I stare at her and the birds stop. They stop flying at the windows, and they vanish from the chairs around us. They are gone for the first time in days, and I am overwhelmed by Josephine.
“I’m not going to fall in love with someone else,” I tell her.
She nods slightly.
“And I’m not going to lie.”
“Okay.” She moves, sliding onto my lap. My heart ruptures.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I utter.
Against my lips she says, “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I promise.”
And in her arms it’s easy to believe her, even if she has no way to make it true.
Chapter 27
September 11th, 2066
Josephine
Sun beats down on my face. I focus on keeping my expression utterly neutral. There’s a collective rustle of discomfort from the heat making its way through the crowd around me. We have been waiting here for some time now.
I glance over to the opposite corner of the city square to see the familiar faces of Will and Pace. North behind the stage is Shadow. Up in one of the windows to the west is Blue. And to my left, about a hundred yards away, stands Luke, blending into the crowd as I am.
“Hot, isn’t it?” says the woman next to me. She looks tired, but pleasantly relaxed. She looks like she’s quite enjoying the sun, actually. She has tiny, elegant lines around her eyes and mouth, and pretty red hair.
“Yeah,” I agree. I can’t think of anything else to say so she drops her eyes. “Are you missing work?” I blurt, for some reason wanting to continue the conversation.
She nods. “I feel naughty. I quite like feeling naughty. Don’t tell anyone.”
It makes me smile. “I won’t.”
The screens all around us blink on and everyone relaxes.
The time has come, they read. Peace is upon us. Happiness. Safety.
Falon Shay’s magnified face appears to give the address. “Good morning, citizens. It gives me very great pleasure to announce that a breakthrough has been made, and it is finally time to step into the future of mankind. Ten years ago we changed the world. We cured anger. This time we are going to save you from a disease that is just as dangerous in its malignance. Sadness.”
It is in this moment that the connection skews and the screens all blink out. A rustle moves through the crowd, but it’s only a second before a new image blinks onto all the screens, citywide.
It’s video footage of Dr Meredith Shaw, taken in the interrogation room at the bottom of The Inferno by one Mr Luke Townsend.
“So let’s talk about the other ten percent,” says a man’s voice from the other side of the camera. Luke’s voice. “What happens to them?”
Meredith sighs. “They can have unpredictable emotional responses to stress and stimuli.”
“And do you think that’s also a likely result of the sadness cure?”
“It isn’t yet finished.”
“But the test subjects have all shown such symptoms, haven’t they?”
No response.
“How many have you tested so far?”
No response.
“I’m pretty sure I heard you say there were sixty-six, right?’ And then, ‘How many of these children died?”
“Forty.”
Around me there is a communal gasp. I can see police running along the sides of the squares, but they won’t be able to do anything.
Onscreen a hand reaches out to tilt Meredith’s chin up. We get a close-up of her face, wretched as it is. “Did you and Collingsworth create the Furies and then blame them on the plague?” Luke’s voice asks.
“Yes.”
The woman beside me covers her mouth in horror.
“Does the current version of the cure also cause certain patients to become Furies?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what happened to Collingsworth?”
“Yes.”
“Does Falon Shay know about this?”
“Yes. It was his idea to put them beyond the wall so no one would ever be able to leave the city.”
“Is the land beyond the wall diseased at all?”
“No. It’s perfectly habitable. It’s regenerating as we speak.”
Chaos erupts. People are scared and confused. They’re not sure what to do or how to respond.
The image changes once more to one of the many images automatically captured by my earpiece when Luke and I broke into the labs. It shows the children in their glass cages, dying of various side-effects.
Words flash up. Your government is murdering children and damaging your brains. It wants to control you. It stole your anger so you would be quiet. Quiet like the dead. And now it wants to steal your sadness so you will forget how to grieve your losses.
A new image flashes up. It’s a picture we took yesterday of all twelve of us on the train. We’re wearing eye masks so we can’t be recognized and we’re armed to the teeth. We might look scary, except that we’re all smiling, grouped together like a family.
But you are not alone, the words read.
We haven’t forgotten you.
We’re out here, and we will fight for you.
The screens go black and the cacophony of panicked voices washes over me. I look at Luke, who returns my stare through the moving crowd. I can only glimpse his eyes briefly, but he smiles.
I feel a touch and see that the woman beside me has taken my hand. Astonished, I look at her face. There are tears streaming down her cheeks, but she’s smiling as though she’s alive for the first time in years.
*
September 12th, 2066
Josephine
It’s late. Or early. I’m so tired I can’t think straight. Shadow is studying blueprints with bloodshot eyes – I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be not to just remember what you see. “We need to sleep,” I tell him.
The abandoned garage basement we’re squatting in for the night is filled with the sleeping bodies of our team. Luke remains on watch, the only one of us who doesn’t seem to need rest. While Pace and Will are doing a low-risk recon sweep.
“We’ve done as much as we can,” I add, when Shadow looks reluctant. “Anything else is beyond our control.” These sound like the words of a person who is far more reasonable than I am. I have become, abruptly, the responsible one. The worrier. It’s gross.
Shadow nods and takes a place in the corner to try to get some sleep, impossible though it seems on cold concrete. We have a month until the sadness cures are administered, which should give us enough time to set up the operation to take out the factories.
Luke barely speaks. His muscles keep freezing up and his jaw is clenched so tightly it looks as though his teeth will shatter. He grunts. Moves with abrupt, jerking power. Seems inclined to want to attack anyone who goes within a twenty-foot radius of him. He runs a fever, bleeds from fingernails and gums, and has trouble focusing his eyes. I am frightened, but I don’t let anyone know that.
He can’t make plans – he is too distracted – so it falls to Shadow and me. If Luke grunts his approval, we move forward. I don’t know if he’s going to be able to help us, and the thought of heading into something so dangerous without Luke’s skill is very scary. I try to focus on everything he has taught me over the last few months.
In my pocket is a vial. In this vial is Meredith’s experimental drug, the one she injected into Ben. The one she hasn’t tested or trialed or checked. The only thing that might save Luke from this nightmare. Or the thing that could kill him more quickly.
The date of his very own blood moon draws near. And if he has already caused this much damage without the moon, I can’t imagine what he might do when it rises. Before that happens, I will inject him, no matter what. Even though it might kill him. This is my vow.
I climb the stairwell of the abandoned building to look for him. My footsteps echo. He’s on the roof, and I pause to watch him pace around its edge, keeping his eyes peeled both above and below. H
is long sniper rifle rests comfortably over his muscular shoulder, and to my shame, it makes me nervous to see him with a weapon. I keep telling myself he’s okay, but actually – he’s not. He has snapped and murdered before. There’s nothing stopping him from doing it now. All the pieces of him look slightly different – stronger, sharper, bigger, more athletic. I wonder if he can see birds at this very moment. It’s a curse that is cruel in its beauty, one that a part of me longs to experience.
I remove the vial from my pocket and cross to him. He continues on his patrol, so I fall into step beside him. “Let me inject you,” I plead.
A shake of his head.
“You’re not well – ”
“I feel good,” he snaps. The most he’s said in days.
“Well you look like shit.” I try to moderate my frustration. It isn’t his fault he’s like this. It’s mine. And I know better than anyone how awful it is to lack control of your actions and feelings. “I’m worried you won’t get through the op tomorrow. We’re blowing up a factory, for Christ’s sake – you would never have made me do something so dangerous right before the blood moon.”
No response, so I change tactics. “It’s scaring me, watching you like this.”
“I thought this was what you always wanted.” He rounds on me. “Me to be angry.”
“I just want you to be you. With nothing added or removed, without tweaks or enhancements or modifications – just you.”
I stop talking, because he is pushing me against the stone balustrade. And he’s dropping to his knees and undoing my jeans, and he’s pulling them over my hips, along with my undies, and he’s pressing his face to me and slipping his tongue inside me and I gasp because what the hell is he doing but then I stop questioning all together and instead I look up at a black night sky and the only thought I have is for the missing stars, lost to all the lights of the city.
*
It must be close to dawn when I hear the walkie-talkie crackle and Will’s voice comes through. “Base, come in … Dual?”
I scramble over to it, annoyed with myself for falling asleep when Will and his team are out on a recon trip. Luke is still up on the roof but everyone else is asleep around me in the garage. “I’m here, Will. What’s up?”
“We’re at the crest of the hill, and there’s definitely something going on down there.”
“What is it?”
“A whole lot of movement,” Pace’s voice interrupts – she’s taken hold of the walkie. The only things we let her partake in are surveillance operations, where she is a long way from any danger. “Bloods are crawling all over the place, trucks going in and out. Started about an hour ago.”
“Stay there and keep watch,” I tell them. “Look out for any recognizable faces.”
“We’re not close enough for that.”
“Then get closer. But be careful.”
“Aye aye, cap’n. Incubator out.”
I almost smile. We started using Incubator as Pace’s codename, much to her horror, but it stuck and now even she uses it, albeit begrudgingly. I think she secretly likes it.
But a whole lot of movement at the factory can mean only one thing.
*
“They’ve moved the administration date forward,” Shadow agrees after we’ve received another report from Pace and Will at the site. Apparently Falon Shay has been in there this morning, along with a couple of the other Ministers and the Blood leader, Jean Gueye. Which is big – the Ministers don’t often leave the safety of their guarded compounds.
Luke grunts, pacing furiously.
“Shit. What do we do now?” I ask.
There’s a silence. Showing our video was meant to sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of the drones, and give them hope for a different future. It was meant to scare those in charge. None of that has a chance to work, now, because the prick of a prime minister has moved the date forward.
“We can’t blow up the factory if there’s nothing in it,” I answer my own question. “So we have to destroy the drug some other way.”
“Only other place is on the road, which we’ve missed our window for, or at the clinics,” Shadow says.
“So we destroy the clinics,” I say.
“And murder a whole lot of people?”
“No. We get them cleared out somehow.” I think fast, glancing at Luke. “Okay. Okay. New plan.”
*
By sundown we’re in place. I’ve had about an hour of sleep in three days, but I’m wired as hell and ready for action. The sadness cures have been distributed to twelve different clinics for their injection. The announcement went out this morning on a repeated national bulletin that every citizen is to report for administration at 8 am tomorrow morning at their nearest clinic. They’ll then either be injected in the first wave, or scheduled for one of the next several waves of injections, depending on the ‘importance of their contribution to society’. Whatever the fuck that means.
We have a massive night ahead of us. Because there are only a dozen of us, and we need three people per clinic, we have to do this in stages – four teams to take out four clinics at a time, instead of all twelve simultaneously, which would have been a thousand times quicker and therefore safer. But c’est la vie, as Will said earlier. Pace corrected him with a c’est la merde vie, which didn’t quite make sense but was generally appreciated by the team as some very weak comedy.
Shadow leads one group. Rina another. Blue has control of the third, and me the last. Me. For some blatantly ludicrous reason the resistance fighters have all started looking to me for instruction, and flat out refused the idea that I wouldn’t be leading one of the teams. Which I guess is flattering, but won’t be great when I stuff something up and get a bunch of people made dead.
Luke is coming with me, which was my one stipulation, and no one argued. No one asked why he isn’t leading a team. They can see why. He’s sick. Or mad. Or something just very wrong. And it’s scary, and none of them want to do this without him really being him, but we have to.
Shadow, Blue and Rina are already in place in the field. I’ll take my team out once we’ve set up a few things first. Will and Pace will remain here on the ground to deal with the inundation of technical stuff.
Pace, Eric, Luke and I sit surrounded by the open hoods of three stolen cars. Will’s equipment is all hooked up to the car batteries for power. I gaze at my watch. “Okay. Let’s do this. Trigger it.”
Will taps quickly on his laptop. He’s just wirelessly triggered the bomb alarm of the most central clinic in the city. This alarm is immediately sent through to both the prime minister’s office and the Blood headquarters, but Will patches the Blood’s alert straight to us instead. We then respond to the clinic.
“Yes, hello?”
“Emergency services, please hold for an operator,” Will says calmly.
“What’s going on?” a voice says on the other end of the line. There’s a wailing alarm in the building there.
Will passes the mouthpiece to me. “Emergency services explosives unit, please respond,” I say.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Your name and position, ma’am?”
“Dr Jill Martin, I’m the head of the Brunswick Clinic.”
“Are you aware that your explosives alarm has just been triggered, Dr Martin?” I ask her.
“Yes – I have no idea why.”
“You didn’t trigger it yourself, Doctor?”
“No.”
“Do you have any knowledge of who might have?”
“No, I – ”
“That’s fine, Doctor. I’ll need you to start your evacuation procedures immediately. A team is already on their way to you.”
“But is there a bomb?”
“There could be any number of reasons this alarm was triggered, so all you need to concern yourself with is remaining calm, following your procedure and using your security team to evacuate the building. Can you hear the sirens?”
“It’s hard with the alarm on as
well – ”
“That’s okay, it’s the emergency services on their way to you now. They’re very close. A team will be arriving to help you any minute.”
I gesture for Pace to give Shadow’s team the go-ahead to enter the clinic. They’ll pose as three Blue-level Bloods working as a bomb squad, and then they’ll plant the bombs once everyone’s out of the building.
“I want you to hang up the phone now, Dr Martin. Start your procedure.”
“Yes, thank you.” She hangs up and we move on to the next clinic, going through the same process so that Blue’s team can get started on clinic number two. This time Pace takes over the job of fielding the emergency calls, following my lead, because I have to take the much scarier call that comes in from Falon Shay’s home office.
His head secretary connects me to him directly, thinking I’m currently sitting in the headquarters of the Blood offices. Luke watches me closely, having managed to briefly run me through the procedures so I’ll know what to say.
“Who am I speaking to?” Shay asks curtly. His voice, for some reason, chills something inside me and I feel my guts turn to liquid.
“Agent Slater, Blue status, in Jean Gueye’s office, sir,” I reply calmly.
“Where’s Jean?”
“Agent Gueye is currently on active duty in the field, responding to the multiple explosive alarms that were set off three and four minutes ago.”
“Where are the bombs?”
“No bombs have as yet been confirmed, sir. The alarms were triggered at the Brunswick and Masters clinics. Teams are already arriving at those locations now and every procedure is being followed. Protocol is to evacuate all twelve clinics – ”
“There’ve only been threats at two,” he interrupts. “I can’t afford disruptions at all of them.”
“Protocol is to evacuate all twelve clinics,” I repeat smoothly, robotically, just as Luke coached me. “Your own guards have been notified and you will be required to remain within the safety of your home until the threat level is ascertained and nullified.”
“Tell Jean to contact me immediately,” he says shortly and hangs up.