The Legacy

felt like the runt of the litter, the also-ran. Peter, his half-brother, was the action hero who’d broken into a Surplus Hall to save Anna. Jude . . . Jude was just a techie.
    He heard something, a noise, and ducked down again, his heart beating rapidly. Someone was here. Who? Had he been followed? Still, silent, he crouched and waited. Then, hearing nothing more, he relaxed slightly. He’d probably imagined it. After all, he was always careful. Peter was the brave, impetuous one; Jude was the planner, the organiser. In short, the boring one, he thought wryly.
    He’d never thought of himself as boring before he’d met his brother; before he’d met Pip and joined the Underground, the resistance movement that had been set up to fight Pincent Pharma, Longevity and all it meant for humanity. He’d been a White Knight in his previous life on the Outside – a computer whiz who worked for good, identifying weaknesses in companies’ networks and offering to fix them. He did it for a price, of course, but there were others who simply took advantage of weaknesses to steal, to spy, to cause havoc. Jude had always seen himself as a benevolent protector; he’d liked that image, liked the kick he’d got every time he contacted a major corporation to let them know that he’d just hacked into their network and could, if he wanted to, empty their bank account. In return for his work he demanded a fee big enough to keep him going for a few weeks, sometimes a few months. And then he’d reward himself by going on to MyWorld. It might only have existed on his computer, but it often felt more real than the world outside. In the real world there were no young people, but MyWorld was full of them. And in MyWorld Jude was a genuine hero, popular with everyone.
    The truth was, life without it had taken some getting used to.
    ‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered under his breath as the digital film slowly uploaded. It frustrated Jude that connectivity had, in recent months, got slower not faster. Like everything these days, things were getting worse all the time. Falling energy supply, falling water supply – he’d heard that in the south-west people had been forced to start queuing for water at the municipal well. Drought had meant that food was being rationed too, and not even under the pretext of identicard choices either. But at least they could queue up openly. At least they weren’t like him, hiding in a grungy, barely habitable building where sometimes food didn’t materialise for days at a time.
    The Underground. The Resistance Movement. Jude had known of its existence all his life, but only in shadowy references. It encouraged people to have children when the world was already full – too full. It believed that Longevity drugs were wrong when Longevity had cured the world of disease, had cured man of ageing. Jude, a Legal child (certain senior Authorities’ positions came with the perk of having a child), had been brought up to loathe the Underground and all it stood for. But as he’d grown older, as he’d hankered after company, after anyone his own age to play with, his father’s arguments in favour of Longevity had seemed less compelling. And when, just two years ago, his father, Stephen, had been murdered by Margaret Pincent, his first wife, and the truth about how Jude’s legality had been snatched from his half-brother Peter was revealed, he’d realised that nothing was as it seemed. Peter, Margaret’s son and Stephen’s second son, had been born just two months after Jude, but Jude’s birth had rendered him a Surplus. So while Jude had been brought up in an affluent household, Peter had been hidden in attics, in cellars, forced to move from place to place.
    No wonder Peter was the hero, Jude thought as he watched the download bar, drumming his fingers on his thigh. And no wonder Pip hadn’t wanted Jude to join the Underground. He was a thief; his very birth had robbed Peter of his rightful legality.
    Jude shook himself and turned back to his device. Any minute now Authorities police could turn up. He had selected this place carefully – a disused factory under demolition orders, its walls and structure condemned and barbed-wire fences preventing entry. But still, that wouldn’t stop a guard or policeman if they suspected what he was doing here. And if they caught him . . . He shivered. It didn’t bear thinking about. Ever since he’d thrown his lot in with Pip and Peter, ever since he’d made