CHAPTER 52
10 years AC
O2 Arena - ‘Safety Zone 4’, London
Adam watched Maxwell go. He could quite happily stab that self-serving bastard in the eye. That regal f*cking nod, the pompous way he acknowledged his people; once a mid-level civil servant, now the absolute ruler of his own little kingdom.
And he’d made damn sure there was no one going to challenge the way of things here, hadn’t he? Damn sure.
Adam hadn’t seen it coming.
The school Maxwell had set up had made perfect sense at the time; there’d been over a hundred boys in the camp of schooling age. Another hundred or so girls as well. And Maxwell, being an ex-teacher, his pre-crash job something to do with a regional education board, it made sense that he’d want to see the kids get some sort of schooling.
It didn’t even to occur to him that Maxwell was playing some kind of long game when he announced he wanted to school the boys separately. It just happened. Anyway, there’d been too many other things on his mind. He and the lads of his squadron were out patrolling almost daily, foraging, looking for survivors in the aftermath, looking for signs of any other communities hanging on.
That bastard was clever about it, too. Moved the boys into the middle of the dome for their classes. The young lad, Edward Tindall, the oldest boy in the camp, was about seventeen when the crash happened. He became Maxwell’s ‘head boy’. All the other lads looked up to Edward; all urban-cool, hip.
Adam resumed his work, kneeling down and potting onion bulbs. Maybe it was how the Cheltenham safe zone went down; the army finally turning on the civil authorities. Or maybe Maxwell had caught wind of Adam’s men grumbling. Whatever it was, at some point the bastard had made up his mind that he didn’t want thirty trained soldiers and another twenty-seven police officer auxiliaries hanging around the dome.
How it happened, the ‘changing of the guard’, was pure bloody Maxwell. One of the girls was found raped and shot dead just outside the zone. Enough evidence had been strewn around to indicate it had been one of Adam’s lads. The same night Maxwell instructed Adam to order his men to hand in their guns so they could be inspected to identify which one had been fired.
And that’s what he’d done. Naively, stupidly - followed the bastard’s orders.
In the early hours Edward Tindall and his boys, all armed with those same f*cking guns, had turfed the lads out of their bunks and out of the camp.
Oh yeah, they’d picked out one man to make an example of; said it was him who’d raped the girl and murdered her. Gunner Simon Lawrence. The soldiers were kicked out but Adam and the three other platoon NCOs were allowed to stay. Maxwell’s intention communicated quite clearly to the men as they were escorted out; try breaking back in or causing any mischief and your officers will suffer.
Next morning Maxwell had gathered everyone together in the dome’s entrance foyer and made his big ‘Year One’ speech - new order and all that. His students, his boys, were now functioning as the zone’s security personnel. The time had come for them to prepare for the future, no one was coming to rescue them, so now it was time to start growing their own food . . . and so on and so on; there were going to be work groups, task assignments; everybody was going to have to contribute something to their long-term survival.
And then, to clarify the point that this really was Day One of a new regime, Gunner Simon Lawrence was brought out and executed for the rape and murder of the girl.
Adam looked up and watched the backs of the two praetorians walking dutifully a dozen yards behind Maxwell, guns slung casually on their shoulders.
He’d even decided to choose the youngest of his boys to pull the trigger. A little pyschotic f*cker who swaggered around under the name ‘Notor-ius’ these days.
The two praetorians and Maxwell slowly patrolled the edge of the field, heading towards the guards standing around the hut at the front gate.
You’re a shrewd cunning bastard, I’ll give you that.
Maxwell knew his recent history; of course he did, he was once a history teacher an’ all.
Child soldiers.
Always the most ruthless. Always the most biddable.
003
Leona heard movement outside her room. It was a small stifling space, the walls concrete breeze-blocks painted a hospital mint green, above her a fizzing strip light, the cold cement floor beneath her feet covered by a scuffed black rubber mat. There was a mattress on the floor and a bucket in the corner. It was meant for her to use as a toilet. She’d held off using it for as long as she could, but in the end she’d had to. Now the smell of it was thick inside this place, almost as bad as the slurry room back home on the rigs.
She heard a girl’s voice coming from the room next door, muffled through the wall. She sounded compliant, single grunted syllables. Another voice, a boy’s voice, young enough that it sounded as if it had yet to break and deepen. He was giving her instructions and she sounded as if she was obeying. It was quiet for a minute or two, a solitary bump against the wall, then she heard the boy’s voice once again; a short shrill yell that sounded painful.
She wanted to think the girl had hurt him, kneed him in the balls, jabbed his eye with a fingernail. But she knew it wasn’t that. He’d got what he came for.
Her eavesdropping was interrupted by the sound of a key in her door. She took several quick steps from the wall and backed up into the corner of the room beside the toilet bucket.
She knew who it was before the door swung open. It was the boy who treated her like a caged pet - his own little plaything. It was the boy who had ushered her into the camp, the short stocky runt with his one shaved eyebrow, his neck weighed down with bling, with his peaked white Nike baseball cap and that we’re-going-to-play-some-more twinkle in his eyes.
‘Hey, honey! Dizz-ee’s home!’ he sing-songed. ‘Sup? How’s my bitch. A’ight?’
‘F*ck off,’ said Leona through swollen lips.
‘F*ck off is it, eh?’ He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him and locking it. ‘We’re goin’ to try again, love. An’ this time you’re going to be a good little bitch, right?’
He was about Nathan’s age, maybe a year older - nineteen, twenty. A short little runt but surprisingly strong. Much stronger than her. She’d managed to keep him at bay last time with her nails and bared teeth, earning a livid bruise and swollen mouth for her efforts. But the time before, he’d managed to wrestle her down to the mattress and nearly managed to get inside her. But she thrashed and wriggled and slapped so much that he lost his concentration. She paid for the struggling that time with a swift hard kick to the stomach. He left her doubled over, struggling for breath and retching bile onto the floor.
Leona had lost count how many nights she’d been in here, how many times she’d had to wrestle the evil little bastard off her. But she knew she was running out of time, running out of fight, and he knew it, too. Soon he was going to be coming in here and she was going to be like the girl next door, mutely nodding, lifting the torn rags of her shirt and letting him get what he came for.
But not tonight, she wasn’t giving up tonight. ‘You touch me again and I’ll rip your thing right off.’
Dizz-ee laughed. ‘Thing?’
He stepped into the middle of the small room, removed his orange jacket and his faded Nike cap and tossed them both on to the mattress.
‘See now, you goin’ to give me it tonight, a’ight? You gonna cotch with me? Or do I have to break your face again?’
‘F*ck off.’
He shook his head and tutted. ‘We got off to a bad start. You didn’t know the rules. Maybe I should’ve explained them to you instead of slappin’ you. So lemme tell you how it is before we get goin’.’
He squatted down in front of her, wrinkling his nose for a moment at the smell coming from her bucket.
‘We’re all living in Medieval England now. That’s what it is. We’ve got new rules for everyone. New roles, new classes.’ He offered her a broad, friendly smile. ‘Now take me. I’m what we call a “praetorian guard”. We’re like the Chief’s bodyguard.’
He settled down on the floor in front of her. ‘At school, know what my favourite subject was?’
She said nothing.
‘History. I loved that subject. I had a great teacher. Mr Harwood, a great teacher. He sort of inspired me.’
Leona noticed how easily the ‘street’ had slipped out of his voice.
‘He made history come alive for me, you know? One of the periods of history we studied with Mr Harwood was medieval history, you know? All that cool feudal stuff; barons and dukes and princes. Little kingdoms within kingdoms . . .’
Dizz-ee’s voice drifted further away from what she’d become used to; now no longer some wannabe wigger trying to out-black everyone else, but instead . . . very different.
‘And there were very clear classes, right? People born into a duty they were destined to perform for the rest of their lives. Almost like . . . no . . . exactly like the social structure of an ant or termite colony. Fighter ants, worker ants, yeah?’
She said nothing.
‘You see, the old world was different, wasn’t it? I remember some of it. I remember teachers telling us anybody could become anything they want if they put their mind to it.’ He laughed. ‘But that was then. A different world now.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a medieval world now, and we’re back to clear social classes.’
Leona looked up a him. ‘You sound different.’
Dizz-ee seemed to wince at that.
‘Us praetorians’re like King Arthur’s knights. There’s trouble? If there’s bad guys come into the neighbourhood threatening an’ shit? Then we’re the ones gonna go out protect you. And, we’re not scared of any shit. Trust me. We’ll die for the King. Die for his people if need be.’ He nodded at her. ‘Die for a skanky little bitch like you, even. That’s what makes us knights . . . special, see. We the first and last line of defence for the Zee.’
Leona laughed at him. ‘You sound so stupid.’
‘Uh?’
‘When you pretend to be some kind of gangster.’
‘What?’ He slapped her face hard. ‘F*ck you!’
She curled up on the floor, protecting her bruised face from another blow.
‘Say that shit again and I will f*ckin’ kill you! Do you understand?’
It was quiet for a moment. She could hear him breathing, hear footfall across the ceiling, hear the muted sound of the girl next door acquiescing to another boy.
‘That was my old life,’ said Dizz-ee after a while. ‘F*cking grammar school shit. Now I’m a soldier. A f*cking knight.’ He took a deep breath.
‘So, like I was saying . . . in this medieval world of ours, we got the workers - the serfs, them old people who work out in the field and grow our food. They feed us an’ stuff, keep us goin’ in exchange for us protectin’ and watchin’ out for ’em.’
She could hear the middle-class white boy was gone from his voice.
‘Now you . . . well see, you got a special place. You’re sort of in between knights and serfs. You can’t be no knight ’cause you can’t fight, but you can be better than the serfs and get some of the privileges an’ shit that we get. You get to have the nice food outta the tins from down below, you know? You get to have the grog, the dope, all the smokes you want. What you are, girl, is a girlfriend. An’ all you really got to do is play along. You know? Just open up like a good girl every once in a while. The more you do for the knights, the more treats you gonna get. It’s that simple.’
He shuffled a little further forward, leaning over her. ‘Other girls in the cattle shed see the sense in that. They don’t want to go back to being with the serfs. That would be kinda stupid, right? ‘Cause they get nothing. No privileges. See how it works?’
He stretched a hand out towards her. ‘So why don’t we try it again tonight . . . and this time it’ll be cool. No need for me to smack you like last time. No need for you to get all scratchy and bitey like you did. What do you say?’
His hand rested lightly on one of her knees, pushing it gently apart from the other. ‘Shit, you might even enjoy having a piece of me in you.’
Angry. She told herself. Not frightened, Leona, don’t sound frightened. Be f*cking angry.
She reached out for his hand and twisted his thumb back sharply. ‘I’m not your bitch or your “ho”’ . . . So F*ck OFF!!’
He recoiled slightly, looking bemused by her outburst, as her voice echoed off the hard walls.
‘You’re so pathetic,’ she added under her breath. ‘You know that?’
‘I said don’t—!’
‘Why . . . why do you even talk like that? Trying to talk like a gangsta? You’re not even black.’ She sneered. ‘We used to laugh at wannabes like you. All that bling, the swagger, the stupid fake American accent—’
‘PISS OFF!!’
All of a sudden she was seeing stars and feeling her cheek throb warmly before she realised he’d just backhanded her again. Much harder this time. Her eyes back on him, she could see he was done explaining himself to her. He was peeling his tracksuit bottoms off, past his bare knees and preparing to roll them over his large white trainers.
Instinctively she reached for the toilet bucket beside her and hurled its contents - a cloudy mixture of faecal matter and urine - at him.
He froze for a second, his eyes closed, lips clamped as the rancid slurry dribbled down his face, and dripped onto his bare thighs. He retched, a thin stream of vomit on to the black mat, then dry heaved once more.
‘You are so f*cking dead!’ he hissed, pulling his tracksuit bottoms up and backing towards the door. ‘F*cking dead!’ he said again, wiping the muck from his face and reaching for the handle of the door behind him.
His urge to rape her had evaporated. Now all he seemed to want to do was beat a retreat. ‘I’m f*ckin’ done with you, bitch. Gonna’ put you out for the rest of da boys to ’ave.’ He unlocked the door and opened it. ‘They’ll gang-bang your ass to pieces.’ He slammed the door shut behind him, the noise reverberating endlessly off the hard walls, making the small room sound like a cavern.
Leona sat perfectly still with her hand on her cheek, already feeling it begin to swell along the jawline. She heard voices through the wall again; the compliant mumble of the girl, followed moments later by the rhythmic grunting of a youth. She wondered if the girl was really there out of choice - because she got treated to a little alcohol, a little dope every now and then. Or spreading her legs, simply because the fight had been beaten out of her.
From another room, further along, she faintly heard another female voice, whimpering painfully.
Her eyes drifted to the soup of rancid faeces splashed across the floor, and up at the cold blue bar of the fizzing strip light in the ceiling and realised, if she had a decent enough sharp edge to work with, she could do far better than a few aborted scratches right now.