by Echo Freer
A diffused yellow light flashed across the brickwork at the back of the freezer. Monkey felt easier; they’d got sulphur torches rather than heat-seeking equipment. That was one weight off his mind. And he couldn’t hear any dogs either. He started to relax a little.
‘Just some old clothes,’ the male said.
‘They look like providers’ clothes to me,’ remarked the female. ‘Best take them with us.’
The male didn’t sound convinced. ‘Could be the pre’s. Or maybe they’re hers; she’s an artist apparently. You know what those Bohemians are like.’
‘You’re not paid to make decisions. Just take them!’ the female ordered, and Monkey could hear the sound of scraping as though something was being picked up from the floor. ‘And check out those freezers at the back,’ she barked.
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ the male voice acquiesced.
Monkey went rigid. There was a creak as the lid of the other freezer was raised. He heard rustling, then a thud as it closed again. The footsteps grew closer and stopped next to their hiding place. The air in the freezer was warm now, almost stale with their breath. He felt Angel’s fingers creep across his hand and wrap themselves around it. He squeezed hers in return by way of reassurance and tried not to flinch as a bolt of pain shot through the wound on his palm. The lid of the freezer groaned upwards. Monkey couldn’t bear it. He wanted to jump up and shout, “found us!” like he did with Tragic when they were young. But he didn’t.
‘Anything?’ the female voice shouted.
The lid seemed to be raised for an eternity. They held their breaths.
‘Just food,’ the male voice said eventually and the lid crashed down again.
Monkey let out his breath and felt relief flood through him. He gave Angel’s hand another squeeze and allowed himself a smile as he listened to the conversation between the two Security officers from the basement and what sounded like two more on the ground floor.
‘Anything upstairs?’ the female asked.
‘The back bedroom window’s ajar and there’s a load of the pre’s schoolwork on the bed in there. The nurturer’s room’s empty.’
‘No propaganda of any sort?’
‘No, Ma’am.’
‘Does the window look like forced entry?’
‘Hard to tell in this light.’
‘Very well.’
‘Do you want us to take in the schoolwork?’
‘No. We’ve found what looks like providers’ clothing in the cellar; we’ll take that to forensics and send a team out in the morning to collect the rest. Do we know how the door came to be open?’
A fourth voice spoke, ‘Yes, Ma’am. The post-nurturer next door says a pre-breeder came round earlier and she let him in. And we’ve also issued her with a summons for misappropriation of electricity.’
‘Good.’ There was a pause, then the female continued. ‘Bring her in for questioning; she probably knows more than she’s letting on. You - find out who the pre-breeder was that was snooping round. And, you, stand guard at the front until we’ve cleared the house and checked for prints in the morning.’
There was a muttering of “Yes, Ma’ams” before they heard the door at the top of the steps close, then the distant sound of the back door slamming. After a while, the brakes of the stealth hissed and it went silently on its way.
The house was quiet. Monkey and Angel stayed still; listening.
When he was certain that the house was empty, Monkey whispered, ‘You OK?’
‘Yeah,’ Angel said. ‘Now what do we do?’
Monkey shuffled round until his back was against the front of the freezer and his feet could extend out through the hole at the back. He pressed them against the wall and slowly stretched his legs, pushing the freezer away from the brickwork and creating a space for them to escape. Still cautious, the two of them tiptoed up the steps and out into the relative light of the kitchen.
‘Phew!’ breathed Angel, looking from the back door to the front. ‘Now, how do we get out of here?’
‘We go out the back, through the pre-school grounds and over the fences,’ Monkey replied. ‘But first,’ his eyes scanned the kitchen, ‘we find what we came for.’
Angel’s face set. ‘Which is?’
‘Evidence of where Tradge has gone.’
She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘Are you mocking me?’
‘Nuh-huh,’ said Monkey, distractedly. ‘What’s the point of surviving all that if we just give up and go home?’
Angel turned on her ring-cam. ‘Have you any idea what time it is?’
‘Nope.’ Monkey was already halfway up the stairs. ‘Sometime between curfew and shutdown, I’d guess.’ When Angel didn’t follow him, he returned to the top of the stairs and looked down at her. ‘Give me ten minutes - OK? If I haven’t found anything in that time, we’ll leave. Deal?’
Angel sighed and followed him reluctantly. ‘Fine.’
He went straight into Tragic’s bedroom. There on the bed, as the Security officer had said, were e-screens and books, along with some papers. Angel began going though the drawers and cupboards while Monkey tipped out Tragic’s backpack and began rummaging through the debris of his friend’s life.
‘This is weird,’ Angel commented. ‘It doesn’t feel right to be going through his stuff like this.’
Monkey agreed with her but was not going to admit as much. ‘Has to be done,’ he said, rather more harshly than he’d intended. He was annoyed with himself. It had been an act of lunacy bringing her here. He’d endangered her life - and her freedom. And why? Because he’d got the hots for her! What had started as a ploy to make a bond and try to ensure that she chose him after he’d graduated, had almost got them both arrested and had practically guaranteed that she’d never look at him again.
He gave an almost imperceptible shake as though trying to rid himself of such thoughts and focus on the more burning questions: what had his friend got himself involved in? Why was there a dummy freezer in the cellar? Who had it been designed to hide? And, more worryingly: why was Security trying to find Tragic and Jane and what sort of propaganda had they been looking for in Tragic’s room? None of it made any sense. Monkey had thought that Tragic had simply been trying to evade graduation, but there was something more sinister going on, of that he was sure.
‘Look at this.’ Angel was holding up a piece of paper she’d found in one of the drawers in Tragic’s desk. It had a drawing of a baboon hanging by its tail in the top corner and the words: King of Kongs in the centre. King of Kongs was a name Tragic called Monkey sometimes as a joke. He stared at the sheet of paper in her hand. A series of numbers were written in the form of a mathematical equation. The bottom of the paper was torn so that it appeared that the last line was incomplete.
98499 x 9952 = 1258554398
57 x 54 = 5882933
69697 ÷ 8984 = 7979
7366 ÷ 0188 = 995
7298 - 343 = 3509
4
¬9769 + 75
Angel looked at the paper and shook her head. ‘Either your mate’s rubbish at maths, or that’s some sort of secret message,’ she commented.
But, before Monkey had the chance to say more, he heard a sound that filled him with dread. A yelp; distant but distinct. Monkey’s heart sank: they’d brought in a dog unit already.
He looked at Angel. ‘You reckon you’re good at gymnastics?’ She nodded. ‘Well, you’re gonna have to be!’
She stuffed the paper into her pocket as Monkey grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room. He ran, half dragging her, down the stairs and out of the back door. Monkey jumped over the fence at the back and Angel followed. Together, they ran across the grounds of the pre-school and neighbouring sustenance patches, vaulting fence after fence. Monkey was surprised that Angel’s agility made her a
match for his superior speed. He’d assumed that having her in tow would slow him down but, on the contrary, she was easily able to keep up with him and in no way jeopardised their escape. Finally, they slowed to a walk and, once more, adopted the swagger of the hood as they reached the bottom of Angel’s road. Outside her gate, Monkey nodded, as he would have done to any other member of the Mooners.
‘Check you later,’ he said.
Angel held him with a glare. ‘If there are any repercussions from this, you’d better be ready to take the rap.’ She walked down the path towards the house.
He watched her slip into the outbuilding that had once been a garage and emerge in the normal skirt and top of a pre-nurturer. She pressed her eye against the scanner on the door and went in without looking back.
The street lights clunked into darkness and Monkey wandered home, feeling heavy and very much alone.
Angel or Devil in Disguise?
The next day, Monkey was keen to speak to Angel about the previous evening but a curt nod as she pressed the scrap of paper bearing the code into his hand was the only indication that she even knew him, let alone had been huddled in a freezer with him, squeezing his hand for reassurance. If he caught her eye, she looked away; if he approached her in the corridor, she changed direction. She was making it very clear that she wanted to put as much distance between herself and Monkey as possible. Much as he’d expected her to give him a wide berth at school, he was, nevertheless, disappointed and frustrated that she did so.
The code itself had been simple enough to break. He and Tragic had devised a system of communication when they were younger so that they could send secret but innocent messages in school; where to meet up, what time they would play football, whose house they would go to. They used mathematical base ten, starting the alphabet with their favourite number. Monkey’s favourite number was nine, but Tragic’s was five; therefore, in all his notes, A went under five, B under six; C under seven - right up to Z under zero. Of course, this also meant that K and U were also under number five, so a certain degree of reasoning needed to be applied. Mathematical signs were the spaces between words so that, to anyone finding the notes, they looked like obscure mathematical equations.
When he’d got home, Monkey had lost no time in sitting down and working out what Tragic had written to him.
Enjoy your graduation.
am at address
below don’t come
will find you
when it’s safe
t
ombe mag
Monkey stared at the deciphered code. It made little sense and it certainly didn’t answer any of the questions that were running through his head; in fact, it posed more questions than it answered. What did Tragic mean: will find you when it’s safe? What address below? And what was the last line that had been torn at both ends? He ran through the alphabet for possibilities: bombe, combe, dombe, fombe - tombe, perhaps? And what was this mag? Magazine? Magnum? Magnet? Could that be the ‘address below’ that Tragic referred to? And, if so, was it a house, an estate or a town? And where was it?
He was preoccupied with the meaning behind the message and could think of nothing else, spending as much time as he could, without arousing suspicion, on the school info-web and, after school, going into town to the Central Resource Centre. He desperately wanted to talk to Angel but, as the week rolled on, she became even cooler. Instruction after instruction, he sat at the back of room, watching her from behind and silently cursing himself for blowing it.
Both at home and at school, he was quizzed about his missing friend. He’d been interrogated by Security as to his whereabouts on the night and whether or not he knew one Marlon Griffiths - the false name he’d given old Mov Bailey - but they’d seemed satisfied with his answers. He knew Professor Reed suspected that he knew more about the whereabouts of the Pattersons than he was letting on, but he couldn’t prove anything.
The other Mooners also plied him with questions about their mate, to which Monkey could, in all honesty, shrug and say, ‘Dunno.’ But, outside school, they were becoming increasingly irritated with his lack of participation in their forays into other hoods.
‘We’re storming Eastway tonight. You up?’ Kraze asked him on the Friday evening as they walked home from school.
Monkey gave a casual shrug. ‘Neh. I’m fridge.’
‘So, what’s happenin’ with you, Monk?’ the hood leader challenged. ‘This has been, like, every night for a week you’ve bottled.’
Monkey eyeballed him, affronted. ‘I haven’t bottled,’ he said evenly, determined not to show that he was rattled by the inference that he was afraid to accompany them into enemy hoods. ‘I have other stuff to deal with.’
‘What other stuff?’ Kraze was smirking but Monkey knew that, inside, he would be bricking it. He wasn’t confident as leader and needed Monkey’s backing when they went out of their zone. ‘You still frettin’ over Tradge?’ He gave a laugh and turned round to the rest of the hood, ridiculing Monkey to gain their respect.
‘Just stuff,’ Monkey stated firmly, standing his ground; aware that a small crowd had gathered. The tension was almost palpable.
‘You snakin’ on us?’ Kraze had his hands in his pockets and was fumbling with something - possibly a blade, Monkey thought. He needed to be careful: the last thing he wanted was to alienate his own and, if Kraze convinced the others that Monkey was a turncoat, he’d be watching his back even on his own turf. The rest of the Mooners moved closer. Monkey looked round. With less than eight weeks until he turned sixteen, he was easily the eldest. Some of them, like Angel’s brother, Alex, were still practically bubs. But he also knew that there was strength in numbers: he knew he had to play it fridge.
Monkey held out both hands as a gesture of openness showing that he had no weapon. He spoke lightly, almost teasingly. ‘Hey, cuz, what’s with the screw face? This is me you’re scanting. I don’t do snakin’, you know that. I’m a Mooner till I grad. But, right now, I’ve got some anguish going on that’s personal - sav?’ He forced himself to breathe evenly as he waited for Kraze’s response, never lowering his stare.
Kraze drew the blade from his pocket and spun it in his fingers, watching it glint in the pale afternoon sunlight. He nodded slowly, as though mulling over Monkey’s words. ‘That’s good, cuz - ‘cos I’d hate to think you’d been raggin’ me. You know what I mean?’
Still maintaining eye contact, Monkey nodded. ‘I’m glad we understand each other.’ He held out his hand and Kraze brushed it briefly. ‘Take it easy, all right?’
With a nonchalance belying the anxiety he was feeling, Monkey turned and walked away. No sooner had he left the rest of the hood, than his ring-cam flashed on and Angel’s face appeared on the screen.
‘That was impressive,’ she said.
Monkey was puzzled. ‘Where are you?’ He looked round but could see no sign of her.
‘By the wall.’
Again Monkey looked round but could only see someone in Mooners’ garb leaning against a high wall at the other side of the road, hood pulled low and scarf high to obscure any facial features.
Looking back to the face on the ring-cam, he saw that she had covered her face. ‘Nice touch. How d’you get away with it?’ he said.
‘Where do you hide an elephant?’ Angel replied.
‘Huh?’
‘In a jungle,’ she said, answering her own riddle. ‘So, how did I infiltrate the hood? Dress like them.’
Monkey smiled to himself. ‘But Alex is here.’ He looked back to where the rest of the hood had congregated.
Angel shook her head. ‘Even my brother has a change of clothes, you know.’ Then her voice turned serious. ‘Follow me. I’ve got some information for you. I think I’ve cracked the code.’
Monkey followed her at a discreet distance to the disused loco bridge.
They went to the far end and climbed up the embankment so that they were in a blind spot, obscured from both the road and the security cameras.
‘Go on,’ Monkey said, wanting to find out how much she’d discovered before he disclosed his hand.
‘Well,’ Angel began, ‘it’s a code that uses base ten but starts at number five...’
‘I know what the code says,’ Monkey interrupted; irritated that she should have cracked it so easily. ‘What else do you know?’
Angel seemed disappointed that he wasn’t more grateful, but went on, ‘I’m pretty sure that the last line, ombe mag, is a reference to a small hamlet about fifteen K out of town called Combe Magna.’
‘And?’ Monkey asked.
‘Well, before the fossil fuels ran out, it was a satellite village for commuters. Prior to that, at the beginning of the last century, it was a rural community of smallholders and arable farmers.’
Angel gave Monkey a potted history of rural life before the revolution. When farming was no longer viable, the farmers moved out and the commuters moved in, travelling into town daily in their motor vehicles to go to work. With the abolition of private ownership of cars after the Oil Wars, the commuters moved back into town, and the villages, including Combe Magna, fell into disrepair. With the exception of a few seniors who were too able-bodied for The Pastures and who preferred to run their own self-sufficient communes rather than move into the towns, many of the houses in the once thriving rural communities were almost derelict.
‘So, why would Tragic and Jane have gone there?’ Monkey asked. ‘And how did you find out all this?’
Angel shrugged. ‘In answer to question one: I have no idea. But I got all the other stuff from Sally’s info-web. Don’t forget, she’s a solicitor so she has a higher level clearance than the school or even the CRC. She went downstairs yesterday and I snuck into her room while she was logged on.’ Monkey raised an eyebrow. So much for Angel being a good girl! ‘Apparently, Combe Magna was one of the villages in contention for a Farm development, but The Assembly decided against it.’