28
The next evening, Imrin tells me we are sorted but he still doesn’t seem entirely convinced. I’m not sure what I can say to him because it is hard to put myself in his position, especially considering I have kept the truth about Opie from him all this time.
In the morning, I rise early and get dressed, waiting for the automatic lock on the door to disengage. There is a greater sense of togetherness around the dormitory now and although I get a few quizzical looks from some of the girls, nobody asks what I am up to. If we don’t know one another’s business, then no one can force us to tell on each other. It is one step up from the secrecy of before and the overall atmosphere is a lot better.
As soon as I hear the click, I wrench the door open and head out into the hallways. I don’t have to be at the laboratories for over half an hour, so I take a long route, using my camera trick where necessary, until I am standing in the corridor outside the Minister Prime’s office.
A voice hisses at me and I turn around, struggling to find its source. ‘Silver, over here.’
Hart is blocking the door of the office we were in a few days ago, but he backs inside to allow me through and stands in the doorway looking both ways along the corridor.
‘Did you sort something?’ he whispers without turning.
‘I think so.’
‘He’s still here.’
‘The Minister Prime?’
‘Obviously.’
I check my thinkwatch. ‘It should have already happened.’
From the back, I see Hart shaking his head. ‘Wait here.’
I start to ask how long I can safely remain here until the person working in this office arrives but Hart closes the door with a solid click. I check my thinkwatch again and it is already four minutes past the time when Imrin was supposed to create a diversion.
There are no windows in the room, with a strip light across the ceiling providing the only illumination. The previous time I was here, I was so annoyed at the information Hart had kept from me that I didn’t take in any of the surroundings. Now I approach the books and scan along the spines before taking one at random from the shelf. It is heavy and it feels strange to see so many books in the same place. In Martindale, there are only a handful across the whole village, with most of the information we need available through our thinkwatches or thinkpads. I put the book back on the shelf and check my thinkwatch again, cursing Imrin under my breath and wondering what has happened to him.
Trying to stay calm, I look at the thinkpad that has been left on the desk, which flashes to life as it senses my thinkwatch. As the main screen comes up, it asks for authorisation but I press the strip of borodron against the screen and it skips through to a picture of a map. I only know what the outline of Britain looks like because of the Reckoning programmes each year when we get the results.
I try to find Martindale on the map and zoom into roughly the area where I think it might be. It is only when I move in closer that I realise it isn’t the place names that are important. Dotted around the map are small clusters of black blotches marked as ‘rebels’.
Porter told me there was still fighting going on and although there aren’t too many places marked around the country, he is right. I count nine bunches, most of which are close to the castle where we are. That doesn’t sound like many but then I don’t know how many people are in each group. It could be one person fighting by themselves, or it could be hundreds of people, all wanting to overthrow the King. There isn’t even an indication from the markings if they are aware of each other.
With one eye on the door, I slide my thinkwatch along the map, scanning the dots, before shutting the thinkpad down again. The quality of my copies won’t be brilliant and I have no idea how I might get to use them but it feels somehow reassuring that there are others out there who also feel the King is unfit to rule.
I check the time again. Imrin should have caused his disturbance over seven minutes ago but just as I am thinking he has failed, the door rattles open and Hart is standing there.
‘Quick, the Minister Prime has just gone – he’s left his office door unlocked.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Something about a disturbance in the boys’ dorm. He went tearing off with a Kingsman.’
As I leave the office, I note the ‘Home Affairs Minister’ sign over the top and a small black scanner next to the door.
‘Why was that office open?’ I ask Hart as we hurry along the corridor. The scanner is the same as the ones from the zoo and medical area that only open for the personal frequency of the correct occupant’s thinkwatch.
‘I have access because I work for him,’ Hart says, holding up his wrist.
‘Why did the Minister Prime leave his door open?’
‘When there’s an urgent problem, he always rushes off without re-engaging the lock. He’s done it at least once a week since I started working here.’
I use my thinkwatch to shut down the camera above the door for ninety seconds and Hart pushes it open. ‘None of the other Ministers are due here for fifteen minutes or so but that’s not the problem. If he runs there and back and only takes a minute to sort out whatever’s going on, that gives you around five minutes maximum, so get on with it.’
Hart pulls the door shut but doesn’t click it closed. At first I am distracted by the sheer scale and gluttony of the place. The Minister Prime’s office is bigger than the medical bay, with huge paintings on every wall and heavy, expensive rugs spread generously around the floor. A massive thick wooden desk is directly opposite the door; above that is a huge animal’s head stuffed and hanging on the wall. I have never seen one for real but I know they are called elephants, and the dead creature’s long trunk hangs lifelessly towards the floor. It is both awful and amazing at the same time. At either end of the room are more enormous bookcases, packed with heavy-looking volumes, and there are wooden cabinets pressed up against the far wall.
‘Come on,’ I mutter to myself as my heart jumps and brings me back to reality. I dash across the room, struggling not to slide on the shiny parts of the floor until I am behind the desk. As I fall into the seat, I check my thinkwatch to see that I have already lost just over a minute of the time Hart has given me.
On the desk are two thinkpads which I turn on and then press the borodron to the screens to make them function, all the while cursing under my breath at the time this has taken. When they are fully operational, I have just three minutes left.
I only have a vague idea of where I am supposed to be looking within the Minister Prime’s file system and am operating solely from Hart’s partial information. As my eyes flick from one thinkpad to the other, I realise one contains documents about the castle itself, the other seems to hold information on things outside the castle walls. Focusing on the thinkpad with information about the castle, I scan through blueprints, order sheets and masses of personal information on the senior Kingsmen.
If I had the time, it would all be valuable but it isn’t completely necessary for what I am trying to do. As I work quickly, I almost miss a list of names, before skipping back to it. It takes me a few seconds to realise it is every Offering since the Reckoning began. It’s not what I am looking for but I am transfixed by the length of it: over four hundred people, each of whom has either the department they are working in or the word ‘dead’ next to their name.
Another check of the thinkwatch and there are under two minutes to go now.
I flick through my thinkwatch and set it to sync, watching the orange hue pulse before pressing it to the thinkpad screen. Each name flashes across the monitor but it seems to happen in slow motion. I see my own name, Pietra’s, Imrin’s, Hart’s, and Jela’s. And then there is a name I don’t recognise with ‘AWOL’ next to it. I want to go back but in the fraction of a second it takes me to register what it has said, it disappears again. When the sync is complete, I check the time again and have a little over one minute left.
Working quicker than before, I use both hands on separate parts of the thinkpad screen, frantically searching for what Hart has promised me is there somewhere.
I jump as I hear a gentle tapping on the wooden door. It echoes around the room, taunting me that time is nearly up but my hands cannot move as quickly as I need them to.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
I want to shout at Hart, to tell him I know that time is running out, but instead the noise increases both in volume and intensity until the door bursts open and Hart is standing there, out of breath and red in the face.
‘He’s around the corner. You’ve got to go now.’
My eyes flick to the screen where I have finally found the information I need. Everything I hope to do rests on what is in front of me; the end game tantalisingly close.
I press my thinkwatch to the screen. ‘I need another minute.’
‘You don’t have a minute!’ Hart’s aggressive whisper is so full of fear that I almost forget what I am doing. I steady my wrist as I hear footsteps approaching.
‘Silver, now.’
I meet Hart’s terrified eyes. ‘I can’t. I’ve got it.’
‘How long?’
‘Thirty seconds.’
‘Oh no …’
The footsteps are so loud I can almost feel them echoing through me. I catch Hart’s eyes one more time as his flick towards the cabinets at the back, and then he is gone, charging into the hallway.
I hear raised voices and a cry of ‘what were you doing in there’ just as the information finishes copying. I clear the screens, but there is no time to shut the thinkpads down before I dive towards one of the wooden cabinets, wrenching the doors open, stepping inside and closing them again just as I hear Hart screaming an anguished ‘no’.