‘At least another hundred.’
‘Gets my vote,’ said Blue.
‘Mine too,’ said Ryan.
‘We should have a proper vote on it,’ said Nicola.
‘Wait a minute.’ Pod put his hand up. He was a good-looking boy, but not the brightest pixel on the screen. He also always wore his collar turned up on his shirt, which Maxie found really irritating. ‘Can I, like, ask something?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Well, even with Jordan’s kids, yeah? If I figure this right we’re talking two fifty, maybe three hundred tops, trained fighters? Is that right?’
‘I think so,’ said Nicola.
‘And how many sickos are out there?’ Pod went on. ‘How many are we expecting?’
‘At least twice that, probably more like five times,’ said Jester. ‘We didn’t get close enough to count them. But there’s maybe up to a thousand.’
‘Jesus.’ Blue shook his head. ‘That ain’t great odds.’
‘They won’t be armed, though, will they?’ said Ryan.
‘No …’ Jester didn’t sound too sure.
Now Shadowman spoke for the first time, surprising the other kids who had forgotten all about him.
‘Some might be,’ he said. ‘They’re changing, growing smarter. They’re not just mindless zombies any more. They can communicate with each other. They could wipe the lot of you out. They’re getting organized, and you have to be organized too if you want to defeat them. So stop your arguing.’
‘Exactly,’ said Nicola. ‘We all want the same thing – to defeat the sickos. Get rid of them once and for all. So let’s vote on whether Jordan will be our general when he gets here.’
And so they voted again, and there was only one vote against – David’s.
‘Don’t think you can vote for me to join you,’ said David afterwards. ‘That’s my decision and you can’t make me change my mind.’
‘But it’s Jester who called this meeting,’ said Nicola.
‘I thought it would be obvious that I am the only natural leader here,’ said David and Jester shrugged. ‘I didn’t think you’d all be stupid enough to invite some unknown outsider to come in and take over.’
Maxie had always known that David was going to be a problem, and she wondered how important he was to this. How much of a difference would his troops really make? They had a few guns, but how many bullets? They had fighters like Pod and the boys in the red blazers, but how many in all? Twenty-five, maybe thirty? And then she remembered the squatters. Just John’s guys were mean and streetwise. You wouldn’t want to go to the prom with any of them, but you might want to go into battle with them. Whatever else you said about them, they knew how to fight. They could tip the balance. Make the difference between winning and losing. And losing didn’t bear thinking about.
‘David could cause problems,’ she murmured to Blue.
‘You don’t say.’ Blue was sucking his teeth. ‘He could keep his lot and John’s guys out of the fighting. Stay safe inside the palace until it’s over.’
‘Is it worth trying one more time to persuade him not to be an arse?’ said Maxie.
‘One last time.’
Maxie stood up.
‘We have to remember what this is all about,’ she shouted. ‘This is bigger than all of us. We’ve got the chance of a last battle. To make an end. Make London safe forever. We have to forget our differences. We have to accept a vote.’ She turned to David. ‘We really want you with us.’
‘Like I can trust you,’ he sneered.
‘We fixed your problems,’ said Maxie, trying not to lose her temper and swear at him. ‘We beat Just John for you. As I understand it, he’s still in a truce with you. We left you stronger than when we arrived. OK, so maybe we didn’t stay at the palace, but all we did for you came out good. So yeah, you can trust us. In fact, you could thank us.’
She wished she had more to say, could make a proper argument, but she was convinced now that nothing she said was going to have any effect on David.
She stared at him a moment longer and when it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything she sat down. Nicola had a few quiet words with a boy next to her who was writing in a big book, and then she addressed the assembled kids again.
‘I don’t think there’s a lot more we can say or do until Jordan gets here,’ she said, and looked to Will and Finn. ‘You’re sure you’re all right to go back out to the Tower and get him? It’ll be dangerous.’
‘We know,’ said Will. ‘We’ve done that journey before. But we’re prepared to try. From what we’ve heard today most of the streets around here are clear of sickos. We’ll need backup all the same. No way are just the two of us going out there alone. I know Ryan won’t want to come. He said before he was too scared to take his hunters into the badlands, so maybe someone else here can …’
‘Hey, whoa, hold up there, bro!’ Ryan was on his feet now. Maxie smiled. Clever boy, Will.
‘Never said we was scared,’ said Ryan. ‘Just careful. Never been no need for us to go out that way. From what I seen, though, people coming and going along the river to the east, it’s cool over there now. We’ll go with you. We’ll keep you safe.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘As I remember, it was your dogs,’ said Will. ‘You said they were nervous of going that way, into the no-go zone.’
‘My dogs are cool,’ said Ryan. ‘They’ll do what we tell ’em. You can rely on us. No one says Ryan the hunter is a wuss. We’ll get you to the Tower. When will you be ready to go?’
‘We’re ready now,’ said Will, checking with Finn, who nodded. ‘If you are. We can walk it in a couple of hours.’
‘Yeah,’ said Finn. ‘So long as there really aren’t any sickos out that way.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Ryan, starting to walk out of the hall. ‘Saddle up, guys, we going to work!’
17
‘How long’s she been like this?’
‘An hour or so, maybe longer.’
‘You should’ve got me sooner.’
‘Didn’t know how serious it was.’ The girl, Geta, was sheepish.
‘Look at her,’ said Einstein. ‘Doesn’t that look just a little serious to you?’
The captured mother was lying on the floor of the lorry that the museum kids used as a cage. She was writhing and screaming as if something sharp and toxic was inside her, fighting to get out. Brown bile was dribbling from her mouth and she kept coughing up fat lumps of vile grey phlegm. The stench coming off her was worse than the usual grown-up stink. There was a choking edge to it, like the smell of burning hair. Her eyes had gone a nasty yellow colour.
Ollie had been out in the car park with Lettis when he’d heard the screaming and yelling coming from the lorry. Lettis had been feeding the chickens. She enjoyed looking after other creatures. It seemed to calm her down and make her forget her own problems. She sometimes managed to catch a hen and pick it up like a pet. If she held them tight and stroked them they stopped struggling and went into a sort of peaceful trance.
Lettis had looked scared and haunted when she heard the mother thrashing about and wailing. She’d dropped the chicken she was holding and clung on to Ollie’s shirt. Luckily there were some other kids around who offered to look after Lettis, and Ollie had assured her that he was only going a little way away. When he’d got to the lorry, he’d found a cluster of kids there, mainly the ones in white coats who worked in Einstein’s lab, but also one or two of the Holloway kids and, standing at the back, the Twisted Kids, Fish-Face and Skinner, looking anxious. Einstein was quizzing Geta, one of the kids whose job it was to look after the mother.
‘What’s going on exactly?’ Ollie asked, climbing on to the lorry. ‘Is she dying?’
‘I hope not,’ said Einstein. ‘We injected her earlier.’
‘Injected her? You’re joking. Injected her with what?’
‘With the first batch of serum we’ve been working on,’ said Eins
tein.
‘Serum?’
‘Serum, antidote, formula, drug, elixir, remedy, George’s Marvellous Medicine … whatever you want to call it. It was based on some of the blood we took from Small Sam.’
‘Looks like kill or cure to me,’ said Ollie as the mother screeched and arched her back so far it looked like she might break in two.
‘That’s pretty much it,’ said Einstein. ‘It’s a shot in the dark. Obviously I hope it’s cure rather than kill. The Green Man’s been trying to help us. The problem is we don’t understand most of what he’s talking about. If this works, though, if this makes her even a little bit better and doesn’t kill her then we could try the antidote on him. If we could clear his mind a little he might really be able to help us.’
‘He’s your best hope,’ said Ollie. ‘You kill him, you’re stuffed.’
‘We’ll keep using this one as a guinea pig,’ said Einstein. ‘Until we perfect it.’
‘Good luck with that,’ said Ollie. ‘She looks about ready to peg it.’
Fish-Face mumbled something so quietly that Ollie couldn’t tell what it was, and then she peeled off and went back towards the museum buildings. The mother’s eyes opened wide and she looked around fearfully at the kids. She was chained to the side of the lorry. One chain round her neck, another round one ankle, her hands cuffed in front of her.
‘We had her mouth taped shut with gaffer tape,’ said Geta. ‘So we could get close to her and inject her without getting bitten. We had to pull it off, though; it looked like she was going to choke to death.’
The mother’s eyes darted from one kid to another. Ollie wasn’t used to seeing a grown-up show any emotion, but she was going through the lot – horror, pain, sadness, confusion, fear. She reached out her hands towards Einstein. He ignored her and she turned and reached out towards Ollie. She looked desperate and strangely intelligent, like someone coming out of a mad fever waking up to the cold light of day. Ollie stepped forward and took her hands. She smiled at him, pathetically grateful, but it only lasted an instant. The smile was suddenly replaced by a look of animal fear and aggression, like a dog with rabies, and she lunged at Ollie, teeth bared. Ollie was ready for her. He was always ready. Hadn’t got this far without being careful. He drove the palm of his free hand into her forehead, knocking her back and stunning her.
‘You can’t leave her like this,’ he said to Einstein. ‘I mean, what if you don’t kill her, but drive her into some sick hell? You’ll need to put her out of her misery.’
‘I can do what I bloody well want, thank you very much, ginge,’ said Einstein. ‘She’s useful to us for our experiments. She’s the only one we’ve got.’
‘No, she isn’t,’ said Ollie. ‘She’s not the only one. You said it yourself: you’ve got the Green Man.’
‘And, as you said, we can’t risk harming him in any way. So can you please just back off? I don’t need you interfering. All of you, back off. I need room here.’
Ollie climbed down, looked back. Einstein was standing over the mother, who suddenly sat up and stared at him.
‘Help me!’ she shouted. ‘Please help me!’
Einstein laughed and clapped his hands.
‘Jesus, she can speak,’ he said. ‘She can bloody speak.’ He was grinning like a madman. Ollie wondered if this was his eureka moment. Had months of working in the lab finally paid off? It looked like his antidote had had some positive effect on this woman, cleared her mind, driven the sickness out. But she looked miserable, utterly miserable. Her reason was returning and so was her memory. You could see it in her eyes.
That was the worst, most terrible thing of all. Understanding.
The memories of all she’d been, all she’d done, were bubbling up inside her. Ollie wondered how you could ever deal with that.
‘I will help you,’ said Einstein. ‘I’m a doctor. I’ll make you well.’
‘Help me, help me, help me! They’re doing things to me. You have to make them go away. You have to make them stop. It’s not right. They’re in me. What have you done to me?’
‘Nothing. I’ve just made you well,’ said Einstein.
‘Bastard!’ And then the mother flung back her head and screamed, so loudly that Ollie had to step back and cover his ears. It was a deep yell from the depths of her misery and pain. And then she was an animal once more. What was left of her humanity had struggled to the surface. She’d got her face above the water, for just one moment, seen the sky and the sun shining on the beach – a beautiful tropical island just out of reach – and she’d been too weak to swim there and had sunk back beneath the waves.
She jiggled and shivered, trembled and ground her teeth together noisily. She jerked against her chains, flung herself against the side of the lorry, attacked her face with her fingers, pulling away the skin where it had gone soft around the growths and boils that covered it. It came away like soggy newspaper, exposing the muscle and bone beneath, and then she gave one final cry and went rigid, her arms and legs stretched out. Grey jelly oozed out of her mouth, her nose, her ears, from under her eyelids. Her body spasmed and jerked as boils erupted all over what was left of her skin.
Ollie swallowed hard. He recognized the symptoms.
‘She’s a burster!’ he shouted, stepping away from the lorry. ‘She’s gonna blow!’
Some of the kids around him jumped back as well. Those who knew what was about to happen. Einstein didn’t move. He was staying close to the mother, studying her.
‘What are you talking about?’ he said. ‘I’m going to help her.’
‘Good luck,’ said Ollie.
‘The injection’s working,’ said Einstein. ‘She’s just getting rid of the sickness.’
And then it happened. The mother’s body erupted, slowly at first, the skin disintegrating, her insides pushing out, and then it accelerated fast. There was a horrible gurgling sound and she burst, spraying Einstein with a foul, stinking liquid.
Ollie couldn’t help it. He started to laugh. And the others joined in.
‘I guess it’s kill, then,’ he said.
‘You saw it!’ said Einstein, ignoring the mess, his face spattered with gunk. ‘You saw it yourselves. For a moment she talked. For a moment she was human. It’s a start. We’re getting there. It’s a start.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Ollie. ‘All you got to do is inject every grown-up in the world and wait for them to either burst or be cured.’
18
Wormwood was standing in the library, staring out of the windows that overlooked the car park. He hadn’t been able to see exactly what was going on in the lorry, but he could tell from the kids’ reactions and from the vibrations in the air what was happening. Two of the museum kids were acting as his minders today. Some boy with a big nose and another one with a scarred neck who he thought was called Cameron. They never let him out of their sight, but kept their distance. He’d come in here to find some books and been distracted by the noise from outside.
There was one of his kind down there. A woman. At least there had been. He could feel that her light had gone out. He couldn’t hear her whining noise in his head any more. It had got very loud and then … poof.
Nothing.
‘Daddy?’ He turned from the window and there was his twisted treasure, his little girl, who had come out wrong. She was walking round the big table in the middle of the room where his minders were sitting looking bored – bored and just a little bit scared.
His baby. She put her arms round him and he held on to her. She was crying.
‘Daddy. They’re going to hurt you.’
‘No,’ said Wormwood, his mind fizzing and spinning. ‘I’m hurt already.’
‘I saw her. On the lorry. What they did to her. They want to do it to you.’
‘I need to help them,’ said Wormwood and he held her where he could see her. ‘You see? You understand? I came from the big green and already I can feel it slipping. The blood is rising. Good blood will drive out the bad. Worm
old is getting stronger while Wormwood grows weak.’
‘I wish I understood, Daddy. I never did. But I need you.’
‘Then let me help them,’ said Wormwood. ‘I don’t want to go back to the big green. I don’t want to go back to the stars. I only wanted to be happy here. You see? I only wanted to live. I was never strong enough to be alone, though. I’m sorry. The thoughts are there, but my brain is slippery. They can’t hang on. In the green, before all this, I wanted to ride the monkeys. Books and bees and fleas – they were my friends. I never meant to kill them.’
‘Books, Daddy?’
‘Books or birds or baboons. Beasts. The beasts of the big green. I never meant to harm them. I just wanted to ride in them. Back there.’
‘The jungle? South America? You weren’t there for that long, Daddy. You’re getting confused.’
‘I was there for a hundred thousand years. Not me, not Wormold, but this thing inside me. You see? The bug, darling. The sickness. It lived there, moving from beast to beast, working its way up, from bugs, to fleas, to bats, to monkeys, to men and women. Finally it found people. It never meant to hurt them. Only to live. We never meant to twist them and make them sick. Honestly I didn’t, I didn’t. But I can feel the big green dying in me, the leaves falling from the trees, my home from home from home from home. This is my home now, but my house is on fire. You see? Or do you not see?’
‘You talk as if you’re two different people sometimes,’ said his girl.
‘Not two,’ said Wormwood. ‘Two million. There’s me, your father, Mark Wormold, and there’s the others. The bugs in my pipes, the stars inside me, a constellation. A universe. I’m plugged in. They were strong, but they are growing weak. They can be beaten, but only if we protect him. And the others.’
‘Protect him? Protect who?’
‘The boy, the bogey boy, the golden boy.’
‘Small Sam?’
‘Yes. Yes, him. They’re scared of him; they’ll try to stop him, to kill him. Because his blood is the good blood. And he is not alone. Not here, not near, but there are others. They must be saved, you see? They must be protected. So that we can use their good blood. Starboard staff for dead star …’