The Legacy

was barely audible. ‘What shall I do, Derek?’
    Derek looked up and frowned. Then he turned back to the blood on the floor and continued to clean it. ‘Have you still got any of the original formula left?’ he asked matter-of-factly.
    ‘The original formula?’ Richard’s brow furrowed. ‘No. Well, a drop, perhaps. But we copied it exactly. You don’t think . . .’
    ‘I don’t think anything,’ Derek said. ‘It was just a question.’
    ‘Yes,’ Richard said, his mind racing. ‘But a good question. An important question. You think that it’s the copying that’s the problem? You think that the copies of copies are no longer as powerful as the original?’
    Derek shrugged lightly. ‘I wouldn’t know about science, sir – that’s your domain. But photocopies – they’re not originals, are they?’
    ‘No, no they’re not,’ Richard said, beginning to pace. ‘But we don’t have the formula. We never found it. All we have is copies. It’s all we’ve ever had.’
    ‘We never found it back then, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t out there somewhere,’ Derek said as he attended to the body, wrapping it up as though it were simply an animal carcass going to market. ‘He’ll have written it down somewhere. Must have done.’
    ‘We’ve searched,’ Richard said uncertainly. ‘We’ve searched everywhere.’
    ‘We searched a bit,’ Derek conceded, ‘but you had the stuff itself. Your scientists copied it OK, didn’t they? We didn’t think we needed the formula. We stopped looking.’
    ‘We stopped looking.’ Richard nodded, his eyes lighting up.
    ‘So now we start again,’ Derek said, standing up and inspecting the floor, which was now spotless.
    Richard breathed out, his shoulders relaxing slightly. They would find the formula. The formula would solve everything. No mutated virus. No pandemic. No end to everything he had spent his life building up. Everything would be back to normal. Everything would be restored.
    ‘Thank you, Derek. I knew I could depend on you.’ Richard allowed himself to exhale, then he looked at Derek meaningfully and left the room, making his way briskly back to his office, away from the bowels of Pincent Pharma to the light, airy spaces above.

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    Chapter Two
     
    Anna sat bolt upright, her heart thudding in her chest, sweat pouring from her forehead. It was pitch black, but without hesitation she jumped out of bed and ran towards Molly’s room. Quietly she inched open the door, then dropped to her knees at the foot of her daughter’s makeshift cot. Allowing her breathing to return to normal, Anna watched her beautiful baby sleep. Just four months old, her little hands were curled into fists, her chest gently rising and falling with each breath, her lips pursed, her eyebrows furrowed as though concentrating as hard as she possibly could on sleeping. Molly was fine. Of course she was fine. It was just a dream, a nightmare. Just like all the others.
    Every so often Molly would sigh and reach for some non-existent object. Her thumb would find her mouth, she would roll over and then, as sleep embraced her once more, the thumb would drop out again. Anna knew this little routine better than anything else in the world. Every night for weeks she had watched it, reassured that her worst fears were only that and no one was stealing her baby, not in the real world.
    From the day she was born, Molly had represented so much to Anna. It was as though her own happiness and peace of mind were to be found within that tiny body. Molly was more precious to her than she’d been prepared for – she would have slept on the floor by the cot every night if Peter had let her. He’d told her she had to move on, told her that she was safe now, that Molly was safe, that she didn’t need to fear any more, that she should sleep contentedly.
    But it was sleep itself that awoke all Anna’s fears. The dreams that filled her mind as soon as she drifted into semi-consciousness were filled with Catchers trying to snatch Molly and Ben, Anna’s three-year-old brother, away from her. Their innocence of the world they had been born into, their lack of awareness of just how precious their lives were, made Anna as protective as a lioness. Like her own mother, she would die for them – she understood why now.
    Anna hadn’t known much innocence in her life. Taken by the Catchers to Grange Hall when she was very little, she’d grown up under the wrath of Mrs Pincent. Only when Peter had