Them or Us

and tells me to sit down and wait. I don’t have to wait long to find out why.
    In a week that has been crammed with bizarre events, this takes the cake. The events of the last few days in particular have been unbelievably surreal, like a crazy, barely controlled chain reaction, and it feels like the more I try to shut myself off and pull away from the madness, the worse it gets. Being forced to contribute to Hinchcliffe’s fucked-up breeding program was bad enough, but even that paled into insignificance alongside the unspeakable things that Peter Sutton showed me underground. In the space of a couple of days I’ve been told I’m dying; I’ve watched Rufus, the closest thing I had to a friend, be killed in front of me for no reason other than Hinchcliffe’s spite and frustration; I’ve convinced myself I was going to be executed … and now this? Here I am, in a dust-covered museum café, sitting across a table from Chris Ankin. The Chris Ankin. The ex–government official who broadcast that message I heard so long ago: the call to arms for all us fighters who, until he dared to speak out, had felt persecuted and alone. The man whose face I saw on a computer screen in the back of a van when my life changed direction again. The man who, by word of mouth alone it seemed, managed to coordinate an invisible army that marched into Unchanged settlements and stirred them up so much that they imploded and tore themselves apart. The Chris Ankin. The closest thing to a true leader we’ve had. Until now I’d never actually stopped to think about how much I owe this man. Without his words I’d have remained alone and unprepared for the onset of war. Without his planning and foresight I’d never have made it back into the city, I’d probably never have learned to hold the Hate, and, most importantly, I would never have shared those last few precious minutes with Lizzie and Ellis. It seems that whenever I cross paths with Ankin, everything changes. Today that makes me feel nervous. Why is he here, and why does he suddenly want to talk to me?
    As usual I’m like a fifth wheel and the longer I have to wait, the worse I feel. Right now Ankin is busy talking to someone. The guy crouching down next to him is clean-shaven and relatively smartly dressed. It’s strange; I look around at the people who arrived here with Ankin and in some ways it’s almost as if I’m looking at another race, another species even. Without realizing I’m doing it I make a pathetic attempt to straighten my long, straggly hair with the tips of my fingers, as if it’s going to make a difference. These people are far better organized than anyone else I’ve seen since the war ended, better fed and fitter, too. Most of them wear something resembling a uniform, they have a clear command structure that appears to work, they are regimented and controlled, and they each have clearly defined jobs to do. In comparison to the military forces I remember from before the war, even the Unchanged, they’re still amateurish and ill disciplined, but they appear so much more capable than anyone else I’ve come across since the bombs were dropped. I thought that what I’d seen in Lowestoft was as close to civilization as we were ever going to get, but these people are on another level altogether. They remind me of the ragtag, cobbled-together armies I used to see in TV footage from war-torn African and Middle Eastern conflicts a long time ago: the warlord ruled militias that used to butcher, rape, and pillage their way through starving, nomadic populations, diverting aid cash and using drug money to keep themselves stocked up with weapons. Except, incredibly, these people seem less aggressive. They’re armed to the teeth, and each person here (me included) has probably carried out more killings and been involved in more atrocities than any of those so-called freedom fighters I remember, but now they seem calm, assured, and in complete control.
    The man talking to Ankin stands up and disappears, and Ankin finally turns his attention to me. I feel my pulse quicken.
    “Danny McCoyne,” he says. “Llewellyn’s told me a lot about you.”
    “Has he?” I reply quickly, silently hoping that the bit he hasn’t heard about me includes the time I spent underground with more than thirty Unchanged recently without killing them.
    “He says you’re a useful man to have around.”
    “He’s got a strange way of showing it. I thought he was going to kill me