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by Robert Muchamore

  got to Blake,’ I said. Sami shrugged, ‘Probably, but what’s the point thinking about what we should have done. It’s water

  under the bridge.’ A couple of soldiers were strolling towards us. They were skinny things, who both looked about

  nineteen. ‘Identity papers,’ the taller one said. Sami gave him the three sets of papers. He looked down at Adam. ‘How old are you, son?’ I’d told him to lie if he was asked.

  ‘Twelve,’ Adam said. The soldier didn’t look convinced. ‘Where are you trying to go?’ The soldier asked. ‘The capital,’ I said. ‘I want to find a job.’ ‘Why aren’t you in the army?’ ‘I was born with a heart defect,’ I lied. ‘Failed the physical.’ The soldier punched me in the stomach and pointed his rifle at Adam. I doubled over, gasping for

  breath. ‘You need to pay us transit tax,’ the soldier said, looking at Sami. ‘A hundred dollars each.’ Sami laughed, ‘I’ll pay you twenty. I need the rest for the journey.’ I straightened back up. Adam looked scared. The smaller soldier stood right in front of Sami and grabbed her arse. ‘I’ve got a job,’ the soldier said. ‘And my heart’s not defective. Why don’t you ditch your husband let

  me show you a good time?’ ‘Take your filthy hand off me,’ Sami snarled. ‘Or what?’ the soldier laughed, patting his rifle. ‘I don’t want any trouble,’ Sami said. ‘Jake, give him a few dollars.’ ‘No,’ the little soldier said. ‘I think the three of you better come with us to the barracks.’ The taller soldier laughed, ‘The young lady must learn to respect the army of our beloved president.’ ‘Hand’s on your heads,’ the short soldier said. ‘Legs apart.’ If they patted us down, they’d find the pistols in our belts, but we couldn’t do anything to resist as long as there was a gun inches from Adam’s face. Sami was on the same wavelength as me. The second the tall soldier let go of his gun to pat me down, we both pulled our pistols. ‘On your knees,’ Sami shouted. The soldiers dropped down. Everything went quiet. There were a hundred sets of eyes on us. ‘Drop your guns,’ Sami said. The soldiers unhooked their shoulder straps and put the guns on the floor. ‘Get them Adam.’ Adam slung the two rifles over his shoulder. Sami grabbed our identification papers back and shot the

  short soldier in the kneecap. ‘Still want to touch me up, pervert?’ Sami shouted. The soldier squirmed in agony. She stamped on his hand and kicked him in the face. We ran off down a narrow alleyway. We each grabbed one of the rifles off Adam, our pistols wouldn’t be much use if we got in a shoot out. We had no idea what direction we were heading in, only that we needed to move fast if we wanted to stay out of prison. The alleyway branched onto a busy road. There were a few soldiers about. Everyone we passed stared at

  our guns. ‘This is screwed,’ Sami said. ‘Which way?’ ‘Taxi rank,’ Adam said. Adam had spotted a line of taxis a couple of hundred metres away. We ran up to the head of the line. I

  got in the front seat of a Mazda, Adam and Sami in the back. ‘Drive,’ Sami shouted, slamming her door She jabbed her M16 in the back of the driver’s head. He spilled half a cup of coffee in his lap before

  hitting the accelerator. ‘Where to?’ The driver asked, swerving into the traffic. I looked at Sami, she looked back at me. Neither of us had a clue. ‘What’s the fastest way for us to get out of town?’ I asked. I grabbed a bundle of money out of my trousers. ‘I can pay whatever it takes.’ The driver’s eyes lit up when he saw the money. ‘I can take you to the edge of town,’ the driver said. ‘There will be an Army driver who will take you for

  sure, but offer less money. If he thinks you’re rich, he’ll probably try and rob you.’ ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Take us there.’ The driver took a couple of lefts so we were heading in the opposite direction. He drove us through the disused docks to a four way junction. There was a signpost with an arrow pointing towards Blake. I dangled a fan of hundred dollar notes in front of the driver. ‘What will you say if someone asks us where we dropped you?’ The driver smiled, ‘By the old brewery on the opposite side of town.’ ‘Good stuff,’ I said, dropping the money in his lap. The driver gave us a friendly wave before he pulled away. ‘This is stupid,’ Sami said. ‘This is the first place they’ll come looking for us.’ ‘We could start walking,’ I said. ‘Maybe we’d be better off going back and hiding out in the docks until things calm down.’ ‘The army isn’t that efficient,’ I said. ‘As long as we get picked up fairly soon, I think we’ll be OK.’ ‘OK,’ Sami said. ‘We’ll start walking. Anything’s better than standing around here waiting to get

  busted.’ We weren’t set up for a long walk. We had no water or food. It hadn’t rained overnight and the roads

  were drying quickly in the hot sun. A few army trucks passed by. They could be looking for us, so while I flagged them down, Sami hid in the bushes with an M16 just in case. Nobody stopped. One guy chucked a beer bottle at my head and as he passed by. We soon got desperate for water and started to worry that we might have to walk the whole two hundred kilometres to Blake, which would take four or five days. A few kilometres later, we spotted a white Landcruiser coming towards us. I started waving frantically.

  It pulled up ahead of us. We chased after it. The woman inside wore a pale blue nurses uniform. ‘Where are you heading kids?’ She asked. ‘The capital,’ I said. ‘We’re hoping to pick up a ride into Blake. I can give you five hundred dollars for

  your trouble.’ The woman stroked her chin, ‘I’m not heading through Blake, but I can do you one better and take

  you as far as Nebulae.’ Sami looked at me, ‘Nebulae is in Captain’s notes. Blake isn’t.’ ‘Fantastic,’ I said, looking at the nurse. ‘Thanks very much.’ The three of us chucked our packs over the back of the seat into the boot. ‘I’m Maya,’ the woman said, reaching over to shake our hands. Maya pulled away. The vehicle was air conditioned and made a nice job of the bumps in the road. Sami jabbed me in the ribs. She’d found the page about Nebulae in Captain’s notes:

  Prosperous town, centre of gold and oil industries. Second largest city after the capital. Far away from all rebel activity, so there are very few road blocks and soldiers. The local police can be brutal and should be avoided.

  I slid the notes over my lap so Adam could read it as well. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up. It

  looked like we’d landed on our feet. ‘What do you do in Nebulae?’ Sami asked. ‘I’m an assistant to a plastic surgeon.’ ‘Nose jobs and breast enlargements?’ I asked. ‘We do a little private work to help make ends meet,’ Maya said. ‘But mostly we help people burned in

  the war. Our money comes from a French charity.’ Once she got used to us, Maya let Sami take a shift at the wheel. There were a few roadblocks along the way. Maya kept a stash of twenty dollar bills in the glove compartment. The soldiers grabbed the banknotes and pulled the spikes out of the road. We didn’t get asked for our documents once.

  Sami offered to drive on through the night, but Maya said it was too dangerous. Apparently the area was notorious for bandits who hijacked cars and left you for dead. Shortly before sundown, we pulled into a petrol station with a small guest house at the back. The owner and his wife came out and hugged Maya. ‘Nice to see you again,’ the owner said. ‘I see you’ve picked up more strays.’ Maya looked back at us and laughed. The owner had a long dining table in his kitchen. He gave us all beers while his wife ran around like a lunatic cooking up something that smelled great. They had a daughter Adam’s age. Once the two kids got over their shyness, they started lobbing food at each other and messing about. I grabbed Adam as he chased around the table and whispered in his ear. ‘Like your new girlfriend, Adam.’ He thumped my leg and wriggled out of my grip. It was nice seeing him able to act like a normal kid

  for a change. The food was amazing. Spicy rice, cooked banana, barbecued chicken and lamb. All the hotel guests ate around the table, about sixteen people in all. When we waddled off to our room, I was a bit drunk and so bloated I could barely move. The room was clean, with sleeping mats and a wash basin. There were
communal toilets and showers at the end of a corridor. I cuddled up to Sami, and kissed her neck. ‘I can feel home,’ I said. ‘We’re so close.’ Sami gently stroked my leg. Adam was creeping around in the dark. ‘Are you OK?’ I asked. Adam let out a guilty little giggle. He wasn’t far away. ‘What are you up to?’ Adam cracked a massive fart right in me and Sami’s faces. He ran back to his sleeping mat, shrieking

  with laughter. ‘Little sod,’ Sami moaned. ‘That stinks.’ Adam started laughing even harder. ‘You wait until you fall asleep,’ Sami said. ‘Then you’ll be sorry.’ ‘What are you going to do?’ Adam asked. Sami laughed, ‘You’ll know soon enough.’ I whispered in Sami’s ear, ‘What are you planning?’ ‘Nothing,’ She whispered back. ‘I just want to make him paranoid.’ ‘What are you whispering about?’ Adam asked. ‘Evil plans,’ I said. ‘Evil plans.’

  30. MUM

  We passed a mural at the side of the tarmac road. It depicted an oil derrick, a bag of gold and a row of smiling children, the message read Welcome to Nebulae, the economic capital. It was a weird mix of wealth and poverty. There were as many Mercedes and Range Rovers on the roads as in the wealthiest parts of London, but there were also decrepit busses stuffed with passengers and overloaded trucks belching out fumes. Shacks along the side of the highway were broken occasionally by smart business parks containing the local offices of international companies.

  There were no soldiers or army traffic. No sense of the civil war at all. The familiar logos of big corporations made me feel comfortable. If they were here, there had to be links to the outside world. Satellite phones, internet, whatever. I didn’t quite know how I would get my hands on it, but it was here for sure.

  Maya pulled off the main highway and drove a couple of kilometres on tarmaced roads past rows of large, tired looking, houses. They all had cars parked out front and the grass at the sides of the road was neatly mowed. The little kids in the street were on bikes and wore clean shorts and designer name trainers. The road branched in two. Maya was heading up a steep hill towards her home. ‘There’s no point you going up here with me,’ Maya said. She pulled up at the side of the road. I reached over the rear seat and grabbed our packs. ‘You need to cut through the next road on the left, past all the fancy houses,’ Maya said. ‘Walk until you come to a main road, then turn left and it’s about five kilometres to the city centre. There are plenty of reasonable hotels if you want to get a room and freshen up. Watch out for pickpockets, they’re everywhere in the city centre.’

  I opened the door and started throwing our stuff into the road. Sami leaned forward and gave Maya a hug. ‘Thanks for your help,’ Sami said. ‘Are you sure you won’t take some money for the diesel?’ Maya waved her hand in front of her face, ‘I would have used that fuel anyway, don’t worry about it.’ We slung on our packs and slammed the car doors. Maya gave us a quick wave and drove away. We started heading down the road towards the estate. Following Maya’s instructions, we turned left through a set of freshly painted black gates. The houses looked new. They were all detached, with two or three storeys, neatly mowed lawns and expensive looking cars parked on brick driveways. It was quiet, except for the gentle thrip thrip of water sprinklers on the lawns. Sami looked impressed. ‘I could live here quite happily,’ Sami said. ‘Our house in England is bigger than these,’ Adam said. We noticed there was a standpipe at the front of one of the houses. We turned on the tap, drank a few

  mouthfuls each and splashed water over our faces. ‘You better move on,’ a man shouted. I looked up. A muscular man wearing nothing but a pair of denim shorts was walking towards us. ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked. ‘I’m just having a drink.’ The man smiled, ‘I don’t have a problem. I’m just the gardener, but if the security guards see you,

  you’ll get a hard time.’ ‘No worries,’ I said. ‘We’re not hanging around anyway.’ I noticed there were a couple of satellite dishes on top of the house. One dish had a Globeranger logo on it, I recognised it from the faceplate of my Dad’s satellite phone. ‘Is there a satellite phone in the house?’ I asked. ‘I believe so,’ the gardener said. ‘Would you let us inside to use it?’ The gardener laughed, ‘Why would I do that? I’d lose my job if they caught me.’ ‘How much do you earn?’ I asked, pulling some money out of my trousers. ‘Three seventy-five a week,’ I counted out sixteen hundred dollars. ‘That’s a months wages,’ I said. ‘We’ll be inside for less than ten minutes.’ ‘Two thousand,’ the gardener said. I pushed the money back in my pocket, ‘Forget it then.’ ‘OK, OK,’ the gardener grinned. ‘It’s a fair price. Come quickly, before the security car sees us.’ We rushed up the path into the air conditioned house. It was done up with lots of money and no taste. The satellite base station was on a faux antique telephone stand in the hallway. I grabbed the black handset and found the international code for Britain on a laminated card beside the phone. I dialled the number. It started to ring. Adam put his ear next to the receiver. I heard my Mum’s voice:

  ‘Hello, this is the Amanda Pascal speaking. I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone at the moment. If you leave a message I’ll call you back, soon as poss.’

  ‘Mum, it’s me, Jake. If you’re there pick up the bloody phone. Adam is with me. We’re in a town called Nebulae. At the moment we’re in a street called The Estate on the northern side of the city. I’ll try and contact you again later. I don’t know when.’ I put the receiver down. ‘Bloody answer phone,’ I said. ‘Try her mobile,’ Adam said. ‘Can you remember the number?’ Adam grabbed the handset and dialled it in. It started ringing. ‘This is the voicemail for zero nine five six seven…’ I left another message. ‘Do you know the number for Dad’s office?’ Adam asked. ‘Its zero two seven something,’ I said. ‘I never needed to remember it. I had it programmed in my

  mobile.’ I put the phone down. ‘No luck?’ Sami asked. I shook my head, ‘She must be at the hairdressers or something. I’ll have to try again from somewhere

  else.’ ‘Are you leaving now?’ The gardener asked. ‘Looks like it,’ I said. ‘She’s not home.’ I picked my pack off the floor and shoved Adam towards the door. We walked down the front path and started on past the houses. We didn’t get far before a police siren

  whooped a few metres behind us. A tinny message came out of a loudspeaker between the flashing lights. ‘Stop where you are.’ The car pulled up in front of us. It had the words Private Security and a golden shield painted on the

  side. A fat man got out of the drivers seat and walked towards us. ‘What do you know about gnomes?’ The guard asked accusingly. ‘What are gnomes?’ Sami asked. Acting all innocent eh?’ The guard laughed. ‘I’ve seen you kids around. I saw you around two days ago,

  the night all Mr Tembupo’s gnomes were smashed up.’ ‘We’ve only been in the city an hour,’ Adam said. ‘Show me your identity papers,’ the guard said, drumming his fingers on the holstered pistol in his belt. I reached in my pocket to get the papers. I could have grabbed my pistol as easily, but I wanted to avoid

  trouble if I could. ‘Hey,’ the gardener shouted. He was running down the path towards us. The security guard turned his backs to us. He was such an

  amateur, he wouldn’t have lasted two seconds against a real criminal. ‘Do you know these three?’ The security guard asked. ‘Yes, they are staying at the house,’ the gardener said. ‘There is a phone call for them.’ The security guard handed me back the papers, ‘You should have said you were residents. Sorry to have

  bothered you.’ I ran back towards the house. ‘It’s a lady,’ the gardener said. ‘She seems very upset.’ I ran inside the house and picked up the receiver. ‘Mum?’ ‘Oh my god,’ Mum sobbed. ‘I was in the gym. I got the number on my caller ID. Are you OK?’ ‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘Is your Dad there?’ ‘He stayed on the plane,’ I said. ‘I’m pretty sure he’s dead.’ ‘How’s Adam?’ ‘He’s got a bit of a burn on his head, apart from that he’s OK.’ ‘Can you get to Nebulae airport?’ Mum asked. ‘I expect we can get a taxi.’ ‘I
’ll send one of the Air Amanda planes up from the capital. It should be there in three or four hours.

  You’re not too scared to fly anymore are you?’ ‘Mum, if it gets us out of here, I’m getting on it.’ ‘I’ll get on the first flight out of London. I should be in the capital by this evening, provided I can get a

  seat.’ Adam nudged me, ‘You better tell her about Sami.’ ‘Oh Mum, make sure there’s a third seat on the plane, for my wife.’ ‘Your what?’ ‘My wife. I sort of um… got married.’ ‘Only sort of?’ ‘We’re married,’ I stumbled. ‘Her name’s Sami.’ ‘That was your Grandmother’s name,’ Mum said. ‘You don’t mind then?’ Mum laughed, ‘I couldn’t give a shit if you’ve got six wives as long as you’re alive.’ ‘Listen Mum, the guy who’s letting us use this phone could lose his job if he gets caught. So I’ll just let

  you say a quick hello to Adam, then I’ll have to go.’ ‘OK Jake,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll see you some time tonight or tomorrow, bye.’ I handed Adam the receiver and gave Sami a kiss. ‘That’s it,’ I said to her. ‘Mum’s sending us a plane. We’re going home.’