Reckoning (27 page)

Trying to stay calm, I look at the thinkpad that has been left on the desk, which flashes to life as it senses my thinkwatch. As the main screen comes up, it asks for authorisation but I press the strip of borodron against the screen and it skips through to a picture of a map. I only know what the outline of Britain looks like because of the Reckoning programmes each year when we get the results.

I try to find Martindale on the map and zoom into roughly the area where I think it might be. It is only when I move in closer that I realise it isn't the place names that are important. Dotted around the map are small clusters of black blotches marked as ‘rebels'.

Porter told me there was still fighting going on and although there aren't too many places marked around the country, he is right. I count nine bunches, most of which are close to the castle where we are. That doesn't sound like many but then I don't know how many people are in each group. It could be one person fighting by themselves, or it could be hundreds of people, all wanting to overthrow the King. There isn't even an indication from the markings if they are aware of each other.

With one eye on the door, I slide my thinkwatch along the map, scanning the dots, before shutting the thinkpad down again. The quality of my copies won't be brilliant and I have no idea how I might get to use them but it feels somehow reassuring that there are others out there who also feel the King is unfit to rule.

I check the time again. Imrin should have caused his disturbance over seven minutes ago but just as I am thinking he has failed, the door rattles open and Hart is standing there.

‘Quick, the Minister Prime has just gone – he's left his office door unlocked.'

‘What did he say?'

‘Something about a disturbance in the boys' dorm. He went tearing off with a Kingsman.'

As I leave the office, I note the ‘Home Affairs Minister' sign over the top and a small black scanner next to the door.

‘Why was that office open?' I ask Hart as we hurry along the corridor. The scanner is the same as the ones from the zoo and medical area that only open for the personal frequency of the correct occupant's thinkwatch.

‘I have access because I work for him,' Hart says, holding up his wrist.

‘Why did the Minister Prime leave his door open?'

‘When there's an urgent problem, he always rushes off without re-engaging the lock. He's done it at least once a week since I started working here.'

I use my thinkwatch to shut down the camera above the door for ninety seconds and Hart pushes it open. ‘None of the other Ministers are due here for fifteen minutes or so but that's not the problem. If he runs there and back and only takes a minute to sort out whatever's going on, that gives you around five minutes maximum, so get on with it.'

Hart pulls the door shut but doesn't click it closed. At first I am distracted by the sheer scale and gluttony of the place. The Minister Prime's office is bigger than the medical bay, with huge paintings on every wall and heavy, expensive rugs spread generously around the floor. A massive thick wooden desk is directly opposite the door; above that is a huge animal's head stuffed and hanging on the wall. I have never seen one for real but I know they are called elephants, and the dead creature's long trunk hangs lifelessly towards the floor. It is both awful and amazing at the same time. At either end of the room are more enormous bookcases, packed with heavy-looking volumes, and there are wooden cabinets pressed up against the far wall.

‘Come on,' I mutter to myself as my heart jumps and brings me back to reality. I dash across the room, struggling not to slide on the shiny parts of the floor until I am behind the desk. As I fall into the seat, I check my thinkwatch to see that I have already lost just over a minute of the time Hart has given me.

On the desk are two thinkpads which I turn on and then press the borodron to the screens to make them function, all the while cursing under my breath at the time this has taken. When they are fully operational, I have just three minutes left.

I only have a vague idea of where I am supposed to be looking within the Minister Prime's file system and am operating solely from Hart's partial information. As my eyes flick from one thinkpad to the other, I realise one contains documents about the castle itself, the other seems to hold information on things outside the castle walls. Focusing on the thinkpad with information about the castle, I scan through blueprints, order sheets and masses of personal information on the senior Kingsmen.

If I had the time, it would all be valuable but it isn't completely necessary for what I am trying to do. As I work quickly, I almost miss a list of names, before skipping back to it. It takes me a few seconds to realise it is every Offering since the Reckoning began. It's not what I am looking for but I am transfixed by the length of it: over four hundred people, each of whom has either the department they are working in or the word ‘dead' next to their name.

Another check of the thinkwatch and there are under two minutes to go now.

I flick through my thinkwatch and set it to sync, watching the orange hue pulse before pressing it to the thinkpad screen. Each name flashes across the monitor but it seems to happen in slow motion. I see my own name, Pietra's, Imrin's, Hart's, and Jela's. And then there is a name I don't recognise with ‘AWOL' next to it. I want to go back but in the fraction of a second it takes me to register what it has said, it disappears again. When the sync is complete, I check the time again and have a little over one minute left.

Working quicker than before, I use both hands on separate parts of the thinkpad screen, frantically searching for what Hart has promised me is there somewhere.

I jump as I hear a gentle tapping on the wooden door. It echoes around the room, taunting me that time is nearly up but my hands cannot move as quickly as I need them to.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

I want to shout at Hart, to tell him I know that time is running out, but instead the noise increases both in volume and intensity until the door bursts open and Hart is standing there, out of breath and red in the face.

‘He's around the corner. You've got to go now.'

My eyes flick to the screen where I have finally found the information I need. Everything I hope to do rests on what is in front of me; the end game tantalisingly close.

I press my thinkwatch to the screen. ‘I need another minute.'

‘You don't have a minute!' Hart's aggressive whisper is so full of fear that I almost forget what I am doing. I steady my wrist as I hear footsteps approaching.

‘Silver, now.'

I meet Hart's terrified eyes. ‘I can't. I've got it.'

‘How long?'

‘Thirty seconds.'

‘Oh no…'

The footsteps are so loud I can almost feel them echoing through me. I catch Hart's eyes one more time as his flick towards the cabinets at the back, and then he is gone, charging into the hallway.

I hear raised voices and a cry of ‘what were you doing in there' just as the information finishes copying. I clear the screens, but there is no time to shut the thinkpads down before I dive towards one of the wooden cabinets, wrenching the doors open, stepping inside and closing them again just as I hear Hart screaming an anguished ‘no'.

29

There is a slim crack where the cabinet doors don't quite meet and I angle myself into the corner, so I can see the office door. The Minister Prime is pinning Hart to the wall by his throat, squeezing with his fingers and pressing his forearm hard into Hart's chest. I remember Porter telling me his real name, Bathix, but the thought makes me shiver. Hart is feebly swinging his legs, before Bathix turns and throws him to the floor then calmly closes the door.

Hart is on all fours coughing loudly and I feel myself wincing as the Minister Prime runs at him, kicking him brutally in the chest. The crack of boot on bone reverberates around the room, leaving Hart gurgling in pain.

‘Shut. Up,' Bathix says, punctuating each word, before running a gloved hand through his thin black hair. He turns around and picks up a chair, then places it in the centre of the room next to where Hart is crawling around and sits on it, glaring at him.

‘What were you doing in my office?'

Hart mumbles something I can't hear but I'm not sure they're complete words anyway as Bathix stands and kicks him again in the ribs. Hart rolls over in pain, spitting out a flurry of blood, groaning and holding his chest.

Bathix's eyes scan around the room, darting past the cabinet I am in before he notices the thinkpads. He runs out of my view and I hear a clattering of equipment followed by a loud bang. Hart is struggling for breath, his chin drenched with blood as the Minister howls in fury before dashing back into view and pinning Hart to the floor. I can see his knee angled, pressing hard into Hart's chest. Hart whimpers in pain as the bigger man pushes down on ribs that are likely already broken.

‘What were you doing in my office?' Bathix's face is only a few centimetres away from Hart's and I can see flecks of spit splattering over him.

Hart's lips are moving but no words are coming out; instead there is a gurgle that becomes a vicious cough. The Minister Prime stands and wipes the splashed speckles of blood from his face, before leaning over and punching Hart across the face. First there is a crunch of fist on jaw and then a second, more sickening, splat as Hart's head bounces off the floor.

Bathix stands over the unconscious teenager and stares towards his desk, unmoving. Underneath him, a puddle of dark blood begins to pool as Hart's head flops to the side. I feel tears in my eyes, knowing his plight is entirely down to me. If I had been quicker and not spent so much time being fascinated by the elephant's head, or taking information I didn't come for, I would have been out of the door and in the laboratories by now and Hart wouldn't be unconscious.

I feel so annoyed at myself and so upset at Hart's predicament that I have to bite my lip to stop myself crying. Bathix is drumming his fingers against the borodron encasing his arms. The steady rhythm reverberates towards me. He turns and strides back to his desk out of my view, from where I hear his muffled voice talking to someone.

I try to hold my breath as much as I can as my mind drifts to my own dilemma. Hiding in the cabinet was the easy part – getting out undetected isn't going to be so simple. There is only one door into the office and, even from where I am, I can see the small dark scanner on the wall, which means that when it is locked properly, not only is the Minister Prime the only person who can get in, he is also the only person who can get out. My thoughts are interrupted as the door bursts open. A Kingsman hurries in and Bathix hisses at him to close the door.

‘Am I taking him to medical?' the Kingsman asks.

The Minister lunges across the room. ‘Of course you're not taking him to medical, you imbecile.'

‘Sorry, Sir.'

‘Take him to the dungeons and dump him there with some bread or something.'

‘You want me to leave him food?'

‘Are you questioning me?' Bathix's tone is of absolute rage and the Kingsman cowers away from him.

‘No, Sir.'

‘He can't die, not yet, I need to find out exactly what he was doing.'

‘Shall I inform the King?'

The Minister steps forward and brutally backhands the officer. ‘Don't be a fool. If I wanted the King to know, I would have called him here myself.'

The revelation that the Minister Prime keeps his own secrets startles me as I assumed both he and the King worked together for the same cause. It does make some sort of sense; if Bathix thought Hart had found important information on his thinkpad, the last thing he would want would be for the King to find out he had been careless by leaving his office unlocked. That makes it all the more likely I will not get another chance to access his files again, assuming I can get out of his office in the first place.

The Kingsman straightens his back and apologises once more. For a moment, I think the Minister Prime is going to hit him again but he lowers his arm.

‘Just get him out of here, take him downstairs and, whatever you do, keep your mouth shut.'

‘Yes, Sir.' The Kingsman hauls Hart up to his feet and then places him over his shoulder before carrying him towards the door. ‘I'm going to need a bit of a hand here,' he says, clearly struggling.

‘What's wrong with you?' Bathix grunts in annoyance, then crosses the room and opens the door.

‘I'm not sure I'm going to be able to carry him all the way to the dungeons.'

‘Well, I'm not carrying him.'

‘I could call for someone else…?'

‘You will not. I'll help you to the stairs and then you're on your own. Throw him down there if you have to.'

The Minister Prime grabs Hart's feet, the Kingsman his head. Together they edge out of the room. I hold my breath, thinking the guard is going to pull the door closed but as he removes a hand, Hart slips and he scrambles to recover as Bathix berates him.

As soon as he disappears from view, I open the cabinet's doors and rush to the exit, skimming around the pool of Hart's blood that has congealed half on the hard floor, half on one of the rugs. I know from Imrin's maps that the stairs are barely thirty seconds away but it will take them slightly longer to get there because of Hart's weight. I count to fifteen and then press the button on my thinkwatch to stop the cameras for the second and final time today. I poke my head around the door to check there is nobody there and then I run for it.

I know I am being reckless, but it almost feels like I have forgotten Hart's advice – ‘be plain and blend in' – as I tear through the passages, dart around the cameras and race to the far end of the castle. I have no idea if anyone has seen me as I arrive breathless at the entrance to the kitchen.