Chapter Forty-three

Clint and Frypan approached Jackson slowly, taking care to stay out of the line of fire. "Jackson," Clint said, keeping his tone even and his eyes focused on the crazed boy who was brandishing a pistol at everyone, "why don't you put the gun down so we can talk about this sensibly? OK, so you're not immune and that sucks. But there's no need to take it out on all of us." He was trying to talk his fellow subject down, to appeal to what remained of Jackson's sanity, but his efforts were proving as successful as my attempt to save Bjorn. Jackson's mind was being devoured by the Flare.

"What you gonna do? Call a Gathering like Alby used to? He ain't in charge no more, in case you've forgotten. Besides, I'm a Crank now, so it doesn't matter what you do to me. If I have to die from the Flare, I'm taking all you Munies down with me!" Jackson let loose a mad burst of laughter and fired his gun; luckily for us, he wasn't aiming properly and the bullet ended up lodged in the wall, though, had its trajectory taken it just a couple of inches to the right, it would have hit Emily in the head. "I hate you!" Jackson shouted, his face a mask of ugly insanity. "I hate you all!"

As Jackson fired more bullets, most of us took cover behind the furniture, leaving Frypan and Clint to continue to try and bring him to his senses, at least temporarily. "Jackson, listen," said Frypan. "This isn't you, man. It's the Flare making you do these things. But you can't be past the Gone yet, so why are you acting like you are? Just . . ."

Jackson cut him off with another burst of crazed laughter. "Yeah, you're right. It's the shuck Flare making me want to kill all you Munies. Kill you and feast on your flesh! Mmm . . ." He licked his lips in anticipation. "I wonder what human flesh tastes like. Well, I guess I'll soon find out. How would you like to be first on the menu? Course, I'd have to get rid of all your hair, but . . ." He never completed his sentence. Suddenly, the high-pitched sound of a Launcher being fired was followed by a grenade slamming into Jackson's head from behind and exploding in a burst of energy that crackled all around him; he collapsed to the floor, his brain fried in an instant, smoke issuing from his body. Once more there was the acrid smell of burnt flesh that I'd smelled during the lightning storm and again while we were fighting our way out of the WICKED complex. And, as Jackson fell, I saw who had fired the grenade which had reduced our numbers still further.

Teresa was standing directly behind him, holding a Launcher at shoulder height. As I watched, she slowly lowered the weapon and looked down at the boy she had just killed. "I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "I didn't have a choice. It was this or let him descend even further into madness." Her words were completely matter-of-fact, but there was a slight tremor in her voice that told me she really hadn't wanted to do this, even though it had saved Jackson from the far worse fate which awaited him. And it was all WICKED's doing. They were the ones who had convinced her that whatever they did, no matter how inhumane, was justified if it was done in the name of finding a cure for the Flare, a cure we now knew was never going to happen. And they were the ones who had decided they needed non-Immunes as control subjects. Kids like Jackson.


Once the effects of the grenade had worn off and we could approach Jackson's body without getting zapped with static electricity, we wrapped him in blankets which Sonya had found in one of the Berg's storage lockers, covering him completely. "OK," said Trix as we stood looking at the grim bundle on the floor. "What do we do now? It's not like we can have a funeral up here."

"But we can once we've landed," Harriet replied. "Which can't be much longer now. Tony's been flying this thing for hours without help; he's gonna need to take a rest soon. We'll decide what to do with Jackson then. In the meantime, someone had better move him off the floor." She looked at each of us in turn, silently asking if there were any volunteers. At first, no-one moved, but then Teresa stepped forward, her face set in a determined expression.

"I'll do it," she said. "I'm the one who took the decision to end his life."

"So will I," said Indira. She also stepped forward. "What Teresa did to Jackson was hard; I know because I had to do the same thing." She did not mention Flossie, but we all knew what she was talking about. And, if it had been hard for Teresa to kill Jackson, a boy whose only connection with her was the fact that he had been part of the same group, it had been even harder for Indira to kill Flossie, one of her closest friends. So, because Flossie had been my friend as well, I volunteered to join Teresa and Indira in the task of moving Jackson's body. Last of all, Sonya, whose brother was among those not immune to the Flare, stepped forward. The four of us stood around the blanket-covered corpse, one at each corner, preparing to lift it off the floor.

"On the count of three, lift!" said Teresa. "One, two, three!" And, moving as one, we took hold of the corners of the blanket covering Jackson and hoisted him off the floor, Teresa and Sonya taking the end where his feet were, while Indira and I were by his head. As the others watched in silence, we carried the latest fatality of WICKED's doomed experiments across the mid-section, heading for one of the couches; this would be his temporary resting place. Along the way, I caught a glimpse of Yoko and Mona, who were standing apart from everyone else, and found myself wondering how long it would be before they too succumbed to the Flare. Probably not very long, judging by how rapidly the disease had progressed in Flossie, Bjorn and Jackson.

And why had that happened? From what I knew of the Flare, it normally took at least a few weeks before it really took hold. It was only a matter of hours since Janson told us some of us were not immune and half the kids who fell into that category were already dead, though the Flare hadn't killed any of them directly. Instead, one had committed suicide and the other two had been mercy-killed, but they'd all been showing clear symptoms before they died. So what was going on? Why was the Flare behaving differently in the members of our group? Perhaps the workpad I'd found had the answer; I would have to check it out later.

In the meantime, I helped Teresa, Indira and Sonya with the task of moving Jackson's body from floor to couch. As we lowered him onto the couch where he would lie until more permanent arrangements could be made, one of his arms came loose from the wrappings which covered him and dangled limply, rigor mortis having not yet had time to set in. We jumped back, an instinctive reaction which even familiarity with dead bodies couldn't suppress.


A couple of hours later, the Berg slowly lowered to the ground and the huge cargo bay doors opened to reveal a landscape dominated by what had once been a majestic forest, but which now consisted of row upon row of dead trees, their trunks blackened, their branches destined never to bear leaves again. The result, no doubt, of a forest fire which had been ignited when the sun flares slammed into the Earth, a forest fire which must have burned unchecked for weeks with no resources available to fight the blaze; the few surviving emergency services had been stretched to breaking point trying to cope with the effects the flares had on the human population. At most, attempts might have been made to evacuate any towns in the danger zone, but even that was unlikely, not least because there was the question of where all the people were going to go. Put simply, you couldn't relocate entire populations into areas which were themselves struggling in the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters ever known.

As soon as the Berg had touched down, Tony emerged from the cockpit and looked round at all of us. "You kids listen up," he told us, his hands planted squarely on his hips. "We're going to be resting here for a few hours, so go do whatever you want. But be back here by sundown and . . ."

"Why should we listen to him?" It was Mona who had spoken. "He'll probably fly us straight back to WICKED - unless we kill him first!" With that, she picked up the gun which Jackson had dropped when Teresa shot him with the Launcher grenade, her eyes filled with a madness that was becoming all too familiar. The madness of someone whose mind was being destroyed by the Flare. "Yes," she went on, an insane grin plastered across her face. "That's exactly what he and all his fuzzing friends deserve for what they did to us. I . . ." She broke off suddenly as the moment of madness passed, but we all knew this was only the start, that she was trapped in a downward spiral of insanity. And Yoko, who was sitting on one of the couches, humming tunelessly to herself, faced the same fate. As did Newt, wherever he was.

Harriet quickly prised the gun out of Mona's hand and tucked it into her belt. "Just a precaution," she explained. "I'm not taking the risk of you getting your hands on a weapon the next time you turn Crank on us. And you will," she added as Mona opened her mouth to protest. "You might seem fairly lucid at the moment, but you'll lapse again sooner or later. And, when that time comes, I want you as far away from a weapon as possible."

"How you gonna do that?" asked Clint. "We've got more than enough weapons now that three more of us are dead." He nodded towards the couch where the blanket-wrapped body of Jackson lay, the arm which had worked its way loose while Teresa, Indira, Sonya and I were moving him still hanging limp. "So how do you keep Mona from getting her shucking Crank hands on one?"

Tony looked at us all, a grim expression etched on his face. "Listen," he said. "I've seen what the Flare does to people, but I ain't seen anyone go downhill as fast as your friends. Not since the early days when the virus was first unleashed. I'm no expert, but, as I understand it, the Flare thrives on brain activity and WICKED have been stimulating your brains for years."

"Yes, to collect what they call killzone patterns," I said. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

"It has to do with a lot," Tony explained. "You've all been stimulated way more than most people, including those of you who are not immune. That'll be why Flossie, Bjorn and Jackson got so bad so fast. And it means Yoko and Mona only have a few days at most before they're past the Gone." He turned to Sonya, shaking his head as he did so. "I'm afraid it also means you and your brother are going to have a very short reunion," he added. "Better hope you find him quick."

"Isn't there anything we can do?" asked Louisa. "The Bliss, maybe?"

Tony laughed mirthlessly. "Sorry, ain't got none. And, even if I had a lifetime's supply of the stuff, it would only slow the virus down. Your friends would still pass the Gone; it would just take them longer to get there. It's a temporary fix, not a cure. Talking of which," he added, "I hope you kids realise that, by escaping before the blueprint was finalised, you effectively condemned six of you to death. Think you can live with yourselves? Knowing you could have saved your friends, but chose to . . .?"

"Shut up!" Mona shouted, cutting Tony off in mid-sentence. "If you're trying to persuade us to go back to WICKED so they can cure Yoko and me, you can fuzzing forget it! There's no cure and there's never gonna be one! So shut up before I shut you up for good!" She made to rush at Tony, forgetting in her madness that she couldn't possibly tackle him unarmed. It took three of us (Sarah, Victoria and Aris) to hold her back; even then, she put up quite a fight, struggling to break free from the kids who were restraining her, swearing and cursing all the while. Finally, though, Sarah and the others pinned her to the floor and held her there.


Mona soon came to her senses, but we all knew this was only temporary, that she was only going to get worse. And, from what Tony had said, she and Yoko were deteriorating rapidly; the stimulation they had received during the Trials was fuelling the virus which was destroying their brains. In a few days, they would no longer be human beings, just wild animals, grotesque parodies of the girls we knew. Mona, like Flossie, Bjorn and Jackson, was already beginning to lose it; her attempt to attack Tony was a sign that she was dangerously close to the Gone. And, though she had shown no outward signs of aggression as yet, there was little doubt that Yoko also had the Flare. Once the Keeper of the Runners for Group B, she had been reduced to a shadow of her former self, a mad girl who could do nothing but hum repetitively.

After a brief discussion, we agreed to leave a few people on the Berg to keep an eye on Yoko and Mona while the rest of us went outside to dispose of Jackson's body and to get some fresh air. However, finding someone who was willing to volunteer for this task proved easier said than done and Harriet eventually had to step in. "I'll be one of those who stays behind," she said, her hand moving towards the gun which she had tucked into her belt. The gun which she had taken from Mona. She then turned her attention to deciding who else should remain on the Berg, who else should be tasked with guarding the Cranks that Mona and Yoko were rapidly becoming. "Aris, Sonya and Louisa." She pointed to the respective owners of those names. "The rest of you, go on. We'll be all right."

As all but six of us prepared to exit the Berg, Teresa, Sarah, Indira and Cass carrying Jackson's body between them, Yoko broke off from her humming just long enough to utter a few words. "Stop it! Shut up!" She grabbed hold of her head, pressing her hands against her temples as though she was trying to force something out of her skull. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

"None of us said anything," I told her, though I knew it was doubtful I would be able to get through to her given her mental state.

"Not you, the demons." The voice of insanity coming from Yoko's mouth. "They're telling me to do things. They won't stop! I've been humming to try and drown them out, but they keep getting louder and louder! They're trying to control me - they want me to kill all of you! Stop them! You must stop them! They . . ." Yoko broke off and started humming once more, rocking back and forth, fighting a losing battle against the demons brought about by her Flare-addled mind.


As I said before, the landscape was dominated by the burnt forest, though Tony had managed to find a clearing that was large enough for the Berg to land. As we emerged, I noticed for the first time that, though much of what I could see still showed the after-effects of the fire which had rampaged through this area fourteen years ago, there were a few signs of fresh growth, islands of green in a sea of blackened trees, a sign that the world was recovering from the devastation the sun flares had inflicted. But what about the human race? Was there any hope for my species? Or had the decision to release the Flare virus doomed us to extinction? There were people, including most of our group, who were immune to the virus, but there were far more who were not immune. Which, since the Flare turned its victims into monsters whose only thought was to kill, meant the future of humanity was, at best, uncertain. At worst, there might come a day when the only people left in the world were Cranks.

I dismissed this gloomy scenario from my mind and joined the others as they gathered in a circle. Those carrying Jackson's body stepped into the centre of the circle and placed their burden on the ground; they were followed by Tony, who was carrying a can of gasoline, which he proceeded to pour all over the blanket-wrapped corpse. He then fished a box of matches out of his pocket and handed it to Teresa. "I think you should do the honours," he told her.

Teresa extracted one of the matches and struck it against the side of the box, causing it to light up in a tiny flame. Without saying a word, she tossed the burning match onto the blanket which Tony had just soaked in fuel, the blanket which covered Jackson's body. Seconds later, the fire had taken hold and was consuming the remains of the latest kid to die in the name of WICKED and their experiments. The latest, but not the last. There were still two - three if Newt was still alive - non-Immunes among WICKED's remaining subjects. And, now that we knew there was never going to be a cure, their fate was inevitable. Whether the Flare killed them directly, or they were put out of their misery like Flossie and Jackson, or they ended their own lives like Bjorn made little difference. There was nothing and no-one that could save them.

Which, I realised, meant the best we could hope for was that all the Immunes who had made it this far would survive. Clint, Frypan, Teresa and, possibly, Minho and Thomas from Group A. Aris, Cass, Emily, Harriet, Indira, Louisa, Martha, Sarah, Shelley, Sonya, Trix, Victoria and myself from Group B. Just eighteen of us. Eighteen out of the hundred-and-twenty kids WICKED had sent to the two Mazes which they, with the help of Thomas, Teresa, Aris and Rachel, had set up. And that was our best case scenario. It was more likely, given the state of the world, that we would end up losing some of those eighteen kids.


As Jackson's body continued to burn, we drifted away one by one, leaving Tony to watch the fire. I sat down on the ground, pulled out the workpad I'd found earlier and powered it up. I finished reading the memo about the decision to unleash the Flare virus, struggling to comprehend how this John Michael guy could have agreed to such a plan. Of course, he didn't know the Flare was going to turn into the horror it had become, but even so . . . Closing the memo, I checked out a few more of the files that weren't protected by passwords. Mostly stuff about the changed weather patterns following the sun flares, but there was also a file which described the effects of the Flare. Which I chose not to read since I'd already seen first-hand what the Flare did to its victims. Then I came across another memo, again sent by John Michael, with the subject heading Immunes:

Following extensive testing, it has been confirmed that less than 1% of the population are immune to the Flare virus. However, this handful of people represent our best chance of finding a cure for this devastating disease. We believe there may be fundamental differences in the brain structure of Immunes that enable them to function even when the Flare is deeply rooted inside them. If we can isolate those differences, we may be able to use them as the basis for a cure, or at least an effective treatment.

However, we cannot simply dissect the brains of everyone who is immune; our aim is to save lives, not waste them. Instead, we must gather together a large number of immune children and push them to their mental and physical limits in order to stimulate responses in their brains and collect the resulting patterns. This will no doubt shock some of you, but it is not our intention to harm these children in any way, merely to study them in the hope that one or more of them may provide the answers we seek. We already have the girl who arrived through the Flat Trans which connected our headquarters with our base in North Carolina before the latter was destroyed. She has been confirmed immune, but we need many more subjects if we are to proceed.

Therefore, effective immediately, I am issuing Executive Order #18. Agents will be sent to collect children who have been found to be immune to the Flare and bring them to our headquarters. In addition, a small number of children who are not immune will be chosen as control subjects. It is hoped that the parents or guardians of the selected children will recognize the need for personal sacrifices at this time of international crisis and give them up willingly. However, our agents are authorized to use force should their attempts to take the children meet with resistance.

When I read that last sentence, my breath caught in my throat. For a moment, it felt as though I was back in the closet with my brother and sister, listening as Jacques and Mason tried to "persuade" Mom to hand us over. Again I heard the gunshot, followed by the sound of something heavy falling against the door. The moment my siblings and I became orphans, our only surviving parent killed trying to protect us. That was when I was first introduced to WICKED.

WICKED is good? WICKED is bad, more like, though "bad" hardly begins to describe an organisation that would abduct kids, use them as lab rats, allow most of them to die. How could anything, even the search for a cure for the Flare, justify such cruelty? Especially now that we knew there was almost certainly never going to be a cure. But WICKED were determined to keep their experiments going at all costs and that meant we would never be safe from them as long as they existed.

So they had to be brought down. And the only way we could hope to do that was to do what Teresa wanted: get to Denver and join up with an anti-WICKED group.