They set off briskly through the forest. We’d set up camp some way from the trail last night, due to the position of a stream in the valley bottom, and what’d seemed a nuisance then was convenient now. No need to move our camp. We could’ve all packed up our stuff, but the others clearly wanted to leave their tent behind as an indicator of good faith. Not just the tent... Bane whistled as he turned the phone in his hands before placing it very carefully in his pocket.
Jon offered to stay awake, so Bane and I collapsed back into our sleeping bags and slept for another two oh-so-welcome hours before being chased out of the tent by the heat. At the tent entrance, I paused and reached back to poke Bane, tilting my head towards the outside. He peered over my shoulder for a moment, then grinned.
Jon sat on a fallen bough, his head nodding... nod, nod, nod... jerk, up he sat, just before he would have fallen off entirely. A few seconds later, nod, nod, nod...
“Looks like we got the more comfortable nap.”
Jon sat up straight yet again as Bane climbed out of the tent. “I’m awake…” He grinned through a yawn, “…enough.”
“I certainly wouldn’t be any more awake this morning.” Bane stretched until his joints cracked.
“Well, I figured the very longest I could sleep in one go would be the time it took me to fall off this log onto the floor, which seemed safe enough.”
“Fine, with your ears,” Bane agreed. A professional hunter would have trouble sneaking up on Jon. Or a poacher, which is what many hunters had become when the EuroGov banned all hunting.
I shook out the stove and packed it up, then did the same with the other one. “Hey, there’s a leftover croissant. I think it’s got your name on it, Jon.”
“We can split it in three.” But he came over so quickly I shoved the whole thing into his hand.
“Just eat it. Nice fresh food on the way, remember. And they left the last of the old stuff here in case we were hungry.”
Jon shrugged and tucked in.
“I’m glad we met those three,” I said, as we lounged around like basking lizards. “I like them. Doms and Juwan especially.”
“I wasn’t starting to fancy our chances,” said Jon. “If I’m honest about it.”
“I like Juwan and Dominique,” said Bane. “I don’t care so much for Louis.”
“Well, ” I conceded. “He’s prepared to help us, though—for that I can put up with a lot of dumb jokes.”
“Yeah, true enough!” Bane took out Juwan’s phone. “News, anyone? This thing’s got TV.”
I sat close beside him so I could see the little screen and Jon came close enough to hear the audio.
There wasn’t much happening in the world, though, good or bad. Still, that was a nice change after the last... was it really almost two months? Nothing about us at all, until...
“Prosecutors in the Margaret Verrall escape case announced today…”
“Is that what they’re calling it?” I interrupted the newscaster. Bane sniggered. Jon was snoring softly: even the novelty hadn’t kept him awake for long.
“…that they expect to set a date for the trial of Major Lucas Everington, former Commandant of Greater Salperton EGD Facility, sometime in the next two weeks. The Major is charged with Category One Sedition for his apparent role in masterminding the Greater Salperton Facility escape.”
“Rubbish!” I said irritably.
“We all know that,” said Bane. “But the man may as well sing their tune and make things easy for himself.”
“That’s what you’d do, is it?”
“Margo, please don’t compare me to an EGD Major!”
“Sorry. But this is plain wrong. And don’t say—he was guarding us—who cares? They might as well put the whole of society on trial!”
“Well, in the cold light of reason, maybe, but trust me, no one is going to care enough to do anything about it. Even good people. Especially good people.”
I frowned at him. “Say that again?”
“No one’s going to help him. He’s a dead man and it sounds like he’s almost ready to accept it.”
I stared at the screen, not hearing the minor news story about a child who’d been lost in the Camargue Swamp-Forest and miraculously—they didn’t use that word, of course—found his way home.
“Give me your phone.”
“What?”
I stuck my hand in his pocket and pulled it out. Typed rapidly. Took a careful photograph of my face. No roots, no background, check, check. Pressed send. Handed the phone back to him.
“What the hell did you just do?” He scrolled through to his sent messages. “DailyNewsCorp again? ‘Major Everington is innocent, of those charges at least. Just so you know. M.V.’ What did you send that for?”
“Because it was the right thing to do.”
“Oh yes. Ask a stupid question. You don’t owe him anything, Margo! The man would’ve watched you die!”
I rubbed my scarred forehead. How to explain the niggling suspicion that the man had, in his own twisted way, been trying to help me? That he’d been less interested in making me answer his questions than in having an excuse to give me the anesthetic? How to explain my certainty he’d been about to give it to me anyway, until Doctor Richard interfered?
But Bane wouldn’t understand. And it didn’t matter—it wasn’t why I’d sent the text. Bane was right, I didn’t owe him anything. But what the EuroGov was doing—convicting a man for a crime he didn’t commit—was wrong, plain and simple. “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”
Bane opened his mouth, looking exasperated—closed it again. “Well, yeah. But.”
“But what? But we should only oppose evil when it’s done to people we give a damn about?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Yes it is.”
“Fine. It is. I’m an uncharitable pagan. I hope you can live with it.”
I smiled. “I’ve managed so far.”
When Jon eventually woke up, Bane took great delight in reading him the sent message and denouncing my insanity. Jon found it all a little less exciting than Bane—but he didn’t send a text of his own.
When Bane had exhausted the subject—and us—Jon and I started on one of our joint Rosaries, lying on our stomachs in the sun and tapping our fingertips together to keep count. Bane lay with his head in the small of my back, listening and staring at the blue sky.
“...Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen...
“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum...” Jon broke off, listening. “I think they’re coming back.”
Indecision flitted across Bane’s face. Insult them by hiding in the woods until we were sure they were alone, or stay where we were, better for our burgeoning friendship but very unhealthy if we’d misjudged them?
“How many?” I asked Jon.
“Only sounds like three.”
“Well, at least sit up in case we have to move in a hurry, Jon!” said Bane.
“Fine.” Jon pushed himself up, sighing. “But it sounds like them.”
It was.
“Piece of cake,” said Juwan imperturbably, “who’d look twice at us?”
“Wonderful,” sighed Jon, sinking down on a log when we stopped to make camp that evening. “Flat... straight... Lovely.”
“I think Jonathan’s in luuuve with the hiking trail,” sniggered Louis.
“I think I’d be if I couldn’t see,” said Doms.
“I’ve got something to show you, actually,” said Juwan, once the food was cooking on the stoves. He fished out his phone, thumbed at it for a moment, then passed it to me.
It was a saved webpage from about ten days ago. The phone had internet too? The FrenchDaily...
MARGARET: ENJOYING NEW ADULTHOOD, THANKS.
Following our article last week, ‘ARE YOU ENJOYING NEW ADULTHOOD, MARGARET V.?’ Daily NewsCorp received this shock text message from Margaret Verrall herself: ‘We are all en
joying New Adult life very much. Thank you for asking. M.V.’
The whereabouts of Margaret Verrall and sixty-seven others who escaped from Greater Salperton EGD Facility at the beginning of July remain unknown. But it seems safe to say they are not only alive and well, but reading the EuroBloc’s top daily!
N.B.
If you have any information pertaining to the whereabouts of any of the following you must phone 112 immediately:
Margaret Verrall (convicted for Personal Practice of Superstition and Inciting and Promoting Superstition in the General Population and also wanted on charges of Sedition: Category 1 and Unauthorized Departure from an EGD Facility)
Blake (Bane) Marsden (wanted on charges of Murder: 1st Degree, Sedition: Category 1 and Destruction of Public Property)
Jonathan Revan (wanted on charges of Personal Practice of Superstition and Unauthorized Departure from an EGD Facility)
Any other reAssignee illegally absent from their Facility. Lists of names with photographs available from all police stations.
AIDING AND ABETTING THE AFOREMENTIONED IN ANY WAY WILL RESULT IN A CHARGE OF
SEDITION: CATEGORY 1.
Bane looked over my shoulder as I read it aloud. The close up I’d taken of my face was at the top of the page, the same photos shown on the highway sign beside each of our names at the bottom.
“Didn’t know if they’d got it or not,” I said. “Did they get in trouble?”
“Not that we heard,” said Doms.
“Bet they did,” muttered Bane, “the censorship may go in cycles—tightening up to hide stuff, then loosening off when the censorship itself becomes the scandal—and we are in a fairly relaxed period, but not that relaxed. Not for this.” He went back to looking sober-faced.
“You really knifed that dismantler?” asked Juwan.
Bane nodded.
“Good for you.”
“I was protecting Margo,” said Bane sharply.
Juwan spread his hands. “Fair enough. Hell, I’d do it for Doms!”
He broke off suddenly—hesitated—then pulled Doms into his arms. Rather defensively.
She planted a kiss on his lips. “I’d do it for you, too.” But she shot us an anxious look as well. Louis rolled his eyes.
So that was it! Oh dear, I was staring. Couldn’t help it. Something about their black and white cheeks, pressed together—strange and wonderful all at once. I’d never seen two people from different genetic groups... together. They’d felt it was a bigger secret than the Resistance... well, some people could be awful. I was still staring... Quickly I mustered a smile. Doms’s face brightened and Juwan relaxed slightly.
“Are you two really serious about the Resistance?” Bane asked. Changing the subject to show exactly how much he wasn’t bothered?
“Certainment,” said Juwan.
“Why go to university, then?” said Jon dryly. From his fading expression of surprise he’d understood what had just been revealed. “What is it, a sixty percent chance you’ll be dead before you’re thirty?”
“That’s what I keep telling them,” said Louis.
“Like the odds for the Underground are much better?” sniffed Doms.
“A bit better than that, actually,” I put in. “Forty percent chance of making it to fifty.”
Doms waved a hand dismissively. “You really need to ask why I’m going to university first?”
“I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been out with the Resistance and I can wire up a basic explosive device,” said Bane. “You don’t need a degree.”
“Not if you’ve got explosives,” said Doms smugly. “If you haven’t—you need me.”
“Oh great,” muttered Jon, “unlimited explosives for the Resistance! What a nice thought.”
Doms shot him a hard look, and Juwan jumped in, “Well, I plan to keep a clean record for as long as possible...”
“Oh yeah?” said Louis glumly.
Juwan ignored him. “...If the guys who get caught had better legal representation, they’d get away with it more often.”
“Sounds good,” said Bane, “until I think what you’re setting them loose to do more of. Do you seriously want to do that sort of thing yourselves?”
“On ne fait pas d'omelette sans casser des œufs...” said Doms. “You can’t make an omelet without cracking eggs, can you?”
“Yeah,” said Bane, “but even leaving aside whether you really want to kill your fellow Frenchmen just for taking work with the major employer that’s the EuroGov. The French Resistance are the most vicious in Europe—no offence, it’s just a fact. Some of the French cells are putting land mines around the ruined villages out here in the forest where they hide out, for pity’s sake! Anyone can step on them. Do you agree with that?”
Doms didn’t meet his eyes this time. “Not everything’s right at the moment, we do get that.”
“We want to help change that,” said Juwan. “There’s got to be a better balance between fighting the EuroGov and the mindless bloodshed that goes on at the moment.”
“But the change has to come from the inside,” said Doms. “You’ve got to join, and then you’ve got to earn respect, and only then will your opinion be heard.”
Bane shook his head. “You’re dead wrong. You’ll go in with a sense of right and wrong, but they’ll make you do things to prove your loyalty. Each a little worse than the last. And by the time you have that ‘respect’ and could actually do anything, you’ll have convinced yourself they were right all along, because it’s the only way you’ll be able to live with what you’ve done—all the brains on walls and orphaned children. The only way you’ll change them is by not joining.”
“How will that help!” protested Doms, looking slightly shaken by Bane’s too-vivid picture of the Resistance’s induction process.
“Because if no one joins, they’ll have to change to get new recruits. That’s your power over them now—but once you join, you’re in their power.”
“I thought you were next thing to Resistance,” said Juwan, eyes narrowed. “That’s the way the press paint it.”
“Yeah, well, I did come pretty close,” said Bane levelly. “But I thought better of it, somewhat in the nick of time. You know you can’t get far in and still back out. Especially here in the French department. Bear that in mind too.”
“Well, we’ve got three years to think about it,” said Juwan. “But how else do you fight the EuroGov?”
“They’ve got a monopoly on active opposition, all right,” I conceded.
“That’s what they want you to think,” said Bane. “What’s to stop you doing something on your own?”
“Well, in this Department, the Resistance,” said Juwan. “Non-affiliated groups are subsumed or... dissolved. In a very permanent way.”
“Have you even been out with the Young Resistance—the, what’s it? Résistance Juvénile?”
They both shook their heads. “No, we’ve been keeping our noses clean. Didn’t want to incriminate our parents.”
“And, to be honest, we’ve got a lot more interested in joining in the last six months,” admitted Doms.
Since Piers?
Bane sighed—feeling rather old? “Well, for pity’s sake think about it, right?”
“We’ve got three years,” said Juwan again. “We’re hardly going to make a rushed decision.”
“We’re not joining the Underground, that’s for sure,” said Doms. “No offence. You don’t even fight the EuroGov—you just really piss them off.”
I shrugged and spread my hands.
“Actually,” said Bane unexpectedly, “I think the Underground fight the EuroGov just by existing.”
“Depends how you define fight, I suppose,” said Juwan wryly.
“So it is you and Bane, then, not you and Jon?” asked Doms the following evening, after watching Bane kiss me before heading off with Juwan to collect firewood.
“Oh yes,” I tried not to blush. “Definitely me and Bane.” Jon was asl
eep on the grass and Louis had gone off in a huff again, so it was just us two girls... women. “Jon and I just keep having to pretend. Well, you said you read the book...”
“Yeah, I knew it was supposed to be you and Bane. That’s one thing that was throwing me off when we first met. Because...” She glanced at Jon and frowned slightly, “…it doesn’t seem so like he’s pretending.”
My cheeks burned unstoppably, but I wasn’t going into that. “So you did suspect, then? Even in Vouziers?”
“Well, it did cross my mind, but I thought I was letting my imagination run away with me. ‘Cause your hair was wrong and what I could see of your face under the sunglasses was too thin, to say nothing of you being with the wrong guy.”
“So why the French when we were passing the policemen?”
“Oh, I was pretty damn sure you didn’t want to scan your IDs! I’m not stupid! I just thought, well, what the hell, let’s get them past. Being the good little EuroCitizen that I am!” She laughed bleakly.
“Well, thank you. We really appreciate... well, everything, y’know.”
She waved this away. “What’s the saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend? That’s one the Resistance could remember a bit more when it comes to the Underground.”
“I think they feel anyone who objects to them killing whoever they feel like is an enemy too.”
Doms shrugged. “Well, I’m not Resistance yet. Friends, then?” She stuck out her hand. I took it.
“Friends.”
She shook solemnly, then kissed me on both cheeks, French-style. It was nice to have her around—I loved Bane and Jon to bits, but they were both guys.
But there was something I needed to say. “Please think about what Bane said. He knows what he’s talking about. They tricked him into something he’s always going to regret. But he was brave enough to do the right thing and get out, though it means living with that guilt, rather than diving further in and trying to bury it—which was what they wanted.” Doms’s face had gone rather closed again. “Sorry, not meaning to nag...”
“Relax. Bane has given us something to think about, I admit. But there’s so few options. Would staying out really help? Feels like it would just achieve nothing.”
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