In the Shadow of London

by Chris Ward

  Airie couldn’t tell whether he was serious or if his words were an elaborate joke to get her to open up, but she opted to believe the latter.

  ‘I’m worthless,’ she said. ‘I was a whore for my brother, and my super-scientist sister doesn’t even want to know me. And the guy I like has another girlfriend.’

  ‘Fuck David Silverwood,’ Lindon growled.

  ‘I’d like to.’

  Lindon looked about to slap her. ‘Grow some self-respect. You’re fifteen, right?’

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘Jesus. Remember that the past is over. You can’t fix what’s done. All you can do is put the bad things to rest and move on.’

  Airie thought about Sebastian, and the way his hands had gone around her neck, and the way Lindon had saved her. He was a depraved, worthless shit, but he was still her brother.

  ‘What if you’re not sure if putting the bad things to rest is the right thing?’

  Lindon sighed, and she wondered if the conversation was getting too philosophical for him. Then he said, ‘The right decision might not always be the easiest one to make, but sometimes you have to take a risk.’ He looked down at his feet. ‘Sometimes it’s necessary to hurt someone to save someone else.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. She wondered whether she ought to shake his hand, but he just stood there in front of her like a statue carved out of living tissue. She reached up and kissed him lightly on the cheek, then ran off up the platform.

  She didn’t look back.

  ‘Wake up.’

  There was only one way to be free to move on, and that way lay haphazardly at the back of the cell, wrapped in blankets.

  ‘I said, wake up.’ This time she pulled a piece of gravel from her pocket and tossed it through the bars. She got lucky. It hit the sleeping form square on the forehead, making him cry out and roll over.

  ‘Oh, dear brother….’

  ‘Who’s there?’

  The guard Lindon had reprimanded before was sleeping again, this time with his throat cut.

  ‘It’s me, Airie.’

  ‘You little whore—’

  ‘Shut up and listen. I have a key to your cage. Come here.’

  He scrambled to his feet, wincing in pain at the broken arm someone had wrapped in a makeshift sling, and made his way over to the bars. ‘If you’re lying to me—’

  ‘Hold the insults,’ she said, trying to make her voice sound sultry. It wasn’t easy. ‘I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I should have trusted you.’

  ‘Damn right you should have.’

  ‘I understand that you only meant the best for both of us.’

  ‘See? Finally you’re getting it. You think I wanted to make you do all that? It hurt me, you know. Having to watch you.’

  Airie put a hand through the bars. She stroked her brother’s chest, then lowered her hand to his waist, stopping just short of his groin before reaching behind his back to pull him close.

  ‘Careful. Watch my fucking arm.’

  It felt weird making her voice low, like she was acting out an old erotic drama. ‘You liked watching me, admit it. You wanted me more than any of them.’ Her other arm snaked through the bars, encircling his waist so that her hands met behind him. They were pressed together through the bars now, and Airie could tell without doubt that Sebastian wanted her. Feeling his thing down there, hard, pressing against the front of her shirt, made bile rise into her throat.

  ‘Just tell me, Sebastian. You watched them all because you wanted it to be you.’

  ‘Airie, let me out of here and we can be together. You know it makes sense.’

  She let go of his waist and leaned back, feeling the rope she had tied around him go tight, pulling him forward. If he had time to think, his strength could get him free of her, but she had the surprise.

  ‘Airie? What are you doing? You—’

  ‘I hate you,’ she spat, pulling two knives from her belt. ‘I’ll never forgive you for what you did.’

  The knives plunged into his chest. From the cells around them Airie heard other prisoners shouting to call the alarm, unaware the guard was dead. She gave a wide maniacal grin as she plunged the knives through the bars like the teeth of some threshing machine, Sebastian’s blood spraying from a dozen wounds.

  Even after she was sure he was dead she carried on. Finally, when her shoulders were aching and her hands shook so much that one knife clanged against the bars and snapped, she took a deep breath and leaned her head against the bars in exhaustion. Then, when her heart had stopped hammering, she severed the rope with the other knife and let her brother’s body fall backwards into darkness.

  Sheathing her knife, she headed off to find her sister.

  ‘I told you!’ Mika shouted. ‘I told you this was a stupid idea. They’re screwed. Dreggo’s got the place surrounded.’

  Tim Cold stared at her with that hard, thin-lipped expression that gave away a reluctance to admit to a mistake. Their plans had been based on archive data, but after a couple of hours of wrestling with the firewalls she had managed to crack into the government’s central computer and extract up-to-date information.

  And it wasn’t good.

  ‘Dreggo has a ring of snipers surrounding Sorel’s location,’ Mika said. ‘There isn’t information on their exact locations, but there are too many. If David and Raine aren’t warned, they’ll be cannon fodder. You have to radio them and tell them to pull out.’

  Tim gave her that same stoic expression. ‘They have no radios,’ he said. ‘I wanted no links to the Tank. They’re on their own.’

  ‘Then you’ve sent them on a suicide mission.’

  ‘It was their choice,’ Tim said.

  Mika flapped her hands at him, wanting him to leave. He started to say something, then headed for the door. As he reached it he paused and turned back. ‘I guess this is where we see what they’re made of,’ he said.

  Mika didn’t answer. She stared at the computer screen until she heard the door slam shut.

  She made herself breathe, trying to control her frustration. There had to be something she could do for David and Raine. To hell with Tim Cold’s distasteful attempt at morality.

  She opened up the government’s mainframe site and began to hack her way back inside. If only she could find some way to call off the snipers … perhaps they still had a chance.

  They got off the train a stop past Hampsted. David figured that if any stations were watched it would be the ones leading in to London. Following a digital tracking map on David’s clawboard, they took a circuitous route back towards Hampsted, aiming to approach Bell Close from the rear, where an old park backed on to the cul-de-sac. He knew there would likely be DCA agents deployed to watch for them, but there would also be fewer street lights and buildings to hide would-be sentries.

  ‘That’s it,’ David said, as they crouched in front of a low stone wall that surrounded about an acre of overgrown waste ground. He pointed to the dark silhouette of a house lit up by a street light on its other side.

  A line of houses followed another street to their left. To their right was an old warehouse, the first of several industrial holdings on an old estate. David checked the time on the board. They had twenty minutes before Tim’s men would detonate a small bomb to draw attention away.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, reaching out to take Raine’s hand.

  It was dull as shit water peering into the end of the sight. DCA agent Kelsey Morris hadn’t seen a thing in three hours, not since some cat had gone dashing through the grass in pursuit of a bird snagged on a bramble. Now that it was dark, every little rodent or passing bat, bird or flying turd showed up as a glowing red dot, and his eyes were starting to hurt. Behind him Dennis had bagged the view of the road, where at least there was stuff worth looking at it.

  He reached down for his coffee, scowling as always at the putrid taste, then leaned back to the infra-red sight of his sniper rifle.

  ‘Huh?’
>
  A man and a woman were walking into the grass, the heat sensor-images of their bodies showing they were holding hands.

  He ran the sight over the man, easing his finger on the trigger, looking for some sign that they were trouble. Then the woman leaned in and gave the man a long kiss, for a moment their images merging into one.

  ‘What the hell?’

  Behind him, Dennis looked up. ‘Shut up over there. You got something?’

  ‘Yeah, a couple of people going into the grass. Looks like they’re getting ready to get it on.’

  ‘You’ve got a couple of boners? Let me have a look.’

  ‘Fuck off, watch the road.’ Kelsey leaned back into the sight. They were still there, but they’d gone a bit further into the field. They were still wrapped around each other, pressed so tight he could no longer tell which was which. Then they dropped to the ground, the woman on the bottom, the man on top.

  ‘Woah….’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re getting down to it.’

  ‘You can see?’

  ‘Only the heat sensor, but you know … that’s a lot of heat.’

  Dennis cuffed him over the back of the head. ‘Pay attention, you damn fool.’

  Kelsey shrugged. ‘Ah, whatever.’ He swung the sight around, scouting over the fields, back along the road that led north towards the perimeter gates. Working for the DCA he knew he had it better than most, a cushy apartment in a gated building, mod-cons that few in London had, and a decent salary … but he couldn’t help wondering as he always had, what was outside London?

  With a sigh, he moved the gun back around, training the sight through the overgrown field where he had seen the two lovers. They had gone now, their tryst over. He shrugged. He hadn’t been able to see much anyway.

  42

  Convergences

  Mika didn’t even hear the door open, let alone feel the knife at her throat until it was too late. She froze, listening to the breathing behind her, smelling the stench of fresh blood.

  ‘I need to know where they went,’ Airie said. ‘I have to save him.’

  ‘Airie. Is this … is this really necessary?’

  The knife pressed harder, making Mika wince as its sharp blade drew blood. ‘You were no more of a sister to me than he was a brother,’ she said. ‘David is the only one who’s ever cared for me.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Give me a board.’

  ‘The last one’s not fully charged. They took the others.’

  ‘I don’t care. It’ll be enough.’

  ‘Airie—’

  ‘I killed Sebastian,’ Airie said. ‘And I’ll kill you too. Don’t doubt me. Please.’

  Mika sniffed, realising that the stench of the blood meant she would never see her brother again. ‘You’re making a mistake. I don’t want to see you get hurt—’

  ‘It’s my decision.’

  ‘The DCA have set a trap for David and Raine.’

  Airie gasped. ‘Then I have to go.’

  ‘No, you don’t. It’s too dangerous.’

  Airie grabbed Mika’s hair and jerked her head backwards until Mika was looking up into Airie’s hard, desperate eyes. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not asking.’

  Mika pointed at the board lying on a desk underneath a bright spotlight she had set up to charge its solar cells. ‘It’s there. Please don’t use it unless you have no choice. The power could go at any time. They’ve gone to a house on Bell Close in Hampsted, three streets south of the Hampsted Underground station on the Northern Line.’

  Airie shoved Mika to the ground. Then she retrieved the board, slinging it over her shoulder by a strap. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s a trap. Please don’t go!’

  Airie stared at Mika a moment longer, then shrugged. ‘Better than sitting around here,’ she said, and ran for the door.

  Crouched at the back wall of the house on Bell Close, Raine and David shared a look. Raine thought about the way David had held her close as they lay in the field, pretending to be lovers sharing a moment, hoping that anyone who might be watching would be fooled into ignoring them. She remembered a time when she would have cherished the experience, but all she had felt as they lay close together was that, father of her child or not, he had left her for someone else in their own circle. Forgiveness—if it ever came—wouldn’t come easily.

  ‘Well, at least that didn’t get us killed,’ she said as David threatened to smile.

  ‘You might have suggested it yourself once.’

  ‘Once … maybe. It sounded dumb but it looks like it worked. Do you think they’re watching us now?’

  ‘I think we’d be dead if they were.’

  Almost on cue, a boom filled the air from somewhere to the south, and the sky above the old industrial estate lit up in a flickering display of orange and red. The ground shuddered, and Raine shot a look up at the overhang of the roof above them, afraid a cascade of loose tiles would come crashing down.

  ‘Give the DCA five minutes to look away, then we’ll go in,’ David said. ‘Are you good with the plan?’

  Raine looked down. ‘I’m changing it,’ she said.

  ‘What? You can’t.’

  ‘I have an idea.’

  ‘It had better be a good one.’

  ‘Trust me.’ When David started to reply, she added, ‘I’ve not let you down yet, have I?’

  ‘Okay. I’ll follow your lead.’

  ‘Don’t throw that thing unless the Huntsman comes at me.’

  David sighed and nodded. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘Tim’s explosion will have either done its job by now or it won’t have.’

  Raine insisted on leading as they crept around the edge of the house, the clawboards Mika had given them held low, both covered with a piece of sacking so as not to reflect in the street lights. As Bell Close came into view, everything looked perfectly suburban, some lights behind curtains in houses further along the street, a couple of parked cars that might actually still run. There was no sign of the DCA, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there somewhere. The biggest hurdle, however, lay inside the house.

  The front door was broken off its hinges. The glass of one front window had been shattered, but the other was still intact. The shadow of a curtain was hung across.

  Raine stepped inside, feeling pieces of rotten wood and lumps of concrete crunch under her feet. Pulling the sacking off her board, she switched on the flashlight, turning the brightness down low, wishing at the same time that the scientist who had built these things had installed some kind of heat sensor or radar.

  ‘Wait by the entrance,’ she told David. ‘I go alone from here.’

  ‘It’s not safe.’

  She smiled. ‘This is London. Nowhere is.’

  He didn’t protest. She watched him drop down beside the entranceway, his board’s straps wrapped around his wrists, watching the street. I’ll try to forgive him, she thought. If we survive this, I’ll try.

  The bottom floor was mostly wrecked or burned out, apart from a kitchen and living room space to her right still identifiable by the bar and the cupboards on the walls. Raine swung her board slowly around, partly so as not to alarm the Huntsman she expected was waiting somewhere, partly to make sure she missed nothing.

  She reached the bottom of the stairs. Several steps were missing, the carpet worn through and the wood beneath rotten, but in the glow of the flashlight she saw clear indications that someone had been here. Her hands trembled at the sight of depressions that hadn’t been made by shoes but by something with protruding claws.

  She made herself take the stairs one at a time, leaning her weight on each, feeling for potential give, but what steps remained were solid. She reached the upper landing with her heart beating so loudly she thought it would give her away. To her left a doorless entrance led through into what had been a master bedroom, but was now a windowless, charred ruin. In front of her through a broken door was a toilet and shower, the porcelain crac
ked and broken, the spider-web remains of the shower curtain still swaying in some indistinguishable breeze.

  A lump in her throat made her breathing come in short gasps as she saw a third door, still intact, slightly ajar. She took a step towards it, then heard a sound that made her heart lurch.

  A baby’s giggle.

  She had expected screams or crying, but her baby sounded content, happy. Whatever creature was in there had not only kept Jake alive, but had cared for him.

  She swallowed, gathering her nerve. Then, with trembling lips, she called out, ‘Sally?’

  Something inside the room gave a low growl, and it was all Raine could do not to gasp with terror and flee down the stairs. The board Mika had given her contained small projectile explosives, and while firing one directly at the Huntsman might disable it, in such a small space as this she and Jake would likely perish too.

  ‘My words are my weapon,’ she breathed, wondering if the preacher’s mantra she remembered from one of Greg’s old Western movies would have any bearing at all.

  She reached out and pushed open the door. She let the light fall on to the floor, then stepped inside, lifting the board to illuminate the rest of the tiny bedroom.

  A crouching figure in a heavy cloak took up half of an old bed. On the other half, a pale little face shone out from a pile of blankets.

  Jake. Raine wanted to cry. Oh god, you’re alive.

  The creature on the bed shifted, leaning protectively towards the baby. Raine’s light caught the glint of something silvery held in its claws.

  ‘Sally,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Thank you for caring for him. His name’s Jake.’

  ‘Jake….’

  The rasping voice made Raine shudder. The board and all its weapons felt useless in her hands.

  ‘You’re a mother, like me, aren’t you, Sally? That’s why you took him.’ Tears were streaming down her cheeks. ‘Because they took yours.’

  She would never forget what Mika had shown them. The scientist had discovered Sorel’s profile. Someone had tampered with it, trying to erase decades-old alterations aimed to hide the true nature of the young woman who went London-gone while still pregnant. Unfortunately for the computer engineer tasked with deleting the old changes, no one could manipulate the government’s computer systems better than Mika. Raine had cried as Mika displayed the original data from when the woman once known as Sally Winter had been taken into the program.