The Legacy

me?’
    Jude tightened his grip around her. ‘I don’t know,’ he said grimly. ‘But don’t worry, he’s not going to get away with it.’
    ‘He will though,’ Sheila said, biting her lip. ‘I mean, he always does. The Underground is never going to win, is it? So what’s the point?’
    ‘The point is,’ Jude said gently, reminding himself that Sheila’s life had been tough, that it wasn’t her fault she said the things she did, ‘we have to keep fighting. The more young people there are, the more opposition there will be to the Authorities and Pincent Pharma.’
    ‘But the Declaration makes sense,’ Sheila said, her brow furrowing. ‘There are too many people as it is. We don’t have enough water. You told me that the rivers are drying up in Africa. We don’t have enough energy, or food, or anything. I don’t want more people. I want fewer people.’
    Jude shook his head firmly. ‘It’s not that simple,’ he said.
    ‘Isn’t it?’ Sheila asked searchingly.
    ‘No,’ Jude said, his brow furrowing. ‘The world needs young people. It’s not fair to stop new people just so that old people can keep on living. It’s not . . .’ He trailed off; he couldn’t think straight. All he could think about was Sheila’s proximity to him, and the strange sensations shooting around his body – like fear, only . . . different. She turned to look at him, and he reddened. ‘Don’t you . . . have chores to be getting on with?’ he asked, his voice breaking awkwardly as he spoke.
    He regretted the words as soon as they’d left his mouth, but it was too late. Sheila raised her eyebrows, stole a final sip of tea from Jude’s cup, then flounced out, leaving him on his own. Sighing inwardly he looked up, allowing his eyes to travel around the room.
    It was a small space, one of a handful of rooms that made up the Underground headquarters. Today’s headquarters, at any rate. Rumour had it they were moving again soon. And by rumour, Jude meant Sheila had told him, which meant it had approximately a fifty per cent chance of being true. Sheila liked to know everything, and if she didn’t know something she’d make it up rather than admit her lack of knowledge. According to Sheila, Pip told someone just the other day that they’d be somewhere else by the end of the week, and since today was Thursday, that didn’t leave many more days to up sticks and leave.
    He pulled himself up and walked over to the table that he used as a desk, then sat down in his chair and put his feet on the table, like he used to when he’d lived in his own house, with his own rules. It seemed a very long time ago. Almost a lifetime ago.
    In reality it had just been a few months since he and Sheila had moved in as permanent residents. A few months since Pip had deemed them both too high risk to be based anywhere else. They both knew, had seen first hand, the sordid activities taking place at Pincent Pharma, and Richard Pincent had promised to track them down and kill them in memos that Jude had hacked into.
    It had made him feel important back then. Now – well, now he wasn’t so sure that Sheila didn’t have a point. It wasn’t the Underground per se. Jude was fully on board with the whole anti-Pincent thing. He couldn’t not be, not really, not seeing as how hardly anyone his age existed any more and those that had been born had been rounded up and shipped off to Surplus Halls. He knew Pip was right, knew that the Declaration – those bits of paper that people signed promising not to procreate just so they could take Longevity – was fundamentally flawed, that a world full of old people completely sucked, even if the people didn’t look old. And he knew that Richard Pincent was the most evil man in the whole world. No one hated him more than Jude – no one.
    But he’d kind of thought the Underground would be more like an army than a . . . a . . . He searched for the right word and failed. He’d thought the Underground would be different, a hive of activity, full of soldiers, brave men and women talking about the revolution to come, making plans and carrying them out. Instead, there were hardly any people there for one thing – people came in for procedures or, occasionally, for meetings, but no one ever stopped to make conversation and you weren’t meant to look at anyone too closely because it was risky, because the idea was that people could hardly identify any other supporters if they were caught, if