RED BUNKER

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One man’s future is another man’s hell.

​In post-apocalyptic Britain, an ambitious young man is sent to an isolated bunker where he must persuade a renowned professor to help rebuild civilisation. But the professor’s help will come at a price the idealistic visitor is not ready to pay.

CHAPTER ONE

‘My name is Mark Friday Allen.’

‘Mark… Friday… Allen.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want me to open the door?’

‘Please.’   

‘What code have you been given?’

‘Harvest.’

‘Harvest.’

‘Repeat.’

‘‘Harvest.’

‘Cycle number?’

The questions rolled on. Twelve in all. Then the voice paused, processing, checking through the various security levels. The voice recognition technology was present throughout the Compound. Mark didn’t know how any of it worked. Daisy could have explained it to him, he was sure. She was a beast for all that tech stuff. What he did know was that the machine could have done it instantly; that he could have been walking along the grey tunnel to his vehicle right now, but there was an additional thirty seconds of silence built into each section of the sequence – deliberately so. It was there to cause unease, to allow time for anyone embarking on an unauthorised exit from the Compound to make a mistake. If he fumbled an answer, or repeated himself, the sequence would start over. Mark was happy to wait. Who would want to leave without authorisation? He guessed there was always someone. They knew what they were doing, the Upper Council and the security teams. They were top notch. Always thinking ahead.

‘Harvest approved. Cycle numbers approved. Mark Friday Allen is authorised to exit. Returning before midnight on…’ there was a click and a pause. ‘22^nd November.’

‘Yes.’

‘Harvest code valid for four days. Good luck, Mark.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Safe journey.’

He nodded. The door opened.

The car was a TURV7. A head-hopper. A back-splitter. New vehicle tech had some way to go. Transport was at the lower end of the Compound’s skillset. The guys down there did their best, but they didn’t know a lot about vehicular comfort. Mark bounced all the way across the cattle grid. The Compound’s outer doors clanged shut behind him. The foggy hills were ahead. He hit the track hard, his head bumping gently against the steel car roof.

There was two-hundred miles of beautiful yet desolate countryside between him and his destination – if the roads were clear. If not, then who knew? He reset the milometer and sucked on the apple-juice bag that he held onto with his left hand. He changed gear, accelerated up to 25mph and accidentally squeezed some juice onto the gear stick. He muttered a curse then dumped the juice in the passenger seat and tried to wipe the stick clean. His fingers were sticky. There was water in the travel bag, but he didn’t want to stop. Not so soon.

The track was as much grass as stone. The tall blades in the fields to his left gave a gentle wave. The hills to his right looked down apologetically. Nature says she’s sorry. Maybe so, he thought. But who’s complaining now? Not Mark Friday Allen. He licked his fingers. He grinned. In a few minutes he should reach the main road. From there it would be top speed all the way.

As the dirt track blurred underneath the wheels and the distant sight of some abandoned town’s church spire slowly slipped away from Mark’s eyeline, he tried to imagine what his meeting with Henderson would be like. Mark had high hopes. He knew he should temper them. Henderson was only a man after all. And certainly, Daisy had scoffed at the idea of this meeting being some transcendent moment in Mark’s – and perhaps even the Compound’s – life. ‘He’ll probably turn out to be some weirdo who drinks his own urine.’ she’d laughed. Mark had laughed too, but still, he had more faith in the coming moment.

Henderson had been a key figure in the old society. An expert in behavioural science who’d written a hugely significant paper entitled ‘The Application of DataTech to the Benefit of Future Generations.’ It had marked him out as an influencer in both the corporate and political worlds. And he’d subsequently been heavily involved in the later merging of the two; sponsoring the CorpGov movement and helping to write the templates for hundreds of career path models, within which the next generation would have been subsumed into lifestyle streams, giving them everything they needed in terms of work, wages, living accommodation and access to the online lifetime programme – all without having to be burdened by ownership, debt and other negative choices that would, over time incur vast and unnecessary costs to the wider community.

Society had been in a mess. At least that’s what Reiser had taught them all. Compared to the wasteland of devastation and near-neanderthal existence that any survivors outside of the Compound now endured, any version of what the world had been before might be viewed as a utopian fantasy. But Reiser had explained that while society had had the appearance of cohesion and success, the models had either failed or were failing. All of them. Kingdoms. Republics. Dictatorships. Semi-socialist states. The democratic experiment had been left severely wanting. Whatever structure was chosen, people couldn’t be trusted to do the right thing and so – at least as far as Reiser believed – some form of final crisis had been inevitable.

Henderson and others like him had seen a way out of the cycle of structural stasis the world was trapped in. But the end had come before the influence of these new ideas could take hold. And perhaps that was the way it had to be. With too many people wedded to the personal freedoms that needed to be shed – freedoms that were utterly destructive to the greater community – perhaps they had to lose everything first. Death before the rebirth.

Life at the Compound was good. Mark was young, ambitious, and held in high regard by the Upper Council. That he’d been given this key task to be the first to break bread with the unearthed treasure that was Professor Garve Henderson confirmed it.

The Upper Council had chosen him.

Mark grinned.

Against all the odds, despite what must have been mind-crippling isolation, Garve Henderson had survived. A government bunker, one of several designed to save key members of any re-emerging society, had sheltered him from the ravages of the world’s destruction. As an important future strategist Henderson had been one of fifty people selected to hole up there. Unfortunately, he was the only one to have arrived in time. Mark knew that the system collapse, when it came, had been faster and more devastating than the worst predictions. Energy blackouts. Food and water shortages. Then the atmospheric poisoning. It had been sudden and brutal.

Henderson had been living in the bunker alone for more than fifteen years.

The TURV had left the grass and now it flew along the old road. Potholes and widening cracks gave it the odd jolt, but Mark supposed the lack of use had reduced the need for maintenance and while it wasn’t a comfortable ride, the Turv knew how to stick to tarmac.

He thought of Daisy.

Her easy smile. Her hazel eyes glowing as she made some joke at his expense. Her warm fingers slipping into his. Her lips approaching. Her hand moving to the back of his neck, fingernails siding through his hair.

The car jerked.

Mark’s reaction came late.

He was out.

There was a metal chamber. And like the hub of some alien spacecraft, the chamber held a light that pulsed on and off. Each time it came his pupils shrank, his eyelids closed, and beads of sweat danced on his forehead. He could move, yet didn’t want to. He knew where the doorway ahead of him led. The light came again. He felt the sweat on his shoulders. On his back. Across his collarbone. His mouth ached. He wiped the warm moisture from his head. He touched his damp shoulder. Then his chest. He looked. There was a spread of blood on his white t-shirt. Then, as something pierced the flesh of his cheek, his face rang out with pain.

Mark woke up.

The car was in a field. Dusk was upon him. He looked around, confused – scared. He checked himself. No injuries. Shaky, he got out of the car and studied the tracks. He had driven more than a hundred yards from the road into the field. He must have blacked out. He looked at the TURV. Tyres okay. Windows okay. There were scratches on the bumper and bonnet.

Mark took a moment, got back into the car then started the engine. It roared into life. Carefully, he turned the Turv around and headed back across the grass. He crossed a shallow ditch, bumped over a stretch of muddy water, and then came to a break in the fence. The wooden posts and wire had been ripped down. Ruefully considering the damage he’d done he drove through the gap and reclaimed the road.

Now he was going to be late.

CHAPTER TWO

The night was on him, and so Mark almost missed the sign for Barrow Black Lake. He took the turn and saw the dark sky reflecting over the surface of a reservoir. Henderson’s bunker was somewhere on the far side of the water. Access was via a reservoir maintenance building, but Henderson hadn’t been able to tell them which door within it led to the bunker entrance – not having been outside in all of those fifteen years – so, Mark would have to find his own way in. He parked the car in a tourist bay, hauled his kitbag from the passenger seat, and kicked his feet against the gravel. He supposed there was no need to lock the car but did anyway.

He’d never seen such an expanse of water before and couldn’t help but take a few moments to consider it. The water was black like its name, and the surface rippled slightly. That it did, bothered him. He wasn’t sure why. The lake was so large. And the movement made it seem almost alive, that it might raise itself up like an ancient elemental beast and swallow him whole. It made him feel like a child again. Then he thought of the metal chamber in his dream and of his blackout, and despite the chill air, sweat came to his forehead. He had a sudden urge to go back. This adventure that six hours ago had seemed the gift of a lifetime, now felt more like an unwelcome weight around his neck. He wanted to be with his team playing hoops or even Strat-Block. He wanted to be with Daisy.

He grimaced. ‘Time to grow up, Allen. Think of the cred. You’re going to find this old wizard and bring him back to the Compound and everyone’s going to love you for it.’ He slapped his face and rubbed the sweat away then turned from the water. ‘You’ll be the envy of the academy.’

Mark took the short walk around the lake to the hills. He could see a reflection of the moon on a metal hut. He came to concrete steps and climbed up to the hut entrance. The door was locked. He pulled a crowbar from his kitbag and jemmied it. He took out a torch and shone it into the abandoned hut. The air was damp. Inside, a desk and chair were covered in thick mould and spider’s webs. Cardboard boxes stacked against the wall were collapsing and similarly infested. There was an open door to a cold metal toilet and another open door to a maintenance room. There was also a closed steel door. A yellowing sign read ‘Management only’

It was unlocked. The stairs beyond went down fifty feet. At the bottom was what looked like a storeroom door. Opposite was a dirty plastic panel, set into the wall, with a grey, emergency-type button in the centre.

Was this it?

Mark took in a deep breath. He pressed the buzzer. A blood-freezing screech echoed beyond the door. A faulty siren perhaps. He shuddered. The sound was further marred by a blast of electrical static that made him hesitate about touching it again. Was it charged? Might he get a shock? He adjusted his jacket and tightened the kitbag over his shoulder. Then he saw a second smaller button set into the panel, obscured by grime. He wiped it clean then pressed.

There was an echo – a speaker activating – somewhere in the cobwebs. A simple intercom. ‘Professor Henderson? Can you hear me?’

Silence.

Was this the place?

He wiped his sweaty face and tried again.

‘Professor Henderson –’ this time there was a click and a scraping sound. Then a voice came back at him. Cracked and hesitant.

‘Bear with me, young man.’

He did and moments later the store door buzzed, and Mark pulled it open. Beyond was a square space with painted brick walls and a concrete floor. Another steel door was before him. An emergency light above his head glowed orange. Everything else was grey. Eventually, after five or more minutes, he could hear footsteps. Then there was a clicking sound, another buzz, a heavy clang.

The door into the bunker opened.

CHAPTER THREE

Henderson’s hair was thinner than the photo Mark had been shown. And his face was lined and covered in a patchy beard. One eye was a little bloodshot. Yet behind the differences Mark saw the same straight nose, the same sunken and creased chin, the same challenging stare.

He wore a blue silk shirt and red sweater with the sleeves rolled up. Grey, military trousers, tight on the ankles. He smelled of aftershave.

‘Welcome, Mark.’

They shook hands enthusiastically.

‘You have the same glasses.’

‘Pardon?’

‘There was a photo that Reiser found – it must have been from twenty years ago. I think it was from the Manchester University website?’

‘Manchester University?’

‘Wasn’t that where you were based?’

‘Uh… yes.’

‘I saw it.’

‘On the website? Do you have access to the internet?’

‘What’s left of it. Pieces only. The glasses you wore in the picture – they look the same.’

Henderson gave him a curious look. Then he took the glasses off and studied them, as if seeing them for the first time in years. They had large square lenses, with a black frame on the top part only. The arms were thick. The left-hand lens had a long scratch across one corner. Henderson rubbed it. ‘I don’t remember. Maybe they’re the same. As my eyesight deteriorates, they don’t clarify as much as they used to.’ He smiled. It was a slightly nervous, perhaps even regretful smile. ‘Why don’t you come in? It’s much warmer inside than out.’

With a clang, he shut the door behind them. The magnetic lock clicked. Mark noticed a keypad on the wall alongside the door, numbered zero to nine. Then he followed Henderson along a short corridor and down more stairs to yet another door.

‘This is the top level. I’ll give you – uh – a tour, I suppose – later. I thought we might use the bar for now.’ He gave a half smile. ‘We could pretend that we’re back in the old days, drinking cocktails…’

The joke fell flat, and Mark gave it a posthumous smile. ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember the old world, Professor Henderson.’

‘Of course, I’m sorry. Ignore me.’

Mark imagined that it would be strange for this old man to be suddenly face to face with another human being after so many years. He would have to go easy on him.

The six-foot wide corridor turned to the left and then to the right. Then there was a passage fifty or sixty feet long. Steel doors lined the way, three on each side, and at the end the corridor opened-up into a wider dimly lit area. The floor was carpeted – or more accurately carpet tiled, grey with firm ridges – and the plastered walls were painted white. Spotlights dotted the ceiling, picking out the silver handles on each of the doors. Tucked tight into the four corners of the corridor ceiling were security cameras.

They walked.

‘Do you have a cleaner?’ Mark joked, marvelling at the spotless carpet and gleaming metal. Daisy’s joke about Henderson’s personal hygiene couldn’t have been further from the truth. Mark felt positively scruffy in his Compound overalls.

‘I can promise you, there’s only me here.’

As they went, Henderson tapped the first door on their left and then the first two doors on their right. ‘These are all meeting rooms – which I’ve turned into less formal break out areas – for all my guests…’ Then he pointed to the middle door on the left. ‘Unisex toilets.’ Then to the door past it. ‘My library, although it needs some reorganising.’ Then to the last door on the right. ‘My bedroom.’

They stepped into a wider area where several green-topped canteen style tables and metal chairs had been stacked against the left wall. Beyond them, in the corner, was a swing door. Henderson nodded to another door in the right-hand corner. ‘Stairs to the next level down. There’s a bedroom for you on level two but you can unpack later.’

He led Mark through the swing door. They came into a large oak-panelled kitchen lit by over-counter spotlights. Pots, saucepans, and large utensils hung from a rack in the middle of the room. They passed quickly through into an adjacent bar area.

It had a polished timber floor. Tall, chrome chairs lined the jet-black bar. A mirrored wall made the whole space seem expansive, but it was quite small. No more than ten people could have comfortably sat and socialised. And there were no drinks. No pumps, no bottles, no glasses. It was a bar by design, yes, but likely had never been used as such.

‘Take a seat. I’ll get you some tea.’

Henderson disappeared back into the kitchen. Mark sat in the nearest chair and tried to absorb the complete strangeness of where he was and who he was about to speak to. He would allow himself the luxury of this personal interaction for a time – his own exclusive window of access to this treasure of a man – before they got down to business. Mark’s job was to lay out the essence of what had been started at the Compound, then make an initial assessment of Henderson, then finally persuade Henderson to take part in regular communications with them. After that, all subsequent conversations and negotiations, leading to the possible inclusion of Henderson on the Upper Council would be taken on by others, perhaps by Reiser himself.

Yet Mark was curious. About what Henderson had been doing. About what he might do now that he’d contacted their emerging society. What things might he recommend they change about their structure? Mark wanted to find out as much as possible about the man and his thoughts before the Upper Council took over.

Henderson’s first contact had been six weeks ago – by shortwave radio. Reiser had been sending out broadcasts for several months – after much deliberation, the Upper Council had decided it was worth the risk, as they were strong enough to withstand any attempt to wrest control of the Compound away from them. Henderson had listened to their messages over and over before eventually returning the call. His first contact had been cautious and questioning, not disclosing his location, but explaining to them who he was and that he had both technological information and his own wealth of knowledge about human behaviour that might prove beneficial to them. Reiser was convinced they needed him, and so persuaded Henderson to allow one person to visit and discuss possible next steps.

One person.

Mark Friday Allen.

The professor came in with the tea.

‘Your people sent me a message, asking if you’d arrived – earlier. I replied saying you hadn’t – because well, you hadn’t.’

Mark took the drink. ‘I hit a bump in the road. Went off track and blacked out.’

‘Oh, that’s terrible.’ Henderson’s expression wavered with concern.

‘I think I got carried away with all that speed.’ Mark laughed. He supposed that was all that had happened.

‘How fast were you travelling?’

‘Fifty or sixty. The TURVs won’t do much more than that. I suppose that –’ He hesitated as something flashed through his mind – Daisy – yes, he remembered now that he’d been thinking about Daisy just before he blacked out.

Henderson raised a querying eyebrow.

Mark smiled to cover the fact that as he thought about his new wife, and how far away she was, he felt strangely vulnerable. He shook his head. ‘Nothing. I – nothing.’ He gulped down some tea.

‘Do you want me to check you over?

Mark shook his head.

Henderson twisted his mouth. ‘I haven’t wasted my time here. I’ve studied medicine and neurology and biology. Do you ever see flashing lights?’

‘No.’

‘Have you had blackouts before?’

No, nothing like that. I just think that as I swerved and came off the road, I banged my head or something. It’s just a bit of a blur.’

‘Have you been sleeping well?

‘Yes. Well, not so well this week. I was excited. About coming here.’

‘Of course. And I was excited too. Nervous really. This is quite a change for me.’

‘I can’t imagine.’

‘Well, if you’re sure you are okay?’

‘I am.’

Henderson nodded. ‘Then tell me something more about where you’ve come from. What’s your opinion of this Compound?’

Mark sipped more tea. ‘We have over nineteen hundred people now. At the start there were just twenty. Solgrove was the leader. He drew up a charter. He and the others found a location for the base and constructed a simple wall system, corrugated steel I think it was at the start. They waited until they were fully embedded into the environment – that they could be self-sufficient – then started looking for more people. Gradually they found them, and found more food supplies, did some growing and so on. Expanded it from there. I came in with the first hundred or so. I was six at the time and in truth can’t remember much of my life before that. I know I went to school when I was young – but mostly I can only remember travelling, hiding, that sort of thing. Solgrove died two months after I arrived. Heart attack. So, I don’t remember him either.’

Henderson nodded.

‘But his charter lives on and everyone is committed to the principles.’

‘The principles?’

‘I have a copy of the charter with me. You can tell me what you think of it if you like or mull it over and talk to Reiser about it later.’

‘Reiser – he’s the one I spoke to?’

‘Yes.’

‘And if I wanted to come back with you?’

Mark caught his breath. That would be the ultimate coup, to bring Garve Henderson back himself. However, he wasn’t sure the old man would be ready for it. Going from no people to one person to so many people in a few short steps could overwhelm him. ‘I don’t know. Normally you’d have to sign the charter, to at least cover you while you were at the Compound. No-one usually comes in without signing.’

‘No-one?’

‘Well, that’s the rule. If you have any real issues, I’m sure Reiser would be open to –’

‘Don’t worry, Mark. I doubt I’ll be coming just yet. I was only curious.’ Mark flushed at his over enthusiasm. Feeling awkward, he set aside his cup and tapped his fingers on the bar. Henderson saw his eagerness and smiled. ‘I’ll look at it later.’

‘It’s all good stuff, you know. Nothing too onerous. Just not to hurt people, not to steal – respect each other…’

‘Not to take Solgrove’s name in vain?’

Mark winced. ‘No, nothing like that.’

‘Do you refuse many?’

‘Well, I don’t think we see it that way. If people don’t want to sign, then they refuse us.’

‘But how many?’

‘A few. It’s not like there’s thousands out there. Most of the original survivors have perished.’

‘Do you still look for people?’

‘There are search parties that go out from time to time. I don’t think the Compound needs numbers like it did at the start. The community is thriving, growing of its own accord. But obviously for special cases like yourself then –’

‘You have babies?’

‘Yes, every year for the last five years. Fertility’s not what it once was but it’s improving.’

‘How many?’

‘I think there were eighteen births this year. I have some information about them. Mortality rates. Common issues in pregnancy, and other –’

‘How large is the Compound?’

‘We have twenty-seven larger buildings, several fields and a stream.’

‘Is it secure?’

‘Walled all the way round. Some concrete blocks were brought in. Some of it is steel. There’s an inner perimeter too. Chain fencing.’

‘Do any dogs come by?’

‘No. Not anymore. But I think in the early days, when the wall was first built, that was the main issue. The main reason it went up.’

‘But it’s also useful to keep out opponents of the charter?’

‘I suppose.’

Henderson didn’t say anything else for a while. Mark waited. He wanted to show as much respect as he could.

‘Do you have a girlfriend, Mark?’

He hesitated. He hadn’t expected a question like that. And while it might have been innocent enough, the look on Henderson’s face was quite intense. His eyes were alight. His jaw clenched. Cheeks pink from flushing. Mark blinked in surprise. He sensed a panic rising in him. What was this? Was Henderson going to ask him about his sex life? Or was he hoping that Mark might say no? Might he make a pass at him? These and other questions jumped into his mind and as much as he thought he was overreacting he couldn’t help but feel that Henderson had deliberately sideswiped him to make him feel uncomfortable. He pursed his lips, swallowed, then shook his head.

‘No?’

‘I’m married.’

‘Married? At your young age? How old are you?’

‘Eighteen.’

‘Eighteen – you look older. Well, that is interesting. Is matrimonial harmony embedded in the charter?’

‘Marriage may seem outdated, Professor Henderson –’

‘Please, call me Garve.’

‘Garve… it may seem outdated in this post-societal era, but it does help distinguish those who are committed to contributing to the population expansion from those who are not.’

‘Of course.’

‘It’s not really about the status of marriage as such, or that it’s a hard rule, more about two people making a commitment to the Compound. To the charter.’

‘I see.’

‘The principles behind it are quite different to what I understand happened before. It really has been completely redefined.’

‘You don’t have to convince me any further.’

Mark opened his mouth, ready to explain again – then wound himself back. He was being stupid. Overcompensating for his own anxiety. And reading far too much into simple questions. Mountains out of mole hills. He gave out a quiet laugh. He’d fallen into a tailspin over the question, and quiet unnecessarily so. Garve Henderson laughed too. Mark took a breath.

‘And do you have children, Mark?’

‘Not yet.’

The professor turned away. ‘What I do understand is the need to have more control over the next generation than was the case in the old world. With that, I do concur. A new form of marriage contract might be just the way to do it. You must be tired, Mark. Would you like to rest?’

‘No. It’s quite the opposite. I was hoping I might ask you a few more things.’

‘Well – let’s take an hour. It would be good for you to gather your thoughts first rather than spill them out in a flurry of eagerness. And for me too. Already I feel somewhat strange at having a conversation with someone. Let’s take it easy. I’ll prepare some food and then we’ll eat in one of the more comfortable rooms – one where the light bulbs are still going. I haven’t entertained guests since, well, you know – so it will make a pleasant change from eating alone. Is that okay?’

CHAPTER FOUR

Before they took their break, Garve took him on a short tour. Along the way, he explained that the bunker had originally been intended to act as a residential facility attached to a nearby astronomical observation centre. It was designed to have hotel-like facilities with a restaurant, meeting rooms and tech-facilities for working weekends or longer. When the observation centre was itself abandoned midway through construction due to funding problems the residential facility also fell foul and for some time lay dormant – although the basic infrastructure had all been completed: structural integrity, power, heating, plumbing and so on.

Later, as the world became increasingly unstable, the facility was converted into a high-tech bunker, where the a select few might sit out the crisis and guide the rest of society back to sanity – provided they could stay in touch with it.

Then Garve retold the story of how he was one of fifty or more key people that had been told to assemble at the bunker in the early winter of that last year, before the chaos took compete hold. When he arrived, he was the first to do so.

‘In those early weeks, access to the outside world was limited to phone-calls and email. I was told to sit tight. “The others will come” they said. They didn’t. Slowly communications dried up. Seven weeks after I entered the bunker, I was completely alone. No-one to talk to. Limited access to a falling apart internet. Those final public broadcasts were heart-breaking. It was clear the widespread chemical poisoning and unravelling food crises had caused such an exponential growth in mortality rates that the utter chaos of total civil unrest had taken over. Societal meltdown. Mass starvation. The human population driven to the lowest ebb of existence.’

Mark knew the story. After that, the scavenging groups of criminals known as the dogs took over. They ruled the land for a year or more before they too faded out. It was thought that the feudal system they’d introduced had fallen into a spiral of self-destruction through extensive in-fighting.

‘There seemed little that I alone could do, I had stayed locked away while the world did the worst to itself that it could. I remained an isolated, yet privileged individual. Guilt-ridden. Alone. And yet, safe.’

As Garve talked, Mark noted the lack of emotion in his recollection. Like he was reading from a script. Perhaps that was how he had kept himself together. Detachment. Compartmentalisation. All very male.

‘I spent a long time, Mark, just trying to work out a way to live with myself.’ He pulled at his chin as he said it, but again, there was little sign of emotion. Mark was glad that whatever feelings had threatened to overwhelm him in the past had now been reconciled.

He turned his attention to the layout of the bunker.

‘It’s really quite expansive, you know. It was designed for thirty or more people to live in relative comfort but could have housed more. Many times I have felt like some post-apocalyptic Robinson Crusoe.’

Mark didn’t know who Robinson Crusoe was. Some old-world reference, he was sure.

‘Every day I try to follow a routine. It’s been the only way. I get up. Lights on. Then I run through my book titles.’

They had stepped into a study-bedroom. A yellowing mattress covered by hastily made bedding stood on a steel bed. A teak desk flanked by a small bookcase was next to it. Garve stepped over to the bookcase and ran his fingers along the spines. ‘I start with these. Then I step into the library,’ he pointed to the opposite room where Mark and Garve had just come from – a room stacked full of books on shelves and reading trolleys, ‘and I touch each one. It sounds silly I know, but they’ve been my only friends in here, and making a daily contact with them gives me a kind of morning energy. Can you see that?’

Mark nodded again although he wasn’t sure that he did.

‘Have you really read all those books? There are only a few here, but in the library – well, there must be over a thousand of them?’

‘Oh yes. Then I dress, tidy the room, dirty clothes to the laundry, dishes, and glasses to the kitchen. Then I take my medication – as I call it – it’s a daily supplement really, Vitamin B, D and A, and sometimes I take a pain killer – my back isn’t what it once was.’

Mark watched Garve mimic taking a tablet. It was a strange gesture. Like an actor in a drama class. They’d done role play at the Compound as part of the academy training.  Situational Resolutions it had been called.

Garve’s hand hovered by his desk, as if replacing the bottle that was not there. Then he turned and grinned.

‘Getting a bit stupid in my old age, sorry.’

‘No problem.’

Mark supposed the professor was agile enough for a man of sixty-two. But there was a slump to his shoulders, signs of a stiffness in his lower back. ‘You know, we have a masseuse back at the Compound.’

‘Really?’ Garve closed his eyes and his face slipped into a look of ecstasy. Mark felt a stab of unease. Yet seconds passed and Garve stayed that way. Mark thought of the assessment he was supposed to carry out. Was a moment like this meant to be noted? He looked away, deciding not. Garve was only a man, and his many years alone in the bunker must have had a huge impact on him. The professor’s face winced. Whatever experience he was imagining now seemed to turn from pleasure into pain. He snapped his eyes open. He stared blankly for a moment then gave a leering grin. ‘I may have to try that out,’ he whispered.

Mark would have to sift harmless eccentricity away from signs of real damage. From real psychosis. What he was seeing now were, he was sure, idiosyncrasies only.

He glanced at the desk. There was a die-cast model car set. And a chipped blue and white ceramic vase. No paper and pen, no laptop. Garve picked up the vase and tipped it upside down. A star key fell into his hand. He slotted the key into a board next to the bookcase and opened a storage space. From it he grabbed a roll of white disposal bags, pulled one free from the roll and emptied his waste-bin into it. Scrunched up paper notes; a bottle top; stained plastic packaging – these were the things Mark noticed falling into the bag. Garve tied it carefully. ‘We’ll just drop this off along the way,’

They walked.

‘Top floor, level one: Entrance lobby, a main corridor, three meeting rooms or break out rooms as I call them, unisex toilets, the library, my bedroom, a mess room, the kitchen, and bar.

‘Level two: Twenty-four dorm rooms, bathrooms with shower facilities, unisex toilets, and a large lounge area.

‘Level three: A larger dorm with adjoining bathroom and shower – this was designed for an onsite caretaker or manager – a gym, sauna, facilities room, and control room.

‘Level four: Storerooms and freezer.’

Garve said the sauna had never worked, but everything else was fully powered. In fifteen years, he’d never had a power blackout, a computer glitch or any plumbing, refrigeration, heating, or ventilation problems. Although he did worry that if the solar panels ever ran into trouble, he’d be done for. Nevertheless, whoever had built this place had built it to last and it had. It had hot and cold running water. The storerooms were jam packed with dry, vacuum packed, and tinned food. The freezer had even more meat and fish. And the hard drive was filled with entertainment – music, films, TV shows, interviews and documentaries, games and more.

‘Although I rarely do any of that.’

‘Too busy reading all those books,’ Mark quipped.

‘Indeed. And yet, every day, I go into each room and check it for problems.’

‘Every day, you go in every room?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mostly it’s part of my exercise.’

‘Okay.’              

‘Then I prepare my food. Then I read, ensuring that I take in some technical work as I call it, some aspect of engineering, physics, medicine, philosophy or whatever I’m into at that time. Then I write.’

‘You write?’

‘Well, Mark, what else would you expect a professor to do in a place like this? I’ve no-one to teach.’

‘What are you writing – is it connected to your previous work?’

‘What am I writing?’ He sucked at his teeth for a moment then said, ‘It’s a comprehensive understanding of the human condition. Part philosophical. Part technical. I am trying to outline the very nature of humanity, what it has been, what it can be, what the limits of its uses are. Then I am proposing a new attitude to our function. Acknowledging our limits – the barriers if you will – that cannot be broken – and then pushing everything else aside, destroying every mental, physical, and philosophical limit that does not need to be there. From this point that I hope to identify, I believe that we can move forward – at least, I imagine someone in the future might move forward.’ He smiled. ‘I can’t see me moving anywhere…’

‘Does it have a title?’

‘Yes. Function. Form. Following.’

It seemed like a project to be built on rather than one to immediately implement. A thesis rather than a handbook. But perhaps the great professor of social sciences that Garve had once been had morphed or even expanded his expertise into these more philosophical areas. It need not mean that his prior knowledge had diminished. That he was keeping his brain busy was a hopeful sign.

‘What is the first principle of your charter – your new society, Mark. Did Solgrove set that? Or has Reiser considered it since then? I am intrigued what the basis for the law is.’

‘Well, I suppose we are led by the principle of group survival in the first place, all things being subservient to the greater need of the population. And then beyond that we’re led by what Solgrove called the Triple Means. Sustenance – which is food, shelter, and individual safety, provided for by the Upper Council. Then Procreation – with an aim for real population expansion. Then lastly Empowerment, which is everyone’s contribution to the work ethic. Everything flows in that order.’

‘Do you use the word, collective?’

‘No.’

‘But you are a collective, I assume? Is food rationed?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are there wages?’

‘No.’

‘Are people considered equal?’

‘Yes, though the significance of one’s station impacts equality decisions.’

Garve nodded. ‘Interesting. Is there any ambition towards democracy?’

‘Solgrove wrote that democracy leads to ineffective policy and weak decision-making. It does not allow for hard decisions. In an emerging society, hard decisions must be made every day. Democracy is also something of an illusion as while it claims to stand against power being concentrated too much in one place it still confers power to small groups who can easily subvert the essential dynamic of a free society.’

‘So, he would say what? That freedom cannot be attained?’

‘That like democracy, it is something of an illusion.’

‘So why bother to pretend.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what about you, Mark, do you believe that to be true?’

‘I…’ Mark blinked. He did, yet the way Garve asked him suddenly made him think that he shouldn’t. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘The collective first, the individual second?’

‘We don’t use the word collective, but yes. Although, as the Compound is for us all, by being for it first, we are for each other first.’

Garve smiled. He was enjoying this. Mark was too.

‘Your life for the collective – sorry, I mean for the Compound? Your life for the Compound?’

‘If necessary, yes.’

‘And yet, men of power are vulnerable, don’t you think?’

‘In what way?’

‘Temptations. Ego. Taking that little extra for themselves.’

Mark knew of the dangers of corruption. But Reiser was a good man. A man of integrity. He had everyone’s back. That was the word throughout the academy. Everyone thought it. And Mark had seen it, first-hand.

‘Some say,’ Garve continued, ‘that the ideal form of government is a benign dictatorship.’

Mark nodded. He’d read that too.

‘Do you agree?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Let’s think about it. What does it mean to be benign?’

Mark shrugged. ‘To be good.’

‘Perhaps. But good to whom? What is goodness after all? And tumours can be benign. But do we want them? And of course, they can turn bad. Malignant.’

‘Are you saying we shouldn’t have leaders?’

‘No. But what I have concluded – after all these years of thought – is that chaos, Mark, chaos is the true agency of our existence. This is why all systems fail. They assume order is the norm when there can be no order. Only the illusion of order. All there really is, is chaos. Rain and wind. Bitterness and greed, Lust, jealousy, ego, and pride. Temptation. Corruption. Violence. All these are powerful forces of galactic attrition. Am I making sense?’

Mark hesitated. He had thought Garve was going one way - that he was confirming the ideal nature of the Compound’s set-up - but now he seemed about to undermine it. Saying that no system could work. Garve’s eyes gleamed. Was there instability there? ‘But what of your proposals? You were suggesting a new system, were you not? In your old writings?’

‘Yes. Yes, I was. And I still think we need a system, a tightly controlled system – clearly that is essential – but we also need an allowance for those watching over the system, that they will not need to comply with the rules in the same way as the rest. Does that make sense?’

Mark was unsure. He struggled.

‘You indicated it earlier – you said that in the Compound’s rules it made allowances for status. That equality decisions were affected by status.’

‘Yes.’

‘So, Reiser or Solgrove has thought of that too.’

‘How does that combat the chaos?’

‘It acts as a pressure valve. Allowing the system to breathe. Those who hold order in their hands must be given the allowance to make those hard decisions even if at the expense of others who perhaps have been loyal and committed. It might seem unfair and yet allowing a small element of corruption could be the only way to satisfy the chaos. Leeches, Mark. We bleed with leeches.’

Mark put his thoughts on hold. He didn’t know. And yet he sensed the presence of a powerful intellect – someone whose searching and probing may yet uncover real truths. But he wasn’t sure about what had just been said. He lowered his head. He didn’t want to push it too hard, not yet. Garve had been alone for so long it would be understandably difficult for him to express his thoughts with complete coherence. ‘Reiser has talked about the difficulties of managing the unknown.’

‘Has he? Has he really?’ Garve coughed and wiped his mouth dry. ‘Perhaps he and I are on the same track… how might you say? Simpatico?’

They parted after that, and Mark was glad to spend some time alone in the dorm room that Garve had shown him to. They would meet again in an hour for food. The dorm room was on the second level down. It was basic, with a steel bed, mattress, sheets, and pillows. No frills. He lay down and thought about their conversation. He worried that he may not have made the right impression. He also worried that Garve Henderson was going to be difficult to assess. And yet, they had got along well enough. He supposed that he could not be blamed for anything the professor said. Mark was here to do a job, and he was doing it.

Later, Garve served some soup and tinned ham. He also opened a bottle of wine. He said he only had a few bottles left, but as he hadn’t seen a living soul in twelve years, he couldn’t let the moment pass without a genuine celebration.

Mark had only once before sipped alcohol – brandy. Reiser allowed each of the academy leaders to give it to the graduates when they reached their final positions. It had burned and he thought it tasted of sweetened wood. Not an unpleasant taste, but also not one he felt he would crave in a hurry. This wine was much more palatable. A dry white Garve said it was. French. It was strong to taste and yet sat comfortably in his chest and belly. And after they had talked more about life as it had been for each of them, and life as was in the old world, the wine gave Mark an extra level of confidence to ask the crucial question.

‘Will you forge a connection with us, Garve? I do hope you will. There are so many good people. And Reiser is trying to build something real.’

Garve smiled. Then he looked away for a time and seemed to lose himself in a series of thoughts. Eventually he came back to Mark and said, ‘It is refreshing to once again see such a young attitude towards life.’

Mark laughed. ‘Does young equal naïve?’

‘I don’t mean to patronise you.’

‘I don’t mind. I’m sure you’re right.’

‘What I mean is that it is refreshing compared to the cynicism and endless weary discussions I remember having with my peers back in the day. In my forties I was surrounded by men and women of my age or older who idealised nothing. In fact, they often denigrated everything.’

Mark nodded.

‘Do you think that Reiser is a cynic?’

‘Uh…’ Mark was a little thrown. ‘No.’

‘Do you think he would ever relinquish his power?’

‘To whom?’

‘To a younger man. A younger woman. A fresh-faced rival with radically different ideas.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘One of the most telling aspects of a new leader is whether he is ready to share power. Whether he is prepared to accept challenges to it. Whether he respects those challenges or fears them.’

‘This seems –’

‘To be going in the opposite direction to my earlier thoughts – is that it? Perhaps. Bear with me. You see, while I believe in leeway for leaders to subvert their own system rules, I think they also need to accept the finite nature of their abilities to place the system above themselves.’

‘Accountability.’

‘Yes.’

‘Like a voting system?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘But you’re not a democrat.’

‘No… at least I wasn’t. Maybe I’ve become one.’

Marked smiled. ‘A democrat, really?’

‘No – one. I’ve become one.’

‘I’m sorry I don’t understand?’

Garve smiled. ‘It’s a joke. In my kingdom of one I am part of a democracy, a collective, a republic, and a dictatorship.’

Mark nodded. ‘I see.’

‘I once wrote that I didn’t believe in the democracy of ideas. But what I do believe in is the democracy of actions.’

Mark tried to process it.

‘Ideas cannot all be true. Too many of them oppose each other. Therefore, ideas must be true or they must be false. And it follows that a true idea - something wholly true - must reduce its competitors to meaninglessness. To redundancy. Do you see? Now, the popularity of an idea does not have any bearing on whether it is true or not. And further, if the truth has yet to be discovered about something, then might it be that all our fixed ideas about that thing – indeed our ideas about anything and everything – are redundant. And yet – and this is important – actions are always true. If I speak, then it is true that I spoke. If I bleed, then it is true that I bled. If I die, then it is true that I died. Do you see?’

This was the starting point. From there, Garve’s theory moved on. One moment Mark would be dazzled by something he said, the next he would be confused. The proclamations came thick and fast. Truth as a mirror. The ownership of function. The primacy of decision-making. The overemphasis on the power of the past when to Garve everything that had happened, while true was but a brittle echo. ‘What matters even more than the truth of our actions, is what we will do…’

By the time Mark had returned to his dorm, he wasn’t clear about any of it. But perhaps that didn’t matter. Such was the nature of new ways of thinking. They took time to settle. Nevertheless, he continued to wonder and began to think what Reiser would make of the professor’s ideas. Reiser had always been an advocate of the truth. And he was a man of action. A learned man who seemed to know what needed to be done and had little patience for many of the old ways which had so failed society. And yet, Garve was talking about something else, about a supremacy of actions over ideas. The idea that to act was truer than any idea that might inform the validity of that action. What would Reiser make of that position?

As he turned the light off, Mark again tried to adjust his expectations. He turned over in the camp bed and the creaking springs echoed throughout the room. Garve might be a real find. Or he might be the opposite – a waste of time and resources. But at least, even if he were not fit for purpose, Mark would still gain by being the one who brought Garve’s unsuitability to Reiser’s attention.

This consoled him.

He drifted in and out of sleep, struggling to fully fade out given the excitement of the day. He tried to imagine Daisy alongside him, her smooth face pressed to his, the scent of her clean skin filling his senses. This drew him back to the car journey, and his accident. And then he remembered that Garve hadn’t said anything about the Compound calling again to see that Mark had arrived safely. He said they had called once, but not a second time. Mark presumed the radio was in the control room – one of the few rooms he was yet to see – and was suddenly tempted to get up and check – to make the call himself if necessary.

And yet that would look ridiculous.

Then he was driving the Turv at full speed. Daisy was alongside him. She was laughing at him for having crashed through the post.

‘You really are a dope, Mark Friday Allen. You really do need to look where you’re going.’

‘You want to drive?’

‘I’d love to.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Sure. Why don’t you pull over?’

‘Maybe I will.’

Nevertheless, he drove on, faster and faster.

CHAPTER FIVE

Mark checked his watch again. It was a few minutes after nine. He sighed and paced the room. It had been more than two hours since he woke. The bedroom door had been locked when he first tried it and it was still locked now. He’d thought that maybe the door was on a timer; that perhaps at nine it would open. He’d banged on it a few times and called out, asking if there’d been a mistake. But nothing had happened. Garve didn’t respond. Might the timer be set for nine-fifteen? Or even later?

He sat on the creaking bed. The bedroom was a blank sheet. Cream and white walls. No pictures, photographs, or character features of any kind. Stripped of occupancy apart from the bed. Garve had put Mark in a white box. A locked white box. Last night, he’d had wine, interesting company, and things to occupy his mind. Now his focus was on something more fundamental. He was considering whether the principle that was the first of the Triple Means was something he should now be concerned about.

Survival.

Again, he thumped his fist against the door as loud as he could. ‘Garve? Professor Henderson? Can you hear me? Is there a problem with the doors?’

The idea that Garve might have locked him in – well, that was going to be an odd one to reconcile. It gave him a chill. He tried to rationalise. Even if he had, might there be some logic behind it? Perhaps Garve had been overcome with paranoia – concern that Mark would spring at him in the dead of night; threaten him, demand access to his food supplies or declare the bunker under Reiser’s command. Perhaps Garve was simply exercising some control over his environment – not so much paranoia as precaution. If Garve had had those concerns, then that was understandable. If only he’d discussed them with Mark beforehand, they could have come to an agreement. Mark wouldn’t have wanted to be locked in, but perhaps another arrangement could have been made? They could have come up with something.

I believe in the democracy of actions.

Mark went through everything they’d talked about last night. At least as much of it as he could remember. Was Garve stable? Might Mark have said something to offend him? And then a new thought occurred.

What if Garve Henderson was dead?

It might have happened. The shock of Mark’s arrival. The excitement at seeing another person after all this time. Perhaps even the turmoil of what might yet come – mass interaction with strangers at the Compound – all of it might have been too much for the ageing professor to face and a stroke, heart-attack, or brain aneurism could have felled him in the middle of the night. Right now, he could be slipping into rigor mortis just a dozen feet above Mark’s head, imprisoning Mark not just for now, but forever.

The walls were as thick as a castle and the magnetic door locks likely unbreakable. Mark grabbed his kit pack.

He took the jemmy and weighed it up against the door. Then he measured it against the jam. He might be able to force it in and break the lock. He might.

But not yet. He threw the jemmy onto the bed.

He didn’t believe Garve was dead. That was too unlikely. The professor hadn’t appeared stressed or even that excited at Mark’s arrival – more a combination of amused and bemused. No, Mark was sure that Garve was one of two things: asleep and unaware of Mark’s incarceration, or awake and playing some sort of a game. It might be a test. A test of Mark’s integrity and by association, the integrity of the Compound. Of Reiser. If Mark – as Reiser’s man – passed the test, then perhaps Garve would come along with Reiser’s plan, share the information he held and become part of their community. Perhaps that was it…

Mark lay down on the bed. Unless Garve was asleep and therefore ignorant of Mark’s incarceration, then all these other possibilities, however benign their intention, were still a concern.

He picked up the jemmy again. He tried to insert it into the jam. The metal marked the steel frame. Mark hoped that Garve wasn’t fussy about a few scratches. He pushed. The jemmy wouldn’t go in. He pushed harder and barely got any leverage at all. He tried to use what access he had and so force it, but it kept slipping out.

He emptied his kit bag. Aside from the crowbar, he had his torch, ration bars, batteries, water, spare clothes, and a compass. There were more supplies of food and water, as well as medicine and fuel, in the car. None of it was going to help him.

What would Daisy say?

‘Open the door, you dumb ox. Put your back into it!’

He let out a grim laugh. Yet when he did try again, and pushed and pushed with all his strength, he still couldn’t get the bar in far enough. He blinked away the sweat. He threw the bar down in frustration and slammed his fist against the steel.

Time moved on and Mark stewed as he paced and sat and lay down and occasionally called out. Eleven o’clock. Twelve o’clock. Twelve-thirty…

If he had to stay here much longer –

There was a click. The lock.

Mark jumped up and grabbed the handle. The door opened. Relief washed over him. He turned the handle several times to see if there was anything wrong with the mechanism. No – it was the maglock. It had been on and now it was off. That was it. The question was, had Garve unlocked it?

He hurried out of the dorm, past the showers and up the spiral staircase. His feet clanged noisily on the metal. He strode through the door to the first level, past the re-ordered mess room and then came to Garve’s door. He knocked.

‘Garve? Garve are you there?’

He opened it.

The bed was unmade. Everything else was as he’d seen yesterday. But no Garve. The floor was littered with scraps of paper. Mark was tempted to go in and see what was written on them. But the temptation passed, and he decided he would be best served to find Garve and establish what had happened with the door lock rather than increase any existing suspicions by being caught snooping.

He checked the rooms on this upper level. Each door opened. No sign of Garve anywhere.

He took the stairs back down to Level Three.

The air felt cooler down here. Yet there was an odour. Salty. Rank. It was sweat.

Garve was in the gym.

He was lifting weights. His back to Mark. Arms strained and shook as he raised a bar and four great black weighted discs above his head. His neck was drenched. His back shuddered at the effort. Mark waited until he’d lowered the bar and dropped it onto the cradle.

‘Garve?’

The professor turned with a start.

‘Good God, Mark, you gave me a fright. Come in.’ Mark took a seat near the weightlifting bench. ‘What time is it?’

‘A little after twelve-thirty.’

‘You slept well?’

‘I’ve been awake since seven.’

‘Really?’ Garve stood up and wrapping a towel around his neck and dabbing his wet face gave Mark his full attention. ‘Doing what?’

Mark looked around at the gym. There was a running machine. A rowing machine. A stack of small silver weights. Everything gleamed. ‘Trying to get out of my room.’

‘You what… I don’t –’

‘The door was locked.’

‘It shouldn’t have been.’

‘I banged and called for you.’

‘I’m so sorry, Mark. Really, I am. I don’t know – no, I can’t think what could have happened. There are locks on all the dorm doors, that’s true. And I suppose there must be some way to control each of them individually. But I’ve never tried and so wouldn’t know how. Maybe there’s a timer?’

‘That’s what I thought…’

‘But I’ve never been aware of it before. I – I really am at a loss as to how that’s happened.’

Mark couldn’t tell. Was he being truthful? It felt off.

‘I could try to see what happened but might not be able to understand it. You’re welcome to look yourself – are you technically minded? Although it might not be worth your time. Let’s just move you to a different dorm. It’s not as if I’m lacking in spare accommodation…’

The matter was left at that, and Garve took Mark back to the bar. They talked some more, and Mark soon felt the hours of frustration and fear he’d been through slipping away from him. He adjusted to the ‘normality’ of being in Garve’s company, and his host seemed to have brushed the incident aside and was already picking up strands of yesterday’s conversation.

‘You know, I’m not sure I could give this place up entirely, Mark, and if I were to be involved with your people, it is much more likely that I would need to keep my distance.

Mark nodded. Perhaps the door had been a technical error. A system glitch. ‘That’s understandable. I was wondering, did you let the Compound know I’d arrived?’

‘Yes. They called again this morning. I said that you were safe and sound. I said you were sleeping like a baby! They expect you back, when?’

‘In a couple of days at the latest. If we conclude our talk today, I may even go back tonight.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’d rather you stay until tomorrow at least. You’re not still bothered about that faulty door lock, are you?’

Mark was less concerned than he’d been, but he supposed he was still bothered about something. Possibly about Garve himself. Was that fair? He didn’t know.

‘I’ve got some questions for you,’ he said. ‘Some paperwork that Reiser’s asked me to complete. Can we go through it now?’

‘Sure.’

While Garve showered and changed, Mark walked to one of the break-out rooms on the first level. He passed Garve’s bedroom along the way and again noticed the bits of paper on the floor. Hearing the spray of the shower downstairs, he crept in and picked one up. The letter ‘A’ had been written on it. He took another. ‘E’. And another. ‘L’. It meant nothing, he decided. Dropping them back on the floor, he slipped into the break-out room.

The flooring was a cold laminate. Six red plastic chairs in a circle. A lime-green sofa was pushed against one wall. Near it, there was a large art-print of a lake lit purple by a fading sky. But the print was off the wall, resting on the floor. A hole in the plaster above indicated it had been knocked off. Mark dragged two of the chairs to a small two-part table, which was against the opposite wall. The two parts were unevenly aligned, and while he waited for Garve, he couldn’t get them to match.

Garve came in wearing a pale-blue tracksuit. The sleeves were rolled up and the zip undone to his sternum revealing a baggy cotton t-shirt. Grey hairs crept over the collar. His arms were covered in red blotches. A skin complaint, of some kind. It made him look older than he was.

‘Been a long time since I had any kind of interview.’

‘Not really an interview,’ Mark smiled, checking the order of his papers. Garve widened his eyes. He was ready. Yet Mark couldn’t help but feel his enthusiasm for Garve draining away. This morning’s incident hung over him, he supposed. And he missed the Compound. He would finish what he had to do and –

‘Shall we begin?’

‘Yes. I’ve filled in the first part already. Name, age. Birth date etcetera. Now, for occupation or qualification, I’ve written former professor of social studies at the University College London, and at the University of Manchester. Is that right?’

‘My title was Professor of Behavioural Social Science and Social Anthropology.’

‘Okay.’ Mark made the amendment.

‘Just to say, UCL was a rat’s nest of rivalry, jealousy, corruption, and nepotism.’

Mark cocked his head. ‘Was it?’

‘If you spoke out, you’d be censored, gagged, perhaps even publicly denounced.’

‘Right. Is that something you still feel angry about?’

Garve shrugged. ‘No. It doesn’t mean anything now. None of that means anything now.’

‘I didn’t think your views were controversial?’

‘No?’

‘At least not at the university. I thought the academic consensus –’

‘There’s no such thing as an academic consensus, Mark. If you put six academics in a lifeboat the only thing they will agree on is that the boat isn’t big enough and that one of them will have to be tipped into the drink.’

Mark held his pen tight over the paper. He should make a note about the edge in Garve’s voice. And about the possibility that he was holding onto some resentment towards an establishment structure. It chimed with his ideas of structures being inherently flawed. Or was there simply a resentment towards a faculty that had failed to pull together for the greater good? He should ask more questions about it. Maybe later. He proceeded with his list.

‘What’s your earliest childhood memory?’

Garve sighed. ‘Sitting in the back garden with my bare feet and fingers pressed into the dew-loaded grass.’

‘That’s uh, quite poetic. Is that true? Is that your first memory?’

‘Who knows?’

‘Well – I suppose you should know.’

Garve pulled his lower lip over his upper lip and his jaw tensed. Then he said, ‘It’s not a great question.’

‘Why?’

‘Because early memories are notoriously unreliable. I said what I said, because I remember it and I know I was young when it happened. But I also know that my mother used to tell me that as a child I would sit in the grass with no shoes or socks on and that she thought it was cute. She said that a lot. To me and to others. Now which is true? Do I have a genuine memory of that moment or is it an implanted memory from my mother passing on her own memory so often?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Should we start accepting the democracy of memories?’

Mark couldn’t help but laugh.

‘I also know that when I was a baby,’ Garve continued, ‘I was outside a shop in a carrier on wheels and that some woman came over to look at me and scratched my cheek with her nails.’

Mark frowned.

‘Another story my mother told me and sometimes I can believe that I remember that too. I can picture the woman, heavy set, in a rain-spattered coat, hand moving towards my face, eyes filled with glee… And yet, I was a baby so how can I possibly remember it?’

‘Okay…’

‘Do you see my point?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are all the questions like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Part of a cheap attempt to psychoanalyse me – presumably to wheedle out any signs of instability.’

‘I think the questions are just meant to give a snapshot of your state of mind without necessarily drawing any easy conclusions.’

Garve stared at him for a few moments and Mark could feel the waves of suspicion pulsing out from him.

‘You will weigh them up.’

‘Yes.’

‘You – Mark Friday Allen will weigh them up and decide on my state of mind?’

‘I’m not looking to catch you out, Garve.’

‘You see the danger though.’

‘No…’

‘If more of my answers indicate a problem than not, then the balance tips towards a negative conclusion.’

‘Yes…’

‘A simplistic, majority decision.’

‘I suppose.’

‘Yet neither of us are democrats.’

For a moment, Mark was ready to end the session and make his excuses. Already, Garve’s interrogation of this really, quite simple first question, was giving him a headache. He decided to play it down. ‘It won’t just be about numbers, Garve. Not just a simple tally.’

Garve smiled. ‘You’re going to feel it out.’

‘Maybe.’

The questions came and went. Gently probing Garve to test his mood, the range of his emotions, any tendency towards anxiety and depression, his sleep patterns, any obsessive thoughts, or compulsions… Garve then declared that he was not lonely and rambled for a time about company being something that people think they need but which years of solitude can overcome. ‘You can grow into alone,’ he muttered.

‘I don’t think I could do it.’

‘No?’

‘All that time. Fifteen years from now – I’d be thirty-three.’

‘Like Christ.’

Mark laughed awkwardly. Religion was not something he knew much about. It ran counter to the –

Garve interrupted his thought. ‘So, how do you think I’ve fared? Now that you have a wealth of information about my every inner working?’

‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

‘So, how far would you go?’

‘Well, for what it’s worth. I think you’re sound, Garve.’

He gathered his papers and clipped them into the board and slipped the pen into his overall top pocket. Then Garve put a hand on his arm.

‘You’re young, Mark. Young and full of explosive youthfulness.’ Mark looked at Garve’s hand. And quite unexpectedly, Mark’s skin began to crawl. ‘A head full of ambition and duty and sex and dreams. I can see it.’

Mark laughed awkwardly. But Garve wasn’t done.

‘You have no idea what can be achieved.’

Mark nodded. He’d lied about Garve being sound. He didn’t think that at all. He thought the professor was peculiar and had likely become more lost in his loneliness than he could admit – or perhaps even understand. And yet – Mark had to admit, why should he be surprised by that? He retreated from his concerns. ‘I’m sure I don’t.’

‘Then you’ll stay?’

Mark looked at the time. It was ten to four. He was hungry and didn’t relish a night return. Yet how much more of this strange company could he take? He supposed that if Garve Henderson could survive alone in this bunker for fifteen years, then he, Mark Friday Allen could endure one more night.

‘For tonight. I’ll leave in the morning.’

‘It’s a deal.’

CHAPTER SIX

As Garve prepared the evening food, Mark wandered around the bunker. He said he was going to the gym – and he did take a turn on that third level, seeing the caretaker’s room – unfussy and unused – and the out of order sauna, and the locked control and facilities rooms. But then he decided to look lower. Down to Level Four.

As he stepped off the spiral stairs and slipped through the door that led into the level, he was faced with three rooms. The first was an open storeroom. He checked it over. Tinned goods. Hundreds of tins of vegetables, pulses, fruit, sardines, tuna, curry, meatballs, hot dogs, soup – the choices went on and on. Most were large 1kg or more tins that would be enough to feed a man for a day. Sunshine Pears. Wilson’s Dogs. Princes Tuna. Heinz soup. Mark picked up some kidney beans. He shook them. He put them back.

The second room was also an open store. Pasta. Rice. Jars of salt, pepper, seeds, and spices. Great sacks of flour. Yet they looked tired. The flour was flecked with grey. The pasta and rice shone. He doubted there was much flavour in the spices.

The third room had a door. This was the freezer. A bar slotted into a steel cradle and kept the door tight. He lifted it. It was cold. He felt the compression ease. The handle to the door was stiff. He tugged at it, but it wouldn’t give.

‘You have to push and turn.’

Mark swung about guiltily.

Garve smiled. ‘I already have food for us, Mark. No need to get extras.’

Mark let go of the handle. Then he replaced the bar. ‘Sorry.’

‘Not a problem.’

‘I was just being nosey.’

‘We’re all curious by nature. Come on…’

They ate in the bar.

They started with tinned sardines. Mark found them dry but enjoyable enough. Then Garve brought in a stew which he’d made from tinned vegetables and salted water. It was bland but filling. As they ate, Garve began talking about an associate of his. Simon Ville. He said Ville had been an employee who was also a friend. It was clear that Garve missed him.

‘Simon and I had a long history. He came on to my team back in the UCL days. I had four or five helpers at one time. My published works were making a splash and I needed help with scheduling, PR, and other things. Simon was an extremely capable organiser. When I started talking to politicians and their people, he became my point man. And we were friendly too, he became a confidant. I’d bounce ideas off him, and he’d give me pointers … Sometimes he could be a bit of a blunt weapon – ha, that’s understating it – but sometimes that’s what you need. Do you understand, Mark?’

‘Sure…’

‘When I think back on my time with him, I didn’t appreciate him enough. Took him for granted. The skills he had. The adaptability of the man. I’m not a politician so moving in the political arena can be draining. Deadly even. Yet, Simon breezed through it. Saved my neck more than once. He was so keen, and eagle-eyed and –’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh… he didn’t make it.’

‘Did he come here with you?’

‘No. No he was left behind. I had to leave all my team behind. None of us on the list were supposed to bring anyone else. God forbid that anyone had family – what would they have done? Leave them to die while they came here to safety? I can’t imagine it. Perhaps as a single man that’s why I was the only one who did.

‘But I do often think about Simon. I miss his company. And I think being here with you has brought some of that back, Mark. The irony is of course, that I was supposed to come here alone, and yet, I could have brought him. Because no-one else was here. I could have brought anyone. I could have saved dozens of lives. No-one would have questioned it because there was no-one here to question it.’

‘You weren’t to know. If you had brought him or anyone else, and someone had been here…’

Garve was staring into space.

Mark watched him. He hesitated. Garve closed his eyes.

‘Garve?’

‘What?’

‘I was just saying that you weren’t to know. If you –’

‘Yes, yes, I know all that, Mark,’ he snapped.

Mark lowered his head. A touchy subject then. He would ease off and wait.

There was a silence.

And then, Garve asked him about Daisy. When had he first met her? Was it an arranged marriage? What did he find attractive about her? Or was there nothing attractive about her – if it was an arrangement?

Marl was hesitant to answer but he did his best, explaining that there was no arrangement, but they had been friends within the academy, that Daisy was two years older than he, that he thought she was quite beautiful.

‘Love then?’

‘Yes.’

Garve sighed. ‘And what about Reiser? Do you see him as a father figure?’

For some reason, Mark felt even less comfortable talking about his leader. Why was that? He hesitated, trying to understand his emotions. It was because he didn’t just doubt the professor’s stability, for the first time he doubted his intentions. Mark took a deep breath. He had decided that he didn’t trust him.

‘He is a father to us all.’

‘Ah… And the academy – do you ever get jealous when others are afforded responsibility over you?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever been bullied?’

‘No…’

‘Take part in bullying?’

Mark frowned, shaking his head – and now the questions came thick and fast. Just how ambitious was he? How far was he prepared to go in his career? Would he be troubled if he succeeded at another’s expense? Did he imagine ever having a leadership position at the Compound? Was Daisy ambitious? Did he find other academy members attractive? Had he been a faithful husband? Was infidelity accepted?

Even though the questions were to Mark’s mind, inappropriate, in different company he might have engaged with them. Made a joke of them or fired some back. Yet, it felt as if Garve’s purpose was prurience only, or a barely supressed desire to see Mark admit to some degeneracy. He tried to answer each evasively, giving vague or dismissive answers so as not to open himself up too much. And the more he did that, Garve would roll his eyes, or snort, or tap his fingers on the table. And as the older man seemed to get used to Mark’s company; shooting out whatever question popped into his head, the more his personality exploded. From reticence to bravado. From patience to impatience. From respect to disdain. And then…

‘Why did you want to look in the freezer, Mark?’

Mark was thrown off course. He cleared his throat. What could he say? He knew that while he didn’t know what he had expected to find in the freezer, there had been something in his gut when he placed his hand on the door handle. Some sort of suspicion. Mark shrugged. ‘The freezer? Why? I – I was just curious. Like you said.’

‘Are freezers usually filled with curiosities?’

‘No.’

‘And so…’

‘So, I…’

‘You know, Mark. I’m beginning to think that you’re not quite the ticket. That you’re perhaps what my old friend Simon would have called, a little shit.’

Mark opened his mouth to object. Then Garve looked away and as Mark breathed through the tension, Garve’s expression shifted, as if the insult hadn’t happened at all. As if it was one of Garve’s false memories.

Mark laughed. ‘Don’t hold back now.’

Garve pushed his bowl away. He considered his next question very carefully.

‘How is this going to work, Mark?’

‘How is what going to work?’

‘How is any of this going to work if you won’t even tell me your basic feeeelings?’ He said it like that – with the ‘ee’ drawn out unnaturally. His teeth were gritted.

‘I’m sorry Garve – I don’t understand.’

‘I think you’ll have to go back into the same room tonight.’

‘The same room?’ Mark felt a pressure at his temples. A slight giddiness, He breathed out slowly.

‘The same one.’

‘Why?’

Yet Garve just grinned and what occurred to Mark now, was that Garve had known about the locked door all along and that he might even have activated it. ‘Are you well, Garve? I thought we were just talking. I don’t understand how –’

‘I was talking. You were dancing around the questions like Gene Kelly.’

‘Who? I don’t –’

‘God, you’re so young. What wouldn’t I give – Reiser told me you were suitable. He didn’t tell me you were so damn unformed.’

‘Reiser said – what? That I was suitable?’

‘To visit me. He and I talked. At length. Didn’t you know that?’

‘Yes. But…’

‘I gave him some conditions. You see? I couldn’t have anyone come here. Couldn’t have some old goat looking to pin me down, or some flimsy girl shouting rape from the rooftops. Couldn’t. But I should have told him that I wasn’t looking to babysit some toddler either.’

Garve’s flashed his teeth in genuine anger, Mark wanted to say something in response to defend himself, but was quite speechless. Then Garve raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘see, I told you so,’ then stormed out of the bar.

Mark fought the panic away. How had all this happened? Their interaction had moved beyond any endearing idiosyncrasies into something that Mark didn’t know how to control. How was he supposed to navigate his way with such a damaged man. The unpredictability was too unnerving. Mark had wanted to leave today, after the questionnaire, but had been persuaded otherwise. Now it was late – and yet – yet what did that matter?

A night-time drive, even part of the way and then a sleep in some remote spot before going back, that would be okay. He could do it. He thought about his accident on the way here. His blacking out. It bothered him. Would he be safe? Yet he felt the risk was preferable to spending more time here with Garve.

And Mark couldn’t help but feel angry at Reiser for not warning him about this – if he and Garve had indeed talked at length and part of that had been about Mark’s suitability…

He stepped from the bar and through the mess into the corridor. It was empty. The walls shimmered in the spotlights. He felt anxious. No Garve. Good, he didn’t want to see him now. He would just go. What about the kitbag? He could leave it. He had the keys to the Turv in his pocket. The kitbag could stay.

He crossed the length of the corridor. Yet before he got to the turn that would lead to the stairs and up to the exit, something flashed through his mind. The keypad. The keypad next to the exit door. He couldn’t open it without the code.

‘Damn it…’

Yes, he would need the code. And Garve wouldn’t give it to him. Of all things he’d been unsure about to this point, he felt certain that Garve would not give him the code.

Mark wandered back to the bar then decided to try the control room on Level Three. Garve might be there, but if not, then maybe the code was written down somewhere. His mind flashed to the pieces of paper in the bedroom. No, they had been letters.

His feet on the stairs echoed through the bunker. His heart rate was increasing. Again, he tried to push panic inducing thoughts away. He came to the control room door. This was ridiculous, he thought. Garve had gotten upset, but he could smooth it over, surely? Smooth it over and then tell him he was leaving. That was it. That’s what he would do.

He pressed his hand to the door. Then he saw that there was a keypad here too. Like the exit door, the control room could not be accessed without a code. Yet the door was ajar. Palms sweating. Eyes blinking feverishly. Mark pushed it.

Garve was there.

‘You found me!’ he quipped then offered a strained smile. ‘Come in, Mark, come in.’

He did. The room was dark. There was a glass table in the centre with several screens built into it. Garve was tapping the glass in different places and Mark saw that he was flicking from one view of a security camera to the next. Corridors, rooms, outside view – back and forth, over, and over. Had he been watching Mark all this time?

‘Your middle name, Mark.’

‘What? My – my middle name?’

‘Friday.’

‘Yes.’

‘An odd middle name.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

Mark screwed up his face. ‘Why? I don’t know.’

‘Think.’

He swallowed, Unsure of where this was going. He tried to ease his fears. He would go along with it. ‘My parents didn’t survive. My name was printed on some paperwork when I was picked up. That was it.’

‘What do you make of it?’

‘I…’ Mark was going to say he didn’t know again – which was true – but then – then he decided that might not be the best thing to say. Garve’s insulting behaviour and anger seemed to have been triggered by what he perceived to be Mark’s lack of engagement with his curiosity. If Mark was going to get out of here, he needed Garve on his side. ‘I think perhaps it was the day I was born, and –’

‘And yes and?’ Garve wanted there to be more. He needed there to be more.

‘Well, I like to think that it was a day of hope for my parents. That day.’

‘Ha – perhaps they wanted to mark Friday? Is that it?’ Garve laughed at his own joke and Mark nodded along. And yet as Garve joked about his parents, Mark felt a rush of emotion, of grief at their passing and sadness at them never seeing who he had grown into and anger too, at Garve appropriating their intentions for his own amusement.

Garve beamed. ‘Now, that’s more like it.’

That night, Mark didn’t stay in the same room as before. And he kept the door open by moving the bed across its path. He slept little, instead going over and over the events of the evening and cursing himself for not taking more of a stand. Garve had been placated by Mark’s explanation for his middle name, and so Mark had backed off from his plan to ask for the code. He convinced himself that Reiser would want him to see it through, to stay for that extra night, and win Garve over more fully. Yet, as a reflection of the uncertainty of that conviction, Mark spent the night drifting in and out of a state of anxiety and restlessness, staring out onto the corridor for any sign of Garve approaching, periodically jerking awake at imagined shadows and noises.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Breakfast began as a polite affair. Yet from Mark’s perspective, the awkwardness remained. Garve alluded to a ‘moment of embarrassment’ and ‘a definite overreaction’ which Mark assumed referred to yesterday’s outburst. However, he couldn’t be sure about that, and as Garve’s expression shifted from apparent openness and innocence to a glare of scrutiny that made Mark want to avert his eyes, he realised that the man he’d expected to meet, and indeed the man he had met in those first moments, had now completely vanished. What had replaced him was an evolving mystery, a shimmer person who every few minutes adopted a new tone or mode of questioning. Eventually the chat stopped and Garve began another run of strange questions clothed in an accusatory tone.

‘Does everyone at the Compound have such pale skin?’

‘Do you regret not reading more literature?’

‘Why don’t you enjoy confrontation?’

‘Have you ever had a sexually transmitted infection?’

‘How many men do you think you could fight at once?’

‘Can you bring Daisy to a climax?’

Mark tried to bat them all away with a shrug or a joke. But he felt at turns awkward, embarrassed, or irritated.

When Garve asked, ‘What game do you think Reiser is playing?’ Mark frowned, confused at the idea that Reiser was playing any game at all, and so decided to take the question seriously.

‘I don’t know, Garve. What game do you think he’s playing?’

Garve stared at him, as if offended. Then he said casually, ‘Oh – a long one I expect. One that weighs up immediate loss versus longer gain. If so that sets him apart from old world leaders, who, bound by short term elections always place immediate wins over long term benefits.’

He said it as if reading from a book and Mark started to wonder whether Garve’s earlier arguments and proclamations had been similarly learned rather than independently arrived at.

There were no questions for a while after that and Mark was about to thank Garve for his time and say he was leaving – hoping that he’d now agree and open the doors for him. Yet, before he could get there, Garve fired one last question at him. It was a blinder.

‘What if I said that I’d never told your people you’d arrived here?’

Mark caught his breath. And he realised that he should have left already. There was no purpose in delaying it. Garve Henderson was a man too far gone, too lost in the world of his isolation to be considered a safe or even partially valuable member of the Compound’s community.

‘Then I,’ Mark began cautiously, ‘would have to respectfully request that you immediately correct such misinformation.’

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ Mark frowned. Did he really need to answer? ‘Because they will be worried. And they will have to send out a search party.’

‘Will they? Do you think they will?’

‘Of course.’

He made a sound – a murmur to show his disbelief.

‘Did you tell them I was here?’

Garve shrugged. ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not.’

Mark breathed in calming air. ‘Why wouldn’t you?’

‘I would have my reasons.’

‘Garve –’

‘Mr Henderson to you.’

‘Not Professor?’

‘A vastly overrated title. Mister is the great leveller of humankind. Everyone equal. Everyone a comrade. You should be on board with that, coming as you do from your post-apocalyptic utopian Marxist commune.’

‘Mr Henderson, I sincerely think that you need help. I am sorry this visit hasn’t worked out the way that I – and Reiser –’ as he said the name, Garve rolled his eyes, ‘had hoped that it would, but I think once I return, we can send someone more qualified to talk to you. Someone who can help you adjust to –’

‘I’ve decided you’ll stay.’

‘What?’

‘Stay here. With me. You’ve a lot to learn and can help me with various projects – my book, of course – and soon you’ll learn to open-up and it’ll be like it was in the old days. When I had people to talk to. Real live human beings to interact with.’

‘I’m going, Garve.’

‘You can’t leave.’

Mark stepped up from the breakfast table. He took a moment to think what he might do if Garve tried to stop him. Then he headed out of the door. Garve came after him. As Mark walked, a sense of vulnerability washed over him. He kept his head half-turned to see if Garve was making any sudden movements. He didn’t want to appear rattled and yet as they walked – and Garve was matching his steps – he felt his skin crawling.

And then he thought of the code. What was he going to do? Bluff it out? Demand it? Beg for it? And as that thought distracted him, the lunge came. It was a rugby tackle. No way to stop it. Mark put his hands out to break the fall and hit the carpet with a thud. Then he kicked and twisted back, ready to fight.

But Garve had already detached himself. He jumped up, laughing. ‘Got you…’

‘What are you doing?’

Garve placed his hands on his hips and arched to the left, stretching. ‘Oh dear, Mark. It’s just a game. It’s what friends do. They play games together.’

Mark got up. He was shaken but unhurt. He cleared his throat and yet didn’t know what to say.

‘Let me show you something.’

‘No.’

‘Just one thing. I know you’re leaving. I know that. And I’m sorry I’ve upset you. It’s hard to know how to relate to people after all this time. It really is. But please. Let me show you this one thing.’

‘What? What is it?’

‘It’s in the control room. Quite safe – I promise.’

Mark didn’t see the point.

‘Mark – this is important. Reiser will like it.’

Mark’s kit bag was in the room he’d slept in last night. On level two. Breakfast had been on level one. He would see this one thing in the control room on level three, then he would get his kit bag and go. Reluctantly, he nodded.

When they reached the control room, Mark saw the glass table with its array of screens, giving a birds-eye view of the larger rooms within the bunker as well as several shifting outside perspectives. To the right of the glass table there was a desk and a console – a flat screen with a keyboard. The blue-white screen showed what looked like an email account – an inbox, an open email, and some typed words. Who was Garve emailing? The tech team had managed to set-up an internal email system for the Compound – for a select few. They were on the lookout for connections to anyone else out there who they might be able to talk to, but, as yet – as far as Mark knew anyway – they’d been unsuccessful. So, had they managed to do this with Garve, or was he connected to someone else?

Next to the screen was the radio. It was a bulky transmitter-receiver with a standing microphone and large black dials. This was how Reiser had found Garve. And this – he assumed, if Garve had been telling the truth – was how the terms and conditions relating to any visitor had been agreed upon. Mark chewed his lip. Garve had one hand to his thinning hair. He was rubbing it tensely. He took off his glasses. His eyes bulged. ‘I have documents,’ he proclaimed louder than necessary.

‘Documents?’

‘Blueprints.’

This was the tech Garve had told Reiser about. Mark knew about it already. He played along. ‘For what?’

‘Lots of things. For example, a solar energy system.’

‘Really?’ Mark tried to look impressed.

‘It’s old, but the science will hold up. If a group of intrepid types were to gather the raw materials and collate the necessary equipment and facilities, then it could be done. I wouldn’t hold your breath though, Mark, I expect it’ll take years before Reiser can rustle up such disparate and unlikely components as an arc furnace or the right quantities of boron and phosphorus.’ He chuckled. ‘But – and it’s such an important word ‘but’, don’t you think? – if you have the instructions, you can move forward. Without those instructions – without that knowledge, the whole process would have to be rediscovered and that might not just take years, it could take decades.’

Mark nodded. He didn’t want to explain they already had solar panels – retrieved from old industrial units. They had set them up. They were running now. They didn’t need this document.

‘What else do you have?’

‘A whole host. A legion of scientific and technological instructions. Energy efficient lighting manufacture, A-grade refrigeration, solar thermal, wind power, electrical engines – the list goes on and on. The government set this place up to start again, Mark, do you remember? So, what else would you expect. They made sure that in the dark recesses of this bunker’s mind, there would be the blueprints for a whole civilisation.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And weapons.’

‘Weapons?’

Blueprints for gun manufacture. Grenades. Launchers. High grade explosives.’

Did Reiser know this? Is this what he wanted – weapons? ‘And you’re offering to give this to us?’

‘Already done.’

‘Already – already done?’

‘Emailed it all late last night.’

‘You have email then?’ Mark’s eyes shot to the screen.

‘Yes. Reiser’s team set it up for me a week or so back.’

‘Remotely?’

‘Yes…’

Something was missing from this conversation. He stared at Garve, suspicious, wondering what could be coming next. Then wondering, why he was even here. Garve smiled. His voice softened. ‘I have been trying to tell you, Mark. I’ve decided you’ll stay.’

There it was again. ‘I’m not staying, Garve. You said it yourself just now, that you knew I was leaving.’

‘I did. But that was just to get you in here. To show you the documents. For you to see how valuable you are – for you to see how much worth you have.’

‘Worth?’

‘Worth.’

Mark walked out.

He wasn’t listening to this anymore. He reached the stairs. Garve was cracked. And yet, he said he’d already sent the documents to Reiser. Why? Was that part of his madness too. He heard him coming after him. Mark hesitated then slipped down to Level Four, just to get away from Henderson. Moments later, Garve’s footsteps clattered up the stairs. He would assume Mark was heading for the exit. This gave him some time. A few minutes at least. He would go back to the control room and try to contact the Compound. They would know how to help him. He’d tell them –

Then something else occurred to him.

‘Why did you want to look in the freezer, Mark?’

That had been one of Garve’s questions last night. Was there something there? He didn’t have time to look and yet it nagged at him. Garve had made a real point of it. Perhaps he should check – for the Compound’s sake, to complete his report.

He turned away from the stairs and hurried along the corridor. He reached the freezer, lifted the bar and gripped the handle, pushing as he turned. A wave of chilled air blasted him. It was a large, L-shaped room.

It was packed with contents. Yet it was dark. Where was the light? All he could see was shadows and shapes and ice-coated walls. He looked for a switch.

Then he heard Garve calling. The clang of feet on the stairs. Mark cursed his curiosity. He dashed away from the freezer, leaving the door open. He hit the stairs and rushed up then into the control room. He turned on the radio. The switch gave a satisfying click and the machine hummed into life. Gentle static welcoming him. Then slowly, quavering white noise.

‘What frequency?’ he whispered to himself. Then Mark glanced at the screen on the desk. The open email. It was addressed to RE1611. The typed words said, ‘I don’t know how this might play out but…’ and that was it. Was that Reiser? Was Garve emailing Reiser about something? All he needed to do to check was –

A metal bar slammed across the desk.

Mark’s fingers shot back. The screen jolted and flashed off and on again. The keyboard had jumped up and clattered down. The laminated surface of the desk had split. Mark moved away. Garve held the bar in both hands. His eyes carried a warning. Then he raised the bar threateningly.

‘Always keep a weapon nearby. As a child, I used to have a baseball bat – no, I must be accurate, a rounders bat, it was mother who always called it a baseball bat, those tricky implanted memories! – and I kept it under my bed. My father instructed me so. I never used it, but it was a comforting presence. You never know, Mark. You really, never do know.’

‘I need to get in touch with them.’

‘There is no point.’

‘No point? You didn’t even tell them I was here.’

‘I told them.’

‘You’re crazy, Garve.’

‘Maybe. I’m hoping you’ll help me with that too.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I bought you.’

‘What?’

‘Reiser wanted copies of the documents. We negotiated. As I still have the original blueprints, I consider it a bargain. Just the copies of what I have in exchange for you.’

Mark’s head span. Thoughts were exploding. Rushing into his brain. Vying for attention. Dark, fear-filled terror. He swatted them away. ‘You’re lying.’

‘Am I?’

‘I’m calling them.’

‘No. You are not making contact today. In a day or two, depending on how this little theatre production plays out, I might allow it. A little hello and quick question about your beautiful Daisy’s welfare. Then again in a month or two perhaps you can speak to her. But as I said earlier, you are staying here. I have too much to tell you and by God you will listen.’

‘No.’

‘Yes. Punishment remains an option. This bar across your back, your arms, your head, would do considerable damage. I am not as weak as you think, and I also hold the code needed for exit from this bunker. It is in my head, Mark. Nowhere else. Not written down on scraps of paper, not hidden between the pages of a book, not scrawled on the floor in fading chalk. The code is only in my head. If you want it, you will have to earn it. My hope is to persuade you that you will never need it. If you are never persuaded of that then it will be my failure not yours. However, as a counter to that, I have a lifetime of inconsistencies behind me, and one of them is a tendency to blame others for my failings. And when I blame, I punish. And when I punish – well, suffice to say, it’s going to hurt.’

Mark felt himself falling. Disbelieving of the nightmare that was unfolding before him. How could this be? How could this have happened to him?

‘I’m sorry you didn’t know, Mark, that the purpose of you coming here wasn’t for you to ease me into an understanding of how the Compound works, nor was it to assess my suitability for Compound life. I’m sorry you were lied to. Yet the truth remains, I have bought you.’

Mark wanted to answer him back, to destroy this assertion with simple and devastating logic. But no words would come. He was speechless. All he could do was give out a hollow laugh.

‘Reiser wanted the documents. He sent you as payment. Now that he has them, he won’t want you back.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘Fact. It happened. The exchange was an action. The truth of it cannot be denied. Shall I show you the email?’

And then Garve was pushing him into the chair. Scrolling the screen. And there he saw it. An email. Reiser’s confirmation. ‘Our people are all trained to be prepared to sacrifice themselves for the good of our community’s future… Mark will be a good companion… he is alert and loyal… if he resists, I ask you to be patient, he will come to understand…’

It was a fact.

Mark’s life for the Compound.

The chair slid back against the wall. He watched Garve retreat a little and drop the bar to one side. Mark needed to get out. He wasn’t staying here. He wasn’t going to be Garve’s companion – nor his friend, lover, or slave. He had to get away. He just needed the code.

And then what? It didn’t matter. He would work that out later. Get the code first. Could he take him? Perhaps. He should be able to. Disarm him and then –

Mark looked around the room for sign of anything that might help him. There was the desk and the glass table. The rest of the room was clean. Then Garve’s cleanliness exploded in his mind. This whole bunker was too clean. Obsessively so. And as Mark tried to think how he would take Garve on, all he could picture was Garve scrubbing the floors and walls beyond all sanity like some killer at his own crime scene.

‘What do you want from me? To be your companion? Are you serious about that?’

‘Yes.’

‘For how long?’

He grinned. ‘For the rest of your life - or at least mine, whichever is shorter.’

And then, what followed was an almost ritualistic series of body movements. Garve cocked his head one way, then his left arm twisted, and the wrist arched, presenting a palm to Mark while his right hand held the metal bar aloft and spun it over his head like a cheerleader with a baton. The ends of the bar clipped the ceiling, but Garve wasn’t concerned. He spun and spun the rod, and his eyes began to close, eyelids fluttering in ecstasy.

Mark watched for a moment with a bizarre and detached curiosity and then he seized Garve’s disengagement from reality and leapt at him, one hand reaching for the bar, the other for Garve’s neck. His fingers stretched out and the certainty of his triumph over this lunatic played out in dreadful slow motion. His hand almost touched Garve’s blotchy skin, yet a moment before, Garve’s eyes flicked open. He lowered the twirling metal rod and struck Mark across the head.

The blow was like an electric shock and as the muscles in his body slumped, he dropped to the floor. The light dimmed. Then brightened. Then dimmed again. He glimpsed Garve standing over him.

He faded out.

When he woke, he was back in that first bedroom. He orientated himself. Felt his head. An egg-sized lump. A throbbing skull. Nausea. He staggered over and grabbed the door handle. It was locked. Again, he was locked in the same room that had been his prison before.

Panic.

In the corner, there was a bucket of water. Stacked next to it were seven cans of tinned vegetables, including what looked like the same tin of kidney beans that he’d held in his hand so recently. A tin opener too.

Disgust.

He checked his pockets. The keys to the TURV were gone. His watch was gone too. And on the floor a message had been scratched into the wood with a blade.

WELCOMEHOMEMARKFRIDAYALLEN.

Insanity.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Garve instructed Mark through the door.

‘Eat one tin a day. It will be enough. More than that, and you’ll have to go a day without food. In a week, I will deliver to you another seven tins. If you are good, and give me what I need, in a month, you can come out. But there will be strict rules. I cannot have any uprising. Do you understand?’

Mark didn’t answer.

‘Your silence will be taken as a yes. Subsequent non-compliance will result in punishment. Do you understand?’

Again, Mark said nothing.

That was the beginning of the first day.

After that, every hour Garve slammed his metal bar against the door. ‘Ten-o’clock!’ he shouted. ‘Eleven o’clock!’ ‘Twelve o’clock.’ And through the night too, every three hours. ‘Midnight!’ ‘Three o’clock!’ ‘Six o’clock.’

Mark didn’t eat anything on the first day.

On the second day, Mark jerked awake at the six o’clock shout and realised how hungry he was. Weak, he struggled with the tin opener and fearing it would break, opened a tin of potatoes and a tin of peas. Cold and tasteless, he ate them and drank the water in the tin. He decided not to touch the water in the bucket. At least, not yet.

On the third day he opened a tin of carrots. But they were spoiled. The tin must have been damaged in some way and the contents had been reduced to a sickly yellow paste. He decided to hold out on opening a fourth tin. He drank from the bucket. He tried to exercise. Garve didn’t speak to him other than to announce the time. Mark forced himself to be active. Pace and run and stretch. At the end of the third day, he was too hungry and opened his fourth tin. More potatoes. It gave him some strength.

That night, as he dozed in and out of sleep, Garve came in. Mark felt a cotton bag over his head and his arm was pulled behind his back to the breaking point. He yelled and yet froze in compliance.

‘Time to see…’ Garve led Mark to the corner and dumped him. ‘Don’t remove the bag until I say.’

It seemed to Mark that he waited for an age. Garve was doing something, fiddling with a box or container, and whispering something. Mark tried to see but all that he could discern were shadows.

Eventually Garve said, ‘Stand up.’

He did. Shaky legs. Trying to be strong.

The punch landed in his gut like a hammer. He gasped and doubled-up and heaved. ‘No…’ he almost choked on his word. There was no air in his lungs. And then the bag was removed from his head.

He would have been forgiven for thinking he was not awake. That this was some extreme nightmare. Because such a thing could not be real. Could it? Could what he was seeing be real?

Four heads.

Laid out in a row on a small folding table.

Each had stiff hair, pale, dead eyes, sorry expressions and was encrusted with melting ice. A man. A woman. And two younger faces. Boys. Teenage boys, he reckoned.

He processed this in a momentary state of disbelief and horror before throwing up. Pale watery vomit covered his feet and the floor between him and the macabre display.

Then the bag was back over his head. He fell to one side, moaning. Despair. Pity for the dead. Terror at his imprisonment. Garve’s horror show had its desired effect. The foul display was removed. The door slammed shut. Mark removed the cotton bag and wept.

*

‘Tell me again, what kind of person are you, Mark?’ It was the seventh day. ‘In total. For the sum of your life?’

‘If I tell you, will you give me more food?’

‘You get food tomorrow.’

‘One tin was rotten, I told you. I haven’t eaten today.’ In fact, he hadn’t eaten in two days, but wasn’t about to tell Garve that.

‘It’s against the rules.’

‘Surely a rotten tin was against the rules.’

Silence.

‘I need more food.’

‘Perhaps.’

Mark had learned that if Garve said ‘perhaps’ in relation to something bad, it meant yes. For something good, it meant no. He had been living – he corrected his thoughts, existing – in this cell for a week, the past three days of which had been dominated by him being bombarded with more and more prosecutorial questions about his life. This shouldn’t have given Mark any cause for hope that Garve would change his tack. And yet he had to try to get him to break his routine and come in here while Mark was awake.

He would have to offer Garve something more. Something new. But what? Often what he gave were the same things; the same tired answers, repackaged and redelivered. There was only so much that he could say about himself. He was eighteen. It wasn’t as if he’d lived decades of adventure. And he was not a complicated person. As Garve tried to uncover layers of anxiety and doubt, layers of self-loathing and secret superiority – the things the professor seemed most intent on hearing about – Mark had resorted to lying. But the lies were wearing thin. And he was forgetting what he had said or not said.

‘Ambitious. I’m an ambitious man.’

‘You’re hungry for life.’

Mark’s stomach clenched, Twisted. Groaned. He needed to eat. He had one tin left. The kidney beans. But he was saving them. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. And what do you think is happening to you now?’

‘I’m starving to death.’

‘Nowhere near – not yet.’

‘I’m being held against my will.’

‘Yes. That is true.’

‘Why? Why are you doing this to me?’

But Garve didn’t answer. Mark wanted to ask about the dead. Who were those people? Had Garve killed them? But he’d tried that yesterday. It had resulted in a tirade of abuse. He didn’t want to go there today.

‘Are you going to give me food?’

‘No.’

‘Please.’

‘How can I give it to you?’

‘Open the door.’

‘So what? You can escape?’

‘To where? Where would I go? You have control here, Garve. I’m weak and injured.’

‘Your head is healed You said it was healing.’

‘I’m sick. I need food.’

‘Then give me something.’

Mark gritted his teeth. ‘I can tell you about Daisy.’

There was another silence. And Mark sensed a hunger – an eagerness to hear about her. Then, as if to deny it, ‘Why would you think I want to know anything about her?’

‘She’s a beautiful young woman. What man wouldn’t?’

‘So, you have decided I am interested in girls now? There was a time when you thought I lusted after you.’

Was there? Mark couldn’t remember thinking it. But so much was fog in his brain. One day had blurred into the next. He only knew one thing for sure.

Then Garve said, ‘So, okay then, Daisy. Tell me.’ Mark felt sick at the thought. Repulsed by everything. Himself included.

‘Food first.’

‘No.’

‘Then I can’t tell you about her. I can’t. I’m too weak.’

Garve scratched at the door. Then he rapped at it. Mark waited. He had to hold out. He had to.

‘I need you to understand something, Mark. To really understand it before I come in there and give you the food you need. And that is this. I have the control. Do you see? I have the control here. Not you. There is no way that you can overwhelm me. Any idea that your dominance can ever be achieved must be extinguished. Even if the tables were turned. My resolve cannot be broken.’

Mark eased himself up, onto his feet. He didn’t feel ready. ‘I know Garve. I do know.’

There was a sigh. ‘I will open the door and give you more food. Then I will close the door and you will tell me as many stories about the delectable Daisy as you can. You will tell them over and over. Through this you will also learn that our friendship can grow. That by sharing your life with me in the greatest and most personal detail, your life can be extended for a great length of time. Is that clear?’

Mark nodded though now his fogged-up thoughts had drifted to Reiser. How could their leader have done this to him? Their oath and pledge – to be willing to sacrifice themselves for the Compound – related to defending it from enemies. Not trading themselves to be playthings for psychopaths. How could he have done it? Mark had believed in Reiser. Followed him in his heart. And now what? When he got out of here – and yes, he was now determined that any moment he would be free from Henderson, what then would he do? Drive back to the Compound and challenge Reiser? Knock on the gates and demand justice? He might be declared an enemy. He might be banished. And even if not, how could he live there again with the knowledge of what Reiser had done to him?

A narrative played out in his head. Him going back and telling Reiser that Garve had died – a heart attack– and then Mark pretending that he never knew Reiser had sold him. That way he might slip back into Compound life, pretending to be ignorant of the betrayal, never speaking of it…

‘Mark?’

‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘I understand.’ His hunger and weakness dragged at him. He tried to get hold of his thoughts. He needed to act. Any moment now, he would need to act. Whether he felt ready for it or not.

‘Are you ready?’

Mark had to know what he was going to do. Hesitation and uncertainty, they would lead to his death. Only to his death.

‘Mark?’

If he didn’t do it now, if he let the professor’s dark confidence fall over him, if he let it sap his will, if he didn’t make the move he’d planned, then he felt certain – utterly certain – that he never would.

‘Mark?’

He would be done.

‘Mark?’

‘Yes. Yes, I’m ready.’

‘Then stay back.’

The door opened. Click and shift. A waft of fresh air. Mark breathed it in. Garve stood there, the metal bar in his left hand. And for a moment he appeared to Mark not as a man, but as a being of intense power. A god of death. Mark shivered. And he imagined the frozen heads dangling from Garve’s belt like trophies.

He blinked. He swallowed.

And then with one hand behind his back, Mark took a deep breath and shrugged off his own diminished state, seeing past his hunger and fatigue and mental exhaustion, seeing that Garve had not been transfigured by cosmic rays from some Dark Arcadia. There were no frozen heads at his belt. Whatever this man thought he was, he was just a man. An old man with infirmities of both body and mind.

The only thing at Garve’s belt was a fob – a small black plastic fob for locking and unlocking the dorm doors. In his right hand was a parcel. Frozen food. Garve slung it in the corner. Mark stepped forward, clutching his body, shivering. Garve studied him cautiously.

‘That’s frozen.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’ll take hours to be ready to eat.’

Garve looked at the parcel. And it seemed that for a second he realised Mark was right.

But before he could finish his thought, the unopened tin of kidney beans slammed into Garve’s forehead with a crunch. He slipped as he fell back and crashed into the door. Then Mark kicked him in the testicles and tore the metal bar from his grip. Then he tugged at the fob. It wouldn’t come. He kicked Garve again and unstrapped his belt. Then he saw Garve was wearing Mark’s watch. He took that back too. He stepped through the opening. As he pulled the door shut, Garve reached for the closing gap and the door crunched on his wrist. He withdrew it with a cry of agony then again Mark pulled the door shut.

He activated the fob.

Then with a weary sigh, he sank to the floor.

CHAPTER NINE

Mark ate his fill – tinned meat and tinned rice pudding – and then he slept. He had time now and wanted to hold off investigating the front door and control room until he had his strength back. He would need a clear head before he made any decisions.

Time didn’t matter.

And Henderson was his prisoner now.

His sleep was sound until near the end. Then somebody was holding him down, suffocating him with a wet towel. Mark choked, fought, flailed – then he woke.

He was still free.

He found his kit bag in a corridor, showered, and changed into clean clothes. A black t-shirt. Overalls. He went to the front door. Then to the control room. Both were locked. There was no override that he could find. He would need the code to get out. Four digits. He worked it out. 10,000 possibilities.

Then Mark went to the freezer.

This time he lifted the bar, opened the door, and stepped in without hesitation. Still no sign of a light switch, but he had his torch. He examined the parcels. Meat. Fish. Vegetables. Soups. Bread. At the back there were larger cuts of meat. He stepped further in.

A second room.

The floor was a slick of frozen blood. There were seven plastic containers spaced around the room – and one body hanging from a hook. Mark grimaced.

Coated in frost, the corpse was of a bearded man, fifty or so. Dressed in a suit. Mark exhaled slowly. The dead man’s eyes were wide with terror. Mark didn’t need to look in the containers. He remembered the heads well enough. He had to focus.

He marched back to the dorm. Time to speak to the mad professor.

‘Garve?’

No answer.

‘Professor – answer me.’

‘You took your time.’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘Because you slammed a tin of kidney beans into my face, and I could have died of any number of complications.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Are you a doctor? No. Just a child. So now you’re here.’

Mark swallowed down his irritation. ‘I am.’

‘And what do you want from me?’

‘Who is he?’

‘Who is who?’

‘Your friend in the freezer. The one you hung up.’

‘Oh. Someone I knew.’

Mark’s mind rolled back. ‘Ville? Is it your friend, Ville?’

‘No, That’s not Ville.’

Mark considered pursuing it. Did it matter who the dead man was? ‘Give me the code, Garve.’

‘No.’

‘Do you want to die?’

‘I’m perhaps less concerned about it than you. Which gives me an advantage.’

‘I have you locked up.’

‘In here, yes. But I have you locked up too. And my prison’s bigger than yours.’

Mark hadn’t expected co-operation. ‘Professor Henderson. Do you want me to hurt you?’

He didn’t respond.

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘I heard it. Don’t believe you’re got the balls for it.’

Mark retreated and lay down in a spare dorm. How far would he go? Would he use torture? The idea repulsed him. There were others in the academy who might have done it. Young men and women who exhibited much less empathy for the suffering of others than Mark did. Was the brutality they seemed able to tap into during academy exercises innate or learned? Was it the product of their progress or a hangover from less progressive times? Might he – Mark Friday Allen, both orphan and sacrificial lamb in Reiser’s plan – be the more evolved one, uneasy at any sort of cruelty? Or was he just weak?

Reiser had always seemed to Mark as someone capable of great empathy. It was one of the things Mark felt that he had in common with their leader. And yet, what had he done to Mark? Had his apparent empathy been an act? Daisy had once said that above all things, Reiser was a great actor. And that he needed to be. Because he had to be all things to all people.

He wandered the bunker. The rooms felt cold and deserted. As if no-one had ever lived here. He opened all the doors that he could. He picked through the library. He went into Garve’s bedroom.

The pieces of paper were still on the floor. Mark gathered them together and lay them out. Fifteen of them. Each held a letter. Three A’s, D, E, F, I, two L’s, M, N, K, two R’s, and Y. He moved them around. He tried to make some words. Then it became clear. Obvious, really.

MARK FRIDAY ALLEN.

What had Garve Henderson wanted Mark to be?

He shivered.

The door to the outside world was made of steel. The magnetic strip aligned with the frame at hand height. Mark knew enough about security to understand that he might unlock it – and all the doors – by cutting the power. But that was only a possibility. It depended on what the door’s set-up was. While cutting the power might release the lock, it might also disable the keypad and prevent the only way to open it. And where was the power supply anyway? Everything was hidden. Buried in the walls.

He struck the door with the bar. The vibration rocked his arm. The sound echoed throughout the bunker. The force holding the door to its lock was more than he could overcome with pure strength. And a metal door couldn’t be destroyed. The frame was steel too. He leaned against the wall opposite the door.

He closed his eyes.

Daisy took his hand. Another hand around his waist. Her breath on his face. Her lips brushed his eyes. ‘Hey, it’s only 10,000 combinations. How long could it take?’

Mark blinked. She was right.

He reached for the glowing white keypad. The display gave its instruction. ‘ENTER KEYCODE’ He typed in 0000. Pressed release. Red light. He typed in 0001. Release. Red light. All he had to do was keep going. He got to 0004. Red light. And then the keypad turned blue. He typed 0005. Release. Nothing. He tried it again. Nothing. It had frozen him out. After five attempts it had frozen him out. But for how long? He waited. It was more than ten minutes. Then the keypad’s blue light faded. The white glow returned. He entered 0005. Release. Red light. He went up to 0009. Red light. Blue keypad.

That was the pattern.

‘Hey Garve?’

‘You’re back. What have you been doing?’

‘Planning my escape.’

‘How so?’

‘I’m going to guess the code.’

‘Ten thousand guesses?’

‘Yep.’

‘It freezes you out after five.’

‘I know. Twelve minutes. I timed it.’

‘Impressive.’

‘Thirty seconds to type in five codes. Twelve minutes to wait. I can do the whole sequence in just over 400 hours. Ten to fifteen hours a day, maybe more. Less than a month. I can do it.’

Garve was silent. And Mark had to admit he enjoyed that silence. Then Garve said, ‘How many combinations you tried?’

‘Fifty.’

‘Did you start at zero?’

‘Yes.’

‘Long way to go then.’

‘Is it?’ Mark winced. Garve was trying to claim some ground. Remind him that even if Mark would eventually find out the code, Garve knew it now.

‘Come back to me when you’ve tried a few hundred more.’

‘Why? Why do I need to come back to you at all?’

‘True… you don’t. But you will. You’ll be keen to keep me informed as to how close you are to liberation. Although, that’s an illusion.’

‘Is it? Why?’

‘They don’t want you back.’

‘We’ll see…’

He left him.

He pushed himself that night. Trying the code over and over. By 2am he was beat and fell asleep while waiting for the next twelve-minute shutout to finish. He woke at six and dragged himself away to sleep in a bed. When he surfaced again, he tried to remember what number he’d entered last. Three hundred and something. He had to get a better system. Even when awake he’d wasted time making stupid errors – typing in the same number twice or become concerned he’d missed a number and gone back to repeat whole five number sequences.

He found a writing pad in Garve’s room. He made a list. He would tick them off.

He did a few more hours and hit 0600. 6% of the way through on day two. That was good. Then he went to see Garve.

‘It’s going to take you weeks,’ Garve groaned.

‘What do you care?’

‘I’m hungry. I want you to let me out.’

‘No.’

‘No food?’

‘Did you eat the frozen fish? And the kidney beans?’

‘I need more food.’

‘Later.’

‘Now.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ll tell you the code.’

‘No, you won’t.’

‘I’m hungry… I will. I promise.’

Mark thought about it. And the prospect of saving on weeks of effort by doing something he was going to have to do anyway – feed Henderson – seemed like a good strategy. He hadn’t intended to let the man starve to death, had he? He told Henderson he’d think about it, then went down to the storerooms. He grabbed some tins. Then some more. Ten tins. Ten days food.

‘One chance, Garve. You give me the code and save me all that time, yes, it’s worth it, but if you screw me then these tins will have to last you until I crack it…’

‘Okay.’

‘Get back from the door. Right back so I can see you’re at the far wall when I open it.’

‘Okay.’

‘Tap the wall. I want to hear that you’re not near me.’

There was a tap.

‘Keep it going.’

He did. Mark readied the bar, then pressed the fob. The dorm door clicked open. He saw Garve at the other end of the room, tapping the wall with his shoe which he’d removed from his foot. He stopped and stared at Mark.

‘Code.’

‘Food.’

Mark threw in the tins. ‘Code.’

‘Close the door.’

Mark slammed the door shut. Clicked the fob. Banged the door. ‘Code.’

‘0580.’

Mark scowled. ‘Funny…’

‘Why?’

‘I tried that, remember? Did everything up to 0600.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘Garve –’

‘Go try it again.’

Mark simmered. What were the chances that he’d mistyped the same code that would release him? Nevertheless, he’d do it.

He returned to the door and took a breath.

ENTER THE KEYCODE

He typed it in slowly. 0 – 5 – 8 – 0.

Red light.

‘Bastard.’

‘Sorry Mark,’ was all Henderson said when Mark came back. ‘I know you won’t trust me again, but I was very hungry.’

CHAPTER TEN

Three weeks later he got the code.

The long days and nights entering in the possibilities had seemed endless – almost driving him crazy with the repetitive monotony of it. In the meantime, he had no access to the control room and so had no idea whether the Compound had tried to contact Garve again. No sense of what Daisy might be going through. Just three long weeks of gradual mental destruction, eating tasteless tinned and frozen food and typing in five sets of four-digit codes, each twelve minutes apart.

The code he’d been waiting for was 8050. The code Garve had given him was 0580. That it had been a simple rearrangement of the numbers could have made him feel quite sick. And yet, that was nothing to how he felt when he finally typed the correct code in.

8050.

The red light he expected did not come. Instead, it glowed green. Mark’s heart leapt – this was it! – and yet, rather than releasing the magnetic lock, it only changed the display.

Now it read:

ENTER THE KEYCODE 2.

The door required two keycodes.

Mark’s first reaction was to type in 8050 again.

Red light.

The display returned to:

ENTER THE KEYCODE.

He typed in 8050.

Green light.

ENTER THE KEYCODE 2.

He stared at it. Then he entered 0580.

Red light.

He felt murderous.

He stormed back to the dorms and slammed his fist against Garve’s door. He imagined him jolting from a nap. The professor had been living on those ten tins for twenty or more days. But he didn’t sound weak or confused or even tired. And for sure, he didn’t sound repentant.

‘Mark?’

Mark didn’t know what he was going to say or do, all he felt was his fury simmering.

‘Doesn’t sound good,’ Henderson said.

Mark still didn’t answer.

‘Did you get the code right?’

‘Tell it to me.’

‘You did get there. Well done. Lots of effort. More than eight thousand combinations. You showed real spit and shine there. Real perseverance.’

‘Tell it to me, Garve, or I’m going to fucking kill you.’

‘I don’t want to tell you.’

‘Don’t care.’

‘What happens if I do?’

‘Think about what happens if you don’t.’

‘But if I tell you and you leave, what will happen to me then? You’ve given me meagre rations. I’ve been living off half a tin a day. And now they’re all gone. But when you go…’

‘Just shut up and tell me.’

‘I will.’

‘You will? Yes, you will.’

‘I will when I know what’s going to happen to me.’

Mark closed his eyes. Negotiate. That was what he should do. Negotiate with the psychopath. And yet, it was a question he had avoided. What was he going to do with him? Leave him in here to die?’ He took another breath.

‘Once I have the door open, and I’m ready to go, if everything is in order, maybe I’ll open this up.’

‘Will you?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Promise?’

‘Just tell me.’

‘Thank you, Mark. Thank you so much.’

‘Tell –’

‘Sixty-four, ninety-nine.’

‘Sixty-four, ninety-nine?’

‘Yep.’

‘This had better work.’

‘It will. I assure you.’

Setting aside all his fury at having been played like this, at having been made to endure for so long when Garve could have told him both the codes before; and setting aside any decision as to whether he would release Garve or not, Mark returned to the exit door.

He typed it in. 8050. Release.

The green light came on.

ENTER THE KEYCODE 2.

He hesitated, then typed in 6499.

Nothing happened.

He gritted his teeth and then there was a buzz – but not from the door. Not from the lock releasing. Instead, it came from the keypad. Now the display said something new.

INNER SYSTEM NOW RESET.

He tugged at the door.

Nothing.

The display returned to normal.

ENTER KEYCODE.

Mark grabbed the door handle and tugged and tugged. No give. INNER SYSTEM NOW RESET. What did that mean? His mind ticked over. Then – then it came…

A creeping sense of dread.

He stormed back towards level two. Past the first rooms – eyes fixed ahead, waiting for the staircase – and then as he passed the mess room, he saw the metal bar he’d previously discarded. He grabbed it.

He shouted Garve’s name as he hurried down the stairs. Yet his voice died as he passed the first dorm which had previously been locked. The door was now open. He looked along the corridor. All the dorm doors were open.

The corridor was a blur as he ran to the last dorm. Head spinning is disbelief. But it was as he expected. Garve was gone. Tears came into his eyes. This couldn’t be. This couldn’t be happening to him – he was right back where he’d been – stuck in this place with Garve on the loose and no damned idea of how to open the door…

He stood in the doorway, eyes looking in both directions. Resisting the urge to cry. Throat constricted with emotion. Yet, there was no-one to help. No-one to get him out of this mess. Only himself. Mark focused.

Then he headed down to level three.

The control room door was open. Mark hesitated. Had he caused it release or had Henderson come here? He pushed at the door. He readied the metal bar and stepped in. He waited. Listening. Steady. Out of breath.

‘Garve?’

Nothing. He took a step in.

The glass table had been smashed. Every screen cracked and splintered. Some however, behind the criss-cross of lines, still showed a view.

The wooden desk was overturned. The radio transmitter had been sabotaged. The wires ripped from the back. The screen that had been on the desk was also on the floor. Mark put it back in the desk and checked it. It was intact. That was one thing at least. Nevertheless, he felt sick.

Then Mark saw a flash of movement on one of the screens. The top floor. It was Garve, running. He found the corridor cameras. He dragged his fingers across the dial on the glass and found he could flick from camera to camera and adjust them, zoom in, zoom out. Garve was there, slipping into the bar on level one. And now Garve was scratching something onto the floor with a knife – yes, Garve had a hunting knife. Mark zoomed in. The letters became clear.

YOUWILLDIEMFA

Then Garve looked up at the camera – at Mark. He had seen the camera move and so, balancing on a chair, gave a curious smile then slammed the blade of the knife into the eye. The camera went black.

Mark steadied himself. He had to think of a way to deal with this he had to –

He checked the other screens. No sign of movement, but he could see a view of the outside. Of the lake and the bays where he had parked the TURV7.

It wasn’t there.

Mark frowned, trying to work out what could have happened. Was he looking at the right view? He studied the screen for every detail: the water’s edge, the tracks, the bays, but his eyes were not deceiving him. He was looking at the right place – but the car was not there.

His keys.

He’d forgotten to search Garve for his keys. And yet, this must have happened earlier – while Mark was imprisoned. The damage to the control room too – as Garve wouldn’t have had the time to do all this now.

Mark moved to the desk screen. He plugged it in. It flicked on. Grey then a screenshot of a meadow. Internet access. Email access. A few other unnamed folders. He could send a message, and yet, what would the Compound do if he did? Send someone? Would they even do that? Reiser had sold him after all.

He tensed his body. His arms and neck were rigid.

If only there was a way to contact Daisy. Just to hear her voice. Just to –

It was no good. Whatever help there may be on this computer would have to come later. He had to face Garve first. Had to stop him. For good.

Gripping the metal bar, he hurried up the stairs to the first level. Keep going, he told himself. Don’t think about it. He’s going to try and kill you so get to it now. Face him. Face the fight.

The swing door to the first-floor kitchen waited. Mark strode to it, then flung it open, metal rod at the ready. He didn’t expect the attack to happen so suddenly. Garve came at him from the side. From some recess in the kitchen. The knife grazed Mark’s cheek. He threw Garve off and swung the bar wide. It thumped into Garve’s gut, doubling him up and sending him sprawling. Mark approached.

He swung the bar down, smashing it against Garve’s foot. There was a crunch and Garve howled in pain. Then he jumped up, on one leg. Doing a stupid dance. He twirled the knife as he spun.

‘Mark… what are you doing to me. I’m your friend.’

‘Where’s the TURV?’

‘The what?’

‘The car, Garve. My fucking car. What the hell have you done with it?’

Garve stopped hopping. He nodded. ‘Yes. I’d forgotten about that. That was on the first day. When you were having your lie-in.’

‘You locked me in.’

‘Yep.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Window smashed. Brake detached. Wheels rolled. The crunching sound on the rocks at the edge of the lake was lovely.’ He lowered his head, laughing. Then he lifted it again. His look was dreadful. Full of fear and loss and regret and inner disconnection.

Mark shook his head. ‘Drop the knife.’

Then, like an ageing yet hungry leopard, Garve shot forward and drove the knife into Mark’s face. Mark gasped as the cold metal slide somewhere between his teeth and cheek. Stinging. Tearing. There was such a spray of blood that he had to close his eyes. Without looking, he butted the bar up, slamming the shaft into Garve’s face, breaking his nose. Garve stumbled back, swiping the blade again as he pulled it away from Mark. Mark shed blood and saliva from his lacerated mouth and roared in fury at the pain and destruction of his face.

He struck with the bar again, catching the top of Garve’s head. Then he leapt onto the professor, knocking the knife from his hand, drooling blood and spit across Garve’s face as he forced the bar against his neck. He was going to kill him. Crush his windpipe and perhaps even push further and harder until he severed the man’s veins and muscles and so tear the head from the body…

‘I…’ Garve choked unable to speak. Mark pushed harder. He didn’t care, he was going to do it. He was going to end this man. ‘Mark…’ it was a ragged, gurgling cry.

Mark eased off. Sweating and gasping. Then he remembered himself. ‘The code,’ he barked. ‘Give it to me.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I already gave you something…’

‘You gave me nothing.’

‘I did. I saw it in your eyes. That moment when you thought about your parents. There was emotion there. Connection. Memory. I gave you that, Mark. You must agree that’s worth more than any stupid code.’

Mark screamed at him.

Garve looked hurt and then said, ‘Do it then. But remember, I have also given you something else…’

Mark restrained himself, holding back his further rage and a flood of tears, both of which were ready to flow.

‘My kingdom. My republic. My democracy of one.’

Then he pushed again, pressing the bar down harder. Garve, gasped in horror then gurgled as Mark forced his weight down until moments later, he had choked Garve to death.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mark tried to patch his face up, but it was a bloody mess. There was a hole in his face below his right cheekbone. He had taped a bandage to it, trying to press the folds together, but it had failed to connect. The skin flapped loose. Now he was shuffling along the corridors, trying each room, looking for glue, a needle and twine, anything to hold the skin together. Yet he felt so weak…

He came to in the level three corridor. His face, shoulder and chest drenched in blood.

‘I have to… stop the bleeding.’

He stumbled on, a mess of thoughts rattling around his head. He wondered about his feelings. At having killed a man. He felt nothing about it now. Just the ringing memory of it, flashing through his mind. Would he feel remorse later? Today? Tomorrow? Might it be delayed further? He had acted as he felt he must. But then… had he really? Truly? In those last moments he hadn’t been driven by any need, only by anger.

Mark’s face stung and sweated blood.

He had to stop.

He came to a dorm and sat on the bed. He held his swollen face together with the bandage and tape. And then he stayed like that until he couldn’t feel his face or his hand. Until his arm begged him to let it go. How long? An hour, or more? He didn’t know. He stayed and stayed until he felt sure that the bleeding must have stopped.

When he did let it go, the bandage and tape remained in place, as if it had become one with his congealing disaster of an injury. He would not touch it again.

He rested.

He slept.

When he woke there was no blood. But soon the pain came on. He found painkillers in the kitchen. They took the edge off it. His face swelled up. When the effect of the painkillers dimmed, his teeth and jaw and ear all sang a chorus of agony.

He kept on the move.

He dragged Garve’s corpse to the freezer. He didn’t want to see it anymore and didn’t want to smell it either. He wrapped it in a sheet and dumped it alongside the unopened containers.

He returned to the control room. What else was there? What else could he do? He sat with it for a moment, not wanting to dwell on his injury or Garve’s death. He turned on the screen. There were folders on the desktop. Virtual storage that might contain something. Perhaps the code. Despite what he’d said, Garve might have written it down in a password filled document or he might have held a digital copy of the original instructions….

But no.

Instead, what he found were documents titled as if they were to be chapters in a book – the book, Form. Function. Following. Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three – all the way through to Chapter Twelve. But when he opened the chapter documents, each page was empty. Not a single word had been written.

He found another folder.

Security footage.

It was pieces of the past. Various dates – each a video clip of moments that Garve had chosen to keep. The first he looked at were clips dating back several years. Garve alone. Looking fitter. Wandering the corridors. Reading. In his gym. There were hours of it. He skipped through them quickly.

Then he found older footage. A folder of clips from the first two years of Garve’s incarceration. He started at the beginning. And there, Mark saw Garve Henderson arriving at the bunker, wearing a suit, bearded, and carrying a rucksack. But he wasn’t alone. He had another man with him. They were of similar height and build and this other man wore combat trousers and a sweatshirt. He too had a rucksack although he was clean-shaven.

There was no sound on the clips, but Mark saw over the weeks that followed how the two men interacted. Polite movements, a certain distance, doing many things apart and occasionally eating or sitting together. On some of the clips, it was harder to distinguish which of them was which. As time moved on, it seemed that the second man – whom he thought was the stranger he’d found in the freezer, was getting to look more like Henderson every day. He grew a matching beard. And Mark saw one extraordinary moment where Henderson walked along the corridor and moments later, the other man followed and slowly adjusted his own gait to match that of his companion.

Mark was intrigued.

Their time went on. They interacted less and less. Henderson spending time in the library. Hours of footage of him just reading. No sign of the other. They ate apart. They seemed to argue. Hand gestures and tense postures. Two months after arrival, they were in the bar, and again were arguing. It became heated. The stranger threw something at Garve. A plate. It struck him in the head. Garve’s hand flew to his eye and then he stormed off camera.

That was it. No more footage of the two of them together.

Mark skipped back to the first arrival and studied it again. He adjusted the zoom and saw that the first man was wearing a nametag. He zoomed in. That was Henderson. It said so. The other man also had a tag.

Simon Ville.

Mark hesitated. Why had Garve murdered this man whom he’d talked about so fondly? Because he’d thrown a plate at him? He felt no closer to understanding it from watching the footage.

Mark tried to look for Ville on the internet, but the access from the bunker was not working. Server down, it said. He returned to the freezer.

He studied the dead stranger.

There on his face, underneath the eye, was a bloody gouge. It was frozen and encrusted with ice but unmistakeable. The plate. That was where the plate had struck him.

Then he looked at the other body – the man that Mark had killed – with its swollen neck and bulging eyes.

They were similar. This was why Mark had recognised Ville as Henderson when he arrived. But now he was convinced that of the two dead men, the one he had been interacting with, the one he had choked to death on the kitchen floor, was not Garve Henderson at all, but the clearly villainous Simon Ville.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Having trawled through the next set of footage, he saw that two weeks after Henderson had disappeared, more people arrived at the bunker. A family.

Mum, Dad and two teenage boys.

Who they were or where they’d come from, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that they were dead – because he’d been shown their decapitated heads – and that he didn’t want to keep watching and stumble across the foul footage of Garve – or should he say, Ville, murdering them. It would have been unbearable to watch.

Mark wondered at the many things Ville had told him – about detachment and necessity and the reduction of his humanity to only the essentials. And too he wondered if Ville had been deliberate, carrying out his actions – democratically, he might say – as part of his twisted ideology, or whether there was something baser to it – some illness or vice, jealousy, resentment, pride…

He tried sending a dummy message as if from Garve to RE1611. But there was no server connection. Garve’s destruction in the control room had broken something and Mark had no idea how to fix it.

Then he considered that if he did find a way to get through to them, as Garve, scoping out their response, then he would be inheriting the mantle that Simon Ville had adopted. He would be pretending to be the man who had already pretended to be the man…

He wouldn’t do that.

Mark rejected it all. Ville’s ideas. Ville’s violence. They were both abhorrent. In essence they said that people did not matter. That people were expendable. The original Henderson had said as much in his old-world theories. Ville had taken it a step further. And Reiser in his own way, had done the same.

Mark’s rose-tinted view of the Compound had vanished. All he wanted now was to rescue Daisy from what he saw as a corrupt and self-serving autocracy. Mark had accepted it because he thought that he was important. But the truth was that he had never been important to anyone other than his wife.

Over the next few days, his face healed with a combination of glue, which he found in the caretaker’s room, and out of date anti-biotics, which he found in the kitchen. The scarring was severe. He would try to grow a beard to cover it.

As he emerged from the pain of his injury, a new fear came to him. If he could find a way back to Daisy, would she still love him? Indeed, had she ever loved him? Had she truly been as immersed in the culture of the Compound as he? Enough that now he was gone from her life, she would move on – perhaps at Reiser’s suggestion – to another man? Another husband? She had never seemed as eager to tow the party line as he. She had always asked questions. Challenged the status quo. Albeit usually through her gentle mockery. And even amid his deep commitment to Reiser, Mark had loved Daisy. He might have stupidly talked to Ville of the Compound’s definition of marriage, of how the relationship was subservient to the system, and on and on, yet he didn’t feel that. He had never felt that. And if she hadn’t felt that either, perhaps there was hope.

The next day, he cracked the second code. He had put off trying for a while but then threw himself into it starting at 0000. It came early. 0176. That had been it. He hit release and the panel glowed white and the door clicked. That was it – two codes. 8050 and 0176.

And yet as he stood in the open air, for the first time in over a month, and the savage wind chewed at his mutilated face, he didn’t know what to do. Walk back to the Compound? It was winter. It seemed impossible. Two hundred miles with no shelter? Even if he didn’t meet any dogs or dangerous loners or wildlife, the temperatures would kill him.

He lay in bed for the rest of the day and tried to understand the state of his mind. The depressive thoughts and feelings that washed over him made him tired. He slept. He ate a little. A few days passed. Then a week. Then he spent almost a whole day staring into the mirror, trying to see the person he’d been before. Trying to understand the person he’d become. The ragged scarring had eaten his face. He thought of the killing. Ville choking. He tried to let it go. He’d let many things go. But not that. He dreamed of the corpse. Ville’s dead fingers scratching at the door of his dorm. The dead family. Their headless bodies sharing his bed…

At night, he was in the steel chamber. The bright light was tinged with red. Behind the exit door, something waited. Something that was eager to meet him. Perhaps to devour him. His scar ached. His body shook.

The dreams came and went. The bunker creaked and groaned as did the spirits of the dead. Their voices plagued him. Let us in, they whispered. Let us in, Mark. Let us in, Garve. Let us in, Ville.

These were his days and his nights.

A terrible wailing sound screeched throughout the bunker like an escaped banshee. Mark jolted awake, terrified. He pulled at his woolly beard and scratched his scar. What was that? Was he awake? Was he dead? Then he remembered. The door. Someone was at the door.

He flew into a panic. Was it Reiser? Had he come to interrogate Garve? What would he say when he found Mark alone and both Garve and Ville dead? Murder was punishable by death. As was treason against the Compound. Could he persuade them of his innocence?

He hurried to the control room and looked through the splintered screen to the front door. Three figures. All hooded and bulked up. They looked like guards. They could be dogs, he worried. Some remote gang of dogs who’d found out about the bunker.

He had no guns. Only the metal bar and the hunting knife. If these dogs were armed, then –

But they couldn’t get in. How would they get in? He calmed. He had control here.

They found the intercom. The voice was enveloped in static but clear enough to be understood. A young man.

‘Garve Henderson?’

Mark hesitated. He was scared. But he was curious too. He could afford to find out who they were. He could do that at least. He pressed the response button.

‘Yes.’

‘We would speak with you. Can you let us in?’

‘We’re from the Compound,’ another said.

‘What’s your name?’

‘I am Christopher. Christopher Alexander,’ said the first.

Mark knew him. He was on the Lower Council. An aspirant. Maybe he had been promoted. ‘Did Reiser send you?’

There was a pause and he saw the three of them exchange looks. ‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘We have supplies for you.’

‘Supplies?’

‘Reiser is grateful for what you gave us and thought you should be kept stocked up. You do need food?’

‘I have food.’

‘How old is it?’

Mark bit his lip. What was this? Reiser looking to take over? Reiser tricking him? ‘I’m not sure.’

‘We’ve driven a long way Mr Henderson, just to bring you supplies.’

‘Reiser didn’t tell me he was doing this.’

‘He should have sent you a message today. He said he was going to.’

‘Oh.’ Mark looked to his screen. ‘Wait a moment.’

The email did not work. Didn’t they know? Had they been communicating with Garve all this time and getting no response, not understanding that he could no longer read their correspondence? He glanced at the screen again and saw the three figures waiting patiently, stamping their feet, faces hidden in the hoods.

He pressed the respond button. ‘Nothing’s come through.’

‘Ah…’ Christopher shook his head. ‘Tech problems I expect. Lots of problems at the Compound right now.’

‘How so?’

‘Some minor rebellion. To be honest, Mr Henderson, I think Reiser’s having difficulties and is looking to secure your support for the future, someone with your standing, sir. I think he respects you. He just wanted to secure your support for his aims, sir.’

Mark nodded. It could be true. And it didn’t seem they were going to be fobbed off. And if they had decent food. He supposed he looked different enough for them not to know who he was. He tossed it back and forth in his mind.

‘Sir, can we? It’s bloody damn cold out here.’

Mark scratched at his beard and scar. He wanted to talk to someone. He really did. It was a risk. But to have company. If he could –

He grabbed a cloak from the back of the chair then released the outer door. He watched the three men file into the inner chamber then dashed down.

At the entrance, Mark typed in the codes. 8050. 0176. Then he opened the door. He kept his face in shadow. As did they.

‘Mr Henderson?’

He nodded.

They jumped him.

Mark was wrestled to the floor in an instant. There was a rush of voices. They held him down and a gun was jammed into his face.

Mark closed his eyes.

They dragged him up.

‘Listen Henderson. This isn’t a friendly visit. Reiser didn’t send us. He has real troubles now.’

‘Who are you?’

‘We are the rebellion.’

Mark felt sick.

‘And we need answers from you.’

‘I…’ Mark felt weak, what was he to say? Give himself away as Mark Friday Allen – Compound fanboy and Reiser stooge? Would he be on their hit list too?

‘What have you done with him?’

‘Who? He felt dizzy. Did they mean Ville? Mark felt himself slipping, nausea rising. He couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t think at all.

Then another voice. A crystal-clear sound that forced him to open his eyes. It cut through the interrogation with a question. An honest question.

‘Mark? Mark is that you?’

He looked up. The hood of his cloak was pulled back. His rough and ravaged face came into the dim light. And there – beyond all expectation – he saw her. Was it a dream? Was he sleeping or daydreaming? Or had he lost his mind?

Could she have come back for him?

The other two let him go. Daisy pulled him close.

‘Are you real?’ he whispered.

‘Yes, my love.’

‘Henderson’s dead.’

She nodded.

Mark closed his eyes.

Then Daisy whispered to him, lips brushing his. ‘But you’re not, Mark. That’s all that matters, my love. You’re not.’

THE END