It was empty.
Didn’t it just go to show how you can’t trust anybody?
Take my mother: I could never trust her with my secrets. Take my father: you could only trust him to write a report or something like that. But to take you to the cinema when he said he would? The only thing he seemed to care about was his work. Eventually, they stopped pretending to take responsibility for me, setting an example for everyone else to follow. And to cap it all, for the past three years the electronic world has been just as unreliable. Why should this girl and her aunt be any different?
Running down a corridor, I found a fire exit at the back of the hospice. It led into a utility yard from which a dark passage struck off around the side. At the end was a stiff iron gate which I managed to climb over. I heard the shouting first. What I saw next stopped me in my tracks. On the pavement in front of the hospice a small crowd had gathered, and they hadn’t come to bring flowers to the patients inside.
“Quarantine now! Quarantine now!”
Led by a tall, middle-aged man in a suit wielding a megaphone, they were waving placards with slogans such as: “Close Salvation House!”, “Hybrids are not human”, “Protect the human race” and “Keep Britain normal!”
I shrank into a dark corner next to the gate where I could see what was going on.
The crowd was about thirty-strong. As they realised they had no opposition, they grew bolder, their chanting louder, and they began to rattle sticks against the railings. A security guard stood inside his hut next to the vehicle barrier, which was down. He was talking into his radio and looking worried. Some of the crowd was ready to dodge underneath the barrier, but the rest hadn’t plucked up enough courage yet. Another guard ran out to join the first and stood on the other side of the barrier facing the protesters. They didn’t look like they would be able to put up much of a fight.
Where were the Gene Police? They were never there when you wanted them.
They weren’t really called the Gene Police. Officially known as the Biological Security Force, their job was to round up Greys. They also had a security role so they should be here, keeping the peace. But they weren’t, and that, for me, confirmed what I’d heard about them. This mob was doing what the authorities secretly wanted to, but couldn’t.
There was nothing for me to do but stay where I was and sit it out. After a few minutes the man with a megaphone turned to address the crowd, but the wind carried his words away. My camera could zoom in on him though—greying beard, anorak over old grey suit, baseball cap, tall as a post. I took pictures of him and everybody I could see in the crowd—you never knew when they’d be useful. Now the group surged forward, dodging around and under the barrier.
The guards put up little resistance. Salvation House was set on a quiet side street with little traffic at this time. No one was going to intervene.
“Hybrids out! Hybrids out!” echoed off the walls.
The crowd was now in the forecourt and had begun to pick up bricks from a pile of builders’ rubble. The megaphone man threw the first one. I heard the sound of breaking glass, a shriek from inside, and hoped nobody had been hit. I imagined Cheri and Kestrella hustling all the patients to cover.
Soon missiles were raining through several windows at the front, the rhythm of the chanting broken down into random shouts. Someone lit a petrol bomb. But before they could throw it, the almost gentle sound of breaking glass was cut through by a loud spray of automatic gunfire. It raked the ground in front of them, the noise tearing through the evening.
The shooter was hidden from my view. But the demonstrators turned to see where it had come from and I saw their reaction. The man holding the petrol bomb was panicking—he didn’t know what to do with it. Before it could explode in his hand, he hurled it at the stone wall of the hospice. This prompted another burst of machine-gun fire and he howled as it strafed across his feet. The courage of the demonstrators evaporated like wet footprints in the midday sun. They turned and ran as fast as they could.
Now the shooter entered my frame of vision—a tall man in battle fatigues and, seen in silhouette, his right arm seemed to be an assault rifle. The two security guards came warily up to join him as the crowd vanished behind the barrier. All three stared down at the petrol bomber, who was whimpering and nursing his foot.
I began to think it might be safe to come out. But the evening’s trouble wasn’t over yet. The familiar Gene Police sirens were approaching—after all the violence was over. Three vans drew up by the barrier. Instead of the whole squad of officers pouring out of the vans as they usually did, just one man stepped down.
“Do you know who that is?” whispered a familiar voice behind me.
Startled, I turned round. I hadn’t heard anyone approach.
“It’s Major Malcolm Winter, the commander-in-chief of the Gene Police,” said Kestrella.
“I recognise him, though I’ve never seen him in person before,” I replied at my lowest volume.
“I was afraid the mob had got you,” she said, and I noted the tender concern in her voice.
Winter was talking to the security guards, but the man with the rifle had mysteriously disappeared. Cheri came out and ran over to join them, clearly angry. It seemed as if she knew Winter. They began to argue, arms waving about.
“Come back inside with me.” Kestrella brushed her mobile phone against the palm of my hand through the gate’s bars. It felt warm. “I know you’re angry, but you can’t leave now, not with them there. Besides, there are a few other things, very important things, which you need to know.”
I turned to face her. Her long hair was being blown around her face in the cool evening air and she met my gaze steadily.
“You let me down. You said I wouldn’t be registered.”
“Don’t be so quick to judge,” she said. “You know, for a boy who’s half computer, you’re not at all logical. Are you?”
I’d never thought of that before. I thought I was completely logical. Anybody in my position would do what I’d done.
Wouldn’t you?
It was ten in the evening and Dominic was driving us through the City of London. The financial district was empty of people, normal or hybrid. Many windows were boarded up—they couldn’t rent out office space since the rest of the world threw a quarantine order round Britain. Other countries were desperate to prevent the disease spreading out of the UK. As a result, the UK economy had collapsed, with millions of unemployed people stuck in their homes, afraid to venture forth.
I was taking Johnny to my home—and he didn’t seem to like it. I could feel the aura of anxiety around him. Whenever I tried to reassure him, he flinched away.
I understood why my aunt had to register him; she had a difficult job. She worked so hard keeping the hospice together and could only do that if she followed certain rules set by the government. We eventually helped Johnny see that being registered did carry certain advantages. Although the authorities had to know where you were all the time, you could go anywhere, almost, as long as you were tagged and under the authority of a responsible “normal” person. I guess because she felt responsible for Johnny being there, Cheri volunteered for this role. As we were to discover, this was not a good idea.
I looked at Johnny: was he sulking, tired or sick? It was hard to tell. On his screen was a picture of a monkey in a cage. It was asleep. He kept scratching his ankle where his new tag rubbed against