‘Artillery now, is it? Not just throwing shit?’
‘Got to call it something.’
‘And who takes the left flank?’
‘Matt and his green kids.’
‘That it?’
‘Jordan holds the centre. That’s where me and Blue will be, sticking close to him. Making sure what he wants to happen happens. Ryan and his hunters are going to patrol the streets round the perimeter, make sure no sickos try to get past us. And there’s a reserve unit at the back, the less strong fighters. They’re under the control of that Boggle kid from the museum. They’ll be fed into the other units as needed.’
‘OK. Sounds organized. So Boggle’s the only museum kid who gets to be a captain. What about Jackson? She’s good.’
‘Jackson was offered it, but she said she wanted to be in your unit.’
‘Yeah? Crazy girl. She can be my corporal or whatever. So do I get to pick all my own officers?’
‘I guess so.’
‘What about Will?’
‘What about him?’
‘I reckon I’ll take him. He knows what he’s doing.’
‘Yeah, he’s OK.’
‘You think he’s good-looking?’
Maxie hadn’t been expecting this question.
‘He’s all right,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘You’re a girl. You think about these things.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Oh, come on, Maxie.’
‘Are you asking me if I fancy him?’
‘Well, do you?’
‘I’ve got Blue. You know I do. I don’t think about anyone else.’
‘Bet you do.’
‘Bet I don’t.’
‘Well, if you didn’t have Blue. If you were a free agent. A girl about town. Would you go for Will?’
‘He’s OK. I don’t know. Maybe. He’s nice. Clever. Civilized – unlike you. And yeah, he’s OK-looking.’
‘Does he have a girlfriend?’
‘I don’t know.’ Maxie was confused. She’d never had a conversation like this with Achilleus before.
‘Ask him.’
‘Achilleus …?’ Maxie looked at the boy. He was sitting on the grass, spinning his spear in his hands. ‘I am not interested in going out with him. OK?’
‘I’m just making conversation. I’m a captain now. People got to listen to me.’
‘You will take it seriously?’
‘Up to a point.’ Achilleus spat. ‘In the end all this organization ain’t gonna account for much. It’s just gonna be fighting. Hard and nasty. Makes no difference whether I’m called captain, head honcho or chief cheerleader.’
‘The thing is,’ said Maxie, ‘it’s an important position, yeah? Everyone said you were the best guy for the job. You should be proud.’
‘You sound like my science teacher when I got a D.’
‘I mean it. We don’t always tell you, Achilleus, because, well, frankly you’re a pain in the arse, but we appreciate all you’ve done. OK? We’d probably none of us from the Holloway crew be here if it wasn’t for you. You’re far and away the best fighter around.’
‘Aw. I’m touched.’
‘See. Arsehole.’
‘Maxie?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Maybe nobody tells you things either.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘After Arran died we could’ve fallen apart. But we didn’t. Because you held it together. “Arran Lives” – you remember that?’
‘I remember.’
‘He lived on in you, Max. You done well. I like you. You’re cool.’
Maxie didn’t know what to say. She was waiting for Achilleus to pull the chair away, to laugh at her as she crashed to the floor. But he didn’t. In the end it was he who spoke next.
‘So? We gonna win this thing?’ he asked.
‘We’ve got to,’ said Maxie. ‘Otherwise it’s the end for all of us.’
‘The Last Battle … We’ll do it. Arran Lives. We all live.’
Now Achilleus did laugh and Maxie was going to say something when she realized that he wasn’t laughing at her. He was watching the smaller kids who were drilling in an area away from the main block. Paddy was shouting orders, his high young voice carrying in the still air.
‘Look at them little mugs,’ said Achilleus. ‘What’s Jordan gonna do with them? Use them as cannon fodder?’
‘No bloody way,’ said Maxie. ‘Sam’s too important. ‘Don’t tell them, but they’re gonna be nowhere near the fighting when it kicks off. They’re staying back at the museum, under guard. Whitney’s got the job of keeping them away and keeping them safe. That what we’re fighting this battle for after all, to protect Sam long enough to make a cure. If he dies this is all a waste of time.’
‘Should I be scared?’ Achilleus asked.
‘You don’t ever get scared.’
‘You’re right.’ Achilleus laughed. ‘I don’t have the imagination. You know me. Point me at the enemy and I’ll fight. All this stuff, it’s way complicated.’
‘Not really,’ said Maxie. ‘When it comes down to it, you’ve got the right idea – all we gotta do is kill more grown-ups than they kill of us.’
‘That I can understand,’ said Achilleus. ‘That – I can understand.’
27
Paddy felt ten feet tall. Out here with all the big kids, shouting orders, being in command, with his own troop. An officer. Jordan Hordern had even sent over a marshal, Hayden, to help with his training. She was a girl, but that was OK. She was a cool girl. Paddy used to do football training at the weekends, with a club, and there’d been lots of girls like Hayden helping out. She knew proper weapons drill and, when Paddy had shown her what his troop could already do, she’d been well impressed, Paddy could tell. She’d even clapped and whooped a couple of times. She’d been impressed by all of them except Blu-Tack Bill. Bill did this thing where he’d just stop what he was doing. He’d stop marching, or drilling, or mock fighting or whatever, and wander off to the side, saying numbers out loud. In the end Hayden had asked him what the matter was. Bill said nothing was the matter, he was just counting.
‘Counting what?’
‘Stuff.’
‘What stuff?’
‘Trees. People. Railings. Mostly people. I need to know how many.’
‘Why do you need to know?’
Blu-Tack Bill had shrugged.
‘He’s amazing,’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘He’s a savant. A master of numbers. You can try him on anything. Here …’
He’d picked up a bunch of gravel and thrown it on to a tarmac pathway.
‘How many stones, Bill?’
Bill had glanced at them. A few seconds was all.
‘Forty-eight.’
‘Go on,’ Wiki had said and Hayden had counted them. Bill had been right. Exactly forty-eight. The other kids had cheered, but Bill had just shrugged again. It was nothing to him. Hayden tested him on a couple of other things to make sure it hadn’t been a fluke and couldn’t believe it. After that they’d stopped for lunch and Hayden had tried to talk to Bill. He wasn’t much of a talker, though.
Hayden worked them for a couple more hours and then left them to it. Paddy was starting to get tired. To be honest, drilling was a little bit boring. He liked the mock fighting, but that made you tireder than anything, and the kids couldn’t keep it up for long. Paddy was hoping they were all going to stop soon so he could get back to the museum and rest. He looked at the big kids. They were in huddles, making plans, some of them building defences. Constructing a barricade out of wood and branches and railings. He smiled. He was one of them. When the big battle came, his kids would be right there, fighting alongside the likes of Achilleus, Jackson and Blue.
‘OK, troop,’ he said, his voice a little hoarse from shouting all day. ‘Take five. At ease. Hang loose.’
The others gratefully dropped their weapons and slumped to the grass, started chatting among themselves. Paddy sat with Bright Eyes, Zo
hra and her little brother, Froggie. Bright Eyes had been sitting there, patiently watching them all day. Zohra and Froggie made a fuss over him. The two of them were always together. Paddy could tell that Zohra was proud that she’d protected Froggie, got him this far.
‘What will happen after the battle?’ said Froggie. He was too young really to know what it was all about, what a battle was going to be like.
‘After the battle there’ll be peace,’ said Zohra. ‘We can get things back to how they were before.’
Froggie thought about that and nodded.
‘Which one of you kids is Blu-Tack Bill?’
Paddy looked up to see Jordan Hordern standing there with Hayden. Paddy jumped to his feet, cursing himself. What had he done wrong? The general scared him. He wore those thick glasses, but he never looked at you straight.
Paddy pointed to Bill.
‘That’s him. I’m sorry we stopped training. Some of the smaller ones were a bit tired. Not me. We’ll carry on if you want. What have we done?’
Jordan looked at him sideways.
‘Nobody done nothing bad,’ he said. ‘I just want to talk.’ He turned to Bill who was staring at the ground. ‘You Bill, yeah?’
Bill nodded.
‘You OK to talk?’
Bill shrugged like he always did.
‘We’ll walk a ways,’ said Jordan. ‘Just you and me, yeah? You cool with that?’
Bill shrugged again and got up, and the two of them wandered off, the general doing all the talking. After they’d gone a little way Paddy saw Bill take Jordan’s hand. Paddy hadn’t ever seen that before. Bill didn’t like to be touched.
‘What’s that all about?’ Paddy asked Hayden.
‘The general needs a kid like Bill,’ said Hayden. ‘He always says that intelligence is your best weapon.’
‘Oh,’ said Paddy. ‘I’m not sure Bill’s intelligent really. He can do his number trick, but his brain’s a bit screwy.’
‘Jordan’s brain’s a bit screwy too,’ said Hayden. ‘They make a good pair.’
‘He taking him out of my fighting unit?’
‘Would you mind?’
‘Not really. Bill’s not a natural soldier.’
Hayden laughed. ‘Jordan will only take him if Bill agrees.’
‘We’ll be under strength.’
‘You’ll manage.’
After a while Jordan and Bill came back. Bill sat apart from the others as he often did. Jordan squatted down and rubbed Bright Eyes’s head.
‘This your dog?’ he asked Paddy. Paddy beamed.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘She’s a good dog. She’s real clever. She used to be a seeing-eye dog. I’m training her to be a dog of war.’
Jordan studied Bright Eyes, not saying anything. After a while he grunted and stood up. Walked away with Hayden, the two of them talking about something. Hayden glanced round now and then to look back at Paddy and Bright Eyes.
‘They’re talking about me,’ said Paddy. ‘She’s probably telling him what a good officer I am, what a good job I done with you lot. Maybe he’ll even put us in the front rank of the fighting. We’ll be handy. We can nip in there, chop them bastards in the legs.’
Paddy didn’t feel tired any more. He was fired up, his head filled with dreams of glory.
‘Come on,’ he shouted. ‘Let’s try a double-time quick march!’
Bill shook his head. Looked round at his friends and then ran off after Jordan and Hayden. Fell in next to them and, after a few paces, took hold of Jordan’s hand again. He turned once to look back at them all. Like he was saying goodbye forever.
28
This felt unreal. Too weird. Sitting in the back seat of a Land Rover Discovery with Bernie, driving north through empty streets. It even had that new-car smell. Ben had no idea where Shadowman had got it from – it really was a discovery. Where exactly they were headed was also a mystery.
Shadowman had come to find him and Bernie at the museum. They’d been working in the kitchens, rigging up a better system for smoke extraction. It was so smoky in there from the open fire they cooked over that it was in danger of ruining the kids’ lungs. When Ben had first seen their system, he’d sworn and told the girl in charge – ‘You don’t have to worry about grown-ups getting you. This’ll kill you a whole lot faster.’
Shadowman had been secretive. From what Ben had seen of him he was always secretive. He’d just told the two of them that he had a job for them, more important than getting rid of smoke. He’d led them out along the Cromwell Road to where he’d left the car parked up a side-street some way from the museum. He didn’t say anything, but it was obvious he didn’t want anyone at the museum to know that he had a vehicle.
So far they’d been driving in silence. Ben and Bernie were so gobsmacked by the whole experience that they were just staring out of the window like little kids up from the countryside on a day trip to the big city, marvelling at it all. It wasn’t like they’d even seen anything spectacular. No Trafalgar Square or Houses of Parliament, no London Eye or Tower Bridge. Just the ugly grey streets of Earls Court and Shepherd’s Bush. But it was still thrilling to the two of them. For nearly a year they’d seen nothing except the small area of Holloway around Waitrose. Then there had been that short, intense, terrifying trip into town. Since then – well, since then they’d got used to being at the museum. Took it for granted. And now this.
It was like a trip to the most exotic foreign country. They’d told themselves they’d never do something like this again. Drive in a car. Warm and safe. Not a grown-up in sight. Shadowman had even put some music on. Not something Ben would normally have listened to – it sounded like an old Rolling Stones CD – but just to listen to any music was extraordinary.
Ben couldn’t hold it in any longer. He had to know what was going on.
‘So? What’s up?’ he said as casually as possible. ‘Where we going, dude?’
‘North,’ said Shadowman.
‘More info required,’ said Ben.
‘Right now we’re going round St George’s army,’ said Shadowman.
‘I get that,’ said Ben. ‘But what’s our destination?’
‘Did you know Ed at all?’ Shadowman asked.
‘Not really,’ said Ben. ‘I talked to him a couple of times, but he wasn’t with us for long.’
‘I talked to him a lot,’ said Shadowman. ‘He told me things. Like what happened to him before he arrived at the Tower of London.’
Ben didn’t say anything. He looked at Bernie – eyebrows raised. Bernie gave him a look back. They were both wondering where this was going, but Ben guessed that Shadowman wanted to tell them in his own way, in his own time. Ben reckoned that when people did that it meant they weren’t really sure of what they were saying. He figured maybe Shadowman wasn’t entirely convinced by their mission. He was kind of creeping up on it, giving the explanation sideways.
‘What did he tell you?’ said Bernie. ‘And what’s it got to do with where we’re going? You can’t just kidnap us, bro. Nice as it is to go for a drive.’
‘You know the Oval cricket ground in south London?’ said Shadowman.
‘Not really,’ said Ben. ‘We neither of us exactly cricket fans. They all wear white. We tend towards the black.’
Bernie laughed. ‘So true,’ she said. ‘With us, it’s all about black. With them, it’s all about white.’
‘Is there any sport where they all wear black?’ said Ben.
‘Maybe a team of referees,’ said Shadowman. He had a sense of humour at least.
‘Wasn’t there a rugby team called the All Blacks?’ said Bernie. ‘From New Zealand or something? Dad used to watch the rugby. I could never understand it, and he could never understand me. Why I painted my room black and listened to Marilyn Manson and My Chemical Romance all the time. But it was him that taught me all about mechanics and engineering.’
‘What’s cricket got to do with where we going?’ said Ben. ‘You got to stop being so secretive, dud
e.’
‘About a year ago,’ said Shadowman, ‘when Ed was travelling through south London, he and some friends broke into the Oval, looking for gear.’
‘What did they find there?’ Ben asked.
‘Bodies mostly,’ said Shadowman. ‘Dead bodies.’
‘Watching the cricket?’ said Bernie. ‘Just like it always was.’
‘You see the government?’ said Shadowman. ‘Seems like they’d run out of places to dump the dead. The army had started loading them on to trucks and using cranes and diggers and crap to pile them all in the Oval. They’d filled the whole stadium up.’
‘Jesus,’ said Bernie. ‘I wondered what their plan was.’
‘Wasn’t much of a plan,’ said Shadowman. ‘They all got sick before they could finish it.’
‘What exactly were they gonna do when they ran out of space in there?’
‘They were gonna blow the whole place up,’ said Shadowman, and he gave a dark little laugh.
‘For real?’ said Ben. ‘Cool.’
‘Burn the lot of them,’ said Shadowman. ‘Had the whole stadium rigged with explosives and stuff to start fires. But, as I say, they all got the disease before they could ever do it.’
‘OK,’ said Ben. ‘Good story, but where is this going? Where are we going?’
‘We’re on our way to Wembley,’ Shadowman sang. Ben guessed it was some kind of football chant.
‘You mean we’re going to see if Wembley was rigged the same way?’ said Bernie.
‘You’re on it,’ said Shadowman. ‘That is exactly what we’re doing. Seems to me, if they rigged up one stadium they might have rigged up more. And Wembley is the biggest of them all. At least around here. See this car? Belongs to a guy called Saif. He’s got a powerful settlement up that way. He’s got vehicles and he’s got troops. Plus, he has a thing going with St George. Bad blood. Wants to kick the guy’s ass.’
‘Don’t we all,’ said Ben.
‘Well, plan is we can give him the biggest kick up the ass in history,’ said Shadowman. ‘We boot him with high explosives and incendiary bombs.’
‘Won’t that be a little …’ Ben paused, searching for the right word. Hazardous? Risky? Unsafe? ‘Dangerous?’ he said. Keeping it simple.