The Disappearances Read online

  Table of Contents

  Also by Gemma Malley

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Reading Group Guide

  Also by Gemma Malley

  The Killables

  The Declaration

  The Resistance

  The Legacy

  The Returners

  Visit

  www.gemmamalley.com

  www.hodder.co.uk/crossover

  for the latest news, competitions and exclusive material.

  THE DISAPPEARANCES

  Gemma Malley

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Gemma Malley 2013

  The right of Gemma Malley to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 444 72284 0

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Abigail and Johnnie

  It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society.

  Murray Rothbard, 1963

  PROLOGUE

  Thomas looked at his boss mutinously. ‘The guy’s a genius and you want me to fire him?’

  ‘He’s sixteen. You can’t be a genius at sixteen. And even if he is one, he’s a kid. Give him a few years to grow up.’

  Thomas’s mouth stiffened as it always did when he didn’t get his own way. Who cared about age? He himself was only nineteen; in the world of computing he felt like one of the old guys, desperately trying to keep up with what was happening. Sixteen was no kid. Sixteen was prime.

  But no one else could see that. All they could see was that the ‘kid’ was ruffling feathers; that he did things his own way; that he didn’t care what people thought. And then there was the little incident with the FBI …

  Prosser smiled, one of his avuncular grins that usually disarmed people. ‘He just needs to grow up a bit,’ he said, with a little shrug. ‘Learn that we can’t mess with people’s privacy like that. We do things properly around here.’

  ‘Privacy?’ Thomas looked at him incredulously. ‘Don’t you get it? No one cares about privacy these days. There’s no such thing, anyway. And what this guy can do … It’s years ahead of what anyone else is doing. He doesn’t just tell us what people are buying, he can tell us what they’re thinking, why they’re thinking it. This is the future. What he’s doing now is what everyone’s going to be scrambling for.’

  ‘And yet we’re still going to let him go,’ Prosser said, gently but firmly, his face changing to his I’m-the-boss-and-you’d-better-get-used-to-it expression. The one Thomas loathed. ‘He hacked into FBI files, for God’s sake.’

  ‘He hacked into them in five minutes,’ Thomas replied, folding his arms. ‘In five minutes, Prosser.’

  Prosser’s face hardened. ‘Was there anything else?’

  Thomas shook his head. It was no use. Prosser didn’t get it. He would never get it. People didn’t see what Thomas saw; didn’t see that in that kid’s mind was the future, ideas so incredible they would revolutionise everything. People didn’t see the opportunity, the unbelievable opportunity that lay before them.

  They were blind.

  But Thomas wasn’t.

  He turned, left his boss’s office, then, as soon as Prosser could no longer see him through the glass windows of his office, he stalked quickly down the hallway, down the stairs, and through the corridor that led to his department. He opened the door to the open-plan office that he presided over, stood there for a few minutes just looking at the boy, the boy genius. He was surfing car sites, luxury cars; Thomas had never seen him do any actual work. And for a moment, he was struck by an almost overwhelming envy, because he and the boy seemed to have so little in common; because for Thomas, work meant just that – a long, hard slog to keep up, to edge ahead. But the boy … His whole world was different to Thomas’s. When you were as brilliant as this boy, work wasn’t measured in minutes and hours; it was measured in product-ivity. And he could do more in a minute than other people could do in a week. Thomas had been following him for months, had offered him work experience the minute he’d finished school. And now he was going to lose him? No. It was impossible.

  Cautiously, Thomas walked towards him. ‘So, how’s it going?’ he asked.

  The boy shrugged. ‘Okay, I guess.’ He clicked away from the Mercedes website back onto the code he was writing, the work he was supposed to be doing.

  Thomas nodded, then pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘How soon until blast off?’

  ‘Blast off?’ the boy looked at him in derision, but Thomas didn’t allow himself to get upset. He’d been sneered at, ignored, laughed at for most of his life; called ‘dweeb’ and ‘nerd’ and, well, much worse. But he didn’t care, not any more. He was beyond caring about being cool, being liked. None of those things mattered, not now. When you had power it didn’t matter if people liked you. And he was going to have power. ‘Our little project,’ he said. ‘The program we’ve been discussing. How long until it’s ready?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘That’s what I keep telling you. It’s never going to be.’

  ‘Never?’ Thomas felt his stomach tighten. ‘Don’t talk like that, of course it is. How long do you need? Do you need more help? I can get you more help.’

  ‘There’s really no point,’ the boy said. And he didn’t seem to care. How could he not care? How could he?

  Thomas cleared his throat. ‘Of course there’s a point,’ he said. ‘What you’re creating, what you’ve got here, it’s incredible. It’s more than incredible. It has to be built. It has to become real. They don’t underst
and here, but I do. I’ll pay you myself. Work for me, I’ll find you an office, anywhere you want. Anywhere …’

  The boy sighed, swivelled his chair around to face Thomas. ‘Forget it, Thomas. Look, it’s been fun, but I know they want me out of here. And that’s cool. The tea sucks anyway. You need a teapot. Fresh leaves.’

  ‘So I’ll buy some,’ Thomas said, trying his best to keep the desperation out of his voice. ‘You have to finish.’

  ‘Why?’ The boy looked at him, eyes boring right into him like they could see what he was thinking.

  Thomas stood up in frustration. ‘Because we agreed. Because it’s a great idea. Because you signed a contract,’ he said, trying to keep his voice measured, calm. The contract had been a long shot, but the boy had signed it readily enough when Thomas had promised him access to the entire Infotec server, promised to let him do whatever he wanted. For weeks he had been mopping up the boy’s shit, making excuses, taking the blame, and he hadn’t done that out of the goodness of his heart.

  The boy appeared to consider this. ‘I s’pose,’ he said. ‘But like I said, it’s not going to work. I’ll see you around.’

  He stood up; it took every bit of self-control for Thomas to resist the urge to shove him back down in the chair again.

  ‘Okay,’ he said instead, blocking the doorway, buying himself another few seconds, trying to remember to breathe. ‘So what’s stopping it from working? Or, rather, in what circumstances would it work?’

  ‘None. Not in the real world anyway,’ the boy said dismissively.

  ‘And in the not-real world?’ Thomas insisted, seeing a glimmer of hope. ‘What then?’

  ‘Really?’ the boy asked, his interest piqued. ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘I really want to know,’ Thomas nodded.

  ‘Okay,’ the boy said. He flopped back down in this chair, twiddled his thumbs. ‘So,’ he said, ‘first you’d need a smaller population because it needs to start small, grow organically, you know? And it’s no point just picking a control group because it won’t work if there are loads of other interfaces and networks buzzing around. You’d need a desert island. A village on a desert island. Few hundred people, maybe a couple of thousand.’

  ‘Go on,’ Thomas said.

  The boy thought for a moment. ‘They’ve all got to be willing to be monitored day and night, so there can’t be any politics, any dissent, anyone talking civil liberties because then it’s dead in the water.’

  ‘I see,’ Thomas. ‘And what else?’

  The boy laughed. ‘That’s not enough? You see? It’s never going to work. Never going to happen.’

  ‘What else?’ Thomas asked, the tension now audible in his voice.

  The boy sat back, put his hands behind his head like he was sunbathing. Thomas half expected him to put his feet up on the desk, right on top of the keyboard.

  ‘They’ve got to want it,’ the boy said, then, with a shrug. ‘They’ve got to really want it. See, what matters is what people believe, not what is real. You can have the most incredible set up, give people an amazing life, but if they think you’re doing it to them, they’ll hate it. But if it’s something they want and you give it to them … Well, that’s completely different.’ He stood up. ‘So look,’ he said, ‘thanks and stuff.’

  He held out his hand; Thomas shook it. ‘And if those conditions are met, you’ll build it? It’ll work? Our contract still stands?’

  ‘Sure,’ the boy grinned as he walked out of the room. ‘You get the cow to jump over the moon and I’ll do anything you want.’

  1

  ‘Morning.’

  Evie looked up to see Raffy next to her with two steaming hot cups of tea and she quickly sat up and took one from him. ‘What’s the time?’ she murmured.

  ‘It’s early,’ Raffy said, getting back into bed. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

  Evie moved aside for him and took a sip of her tea. ‘How early?’

  ‘Four thirty.’

  Half an hour before their usual wake-up time. Evie tried to open her eyes properly, but they were rebelling, resisting her request. Instead, she put down her tea and allowed her eyes to close again, her head lolling back against her pillow.

  ‘Still, exciting day today. We’re being fitted,’ Raffy said. He was bearing down over her; Evie knew he was expecting her to open her eyes, so she did so, managing a little smile before closing them again.

  Fitted. For her dress. For his suit. Next week would be their Welcome Ceremony, their formal acceptance into the Settlement.

  And it was also going to be the day of their wedding.

  ‘You don’t look excited.’

  Evie looked at Raffy worriedly, but immediately saw that he was joking, teasing her.

  ‘Of course I’m excited,’ she said, forcing another smile, a light-hearted expression. She was excited, after all. Every time Raffy so much as mentioned the wedding she got jolts all around her body. Excitement, fear; they were the same thing. Sort of.

  She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘It’s going to be quite something.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Raffy breathed, rolling off the bed then grinning at her. ‘Married. Seriously. Did you ever think this would happen when we were in the City? Did you?’

  Evie opened her mouth to explain that she meant being formally accepted into the Settlement, but she closed it again. She should have meant marrying him. There was something wrong with her. Something terribly wrong and she had to protect Raffy from it, even if she couldn’t protect herself.

  They had been here for about a year. After they had left the City for the last time, destroyed the System that had so blighted their lives, they had gone back to Base Camp where Linus and his friends lived, but within days, Linus had told them that they had to find their own place to live, that Base Camp was only a tempor-ary place, that they had to find somewhere that would be a real home. And at first, Evie had refused to countenance the idea, had railed against Linus, told him that they had to stay together, that she’d found a new family and wasn’t going to lose it. But Linus had just smiled at her, those twinkly eyes of his disarming her as he told her about the Settlement, a place he’d never been to but heard great things about, a community of good people where they could live, could flourish.

  And eventually Evie had agreed, not because she wanted to go to the Settlement, but because she realised that for Linus, it was over; the battle had been won. It was he who needed to move on; he who needed everyone to leave. Linus was not like anyone she’d ever known. Wise, infuriating, tough, secretive, he had been one of the founders of the City, had built the System from scratch as a benevolent force to meet people’s needs and ensure that everyone was happy. Except the System had been corrupted, the Brother had taken control and, fearful for his life, Linus had left to establish a base from which he communicated secretly with the City, waiting for the right time to disable the System once and for all, to kill off the monster that he had inadvertently created.

  Now that was done, Linus had no need for Base Camp any more, and Evie recognised that she and Raffy had to leave, because soon everyone would be gone and they would be left behind with nothing.

  And so they had come to the Settlement, with a message from Linus to Benjamin, its leader, a man Linus had met briefly in the early days of the City, a man, he told Evie and Raffy, who had good eyes, which was apparently enough for him to judge the entire Settlement.

  But he’d been right, as he usually was.

  The Settlement was a cooperative that had been established by Benjamin twenty years before. It had started as a small camp, according to Stern, Benjamin’s second in command, who had shown them around on the day they arrived. He told them that it had grown over the years and was now a sprawling landmass full of houses and farms and people who worked not because a system required it but because they wanted to, because they needed to, because that was what living here required.

  Because life was harder here than in the City, Stern had told them, food
would not materialise unless they farmed it; buildings would not be erected unless they themselves built the foundations. Here there were no computers, no government jobs and no shops; there was a market for bartering, and there were long days full of hard work.

  He’d looked at them then, thoughtfully, as though waiting for them to say something. But they hadn’t; they’d both remained silent, because they had just seen Benjamin walk past, Benjamin whose name was always uttered in revered tones, Benjamin, whose presence could be felt even before he entered a room.

  Within the Settlement, Benjamin was like a god; his story one of myth and legend, a fighter who refused to let the Horrors keep him down, who continued to fight, to strive, to motivate, to lead, who set up the Settlement to reward those who had assisted him, who expected the best in people and because of his belief in them, usually got it. No one knew where Benjamin had come from or what his life had been like before the Horrors. There were rumours, of course: he had been a soldier, a priest, an athlete, a politician. But Benjamin never spoke about the past. He and Stern had survived the Horrors together and had determined to build something in the ruins, to offer hope, to offer a future.

  And that’s exactly what the Settlement had offered Evie and Raffy. Stern had been right when he said that there were long days of hard work in the Settlement, but life wasn’t harder here than the City, not to Evie, anyway. It was like a paradise to her; so far from the City with its rules and restrictions that she could hardly believe it was on the same planet.

  And it was all because of Benjamin.

  ‘Ah, we finally meet.’

  Evie still felt the hairs on the back of her neck stiffen when she remembered meeting Benjamin for the first time. Stern had appeared in front of them, a week after they had first arrived at the Settlement, and asked them to follow him. And as he had led them towards Benjamin’s private quarters, she had felt her heartbeat quicken, had seen Raffy’s posture grow taller, seen his eyes widen just slightly; he, too, had known what was happening, who they were being taken to. Raffy had tried to play down the whole evaluation thing, telling Evie that they were evaluating the Settlement just as much as the Settlement was evaluating them, but as he padded silently behind Stern, she knew that this meeting mattered to him just as much as it did to her. Something had changed in Raffy since they’d got here; for once he seemed genuinely to want to please, to be accepted.