The Future King: Logres (29 page)

‘Gideon’s in charge when I’m gone. Dad will be home soon, so I want all
this cleared up—
don’t
tease the
dog—everything washed up and tidied, you hear me?’

His brothers did little to acknowledge his request, and for the rest
of the meal Gavin tried to keep their disorderly behaviour in check. As always,
Lancelot took their antics well, only snapping when Gideon tried to squirt chilli
sauce on his school uniform. For the rest of the meal Gideon sat in a shocked
silence, as if he were surprised to find that a razor was sharp.

‘Gavin,’ Gareth asked, drawing out his name in the babyish manner
that their parents adored. ‘When are you going to Cadets?’

‘Half five.’ He snapped a sharp knife out of Gareth’s hand as he
prodded his opposite palm with the point.

‘Gavin,’ Gareth said again, ‘when can I come to Cadets?’

‘When you’re old enough,’ Lancelot answered patiently, spooning the
last of his seconds into his mouth.

‘Gavin, when will I be old enough?’

The two boys exchanged a glance. ‘Not for a while yet,’ Gavin
conceded. ‘You’re only eight.’

‘Anyway, you might not feel like it when you’re older.’

Gareth eyed Lancelot curiously. ‘Why not?’

‘It’s hard work.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you have to do army stuff, stupid,’ Gideon interrupted.
Gavin scolded him and told him not to call his brother stupid. ‘
I’m
old enough to join, but I don’t want
to. They teach you how to fight and kill, but I don’t think it’s fair to fight
or kill anything.’ He looked to Gareth disapprovingly. ‘And you shouldn’t want
to kill, either. Do you want to kill something?’

‘No,’ Gareth insisted, distressed by the question.

‘Gavin will, won’t you? When you join the army. Soldiers kill people
all the time.’ Gideon leant forwards, narrowed his eyes, and directed his stare
straight at him. ‘But
Gavin
wants to
kill people, because
Gavin
wants to
join the army.’

‘Gideon—’ Gavin warned.

‘It’s true. Gavin wants to kill people.’

His youngest brother shrank away from him at the words.

‘I don’t want to kill anyone, Gid,’ he scowled. ‘I want to help
people. People that need helping, and can’t help themselves.’

‘If you want to help people, then maybe you should be a doctor,’
Gideon remarked matter-of-factly.

‘But then he wouldn’t get to shoot things,’ Gareth pointed out.

‘Exactly,’ Gideon argued.

Lancelot was losing patience. ‘Your brother doesn’t want to kill
anyone, and you know it.’

‘What about you? Are you going to kill someone?’

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘But aren’t you joining the army, too?’

‘Going to Cadets doesn’t mean that you have to join the army,’
Lancelot reasoned. With all forks and knives neatly crossed, he stood to clear
the plates. ‘I’ve considered it, but with the current government what it is,
I’d only be fighting for what I don’t believe in.’

‘What’s government got to do with it?’ asked Gideon.

‘Everything,’ Lancelot said. ‘Ultimately, the government tells the
army what to do. If a government wants its army to go and bomb a country for no
reason, the army obliges.’

‘Lance,’ Gavin cautioned. ‘He’s thirteen.’

‘So Gavin
is
going to kill
people then,’ Gideon concluded triumphantly. ‘I thought so.’

‘We should go,’ Gavin declared, looking to the clock. Quickly he ran
a drink from the tap, gulped it down, and then snatched up his sports bag. He
paused in the living room as Gareth followed them to the front door. ‘Remember
what I said. Gideon’s in charge. Wash up the plates, and then do your homework.
OK?’

Gareth nodded silently. Shouting to Gideon in the other room to
remind him he was going, Gavin followed Lancelot over the threshold and slammed
the door.

The
Disappeared

The first
week of
October
arrived with mild weather more suited to the early days of June. Gwenhwyfar
spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday away from her friends, keeping company with
Arthur as much as she could when she had established that he didn’t have a
pressing reason to be with Marvin. It was Thursday afternoon when she came home
to find her mother whispering with her aunt in the kitchen, and sensing that
something was wrong, she paused to listen at the half-closed door.

‘Something’s the matter with him, Mel, I
know
it,’ Eve was saying, her voice fragile and worn thin with
tears.

They hadn’t heard her come in, or perhaps they thought they had, for
suddenly there was a tense silence. When Llew failed to alert them to her
presence, however, the murmuring resumed.

‘He’s probably just stressed. You know how hard this new job’s been
for him,’ Melissa said, softly. ‘He’s in a new role, with more responsibilities
than he’s ever had before. You said it yourself: he’s probably still
adjusting.’

‘Then why won’t he talk to me about it?’ she sniffed. ‘If I ask him
what’s wrong, he just shuts down. I’m… I’m going insane here, Mel. I’ve nothing
to do, all day, and I just keep thinking—’ there was a moment’s silence,
‘—I keep thinking that he’s… he’s hiding something from me. It’s—it’s
a feeling. I can’t quite place it.’

‘What are you thinking?’

The silence that followed was so thick that Gwenhwyfar could almost
hear her own heartbeat.

‘I don’t know,’ Eve
murmured. ‘He’s been in London all week, he even stayed in the city one night,
with no notice, and when he is home he hides in his study. He won’t let me go
in, not even when he’s at work. He locks it.’

‘Does he, now?’

‘I think… I think he might be…’

Her mother started to sob again. Gwenhwyfar felt her stomach turn to
lead.
Another woman
, she thought
suddenly, and though she felt sickened by the notion it was if she had known
all along. It made sense of why her dad was never at home, why he was always
working and attending business meetings at strange hours, and the anger that
suddenly swept over her was suffocating.
How
dare he
,
how dare he
do this to
them? How dare he hurt her mother like this? The coward, the traitor.

What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t act normally with them after
hearing their secret, and it was their
secret
now. No one had told her, and from the sounds of it, no one was going to.

‘I’m sure it’s nothing.’ Melissa hushed Eve calmly. ‘It’s easy to get
worked up about things when we have too much time on our hands, to blow them
out of proportion. Maybe you should come and work for the firm, after all? I
think it would be good for you.’ There was a silence, filled with more tears.
‘Have you spoken to him?’

‘No,’ Eve replied miserably. ‘I know if I do, he’ll just deny it. I’m
not
stupid
, Mel, I know something’s
going on. I mean why would he need to hide that bank account from me? He’s
clearly
using it to buy gifts for
her
. When did he last buy me something?
When?’

Gwenhwyfar couldn’t listen to a word more. No one heard her open and
close the front door again, and the moment she was out on the porch she drew in
a deep, shaking breath. She had to get away from the house, had to walk, had to
separate herself from the anger anchored inside her. As she came to Potters
Park, she decided that she would go and see Arthur and tell him what she had
heard. When she got to the library, however, she couldn’t bring herself to do
it, and so lied to him instead and told him that everything was fine.

The table seemed empty with just four of them filling it. It was
Friday; their third session at The Round Table, and this week Marvin had
supplied them with crisps and other nibbles. There were party sausages and
cheese with pineapple on toothpicks, of which Morgan only ate half, leaving
Bedivere to snaffle the rejected lumps of cheddar; and bowls of nuts and dried
fruit, which remained largely untouched.

‘Your turn, Arthur,’ Marvin said, his mouth full with a mini sausage
roll, which consisted of cheap grey processed meat. ‘Morgan and Bedivere have
shown us what they learned—’ He eyed Bedivere, who had mistaken the
brief, and Morgan who had gone for something that yielded few results. ‘—What
have you got for us?’

Awkwardly, Arthur stood up as the others had done, and looked to the sheets
of paper he had before him.

‘Vanishings,’ he muttered. ‘Mentions of homeless people going missing
off the streets.’

Flopping into his chair, Marvin crossed his hands over his stomach.
‘And?’

‘And that’s just it. I used a website which publishes amended versions
of every newspaper article in the country. Every time an article is corrected,
the new version is uploaded against the old. You can see the changes and
omissions that the New Nationals make. Here.’

He slid the printouts across the table, the original publication, and
the amended version. Bedivere frowned.

‘You’re telling me that the news changes?’

Arthur nodded. ‘It’s rewritten without any acknowledgement that it
has been. Why do you think it’s so hard to get a printed paper?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bedivere shrugged. ‘Progress?’

Marvin shook his head. ‘Only particular institutions and New National
offices get printed papers, these days. Local tabloids may be easier to find, perhaps,
but are probably amended the most. Anything that’s been published can be
recalled, redacted and re-issued. That’s why I tell you to always question what
you read or hear in the news. It changes with Milton’s policies.’

‘But that’s illegal, surely?’ Morgan asked, an upset scowl darkening
her features. ‘They can’t do that. They can change anything?’

‘And unless you happen to have access to the original, you can never
be sure what. As Arthur says, there is a website on the Dark Net
highlighting most changes, but the New
Nationals constantly shut it down. It must have been removed and re-launched at
least seventy times now.’

‘What about live broadcasts?’ Bedivere interjected. ‘Everyone sees
them, knows what was said. Surely they can’t amend those?’

‘No, but who remembers? You
could
record such broadcasts illegally, but who would ever think to? It’s physically
impossible, unless you use a device severed from the network. The news is
trusted by most, and people take it at face value. Would you have thought to question
it, before hearing of this?’ He smiled stiffly. ‘I told you you’d be
surprised.’ He gestured. ‘Go on, Arthur.’

Arthur cleared his throat. ‘If you read the original article, it
mentions homeless children going missing in our area, from the seventeenth of
September this year. This is a local paper. Now, if you look at the second
sheet…
this
amendment replaced the
old article on the twenty-seventh of September. I chose it, because it’s a
drastic change. It’s no longer about missing children, but about a series of
thefts and missing animals, in particular pets, which are believed to have been
stolen for “sustenance” by these same, no-longer missing children.’

He could tell that his discovery was not going down well, least of
all with Morgan, who stared at both copies as if they were a cruel trick.

‘
This
is what I wanted you
to realise. Arthur, I think, already knew it, but you should know it, too. Your
government owns the press. Anything and everything they want you to read and
believe, you will. Nothing is left untouched. Everything has been tailored for
your maximum complicity in a society which is structured and strung together
like some nasty, elaborate
lie
.’

Bedivere and Morgan stared at Marvin in silence. A chill rolled up Arthur’s
spine. Yes, he knew it too, but hearing it again pushed him towards the same
uncomfortable feeling he had felt when he first stumbled across it.

‘They own technology as well,’ Marvin continued. ‘When I was young there
were promises of great things to come, from in-home 3-D printing to
teleportation and Mars colonisation. Science and technology have been sidelined
due to the near eradication of funding. No one is
creating
anymore. How can they, when they are watched as they are?
Surveillance strangles innovative thinking. Technically we have been in the
same place with little-to-no progress for twenty years now. Things are
repackaged and old technology is rebranded, but there are no
breakthroughs
. Medically it is much the
same.’

Bedivere shifted. ‘Gavin knows a lot about this sort of stuff,’ he
volunteered. ‘He’s always talking about encrypting. I don’t know if he uses the
Dark Net or not, but he’s probably heard of it.’

‘If he does use it he wouldn’t admit to it,’ Arthur told him. ‘Use of
the Dark Net was made illegal about fifteen years ago. Thankfully they can’t go
after everyone who accesses it, so they focus on the hosts, instead.’

‘Ah! That reminds me. Arthur asked if he could invite someone new to
join us last week, but I don’t think it fair that only he gets to choose. I’ve
thought carefully, and I think we can cope with three more. What do you think?’

‘We can invite people?’ Morgan asked, brightening. ‘Who?’

‘Whoever you like,’ Marvin beamed.

‘George Milton?’ Bedivere joked.

‘Within reason, obviously,’ said Marvin. ‘It must be someone you trust
completely, someone who will really benefit from being here. If they mess up,
then you’re all out. Understood?’ They nodded, weighed down by the responsibility
he had suddenly dropped upon them. ‘Well?’

‘Like I said, Gavin knows a lot about this sort of stuff,’ Bedivere
mused. ‘But Gwen…’

‘I’m inviting Gwen,’ Arthur said. ‘If that’s all right.’

‘Gwen,’ Marvin repeated with a nod. ‘Bedivere?’

‘It has to be Gavin then,’ he said, thinking. ‘Yeah, Gavin. I don’t
think Vi would have time for this. He’s more likely to say yes.’

‘Morgan?’

‘Lancelot,’ Morgan said after a moment.

‘You can’t ask Lance,’ Arthur protested.

She glared at him. ‘Why not? You’re inviting Gwen.’

‘Yes, but Gwen’s not an idiot.’

‘Neither is Lance.’

‘Lance will just tell everyone, you know he will,’ contested
Bedivere.

‘Says who? I happen to think that he’d be perfect for this. And if
Gavin is coming he’ll want to be here. I can ask, at least.’

‘But this is Lance we’re talking about—! Come on!’ Arthur appealed
to Marvin, but his teacher averted his eyes.

‘I
trust
him,’ Morgan
insisted. ‘Marvin said we could invite who we want.’

‘As long as you’re happy being responsible for us getting kicked out
when he goes and tells everyone,’ Arthur muttered.

‘He
won’t
tell.’

‘We’ll see what he says,’ Marvin cut in, ‘we don’t have to give all
the details out immediately. If they’re interested, we can reveal a little
more.’ He rubbed his dry hands together. ‘We’ll invite them to our next
session. How does that sound?’

The room fell into silence, but eventually the three of them nodded.
Arthur gazed at Morgan resentfully, his good mood ruined by the prospect of
enduring an encroachment by Lancelot into one of his last remaining
sanctuaries.

Viola handed her portfolio to
Gwenhwyfar, who opened it up immediately and flicked through the glossy pages
to find her latest shots. It was Monday morning of the second week of October,
and they were both sitting outside, surprised to find that despite the hour, it
was reasonably warm.

‘So what was this for?’ Gwenhwyfar asked, after she had made suitable
noises of admiration.

‘Just another test,’ Viola shrugged, leaning over the picnic bench to
get another look. ‘I didn’t get paid for it. So far I’ve earned nothing. It’s
really expensive going up to London all the time.’ She pointed at the photo on
the left. ‘I got that one in the first shot,’ she added proudly.