The Fall (8 page)

In the light of the lantern, Ana watched the patch of blood soaking through Cole’s sweater grow bigger. They would have to leave tonight. She wondered if he’d be all right walking; if his arm would need stitches. What was taking Blaize so long with the medical kit?

‘Take off your sweater,’ she said, reaching out to help Cole remove it. As she did so, she saw that the slash across the top of his shoulder was long but it didn’t look deep.

‘If you allow the disc out into the public arena,’ Dombrant said to Tobias, ‘the Board will blame the Project. First they’ll come questioning Ana’s father, but he’ll say we never retrieved it. They’ll believe Cole got his hands on it the night Reed was murdered. They know Cole’s one of you. They’ll destroy this place once and for all.’

Tobias stepped back towards Ed and the woman beside him, and they began conferring. Ana wondered why Dombrant hadn’t told them she had the disc. Was he waiting until he knew what they planned to do with him?

She touched the back of her hand to Cole’s forehead – he was sweating but there was no fever. If his temperature was stable that had to be a good sign. Blaize finally showed up with the medical kit and she began looping a roll of gauze around Cole’s cut. He winced as she tied a knot in the fabric.

Tobias stepped away from his second-in-command. He moved to address Dombrant, knuckles pressed to his mouth, eyebrows drawn together. ‘We need to confirm you came here alone,’ he said, ‘then we’ll let you go.’

‘Check my interface,’ Dombrant answered. ‘It’s set to an infrared body heat program. You can count your people guarding the wall.’

Tobias switched on the interface he’d taken from Dombrant and studied the information. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘This is what we’re going to do. Ed, Sandra and I will escort the Warden and the disc into the City. We’ll wait with him until dawn, giving Ana and Cole time to leave the Project before her father learns what’s happened.’

A stunned silence fell over the room. Tobias intended to let the Warden leave with the disc.

Blaize was the first to respond. ‘You can’t give him the recording.’

Tobias carried on as if no one had spoken. ‘Cuff yourself,’ he said, lobbing Dombrant’s cuffs back to him. ‘Now let’s find the disc and get moving.’

‘That’s a decision for all the council,’ Blaize insisted.

Tobias pulled himself intimidatingly close to the hunter. ‘There’s not going to be a war.’

Blaize’s lip curled revealing a crooked tooth. ‘Thought you didn’t believe in the Writings?’

‘Yes, well,’ Tobias said, glancing back at Ed and Sandra. ‘It seems I’m in the minority.’ He released a hook on his trident fighting pole. With a swishing sound, two fan-like panels near the handle of the baton spread open, covered in tiny spikes. Blaize stared at the Chief of Security but remained silent. Dombrant rose to his feet, hands shackled together in a pair of light, wire-thin metal cuffs.

Ed came towards him. ‘Key?’

‘They don’t have one,’ Dombrant said. ‘But I can’t tap in the release code myself.’ Ed inspected the cuffs then nodded his approval at Tobias.

As Dombrant, flanked by Ed and Sandra passed Ana, the Warden stopped and held out his hands. He was asking for the disc.

Taking in the gesture, Tobias sucked in deeply. He closed his eyes in an attempt to contain exactly how much Ana annoyed him. ‘Give him the bloody disc, before I decide to take you with us and return you to your father. A much safer place for you as far as everyone’s concerned.’

Ana’s fingers brushed the hand-engraved quote on the back of the star in her pocket: ‘
Beauty is truth, truth beauty
.’ She coiled the chain up tightly in her fist, sensing Cole’s eyes on her. They’d both risked so much for the recording. Ruefully, she took the star from her pouch and dropped it into Dombrant’s palm.

‘Tell the others we’ve got it,’ Tobias said to Blaize. ‘Let’s move it.’

Ed, Sandra and Dombrant advanced towards the passage.

‘Stop!’ A voice ordered. Everyone in the cabin turned. Seton, Clemence and another middle-aged couple still in their pyjamas, big coats thrown over the top, blustered in through the far door with a night guard.

Seton strode forward towards the fleeing group. Clemence’s beady eyes took in the room and in an instant she swept up to Cole, putting down a far larger medical box than the one Ana had. She began unknotting the strip of gauze Ana had tied across Cole’s shoulder and under his arm.

Seton and Tobias drew up face to face.

‘If we release this recording to the public,’ Tobias snarled, ‘we’ll be attacked. We’ll have to evacuate the Project.’

‘You were fine when it was Peter Reed risking his life to give it to us.’

‘The minister was going to film a personal statement alongside the recording. You couldn’t argue with that. You couldn’t say it was a fraud.’

‘You forget Tobias,’ Seton said calmly. ‘We’re all here for one reason only, whether you believe in the Writings or not. To restore the truth.’

‘I’m afraid I have you outnumbered on this one,’ Tobias said. He nodded at Ed and Sandra to go.

Seton shook his head. ‘Not this time.’ The men glared at each other.

Tobias blanched. ‘Damn!’ He pounded his metal baton against the wall.

Ana frowned, not understanding what was happening. Dombrant was the first to catch on. He uncurled his cuffed hands and began awkwardly fiddling with the tiny catch for the star’s secret compartment. Ana stood up and edged closer as he shook the pendant upside down. Nothing fell out.

‘It’s gone,’ Seton confirmed. ‘I sent the disc out this afternoon.’

Safety

Clemence opened a packet of butterfly closures to fix Cole’s cut. Then she squeezed Cole’s split flesh back together and started applying the stitches at either end of the wound. Meanwhile, Ana smeared arnica onto his bruised knee. The acrid smell of the ointment, blended with the metallic odour of blood trickling from his arm, made her queasy.

More night guards arrived, including Nate and Rachel. Tobias ordered them back outside, though not before Nate had shot Ana a look of total loathing. Seton went out to explain to the growing crowd what was happening. Ana overheard heated discussions about the Warden, the disc, whether she would leave the Project straight away, and how they would evacuate all those who weren’t trained to guard the wall.

Cole ducked his head to catch her eye. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I just couldn’t let him walk off with you. I panicked.’

‘It’s OK. You’re all right. And I’m still here. Besides, I think he was holding back.’ She glanced across to the other side of the room where Ed was guarding Dombrant. For all the Warden’s threats that night – the knife held to her throat, the Stinger on its highest setting – when the moment came for him to use Ana to his advantage, Dombrant had thrown her aside. ‘He didn’t want to hurt either of us.’

‘Wouldn’t go that far,’ Cole said, wincing as he tried to bend his knee.

‘They won’t do anything to him, will they?’ she asked.

Cole shook his head. ‘No way. Tobias won’t let them lay a finger on him. It would be asking for trouble.’

Clemence finished securing the final butterfly stitch. ‘There.’ She covered Cole’s wound with a bandage, then wrapped gauze under his arm and over his shoulder.

‘We’ll have to leave tonight, won’t we?’ Ana asked. Clemence regarded her with a warmth and kindness that, in itself, was unsettling. It made Ana think of the moon and the angel.

‘Seton has already decided,’ Clemence said. ‘He will personally take you to a safehouse. You will be able to rest and recover.’

‘Won’t you need him here?’ Ana asked.

‘He’ll be back by morning.’

The minister’s recording was safe and the council had an evacuation to plan. As one of the Project’s three council members, why would Seton risk taking them across the City tonight? What weren’t they all telling her?

Tobias blustered into the cabin from outside, followed by his second- and third-in-command. Sandra angled straight for Clemence and the medical kit, asking for a sedative.

‘I’d like to take a look at the Warden’s interface,’ Cole said to Tobias, hobbling to his feet. ‘That infrared program he’s got would be pretty useful if I can copy it.’

Tobias dug up Dombrant’s interface and contact lens and slapped them into Cole’s hands. ‘There have been volunteers,’ he said unhappily. ‘Several people have offered to help escort you across the City.’

Relief lightened Cole’s face. Ana knew what he was thinking: they wouldn’t be an injured guy, an old man and a girl crossing London alone tonight.

On the other side of the cabin, Sandra crouched down beside Dombrant and rolled up his shirt sleeve. As she injected him, the Warden caught Ana’s eye, making her throat grow dry. Tangled thoughts occupied her: her father’s reaction to tonight’s events; what was on the minister’s recording; whether the Board would authorise an attack on the Project.

She watched Dombrant’s eyelids close and his body slump as the sedative took hold.

‘I’ll find out who is going with you,’ Clemence said quietly, drawing Ana’s attention back to their side of the room where Cole now perched on the stool with his injured leg stretched out, examining the Warden’s interface. ‘The storeroom is a mess but we need to make sure you all have equipment and IDs.’

The Minister left the cabin, joining the heated discussions outside, which Ana could still hear going on among the guards and those representatives who’d been woken.

Lila arrived with Cole’s camping rucksack and a second smaller one strapped to her front. Blaize allowed her into the cabin with Rachel in tow. ‘Ana!’ Cole’s sister hoisted the rucksacks off and ran to Ana’s side. ‘They told me what happened. Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine.’ Not really the truth, but physically speaking it was accurate.

Lila’s eyes widened as she took in the sedated Warden, and then she froze. ‘Cole!’

Cole angled the blood-soaked arm of his sweater away from his sister. ‘It’s a scratch,’ he said. Lila’s eyes shot to Rachel, as though Cole’s ex was the only one honest enough to provide her with the truth.

‘He’s an idiot,’ Rachel said. ‘His IQ goes down fifty points around the blonde.’ Rachel was looking svelte and sexy in combat trousers, tight T-shirt and a waist-cropped jacket. She must have been working the night shift on the wall, but she was well-groomed enough to be going out on a date. Ana studied her impassively, trying not to feel intimidated.

‘Cole thought he could take on a Special Ops military guy and rescue his damsel in distress.’

‘It’s getting old, Rach,’ Cole said, barely glancing up.

Assured by Rachel’s cavalier attitude, Lila relaxed a little. ‘I’ve given you all the tinned food and some fresh vegetables,’ she said. ‘Some of my clothes for Ana are in the smaller rucksack, and I stuffed your clothes as well as the camping stove into the big one.’

Cole nodded. ‘Thanks.’

‘How are you going to get out of here? Can you even walk?’

‘We’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘Seton’s taking us to a safehouse, and a couple of people have volunteered to help.’

Rachel caught Ana’s eye, looking pleased with herself. Ana’s heart sank. Rachel was one of the volunteers.

*

It was past midnight when seven of them headed out across London. The Tubes were closed, which left them with several miles to cover on foot. Ed, who hadn’t volunteered but had been sent by Tobias, had Cole’s interface. Even with the Warden’s pirated programs giving them infrared body-heat readouts, and information about the nearby activity of all on-duty Wardens and Psych Watch, moving through the City at night was dangerous.

Cole was on crutches. So far he’d managed to keep up, but after an hour of hard walking and little conversation, Ana noticed he was constantly grimacing. He wouldn’t make it much further.

She stopped. Nate and Rachel, who after several unpleasantries had been sent off by Seton to scout ahead. But Seton, Blaize and Ed slowed down to see what was happening. Cole stood beside Ana, balancing on his good leg, one hand gripping the swollen knee.

‘How much further?’ she asked.

‘Another four or five miles,’ Seton answered. Ana pushed up Cole’s trouser leg. His knee was twice the size it should have been. She took off the small black rucksack Lila had given her, rummaged past the clothes and Dombrant’s Stinger and took out a bottle of arnica. She quickly uncapped it and rubbed ointment into the swelling.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Cole said. She raised an eyebrow at Seton. Up ahead Nate and Rachel stopped. Seeing Cole hunched over, they ran back to the group.

‘We can’t stop,’ Nate said. Rachel rubbed Cole’s back as they started walking, one on each side, waiting to catch him if he dropped his crutches. Ana did her best to ignore Rachel. She forced herself to concentrate on transport options – a rickshaw or bicycle with a side-cart would be ideal. But people didn’t tend to leave their livelihood lying around. The only things scattered all over the place were rusty cars. A thought struck her and she felt a rush of adrenalin.

‘Lila packed the camping stove,’ she told Seton. ‘What sort of fuel would she have put in it?’

‘Ethanol,’ he said. ‘The stuff we make in the Project . . . I imagine there’d be at least half a litre,’ he continued, catching on fast. ‘We’d need a flex-fuel vehicle – something that hasn’t rusted up too bad. Most of them used to be calibrated for E85 fuel but it should run a few miles on pure ethanol.’

Without saying anything more, Seton flicked on his interface and began searching for car models that had been built to run on flex-fuel over twenty years ago.

The group tramped down an empty main road, passing a sign for Queensway Tube on their right, a park on their left. Ana glimpsed a vast sprawl of tents and fires through the bushes lining the pavement. Techno music drifted from the camp. Up until now they’d seen relatively few people: the occasional couple, a group of teenagers on bikes, and a man sleeping rough.

‘We need to get away from Kensington Park,’ Ed said, looking at the readouts on Cole’s interface. ‘Way too much activity going on around here.’ At that moment there was the sound of glass smashing, followed by raised voices. ‘There are Wardens all over the place,’ he added.