The Resistance

escape. Once a Surplus, always a Surplus. But don’t worry. You’re not going to prison. You’re going somewhere much worse.’
    ‘No. Please,’ Anna begged, but her words were ignored, and all she could hear as she stumbled down the stairs was the sound of Ben’s cries.

Chapter Nineteen
    Pincent Pharma seemed bigger on the inside than it did on the outside. It was whiter, brighter, lighter than anywhere Jude had been in his life. Too light, Jude decided, squinting as he followed Derek Samuels past the escalator. He didn’t like the place; preferred the darkness of his bedroom.
    Derek Samuels was a thin-faced, wiry man with narrow shoulders and high eyebrows that turned everything he said into a question. He led Jude down a long white corridor, through some double doors and into another, narrower corridor. Eventually, he was shown into a small room with a table in it.
    ‘Now,’ Derek Samuels said, smiling thinly, ‘would you like to tell me who you are and what you’re doing here?’
    Jude looked at him, an expression of boredom on his face. ‘Like I said in my message, I’m offering to fix your security. I thought that’s why you replied.’
    Mr Samuels said nothing; he stood up.
    ‘To fix our security,’ he repeated, icily, then folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. ‘As it happens, I have checked your references,’ he said levelly. ‘I know who you are, know who your father was, know what you’ve been doing for a living. What I want to know, though, is why you are here. And how you managed to hack into our systems. Who put you up to it? And what did they ask you to do?’
    His voice was silky, but Jude could hear the threat behind it.
    ‘No one put me up to it,’ he said with a bored sigh. ‘Hacking into systems is what I do. I managed to hack in because your systems need updating. Because they’re old. Probably the people who developed them are old too. Where’s Mr Pincent, anyway?’
    ‘Old.’ Mr Samuels moved closer. ‘That’s interesting.’ He moved closer still, so that his face was only inches from Jude’s. ‘You know,’ he said, his voice almost a whisper, ‘what the best thing about Longevity is?’
    Jude shook his head, felt his hands going clammy, tried to look anywhere but into Mr Samuels’ eyes.
    ‘It’s that there aren’t any young people cluttering up the world,’ Mr Samuels continued. ‘Thinking they know it all.’ His face was expressionless, but Jude could hear the anger simmering in his voice, and suddenly found himself suppressing a little smile. Underneath that hard-man exterior, Mr Samuels was unsettled, he realised. Threatened by youth.
    ‘Thinking?’ Jude said levelly, his confidence returning. ‘Well, in this case, I do know it all. All there is to know about security systems, anyway. Which you know, because otherwise you wouldn’t have invited me in. So do you want me to get to work, or shall I go?’
    Mr Samuels’ eyes narrowed. ‘How’s your mother?’ he asked, his eyes glinting slightly.
    Jude stared back at him silently.
    ‘Oh, that’s right,’ Mr Samuels continued. ‘She left, didn’t she? Went to . . . South America, was it? With her new husband? She left you all alone, didn’t she? Probably couldn’t wait to get away from you.’
    Jude felt his heart quicken in surprise and anger; it took him a second to regain his composure. ‘Leave my mother out of this.’
    ‘And what about that Surplus brother of yours?’ Mr Samuels smiled icily. ‘Where does that leave you?’
    Jude stared at him stonily. ‘It doesn’t leave me anywhere. It’s no big deal.’
    ‘No big deal?’ Mr Samuels laughed, then his face contorted into a sneer. ‘A few weeks, and you could have been the Surplus.’
    Jude’s face was angry, hot, red and it was all he could do to look straight ahead, to pretend that the very same thought hadn’t dogged him for months. Ever since Peter’s existence became national news. Ever since he escaped; ever since Jude’s father was murdered by his former wife, Mrs Pincent, Peter’s mother.
    ‘Look, what’s this about?’ Jude said evenly, forcing himself to keep control. ‘If you don’t want me to look at your system, I think I’ll be going now.’
    ‘Oh, you’re not going,’ Derek Samuels said, blocking his path. ‘You’re not going anywhere. The reason I got you in here today is that we’re holding a rather important press conference. We’ve got a visit from the Authorities. And it is my job to