By the time of the meeting, Titus was exhausted. Nothing about arranging it had been simple. Arguments about why they should meet, who would be there, where it should be held, constant bickering and posturing. Through this muddy frustration, his determination pierced like an arrow set on its target. He was so close, so close to understanding enough to destroy those who had hurt his sister. Those who had hurt him.
Zane had helped him as far as he could, but he’d been distracted by the anticipation of speaking to his father again and the sheer magnitude of the secret he was keeping from his mother. Several times, when he had heard her twisting and turning in bed, her mind too fraught with emotion to permit rest, he had almost gone to her. He wanted to reassure her, to let her know that the man she’d loved so much hadn’t become the villain she thought him now.
It was dark when they assembled: the children, Luthor, and Jay. They met at the end of the street in which Shannon had been found, the end farthest from the heart of Jay’s territory but still within sight of it.
Both Jay and Luthor arrived prepared for conflict, the Hunter in full armour. Erin was also armoured, on her father’s insistence. They were very close to true no man’s land, where no protection whatsoever existed against wild beasts and scavengers, some of the human variety.
They waited in an uncomfortable silence, the moon only partially full. It cast enough light in the breaks between clouds to outline in silver Jay’s thumbs, hooked over the handles of his twin blades, and the tight grip of Luthor’s fist around the riser of his longbow.
The creak of un-oiled hinges alerted them to the doctor’s arrival. Before any misunderstandings could occur, Zane rushed to his father when he emerged from the shadows down the street. He was relieved to see how much better his father looked than the night they were last together. Their embrace was brief and tight as Shannon was clearly pressed for time once more.
“How long do you have?” Zane asked as he drew his father into the circle.
“A few minutes.”
“Then tell us sommat first,” Jay said in that voice, the one that always made Zane nervous. “Why should we trust you? What’s in this for you?”
“I can’t make you trust me,” Shannon replied. “That’s impossible in the time we have now. But I can tell you that I have everything to gain from the end of Hex. My freedom, my life, and the same for Miri and my son.”
Luthor snorted. “You walked out just now freely enough.”
“Not without huge risk,” Shannon said patiently. “If they realise I’m gone, there will be repercussions.”
“We don’t have time to debate whether he’s trustworthy or not,” Titus spoke up. “I know he’s sincere and that’s enough for me.”
“It may be enough for you,” Luthor began but Erin touched his arm to interrupt him.
“Titus is good at this sort of thing,” she said quietly. Seeing Luthor’s anger at Erin’s intervention, Titus spoke quickly to divert his attention. “Where is Hex based and how do we get in?”
Shannon’s eyebrows shot up. “You want to get into Hex?”
Jay, Luthor, and Titus nodded in synchrony. “It’s the only way to be sure we got ’em,” Jay explained. “Gotta get right in their patch and trash it. If we don’t, they’ll just keep doing what they’re doin’ to the other kids down there. How many other kids are there?”
“How many Guardians are there?” Luthor asked before Shannon could reply.
“Wait,” he held up his hands. “Too many questions. Let’s look at this in some kind of order.”
Titus nodded at that. “Tell us where they are, that’s a good place to start.”
“Hex is contained in several old underground tunnels, predominantly the Piccadilly and Jubilee Lines,” Shannon replied. “They’re the deepest lines and the easiest to defend. The government was building underground bunkers extending from Westminster adjacent to the Jubilee Line for a long time before It happened.”
“Them funny clothes they wear,” Jay spoke up, “That’s to stop ’em dyin’, right?” Shannon nodded. “So do they wear ’em all the time?”
“No,” Shannon replied. “All entrances to Hex are hermetically sealed, with rigorous decontamination procedures for any Guardians or scientists who come up to the surface.”
“What does that mean?” Erin asked.
“That the doors are sealed so tight that air can’t get through,” Shannon explained. “When people come up here, they get washed lots so the bad stuff in the air doesn’t stick to them.”
“They do that to you?” Luthor asked but Shannon shook his head.
“No, I don’t get to go into Hex proper. They keep me in the same spoke as the children. We all have an immunity to the virus, so they don’t have to follow such strict measures for us, and that saves a lot of electricity, water, and chemicals.”
“To keep the air clean, supply their suits with oxygen, those guns they use, that all takes electricity,” Luthor commented. “Where do they get it from?”
“Green Park,” Shannon replied. “It’s been cleared in the centre and is full of solar panels and wind turbines. All renewable sources, all out of sight from the streets around it. I know where the back-up generators are too.”
All the assembled, save Luthor, and to a lesser extent Titus, looked somewhat blank at this discussion.
“The power from Green Park also runs Hex, I take it?” Luthor continued and Shannon nodded again.
“Air filtration, purification and recycling, waste disposal, door seals, everything,” he elaborated. “It’s an amazing system. Entirely self-sufficient and sealed from the outside world.”
“The people in Hex,” Titus was frowning, “They can’t live up here because the virus would kill them … and the electricity from Green Park stops the bad air getting in … so it seems there’s only one thing to do.”
Luthor was nodding as he spoke, having come to the same conclusion. “Destroy the power supply so the door seals will fail and the rest takes care of itself.”
Shannon nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
“Hang on, them Giants–I mean the Guardians–they’ll still be able to breathe up ’ere,” Jay interjected.
“We pick them off with arrows,” Luthor replied. “The suits only need to be pierced once for them to die quickly.”
“If you want to do this, tonight is perfect,” Shannon advised. “Radley is collecting supplies and samples from St Mary’s hospital and they’ve doubled the Guardians looking after her because of what happened with Lyssa.”
“Excellent, then it should be tonight,” Luthor said. “The Red Lady is keen for the Unders to be removed as a threat and has placed all of our Hunters under my command. I will post our best archers at various high points, and when the seals fail –”
“Wait!” Zane cried, and the group turned to him, noticing for the first time the look of total horror on his face. “If we break the door seals, won’t everyone in Hex die?”
Titus blinked at him. “Yes. That’s the point.”
Zane’s jaw was slack. “But … but that’s terrible. How many people live there?”
When his son’s eyes fell on him, Shannon’s face showed the first signs of guilt. “About forty or so.”
“Zane, they’re monsters!” Erin exclaimed. “They took Lyssa, and they put horrible black stuff in children and cut them and –”
“Do all of the people in Hex do that?” Zane pressed his father, and watched him shake his head. “Then we can’t do this. We can’t kill them all. In fact, we shouldn’t try to kill anyone–we should try to talk to them.”
“Are you mad?” Jay snorted. “They don’t talk, they shoot lightning! Remember?” He lifted his shirt to reveal the lurid scarring left by the burn on his torso. “They didn’t talk when they did this. They just shot me, killed my Boys and nicked Titus’ sister. You forgot all that?!”
“No, of course not,” Zane sighed. “But can’t we find a way to try to talk to them? Dr Radley–the one that Titus swapped for Lyssa–she didn’t seem horrible or violent. How do we know that there aren’t other nice people down there too?”
“We do not have time for this,” Luthor growled. “It’s irrelevant.”
“It’s not!” Zane retorted. “Titus, when we first met, you thought that me and Mum were bad people–you thought everyone was bad. But now you have us as friends, and you know people in gangs and that they aren’t as bad as you thought either.”
“So what?” Erin asked, before Titus could reply.
“So, it could be the same with the Unders!” Zane exclaimed.
Titus stared down at the ground, considering his argument. He was swayed by it for a few moments, but the doubts slowly crept back in.
“Zane, you cannot pick and choose who of them will live and who will die,” Luthor stated. “This is a war.”
“I see where you’re coming from, son,” Shannon said softly, “But if you want to stop what they are doing to the children, what they are forcing me to do, then you have to accept that others will die. To shut them down, we have to shut all of it down. All of it.”
“But why do they do those things to the boys?” Zane asked, shaking with tension.
“Cos they’re sick in the ’ead,” Jay muttered.
“They’re trying to find a cure,” Shannon replied. “And they think that it’s right to get that cure, no matter what the cost.”
“But … but what if we found that cure!” Zane exclaimed. “What if they didn’t have to do that anymore? Then they could be our friends!”
“Shit, Zane, not everyone in the world can be your friend!” Jay yelled and the boy fell silent. “We gotta go in and take ’em down. Else we’ll never be safe. Never. I gotta protect my Boys, and I gotta get the others that are down there out, and if some people die, well then fine. If they’re the kind of people that let that kind of thing happen and don’t say nuffin’ against it, then they deserve it anyway.”
“They’ve kept us apart all your life, Zane,” Shannon urged. “They said they would kill you and Miri if I didn’t do what I was told. These aren’t the kind of people that care about making friends.”
Zane turned to Titus, searching his friend’s face for any signs of solidarity. Titus looked up from the ground, feeling that gaze, as a flash of Squeak’s memories pulsed through him. In the next moment a flash of Lyssa’s scarred body, the way she could barely walk, and the doubts were swept away like leaves by winter gales. His thumb traced the cut in his palm. He pressed it, feeling the sting.
“This is the only way,” he stated coldly.
Crushed, Zane looked from Titus to his father and back again. “I can’t do this,” he said, eyes brimming with tears. “I swore an oath to save people, not kill them.”
He spun on his heels and ran back towards Jay’s territory, the group watching him go. Shannon took a step after him but Luthor grabbed his shoulder. “Let him run back to his mother,” he said. “We need to plan and move tonight.”
Titus watched Zane run around the corner. “I’m sorry, Zane,” he whispered beneath his breath. “But I swore an oath too.”