One of them was a map of the Outer City.
My little detective, said his mother’s voice in his head.
*
Kate poked her face through the smashed window to the office. The dead body of Pete stared back at her, his frightened expression stuck to his face like a horrible waxwork sculpture. There were shuffling sounds from the carpet behind the desk, and Kate shuddered. The man’s hands and knees must have been dragging through his colleague’s blood as he crawled. Perhaps the blood from his lower leg was mixing with it too…
‘Phone, on!’ he called out. On her head teacher’s desk, Kate saw the sudden rectangular shine of a smartphone screen. It let out a little ping, which the man barely waited to hear before shouting again.
‘Call Nathaniel Pearce, speaker!’
Kate sighed. Voice-activated technology meant her enemy would not have to break cover in order to call for reinforcements, or even be close to his phone to communicate.
The phone was answered within one ring.
‘Talk to me, Hargreaves.’
It was definitely Pearce. Kate had heard his voice back in New London, the day they destroyed the clone factory.
‘Pearce!’ Hargreaves screamed. ‘They’re here, and they’ve killed Simmonds!’
‘Is the shield up yet?’
Pete Simmonds. And now Hargreaves. Now I’ m going to have two names burned in my memory through guilt . If I live .
Hang on , Pearce, you were just told one of your staff was dead! Do you even care?
It was obvious he didn’t. Kate wasn’t much of a logician, but it must have meant that Pearce had a priority for the night that outweighed the well-being of his staff. No competent villain would throw their minions away as if they didn’t matter… unless there was something else that mattered more.
She also knew that the longer she let Pearce talk on the phone, the worse off she would be. She leapt in front of the window and fired bullets at the desk, none of which struck the tiny smartphone. A hand popped over the desk and returned fire, forcing her to shelter. Once the bullets stopped, she peered again and saw the phone in the corner of the room. In his panic to grab it, Hargreaves must have sent it flying across the office. Unfortunately, it lay out of range for Kate as well.
‘Well?’ Pearce asked, his volume unaffected by his phone’s new location. ‘Is it on yet?’
‘No,’ Hargreaves shouted from behind the desk, ‘it’s not.’
Kate sighed with relief.
‘Simmonds told me it was ready for launch three hours ago,’ said Pearce. ‘What are you wai—’
‘And if you’d have let us launch it at midnight, the dead body next to me would still be al—’
‘Hargreaves, calm down. If the shield’s ready, it’s your duty to raise it. Trap them all inside.’
That was the plan all along… lure us here and make it impossible for us to escape.
‘Just send in the Harpenden squad!’ the voice behind the desk began to wail. ‘They’re only a mile away!’
‘And give the rebels time to destroy the shield? It needs testing. Raise it now.’
Kate fired a couple more bullets at the filing cabinets, hoping that a bullet would at least ricochet behind the desk. They did nothing but puncture the metal, and make Hargreaves yell in fright.
‘Now!’ yelled Pearce from the corner of the room.
‘Get the army here and save me, and then I’ll push the button.’
All I need to do is keep him panicking…
‘I hear gunfire,’ said Pearce. ‘You don’t have that long left.’
‘I might…’
Kate tried to think of something she could shout into the room to influence the conversation, but no words came to mind. Besides, knowing her, she would say something wrong and persuade Hargreaves to raise the shield after all.
‘Jonathan,’ said Pearce, who unlike Kate knew precisely what to say, ‘do you know why all our families have luxury accommodation in New London’s walls?’
‘Because otherwise nobody would agree to work with you?’
‘Wrong. It’s so that every employee has something to lose. In your case, it’s Louise, Michael and Jessica. Turn the bloody shield on.’
The line cut out. It was a cold and cruel tactic which Pearce must have known would work: remove the other person’s chance to speak, show that you don’t value their words, and the other person won’t value them either. People had done that to Kate all the time back in the old world.
‘Jonathan,’ she yelled to the man inside, hoping the first-name approach would help, ‘he said something about the Harpenden squad being a mile away? You know they won’t let you live, right? If we die, you die with us.’
‘I’ll be keeping my family safe,’ the man muttered, barely audible. ‘That’s all the consolation I need.’
‘Safe from Grant, Marshall and Pearce? These guys are threatening your family and you’re siding with them?’
‘Makes no difference now…’
Kate’s jaw dropped. She had heard the futility in the man’s voice, so blatant that even a girl like Kate could identify it.
‘You’ve already pressed it, haven’t you?’
No answer.
Try not to panic. You’re going to worry, you’re going to get anxious, but try not to panic.
‘But we haven’t seen a flash or anything,’ she continued, ‘so it must take a minute to charge up. How long have we got?’
‘If you escape Oakenfold, my family gets thrown into the Inner City.’
‘How long?’
‘Less with every second.’
There was a disturbance in the light behind the office’s back window. Kate jumped at the sudden appearance of Mark, who lifted his hands into view: a handgun butt in one, and a grenade in the other.
Kate was shocked, but understood that the laptop needed to be destroyed even if the shield couldn’t be stopped. Nonetheless, she felt guilty for reminding Mark about the grenade in his belt before he had run. Mark smashed the glass with his rifle butt, pulled the grenade pin and dropped it through the empty window. It bounced on the floor to the sound of a shriek from Hargreaves before it exploded, ripping him and his laptop to pieces.
Kate was thrown to the back wall of the corridor by the force of the explosion. Suffering from instant sensory overload, she could not tell whether the word ‘sorry’ from Mark in her radio was real or psychosomatic. But as the ringing in her ears faded and the sight returned to her eyes, she heard him asking something. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. Her hand scrambled to her radio, although she screamed loud enough to be heard school-wide without it.
‘Everyone get out!’ she yelled and she rose to all fours and pushed herself onto her knees. ‘Reinforcements are coming, the shield has been activated, and it’s charging up right now! Get outside!’
Kate didn’t hear the responses. If her friends had any sense, they wouldn’t waste time replying.
What about his family? She asked herself as she tried to stand.
Yeah, came a sarcastic answer, perhaps Mark’s own thoughts invading her head, let’s sacrifice six Underdogs so a bad guy’s wife and kids can live in luxury. No, we’re going.