Underdogs. Chris Bonnello
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Kate had gone silent, but her brain was loud with anxiety. Ewan’s orders were received by her ears but the meaning of his words washed over her.
‘Kate,’ he said, ‘you and Mark go for the staff areas. Simon and I will go from classroom to classroom.’
‘Which leaves the function rooms like soft play and the speech therapy place for me and Gracie,’ said Raj. ‘You want us in the least likely places to see action, since we’re the least effective soldiers.’
‘Shut up, Raj.’
‘It’s true though, isn’t it? I can read you like a book.’
‘Raj, you can’t even read an actual book.’
Kate took a deep breath. Her wits were returning. Maybe it was the casual insults thrown at her boyfriend that woke her up. She looked around the group, back on their feet at the brow of the hill and sheltered behind the tree line.
‘So… what about me?’ asked Jack.
‘Keep guard here.’
‘What, so I have to miss out?’
‘You get to protect us. Alert us if you see—’
‘Is this because I talked to you about—’
‘—alert us if you see anything approaching. Or any activity that’s not us.’
Kate did not understand why Ewan was so irritated with Jack, or what they had talked about that could have caused the tension between them. Jack shook his head, the hair beneath his helmet waving across his face in messy protest.
‘Just do yourself a favour, yeah?’ he asked.
‘What?’ said Ewan.
‘If this place is abandoned, they’ve probably finished the testing already. When you’re close to the entrance, throw a bullet first and see if it blows up. Don’t walk gun-first into a shield that detonates metal.’
Ewan nodded, and Kate heard him whisper something to himself under his breath. Then, with no words of encouragement for his team, without even repeating the mission criteria, he started his walk down the hill, followed by Kate and the rest of the students.
This has got to him . A lready.
The emotional impact of the night was probably compounded by the fact that there had been no changing of the guard at three o’clock. Ewan had relied on the enemies’ routine for his strategy, and the rug had been pulled from underneath his plans. More than that, it suggested that the building had not been guarded in the first place, and they had wasted three hours of their time outside an empty building.
Kate understood his frustration. When one thing bothered her, it bothered her. When several things bothered her at once, she lost her capacity to think. Both she and Ewan reaped the benefits and suffered the consequences of autistic single-mindedness, and were unable to focus on two different sources of anxiety. Ewan could have coped with the emotional strain of seeing Oakenfold, or the sudden change of circumstances, but not both.
Ewan left the bottom of the hill, and led the march across the car park towards the school entrance. As Kate followed, she noticed how neatly the abandoned cars were parked alongside each other. When the clones had come, nobody had been given a chance to escape in their own vehicles. She even recognised a couple of the cars as belonging to specific staff members.
Part way across the car park, Ewan removed a bullet from his pistol and lobbed it towards the school. The bullet glided through the air and smacked against the wall without complaint. Oakenfold was unshielded.
By the time they reached the front entrance, Kate was first in line. She lay a hand on the door to her old school, took a deep breath, then paused as Simon started frantically jumping up and down, pointing towards something inside.
‘Simon?’ she asked.
Then they all saw it. In the corner of the entrance hall, a door-shaped shadow fell on the wall opposite the toilets. And where there was shadow, there was light.
‘Well spotted,’ said Raj. ‘Someone’s left the light on in the loos.’
‘So?’ asked Gracie.
‘Well if Jack were here,’ said Raj, in an obvious protest against Ewan’s team selection, ‘he’d tell you that’s proof that the clones have been here. Because all the other lights have been switched off since… since we last saw this place.’
Since Takeover Day, Raj. You can say it.
‘You know what else I’d say?’ came a voice from the radio that made Kate jump. ‘I’d say it’s proof that this place has electricity. By the way, watch the controls on your radios. Make sure you know whether they’re transmitting or not. And only use them if it’s absolutely urgent, or you’re sure there’s nobody around to hear. While I’m at it, don’t use your torches inside until you know you’re alone. Not even lighters. You can’t afford to give yourselves away, even from a distance.’
There was annoyance in Jack’s voice, which he was trying but failing to hide. Kate understood why. He must have wanted to see the inside of the school that had saved him from suicide in his worst years. But Jack of all people knew the importance of duty and following commands, even if it hurt him.
‘Right,’ muttered Ewan, ‘thanks Jack.’
‘Oh, and if they’ve got electricity, they might have set the alarms. Be careful, and remember the code’s 1989.’
‘How the hell do you kn—’
‘Because I spent years looking at the faded one, eight and nine digits every time I walked past the alarm. And the school was founded in 1989, so it doesn’t take a genius.’
Kate looked back at Ewan’s hands. Even in the dark, she could see their tightening, determined grip.
‘I hope the alarm is set,’ he said. ‘It’d mean there’s no clones inside. Kate, open the door.’
It was harder than Kate had thought. The inside of Oakenfold would be where her ugly past met her ugly present. It had been the place where she’d tried to recover from her years of bullying – and only partially succeeded. Now, the best school on Earth would showcase the horrors of a post-Takeover Britain.
She pulled the door open, and the last free students of Oakenfold Special School crept back into the building they had escaped from together. After almost a whole year, it could perhaps have been a sentimental moment. But Nicholas Grant was days away from launching an invincible protective shield that might have been perfected in that same building, so it hardly felt magical.
The alarm didn’t sound. Ewan looked disappointed, as far as Kate could tell. It wasn’t proof that clones were in the building, but it kept the possibility open.
‘Nothing above a whisper,’ Ewan said, following his own instruction. Before splitting up, the group of six stood together for a brief moment of shared empathy. Raj said it first.
‘United by our differences, guys.’
‘United,’ whispered everyone else.
Ewan wasted no time in heading for the classroom nearest to the entrance – the one for the profoundly disabled students, who had needed rolling in and out of school in specialised wheelchairs. Simon followed him with a nervous huff.
Raj and Gracie headed straight for the sensory room, already resigned to not finding anything interesting.
‘Shall we?’ asked Mark.
‘Yeah, sure,’ replied Kate.
‘This way first. Head teacher’s office.’
The reception was right next to them, but Mark had made his decision to inspect the most important room first. Kate started to follow him as he set off, but a thought struck her.