The Fearless (26 page)

I wish I was going with them.

That evening, I’m lying on my bunk, thinking about Cass, when a Magpie marches into my tent. ‘Colonel Brett has asked to see you,’ she says in a heavily accented voice. I think she’s Spanish – a lot of the Magpies are from other countries. Irritated at having my daydream about miraculously being reunited with Cass interrupted, I suppress a sigh and sit up. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I say. The girl is only a few years older than me, and only a private, but right now, even she ranks above me. Which pisses me off no end.

I step into my boots, adjust my uniform – a black jacket, shirt and combats – and slosh along the muddy paths between the tents to Colonel Brett’s office, a Portakabin near the fence. I’m still stunned at how organized the Magpies are. They have horses, vehicles, seemingly endless supplies of weapons and clothes and food. God knows where they get it all.

I knock smartly on the Portakabin door, and wait for Brett to call, ‘Enter!’

‘Ah, Brightman, take a seat,’ he says from behind his desk when I go in. The office is dimly lit by a single bulb, run off the same generators that power the fence. A little wood stove burns in one corner. Brett has papers spread out in front of him. As I sit down, he pushes them to one side. ‘You’re probably wondering why I’ve asked you to come here.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I say.

‘I’ve been keeping an eye on you, Brightman. And I’m impressed. You’re fast and you’re strong. Just the sort of person we need in the Magpies.’

I smile. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Brett’s expression remains serious. ‘However, I get the feeling, sometimes, that you’re not taking things here quite as seriously as you should.’

‘I – I don’t understand, sir.’

He leans his elbows on his desk, steepling his fingers. ‘I’ve had reports from my field commanders that you often appear bored, or try to cut corners. I know, Brightman, that you feel your training on that island of yours was adequate preparation for you to become a fully fledged Magpie – no pun intended – but believe me, what we’re trying to do here is in a whole different league from those
bodyguards
your father employed.’

I feel anger building up inside me, and clench my fists down by my sides where he can’t see them.

‘Yes, sir,’ I say.

‘It’s imperative that everybody here sticks to the plan. We’re not just trying to rebuild the country here – we’re trying to rebuild the whole
world
. If you could see some of the things I’ve seen, Brightman . . .’

‘What
have
you seen, sir?’ The question bursts out of me before I can stop it, and, deciding I’m probably screwed anyway, I go on, ‘I mean, where did you come from? Where did the
Magpies
come from? How did they get all these supplies?’

I tense, waiting for him to yell at me for disrespect. Instead, he smiles. ‘I suppose it’s only fair I fill you in, seeing as your father and I worked together so closely at one time.’ Then his smile vanishes. ‘I’m only telling you this because you already know what we did, mind you. This is not common knowledge, understand?’

I nod.

He leans back in his chair, making it creak. ‘Just before the Invasion hit, I fled the country and used my share of the money from what your father and I did to buy a military bunker in a remote corner of the French Alps. Other people paid me to let them have a place there too.

‘But guilt ate away at me. In the end, I decided I had to stop sitting around and do something. So I started gathering people together. Getting organized. We met up with other groups who had managed to survive and, slowly, we started building armies of people to go after the Fearless and take them down. We killed them at first, but then we realized we were letting a huge resource go to waste, so we came up with the procedure we use now, which allows us to put them to use again.’

The procedure
. I’ve heard rumours about it, but I’ve never actually seen it. I’d love to, though.

‘We were more successful than we could ever have hoped,’ Brett goes on. ‘All over Europe, and even further afield, societies are being rebuilt. That’s why I decided it was time for me to return here and see what I could do. There are still many unAltered people left who, with help, could return this part of the world to the way it used to be, but better.’

Brett leans forward. Suddenly, his expression, which has been almost friendly, is grave again. ‘I must say, Brightman, I was very disappointed in your father. We both acted like cowards in the beginning, but when I came to Hope and explained what we were doing, I hoped he would see the error of his ways.’

I’ve been disappointed in him for years
, I think, although what I say is, ‘Did my father know about you?’

Brett shakes his head. ‘Our trip to the island was the first time I’d spoken to him since everything went wrong.’ He fixes me with a steely glare. ‘
You’re
not going to let me down, are you?’

‘Absolutely not, sir!’ I say.

‘Your father owes society a big debt. Eventually, he won’t have any choice but to come on board, but in the meantime, it’s up to you to prove that not all Brightmans are quitters or cowards.’

The enormity of what he’s saying slowly sinks in. My father’s debt is my debt, and because he won’t pay it back, I have to. Brett owns me. My dreams of a glittering future in the Magpies crumble, and in that moment, I despise my father more than I’ve ever done in my entire life.

‘Yes, sir,’ I say. My throat is so tight with rage that my voice sounds stiff.

‘You are dismissed,’ Brett says.

I return to my tent and flop down on my bunk again, my thoughts returning instantly to Cass. If only she was here, I could bear this, somehow. Where is she? Is she even alive?

Please, please, please let her be OK
, I think, closing my eyes.

Because the only thing that’s keeping me going now is the hope that I might see her again.

‘Myo. Myo. Wake up!’

It’s Gina. I wish she’d go away. My head hurts. I want to go back to sleep. It can’t be time to get up yet.

‘Myo, wake up, or I’ll slap you, I swear to God.’

She shakes my shoulder, making pain bolt through my skull. I prise my eyelids open. ‘Screw you,’ I say. My voice sounds weird – blurry and thick.

‘Oh, thank God,’ she says, and I remember I’m not in my bed. I’m not at the bunker at all. I’m in the roof space of the Torturehouse.

‘Cass!’ I gasp, sitting up. ‘Where is she? Did the Fearless woman get her?’

‘She must have done,’ Gina says. ‘She’s not here.’

‘We have to get her back!’ I touch the back of my head, steeling myself for the sticky, wet feel of blood, but to my relief, my fingers come away dry. Then I realize, with a stab of panic, that I’m not wearing my eyepatch. What happened to it? I’ve never been able to wear lenses like the others do – I’m allergic to them – so it’s the only way to hide my eye. What if Cass—

‘No,’ Gina says.

‘What do you mean?’ I say. ‘Cy’s down there, and Mara – we saw them! Cass’s brother could be there too!’

‘We have to get out of here. It’s too dangerous. That woman or some other Fearless will come back for us soon. We need to find somewhere where Ben can rest so his leg can heal.’

‘So we’re just gonna
leave
them?’

‘I’m sorry. We don’t have any choice. We haven’t got our weapons, and Ben’s leg’s too badly hurt for him to fight.’

‘No.’ It comes out as a guttural moan. ‘
No
.’

‘Stop being so bloody stupid,’ Ben says behind us. He’s sitting beside my pack. I remember dropping it when I saw the Fearless woman behind Cass; he must have fetched it. ‘If we stay here, we’ll all get caught.’

‘But we can’t leave her!’ I cry, not caring if the Fearless hear me.

‘Who?’ The sarcasm in Ben’s voice is bruising. ‘Mara? Or Cass?’

I don’t answer.

‘Maybe we need to accept that this is where Mara should be,’ Ben says. ‘Among her own people.’ Gina looks round at him with a shocked expression and starts to say something, but he cuts her off with a shake of his head. ‘And as for Cass, seriously, Myo, what were you thinking?’

‘She saved my
life
,’ I say.

‘You’re in love with her, aren’t you.’ It’s not a question. His tone is blunt and accusing.

And I want to tell him no, of course I’m not.

But I can’t.

‘
Jesus Christ
,’ Ben snarls. ‘You’re even more of an idiot than I thought. We’re half-Fearless, Myo. People like her and people like us don’t mix.’

I move towards him, but Gina steps in front of him and grabs my wrists.

‘Myo, get a grip,’ she says through clenched teeth. ‘It’s over.’

‘You’re leaving Cy, too,’ I hiss at her. ‘You think Tana will be OK with that? And what about Tessie? We don’t even know if she’s here.’

She drops my wrists and turns to Ben. ‘I’ll take the pack. Me and Myo’ll go either side of you and help you walk.’

And I know, then, that there’s nothing I can do. I can’t fight this many Fearless on my own, even if half of them are incapacitated by the effects of the serum. I’ve failed Cass. I’ve failed her brother. I’ve failed Mara.

Gina’s right.

It’s over.

I drift back into consciousness through a haze of unfamiliar sounds. I’m freezing, and my whole face hurts, giving me a pounding headache. My mouth is dry, my lips stuck to my teeth. I’m lying on my side on something hard and rough and I can’t feel my right arm. Where am I? What’s happened?

I open my eyes. I still can’t feel my arm. I start to panic, then realize it’s gone numb because I’m lying on it.

Wincing, I roll over. I’m in a cage, which is just tall enough for me to sit up in if I hunch over and tuck my chin into my chest. The bottom is made from a sheet of plywood, spongy around the edges with damp, and the bars look like they’re made from table legs and bits of fencing, roughly welded together and powdery with rust.

My palm and fingers buzz with pins and needles as the circulation returns to my right arm. Carefully, I touch my nose.
Broken
, I think, licking blood off my top lip. I’ve been caught by the Fearless. How? The last clear memory I have is of helping Myo get rid of the Fearless man’s body. After that, my mind is blank.

‘Cass?’ someone whispers.

I look round, and my heart skips a beat.

‘Jori!’ I cry. My brother is in a cage directly opposite, no more than ten feet away. His green T-shirt is stained and ripped and filthy, his face pinched with exhaustion and fear. I scan his face anxiously, trying to see what colour his eyes are. To my relief, they’re still green.

‘Cass?’ he whispers again, as if he can’t quite believe it’s me.

I press myself against the front of the cage, wrapping my hands around the bars. ‘Are you OK?’ I say, my voice shaking.

Tears well from the corners of his eyes. ‘They keep giving me medicine. It makes me feel good at first, but then it makes me poorly.’ He turns his head sideways, lifting his hair up at the back, and I see, at the top of his spine, a two-centimetre-wide circle of bruised, scabby puncture-wounds. My heart skips a beat. How much serum has he had? Frantically, I feel the back of my own neck, but there’s nothing there.

Yet
.

More tears spill down Jori’s cheeks. ‘My head hurts.’

I want to tell him that it’s going to be OK, that I’m going to get him out of here. But this isn’t like the times I comforted him after he’d had a nightmare or convinced himself there was a monster lurking in the stairwell outside our apartment. This is
real
, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to make it better.

Someone moans. I look round. Cy’s scrunched up in the cage right next to me, one side of his face black and blue where someone’s hit him.

‘Cy,’ I say. ‘
Cy
.’

He looks at me with a dazed expression. At first, I’m not sure he even knows who I am, but then he says, ‘We really messed up, didn’t we? Where are the others?’

I scan the other cages, trying to see who’s in them. ‘I don’t think they’re here. Maybe they got away,’ I say, and feel a brief surge of hope, thinking they could be out there still, looking for a way to rescue us. Then I remember that Ben’s hurt.

And suddenly, with that one memory, everything else comes back to me.

I remember returning to the store with Myo.

I remember the Fearless woman grabbing hold of me as I climbed up into the ceiling.

I remember her punching Myo.

I remember her tearing off his eyepatch.

I remember his silver right eye.

Then I hear footsteps. Four Fearless walk into the middle of the circle of cages: the woman with one eye, two men, and the girl in the blue dress, who’s carrying a metal bucket. Again, I’m struck by how familiar she looks. She sets the bucket down. It contains little plastic syringes filled with a murky-looking liquid.

The other Fearless grab handfuls of the syringes, and the girl starts unlocking the padlocked cages, using the keys on the piece of ribbon around her neck. I watch in horror as one of the Fearless men reaches inside a cage and injects a girl in the back of the neck. The girl struggles briefly, then goes limp. The Fearless slings her against the back of her cage and moves on, leaving the girl to lock her up again.

‘No!’ Jori shouts when the one-eyed Fearless woman gets to him. ‘
No! Cass, help!
’

‘
Leave him alone!
’ I scream. All four Fearless ignore me. As soon as the woman injects Jori, he loses consciousness, the only indication he’s still breathing the faint, rapid up-down movement of his chest.

‘Jori . . .’ I whimper.

The girl in the blue dress stops in front of my and Cy’s cages. Her eyes are so pale they’re almost white. They seem to look right through me.

‘Mara, don’t do this, mate,’ Cy says as she steps towards his cage. ‘You know me, right? It’s Cy.’

Shock slams through me. Cy knows her?
How
?

Then I remember the tattoo on Myo’s hip.