The End (43 page)

‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ she said. But deep down she knew that
she
had
tried to manipulate him. She
had
given hints that he might be in with a chance. But only tiny hints, nothing definite.

‘If you’ll be my girlfriend,’ said David quietly, still not daring to look at her, ‘I’ll stop this. I’ll take my troops away. I’ll go back to the palace. I’ll stop Paul from communicating with St George. If you’ll only be my girlfriend.’

‘Is that
what you need?’ said Nicola. ‘An excuse to stop doing this? To save face?’

‘I didn’t mean it to go this far,’ he said. ‘I’m not a bad person. Am I?’

Nicola touched him gently on the shoulder. Could she stop this? With just one word? Say yes to him … Was that all it would take …?

63

David looked round eagerly, Nicola’s hand still gently resting on his shoulder, but he could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t offering him anything more than this. She couldn’t disguise it. She couldn’t outright lie to him.

‘David,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t work like that. You can’t
make
me be your girlfriend. I like you. I just don’t like you in that way.
I’m sure you can find someone else. There’s plenty of girls at the palace who worship you. Just not me. I could never fake it. Can’t you see that?’

‘It’s you I want.’

‘Forget it, OK? You’ve got to stop what you’re doing here. You’ve got to because that’s the right thing to do. Not because I tell you to. Not because if you do I’ll kiss you and everything will be like a fairy
tale.’

David suddenly jumped up and pushed Nicola over. She tumbled out of her chair and sprawled on to the damp grass. He stood over her, staring down, his finger pointing, struggling to speak.

He said nothing. Simply turned and marched back towards the fire. Nicola got up and went after him, pulling at his jacket.

‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Come back. Let’s talk about this.’

He walked on. ‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ he said. ‘You’ve made it really clear that you despise me. I’m just a bit of crap on your shoe.’

‘No,’ said Nicola. ‘I didn’t say that. I never said anything like that. Don’t be stupid. I said I like you. Just not in that way …’

David went over to one of his boys, grabbed the rifle from his hands and waved it at Nicola.

‘You
see this?’ he said. ‘I have this. I have power. I can get what I want.’

Nicola giggled, not quite believing this, getting more hysterical. David’s guys had got those rifles at the Imperial War Museum and she didn’t even know if they worked, whether they knew how to fire them. She’d always assumed that they were just for show. Now here was David coming over all macho. She knew
she shouldn’t laugh. It was only making him worse. But he looked silly waving the gun about. It wasn’t his style, and she hoped that others might join in, make him see how foolish he was being.

‘Come on. Is that it?’ she said. ‘You’re going to shoot me if I don’t kiss you?’

That got the attention of some of the kids nearby. It was getting interesting now.

‘Shut up,’ David
hissed.

‘Are you going to lunge at me again?’ said Nicola.

‘Shut up. I didn’t.’

‘He did,’ said Nicola, looking round at all the faces goggling at her. ‘He did. Over there. Just now. He said that if I agreed to be his girlfriend he’d stop fighting the other children.’

There was some laughter, a low hum of excitement.
Nicola had her audience. If David wasn’t going to
fix this mess, she was. She could make a difference.

‘Listen to me. All of you. Listen to what I’m saying. See sense. Don’t listen to David. I seriously think he’s nuts. Yeah? You’re all on the wrong side. You’ve got to see that. Those are your friends over there. They’re children like you. And David, just because he can’t get a snog, is going to take his gun and go marching around
shooting people to show what a big man he is. You don’t have to follow him. Go home.’

But nobody stood up. Nobody said anything. Nobody shouted out ‘She’s right!’ and came over to stand by her side like they would have done in a Hollywood film. They just stared at her, enjoying the show. This tripped a switch in Nicola. She was an itchy tangle of anger and fear and embarrassment
and too many other too complicated emotions to make sense of. She watched herself. Knew that she was only going to make things worse. Knew she should stop. But couldn’t.

She went over to David and gave him a shove.

‘You’re a dick,’ she said. ‘You’re an idiot. I take it all back. I hope you never get a girlfriend. I don’t think you’ve ever had one. Who the hell would ever want
to kiss you? You’re revolting. You make my skin crawl.’

A couple of kids clapped. Nicola was blushing. Knew she had to leave before she said anything else.

This wasn’t like her. She wanted to say sorry, but was worried that the words would stick in her throat. She turned and walked away and, as she walked, she felt a thump in her back. Thought that David must have punched
her, pushed her, because the next thing she knew she was lying on the ground.

She couldn’t believe it. He’d knocked her over. The bastard. Typical male way to win an argument – with violence. Then Nicola realized that there was a noise ringing in her ears. There had been a sharp crack. A bang. And she couldn’t move her legs. A terrible cold pain was spreading across her back
and deep into her chest. She managed to twist round far enough to see David standing there, white-faced, utterly shocked, his mouth hanging open. The rifle in his hands pointed at her.

No. Not that. She couldn’t believe it. Had he shot her? Had he really shot her? There was blood in her mouth and in her throat. She was struggling to breathe. She wanted to say something, but felt
a clamp round her head, crushing it tighter and tighter, her sight blurring and fizzing.

She couldn’t believe it. It made no sense at all.

Of all the things she thought might happen when she came here, this wasn’t one. To be shot like this. Tears came into her eyes. She closed them, laid her head down on the grass and in a few moments her tears were the only part of her
moving.

Her heart had stopped.

64

‘We have to surrender,’ said Justin, dusty morning light shining down on him from the high windows in the museum. ‘We can’t beat them. I’ve spoken to everyone who was there. All that will happen is our best fighters will get killed. We have to change our tactics. Let David take control. What difference does it make? We pull back into our buildings if we have to, make
the museum secure. If the sickos try to get in we kill them. But it’s crazy to be trying to fight a battle up there in the park. I’m going to get Nicola. We’ll go up there together and see Jordan, talk to him. Talk to David. They’ve both got to stop this before it’s too late.’

‘Is already too late.’ Achilleus’s voice rang down from the upper gallery. Sam looked up to see him
leaning over the balcony.

Sam and all the other kids in the museum were gathered round the diplodocus. Justin hadn’t had time to call an official meeting in the Hall of Gods, so he was talking to them from halfway up the steps by the statue of Charles Darwin.

‘We have to fight.’ Achilleus came striding along the gallery and everyone watched in silence as he got to the end,
came down and stood next to Justin. He was wearing his battle gear.

‘We have
not
run out of time,’ said Justin. ‘Most of our fighters are still alive.’

‘Can they fight airborne spores?’

‘What?’

‘Can they fight viruses? Bacteria? Parasites? With swords and spears and clubs?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ said Justin. ‘We’re talking about an army of sickos.’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ said Achilleus. ‘It’s not about fighting people, it’s about fighting disease. The sickos are carriers. We gotta stop them before they infect us. Before they turn us into them.’ He scanned the faces in the crowd until he saw who he was looking for.

‘Yo, Einstein,’ he shouted. ‘Get up here.’

Einstein came out of the crowd and sauntered up the
steps to Achilleus, trying to look casual, but you could tell he was scared, wondering what Achilleus was going to do to him. Sam remembered their horrible argument yesterday.

‘I don’t like you one bit,’ said Achilleus. ‘Never have. Never will. But I guess you’re smart and you know what you’re doing. So tell it like it is, from what you know – tell these people what’ll happen
if we don’t stop that army out there. Right now. If we don’t kill every last one of them.’

‘OK,’ said Einstein. ‘Basically Achilleus is right. They’re gathered here together because they want to spawn. Disperse. Broadcast. Whatever you want to call it. They want to send their spores out. They want to spread the disease.’

‘So why are they fighting us?’ called out Wiki. ‘Why
are they killing us, if we’re supposed to be the new hosts?’

‘I don’t know. Something’s gone wrong. Maybe because we attacked them they’ve gone into automatic fight mode.
Maybe it’s St George. Maybe he’s strong enough to beat the disease’s programming. His human will is overriding his genetic impulse to multiply. That and David’s influence. Getting Paul up there to communicate
with them. Or maybe we’re a threat. Us. Specifically. I mean, we know they want to kill Small Sam because they’re aware that he carries the antidote. His blood is the one thing that can destroy the disease.’

‘So we
got
to kill them,’ said Achilleus. ‘And we gotta kill them fast. No two ways about it. We gotta stop them before they’re ready to pass the parasites on and create
a whole new generation of sickos.’

‘Yeah? And where were you yesterday?’

Sam was amazed. It was Jibber-jabber. Calling Achilleus out. His voice full of hurt and hate. How was he brave enough to stand up to him? Was it just that he’d been a good friend of Paddy?

Achilleus looked at him and nodded slowly.

‘You’re right, younger,’ he said. ‘Where was I yesterday? Not where
I should of been.’

‘Yes,’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘Paddy wanted to do your fighting for you – he was ashamed of you. If you’d been out fighting it wouldn’t have happened; and they wouldn’t be dead, Paddy and the others, they wouldn’t all be dead.’

Achilleus was still staring at Jibber-jabber.

‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘All you lot – what did Paddy call you? The Youngbloods –
you come with me, yeah? The rest of you. Wait here.’

Sam looked at The Kid who was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to him. The Kid shrugged.

‘Where he goes my rosemary grows,’ said The Kid and he stood up.

Two minutes later Sam and the smaller kids were all clustered round the sequoia at the top of the museum. Achilleus’s spear was still sticking out of the centre.

‘I can’t undo what I did,’ said Achilleus. ‘Can’t put things right. But I will fight today. And I will beat the enemy – for Paddy. And for you guys. His death will mean something – it’ll mean victory for us kids. And you guys will keep his name alive. He’ll be a hero. You’ll talk him up. A bigger hero even than me. Paddy’s gonna win this battle for all of us. OK?’

The Youngbloods
nodded. Achilleus gripped the spear.

‘What did Paddy say?’ he asked. ‘About this spear?’

‘Whoever pulls it out is, like, king of the world,’ said Jibber-jabber.

‘For Paddy,’ said Achilleus, and he pulled the spear out as easily as if it had been stuck in a cushion.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘For what I said.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ said Achilleus. ‘You were right.
I was wrong. Remember this – heroes are usually dicks.’

Jibber-jabber laughed and Achilleus cuffed him round the head.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get all those other dicks up and doing some good.’

Achilleus walked fast down the stairs, shouting all the way.

‘Anyone who can fight!’ he yelled. ‘Not the little ones, not the scientists, but any of you wasters that trained
in the park and are supposed to be up there now. Any of you who, like me, spent yesterday sitting on your arses, you’re coming with me. We’re going to the fight.’

‘All right,’ someone shouted back. There was a rumble of chatter around the hall as Achilleus marched down the
final run of steps and headed towards the doors. Kids started to cheer and clap, slapping him on the back.
He pulled the doors wide and waited there as the other kids streamed out past him.