The Vanished (13 page)

“What about us?” I blurted out.

Dr Woods stared me down with cold eyes. “What about you?”

“We’re a powerful unit. We can work together to help you,” I said.

“Mina, I don’t think––” Dad started.

“––Hear me out,” I interrupted. I turned back to the Council, talking mainly to Mary and Sergeant Kinsella, the two people on the Council who had the most sense. “You know about our powers but do you know how we fit together? Do you know that we are connected?”

General Lloyd leaned forward in his chair. “In what way?”

“Well, I can move things. I’m touch. Hiro hears thoughts. He’s hearing. Mike smells emotion. He’s smell. Daniel sees the future. He’s sight. Kitty tracks by taste.” I paused and looked at the confused faces of the Council. “Don’t you see? We’re connected by senses. Don’t you understand how powerful that makes us as a unit? Daniel sees Hamish coming through his vision – that makes us prepared for the attack. When they are close Kitty will taste them arriving and Mike and Hiro will be able to tell us what the army are thinking and feeling. Before they even attack us we will know how many there are, what they plan to do and how they feel about it.” I stopped and looked around triumphantly.

General Lloyd leaned back and turned to his ally, the doctor. They shared a look. “And what about you?”

“What?” I asked General Lloyd.

“What do you bring to this little group?” He waggled his hand in our direction.

“I can throw them around. I can flip cars and tanks, disarm them, lift people in the air.”

“So you’re the fighter,” he said, sounding impressed.

Mary snorted. “Ach, Mina, this is impossible. I dunnae care what ye can dae and what ye can’t, ye still a bunch o’kids. I’m not havin’ ye get hurt.”

“But, Mary, you saw how I helped the Scavengers get out of Area 14,” I protested.

“Yes, and I saw ye get grazed by a bullet. Fer God’s sake yer fifteen years old, lass.” She leaned back in her chair in exasperation. “The lad’s a bairn.” She pointed at Hiro.

“Now, wait a minute, Mary. They may be children, but they are genetically modified,” General Lloyd said.

“We might not be.” I narrowed my eyes. I didn’t like his tone. It was almost suggesting that we could be sacrificed on the basis of not being fully human. “We might just be more evolved than you.”

Mike laughed.

“This is utter nonsense,” Dad snapped. “Mary is correct here. You are too young and undertrained to deal with anything like this. There is an army out there more than capable of dealing with the attack.”

“But we could save lives,” I said.

“You could lose yours,” Sergeant Kinsella interrupted. “Then where would the world be? Without its sensory warriors.”

“I say let them do it,” Arthur Pittmore leaned so far back on the sofa that the springs creaked. “If they are genetically modified then the world can create new monsters. If in fact they need to.”

Dr Woods had watched this all unfold with his head resting on his fist and his legs crossed, the elbow of his arm propping up his head nestled on one thigh. “This is all very interesting. I see both sides of the story and I have to say I am fascinated in what you can do as a team.” He looked at each of us in turn. “But we’ve only heard from one and there are obviously five of you.” He chuckled. “Do you all want to fight against an army? Against a man like this?”

Kitty lifted her chin. “I know I do. I like tracking and I have a mean roundhouse kick.”

“I’ll fight,” Mike said. He took Kitty’s hand in his.

“I will too,” said Daniel.

I took Hiro’s hand and thought,
You don’t have to do this Hiro. You’re so young. I don’t want anything to happen to you.

Hiro turned to me with eyes that had seen far too much during his few years in the world. He gave one small jut of the chin before turning to the doctor. “I want to help too.”

Dr Woods smiled, revealing the white teeth that send a shiver down my spine. “Well as far as I can work out, the person who would be in real danger is Mina. Daniel has already had his vision, his work is done. Kitty and Mike will be forewarning us before they arrive, as will Hiro, unless we capture one of them. The only person who will need to work on their power when the men arrive is Mina. Do you think you’re up to the challenge, dear?”

I didn’t blink. “Yes.”

He laughed. “Well I’m convinced.” He steepled his fingers. “And I think I know a way to keep everyone safe.”

“What are you suggesting?” Dad said between gritted teeth.

“What about if the five of them stand in the tower of the castle? Mina will have a good view of the battle. She can flip as many people as she wants from there and she won’t get hurt.”

“Unless they use explosives or storm the castle gate,” Sergeant Kinsella warned. “There are a number of things that could go wrong.”

“Hiro will hear anything like that,” Dr Woods replied with a little shake of his wrist.

It was a surprisingly good plan, although I didn’t like the thought of being safe in a castle while people were fighting for their lives. “What about the children? Shouldn’t they be kept safe in the castle?”

“We’ll keep them safe,” Dr Woods said.

I almost opened my mouth to ask about the Celebration but thought better of it. “Then I suppose that’s everything.”

Mary exhaled through her teeth. “I’m not sure about all this, lass.”

Dad sighed. “As long as they’re safe in the castle.”

Dr Woods raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Oh, they will be.”

*

On the way out of the castle I hung back from the others so that I could ask Hiro some questions about the Council. We walked through narrow corridors while soldiers bumped shoulders with us. A few of them looked me up and down and whatever they were thinking it made Hiro blush. I didn’t want to know.

“Dr Woods kept trying to figure out what you are. He kept thinking about what you were made of, you know, inside. What makes us like we are and happened to our brains. He wants to run tests on us. Then there was weird things.” He paused.

“Go on,” I said.

“He used big words like transferable and copulation and reproduction. I think I know what that means.” Hiro blushed again.

A wave of nausea stopped me in my tracks. “He’s thinking about if we have kids and if they will be Freaks like us?”

“I think so,” Hiro said with a little shrug.

“Did he think about himself––”

“No,” Hiro said. “Ugh, no pictures, Mina.”

“Sorry.” Without realising it the thought had popped into my mind.

“He started reciting the alphabet again after that.”

A shiver ran down my spine. The thought of Dr Woods thinking of me or Kitty like that made bile rise in my throat. “Was there anything else? From the General?”

“He hates us. The entire time he was thinking about how he hated having someone in his head. He hates me and Mike. He thinks we’re disgusting.”

“I think he’s disgusting.”

“Mina, Hiro, what are you doing?” Daniel turned back and waved us on.

I pretended to fumble with my shoelace. “We’ll catch up, you guys go on ahead.”

Hiro frowned at me. “Do you want to keep this from them?”

I sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Why would you want to?”

“This all just feels so dangerous. I’m just worried about them getting hurt. Whenever people get involved with my problems they get hurt.”

“You mean Angela?” Hiro asked. He didn’t really have to ask. He knew.

Yes
, I thought.

“This is different.”

“I know,” I conceded. “I guess this is just how I’ve been brought up. In a family who keep things from each other.”

We were walking down another corridor, which looked suspiciously like the last corridor we walked down. There were a few tatty tapestries on the wall and everything was stone, the floors, the walls, the ceiling. It was dark and dirty, with a chill in the air.

“Have we come down too far?” I asked Hiro.

“I don’t know, I’m the kid. I was following you.” He rolled his eyes at me and I laughed.

“Mina? Mina is that you?” a voice came through a wooden door.

In the centre of the door was a narrow slot, like a post box, which was covered with grating. There was a handle to pull the grating back so that you could slide something narrow through the gap. I pulled the handle to find two brown eyes staring at me from inside the room. I recognised those eyes instantly. It was Sebastian.

“Sebastian? What are you doing in here?” I crouched down so that our eyes were level. Inside, I saw a sparse room with a narrow bed lacking in any sort of bedding or comfort, an empty food tray, a metal cup and a bucket. I didn’t want to know what was in the bucket. There was a smell of damp rot and urine coming from the room. “Why haven’t they let you out yet?”

“I don’t know,” he said. His voice came out in panicked rasps. He gripped hold of the peephole with his fingers. “I need to get out of here. It’s driving me crazy. I swear someone is whispering through the walls. I hear them.”

Hiro looked at me with wide eyes. Sebastian was scaring him.

“Calm down,” I said. “I know it must be horrible in there, but I’ll talk to Mary––”

“I don’t feel myself, Mina,” he interrupted. “I don’t know what’s going on inside me. I’m so angry all the time and I just… I don’t know what to do. I hit Ginge. I can’t believe I did that.” His eyes were huge and manic. “I hit a woman. I’m my father.” He grabbed hold of my hand through peephole. “Or worse. What if I’m programmed to be violent? What if my dad had them do something to me so that I’m a threat to everyone?” He squeezed on my hand so tight that it hurt.

“You aren’t a threat, okay,” I soothed. “You need to listen to me. You’re a good person. You’re a kind person. You are not your dad.”

“I killed someone.” His grip tightened and I gasped. “I killed the Enforcer. I could have saved you without killing him, but I didn’t. I held him under too long.”

“Sebastian, you’re hurting me.”

“I killed him, Mina. I have dreams.”

I remembered my nightmare. The dead boy floating in the lake. I blinked it away. We were in a gushing river and the boy had been holding my head under the water, trying to kill me. “It wasn’t your fault, Sebastian. You saved my life, remember?”

“But at what cost?”

“You need to let me go,” I said. “You’re really hurting me… Sebastian. Please.” Tears pricked at my eyes.

Sebastian let go of my hand, and I cradled it with my good hand. A large red mark was beginning to spread over my bony knuckles. There was no way of telling if it was fractured. Sebastian looked at my hand in horror.

“Oh God. I’m a monster.” He shuffled back across the floor. “I hurt you.”

How had this happened? How had Sebastian lost himself over night? Had I been such a terrible friend, caught up in my own love-life, that I’d missed seeing this coming? He’d been under more stress than the rest of us, treated badly by the people in the Compound.

“I’m going to get you out,” I said through the slot in the door. “I promise.”

Hiro placed a hand on my shoulder. “We should go.”

I straightened up with a sigh. He was right. We walked away in shocked silence, working our way back through the castle.

“What were his thoughts like?” I asked.

“All jumbled up. Scared.”

“Paranoid?” I asked.

“I think so,” he said. “That’s a big word, Mina.”

I ruffled his hair with my good hand. “I keep forgetting you’re ten.”

He sighed. “Everyone does.” We turned a corner to find the exit to the castle. “Your hand hurts. You should go to the nurse.”

“How am I going to explain it?”

“I don’t know, I’m ten.” Hiro grinned.

“You know that’s only cute a few times a day, don’t you?”

Instead of walking through the exit I turned left into the hospital wards, hoping that it wasn’t Dr Woods there but just a nurse. It was my lucky day and Susan examined me. She didn’t believe my story about falling and crushing my hand under my body, but she said nothing. She assured me that if I could wiggle my fingers they weren’t broken and wrapped up my hand with a bandage. She gave me a couple of pain killers and sent me off on my way. Hiro had stayed with me, so we left the castle together. That was when I bumped into a worried looking Ginge. She had a bruise on her right cheekbone.

“Have ye seen ‘im?” she asked.

I knew she meant Sebastian. “Yes,” I said.

“Can I talk to ye, Mina?” She looked at Hiro with some trepidation.

“I can get back to the barn on my own,” Hiro said.

“Are you sure? I can walk you back first,” I replied.

“I know my way around better than you,” he pointed out.

“Well hurry, and don’t talk to anyone,” I said. Hiro nodded and left, leaving me with the usually laconic Ginge. I wondered what she had to say.

“Ye know Sebastian, right?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I thought about the nights where we’d met up in the dark. The one kiss we’d shared together. It felt like years ago.

“Is he a bad person? I’m strugglin’ with this.” Her face hardened. “I dunnae take any crap from no one. I’m not like some o’ the girls I see in this place, bruises on their faces an’ arms from a scrap wi’their man.”

I cringed. So there were relationships in the Compound, and some abusive ones from the sound of it.

“Ye must think we’re weird here, eh?” Ginge said as though reading my thoughts. “We’re not like families in the Areas. I see ‘em out when I’m out Scavenging. Some look happy. They live in the same house. Have a coupla kids.” She looked longing. I’d never picked Ginge as the domestic type. “Like the GEM families. They look happy with their GEM kids and their big houses an’ that. That’s what yer used te. Not our weird set up.”

I wanted to ask her more about the set up in the Compound, but she seemed so worried about Sebastian that I decided to talk to her about that first. So I told her all about how we met and how his father had manipulated him into almost seducing me. I told her about the farm and how his dad had drugged me and kept me locked up for the Enforcers to collect me, and lastly I told her about how his father had treated his mother.

“I don’t think he meant to hit you,” I said. “He was drunk and angry. He wasn’t thinking straight, and I think he thought you were just another guy trying to attack him.”

She shrugged and looked at her shoes. “Ye think he deserves a second chance?”

“He’s troubled,” I said after a long pause. “And I don’t think being here is doing him any good. When we left the farm there was a fight, and we left without knowing if his family are okay. That must be eating him up. And then an Enforcer attacked me, tried to drown me. Sebastian saved my life, but the Enforcer died.” I sighed. “It’s been more trouble for him in the Compound. The community haven’t exactly welcomed him with open arms. Now he’s locked up on his own with all these things on his mind. I think it’s driving him a bit crazy.”

“What are ye saying?” Ginge asked. She looked at me and I saw genuine worry in her big blue eyes. She had a beautiful face, when her hair didn’t cover it up.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just to be careful, I guess. He’s a good person, just really damaged. His dad was… nasty.”

“A proper bastard,” Ginge said. Her hands pulled on the sleeves of her shirt. “He never told me any of this.”

“He’s probably ashamed.”

Ginge put her hands on her hips. “Ach, the first decent lad in the Compound and he’s a bloody messed up GEM.” She shook her head in exasperation. “So what were ye in the castle fer?”

I wasn’t sure what to tell her, whether to explain about the threat of the attack from Hamish and the Highlanders or whether to let Ali tell her after he’d spoken to Mary. It wasn’t my place to be telling any members of the Scavengers about Council business, but she’d been so open with me that it felt wrong to keep something from her.

“It was… we were… there to see the Council.”

Her eyes narrowed. Ginge was no fool. She knew when there was something going on. “Council business, eh? Sounds important.”

“I suppose you could say that.” I folded my arms and looked at her with level eyes.

“What de ye know?” A wicked grin spread across her face. Ginge was into danger in a big way. “Do I need te get me rifle?”

“Possibly.” I returned her smile.

Before Ginge could ask me any more questions Ali jogged over to us, his boots crunching against the gravel. We’d not made it far out of the castle gates and were stood facing the rest of the Compound. Afternoon sun peeked out from behind the castle, glinting on the trailers. Ali had to squint.

“We’re Scavenging. Need ye and yer rifle now.”

Ginge grinned and saluted at her leader before turning to head towards her trailer. “Meet ye at the border?”

Ali nodded. When Ginge was out of sight he turned to me. “Want te come?”