CHAPTER 19 – JOY

I went to the bathroom yet again. What time was it? Surely the bell would sound at any minute? I removed two rocks from our weapons store; was it safe to arm myself now? Huh, rocks wouldn’t be much use if we couldn’t override the door system. No, mustn’t think like that. Aki had confirmed that the system of arming the doors was the same as that in the Citidomes, so Stage One of the plan was to enable him to access the control room and disable all the locks. There was no reason why this stage shouldn’t work, as long as the guards didn’t fire on us first.

As I walked back to the bed, I shot a glance at Ryan. I’d missed our conversations but was frightened to even look at him. I’d heard that he and one of the Heroes had been working in Unit three yesterday and had loosened the tops of the storage vats. A throaty cough told me that Mala was also awake. The feisty Citidome escapee had been caught in a nearby village and dragged to the camp last week, fighting all the way. She’d killed a guard by strangling him with her bare hands. It was exactly the sort of skill we needed; we’d recruited her to the gang. Unfortunately she’d arrived with a stinking cold that had spread around the camp. I was no stranger to colds so was one of the few to have survived unscathed.

I’d barely made contact with the bed when the now-familiar bell rang. Adrenaline coursed through my body. I jammed on my leisure shoes and looked across to Aki, already on his feet.

“Time to overcome. Follow me, everyone!” Aki roared.

Ryan grabbed my hand and I squeezed it. “They’re not separating us this time,” he whispered. Mala and another recruit followed us. Others scratched their heads and muttered, “What’s going on?” Almost immediately, a female officer confronted us.

“Back to your beds!” she shouted. “Backup!”

Without hesitation, Aki slammed his fist into her face, flooring her. Mala stamped on her neck. A sickening crunch and her body lay motionless.

“Nice one,” said Aki.

I swallowed the bitter fluid that had risen in my throat, the memory of the hammer crashing into Peter’s skull filling my mind. Could I do that? Don’t think, just act. As the others dashed to the bathroom to arm themselves, I handed a rock to Ryan. A deafening siren sounded and the scenes of chaos became hard to process.

“Keep hold of my hand,” Ryan said.

A scream. A surge of people emerged from another of the sleeping rooms. About ten metres to my right, facing away from me, was a guard armed with a gun. I tiptoed across, raised my arm and brought the rock crashing to the base of his skull. He fell. Ryan stamped on him, mimicking Mala’s action. All around was fighting and falling as the guards stunned as many people as they could. But our strength of numbers soon floored them. Was that all they were armed with? Where was Kell?

“Joy, over here!”

“Kell!” Keeping a tight grip of Ryan’s hand, I ran to Kell. He thrust us deep into the crowd that had gathered around the front entrance, but it remained shut. Some people were ineffectually kicking the door and beating it with rocks. From my position among the throng I could no longer see what was happening, buried among taller bodies, but Ryan didn’t release his grip and kept up a commentary.

“Woah, there’s another one. Veez, what’s that? That looks like the gun they used when I – oh no, it is. It’s taken the skin off someone’s face.”

Every nerve and muscle fibre tightened at the sound of shots and screams. The shots ceased, but the screams and moans continued.

“Someone got her from behind. That’s at least five down. No … here comes another one. What’s happened to Aki? Surely they’ve got to the control room by now?”

More shots. More screams. Again, the shots ended. The room span. The human shield that protected me was becoming thinner by the minute. Then a huge push almost knocked me over. The doors were open!

“Don’t let go!” Kell gripped my other hand.

I ran, my legs struggling to match Kell and Ryan’s speed, towards the open outer gate. A surge from behind pushed me over, then a heavy weight forced my head to the ground. Agonising pain shot through my spine. People were running over me!

“Stop! You’ll trample her to death.” Ryan’s voice.

Two hands hauled me up. We rejoined the surge. But where were our rescuers? And what about the explosion?

And then it happened. The first blast brought everyone to the ground. The second made me think that the world was coming to an end. The noise shook me to my core. A ringing in my ears – had my eardrums burst? Then came the heat. Everyone stared, mesmerised by the scale of the blaze. And then all was movement and a throbbing wall of sound. We ran towards the inferno, treading on burnt bodies along the way.

“Shit, if you hadn’t fallen, we might not have survived the blast,” Kell muttered. I shivered despite the heat. The explosion must have extended much more than a hundred metres; could anyone throwing the explosives have survived? Could Harry have survived?

Must keep running. Adrenaline tore at my muscles. My lungs burnt, as much from the effort as the heat and smoke. Then we saw them. A huge group of rescuers. There must have been fifty or more people, most armed with guns, but no-one I recognised. No Dad. No Harry. No Helen. Where were they? How did I have any hope of finding them among this madness?

“Line up over here,” called a familiar voice.

“Gill!” I ran towards a woman I knew from the Bakewell market.

She let out a cry, and held out her arms. “Joy, I don’t believe it. Everyone’s frantic. No time to talk, we need to be quick.” With a swift movement, she sliced through my ear. The frenzy of pain and blood made me unable to think for a few minutes but Gill was already working on Ryan when I found my voice again.

“Where’s Dad?” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Gill in a way that convinced me she was lying.

“Helen’s meant to be doing this, isn’t she?” I said.

“Yeah. She couldn’t be here, so she sent this young man instead.”

A Marked man with a healing lobe was already working on a woman’s ear. The screams round me told me that there was no time to make sense of Gill’s words.

“Is there a spare scalpel?” I asked. “I know how to do this.”

“You’re kidding? There’s two spare. Here you are,” she said, and handed me one. “But keep some pressure on your own lobe for a few minutes.”

“I’ll do some,” said Kell, as she took the other scalpel.

“OK, I’ll do you first,” I said. “Bend down.” I brought the scalpel to his ear and met with resistance; Kell’s fleshy lobe was much harder to cut than the pig’s ear, but I persisted, ignoring his yelp. Slice, pinch.

“Veez, this is madness,” Ryan muttered.

“Next!” I shouted. I remembered Helen’s words, “After a while you’ll forget what you’re doing; it’ll become automatic.” But the screams were a constant reminder. I was mutilating humans. At first I gave each terrified face a reassuring smile but as the cold bit into my flesh, numbing my hands, I increased my pace. Soon one lobe resembled another, another lump of flesh, like skinning a rabbit. The screaming and gunshot became white noise.

“You’re doing brilliantly.” Ryan’s voice reassured me.

Fresh blood warmed my fingers, its metallic smell pervading my lungs. But despite my focus it was impossible to ignore the heat, smoke, fumes, and the cacophony around me – the endless siren, the gunshots, the shouts, the screams. A man lying on the floor grabbed me by the ankle, crying for help. I looked at him and gasped. His mouth was a gaping sore, his lips burnt away. And then I heard something else – horses! People were getting away! And I still hadn’t seen any of the people I wanted to see.

Then an unfamiliar sound filled the air and I looked upwards, the shock almost causing me to drop my scalpel. What on earth was that? A huge metal monster filled the sky, drowning out any other sound. Even in our picture books, I’d never seen anything like it. Kell tugged at my hand.

“Woah, what’s that? We’d better get out of here.”

Streams of fire rained down from the monster. Bodies fell like toppling dominoes. I finished the ear I was working on, shot an apologetic glance at the endless lines of people snaking away from me, handed one a scalpel and ran as fast as I could. Then a scream made me turn. Escapees surrounded a CE, one hand in the air, her weapon in her other hand.

“Please, you can have my gun. I want to come with you.”

Hearing the desperation in the woman’s tone, I turned and gasped. The eyes, the mouth, the colouring. It must be!

“Suna?” I said.

She frowned, nodded and handed me the gun. I gave it to Kell.

“Hurry up,” Kell screamed

Was Suna for real, or was this a trap? But she was my sister. I had no time to think; better make sure she couldn’t be traced. “Open your mouth,” I said.

Suna obeyed, her face a mask of terror. I put my finger inside her cheek. Ah, her disc wasn’t fastened all the way through. I withdrew my finger, gave a swift tug to the disc, and it was free. Blood gushed from a hole in her cheek.

“Follow me!” I yelled.

I ran blindly, not knowing whether she was following or not. Then Ryan yelled and fell.

“Ryan!” I stopped but Kell grabbed my hand.

“Leave him!” he shouted.

“No!” I bent over Ryan, who was crying out in pain. His pants were torn, and I could see a huge hole in his leg, from which blood was oozing.

“You don’t make this easy, do you? Take the gun.” Kell handed it to me and threw Ryan over his shoulder.

And then I found myself being squashed into a TravelPod with Kell, Ryan, Suna and another woman. Could so many people fit into one tiny vehicle? The door closed and the vehicle moved away as flames continued to rain from the sky, merging with the fire that was now tearing into other parts of the complex.

I pressed my hand against Ryan’s wound, his blood seeping through my fingers. But there was no skin beneath my hand; I was touching Ryan’s raw flesh. I looked at his wound with horror. The damage appeared to be superficial: the bullet had dissolved a patch of skin about the size of the palm of my hand. But blood was pouring at an alarming rate from a tear to the right of the wound. He must have fallen onto something – the area was littered with rocks. No-one spoke at first, the car filled with Ryan’s moans.

“It’s OK, I’m here,” I soothed, then to the others, “I have to stop him bleeding. I need something to tie around him.” I looked around me. The blue bodysuits we wore at the camp were of a hardwearing fabric that resisted any attempts at tearing. “Driver, do you have a shoelace?” The villager wore handmade boots fastened together by leather thongs.

“Yeah, but sorry, can’t stop.”

“I’ll hold the steering wheel, you untie it,” said Kell.

“I’ll have your shirt, too,” I said.

“Bossy isn’t she?” said the driver but after some awkward wriggling, handed them to me.

I placed the thong around the top of Ryan’s thigh. How tight? I searched my mind for what I’d read. Must stop the bleeding but not for too long that we damaged the tissue. I took a deep breath, tightened it until he gasped, then pressed the inside of the driver’s linen smock against his leg to stem the flow of bleeding.

“At least your legs are skinny. This wouldn’t have gone round mine,” I said to Ryan. “I think I’ve done it. The bleeding’s slowing. Ryan?” I turned to Kell. “Oh, I think he’s fainted.”

“Just as well. That’s a hell of a wound,” Kell said. “Jesus, what are those bullets made of?” Then his voice rose. “Stop the Pod!”

“No way. Are you mad?” said the driver.

“What’s up?” I said.

Kell had turned in his seat. What had he seen? I saw people running in all directions, but no-one I recognised. “Harry,” he said. “I’m sure it was Harry, running in that direction, a bunch of people behind him.”

My stomach relaxed – Harry must have survived the blast! – and then clenched, remembering that Harry was as good as dead to me.

The vehicle continued its tortuous progress, lurching through dips and crevices along a path not designed for traffic, until we entered the edge of vast woodland. The TravelPod stopped by a tree and the driver nodded towards its base. I gasped; there was an open trapdoor. We leapt out.

“Bloody hell, Joy. We did it!” Kell threw his arms around me.

“Yeah, well we can celebrate later. Let’s concentrate on getting Ryan down those steps.”

We hoisted him out of the vehicle.

“He needs assessment first,” said a man at the door. “Turn left when you reach the bottom of the steps, then register.” The man did a head count, recorded the numbers with chalk marks and looked up, eyebrows raised at the sight of Suna. “You, get out.”

“No, she’s an escapee. She’s my half-sister.”

“Joy? Don’t tell me you were in the camp?”

I recognised one of Dad’s AOC colleagues. “Hey, Dai, have you seen my dad?”

“Yeah, he’s inside.”

“But that wasn’t the plan. I thought only those who got injured were staying here.”

And then I saw Dai’s pained expression and my heart constricted. What horrors faced me now?