Rebellion Page 3

  The man had been there with the factory bosses. Some big-shot, they said, who worked for the government in London. The man had spent some time talking to the people there, and handing out prizes at the end of the party to those who’d won the competitions and games during the day.

  Logan’s sister Alice had won the dance contest. She’d smiled so proudly as the parents and kids clapped for her while she walked to the front of the crowd, to collect her prize from him. Now it sat on the shelf above the old fireplace in the living room of their apartment.

  He seemed like the kind who’d have a big car. Those big government bosses could have anything they wanted.

  But what was he doing there?

  Logan’s heart thumped faster than it had when facing the navy ship. Nothing good could come from a toff showing up at their house.

  “See you at school,” Jason said. He nodded toward the car. “Give me all the gossip in the morning, right?”

  Logan placed his palm on the handprint scanner beside the apartment door, and glanced back toward the car. The toff was ignoring him now.

  The scanner buzzed, and the door clicked open. Logan closed it behind him, walked past the door to the ground floor apartment where the Miltons lived, and climbed the stairs to his apartment entrance on the first floor.

  Voices came from inside, but muffled by the wooden door beside the coat rack. He hung his coat on the hooks, where his mother always told him to leave it to keep the dirt of her clean floor, then slapped his hand on the scanner beside the door, wiped his shoes on the mat, and stepped in.

  Feet tapped on the wooden floor of the living room. Alice paced from side to side, staring at the faded, brown floorboards that lay between the ratty sofa and their father’s armchair. Her long grey skirt swung around her legs with every step.

  Logan peered past her, through the wooden door frame set in the flowery wallpaper of the living room wall, into the small kitchen beyond. The dim sunlight shining through the kitchen window illuminated their father's face, as he sat at the table they used for cooking.

  Their mother sat beside him, with her hand wrapped around his. On the far side of the table sat a man with greying hair, dressed in a black suit with thin white stripes. A dark, leather-clad attache case leaned against the side of his chair.

  Another suit stood beside the window, leaning on the counter by the sink with his thick, muscular arms crossed over his chest. He glanced toward Logan with dark, staring eyes, and hard-set, scowling lips.

  Logan turned, and looked away.

  Then moved closer to Alice, so he could whisper.

  “What's going on?”

  “Mum and Dad have visitors.”

  “Did you see that car outside? Did they come in it?”

  Alice nodded.

  The grey-haired man leaned over the table, closer to their parents. “Your daughter, Mrs McCoy, will have the best that money can buy.”

  “Best of what?” Dad said.

  “The best of everything that life can offer, Mr McCoy. Mr Morgan wishes her to be happy in his employment. She will be treated very well.”

  “So long as she spreads her legs for him?”

  “So long as your daughter performs all her duties to Mr Morgan's satisfaction, she will be rewarded appropriately. We are proposing a mutually beneficial arrangement for everyone involved.”

  Alice continued pacing. Logan grabbed her arm, and pulled her to a stop. “What are they talking about?”

  “You remember that man from the party? Morgan? The one who gave me the prize?”

  Logan nodded. “Yeah, he’s waiting outside, in the car.”

  Alice blushed, and looked down at the floor. She didn't say anything for a while. Then she glanced toward the kitchen, and bit her lip before she whispered to Logan. “That’s Morgan’s lawyer. Morgan wants me to work for him.”

  “That's good, isn't it? You can get away from here.”

  She turned away from him, and crept across to the wooden staircase that led up to the bedrooms in the attic. She slumped down on a step, and pulled her legs up against her chest.

  She wrapped her arms around them, and rested her chin on her knees. “I suppose.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Her cheeks grew redder, and she looked away. “He wants me to be his concubine.”

  Some of the kids at school used to whisper to each other about that in the playground. The toffs, so they said, weren’t happy with just one wife, or sex-bots. They’d find some poor, unmarried girls who no-one wanted, take them home, and use them to raise more kids. When girls misbehaved at school, some of the boys joked about how they might end up as concubines if they weren’t careful.

  But his sister?

  He grabbed her chin, and turned her face toward him. He could tell from the way she looked into his eyes, and the way her body gently shook on the stairs, that she wasn’t joking. The man in the black car had come for her. As though a toff could have her the same way he could have anything else he wanted in the world.

  He held her hand, and squeezed it.

  “I won’t let them take you.”

  She shook her head and frowned. “No. They’ll hurt you if you try to stop them.”

  “I’m not letting them take you away from here if you don’t want to go.”

  “You would be well rewarded, Mr McCoy,” Grey-Hair said in the kitchen.

  The floorboards thumped as Dad stomped his feet on them.

  “I am not selling my daughter.”

  Feet thudded down the stairs above Logan and Alice. A face peered around the corner, looking down from the landing. A young face. Male. Scraggly brown hair. Wearing the old, hand-me-down Royal Marines T-shirt that Dad had brought home from work one day when Logan was ten. Once brand new and the darkest black, now faded, stained, and ragged at the seams, from years of the boys climbing trees and playing war games in the park down the street.

  “What’s going on? Dad sent us upstairs.”

  Malcolm was only nine, what would he understand? How much would he even want to understand?

  “Go back to our room, and play with your toy soldiers.”

  “I want to know what’s happening.”

  Another face peered around the corner below Malcolm’s. Long red pigtails dangled below thick spectacles, above two small hands holding a teddy bear with one button eye hanging loose on a thread. Stacey, their kid sister. She peered down the stairs, toward the kitchen.

  “What are they doing?” she whispered.

  Alice’s head flicked around toward them.

  “Will you two please just go back upstairs. I need to think.”

  Grey-Hair picked up his case, and slid it onto his lap. Then pressed his thumbs against the fingerprint readers beside the handle, and clicked it open. He pulled out a wad of papers, and placed them on the table. He turned them around, then slid them toward Dad’s hands.

  “There is a job opening at the ammunition factory for a safety manager...”

  Dad pushed the papers away. “I don't care.”

  “The pay would be four times your current UBI, and with full Gold coverage on the National Health Service for all your family. You’ll get a nice new house in a new community, with four bedrooms, and security for your protection.” Grey-Hair glanced toward Mum. “Your children will go to the best schools in town, Mrs McCoy, and will have the opportunity to apply to university. They could become engineers, managers, or military officers.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You’re not getting any younger, Mr McCoy. Or any more appealing to an employer.” Grey-Hair tapped the papers with his hand. “This would be the best choice for your health, and your wealth.” He leaned closer. “And your children.”

  “Is Daddy getting a job?” Stacey said.

  Logan peered past Alice, toward the kitchen. The suits were looking away. If they could sneak out quietly, and the damn creaky floorboards didn't give them away...

  “Let’s go,” he whispered. “G
et away from here.”

  Alice pulled her knees closer to her chest. “Where? He’s a toff. He’ll find us wherever we run.”

  “Jason's dad has a boat. We can cross the Channel...”

  “Can I come?” Malcolm said. “You keep saying you’ll take me out on Jason’s boat, and you never do.”

  For a split second, Alice laughed, until Muscles glanced their way from the kitchen. Then she frowned, and lowered her voice. “To France? We’d be dead before the day is over.”

  “Maybe we could...”

  She put her finger on Logan’s lips.

  “Don’t you read the news? Even if we didn’t drown on the way... They’d torture us, Logan. Torture us until we wished we were dead. Then execute us as spies.” She ran her finger across her neck. “Cut our heads off. Better bloody Morgan than that.”

  She lowered her chin to her knees again, and stared into the kitchen. Muscles watched the kids on the stairs as Grey-Hair continued talking. They’d missed their chance. Muscles wasn't going to let his attention wander a second time.

  Grey-Hair ran his fingers down lines of tightly-spaced text on the papers, too much and small for Logan to read. “Your daughter’s children with Mr Morgan—your grandchildren, Mrs McCoy—will have many opportunities they will never have if she remains here. He will raise them like any other child of his.”

  “We should never have gone to that damn party,” Dad said. “If he hadn’t seen her...”

  “Your grandsons will qualify for managerial positions. Your granddaughters will marry into the managerial class. Perhaps even higher.”

  Dad said nothing.

  “Mt Morgan moves in the highest circles in London,” Grey-Hair continued. “And she's a pretty girl. Your granddaughters might even marry into the nobility, if they take after their mother, and play their cards right.”

  Logan put his arm around Alice’s shoulders.

  She was shaking, even more than before. How could they talk about his sister like this? Treat her as something to be traded, some machine to make babies for a toff? Didn’t they know she was a person?

  Or did they just not care?

  Logan’s hand balled up into a fist. He wanted to storm down the stairs, across the floor, and punch Grey-Hair in the face. Then throw both of them out of the apartment.

  But Muscles was still staring at them. Logan wouldn’t even get to the kitchen before Muscles was on him. And what chance did he really have against a man like that?

  Grey-Hair leaned forward over the table, and stared into Dad’s face.

  “Mr McCoy. Anyone else on this street would beg us for such an opportunity. No-one in their right mind would throw it away. Please don't make a mistake you'll regret for the rest of your life.”

  “No,” Dad said. “You won't have her. Get out of my house.”

  Grey-Hair rubbed his chin, then glanced toward Muscles. “Perhaps we should talk to the girl.”

  Dad raised his arm. He held out his finger, and slowly turned his arm until it was pointing toward the apartment door.

  “I will not let... that man... have my daughter.”

  Grey-Hair tapped his fingers on the table. “Mr McCoy. We would like this to be an amicable arrangement. But perhaps there might be some irregularities in your UBI records. Your payments might be delayed. Or even cancelled.”

  Dad held up a fist in front of his face, which was turning red as he spoke. He waved it toward Grey-Hair.

  “You bastards. Don’t you threaten me.”

  Grey-Hair leaned back, and glanced toward Mum.

  “Mr Morgan, you’ve been drinking. You’re not thinking straight. Perhaps your wife...”

  The table shook as Dad slammed his fist down on it. “Get out. And don’t come back.”

  Grey-Hair sighed, then grabbed the papers and slid them back into his case. He clicked it closed.

  “Mr McCoy, we will leave. But we’ll be back. And, next time, the terms on offer will not be as good.”

  “If you bastards come back, I’ll kill the both of you.”

  “If we have to come back, you won’t get that chance.”

  Logan clenched his own fist tighter. If they tried to take Alice, he’d make them pay for it. Maybe he wouldn’t win the fight, but at least they’d know they’d got into one. That someone tried to stop them.

  Even if he couldn’t save his sister, he could still discourage them from trying to take other girls from the street.

  Grey-Hair picked up his case, and strode out of the kitchen, into the living room. Muscles followed, looking back over his shoulder, keeping an eye on Dad.

  They passed the bottom of the steps where Logan sat, their shoes tapping on the hard floor in the hushed silence. They didn’t even look at him as they passed by.

  Dad stood in the kitchen doorway, and raised his fist. “And don’t you come back.”

  Alice pushed herself up from the steps. “Stop.”

  Dad turned to her. Sweat glistened on his red face. “Keep out of this, girl, if you know what’s good for you.”

  Grey-Hair stopped beside the sofa, and looked toward her. “Let the girl speak, Mr McCoy. Shouldn’t your daughter have a say in her future?”

  “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  Dad stepped into the living room, with fists ready. Mum grabbed his arm. She leaned closer to him and spoke softly. “Let Alice say what she has to say.”

  Grey-Hair stared at Alice. “Go on, girl.”

  Alice glanced at Logan, then lowered her face. “I'll do it.”

  Dad raised his fist toward her. His face grew even more red. “Listen to me, girl...”

  “They're right, Dad. You know it's best for all of us.”

  Dad opened his mouth to yell, but Mum pulled his arm, and he glanced at her. Logan grabbed Alice's hand. How could he just let her go like that?

  “You can’t leave.”

  She smiled a sad smile at him, and her small fingers wrapped around his own. She squeezed his hand for a second, then pushed it away. “I’ll be fine. Just don’t forget me.”

  “I’ll protect you.”

  She nodded toward Muscles, and whispered. “You see that bulge in the suit under his arm? It’s a gun. I saw it when they came in. He’ll shoot you.”

  “I’ll move fast.”

  “If they don’t kill you, they’ll cut you off from UBI and make sure you never get a job anywhere in England. They’ll throw you out onto the streets, and you’ll spend the rest of your life begging and stealing every penny you need to stay alive. I can’t let you do that.”

  She glanced toward their parents. “Besides, what else am I going to do? Stay here, and end up like Mum? What could happen that’s worse than that?”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  But he knew he was lying even as he said the words. Of course it was bad. He hated the thought of ending up like Dad as much as she hated to imagine ending up like Mum. Neither he nor she had a life to live there in that little apartment in Hastings. Not a real life, one that was worth living.

  Muscles approached them. Alice smiled one last time, then took a deep breath, and crept down the stairs.

  Grey-Hair adjusted his tie, then held out his hand toward Alice. “Really, this is for the best. You’ll all come to accept that in time, after you get used to your new life. One day, you'll thank us.”

  Dad pulled away from Mum, and lunged toward him. Muscles stepped forward, grabbed Dad’s arm, and pulled it away. He twisted it behind Dad’s back, and pushed him down to the floor.

  Stacey shrieked, and hid behind her teddy bear. Logan jumped up, fists raised. But Alice glanced at him and shook her head rapidly. He stopped at the bottom of the steps, clenching and unclenching his fists, and imagining slamming them into Muscles' face. Punching Muscles until his nose broke and he collapsed to the floor. Gun or no gun.

  Grey-Hair smiled.

  “Let’s not let this goodbye get ugly. I’m sure your daughter would like to leave you all with good memories
.” He nodded toward Muscles. “Help Mr McCoy onto the sofa, please.”

  Muscles pulled Dad up, and pushed him to the sofa. The springs inside creaked as Dad slumped down on the worn brown cushions, and Mum sat beside him.

  Grey-Hair put his hand on Alice’s shoulder. Her body shook visibly at his touch. She tried to smile, but her lips quivered. Muscles watched over Mum and Dad as Grey-Hair pushed Alice toward the door.

  She glanced back toward Logan.

  Her eyes met his, and hers were wide, as though suddenly unsure of what she was doing. Then she glanced at Mum.

  “I need to pack...” she said.

  Grey-Hair slid his hand to the small of her back, and pushed her towards the door. “Everything you need will be provided for you. There is no need to take anything.”

  “But I need some clothes...”

  “Everything will be provided. Everything.”

  Grey-Hair pushed on her back. She glanced at Mum and Dad as she took a step toward the door. Mum put her arm around Dad as tears ran down his red face.

  “You can get your things when you come back to visit,” Mum called after her.

  “No.” Grey-Hair said without looking back. “I'm afraid she won’t be coming back.”

  Muscles followed Alice and Grey-Hair downstairs, glancing back over his shoulder to keep an eye on Logan as he followed a few metres behind them. Grey-Hair pulled the front door open, and pushed Alice out into the street. Muscles followed, keeping his hand near the bulge in his jacket.

  Logan stopped at the door, and peered out into the rainy street. The car door slid open, and Grey-Hair motioned Alice toward it.

  Morgan stared out at her. “Welcome, my dear. I've been so looking forward to seeing you again.”

  He patted the seat beside him.

  Alice took one last look at Logan, and the apartment where she’d lived all her life. Her long, auburn hair flicked behind her back as she turned away. She stepped into the car, and slid onto the seat next to Morgan. She flinched for a second as he slid his arm along the back of the seat, and around her shoulders.

  Then he looked up at Logan, and smiled.

  The door slid closed, and Alice left his life. She didn’t look back again as the car rolled away.