The Legacy

looking up at the window every few seconds. This time it was just a brick; next time it would be worse. If one person knew they were here, soon more would. Even if it was just a lucky guess, even if it was just a random act of violence, Jude couldn’t risk it – they had to move. They had to get out of here.
    ‘What was that sound? What’s that on the ground?’ He turned to see Sheila who’d appeared next to him, her gaunt frame barely seeming strong enough to support her head. She was staring at the brick worriedly.
    ‘This,’ he whispered, ‘is a warning that we’re under siege.’
    ‘We?’ Sheila looked at him warily.
    ‘The Underground,’ Jude said quietly. She sat down next to him and crossed her legs.
    ‘Did we really kill people? Did we really sabotage the Longevity drugs?’ she asked softly. She sounded fragile. Jude wrapped his arm around her, then realised that actually he was feeling fragile too, that he needed comfort just as much as she did.
    ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘No, we didn’t.’
    ‘And where’s Pip?’
    Jude looked around helplessly. He hadn’t seen Pip for days; he had convinced himself that he was out rescuing Surpluses, developing a plan, doing something important. But if any of those things were true, he would have been in touch. Jude had heard nothing. No one had.
    ‘What was that noise?’
    The door guard, a man called Sam, appeared. ‘The noise?’ he asked again.
    ‘A brick,’ Jude said grimly, holding it up.
    ‘A brick? Through a window?’ Sam’s face changed suddenly. ‘We have to move. People know where we are. We can’t hang around here.’
    ‘I know,’ Jude said. ‘But Pip’s not here.’
    ‘Pip’ll find us. Regulations are, any form of attack and we move immediately. We need to be out of here within the hour.’
    ‘But where would we even go?’ Sheila demanded. ‘Where would we move to ?’
    ‘There are places,’ Sam said.
    Jude nodded. ‘They’re in here,’ he said seriously, walking into Pip’s office and pulling open a drawer. ‘Here. Locations,’ he said, showing Sheila. ‘These are all possible alternative headquarters. Pip showed me two weeks ago. We pick two, tell everyone we’re going to one and then change it on the day, just in case anyone . . . Well, you know, just in case.’
    He looked back at the smashed window and shivered at the cold wind whistling through it.
    ‘Let’s get packing then,’ Sam said matter-of-factly. ‘Can’t wait here, not if people on the Outside know where we are. Turn off the computers and shut everything down.’
    ‘I’ll shut them down,’ Sheila said quickly.
    Jude nodded, but he wasn’t really listening. He was looking at something on the newsfeed. A rolling headline. ‘Head of the Underground hands himself in for terrorist atrocity.’
    ‘Turn that up,’ he ordered Sheila, who was about to turn it off. ‘Now.’
    Silently Sheila turned the volume control. And then she gasped.
    ‘Yes, Sandra, that’s right,’ a woman was saying into the camera. And next to her was a man – a man with long grey hair and a long grey beard.
    ‘No!’ Jude shouted to no one in particular, but it was no use. It was Pip, right there on the screen. In handcuffs.
    ‘I can confirm that the man who calls himself Pip, the elusive leader of the Underground movement, is here with me now,’ the woman continued. ‘He approached the Newsfeed Service to announce that he is handing himself in, that he takes full responsibility for the sabotage to Longevity drugs. He told me earlier that he broke into Pincent Pharma on his own initiative, and that the Underground has ostracised him for the deed.’
    ‘Tell me, Vanessa, does that mean that Pip is no longer the leader of the Underground?’
    ‘It certainly does, Sandra. Now, the Authorities have requested that Pip is not allowed to answer questions directly, but earlier he told me that he is no longer part of the organisation, that many within the organisation were unhappy with what he was doing. Shall we run the clip?’
    The image faded away and was replaced by one of Pip staring into the camera. Jude’s mouth fell open and his skin felt prickly all of a sudden.
    ‘And why have you decided to hand yourself in?’
    ‘I’m tired of running, tired of fighting,’ Pip said gently. ‘I realised that I’d taken a wrong path and caused a great deal of suffering and that I’m ready to take responsibility for my actions and make amends. I acted alone in