SECTION II

Click Here For Section III

It was a bedraggled threesome that eventually found their way back to the Mall. Under cover of the chaos caused by the tanks it had been easy enough to slip away from the meeting, although they had expected all the time to hear the somebody open fire. It had been a surreal experience, looking up into the sightless, staring eyes of the tanks; and it seemed incredible that they had not actually been seen by the people inside. Nobody had called after them, though, when they had edged their way out of their dark hiding place, and the staring guns had not turned to follow their progress. They slipped away together, moving in a strange sort of trance, then finally broke into a run.

And so they returned to the Mall, with a horrible tale to tell. The new rules imposed upon the city by Tribe Fury were enough to make even Lex's confidence fail, and the usually cocksure Ebony was silent and morose. For himself Bray didn't know how he felt. All the freedoms that they had won for themselves were gone in a few short hours, their food supply was in the hands of the enemy, and they had just been told that they had no choice but to join with Tribe Fury as volunteers, as workers, as trainees. It seemed hopeless, and he was struck with a desire to make a break for it; to avoid something that he could never agree to by simply running away. The responsibility that came with membership of a tribe dragged at him now the way that it had not done since the early days. His mind was troubled indeed.

"How do we get in?" Lex's voice sounded heavy and dull. Ebony stared at him.

"Huh?"

"We told the others to block off the entrances - make the place look abandoned. How do we get in?"

"A window." Bray led them to the nearest one, high up in the wall. There was just enough junk piled up in the street to let him climb up, and he broke the window with some of it. "It'll be easy enough to get in here. Not too much of a squeeze."

"Just so long as a broken window isn't too much invitation for somebody else to come in." Lex followed him up, struggling through the small window. "You know, we're going to have to be pretty serious about making this place look empty. If they find us in here..."

"Yeah. I know." Bray turned to watch Ebony jump lightly down to join them. "If they find us, and we're not registered on their little work programme, there'll be hell to pay. I can see us all being shipped off to some forced labour camp somewhere."

"Nobody's forcing me to do labour." Ebony pushed past him. "Come on. Let's see how the kiddies are doing. We can pass the good news along and make them feel as bad as the rest of us."

"Go easy, Ebony. There's no reason to be too blunt." Bray was talking to her departing back, and he knew that she wasn't really listening to him. He sighed. "Fine. Go and blurt it all out. Widespread panic is always helpful." She didn't respond. Lex didn't seem worried by her attitude.

"Let her tell them," he said, with a trace of something unpleasant in his tone. "Like she said, they might as well be feeling as bad as we are."

"Yeah, sure Lex. That's a grown up attitude to take."

"There's no point in mollycoddling anybody. We're all in this together, and they might as well know what it is that they're in the middle of." Lex set off after Ebony. "Come on. They might not believe her without us there to back the story up. Not given anybody much reason to trust her recently, has she."

"Not exactly." Not looking very happy, but apparently mollified to some extent, Bray accompanied the other boy towards the Mall's large lobby. Trudy was there, playing distractedly with Brady, and watching Ebony try to summon the others.

"Bray, Lex." She looked worried, which was understandable given Ebony's clear agitation. "What happened?"

"We managed to listen in to the announcement," Bray told her, though he didn't elaborate. She frowned, trying to gauge his mood more completely.

"It was bad news, wasn't it." Her eyes swivelled back to Ebony, halfway up the staircase and shouting furiously. The others were slow in answering the summons. "We've all been pretty busy. They might not be able to hear you."

"You've made a good start then?" asked Lex. She nodded.

"Jack had a great idea for the tunnels. He hasn't been able to make the ceiling fall in, as we weren't strong enough for that, but he threw all this junk in there, to block the water course and litter the place up, then behind that he had us use spare blankets and pillows and things. You can't see them from the outside, but it's great soundproofing."

"I'll go over it tomorrow, see if I can add a roof fall or two." Lex swung his arms around a little, as though to show off the strength that he undeniably possessed. "How about the main entrance? It doesn't look finished."

"We haven't really started on it yet. We've been trying to get more junk to throw about the place. Jack's jammed the security door, and KC broke some of the windows around the entrance. We wanted to cave the whole of that front bit in, but we weren't sure how to do it, especially since it would have made so much noise."

"We'll burn some of it down," suggested Bray. "No one will notice one more fire. It might make it easier to knock down some of what's left, too."

"Smart thinking!" Ever enthusiastic when it came to new ideas, Jack appeared from some distant hidey-hole with a spring in his step. He had recovered a little of his energy, missing earlier in the day, and had evidently been inspired by the task entrusted to him. In one hand he held a small palmtop computer, and in the other a heavy bag of tools, and his face was smudged with dirt from his work earlier on in the sewers. "Fire. I should have thought of that myself."

"Where the hell is everybody?" demanded Ebony, rather put out that her summons had only produced one person.

"Out collecting junk still, probably. I only came back to feed Brady." Trudy set her tiny daughter down on the floor. "We agreed to meet back here though. They shouldn't be long."

"Great." Ebony stalked back down the stairs, looking as though she would have been happy to hit someone. "It's not like we've got anything important to say."

"You heard something worthwhile then?" Jack set down his bag of tools, then settled himself on the wall of the old fountain, fiddling away with the palmtop. Ebony resisted the temptation to slap it out of his hand.

"Yeah, we heard plenty." Lex sat down as well, kicking disconsolately at the floor. "You wouldn't believe it."

"After what we've been seeing, I think we'd believe anything just now." It was Pride's voice, and he appeared with it, coming into the lobby from somewhere with the rest of the group at his heels. He looked pale, which was more than a mere rarity. Pride did not get ruffled - at least not as a rule. "There are tanks out there, Lex. Tanks."

"Metal things. Bloody big metal things. With guns." KC clearly didn't know whether to be overawed through fear or just through delight. "Do you suppose the guns work?"

"I'd be very surprised if they didn't." Bray looked over at Ebony, suddenly no longer wanting to spare anyone from the harsh details of what had to be said. "Go ahead. Tell them."

"It's bad, isn't it." Chloe set down the large plastic bag she had been carrying, spilling the contents of cardboard and old rags onto the floor. "Is there going to be another war, like when the Locos and the Demon Dogs were fighting each other?"

"No." Lex and Bray spoke at once, before Bray fell silent to allow Lex to complete the answer. "No, not like that. There aren't enough of us to fight them that way for one thing."

"And we can't count on the rest of the city." Ebony stared around at the others, having rather lost her desire to announce the news. Making everybody else share in her own misery had lost its appeal. "Look, Tribe Fury have taken over, in a big way. They're setting up a registration scheme, and they claim to have control over enough of the city to make that scheme work. With the firepower they seem to have, we have to believe that they really do have control, or soon will."

"Registration scheme?" pressed Tai-San. Her face showed what she thought of the idea even before hearing the details, for Tai-San had never been one for official organisations. Ebony nodded.

"You register, you're assigned a work detail. It's the only way to get food or water. The younger kids have to attend school. More like an indoctrination centre, I'll bet. Everybody else works, or trains to join Tribe Fury."

"And I suppose if you refuse to work you don't get fed." Trudy looked over at Bray, worried. "Will we be able to get enough supplies if we don't register?"

"Sure we will." He managed to dredge up most of a smile. "I've always kept us fed in the past, haven't I?" He cast a sad eye over the little band, thinking largely of Amber. "And there are a lot less of us to feed these days."

"There's a lot less food out there too," muttered Lex. Bray glared.

"Food isn't a problem," he reiterated. "Jack, how soon can you get our water purification system up and running again?"

"A day maybe, if I can concentrate on it and nothing else. Most of the stuff I need is still up on the roof, so all I really need to do is clean it up and put it back together." He closed his eyes briefly, thinking of Dal, and how they had designed the purification system together. They had done everything together back then. "If the rest of you take over sabotaging the front entrance, I can get started as soon as we're finished here."

"Good." Bray thought for a moment. "We should seal off the front of the building as best we can. Make sure that any noise we make in here doesn't get out through the broken windows. We should block up the one we broke to get in here just now too. That or close up that whole corridor. KC, did you find us some alternative exits?"

"Yeah." The boy looked pleased with himself. "There's a window on the next floor that leads onto the roof. It's well hidden by the next building along - that big warehouse wall with no windows. Then there's an old drainpipe down to the ground. A strong one. I thought that would make one good route. For a back-up there's a fire exit. It must be an old one, 'cause it just leads into a dead end, so it was all chained up and rusty. I think it might have opened into an alley once, but other buildings have been put up since, and now it's just like a little square yard. The walls aren't too high though, and with a couple of old crates as steps, we'll be able to get over pretty quick. I shouldn't think anybody on the other side would bother looking at it twice."

"Good work KC." Lex couldn't deny the boy some praise, and he knew that it would be valued all the more coming from him. "We'll all take a look later, and make sure that we can use them okay. In the meantime I'm assuming that I'm still head of security?" Ebony made a disparaging noise in answer, but everybody else seemed to be nodding. "Good. In that case here's the situation. We're up against an enemy that wants everybody in the city under their control - and that includes us. If we want to stay free, and either have a chance of escaping from the city or of fighting back someday, we can't trust anybody. We have to assume that everybody else has been rounded up and recruited by Tribe Fury, one way or another. The streets are dangerous, so nobody leaves this building for any reason without my permission - except Bray, since he's going to be hunting for food. And don't look like that KC. Pride, Ebony, the rules will be a little different for us too, but we'll talk about that later. We're up against people who have guns, bombs, tanks, aeroplanes - a proper army, at least as far as we can tell. We can't take any risks, and we can't let ourselves be seen, because if they come in here after us, we don't have a chance. Fighting them off with sticks and nets, like you guys tried with Tribe Circus that time - that won't even work as well as it did then."

"And it didn't work then at all," put in Chloe, who was still annoyed that she had not been allowed to join in with that fight, as well as various others.

"Maybe we could get some of their guns," suggested Jack. Trudy shot him a cold look.

"Are you prepared to shoot somebody?" she asked him. He coloured slightly.

"Well... no. Not me exactly. But then I'm not head of security, am I."

"If we can get hold of some of their weapons, we'd be fools not to keep them, just in case." Bray withered slightly as Trudy turned her glare on to him. "We don't have to use them, Trude. But they could be a deterrent, couldn't they."

"And besides, some of us would be prepared to use them." Ebony folded her arms, looking haughty. "Right Lex?"

"Yeah." He nodded, though he was fairly certain that nobody else in the tribe would support him in that answer. Pride and Bray would never be killers, and he wouldn't consider asking KC. Not unless things were really desperate. Tai-San was practical enough, perhaps, but he doubted that she would ever use a gun. If she ever killed it would be in hand to hand combat. "Anyway, we've got to get the things first. We'll have to run scavenging trips outside occasionally, for more than just food. There are always going to be other things we need."

"Got it all worked out, haven't you." Pride was faintly bothered by how much Lex seemed to be enjoying their new situation. "This is insane, Lex. We should just be trying to get out of the city."

"Not without Patsy and the others." Chloe folded her arms, looking determined. "You can go if you want, but I'm staying here."

"We're all staying here, Chloe. At least for the time being." Trudy watched Brady, sitting on the floor beside her, and thought about trying to make an escape with the now heavy baby strapped to her back. Silence was impossible too, since she could never know when her daughter was going to cry, or make some other sound.

"Yeah." Bray, who would far rather have been up in the hills searching for Amber, nodded in unwilling agreement. "Maybe in a while, when then things have settled down a bit, we'd have a chance. Right at the moment we'd be mad to try it. Just think what would happen if somebody in one of those tanks saw us." Ebony and Lex both nodded, remembering how it had felt to see those huge guns swivel to point at them, even though as it had turned out they had not actually been in any real danger. They were big, powerful guns. One shot and none of them would be running away anymore.

"I'd like to get a better look at one of those tanks." Unable to stay serious for long, KC was smiling hopefully. "Drive one maybe." Lex had to smile as well.

"Maybe one day we'll get the guns, the tanks and the aeroplane," he suggested. KC looked delighted, although for the most part the others didn't look impressed by the idea. Ebony rolled her eyes at their lack of humour. Some people obviously didn't like to be cheered up.

"How much food have we got for the time being?" she asked, certain that this at least would be a relatively uncontroversial subject to raise. Tai-San looked unsure.

"Probably enough for now. Maybe for the next couple of days, depending on how much we eat. No more than that."

"I'll go out first thing tomorrow," decided Bray. For all his usual confidence where collecting stores was concerned, he didn't feel very good about the idea now. The streets were a frightening place to be; far more so than they had ever seemed in the past. The Locos and the Demon Dogs had always been familiar enemies at least - people from whom he knew what to expect; people whose movements he could anticipate. Tribe Fury were strange and new, and infinitely better armed. Pride nodded slowly.

"Maybe I'd better come too. You don't know what you're going to have to face out there."

"Which is why I'd better go alone the first time. There's less chance of one person being seen."

"If you're sure." Pride liked to be self sufficient, and didn't much appreciate the idea of being dependant on somebody else for food, but he knew when to step aside. "I can work off a few frustrations smashing up the lobby I guess."

"You have frustrations?" Pretending to flirt, Ebony sidled closer to him. "There are all kinds of ways to work those off you know..."

"Yeah." Pride pointedly stepped away. "Listen, while we're on the subject of food..."

"Spoilsport." She went over to stand beside Bray instead, and contented herself with putting up his pulse rate. Trudy shot them both a telling stare.

"Chloe and I will sort out something to eat," she announced. "Bray? If you don't mind keeping an eye on Brady?"

"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, right." He stood looking down at the baby as though he had been asked to look after a bag of poisonous snakes. "I suppose we could all do with something to eat."

"I don't think I'm hungry." Chloe wrinkled up her nose at the idea of food, but Trudy hustled her towards the stairs anyway.

"Nonsense. It's been a long day, and we all need to eat something - especially after all that hard work earlier. Make the most of it. We could soon be back on rationed supplies, just like we used to be."

"Oh great. Weeks with nothing to eat but beans and old crackers." KC stared fiercely at Bray and Lex. "If that happens I'm going scouting for food myself."

"You bloody well are not." Lex's glare screamed infinitely stronger epithets, and KC failed dismally in his attempts to glare back. "Obedience, KC. I know I've encouraged you to forget about that in the past, but things are different now. We don't have the slightest idea what's going to happen, or when. So you do what you're told and play it safe, okay?"

"Yeah." KC was looking at the ground, sulking furiously. Tai-San smiled at the top of his lowered head.

"If you were captured, KC, would you be able to withstand their attempts to find out where you're from?" she asked him. He looked up, eyes burning.

"I wouldn't let you down that way again."

"But can you be sure?" asked Pride, pressing the point a little harder. "You don't know what they might do to you."

"I suppose." KC nodded slowly, rather glad that Chloe had gone, and was no longer present to witness what he saw as his humiliation. "But what about Bray? What if they catch him when he's out looking for food? He might tell them where to find us."

"I won't." Bray sounded as fierce as did KC. Perhaps he was thinking of previous captures; previous interrogations. Ebony trying to discover what had happened to Zoot; the Guardian trying to wear him down for more than one nefarious purpose. Perhaps he was just certain of his own strength. Either way he was firm in his self-belief. "They won't find out about this place from me."

"They already have," pointed out Lex. Bray glowered.

"I said I was a Mall Rat, Lex. I didn't give them a map reference. Now instead of standing around arguing, why don't we see what we can do about the lobby? We don't know how long the others will take to sort out some food."

"Sure. Pride and I will take a look around." Lex clapped Bray on the shoulder. "You've got to baby sit though."

"Huh?" Bray looked down at his niece, sitting on the floor at his feet, and looking up at him with bright eyes. "Oh. Jack...?"

"No." The younger boy hopped to his feet straight away, tucking his palmtop under his arm. "I'm... I've got... I'll be up on the roof looking at the water purification tank. Somebody give me a yell when the food's ready, yeah?" With that he disappeared, at a remarkable speed. Bray looked back at Brady again, and groaned.

"But what am I supposed to do with her? Tai-San?"

"Don't look at me." Tai-San had already taken her husband's hand, moving with him towards the nearest of KC's new exits. With the security door now jammed shut, the lobby was no longer so easy to access, but they were not too worried about having to go outside the building now. It was dark and most people would be hiding, thinking over everything that had been said at the gathering at the hotel. Tribe Fury would probably be taking it easy tonight too, content to let their new rules sink in.

"Yeah, fine." Bray sat down on the fountain wall, looking grouchy. "You go ahead then. I'll just stay here and baby sit."

"You're a natural," shot back KC, unable to resist it. Bray glared, but when the others had gone, and he was left with just the child, the fierceness of his expression wavered. A natural. The suggestion dragged his mind to thoughts of his own child, probably still fighting for its life up in the hills. What was Amber doing? Was she even still alive? He smiled uncertainly at Brady's upturned face, but his heart wasn't in it. He wished that he was still in that little barn far away from the city, where at least he could try to help Amber with her struggles. Instead he had no way of knowing what was happening, or what might have happened already.

"Good luck, Amber." It was the best that he could do; all that he could do. Whispering encouraging messages to a silent, empty room. Amber wouldn't hear them - but he had to try something, no matter how futile. Anything was better than doing nothing at all.

Amber didn't know much about the rest of that day, or the night that followed it. She didn't hear the arguments that raged around her, about whether or not she could be moved, or about whether she should perhaps be left to die. Her efficient young doctor had been alone with her for some hours before reinforcements arrived; three of them, driving up the steep, rough slope in an old army jeep with little enough petrol left to power it. They didn't have their colleague's medical training, and were interested only in their leaders' plans to secure the city. They saw no importance in the feverish girl lying in a barn far from anywhere.

In the morning, when the immediacy of the crisis seemed to have lessened, and the bitterness of the arguments had abated, the young medic took a moment to check for a foetal heartbeat. She didn't really know what she was doing, but she found the muffled beat, and decided that it sounded strong enough. Not having any experience with which to compare it, she merely nodded her head in a fairly knowledgeable manner, and checked Amber's heartbeat as well. One of the other Furies joined her by the bed.

"How is she?" he asked, as unconcerned as it was possible to be. The only immediate answer was a shrug. "That good huh?"

"How do I know? I learnt how to patch up battle injuries, and deal with secondary infections. I don't know the first thing about giving birth. The manual recommended something to stop the contractions, but beyond that I'm working blind." She hunted out her thermometer, and slipped it into Amber's mouth. "I think she was ill anyway, which might have been what caused this. She's certainly ill now."

"So we still can't move her."

"I don't know. It might just make things worse for her. She does seem to be pretty ill."

"Great." Another of the gang, a girl of about sixteen with the rank insignia of a major, came to join them by the still senseless patient. "So we could be stuck here for days yet?"

"Yes. Maybe. Look, like I said last night I've probably saved her. I think I may have saved the baby. But--"

"I don't care about the details, Lisa. I just want to know when I can get back to my unit in the city."

"Then go ahead." Lisa checked the temperature on her thermometer, then shook her head in the time honoured fashion of concerned doctors everywhere. "I don't think she's been looking after herself properly just lately."

"I don't care." The major walked away, back over to the final member of their group, who was dozing in a corner of the room. She kicked one of his legs to wake him up.

"Huh?" The boy was about twelve, and bore no markings of rank. He had the look about him of a put upon subordinate, and that was exactly what he was. The major stared down at him.

"Check the jeep," she told him. He frowned, looking towards Lisa and her patient.

"But I thought--"

"Thinking isn't your job. Didn't you learn anything in basic training? Now get outside and check the fuel level. I want to know how much of the journey I'm going to have to make on foot."

"Yes ma'am." He scuttled off, looking as though he couldn't get away from her fast enough. Lisa looked concerned.

"Racha specifically detailed me to look after this girl. I shouldn't be walking out on her."

"Yeah, I know. We talked it through last night, and I wasn't much convinced by your arguments then either." The major folded her arms, using her own natural authority to trigger the ingrained obedience Tribe Fury required of all its many members. "But if you stay here you'll be stuck for several days without supplies. You don't know how long she's going to be lying there. You don't know how long it'll be before somebody manages to make it up here to relieve you. Just forget about it. Tell the others that she died. At least in the city we can all be doing something worthwhile."

"Yes, I suppose so. And it's not as if I was given definite orders about how long I was stay with her." Rather relieved that she might now not have to stay in this lonely, secluded place, Lisa began to pack away the tools of her unchosen trade. "All the same, I'm not sure that it's right to just leave her."

"What difference is it going to make? Either she wakes up or she doesn't. Having you here isn't going to change that. You don't have the facilities to put her on a drip, so if she doesn't wake up she's going to die anyway, even with you sitting right next to her."

"Yes. Yes, I know." Lisa snapped shut her medical case, then took a last look at Amber, unconscious and muttering faintly. She had been talking for much of the night about somebody called Dal, and a dream of escaping the city. "But what if Racha had special plans for her?"

"Racha wouldn't have special plans for her. At least not anything that the rest of us could ever fathom." The major turned Lisa about and started her on her way towards the door. "Let me worry about him. It's me that you have to listen to right now."

"Yes." Lisa nodded her head in acceptance of that fact, and went the rest of the way to the door without so much as glancing back. There was a faint glimmer of guilt as she climbed into the back of the jeep, but she quelled that easily enough. She had spent much of the night arguing her case for remaining; risking the wrath of a superior officer in her refusals to leave or move her patient. It wasn't really her fault if she couldn't think of any more reasons to stay.

"We're pretty low on fuel, Major." The young boy who had been sent out to look was standing to attention beside the vehicle, though the sight of him was enough to give the older members of the unit reason to cringe. Like all those who had spent only a short time as cadets under proper, adult officers, he had no real smartness or preciseness about him. No real discipline. They had concentrated less on the marching and saluting after civilisation had collapsed, in favour of the more practical skills, but the major for one still regretted that. She considered upbraiding him for his lacklustre performance, but decided that she couldn't really be bothered.

"Pretty low on fuel?" She sighed. "What kind of a report is that, Michaels? Did you check the level?"

"Well I--"

"Never mind." She climbed into the driving seat. "You can always push us, can't you, if we run out too early. Now get in."

"Yes ma'am." He climbed into the back, sitting rigidly beside Lisa. The older boy was already in the front, studying the map.

"I wonder how things went last night," he mused. The major shot him a sidelong glance.

"How do you think? They'll have read out the new rules and regulations, and made a fine display of power to back it all up. Nobody will be arguing. Not yet anyway."

"You think there will be trouble then?" he asked her. She nodded.

"Oh, there'll be trouble. Bound to be. Someone will decide that they don't want us to take over. Some tribe that likes its liberty, or that's always had a lot of power down there in the past. One of the bigger and stronger tribes, perhaps, or just one of the more idealistic ones. It won't last though."

"Can't, can it. Not against our forces." Lisa thought about the battle injuries that she would soon find herself swamped in, if there really was going to be a battle. Not her idea of fun. The major shook her head.

"Our forces don't have anything to do with it. It's simple process, that's all. People like leadership. They like to be controlled, led, shaped. Basically they don't like freedom."

"You think?" Michaels spoke very quietly, so that he couldn't be heard above the roar of the jeep as it started up. There was no rebellion in his eyes, but there was a strange sort of wistfulness. Michaels for one didn't think much of control and order, and of being stifled in the ranks of Tribe Fury - but it kept him alive and fed, so he put up with it. In his view the people of the city would take that same, pragmatic line. It was nothing to do with disliking freedom.

"Did you say something?" asked Lisa. He glanced up at her, a little worried that she might have heard. The last thing he needed when they got back to the city was extra fatigues. Punishment duty was a nightmare.

"No." He smiled uncertainly, never entirely sure where he stood with some of his superiors, but she had already lost interest. Perhaps she was thinking, belatedly, of her patient. Michaels felt bad about leaving her behind. She was ill and needed help, and she was pregnant too; but it wouldn't do any good for him to say anything. He was a nothing among these people, ranking only just above the many greater nothings who lived in the city below. It would be interesting, he thought idly, to see what would happen if somebody ever tried mobilising so many nothings, and seeing just how little people really cared for freedom - but he couldn't imagine it ever happening. He couldn't imagine anybody ever challenging the power of Tribe Fury. He couldn't believe that anybody would ever try.

The jeep moved slowly at first, then picked up speed once it started its journey downhill. The raucous sound of its engine startled the birds and other wildlife, none of whom were used to such noise. Even those who had heard engines before, in that secluded region, had long got used to the silence of the new world. Several birds flew in fear into the scraggly bushes that grew a stone's throw from the old barn, but they soon flew out again. There was somebody inside the bushes; somebody that they hadn't seen.

He was about fourteen, and he had been hiding from Tribe Fury. The threesome in the jeep had arrived shortly before him, and his hopes of sheltering over night in the barn had been dashed. He had stayed outside instead, interested by these people, in their strange uniforms, with their guns and their working motor vehicle. He had heard them shouting too, during the night; had realised that there must already have been people inside the barn, and was thankful that he had not arrived earlier and tried to enter. He heard enough to realise that somebody was sick, and was surprised to see no patient being loaded into the jeep. Clearly whoever it was that was lying inside that barn was being left behind. He wondered if there was anything that he could do, and decided that there probably wasn't. He was no doctor. All the same, there was never any question of walking away.

He went slowly to the door, for the first time cursing the bells that were attached to his shoes. He was an entertainer, who travelled this hard new world earning food by means of his gaudy trade. The bells on his shoes, the drum in his pack, the home-made lyre that hung over one shoulder - all went hand in hand with the head full of songs, jokes and stories and the pockets full of simple magic tricks. He wished that he could hush the bells now though, for he had no wish to scare whoever it was that lay inside the battered building.

"Hello?" He spoke quietly, hesitantly, well aware that there might be danger inside. Just because four people had driven away in the jeep didn't mean that there none of those armed, uniformed people still left inside the barn. There was no answer to his tentative call, and gathering his courage he pushed open the door. He couldn't see anybody, and his quavering nerves rallied slightly. Gaining in confidence he walked into the building and looked around. His shoes jingled softly, but nobody appeared to ask about it.

"Hello?" He walked further into the barn, looking about with interest. It was a rickety old building, but one that might be a good shelter for a few nights, if he needed it. There were cracks between many of the boards making up the walls, and the roof had holes in it, but the weather wasn't bad at the moment. The bells on his feet sounded distinctly more merry as he walked further into the building; but they stopped as suddenly as he did when he saw the figure lying on the makeshift bed. A girl his own age, more or less, with blonde hair showing traces of bleach, and twisted up into many small swirls that stuck up all over her head. She was pale and her face was damp with sweat, making the tribal paint run in faint trails. To his eyes she was still beautiful though, whatever the signs of illness and dishevellment. He ran to her, crouching beside her, checking her pulse and listening to the tumble of whispered words that fell from her ceaselessly moving lips. He wasn't sure of many of the words, but he was able to catch a few. He listened, feeling as though he were listening in on some private conversation, then turned his eyes away from her face. Only then did he notice that she was pregnant. Sick, alone and pregnant - through the emotional jolt of finding her that way, he couldn't help but feel angry at the people who had left her here. He threw down his pack and his lyre, and went to kneel beside her head.

"Amber? He spoke quietly, but with an urgency to his tone. He had to make her listen to him. "Amber, can you hear me?" He thought that he saw her eyelids flicker, but that was all. It was better than nothing though, and at least it meant that she was responding to some outside stimuli. He turned away from her, and began to rummage through his pack, discarding the drum, a small wooden flute, two spare, colourful shirts. At the bottom was a leather bag. He weighed it in his hand to check the contents, then took the metal drinking mug that swung from one of the straps of his pack. It was a matter of moments to shake some of the contents of the little bag into the mug, then mix it with water from his limited supply. It smelt faintly floral, or perhaps herbal, which was hardly surprising. The bag contained a dried mixture of several plants, all recognised for their medicinal properties, given to him in payment for a series of performances that he had made to a tribe now far away up the coast.

"Amber." His voice was even softer now, though most of its urgency remained. "Amber, you have to drink this. It should help to bring the fever down." Gently he lifted her head and titled the mug to her lips, watching carefully to ensure that she swallowed at least as much as she spilt. He didn't think that she was responding to his words so much as following a basic instinct to swallow the liquid, but he hoped that that didn't matter. All that he really cared about was helping her, however that might need to be done. Once he had got her to drink the fortified water there was nothing left but to set aside the mug, the water and the bag, and sit himself down beside her to watch and wait. He didn't care how long it took.

Time passed slowly in the bar, but it mattered little to the devoted sentinel. Leaving Amber's side only to collect a little firewood, and to find some more water, he watched over her for the whole of that day, spending the resultant night curled up on the floor beside her, with his spare shirts as a pillow. The next day he gathered some berries, which he crushed carefully and fed to his patient as best he could; a nourishing extra, he hoped, to compliment more of his carefully dosed water. He talked to her cheerfully all of the time, and in the quietness of the evening he played his little flute, and tapped his feet gently to add the accompaniment of his jolly little bells. When the light was gone he laid aside the flute and told her his favourite bedtime story, from the massive collection that he carried around inside his head, before curling up beside her once again.

It was a pattern that he repeated the next day, and the next. Each day he tried to get her to eat a little more, and managed to brew a little soup from the food that was left in his pack. It wasn't much, but it was something to give her besides the berries. It seemed to him that she was swallowing more strongly now; that the fever was perhaps a little less intense. Certainly her pulse was slower, stronger; more certain somehow. She muttered to herself less, and her brow felt cooler and less damp. It was with considerably more vigour that he played the flute that evening, and when the light went he sang to her, instead of telling her a story. It was a song that he knew she loved, even though he was not sure if she could hear it. It passed the time though, and he could at least hope that she was listening, to some degree. With the song over, and the darkness complete, he sat beside her for a while and listened to her sleeping, gratified that the noise was now far less than it had been. He could no longer hear the feverish whispers, and she seemed to be lying still. Pulling off his musical shoes, he lay down and drifted off to sleep.

He awoke on the morning of the fifth day to a stream of early sunlight, and the song of always cheerful birds. It was no different to any of the other mornings in this secluded place, but he felt more light-hearted as he mixed together Amber's medicine, and found himself something to eat. There was very little left now, but he was prepared to go without if need be. Unlike the children of the city he had always been well fed, and he knew that he need not worry if he had to go for a day or two without anything. There was water at least, for a small stream ran close to the barn; and there were always the berries. He would not leave Amber in order to search for proper food further away. Soon, he was sure, she would be waking up, and he was determined to be with her when that time came. She shouldn't awaken alone, when she would undoubtedly be confused and afraid, and in need of a friendly face. Only then did he wonder what she would think to see his face. In the event he did not have to wait long to find out.

She awoke just before noon, flickering her eyes open and blinking uncertainly up at the ceiling. Sitting nearby, strumming idly on his lyre, he saw her turn her head, and straight away he rushed to her side. She was frowning, but for whatever reason she did not speak yet. Probably her mind was still clouded by sleep.

For Amber it was a strange moment. She knew nothing of the passage of time. Her mind remembered intermittent music, and stories that might just have been part of her dreams, but she didn't remember anything else of her days in the barn. The last thing that she truly recalled was collapsing in pain, and of being so certain that she was going to lose her baby. Her hand was already reaching for her stomach, and she found that it was still rounded. That was good, wasn't it? It wouldn't still have that shape if the baby had gone?

Amber?" The voice was familiar, but it wasn't Bray's. She turned her head. No, not Bray. Shorter, a little more stocky perhaps, and with a roughshod tumble of naturally dark red hair, that almost hid his bright, warm eyes. Eyes that she remembered so well. She gaped.

"S-Sasha?"

"Yeah." He took her hand, holding it tightly. "How do you feel? You've been pretty sick."

"I - I don't..." Her mouth felt dry, but he was prepared for that, already reaching for a tin mug. The water inside it tasted faintly odd, and she tried to identify whatever was mixed in with it. Sasha grinned at her, looking strangely flushed and awkward.

"Herbs. Herbs and plants. Stuff, you know. For fevers."

"Oh." Her eyes roamed about, but she didn't feel strong enough yet to sit up. "Bray?"

"Bray?" He felt faintly cross. "So he's..." His eyes travelled to her stomach. "I wondered. I suppose it would have to be, wouldn't it. The timing isn't right for - for it to be... something we did."

"He's the father, yes." She reached out, putting her free hand on top of his, which was still gripping her own. "Sasha, I need to know what's happened. Where is he?"

"I don't know. There was just you here. Well, and four other people. They were wearing some kind of uniform, and they took off in a jeep. I haven't seen any sign of Bray."

"He was here." Urgency filled her. "We came here together. We were expelled from the city..."

"He got you thrown out of the city?" His irritation increased. Bray had always annoyed him, not least because it had seemed in part to be Amber's feelings for the restless and secretive youth which had influenced her decision not to leave the Mall with Sasha. The younger boy had never really believed that the strange, often silent loner was good enough for Amber, and now he felt that he had been proved right. "How the hell did he manage that? And you pregnant as well."

"It wasn't his fault." She tried to sit up, but found that she had been right to think herself not yet strong enough. "It was Ebony. You don't know what she can be like. She threw him out, and me too." She drank a little more of the water. "She's... well, she's horrible, that much you do know. Mad possibly, I don't know."

"What happened?" He settled himself more comfortably beside her, glad just to listen to her voice again. "If it's not Bray's fault, what exactly are you doing up here all alone, when you were so sick?"

"I didn't know that I was sick. Ebony... well, she took control of the city after we got rid of the Chosen." She frowned. "I don't know where you've been. Did you hear about the Chosen?"

"Yes. Rumours mostly, nothing concrete. They worshipped somebody called Zoot?"

"Yes. We ran them out of the city, and then Ebony took over. Bray and I had tried to stand against her, but it didn't work, so she had us thrown out. She's very clever."

"Yes, that much I guessed. I was nearly her slave, remember? I heard all kinds of stories about her that day, and none of them were very encouraging. She's still around then?"

"With a vengeance." She yawned, wondering why she was still tired when she seemed to have been asleep for what felt a long time. "She and Bray have... I've never been sure. Some kind of a past together. Still, that's not important. I have to find him."

"Amber..."

"The plane." Her eyes, which had been drooping shut, snapped open again. "We thought... It couldn't have been though, could it? A real aeroplane? Bray must have gone to see if there was anybody who could help."

"There was an aeroplane, yes. And loads of parachutes. I don't know how many, but I saw some of the people land. They headed for the city."

"Then I wasn't dreaming it. An aeroplane." She smiled. "I wonder who was flying it? Bray must have found one of them. The baby... It was going to be born, but it was far too early. Perhaps they're somewhere outside. Have you looked?"

"Amber, they're not outside. Listen." His eyes turned serious, and she frowned at him, faintly disturbed. "You've been unconscious here for a long time. I found you here five days ago. There's been no sign of Bray in all that time."

"But I-- Five days? Sasha, I--"

"That's not all." He thought about the four people in the jeep, with their uniforms and their guns. "The people from the aeroplane. They weren't good people, Amber. Like I said, they converged on the city, and that night I saw fires burning down there. I saw explosions, Amber, and I heard gunshots. The aeroplane, the parachutists - it was all part of an invasion force. They were here too. Some of them were here in this barn with you. Maybe Bray did find them, to get them to help you, and maybe they did stop the baby from being born. I don't know. All I know is that Bray isn't here now, and he hasn't been here for five days."

"But then..." She closed her eyes. "What have they done to him?"

"Who can tell." He didn't know what to say then. His job was cheering people up, but this was the wrong time for stirring words, and jokes would just be crass. She opened her eyes again, looking up at him.

"But you do think that they've got him?"

"I think they must. He always loved you, even I can't deny that. I'm sure he wouldn't have left you alone like that, for so long, without a good reason. They must have taken him to the city."

"Then that's where I'm going." Again she tried to sit up, but again she didn't make it. Sasha shook his head, amused and exasperated, as well as rather sad.

"You need to rest. You need proper food too. If you'll promise not to move, I'll go out and scavenge around a bit. Okay? Then we can talk about heading for the city tomorrow maybe."

"Okay." It was easier just to agree, for she didn't really have the strength for anything else. Her eyes drifted shut again, and Sasha smiled grimly down at her dozing form. So it was Bray who still had claim to her heart, and she was willing to risk everything; willing to face who knew what down in the city; just to try to find him again. Well he could hardly let her do that alone. Just as there had never been a chance of him abandoning her in the barn, even before he had found out who she was, there was no chance of him leaving her now. He would go with her, and he would do what he could to help her find Bray - always supposing that he was still alive. What happened then would be up to Fate alone.

The stream was not big enough for fishes, and he was not hunter enough to capture anything else, so he contented himself with wandering about on the search for plants. The barn had obviously been a part of a farm at some time, although he suspected that it had been abandoned a long time before the adults had died. Traces of the farm remained though, and he found a patch of potatoes run wild, and dug up a few that seemed worth having. He found some assorted greenery as well, playing safe and sticking only to those few things that he recognised, and could be sure were not poisonous. He felt a swell of jealousy when he remembered the proficiency with which Bray had hunted out stores for a whole tribe, running the gauntlet in the dangerous streets to find food that nobody else could get. He tried to quash the jealousy, and concentrated on doing what he could. The stores might be less than Bray could manage, but they would be enough.

He didn't hurry back, suspecting that Amber would be asleep, and was proved to be right. Taking his time he rebuilt his little fire, and cut up the potatoes, setting them to boil in the metal bowl that was his only utensil beside the mug and a bent old spoon. The various greens he chopped and shredded, and added them to the water when it seemed that the potatoes were nearly cooked. He felt quite proud of himself, for he usually relied on the tribes that he entertained when it came to food, and rarely had to do any proper cooking for himself. Amber awoke just as he was draining the water out of the bowl, and he greeted her with a typically cheery smile.

"Sleep well?"

"Too well. I shouldn't be so tired if I've been asleep for five days.

"Unconscious, not asleep. It must make a difference." Tipping half of the food onto a piece of wood he had cleaned up to serve as a plate, he handed her the bowl and the spoon. "Here. And careful, the bowl is hot." He grinned. "You'd best try it first, and make sure it's not poisonous. I haven't done any cooking since school."

"Well it smells good." She managed to sit up, and ate the food slowly. "Tastes good too."

"Really?" Surprised, he tried some of his own. "Yeah, not bad I suppose. Could do with some white sauce though. Maybe some filo pastry."

"And garlic." They shared a smile. "No, honestly. It's good, Sasha. And just what the doctor ordered I think." Her face fell momentarily, when the mention of doctors brought somebody very particular to mind. Immediately concerned Sasha caught her hand.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. Sorry. I-- When I woke up and saw you, for a moment the last few months sort of went away. But it was all real, every day of it, and all kinds of things have happened since I saw you last. It's Dal..."

"Something has happened to Dal?" Sasha had fond memories of the boy he had befriended in the hills. Dal had been trying to escape from the city, and had left the Mall Rats behind temporarily, when he and Sasha had been captured by slave traders and sold to the Locos. It was thanks to Amber that they had been freed. "You were friends a long time, weren't you. He told me about you when we were prisoners together. You talked about him a lot when you were unconscious, too."

"I did?" She wondered what she had said. "Well he's dead, Sasha. He never did anything to hurt anybody; just tried to take care of everybody. And now he's dead. He died fighting the Chosen, and it was all for nothing if somebody else has only come to take their place."

"Not for nothing, no. No fight for freedom is pointless, even if the freedom only lasts a day. We were all meant to be free, Amber."

"Then we'll have to free the city again, won't we. Dal died to free it last time. The least we can do is try to help it now. At least... at least that's what I have to do. You probably want to be off."

"Off?" He laughed. "No. I'm not letting you go down there on your own."

"Somehow I knew you'd say that. I hoped it, anyway." She stared at the remainder of her food, thinking about all that she had discovered since waking up. There was so much to think about, and so much that was going to need to be done. "We're going to have to find a better hideout, you know - one that these uniformed people don't already know about. I'm not sure that I can walk too well, so I'm going to need your help. We shouldn't stay here any longer."

"No problem. We'll find somewhere, and I'll carry you there if I have to."

She smiled. "I don't think that'll be necessary. At least I hope it won't. But I'm not sure when I'll be able to walk as far as the city, or do the things that will need doing when we get there. I have my baby to think about as well as Bray, and I've already nearly lost it once."

"Then we'll take it easy. A day at a time. If Bray is still alive then a few more days - even weeks - isn't likely to make any difference to him. And if he's... well. You have to take it at your own pace anyway. He'd understand."

"And you don't mind waiting? Sticking around?"

"I've got nowhere better to go. If there are people with guns down in the city, who's to know where they'll go next? Maybe I should be helping you get rid of them. Can't always go running off looking for the next appreciative audience, can I."

"Thankyou. I know what you think of Bray..."

"Forget it." He turned his attention back to his food. "Just eat, Amber. Build your strength up. When the time comes we'll do what we have to do."

"And see what we have to see." She thought about all that he had said - fires all over the city, explosions, gunshots. What was going on down there? Absently she touched her stomach, and wondered if she should really be going to find out; but knew that she didn't have a choice. She couldn't stay away. She had to get down there and find out what was happening. She had to find out what had become of Bray. The thought of it made her skin prickle with fear, and her stomach churn with all manner of worries. What might have happened to all of her friends in the five days that she had been unconscious? Her imagination alone could answer that question, and right now it was telling her things that she didn't want to consider. Afraid, she reached out for Sasha's hand, and was glad to find it so readily available. It was good that he was here; good that Fate had brought her an old friend. Sasha was somebody that she knew she could rely on now that Bray had gone. She squeezed his hand a little tighter, and relaxed just a little, glad that he had come back into her life. With only hardship and uncertainty ahead, the boy now sitting beside her was of vital import - and she found herself praying that she would never be apart from him again.

A city can change a lot in a week, when the circumstances are right; and the Mall Rats saw their city change significantly. Most of the tribes registered with Tribe Fury, and of those that didn't do so immediately, a few days of hunger and of watching patrols march up and down the streets, soon turned the majority around. The place became a military outpost, with guards at every major cross roads, and checkpoints scattered everywhere. The registered tribes had been given identity cards, and anybody caught without one faced so far unknown penalties. Lex had decided that the Mall Rats had to get hold of one, although nobody had great hopes that they would be able to forge their own.

They had spent most of the week shut up inside the mall, listening to the shouting of the marching troops, and the screams of their occasional victims. Fortunately there were few enough of the latter, for most of those who remained unregistered had the sense to stay hidden. For the most part they were the independent kind; the experienced ones who had been surviving on the streets for a long time, and knew as well as the older Mall Rats how not to be caught. It was through Bray that the Rats knew of the situation outside; and they listened to tales of checkpoints and identity cards with horror. He told them of the tanks that rolled about on the wider streets, and of the youthful soldiers posted on the roofs, all scanning the streets with the telescopic sights on their rifles. He told them of the new recruits just beginning their basic training in the yards of the city's old schools, and of the battalions of youngsters being marched off each morning to their own new schools. He didn't know what they were taught there, but he didn't expect to find many of the old subjects on the curriculum. He told them too of the fortifications that already encircled the hotel. The fencing made from old metal barrels and sand bags, and the barbed wire that finished it all off so unpleasantly. Of the machine gun on the front steps, and the rumours of what befell the prisoners who were taken past the once familiar front door. Chloe was depressed, and for once Tai-San's attempts to cheer her had had no effect. KC was caught between fear of what might be outside, and anger that he hadn't yet been allowed out to see it. Tai-San tried to meditate, though the city and the mall were full of feelings too disturbing to allow her a proper sense of peace; and Jack sat alone in his workshop, perfecting the system of security cameras and alarms that he had first begun to design before the other members of the tribe had ever arrived in the Mall. It was hard and painstaking work, but it helped to dispel the darkness that had rested in his mind since his return from the distant prisons of the Chosen, and in many ways he was glad to be doing it. For Lex, Pride and Ebony there was no such work to be done, and they argued with each other, and made plans that they knew would get them nowhere. Trudy despaired of them, but they paid little attention to her attempts to calm them. She spent much of her time alone with Brady, although Bray had taken to visiting her again, when he wasn't wandering around outside. It was like the old days in that regard; the days when he had sought out her company, when they had both been avoiding the wrath of an irritable Lex. Bray had worries that he couldn't discuss with the others, but Trudy was happy to talk to him about Amber and the baby, and Bray's presence had the comforting effect on her that it always had done. It was nice to sit and talk, despite with all that was going on outside.

They had finished their camouflage operations early. The lobby had been blocked off, burnt and wrecked, all by the cover of night. Bray had decorated the outside walls with graffiti, using his skill as an artist to copy the tags and styles of many different tribes, giving the building the look of a place long trashed and rendered useless to everyone. Lex had caved in a section of the tunnel, so that only real rats could move through them now, and he and Pride had covered the manhole, that for long had been their secret link with the outside world, with the biggest and heaviest pieces of rubbish that they could find. They felt more secure then, although none of them believed that they would ever again feel truly safe.

It was at the end of that first week, when they were all sitting quietly in the canteen, eating a strangely patchwork meal, that Lex raised the subject of going outside. He had been thinking about it for some time, especially when he watched Bray setting out on his solo excursions. Lex was a man of action, and he didn't like being cooped up inside. It had been alright when there had still been things to do to the Mall; disguising it, fortifying its weaker points, trying to soundproof as much of it as they could. Now that they had done all that they could they were all growing more restless. Chloe was fretting about Amber and Patsy, although her new maturity meant that her worries were less obvious than they might once have been. She snapped irritably instead of getting upset, and KC in particular no longer knew how to approach her. He was still too young to really understand why she seemed cross, as was she, and the pair of them were fighting almost constantly. Trudy and Tai-San tried to keep them occupied with various errands and activities, but it proved impossible. Lex was even worse. He paced up and down the corridors, shouting at Jack for leaving pieces of his equipment lying about; trying to pick fights with Pride and Bray; arguing with Tai-San over everything that happened or didn't happen. Pride prowled about just as restlessly, though with less inclination to shout; transformed in that week into a silent, moody caricature of his usual self. He argued with Bray whenever Amber's name came up, but for the most part reserved his irritability for Ebony. She enjoyed trying to anger him, working out her own frustrations on all three of the older male members of the tribe. Lex was easily annoyed, and she entertained herself by suggesting that it was damaging to his manhood to stay behind in the Mall whilst Bray went off outside. Pride she pretended to flirt with, and tried to wind him up about all the many things that might be happening to Amber. It was her own special way of having fun, and she liked to see the sparks fly. Bray she didn't need to annoy. She got her entertainment there by nestling closer to him whenever she got the chance; sitting close to him at mealtimes, and wandering into his room at odd hours. It was brazen flirtation, and based on genuine affection. It might be a good way of entertaining herself, but she meant every compliment; enjoyed every touch. Bray sometimes pushed her away and sometimes didn't, and although he never responded properly to her moves, let alone retaliated in kind, she kept hoping that he would. It all got a good response from Trudy, too, which added to the entertainment value.

So it was that they were all on edge when Lex made his suggestion. Pride was sitting alone, glaring at his bowl of reconstituted, dried vegetable chilli and tinned potatoes, and thinking of his old home in the woods far beyond the city. Tai-San was mediating in yet another fledgling argument between KC and Chloe, and Bray was trying to decide whether to move away from Ebony's teasing hands, or just to put up with it, and hope that she would grow bored. Trudy was watching with an expression that, to his badgered mind, was bordering dangerously on jealousy, and that worried him even more than Ebony's blatant flirtation. Annoyed at everybody's apparent self-absorption, Lex banged on the table as loudly as he could with a clenched fist, and made Chloe and Brady jump.

"We need to go out," he announced, in a rather more forceful tone than he had intended. The faint hum of conversation stopped abruptly.

"Outside?" Trudy shook her head. "Lex, I don't know. It's bad enough Bray risking--"

"We need food, Trudy," broke in Bray, already long used to this particular argument. It bored him now just as it had bored him in the old days. He had always preferred the risks of being outside to being stuck in the Mall with a gang of irritable and hormonal children, all fighting amongst themselves, and he wouldn't be put off it by Trudy worrying over him. She glared at him, then turned her attention back to Lex.

"What I mean is, what if you do take a group outside, and something happens? We could probably live with losing Bray to Tribe Fury, but if we lose several of you the rest of us will be lost."

"I know." Lex met Tai-San's worried look, and offered her a rakish grin. "Don't worry, we're not going to get arrested, or shot, or anything like that. There are things that we need, though, and we can't expect Bray to get it all for us. Wouldn't necessarily be possible, anyway. We need stuff that it's going to take a proper operation to get."

"Such as?" asked Trudy, who could think of several things herself, but didn't want to encourage anybody. KC brightened.

"Guns," he suggested, rather liking the idea. "And maybe some of those grenades. Then we could fight properly, if they ever find us in here."

"Not a bad idea, really," conceded Lex, despite Trudy's obvious outrage. "I was thinking about these identity cards though. Be useful if we could get our own, just in case. That way if one of us ever gets stopped by a patrol we'd be allowed on our way again, so long as we've got a good cover story to back everything up. Without the card it's instant arrest."

"They won't be easy to forge," commented Pride. Lex nodded.

"Yeah. But you and Bray are both pretty good artists, and if there's anything smaller, like hidden microchips and all the stuff there used to be in that sort of thing in the old days, Jack will find it."

"Bound to be bar-codes," offered Jack, immediately interested. "There's scanners all over this place of course. I'd have to get one working again, but that'd help me work out how to store the information. I don't know how to make the stripes though, so we might not be able to make the codes ourselves."

"We'll worry about that later." Lex rubbed his hands together, warming to the theme now. "Okay, so we're agreed then? We need to go outside."

"I'll go," piped up KC. Lex shot him a look that immediately crushed his hopes.

"No you won't," he said, just in case the stare hadn't been answer enough. KC glowered.

"I can move fast. And I've got eyes in the back of my head. I was surviving on the streets before I fell in with you lot, and I--"

"And you've got yourself, and the rest of us, into plenty of trouble," interrupted Chloe, not really in the mood to listen to him. She wanted to go out as well, but knew full well that it would never be allowed. KC looked crestfallen.

"I could get out there and back without anybody seeing me," he muttered. Lex softened a little.

"Yeah KC. You probably could. But I'm sorry. I can't take that many people out, and there are others that I need. Bray will have to come, as he's the one who's most familiar with the way things are out there. And I need Pride for his fighting skills, just in case."

"And you need me," added Ebony. Lex shook his head.

"No way. I'm not taking any--"

"Defenceless girls?" Her disgust was harsh enough to take rust off metal. "I've proved more than once that I fight better than you do, Lex. If you're going then so am I."

"Ebony, I--"

"She's right, Lex." Either through his desire to avoid an argument, or because he genuinely supported her cause, Bray spoke up to defend Ebony. "She fights better than most of us, and she knows the streets as well as I do. Don't forget that she led the Locos, and they ruled this sector and a whole lot of others. If we have to split up, she'll be as much use to you as I would be, in getting you back here unseen."

"Huh." Lex wasn't impressed, but he nodded his acceptance. "Alright. The four of us. And no KC, you are not coming just because she is. Four is already more than I'd like. Maybe next time."

"Yeah, sure." KC folded his arms, the better to look sulky and despondent. "I'll bet."

"I'm glad you're not going, KC." Trudy was becoming quite adept as a peacemaker. "With the rest of them gone we'll only have Tai-San here to protect us. Jack and I aren't terribly good at fighting."

"I am," shot back Chloe, though not with much force. KC brightened a little, happy to think that he might be of some use after all. Lex smirked, making sure that the younger boy did not see him do so, then looked towards Bray.

"Well?" he asked, searching for some kind of comment on his plan It seemed a strange time to ask for an opinion, since it seemed that he was already decided on his course of action, but Bray nodded slowly.

"There are things that we need, sure. I can probably get the electrical wire that Jack's been after, but some things I can't get on my own. We need at least one of those big barrels if we're going to be able to recharge batteries again. You can build another windmill, right Jack?"

"Yeah, sure. I've done it before, and it's not like it's that tough. I'll need something to use as a mast, too though. Some long pieces of wood like I used last time, remember?"

"Well that won't be at all difficult," muttered Ebony. "We can creep through the streets carrying a couple of roof rafters, and I'm sure no one will notice."

"Hey, if you want to go without power for the rest of... of however long this occupation is going to last, that's fine." Jack leaned back in his chair and glowered as much as he dared. "Bray can't keep getting us batteries. He needs to concentrate on food. Besides, there just aren't that many around anymore. There haven't been for a long time. When the Chosen were running things nobody really needed batteries that much, but since they left electricity consumption has gone up again, and any battery reserves anybody had are gone. I'll bet that what's left is already in the hands of Tribe Fury."

"I wouldn't be surprised. They'll want control of all resources like that." Bouncing Brady absently on her knee, Trudy spoke in the voice of one who was looking back into her memory. "It's what occupying forces always want, isn't it. To control everything, and to keep the native people as fully subjugated as possible."

"You some kind of military expert now?" growled Lex. She smiled at him, by now more or less accustomed to his irritability. It was no worse than it had been in the old days, after all, before the development of the antidote had brought a peace of sorts to all of them.

"No. Just a history fan. It was my favourite subject at school."

"Yeah, well history or not, we're not going to be finding many batteries out there now. We've got a pretty good store still, but most of them are out of power." Jack shrugged hugely, apparently absolving himself of all responsibility. "So it's up to you lot whether or not I try to recharge them."

"We'll get you your pieces of wood, Jack." Bray was already thinking of likely places to look. "So we want an ID card, some wood and a barrel - or something else that'll spin round to make the windmill. Anything else?"

"I need some more things for Brady." Trudy spoke almost apologetically, but Bray gave a short nod.

"Right. I can't promise anything, but baby stuff has always been one of the few things that didn't all get looted months back. I'll see what I can find."

"We're going to have limited time, Bray," pointed out Pride. Bray glared at him.

"We can dress her in scraps of material, and feed her on our stuff mashed up, but there are other things she needs that we can't find here. She needs milk. Trudy hasn't had any of her own in a long while. She also needs to be kept clean, and the soap we have left here is too harsh for her. There are other things too."

"Oh hark at the baby expert." Ebony's voice dripped with sarcasm, but if it was an attempt at humour Bray did not respond well to it. His eyes went cold and hard as he shot her a bloodcurdling stare..

"It's something I've had to think about just lately. I had a baby of my own to plan for, remember? Until somebody decided to throw me and Amber out of the city, and brought on what might just have turned out to be a miscarriage."

"Oh, we're back to that one, are we. I'm sorry Bray. I'm sorry that Amber might have lost your baby. I'm sorry that you're here and she isn't." Ebony's sigh proved her lack of real contrition. "So we're looking for the nearest maternity shop then are we?"

"There's an old warehouse that the Demon Dogs used to hoard things in, which always had a good supply of baby stuff. It's still there, and I can't see Tribe Fury having found it yet unless somebody's taken them to it. Half of it's underground." He was intentionally looking away from her now, talking more to the group as a whole. "There's never been much food there, but there always used to be quite a collection of junk. The Demon Dogs used to decorate their headquarters with metal - anything shiny - so they might have some barrels in there. Pretty much all the others have been taken by Tribe Fury to make fencing."

"So maybe all we really need to worry about is the ID card." Pride raised his eyebrows at Lex. "I take it you have a plan?"

"Well sure. We grab somebody, don't we."

"And let him know that we're trying to get hold of an identity card? Lex, that plan is worse than useless. If we grab somebody and take his card, Tribe Fury will probably play safe and issue another design. Our forgeries, if we ever manage to make any, will be out of date before they're even finished."

"Well what do you suggest then?" asked Lex, rather put out. Ebony shrugged.

"Take more than just the card, I suppose. Whoever we stop, we'll have to take everything he's got. Cover what we're really after."

"He'll still have to report that we took his card. They still might decide to play safe and change them all." Pride shook his head. "If we're going to get a card, we have to make sure that nobody knows we've got it."

"How do we do that?" asked Bray. Pride didn't answer, and didn't even meet his eyes. Trudy stood up, her chair almost falling over backwards as she did so.

"No." She said it with as much force as she could muster, then said it again just to make sure. "No. You are not going to kill anybody. You can't. We're supposed to be the good guys. Bray..."

"Nobody is going to kill anybody." Bray shot Lex a murderous look, as soon as the other boy seemed about to protest. "We'll find another way."

"You'd better." Tai-San had been quiet for a while, listening to the conversation, but she spoke up now. "Killing somebody for a piece of card, especially if that person isn't even a member of Tribe Fury, but is one of the people of this city, would be very bad for our tribe. Our spirit will be weakened."

"Yeah. Well that's as maybe." Lex looked slightly chastened, though not by a great deal. "That's enough talk about it, anyway. Are we going or not?"

"You're going now?" Tai-San went to him immediately. "I should meditate first. This might not be the right time, and I can find out when you have your best chance of success. At the very least I can bring you all added strength."

"We're going now." He gave her what he hoped was a winning smile. "Don't sweat, babe. We'll be back before you know it."

"But Lex - at this time of day?" Never usually so nervous, Tai-San found it hard now to let him go. He rather enjoyed that, and softened his expression slightly.

"It has to be this time of day. I know it seems to make sense to wait until dark, but we can't. If we're seen outside during the curfew then we've got far less chance of escaping. They'll hunt us down with all their resources. If we go when there are still other people about, we might just be ignored."

"Somehow I doubt that." Ebony cast a disdainful look around the rest of the tribe, secretly rather sad that she had nobody to say goodbye to herself. "I'll see you lot outside."

"Yeah." Bray gave Trudy a rather distant smile that was not really a goodbye at all, then followed on after Ebony. "Don't be too long, Lex."

"Huh?" Rather surprised at how quickly they were all leaving, Lex turned to look towards Pride, but his attention seemed caught by something else. He sighed.

"I think that means that we're going right now. Probably my fault for going on about it."

"Come home, Lex." She gave him a quick hug, then stepped back. Proper goodbyes weren't for audiences. He grinned, and tugged her back into his arms for a kiss.

"If you're here, of course I'll come back. Can't let you get so restless you go and wind up in KC's arms, can I."

"Hey." KC wasn't sure whether or not that was an insult, but he seemed inclined to take offence to it anyway, just to be sure. Tai-San smiled.

"Falling into KC's arms might have its advantages, Lex. But come back alive and I won't have to try it."

"I'm only going shopping, babe." Rather enjoying the protracted farewell, he offered a jaunty grin to the rest of the assembled company, then strode off. Pride followed close behind, wondering vaguely about May. She might have given him such a farewell, once, but now he had no idea where she was. It was for the best, probably, since he had been planning to end their relationship anyway, but he still felt a flutter of confused guilt over her now. Guilt or just plain loneliness; he wasn't sure.

They went down the drainpipe at carefully measured intervals, with Ebony keeping watch from the roof, and Bray from the ground. Nobody seemed to be in sight, which was common enough, for most of the other city dwellers were away now during the day, doing their delegated work for Tribe Fury. Only the main streets saw much traffic, either mechanical or human. Lex looked left and right, determined to maintain his position as head of security, and therefore leader of the expedition, then prepared to give his orders.

"Which way's this warehouse we're heading for?" asked Pride, rather taking the wind out of his sails. Bray pointed rather indeterminately towards the east.

"That's the best route. There aren't so many tall buildings, so it'll be harder for their roof sentries to spot us."

"Yeah, but we don't want it to be too obvious that we're sneaking around out here without permission, do we. Wouldn't a more commonly used route be better?" Lex stared towards the east as though he also knew where the warehouse was, and could somehow also come up with a possible route. "Besides, we need to see somebody, if we're going to get hold of an ID card."

"Lex, forget about that, yeah? We don't have a chance to actually forge the thing once we've got it, and like Trudy said, we--"

"I don't give a damn what Trudy said. She's always been moaning about something for as long as I've known her." Recent inaction had brought out all of Lex's old irritability, and he unleashed it now with a vengeance. "We need to get that card. I know what Tai-San said as well, so don't try that one either."

"Right now we don't have to worry about what anybody said or thinks." Ebony sounded very patient, which was a sure sign that she was feeling anything but. "If we don't get moving soon, and start keeping our voices down, we're not going to be in a position to get anybody's ID card. Or anything else."

"She's right." Pride was looking about like an animal searching for a sign of a likely predator. "We're not exactly exposed here, but that's rather beside the point. We shouldn't hang about by the Mall and risk drawing attention to it."

"This way then." Bray was already off, his skateboard giving him the extra speed that had saved his life more than once. Lex swore under his breath.

"I'm supposed to be in charge!" he spat, managing only at the last moment to stop himself from shouting. Ebony smirked at him.

"You be in charge if it pleases you, Lex. We'll just carry on ignoring you." She hurried ahead before he could think of a suitable reply, and was soon as distant a figure as Bray, moving with a stealth and speed that was admirable. Pride went next, his own movements almost as fluid. He had never grown accustomed to the streets, but he could move within them well enough if he thought of them as just an extension of his beloved rural world. Lex glowered at his diminishing form, then took off after them all, dodging from trash bin to trash bin, alley mouth to alley mouth, and wondering how he was supposed to know if there was anybody watching. At least when they had been hiding from the Locos they hadn't had to worry about people standing on buildings, and using telescopic sights.

They came to a halt at a cross roads, where a wider road met their own little one. A tank stood a few hundred yards up ahead, facing away from the little group, but presenting them with a decidedly off-putting silhouette. A uniformed figure stood beside it, apparently talking to somebody through the open hatch.

"What now?" asked Pride. Bray pointed to the unmistakable shape of a guard standing on the roof of a building.

"He's always up there. They're very ordered though. Their patrols are like clockwork. He'll stand at each corner of the building for a full minute, then pace along the edge to the next corner."

"Sounds like a good loophole in the system," commented Lex. Bray nodded.

"True. But he must have a hell of a field of vision standing on one of those corners. We can't make a move until he's on the far one, with his back to us. Otherwise he'll see us for sure. We have to cross the road and get into the lobby of that building he's on."

"But that's pretty damn close to that tank," pointed out Ebony. Bray nodded again.

"I know. The tank itself isn't a problem. As far as I can gather they can only see out the front, unless the viewing ports at the side are open. It's that guy standing next to it that's the threat."

"And how do we know from over here whether the viewing ports at the side are open?" asked Lex. Pride smiled rather roguishly.

"Someone could always go and look," he suggested. Ebony smiled.

"Well if you're volunteering..."

"You don't need to go and look," interrupted Bray. "The guy standing next to the tank is talking through the hatch at the front. I think. So that probably means the side ports are shut. I don't know. You just have to take your chances around those things."

"Maybe one of us should distract the guy at the side," suggested Lex. Ebony grinned.

"For a head of security you can be a bit dim about these things at times, Lex. We don't want them to know that we're here. If one of us distracts them, they'll know."

"And the guy standing over there won't chase after you, either. The tank will just turn its head around and shoot in your direction." Pride was eyeing the cumbersome vehicle with an odd expression, unhappy that he had in some way brought it to life by referring to part of it as a head. Perhaps it would be better to think of it as an animal, he wondered; at least then he might be better prepared to deal with it. Lex scowled. It hurt his feelings that this lot were never prepared to see him as their leader. One small hole in his reasoning, and they were treating him like a fool.

"Yeah, fine. Whatever. We don't distract them then. So just how the hell are you planning to get past?" His anger was enough to make the others relent a little, and Bray pointed to a manhole cover positioned by the edge of the road.

"We have to hope that the guy by the tank doesn't look around, but I think we'll have enough time to open that and get into it while the guard on the roof is looking away."

"The drain should lead under the building I suppose. It looks like an office block, so they must have had bathrooms." Lex nodded. "Have you used the drain before?"

"No. I've never needed to. It can't be that different to the one back at the mall though, can it?"

"Do I look like an expert on drains?" Lex shook his head, exasperated at everything, and eager to be moving again. "Alright. That guy up on the roof is moving away. If we're going to make a move..."

"Yeah." Bray hitched his skateboard onto its strap across his shoulders, and glanced back at Ebony and Pride. "Keep your eyes open."

"But don't shout too loud if you have to give a warning. No need to let them know you're here too." With this last, Lex took off for the manhole cover, running at a fast crouch. Bray followed close behind, throwing himself flat on the ground.

"It looks pretty rusted," he hissed. Lex nodded.

"Can't be that bad yet though, right?" He grabbed hold of the cover and gave it a tug. "What's the guy on the roof doing?"

"Standing." Bray joined in with the pulling. "Damn it. It won't move."

"Just keep pulling. We'll have to wait until he's gone around again before we can get the others over here too." Lex gave another pull at the cover, and they heard the distinct grating sound of moving metal.

"At this rate we're not even going to get ourselves down there, let alone the others." Bray tugged harder, counting under his breath to mark the passing seconds before the guard left the far corner of the roof. "What are they doing over at the tank?"

"Don't know. Not looking." Lex was speaking through gritted teeth, jaw clenched fiercely tight. "You had to have this bright idea, didn't you."

"You try finding a way through this city just now, damn it!" Together they gave the cover another, violent tug, and felt it at last come free. "Quickly!"

"I'm being quick!" Lex dragged the heavy disk of metal onto the road next to him, then all but threw himself down the hole. Bray came after, feet slipping on the ladder, skateboard knocking against the walls. They could no longer see the sentry on the roof, but they felt sure that they had been only just in time.

"That was close." Not caring that he was standing in an inch of murky water, Lex leaned back against the curved, stone wall. "Do you think he'll see that the cover is off?"

"I doubt it. He won't be looking for something like that." Bray went a short distance down the tunnel. "It looks okay down here. We just have to be careful not to go too far."

"So you want to tell me why we had to come this way at all?" Lex followed him, wishing that there was more light so that his glare could have its proper effect. "There have to be other ways of getting to this warehouse. Coming this way is crazy."

"Not really. I mean, yeah, sure there are other ways. Just none that I can be sure are safe anymore. The main road would be just plain foolhardy, the old high street is too exposed. There are too many roof sentries around there. Then the other route goes past the old shoppers' car park near the community centre, and they have about fifty recruits going through training exercises there. We'd never get by without being seen."

"And those are the only routes?"

"Without taking major detours, or going through Wildcats' territory, yeah." Bray realised he had lost all sense of time, and had no idea where in his circular manoeuvres the roof sentry would be. He swore softly, annoyed with himself for the slip. "There's a lot to keep in mind when you're out here. It's not just about getting from A to B."

"Yeah. So I gather." Any mention of the things Bray had to do outside, when he himself was sitting back in the Mall, was always certain to make Lex extremely grouchy. "Found your feet again pretty damn quickly, didn't you."

"A week can be a long time, especially in this city." Bray smiled awkwardly. "It's weird, but it's like... I got so used to living this way, and then when we started to get the city running again, before the Chosen came, I didn't have to do it anymore. When we were running the Resistance together it was different, but I was almost enjoying it. I thought it was just the adrenalin, but now... It's like we're back in the good old days or something. Like I actually enjoy living like this."

"Yeah." For a moment Lex's irritation faded away. "I know what you mean. I adjusted so quickly after the adults died it was weird. There wasn't time to think about it then, but later I realised how natural it all seemed. Living that way, and having to fight all the time. I almost got bored later, when we thought we had a sort of peace, before the Chosen came. I was glad when we had to fight then." He shrugged. "But then you've got to adapt, haven't you. In this world I mean. The way things are..."

"Yeah. Sure." Bray wasn't at all reassured by Lex's words. "It's almost scary though. It's been a week, and I've settled back into some kind of routine. I've already got half of this sector mapped out again, and I know where most of the Independents are; the ones like us, who haven't joined Tribe Fury. I'm good at this."

"Yeah." Lex smiled, a hint of something that might have been embarrassment showing in his eyes. "It's almost like, if the adults came back - or if somehow we managed to rebuild the old world again - I'd be sorry to see it happen. What would we have been doing, if the Virus hadn't come? Right now I mean? I'd have been cutting school, hanging out on street corners, getting into fights. I guess you'd have been thinking about applying to university. Almost boring in comparison."

"Maybe." Images of his younger brother drifted through Bray's mind, and he closed his eyes for a moment. "I think I'd like to be bored right now."

"Well that's where we're different, isn't it." Lex clapped him on the shoulder, which just a little more force than was entirely friendly. "But forget it for now. You hear something?"

"Footsteps." Disapproval showed on Bray's face. "They should know better."

"Always supposing it's them and not the people from that tank." Lex couldn't resist a grim smile at the idea. "Sounds like they're in a hurry." He went back to the ladder, looking up as Pride's feet skidded into view. The tall boy almost fell down the hole, landing with considerably less than his usual agility. He moved aside immediately for Ebony, who slid halfway down the ladder, and struggled to pull the manhole cover shut. Lex went up to help her.

"Are you sure the pair of you made enough noise?" he asked. Ebony shot him a poisonous look.

"They're on the move out there," she told him, in a hiss that was longing to become a shout. "Six of our little uniformed friends, and at least as many civilians. Ragged bunch with skin heads." She flashed a quick glance back at Bray. "They looked like Wildcats. Are they still together?"

"Yeah. I ran into them a couple of days ago. They must be getting desperate if they've come this far out of their nest." He started to lead the way down the tunnel. "Come on. Even if the Furies didn't see you, one of the Cats might. We don't want to have to deal with them right now."

"They're that bad? They looked a pretty miserable bunch." Pride fell in behind him, but Bray didn't seem to have heard. He didn't answer immediately.

"They're nuts," filled in Ebony. Bray shook his head.

"Not in the conventional sense exactly. They used to have a reputation as real troublemakers. They'd fight anyone. Nobody could scare them, and even Zoot didn't bother trying to take them out. They practically live on chemical fumes. Glue, paint, all that stuff. They never seem bothered about finding food."

"Like I said, they're nuts." Ebony pushed past Pride to take a place next to Bray. "I'd rather run into the whole of Tribe Fury than have to deal with that band out there, so let's get a move on, okay? Just to be on the safe side."

"I didn't think you were scared of anybody." Lex was amused to see her concern now, but she didn't respond with her usual anger or amusement. Instead she shook her head, slowly and deliberately.

"You don't get it, do you Lex. They're nuts. They spend all day getting high on paint fumes, and drinking who knows what. Whatever they've got inside their heads these days probably stopped being brain cells a long time ago. They're insane. If they catch us, being the best fighter in the country wouldn't do you any good. They'd tear us apart. Literally." As if to drive home her words the hammer of distant gunfire echoed dully about in the tunnels, and the foursome froze.

"That guy on the roof," commented Pride. "Your Wildcat friends must have jumped Tribe Fury."

"Knowing them they're trying to attack the tank." It was clear that Ebony's opinion of the tribe was extremely low, though in truth she held a grudging respect for them as fighters. "Good. They can distract each other, and make doubly sure that nobody notices anything. How much further until we reach this building that we're heading for?"

"We must be about there." Bray had remained quiet during the discussion about the Wildcats, but he seemed more inclined to speak now that the conversation had come back to more immediately practical matters. "There's a drain cover above us. That ought to be the one we want."

"And we'd better hope that there's nobody sitting up there using the bathroom," growled Pride, only half in jest. Lex smiled.

"Nobody uses bathrooms anymore in this city. Since the water pretty much stopped flowing they've turned into cesspools. Have you seen one lately?" Pride shook his head, and Lex smiled sardonically.

"You don't want to." He climbed up the ladder and gave the cover a hefty push. It lifted up quite easily, and he peered out cautiously through a small crack. Ebony swung up alongside him, and pushed the lid off the rest of the way.

"If there's anybody up here, they're going to see you anyway Lex. You might as well look like you mean business."

"Just leave security to me, Ebony." He climbed up, pushing her out of the way to ensure that he made it out of the drain first. "Looks pretty deserted."

"I'm not surprised." Looking pained, Ebony headed immediately for the bathroom door. "Let's get out of here. If every bathroom in the city stinks like this it's a wonder the whole city doesn't too."

"People probably carried on using them for longer than they should have done, that's all. I don't think there's any danger of catching anything." Pride followed her to the door, the speed of his movements showing that he was not nearly so nonchalant as his words might suggest. Bray was last up the ladder, but like Lex he showed no reaction to the hideous state of the place. Ebony had never seen the harsher side of life in the city, thanks to her relatively luxurious lifestyle amongst the Locos. Pride had barely got to know life in the city at all. Bray and Lex had both seen it all before.

"Where next?" Pride asked, as they went out into a dingy, tiled corridor beyond the bathroom. Bray led the way with only mild hesitation.

"I haven't been by this exact route before, but I know this building has a back door. It must be somewhere this way. Once we get to it, we head out into a back alley. If we keep flat against the wall, that sentry on the roof won't be able to see us."

"What about the other sentries on other buildings?" asked Lex. Bray shook his head.

"The nearest one is on the old bank I think. We should be okay for a while, anyway. It's a long alley and it'll take us most of the way to the warehouse. Then we cut across the back yard of that Catholic kindergarten with the old bell on the roof, and we're practically there."

"Pyro territory," muttered Ebony automatically. Bray shook his head.

"Not anymore."

"True. The Chosen wiped out the last of them, I heard." She smiled faintly, though not with any real relish. "Not that the Locos left many."

"Pyros?" asked Pride, who sometimes felt rather left behind when talk turned to old tribes he had never encountered. Lex felt much the same, but didn't like drawing attention to his lack of knowledge by asking such questions. Bray made a face.

"Pyromaniacs," he supplied, as though that bit hadn't been obvious. "And they meant it too. They'd set fire to anything. Half the burned out buildings in this sector and the next one were their work. Zoot decided to get rid of them after they destroyed his first headquarters, back before the last of the adults died. That was when the Pyro attacks were at their height. The city was mostly deserted, because of the evacuations, and because so many of the kids were away at the military camps in the hills."

"It wasn't pretty," recollected Ebony. "We lost two of the tribe, and Zoot was livid. He took out a war party the very next day. There was one hell of a fight. Bastards came after us with home made flame throwers."

"And two of the last adults left alive in the city got caught in the cross fire," added Bray, slowing to a halt as they reached the back door of the building. "They were policemen, or had been, and they came to stop the fight."

"You were there?" asked Lex, rather surprised to hear this. Bray nodded.

"I was still sort of a Loco myself then. I'd joined to try to keep an eye on Martin, but it wasn't working out. That battle confirmed it and I left the next morning. I saw two policemen doing their damnedest to defend their city, even though they were both nearly dead from the Virus. The kids just turned on them."

"It's our city now. They didn't have any right to it anymore." Ebony remembered the fight with no more relish than Bray, but she at least better understood the high feelings that had been in evidence that night. "I think we killed a lot of the Pyromaniacs as well. They didn't get any of us."

"We outnumbered them five to one," pointed out Bray. Ebony shrugged.

"Don't go looking for a fight that you don't have a fair chance of winning," she told him. "You never were much of a tactician."

"Which breaks my heart." He pushed open the door. "Don't forget to stay close to the wall. If he sees us he'll just shoot. Any stories we might try on a ground patrol don't matter to the roof sentries. They just open fire."

"I hate this city." Only half joking, Pride moved into the lead, taking the point as they headed into the alley. It was a grim place, as so many of them were now. Always repositories for rubbish, the thin, grimy alleys of the old world were festering, rat-filled places now, where disease was almost a visible threat. The stench was worse than back in the bathroom, although much of the dumped rubbish looked past the rotting stage now.

"I think this is officially the worst place I've been in since coming to this city." Pressed against a wall that was black and slimy to the touch. Pride set his teeth against his natural revulsion. "And that includes being trapped in the Mall when it looked like the Guardian was going to blow it up."

"It's just slime." Lex decided not to think too hard on how it might have formed, and just concentrated on staying out of sight. A strong smell of damp and unpleasantness rose from the slime as they disturbed it in passing, and any number of unidentifiable black objects squelched and burst under foot. A number of rats, bigger than any that might have dwelt in the city in the old days, came out to glare at the humans, and Lex whistled softly.

"You could put saddles and reins on those things."

"Well don't let them get too close. Rat bites can be horrible." Pride tried kicking something at the animals, but they didn't seem in the least perturbed. "I've noticed that there are more black rats around than there ever used to be. Best not to let any of them come near you."

"Black rats?" Lex, who had rarely bothered to go to school in his life, saw no problem with this. "Are they bigger or something?"

"No. They're plague carriers. The Black Death, remember? I don't know if it's still around much these days, or if every black rat in the world might be carrying it, but I do know that I don't want to catch it." Pride slowed as they reached a cross roads of sorts. "Which way?"

"Carry straight on." Bray was bringing up the rear, resisting the urge to go on ahead. He wasn't used to moving about with companions. "Keep going until the alley intersects with a normal road. You'll be able to see the kindergarten. It's a red brick building with a white roof, and a big cross built into the wall with white bricks."

"And it's pretty much the only building there that isn't burnt down," added Ebony, rather unimpressed with long and unnecessary descriptions. "And keep your voices down. Some of these walls are pretty thin, and they back onto a lot of buildings and other roads. We don't know who might be about."

"Lots of people with guns, knowing our luck." With Lex's final bitter comment, the little group lapsed into silence. Time ran into a blur, then, with no conversation to mark its passing. The alley stretched on in a long, straight line of decaying filth, and beyond that there was nothing. Nothing save the sky overhead, and the occasional glimpse of a distant building. The sun glinted on windows, and highlighted patches of graffiti; and black, jagged remnants of old fires began to loom into view. Gradually all sight of healthy buildings was gone, and the only view was of destruction. Shapeless walls, bereft of their caved-in roofs, stood like broken, blackened teeth against the skyline. It was like walking suddenly into a completely different city.

"You people thought up some pretty weird ways of entertaining yourselves after the Virus struck," commented Pride. Ebony glared at his back, stopping just short of sticking her tongue out - or more likely doing something infinitely more verbal, and considerably less polite.

"And I suppose out in the countryside you all just carried on being very calm and polite," she growled. He nodded.

"Pretty much. What's the point in fighting when we're all in the same boat? And setting fire to everything around you, destroying necessary shelters, and probably food and equipment stores in the process. What's the point in that? It's as if everybody went mad."

"They did." Bray was thinking of the fight that had been fought in this place; of watching his brother finally ceasing to be Martin, and becoming the finished, polished creation of his own twisted fantasy. The battered gangs of Pyromaniacs, with their home-made flame throwers; and two debilitated policemen desperate to make what they saw as nothing more than a band of tearaway kids stop their fighting and go home. None of them had had real homes anymore, and many hadn't in some time. They had already ceased to be the citizens of old.

"Sometimes I wonder if this city can ever have been a safe place to live." Pride pointed up ahead. "I take it that's the kindergarten?"

"That's the one." Bray came up alongside him, looking towards the building. It was a long time since he had been here, for he had always preferred approaching the secret warehouse by another route, and he had forgotten just how ruined this place was. Rubbish bins, long set slight, stood around like odd sculptures, amid a landscape filled with the blackened and the twisted. Burnt out cars were everywhere; an upturned postal van clung pointlessly to the last remnants of its red paint, whilst its melted tyres pointed up to the sky. Bricks scattered the street, and chunks of broken glass lay amongst melted splashes of the same substance. There were bodies there too, though these all four Mall Rats did their best not to see. A withered adult, only part skeletonised, collapsed across the body of someone much younger; a second adult, his policeman's uniform still recognisable, with the knife that had killed him still stuck in the middle of his back. Pride looked disgusted.

"I can't believe you people still defend this city. It's like something from a horror movie."

"I suppose you think we should let Tribe Fury take it all." Lex stepped out of the alley, crossing the scarred street. "Well sorry Pride. This is my city, and I don't give a damn how screwed up it is. Maybe every kid in the place is a psychopath, and maybe we're all going to end up killing each other. Maybe we were all sick in the head long before the Virus came. It doesn't matter. We still have to fight."

"Don't seem to have done much fighting yet." Following close behind him, Ebony gazed about at the scene of her first great battle. That had been about fires and screaming, and death and injury, not hunting for food and scavenged stores, and trying never to be seen by the enemy. She hopped over the white stone wall of the kindergarten and took the lead as they passed the old building. There was no graffiti, which seemed odd in a world where every tribe decorated their lair. Even the plants in the garden had been left alone, and a strangely unvandalised slide and see-saw stood in a peculiarly colourful splendour on either side of a bright yellow hopscotch grid. Lex couldn't resist a quick trip down the slide, and Bray threw down his skateboard and zoomed past them all, apparently affected by the same spirit of sudden carelessness. This splash of untouched colour in the middle of the devastation affected them all, and even Pride seemed to relax a little. They crossed the yard in a strung out group, Bray skating ahead, the others wandering behind to look in through the windows, and admire the collection of plants. A football lay against the red brick building, and Lex started to kick it idly along as he walked. Pride tried to tackle him, and Ebony rolled her eyes. What was it about a ball that could turn two usually cautious professionals into duelling children? She chose to ignore them, and hurried off after Bray instead, watching as he reached the gate that led out of the yard. She could see part of the building that they were aiming for now; a monstrosity of corrugated iron and breeze blocks, smoke stained but otherwise mostly undamaged. Part of the ceiling had been caved in by a fire bomb a long time ago, but the stores had remained safe enough, hidden in a cellar that few people knew about and even less had ever bothered to raid. It had been a long time since she had been inside it, and she wondered what might be there. Not that there was much that she needed, though the means with which to make a few weapons might be nice.

"Hurry up!" Turning around slightly as he freewheeled through the gate, Bray gestured for the others to come after him. He was feeling exposed again, the odd feeling of security that came from the undamaged school yard evaporating as he left its confines. The streets on this side of the kindergarten bore no signs of the battle that had once taken place here, though there were still burnt buildings aplenty. He started to gather speed as the road sloped gently downwards, and he turned his back on the three stragglers behind him. Lex and Pride were still squabbling over the ball, acting like children allowed outside to play after a particularly long period of rain. If they had been anybody else Bray might have gone to join them, but he had never been on the best of terms with either boy, and therefore concentrated merely on the building up ahead. The list of items that they needed floated through his head; a barrel, some rafters, baby things. If they found everything, and set off back to the Mall with their hands full, maybe Lex would forget about getting an identity card as well. He imagined arriving back with stores enough to supply Brady for weeks; with all the materials that Jack needed to ensure that they could remain self sufficient; with extra food stores as well perhaps. It was a nice thought, and one that occupied his mind enough to prevent him from seeing the silhouette that flitted briefly between buildings a little further down the empty street.

Ebony was still watching him skate, wondering if it was something that she should take up. She had never needed to adopt the skateboards and roller-blades that so many other tribes had used for transportation, for the Locos had always had a car for her to get around in. She hadn't skated since the days at the rink before the Virus, when she and Bray had gone together on Friday and Saturday nights. It might be nice to take it up again now though, even if it was unsafe on most streets nowadays. Bray looked faintly heroic, to her eyes at least, as he freewheeled along the road, and she would like to strike such a pose herself. Standing tall, wind in her hair, looking as cool as he did now. She smiled, and let her usual focus drift as she thought back to the last time she had worn roller-skates - and with her mind elsewhere failed to notice the black clad figure rising into view between two buildings. She didn't notice him until Lex shouted, and made her jump.

The shot was shockingly loud, even though it came from some distance away. A single shot, from a high powered rifle, wielded by a blond-haired figure dressed in an all too familiar uniform. Bray fell backwards from the skateboard as though jerked by an unseen string, landing hard on the heat scorched tarmac. He didn't move, and his skateboard rolled to a halt some feet away. Ebony gaped.

"Bray?" It was a hopeless attempt to speak to him, for the word was barely audible even to herself. Lex and Pride ran up, standing beside her in silent shock. None of them moved any closer to the motionless figure on the road. They didn't want to see what had happened, and they didn't want to know if that single shot had been fatal. The blond figure in his stiff black uniform had no such reservations however, and was already coming out from under cover. He didn't so much as glance at the three other Mall Rats, no doubt trusting in his rifle to prevent them from coming any closer. Lex's fists clenched and unclenched with vicious force, but he held back. A rifle like that could drop him from an impressive distance, and if the aim was good enough it would all be over. He wanted to move though; wanted to run towards the proud, preening figure stalking closer to Bray. He was angry with himself when he didn't take even a step.

Up ahead, the skateboard skittered away under the force of an impatient kick as the figure prowled closer to his victim. He was about eighteen, with blond, wavy hair that touched his shoulders, and sparkling black eyes that regarded the sprawled and immobile Bray with something close to genuine affection. Towering above the downed Mall Rat, tall and self-confident, he let his eyes carry the barest hint of mockery and humour. Bray still hadn't moved. He didn't move now.

"You can stop shamming," the figure said, in a soft and modulated voice. "I aimed for the skateboard, not you." Bray's eyes flickered open.

"I'm not shamming." He still didn't move his body; only his eyes and his mouth seemed able to move at all.

"You were hurt?" The concern in the warm voice was entirely false, and Bray knew it. He glared up, letting the pain in his back and his head ebb gently away before trying anything more energetic.

"You try getting knocked backwards like that." He thought about trying to lure the gleaming blond figure closer, so that he might be able to do something to disarm him, but somehow he was sure that such a ploy would be useless. Slowly he turned his head, seeing Lex, Ebony and Pride still standing in the yard behind the kindergarten. They saw him move, and some of the shock seemed to fade from their faces, but they were still too far away to be of any use to him. The blond-framed head above him cracked into a delightful smile.

"I could get rid of them."

"Leave them alone." Moving very cautiously, and extremely mindful of the gun as well as his own possible injuries, Bray sat up. His head protested, but he didn't rub it, or check for blood. He kept his hands where they were. "Are you alone?"

"Who knows? That's not the sort of thing I'm going to tell you without good reason." His captor's smile didn't seem to waver as he spoke, and if it changed at all it was only to grow bigger, warmer, more charming. "It's good to see you again, Bray."

"I can't say that it's mutual." He frowned, feigning trouble in remembering. "Racka was it? Rochester?"

"Racha. Brigadier Racha as it happens, but I don't think we need to let a little thing like rank come between friends. Get up."

"Friends?" Bray stood up slowly, glad to discover that it didn't hurt very much. He had hit his head hard on the tarmac, but clearly there was no real damage done. "We've only met the once, and I wouldn't say that it was especially friendly."

"I know. I feel really bad about that." Racha fluttered his eyelashes mockingly, then shouldered his rifle. "But that was then. This is now. Why go on harbouring grudges?"

"I don't know. Maybe because you've enslaved my city and tried to kill me twice now?" It was hard not to be angry with a person who refused to behave like a proper enemy. Racha merely smiled on, ever warm, ever flirtatious.

"I didn't just try to kill you. But who's counting? Now call your friends over. We might as well be introduced properly."

"I doubt they want to meet you." Relaxing slightly now that the gun was no longer pointed at him, Bray stole a quick glance at the others. He didn't like taking his eyes from Racha even for that short a time, and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled all the while. Lex had taken a few steps forward, he realised, and now that the gun seemed to be no longer a threat he came onwards much more readily, the others at his heels. Racha beamed in welcome, leaving the gun resting casually on his shoulder.

"Hello," he offered, in a typically warm and pleasant fashion. Lex ignored him and addressed Bray.

"What's going on? Who is this guy?"

"Racha," announced the man himself, still sparkling at everybody and everything. His heels clicked together smartly. "Brigadier Racha. Second in command of Tribe Fury, and very pleased to meet all of you." His eyes drifted coolly up and down Lex's athletic frame, and his smile grew. "And you are?"

"Very cautious," snapped back Lex. "Bray, what is this? Did he not mean to shoot at you? Can we trust this guy?"

"Of course you can trust me. I didn't kill him, did I." Racha slapped the stock of his rifle. "I could have killed all of you. I could have radioed my unit and brought ten men in to round you up or wipe you out, but I didn't. So enough with the hostility."

"Hostility?" Ebony took a step towards him, though she took care not to move too close. "You're the guy who brought Bray back to the city. You were just about to kill him when I got in the way."

"Oh yes." He turned his smile on to her, eyes gleaming with all their merry flirtation. "I thought I'd seen you before. But that was different, wasn't it. All those people, the rest of my unit. I couldn't very well let him go in front of witnesses, could I."

"Well it's nice to know you'd have been blowing the back of my head off unwillingly." Bray eyed the gun cautiously, wondering what exactly would happen if the four of them tried to take it away. Racha would surely have no chance against all of them? And yet somehow he couldn't quite convince himself enough to try. Racha just smiled.

"So what was it that you wanted?" asked Pride, when it seemed that nobody else knew what to say. His voice was the kind that demanded an answer, and his eyes showed that he cared nothing for Racha's sparkles and smiles. The blond brigadier eyed him thoughtfully for a moment, then glanced over at Bray.

"I was hoping I'd run into you," he said, although by then his gaze had drifted back to the group in general, and it was unclear exactly whom he meant. "You remember Lisa?"

"No," answered Bray, deciding that it must have been him at whom the question had been directed. Racha frowned, then nodded.

"You were never introduced," he said, as though in realisation. "She was the medic in my unit when we first met."

"You left her with Amber." Something sparked into life in Bray's eyes, and he felt his stomach lurch. "What happened?"

"She came back to the city," was the rather off-hand reply. "Lisa, not your girlfriend. She told me that your girl was dead." He frowned, apparently taken by surprise by the blank, closed look that had taken over Bray's face. The idea of grief had clearly not struck him. "Then yesterday I had a word with one of the kids I'd sent up to look after her," he continued, still rather oblivious to everything save his news. Lex glared at him, but the unspoken demand to shut up went as unnoticed as Bray's inner turmoil. "Turns out she didn't die at all, or at least not then. They just got restless and deserted their post." He frowned again, once more rather surprised by the effect that his words were having. Bray was staring at him now, fists clenched, and had the clear look of someone considering violence. Racha's fingers tapped rhythmically and meaningfully on the stock of his rifle.

"I sent some more people up there straight away." He still spoke without hurry or emotion, though now he used rather more force. "She wasn't there. Apparently there were two sets of footprints leading away from the place, but the trail went cold so they couldn't follow." He smiled innocuously, and raised his eyebrows. "I don't know where she's gone, but it looked like she survived. There wasn't any disturbed earth, as though there had been any burials recently. So you can draw your own conclusions."

"Why are telling me this?" Bray's voice sounded thick, and his eyes were strangely masked. Racha shrugged.

"I thought you deserved to know. I'm no fool, Bray. I know you people are out here. Independents you call yourselves. You think nobody sees any of you? Well I've been keeping my eyes open, and my ears, and there's been plenty to hear from the tribes who have surrendered to us. A few questions to the right people, and I had a rough idea of where to start looking for you. Back then I thought I'd be delivering the news that she was dead. Now you get to have the updated report instead."

"You tracked us down, you claim to know about us, you've been asking questions?" Ebony was capable of a very great deal of suspicion, and she turned it all onto Racha. "What do you want? Is there a squad of your little friends waiting for us round the corner?"

"No." Racha favoured her with one of his most delightful smiles, though she remained unimpressed. "Listen, I don't care about getting the whole of the city in our thrall. That's Silver's kick, not mine. He wants to rule the world, and have every kid on the planet gazing at him adoringly. Me, I prefer a challenge. I like having you Independents out here, fighting us and hiding from us. If you people want to stay living the way you are, that's fine by me."

"There's a catch," pronounced Ebony. Pride had already turned away in disgust. There was something humiliating about a foe who thought that their attempts at resistance were entertaining. Racha shrugged.

"Catch? What could be the catch? You get to run around out here to your heart's content, struggling to survive, not having enough food... but I won't do anything to stop you. I can't speak for my colleagues of course. In return..."

"There's always something," muttered Ebony. Lex folded his arms.

"In return we let you walk out of here alive," he announced, determined to exert a little authority. Racha beamed at him.

"I've been training with this gun for six years," he said, brightly and matter-of-factly. "I've been careful to keep just enough distance between us. So you make a move, friend, and you're dead." Lex looked furious, and Racha shrugged at him. "But hey, no hard feelings, right? All's fair in love and war."

"This isn't war," muttered Lex, from between clenched teeth. "I don't know what the hell it is, but it isn't war."

"Oh but it is." Racha had a different light in his eyes now, as though the playtime was over for the time being. "It's the biggest war you've ever fought, friend. We've got this city, and sooner or later every Independent in it will be dead or captured. It's inevitable. So here's the trick. You defeat us, and run us out of this city, or you all die. There's nothing I can do to stop that."

"You want us to defeat you?" Bray wasn't sure quite what they were hearing. Racha raised an eyebrow.

"Want you to defeat us? Why would I want that? No Bray. I want you to try. I want a proper battle, not these stupid scuffles with people who surrender too easily. I want a challenge, and you people, and all the other Independents who have some real life about them, are the ones who are going to give it to me."

"You're insane," announced Pride, still clearly disgusted with the situation. Racha's eyes hardened.

"Maybe," he countered, the warmth still in his voice. "But unless you're willing to surrender, or unless you're going to commit suicide by trying to get out of the city, you've got no choice but to fight back, in your little ways. No choice at all." He took his gun from his shoulder in a smart, snappy movement, and in an instant had them all held at bay. "So back to that 'in return'."

"Which is what exactly." Keeping as much of a jeer in his voice as he could, Lex showed off a fine display of angry glaring. Racha just seemed amused, as he had all along.

"Once a week one of you comes here. I don't care which one, but starting today, at this time every week, I want to see someone. I'm not expecting reports. I don't want you to betray your friends and neighbours. That isn't important. What I want is to know that you're still here. That you haven't tried to leave the city."

"And what's to stop us from running out just after we've been to see you?" asked Ebony. "It would be a week before you got wise. We could be miles away."

"More likely you'd be dead for trying to get past the troops we have encircling the city." Racha cocked his head on one side, regarding the silently sulking Pride with an air of interest. "But if you want to try running, let's just be clear about one thing. I'm not like my colleagues. They rely on random sweeps to try to find the Independents. Sometimes they succeed, usually they don't. Me, I have a different strategy. I ask questions, I talk to the prisoners. I know where most of you are. I know who you are. If none of you turns up for our weekly meeting here, people are going to die. All over the city, Independents are going to be getting visits from people with guns - and most of the time we don't bother to take that kind - your kind - into custody. We just go in shooting, and we don't leave any survivors. Do you want that on your consciences?"

"No." Almost as if he was worried that one of the others would give a different answer, Pride spoke up again. "No. We're staying. And one of us will be here every week."

"We will?" Lex was not pleased with the idea, but Pride shot him a look that spoke volumes.

"Lex, if it had been up to me we wouldn't still be in this damn city. But we are, and now we have responsibilities. We're not getting anybody killed."

"Good." Racha took a step away from them. "Till next week then. Have a good one." His gun moved around to point at each of them in turn. "Don't try anything. Rather spoil all the fun if I had to shoot you now, wouldn't it."

"Yeah. Mustn't spoil the fun." Sarcasm dripping from her voice, Ebony muttered her impotent riposte. Racha merely grinned and was gone. The others stared after him, watching as he disappeared off amongst the buildings, then turned to face each other in despondency.

"What the hell was that all about?" Turning away, Lex paced up and down in obvious agitation. "Who is that guy?"

"Don't ask me. He's just the guy that captured me up in the hills a week ago." Bray turned to look at the point where Racha had disappeared from view. He had clearly departed completely, and was probably already well on his way back to the hotel. "I think he's... touched. He doesn't seem to have emotions like normal people."

"Oh he's a headcase alright." Lex kicked at stray stones on the ground. "Damn it! We thought we were being so clever! So what is all this. Is it over? Do we give up trying to fight back? I mean, if Tribe Fury really knows all about us--"

"Tribe Fury doesn't know all about us. One of them does." Pride tore his own eyes away from the buildings where they had had their last glimpse of the possibly insane Racha. "He's playing games with us, and we have to play as well. Now let's forget about him and see about those supplies that we came for. Best deal with the things we can handle before we worry about the things we can't."

"Yeah. You're right." Bray picked up his skateboard, eyeing without enthusiasm the deep scar caused by Racha's bullet. "The entrance is this way." He started to head for what looked like an old post office, abandoned at least twenty years before in favour of a more modern one some distance away. The others followed, through the door, past the old post master's desk, and down a short flight of steps. They were in an extension then, built hastily for some reason now lost to time; a place of breeze blocks and corrugated iron that didn't fit at all with the style of the building to which it had been attached. The extension was mostly empty, save for sections of corrugated sheeting from the roof, now lying on the floor, blackened and caved in by an early Pyro attack. Glass from the broken windows was scattered about the place, in a familiar pattern of vandalism and destruction, and the legend Demon Dogz Rule! screamed itself from one wall in a riot of pink and orange paint. Another flight of steps led downwards from the middle of the floor, surrounded by the sort of temporary barrier put up by construction workers. It was light and made of plastic, and striped in red and white, and quite how it had managed to remain standing was a mystery. Lex looked about.

"Nice place. How did you find it?"

"We were locked up here once." Ebony flashed a smile at Bray that spoke of old camaraderie, and old friendships that went back much further than their recent enmity. "That was a mad night."

"Yeah." Bray smiled faintly, the first time he had done so in some while. "Come on." He started off down the stairs without elaborating upon the story, and Ebony seemed to have no indication of doing so either. She followed on behind him, and Lex and Pride, exchanging a look, took up the rear. It wasn't a long flight of stairs, and it led down into a room approximately twice the size of the one above.

"Why would a post office need a cellar like this?" asked Lex. Bray pulled a flashlight from his bag, and shone it around. It didn't do a great deal to illuminate the darkness of an underground, windowless room, but it was better than nothing.

"Not a post office," he answered, sweeping the floor with the beam of light from his torch. "Not anymore. The last few years it was used by the education authority. They used to store files here, but I suppose the Demon Dogs must have junked them."

"Which has to be a good thing if it was school reports that they kept down here." Lex thought about a few of his, from the days when he had still bothered to attend school, and wondered what had happened to all of those files. A nice big fire, hopefully. Beside him Pride was pulling out his own torch, flashing it around at the walls. Piles of assorted junk showed up in the light; a ladder, rows of paint in spray cans, a handful of televisions lined up in case they ever proved to be useful again. Further on there were metal barrels and wooden fence posts; a roll of barbed wire and a pile of traffic cones. Pride made a beeline for a metal barrel.

"That's one thing off the list." He seemed to have become all business since the encounter with Racha, and nobody was really inclined to distract him from his singular path. They all wanted to get back to the Mall now. "What's next?"

"Baby stuff." Bray's voice came from some distance away, where his torch-light was bobbing along beside a metal shelving unit filled with cans of dried milk formula, packets of baby wipes and bottles of skin lotion. For want of a proper list he packed as much stuff as possible into his bag, trying not to distract himself too much with thoughts of his own baby. He had no idea whether or not to believe what Racha had said. What reason had he had to lie? Yet on the other hand, why would he really seek Bray out to pass on such news? If it was true, Bray wondered where she had gone; how she was, and who she was with. None of his thoughts made him feel much better, so he was concentrating now on nothing but his responsibilities to Brady. It was a good deal easier than the alternative.

"We're not going to find any suitable wood in here," observed Lex. Pride nodded.

"We should forget about that for now. It'll be hard enough to get this barrel back to the Mall. Remember how hard it was to get here."

"It might be possible if we're careful." Bray rejoined them, doing up the straps of his bag as he came. It was bulging with supplies. "The Wildcats might have got rid of that bunch we had to sneak past earlier."

"Do we ever get that lucky?" wondered Lex. Ebony shrugged, leading the way back up the stairs.

"Stranger things have happened. Anyway, let's just get out of here. It's too hard to hear what's happening up above."

Nobody was inclined to argue with her, and it was a despondent straggle of Mall Rats that left the old warehouse, none of them clear quite what to do next. The early optimism that they had shared, about finding all that they needed and getting it safely back home, had been badly shaken by Racha's claims that they could not hope to traverse the city unseen. Tribe Fury themselves might not see them - or would certainly have attacked them - but there were others. Independents, perhaps, who would sell information to avoid death on discovery, passing tales to someone like Racha who, as he had told them, was prepared to listen to prisoners. The number of places in which a possible spy might be hiding seemed suddenly to multiply, and the dark, desolate buildings no longer appeared likely to be empty. Pride set the metal barrel down in the entrance to the old post office and looked around.

"So what do we do now?" he asked. Lex shrugged.

"Jack needs that wood, or something else that he can build the framework of his windmill out of," he pointed out. Pride gestured at the barrel.

"I thought we'd agreed we have enough of a task ahead of us getting this back unseen. I can't believe we thought this would be so easy."

"It might still be." Ebony was looking towards Bray. "There is another way, remember. The route we used to sneak up on the Pyros when we attacked them that night."

"It opens out at the Locos' old headquarters," answered Bray. "That's just a little out of our way."

"Actually it has more than one exit. We developed it a lot after you left us." She smiled at him, in so sparkly and warm a fashion that he was reminded inescapably of Racha - and of the fact that Ebony was probably no less dangerous. "We did used to fight quite a lot you know. It was one of things we were best at. Zoot closed it down once the Demon Dogs seemed to get wise to too much of it, but it's still there if you know where to look."

"What is this other route?" Lex was taking charge again, playing the security chief in his usual, bull-headed way. Ebony looked almost as though she was considering not answering him.

"If you're going to tell me it's a secret..." he spat at last, and his eyes switched over to Bray. "Just for Locos and their oldest friends, is it?"

"Lex..." Bray could always be counted on to react badly to Lex's needling, just as Lex would always respond similarly to ill-chosen words from Bray, and time and tentative friendship had done nothing to change that. Pride rolled his eyes.

"Oh we've got every chance of defeating Tribe Fury, haven't we. What's wrong with you two? You worked together to fight the Chosen - so just grow up now."

"Yeah, okay." Looking just abashed enough to show that he was genuinely apologetic, without quite ruling out another flash of temper in the near future, Lex managed to wipe away the worst of his frown. "So what is this other route?"

"A tunnel." Ebony enjoyed having information that he was not a party to, and was happy to milk the moment even if their situation was likely to be increasingly precarious. "Most cities have them; drainage tunnels, underground railways and their service tunnels; rivers re-routed underground. You could get anywhere you wanted to, years ago, if you knew what you were doing. A lot of them got blocked up later - natural subsidence, or the adults thinking they were dangerous after a few accidents in the old days. Zoot found some of them, and we opened up a whole lot more."

"Quite the underground network," commented Bray. "Until the Demon Dogs starting sabotaging them."

"You heard about that?" Ebony looked gently reflective for a moment, then shrugged. "There were one or two explosions, but then things often blew up when the Demon Dogs were involved. And besides, they never blew up anybody important."

"They were crazy days," commented Lex, who had always been rather sorry that he had missed out on those early times, due to his removal to one of the military style training camps in the foothills. From what he had heard it had been pure chaos and mayhem, and an era, no matter how brief, of utter insanity. A few terrified adults, dying unnoticed in a world full of children fighting to the death in the gutter. Hardly paradise, but a fascinating challenge.

"Yet again I'm gutted I was out in the countryside." Pride would never understand Lex's love of all things violent and urban, just as Lex would never understand the attraction of life in some peaceful rural backwater. "If we're going for this tunnel, let's just go for it. I don't want to be out here any longer."

"Whatever you say, honey." Ebony looked both ways along the street, then struck off back towards the kindergarten. This time they did not linger in the strangely relaxing yard, but pressed on, past the withered corpses, and on down a short, almost painfully thin alley. It proved to be a dead end, but there was a grating set into the end wall, which was clearly part of a drain. It was not possible for two of them to take hold of the grille at once, but Ebony was strong enough to tug it free. Lex looked doubtful.

"You used this to make an attack on another tribe?" he asked. "It's hardly wide enough for one person, and with weapons as well you're looking at a serious disadvantage."

"Not when you can move quietly, and when you know your enemy is well distracted." Ebony cast a look back at Bray. "Even when you have somebody tagging along who's trying to give the game away. They didn't see us coming."

"You got lucky," opined Lex, who liked having the last word. She grinned suggestively back up at him.

"They're dead, we won," she told him, rather unarguably. "Now come on."

The tunnel, like any other, was a cold, slightly damp place, with occasional cobwebs dangling from the ceiling and a smell of stale air. It was wide enough for two to walk abreast, and Ebony and Bray fell into a natural lead. The place was dark, but with two torches in the party there was light enough to see by. The beams of light showed the moist walls and wet, muddy floor of the tunnel, but there was not a lot else to see.

"Storm drain?" asked Lex. Ebony shrugged.

"Don't know. Maybe. It's not a sewer, so it could be." She stopped abruptly, by what seemed to be a roughly made hole. "This way."

"Where is this old headquarters that you used to have?" Lex was quite excited by this idea of secret tunnels and night time raids on lethal enemies, and his excitement showed in contrast to the recent seriousness of all the group. Bray glanced back at him, momentarily dazzled by the torch that Lex was carrying.

"School basement," he said, rather shortly since it was a period of his life that he had no desire to remember. "A private one, that got closed down as soon as things started to get crazy."

"It had a mad old caretaker who thought Zoot was the Second Coming." Ebony laughed at the memory, before turning her back on all of them to climb through the hole. "Can you manage with that barrel, Pride?"

"Let me worry about the barrel. You just get us back to Mall." The idle conversation bothered him, although he wasn't entirely sure why. Certainly it made him feel that he was the only one of them taking this seriously; and the only one who was an outsider, not originally from the city.

"All work and no play, Pride." Ebony shook her head sadly. "I never thought that you'd turn out to be a dull boy."

"Just shut up and lead the way." His patience, usually limitless, was failing fast. The events of the day had come together to disturb him greatly, and he was as worried as was Bray about Amber. He wanted to know whose had been the second set of footprints supposedly seen leading away from the barn. He wanted to know how far Racha had been telling the truth. Most of all he just didn't want to be here now.

"Take it easy everybody. We're pretty close to the surface, and you never know who might be able to hear us." Bray was looking uneasy, flashing his torch about in sudden darts. Lex had to laugh.

"What's the matter? Seeing rats?"

"No. At least, not the little kind." He came to a dead halt, and Pride crashed into him, almost dropping the barrel. "I can hear something. Can't you?"

"Just you lot sharing reminiscences." Pride renewed his grip on the barrel. "Watch where you're going."

"Oh shut up." Ebony quickened her pace. "There's nobody down here except ghosts; but there might be people up above, so stop arguing." She slowed, and gestured to another grille. "This way now."

They tugged down the grille and emerged into a drier, wider tunnel with a definite air current. Ebony seemingly had no need to get her bearings, or think about where they were, but led the way unhesitatingly. Bray was starting to trail behind now, falling even behind Pride and his unwieldy burden.

"This place is fantastic." Rather sorry that he had never known about it before, Lex pulled slightly into the lead. "It's really all old tunnels?"

"Old engineering stuff. They've mostly been here as long as the city, and most were forgotten about long before your parents were born." She gestured off down a side tunnel. "That way is the town centre, and a few yards down there's another siding that'll eventually take you to the beach. That way is blocked though. A couple of kids drowned there back in the seventies."

"You know, I think Bray's right." Still annoyed at this careless chatter about tunnels, Pride slowed his step and set down the barrel. "I think I can hear something."

"What?" Lex also stopped, turning around and flashing his torch back at the other two. They both flinched involuntarily.

"I don't know what." Pride was trying to listen, but could hear nothing now. "I thought I heard footsteps."

"I didn't hear anything." Ebony listened carefully nonetheless, then shook her head. "This place has strange acoustics. You can hear all kinds of things. It doesn't mean anything."

"Maybe." Pride picked up the barrel again, but he could see that Bray wasn't convinced.

"Who'd be down here?" asked Lex, in an attempt to get things moving again. "Nobody knows about this place, right?"

"Somebody might." Bray caught them up as they went on again, slowing when Ebony headed for another turning. "Maybe we should head for the surface. You're not the only Loco left, Ebony. Any number are still out there somewhere, and you know what they're like. They won't have surrendered to Tribe Fury."

"True... but they're also my friends, and we don't have to worry about what they might do. Well, you might, admittedly. Besides, it's not likely that they're down here. The Demon Dogs either. They're not tunnel rats. Using them is one thing, but living in them? Don't be so jumpy, Bray. Honestly, one mention of what might have happened to Amber, and your boyfriend has got you and Pride acting like a couple of scared little kids."

"Maybe." Pride cast a sidelong glance at Bray, feeling a little guilty about being so obvious in his concern for Amber. He had thought that he had adjusted to having lost her to Bray, but perhaps the truth was something rather more complicated. Bray wasn't looking at him though, and didn't seem unduly concerned by Ebony's insinuation.

"Watch your heads," she told them, as they continued on after her, though she made no effort to make sure that they had heard. Being very much smaller than the others it was easy for her to step through the low entrance to the next tunnel, and she disappeared abruptly into inky blackness. Lex followed quickly, catching his elbows on a jagged wall. The floor sloped downwards, and his surprised feet nearly cost him his balance. He waved the torch around.

"What the hell happened here? Some kind of cave in?" His torch was showing tumbled stone and other assorted rubble, and it made the going treacherous. Ebony shook her head.

"Bomb," she said, rather too coolly. "Demon Dogs."

"The sabotage crew, huh." He whistled through his teeth. "I wouldn't like to be trapped down here with bombs going off. Imagine being caught up in a roof fall."

"By the look of things there are plenty of people to ask if you want to know what it's like."

"Huh?" Lex followed the direction of Pride's gaze, beginning to get an unpleasant idea about just what his companion had meant. On the ground, sticking out of the rubble, were several battered limbs. He saw a hand, dried but well preserved in the measured air of the tunnels; two booted feet; a leg clothed in torn jeans plastered in long dried blood. He swallowed, and searched for a suitably dark joke that never came.

"Your friends?" asked Pride. Ebony shrugged.

"Maybe. Kind of hard to tell."

"You left them here?" Bray stared around, hoping that he wouldn't recognise anything of what he could see. Ebony nodded.

"What else were we going to do? We take this rubble out of the way, and the whole place could cave in. Besides, they're buried aren't they? Well, most of them."

"I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer." Bray shook his head. "You were right about there being ghosts down here."

"Yeah, well I don't think they're the malevolent type." She began picking her way carefully through the fallen bricks and stones. "Mind where you step. I don't want to bring any more of the ceiling down."

"I think it's fair to say that none of us does." With some difficulty, Pride lugged the barrel past the many partial blockages. "How much further?"

"Quite some way. It's not exactly a direct route, but we'll come out near that old shoe store just past the Mall. Always supposing the tunnels are still open, anyway. Here, watch your feet around this bit. There are access points to another level of tunnels underneath us, and if you fall through you'll break something painful. I'm not carrying any of you out of here."

"Well that goes double in return." Pride hesitated. "Lex, shine that torch up ahead, could you?"

"Ahead? There's nothing up there." Lex had seen nothing to attract his own attention, but this time it seemed that Ebony had also heard the noise. She was staring ahead, and as they all did the same, she reached out for Bray's arm and lifted it so that the torch-light shone right the way along the length of the tunnel. A shadow flitted away, pale and indistinct, but most definitely human. Pride set down the barrel once again.

"Now tell me we're imagining things," he demanded. Lex turned slowly around, casting the torch beam back down the tunnel to catch another elongated figure slip just out of sight behind the group.

"We're hemmed in," said Ebony softly. Lex looked capable of murder, furious with himself for not having noticed anything earlier on.

"Not necessarily. There might be just the two of them." He handed back Pride's torch, and clenched his fists in readiness, raising his voice to be sure that it would be heard. "If they want to get in our way, they're welcome to try. I think we can show them a thing or two."

"Listen." Bray had moved slightly ahead, and was standing motionless now, turned to a dark black silhouette by the glow of his torch. "It sounds like chanting."

"Chanting?" Lex went to join him, hearing something that certainly did seem to be rhythmical whispering, like several voices muttering quietly in unison. "Some kind of cult? Your Pyro friends? Demon Dogs gone religious?"

"I don't know." Bray was looking around, trying to decide whether or not he had been this way before, and if so, what the layout was like. "We should get out of here."

"We've only seen two of them." Lex did not like to run away, whatever the circumstances, though he was willing to admit that the chanting was eerie. "How bad can it be? It isn't Tribe Fury, we know that much."

"Whoever it is, they're coming closer." Pride was speaking the truth, for as the rhythmic chants ceased, a new sound came to take their place; footsteps. They came from up ahead; soft but firm, regular and quick.

"Back the way we came," snapped Ebony, suddenly not anxious to meet these invisible menaces. She went at a jog, leading the way, but froze at a slight bend in the tunnel. More footsteps came from beyond it, coming towards them just as inexorably. "Any ideas?"

"We'll just have to fight our way through." Lex moved up to take the lead, though he made no attempt to move around that awkward corner. "There can't be that many of them, and nobody messes with--" But he got no further. With the dull click as of a switch being thrown, a bright, hot light flooded the tunnel, stealing the gleam of the two torches and blinding all four Mall Rats with its angry glare. Pride yelled in a sort of fury, and flung up one arm to protect his eyes, only to feel it grabbed by an unseen attacker. He spun around, lashing out with his second fist, but again found it caught and pinioned. Beside him Lex was bellowing in a rage, struggling against the hands that had caught him, cursing the light that had robbed him of his eyes.

"What the hell-?" Ebony thought that she had got in a good blow, but it seemed to have made no real difference to anything. Her fist hurt from the blow, but she had heard no corresponding gasp of pain from anywhere else. Beside her a heavy thump told her that Bray was using his skateboard as a weapon, then abruptly that noise ceased. She heard a punch being delivered, but somehow she didn't think that it was one of her friends who had landed the blow. Despite her blind struggles her own arms were soon held, and she let herself relax. Zoot had taught her how to fight, and when to give up and rest. There was a lot of sense in that kind of strategy.

"Well well well." It was a haughty, mocking voice, but not one that she thought she recognised. "What have we here? Four little Mall Rats perhaps? And brothers, look at this. We have royalty with us today. Bray, brother of the great Zoot, has come amongst us once again. Foolhardy, when you consider what sentence was passed against him the last time that happened."

"Huh?" Suspicions were forming in Bray's mind, but everything was too much of a blur for him to work it all out properly. "Who are you?"

"Who are we? You'd think he'd remember, wouldn't you brothers." The dull clank of a thrown switch sounded out again, and the agonising, bright light was gone. Painful shapes swam in Bray's eyes, and he tried to focus on something beyond them. It was hopeless, for even if his eyes had been working properly the darkness was complete. He wondered what had happened to his torch.

"What's going on? If you're Independents then we're all on the same side. You should let us pass." Pride, like Ebony, had given up struggling, though his muscles were still rigidly tense. He heard a low chuckle.

"We'll see about that. Maybe we'll let you go. More likely you'll never see daylight again." The voice carried the self assurance of true conviction, with perhaps just a little insanity beyond. "But it's not up to us. It's up to our leader." Somewhere up ahead the soft glow of a candle sputtered into life. "You can plead your case with him, but don't expect any mercy. It's not his style." The candle drifted closer.

"What is this?" As forcefully as she could, Ebony voiced a question that she felt sure was about to be answered. The invisible spokesman laughed very softly, and as the candle came nearer she saw him, vaguely, for the first time. He was tall and heavily built, and his close cropped hair was dyed the same shade of blue as his heavy, loose robe. He was smiling, though not with humour or warmth. Around him his fellows faded slightly into vision; an indeterminate amount, all of them in blue robes, holding the dishevelled Mall Rats captive. Lex cursed, Pride muttered something uncharacteristically rude, and very similar to the epithet on Ebony's own lips. Only Bray remained silent. With the identity of their captors now revealed, the only question remaining was that of the shape behind the candle, but that too was a question that seemed unlikely to last any longer. In only a moment the hovering yellow glow swung up in front of the tangle of captives, and the figure holding it was visible to all of them. Tall, aristocratic, proud. Nineteen perhaps, and certainly one of the oldest people left in the world, he had long, tightly curled blond hair, self-possessed, almost vain eyes, and a very unpleasant smile. Only now did Bray speak, and his voice was a snarl of pure hate.

"The Guardian."

"Yes." The voice was contemplative, amused, vainglorious. "The Guardian. And you, Bray, and your little friends here, have wandered into my domain." The smile grew wider, flickering slightly in and out of vision as the candle flame danced. "You're mine now, and I can do whatever I want with you all."

THE END

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