The Legacy

had fallen away from him; she was on the ground now. His throat still hurting, Jude stared at her angrily, fearfully, but then he recoiled. Her skin was drying up. Not just her skin – her whole body. Right in front of him. It looked like every ounce of moisture was literally being sucked out of her. She lifted her head and looked at him, her eyes huge, her eyelids receding – like a skeleton, Jude found himself thinking. And then, with one last shriek, she fell back and was silent.
    Jude didn’t move for a minute. Shock and fear made him stay completely still as his brain tried to process what he’d seen, tried to make sense of it. Then, tentatively, he pulled himself up. His neck still felt sore, his breathing was still laboured as he crawled towards the woman. He didn’t get all the way there – he couldn’t bring himself to. Her skin had become blackened; her mouth and eyes were open, large circles that invited him to look deep inside. Instead he looked around – he wanted a tape of this, needed to know where to find the images. But there were no cameras here. He kicked himself. Of course there weren’t any cameras – he’d chosen the place because of it. He stood up on shaky legs, considered bringing the woman with him to the Underground headquarters, then rejected the idea immediately on grounds of safety and practicality. At least that was what he told himself. But the real reason was his revulsion, his terror, his desire to leave this place as soon as humanly possible and never come back.
    Taking one last look at the woman, he turned and ran to the back entrance of the building. Once outside, he threw up violently, then continued his journey back to the Underground.

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    Chapter Three
     
    Jude dealt with the Underground security checks as quickly as he could before bursting through the door. It was still early, but hours were not important here and meetings were regularly held in the dead of night. Pip, as far as Jude could tell, rarely slept and even when he did, he would wake and be ready for action within seconds of something happening.
    ‘Pip!’ he called urgently. ‘Pip, where are you?’
    ‘Jude?’ Pip appeared in a doorway, his expression unreadable, but Jude knew that he would disapprove of such an outburst. Pip, who had set up the Underground hundreds of years ago and had steered it ever since, was a man of few words and those he uttered were well thought out, ordered, carefully chosen. He favoured caution over passion, reason over gut feeling. He and Jude could not have been more different from each other.
    ‘Pip, you’ve got to hear this. I’ve just come from the processing plant. The disused one up near Euston . . .’
    ‘Yes, Jude. I’ve seen the footage you uploaded. Congratulations on another success.’ He spoke softly. Pip, the enigmatic, unofficial leader of the Underground movement – the rebel group set up to fight Longevity, to fight the Declaration, to fight Pincent Pharma and everything that it stood for – rarely raised his voice; it meant that he never sounded enthusiastic, never sounded proud or sufficiently surprised by anything. It was the most frustrating voice Jude had ever come across.
    ‘Not that,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Something else. Something . . .’ His face screwed up inadvertently at what he was about to say. ‘I just saw someone die. It was hideous.’ He regretted his use of language immediately – it felt clumsy, dismissive. But he didn’t know what else to say, how else to describe what he’d seen. He’d long got over his terror, his disgust; on the way back to the Underground he’d shaken himself down, told himself not to be so pathetic. But now, rather than coming across as brave, he felt slightly foolish. After all, he’d seen people die before – Underground soldiers, killed by Pincent Pharma’s henchmen. It was just that this was different. The woman seemed . . . ill. It was a word from history, a concept that had seemed abstract somehow. Until now, that is. Now it felt very real and very horrible. He saw Pip raise an eyebrow and he reddened slightly. ‘It was a woman. She was gasping, like really gasping for breath, and she wanted some water so I gave her some, and then she just . . .’ He felt his legs weakening beneath him as the impact of the sight hit him once more. He could feel Pip watching him; he wanted to impress him, wanted his admiration. But instead he could see sympathy, worry. His shoulders fell