Flare

Chapter 40

We stopped for dinner in the canteen before heading back to our room, Emily and I followed at a discreet distance by our ever-present guard.

Emily had been distracted during the meal, and barely said a word on the way back to the accommodation block, which worried me. I wanted to recapture the comfortable friendship we’d had on the journey when it had been just us, but I worried that too much had changed and I didn’t know where to begin.

We bumped into several officers in the hallways, a few of whom gave us strange looks but no one challenged us.

I opened the door and Emily stepped inside. I went to follow but paused and looked at the guard.

“Do you need a chair or something?” I asked, but he shook his head.

“No, my relief will be along shortly, he can get one if he needs one.”

I nodded and closed the door, then turned to see Emily sitting on the edge of the bed with several pieces of paper clutched in her hand.

“What’s that?” I asked, very aware of how small the room was with the two of us in it.

“Oh sit down,” she said as I hovered by the door, “I won’t bite.”

I shrugged and sat next to her on the bed, our legs almost touching.

“So what is it?”

She passed me the bundle of papers and I squinted down at the tiny words scrawled across the first page. It was a list of sites that showed possible stores of food and water, with today’s date at the top.

I scanned the page and looked back at her.

“What am I looking for?”

“Turn the page.”

I did, and saw yesterday’s date with another list of sites, most of which had been crossed through in pencil.

“And?”

“Keep going.”

I flicked through to the last page and stopped as two things immediately caught my attention. The first was that it was a printout. That in itself was enough to make me glance at the door to make sure it was firmly shut, but when I looked back at the paper it was the second thing that made my eyes widen.

“This is dated the 12^th September!” It was an effort to keep my voice down.

Emily nodded. “That’s right. Two days before the flare hit.”

“But that means…”

“That someone knew about it before it was going to happen. Did you not wonder how they got this whole thing in place so quickly? It’s only been a week, but already they’ve got almost a thousand acres fenced off and nearly three thousand civilians under lock and key. I thought this whole setup felt wrong, somehow. Now we know why.”

I stood and began to pace, only able to take a few steps before turning the other way.

“It’s not just wrong, it’s criminal! How many people might have been saved if they’d known?”

Emily shook her head tiredly. “We’ll never know. The question is, what do we do know we have that?” She pointed at the paper clenched in my fist.

“It doesn’t change anything,” I said, “not for us. We still need to get out of here as soon as we can. Speaking of that, I think Barnes might be persuaded to help somehow.”

“Really? How?”

I told her about the conversation we’d had that afternoon and she made a noncommittal noise.

“It could be true,” she said, “but it could be some kind of test, see if you’re committed, so to speak.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think he’s that good an actor. I’m used to listening to people, remember. I think he’s genuine.”

“So how does it help us?”

“I don’t know.” I stopped pacing and dropped to the bed, making the springs squeak.

“Well at least you smell better than you did yesterday,” she said with a ghost of a smile, “can you believe they’ve managed to get the showers working?”

I nodded. “Yeah, gas apparently.”

We both stared at each other as the words came out, the idea forming in my mind mirrored in her eyes.

“And what’s the problem with gas?” She asked quietly.

I raised a warning finger and walked to the door, pressing my ear against the thin wood and listening carefully. I couldn’t hear anything on the other side, but that could mean anything.

“Fancy a walk?” I asked loudly, and Emily nodded.

I pulled the door open quickly, half expecting to find the guard with his own ear against the door, but instead of the man from earlier another soldier lounged against the far wall, a man in his twenties with arms like tree trunks and small, piggy eyes that were too close together under his shaven hair.

“I assume we’re allowed to go for a walk?” I asked, stepping out into the corridor with Emily close behind, the papers no longer in sight.

He straightened and shrugged, a movement like boulders rubbing together.

“Don’t see why not.”

He followed us out into the yard, keeping us in sight but allowing us enough privacy to talk, which put my mind at ease. Had he heard anything suspicious when we’d been talking in the room, he would have been on our heels.

“Where shall we go?” I asked, looking out over the playing field and seeing the crews hard at work while the sun was still above the horizon.

“Not that way,” she said, leading me towards the other side of the buildings so that we walked between them and the high fence that separated the base from the nearby village.

I nodded at the small houses. “I guess they were the first ones to be brought under the Secretary’s wing.”

“Probably. What do you make of him?”

“The Secretary? I think he’s a self-serving, public school idiot with more power than sense.” I stared at the empty houses as we walked, the blank windows looking uncomfortably like they were watching eyes, stripped of hope and left to do nothing but wait for the ravages of time. I shivered at the thought.

“There we are,” Emily said, nodding towards a small building with a white gas tank next to it, a series of pipes connecting the two as they disappeared inside the brickwork.

“Great, now what?”

She glanced up at me. “Why do I have to come up with all the ideas?”

“Because you’re an engineer. I’m just a puking journo, remember?”

I smiled as I said it and got an answering grin. It was like the sun coming up, and heat flared in my stomach.

Perhaps she felt it too, because she suddenly looked down and cleared her throat.

“Right then, let’s walk a little bit further and then head back, eh?”

I nodded and we carried on, passing the small building without showing too much interest for the sake of our constant shadow.

We walked on for another few minutes, then rounded the far side of the admin building and headed back, taking our time in the cool evening air.

I didn’t have much to say, but just being in Emily’s company was enough. I longed to reach out and take her hand but I was too scared of being turned down, or worse, laughed at, so instead I contented myself with walking close enough that every so often my hand brushed her arm, and convinced myself that was enough.

The sun was beginning to set as we reached the accommodation block, a golden-orange disk slipping over the horizon and turning everything to amber. I wondered for a moment how something so beautiful could be so deadly, but then wasn’t that often the way with nature?

When we returned to the room the door was ajar. A stab of worry hit me, even though I had nothing personal to steal, but as I hurried in I saw that a large pile of books and papers had been left in an untidy stack next to the bed.

Emily closed the door behind her.

“What the hell is that?”

“No idea.” I picked up the first book and saw that it was a 2013 diary, the red cover worn and the gilt lettering already flaking.

I opened it and flicked through, reading an entry here and there until I realised what it was.

Dropping it back on the pile I picked up a small notepad, scanning the pages until I was sure.

“He was bloody serious!”

“What?” She asked, picking up the discarded diary and reading a few pages.

“Is this the Secretary’s?”

I nodded. “It sure is. I’d hoped he was joking when he told me he wanted me to write his biography. He must have been making notes and collecting things for years. Who in hell brings their notes to an end-of-the-world party?”

“The man in charge, I guess.”

“Yeah, well at least we know how we’re starting the fire now.”

She laughed, a delicate peal that made me smile in return.

“So what happens after we’ve started the fire?” She asked, the laughter fading as quickly as it had come.

“We use the distraction to find a vehicle and don’t stop driving until we run out of fuel, I guess.”

She frowned. “Doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”

I shrugged. “If you’ve got a better one then I’m all ears.”

“Not off the top of my head. When do you want to try it?”

“I don’t know. I suppose we’ll just have to wait until we can find the right moment, then make a break for it.”

Only, as it turned out, we didn’t have to wait after all.