The Three Most Wanted (3 page)

“Margo,” demanded Rebecca, “why
do
they want
you?
They were after
you
back at the Facility, weren’t they?”

“What did you do to piss them off so badly?” asked Jane, eyes narrowed.

“Look in that bag, Marian...” Father Mark’s voice came quietly to us, “that’s right. Pass that book back to Jane and Rebecca.”

A shiny new copy of
I Am Margaret
arrived in Jane’s hands—she stared at it uncomprehendingly.

“You wanted to know where the stories went. There they are,” I told her.

“The winning postSort novel,” said Bane. “Ignore the name on the front, that’s just some treacherous tart back in Salperton—Margo wrote that book.”

“It’s all about Sorting,” said Jon. “They published it ‘cause they thought it was fiction, then Margo told the world she wrote it and it’s all true and the EuroGov developed this terrible thirst for her blood.”

Jane opened it wonderingly, her brows drawing together as she skimmed lines here and there. She looked up at last with a troubled gaze, as though something had just occurred to her. “Margo... what
exactly
did they do to you in there?”

My insides dissolved as the memories flooded me—the pain, the terror, the helpless hopeless helplessness...

“
Nothing
.” I grabbed Bane, burying my face in his chest—I felt him shaking his head at Jane and no doubt glaring at her.

We drove on until we began to see signs for the town of Omer, by which time I’d stopped shaking and disentangled myself from Bane enough to look out the window again. Father Mark left the main autoroute and drove into the forest. All very flat forest, here, nothing rising on the horizon. All fields, once, I suppose.

Soon we came to a halt in a turnoff.

Bane looked at me.

“Are you sure?”

I swallowed and Jane said, “You’d be better off with us, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” I said quietly. “The Resistance have now done their level best to disappear. They’re heading for the Spanish department and the EuroGov will probably be vaguely on their tail. But because they can’t be quite sure where they are, there’ll be checkpoints at every major town on the continent. And though they’re unlikely to demand individual ID cards from a bus with a proper group travel pass,”
please, Lord?
“they will almost certainly take a look at each and every person on board. You see why we have to get off?”

“Can’t we just drive along back roads like this?” suggested Rebecca.

“A bus off the main autoroute will attract attention,” said Father Mark quietly. He’d come up the aisle unnoticed. “Especially one supposed to be driving straight to Venice. Until we get to the Italian department we cannot afford to attract any attention
at all
. All it takes is for them to demand our actual ID cards and... Well. Enough said.”

The only person on board with a safe ID was Marian Forbes.

I looked at Bane, trying to ignore the pleading in his eyes and the terror writhing inside me. “We’d better get changed.”

Wordlessly, he lifted a duffel bag from the luggage rack and began to empty it. My jeans and tunic, Jon’s clothes and his own. Time to part company with my plastic sheet.

Fully-dressed for the first time in almost a week, I wobbled and winced my way down the aisle straddle-legged like a cowboy, then Bane scooped me up, carried me down the steps and stood me on my feet again. Jane and Sarah managed to trail us off before Father Mark made everyone else stay in their seats. Sarah clung to me, crying—Jane just hovered.

Pulling three hiking rucksacks from the bus’s hold, Bane and Father Mark began to fasten two of them together.

“Bane,” I objected, “Jon can’t carry both of those!”

“Well, I’m going to be carrying
you
, so you can’t carry
yours.
”

True, but... “It’s such a lot for Jon to carry.”

“Bane’ll be carrying a rucksack and
you
. That’ll weigh more,” said Jon stiffly.

“I know, but no offence, Bane doesn’t need to concentrate so hard on where he’s going.”

“He brought me a stick.” Jon held up a long, thin, telescopic hiking stick. He’d left his old garden cane in the hold—too noticeable.

“We’ve no choice, Margo,” said Bane. “The only stuff we could throw out is food and it won’t get us far as it is.”

A shiver ran down my spine at this reminder of the difficulties ahead. “Well—I s’pose we can always dump some if it’s too much.”

“I’ll be fine.” Jon hefted the combined pack up onto his back and staggered slightly. “Phew. Not that I’ll be sorry when you’re walking again!”

“Okay, we’d better move.” Father Mark slammed the luggage holds. “Back aboard, you two.”

“I’ll see you soon, Sarah,” I assured her, a slight exaggeration even if everything went exactly according to plan for both groups. “You’ve got to go back on the bus now. Don’t be upset, Mark will look after you, and Rebecca and Caroline and Harriet will too.”

“And me.” Jane gave Sarah a little pat on the shoulder and pushed her towards the bus. “Go on.”

Since Jane had originally treated most of our fellow captives as near-subhuman, I was moved to hear genuine affection in her voice. It must have shown on my face, because Jane hovered for a moment more before finally giving me a quick, awkward hug and chasing Sarah up the steps. Father Mark hugged me as well and clasped hands with Jon and Bane—blessed us each in turn.

“Good luck. May the Lord be with you.”

“And with
you
,” we said pretty much in unison, our eyes flicking to the crowded bus behind him.

He climbed back on board, the doors hissed closed, the engine started and the bus began to move, roaring away down the road. We stood and waved until it disappeared among the trees—then stood together in a long silence.

***+***

3

PRIME REAL ESTATE FOR HAPPY CAMPERS

“I think… I was kind of hoping he wouldn’t actually do it.” Jon’s voice was subdued.

“Father Mark can count.” My throat was tight, though. “He’s not going to risk the forty-two for the sake of three.”

“Especially not when the three are
so
determined to be noble.” Bane gave me a dirty look.

“Oh, don’t start. The more I think about it, the more I suspect we’d be barely any safer staying aboard. How many checkpoints could we get through before someone recognized one of us? Then
they’d
all get killed too. Thought about that, Bane?” This probably
was
our best chance, as well as everyone else’s. I wanted to believe it, anyway.

Best chance doesn’t mean actual chance, though, does it?
I pushed the thought away.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Bane, hefting the remaining rucksack onto his back and picking up the sling he’d made back in the Fellest. “Let’s get you back in this thing, okay?”

“I might be able to walk, you know,” I told him. “It’s not as though my muscles were cut or my legs injured or anything major like that.”

“Right, of course not, those evil dismantlers just peeled the skin off your thighs while you were still conscious—nothing
major
at all! Get real, Margo! Anyway, if you push too hard, you might get feverish again—Father Mark said so—and we’re
not
taking that chance, okay?”

I gave in as gracefully as possible—with considerable relief. After a bit of trial and error—and a few yelps from me—we figured out the sling—and me—had to go on before the rucksack. But eventually we were heading away from the road, up a slight slope into the forest. Bane’s omniPhone had illegal trig mapping—technology usually reserved for the EuroArmy—so at least we weren’t likely to get lost.

Jon tried walking alongside, swinging his hiking stick in front of him, but we weren’t following any sort of trail and the fallen branches and mossy hillocks caught feet and stick every other step. Soon he took Bane’s shoulder with his free hand, both to guide and steady himself.

“Let’s get at least eight kilometers into this forest.” Bane pointed to the screen on his phone as they stopped an hour later for a drink. I blinked sleepily and tried to listen. “Then we can pitch camp and wait until Margo’s well enough to start walking in short stages.”

Jon agreed, but by the time the sun began to drop in the sky they were both breathing in short gasps and their determined stride—or trip, stride, trip in Jon’s case—had become a weary trudge.

Shortly after Bane announced monosyllabically that we’d gone six kilometers, Jon cracked.

“Hadn’t we better look out for a good place to stop?”

Man speak for: “I’m done in; surely you’re done in?”

Bane just grunted but barely fifteen minutes later, we came to a stream with shelving grassy ledges running down to it, and he came to a halt. “Y’know, that looks like prime real estate for happy campers.”

“Then for pity’s sake let’s take up residence without delay.” Jon couldn’t keep the thread of exhaustion from his voice.

They scrambled down onto the grass of the nearest ledge, and Bane sat me down on a rucksack. “Jon, tent? I’ll collect some firewood. Well, I’ll scout around first...”

“Okay.”

“Well, as soon as you bring some wood,” I said, “I’ll cook. I can do that sitting down.”

Bane muttered something about me taking it easy, but went off without voicing any more audible objection—must be tired.

Jon unfastened the two identical rucksacks from one another and unerringly opened the closer one. How’d he identified it...? Oh, a scrap of fabric was tied to the top of each one. A length of silk ribbon on mine, a strip of denim on Jon’s and some hairy woolen stuff on Bane’s. Clearly Bane had never seriously considered leaving Jon behind.

Jon took out the round tent tin, feeling around the grassy area.

“You’ve got it smack in the middle of a large enough space, if you won’t bite my head off for saying so.” I’d a feeling he was actually tired enough to do so.

He just said “thanks” and pushed the lever. The tin’s quarters shot in four directions on their telescopic poles, the tent fabric unfolded upwards with a sibilant
whump
and with a thud the pegs went into the ground. A
chink
from one corner—one had found a rock.

Jon traced his way straight around to that corner.
Click-click-click
went the ratchet as he pulled the peg up for another try.
Thud
. All sorted. He began to pull out the guy rope reels and trigger the pegs.
Squeak, squeak, squeak, thud
...

Pulling my rucksack towards me I unfastened it to examine the contents. My own sleeping bag from home nestled in the bottom compartment—an ancient, ex-tourist one, of course, but still a good three-season bag. Several foil survival blankets were tucked in with it—a fourth season, just in case.

Squeak, squeak, squeak, thud.

I raised the sleeping bag to my face and inhaled—then almost wished I hadn’t.
The scent of home
—the wave of homesickness was sharper than anything I’d felt in all the four months in the Facility. Because home no longer existed...

Squeak, squeak, squeak, thud.

The secret sanctuary where I’d been baptized and confirmed was now an innocuous broom cupboard, the priest hole an innocent alcove. Perhaps some of our things still remained, photographed and prodded and poked through by EuroGov agents, but not the people who made it home.
Lord, please keep Mum and Dad safe!

Squeak, squeak, squeak, thud.

“There. Home sweet home.”

Well, if home was mostly made by people, Jon wasn’t wrong. A normal change for a New Adult, even if my adult freedom had been seized by force and wiles and remained as fragile and elusive as a flower’s scent on a windy day.

Our physical home couldn’t be much smaller and still fit us all inside. It didn’t even have a porch; the legally required enclosed forest stove burned in any weather and the cook would just have to get wet.

“We’re going to have to remember we’re supposed to be rich, if we meet anyone,” I remarked, handing the sleeping mats in to Jon.

Everyone
we
knew from our little town would be out hunting for work. Failing that, showing up each day at the place they wanted or thought they were most likely to obtain a job, begging for errands to run, making coffee and generally getting underfoot until the boss cracked and granted them informal apprenticeship, proper employment, or told them to clear off and never come back.

“Yeah, we’d better get our story straight,” said Jon.

If all had gone as the EuroGov intended, our job-seeking classmates—now legal New Adults—would never have thought of any of us reAssignees again after we’d been shipped off to the Facility for medical recycling. But that was before the book—and the escape.

By the time Bane returned, announcing the area safe and carrying an armful of firewood, I’d filled the stove pan with water and Jon was tap-tapping his way back up from the stream with the refilled autoFiltration bottles. Stove lit and water boiled, I added some to three of the special hiking food sachets and mixed thoroughly. The smell was nothing whatsoever like chicken stew. Stewed boot leather, perhaps. Handing the sachets out regardless, I closed my eyes for a moment to say grace and raised a cautious forkful to my lips.

“I think we’re going to miss those army ration packs.” I chewed the tasteless mush once and swallowed.
Wait a moment
... Suddenly the mush stuck in my throat, though the food I was worried about was already eaten. “Where did those ration packs come from?”

Jon’s head rose, the rapid movement of his fork ceasing.

“Well, they were stolen, there’s not much doubt about that,” said Bane. “But you knew that. They weren’t from... Wearmfell. As far as I’m aware.” Wearmfell. The military ration-pack factory the Resistance had captured—slaughtering all the guards in the process, even the ones who surrendered without a fight.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Jon. “As far as you’re aware?”

“It means exactly that,” snapped Bane, clearly reluctant to divulge his part in that murderous raid quite like this.

Did it matter? Wherever the army ration packs we’d all been eating during our trek to York had come from, they’d probably been acquired in much the same way.

“I
hate
dealing with the Resistance.” I stabbed the ground with the end of my fork. “Let’s... let’s
not
any more, okay?”

“Gets my vote.” Jon started on his safe-but-bland legally-purchased-from-a-hiking-shop-by-Bane meal again.

“Unless we have to,” agreed Bane, guardedly.

“Let’s try very hard not to have to!”

When we’d finished Bane put the biodegradable sachets into a biodegradable scentSeal bag and went off into the woods to bury it. Didn’t want any bears visiting us in the night.

“Why don’t we turn in?” I suggested when he came back, though it was barely eight-thirty.

“Okay, but we need to keep watch,” said Bane.

“
Seriously?”
I asked

“Yeah, if someone does come along at night, they’ll expect real hikers to be tucked up inside asleep, won’t they?” said Jon.

“And what could we do, run away? How long would we last without our stuff?”

“Gah!” Bane dragged his hands through his hair. “Fine! No watch, then.”

“Though, uh, what about... wolves... and things?” said Jon.

“Tent’s supposed to be permeated with some stink bears don’t like much.”

“What about wolves?”

“Didn’t say anything about wolves.”

Jon muttered something rude under his breath about Bane’s tent-selecting abilities.

“
R
e
lax
. I don’t think the wolves will come calling unless they really want to eat us, in which case a smelly tent isn’t going to help much. A bear may just wander up to have a look around—scavengers, remember? Anyway, they didn’t
have
a wolf-repellent tent.”

“
And
Margo doesn’t mind wolves but hates bears!”

“Which part of ‘didn’t have’ can’t
you
understand?”

“Oh, come on,” I interrupted hastily. “Aren’t you two tired?”

“Yes,” said Bane shortly,

“Let’s just all pray against fire, theft and wolves and get to sleep, huh?” said Jon, letting his irritation go in that easy way of his.

“I’ll do fire, theft and bears,” I said.

“To hell with wolves and bears!” said Bane. “You can both do fire, theft and
humans
.”

“So can you.”

“I don’t talk to things I’m not convinced exist.”

Yes, you do, sometimes...
But I didn’t say it out loud. Bane ignored my silence.

“Well, my sleeping bag’s beckoning.” He unzipped the tent and threw the flap back...

From the way his shoulders went rigid a scowl had just appeared on his face—I shifted just enough to peep over his shoulder. Ah. Jon had put my sleeping bag in the middle.

Oh. Yeah… I was going to be sharing a tent with two guys for this trip... hadn’t really thought it through before. No way could we carry any extra weight—nor would it even be very safe. Not to mention that most New Adults on camping trips wouldn’t worry about such things, so separate tents would be very suspicious.

Looking like you might be practicing chastity was grounds for suspicion of being a Believer—you’d be receiving a court summons to make the Divine denial before you could say
“Credo in unum Deum.”
And given that “Practice of Superstition,” as Faith was termed, was a capital crime…

PreSorting, all copulation was banned, of course. But in the Facility, Jon and I had been forced to pretend to be a couple in order to avert suspicion and protect our Believing families. Unfortunately, I knew how close Jon was to falling in love with me for real.

Awkward, yes.

But we were running for our lives and there was nothing else for it. I was pretty sure in the circumstances that I could put aside my desire for Bane and after sleeping in such close proximity to Jon at the Facility, I knew how chaste he was. But Bane didn’t. He’d taken my word about what had happened, but…

Bane’s eyes darted from Jon’s sleeping bag to mine, and I could see the suspicion sneaking through his mind…
Help, Lord? Don’t let this divide us…
I’m pretty sure Jon just wants me beside him because it’s comfortingly familiar but Bane isn’t necessarily thinking coolly enough to realize that…

“My
sleeping bag has got hold of the scruff of my neck and is yanking me into the tent,” said Jon into the sticky silence, would-be calmly.