by S. G Mark
“Can we turn over please? I’m sick of seeing my ugly mug.”
“Well good luck cos it’s going to be on every channel!” she laughed, “Anyway, we’ve only got a few more mins before ShutDown. Best get the candles out.”
She got up and dug out a collection from a dresser nearby. Throwing a couple at Jack, she set about lighting some by the window and another on the coffee table. Jack went through to the kitchen and lit some in there. At the same time he took it upon himself to fill a bucket of drinking water for them both, taking liberties by helping himself to a few extra glasses himself.
From the kitchen, there was a gorgeous view of the bay below. The grey skies were now a hardened black and as he gazed out through the venetian blinds he saw the rest of humanity snap into palette. Simultaneously the cottage lights went out and all was cast in glowing gold.
“How are you feeling?” Emma asked, leaning against the kitchen doorway with a lantern in her hand.
“Exhausted,” he said.
“Frightened?”
He nodded.
“Not nearly frightened enough,” she swept through the kitchen and into the hallway.
Jack followed her, “What do you mean by that?”
He found her in a small bedroom off the hallway. Two single beds had been made and she was setting the lantern down on the bedside table between them. It was then that he saw the quilts were cartoon themed.
“Children’s beds,” she said, “For two boys if you must know.”
It all suddenly became clear why she had brought him here; why it was cluttered despite being empty.
“Welcome to my house,” she smiled, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You’re not the only one who feels shit tonight.”
Rain wildly battered the windows as they sat in the darkness of the living room. They had cracked open a bottle of vodka and were seeking solace in the buzz from drinking on an empty stomach. Emma was staring at her own nearly finished glass - and Jack was contemplating whether she, too, felt the same shameful yearning for another.
It was a crux. An all-too-easy way to obtain temporary amnesia from life. Jack savoured every drop as he desperately clung to the illusions his mind created from the denial. When he was drunk he could forget he was a part of The Resistance, that he’d abandoned Eliza and that he was not only a murderer, but rapidly ascending to the most wanted man in the country. Rather than when Jack couldn’t make sense of the events, he drank to make them become crystal clear. It wasn’t a series of mishaps that had brought him to drinking the dusty vodka on the side of a Devonshire cliff; each and every unfortunate event had been his own creation. From his lies of who he was, to the way he handled the fallout; from his own stupidity over his feelings for Eliza, to choosing to become part of The Resistance. It all spiralled out of the same, mundane truth that even Jack was too ashamed to admit.
“They left here about six months ago,” Emma said, wiping a tear from her cheek, “Went to stay with his parents cos they couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage… and of course nobody wants to buy it. So it just sits here, and rots.”
“Is this the first time you’ve been back?”
Emma shook her head solemnly, “I watched them leave. From a car at the end of the road I saw them pack up the car with their stuff and drive off. My little boys.”
“You didn’t…?”
“Of course not,” she regained control of herself, “But look at me now, scratching back to the past. I didn’t think I was this weak.”
Jack put his glass on the coffee table and sat on the sofa next to her, putting an arm around her.
“I know how you feel,” he said, rubbing her back, “The number of times I just want to drop everything and go back to Edinburgh, back to Eliza…”
Bloodshot eyes, Emma looked up at him, “You must miss her a lot.”
“Like crazy,” he said, gazing out at the view of the bay through the window, “But I know I can’t see her until this is over.”
“Do you know if she’s okay?”
He shrugged his shoulders, “I trust that Alex would tell me otherwise.”
“And what…” Emma began, hesitantly, “What would you do if she wasn’t okay? Would you still fight?”
It was a question Jack was unable to answer. He had pondered the question many times before and had drawn blank every time. The truth was, he wasn’t sure who he was fighting for now. It was a mess of emotions and no single strand led to anywhere distinguishable. He remembered back to the beginning, when he promised to fight if only for Eliza. Since then, his reasons to stay had continued to grow. He wasn’t sure if Eliza was at the core of his strength anymore. He wasn’t entirely sure he had any strength left.
Emma had sensed her question was without answer and quickly moved the subject on.
“So how does it feel?” she asked, “To be leader?”
“I’m not leader,” Jack said hastily.
“I know,” she smiled, “At least until Alex returns, you do give the orders.”
“Well then it feels fucking strange,” he reached over for his glass, “Sitting here watching the waves beat against the cliffs, the land where I’m plastered all over the media feels half the world away. Truth is I don’t feel ready. I still don’t feel ready to leave HQ and it’s been nearly two years.”
Emma smiled comfortingly and rubbed his arm, “Your innocence always manages to surprise me. Actually, it’s quite refreshing.”
“Really? I’m quite tired of it,” he said, “I wish I was as hard as you are. But I’m not.”
He cupped his glass and stared into its contents.
“Sometimes I feel the only strength I have comes from this stuff,” he continued, “I’m a coward compared to you.”
She held his chin up, “And yet I’m not the one who killed the Home Secretary. You got closer than anyone else ever has.”
“It’s not like it hasn’t been done before,” Jack was quick to correct her, “Didn’t we kill his predecessor?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, “Remotely detonating a bomb in a public place as opposed to breaking into the man’s house and shooting him in the head? I know which one I revere most.”
“It wasn’t that easy and you know it,” he said, taking another sip.
“Maybe not,” she said, “But you did it. You killed him. And not long after you killed another by all accounts.”
Jack instantly felt disgusted. He had hoped the events in Richmond Park would not follow him, but it appeared his hope was ill placed.
“You really want to know how it was to kill those people?” Jack snapped, “Fucking terrifying. And not because what they might have done to me. I wasn’t worried about what they would do to me - no, I was petrified about where it would take me. I killed Quentin. I had to. But killing Quentin led me to killing Julian, and now I’m wondering who next? The worst part is I’m not sure what I feel about their deaths anymore. I feel responsible, but it’s so fucking remote it barely fucking registers to me. It feels like someone else killed them and it was just my fault that it happened at all.”
“Like what happened to your sister?”
“But worse,” tears trickled uncontrollably from his eyes.
Emma sighed heavily. Jack couldn’t blame her. There was no reconciling him.
“I mean how can I forgive myself?” he curled his hand into a fist with anger, “How can I move on from this? What now? I’m expected to live up to this… this leadership figure? They’re all fucking looking at me as if I have the answers! But I don’t! I don’t know anything about this fight other than we have to win it. I don’t know who the fucking enemy is. I don’t know what we need to do to win and if I’m really honest? I don’t think we can.”
He was standing up now, pacing by the window. The storm erupting outside was battling against the windows, which shook under its mighty power. The wind whistled whilst the rain thrashed at the glass leaving little watery scratches on the pane.
Emma stared at him from the sofa
. It was clear she was figuring out how to calm him, but had found no comforting words yet.
“So what do I do?” he asked her weakly, “Do I just pretend to be this person I’m not?”
Emma stood up and refreshed his glass with a healthy amount of vodka. She slid it across the coffee table to him.
“Yes,” she said simply, “That’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
It wasn’t the answer he was expecting.
“If you don’t believe in yourself that’s fine, but there are a lot of people out there who are reading the news and wondering why this young man has shot dead someone in the government. Maybe the media will spin it and turn it against us, but what happens to the few who don’t believe that? They are going to continue to wonder and maybe they’ll try to seek out others who are also wondering the same thing. A whole new generation of The Resistance will be looking up to you for a way out of this shithole. And that’s not even counting the scores of existing members who have been looking for a reason to celebrate, who have been so desperately wishing for some semblance of a victory over this fucking government? So what do you say? You can’t live up to their expectations? You fucking set the expectation.”
Jack looked at her from across the room, glass poised in his hand.
“God, you’re fucking good.”
*
Three days later Jack found himself in a small village in Cumbria, preparing himself to speak to The Resistance leadership meeting. Devin, Kyle and Melanie had all travelled North to meet him in a tiny basement safe house owned by the local butcher, Damian Craig, who at present was pottering upstairs and creaking over the floorboards. The man’s movements were making Jack nervous, but he was striving to be in control of his emotions this time.
Emma had left that afternoon. She had been called away by one of her sources and Jack couldn’t help but feel a little relieved she wasn’t going to be there. Over the course of the past few days he had connected with her emotionally and though he was more mentally prepared for things to come, he did feel slightly vulnerable in front of her. She knew everything - from his sister, to his feelings for Eliza and the complications between himself and Alex. Emma knew his weaknesses and Jack felt she was a walking reminder of them. To not have her attend the meeting meant he could forget exactly what it was that was holding him back in the first place.
Jack shuffled his notes on the table in front of him. Kyle was stirring his tea and Melanie was just freshening herself upstairs. Devin was staring at him and though Jack tried to ignore it, it was getting to him.
Over the course of the past three days, Jack’s fame had rocketed. Cameron Snowden had vowed to make him face the full justice of the law, the precise details of which were left open to Jack’s imagination. Thankfully, Jack was safe in the confines of Emma’s old house. They didn’t leave it at all for the entire duration of their stay. They kept the candles to a minimum and ensured the curtains at the front were drawn at all times. Fortunately there were no nearby neighbours that could be curious, but they were taking every precaution.
They whiled the days away playing old board games Emma used to play with her husband and children. For food, they lived off powdered noodles and tap water. The weather provided the most invigorating entertainment. As the television produced a conveyor belt of updates on his supposed whereabouts, interspersed with hapless romantic dramas and canned laughter comedies, the storms outside were an ever changing war of currents, gale force winds and fierce rain. The waves crashed hypnotically against the cliffside as small boats rocked up and down on the white crests.
Kyle sipped his tea as Melanie shuffled down the wooden staircase into the dimly lit basement. A singular bulb hung over the table was the only source of light. The darkness played vignette around their backs. Taking her place beside Devin, Melanie looked eagerly up at Jack.
“Have some exciting news,” she grinned, “But it can wait until later.”
Anxious to get through his part first, Jack started the meeting.
“Right, well, thank you for all coming here on such short notice,” he immediately felt like an idiot, “Can’t have been easy getting out of London… mind if you don’t look like me it’s probably easier.”
His audience returned awkward laughter.
“Well after a few days of sea air,” he restarted, “I’ve come to a few conclusions… Firstly, we need to track our MPs more carefully. I also want them to know that we are tracking them. So can we continue what we’ve been doing with them? Secondly, we need to know as much as we can about Cameron Snowden? I think we can all agree that he didn’t start this war -”
Devin looked poised to ask a question. Jack nodded his permission.
“I think we have to appreciate what happened to David White as well,” he said, “The man just vanished and Cameron, who from all media record of them together, was very close to David.”
“Good point,” Jack said, “We have to know as much about these people as possible. I mean what do we have here… David White was pretty uncharismatic? Suddenly he is Prime Minister and a fairly well favoured one at that until he was suddenly imprisoned for, what was it, fraud?”
“Well that has to be utter shite to begin with,” Kyle piped up, “If you’re Prime Minister you can at least bury any evidence of criminal activity until you’re out of office.”
“So who wanted him gone?”
“Cameron?”
“Well he did get into power unelected,” Melanie suggested, “Who’s to say the internal election for his position wasn’t rigged?”
“Cameron couldn’t have waited until the next election?”
“People are strange around power,” Kyle said, “It’s possible.”
Jack paused and waited for the speculation to die down.
“On the other hand,” he said, “The one thing that remains consistent through either of their terms is the state that the country is in. From what I’ve been told, the economy has improved slightly under Cameron, but it was still David White who created the CRU. He still was the first Prime Minister to introduce Martial Law. As far as I can see, Cameron is just continuing David’s legacy. Why? Just for power? It doesn’t really make sense, does it?”
Melanie shook her head; Devin interlaced his fingers. Kyle was ready with a response.
“What we have to focus is on is why either of them are doing this in the first place. Martial Law, encouraging people to squeal on their friends, neighbours, family - that’s all part of a control mechanism, but a control for what? What does the government want them to do be frightened of, except themselves?”
“Maybe that’s the point?” Jack interrupted, “Maybe they want us to be distracted with our own fears whilst they… I don’t know, do what they want?”
The room fell silent. Jack felt ashamedly stupid for a brief second until Devin smiled broadly at him.
“You’re quite good aren’t you?” he smirked.
Feeling slightly embarrassed, Jack swiftly started talking again, “So that’s settled then, we find out more about the government’s plans? Melanie, can you and Kim send in daily reports to me about the MPs movements? Try and see what their relationship is to either David White or Cameron Snowden. How did they meet, are they close?”
Melanie nodded, taking a note of her action.
“Secondly - we are still on second, right - I think we need to have some focus on tackling local CRUs and community projects. Refusal to participate can mean jail term or heavy fines. From one of her sources, it is the fifth reported crime in the country, ahead of rape, which is fucking disgusting. Has anyone here been involved in the Community Service projects? As far as I know they are just improving local gardens and cleaning up graffiti?”
Devin interjected at this point.
“It’s true, it’s mainly feel good community projects, but as you say it’s mandatory and many people are coming off long shifts before being forced to do this additional work. I’ve heard non-attendance carries a minimum jail te
rm of three months - though I have heard cases where people haven’t returned from this.”
“Fucking hell,” Jack sighed, “We need more people investigating this. Does anyone have people who are currently involved in any of these projects? Can we get them to find out more about them, more about the public opinion towards them?”
“I have a few people who are acting as Community Project Leaders,” Devin said, “They are already leaking bits and pieces to me, I can get you what information I already have?”
“Done,” Jack fired his finger across the desk, “Right, moving on....”
With each passing second he was feeling much more confident and when Kyle caught his eye and nodded very gently, he felt a surge of acceptance.
“What have we found out about the lot numbers, from Quentin’s emails?”
Jack looked to Kyle for an update, who leant forward very gravely.
“There’s no public record of them,” he sighed, “Which immediately made me suspicious. So I dug a little deeper. I bribed a man at the Central Planning Department and he slipped me a copy of an early blueprint of a building under the same lot name from Quentin’s emails.”
Kyle stood up and brought out a roll of paper from underneath his chair and spread it across the table. They all rose to their feet for a better view of it.
The building itself appeared to be simply an outline with no distinguishable detail to determine its purpose. However, there was no denying the scale of it. Whatever it was designed for, it was something huge.
Kyle swept a hand across it, “Area wise, it’s about three thousand square feet. There appears to be only one entrance and there are no windows. Curiously,” he pointed at a thin line that ran the entire length of the building, “This doesn’t appear to be a wall, according to the key. I thought it might be a partition, but why have one for the whole building? What’s the point?”
“Could it just be an architecture feature?” Jack suggested.