The Resistance

meet those, haven’t you?’
    As he spoke, the door opened and two guards appeared.
    ‘What took you so long?’ Richard asked angrily, motioning for them to grab Peter; they ran towards him and handcuffed his hands behind his back.
    One of the guards looked up. ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It’s the power cut. Looks like it was sabotage, not a system failure. We’re heightening security.’
    ‘Sabotage? You mean the Underground?’ Hillary asked fretfully.
    Richard turned to Peter. ‘Have you got anything to do with this?’ he asked icily.
    Peter shook his head. ‘I wish I did,’ he muttered.
    ‘Take him,’ Richard said to the guards. ‘Lock him up downstairs in one of the storerooms behind reception.’
    They pulled Peter towards the door; as he tried to break free, one of them hit him around the head.
    ‘Wait!’ Hillary called out, halting the guards in their tracks. ‘The press conference. We need him to appear at the press conference.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Richard said tightly. ‘He’ll sign as arranged.’
    Peter shot him a look of disgust. ‘You think I’m going to sign the Declaration now? Not in a million years. I’m glad the Underground sabotaged your energy supply. I hope they blow this place up.’
    ‘Of course you’ll sign,’ Richard said. ‘And you’ll smile for the journalists, too. After all, if you don’t, your little friend Anna will pay the consequences.’
    ‘Anna?’ Peter glared at him. ‘You leave Anna out of this.’
    ‘I wish I could,’ his grandfather said, his expression suggesting the opposite. ‘But it appears Anna has been a foolish girl. She’s been getting involved in seditious activity behind your back.’
    ‘What?’ Peter said uncertainly. ‘You’re lying.’
    ‘Lying? I wouldn’t dream of it. We’ve got the evidence on tape – the girl provided plans of Grange Hall for some sort of break-in. What was she thinking?’ His grandfather shook his head and Peter felt himself go white.
    ‘She was planning to break into a Surplus Hall? With whom? Richard, this is a serious business,’ Hillary interjected.
    ‘With no one,’ he reassured her. ‘It was a set-up. Her contact was a Catcher.’
    ‘A Catcher?’ Peter stared at his grandfather in disbelief. ‘You set her up? You bastard. You . . .’
    ‘Insurance, Peter. Insurance,’ Richard smiled. ‘You don’t think I would rely on you to do the right thing, do you?’
    ‘Where is she?’ Peter demanded. ‘What have you done with her?’
    ‘She’s perfectly safe, Peter,’ his grandfather replied icily. ‘But unless you sign the Declaration at 6 p.m. this evening, smiling for the journalists’ photographs, I can’t guarantee that she’ll remain so for much longer.’
    Constrained by the guards, Peter twisted to look back at the girls, back at Sheila.
    ‘The Surplus Sterilisation Programme,’ Peter said, suddenly, his voice tight. ‘Sheila’s name was on the list. How can she be pregnant if she was sterilised?’
    ‘Surplus Sterilisation Programme? But it never got ratified,’ Hillary said, surprised. ‘It was only ever a discussion paper . . .’ Her voice trailed off as she saw the look on Peter’s face.
    ‘You . . .’ His face contorted with confusion then anger as the truth dawned on him. He turned on his grandfather. ‘You planted it for me to find . . . You sent me the note. It wasn’t the Underground,’ he said, his voice almost a whisper.
    ‘I helped you make your mind up, that’s all,’ his grandfather said, a malevolent smile creeping across his face. ‘You wanted to sign the Declaration and I took away the barriers, that’s all. I was helping you.’
    ‘Helping me?’ Peter looked around the room wildly, adrenaline streaming through his veins so that he didn’t know what to do with himself. ‘You think that making me think I was infertile, having to tell Anna that she . . . that she . . .’ He broke off, unable to finish the sentence, bending over involuntarily and crying out from the pain as the guards pulled his arms backwards.
    ‘Take him away now,’ Richard said, dismissing the guards with a wave. ‘And Peter?’ He looked at his grandson, his eyes narrowing. ‘Make no mistake, if you do not follow my precise orders at the press conference, if you are not utterly convincing, Anna will be imprisoned for the rest of her life. You will never see her or her brother Ben again. And you yourself will be imprisoned for suspected aiding and abetting.