The Legacy (4 page)

The Underground. The Resistance Movement. Jude had known of its existence all his life, but only in shadowy references. It encouraged people to have children when the world was already full – too full. It believed that Longevity drugs were wrong when Longevity had cured the world of disease, had cured man of ageing. Jude, a Legal child (certain senior Authorities’ positions came with the perk of having a child), had been brought up to loathe the Underground and all it stood for. But as he’d grown older, as he’d hankered after company, after anyone his own age to play with, his father’s arguments in favour of Longevity had seemed less compelling. And when, just two years ago, his father, Stephen, had been murdered by Margaret Pincent, his first wife, and the truth about how Jude’s legality had been snatched from his half-brother Peter was revealed, he’d realised that nothing was as it seemed. Peter, Margaret’s son and Stephen’s second son, had been born just two months after Jude, but Jude’s birth had rendered him a Surplus. So while Jude had been brought up in an affluent household, Peter had been hidden in attics, in cellars, forced to move from place to place.

No wonder Peter was the hero, Jude thought as he watched the download bar, drumming his fingers on his thigh. And no wonder Pip hadn’t wanted Jude to join the Underground. He was a thief; his very birth had robbed Peter of his rightful legality.

Jude shook himself and turned back to his device. Any minute now Authorities police could turn up. He had selected this place carefully – a disused factory under demolition orders, its walls and structure condemned and barbed-wire fences preventing entry. But still, that wouldn’t stop a guard or policeman if they suspected what he was doing here. And if they caught him . . . He shivered. It didn’t bear thinking about. Ever since he’d thrown his lot in with Pip and Peter, ever since he’d made the decision to join the Underground, he’d been on the Most Wanted list. If he so much as tried to use a credit card he’d be tracked, traced, caught and imprisoned or worse. The Underground might not offer much in the way of hospitality, but at least it protected him, kept him safe. He looked around cautiously then, with a sigh of relief, saw that the job was done. Quickly he pulled the wires apart, jumped down and started to sprint away.

But as he ran through a door and what had once been a fully functioning staircase, Jude was stopped in his tracks by the sound he’d heard before. He looked around and carefully sank back into the shadows, his heart beating in his chest – from the running or from fear, he wasn’t sure. And then he heard it again. A gasping, wheezing noise. It didn’t sound like enemy guards. It wasn’t like anything Jude had ever encountered before.

Hesitantly, he crept along the wall, being careful to stay hidden in the shadows. He was on a platform, a corridor that was now missing both of its walls. Beneath him were two platforms just like this one; beyond the gap where the other wall had been was a five-metre drop down to the central floor where disused machines sat redundant, rusting like sunken ships.

The wheezing was getting louder. Jude thought again about running, but he couldn’t – he had to know if he’d been followed, had to know what or who was making this sound. It could be a trap, but that was unlikely. Free food would have been a better trap than the sound of someone gasping for air. Free food, if it was good, would almost be worth walking into a trap for. Pausing briefly to contemplate his concave stomach, Jude shook himself and continued edging towards the sound. He turned the corner; the sound was louder and yet he still couldn’t see anything. Frowning, he moved away from the wall to look down at the central floor, but still he could see nothing. It sounded like an animal, he realised with growing relief. It wasn’t human. Probably a dog. He listened carefully; it was coming from directly under him. Dropping down to the floor, Jude inched to the edge of the platform and lowered his head over the side, craning to see the wounded animal making the now frantic noise. And then he felt the blood drain from his face and felt his hands go clammy, because it wasn’t a dog. It wasn’t an animal of any sort. It was a woman.

She was sitting clutching her throat, her skin tight around her hands, around her face, and she looked as though someone was strangling her, as though they were pulling at an invisible cord round her neck, because she was choking and her eyes were bulging and staring wildly, her hands scratching at the air above her head as though it might save her. But Jude could see no one pulling the invisible cord; the woman was alone. Without thinking he turned, gripping the floor he’d been standing on with his hands, lowering himself down to the platform where she sat. She saw him, but she could barely bring herself to look at him.

‘Water!’ she gasped.

Jude took out his precious water bottle and after only the briefest of pauses offered it to her. She tried to grab it but her arms were flailing hopelessly. Carefully, he poured some of the water into her mouth. She nodded frantically and he poured the rest in, but as the liquid slipped down her throat, she wailed agonisingly.

‘What? What is it?’ Jude asked anxiously, but the woman wasn’t looking at him, she was clutching her throat again.

‘Water!’ she said again.

‘It’s finished,’ Jude said. ‘What’s wrong with you? What happened?’

‘Thirsty,’ the woman said, her eyes glinting now. ‘Water.’

Jude edged back, his eyes wide, his heart thudding loudly. ‘I don’t have any more water.’

The woman nodded, as though finally understanding what he was saying. Then, without warning, she mustered her strength and launched herself at him, taking him by surprise and toppling him to the ground.

‘Water,’ she screeched. ‘Water!’

Her hands were clawing at his neck and then her elbow was pressing into his windpipe and he couldn’t breathe. He tried to push her off but she seemed to be imbued with incredible strength – the strength of desperation, he found himself thinking – and everything started to go black. And then, without warning, the pressure disappeared. He gasped for air, choking for oxygen, rolling over on to his front, pulling himself up to all fours. The woman had fallen away from him; she was on the ground now. His throat still hurting, Jude stared at her angrily, fearfully, but then he recoiled. Her skin was drying up. Not just her skin – her whole body. Right in front of him. It looked like every ounce of moisture was literally being sucked out of her. She lifted her head and looked at him, her eyes huge, her eyelids receding – like a skeleton, Jude found himself thinking. And then, with one last shriek, she fell back and was silent.

Jude didn’t move for a minute. Shock and fear made him stay completely still as his brain tried to process what he’d seen, tried to make sense of it. Then, tentatively, he pulled himself up. His neck still felt sore, his breathing was still laboured as he crawled towards the woman. He didn’t get all the way there – he couldn’t bring himself to. Her skin had become blackened; her mouth and eyes were open, large circles that invited him to look deep inside. Instead he looked around – he wanted a tape of this, needed to know where to find the images. But there were no cameras here. He kicked himself. Of course there weren’t any cameras – he’d chosen the place because of it. He stood up on shaky legs, considered bringing the woman with him to the Underground headquarters, then rejected the idea immediately on grounds of safety and practicality. At least that was what he told himself. But the real reason was his revulsion, his terror, his desire to leave this place as soon as humanly possible and never come back.

Taking one last look at the woman, he turned and ran to the back entrance of the building. Once outside, he threw up violently, then continued his journey back to the Underground.

.

Chapter Three

Jude dealt with the Underground security checks as quickly as he could before bursting through the door. It was still early, but hours were not important here and meetings were regularly held in the dead of night. Pip, as far as Jude could tell, rarely slept and even when he did, he would wake and be ready for action within seconds of something happening.

‘Pip!’ he called urgently. ‘Pip, where are you?’

‘Jude?’ Pip appeared in a doorway, his expression unreadable, but Jude knew that he would disapprove of such an outburst. Pip, who had set up the Underground hundreds of years ago and had steered it ever since, was a man of few words and those he uttered were well thought out, ordered, carefully chosen. He favoured caution over passion, reason over gut feeling. He and Jude could not have been more different from each other.

‘Pip, you’ve got to hear this. I’ve just come from the processing plant. The disused one up near Euston . . .’

‘Yes, Jude. I’ve seen the footage you uploaded. Congratulations on another success.’ He spoke softly. Pip, the enigmatic, unofficial leader of the Underground movement – the rebel group set up to fight Longevity, to fight the Declaration, to fight Pincent Pharma and everything that it stood for – rarely raised his voice; it meant that he never sounded enthusiastic, never sounded proud or sufficiently surprised by anything. It was the most frustrating voice Jude had ever come across.

‘Not that,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Something else. Something . . .’ His face screwed up inadvertently at what he was about to say. ‘I just saw someone die. It was hideous.’ He regretted his use of language immediately – it felt clumsy, dismissive. But he didn’t know what else to say, how else to describe what he’d seen. He’d long got over his terror, his disgust; on the way back to the Underground he’d shaken himself down, told himself not to be so pathetic. But now, rather than coming across as brave, he felt slightly foolish. After all, he’d seen people die before – Underground soldiers, killed by Pincent Pharma’s henchmen. It was just that this was different. The woman seemed . . . ill. It was a word from history, a concept that had seemed abstract somehow. Until now, that is. Now it felt very real and very horrible. He saw Pip raise an eyebrow and he reddened slightly. ‘It was a woman. She was gasping, like really gasping for breath, and she wanted some water so I gave her some, and then she just . . .’ He felt his legs weakening beneath him as the impact of the sight hit him once more. He could feel Pip watching him; he wanted to impress him, wanted his admiration. But instead he could see sympathy, worry. His shoulders fell despondently. ‘She shrivelled up,’ he said, disappointed with himself. ‘She died, right there.’

Sheila appeared next to him, wide-eyed, and pulled out a chair for him; he felt the usual flutter of longing that filled his chest every time he saw her and sat down.

‘She died? So she was an Opt Out?’ Sheila asked. Opt Outs were the people who opted out of the Declaration, who chose to forgo Longevity drugs in order to have children. They were few and far between and regarded with suspicion by Legals – who would want to get old and be open to disease when Longevity tablets could protect you? Who would want to have a child when the world was now almost entirely childless?

‘She was alone?’ Pip cut in before Jude could answer; he was looking at him intently now.

Jude nodded.

‘And no one saw you?’ Pip continued.

‘No. I mean, I didn’t see anyone. I was careful – coming back here, I mean.’

‘Good. Sheila, would you be so kind as to make Jude a cup of tea? And then, Jude, I would like you to tell me exactly what happened. Every detail, everything you can remember. Can you do that?’

Jude nodded.

‘Tea?’ Sheila asked, her face screwing up indignantly. ‘But there’s no tea left. We don’t get more until this afternoon and –’

‘And I was hoping that you might be resourceful and find some,’ Pip said, his eyes twinkling slightly.

Sheila’s eyes narrowed and Jude felt his protective urges kick in as he realised that Pip had discovered her little collection of tea bags, of biscuits, of anything else she’d been able to secrete. She couldn’t help herself – Jude knew that, and didn’t blame her for it. She’d grown up with nothing to call her own. Jude, who’d been brought up with plentiful supplies of everything except love, didn’t begrudge her more than her share of anything – he’d have given her the shirt off his back if she’d asked for it.

‘I don’t need tea,’ he said quickly. ‘Really, I –’

‘Yes you do,’ Sheila said quietly. ‘I think actually there might be one tea bag left. I’ll go and look.’

She disappeared into the kitchen and Jude forced himself to look back at Pip.

‘Are you OK?’ the leader of the Underground asked, sitting down next to him. Jude nodded.

‘I’m fine,’ he said, in his mind’s eye seeing Sheila taking one of her treasured tea bags out from wherever she’d hidden it.

‘It must have been a shock.’

‘I’m fine,’ Jude insisted. ‘I’m not a complete weakling, you know.’

His tone was more sarcastic than he’d intended and he saw Pip frown slightly.

‘I don’t consider you to be a weakling at all,’ he said after a short pause. ‘Tell me what you saw, Jude. Don’t leave anything out.’

Jude sat back in his chair and told Pip everything – about the raid, the cameras, uploading the film, hearing the gasping and finding the woman. Pip listened attentively, nodding every so often, his face serious.

‘Her skin was blackened?’

‘She looked almost like she’d been burnt,’ Jude agreed, shuddering slightly. ‘She looked like a skeleton.’

Pip nodded, deep in thought. Then he looked at Jude, his eyes, which had clouded over, suddenly bright and clear.

‘What do you think was wrong with her?’ Jude asked him searchingly. ‘Do you think it was something to do with Pincent Pharma?’

‘I think it seems likely,’ Pip said gently.

‘So let’s find out. I’ll get in there somehow, find out what’s going on.’ He looked at Pip hopefully. Just a year before, Peter had gone to work for Pincent Pharma, pretending that he wanted to work for his grandfather, Richard Pincent, pretending that he had severed all links with the Underground. Pip had trusted him to spy for him, to uncover the vile secrets that Richard Pincent had been hiding. Peter had been a hero; even now everyone spoke his name almost with a whisper. Jude longed to have a similar chance to prove himself, to show himself worthy.

But Pip was shaking his head. ‘No, Jude,’ he said, standing up. ‘You must stay here. There is much to do.’

‘Like what?’ Jude asked defensively. ‘I can spy too. I got into Pincent Pharma last time. I can do it again. Just give me a chance to –’

‘No,’ Pip said again. ‘I need you here. I need you to study.’

‘To study?’ Jude sighed irritably, his eyes resting on the pile of books Pip had given him to read: political biographies, history books, books on survival, on disasters, books on leadership, books on plumbing . . . They both knew that reading books wasn’t going to achieve anything. Pip just didn’t rate him, didn’t believe in him. And, Jude thought heavily, maybe he was right.

‘Studying is very important,’ Pip said seriously, moving towards Jude. He raised his hand and for a moment Jude thought he was going to put it on his shoulder, but then he appeared to change his mind and instead brought it back down to his side.

Jude didn’t say anything; a thud of disappointment was threatening to bring tears to his eyes, choking his voice. Yet more evidence that he was no hero, he thought desperately.

Sheila appeared with a cup of tea and handed it to Jude, who took it miserably.

‘Thank you, Jude. That has been most illuminating,’ Pip said, standing up, not noticing – or perhaps not choosing to notice – the look of irritation on Sheila’s face as she realised she’d missed everything. ‘And now there is a great deal to do.’

‘Like what?’ Jude asked suddenly, his usual defence of sarcasm finally kicking in. He took a slurp of the hot drink and felt it warm his insides.

Pip frowned. ‘I’m sorry?’ he said.

‘You said there’s a great deal to do. I just wondered what that is,’ Jude said, looking Pip right in the eye.

Pip took a deep breath. ‘Jude,’ he said quietly, ‘have you read that book there?’ He was pointing to an old, battered book; the spine was missing but Jude knew it was full of short stories. Stories aimed at children, not young adults like him.

‘Yes,’ he said tersely. ‘It’s full of fairy tales.’

‘Not fairy tales,’ Pip corrected him. ‘Fables. You should read it sometime. Particularly the story about the mouse and the lion.’

‘The mouse and the lion?’ Jude asked wearily. Yet another diversion.

‘The lion catches the mouse and is going to kill him, but the mouse hops on to his tail and the lion chases it and chases it, not even noticing when the mouse hops off and escapes.’

‘Right,’ Jude said flatly. If Peter were here, Pip wouldn’t be talking about lions and mice. If Peter were here, he’d be in the thick of the action. ‘Right. Thanks. Sounds like a great story.’

‘It is, Jude. As I said, you should read it sometime.’ Then, quickly, Pip walked out of the room, leaving Jude shaking his head in frustration.

Sheila caught his gaze and rolled her eyes. ‘There is,’ she said solemnly, doing a very good impression of Pip, ‘a great deal to do.’

Jude sighed, then allowed himself a little smile. ‘Many, many important things, he dead-panned, taking another sip of hot tea.

‘So she really died?’ Sheila asked, removing his cup from him and taking a sip herself. ‘In front of you?’

Jude nodded.

‘Eeeuuughh!’

‘Yeah,’ Jude said, raising an eyebrow and managing a grin. ‘You’d have fainted for sure, or run screaming from the place.’

‘Would not,’ Sheila said defiantly.

‘Yes you would,’ Jude said, warming to his theme and taking his cup back. ‘You would have been hopeless.’

‘You ran in here pretty quickly,’ Sheila said airily. ‘And I’m sure I heard screaming just before you arrived.’

‘No you didn’t,’ Jude said gruffly, his sense of humour evaporating suddenly. If Pip thought he was weak, that was bad enough. But Sheila? That he couldn’t bear.

Sheila looked at him archly. ‘Well, you were scared.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Jude said, turning away angrily. ‘I wasn’t scared, OK?’

Sheila didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then slowly she walked over to Jude and sat down on the arm of his chair. ‘I would have been terrified,’ she said in a quiet voice.

‘Would you?’ Jude asked searchingly. ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ Sheila said. ‘Unless you were there. Then I wouldn’t have been scared at all.’

Jude felt himself getting warm. ‘You . . . you wouldn’t?’

‘No,’ Sheila said firmly. ‘You saved me from Pincent Pharma.’ She turned to look at him, and Jude saw a flicker of real emotion in her eyes. ‘I know that you’d protect me,’ she whispered. ‘You always protect me.’

‘And I always will,’ he said, wrapping his arm around her and hugging her tightly into him. He wasn’t a hero, he knew that, but he could be Sheila’s hero if she’d let him.

‘So do you think it was Richard Pincent who killed that woman?’ Sheila continued, the anxiety audible in her voice. ‘Like he was going to kill me?’

Jude tightened his grip around her. ‘I don’t know,’ he said grimly. ‘But don’t worry, he’s not going to get away with it.’

‘He will though,’ Sheila said, biting her lip. ‘I mean, he always does. The Underground is never going to win, is it? So what’s the point?’

‘The point is,’ Jude said gently, reminding himself that Sheila’s life had been tough, that it wasn’t her fault she said the things she did, ‘we have to keep fighting. The more young people there are, the more opposition there will be to the Authorities and Pincent Pharma.’

‘But the Declaration makes sense,’ Sheila said, her brow furrowing. ‘There are too many people as it is. We don’t have enough water. You told me that the rivers are drying up in Africa. We don’t have enough energy, or food, or anything. I don’t want more people. I want
fewer
people.’

Jude shook his head firmly. ‘It’s not that simple,’ he said.

‘Isn’t it?’ Sheila asked searchingly.