Acid (19 page)

And I have no idea if I’m going to be able to do it.

Over the next two weeks, as the group prepares for the attack on the rally, there’s a sense of purpose about them that wasn’t there before. We have meetings every day, during which Jacob keeps using words beginning with ‘gen’ and winking at me whenever no one else is looking. In between the meetings, the others no longer spend most of the day reading or lounging about in their dens, with short breaks for watch duty or to clean up; instead, they practise pulling out the pin on the deactivated bomb, or pore over Jacob’s plan of the square where the rally will take place, making sure they know where they’re supposed to be. Max and I pore over them too, but for a different reason: we’re trying to memorize the layout of the streets around the square, and work out the easiest route for us to make our escape. The best way looks like one of the side streets on the eastern side of the square. There’s a commercial district nearby, which will mean – if it’s anything like London – PKPs. If we can find one that works, we’re going to use it to send an anonymous warning about the attack.

And then we need to find some way to get hold of Mel.

The night before the rally, everyone goes to bed early, but I’ve never felt less like sleeping in my life. ‘What if we don’t manage to warn anyone in time?’ Max whispers as we lie side by side. ‘What if the bombs go off and people get killed?’

I stare up into the darkness. I’m thinking the same thing. I’ve been thinking it every day. Along with:
What if we don’t manage to escape?
and
What if we get killed too?

I hear his blankets rustle as he moves and, suddenly, I feel his fingers thread through mine. I clutch his hand tight, as if somehow this will make everything turn out all right.

‘I’m scared,’ Max whispers.

‘Me too,’ I whisper back, because I am – I really am. It’s the first time I’ve felt this frightened in a long, long time. And I hate it. ‘But we can do this. We
have
to.’

I turn my head, and it’s only then that I realize he’s moved closer. I can feel his breath tickling my face. He’s so close we could . . .

I shut my eyes and, for a few dizzying seconds, let myself imagine what it would be like to kiss him. I’ve never kissed anyone, not even Dylan. After he told me how he felt about me, I wanted to, but he said we should
wait until the time is right
, whatever that meant. Now, I find it harder than ever to believe I threw everything away to try to be with him. He never made me feel like this.

And what would it be like, as Max kissed me, to touch
the
soft hair at the nape of his neck or stroke the stubble shadowing his jaw?

Get a grip, Jenna
, I tell myself furiously.
People’s lives depend on you tomorrow, and all you can think about is snogging Max
.

I let go of his hand. ‘We should get some sleep,’ I say.

Max is silent for a moment, long enough for me to wonder if he was thinking the same thing as me just now. Then he murmurs, ‘Yeah,’ and I hear his blankets rustle as he turns back over.

I continue to stare into the darkness, wishing that tomorrow was over and that we were already far away from here.

CHAPTER 29

THE NEXT MORNING
, after a hurried, silent breakfast, we all head down to the covered car park connected to the library basement, a concrete cavern with water plopping down from the roof. Outside, the sun’s up – I can see fingers of grey light coming down the ramp at the far end of the car park – but in here it’s gloomy and dank. Jacob, a pack slung over one shoulder, watches the ramp with a pensive expression while the others cough and shuffle their feet. All of us, including Elyn, are wearing clothes Jacob’s given us: jeans and sweatshirts and hooded jackets in dark, nondescript colours; clothes that will let us blend in with the crowd, and make it easy for us to get away. The mood is nervous, charged with tension. I rub my eyes. In the end, I got about an hour’s sleep last night, and everything feels brittle and surreal.

A few minutes later, I hear the burr of tyres, and a large, boxy white van comes bumping down the ramp, its electric motor humming. It pulls up nearby, and the driver, a middle-aged guy with stubble on his face and a protruding belly, gets out. He and Jacob have a discussion in lowered voices, the driver glancing over at us every now and then.

The driver goes round the back and pulls up the door. Inside are stacks of plastic crates with numbers stamped across them. Jacob jerks his head at them. ‘Get in the crates near the back. I’ll put the lids on.’

Max and I go first. The empty crate Jacob directs us to is just big enough for both of us to fit inside if we sit with our spines curved over and our arms hugged around our knees. I’m relieved to see there are small holes along the sides of the crate. At least we’ll be able to breathe.

I don’t know how long it takes us to get to Manchester – I have no way of telling how much time has passed – but it feels like hours. The van speeds up, slows down. A couple of times, it stops altogether and I think,
We’re at a checkpoint. ACID are going to search the van and find us
.

But it doesn’t happen. Eventually, the van stops again and I hear the door rattle open. A few minutes later, the lid is lifted off our crate.

‘Get out,’ Jacob says above us.

I climb out, my muscles twinging in protest after being crunched up for so long, and turn to help Max. I realize we’re in some sort of gigantic warehouse, the van parked in front of stacks of wooden pallets that reach almost up to the roof. A couple of flickering strip lights above them cast a small patch of watery light down onto the area directly in front of the van; the rest of the warehouse is lost in darkness, the air filled with the smell of dust and chemicals.

The others are already out of the van. As I jump down
onto
the stained concrete floor of the warehouse, I see Jacob and the driver standing at the front of the van, discussing something in quiet, urgent tones. When they’ve finished talking, he comes back over to us, lifting the pack off his shoulder and unzipping it.

‘Strap these round your middles, underneath your clothes,’ he says, reaching inside and lifting out a bundle of small fabric wallets on clip-clasp belts. ‘And remember: be careful. They should be perfectly safe until you remove the pins, but they
are
live.’

When he passes mine to me, he holds my gaze for a few seconds. ‘Don’t forget to be
gen
tle with it,’ he says. I keep my expression neutral, not wanting to give him the pleasure of knowing how much he gets to me, and pull up my sweatshirt. Through the wallet’s lightly padded fabric, I can feel the shape of the explosive device. My mouth is dry as I clip it round my waist. With my sweatshirt pulled down again, you’d never know it was there.

‘What about metal detectors?’ Paul says.

‘The wallets are lined with a substance that blocks whatever’s inside from metal detector signals,’ Jacob explains. ‘ACID could scan you from head to toe while you’re wearing those things, and they wouldn’t get a single bleep.’

He puts one on too. Then he says, ‘OK. It’s oh-seven-forty. We’re pretty near the ceremony square, and there are already a lot of people about, so you’d better head over there. There’s a door on the far side of the warehouse that opens out into an alley between here and the next
building
. Slip into the crowd in ones and twos without drawing any attention to yourselves and get to your positions. And you two, wait,’ he adds as Max and I start to follow the others to the exit. ‘Elyn!’

Elyn stops, looks back.

‘Slight change of plan. I want you to stay with Sarah and Declan.’

‘OK,’ she says, flashing him one of those sweet smiles.
Damn
, I think.

‘Everyone be back here by oh-nine-hundred,’ Jacob calls after us.

The alley running alongside the warehouse is narrow and choked with rubbish, and it’s raining. As we make our way to the alley entrance, everyone, including me and Max, pulls up their hoods. Rory slips out first, then Neela and Shaan, then Jack, then Paul and Amy, then Lukas.

‘Follow me,’ Elyn says after a few moments.

The street in front of the warehouse is as busy as any of Outer London’s on ceremony day. The difference is that there are no banners, no girls in fancy dresses or guys in smart suits, and there isn’t the same buzz of excitement in the air. People look tense, and they’re moving along almost in silence. As the three of us slink in amongst them I notice the ACID agents standing on either side of the road, guns held ready as they watch everyone through their mirrored visors. I pull my hood down further over my face, more relieved than ever that it’s raining.

Walking behind Elyn, Max looks over at me. He
doesn’t
need to speak for me to know what he’s thinking.
How are we going to get away from her?

I lift one shoulder in a tiny shrug.
Don’t know. I’ll think of something
, I telegraph back.

The buildings in Manchester seem to be mostly concrete tower blocks, laid out in a grid pattern – another thing that reminds me of Outer London. The streets between them are confusingly similar, and I wonder if it will be as easy to find our way to the commercial district as it looked on the plan.

When we reach one of the entrances to the square, I see a huge metal detector arching across it, and ACID agents carrying out random c-card checks. As we pass under the detector, I hold my breath, but it doesn’t go off, and Elyn deftly avoids the agents by leading us through the middle of a throng of people. ‘Stay at the back of everyone,’ she murmurs as we make our way to the spot where Jacob marked our names on the plan, which is near the entrance to another apartment block.

I can’t actually see the square – there are too many people in front of us – but the news screens around us are showing its vast, empty centre and the crowd surrounding it, held back by rope barriers. In the corners of the screens, I see the clock displays. 0757. My stomach clenches.

Elyn is standing almost directly in front of Max, her hands jammed in her pockets. I look at the people around us. They’re all watching the news screens; no one’s paying us any attention. Maybe I could grab her, pin her
arms
against her sides and— No. She’d struggle. Make a noise. And then people
would
notice us, and someone might link ACID.

The clock displays on the screens flick over to 0800. All of a sudden a roar goes up from the crowd, the people around us throwing their arms up in the air and cheering. On the screens, I see a column of ACID agents marching into the square through the steadily falling rain, a vast black caterpillar that seems to go on and on. They move like robots, their arms and legs swinging in perfect synchronization. Another column marches in, and another. Music, a harsh brass band tune, starts playing from hidden speakers somewhere, and as the square continues to fill with ACID agents, those who are already there begin a slow parade around it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many agents in one place before.

Then one breaks away from the end of the first line to stand in front of them all and shouts something I can’t make out, because his voice is too distorted by the amplifier he’s using. When the cameras zoom in on his face, which you can see because he’s pushed the visor of his helmet up, the roars of the crowd intensify, and I gasp. It’s General Harvey. With his face on the screens in close-up, it’s as if he’s staring straight at me. I stare back, mesmerized, until the clock on the screen flicks over to 0810, jolting me back to reality. In front of Max, Elyn is cheering along with everyone else, pumping a fist in the air in time to the music. I nudge Max and mouth,
Shift over
. There’s just enough space for
him
to take a couple of steps to his left. It’s all I need.

Moving behind Elyn, I check no one’s watching us and I take a deep breath. This move is something I’ve never tried before, only been told about by Dr Fisher, and if I don’t get it right it’ll either do nothing at all, or kill her.

But I have to try it. It’s our only chance to stop this.

Standing slightly to her left, I put out my arm, ready to catch her when –
if
– she falls back. Then I bring the side of my right hand into her neck in a hard chop and use my right leg to sweep
her
right leg out from under her.

Immediately, she sags back against me. I lower her gently to the ground, saying, ‘Elyn? Elyn! Are you OK?’ while I reach under her hood to place two fingers against her neck, checking frantically for a heartbeat. When I feel the steady thud of her pulse, my legs go weak with relief. She’s just unconscious. It worked.

‘Is she OK?’ a woman standing next to Max says, seeing me holding Elyn up.

‘Yes, I think she’s fainted – she doesn’t do very well in crowds,’ I say. Glancing around, I see an alleyway. ‘We’d better give her a bit of space.’

With the woman’s help, Max and I push through everyone, carrying Elyn between us to the alleyway, which is blocked off at the other end by a brick wall. ‘Will you be OK?’ the woman says, glancing behind her. I nod, smiling at her, and she heads back into the crowd to reclaim her spot.

‘We need to get rid of our belts,’ I mutter to Max as we lay Elyn down on the ground. He nods and moves to block me from the view of the people behind us while I reach under my sweatshirt and unclip the wallet, placing it next to Elyn. Then he does the same.

‘Go,’ I mutter to Max. We push back out into the crowd and inch along the edge of it. I’m looking for a way out of the square that isn’t manned by ACID, and trying to keep my bearings and remember where the others are stationed. If any of them catch sight of us, especially Jacob, we’re dead.

Then I see it – another narrow gap between two buildings, but this time it isn’t blocked off. After one last glance at the crowd to make sure we’re not being watched, Max and I dart down it. The street on the other side is empty now; everyone must be at the rally, even the ACID agents who were out here before. I look around for a news screen to check the time: 0815. Fifteen minutes until the bombs are armed.
Shit
.