Tooth and Nail Read online

  ‘What will it look like?’ Kate asked as she approached Mark. ‘When it goes up?’

  ‘We’ll find out any second,’ Mark replied.

  ‘Maybe we should cover our eyes.’

  ‘You can, if you want.’

  Kate trembled, and realised she didn’t want to look away. Rightly or wrongly, her eyes fixed themselves on the entrance and looked for signs of her friends.

  There was movement, and Kate sighed with relief. Ewan was right on time. He and Simon bolted out of Oakenfold like racehorses from a gate, and made it past the boundary of metallic objects halfway through the car park.

  ‘Everyone OK?’ Ewan asked. Or at least mouthed while he caught his breath.

  ‘The twat got me in the forearm,’ said Mark. ‘Otherwise, I’m OK. So are Kate and Gracie. Not heard from Jack but I assume he’s fine.’

  Kate’s legs started to weaken, but not from the run. Seven students had come to Oakenfold, and six had walked inside.

  One was missing.

  *

  Halfway between the library and the front entrance, Raj took the longest strides he could manage at top speed. He knew he had the right documents under his arm, although it had taken a lot of reading – even after Kate’s warning to get out.

  He regretted nothing. He couldn’t afford to escape Oakenfold without the right documents, and he couldn’t carry them all out. Not in the time he had.

  The entrance was ahead, wedged open by a fire extinguisher.

  That must have been Kate. Nobody else would be so thoughtful in a crisis.

  Her efforts saved Raj at least three or four seconds, at a time when every single one of them counted.

  He was about twenty metres behind the metal points when they buzzed, and the shield went up.

  There was a red flash, like sheet lightning up close, which vanished a moment after it came. It was replaced with a sea of crimson ripples which distorted the sight of the world outside Oakenfold, including the hill and the faces of his horrified friends.

  Before the ripples lost their colour, Raj looked up. The AME shield formed a dome over the school, like a semi-spherical net pegged down by the metal points. The crimson barrier faded in silence, and their surroundings returned to normal.

  Kate was screaming.

  Raj said nothing. He retrieved his handgun, pulled the topside to remove a bullet, and tossed it half-heartedly towards his friends.

  The bullet hit the shield and exploded violently, causing Raj’s bladder to weaken. Around the area the bullet had hit, a set of furious lightning shards buzzed across a metre-wide canvas of crimson ripples, before they all faded again into nothingness.

  ‘Raj!’ shouted Ewan, running as close to the shield as he could get away with. There was anger rather than sorrow in his eyes. ‘What the bloody hell took you so long?!’

  He’s not angry at me personally. It’s his way of grieving the loss of a friend.

  ‘These did,’ Raj replied with a hiccup, lifting the files he had seized from the library. ‘I can’t pass the folder through because it’s got metal rings, but I can give you the paper.’

  He opened the folder and removed its contents, concentrating hard enough on the task to ignore the enormity of what was happening to him. But that became difficult when he passed the pile through the shield, and saw the air calmly ripple around the papers as they went through. Ewan’s hand took them at the other side and passed them to Jack, who had made his way down the hill.

  ‘It tells you which parts of New London deal with AME,’ Raj said, his voice quaking. ‘I know because… because I read it.’

  Jack and Ewan’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

  ‘…I read it, guys,’ Raj repeated for the satisfaction. He may have been a dead body in waiting, but he had kept their hopes in the war alive. And he had done it by reading.

  ‘The way they’ve set it up in New London is similar to here,’ he said, hoping that Ewan would take time away from his anger and listen to him. ‘There’s a computer that controls the shield, filled with coordinates for these metal things. They’re border points of some kind… Grant probably has a posh name for them.’

  Raj pointed to the nearest mine-shaped object. Ewan took one glance, and then fired a stream of bullets towards it – perhaps in the hope of making a hole in the shield’s coordinate field or something. To Raj’s horror, the border point seemed to have its own miniature shield too.

  There was a shriek on his right. Mark was physically holding Kate back as she screamed.

  ‘But destroying a computer won’t be enough,’ he continued, doing his best to sound brave. ‘You’ve got to wipe out all their research too. Get into their files and delete anything that mentions Atmospheric Metallurgic Excitation, and blow up their physical archives too. Do that, and they’ll have to start over. It could take years for them to get it right again. And don’t worry about here… I set fire to the library before I left it, and the fire should spread. I’m sorry, Ewan… but like you said, stop AME even if it means…’

  ‘You did the right thing, Raj,’ Ewan said. ‘Now find a way out.’

  ‘What, through the shield? Sorry Ewan, I’m screwed.’

  Raj had noticed how casual Ewan’s voice sounded, like he was refusing to accept the hopelessness of the situation. Raj did not have that luxury: his dyslexia-driven ability to see to the core of a problem told him exactly what his situation was, and his ability to come up with off-the-wall unexpected ideas would have helped if there were any kind of way out. But Raj knew that searching for one would be like trying to avoid a one-move checkmate.

  ‘Dig underground,’ Ewan said, trying to hide his growing desperation. ‘Get to one of the grassy areas, and—’

  ‘The brains that came up with AME must have thought of someone tunnelling,’ said Raj, his first tears emerging. ‘And besides, how much time do you think I have? Reinforcements are minutes away.’

  ‘Then strip,’ said Jack in his usual matter-of-fact manner. ‘Leave your weapons, and remove any clothes that have traces of metal. We only need your body to get through.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Raj replied. ‘I had a spinal operation when I was twelve, remember? I told you when McCormick and Lorraine were arguing. There’s metal all down my back. Even if I were naked, the shield would blow my spine out.’

  Kate finally got past Mark by punching his jaw and kneeing him in the groin. She reached Ewan and Jack and stared at her boyfriend through the invisible barrier that would cost him his life. And with her panic-stricken eyes gazing into his, she opened her mouth but no words came out.

  Raj understood. He had absolutely no idea what to say to her either.

  ‘But actually,’ he breathed, ‘getting my spine blown out might be the best option.’

  ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ barked Ewan.

  ‘I mean not getting captured. You know why, Kate.’

  He looked at his wordless girlfriend, who had lost her wailing anger and replaced it with stunned silence. Raj closed his eyes, and confessed.

  ‘I know the name of our village, guys. I always have done.’

  Ewan turned his back and swore at the top of his voice, looking for the nearest large object to kick repeatedly.

  ‘So if you’re taken alive,’ muttered Mark as he approached, ‘we’re all dead.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Raj replied with unashamed fear. ‘Remember Daniel, who gave away our names? He was a tough lad. I’m not. If they interrogate me they’ll… they’ll find what they’re after. If I stay behind this shield, Spitfire’s Rise gets found, we lose the war and Grant kills me anyway. Either I run through and live, or I run through and die. Both are better options than staying here.’

  His six friends did not make a sound between them. But Kate was shaking her head in baseless denial.

  ‘Jack, you’re the logical one,’ Raj said. ‘Tell me I’m wrong.’

  All eyes fell on Jack, who seemed aghast at the thought of being responsible for good ideas at a
moment like this.

  ‘I’m serious, Jack,’ Raj continued. ‘Please give me a reason why it’s a bad idea. Because I’m bloody terrified here.’

  Jack kept up his silence, and Raj looked at his remaining friends: Mark, who rarely let humanitarian issues get in the way of solving a problem. Ewan, who was no stranger to making dreadful decisions in no-win situations. Gracie and Simon, who were all too willing to admit defeat. The only one who needed convincing was Kate.

  ‘Y-you’re religious,’ she gasped approximately. ‘Isn’t there… isn’t there a no-suicide rule or, or something?’

  ‘This isn’t suicide, it’s sacrifice,’ said Raj, removing his helmet and taking his first of many steps back. ‘Giving my life for yours. There are religious figures who saw the value in that, trust me.’

  He kept walking back, and nobody but Kate objected. They were horrified, but compliant. Some stepped out of the blast radius his body was about to create.

  God , please let me be right about you. Please see this as saving my friends.

  I spent almost a year shooting clones for these friends , and for millions of innocents . Please forgive me if that counted as killing. Forgive me if I was wrong in anything I did. Every shot I fired this year was to save human lives…

  ‘Ewan, Jack, get Kate to the bottom of the hill. Simon, Gracie, follow them. Mark, stay here. If the explosion only half-kills me, shoot me in the head.’

  It was the only moment in a year of warfare when everyone unanimously listened to him. Everyone except Kate. There was no sensitive, heartfelt goodbye from his girlfriend as she was manhandled across the car park. But that was OK. They could each have died in a hundred ways in the war against Nicholas Grant, and almost none of the others would have held decent farewells either.

  The last of Oakenfold’s free students gathered a hundred metres away from the shield, staring back at their friend while they still could. Not too far away, Mark was in place.

  They’re not going to leave me. Reinforcements are heading right this way to kill them, and they still won’t leave.

  I have to do this right now.

  Raj had stepped back far enough.

  The view before him looked completely normal. As if he were just leaving school in the dark. He looked at the metal border points, and judged the distance.

  God , I love you but I’m terrified. Please… just please…

  His brain ran out of thoughts, and for the first time in fifteen years he surrendered to his impulses.

  Raj Singh took a long run-up, and leapt through the shield.

  Chapter 8

  Ewan heard a rumbling boom from the distant shield. Raj was backlit with a red curtain of air as the metal supports in his spine exploded and ripped open his back. Smaller explosions went off around his body wherever metal could be found on his clothes, with a sizeable fireball on his right wrist. Ewan couldn’t see whether his metal watch had blown his hand off, but it made little difference. Raj’s misshapen body landed on the tarmac of the car park, the top half of his torso at a right angle to his abdomen. After the shield faded, Ewan could make out a blood-coloured mist hanging over him. Mark bent down, took one look at Raj’s face, and turned around to walk away. No extra bullets would be required.

  ‘You’re going to hate me for this,’ said Jack, ‘but we have to run, and we all know it.’

  Ewan did hate him for it. But at that moment he hated everyone and everything, including himself and anything that was good about him. Twelve Underdogs had become eleven, seven Oakenfold students had become six, Britain’s last army had lost every advantage that Raj had brought to it, and Kate was becoming too much to handle.

  ‘What the hell are we still doing here?’ asked Mark when he arrived back.

  ‘Splitting up,’ Ewan muttered, disgusted that people were turning to him for leadership while a devastating cocktail of bereavement and PDA clouded his judgement. ‘We’ve got about a minute before clones start arriving, and we can’t all be in the same place. Mark, you take Kate and Simon. I’ll take Jack and Gracie.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I said so,’ Ewan grunted, knowing but ignoring that it was the worst reason a leader could possibly give. ‘You go through Harpenden, we’ll take the fields. Whatever you do, don’t head home the way we came. You’ll be followed. Get lost in the countryside if you need to, and use the north star tomorrow night. However you do it, just lose them.’

  ‘Got it,’ said Mark. ‘Simon, Kate, with me.’

  Simon followed as soon as Mark began to jog, but the silent shell of Kate Arrowsmith barely even looked in the right direction.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kate,’ said Ewan, saying the words but feeling nothing but rage, ‘but you have to go. Mark will look after you, and he needs you to look after him. Go.’

  Mark shot an offended glare, but said nothing. He must have worked out that Ewan’s words were to encourage (or manipulate) Kate rather than belittle him. Mark ran for the school driveway, one arm around Kate’s shoulder and the other pushing Simon forward. His journey home would be slow as well as long.

  Ewan was left at the foot of the hill with Jack and Gracie. Behind them, Raj’s unapologetic body lay just outside the invisible shield, daring to still be dead.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he muttered, and made his way up the hill. He paused at the top to wait for his teammates at the spot where he had once hidden for a whole afternoon, back when his world had been marginally easier. He took one last look at Oakenfold Special School, protected by an invisible AME shield, not knowing how the hell they would ever take it back – if they ever did.

  There was a fire spreading, as Raj had promised, from the burning library. Torchlight emerged from the distant forests. Raj had been right about not having time to dig under the shield. Ewan picked up the pace whilst stuffing the New London papers into his shirt, wondering how detailed the Outer City map would have to be for Raj’s sacrifice to be worth it.

  They half-walked, half-jogged for a mile before Ewan felt it was safe to slow down and speak his mind.

  ‘Gracie, I put you with Raj…’

  ‘Not now, Ewan.’

  ‘Shut up, Jack. Gracie, you two were supposed to stay together…’

  Ewan deliberately avoided her gaze, and kept his eyes on the darkened grass beneath his feet. Jack and Gracie were behind him, right where they belonged.

  ‘I’ve got metal fillings!’ Gracie wailed, far too loud. ‘If I’d stayed with him I’d have died too!’

  ‘If you’d made him stay with you, you’d both be alive.’

  ‘He chose to stay!’

  ‘You chose to leave him.’

  ‘Ewan,’ Jack interrupted, ‘I know you’re not in the mood, but Raj couldn’t have got the New London stuff without staying and searching.’

  ‘Shut up, Jack. She could have stayed with him and searched quicker.’

  ‘When Mark tells you to run, you run. It’d take a very resilient—’

  ‘Shut up, Jack!’

  For about five seconds, Jack took his advice. The silence was welcome, and for a moment Ewan felt the cold breeze, and the wet grass wiping against his boots. If he cared enough to look upwards, he could have seen the sky lit up with stars, and remembered that all his worldly troubles were just a tiny speck on the vast expanse of reality, or some crap like that.

  Apparently, five seconds was enough for Jack.

  ‘You need to stop being nasty to me, Ewan. If you didn’t want that chat about your parents earlier you could have just said so, rather than hate me for the rest of the night. Take a moment to yourself, and leave Gracie alone. I’ll call comms and break the news to Alex and Shannon.’

  Ewan’s PDA came right to the surface, and Jack’s set of commands made his fists clench in a reflex action. The breath caught in his throat as his sense of control – the very last of it – vanished from his mind. But by the time he turned around, Jack already had his phone in front of his face. Ewan couldn’t start a fight while Jack was cal
ling comms. Not with Shannon watching via video call.

  Screw you, Jack… screw you and your advice and your dinosaur obsession and your love of machines and…

  You’re right. But screw you anyway.

  It had been the comment about his parents that hurt the most. Because Jack had been right about them too.

  When Ewan made an effort to remember his mother, he had fond memories of who she had been. But his memory of her personality and his memory of their relationship were different things, and his strongest memories of their time together were best avoided. The good parts of his formative years had been spent with Dad, and the bad parts with Mum.

  They had split their parental responsibilities pretty well, right down to Dad having the military job and Mum doing the housework. It seemed like an old-fashioned family set-up, but it was Ewan’s fault she had become a stay-at-home mum. His mainstream head teachers had dragged her into school so many times that it was easier to just sit at home and wait for the phone to ring, rather than take every afternoon off work and run out of holiday leave.

  But the split went beyond household roles. Dad had been the parent who taught Ewan the skills he would need for adulthood, physically and mentally. He’d taught him the foundations of what being a man would one day be like, and gave him the best chance he could at preventing his neurology from screwing up his chances. Major George West had been a good man, and a good father. But he had only been effective on Ewan’s good days. It was Mum who had dealt with the bad ones.

  She had always been there when something caused him to stumble. Exclusions from primary school were dealt with by tearful cuddles on the sofa. Post-meltdown evenings as a teenager had been solved with movies and homemade shepherd’s pie. She had provided the consistency and stability that a troubled boy desperately needed, and she had done it to perfection. But it had come to define their relationship: a priceless mother-and-son bond that was built entirely upon the things that went wrong.

  Ewan had spent his happiest days with Dad. Mum had been there on the sidelines, silent, non-judgemental, waiting for her turn to be needed again. And each time she had picked him off the floor, hugged him better and sent him on his way, the young Ewan had gone back to his usual habit of avoiding her. Unless she was right there on a day when he needed fixing, it was easier not to associate with someone who so firmly reminded him of his bad moments.