The Resistance

didn’t look much like someone who could break out of a Surplus Hall and evade capture by the Catchers. Didn’t look like someone who had supposedly been working for the Underground since he was a baby. But these were the stories that circulated. Peter Pincent. The name had haunted Jude ever since he’d discovered who he was; his very presence made Jude’s life both precious and guilt-ridden. Jude had been the lucky one, he knew that, had been told enough times; he was the one who was Legal. But now Peter was too. Now they were almost on a level pegging.
    Jude clicked on the camera facing Pincent Pharma’s main entrance, enhanced the zoom slightly, and followed Peter all the way to the perimeter gates. He slumped back in his chair and watched as Peter approached the security guard; a few minutes later, the two of them walked up towards the gates which opened, then closed behind them like a whale swallowing fish. Feeling his curiosity grow, Jude pulled the coat that doubled as a dressing gown tighter against the cold – all his energy coupons went towards his computer, not central heating or clothes.
    Picking up, and then rejecting, his coffee cup, he found his eyes drawn back to the Pincent Pharma camera system. It was a sophisticated set-up, with almost impenetrable codes protecting it. But ‘almost’ hadn’t protected it from Jude.
    Idly, he pressed the tab key on his keyboard. Immediately, he found himself looking at the back of Pincent Pharma, where a deserted path meandered down towards the river. He tabbed again – now he was looking at another path, surrounded by woodland, leading down to Battersea. Again, there was nothing to see. Except for the odd protest, which was always dissolved swiftly, the area surrounding Pincent Pharma tended to be fairly desolate. The nearest high street was a mile away; all habitable dwellings nearby had been demolished when Pincent Pharma had moved in – now all that was left was a kind of wasteland to the back and a patch of trees to the front. There was just one private road leading through the gates, connecting it to a perimeter road. At the back of the building, this perimeter road met a path down to the river; at the front, a slip road joined with the main road, along which armoured trucks could regularly be seen transporting Longevity drugs.
    Jude tabbed through the cameras once more, just to see if there was anything worth looking at. He frowned. Something was different at the front. Something was wrong. Jude was very proud of his instinct for such things – he had spent years learning about economic theory and moral relativism from a series of expensive private tutors secured by his father, but Jude trusted his instinct over learning every time.
    Staring at the screen in front of him, he could see clearly the outline of several men emerging from behind the trees. They were dressed in khaki – some kind of paramilitary uniform – and in their hands they clutched weapons of death: guns, rifles. Jude felt his heart quicken with excitement, though outwardly he remained still. Even to himself he liked to feign boredom and disinterest.
    Silently, he watched as four armoured trucks swung into view, turning right into the slip road from the Pincent Pharma private road, the grey smoke from their engines disappearing into the cloudy sky. Jude flicked from camera to camera, watching as the trucks trundled further away from Pincent Pharma, picking up speed until they were turning out on to the main road, and then, suddenly, the truck at the front of the convoy swerved off to the right. A few seconds later it was followed by the second and third trucks; the fourth managed to brake before skidding to a halt across two lanes and crashing into the third.
    Immediately, the khaki-dressed men emerged from the pathway and Jude realised that he had underestimated their numbers; it was a small army that swooped on the trucks, shooting their guns at the doors, pulling out the contents, pouring something on top of them before setting them alight. The drivers of the trucks didn’t attempt to get out; instead, Jude could see them frantically speaking into their phones. Minutes later, more vehicles could be seen pulling out of Pincent Pharma’s gates and speeding towards the trucks and the small, pungent fires on the road, but already, the men were disappearing – back up the pathway, along the road, behind walls. Jude watched, wide-eyed, his heart beating loudly in his chest. It