Them or Us

29

I’M IN THE BACK of an armor-plated van with Llewellyn and three other fighters, scared shitless. This is my worst nightmare. Llewellyn’s never trusted me, and he’s been waiting for a chance to get me away from Lowestoft on my own. There’s something different about the way he’s acting toward me today, and the longer this journey lasts, the more convinced I am that he’s probably the one who persuaded Hinchcliffe I should be part of this pointless expedition so he could get rid of me. Fucker’s going to kill me and concoct some bullshit story to explain to Hinchcliffe why his prize pet is dead.

The four members of my armed guard talk to each other in secretive whispers, deliberately excluding me. I’m used to it. I’ve felt like an outsider for as long as I’ve been in Lowestoft. No matter how I look at it, I seem to have a foot in neither camp. I’m neither fighter nor underclass; not like the rest of them, but not Unchanged either, just an unwanted, mixed-breed outcast. Today my paranoia has been ramped up by several hundred percent. Whatever the intentions of these men are, I won’t know for sure what they’re planning until they make their move. I have to try to stay one step ahead of the game, like I learned to do with the Unchanged. I have to hope that, wherever we end up, I’ll be able to find a way of giving them the slip and getting away. What I’ll do after I’ve broken cover is anyone’s guess. I don’t suppose it matters anymore. I’m not eating, hardly drinking … I’ll just find a rock to crawl under and sit it out. I can’t waste any more time thinking about it. I might not have any time left.

Llewellyn sits up front next to the driver, Ben Healey. In the back with me are two other men, handpicked for their aggression and strength: Chandra—the disfigured guard I saw outside Hinchcliffe’s hotel breeding center—and Swales, a cocky and aggressive young bastard I’ve had little to do with until today.

We’re in radio contact with Hinchcliffe, but communications with Lowestoft have been brief and infrequent. I’m not going to risk saying anything, but they surely must realize we’re never going to find that plane today. Christ, it could have come from anywhere. Overseas, even. No one knows for sure what’s happening in other countries (it’s hard enough finding out what’s going on here), but I’m guessing everywhere else must be in as dire and desperate a state as this place is. Regardless, the fact remains: Looking for the plane and its pilot is going to be like looking for a needle in a pile of a thousand massive haystacks. What if it came from somewhere on the other side of the huge radioactive scar that now stretches much of the length of the country? There’s no point trying to tell Llewellyn; he’s never going listen to me. Instead he’ll just concentrate on his impossible task and won’t question anything. If Hinchcliffe told these morons to kill themselves I think most of them probably would, but it’s more likely they’re going to kill me.

Llewellyn glances over his shoulder and makes eye contact with me, and my blood runs cold. This bastard seems to be enjoying himself. He can’t wait to be shot of me. The longer I’m around, the more he resents the fact that I’m useful to Hinchcliffe. Fighters can be replaced, but me … I’m unique (unfortunately), and Llewellyn doesn’t like it.

I peer out of the wire-mesh-covered window to my side and see that we’ve entered the outskirts of what used to be the city of Norwich. It’s an empty, lifeless place now, nothing more than a desolate shell. I don’t know what happened here during the war, but it obviously wasn’t a big enough concern to warrant being nuked. Over the last few months it’s been systematically stripped clean, first by Thacker, then Hinchcliffe. Too large and unwieldy a place to be governed effectively, and not as geographically well placed as the port of Lowestoft, it’s just been abandoned, left to decay.

A sudden sharp crackle of static comes from the radio. Llewellyn grabs it quickly and talks. I strain to hear what he’s saying, but it’s impossible. He turns around and glances back at me again, and his expression says more than a thousand words ever would. He looks on edge, nervous almost. Now I’m certain that he’s going to try to get rid of me—but why now? Why all the way out here?

I’m stuck in this van until we stop moving. Stick to the plan, I tell myself repeatedly. Wait until they let you out, then fight, keep fighting, and if and when you get the chance, run like fuck.