Anna watched the guard silently, her eyes wide with dread and fear. She’d been dragged out of Maria’s apartment and thrown in the back of a van; thankfully she’d got Ben back and had been able to persuade the men to take her handcuffs off so that she could cradle him in her arms and shield him from the walls of the van as it careered down the road. Now she was in a darkened room; she didn’t know where it was. The van had pulled up outside a door; the door had led to a corridor; the corridor had led to this room.
‘If you don’t shut that thing up, I will,’ snapped the guard.
She pulled Ben towards her and tried to soothe him; he’d been crying since they arrived.
‘He’s hungry,’ she said quietly. ‘He needs some milk.’
‘He needs some milk,’ the guard mocked. ‘Just shut him up, or he’ll get more than milk.’
Anna felt her stomach clench with fear and she quickly put Ben’s thumb in his mouth, which he sucked violently. The lights in the room were dim, disorienting.
‘Where’s Maria?’ she asked tentatively. ‘Is she here too?’
The guard grinned. ‘Maria?’ he asked. ‘Coming here? I doubt it. Maria’s a Catcher.’
Anna went white. ‘No,’ she said desperately. ‘She can’t . . . She said . . .’
‘I’m afraid you can’t trust everthing that people say,’ a voice said as the door opened and another man walked into the room. He was thin-faced, wearing a suit; an air of menace surrounded him.
‘Anna Covey?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘My name is Mr Samuels. I’m Head of Security here at Pincent Pharma. And I’m afraid, Anna, that you’ve got yourself into a spot of bother. We have everything on film, you see.’
Anna could barely breathe. ‘Everything?’
‘Everything.’ Mr Samuels smiled nastily. ‘You were heard plotting to free Surpluses, Anna. Do you know what sentence that crime carries?’
Anna shook her head.
‘I just wanted to help the children,’ she said, tears pricking at her eyes. ‘I thought she wanted to help, too. I thought . . .’
‘Enough!’ Mr Samuels barked. ‘You think we’re going to stand by and allow some upstart Surplus to plot against our society, to threaten science and civilisation? We have to protect the rest of society from people like you, Anna. You and that disgusting baby brother of yours don’t deserve to live on the Outside, do you?’
‘Not Ben,’ Anna said, her voice quivering. ‘This has nothing to do with him. He’s Legal. He’s innocent.’
‘Innocent? Who’s going to look after him if you’re in prison, Anna? Didn’t think of that, did you? Too busy thinking about those dirty Surpluses.’
Anna felt the blood drain from her face, the dreadful realisation of what she’d done thudding in her head like an avalanche of pain. A buzzing sound emanated from Mr Samuel’s pocket and he pulled out a walkie-talkie.
‘I do not want to be disturbed. Do you understand?’ he said, his voice low and irritable. ‘I want two units guarding the main entrance and I want the blackout fixed and unless the four horsemen of the Apocalypse are seen approaching the building, I don’t want any further interruptions, do you understand? Good.’
He put the device in his pocket and smiled thinly at Anna. ‘Now we’ll just wait for the doctor, shall we?’ he said. ‘Got to give you a medical. See how Useful you’re going to be.’
‘Useful?’ Anna’s voice was thin, barely audible. ‘What’s going to happen to me? Where am I going?’
But Mr Samuels didn’t let her
finish; instead, Ben was snatched from her by a guard and Anna was
thrust on to the bed before Ben was handed back to her. He was
screaming now, his hands drawn into tiny fists, tears cascading
down his red, swollen cheeks and it was all Anna could do not to
join him.
The world came into focus slowly. White ceiling. White pillow. Red blanket. Greyish sheets. Surplus Sheila lay silently, looking around her cautiously as she gradually remembered where she was. Not in Grange Hall – that much she knew. But not a house, either. It was an interim place, she’d decided, for her medical. Sheila knew better than to ask questions, though; she’d learnt in her years at Grange Hall all about keeping her eyes cast downwards, asking no questions, obeying orders, even if she’d fought against it. This was probably just another test, she told herself, just to check that she was fit and ready to be a housekeeper. If she passed, she would soon be out in the real world, in a real house. And once she was in a house, she’d go about finding her parents.
Allowing a little smile on to her face, Sheila looked around. Her brain felt fuzzy, her limbs heavy on the thin mattress beneath her. She vaguely remembered arriving here, remembered being driven up towards a large, white building. She’d been scared when she got out of the white van, had asked where she was, but they hadn’t told her, and when a man had dragged her towards a door, she’d started to shout and someone else had stuck something sharp in her leg. She couldn’t remember anything after that. And now she was here in another dormitory, just like Grange Hall but white, not grey, and there were no bells, no chores, no Training. She’d been here a few days, she thought. Maybe longer – she kept falling asleep and it was hard to keep track.
There were others in the room, others like her, on beds, all girls, all asleep or feigning sleep. She caught a girl’s eye and they both looked away quickly. One of the girls had been caught trying to start a conversation a day or so before and had been punished for it with a beating; Sheila had thought it served her right for being Stupid; hoped that they would notice that she wasn’t breaking any rules, that she should pass the test more quickly than the other girls.
The tests weren’t very nice. Sheila
had decided that she didn’t like medicals very much at all. Every
day she was given an injection; every day they took blood from her;
every day her legs were hoisted into stirrups and metal instruments
prodded inside her painfully as she clamped her mouth shut and did
her best not to cry out in pain. But apart from that, she was left
almost entirely alone. There was a small, cramped bathroom, which
the girls were allowed to visit, one at a time. Three times a day a
tray of food was placed in front of her. All the girls were wearing
the same gowns – long at the front, open at the back, which meant
they had to hold the two sides together firmly whenever they made
their way to the bathroom. And every so often, one of the girls
would be replaced with a new face; they’d passed their tests,
Sheila thought enviously. They’d been allowed out, to become
housekeepers. She hoped that she’d be next. She couldn’t wait.
Jude flicked from camera to camera, searching for the girl, for Peter. Instead, his screen was filled with shots of laboratories, production lines, the cafeteria, long sweeping corridors, the reception hall. At the sight of this screen, Jude paused – a line of guards were now positioned outside the glass doors, armed and ready for action; a further three were positioned inside. Jude recognised one of them as the guard who had been assigned to him.
A man was being searched by the guards; moments later, he emerged through the doors and headed towards the reception desk. Jude watched silently. The man was holding up an identi-card; Judge zoomed in and saw the words ‘Manchester Evening News’ written on it and the name ‘WILLIAM ANDERSON’. The guard took it and scrutinised it, then seemed to be demanding something else; the man in the suit shrugged, smiling, then took out a piece of paper and handed it to him. The guard appeared satisfied; he was soon standing up and showing the man into a side room off the lobby. It was only as they passed the camera outside the door that Jude saw the man’s face properly for the first time, saw his eyes. Jude felt a trickle of sweat wend its way down his neck. The man wasn’t a journalist. He wasn’t from Manchester. And he wasn’t called William Anderson. Shaking slightly, he stared at the screen as the man disappeared from view.