I was huddled up in a corner of the pitch blackness, sitting on an old tyre and gripping a rail down the side of the van to stop from being hurled about whenever we rent round a corner.
Suddenly I felt Gunn’s hand on my leg. “Stay still,” he whispered. I tried to pull my leg away, but he was too strong. “Don’t struggle. Or you’ll get hurt.”
“What are you doing?” I panicked. He was big, and muscular. He could do anything to me.
“You wanna see your mother don’t you?” he hissed.
“Yes, but—”
“Then you have to co-operate.”
He had moved up close now and I could feel his hand pulling up the legs of my jeans.
“Get off!” I yelled.
“Relax, will you?” The barrel of his rifle against my other leg stilled me. “I gotta do this, or there’s no way I’m taking you to our HQ.”
“Leave me alone—I’ll tell my mother when I see her!”
“Oh, I’m sure she’d approve,” he responded.
“You’re mad!” I shouted.
“You’re the one who’s crazy. Anyone’d think I was trying to rape you.”
“Well, what are you trying to do?”
“Take your tag off, of course. Where is it?” He was feeling up and down my legs. “Ah.”
Before I could object, something cold and metallic had slipped underneath it, pulled back sharply—and it fell away. It happened so fast there was nothing I could do.
“How—how dare you do that without asking!” I gasped, breathing heavily.
I heard him snort in the darkness. There was a flash of light as he quickly opened the back of the van and threw the tag out. I had time to see the little thing bounce a couple of times on the road before he slammed the door shut again. That tiny band had been almost a part of me for so long. I rubbed my skin where it had been. It felt strange and exposed. I had stopped thinking of the tag as horrible, even though it was; it was something that kept me safe, kept me from being whisked off to the CGR. It had allowed me to stay at home with Papa and have big, strong Dominic look after me, however much I resented him. As long as it was there, I could pretend things were relatively normal. Pretend.
And with one easy action, Gunn had ripped that away from me. I started to cry.
“Hey, Kes…” whispered Gunn. He touched me again, this time on the shoulder.
“Get off me!” I screamed. And this time he did.
“OK…”
All I could think was that now they’d be after me. They’d soon find out that I was no longer wearing it. They’d send out a van. Ten vans. I’d be caught and sent away. I’d never see Papa again.
“I thought it was what you wanted…” said Gunn. “You must’ve realised you couldn’t come with me while you were wearing it. They’d track you. It would jeopardise our whole operation.”
No. I hadn’t realised. Another thing I hadn’t thought through. I’d really burnt my bridges now. He handed me a tissue. I blew my nose.
“Come on. It ain’t so bad. Where you’re going, we’re all Greys. You’ll be in good company. And we’re nearly there now.”
The van turned left suddenly, banging me against the side again, and lurched to a halt. Outside I heard Alsatians barking their heads off. The engine cut. I heard a heavy gate clang shut behind us and bolts being shot. The back door was flung open and light streamed in to show me the man with the rifle for an arm smiling his impossibly wide smile. To me, he looked like a wolf.
“Kes, hey, relax. Let’s get out.”
Gunn jumped down and swung round to offer me his free hand all in one fluid movement. Slowly, I emerged, looking round into a muddy, oily yard strewn with scrap metal and disembowelled cars. I saw we’d come through a tall steel gate set in a barbed-wire topped iron fence. Down one side of the yard were a low brick building with a corrugated roof and a few sheds.
Gunn was sauntering around, arms outstretched. “Scrappie,” he grinned. “Makes a good cover. Ironic too, don’cha think? Spare parts…recycling…unwanted scrap…and us. Rejected, recycled…But the future of the human race. I have no doubt ’bout that. Isn’t that why they’re trying to wipe us out?”
He gestured with his rifle towards the building and its flaky green door. On his face was the trace of a cheeky smile. Suddenly my whole mood changed. I kept my eyes on the green door as I ran towards it and opened it and looked around a small dark workshop to see Maman sitting at a table smiling at me.
When I’d had my fill of crying and being hugged and repeating that I thought I’d never see her again, I withdrew from her arms to feast my eyes upon her.
“Oh, my darling! You found me!” she murmured. “You’re so clever!”
“You look different,” I replied. She seemed more raw, less polished. Of course, she wasn’t wearing make-up and she probably hadn’t washed her hair in her usual shampoo and conditioner all this time. “There’s something in your eyes…and the way you’re holding yourself.” A model is always used to posing even when she’s not working. Although Maman hadn’t been one for a couple of years and had played the part of the head of a charity in the public eye, she’d always maintained her character armour—her outward façade. But now it had gone.
“Do you think so, ma chérie?” she said, smiling at me. “Better, I hope!”
But my relief was changing into something else. “You left. Without saying a word! Why? Didn’t you trust me?”
She sat back to observe me with half a smile playing over her face. I knew that expression: weighing up in her mind the proportion of child versus adult in me at this point in my life, and therefore the correct dosage of information to impart to me. As if information were a medicine that had to be meted out according to the age of the recipient. She took a deep breath and said: “I know. I should have told you. But there was no time. I always knew I could write to you. Didn’t you get my letters?”
I told her how I had discovered her letters hidden away by Papa, about Johnny and everything, and it made me cry once more. As I did so, I was embarrassingly aware of Gunn coming into the room.
“That confirms what I feared,” she said, growing darker and more distant. “Your father hates me—and wanted to use you against me. Zut! I should have known.”
Gunn came over, and to my horror, he squeezed her shoulder and they took each other’s hand. It made me squirm inside.
Gunn said: “Kes, girl, it’s time to face facts. Your Papa is a bad man. We-ell, maybe not him. You could be kind and argue he’s caught up in somethin’ larger than he can handle, a rollercoaster of a project. But, you know, he could jump ship if he wanted.”
“I don’t believe it!” I cried. “And I can’t understand why you want to be here…I gestured around the stained walls, the shelves full of old tins and oily papers, last year’s tyre calendar, twenty-year-old office furniture and cracked lino “…instead of at home in the luxury you’re used to—and without me! Maman, tell me the truth.”
She took a deep breath again. “All right, ma chérie. What I have to say may come as something of a shock. So please wait until I’ve finished before asking questions.”
She was leaning forward and holding the wrist of my left arm, subconsciously stroking the area where I ceased to be human and became technology, just like Papa had done. Her large blue eyes stared into mine through her long eyelashes.
“I decided I couldn’t live with your father any more. No, not because he was horrible to me, unless you count being away from home so much that I hardly saw him from one month to the next. But because of what I found out. I did love him, I did think he was a wonderful man, and in many ways he is. But there is another side to him, one that you don’t know about. I didn’t know about it until recently. You see, I realised that nobody reaches a position of power in a big company like that without making compromises. Yes, I know it’s just a drug company, but it’s one of the biggest in the world.
“Several years ago, Mu-Tech decided on a great scheme to make lots of money for its shareholders. For years, medical companies had been inventing so-called conditions so they could sell us a cure—things like Sudden Panic Syndrome or the cure for laziness. But they ran out of ideas. Their profits were sliding. So they decided to do the ultimate thing and create a disease for which they already had the cure.”
She paused to make sure I was listening. “Yes, you guessed it; it was Creep. The plague was created by Papa’s company.”
I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “But that’s ridiculous! They’d have to be insane. Besides you said they had the cure! Where is it then? Why haven’t they given it to us?”
“Because it doesn’t work!” Maman answered. “They reckoned without the power of the virus to mutate. Once out there it developed unpredictable qualities. It evolved in response to other drugs and people’s immune systems. Then, of course, they couldn’t say they already had the cure for the original form because that would be admitting they knew about the disease beforehand. And how could they if they hadn’t created it?”
“And Papa knows this? Is that what you’re saying?”
“He’s on the board. How could he not know?”
“But how can you be sure?” I said.
Gunn slapped a file on the table. “I got the evidence. Secret minutes from board meetings. Business plans, financial records. All that stuff.”
“Thom came to the office of my charity,” said Maman. “He said he knew I was a nice person—I must be or I wouldn’t have started my charity. But he said if I really cared about drug victims, the Creep issue was far greater than that of the fashion models I was trying to help. He told me what I’ve just told you. I didn’t believe him either until he showed me the evidence. He said it came from a whistle-blower inside Mu-Tech. He wanted me to confront Papa. With him of course. But first I thought it was better if I left and joined him and the others. I really feel I’m needed here.”
“The others?”
“There are a few of us, but not many,” she continued. “Now that things are getting a lot worse, we expect our numbers to swell.”
“A resistance army,” said Gunn. “A Hybrid Resistance Army.” He held up the rifle that was his arm. “I was in the army cadets. Been training since I was ten—my dad was in the army too. We did target practice together. Hence this.”
It was all too much. I got up and started pacing around. “Non! C’est fou!”
Gunn took my arm. “Why d’you think there’s no cure? Isn’t it obvious?” I pulled free. “They’re waiting until there’s millions of victims and then they’ll make a killing. And the politicians—don’t you think they’re on the board too? Everyone’s been bought off. Why do you think they’re introducing such measures?”
I said, “They’ve told me to go to the Quarantine Zone.”
“Tell me you won’t go!” Maman said. “You must stay here with me. I’ve missed you so much.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know…” I wanted to be with her. But I hadn’t expected this.
“Stay and fight, Kes. Like yer mum says!”
I wanted to change the subject. “Is this where you live?” I asked.
Gunn opened a door at the back of the room. Behind was a small cupboard. He did something and a panel came away from the back. He threw a switch and a dim light revealed a hidden room with bunk beds—and on the beds several kids a couple of years younger than me. They looked up when they saw me, blinking like a litter of kittens born in a laundry cupboard. I was introduced to them one by one—a couple of mobile phone hybrids like me, a robotic pet, a thigh toning system for heaven’s sake, a mobile media centre, three games machines and two computers—but they didn’t have monitors like Johnny. There was a poker game, a microwave and a power tool. They regarded me with a mixture of anticipation and shyness.
“Meet Gaynor and Peter, Kestrella,” said my mum, introducing me to the mobile phone and media centre, who were closer to my age. “I think you’ll get on with them.”
“Kes—” began Gunn.
But Maman put her hand on his arm. “I think it’s all a bit much for her. Leave her for a while.”
I stared at the children. “They’re so young, Maman. Is this really your army?”
She looked to Gunn, who answered: “No, there’s more. You’ll find out. Sure they’re young. Most hybrids are. You know what the latest is? It’s something else the government is keeping from us.”
“No, but I suppose you’ll tell me,” I said. I was beginning to weary of all this conspiracy stuff.
“They think adolescence is a factor in getting Creep. Something about hormones and the body changing—the virus takes advantage of it to get into the cells and alter them.”
I stared glumly at the grey wall. That would explain things. I’d noticed that whenever I had a period the soreness flared up. Or maybe this was nothing to do with it. But I couldn’t think of anybody who was a hybrid who wouldn’t have been a teenager when they caught the disease, apart from Maman. Puberty could be the catalyst. When we can start to make babies that pass our genes on. This was the cue for the virus to step in and change our genes forever.
Gaynor and Peter had come over to stand in front of me and were staring at my left arm. Gaynor held out her phone alongside mine, silently, as if to compare them or as a gesture of solidarity. She had a more recent model than mine, but just as many blisters. I gave her some of my cream which she rubbed in eagerly and passed to Peter.
Peter’s media system was a wrist-strap model, and sores spread up his arm beneath his shirt sleeve. He didn’t say a word and it occurred to me that he was deaf as well, as silently he displayed a slideshow of his family on the little screen: kid sister skateboarding, dad and mum fooling around by the seaside.
Maman was stroking my hair, grooming me like monkeys are supposed to do when they’ve been apart for a while. This felt almost normal—like we were back home and none of this had ever happened. I’d found my mother, but she’d left her home, never, I guessed, to return. So where did that leave me?
I thought about Johnny and ached. I longed for him to talk this over with. Even though I hadn’t known him long I believed I could trust him with anything. I wondered what tortures he might be enduring because of me, or even if he was still alive. If I ever saw him again, I’d never rest till I’d made it up for him. Then I thought of poor Julian. A wave of tiredness overcame me. I lay down on one of the bunks and immediately fell into a deep sleep…
The next day when I got up, there was no one else in the room. I noticed a door at the back I hadn’t seen last night and went through it, following the sound of voices. A crowded space like the canteen at school greeted me, and I rubbed my eyes sleepily. All the kids were in the middle of breakfast, jabbering away. Gaynor noticed and came over to guide me to where I could get some cereal and sit down at her table.
“More of us be along later, Kes,” she said a couple of times.
“There must be at least fifty more altogether across London, and then there’s all the normal sympathisers. Lots more than will come out and admit it cos they’re frightened of what their neighbours would do to ’em. You know some people’s homes’ve been burnt down?”
I grunted and concentrated on stuffing myself. I was wildly hungry.
Maman entered the room. Without seeing me she went up to Gunn’s side and he put his arm around her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. She didn’t even blink. I couldn’t believe it. How could she let him do that? I turned away in disgust. Gaynor was rabbiting on.
“The lorry—we call it the School Bus—be back soon. It goes around picking hybrids up and bringing ’em here for training, you’ll see,” she continued, eager to commit her enthusiasm to me. She obviously worshipped Gunn. “’Ave you seen ’is eyes?!” she giggled. “And ’is muscles!”
“How come the Gene Police don’t stop it?” I asked.
“The whole place is hidden behind a recyclin’ business,” she explained. “The lorries that go out are collectin’ scrap metal an’ that. We hide in the back. No one’d guess!”
“The owner’s totally into it,” chipped in Peter. “That’s his son over there…” He pointed at one of the games-machine kids: a fat, spotty boy in a lurid tracksuit. He was absorbed in playing on his console. No one else was paying him any attention.
“Our drill rooms are behind the company’s warehouse and offices,” continued Gaynor. I was more interested in watching Maman. She was checking on all the children one by one, making sure they were OK, smiling and giving them little hugs and strokes. I suddenly thought how like Aunt Cheri she had become. Each of them had taken on their own brood of misfits to care for and make them feel wanted. Why? Did Maman care for them more than she cared for me?
Gunn was fond of giving speeches. When everyone had finished eating, he stood and silenced the racket of banter and arguments by banging on the table with his rifle. He began to paint a vision of a country that was tolerant of difference, that embraced the future without fear and that took care of those less fortunate. “As you all know, fear breeds fear!” he said passionately. “And fear is caused by unfamiliarity and ignorance. It’s only because there’s no cure and no known cause that they fear us.”
Some of this sounded familiar to me, and I realised he was taking passages from the Declaration of the Rights of Hybrids, which Johnny had written. How dare he do that!
Maman stood up to deliver her bit: “If they poured all the resources they’re putting into the Gene Police and the Zone into finding a cure, they could find one in a couple of months, believe me. We know why they don’t do it. That’s why we have to fight them!”
The lecture turned into a list of assignments for the day. A detail started on the washing up. The rest prepared to head into a warehouse for drill practice. Children.
I pushed my way through and caught up with Maman. “How old is he?” I hissed.
“What?” she said.
“Thom—your boyfriend. How old is he?”
“Eighteen,” she admitted.
“But he’s horrible! And he could be your son—my brother!”
She looked helpless. “He needs me,” she said eventually. “How can he do this on his own? Look, someone has to take care of these children!”
“Pah!” I spat and ran away from her. Right then I hated Gunn. But I hated her more. I realised how Papa must have felt. I’d been right at the start. It was a trap here. I could no more leave than could any of the other Greys. Outside, I wouldn’t last ten minutes before being picked up. I had to find a way to calm down. I had to find a way to turn this around. I had to wait.
The days passed in exercises and lessons. Gunn told us everything he knew about military history, campaigns, guerrilla warfare. We would spend hours practising karate and weight training to get fit—except the son of the owner, who was somehow excused. They had few weapons. But a small select group, I soon found out, did have work making explosives—compounds, timing devices, detonators, triggers—in a separate space, under the supervision of a hybrid the same age as Gunn called Stiletto. He had long black hair, a stupidly shaped beard and sideburns, and always wore black. It was impossible to tell his nationality. This guy was no charmer. He took an instant dislike to me and I could only watch at a distance as he showed a group of four how to mix explosive compounds from common ingredients and pack them in different containers for different effects. They said that the explosives would only be used to create a disturbance, never to kill or hurt anybody. How could they be sure, I wondered?
I found out a few days later. Gunn, Stiletto and a couple of others were going out on a mission. It was the day of the deadline for hybrids to report to the Gene Police and enter the Zone. We watched it on TV. A long queue of ambulances and Gene Police wagons led to the security gates around the sealed entrances to the estate. Cameras weren’t allowed inside, but the BBC had a helicopter flying overhead that showed more queues of hybrids being processed and milling around aimlessly. But most of what went on was hidden inside the twentieth-century concrete warren. I thought of Cheri and everyone else from Salvation House, trying to imagine what it was like for them.
“Aren’t you glad you’re not in there, ma chérie?” asked Maman.
“Yes, but so what? I don’t want to be here either,” I confessed. “I want to be free. I want my old life back.”
“Don’t we all? But that’s all gone now. This is the new world. But is it going to belong to the Gene Police or to us? That’s why we have no choice but to fight.”
She explained that the team had gone out to create a disturbance that would mark the day and demonstrate that we would not tolerate being treated like cattle. Sure enough, as we continued to watch, television news began to filter through about explosions in three places across the city—all outside Gene Police headquarters which had been left relatively unguarded. All the bombs had been set to detonate at the same time. Warnings had been telephoned through to allow time to evacuate the areas, so casualties were avoided. The incendiaries did little damage—just started small fires.
I had to admit it was exciting, watching this happen and knowing we’d caused it. Knowing that as the pundits were all asking questions about who was behind it and what did it mean, we alone knew the answers.
Then I gasped to see Gunn’s face appear on the screen. Dressed in battle fatigues, he addressed the camera in a pre-recorded statement to explain why the action had taken place. “Actions like these will continue until all hybrids are released and taken into proper care,” he intoned. “And we want to see billions of pounds put into finding a cure using public money without any secret patents, so that no companies can make a profit out of it. It should be done for the common good.”
I watched Maman watching him and saw the look of pride on her face.
“Somebody hand delivered a DVD this morning,” she explained.
The team arrived back, high on their success, to a rapturous welcome. I looked away while Gunn and Maman embraced happily.
I decided it was time to make my move. I went straight up to Gunn. “That was brilliant what you just did. I didn’t know you could do stuff like that.” I hoped my lie was convincing.
“Thanks, Kes,” he smiled. “I knew you’d come round to our way of thinking sooner or later.”
“But you know what would be even more brilliant?” I asked innocently. “What about attacking the Centre for Genetic Rehabilitation and letting everybody out? Or at least rescuing my friend Johnny. You know, the one who wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Hybrids? He’s a prisoner in there. I think he would be a great addition to your team, don’t you? Why not do it now, while everybody’s attention is on the Quarantine Zone?”
He looked at me and began to crack one of his wolfish smiles. “Your mate wrote that? Hey, you know, that’s not such a bad idea, Kes!”