The Future King: Logres (48 page)

‘Yes. You’ve said all this before.’

‘I know.’ Julie hesitated as they passed into the main foyer outside
the assembly hall. ‘I just worry about you. How is your dad?’

‘He’s good.’

‘And Bert?’

‘Still making his fortune selling at the London markets,’ she said
fondly. ‘My dad’s coming to the shoot, I have to have a guardian with me.’

Julie frowned. ‘Do your other teachers know about it yet?’

Viola shook her head. ‘No one else knows that I’m modelling.’

‘And the principal?’

‘I was going to speak to him, but the earliest appointment I could
get was for next week. I was wondering if I should mention it to him tonight,
rather than going off sick.’

‘No, I wouldn’t do that,’ Julie murmured. ‘If you tell him now, you
could find yourself in a very difficult situation. Just pay for a sick note.’

Viola seemed surprised. ‘You’re saying I should skive?’

‘If you can’t miss it. How much did you say it was again?’

‘A lot.’

‘Well, if you’re getting paid
a
lot
, do you really want to run the risk of the principal saying no? If you
call in sick when he knows about the shoot, you’ll be looking at suspension
faster than you can say
cheese
.’

Viola sniggered. ‘Miss, that was terrible.’

‘I know, it was, wasn’t it?’

They came to a halt outside the Wormelow staff room. The door was shut,
but already several of her colleagues were inside. The building had begun to empty,
leaving only a few avid studiers to gather at the doors to the small library
down the hall.

‘Pop by after lunch,’ she said, secretly pleased that she had been
chosen as Viola’s confidant. ‘I’ll give you your homework for Friday.’

‘So I shouldn’t talk to the principal?’

‘I would still go and see him next week. Part of me thinks that he’ll
like the prestige of having a model boosting the achievements of the school,
but I do know how strict he is with attendance. It might be a case of no
exceptions.’

‘Right. He did get twitchy with Tom’s record when he had glandular
fever last year.’

Julie offered an encouraging smile. ‘Don’t worry about it yet. You
just go to this thing and have a fantastic time. Let me know when you get the
pictures. I can’t wait to see them.’

Viola’s face lit up once again and she nodded fervently. ‘I will.’

They parted just in time. Mr Slow came trundling down the corridor
and the staff room door was opened by Andrew Graham, who, delighted to see her,
let Julie in with an exclamation and an immediate reference to one of the New
National’s latest policies.

History was Gwenhwyfar’s last lesson of the day. They were each given
a practice paper to complete, though as the holidays were approaching Marvin
let them discuss their answers with one another while he read with his feet up.
Gwenhwyfar spent most of the lesson whispering to either Bedivere or Arthur. Despite
making her usual effort with Morgan, the other girl seemed happy to be left
alone.

The sky was darkening as the school day ended. Gwenhwyfar had just
passed through the main gates when a tight hand grasped her wrist. She wheeled
round. Isolde.

‘Get off me!’ She smacked her on the forearm. Retreating, Isolde
reached for her again.

‘Gwen, wait! I need to talk to you.’

‘Leave me
alone
.’
Gwenhwyfar backed away. ‘I don’t want to talk to you ever again. I’m
done; do you hear me? I’m
out
.’

‘I’m not here to make you stay, I swear. I just wanted to talk—please?’

‘We have nothing to talk about,’ she snapped, walking away as quickly
as she could without running.

‘But we do,’ Isolde argued, dogging her steps. ‘It won’t take long.’

‘How did you even find me?’ she hissed. ‘Have you been following me?’

‘Of course not—I used to go here, remember? I didn’t know what
else to do. Your phone goes straight to answer machine and when I tried
contacting you online I got disconnected.’

‘I changed my number,’ she stated. ‘Specifically so you wouldn’t try
and contact me. What if someone finds out? Tracks you down and then discovers
me?’

‘They won’t,’ she insisted.

‘How can you say that?’ Gwenhwyfar demanded, irate.

‘If they could, don’t you think they would have done it already? If
they knew who was responsible for the bombings, they would have caught them by
now.’

She wheeled round on her. ‘Haven’t you been watching the news? They
know
it was us.’

Isolde rubbed her eyes. She looked ill. ‘I know. I swear though—if
you let me explain now, I’ll never bother you again. I had nothing to do with
any of this.’

‘And why should I believe you?’ she flared. ‘What’s to say you’re not
one of the ones who have gone to the New Morals already? Who’s to say you’re
not baiting me?’

‘I’m taking a risk here, too. There’s every chance you could turn me
in,’ she argued.

Gwenhwyfar hunted their surroundings for signs of anything
suspicious. ‘If I talk to you, you’ll leave me alone?’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘Fine. Where’s safe? A coffee house?’

‘There might be people watching,’ Isolde disagreed. ‘Here?’

Gwenhwyfar nodded towards a camera gazing at them from the street
corner.

Isolde frowned. ‘My house—?’

‘No. We’ll go to mine.’ Gwenhwyfar turned on her heel and resumed her
walk home.

The entire journey was made in silence. Thankfully, her mother wasn’t
in and so difficult questions were avoided. Only Llew was present to witness affairs.
He shoved his nose under Isolde’s hand, vying for attention. Betrayed by his
willingness to trust anyone, Gwenhwyfar dragged him away to sit by her instead,
pushing his rear end down to the carpet.

‘Well?’

Isolde sat uncomfortably at the far end of the room. ‘Firstly, I just
want to say that I had no idea about any of this until I saw it on the news,’
she began. Gwenhwyfar experienced a flare of irritation that she felt privileged
to, as one who had actually been there. ‘And that since then I’ve met other
members who are just as scared as us.’

‘I thought this was all highly confidential?’ Gwenhwyfar frowned,
clutching Llew’s collar. ‘How did you find them?’

‘By going up through the grapevine,’ she explained. ‘Everyone I spoke
to found each other the same way.’

Gwenhwyfar felt her veins contract. ‘You didn’t mention me to any of
them, did you?’

‘I wouldn’t do that without asking you first. I didn’t tell anyone, I
swear.’

‘Well, that’s something at least.’ Gwenhwyfar glanced at the clock
with agitation. She didn’t want Isolde to still be here when her mother came
home.

‘The people I met… none of them had a clue what was going on. We
tried to get higher up the vine, but the numbers we had weren’t recognised.’

‘They probably destroyed their phones. I can’t say I’m surprised.’

‘They must have deserted us. The chain’s broken. Now there’s no way
of us ever knowing what it was the Alpha
intended.’

Gwenhwyfar couldn’t say she was deeply upset by this idea. Isolde,
however, seemed distressed.

‘It’s funny, you know. Most of the people I met were under thirty.
They were all clueless. There’s no way a group with members like that—no
matter how large—could have ever organised something as brutal as this.’

Gwenhwyfar held her tongue, scraping her nails into Llew’s fur. Her
mind entertained the notion of calling the New Moral Army to let them know she
had a wanted member of
Free Countries
in her living room. Perhaps then she too could be granted clemency.

‘I’m sorry I got you dragged into this.’

‘I chose to join,’ Gwenhwyfar snapped. ‘You didn’t make me.’

‘I’m still sorry,’ Isolde said. ‘I should have known it was suspicious.
I mean, how long have I been a member? Nine months? And not once have I heard
anything from anyone other than the odd update concerning codenames, the
occasional checks and possible recruits. We’ve done nothing to protest Milton’s
policies. It’s been such a waste, and in the end, what did all this secrecy produce?
Fear.’

‘And what would you have done in protest, exactly?’ Gwenhwyfar asked,
holding the accusation on the tip of her tongue.

‘
Anything.
We could have
campaigned, we could have created our own political party with the members we
had, but now it’s gone to waste. We’re being blamed for something we didn’t
do.’

‘How do you know we didn’t do it? We might in some way be responsible
merely by supporting such ideals. The government seems to think so.’

‘As far as I remember, that list I read you didn’t involve us blowing
things up. If
Free Countries
was
responsible, we would have heard of it when it was in the stages of being
planned.’

‘I doubt it,’ Gwenhwyfar snorted. ‘And anyway, is this the sort of
plan you’d expect to hear about? A terrorist attack?’ She pulled Llew closer to
her as he whined. It was completely dark now, and he was pining for a trip into
the garden.

‘Of course not, but don’t you think it’s a little odd? Why would the
Alpha spend all those years gathering members to risk losing them to panic like
this? The news said people are coming forward with information. Maybe they knew
nothing about
Free Countries
to begin
with. Maybe they just wanted to know who, what, and how many.’

‘So? For all we know the Alpha
is
just a psycho who likes blowing people up for fun,’ she bit, hackles raised. ‘I
don’t care about your stupid little conspiracy theories, and I don’t care who’s
responsible. All I know is that I’m
not
.’

Isolde sat tight-lipped.

‘Don’t tell me you’re thinking of staying involved. You can’t!’

‘Why can’t I?’ she disputed.

‘Because it’s crazy?’

‘I’m not giving up. The New Nationals are just trying to scare us.
There’s no way we were responsible for those attacks.’

‘And I suppose the Alpha himself told you this? When? Or was it in a
dream?’ Gwenhwyfar sneered. ‘Don’t you go thinking he won’t give everyone up the
moment they catch him,’ she warned. ‘He’s obviously a coward if he’s been
keeping quiet for this long. What do you think will happen when they get him?
He’ll give up every number, every address he ever received.’

‘Well, he won’t give up yours,’ Isolde said. ‘I never passed on your
number. I should’ve got it when we first met, but I forgot, remember? After
that party I didn’t get the chance to send it to him.’

For a few brief moments Gwenhwyfar felt gratitude flood her system.
‘You mean he never got it?’ Isolde affirmed this with a shake of her head. ‘He’ll
have yours, though?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I suggest you get rid of it, if you don’t want to get caught.’

She shrugged, an air of resignation about her. ‘It won’t make a difference.
You’ll be all right, that guy you recruited too—because the Alpha
never got your numbers. Everyone else
is done for. They’ll know whose names were listed to what number, along with
where they live and where they were for all those years.’ She gave a strained
smile. ‘You’re lucky.’

‘But what about addresses?’ Gwenhwyfar frowned. ‘You must have my
house listed somewhere for an information pack to have been sent here.’

‘We send flyers to every house in the South,’ Isolde shrugged. ‘How
will they ever know what we posted? Besides, I was talking with a contact
involved with the technical team. Apparently, if he knew an IP address, he knew
where that computer was stationed. Every time someone visited the site the
corresponding address was put onto an encrypted hard-drive. The Alpha
had no copy. That’s why it was
entrusted to those involved in the communication, so that if the Alpha was ever
discovered the drives could be destroyed. He wrecked his in a microwave.’

‘Surely he can’t have been the only one with addresses?’ Gwenhwyfar
let Llew go, and he trotted into the kitchen. She heard him whine.

‘There were several people with his role, some in different counties.
He said that the best we can hope for is that everyone else thought to destroy
their drive, too.’

Gwenhwyfar’s head swam with everything that had gone wrong, but her
nerves were beginning to calm under the belief that she would be safe.

‘Maybe the Alpha has some way of wiping his records,’ she tried,
becoming aware of the terror Isolde must be suffering. ‘If he was smart enough
to organise all this, he must have taken precautions. There might not even be a
hard copy of the numbers.’ Her suggestion was unlikely, but it seemed to offer Isolde
some comfort. ‘What about the people coming forward? What if they give away the
contacts they have?’

‘I don’t think there’s much we can do about that. All I know is that
the people I’ve spoken to are lying low. As far as our details go, assuming
that the Alpha never gets caught, we should—hopefully—be safe.’