The Declaration

that she should be free . . .’
    Anna’s mother squeezed her hand.
    ‘You see, my darling,’ she said, her voice catching slightly, ‘none of this is your fault. And if you go back to Grange Hall, then everything will have been a waste. You and Peter and Ben are what matter. You are the future. You’re what everyone in the Underground is fighting for – young people, new blood and new ideas. That’s what Renewal should be about, not keeping old people alive.
    ‘The Authorities don’t want people to Opt Out, they don’t want any new children, because that might change the balance of power. They like things the way they are, and they’re afraid of change, so they suppress it. They kill it off at the roots. You are the revolution, Anna. You, Peter and now Ben. And you have to keep yourself safe because you have a responsibility to live, for all our sakes.’
    Anna nodded seriously, and looked at Peter, whose eyes were flashing with determination.
    ‘You see?’ he said, his voice strangled. ‘Now do you see?’
    ‘I see,’ Anna whispered, then she turned to face her mother.
    ‘Do you still take Longevity?’ she asked.
    Her mother nodded.
    ‘We take Longevity because we don’t want to stand out. And because we didn’t want to get ill, not whilst you were still locked away in Grange Hall. But now . . . well, now things are different. We don’t need it any more. Not so long as you’re safe with us.’
    Anna bit her lip. ‘Mrs Pincent told me my parents were selfish,’ she said, feeling a lump appear in her throat. ‘She said I should hate you. And I did . . .’ She swallowed furiously. ‘But now,’ she continued, ‘now I’m proud to be your daughter. I’m so proud. And I won’t let you down. I promise.’
    Her mother smiled, and Anna could see tears in her eyes.
    ‘You could never let us down,’ she whispered. ‘None of you could. Now don’t worry, my darlings. We’ll get away, far away from here, and everything is going to be fine. Just wait and see.’

Chapter Twenty-five
    Frank smiled as Bill held his knife over Mrs Parkinson’s fingers.
    ‘Now, Christopher,’ he said to her husband. ‘You don’t mind me calling you Christopher, do you? Christopher, you know we don’t want to hurt your wife. Don’t want her mutilated, any more than we’d want our own wives mutilated. Fingers come in handy, Christopher, we know that. It’s just that we’ve got a job to do here, same as anyone else, and we’re not sure you’re really telling us what we need to know. Look at it from our perspective. Here we are, trying to track down some Surpluses, some escaped Surpluses, in fact, and we know they’re hiding with some neighbours of yours. Next door, for all we know. But you tell us you know nothing about it. And we find that hard to believe, Christopher. You see what I’m saying? Odd that you’d never have heard a single sound, or suspected anything at all . . .’
    Slowly, Bill brought the knife down on Mrs Parkinson’s little finger, and Mr Parkinson shouted out.
    ‘No! Please, God, no! I think they might live at number fifty-three. Or number fifty-five. One or the other. That’s all I know – you hear rumours, that’s all. Please, oh my God, what have you done?’
    ‘There, that wasn’t too hard, was it?’ Frank said, beaming, as Bill put his knife away in a small leather box. ‘You’ve been a pleasure to do business with, Christopher. We’ll let ourselves out, shall we?’
    Running to his wife’s side to stem the blood that was pouring out of her hand, Mr Parkinson barely noticed them leave.
    ‘I couldn’t kill him. I couldn’t kill the boy.’
    Mrs Pincent reached behind her for her chair, all the time holding the gun straight at Stephen, all the time keeping her arms steady, even though the rest of her was shaking violently.
    ‘You couldn’t kill him?’ she asked hoarsely. It was the conclusion she’d refused to draw, the truth she hadn’t been able to face. Now that it had been uttered she felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. Her son was alive. Her son was . . .
    Mrs Pincent gasped as the awful truth hit her. Her son, alive. Her son, the Surplus, the boy with the eyes that bore into her with hatred. The boy she had . . . No, no, it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.
    ‘I never agreed with you that we should kill the boy. A life is a life, Margaret, however it’s lived,’ Stephen was saying. ‘But I couldn’t stand him being a Surplus. So I