The Territory Truth Page 5

  ‘It’s probably best we waste no time though. Start digging at first light,’ Raf advised when Lee returned. ‘The guys at the settlement really weren’t happy and there’s a chance they’ll come looking for us.’

  Digging began at dawn. My body craved rest but my brain barked orders at it to continue. Told it that it could shut down later. The original plan had been to dig at night, to reduce the chances of being spotted by any Ministry plane or helicopter that might randomly fly over, but now time was the main factor – the risk of the other settlement sabotaging our plans was the most immediate danger.

  Lee and Ella had marked out the best point of attack. The river wasn’t the closest to the Fence at this point but it was straight which meant that it was flowing the fastest and therefore had the most power. Next to this spot, Jack had already begun to stockpile logs and rocks, some almost boulder sized. How the hell had he managed to lift them? His strength was staggering. We stood there for a minute. Clutching our spades and staring at the Fence. An abstract plan suddenly becoming real. Horribly real. And it was my plan. The responsibility was a crushing weight.

  There was no obvious place to cross the river, no conveniently placed stepping stones, or fallen log, so we all had to wade across, water up to our waists, bags and equipment held aloft by upstretched arms. On the other side, Lee assumed control by drawing a line in the earth a few metres from the bank. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Right. So first we dig the new channel from here directly to…’ he waved the spade in the direction of the Fence rather than saying the word. ‘We only breach the wall of the existing channel as the final step.’

  The rest of us were still glued to the edge of the riverbank, digging heels into stones and looping toes under riverweed. Hoping to be caught and tethered in its tendrils. It felt like the Fence was looking at us. Could sense our plan. No one wanted to go first. To be the first to slice their spade into the ground.

  Finally, Jack took a step forward and drove his spade into the earth. There was a collective intake of breath and stilling of hearts. We waited. Waited for an alarm to sound. For soldiers to pounce. For machine guns to fire.

  But there was nothing.

  Just the sound of a spade slicing wet earth and the thud of the mud landing to the side.

  I’ve always been good at facial recognition. Weirdly so. There used to be this advert on the telly, flashing up image after image in rapid succession – faces front on/in profile/in shadow – just glimpses really, and you were supposed to try and see if any matched. At the end some wording was stamped across the screen. Think you have what it takes to be part of our elite identification team? Call this number… I would jump around the lounge shouting, ‘Me, me, they should pick me; I’m really good at this!’and I remember not understanding why my parents weren’t prouder and more encouraging. I get it now. Get what the team actually does. Whose faces they are trying to spot.

  We’d been digging for nearly a whole day and I’d reached breaking point. Marching all night instead of sleeping does that to you. Raf had fallen over moments before and had to lie down with his eyes shut as he was assaulted by another of his headaches.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he’d claimed, pushing me away, hating his weakness. But his eyes were cloudy from pain and his voice was angry, cold, distant – not like normal Raf at all. ‘Give me some space, Noa. A little space occasionally would be nice.’

  So maybe it was just the fatigue and the added stress of Raf’s sudden personality change, but I’m certain I saw the face of the boy from the settlement peering out from behind a cluster of trees in the distance. The boy guard. It was a long way but I was sure I was right. My heart starting beating out of sync. A jazz rhythm. They’d found us. They were going to sabotage our mission.

  ‘Describe him,’ Ella demanded.

  ‘He had red hair, and … normal build. Everything else was normal, OK … I can’t explain but it was him, I know it was.’

  Being able to spot isn’t the same as being able to explain.

  The creases between Ella’s eyebrows deepened.

  ‘You probably just saw Jack,’ Ella said gently, in that voice that’s reserved for frail people who’ve been hit on the head one too many time.

  ‘No. No. There was someone. They’ve found us,’ I insisted.

  Lee went off to look but came back having found nothing, not bothering to disguise his annoyance at having wasted precious digging time.

  ‘Noa, you need to sleep.’

  ‘No…’

  ‘For everyone’s sake. There’s no reason to believe anyone’s following us. No reason to believe they know what we’re doing.’

  I opened my mouth. I should have confessed everything. Should have told the rest of them how I’d messed up and that the settlement knew we were trying to break out but I didn’t. I kept quiet like the coward that I am.

  In the end I obeyed them. They didn’t give me a choice. And I started to lose faith. Maybe it wasn’t the boy from the camp. Maybe there hadn’t even been a boy at all and my mind was just starting to hallucinate from exhaustion. I went back to camp and closed my eyes and sleep instantly overtook me. I’m not sure how long I slept for but the new channel was considerably longer by the time I woke and rejoined the group. Raf was back too, spade in hand. I sought his eyes but he avoided mine.

  Everyone was digging and the air rang with the slice-thud of earth being cut away and discarded. Now over a metre deep and two metres wide, the channel ran perpendicularly from just behind the river bank to within spitting distance of the Fence itself. Hollowed out, with its walls of freshly turned earth it resembled a mass grave.

  After a few more hours’ work in the fading light, Lee finally put down his spade. ‘That’s enough for today, everyone,’ he declared, exhausted but satisfied with our progress. ‘Tomorrow we breach the bank.’

  What he didn’t say but what everyone said in their heads was Tomorrow, tomorrow we cross the Fence.

  I used to think the man in the moon was happy. Back in the days when a magical Santa and tooth fairy were my accepted truths, it totally made sense to me that the man in the moon might be a living thing too. A body-less, benevolent sphere-head, floating around, giving us tides and playing slow motion peek-a-boo. Me and Daisy would stare out of our windows on sleepovers when there was a full moon and look up at his smiling face. Daisy even made up a rhyme: Moon head, moon head, give us sweet dreams in our bed. She started off with moon face, but face is harder to rhyme.

  Now though, lying on the hard ground and unable to sleep, the moon’s mouth doesn’t seem to be smiling at all. It seems to be open in an unending scream.

  At breakfast I found that I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t slept much last night. There were no cobwebs of sleep to dust off. Everyone seemed wired, ready. Cortisol maxed. Backpacks were loaded. Spades picked up. Hedge cutters sharpened with stones.

  Jack dug the final section of the new channel. This took him very nearly to the Fence itself and every muscle in my body was clenched until the last thud of earth fell and he stepped away whole. Not a burnt charcoal statue. Not shredded by bullets. But alive.

  Now came the hardest part. We had to dam the existing river and then, just as it was about to flood, break the right-hand bank to force the water into the new channel, towards the Fence. We needed to build an underwater wall strong enough to hold back the force of the river. Our initial attempts at hurling in stones and sticks weren’t the greatest success. Many simply rolled away or were carried off by the current. Then Jack had a brainwave. Lying not far from the left bank of the river was the stump of a charred skeletal tree, roots torn from the ground and exposed, a lightning strike casualty. Like soldiers carrying a battering ram, Jack had us pick up and march the trunk back to the stream, dropping it in with a tidal wave of a splash. The trunk rolled over once, twice, then stopped as we let up a cheer and shook out aching arms. Jack was now in charge. Under his instruction we stood, half of us on each bank, hurled in the biggest
rocks and logs we could find and watched as they collected in front of the log and started to stack, locking together with a chink and a clunk. Foundations we could build upon. I didn’t manage to lift and throw anything bigger than about child-head size, but Jack, face red and arms shaking from strain, managed to launch in a proper boulder that soaked everyone in a shower of water. Raf snorted at this feat of Herculean strength – but it came out more snide than anything.

  As the wall started to take shape and rise, me and Raf took up position on the floor of the newly dug channel, ready to break the bank when the time came. Nell was with us as she lacked the brute strength for throwing. Digging seemed easier.

  We stood on the channel floor, spades poised, ready. Before long the river bank in front of us was beginning to bulge from the pressure of the trapped water that sent fine cracks of strain running across its breadth like lines in glazed pottery.

  Splash. Crash. Jack, Lee and Ella continued to hurl in rocks.

  The cracks were multiplying and widening.

  I could feel sweat start to trickle down my forehead.

  ‘Get ready!’

  We raised our shovels, aiming them at the river bank. I could feel my breath flow past my lips. In … out … in … out.

  ‘NOW!’

  As Lee shouted the signal, everything became a bit of a blur.

  With a jabbing motion I started to attack the wall of the bank, eating into it with short, sharp thrusts.

  A shower of water hit me as Jack threw a massive stone into the river. There were more splashes, creaks and grunts from effort. The earth in the wall was thinning, becoming wetter with each onslaught until it was sliding off the spade, each hole rapidly filling with water. More attacks from our spades and the wall started to bulge properly, moving towards me like a face emerging from the mud. I’m not sure of the order of what came next, it all happened so fast. The wall of the bank becoming thinner and thinner and sagging towards us. Lee’s voice shouting at us to hurry up. And then Raf’s spade cutting all the way through.

  We’d planned to break the bank apart slowly. Make three or four holes and then enlarge them.

  It didn’t happen like that.

  The pressure from the dammed water was much stronger than we’d anticipated and the pierced bank fell away as one like a piece of shattered glass, the water rushing to meet us. Me and Raf were stood in the centre of the new channel. Nell was meant to be at the edge. She wasn’t meant to be anywhere near the middle.

  ‘Out! Get out!’ Raf shouted as he clambered up and out of the channel. He reached for my hand and I turned to take it when I saw the water hit Nell. It knocked her off her feet, so she was sprawled on the floor, the water pouring over her face. Over eyes, blocking nostrils, into her mouth. And then towards the Fence. She was spluttering, choking but that wasn’t the real danger. As soon as the water hit the Fence, for a split second before the circuit went down, the water would be live. Electrified. Nell would be fried. I ran towards her, the resistance of the water slowing my stride into a slow-motion run.

  ‘Noa, come back!’ Raf yelled. ‘There’s no time! You’ll both die. Come back!’

  My hand grabbed Nell’s wrist and I pulled her towards me, towards the edge, my whole body straining from the effort. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t give up. I blocked Nell’s screams as I yanked her arm too hard. Blocked Raf’s repeated yells to save myself. Blocked Ella’s yells of panic as she saw what was going on. Blocked it all. Suddenly there was a splash beside me and Raf was there too. Holding Nell’s other arm. Together we pulled her the final metre to the bank and threw ourselves out the water.

  A second later a wall of water hit the Fence. There was a huge yellow spark. A blinding flash and the water bubbled. Dead fish after dead fish floated upwards, silvering the surface.

  We’d done it. We’d achieved the impossible. We’d turned the Fence off. But no one felt like celebrating. Ella ran at Raf, claws drawn, and seeking blood.

  ‘How could you! You’d have let her fry! You frickin’ freakoid!’

  She spat at him and it took all of Jack’s strength to hold her back, but he needn’t have bothered. A fight was the least of our problems.

  Nee-Nah-Nee-Nah.

  The air around us was being torn apart and our eardrums felt like they were about to explode. The Fence short-circuiting had triggered a smaller emergency circuit. A siren. Wailing out news of our attack.

  We knew that somewhere in a Ministry building a red light would be flashing. A sister siren screaming. Within minutes they’d be launching a helicopter. Coming to investigate. Coming to get us.

  We looked to Lee. He wasn’t saying anything.

  ‘Come on. We need to go. Now!’ Raf took control. ‘Who’s got the cutters?’

  I picked up a pair and Jack retrieved the other from his backpack.

  We sprinted to the Fence. Our fear of discovery had stripped it of its power somehow. Tiptoeing, creeping was no longer an option. Fear was a luxury we didn’t have time for.

  ‘How do we know the Fence is definitely down?’ Nell asked quietly, stammering over the first couple of words.

  ‘We don’t,’ came Jack’s grim answer as he opened the jaws of the hedge trimmer wide and locked them around a wire joint at the bottom of the Fence. I felt the bile hit the back of my throat and I closed my eyes. Opening them again, Jack was still there. Still standing. I started laughing. Manically, like a crazy person, until Ella gave my arm a savage pinch and told me to get a grip.

  Jack was putting all his strength behind the cutters. His biceps shook and his face flamed redder and redder as he tried to force the handles together. To cut.

  ‘I … I can’t. The wire’s too thick.’

  We stared through the criss-cross wires. Animals in a trap. With the hunter on his way.

  ‘What now?’ Nell’s voice. Small, scared.

  We looked around desperately. Left, right, forward, back.

  Up.

  At the top of the Fence, ten metres or so above our heads rose the mosquito grids. The pattern of wire changed. They were made of thinner netting.

  ‘We climb,’ I said emotionlessly.

  On my instruction we removed shoes and socks and stuffed them into backpacks along with the cutters. Then, hooking fingers and toes into wire diamonds, we began to scale the Fence. The wire cut into our hands and feet, claiming skin, and my arms began to shake from the strain and crazy levels of adrenalin. I’ve never been good with heights. Even walking down a particularly steep hill can give me mini palpitations. This was something else. Don’t look down, I kept repeating. My new mantra. Don’t look down. Focus ahead. Pick a diamond. Edge up. Pick another diamond. Someone, Daisy I think, once told me that in lots of action films where someone looks like they’re hanging off a vertical drop, they’re just filming with the camera on its side, so the actor’s actually lying down on the floor. I tried to convince my brain that this was happening here. You’re just crawling along the floor on a big wire mesh. Nothing can go wrong. This is all pretend. There was a scream to my right. Ella had lost her toe hold and was suspended by her arms. They looked unnaturally long, the weight of her body practically dislocating them from their sockets.

  ‘Help! Help! Oh God, help!’

  I looked down and my head swam. We were at least six metres in the air. Forget about the Ministry, if Ella fell she’d die or at least be paralysed. Death but just slower.

  ‘You can do this, Ella,’ I had to shout to be heard over the siren and the volume seemed to force confidence into my voice. Replaced the tremor with reassurance.

  ‘Lift your right foot up.’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘You can. Just a couple of centimetres. Perfect. Now hook your big toe round the join. Yes. Left a fraction. There!’

  Ella hooked her foot into position and her arms stopped shaking. I burst into tears and then had to force myself to deep breathe so that I didn’t black out.

  Four metres to go and we’d be at the grids. Fo
ur. Three. Two.

  We were there. Jack had one pair of cutters, I had the other. Raf and Ella spidered over so that they could stand just behind us, their bodies locking us into position while we twisted round to untie the cutters from our packs. Fingers fumbling, we removed the safety catch to unlock the blades so that they opened into a big steel V. I picked a joint, a crossroad of wires and squeezed. It took three attempts. Three bites of the blade and then a hole. I gingerly moved the wire aside and pushed one of my hands through. For the first time in over two months, a part of me, about a twentieth of me, was back in the Territory.

  I let out a cry, a victory whoop, which was quickly echoed by Jack as he too reached through.

  We didn’t get to celebrate for long. Our triumphant cries were drowned out by other sounds. Shouts. Noises we would have heard long ago if it hadn’t been for the siren’s continuing wail. Noises coming from behind us, like a battle cry. We tightened our grip on the wire and swivelled round to see them coming towards us. Running. Sixty-odd pairs of feet. The other settlement. All of them. I was right. They had been following us. They knew that this was their chance to break through the Fence too and they were determined to take it.

  Raf barked instructions.

  ‘Come on guys, move!’

  It wasn’t needed. Me and Jack were already widening the holes, cutting again and again until there were two openings, each the size of a small window.

  ‘Faster!’ Raf urged. ‘This is taking too long.’

  There was no time to think. I was next to one of the holes. I had to be first through it. Locking the toes of my left foot round a joint in the wire, I unhooked my right foot and pushed it through the opening followed by my bent over body. Severed wires scratched at my back and my knees started trembling. Shaking convulsively, threatening not to bear weight. Come on, I yelled internally. My right foot extended down the other side of the Fence, scrabbling for a hold. Finally my toes hooked on. I swung my left leg through too and I was there, fully in the Territory. Raf was right behind me. There was a cry to my left as Nell’s backpack got caught on the wire and Jack, rather than try and gently unhook it, simply sliced the trapped fabric off. Nell was about to object but Jack silenced her with a single glance.