“Jesus Christ.”
“We’re having to move fast. For various reasons things are deteriorating rapidly in the city. Normally we’d have given you a few more days here to make sure you understand, but time’s a luxury we no longer have. This is the perfect time for us to do this. Think you’re up to it?”
Talk about being put on the spot. I fumble for an answer for a second, before realizing that there’s only one thing I can say.
“Yes.”
“Good man! That’s the spirit! As soon as they told me about you I knew you’d be a good candidate.”
“What do you mean by that? Who told you…?”
“We send people out looking for battles. They wait on the outskirts of the fighting, watching out for people like you who manage to demonstrate some degree of control and don’t just attack. Let’s face it, we’d be wasting our time trying to teach this stuff to Brutes, wouldn’t we?! No, we need people like you who are able to take a step back and consider the options before committing to an attack. People who use the Hate and control it rather than letting it control them.”
He looks me straight in the eye. “Tell me, do you remember when you first stood next to Joseph and didn’t attack?”
“I remember.”
“And what were you thinking at the time, Danny? Were you thinking what he was saying was right, or were you just toeing the line to get the best out of a bad situation?”
The memory of the last few days is filled with confusion and uncertainty, the distinction between “us” and “them” suddenly unclear. But now that I’m away from my cell and Sahota has put his question so simply, the answer’s clear and unequivocal. Everything has been brought back into sharp focus.
“I was playing with him. Stringing him along. Doing what he wanted me to do just to get food and freedom…”
“Exactly! A perfect answer! From the moment you decided not to kill him, you were in control.”
This is too much to take in. Sahota watches me intently, and I’m uncomfortable under his constant gaze. I try to look anywhere but back at him. The sun breaks through the heavy gray cloud cover momentarily and streams in through the dirty office window. Christ, I’ve been so preoccupied with this bizarre conversation that I’d forgotten my newfound freedom-in the back of my mind I still think I’m chained to the spot. I get up and walk around the side of the desk.
“You local?” Sahota asks.
“Don’t know yet,” I answer. “That depends where local is. Where exactly are we?”
“Not far from the hospital where we picked you up. A couple of miles maybe.”
“A couple of miles in which direction? Farther away from the city center or…?”
My words trail away to nothing as soon as I look out of the window. I know this place. Sahota’s office overlooks a narrow parking lot. Beyond that, the long, overgrown back gardens of a row of once well appointed but now derelict houses stretch away. Beyond the houses is a small, sloping, oddly shaped patch of parkland, the brightly painted swings and slides of a children’s play area looking strangely at odds with the chaos of everything else I can see. A narrow track between two of the houses connects the parking lot to the road, and a huge wrought-iron gate prevents anyone unwanted from either getting in or getting out.
“Is this-” I start to ask.
“Holy Sisters of the Poor, to give it its original title,” he explains, standing beside me and looking down. “Strange place, this was.”
“Strange?”
“Part convent, part nursing home. Ideal for us.”
He’s not wrong. The huge, strong, brick-built complex is like a fortress. Built in the middle of what used to be a fairly affluent area, and hidden from view by houses on all sides, it’s set back off the road and surrounded by enough tall fences, gates, and walls to keep even the most determined intruder out. Most people wouldn’t even have known it was here at all. From what I remember, this used to be a convent, which became a church-run, community- funded rest home. I’m sure Lizzie’s dad, Harry, had a friend living here for a while…
“This is Highwell, isn’t it?”
“We’re on the border between Highwell and Steply, to be precise.”
“But that’s…”
“About two miles from the center of town.”
“Yes, so we’re…”
“Already in the city. Right on the innermost edge of their exclusion zone.”
“Christ… How many people like us are here?”
“Not many, just me and a couple of others at any one time. Apart from me this place is almost exclusively staffed by my team of idiot Unchanged pacifists who think they’re saving the world. As soon as people like you have learned how to control their emotions I send them out into the city. Like I said, the situation’s deteriorating rapidly out there. We don’t have a lot of time to waste.”
For a moment all I can do is stand in silence and stare out of the window. Beyond the parking lot and the houses, everything appears completely lifeless and still. There are the usual telltale signs of battle, and everything appears even more overgrown and wild than I remember, but the world otherwise just seems abandoned and empty. The longer I look, though, the more I see. In the distance a single helicopter flies toward the city center, visible only in the gaps between the tops of trees. There’s a pile of corpses in the park, dumped in a flower bed. Closer, in the shadows of the parking lot directly below, several Unchanged carry bags of supplies between one building and another, constantly looking over their shoulders for fear of attack. Along the road to my far right, a battered car is slowly approaching. It enters the complex through another gate and narrow passageway, then stops in the shadows of the tall perimeter wall. I watch as two Unchanged deliver another fighter like me, his arms and legs already tightly bound. It strikes me that the irony of what’s happening here is beautiful; these fools think they’re working toward some kind of salvation, but all they’re doing is training their own assassins.
“I’ve set up a number of sleeper cells right in the heart of the city,” Sahota says. “I want you to join one of them.”
“Okay,” I answer quickly and without thinking through any implications. It’ll get me out of here, and right now that’s the most important thing.
“I’ll get your stuff brought up, and I’ll give you directions, contact information, and some supplies. Get out there, get used to being neck deep in the enemy, then find your cell.”
“And then?”
“And then you sit and wait for the signal.”
“The signal?”
“When the time’s right, all the cells will be instructed to take up positions deep in the heart of the city. Then, when we’re ready, each cell will start fighting, causing as much panic as possible. Just imagine it, Danny… sudden swells of violence, loads of them in random locations, and all happening at the same time for no apparent reason. The enemy won’t know what’s going on. They won’t even see us there. They’ll look straight through us and turn on each other, and it’ll be beautiful, like dropping a match into the gas tank of a car. Before you know it, the whole city will be tearing itself apart. Think of it… we’ll be less like terrorist cells, more like cancer cells.”
It sounds magnificent. All too easy.
“So all we have to do-”
“All you have to do,” he interrupts, correcting me, “is get in there, wait until we’re ready, then cause as much mayhem and carnage as you can.”
I stare out of the window again, trying to fully appreciate the importance and danger of what I’m being asked to do.
“This is an honor, Danny. You’ve shown incredible strength and self-belief to get this far. What you’re going into the city to do will never be forgotten.”
28
