by Sarah Govett
Mrs Aster said, ‘Any day now, Noa,’ in this super-condescending voice of hers and people started to snigger. That horrible hyena-pack laugh when a group’s identified a weak loser and is going to tear them to pieces. Daisy saved me that time. She was one of the frozen ones and she just unfroze (totally against the rules) and pretended to offer me a tour of a waxwork museum, being really rude about the other kids who were still in statue mode, deflecting the attention and laughter away from me. She got a detention but she said it was worth it.
Daisy wasn’t there to save us today.
We came across the group of soldiers, a platoon – is that the right word? – soon after breakfast. Nine of them. Marching our way, all in step. Trained soldiers. Disciplined. On a mission. The ground was flat and the path straight so we had a few minutes warning of their arrival. A few minutes to arrange ourselves as a marching column, to straighten our uniforms, to mirror their upright postures.
‘What do we do?’ hissed Nell from the back. The less people saw of her and her skin the better.
‘We walk straight past them,’ Lee replied. ‘Say nothing, just march. Don’t act nervous. We’re soldiers on manoeuvre. Nothing more.’ He took the lead.
Left right. Left right.
They drew closer and closer.
I hadn’t counted on this. I’d thought maybe we’d see people a few roads away, or they’d glance at us from a window, eyes framed by curtains. Not like this. Not face to face. Not soldiers who knew what real soldiers should look and act like. We couldn’t flee, they’d easily catch us and they outnumbered us so we couldn’t fight our way out. We had no choice. We had to chance it. We had to improvise.
Left right. Left right.
Soldiers look ahead. Soldiers don’t fiddle. Soldiers don’t hold hands for support or chew their nails. I forced my eyes forwards, imagining a clamp holding my head in position. Strings moving my straightened arms.
Left right. Left right.
‘And, Halt!’ At their leader’s command, the approaching soldiers stopped.
Their direct stares showed they clearly expected us to do the same.
Lee stopped and we tried not to collide into the back of each other.
Their commander stepped forward.
‘Group Twelve of the Fourteenth,’ his voice was clear and clipped. Proper military.
There was a pause. He was waiting for us to identify ourselves. This must be some standard military procedure. In my head I could hear Mrs Aster’s bell ring.
I stared at Lee but he didn’t open his mouth. He’d gone pale. He’d frozen. If someone didn’t speak soon we were done for. We might as well be holding up a sign saying ‘fugitives in fancy dress’.
I looked at Raf but his eyes were distant, clouded with pain. At Jack – his skin was slowly reddening. At Nell – they wouldn’t believe a twelve-year-old was in charge.
‘Group Nine of the Twelfth,’ I said, stepping forward, my mouth deciding to act before I’d even realised my brain had committed. Nine and twelve seemed safe-enough numbers. Close enough to his ones to suggest such a group might exist. I enunciated like I’ve never enunciated before. How Now Brown Cow. And Dad once said something like eighty per cent of communication is body language so I willed every cell in my body to exude arrogance. To adopt an ‘I took ages to reply because you’re so beneath me’ pose. Their commander still didn’t look convinced. He’d seen straight through me. My chest was constricting, my throat a straw – one of those ones with valves at the end that are incredibly hard to suck through. I caught his eyes looking me up and down. Not at my uniform looking. Under my uniform. Maybe he hadn’t made me at all – maybe it was a gender thing – maybe he just didn’t like women being in charge. Maybe I just had to make him respect me – try and alpha dog him – like those guys who try and exert power through lame-ass ‘dominant’ handshakes. Jack’s step-dad used to do that. Take your hand and then, mid shake, not so subtly twist it over so it was palm side up. Loser. I didn’t think soldiers shook hands so I went for the controlling-by-words option.
‘State your mission soldier.’ I think this was the first time I’ve ever sneered.
‘I thought Saunders ran Group Nine?’ Suspicion flickered in the commander’s eyes and panic flooded me.
We’re screwed. We’re totally screwed.
‘He’s been transferred to Group Seven,’ I replied as confidently as I could, praying that there was a Group Seven and that I was only flinching on the inside. ‘And your mission, soldier?’
A beat and then he replied. His tone wasn’t deferential but it had lost its suspicion, lost its disdain. Consider yourself dominated, sucker!
‘There has been an attack on the Server. Nasty business. We’re sweeping for fugitives. These Opposition bastards always return to their burrows at some point. And you?’
‘Same story,’ my voice semi-cracked from nerves so I had to force it to normalise again. ‘We were part of the initial response unit but now have orders to return to the Third City. Possible attack rumoured.’
‘Well, Good hunting.’
‘And you.’
And that was it. Their leader called his gang to attention and they marched off, heading north, towards the Server. I copied his commands, his tone, as I ordered our gang off too, continuing south, the distance between us widening with every hup-to. My legs were weak and my head light – like my brain had been removed, spliced with candyfloss, then replaced. We’d passed. We’d somehow managed to get through it. I’d somehow managed to get through it. Take that, Mrs Aster.
We didn’t talk or stop until we’d turned a corner, crossed a bridge and entered what must have been an industrial zone. The road was flanked with Mucor factory after Mucor factory interspersed with the odd algal farm plant and water store. I reckoned we’d put well over three miles between us and the soldiers. Three miles would have to do. The next time a wave of exhaustion hit I succumbed. My legs buckled underneath me and I collapsed to the floor. As I began to let go, all my muscles started convulsing, my teeth chattering in my jaw and my left eyeball vibrating in its socket, tiny bubbles forming at the tear duct. Pop, pop, pop.
I could hardly register Lee and Nell thanking me, their noise, their congratulations reaching my ears as a non-specific, distorted buzz. I think Jack may have hugged me and Raf pulled a facial expression that might have been a grin but could just as easily have been a grimace. I was too tired to tell or care.
A few minutes later Lee was already trying to move us on.
‘We need to keep going,’ he instructed. ‘We haven’t covered enough ground. We need to get another five miles in before we make camp.’
Jack and Nell groaned, but started to shoulder their packs, when Raf stood up and blocked their path.
‘Absolutely not,’ he stated. ‘Look at Noa. I mean look at her.’ Four pairs of eyes swivelled in my direction. ‘She’s exhausted. She’s shaking. She put herself out there for us. She broke herself for us. The factory we just passed had outbuildings. They looked like they were for storage. Filled with bags not people. We can sleep there tonight and move on tomorrow at first light.’
I was so grateful to him just then. He was right, I couldn’t keep going, it would break me. And he knew it. Saw it. Saw me. His certainty, coupled with my zombified face, was enough to convince everyone. Jack carried my pack sheepishly and for once Raf didn’t adjust his pace to take himself out of step with me.
‘Thanks,’ I smiled weakly at him. ‘I don’t think I could have gone much further.’
‘No, thank you,’ Raf replied, the corner of his mouth twitching. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you. When you started to speak I did kind of think – oh no, we’re done for!’
‘Great, thanks for the vote of confidence!’
‘You’re welcome. State your mission, soldier!’ He mimicked my voice but made it all high pitched and wavering.
‘It was better than that!’
‘State your mission, soldier!’ even higher this time, a
lmost warbling.
‘Oi!’ I went to punch his arm and, out of habit ended up wrapped round him, gazing up at his face, at his mouth.
Raf tensed.
And then I tensed.
We both tensed and moved apart.
Just as I thought there was a new bridge between us, it turns out it was just one of those flimsy-looking rope ones with rotten slats that swing over canyons, one wrong step and you’re a smashed-up mess on the valley floor below.
I’ve worked it out. We’ve only been away for three months. It was probably three months exactly since I hugged Mum and Dad goodbye and climbed underneath a prisoner transport truck bound for the Wetlands. Three months can seem like a lifetime.
My skin started to crawl as soon as we saw the towers and high rises of the First City in the distance, rising above the sprawl of the factories and workshops that we had started to work our way through. Knowing that nestled amongst them were Mum and Dad, the Ministry and the Opposition. The good, the bad and the unknown. Suddenly everything seemed pretty hopeless. In the Wetlands it was easier to believe we could triumph. A land where the settlements were small, with never more than a hundred people in any one place, where the buildings were shacks made of corrugated iron sheets and salvaged wood. Easier to believe you could succeed in a place where you could name every individual and kick down the doors and tear apart the buildings with your bare hands. Here things were different. Each block of flats contained over a hundred people, everything was steel and concrete and glass, our targets were protected by heavy security and our every step from now on would be caught by and analysed on CCTV. If the Opposition hadn’t managed to change things, how the hell would we?
We were entering the residential zone. The plan was to march close to the safe house and then one of us would slip to the door, knock and give the secret code. Until then we had to keep up appearances, march confidently but with our eyes down and berets pulled forward. It was difficult, virtually impossible, to recognise a person if you couldn’t see their eyes, the top half of their face. Me and Raf would be on some list, we were bound to be. The Ministry wouldn’t let two people go AWOL without taking action. As soon as we hadn’t turned up at Greenhaven when we were supposed to, the photos from our ID cards would no doubt have been uploaded onto a ‘search and locate’ list, CCTV images being constantly scanned by people with weirdly excellent facial recognition skills.
I’d never been this far to the north in the First City before. Never been past the outer ring of offices, past the canals, to the flats that were crumbling. Walls that had been graffitied and then painted over, the offending comments still shining through. Ministry Scum.Kid Killers. Rats scuttled out of and into holes in the brick like they owned the place, our presence a minor irritation, nothing more. And people’s faces were blank, devoid of hope. Paper masks with nothing inside.
I hadn’t really ever thought that I lived in a nice part of town. In a nice flat. It was just where I lived. Where my friends lived. OK, the land around Aunty Vicki’s was worse than here – grey, salty – but her house was decent. This was different. Almost worse than the Wetlands somehow. Because in the Wetlands everyone was in the same position. You lived in a shack, but everyone lived in a shack. You wore rags and were permanently hungry, but everyone wore rags and was permanently hungry. You’d probably die from malaria but everyone would probably die from malaria.
‘Noa?’ Lee’s voice. I hadn’t even realised I’d stopped marching. ‘Come on, we have to keep in step or we’re not going to fool anyone.’
I apologised and got back in line. Synchronised my steps once more. Dragged my eyes away from the bricks and the rats and the windows with papered-over panes.
The deeper we got into the residential district, the more attention we started attracting. Eyes followed us from behind windows. People crossed the street to avoid us, careful not to make eye contact. You could almost feel, almost smell, the emotions being radiated, they were so strong. An aftershave of fear and hate directed at us and what we represented. I wanted to tell people that we weren’t actually soldiers. That we weren’t Ministry stooges. That we were trying to make everything better, but of course I couldn’t. I had to keep marching. Look like I owned the uniform, wore it with pride.
We were a block away from the safe house when we turned off the main road. The streets here were narrower, enclosed by high buildings and eyes that we could feel if not see. We lurked at a corner, on the left, heads down. We’d chosen the position as it gave us a good view of the radial streets. Plenty of exits in case we needed them. We couldn’t see a camera but there was probably one there. Hidden. Watching.
Lee said he’d be back in ten. That we should wait here.
Sting.
‘Ow!’
And again.
‘OW!’
First my shoulder. Then my right ear. We were being pelted with tiny missiles from above. Bits of stone, a broken pencil, a toothpaste top. Launched from an upstairs window, gaining momentum and force. If one hit our skulls it could do proper damage.
‘Quick, this way,’ Jack pulled me away from the corner, down an alley to the left. Raf and Nell followed close behind.
The missiles, however, continued, following us from window to window. Our assailants were good; they knew what they were doing. You couldn’t predict where the next attack would come from. Unless you looked up for faces behind the glass and looking up was the one thing we couldn’t do.
We stopped halfway down the alley under some scaffolding, the wooden boards sheltering us. Just as we were congratulating ourselves, we saw them coming, a dozen figures in black balaclavas carrying cruel-looking wooden baseball bats. Six from the right and six from the left. We’d completely played into their hands. We were surrounded.
The balaclavas masked all facial features except their eyes. But eyes register every emotion; they’re windows to the soul and these souls hated us.
They kept on coming.
I saw a bat rise. I saw it swing. Then blackness.
I didn’t know how long I was out for. All I knew was that I’d been unconscious and was now awake again. And somewhere new. My senses returned one by one. Touch – first the throbbing pain in my head and ribcage; then my fingertips tracing worn wooden floorboards instead of cold pavement slabs. Hearing – voices, distorted at first then becoming clearer, like someone was adjusting a dial inside my ear. Soft moaning. Harsher fragments of questions. Shrapnel fired from a mouth I couldn’t see. Sight – nothing. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see anything. I opened my eyes, strained them in their sockets, but still blackness. They’ve blinded me, they’ve blinded me. The panic was at the top of my throat and squeezing. My breaths turned to shallow gulps. In. Out. In. Out. On the third breath I felt something brush against my lips and suck into my mouth. Fabric.
Thank God. Thank you, God! I wasn’t blind – they’d put a bag over my head, that was all. I don’t think anyone in the history of the world has ever been so pleased to have a bag over their head.
I let out a weird, witchy cackle of relief and the next thing I knew, the bag was wrenched off and I was squinting up at a guy whose mouth was open, yelling at me to be quiet. Ironic really. But things like that are never ironic at the time. They’re just really frickin’ scary. I tried not to show fear. To hide it and find something else to focus on – his teeth. This guy had really small teeth, like milk teeth in an adult mouth – seriously, he’d never have to floss, the gaps between them were so big.
‘Noa, is that you?’ Raf’s voice. Thick with concern. He was worried about me! He cared! I quickly scanned the room. Jack and Nell sat against the far wall, bags still tightly secured over their heads. Raf in one corner, his head covered too. Lee slumped in the other. It didn’t compute. How had they got him as well? Did they pick him off on the way to the safe house? Lee’s head was exposed and what I saw made my neck whip back in horror. Half of his face was swollen as if he’d had some horrific allergic reaction, like when Sam Hinkley ate a
cobnut in Year 4 and his face swelled up to twice its usual size. He had to be taken off in an ambulance. He never came back. Lee’s left eye was glued shut and his hair was matted against his forehead. Matted red.
I wanted to go to him, to bathe the blood out of his hair, but one look at the two guys and a girl standing to attention round the room told me that this was not an option.
The Ministry had found us. Maybe they’d known all along. That commander I’d spoken to must have worked it out, seen straight through my malc acting, and then they’d toyed with us – cat and mouse – hoping we’d lead them to an Opposition base. It was all over.
‘Let’s try again, shall we?’ Milk Teeth hissed. ‘Maybe a girl this time. People always say that girls are great communicators!’
Heh heh heh. His three pathetic lackeys tittered at his non-joke.
Milk Teeth stalked over to me, shoved a hand under my arm and yanked me up to standing.
‘So, how did you find us?’ His voice was one-part venom, two-parts testosterone.
‘I don’t understand?’ I answered, surprised but trying to keep my tone neutral, polite. ‘You found us.’