The System (3 page)

Raffy nodded miserably. ‘He was talking to me,’ he said, his voice choking up. ‘I’m the prodigal son, aren’t I? He still believed in me. After everything I’ve done.’

Linus caught his eye. ‘Benjamin always understood people who got lost,’ he whispered. ‘Maybe he was hoping you’d find your way back.’ He stood up and walked away, leaving Raffy to stare at Benjamin, a thousand questions circling his head, questions that he knew Benjamin could never answer.

‘Get rid of him,’ Thomas hissed at Milo, who was standing now, and immediately started talking into his palm, his face still white, his hands still visibly shaking. ‘Get rid of the body now, do you understand?’ Thomas continued. ‘And you …’ He stared angrily at Raffy and Linus. ‘Both of you get to work. Now.’

‘Whatever you want, Thomas,’ Linus said quietly, as he walked towards his cubicle, leaving Raffy staring down at the father figure he had loved, respected; the man who had believed in him.

Benjamin would not have died in vain, he told himself as he slowly stood up. He would repay his trust, prove that he was worth a second chance. Like Benjamin had said, he wouldn’t let him down.

Lucas felt the glare of the sun hit his face and he opened his eyes and squinted.

‘You really should be getting up,’ Martha said, her usual warm smile filling her face. ‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’

Lucas looked at the mug on his bedside table. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘What time is it?’

‘Time to get going,’ Martha said. ‘Time to get up and eat some good food and go to work.’

Lucas raised an eyebrow. It had been his idea for Martha to move in to his old house with him; after Thomas had taken Linus and the others, he had taken it upon himself to go to Base Camp and break the news to Martha, Angel and the others. Angel had immediately gone north with most of the men to tell the people of the Settlement that it was time to come out of their caves, time to rebuild their township; Martha, meanwhile, had told Lucas she was coming back to the City with him. And at first he’d thought it was because she didn’t want to be left alone, because she was afraid. But increasingly he was realising that in fact she had come to look after him; to make sure he ate well, that he slept, that he had someone to come home to. And he kind of liked it, but he also found it tiresome sometimes.

She always wanted to talk, kept telling him how strong he was, how lucky the City was to have him, like he needed building up or something. The truth was he didn’t need anything. As the days went by, any hope that Lucas might have had was diminishing, any belief that Evie would come back, that life would resume. She was gone, and now there was no point to anything. It had taken him a long time to accept, to digest what Thomas had told him, but he knew the truth now, knew that the City was just a little experiment, a means to an end. Nothing was real. And Lucas suspected – no, was certain – that Thomas would want to destroy his little experiment before too long. Before anyone else found out. Before his little plan started to unravel. With Linus tasked with rebuilding the System, Lucas knew that things would unravel pretty quickly. Thomas had no idea what he was dealing with.

For a moment he allowed himself a little smile as he imagined Linus stealthily pulling apart everything Thomas had built, those twinkly blue eyes of his revealing nothing of what was going on inside his head. Linus was the most infuriating person Lucas had ever met, but there was no one else he’d want on his side more.

Except Evie, of course.

But the truth was, he hadn’t had a message from Linus in weeks. No signal at all.

And that’s why his hope had gone. That’s why he didn’t care anymore.

He closed his eyes, felt his chest clench with desperate rage that she had been taken away from him yet again, rage at his brother for bringing Thomas to Linus’s cave, rage at himself for escaping and leaving her behind. He didn’t know what had happened; he had followed Linus’s instructions faithfully, expecting Evie to follow … He should have made her go first. He should have held back, waited, watched. It had all happened so quickly, under Thomas’s watchful eye, but he should have known, should have held onto her, should have been better, stronger …

He had failed her. And now, now he had no idea where she was. If she was even alive.

‘Lucas, your tea is getting cold,’ Martha said sternly, picking up his clothes from the day before and bundling them into the laundry.

Lucas pulled himself up. ‘Leave those,’ he said. ‘I can do it.’

‘You can lead the City, Lucas. Let me take care of the washing. Now, breakfast will be ready in ten minutes. Don’t make me come and get you.’

Lucas heard her walking down the stairs, and let his head fall back against the pillow again. Lead the City. He’d dreamed of doing just that for most of his life, dreamed of leading it towards freedom, banishing the System, destroying all the lies that had held its people captive for so long.

And now? Now he was doing just that. Now people treated him like a hero; they looked to him to tell them what to do, tell them how they should live. The lies were behind them; the truth was known, and bit by bit the people of the City were rebuilding their lives, adapting to their new freedoms, to living without labels, without tyranny.

But they didn’t know the biggest lie of all. They didn’t know that the very world they lived in was a lie, that everything they’d ever experienced had been orchestrated by one evil, crazy man; that beyond the sea, the world lived on, that they were not survivors of a global war, because there had been no war.

They were nothing.

Everything was nothing.

There was no point even getting out of bed, because anything he or anyone else might do would be, in the end, entirely meaningless.

‘I knew it!’ Lucas looked up to see Martha standing in the doorway, a frown etched into her face. ‘Lucas, you have to stop this.’

‘Stop what?’ Lucas sighed. ‘Martha, I’m getting up. I will get up. Soon.’

‘And what then? You’ll wander into your office, stare into space, give no one any of the answers they crave, no vision for them to follow? Lucas, you have to pull yourself out of this. You have to, for the City’s sake.’

‘The City?’ Lucas shook his head wearily. ‘The City is a sham. The City is doomed. Thomas will come for us, and when he does, we’ll be destroyed. You know that and I know that. He’ll bomb us to smithereens just like he bombed the Settlement, only this time he won’t leave any survivors, unless we’re willing to hide in caves for the rest of our lives.’

He sat forward, looked Martha right in the eye. ‘My father died for something he believed in, and I spent my life pretending to be something that I’m not, all for nothing. All for nothing.’

He felt a lump appear in his throat and he looked away, out of the window to the grey sky framed by heavy wooden shutters.

Martha walked towards him. ‘So you’ve given up?’ she asked quietly.

Lucas shook his head. ‘I’m just seeing things how they are,’ he said.

‘You’re just allowing yourself to wallow in self-pity you mean.’ Martha shook her head. ‘Honestly, if Linus heard you … if Angel heard you, for that matter, there’d be hell to pay. So there are more lies, so you have a new enemy. So fight him. Warn your people; give them a chance to defend themselves. Fight for us. Fight for yourself. Fight for Evie. Or have you given up on her, too?’

Lucas rounded on her angrily. ‘Given up? Martha, he’s taken her away and I have no idea if she’s even alive. I let her down. I let him take her. And I will never forgive myself.’

‘No, Lucas,’ Martha said, sitting down on the bed. ‘From what you’ve told me it sounds like Linus made sure you got away. And he generally does things for a reason, doesn’t he?’

‘He wanted us all to escape,’ Lucas said miserably.

‘And he thought Thomas would let that happen?’ Martha’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Lucas, just think about it. Linus doesn’t make mistakes. Nothing he ever does is random. It’s all part of a plan. So if you’re here and Evie isn’t, chances are there’s a reason for that. And chances are Linus hoped you wouldn’t just go to bed and stay there. You said there was a signal. Said he was communicating with you.’

‘He was,’ Lucas said grimly. ‘And now he isn’t.’

Martha looked at him worriedly, then folded her arms. ‘If something was wrong, he’d have let you know,’ she said firmly. ‘If he’s gone quiet it’s because he’s being watched too closely. They’re alive. I know they are. If Thomas wants his System, Linus is alive, and Evie too.’

‘Alive for how long?’ Lucas asked.

‘Stop, Lucas,’ Martha said then, a note of irritation in her voice. ‘You can’t give up. You can’t. You know the System better than anyone else, except Linus. So use it. Find a way of communicating with Linus. Find out where Evie is. And prepare the City for Thomas’s attack if you’re so sure it’s coming. The people here believe in you. Maybe you should start believing in yourself, too.’

She looked at Lucas meaningfully, then stood up and left the room. ‘Breakfast is ready downstairs,’ she called from the stairs a few minutes later.

Lucas closed his eyes for a few seconds; then he opened them again, jumped out of bed and headed for the shower.

‘Hi, how are you today?’

Raffy stared at the screen uncertainly. It had taken him a week to adjust to this place, to accept that he was really here, that he wasn’t going to wake up from this hideous nightmare, back in the Settlement, or Linus’s cave, or even the City … But now he was ready to get on with stuff. And first he had to figure out how to use the computer.

He remembered Linus telling him about a computer he’d ‘met’ at the Informers’ camp on the UK coast, before they’d known that the rest of the world was thriving, before they realised that they had all been pawns in Thomas’s little game. The computer, Linus had told him, his brow furrowing, made no sense. It had told him it was made a few years before, that it had been made in the US. And Linus had searched for other explanations, a satellite civilisation that had somehow continued to develop technology secretly. Had he suspected the truth back then, Raffy thought now as he wondered whether he was expected to reply. Did he wish he had?

‘Can I help you with something?’ the computer asked in silky, flirtatious tones that made Raffy self-conscious until he reminded himself that it wasn’t a real woman, that Thomas had probably programmed the voice himself. ‘Would you like to ask me any questions?’

Raffy pulled a face. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Actually, yeah. How do I get out of this place?’

‘Getting out of this apartment is impossible without the key and codes to the seven doors between your cubicle and the outside,’ the computer said silkily.

Raffy took a deep breath. ‘Do you have a face? It feels weird talking to a blank screen.’

‘I can have a face if you would like me to. Do you have a preference?’

‘A preference?’

‘Young, old, male, female, attractive, unthreatening, blonde, brunette?’

‘You’d look weird if you had a man’s face and a woman’s voice,’ Raffy said.

‘You can change my voice too, if you’d like.’

Raffy considered this, then shook his head. ‘No, I like it,’ he said. ‘Tell me what’s happened to Benjamin then.’

‘Your friend Benjamin went to autopsy under Regulation 5:6:p and his remains were incinerated yesterday morning. His ashes are in locker room 6b.’

Raffy felt tears pricking at his eyes and forced them away. ‘Just like that,’ he said. ‘Like he never even came here. Like he never existed.’

‘Is that a question?’ the computer asked. ‘I am in start-up mode at the moment. If you would like me to switch into conversation mode, please just let me know.’

‘No, you’re okay,’ Raffy said heavily. He wasn’t ready to discuss the point or pointlessness of life with a computer. Particularly not one that was built by Infotec.

‘So you work for Infotec,’ he said, suddenly suspicious. ‘Is Thomas listening to all of this?’

‘I was made by Infotec; I am a computer; I work for the person using me,’ the computer said. ‘But there is a record function, which is operating at the moment, feeding through to a computer being used by Milo Gant. The cameras in this room are also being monitored by Mr Gant. Does that answer your question satisfactorily?’

‘He hears what I say or he sees a typescript?’

‘The feed records a typescript; the camera records your voice.’

Raffy digested this. ‘I can’t get away with much then,’ he said eventually.

‘Would you like to configure me instead?’ the computer offered, helpfully. ‘You can give me a name, choose a background colour or image, font type, search program, navigation bar, multiscreen hologram, and build your Watch List.’

‘Watch List?’ Raffy frowned.

‘Who you’d like to Watch,’ the computer explained. ‘I suggest you start with the top ten and go from there, if you’re new to the Watching system.’

Raffy nodded slowly. ‘I thought I wasn’t connected to the mainframe,’ he said.

‘You have viewer rights. You cannot send messages, or be Watched yourself,’ the computer said. ‘At least that’s not strictly true. You can send messages. Try to, anyway. But I am duty bound to send any outward communication to the Infotec Hub to be … considered.’

‘You mean censored?’ Raffy asked.

There was a pause. ‘Best stick to watching,’ the computer said eventually. ‘So, would you like to start by giving me a name?’

‘A name?’ Raffy let his head fall back against his chair.

‘I can suggest some if you’d like. Give me a starting letter and I can give you a list of names to choose from. Maybe you could choose one from a favourite book?’

‘A book?’ Raffy asked, sitting up suddenly. Back in the Settlement it had always been Evie who was into books. She’d loved them, had joined a literature class with a guy called Neil. A guy who Raffy had punched because he had something Raffy didn’t, because Evie listened to him rapturously, because Raffy was a stupid, jealous imbecile. And Neil hadn’t even punched him back. He’d forgiven Raffy the next day, had offered to teach him, too. And Raffy had been so mortified he’d taken him up on his offer, had chosen a book from the Settlement library at random, promising to read it. And he had, some of it anyway; it was an old book written in a strange language, a weird book, full of stories of war and loyalty and deception. Benjamin had laughed when he’d seen him reading it, had told him he hoped he took the good from it and not the bad. The truth was, Raffy hadn’t taken much from it really; it had confused him more than anything. But there was one story that he’d really liked, a story that he still thought about sometimes. ‘No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll call you Cassandra.’