The Three Most Wanted (11 page)

Since Piers?

Bane sighed—feeling rather old? “Well, for pity’s sake think about it, right?”

“We’ve got three years,” said Juwan again. “We’re hardly going to make a rushed decision.”

“We’re not joining the Underground, that’s for sure,” said Doms. “No offence. You don’t even fight the EuroGov—you just really piss them off.”

I shrugged and spread my hands.

“Actually,” said Bane unexpectedly, “I think the Underground fight the EuroGov just by existing.”

“Depends how you define
fight
, I suppose,” said Juwan wryly.

“So it is you and
Bane
, then, not you and Jon?” asked Doms the following evening, after watching Bane kiss me before heading off with Juwan to collect firewood.

“Oh yes,” I tried not to blush. “Definitely me and Bane.” Jon was asleep on the grass and Louis had gone off in a huff again, so it was just us two girls... women. “Jon and I just keep having to pretend. Well, you said you read the book...”

“Yeah, I knew it was supposed to be you and Bane. That’s one thing that was throwing me off when we first met. Because...” She glanced at Jon and frowned slightly, “…it doesn’t seem so like
he’s
pretending.”

My cheeks burned unstoppably, but I wasn’t going into that. “So you did suspect, then? Even in Vouziers?”

“Well, it did
cross
my mind, but I thought I was letting my imagination run away with me. ‘Cause your hair was wrong and what I could see of your face under the sunglasses was too thin, to say nothing of you being with the wrong guy.”

“So why the French when we were passing the policemen?”

“Oh, I
was
pretty damn sure you didn’t want to scan your IDs! I’m not stupid! I just thought, well, what the hell, let’s get them past. Being the good little EuroCitizen that I am!” She laughed bleakly.

“Well, thank you. We really appreciate... well, everything, y’know.”

She waved this away. “What’s the saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend? That’s one the Resistance could remember a bit more when it comes to the Underground.”

“I think they feel anyone who objects to them killing whoever they feel like is an enemy too.”

Doms shrugged. “Well, I’m not Resistance yet. Friends, then?” She stuck out her hand. I took it.

“Friends.”

She shook solemnly, then kissed me on both cheeks, French-style. It
was
nice to have her around—I loved Bane and Jon to bits, but they were both guys.

But there was something I needed to say. “Please think about what Bane said. He knows what he’s talking about. They tricked him into something he’s always going to regret. But he was brave enough to do the right thing and get out, though it means living with that guilt, rather than diving further in and trying to bury it—which was what they wanted.” Doms’s face had gone rather closed again. “Sorry, not meaning to nag...”

“Relax. Bane
has
given us something to think about, I admit. But there’s so
few
options. Would staying
out
really help? Feels like it would just achieve
nothing.”

“Might save you from having to choose between your life and your conscience somewhere down the line.”

“Yeah, but... perhaps some people standing up to them on the inside
is
what’s needed. ‘Cept they’ve got such a fatal way of dealing with opposition—inside or outside... I don’t know. I s’pose I’m glad we’ve got so long to think about it.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

She grinned, brightening. “This feels right, though—helping you guys. We’ll get you all the way to Rome, see if we don’t!”

I grinned back, then asked, “So how did you and Juwan... you know?”

She lit up even more. “He moved to our town from Paris when we were twelve. I thought he was the most handsome guy I’d ever seen the first time I set eyes on him. Didn’t tell
anyone
, of course. For several years I was kind of afraid to get to know him. I s’pose... you see why?”

I nodded. Liking someone you knew you could never have—if you’d even the smallest scrap of self-preservation, you’d try to keep your distance.

“Anyway, he hit it off really well with Piers, and they became best mates. I knew Piers too, so I hung out with Juwan now and then—tried really hard to think of him as a friend, y’know? When I was fifteen it started to get harder, somehow. I even decided I wasn’t going to be around him any more
at all
—but I s’pose it was too late. We saw more and more of each other, like neither of us could help it. And then one day when we were seventeen there was just this moment when I couldn’t bear it any more. And I kissed him. And he kissed me.” Her smile had gone rather dreamy at the memory.

“And then he was like, are you sure, are you sure, for about three months. And even after that he absolutely insisted we keep it secret. He couldn’t bear how people would treat me. I wasn’t too thrilled at the thought of how they’d treat him either. Piers and Louis know—knew—and my best friend, but that’s it in the whole world, other than you and Bane and Jon now.”

“Well, I’m happy for you. Though I just wish... the world was different.” It was bad enough the way some people treated
Bane
, his parents included, just because his skin was a little too dark for British C...

She nodded silently, but after a few moments, she burst out, “If Juwan and I stay
out
of the Resistance, what sort of life will we have? Well, we know, don’t we!”

I knew
of
such matches, even if I’d never actually seen one. Because they were unable to register with one another, when they turned thirty, the Stable Population Committee would match them with another unregistered person from their local area and demand they produce the regulation two children. They could split the kids with their assigned breeding partner, taking one each, so they’d end up with two to raise—neither the child of both of them. Wherever they went as a family, people would stare, mutter, perhaps even spit at them. The children would face a living hell at school—one black, one white, claiming to be siblings—an irresistible target for bullies... But...

“The Resistance hate the EuroGov, but that doesn’t mean they’re not just as bigoted as some of the rest of the population. I wouldn’t assume you’ll have an easier time of it with them.”

“But the whole thing about no Genetic Mixes was started by the EGD! It’s a major EuroGov policy! Before it started people registered with whoever they wanted, like they still do in Africa, and it did no harm at all. Surely the Resistance wouldn’t care!”

“Bullies just want targets, and I think there are a lot of bullies in the Resistance. Why don’t you just go to Africa? You’ve passed Sorting. You’re free to travel.”

“Because it’s not right!” Doms’s eyes were fierce, but they filled with tears as she went on, “Don’t you understand what we’d have to give up? My family would never speak to me again. And Juwan should inherit the family business one day, but they’d cut him off if they knew about us. And...
it shouldn’t be like this!”

“Won’t they do that anyway if you... live together... here? Sooner or later, if you want to raise children... you’ll have to go public.”

“Juwan doesn’t even want children any more. Not after... Piers.”

“If he stays here, they won’t give him a choice, will they?”

“I don’t know.” Doms’ face went bleak. “I’m rather afraid... I’m afraid he thinks if we join the Resistance... by the time we’re thirty we’ll be compromised and living in a safe house anyway, so it won’t come up. Which... doesn’t seem like a terribly good solution to me.”

“Heavens, no! Well, it’s none of my business, but for what it’s worth, I vote for Africa. You can live a long happy life as a normal family, without making a mess of your conscience.”

“Not by killing, maybe,” said Doms. “But I’m not sure what it will do to my conscience to sally off to Africa and leave
this
wrong unfought.”

I didn’t have an answer to that.

Another day brought us all to Commercy, where we needed to resupply. The others hadn’t dared fill the food bags too full at Clermont in case someone remarked on it.

“Not like we need to eat old food, anyway,” said Doms cheerfully as she put her sleeping bag in her pack. “We might as well enjoy fresh as often as we can.”

“You always look fresh to me,” said Juwan, pulling her to him for a lengthy kiss.

Louis stuffed the last of his sleeping bag into his own pack with unnecessary vigor. Not just their parents who wanted him and Doms together, was it?

With murmurs of
“Je t’aime,”
Juwan and Doms broke apart again.

“Any special requests?” asked Doms.

“Yeah,
don’t get caught,”
said Bane.

“Relax, no one is going to suspect us of anything.”

“Our IDs are clean, and we won’t buy too much. It’ll be fine,” said Juwan. “See you in a couple of hours. Oh, here, you can borrow this again...”

He gave his phone to Bane, they shouldered their packs and headed off.

I relieved Bane of the phone and began to scan through the last few copies of
FrenchDaily
.
Nothing...

“Y’know, I
really
don’t
think they’re going to print it,” said Bane.

“They probably got their knuckles rapped by the EuroGov over the last one,” added Jon.

I resisted the temptation to throw down the phone in disgust and simply handed it back to Bane.

“It’s not going to help, anyway,” said Jon.

“I know,” I sighed. “It’d just be nice if
something
undermined their crooked little trial.”

Sometime after noon, I stuffed my bookReader back in my pocket and checked my watch. I couldn’t concentrate. “So how far is it to Commercy from here, Bane?” I tried to speak casually, but the others had been gone four hours, which was an hour longer than last time.

Bane pulled out his phone and glanced at the screen, though he probably didn’t need to. He had the map up already: he was getting worried too. “Less than five kilometers.”

“Where are they?”

“It was a harder walk to Clermont,” Bane admitted.

“So where are they?” Jon echoed me.

“Perhaps they’re just more relaxed this time,” I suggested. “Taking their time more...”

“Perhaps,” said Bane. Still frowning. After a moment he double-checked something on his phone—probably the time, because when he pulled out Juwan’s phone he went straight to the TV—he chose the local channel.

A newsreader was talking. “And the top story—shocking events unfolded this morning in the town of Commercy in the French Department, resulting in two New Adults arrested...”

“
Oh no
,” I breathed, gripping Bane’s arm and moving to get a better view of the screen.

“...and a third held on suspicion of aiding and abetting the fugitive Margaret Verrall and her companions. None of the three have yet been named. The unfolding drama was captured on a shop CCTV camera.”

Footage of a street took the newsreader’s place, though her voice continued. “We see the three backpackers shopping at street stalls in Commercy a little before ten AM.”

Doms, Juwan and Louis, clearly recognizable.

“We see one go to another stall, then when his two companions aren’t looking, he approaches a nearby policeman.”

Louis. Louis approaching the policeman. Speaking to him rapidly. Juwan and Doms suddenly missing him and turning…

“He speaks to the policeman for only a moment before events take a shocking turn...”

Juwan snatches something solid-looking from beside the stall, crosses the street in practically a single bound and brings it down with devastating force on Louis’s head. Louis falls in a heap like a dropped doll, and Juwan spins around and bolts… The policeman jerks a pistol from his holster and fires. Juwan falls....

My fingers bit into Bane’s arm. “NonLee?”

“Can’t see, shss, listen…”

“The policeman drops the attacker with his nonLethal…”

“Thank God!” I managed to relax my grip on Bane a little.

“…and looks for the third New Adult, but she’s disappeared. We now fast forward to fifteen minutes later…”

The footage sped up, showing two policemen running to and fro, doing first aid on Louis, then standing around the fallen bodies waiting… finally a police van and an ambulance arrived and the footage slowed to real time again as both bodies were lifted onto gurneys, and Louis was wheeled into the ambulance….

BANG!

An explosion rocked the vehicles on their wheels, people screamed and dived for cover, though there was no one near the spot from which the flash and the smoke were drifting. The policemen converged, nonLees in hands and a figure darted out behind them, grabbed Juwan’s gurney and started to push it frantically down the nearest alley. The policemen turned, saw her, their guns came up, she fell, the gurney rattled on a few paces and came to a halt. A third gurney was brought, and Doms was slid into the police van along with Juwan.