Cracks (13 page)

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I think about Mum, or whoever she was, saying, ‘You don’t do yourself any favours, Cal, you really don’t.’

I stare into his dark brown eyes. My breath is coming hard and fast. I keep my face set, even though my heart is banging hard against my ribcage. My mouth has gone dry and in my mind’s eye
I see the knife flick up and into my stomach, unzipping my flesh. I swallow hard.

And then the boy’s face creases up.

He’s laughing!

Even more surprisingly, he raises his fist up in a gesture of friendship. Confused, I raise mine back and he touches his knuckles against mine. I don’t know whether he’s going to
kill me or high five me next.

‘Keep the bag,’ he says, grinning. ‘You look like you need it. What’s your name?’

‘It’s, um, Matt,’ I say reluctantly.

‘Matt, my man, I’m Jax. Glad to make your acquaintance.’ Then his mood seems to change. When he speaks again his voice is flat. ‘Don’t think you can judge me,
right? This ain’t what I’m really about.’

I just stare at him.

‘I’ll leave you to get back to your mummy and daddy,’ he says with a throaty chuckle.

I don’t reply.

The boy does a funny saluting thing and then ambles off in the opposite direction, across the square and out of sight.

Great. So now I’ve got no mask.

I breathe slowly, trying not to panic, and thinking how I can bodge together some sort of plan.

There are things I need. Money, for a start. And somewhere to sleep. I rub my damp face and then shock fizzes through me as I realise there’s someone standing at the entrance to the
alley.

It’s a pretty middle-aged woman in a smart coat and scarf, smiling sweetly at me. She looks like the sort of mum everyone would want. Something flickers and crackles around her and she
disappears and then reappears again. I move closer as the realisation seeps into me that she’s some kind of 3D projection.

‘Have you noticed anything unusual in your neighbourhood?’ she asks in a nice, reasonable voice. It’s so realistic and looks solid but when I reach out my hand, it passes
straight through her. She is looking at me wherever I stand and the effect gives me the chills.

‘Remember, you could be prosecuted if you withhold information that could be relevant to a terrorism investigation.’ Her face is so pleasant and smiley, you’d think she was on
an advert for washing powder. ‘Let’s work together to keep our country safe. Report anything suspicious to this hotline.’ She recites a number and then with a fizz and a pop
she’s gone. For a moment I stand still, expecting something else to happen. But it’s quiet. I look up and see a bunch of small cameras mounted high up on the wall. CCTV.

I don’t know how far Cavendish will go to get me back. If he’s the inventor of the Revealer Chip then he’s probably got a lot of influence with this regime. I bet he has access
to all sorts of surveillance technology. I glance at the CCTV cameras again, my palms prickling with sweat.

Maybe he’s closing in on me right now.

I picture a huge net falling from the sky and trapping me . . .

I’ve got to get out of this place.

Have I done the right thing, running away from Torch? Did they want to help me after all? Are Tom and Nathan looking for me right now? I need a place to think. I decide to try to find a library
or internet café, or whatever goddam thing they have in 2024. I can at least look up where Brinkley Cross is and try to make some sort of plan. Or maybe I should try to find a way to contact
Torch . . .

I get walking, head down, thinking hard. The rain continues to fall in a steady drizzle and even though it’s still morning, the street lights are starting to come on in fuzzy yellow halos.
I see signs for the city centre and just keep walking past shops and houses. The few people I see are wearing miasma masks, and faces seem to loom out of the smog like disembodied heads. Before
long I notice all the other clusters of CCTV cameras on every building. With everyone masked up and the air so thick and dirty, I wonder what the point is.

I come round a corner and am facing a patch of park with a few benches and a war memorial in the middle. There are moving billboards on the tall brown buildings and massive words are rolling
across them, bright against the dirty air.

WATCH OUT FOR SUSPICIOUS PACKAGES
and
HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOURS? ALERT CITIZENS ARE SAFE CITIZENS
and
SIGN UP TO YOUR LOCAL CATS BRANCH TODAY
.

Over and over the words roll past. Suspicious packages. Dodgy neighbours. They’re seriously paranoid in this place.

I rearrange the backpack on my shoulder and am about to cross the road when I see something that makes me freeze. I sidle up to a parked lorry, heart pounding and hide behind it, peeking
out.

It’s the Torch van. I see Tom talking animatedly on his mobile. He paces up and down. He’s clearly having an argument with someone by the way he waves his arms around. Then I watch
him very slowly drop his arm. He’s looking straight ahead. A man dressed completely in black leathers approaches him, holding a crash helmet. He walks slowly around the van and then roughly
pushes Tom backwards against the side. The biker guy gets something from his pocket and holds it over Tom’s right arm.

Then he walks around the van holding out the scanning thing, or whatever it is. I creep along the side of the railings until I’m close enough to listen. There’s ivy and stuff growing
there that tickles my nose but I keep my face close, watching through the thick green tangle of leaves.

‘You’ll find that all my papers are in order,’ says Tom in a confident voice. He rubs his hands against his jeans and flexes his fists. ‘Now, if you’ll let me go,
I’ll be on my way.’

The bloke in leathers has thin blond hair over a balding scalp and he puts his face close into Tom’s. ‘Open the back of the van, please.’

Tom starts to object and the man, one of those CATS people I reckon, smacks him in the face so fast and so hard that I hear the sound like a whipcrack in the heavy air. Tom says nothing. The
CATS bloke walks to the back of the van and takes a gun out of his belt. Taking aim, he shoots the lock with a horrible shriek of metal.

He’s just about to open the doors when Tom leaps into driver’s seat. The engine starts with an angry roar.

The CATS guy yells and shoots the wing mirror. Glass explodes everywhere but the van screeches off around the corner. He’s shouting into his phone now and within seconds I hear a
repetitive thumping beat above me. A helicopter looms out of nowhere. There’s a burst of firepower, a bright flash that I see above the buildings in the next road. For the next few minutes
all I hear is wailing sirens. I’m too stunned to move and shaking all over.

People are looking out of windows to see what’s going on and after a while I slide out from my hiding place and walk at the back of a group of office workers who have come out for a
gawp.

Around the corner, the van is up on the opposite pavement, smashed into a bollard that’s lurching to one side. There are black swerve marks etched into the tarmac. The doors are wide open
and I can see clouds of inky smoke billowing out. The van is riddled with bullet holes.

I stare numbly, unable to take in what I’m seeing. The air smells of scorched petrol and an excited huddle of people are starting to congregate. A handful of CATS people wave their arms
and one shouts, ‘Get them back! It’s going to blow!’ and shoots into the air. People scream and move away in a wave and I’m carried by the momentum of the crowd.

There’s an ear-splitting
BOOM
and then a moment of complete stillness and quiet. People are screaming and shoving to get away. I push in the opposite direction back to the street.
My insides turn to iced liquid when I see the van, which is now just a twisted hulk of blackened metal. I stumble away, sour sick rising up in my throat.

I walk fast, not knowing where I’m going, the sound of more wailing sirens filling the smoky air. Little bits of stuff are flying everywhere like grey confetti. I see what looks like an
alley ahead and, once inside, throw up against the wall until there’s nothing left in my stomach. I’m shaking so hard my knees nearly give way. The smoke clings to my lungs and I cough
and retch for ages. Further down the alley, I find some bins and sink down between them, pulling my hood down low over my face and trying to breathe.

I still can’t believe what I just witnessed.

The van . . . all blown to pieces.

Nathan and Tom must surely be dead. Could they have survived that? I can’t see how . . .

Waves of guilt roll over me. It’s my fault.

They died because of me.

They were looking for me, weren’t they? If I hadn’t run off, they’d still be alive.

I might as well have killed them with my own hands.

I
curl up, arms around my knees and head tucked in, as though I can make myself disappear completely. Guilt, loneliness and fear chug inside,
mingling together in a toxic cocktail that burns my stomach like acid. Rain falls softly and runs down my face, mixing with tears.

Should I have trusted them? I don’t honestly know. All I know is that they’re dead and that going with them before would have been better than having no options at all.

I have nowhere to go. I have no home. No family or friends. I don’t even have my own memories. Des’s ugly face floats vividly into my mind saying, ‘You’re
nobody.’

Looks as though he was right.

I sit there for ages, getting colder, stiffer and more miserable by the second. Then I hear a door opening down the alley. Looking carefully around the side of the bins I see a man coming down
the alley carrying a bulging black sack, a dirty apron straining around his middle. He’s unshaven and a cigarette bounces on his bottom lip as he sings tunelessly along to music drifting from
the open door. I pull myself back into the shadows and he slings the bin bag into the industrial bin so I feel the metal vibrate against me. He goes back inside and the music cuts off.

I can’t just sit here like a stray dog. I’ve got to do something.

Got to make a plan.

Think, Cal, think . . .

Amil’s house pops into my mind again. It’s so vivid and seems to tug something inside me. It’s not just pictures. It’s a feeling too. A warm feeling. Safe.

Like . . . home? But that doesn’t make sense. The donor boy lived with Des and Tina and Pigface. I can’t explain it.

But then something hits me and I go fizzy all over and have to get up.

What if I also come from Brinkley Cross? What if it was my home as well as his?

I’ve got to find a way to get there.

I glance around me. I don’t even know where it is and I’m wanted by Cavendish and his people. But I’ve got to find a way . . . I can’t start living this horrible new life
until I know who I am.

I’m shaky and my arms and legs feel like they won’t hold me. I need food. I rummage through the bag I was given back at the farmhouse. There are pants and socks, plus a few T-shirts
and a pair of jeans. The clothes look normal but the material seems to pool into almost nothing in the bottom of the bag. I can’t help feeling just a bit impressed, despite everything. At
least there’s something cool about 2024. That’s when I realise the hoodie I’m wearing still feels dry inside, despite the miserable steady downpour that drums onto my scalp and
shoulders.

The antibiotics and the painkillers are also in the bag and I look down at the now filthy bandage around my hand. I think about what Helen said, about the antibiotics being precious. Right on
cue my hand starts to throb, as though thinking made it happen. Maybe shock was taking my mind off it before. There’s a bottle of water and an energy bar at the bottom of the bag. I eat,
drink and swallow the tablets, plus some painkillers to help me think. I’m about to put the slim tube of antibiotics back into the bag but some instinct makes me slide them into my trouser
pocket instead. At least that way, if I lose the bag, I’ll still have them.

That’s when I remember I’ve lost the miasma mask. I swear quietly but with a lot of feeling. Luckily the air’s better now. Rush hour must be over. I gather up my backpack and
start to walk through the now quiet streets to try to get my bearings.

I see signs for the city centre but reckon it’s too risky to go there. I don’t know whether Cavendish has got people looking for me yet but it has to be safer to keep to the
back-streets. I decide to walk until I find some an internet café or library. It’s not much of a plan but it’s all I’ve got right now.

I keep my head down and avoid the gaze of anyone I pass, but it’s not hard to remain anonymous. Everyone seems to keep their eyes lowered as they scurry down the street or dodge from
building to car. It’s like the air is infected with paranoia. I keep moving too, walking for hours around the edge of the city, never stopping long enough to let the fear that constantly
churns inside take over. I pass from one suburb to the next without finding any public building that will help me. My eyes are gritty and my feet hurt so I rest for a while in a small park,
stretching out on the grass behind a stone war memorial so I’m out of sight. I doze off, despite how uncomfortable it is and when I wake it’s late afternoon. I stretch my stiff body and
then a distant siren gets me back on my feet. I go out through the back of the park and head towards an area with lots of high warehouses, thinking I will at least be out of sight if any CATS are
patrolling.