Afterlight

CHAPTER 53
10 years AC
O2 Arena - ‘Safety Zone 4’, London



Snoop watched the boys working over the man. The fool had been caught red-handed this morning trying to steal some canned fruit from one of the boys’ tents in the central arena. How the f*ck he’d managed to get in was a conversation he needed to have later on with SouljaBoy; the stupid little idiot must have walked off from his post on the entrance turnstile.
They were whipping him with bike chains; digging bloody divots out of his skin, but not breaking any bones. They needed him working again as soon as possible, not laid up in the infirmary for months in a cast. Just enough of a lesson learned that he wasn’t going to try it again any time soon.
Snoop watched not because there was any sport in it, but because those boys could get a little out of hand if he didn’t. They didn’t need a cadaver, just someone whupped enough to know better and pass that on.
The sun was setting out here, settling across the river. Snoop liked it out the back; the rear entrance to the dome. Quieter. Away from the shuffling workers, the clack of spades on soil. He settled back in the deckchair, silently watching the lashing chains for another minute before he raised a hand.
‘A’ight! That’s all!’
Three of them stopped, Ceebay carried on lashing out another couple of times.
‘Shit, I said stop!’ barked Snoop. The boy relented after another swift kick.
‘Now take him to the infirmary. Get him seen to.’
The four boys carried the man back across the quay and into the dome, leaving Snoop alone with his sunset. He listened to the sound of the barges bumping and nuzzling the quayside. Barges they’d not used for a while; not since they’d last tried foraging up and down the Thames.
He sighed. Ceebay, just like Dizz-ee, just like Notor-ius; all hotheads that needed watching. Mind you, at their age he remembered himself being no different; wanting to prove himself to be the hardest, meanest. Prove that he could be much more than just a runner, or a spotter; that he could be a top-f*cking-dog and run a den.
Old days, those . . . back when there was a business, when money actually meant something.
He was top dog now, right? No longer a foot soldier but a general.
True.
Ten years ago, being a general would’ve meant controlling most of the corners of a postcode; would have meant a thirty per cent cut on the takings. Not bad. But here, now, it was a very different kind of power to, say, having money. It was absolute f*cking power.
Maxwell had set things up well here; a rigid hierarchy that worked efficiently. The workers kept safe and fed, the girls in the cattle shed with their extra privileges as long as they played along, the praetorians keeping an eye on things, then of course Snoop as top dog . . . and Maxwell, the Chief, at the very top. Everyone with a role, everyone with a place and absolutely no misunderstandings.
The system had worked just fine for the last three years, since the boys had kicked out those soldiers. Everybody got something out of it . . . all right, some more than others. And it would carry on working for as long as there was food for everyone to eat, and treats for the boys.
But there’s the thing, a’ight?
Snoop knew just as well as Maxwell that all the shit they had down below in storage wasn’t going to last them for ever.
Whilst the Chief was an arrogant pale-ass f*cker, all suit and bullshit, he was smart. Very smart. The man knew his history, had taught a little to Snoop and the other boys. Made them see how everyone from Roman emperors to Anglo-Saxon kings, even East African warlords, all kept house the same way: a warrior elite at the top of the pile kept sweet and well-paid.
The Chief was shrewd and he knew, despite all the stuff they were growing out front, that their supplies were running out. He had a plan. He must have a plan. Snoop was sure the wily old bastard was sitting on something clever. Because the alternative - fun though it was for the boys - was what? To sit right here until it all ran out?
Then what?
He watched the Thames glistening calmly, the gentle slap and murmur of water against the base of the quay. The Chief had some kind of long game going. He was certain of it.

Jacob lurched in his cot and his eyes snapped open. He found himself staring up at the tangle of their camouflage netting, and beyond that at the pale canopy of the dome’s canvas.
It was still dark.
In the cot beside his own he could hear Nathan’s deep and easy breathing, fast asleep and untroubled . . . as he always seemed to be. Nathan never appeared to be anything other than untroubled, it was his default demeanour. His unflappable cruise control. Mr Laid-back calmly accepting the whatever-comes-next that life throws at you like some good-natured diner casually awaiting the next course of a mystery banquet.
Jacob so envied that about him.
The last few weeks had seen them pulling long hours outside amongst the workers; learning a whole new way of life, new rules. Then that all changed again when Mr Maxwell said they could grab their belongings and move up into the central arena. Nathan accepted both vastly differing regimes with an effortless shrug of his shoulders.
They now slept on immeasurably more comfortable beds than those mattresses outside. They had their own tent of sorts - a camouflage net draped across an ‘A’ frame of metal rods. It was perched on a stretch of terrace between two large sections of arena seating. Other tents, similar to theirs, were clustered in groups around the vast stadium, in spaces where rows of plastic bucket seats had been pulled out.
They’d only been awarded this privileged level of comfort and privacy a few days ago, after Maxwell had said they could join the praetorians. So far the nights had been noisier than outside with the boys trash-talking each other, calling out crude exchanges across the cavernous stadium from one tent to another. All good natured, and usually things quietened down when the night lights were dimmed.
Tonight, though, he’d been awoken by something going on.
Noises had percolated into his sleep and become part of his dream - the one he often had. Too often. Him and Leona in a dark house at night, lit up by the flames of a burning car outside. The shifting silhouettes of intoxicated teenage boys larking around, jeering and laughing at the families hiding in their homes down St Stephen’s Avenue.
‘Oooo are ya? Oooo are ya?’ several of them chanting like supporters at a football match.
‘Weeee comin’ to part-eeeee!!’ another voice sing-songing over the top.
Jacob shook away the last tendrils of sleep and the nightmare. He could feel the coolness of sweat drying on his bare skin. Another stuffy night inside. Even though the dome’s roof was an opaque canvas, when the sun was shining much of its energy permeated through and built up inside throughout the day.
He heard the noises again. Voices in the distance; voices that had taken part in his dream. He sat up and looked out through the drape of netting. Between the gaps in the webbing, down across the endless sloping rows of bucket chairs, on the arena’s stage, he could see a couple of torch beams flickering around amongst the dark and silent outlines of the arcade machines. Some of the praetorians were down there, messing about.
He could hear their banter, hee-hawing laughter as several of them pretended the NASCAR machines were switched on and that they were mid-race. They sat in bucket seats and yanked their steering wheels one way then the other as they stared up at the large blank screens in front of them. A scuffle broke out between a couple of boys watching, both wanting to sit in the same booth. It was no more than pushing, shoving and posturing and snarled words exchanged. Jacob settled back in his cot, once more looking up at the webbing and the distant dark pall of the dome’s canvas, and found himself wondering whether he could really fit in as one of them; they all seemed so aggressive and intimidating.
Tough talk. That’s what Snoop called it. Because the boys were so young, they had to appear to be tougher, meaner, than they were for the adult workers to accept them being in charge.
It’s mostly just hot-air bullshit, Snoop had said with a grin. They’re good boys.
Jacob desperately wanted to be a praetorian. He’d caught a glimpse of party night: the arcade machines; they had a cinema room with a big projection screen and a library of DVDs; there was another room full of Xboxes and plasma screens all linked up and playing ‘Call of Duty’. And the big light show from the lighting rig above . . .
If heaven was powered by electricity, this had to be it.
You’ve got to learn to act like they do.
He closed his eyes, trying to get back to sleep, but his mind restlessly hopped from one thing to another.
Not only did he not think he’d make a very good praetorian, he had a sneaking suspicion the other boys didn’t think too much of him. Oh, yes, they put up with him because he was Nathan’s mate. They liked Nathan because he made them laugh. Like he could everyone else. Been here a few weeks now and all the other boys let on to him as they passed by with a grin and pressing of fists.
Jacob barely got a nod from them.
Why? Because I’m not funny enough?
The injustice of that skewered him painfully. Why did popularity amongst these younger boys boil down to the simple ability to tell a joke? It’s not as if Nathan actually told jokes anyway, he just had a cool way of chuckling; a sort of yuk-yuk-yukking that was inexplicably infectious. That, and his calm manner, and the cool street talk he could easily slip into at a moment’s notice.
A cold doubt stirred deep down inside him; the thought that his old friend was going to get fed up with him and move on . . . too busy enjoying his celebrity status.
And then you’ll be right on your own, Jake.