The System (18 page)

Instead, she opened the garage door, ran inside and closed the door behind her. It was empty; it was damp. There was no one here, and no instructions to follow. Evie paced around; she was thirsty but there was nothing inside this cold, concrete building except some metal cans, a net of some sort and three wheels propped up against the wall.

Eventually she pulled out one of the wheels and sat on it; it was warmer than the floor, more comfortable, too.

She drew her knees into her chest. She was cold, and not a little bit scared.

But it was still the most alive she’d been in months.

Gritting her teeth, she closed her eyes and waited.

Frankie pulled her leather jacket around herself more tightly and looked at Glen archly as they stumbled over thistles. ‘This is insane. We’re in the middle of nowhere.’

She could see from Glen’s expression that he shared the same doubts as her, that he too was wondering if this whole enterprise was some kind of trap, some wild goose chase that would lead them right into the arms of Infotec. But she also knew that Glen wasn’t stupid; otherwise he’d never have stayed hidden for so long, would never have challenged Infotec the way he did, drawn followers to him, acted as a continual thorn in Infotec’s side. The doubts floating through her head were, mainly, her own mind trying to talk her out of what she was doing. Not for the first time she wondered if she hadn’t been a little rash insisting on staying, on fighting Infotec, on revealing the truth. She could be halfway to Australia by now, a new identity waiting for her. It was warm in Australia. They had beaches. What had she been thinking?

She took a deep breath and focused on Milo, focused on the bastard who had tried to kill her, as she stalked after Glen. No, she told herself. Australia could wait. Right now, she wanted revenge.

They were on the outskirts of Paris, shrubland that used to be something but wasn’t now. There were old industrial buildings that had been abandoned years ago; the train connections and roads had been irreparably damaged during the British Horrors when violence had, briefly, spread across the Channel. The French government’s response had been to close off all travel routes, to stop those bent on devastation from entering France at all. And pretty soon after that the violence had stopped. Everything had stopped. The denouement, as her parents used to tell her, their eyebrows raised, a look of fear in their eyes, fear tinged with relief that France hadn’t been caught up in it, that such a thing would never happen now. Because of Infotec. Because of openness of information.

It was soon after the Horrors that Paris had started to have its own renaissance as all the Brits who had fled the UK stayed, moved their businesses there, Infotec’s head office moved there, and before too long native Parisians were muttering in bars about the ‘
invasion Anglais
’. But the truth was that it wasn’t the English survivors who made a difference to Paris; it was Infotec alone. Infotec, with its voracious growth, thousands of jobs. It was Infotec that established a new financial centre in Paris; Infotec that, bit by bit, made it so difficult to undertake a single transaction in French that soon schoolchildren were speaking only English, the global language, the only language that Infotec chose to do business in.

And the company was only ever welcomed because it brought prosperity, brought safety, security. Infotec could see everything, hear everything; now there was nowhere left to hide. And what made it worse was that Frankie had believed in it. She’d swallowed all the bullshit. And so had her father.

She looked at Glen, chewing her lip, like she always did when she was under pressure. ‘You really think it didn’t happen? I mean, you really think there are people alive in the UK?’ she asked as she half walked, half ran after him. She didn’t know where they were going; Glen had been incredibly secretive ever since he’d heard from the stranger direct. He’d just announced that they were leaving, that there was somewhere they had to go. Which was fine by her. She didn’t care who the stranger spoke to, didn’t care if Glen made arrangements without including her.

No skin off her nose at all.

‘Infotec are hiding something and we’re going to find out what,’ he replied. ‘Come on. It’s going to start getting light soon. We have to hurry.’

‘Yeah, but where are we hurrying to?’ Frankie asked with a sigh. ‘Where exactly are we going?’

‘To retrieve something,’ Glen said, then he stopped as a message flashed in front of his eyes.

‘Okay, she’s there,’ he said. ‘She’s in the garage.’

‘Who?’ Frankie asked, her face creasing with incomprehension. ‘Who’s there?’

But Glen didn’t answer; he just started to walk again, more quickly this time. Frankie ran to catch up with him; she didn’t want to be behind anymore. Who was in the garage? What the hell was going on?

They marched across the scrubland, then turned down the path. In front of them were three garages. Glen walked to the last one and reached out to take the handle.

‘You wait around the corner. Just in case we’ve been intercepted. If it’s a trap, you run. Don’t try and rescue me, just get the hell out, do you hear?’

Frankie considered this, then shook her head and folded her arms. ‘I’ll go in,’ she whispered firmly. ‘You wait around the corner. You’re more important than me. People depend on you.’

Glen shook his head, but Frankie wasn’t taking no for an answer. Pushing him out of the way, she opened the door and stepped inside. Then she frowned, and moved further in. And that’s when she saw her. The girl.

‘Okay, I don’t think it’s a trap,’ she called out quietly, then walked towards the back of the garage where a small, bedraggled girl was fast asleep on an old tyre. She looked about fifteen; her hair was long, her skin deathly pale, almost other-worldly. Frankie saw Glen hovering at the door and motioned for him to come in. ‘Is this who we came here to find?’ she asked.

Glen looked at the girl uncertainly, then they both jumped as her eyes opened and she threw herself at them angrily, pushing Frankie to the ground before tearing out of the garage.

Frankie and Glen stared at each other incredulously for a second then Frankie pulled herself up from the ground. ‘What the …’ she muttered, then immediately turned to run after the girl. Glen, as always, was two steps ahead of her, already chasing the girl down. Friend or foe, she’d seen them now, and that meant danger. That meant that the girl wasn’t going anywhere.

Milo stared at the guard standing in front of him. ‘What did you just say?’

His palms were covered in a light layer of sweat and he tugged at his shirt collar, wiped his forehead. The guard had to be mistaken. Had to have made a mistake.

‘I said, sir, that no body was found. We were there within minutes of the incident and there was no body, no sign of anything untoward, sir.’

Milo felt a wave of nausea wash over him. Too many people were just disappearing. It wasn’t right. ‘You went to the wrong place, then,’ he said.

‘No, sir. We checked. Couple of the lads went up, looked over at the right spot. Could see us below. We were in the right place, sir.’

‘Then the wind blew the body further away,’ Milo said impatiently. ‘She got stuck in a tree. Something.’

‘No, sir. There are no trees, sir. We checked a ten-metre radius. No body, sir. No blood, no nothing.’

Milo took a deep breath and started to pace around his desk as he thought rapidly. There had to be a body. He saw her jump. Everyone did. She went right off the roof; there was no way she could have clung on and climbed back up, or down, or some other feat that was only possible in multimedia fiction. She jumped. Ergo, there had to be a body. And he was going to find it. Just like he was going to find Frankie.

‘If you are mistaken about this,’ he said, a warning note in his voice. ‘If you are wrong, then …’ He didn’t finish the sentence; he didn’t need to – a veiled threat hung in the air that didn’t need spelling out.

‘Yes, sir, I understand, sir, that’s why I checked myself, several times. That’s why we combed the area, sir. There’s no body, sir. Categorically, sir.’

Milo nodded wearily. He loved his job. Loved it. Loved the prestige, the power, the money, the perks. He was a someone. He was known by everyone on the globe. He was a superstar. But recently … Recently things had got seriously fucked up. Ever since Thomas had brought those weird people back from the UK. From some satellite City that had somehow escaped the nuclear fallout of the Horrors, conducting some weird experiment for Thomas. Milo didn’t know the details; he didn’t want to. He just knew that ever since they’d got here, things had started to go wrong. And he was sick of it. The sooner that crazy loon’s new System was up and running the better.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Leave it with me.’

‘Leave it with you, sir?’

‘Yes. Leave it with me.’

‘You mean don’t report it further, sir? Don’t file any reports, sir?’

‘I mean,’ Milo said, his voice slow but firm, ‘leave it with me. Just walk out of this office and forget about it until I ask you to do otherwise. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir. Consider it left, sir.’

The guard nodded and disappeared. He would stay quiet, Milo thought with relief. Buy him some time before he had to tell Thomas, before he had to face Thomas’s rage, his paranoid, crazed rage that would reverberate around the building and make life miserable for days. Hopefully he wouldn’t ever have to tell Thomas. He’d get to the bottom of the situation before Thomas needed to know.

Putting his feet up on his desk, Milo closed his eyes, then he opened them again. Frankie must have had help. Perhaps Evie had, too. If he could find one, perhaps he could find the other. Perhaps this nightmare would come to an end.

‘Get me image recovery,’ he barked into his chip. ‘I want facial recognition throughout Paris, photograph coming through now.’

‘Evie? Is that your name?’

Evie stared in shock at the girl standing over her. Tall, beautiful, a baggy sweatshirt covering her slender frame, a leather jacket in her hands, dark hair like a boy’s. She looked different, but Evie knew who it was immediately, and she felt herself beginning to shake, because Frankie was dead. Which meant that either Evie was seeing things, or that there was a ghost standing in front of her.

‘You don’t need to be afraid. We’re friends. We’re here to help.’ The man was talking now; Evie regarded him suspiciously. She had run on instinct; had assumed the worst when she’d heard voices, seen two people approaching her. Now, on the ground, the two of them standing over her, she was looking around desperately for something to hit them with.

Frankie crossed her arms across her chest and looked over at her friend. He shrugged. ‘Do you recognise Frankie? She’s on the run like you. Infotec tried to kill her. You can trust us.’

Evie stayed silent; she had learned long ago that talking was the easiest way to get into trouble.

‘My name is Glen,’ the man said. ‘Friends of mine helped you escape. Caught you when you jumped off that roof. Drove you here. Are you okay? Are you thirsty?’

He handed her his bottle of water and Evie took it tentatively. He had a nice face.

‘Glen,’ she said, her voice barely audible. She cleared her throat, drank some water. ‘Thank you,’ she said, a little louder this time.

‘You’re very welcome.’ He looked at her curiously, his eyes darting away every time she looked back at him. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We can’t stay out here. Back into the garage until we work out what we’re doing next.’

‘You don’t know what we’re doing next?’ Frankie asked quizzically, her right eyebrow shooting up. Evie reddened; it was strange seeing her in the flesh, the girl she had watched for hours on the screen, the girl whose intimate secrets she had been party to, whose decisions she had judged, whose every thought had been plastered across the screen for all to see.

Glen ignored Frankie’s question; he opened the door to the garage and ushered them inside.

‘So, watch my funeral?’ Frankie asked her.

Evie shook her head, refusing to admit that she’d watched the whole thing.

Frankie looked slightly taken aback. ‘Oh. Right. Well, it wasn’t me anyway.’

Evie met her eyes but still said nothing.

Frankie folded her arms. ‘So you’re from the UK?’

Evie nodded tentatively.

‘I thought the UK had been blown to smithereens,’ Frankie said. ‘I thought it was too radioactive to get close. Guess things aren’t always how they seem.’

‘No,’ Evie said, biting her lip. ‘I guess not.’

‘You really don’t know who I am? I mean, you never watched me?’

Frankie was looking at her curiously, like she couldn’t believe anyone wouldn’t be riveted watching her day after day. Maybe they had tried to kill her, but it certainly hadn’t taught her any humility. Evie’s face hardened. ‘I’m not that interested in parties and clothes,’ she said. ‘Where I come from there are more important things to worry about. Like people being murdered. Like Infotec ruining people’s lives.’

Frankie stared at her open-mouthed, then her eyebrows lifted in her trademark expression. ‘There are important things to worry about here as well,’ she said, tartly. ‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t look presentable while we worry about them. Or enjoy ourselves from time to time, something that apparently you know nothing about.’

She looked Evie up and down and wrinkled her nose in distaste; Evie felt her temperature rise and looked the other way. What was Linus thinking sending this airhead to find her? Had he made a huge mistake?

‘So,’ Glen said, closing the garage door behind them. ‘Raffy is a friend of yours?’

Evie frowned. ‘How do you know about Raffy?’ she asked.

‘He’s been in touch with us,’ Glen said, crouching down on the ground. ‘He orchestrated your escape. You’re pretty brave, by the way, jumping off the roof like that, trusting us to catch you.’

‘It wasn’t Raffy; it was Linus,’ Evie said immediately. ‘And he didn’t tell me I’d be caught. He just told me to jump.’

‘Off a roof? And you did it?’ Frankie asked incredulously.