The hall wavered in front of her eyes. She took a tiny step towards the glass doors.
‘Tell him to shoot himself,’ the Chairman ordered.
Everything blurred. Her eyes fluttered. She was lying on a sofa and Cole was playing ‘Second Sight’.
Another step. Cole smoothed his hand over a tuft of hair at the back of her neck. It was the day they’d visited his mother. No, it was now. It was always now. This moment. This decision.
Her tears pooled on the boy’s pale skin. The sting in her chest hurt so bad it might have been a bullet. But somehow, she thrust her shoulder into the glass door. Somehow, she was still here and there was sunlight, sirens, fresh air.
A gun shot rang out behind her.
Jasper puckered his lips sucking in and out. His lungs were starved and imploding. The burning in his eyes and throat felt like needles. He was lying down; something hard thumped against his back. Someone was dragging him by his ankles. He prised his eyes open just a tiny bit. Saw grey light.
The man pulling him broke down coughing. Thick clouds of smoke whipped around them. Jasper’s legs hit the floor. The man had let go and now collapsed onto his knees beside Jasper. Jasper turned his head the other way and threw up. The pain in his chest was unbearable.
This is death.
A muffled alarm clattered in the background. Pipes creaked as they expanded. Far away, panels of glass shattered, and wood cracked and spit as it burnt. A hushed bubble of smoke surrounded Jasper and the man, as though they were in the silent eye of a hurricane.
Jasper blinked slowly. His eyes watered constantly so that his vision rippled. A figure strode towards him through the haze. Tall, blonde hair swept back, unaffected by the smoke.
Tom!
Jasper reached out a trembling arm. His brother looked so young; the same age as he was now.
Tom!
Tom drifted in and out of the grey swirling shadows. As he passed Jasper he rotated his head and glared at him.
Get up!
His voice was thunder in Jasper’s mind. A command to be obeyed, pulling at Jasper’s body, forcing him to gather every vestige of strength in the furthest corners of his being.
Get up!
Jasper rolled onto his hands and knees. His arms shook as he pushed to a crawling position. The man with him was doubled over and hacking badly. Jasper pushed into him with his head. Coughing and crawling, the two of them progressed down the corridor. Miraculously, the man had been leading them to a fire exit. Jasper pushed against the door. It was boiling hot. He flung himself into the fire escape, pain bursting in his shoulder. Losing his balance, he tumbled down a flight of stairs. Below there came distant voices. He moaned and gasped, the smoke thinning out around him. Something yellow hung in the haze. And then it all began to fade.
His body jerked along. Men shouted. He breathed in and a strange mechanic sucking sound echoed back at him.
Oxygen. Oxygen. Oxygen.
A fire fighter hoisted him up. He was flopped over a shoulder, rag doll limbs bouncing about. He hurt everywhere. Every muscle, every bone.
He was outside. Air on his face. The fire fighter lowered him onto a gurney. The man who’d dragged him occupied the next gurney along. Jasper turned his head to look at the person who’d saved his life. His eyes would scarcely open but when they did he saw his father’s bluish face staring back.
A medic leaned over his father, searching for ID. He found the stick and quickly checked it on his interface. ‘I’ve got David Taurell!’ he announced. Cameras and officious looking people flocked towards them. ‘Take him to the Royal Albert,’ a burly man in a dark suit ordered. Two medics hooked up the gurney and pushed it into an ambulance.
The first paramedic came to Jasper. Jasper flailed to raise his arm and clung to his ID. He tried to shake his head. Then stopped. The pain made him want to vomit in his oxygen mask. The medic swallowed and glanced back to where the ambulance doors closed on his father.
‘Identification lost,’ he said. ‘Put him with those going to St Andrews.’
Jasper was wheeled to one side, where over fifty other Novastra employees crowded together, hunched over, coughing, reeling, slumped in wheelchairs, breathing noisily and complaining of headaches and nausea.
From where he lay, he could see the river. Sunlight sparkled on the murky green water. Further up the bank, on the opposite side, was the Board’s Headquarters. Warden vans converged on the old power station, blue sirens wailing. But a curtain of stillness hung around the brick-cathedral structure. The guards on the turrets pointing rifles, the protestors scrambling up fences, the reporters pushing against the Board’s security guards – they were a photograph, a halted moment in time.
A hand came to rest on Jasper’s shoulder. He looked up into brown eyes, an oval face with angular cheekbones.
‘Smoke inhalation can lead to acute mental status changes,’ his brother said. ‘You’re seeing things, Jasper.’
He frowned and the motion sent his nerve ends crashing together. When he opened his eyes again, the man with the hand on his shoulder was no longer Tom but a paramedic.
‘Hang in there,’ the paramedic said. ‘You’re going to be all right.’
*
Ana squinted at the cobbled street around the Headquarters. Beyond the three steps, rows of neatly sculptured trees led down to two symmetrical fountains. Far off to her left, a metal barrier blocked the transport bridge across the river. The Board’s guards held back hundreds of reporters and protestors. But Ana could hear the lap of the Thames against its concrete banks, the pump of the fountains splashing out water, the wail of Warden sirens. All the people were paralysed.
Her legs buckled at the top of the steps. She crumpled to her knees, forced herself up again. On this side of the bridge, parked in the grounds between the guards and the steps, stood an ambulance. She stumbled towards it. A driver sat behind the steering wheel in a bright white shirt and trousers. A nurse stood by the driver’s door, anxious face turned in a breath of stillness to the Headquarters. Ana lay the boy down carefully, then fixed her Paralyser resistor on the woman’s head.
The nurse blinked to life. She looked rigid and disorientated.
Ana scooped up the fragile child. ‘I’m coming back for you,’ she breathed quietly in his ear, handing him to the woman. ‘Look after him.’ And then she was sprinting back to the huge art deco façade, pushing her weakened legs as fast as they would carry her.
Inside the hall she faltered. A smeary trail of blood glistened on the marble tiles. Evelyn Knight dragged herself towards the doors on her elbows. A moan gurgled deep in her throat. Black wiry hair snaked out from her bun. Her useless leg bled in her wake. She was panting. Over her rasping breath came the soft patter of feet.
Tabitha padded through the centre of the huge auditorium, a child-like figure dwarfed by the immensity of her surroundings. Her movements were unhurried. A gun hung in the hand at her side.
Ana’s eyes reached to the first floor balcony, hope and fear warring inside her. She’d only heard one shot.
Far away, Cole drifted among frozen Board members near the escalators. Walking, in tact, whole. The relief was sharp. She sucked in air, trying not to choke on the lump in her throat.
The click of a cocked gun echoed beside her. Tabitha now stood over the Chairman’s sprawled and bloody body.
‘Ms Knight,’ Tabitha said, raising her pistol slowly. A loud pop splintered the hall. Evelyn’s back arched. Pain raged in her eyes. Her breathing laboured as she struggled to flip around. She was trying to turn herself to face her assistant. Then her arms gave way and she slumped. Dark liquid seeped through her jacket. She grunted, fingers twitching.
Ana stood, watching the life drain from the Chairman’s immaculately made-up face. Evelyn’s cheek pressed against a marble slab, a ribbon of crimson running towards her chin.
A coolness blew across the back of Ana’s neck. She thought of snow capped mountains. Tengeri. The dream of something better.
The Pure test had always been part of something larger and more insidious. It had burrowed into the minds of a people, casting doubt, nurturing a sense of weakness. But as much as a person could be weak, they could also be strong.
Tabitha’s stare delved into Ana.
Are you ready?
it seemed to say as she bent down and pulled the chain of Evelyn’s interface over Evelyn’s hair, now tatty and damp with blood. Her finger hovered on a red button at the side of the Chairman’s device.
A wave of energy rushed over Ana. She began running through the vast concourse towards the escalators. The pressure of the paralysing vibration field had been released. She pushed harder. She needed to get to Cole before the world erupted into chaos.
Outside, there was an explosion of sound. People hollered, shouted, began roaring in defiance. Inside the hall, the Special Ops unit surrounded Tabitha.
‘Weapon down! Weapon down!’
Ana kept running. Her thighs trembled as she jumped onto the escalators. She leapt up the stairs two at a time.
At the top, Cole stood watching her, confusion and warmth in his dyed brown eyes. His lip bled, a deep gash cut across his cheek and a fist-sized bruise was turning the top of his face blue and purple. He was blinking, waking from the trance.
Below, Tabitha lay down the gun and kneeled, placing her hands on her head.
One of the Special Ops retrieved the weapon, then crouched to take Evelyn’s pulse. ‘The Chairman’s dead.’
‘Sit down,’ Ana whispered to Cole. He tentatively took her hand, and did as he’d been asked, pulling her with him.
Wardens smashed through the arched glass doors at the front of the building. Boots stomped. Men in helmets and gas masks poured around the perimeter of the hall carrying shields and batons.
‘Surrender your weapons,’ a voice ordered through a loud speaker. The Project guards complied immediately, tossing down Stingers and trident poles, lying flat on the marble floor. The Special Ops waited for their commander to approve the order, before slowly removing their arms.
Someone called in the paramedics. A group of reporters stumbled against the doors and were pushed back from the building. Two Wardens cuffed Tabitha who now seemed submissive and small, as though she’d been caught up in the madness and had no idea what was going on. As six of them surrounded her and began leading her out, Tabitha looked back at the balcony. Ana thought she saw the Chairman’s assistant smile. Then the circle of Wardens between them closed, and Tabitha was swallowed up by blue uniforms.
Cole pulled Ana closer, touching his forehead to hers. His blistered palms rested on her cheeks.
‘What happened to your face?’ she asked.
‘Blaize and I got into a fight. It’s OK though. I was injected with a lot of Benzidox. The bruises, the cuts, the migraine – it’s all fuzzy and numbed.’
‘Cole—’ She curled her hands around his, the guilt almost stifling. ‘I had to choose. I’m sorry. She made me choose and I thought you were dead. I thought I’d killed you.’
‘I know what you did. I heard everything.’ Tears shone in his eyes. He tucked back a strand of hair fallen from her ponytail. ‘I think you were the angel, Ana,’ he said, a note of awe in his voice. ‘For a moment out there I could almost see you shining.’
She smiled, blinking back the wetness. ‘Too much Benzidox,’ she answered. She shuffled closer, tucked herself into his arms and closed her eyes. Soon the Wardens would arrest them along with everyone in the lower hall now being handcuffed and filtered out. They would be held for questioning. The Wardens would attempt to piece together what had happened in the Headquarters that ended in the Chairman’s death. And they would find the fourth floor.
She breathed in and lay her cheek against Cole’s chest.
The future shimmered around them, beautifully unknown.
After forty-eight hours of questioning, which largely consisted of staring at the walls of her cell in the company of a female Board member who didn’t speak, eat or make eye contact, Ana was released from the Warden’s Station.
She lingered outside the building, blinking at the afternoon, hugging her arms around her. Across the street a mother hoisted a pushchair up steep steps to a terraced house. A distant hammering echoed on the air. Voices drifted from a nearby market.
The Warden who had signed Ana out, had been forthcoming with only two pieces of information. One, they were in Clapham, wherever that was. And two, the whole nation had seen her stumble from the Board’s Headquarters with the Arashan boy. Paralysers stopped people, but they hadn’t stopped the dozen cameras that had been there that day, filming the protests.
Ana took a deep breath and tilted her face to the sun. She had no money and no ID. As far as she knew, Cole, Dombrant, Blaize and all the others were being held in various Warden Stations across London. The Project would be empty. There was only one place she could think of going: back to her father’s.
Heading towards the sounds of the high street, she thought of clean clothes, a hot shower, her father’s secret stash of cash hidden in his sock drawer. She bent over suddenly, clutching at her stomach. No more sneaking around or running away. Her father was gone.
Feet pattered up the pavement.
‘Ana! Oh, Ana!’ Lila’s arms flung out and latched onto her. ‘I was just buying sandwiches. They said you’d be another hour at least.’ Lila laughed, but tears were rolling out of her bright blue eyes, down her powdered face. ‘Let’s sit somewhere,’ she said.
She helped Ana up the path of a Georgian house and they perched on the doorstep. Lila unwrapped a chicken and salad sandwich and pressed it into Ana’s hands. ‘Bet they had horrible food,’ she said. ‘Take a bit. It’s chicken.’
‘Thank you,’ Ana said. ‘Thank you for coming.’ Lila held her gaze. For a moment the gaiety vanished. She sighed, took another huge bite of her sandwich and then grinned. She chewed for a minute before speaking again.