by John Barlow
He glanced down at Ugly Pig, who seemed ready for a fight.
“Yeah,” Worse added. “All we need’s a plan.”
Davy groaned in despair, shaking his head, staring at the table.
Everyone else, though, was now looking at Silver. Even Moon, who had never met the girl in her life. It was as if Silver had the words IDEA MACHINE tattooed across her forehead.
“Ehm... yes, right...” she said, wishing that just once someone else would do the brainwork. “Right. Okay, I’m thinking! But I need information.”
“And I need a drink,” Terra said, shaking the bottle of Complex Spirit and finding it absolutely empty.
Twenty minutes later they had all the information they needed. Silver had done some thinking, and she had a plan. She began to explain it, as carefully as she could. It was simple, daring, and a very, very long shot...
When she’d finished, she noticed that everyone’s jaws hung open, as if they were trying to catch flies.
“All we need,” she said, ignoring the gaping mouths, “is an attraction. Come on, Coby, think!”
Coby thought. Meanwhile, Davy shook his head harder and harder, moaning quietly to himself.
“Well?” Silver said, staring angrily at Davy. “Do you have a better idea?”
“She’s right,” Terra said. “And we’d better do something quick.”
Coby’s face suddenly lit up:
“A fortune teller!” he announced.
“What!” Terra said, whilst several shook their heads in disbelief. But not Silver.
“Yes!” she said, triumphantly. “A fortune teller!”
The twins stood up. They had memorized the plan, and they were ready to go. They’d had enough waiting around.
“Okay, boys,” Terra said. “We’ll see you two at the fun-fair later. With Ugly Pig. You know how to get there?”
Bad an’ Worse nodded.
“Has it stopped raining?” Terra added. “You don’t want to be out in...”
“Yes,” Bad said, impatiently.
“Try to be inconspicuous,” she said, without much conviction.
“Whatever happens,” Davy said, “just try and get out of the city any way you can.”
“But don’t go west...” Moon whispered.
Terra stared at Moon. “He’s John Brewer’s son,” she said very firmly, looking right at Moon. “John was his dad. If they have to go to the sea rivers, then so be it. He should see for himself.”
“See what?” Coby said.
Moon and Terra avoided each other’s eyes.
“Nothing,” they whispered, together.
A second later the door slammed and the twins were gone, Ugly Pig at their side.
“Right,” Silver said, rather bossily. “We’ll need some old clothes, a bed sheet, some paint, a colored towel, some big earrings...”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Eat up, Ben!” Sullivan said.
He scooped up more fried eggs from a big platter on the table in front of him and shoveled them into his mouth. Dribbles of chewed-up egg fell from his smiling lips and down the front of his black uniform. He didn’t seem to notice. Strands of his long, black hair got caught in his mouth as he ate, and he brushed them back with an enormous hand, the hairs glistening with egg juice and spit.
Ben couldn’t eat anything. His stomach felt like someone was punching it, and the thought of his mum made him dizzy with emotion. Stay calm, he told himself over and over, looking down at his breakfast, his teeth grinding with determination. Stay calm. And get out of here as fast as you can. Stay calm, Ben...
As usual, the background rumble of heavy music could be heard from the fun-fair. Ben looked out of the immense window. He saw the rows of tents below, the carousel whirling around with no one on it, and the colored lights of the helter-skelter flashing continually, but attracting no one.
“What are you boys going to do today?” Sullivan said.
Jason yawned and pushed a piece of bread around his plate. “Nothing, I guess,” and said, and slumped further down in his chair, so bored it hurt.
Sullivan looked at Ben. “Miserable little tyke, isn’t he! All this, the fun-fair, the games, everything he could possibly want!”
“But I can’t go to the fair, can I!” Jason shouted, like a baby.
“Ooh, there there my sweet!” his father said, annoyed by his son’s pathetic winging. He leant across the table and gave Jason’s arm a nasty pinch.
“Owe!” Jason yelped.
“Shut up, you little wimp,” Sullivan snapped. “Anyway, you can go down to the fair any time you like. Ben, you were there only yesterday, weren’t you?”
“Er... yes,” Ben said.
“What you need, Jase, is a bit of spirit. Like Ben here. Do you know what?” Sullivan said as he examined a crust of bread, “there’s been some kids roaming about in the east. Can you believe that!”
Jason shrugged. “So!”
Sullivan ignored him.
“What do you think, Ben? It’d be nice to round ’em up, see what they’re made of, eh? Do you know, they stole a police car and, wait for this... they crashed it! Ha!”
Ben smiled politely, and underneath the table he squeezed his hands so hard that he felt his fingernails dig into his palms.
“You don’t...” Sullivan continued, waving the crust in the air absentmindedly, “...don’t know anything about that, do you, Ben? Perhaps it slipped your mind? Perhaps you’ve met this bunch of marauding kids on your travels?”
“No, I... I wish I had,” he said, not very convincingly. “They sound great!”
“Good! Good! I’m glad you think so, because they’re being rounded up now. We should have ’em soon enough.”
Ben tried to avoid Sullivan’s inquisitive eyes; they flashed with a cold, calculating precision. And Ben knew that this couldn’t go on for long. Sullivan was bound to find out something, sooner or later.
He glanced down again at the fun-fair. On the far side, one of the tents had been draped in white sheets. Daubed on the sheets, in blue paint:
MADAME QUICK-SILVER: MERCURIAL FORTUNE TELLER
Stay calm, Ben... Stay calm.
Eventually his heart stopped racing.
“You know,” he said, without looking at Jason, “I wouldn’t mind going down to the fun-fair today. What you think? You brave enough to come?”
Jason stood up suddenly. “Course I am, you little creep. I’m not scared of anything!”
Yeah, Ben said to himself, as long as your big strong daddy’s nearby...
“Soon as it stops raining, son!” Sullivan said. “We don’t want you getting any of that nasty rain in your hair, do we!”
“Oh, dad!” Jason said. “Can’t we just go?”
“You’ll regret it if you do, Jase. Wait ’til the rain stops. Then you can go. I’ll be in the control room.”
With that Sullivan left.
“Hey, Jason,” Ben said casually, as they sorted through some games disks, waiting for the rain to stop. “Who are those women in the photos?”
“What?” Jason said.
“In your dad’s office. I saw them through the door.”
“My mum,” Jason said without any emotion at all.
“Your mum? Which one?”
“With dad, of course!”
“Do you... ever...”
“What? See her? Naw, she ran off. Abandoned me after the war.”
“Are you sure?” Ben said. “Are you sure she...”
Jason threw down a disk.
“What do you know about it! Keep your nose out of my business, or we’ll see about are you sure, are you sure! You want me to call Harman, do you? ’Cos I will, if you don’t shut your stupid mouth!”
Ben said nothing. He got up and went across to the window. The white sheet was heavy and wet in the rain. The paint was beginning to run. He looked up at the sky. It was still drizzling.
*
Sawyer was in the guardhouse at the eastern gate. He rubbed
a fat yellow hand around his neck and blinked as he massaged his tense, aching muscles. All night long he’d been there, trying to make sure those damn kids didn’t come to any more harm. One of them was already a playslave, and the others must have made it under the fence by now, he told himself, glancing at his watch. There wasn’t much more he could do for them now. Melted men are low-level security, and inside the Complex the stun commandos ruled everything and everyone. Apart from Sullivan.
Something else was troubling him. A Jeep belonging to some stun commandos had just gone missing in the southern sector. It could be a coincidence, he thought (and prayed). The two commandos in it were also missing. Completely disappeared, without a trace. This was very strange. Sullivan was going to have a fit, and when that happened, everyone suffered.
The guardhouse was a tiny place, just a wooden shack, built right up against the fence next to the eastern gate. All night Sawyer had been there in the small, cramped room, with nothing to eat. Now, his stomach was making the most frightening sounds, as if a bear had jumped inside him and was roaring and bawling to get out.
With him was Sterne, another melted man, the biggest and dopiest of them all. All night long Sterne had been sprawled in the chair (the only one in the shack), his feet propped up on the little desk in the corner. He had snored solidly for eight hours, and in about fifteen minutes, when his shift was over, he would stretch, scratch his backside, and waddle off home for a good day’s rest.
The news about the disappearing commando Jeep had just come through, and Sawyer was still wondering what it might mean. Then he heard something outside the gate. Another Jeep was waiting to be let back into the Complex, a dark blue one. More commandos.
“Oh, no,” Sawyer whispered. “I hope this isn’t more bad news...”
It was the search party. They had been out all night looking for the kids. Three stun commandos were crammed onto the seat, grim and dark in their uniforms, their hateful eyes staring out through the opened visors of their helmets. The vehicle was like a truck, with a cabin for passengers, and a flatback behind, covered with a tarpaulin. And like everything else, it ran on electric batteries.
Sawyer flicked the switch, and the gate cranked open slowly, its massive doors rolling back on great steel wheels. The Jeep lurched through, and came to a halt. Sawyer strained to see if anything lay underneath the big, heavy tarpaulin on the back.
One of the commandos got out, tired after a hard night’s work, ignoring the rain beneath his tough, protective uniform and helmet. He marched into the guardhouse and pulled off his helmet. Faded tattoos covered his neck, and a scar ran from the corner of his mouth across his cheek and up past his temple.
“They’re survivors all right!”
“Who are?” Sawyer said, acting innocent.
“The kids we’ve been out looking for, dummy. The ones who stole your car, you useless blob! Survivors! Wait ’til Sullivan hears! And another thing,” the commando continued, a repulsive smile of pure evil creeping across his face, “we know where they are.”
“Where?” Sawyer stammered.
“Here, in the Complex!”
Sawyer’s heart sank.
“Hey, you! Fat-so!” the commando shouted, kicking Sterne’s feet off the table. “Get off that lardy backside before I kick your flabby guts to pieces!”
Sterne roused himself, mumbling, Sir! Sir!
“There’s a bunch of kids on the loose inside the Complex. They’re from some survivor place or other. Sullivan wants ’em bad.”
“How did you find out?” Sawyer said, stalling for time, whilst he desperately tried to think of what to do.
“Funniest thing!” the commando said, his face contorting into a grisly sneer. “We came across Tah and his bunch of idiots in a deserted village. Tied ’em up in knots, we did. They squealed like babies, no problem!” He laughed, long and hard. “Reckon they won’t be riding any more emus!”
Sawyer felt sick to the bottom of his stomach. “I’ll...” he said, nervously, “I’ll get the news to the Control Tower.”
“You? What’s it got to do with you, fatty?” the commando said, prodding Sawyer hard in the guts with his stun gun. “You couldn’t keep hold of ’em last time!”
“There’s been an ambush,” Sawyer said. “In the southern sector. Some of your men are missing, plus their vehicle. It just happened, a few minutes ago.”
“What? Hey!” the commando said, calling out to his two colleagues. “You hear this!”
The two of them scrambled out of the Jeep. Sawyer told them the news, exaggerating it, making it really bad, until it sounded like a dozen commandos at least were being held captive by a posse of murderous ninja bandits.
It was a serious offence to lie to a commando, and Sawyer knew that he could end up in the mines for this. Yet he wound the commandos up into a state of uncontainable anger. And there’s one thing about stun commandos: they are loyal only to themselves. They might take orders from Sullivan, but if one of their own kind is in trouble...
“You make sure the gate stays closed,” one of the commandos said to Sterne. “We don’t want those kids getting out. And you,” he prodded Sawyer in the chest, “you go straight to Sullivan and tell him that there’s a bunch of survivor kids inside. On the loose. You got that, gutbucket?”
The three of them didn’t wait for an answer. Piling back into the Jeep, they drove off in the direction of the southern sector, their dark blue vehicle screeching with all its battery power (which, to be honest, was not a great deal). For the next hour they would race around, street after street, searching in vain for the ambushed Jeep. Because the Jeep wasn’t there, and neither were its occupants.
Sawyer looked up at the sky. The rain was clearing. Then he did something which melted men never, ever do: he ran. Starting out at a trot, and gradually picking up speed, he ran straight towards the four enormous chimneys and the Control Tower. Towards the center of everything. Somehow or other, he had to warn the boy called Ben.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The two of them loitered in the control room, standing there as Sullivan scrutinized one of the TV monitors, ignoring them.
Then he turned, a quizzical, amused look on his face.
“Ben, Ben,” he said, smiling. “Ben what? I never asked you. Your full name?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Ben... Fortune,” said Ben, the first thing that came into his head.
“Fortune, eh?”
“Ye...s, Fortune,” he said, struggling not to look at the big yellow door, with the black cross on it. “No one ever calls me that, though,” he continued, peering at the walls, at the floor, anything to take his mind off the yellow door and the large black cross.
Sullivan smiled. “Ben Fortune.”
Ben nodded.
Jason was getting bored. “Can we go now?”
“Yes, off you go. But remember, Ben,” and Sullivan’s smile turned creepy, as if he couldn’t help adding a little threat, “you won’t stray too far, will you? We wouldn’t like to see you go missing, wouldn’t we Jase?”
Jase shot a furious glance at his father.
Sullivan didn’t even notice it. “Anyway,” he continued, “Harman’ll keep an eye on you.”
The huge commando had appeared silently at the door.
“Harman,” said Sullivan, “these boys are going down to the fair. Go with them. Make sure there’s no trouble. And watch this one carefully! I’ve got a feeling there’s more to you than meets the eye, Ben Fortune!”
Ben tried to grin, as if it was all a joke. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and when he looked down he saw the shiny dark blue leather of a commando’s glove, the knuckles as big as Brussels sprouts, the grip as hard as iron.
“We’ll have no trouble, will we Ben?” Harman said quietly, and pushed his hand down hard into Ben’s shoulder blade.
As the commando led the two boys down the five long flights of concrete steps and out to the fair, Sullivan wandered into the private apartment, shaking his
head.
“What is it about him?” he asked himself, pacing up and down the room. “What is it about that boy? He reminds me of someone. The hair, those dark, confident eyes... Who is it? Pah!”
He laughed, and walked over to the wall of glass.
“You’re getting old, Sullivan. He’s a kid, that’s all. Give him a few weeks of pleasure in here, and then, when Jase gets bored, he can be put to work down the mines.”
He looked down through the massive window. Way below, he saw the two boys appear in the deserted fun-fair. Behind them was Harman, his helmet under his arm.
“I have seen him before!” Sullivan said, almost amused at his fascination with this unknown boy from who-knows-where. He watched Ben and Jason walk into the fair. “Damn it!” and he hit his forehead against the glass of the window. “Who does he remind me of?”
Then he threw his head back and laughed. “Jack, you’re going soft! Getting all worked up over a playslave!”
With that he turned back to his office.
“They’re coming!” Silver said, as she peeped through the gap between the sheets.
“They?” said Terra. She was sitting at a small table at the back of the tent, looking like the most ridiculous fortune-teller in the world: on her head was a turban made from an old pink and turquoise beach towel, and she had big earrings that Moon had lent her. It was not much of a costume, but it added a touch of authenticity to their plan, in case anyone came snooping around.
“Yes,” Silver said, “Ben and a boy. Sullivan’s boy I guess.”
“Oh, my g...” Terra whispered. But she stopped herself. There was no time. “Right” she said, hiding her nerves as best she could. “Let them come on their own. Don’t shout out. Let them find us.”
Silver watched as Jason and Ben looked around, said something to each other, with Ben pointing towards the fortune-teller’s tent. Then they began to walk towards Madame Quick-Silver.
Up in the Control Tower, Sullivan sensed something was wrong. He stood in the doorway of his office. The desk was the same, the computer, and on the wall the maps hadn’t moved. Then he froze. One of the picture frames was empty.