I look back at him, at his noble face, ripped apart by lions. I look around at all of the people gathered about me, all of them already bearing scars and bruises as souvenirs of their time here. I look down at Ezekiel. Whatever he’s doing in here tomorrow night, he can’t even face talking about it. I see Sean and Leah when they were being electrocuted, their bodies jerking spasmodically.
What’s the alternative to fighting back? Accepting it, I suppose, meekly turning the other cheek?
No. If we do that, we might as well just all lie down right here and die.
“It’s OK,” I say. “It’s necessary.”
“That’s it, then,” Emmanuel says. “We’re in. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” There’s a unanimous chorus. He turns to Sean.
“What’s the plan, then?”
“I don’t know,” Sean says, apologetically. “Felix got moved out last week, when the building work finished, and I haven’t heard anything since. All I know is what he said to me the last time I saw him.”
“And that was?”
“Be prepared on opening night; get ready for war and get ready to run,” he says.
There’s a hum of excitement around the group.
Ezekiel nudges me with his arm, grinning up at me excitedly.
“We’re going to get out of here!” he says “I can go back to my mum and dad, you can go and find Hoshi!”
I smile back down at him. I like what he’s saying. It’s definitely not going to be that simple, but there’s hope now, where there was none just a few hours ago. We’ve taken on the wolves and we’ve won. We’ve proved ourselves a match against one set of predatory beasts with blood on their minds; maybe we can prove ourselves against another.
HOSHIKO
I follow silently after Kadir as he leads me through the forlorn pathways of the slums.
I have to think practically now. I have to make the video as quickly as I can and get Greta to safety.
Once she’s safe, I need to find Felix and speak to him alone. I need to find out when the Brotherhood are planning on storming the Cirque. They hate Pures, Felix has told me that. What will they do if they get hold of Ben?
They won’t listen to him when he tells them he’s not like the rest. They won’t see how kind and good he is. They’ll just see Benedict Baines, Vivian’s son. They’ll want to finish off what they started before – when they targeted him and his family a few years ago. It’ll be the biggest coup of their lives if they can capture him, if they can kill him.
I shiver.
I won’t be able to carry on without him. Not after everything we’ve been through.
At the edge of the slums, there’s a car waiting for us, outside the fences.
I look at it doubtfully.
Maybe this is the wrong thing to do, after all.
“Greta’s still back there somewhere, isn’t she? I want to get her back, not go further away from her.”
Kadir grips my arm, propelling me firmly towards the car. “If you want her back, you know what you have to do.”
BEN
As morning approaches, we make our way back into our cells, bolting the doors behind us. Sean takes the one furthest from the guards’ entrance and, once the doors open and the wolves rush out, he stays tucked in the corner while we all come out for headcount.
None of the guards ask where he is. They must just assume the wolves have finished off every last bit of him. The thought of how different things might have been makes my stomach churn.
Silvio isn’t at breakfast, which is a blessed relief, but apart from that, it’s the same procedure as yesterday: the others feeding from troughs like cattle, while I sit at my own little table of delicious food.
This time, though, all the glances I get are sympathetic. There’s no prickling hostility any more, no more angry waves of resentment.
I wait for an opportunity to throw some food their way, but the guards keep their watchful eyes fixed on me and I can’t risk anyone else getting hurt because I’ve tried to do something stupid. I don’t even get the chance to hide any away to give Sean later on.
The guards blow their whistles and begin shepherding us all out.
I stand there, blinking in the light, watching everyone else as they scurry off in various directions.
“Ahh, Benedict!” Silvio glides up to me in his golf buggy. Behind him, crouched in the luggage compartment, Ezekiel peers up at me, his face sombre for once. “Has this little guy told you about his act yet? He hasn’t? Oh, that’s even better! I shall enjoy studying your face closely for your initial reactions. You don’t really need to rehearse for what I have in mind for you tonight and, as you’re my special guest, I thought I’d give you the morning off, just to spectate. All you need to do is sit back, relax and enjoy yourself. It’ll be just like old times! Of course, you may wish to get involved; it’s a highly interactive show, and I speak from personal experience when I say how much fun it is! Isn’t that right, Ezekiel?” He turns and grins inanely at Ezekiel, whose head is bowed.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Jump aboard!”
I try to catch Ezekiel’s eye, but he won’t look up. I’m not sure what to do.
“Come on, Baines!” Silvio orders. “The Spider’s Web awaits!”
The Spider’s Web? Morbid fear grips hold of me as I step on the board at the back of golf buggy and we trundle off across the Cirque.
HOSHIKO
Laura Minton sits behind the wheel of the car, dressed up smartly in a woollen day dress and a suit jacket. She smiles at me warmly when I climb in, clasping my hands in hers. She wipes hers clean on her dress straight afterwards, though. I don’t blame her; I can’t remember the last time I had a wash. I run my fingers through my hair. It’s all matted. My clothes are dirty. I’m dirty.
“Hoshiko, it’s so good to see you again. I just know you’re going to do a marvellous job with this. You don’t need to look so worried! We’re on the same side.”
She doesn’t even mention Greta. I scowl at her. “Let’s just get this over and done with, shall we? Where are you taking me?”
“A studio. It isn’t far, just a few miles away. We’ve cleared everyone out today, so we’ll have the place to ourselves.”
Kadir and his men are climbing into the seats behind us.
Laura talks to me as the car drives away.
“This really will make a big difference you know, Hoshiko, if we get it right, but we’ve only got one shot. You said you saw the broadcast the other day?”
I nod.
“Baines has plummeted in the polls since then. And yet a year ago, even the idea of a public debate like that would have seemed unthinkable. Do you know who changed things?”
She raises a questioning eyebrow at me and I shake my head.
“I’ll tell you who changed things. I’ll tell you who the real hero is. It’s Ben, your Ben. He made the speech that changed everything.”
Her words make me feel so proud. I wish Ben was here now so I could tell him that. I don’t think I ever told him how brave I thought he was. Why was I so cold and moody with him so often? Why didn’t I spend more time telling him how I really felt? Why did I waste so many days?
“Do you know, Ben was cut off within minutes when he spoke out. Doesn’t matter, though; the damage had already been done. In fact, the censorship just gave his words more power, made them even more notorious. He woke the rest of the country up from their slumber. It’s not as if none of us had ever thought those things before, it’s not as if none of us hadn’t wanted to say them, it’s that until Ben, it just wasn’t something anyone ever considered actually doing.”
“People should have spoken out,” I say. “Going along with what someone like Vivian Baines says makes you all as bad as she is.”
Laura Minton sighs.
“You’re right. I’m not trying to excuse things, I’m just trying to explain the way things were. The culture of the political classes in this country, for years and years and years
, has been to comply. Keep your real views to yourself, play the game, keep your head down.”
Ahead of us, the PowerHouse looms over the city. Underneath the images of Greta, Jack and me, the pure gold statue beams its smile down from the top of the heap of Dregs it clambers on.
Laura nods towards it.
“That place was gripped by fear. Fear that if you said too much, if you questioned anything, if you dared to speak out, they’d turn on you. You’d lose everything: your home, your family, your Pure status. You’d be thrown into the slums and left to rot.”
She says she’s not making excuses but it doesn’t sound like it to me. Ben gave up his status, he didn’t even think twice about it. And Jack didn’t wait until he thought it was safe enough to speak out. He sacrificed everything to save us.
I don’t bother saying that though. What would be the point? I just sit back and listen to this woman trying to justify why it took so long for her to try and do the right thing.
“Turns out, loads of us were sympathizers, maybe even most of us, but nobody was brave enough to say it out loud, not until your Ben.”
She looks over to the PowerHouse again. “More and more people in that place are coming out pro-Dreg every day. More and more people are speaking out against Baines and all that she stands for. The tide has turned and your Ben was the one to turn it. Even if we lose the election next week, the fact that I’m even running on an openly pro-Dreg platform, the fact that it’s too close to call, that’s a victory in itself.”
When she looks at me, her eyes shine with glee.
“That test I asked Baines to take? Her resistance proves that she’s complicit in the lie! We’ve put her in an impossible position. If she takes the test, who only knows what genetic murk might be floating around in her supposedly superior blood? She can’t risk it, but the more she refuses to take it, the more she calls it illegal, the more uncertain of who she, or any of us, actually are she looks. She’s damned if she does, and damned if she doesn’t.
“The empire she’s built up is crumbling. Things will never be what they were. She’ll never be able to take us back to that time when everyone kept their head down and kept quiet. The emperor’s got no clothes on and, for the first time ever, none of us are pretending otherwise.”
If Ben was free, if Ben was with me, maybe her words would make me hopeful, but right now, they just make me feel more frightened than before. If Vivian Baines is desperate and angry, she’ll be looking for someone to take it out on. Who better than the poor circus folk? Who better than her own son: the one who was the first to speak out against her, the one who lit the spark that ignited this whole inferno?
If his actions have damaged her, won’t she want to damage him, too? Punish him? Make him suffer?
And if I stand up now and speak out against her, won’t I make it even worse?
Next to me, Laura Minton is still talking.
“We need to make sure you’re seen by as many people as we can in one go. What we want to do is shoot the perfect interview with you and then flood the PureWeb and TV channels with it in one big assault. I’ve got a sponsor who owns a technology company and he’s promised me he can do something amazing with it. What you say needs to be sharp, dramatic and impactful. This could be it, Hoshiko, this could be that final nail in the coffin!”
I suppose what she’s saying sounds good, but I don’t care. All I want is to get Greta and Ben free: the rest of the country can look after itself.
I guess that’s not really true. I care about everyone in the circus. I care about Emmanuel and Ezekiel and all the others.
I picture all their faces; their dear, dear faces. I picture all the other faces, the ones who never made it, dozens and dozens of faces. I picture Amina. I feel her in my heart. Amina would never have these selfish thoughts I’m having. I know what exactly she’d say. I know exactly what she’d do.
We must fight injustice, Hoshiko, that’s what she’d say. For ourselves and for others. We must fight with all we have.
She gave up her life to save me.
I need to make it count. I need to stop being self-centred. I need to fight. For her. For all my lost friends. For all those poor people, trapped in there right now, bracing themselves for opening night.
I owe them this.
I pivot around in my seat. “I’ll do it anyway, I promise,” I tell Kadir. “Please, if you just bring Greta back. She can speak with me. She wanted to do it all along.”
“Ah yes, Greta!” says Laura, her eyes flicking up to glance at Kadir in the mirror. “I thought we were using her too?”
She doesn’t know what Kadir’s done. If I tell her, will she stop the car right now? Will she insist they release Greta immediately? If she does, will they do what she says?
Kadir fires me a warning glance. “She’s not coming. It’s complicated. Hoshiko’s the big pull though, right? That’s what you said. And we’ve got the monkey, too. He’ll look good on the camera.”
She nods. “They’ll do. I’d rather have Greta on camera too, though, even if she doesn’t speak.”
“See, we need her,” I say to Kadir.
He looks at me again, a hard and angry look that makes me feel even more afraid for Greta. “It’s just going to be Hoshiko, I’m afraid,” he says to Laura. “And Bojo here. They should do the trick, shouldn’t they?”
Laura smiles. “They’ll do.”
As the car drives through the streets, she scrutinizes me with little sideways glances, and that look of slight disgust crosses her face again. “We’ll need to get you a bit more camera ready. You can have a proper wash at the studio. Plus, I have a surprise for you. I think you’ll like it.”
She laughs. “Don’t look so worried! This is going to be fun, Hoshiko! You’re going to be a star again! Screw Vivian Baines, with her cheap trickery and her brand-new torture extravaganza! You’re going to steal the show before her very eyes. I tell you what, Hoshiko: you, me, Kadir, between us we have more power than that woman will ever know. We’re going to blast her out of the game. We’re going to tear her and her circus down.”
BEN
Crossing the courtyard, it strikes me again how much bigger this place is than the old, travelling Cirque. It’s huge, like a city within a city; no wonder Silvio uses a golf buggy to get around. We whizz along, past the huge Arcadia hill, past dozens of other buildings, all different shapes, all different colours, past the fairground rides, the massive Ferris wheel and the dodgems and waltzers, past a hundred stalls and tents and sideshows to the last building of all, right at the far end of the Cirque, nestled next to the huge fences.
It’s a black-and-khaki-green shed, unassuming and dingy-looking. It looks like it’s been built from old shipping containers, and the paint is flaking away here and there. It doesn’t fit in at all with the pristine showiness of everything else, but there’s something cool about it – like it doesn’t have to try as hard as the other buildings, like it can’t be bothered. The writing on the sign above the door is in a street graffiti style, and it takes me a second or two to work out what it says: The Gaming Zone.
Silvio takes his cane and swings himself out of the buggy. “Come on!” he barks at Ezekiel and me, and we both get slowly out and follow him through the door.
Inside, it’s unlit, except for old-fashioned arcade machines which fill the large room, their screens flashing hypnotically. Silvio digs at us with his cane, shepherding us across to another door. Ezekiel still won’t make eye contact with me. His gaze is fixed steadfastly to the floor, and his beaming smile remains noticeably absent from his face.
When we’re through the second door, Silvio prods Ezekiel forward to a narrow staircase, immediately to our left.
“Go and get ready. Full costume and then into position!” he commands.
Ezekiel scoots up the staircase, disappearing at the top. I can hear his footsteps moving around above our heads.
I look around the room, trying to work out what kind of place it is.
Twelve large black chairs are all lined up in a row. Padded leather, headrests – gamers’ chairs. In front of each one is some kind of control panel: a joystick and various other buttons and levers. They face a pit, opening up in the ground in front of them. It’s full of huge segregated blades, like rows of vast jagged teeth, jutting upwards.
Above, about eight metres off the ground, a rope canopy stretches all the way across the room. It reminds me of football goal netting, but the criss-crossed squares are bigger: each one about two metres wide.
Perching ominously at the far end are twelve spiders. Not real ones: huge model ones, each about the size of a motorbike. They all have black, furry bodies with eight spindly legs sprouting out and yellow, lifeless eyes.
Silvio lowers himself on to one of the large chairs, his legs dangling childishly, and leans forward to the control panel in front of him. He presses a button and the panel lights up. There’s a whirring sound and the spider directly opposite him slowly revolves forward on to the roped web. Its eyes flash bright yellow. He moves another lever and one of its hinged legs rises up and waves at me, the silver pincer on the end opening and closing.
“Please,” he says to me. “Choose your arachnid!” His white skin is almost luminous in this light and his pale blue eyes gleam. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so gleeful.
I stand there, rooted to the spot.
“Where’s Ezekiel?”
“Do you know, I was thinking the very same thing? He really should be ready by now!”
There’s a sound, from above our heads. “Ah. Here he is, right on cue!”
About four metres above the web, a panel in the ceiling has opened up. A tiny figure springs down, landing nimbly on the web and crouching there, holding on to the ropes with his hands and feet. Transparent wings, six delicately moving legs, one fat cushioned body, one petrified little face. He’s in costume, but it’s definitely Ezekiel.
The fly, trapped in the web and surrounded by spiders.
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