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.