when I let my senses slip into that subconscious state of information ravening – drinking in every tiny indicator around me, letting my old brain piece it together – I could almost taste their hunger, their sorrow, their desperation. They'd come here to reclaim something they'd lost.
'Moms.' Nate said, fussing with the quadbike. 'Come to see their kids.'
'They get to visit them?'
Nate gave a grim little laugh and shook his head. 'Hell, no. Mostly they just… stand here. A week, maybe two. Hoping for a glimpse, some sort of sign, I dunno. Something to show 'em their kids really are building that… 'New Tomorrow.' Make them feel better, maybe. Not so guilty.'
'They ever get their wish?'
'Uh-uh. Whatever happens in there, it stays in there.'
'But you used to bring them here. You must have seen the inside.'
Nate shrugged. 'Parts. Reception garage, fuelling pump. But I tell you this… the New Tomorrow looks kinda the same as the Old Today, and there ain't no hordes of happy kids rushin' about in there, either.'
I stared across the scene for a long time, letting the misery infuse. Nate lit a cigarette and sat smoking, turning away with overblown discretion every time one of the guards happened to glance our way.
If I'd stopped, if I'd thought about it right then and there, I might have been surprised. For all his posturing, for all his fear and anguish at the Clergy getting their hands on him, here he was. Hadn't raised a word of protest, coming to this place. He'd walked right up to the outskirts of the dragon's den, and sat down outside with his new- found protector and his knightly armour lowered to his ankles.
But I wasn't thinking of that, right then. Call me dumb. I was thinking of the groans from the crucifixes, and the sobs from the mothers, and the silence from inside the compound.
And Bella, briefly. Thinking about Bella, when I should have been focusing on the mission. When I should have been concentrating on Don't you fucking give up, soldier.
Sir, no sir, etc etc.
'In London,' I said, eventually, 'they used to send out Catcher squads. Clergy goons. All armed. Lot of them were women… Maybe the bigwigs thought it'd make things easier. Woman's touch, that sort of thing.
'A lot of the people who survived The Cull ended-up well into the Church anyway. All those broadcasts, every Sunday. Never ceased to amaze me, but I saw it happen all the time. People giving-up their own kids, shit. Treated it like a fucking ceremony.'
Nate blew a smoke ring. 'I was there too. Remember? I seen it.'
'Yeah. But did you ever see them with the people who didn't give-in so easy? The ones who… wouldn't let go. Hid their kids. Kept them safe. You ever see that? The Clergy used to call them 'selfish.' You believe that?'
He sighed.
'You ever see the Catcher squads?' I said, feeling strangely angry with him, wanting to press until he snapped. I couldn't work out why.
He shook his head.
'You ever see them kicking down a door, or shooting a screaming woman in the street, or dragging-off kids to the fucking airport and telling the parents they were dead if they tried to follow? You ever see that Nate? You ever see that shit, before they brought you over here to ferry the sprogs back and forth?'
He looked away.
The sun dipped below the horizon. A few fires were being built by the more enterprising segments of the crowd. The silence stretched on.
'It's different here,' Nate said, after long minutes had eked away. There was… something in his voice. Bitterness? Guilt? 'All the Klan shit, you know? It's what's expected.'
'I don't follow.'
'Choirboys keep the Klans in order. Oversee disputes. S'what the Adjudies are for. And they… they parcel out guns, sometimes food, sometimes water. And the drugs. They got so much of that shit in there…' he nodded to the Secretariat, and again that something in his voice '…it's coming out their fucking asses.'
'So they dish it out to all the Klans? Why? Just for… for loyalty?'
'Cos in return they get the tithe.'
I glanced around the crowd, the tattered clothes, the dirt-smeared tags.
'But these are just scavs. These aren't Klansmen.'
'Right again. But they gotta do what the bosses say. They want to eat? They want to stay alive? They don't wanna get skewered on no territory-pole like a fucking shish kebab? Then it's easier to go with the flow. Hand over the youngsters. Believe they going someplace better.' He sighed again, staring at the crowd. 'You act like a good little scav, you give up your own flesh and blood; you maybe get an extra ration, maybe a better sleepin' pitch. Maybe you get promoted to Klansman earlier than otherwise. And if you're smart, if you figure out that's the way to the top, then the only way to do it is to… to make yourself believe. You understand? Make yourself believe it's right.
'Self-sacrifice, man. That's what the Klans do.'
'Can you get inside there?' I said, suddenly tired of it all, hungry to press-on.
He chewed on the smouldering dogend of his cigarette for a long time, closed his eyes, reopened them, and said:
'Snowman's chance in hell. Sorry.'
We camped out on the plaza in front of the crucifixes overnight, warming ourselves at an oil drum fire some of the desolate women had built, and ate dog food. We discussed getting inside.
Nate kept asking me why. Why the hell was I doing this? Why the hell would I go up against the Clergy?
I didn't answer. It wasn't his business. Nobody's but my own.
Nothing to do with anyone but me. Not Nate, not the Clergy, not these scavs with their dead eyes.
Just me.
Good soldier. Good soldier.
Except that every time I looked at the building, or at Nate, or at the sobbing mothers, I ended up thinking of Bella; sat in that burnt-out pub in Heathrow, with her bitter glances and don't-fuck-with-me face. Then hunched over the controls of the plane, shivering and sweating. Then dead.
Impaled in the middle of a mashed up plane.
By midnight, when Nate's voice was getting croaky from explaining the ins-and-outs to me, when my eyes were starting to droop and the stink of his endless cigarettes was all over me, I had a plan.
At two in the morning – give or take – a convoy of AVs entered the compound. Seven in total. Old military models, repainted in sky-blue with scarlet circles, covered from tracked wheels to pintle-weapon roofs in ablative shields and home-made deflectors.
In the lead vehicle, a tall man with a long face, a pale robe, and a strange cap stood with his arms folded, gesturing angrily in heated conversation with someone out of sight beside him. He wore scarlet sunglasses.
Nate almost popped.
'That's Cy,' he hissed, shivering. 'That's fucking Cy…'
The old man covered his face, lurking in my shadow like a terrified child, peering between his fingers.
As the lumbering machines took the final corner I caught a glimpse of Cy's companion, the unlucky receiver of his displeasure. I felt the skin prickle on my forehead, recognising the muscular man with perfectly white hair – bare chested – whose shoulders were criss-crossed with rank scars like a sergeant's stripes.
'The Mickey.' I muttered. 'That's the guy who saw us take the tunnel.'
Nate moaned quietly, hopping from foot to foot.
The Klansman had a black eye, a foul expression, and a hateful glare reserved just for Cy. They appeared to be arguing, though if I know body language at all – and I do – the Mickey wasn't getting anywhere fast.
The Clergy've been tracking me.
Asking questions.
Plotting my movements.
It felt vaguely exhilarating. Almost a pleasure, to be hunted, to be second-guessed, to be looked-for but never found. Just like the old days; sneaking and scuttling in the shadows. Staying covert, staying secret. Doing what I'd been sent to do, then melting away.
Don't you fucking give up, soldier!
