CHAPTER 49
10 years AC
O2 Arena - ‘Safety Zone 4’, London
It was midday when Leona finally approached the dome. She emerged from the Blackwall Tunnel, leaving her bicycle behind in the darkness and picking her way through a barricade of razor-wire hoops long ago abandoned and left to sag and rust. She crossed an empty dual-carriageway and walked up a shallow grass embankment towards the giant blister of vanilla canvas crowned with its distinct ring of canary-yellow support spars.
It was at the top of the embankment that she noticed a perimeter of corrugated iron panels six feet high, topped with spools of more of that hatefully sharp razor wire; a cobbled together Hadrian’s wall that stretched left and right in front of her.
The faint spotlights she’d seen had to have come from here; this was the right direction, east of Shepherd’s Bush, easily nine or ten miles away. She emerged from the overgrown grass embankment and slowly approached the perimeter wall’s main gate, wondering one more time whether Jacob and Nathan were already somewhere inside. It was a hope.
Dizz-ee watched the workers as he slurped lukewarm river water from a scuffed old Evian bottle and relaxed in the deckchair in front of the gatehouse. Although the boys called it the gatehouse, it was nothing more than an IKEA garden shed erected for those on duty on a rainy day to shelter inside.
This afternoon felt like it was going to be a really hot one; first proper summer’s day of the year. He cursed his misfortune at being given this morning’s perimeter guard duty rather than the afternoon shift. Apart from the fact that he and his guard posse had to rise early with the workers - and most of his boys were still nursing sore heads from last night - this afternoon, outside, it was going to be lovely. Inside, on the afternoon rota, standing guard on the entrance turnstiles to the central arena, the praetorians’ and Chief’s quarters, it was going to be hot and stuffy.
Snoop, being the completely selfish shit that he was, liked his lie in, especially after party nights. Privilege of rank. So he made his number two dog get up and take the morning shift instead. Dizz-ee could quite happily have passed the job onto the third dog, Jay-zee, but he was already assigned to the canteen watch.
Dizz-ee screwed the cap back on his water bottle.
F*ck him.
He was stuck at being second dog. Stuck for ever, or stuck until Snoop screwed up somehow and pissed off the Chief enough. Maybe that was going to happen eventually. He knew Snoop saw himself as being the Chief one day; fancied the idea of no longer taking orders from the wrinkled old snowflake bastard.
That ate at Snoop. Said it was old-world racism all over again that some rich, middle-aged white f*ck should rule the roost once again. They had their go, Snoop kept saying. Had their go and they f*cked the world up. Should be a brother runnin’ the shit here.
Mind you, Dizz-ee could see his point even though he was white; even though Snoop was an arrogant f*ck that he’d like to see screw up badly. Maxwell looked just like all those stiff old farts who’d collectively f*cked-up the world between them: bankers, politicians, government types . . . suits. It didn’t sit well with him either that some suited old twat should be in charge. It should be someone younger.
It wasn’t about race; black, white, didn’t mean shit to him. Rankled with Snoop though. Stupid arrogant f*cker was bound to challenge the Chief head-on one day. Snoop could go and do that if he wanted. And see what happened. Chief would probably win out.
And then I’ll be top dog.
It was going to happen one day. Snoop’s temper was going to get the better of him sooner or later. Serve the selfish lazy bastard right.
His ill-tempered gaze returned to the swaying rows of plants, and the workers toiling quietly amongst them. They were all oldies - twenty-five and older. No babies, no kids amongst them. Chief Maxwell forbid that; making babies. It was one of his emergency laws. The bloke might once have been a rich white fat-cat, but he was smart enough. No baby mouths to feed. Not for the foreseeable. Girls got themselves pregnant? They just forced it and got rid of the baby-gunk that came out. Far better that than eviction.
He watched the workers. Some of the boys called the workers ‘dome-niggers’. Seemed about right, they slouched about with sullen slave-faces. Good for nothing more than digging, planting, picking and muttering.
Dizz-ee called them ‘serfs’. There was a picture book he’d once read: Look Inside A Medieval Castle. It had excellent cut-away illustrations showing all the things that went on inside, little labels and explanations on everything. He remembered there was a king, or a duke or baron in the middle of the castle. And then in the great hall, his knights, there to protect him in times of battle and in return for that a share of the king’s privileges. And outside in the fields . . . the serfs.
He liked the idea that he was a bit like one of those knights of old. If he ever became top dog - shit, when he became top dog - he fancied the idea of coming up with a logo or a coat of arms or something that the praetorians would all have to wear on their jackets. They’d all have to pick a knight name, like Sir Kill-a-lot, or Sir Frag-enstein.
About a billion times cooler than walking around with rapper names and the word ‘staff’ stencilled on them.
‘Yo! Dizz-ee!’
Dizz-ee turned to Flav, standing a dozen yards away and jabbing a finger towards the ground beyond the perimeter wall.
‘What?’
‘Over there . . . girl coming over.’
Dizz-ee turned round, shaded his eyes. He was right. Striding towards them, a teenaged girl. She didn’t move like the wildies, all furtive and edgy, ready to break and scamper like startled rabbits at the sound of a single gunshot. She looked clean, scrubbed and well fed, too.
Dizz-ee waved at Flav to follow him and jogged across to the gate section of the barricade. He pulled open the wire gate, just wide enough to step outside. Twenty yards away the girl stopped and stared at the gun he had levelled at her.
‘So, what d’you want?’
‘I saw the lights of this place, last night,’ said the girl. ‘You got power?’
Dizz-ee silently appraised her. She looked more presentable than most of the girls in the ‘cattle shed’; many of them were looking the worse for wear, skin purple and mottled from bruising, most of them unpleasantly thin and malnourished. There hadn’t been any new girls in the pen for quite some time. Some fresh ass would be sweet.
Keep her for myself.
‘Hey, Dizz-ee. What do we do?’ asked Flav quietly.
Thing is, he knew Snoop would bag the girl for himself just as soon as he clapped eyes on her. The selfish shit-f*ck would pull rank on him and have her himself.
‘Shall I go tell Snoop we got a girl coming in?’
Dizz-ee shook his head. ‘No, hang on. I’ll take her in myself,’ he replied under his breath.
Flav looked at him uncertainly. ‘You know Snoop’ll want the girl,’ he whispered.
‘F*ck him. We’ll put her in the cattle shed with the others. He don’t go there much now, since they all looking so rough. I’m having her myself.’
The girl was watching them whispering from twenty yards out. ‘Can I come in?’ she called across.
She sounds well posh.
‘So, what about me, Dizz? Do I get a piece of her?’
‘Maybe, when I’m all done.’
Flav considered that for a moment. ‘A’ight,’ he said, smiling.
Dizz-ee winked at the younger lad and then pulled the gate wider. ‘Yeah, sure,’ he called to the girl waving her forward. ‘You better come in.’
She hesitated. Dizz-ee cocked his head at the girl. ‘Come in,’ he smiled. ‘It’s safer inside than out. Safe zone, this.’
The girl stared at him for a moment. ‘Okay,’ she said and stepped slowly forward through the gap in the barrier, her eyes darting warily between Dizz-ee and Flav, the guns in their hands and their official-looking orange jackets.
‘Bit young aren’t you?’ she said to Flav. ‘To be . . . like, “staff”?’
Flav stiffened and for a moment she thought the young lad was going to slap her in the face. Dizz-ee didn’t want his fresh meat all puckered and purple on the first night, so he stepped forward. ‘Oh, Flav’s man enough,’ said Dizz-ee, ‘bro’s thirteen, aren’t you?’
Flav nodded.
‘Come on.’ Dizz-ee smiled warmly, offering her a hand. ‘Come, I’ll show you round.’