist and glow.

  “What do you know about me?” she asked.

  Preston took the bottle, popped the cap. The neck was warm from the touch of her hands. He put it to his mouth and drank thirstily. In the silence, Ellwood made a check of the pipes again.

  “Only what I read on the Internet,” Preston said. “You’ve no tag. I’m guessing you’re not here because you looted a store after a bunch of stupid riots.”

  She rubbed her arms. “I’ll tell you,” she said after a moment’s thought, “but this is a trade. I need your help.”

  Preston nodded. There was a long silence. The slumbering shapes around them shifted. When Ellwood leaned forward and in the half dark, Preston could see her face properly. The arch of her eyebrows, dark eyes, the little dots on her lobes where her ears had been pierced. He liked her. The realization came to him sharp and quick and he winced at it, thinking of Alice.

  “My dad,” Ellwood whispered, “is a member of Parliament. Was a member of Parliament. I guess you already know this stuff.”

  Jacob Ellwood, the name in the article. “Some of it, yeah.”

  “He worked closely with another guy—high up in the government now. You said you know him. Christopher Armstrong.”

  “I met him. Just recently.”

  “Figures,” Ellwood said. “Anywhere law and order is, you’ll find Armstrong. He’s been working with a company called M.I.S.T. based in Manchester—you’ll know those guys as well, I’m guessing.”

  “Technological prototyping and development for criminal justice,” Preston recited.

  “Right.” She waved a hand into the blackness around her and said, “This is Armstrong’s project. An alternative prison system. It’s obvious really, when you think about it. Our prisons are full. It’s costing us a ton to maintain all those ancient buildings. There needed to be a cheap alternative. Well—one easy way to save money is to remove prison staff, right? Forget rehabilitating convicts. Just dig a big hole and abandon them.” Ellwood’s face was set stern and troubled again. She knotted her fingers together over her knees.

  “And your dad?”

  Her head dipped before she spoke again. “He worked on the project with Armstrong for a while. But he didn’t like it. Especially after the riots that summer. Armstrong started putting gang members away, then kids with bad families who lived in the wrong neighborhoods—like that’s their fault—then looters, then just kids like Lewison, Hoyle. Yeah, they’d done some pretty bad stuff but … here?” she said, raising a hand to the roof. “No one deserves this, right?” She looked at him, direct and urgent, her eyes brimful of belief. She was biting her lip. Preston would have agreed to pretty much anything then. He nodded. “Anyway. Dad couldn’t live with it. He wanted to blow the whistle.” Ellwood gave a sad shrug. “But Armstrong wouldn’t let him. Things got worse. There were huge arguments around that time. Angry phone calls. Dad threatened to go to the press.” Ellwood wiped her eyes and beckoned for the bottle. Preston passed it and she drank. “Crazy talk. Mum was dead against it but he wouldn’t listen. And then, one night … ” She faltered, and Preston thought she might be crying. He was paralyzed by indecision. He almost touched her—got as far as extending his fingers—but as if to save him from some disastrous misjudgment, Ellwood held out the bottle and said, “Dad was killed. But I don’t think it was an accident.”

  “So you started doing some digging.”

  “Yeah. I did. The cops said he was over the limit. But Dad had quit drinking—he hadn’t touched it for over a year. And when I tried to find the other vehicle involved, I got nowhere. In the end I asked Christopher for help.”

  “You mean Armstrong?”

  “Yeah. Mum was in pieces. She was no use. Sasha—my sister—she was at university. Christopher was a family friend. Dad and him were always together. We used to talk now and again … ” Ellwood trailed off.

  “So you think that by asking him—by telling him what you suspected … ”

  “Yeah. He knew I was getting close. He didn’t show it, of course—God, no. He was a brilliant liar. But underneath, he knew I was dangerous.”

  “So—what happened?”

  “One night I … I woke up down here,” Ellwood said with a bitter half-visible smile. “Can you imagine what that felt like?”

  Preston felt a cold dread as he thought about it. “How long ago was that?”

  “Weeks. Maybe months. It’s hard to tell in a sunless hole.”

  “And … ” Preston shrugged. “What’s your plan?”

  In the dark she seemed to debate whether he deserved to know. Preston
held his breath and waited. When she spoke, she was alive and glowing with conviction. “We’re all going to break out,” she said. “And we’re going back up to the surface. Then we’re finding Armstrong.” She licked her lips slowly, deliberately. “And we’re gonna kill him.”

  She held his gaze for a second or two. Preston felt that high, hot wire of fear in his chest. The girl was all fueled up—twisted and hyper. He couldn’t look anywhere else, even as he felt the shoulder bag against the small of his back. Three databands and a hundred kids. Preston finished the water and wiped his chin. If he was to save anyone, he’d need to tell Ellwood about the databands. There’d be a serious fight over who got to go home and who didn’t. It was another conversation he didn’t have the courage for.

  “So that’s why I need your help, Faulkner,” Ellwood said. To his surprise, Preston found the palms of his hands were damp and he rubbed them against his jeans. “You know stuff, and I need to know it too,” she said. “We haven’t got much time. The food’s almost gone.”

  Farther off, a gang of lads were sitting shoulder to shoulder, backs to the wall. One had glasses on. Was that Fox, grinning out there in the dark? One by one.

  Ellwood wiped her mouth. “Like I said, we haven’t got much time.”

  Preston considered the empty bottle in his hands. Even water was a carefully guarded resource down here. Shutdown meant the nightwardens wouldn’t be able to deliver food and drinks. He remembered Mrs. Scott—his history teacher in Year Nine—saying that civilization was only one meal deep. Preston hadn’t had a clue what that meant at the time. Even brainbox Alice had needed two goes to explain it to him afterward. Now, Preston knew what old Scott was on about. As soon as the food and water ran out down here, there’d be no such thing as civilization or order. It’d be every kid for themselves; it’d be half-starved Longsight lads refusing to give up their weapons, gathering in the dark. Preston felt the databands and goggles press against his back in the bag. What the hell was Shade doing, sending him down here with only three bands? He needed hundreds. Preston fumed at the nightwarden and thought over the beginnings of a plan. If he could get three people out, they might have time to come back with more databands and rescue the rest. He’d just need to choose the two that came with him.