Paradigm (9781909490406) (7 page)

‘I came to your party, you know,' she said. ‘I thought we could have caught up. But you were… busy.' She bent down to scratch her feet. They were bare except for a strap between the first two toes, attached to a thin grass sole that was worn through. Home-made, not Industry issued.

‘I don't really remember that evening much,' said Carter, uncomfortable. Something had gone terribly wrong in the Community. On top of everything, his head ached and his eyes were tight. Isabella looked dreadful, older, sad.

‘I'm sure you'll find out what happened,' said Isabella. ‘I live on the Fringes now, out by the South Barricade. I'm only allowed in here at night. Or, rather, they don't throw me out at night. I take my chances to see what's available, you know. Even someone like me needs things. You should come and visit me sometime. Sometime
soon
.' The last word came out with virtually no sound, but the way her mouth formed the word, it seemed almost like almost a threat.

‘I'm not sure I'll be able to do that,' said Carter hurriedly. ‘You know the rules about spending time out at the Barricade, and as a Contender for…'

‘Controller General, yes,' said Isabella. ‘Well, you have some large shoes to fill there. I'm sure you met the current incumbent, Anaya Chess, at your underground dispersal. She has certainly got some explaining to do.' She laughed out a sound that was more like a grunt.

‘What do you mean, Isabella?'

‘It's not safe here,' she said with a calm resignation and rubbed her palm across Carter's. Then, without any further goodbyes, she left with the bottle of fire fuel in one hand, dragging a piece of wood behind her and whispering something inaudible in her wake.

H
e watched her go
, checking bins and behind homes until she melted into the blackness. There was something terrifying about the state of her—living outside on the Fringes could do that to a person, with little to eat and no shelter—but Isabella? There had been a few older people he'd known of who had stayed out there for a few weeks, a month at the most, but they'd always come back. Always. And besides Isabella, the odd girl had also said something about the Fringes. He didn't know much about that area—just that it was out along the edges of the Barricades and that it had been prohibited to spend time there, even in Gilbert Pinkerton's time as Controller General. When he was a teenager, the place to hang out had been the Blue Hills overlooking the Deadlands, not anywhere close to the stinking river. Back then when he was young, there had been none of those warning signs telling people to keep away from the Barricades; people just knew of the dangers and to steer well clear. It seemed that some memories had disintegrated while he'd been away—not just his own.

He looked upwards at the shifting sky. Something didn't feel right. Children out near the drop-off station, women walking around half-dead in the blackness of night, talk of living out near the Barricades—none of this should be tolerated by the Industry. And none of it would be when he became Controller.

A
s the moon
shifted out from behind a cloud, the streets around Unity Square were quiet again. The soft dewy rainfall cooled Carter's headache as he walked towards the back of the Academy and around the path towards the address he'd been allocated. A light gleamed brightly through the window in the downstairs room then flickered as the FreeScreen inside switched programme. He swiped his card over the door pad. As the door opened, he saw a shadow cross the room and a man stood up in the doorway to greet him.

‘Carter Warren?' he said, looking him up and down.

‘Yes,' said Carter. The man put his hand outside to feel the cool night air then moved aside so as to let Carter in. No familial hand swipe. He was well built with a thick mass of curls that tumbled down over his eyes and around his shoulders. His voice was firm, strong and slightly cold.

‘I'm Alexis Ackerman. Your room is upstairs on the left. Rulebook's on the table next to the rester and there's a chunk of microsnacks in the fridge. I work at the synthetics plant on floor two. They brought some clothes over for you but you're going to have to pick up anything else you need yourself.' Before he'd finished the last sentence, the man was halfway up the stairs.

‘Thanks,' said Carter, his legs melting into the sofa. ‘I'm just going to sit down here for a while.'

‘No need to report your movements to me,' said Alexis, unbuttoning his shirt. ‘We're related—distantly so they tell me—but we're not close. You're free to do whatever you want. Just don't wake me up before the morning; I've stayed up late enough as it is waiting for you. You have a meeting with the current Controller General tomorrow morning at nine so you'd better get some sleep. Goodnight.' And with that, he disappeared up the stairs and into the room on the right-hand side. The door slammed and Carter sank into the soft arms of the rester.

A
s he drifted
in and out of sleep, he heard the FreeScreen broadcasts remind everyone in the Community about the dangers of the Deadlands. The broadcasts infected his thoughts with dreams of hawk-toothed creatures that clawed at Barricades and demanded to be let past to feed and roam inside the Community, haunting the caves and the hillsides. The warnings were fierce and regular. Carter dreamed of the sunken towns outside the Barricades that festered with nuclear waste and bred empty-eyed owls with poisoned talons and pale reptiles that spat venom with dart-point accuracy. His dreamed of his parents, drowning in a swirl of water and of the nose-less brother Silas whom he had never met, who ate his mother from the inside out and snarled at him and stuck out a forked tongue.

And then there was something else. In the background or inside his head there was a woman's voice talking. Calling to him.

‘Carter Warren,' she said. ‘We live near the Barricades. Come and see me some time.'

‘Who are you? What do you want?' Carter heard himself say to the woman. ‘You'll find us,' she said. ‘You'll know why.'

‘I don't know what you mean,' said Carter. ‘Who are you?'

‘You'll find us,' she said and, with a throaty, cackling laugh, she disappeared behind the body of a full moon.

D
renched in sweat
, Carter let out a yell and woke up. The FreeScreen buzzed with a loud, electrical hum, all programming finished for the evening. Seconds later, Alexis pounded down the stairs and cut the power to the FreeScreen.

‘I told you not to wake me up,' he growled. ‘We'll be leaving here at eight. Now get some sleep.' He punched his feet back up to the room on the right, leaving Carter sprawled on the sofa, shivering, a bead of sweat on his lip.

The woman's cackle reverberated in his head.

‘Come and see us,' it said. ‘And come soon.'

T
he next morning
the rain had started again. The pounding that felt like crushing rocks was no longer just inside her head but was outside on the windows as well. Mr Hutchinson was standing over her, drinking soup out of a can.

‘Last one,' he said, stirring it with his finger. ‘There's some fruit there that's starting to go off—you should have that for breakfast. We've both got a long day ahead of us.' Alice blinked the crust out of her eyes and looked down at her leg. A sharp pain shot from her knee to her thigh and radiated through her body.

‘It still hurts,' she said.

‘It will for a while,' said Mr Hutchinson, ‘but we need to keep moving. We need a plan, soldier. Firstly, I am going to go up onto the roof and collect some water. That's where you got it from yesterday, wasn't it?'

‘Yes,' said Alice, ‘But…'

‘And we need supplies,' said Mr Hutchinson. ‘We're partners now, aren't we?' One hairy hand slid out from behind his back and patted Alice on the head.

‘I don't know,' she said, ‘What if my mother comes home?' Mr Hutchinson shook his head.

‘She isn't going to be coming home, Alice. No one is. This building is empty apart from us; they've all gone. Most of them weren't at home when the storms started and others just got flooded right out. Those first two days were so heavy it was like the sky was spitting rocks. You know Lydia Duncan from the second floor?'

Alice nodded. ‘The lady with the pink hair?' she said.

‘That's the one. Well, a giant hailstone hit her clean between the eyes and carved a hole in her head so big that you could see all the way through. She was on her balcony at the time—tipped right over the edge into the water. That was very early on. There were others…' His voice tapered off and Alice pulled the blanket around her.

‘We should try to get out,' she said. ‘Try to find other people.' Suddenly, as the words spilled out of her mouth, she realised that being in the flat with Mr Hutchinson until the rains stopped might not be the most comfortable of options.

‘We won't get out yet,' said Mr Hutchinson. ‘The lift shaft is full of water. So are the stairs. And it's rising. We'll never last out there. We have to stay here until the flood subsides. But we need a plan. And we need food. In the army we had plans in the case of times like these. We should definitely have a plan. And I've been thinking…' His voice became more animated the more he spoke. Alice's head still pounded with the effects the vodka.

‘Do you have any water?' she said. Her throat felt like it was bunged up with sherbety chemical-tasting sand.

Hutchinson handed her a glass. ‘Last one,' he said. ‘I'll get some more in a moment. But we have work to do today, Alice. And we need to act quickly—the rain will get heavier. I've been keeping a diary.' He pulled out a crumpled notebook and flashed it in front of Alice. ‘I've always kept a journal, ever since my days in the Middle East. Stops you from going, well, stir-crazy.'

Alice licked the inside of her cheek and felt along the ridges of the gash she had bitten into.

‘My leg hurts,' she said. ‘It
really
hurts.'

‘I know,' he replied. ‘But it's nothing a strong girl like you can't handle. We have to be brave…' he stopped for a second and handed her a pear, ‘what's your name again, Davenport?'

‘Alice,' said Alice, licking out the sweet fruit juice. ‘My name is Alice.'

‘Alice,' he said absently, flicking through his book. ‘Do you want to play a game?'

Alice shrugged, sucking on the pear. ‘I guess so.'

Hutchinson smiled. ‘Well, that's great to know. So this is how it's going to go: I'll call you Davenport and you can call me Hutchinson—or sir. And we're going on a mission.'

Alice looked at him and nodded. ‘What sort of mission?' she said.

Hutchinson licked his pencil. ‘Today is a Tuesday and on Tuesdays the rain tends to be light enough until approximately five thirty, except for the odd heavy shower, of course. After that, it would be unwise for us to attempt any activity on either the balcony or the roof. Timing is everything in this game.'

Alice rubbed her eyes. She swung her legs over the side of the sofa and pulled on a jumper. When she pressed her injured leg on the floor, it took her weight but not without significant pain. She screwed up her face.

‘What are we going to do?' she said. There was something almost exciting about a mission.

Hutchinson smiled. ‘Do you know where the Middle East is, Davenport?' Alice shook her head as he beckoned her towards the hallway. ‘Come with me,' he said and grabbed her by the arm. Alice half-hopped, half-limped to the stairs as Hutchinson strode up towards the bedrooms. He stopped halfway, opposite the map.

‘
This
is the Middle East,' he said, pointing at the map on the wall. ‘Here is Iraq, here is Syria and the country to the left there is Jordan. Now, I want you to concentrate on Iraq. This is where I was stationed—the first time. I wasn't a young man even back then, I'll let you know, but I was strong, Davenport, I was strong.'

Alice watched as Hutchinson's eyes clouded over and he pulled out his pipe from his pocket. He struck a match and the faint smell of eggs wafted down the stairs towards her.

‘Can I get another drink?' she said. ‘I'm really thirsty.'

‘Pay attention, Davenport, I need you to focus. Your first mission will begin shortly but now I need you to concentrate. Now, just look at Iraq. In the south we have Basra—wonderful place, fine people—all gone. We are here, in the north, in Mosul. Some survivors, you see. And in the middle there is Fallujah. We don't know much about Fallujah. Are you getting my drift here, Davenport?'

Alice shrugged her shoulders.

‘I'm not sure I do,' she said.

‘Sir,' said Hutchinson. ‘Address me as either sir or Hutchinson when you speak to me.'

‘I'm not sure I do, sir,' said Alice. She ran her tongue over her teeth. They felt sticky and there was a terrible taste in her mouth.

‘Let's get straight to the point, Davenport. We are here in the north, you and me, in Mosul. Basra, to the South—floors one through five—is underwater. And then there's Fallujah. We don't know for sure whether there are any survivors in Fallujah. Team Hutchinson is on a discovery mission.'

‘I thought you said that there was no one else here,' said Alice, confused. ‘Sir, I'm not sure I understand.'

Her head felt light and airy and she leaned on the wall for support.

‘You will, private,' said Hutchinson. ‘Now, let's get some refreshments and then we'll make our plan of attack.'

O
n a clean sheet
of paper in his notebook, Hutchinson drew out a sketchy map of the building.

‘The water has made it as far as here.' He drew a line in the floor plan and scored out the floors below the line. ‘We won't be going anywhere further down than this.' Then he drew another line just below the top two floors. ‘There's nothing on either of these two levels, I've checked them all. But we need to search the properties below this line. Problem is…' he scratched the inside of his ear with the pencil, ‘…the problem is that the stairs are blocked. When the storms started, the cretins on the eighth floor barricaded themselves in to prohibit anyone coming down from these two floors and stealing their food—wardrobes and the like stopping up the stairs like a great big constipated colon. So we're going to need to go another way.'

Alice watched as he supped on the second bottle of vodka. He looked over at her and tipped the bottle in her direction. Her stomach retched at the thought.

‘No thanks,' she said.

‘Sir?'

‘
Sir
,' she said and let her gaze melt into the lined notebook on the table in front of her. Hutchinson was deep in concentration and not smiling at all.

‘We're looking for tobacco, alcohol and any foodstuffs you can lay your hands on. Only look for things that are tinned and preferably don't need mixing with water. Anything fresh will have gone bad by now—and absolutely no meat unless it's in a can. You'll have just under an hour to get in and out. Make sure you bring me back something strong. There'll be a reward in it for you if you do.' He put his hand on Alice's leg.

‘We need to trust each other now, Davenport,' he said and then touched the side of her face.

M
ajor Hutchinson made
them wait for exactly fifteen minutes after smashing the bedroom window two floors downstairs before making the next move. He swung the large basket he'd attached to the rope back and forth until the hole in the window had seemed big enough to push the small girl through. Alice's head swirled as Hutchinson lowered her over the balcony. The rope dug into her hands and as she crouched her legs into the basket, she could feel them shaking beneath her. The pain in her leg was invisible compared to her fear of falling into the deep grey swirling mass below.

‘Lean inwards,' called Hutchinson. ‘Get a grip on the ledges and I'll go slowly.' Alice could almost hear him smiling. ‘Chin up, private,' he called cheerfully. ‘We'll have you back on dry land in no time!'

A
s she neared the window
, the wind whipped up and swayed the basket back and forth. Alice closed her eyes and waited as Hutchinson took the strain and steadied the basket until she was level with the window. Taking the hammer, she tapped around the edges of broken glass, levering them and then pushing inwards like Hutchinson had shown her.

‘You ready?' he called. Alice could just about hear his voice as it was eaten by the wind. The swing of the rope threw her almost entirely into the room and she used her hands, filled with splinters of glass, to pull herself over the window ledge and straight onto the bed. It was the smell that she noticed first. Next, it was the clusters of flies that buzzed along the ceiling of the room and then out into the cloudy sky like musical notes along a stave. On the bed was the stinking corpse of a dog, already long dead. Letting out a screech, she threw herself onto the floor, shaking.

‘All right, private?' called Hutchinson.

‘Fine and dandy,' said Alice, her heart beating like a drum. She tugged on the rope to signal her arrival. Pulling open the bedroom door that had been jammed shut, she made her way downstairs, head spinning and stomach turning.

I
n the first kitchen
, the cupboards were empty except for two tins of dog food. Disappointed, she kicked the base unit door, which bounced open. Under the sink there were the dregs of a half bottle of whisky. Alice opened the bottle and sniffed. The rancid liquid burned her eyes and she shoved it into the basket. The front room had been completely trashed and the windows broken, an icy wind whispering through the curtains. Like Hutchinson had instructed, she walked out through the rim of the door and climbed over the wood fencing separating the back balconies. But the next flat was exactly the same. And so was the next. By the time Alice reached the fourth flat, she had been gone for over half an hour and all that she had was a drip of whisky, the dog food and a can of processed peas that were out of date.

In the last flat in the row, the windows weren't smashed. As she climbed over the balcony, she called out, first in a whisper and then more loudly but no one answered. Taking the hammer in one hand and covering her eyes with the other, she banged on the glass until it shattered into pieces on the floor. When the last pieces fell, and there was no other sound, Alice crept through into the front room. She stepped over the glass, which crinkled underneath her feet.

It smelled even worse than the bed she had landed on when she had first arrived on the eighth floor. The walls were papered with cream-and-white roses, faded yellow with decades of smoke damage and wear. On the floor, in front of the electric fire, was a pile of half-burned books, charred around the edges and damp. The front door had been barricaded with a sturdy wooden table and a large bookcase. A chill ran through Alice's bones.

Someone had to still be in the house.

‘Hello,' she called, but there was no answer. In the kitchen, the cupboards were not over-healthy but there were some cartons of cereal, biscuits and chocolate. Alice filled the basket and then opened one of the small bars of chocolate and inhaled the sweet, deep smell of cocoa. It melted in a delicious frenzy in her mouth and she savoured every piece. She chewed it, sucked it and swallowed, the sugar tingling through her fingers to the roots of her hair. For a moment she was delirious—until she remembered the barricade at the front door.

The stairs were as old as those in number 59, but creaked twice as noisily. Each step let out a distressed moan as she pushed her foot downwards, as lightly as she could without hurting herself or creating too much noise. Balancing her weight on the balustrade, she picked her way gently upstairs. The smell of decay was overpowering. It was a sweet, ugly smell more potent even than the rubbish chute at the end of her balcony. Pulling her T-shirt over her face, she picked onwards, the smell hugging her brain and her lungs. It was only when she shoved open the bedroom door that the horror hit her.

T
he couple
in the bed were embracing; skinny brown arms the colour of creamed coffee poking up above the covers. An empty bottle of pills stood on the cabinet next to them, and one of them, a man she presumed, was still clasping a bottle of spirits, one arm over the bedspread, the other around the person next to him. There was the whistle of the wind and the call of a bird somewhere in the distance. Standing as far back as she could, Alice pulled on the bottle, wrenching it out of the withered hand. As she turned to leave the room, she hobbled back to the bed and carefully pulled the duvet over the couple.