by Sarah Govett
The mood of the crowd had shifted, that was for sure, but had it shifted enough?
Adnan asked if anyone from the floor had relevant testimony. Silence … foot shuffling … silence…
‘I do.’ A voice clear and strong. Jack’s voice. This could go either way.
‘I can speak for Noa,’ he said and Megan’s face went all closed and angry cat.
‘Noa’s a good person. She would never, ever, act as a Ministry spy. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that she managed to beat all the odds to get here. She made a promise to me that she’d come and she’s so stubborn that there’s no way that she’d let anything stop her.’ There it was, short and sweet. Jack wasn’t much of a large group talker, didn’t naturally have a way with words, but when he spoke people listened, and they were listening now.
‘But what about the freakoid,’ shouted a voice from the crowd. ‘Why’s he here?’
‘Because he’s in love with her,’ Jack answered flatly. ‘People do crazy things when they’re in love with Noa Blake.’ He turned to sit back down in the crowd. He hadn’t looked at me once.
‘But,’ Megan was on her feet again, trying to rile the crowd up again, trying to get people back on her side, ‘do you really believe a promise and guilt is motivation enough to risk everything to come here? If she really is no spy, then Noa has not only put her own life at risk but she has also jeopardised the lives of her parents if she’s caught. Would she really do that because of a promise? Would anyone do that? Ask yourselves, is there another explanation? Why has she really come?’
Now it was Raf’s turn. I could hardly keep track. People were bobbing up and down. We hadn’t been given breakfast. My blood sugar levels were plummeting. Raf’s words brought me back from the edge. Brought everything very much back in focus.
‘Because she’s in love with Jack, even if she doesn’t realise it herself.’
I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.
As I was heading for bed a huge shooting star burnt its way to the ground. It seemed like it was really close, just a few kilometres away or something, but I guess it was probably more like thousands of miles. I closed my eyes and wished, wished like I had when I was a little girl sat on her mum’s knee who still believed in magic and Father Christmas and the power of kisses to heal wounds. Then I used to wish for a huge range of stuff. That sea levels would stop rising. That Uncle Pete would cancel his visit. That Rex wasn’t dead.
Tonight I wished that things would be less horrifically awkward between me and Raf and Jack. I guess that wish has about the same probability of coming true.
We won the trial. The Committee found us not guilty of spying by seven to two. So we’re free to go – or stay – as long as we ‘prove useful’, which seems to translate into help with chores and stuff or train as part of the new wave of super fighters. I mean, really. They also want to ‘compare our plans to breach the Fence’. Steal ours more like. There was something a bit desperate about the way they asked. Not sure how they’ll react when they find out we’ve got no plan as yet. I don’t think ‘wing it’ really counts.
I thought Raf would want to pack up and head off immediately but he’s said we’ll wait. He double-checked the day count on the arm of his backpack. If we’re not to be missed, we need to be back in the Territory in eleven days. That gives us some leeway. So I’ve got three days to ‘work out what I want’. I mimed incomprehension but he smiled. It was a flinty smile, all mouth, no eyes.
‘You know what I mean, Noa. Three days.’
That’s about the sum of the conversation we’ve had since the trial. He’s sleeping in a guys’ dorm, leaving me to share with Megan, Tara and Alice. Everyone’s thrilled about that arrangement. I was worried that they might try and off me in my sleep so I attempted to doze with one eye open. It’s impossible. Instead, I slept lightly and fitfully.
I saw Raf at breakfast when chores were divvied out. Even amazing armies that no one’s heard of need fresh water, food and mosquito repellent. Raf got water purification, as did ten other people, which seemed crazy. At the Peak it was a job for max two or three people so I don’t know if ‘water purification’ is code for some super-special-need-to-know work or something. I tried to give Raf a ‘what?!’ look but he just stared back, all blank and expressionless.
I got mosquito repellent which I was quite pleased about until the task was subdivided and I didn’t get the fun prance-about-in-purple-fragrant-fields bit. I got the peel-yellow-fat-off-dead-animals-and-boil-it-up-in-a-big-pot bit. I suggested that maybe I should help at the school instead as I’d had loads of practice at that. That got me laughed at.
‘There’s no school here. This is a training camp for war.’
They’re so up themselves. Chores were over at lunchtime and then we had to train. How sprints and squat jumps are going to give me anything other than blisters and sore thighs is beyond me. They act like this is a massively important command centre and they’re so paranoid about spies. But no one even mentioned them at the Peak so if their war cry hasn’t spread to pretty nearby settlements then I really don’t think the Ministry is really going to be too fussed. Jack even said that he just stumbled across this place, dehydrated and starving. It’s not like he’d heard about it and wanted to be some crazy warrior. Well, not then anyway.
I managed to speak to Jack just before sun down, having finally got him to myself away from Raf’s judging eyes and Megan’s claws. It didn’t go so well. Nothing’s going so well right now.
He stood away from me. Like he didn’t trust himself to touch me. Or maybe he just didn’t want to.
‘I’m not coming back with you, Noa.’ There was no trace of doubt in his voice.
‘But you can’t stay here. You’ll get malaria – even with the repellent – no one can survive loads of mosquito swarms.’
‘So I come back and hide in your closet?’
‘It won’t be like that.’
‘But it would. Suppose we make it through the Fence. I’m then living in a place where I don’t officially exist. I can’t work. I won’t have a ration card. And every second of every minute of every hour of every day I’ll know that any moment, any time, I can be stopped by a policeman and be right back here again. Or shot. I’m not sure the Ministry is that into second chances. And what about all the other Norms in the Territory? The ones who’ll fail and get shipped out here? The ones who get experimented on?’
My shock must have registered on my face. I’d never told Jack about what Mum did. What she had to do.
‘Megan told me. The Opposition found out a few years ago. It’s one of the reasons she volunteered to fail on purpose.’
I swallowed. This was making me feel worse and worse. I preferred the Megan I’d put in the box of evil, manipulative, boy-stealing bitch. That way it was easy to hate her.
‘So do we just forget about them? The Ellas of this world. The kids who don’t have a chance? Don’t know them. Don’t care. Is that it?’
I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing. It was horrible hearing it spelt out so bluntly.
‘No, I’m staying here, Noa. We’re doing something important here. We’re taking action.’
‘Yeah, I can see that.’ I wanted to bite back the words as soon as they’d left my mouth.
Jack’s eyes hardened.
‘Megan was right about you. All you care about is yourself.’ His right fist started pulsing and this muscle in his face was twitching.
‘You didn’t come here for me. You came here for you. To rescue your plaything. Your back up in case you tire of Raf. You don’t want me to be with anyone else just in case you change your mind.’
‘No! That’s not it at all.’
‘Then choose me.’ Jack’s voice was suddenly soft and vulnerable, all the anger evaporated. ‘Come with me right now and stand next to me as you tell Raf and tell Megan and tell all the others that you choose me.’
I tried to speak but my mouth just opened and clo
sed like a denser goldfish.
‘As I thought.’
And he was right, in a way. In the dark of night, lying on my salvaged mattress bed, looking deep into my selfish heart, I know he was right. I’m not sure that it is him that I want. I love him, I know that now, but maybe in too comfortable a way. Like we’ve leapfrogged the whole fireworks stage and are an old married couple. Raf is fireworks. But still the thought of Jack with someone else kills me.
Choose me or lose me. Or mess about deciding, be slow to choose and lose both anyway.
I think I’ve truly messed things up this time. So much for having three days to decide. It’s been one day and Raf’s drawing further and further away from me. He’s gone from being a virtual leper – freakoid, freakoid – to settler of the month. Like he’s got some special popularity gravity that’s sucking all approval towards him, leaving me empty and alone.
‘Water purification’ wasn’t a special-secret-need-to-know code word. It was just water purification. Done badly. Raf noticed that they were using the tarp and water trough design but had forgotten/never learnt the add a big stone in the middle part so loads of the pure water that was condensing was falling back into the salt pool instead of into the collecting container. This meant they were producing a tiny fraction of the pure water they should have been. All Raf did was add the stone and now people are talking about him like he’s this scientist extraordinaire – freeing up more people and time for ‘training’. Adnan slapped him on the back this morning and even Megan, who’d wanted to stick a knife down his Node twenty-four hours ago, smiled at him at breakfast.
This ‘genius’ on his part has also meant that the Committee are now taking us, or rather him, seriously as players in the fight against the Ministry. Tonight we’re having our big meeting comparing notes on breaking through the Fence and we get to hear their plans for ultimate revolution. I think they might be planning to recruit Raf to some important position. Me – well I’m sure there’s more fat to boil.
Luckily out here there’s never that much time to dwell on things. There’s always some task to do. Survival’s good like that. I was on seaweed collection today, which was fine. Lots of trekking, identifying, cutting, washing, boiling and iodine extraction but it wasn’t too arduous. And I got to build a fire. Lee showed me how. He’s on the Committee so when he first rocked up to train me and a couple of other relative newbies I thought Oh No! But he’s actually pretty cool. Dark, almond-shaped eyes, a shock of black hair, a serious face but with a smile that breaks though as suddenly as a seagull attack. He seemed wary of me at first but then thawed. His story is pretty amazing too. He’s difficult to age but definitely a couple of years older so I asked if he’d volunteered to fail as well. But he said no, that was a new thing. He predated that. He’d failed ’cos he’d had points deducted.
‘I had a point deducted too. It was so unfair!’ We were properly bonding. Me and the cool older guy were actually pretty similar. Someone else in the group snort-laughed and I didn’t know why. It was clearly an at-me rather than with-me laugh.
‘What?!’
‘Tell her.’
‘No. It’s not important.’
‘Lee had twenty points deducted. For hacking the school computer network.’
‘Oh.’ Rather less similar than I’d first imagined.
I worked pretty much in silence after that for a while. But then Lee made a point of coming up to me at the end.
‘You did good today.’
I needed the praise. It seemed like ages since someone had said anything half nice to me and I soaked it up like a dehydrated plant.
‘And don’t worry too much about Megan. She’s not as harsh as she seems.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘She’s just passionate, that’s all. You should have seen her when she first came to The Fort. She and Adnan. To recruit us. We were just getting by. Learning how to forage, getting information from traders. It was a smallish settlement as we’re pretty far from the drop zone. She whirlwinded in and told us about their plan to create an army of Wetlanders and you just couldn’t help but go with it. To follow the flame. That’s what she does to people. But she’ll do anything for others as well, mind you. You know Lotte?’
I shook my head as a fleeting glimpse of fear showed on his face.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. It’s probably fine. You’ll know soon enough… Megan practically adopted Lotte when her parents died two years ago, back when people here hadn’t heard of … well, they kind of shunned her. And Jack – well you’ve seen first hand how much she likes him! There’s only been one other person out here I’ve seen who’s quite so single mindedly … well, let’s call it determined.’
‘Who’s that then?’
‘You, Noa, you – you should have seen yourself at the trial. Adnan noticed it too. Megan mark 2.’
Something strange happened on the way to the meeting. No, that’s not quite right. Two strange things happened on the way to the meeting. First, I saw Megan laugh. As in belly laugh, all natural with no malice in sight. She was walking along, sweaty from training and hand in hand with a girl of about twelve, who looked up at Megan adoringly as if she were the source of life itself and all its secrets. And Megan looked down at her the way I’ve caught Mum looking at me, especially when she thinks I’m not looking, all fierce protective love. There was clearly this super special bond between them and – the girl was a Cell. She must have been – she had the telltale pale skin and white hair and weird glow – no you can’t really call it a glow as there was no trace of pink to her cheeks – luminosity is a better word – of health. She must have been Lotte, the girl Lee was talking about and it explains why he’d gone all weird for a moment when mentioning her.
That moment decided something for me. It’s like it took my heart, shook it, and gently realigned the pieces slightly. It’s the moment I let Jack go. Megan isn’t some witch. She might hate me and I was never exactly going to be best friends with the girl who tried to lynch me, but I felt like I saw into her soul in that split second and her soul was good. She wanted Jack. She would care for him, love him. I had to let her have him. Let him choose happiness even if it meant drawing a line in permanent marker through my life. I couldn’t sit on the fence forever. Some fences were electric.
I reached over and took Raf’s hand as he walked next to me. And squeezed it.
He turned, slowly, to look at me.
His eyebrows asked the question and my pitifully open face gave the answer. I’m yours if you still want me.
‘I don’t need three days,’ emotion croaked out the words and luckily Raf scooped me up in his arms so he didn’t have to see my tear-soaked face.
The meeting was a small affair, but you could almost smell its seriousness as you walked into the room, somewhere underneath the distinctive animal fat/lavender combo. All the Committee members were already there in the Meeting Room, sat in a circle on the floor. Everyone equal, no one at the head. It was admirable, but also kind of nauseating. As me and Raf entered, they all looked over and the circle broke to include us. Adnan smiled his welcome, Lee went from super serious to grinning in a heartbeat (maybe he’s schizophrenic) and Megan made some sort of grimace that could have been a smile or maybe just a sneer. Sat next to Megan and avoiding eye contact was Jack. He must have been promoted to the inner circle. Jack saw me holding Raf’s hand and did a weird little headshake.
Adnan spoke first.
‘The purpose of today’s meeting is to pool information and resources in order to better defeat our common enemy.’
Lots of wise nods. Maybe sage is a better word. Sage nods.
‘In particular, to compare plans to breach the Fence.’
This caused a hush of expectation and everyone, me included, seemed to hold their breath for a beat at the possibility that someone might have a plan – someone might know how to achieve the impossible.
Then there was this burst of machine gun chatter as every stupid a
nd implausible solution was spat out at once: ‘Dig… Cut … Climb… Pole vault.’ Honest to God, some denser actually said pole vault. Like we were going to invade a school sports day or something.
‘Quiet!’
It was Lee’s voice this time, and pretty effective it was too, as the room returned to this expectant hush.
‘I think there are some preliminaries we should discuss first.’ He turned to me and Raf. ‘What exactly were you planning to do?’
Hmmmm. Good question. Raf wasn’t saying anything so I opened my mouth.
‘It’s quite simple really,’ (nervous sarcastic laugh), ‘we were going to find Jack and then the three of us were going to get back through the Fence together, before anyone realised we were missing, and keep Jack hidden in the Territory.’
Saying it out loud made it seem the densest plan ever and the looks we got suggested that everyone agreed.
‘So no revolution? No overthrowal?’
I shook my head.
Megan bark laughed.
‘Look we wanted to save Jack. But any more, well … you know what they do to the families of Opposition members.’