 
Forgotness  
Book 1: 200m

By Tom Fraser

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2017 Tom Fraser  
v0.1 2016  
v0.4 2017  
v1.0 2018

original maps came from floodmap.net

Smashwords Edition, License Notes  
Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends.This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to your favourite ebook retailer to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

Book 1: 200m

**Chapters:**  
1. Hulland  
2. Lambourn Downs  
3. Dog Lane  
4. Wayland's Smithy  
5. Fenny Bentley  
6. Paramotor Club  
7. Diggle, Dobcross, Delph and Denshaw  
8. Cat and Fiddle  
9. Blowingstone  
10. Clogger Lane  
11. It's Tissington again  
12. Wham to Feizor  
13. The Naglfari and the Archieflower  
14. More Hellifield than Otterburn

Chapter 1  
Hulland

We reached Threewall in the early morning. There hadn't been anywhere for us to sleep that night so we had kept wading and walking and now we were all very tired and grumpy. On top of that, despite the many times we had washed ourself in the last twenty fours hours, we kept getting that hint of other people's... shit. Not pleasant.

We gave our hammock roll, that was tied round our shoulders, a tug to try to stop it rubbing so badly. At least the water levels were getting lower.

At last, out of the rain and mist and dark, we came to dry land and climbed out of the water and up onto the rocks at the foot of a high wall.

"Left or right?" Stamford asked. We shrugged. Who knew? We were badly off course, lost in fact. None of us had been here before. "Left then? We saw lights that way a couple of hours ago."

"Mugs?" asked Brentford.

"Oh hope so," we muttered with a mix of sarcasm and vengeful anger. The others laughed but still looked nervous; we were close to the wall where it felt safer to say such things, but only a little bit.

In the Wetlands you did not last long on your own. Among the Wetlanders we had our families and our clans. For those outside of the clans, well, they were either in the gangs of raiding Mugs or had joined one of the cults, but no one survived alone.

We scrambled over wet rock until we noticed that there was often a thin strip of flat ground running along the very foot of the wall. We moved onto this narrow path and our speed picked up after that.

It helped that after hours of wading through water our legs now felt like they were light as a feather and that we could walk forever.

We walked through the morning. The rain stopped sometimes, leaving a light mist floating around us. It was warm, as ever. To the south-east we could see the glow of the sun through the clouds.

The walls themselves were made of concrete, very rough to the hand. Every few steps there would be a thin join running vertically up where the sections were fitted together. It was amazing to think that Toplanders could do this while we lived in treehouses, shacks and tents, but then none of us knew much about Toplanders. It was not like they came travelling south to see us and if any Wetters got in to Topland we never heard from them again: they never came back out.

In the early afternoon we started to hear noises in the distance: the shouts of sailors and fishing folk, the calls of duck and geese and swan and finally, as the gate came into sight, the arguing and shouting of the traders.

Cam stopped.

"Are we really going to try this? To try and break in?"

"That's the plan." We replied. But we were just as nervous. In a couple of hours we would probably be dead. We all would be. But on the other hand, we had been a couple of hours from death our entire life. That was why we were trying to get into Topland in the first place: for a better, safer, life.

We had been given an idea of what to expect but the gate was much worse than we had been told. For a start it was not at ground level, it was a good four or five metres up the wall, a long low slit about a metre high and twenty metres across in four sections. The Wetters had built a ramshackle ramp of stone and rotten wood up the wall so they could deal with the traders inside. Goods were being passed in and out of the gate with a great deal of shouting and pulling. One Wetlander even fell off the ramp when a trader had let go of whatever they had been passing through the wall. And for every Wetter at the gate at the top of the ramp there were double that queuing up behind and many more on the rocks below, in boats or walking to and from the gate through the shallow water.

We could not actually see a Toplander through all the Wetters, maybe a brief hand or an arm, but no faces. We wondered if they looked different.

There were a lot of Wetters around us now as we moved through the crowds, they were resting on rocks and in boats preparing to set off back to wherever, or maybe planning on staying the night, preferring to stay close to the relative safety of the Gate compared with the risk of travelling south with valuables that could tempt the Mugs.

We cleared a space close to the Gate and sat down.

"Well?" whispered Brentford. "What now?"

"We're not sure this is even the right Gate," said Cam looking round. "It sounded bigger than this, the way Alne described it anyway."

Alne was our clan leader and had sent us on this mission north. We had always had suspicions about the 'mission' and it had gone spectacularly badly so far. Eight of us had set out nearly a week before, sailing north, trying to avoid the normal routes and yet only us four had made it.

But, we were here now.

We sat waiting for the right moment: just before the sun set, before the Toplanders locked down the Gate for the night.

We nibbled nervously on the last of our food then, as the sun went down a bell started ringing: it was the ten minute warning, time for the last trades. There was a rush for the gate.

We got up and began pushing through the crowd, holding our sacks in front of us, their heavy liquid weight helping us force the crowds out the way. Finally we got to just behind some Wetters actually talking to a Trader. They were shouting to each other, arguing over the price of oysters. It was strange hearing the selfish 'I' and, by the sound of it, said by a Wetlander. We glanced over at Brentford who was already preparing the fuse. We knelt down and did the same.

The Wetter in front stopped talking and then shouted agreement and the trade went ahead. A sack went in, a small wooden box was passed out. The Wetter checked the contents of the box and started to turn, as did the Trader inside. We stood up, pushed forward and heaved the two bombs onto the lip of the gate and with the rope tied round our wrists pushed the bombs as far as we could into the gate.

Alne had made us promise that we would shout a warning first.

"Bomb!" we shouted. The Traders heard and started to run, we were already ducking down under the lip of the gate and pulling back hard on the trigger ropes.

Stamford, who had been behind Brentford was still standing, trying to see what was going on, not realising we had already launched the bombs. Other Wetters, more used to the constant attempts on the gates were diving out the way.

We leapt over Brentford and managed to pull Stamford down just before we heard the roar of the twin bombs going off.

Even as the flames still curled round the lips of the Gate we were up and rolling through the hole. Brentford rolled through beside us. We could see dozens more scrambling though the gap.

Then we heard the steel shutters coming down slicing through Wetters still trying to get in. We rolled out the other side and down onto a stone floor where barrels and boxes lay broken and on fire around us.

In the twilight we could see buildings below, real stone buildings and beyond them another much lower wall, over which, in the increasing dark, we could just make out the dry earth of Scotland.

People were running out of the building, guns were being fired, alarms were sounding.

We stood up and ran one way, Brentford and the others ran in the opposite direction.

Chapter 2  
Lambourn Downs

Our boats were gathered round the clan home of Treetops. What had once been a large wood was now a bedraggled group of maybe thirty trees. Some were already dead, the rest were dying, drowning. The older trees survived the longest. In the centre, at the highest point, a small group of trees held the clan treehouse. There had once been a village of treehouses. But this was the last.

"Our home is gone," Alne was saying to the gathered families, "we have little to trade. If we stay here the Mugs will get us or we will become Mugs ourselves. We have few options."

"Topland!" someone shouted, heads nodded in agreement.

"Yes there is Topland. But Topland has never helped us. Never. Since the very first flood when they built their walls they have never offered help and never allowed anyone in for free. They bombed us, remember.

"There's overseas to Fortress Europe." Alne continued.

"We won't make it!"

"Our boats aren't seaworthy"

"And we have nothing to trade for passage."

"Even if we do make it there, how do we get into the Fortress?"

"We'll be sold as slaves if we're lucky."

"We'll be drowned."

"We know," agreed Alne patiently, "we know. The Scandinavians to the East, they'll have us but we have no way of getting there either and nothing to pay for the crossing. And they are still getting new volcanoes every year. It's not easy for them. If we had some tech or..."

Alne stopped.

Technology from the old days could be valuable, if we could find it, but here in the Wetlands most was lost underwater.

"Wales?" someone suggested.

"We don't want to join the Scientologists, life's crap enough as it is without any extra bullshit."

"Scatologists more like."

Alne nodded and smiled as laughter crackled round the room.

"Maybe."

"What about the Priests?" asked a voice from the back of the room.

There was silence. But that was hardly surprising. We had met the Priests often enough to know what the price of joining them was: it was called the Last Supper and no one knew if you would be alive the next morning or not.

There were other clans we could join, maybe. Some lived in the tower tops of the old cities. But towers were risky. There were few warnings of coming earthquakes and sunamis. One day a clan was there, the next, just bodies floating in the water.

Our trees had been good to us, strong in the quakes and bending to the waves, we had our casualties but fewer than most.

But now the trees were dying and we had to move on.

"What do we do?" another asked Alne, who had been our clan elder for as long as we could remember.

"Well," Alne began, "we must get into Topland and either stay there or try to make our way on to Scandinavia."

"But Topland won't let us in!"

"No, they won't," Alne agreed, "so we are going to break in, in groups, over the walls or through the gates"

There was a pause, not for effect, Alne just looked very worried.

"Or, we find a way to force us all in."

There was a cheer.

"All the clans, get all the clans in!"

This was night-time talk. We had all toyed with this idea that somehow all the clans could join together and attack the walls of Topland but it seemed impossible. We had no weapons beyond fishing spears and long knives. There were some guns, Mugs seemed to have a few, but bullets were getting scarce.

While Toplanders had... well, no one was very sure. There was talk of guns, seen at the Gates, cars and even aeroplanes. But no one knew for certain.

"But first we need people to get in and see what the Toplanders think. Maybe they'll help now. Maybe they need help. Maybe they need people. We need to know. So, we are going to send a group north. We are going to get them in."

Some folk were excited, there were cheers. Parents muttered to each other and grandparents looked sad. Alne broke up the meeting and we wandered over to the shoreline and dipped our toe in the water. It was warmer. Summer was coming.

"This is brilliant!" Exclaimed Brentford slapping us on the back. "Topland! We're going to get in, we're all going to get in, it's going to be great. It's nuts! It's brilliant! We've all got to go together."

"We'll go in whatever group we're told." We replied shaking Brentford's hand off our shoulder.

"But we can ask," said Brentford. "We can ask and they'll let us because we work as a team. Leicester, Stamford, Cam, we'll all ask to go together. We work together already."

"No we..." we began, but Brentford interrupted.

"Get a grip, you're such a downer. We will, we'll all go, we'll all get in. We'll eat food." Brentford saw my look. "Food, not fish, food, real food. Cake."

"Whatever. We have to get there first." We replied gloomily, as ever tired of Brentford's endless enthusiasm.

Around us the clan were preparing for the night. Meals were being cooked, children washed, adults talked in groups.

"Let's go out for the night somewhere." It was Newbury, a bit younger than us but always hanging round, wanting to join in.

"There's not enough wind," said Brentford. The clan had four windsurf boards that were highly prized for their speed but mainly used by us as it took a certain skill to ride them. "And anyway we wouldn't be allowed to take them out this late."

"Fine," we agreed, "let's go night fishing."

In the end Newbury wasn't allowed to go but Brentford, Stamford, Leicester, Cam and us climbed into the smallest boat and rowed our way out into deeper water. It was a metal boat so it felt safer but its various holes were patched badly and one of us had to bail constantly. It started raining, as it did most nights, which did not help.

"What's wrong Felixstowe?" Cam sat beside us in the bow as Brentford and Stanford rowed. Leicester let out fishing lines over the stern.

"Can you stop calling use that?" We asked Cam, "please."

"What's wrong with it, it's a nice name. One of the lost cities."

"They can't all be lost cities. How many lost cities were there? It's just ugly. Anyway, you're called Cam not Cambridge."

"That's my mum, got bored with it and anyway, there was another Cambridge."

"Was there?"

"Yes," Stanford called out, turning round and nearly capsizing the boat. "Don't you remember? Years ago. But the family sailed on."

"Really? Don't remember. And anyway," we looked at Cam. "We think it should be something... less."

"Less?" asked Cam, "like Fee?"

"Lix!" shouted Stanford.

"Stowe." Brentford joined in.

"Felix?" offered Cam. "You want to be called Felix?"

We nodded.

"We're going for Freex." Said Stanford.

"Yup, Freex it is." Agreed Brentford laughing.

Cam gave me a hug.

"Freex hey? Felix, Felixth. It'll settle somewhere."

We shrugged the arm away and went back to bailing.

Later Leicester caught some fish. We gutted them and shared a couple between us, eating them raw.

We had sailed these waters often so we knew there were no old trees or tall buildings under us when something large scrapped across the bottom of the boat.

"Oh freak!" said Cam.

"Shh," whispered Stanford, "nobody move."

We didn't. Minutes passed. Water continued to bubble into the boat until we had to start bailing again.

"What do you think that was?" Asked Brentford. "An eel?"

"It sounded bigger than an eel." We replied. "But then they've been getting huge of late. We saw one a few days ago, its head was the size of ..."

We looked around for something to compare.

"Brentford's butt?" suggested Cam.

"That's not possible." Laughed Stanford.

"Let's get back." Brentford muttered sounding hurt, so we turned around and headed home. It was almost midnight.

"We're sleeping in the trees tonight." Whispered Cam.

"Yes, better warn the others as well." Eels had been getting bigger and bigger over the years and definitely braver. There was talk of eels as long as flatboats crawling onto land and snatching children, even of eels tipping boats over, and to make it worse they were really difficult to kill, even the small ones.

We got back to Treetops and warned as many as were still awake about the eel before we both climbed up into the trees and set up our hammocks.

Our hammock could fit two at a pinch, which was cosy in winter but tonight we wanted it to ourselves. We crawled inside and cinched the foot shut. The hammock was rope netting with an oiled canvas tube inside that stayed fairly waterproof (as long as we kept it well greased) and, by using bits of wire inside to keep the roof up, we could make it quite roomy. We lit our lamp and undressed.

"What do you think will happen with Alne's Big Plan?" Whispered Cam in the dark. Cam was a few metres above us.

"Who knows? Perhaps Alne has a better idea than 'head north, get in, come back and tell us what to do'. But we're not so sure."

"Are we even sure they never let people in?" Cam asked. But there were some things that never changed and the stories of Topland and the Gates were one of them: no one got in. No one got out either.

We blew out the candle and went to sleep.

Chapter 3  
Dog Lane

We ran along the rampart, jumped down, ducked behind some crates and hoped no one had seen us. Flames had dripped down from the gate mouth to the ground below setting fire to some wooden containers and a cart.

We heard a gun go off.

Bent low and keeping to the darker shadows we moved through the crates slowly, trying to get as far as possible away from the fire.

Suddenly the whole area was lit up with electric lights. There was a shout by the gate. We peered over the top of a crate and saw the soldiers spreading out to search the area. They were heading towards us.

We had to move but we had run out of things to hide behind.

There was another shout.

"Hey Toppers! Over here!" It was Brentford, the great oaf.

A big light came on and swung over the ground until it found Brentford standing on top of the wall on the west side. The soldiers turned and raised their guns. Brentford jumped into the dark beyond just as they opened fire. We made a run for it.

It took seconds for the soldiers to notice us. A shot was fired, it missed and hit the wall ahead. Then the search light was turned on us. We could see our shadow stretching long across the ground, our head twisted up the wall. Little bites of stone were being flicked up into the air as more bullets hit the ground around our feet. We jumped up, our hands reached the top of the wall and we pulled ourself up. We scrambled over as bullets slammed into the wall around us. We could hear soldiers running forwards. Then we rolled over the wall and dropped into darkness. The ground came up fast. We landed on all fours, rolled and were up and running away from the light.

The firing stopped.

The searchlight drifted across the ground giving us a better idea of what lay ahead as we ran on in the dark. First was a road which we ran across, beyond that a fence that we vaulted, and on into a field of some large-leafed crop.

The light drifted towards us and we dived to the ground and lay still. Our muddy brown garments blended in. Cauliflowers! We grabbed one. The light went over us. We got up and ran and lay down again when it returned. This time though it was behind us.

Then we were running steadily uphill across the field. When we reached the top we paused to catch our breath and look back.

We could see the wall, long and high, disappearing into the darkness on either side of the Gate. We watched a group of soldiers march out of the little fort, line up and then, slowly, they began walking up the hill towards us. Each had a torch that searched the ground around them.

It was time for us to move on.

We started jogging north, avoiding the houses and farms. Soon we had left the line of soldiers far behind. Even the light from their torches had disappeared.

We wondered if Brentford had escaped, and Cam, and Stamford. The soldiers did seem to be looking only in our direction.

After half an hour of running we slowed to a walk. The ground rolled up and down. The fields were enclosed with stone walls or wire fences though sometimes one crop would just finish and a another one begin. It was hard to believe how much food was being grown.

There was a flash and then another far off to our left, west, then came the sound of shots fired, then more flashes and more shots.

We got nervous and checked behind, sure enough there were the torches in the distance, closer. They had not given up looking for us. We started jogging again.

It seemed that they were able to track us. In a few hours it would be sunrise and we would be easy to spot crossing these wide open fields. We needed somewhere to hide.

We jogged on through the night trying to shake our pursuers. But all the doubling back and trying to hide our footprints slowed us down.

Just as we were crossing a road between two low stone walls we heard an engine and sure enough up the hill came twin beams of light. We jumped the wall on the far side of the road and lay still in its shadow.

The engine noise grew louder and louder. It passed our hiding place but stopped ten or so metres further up the hill.

"Everybody out." There were sounds of heavy boots on the road. More soldiers. "I want you lined up along the wall twenty steps apart and keep low, we don't want to be seen by this thing. They move fast and they kill."

"Yes Sir!" Replied the soldiers loudly.

"And remember, our lads are driving it on so don't go shooting one of our lot."

There were a few laughs.

"Right," shouted a much angrier voice, "you heard the Captain, line up sharpish, heads down, eyes open, on the double."

We lay flat and pulled our hood over our head, with only the slightest gap to see out of: eyes and teeth are too easy to spot in the dark.

At first there was a lot of noise as the soldiers took up position.

Then there was silence.

We considered our options. There weren't many. We could stay here and hope no one looked over the wall. We could creep along the wall and hope no one heard us. Or we could head straight out across the field while it was still dark and hope no one saw us.

Suddenly a figure appeared about twenty metres away, leaning over the wall. They shone a small torch up the back of the wall away from where we lay and then played the light down towards us. We barely had time to put our head down and close our eyes. We could almost feel the light pass over as we waited for the shout of alarm. Through our eyelids we could see the light slide back over. Still nothing. Then it was clicked off. We heard more steps walking down the hill towards us, getting closer and closer.

"Anything Sergeant?" Asked the first voice.

"No Sir. Just going to check down at the bottom, Sir."

The soldier walked past us and on down the hill. A minute later we saw the torch again, but it was some distance away and it was never pointed far enough back up the hill to reach our hiding place.

Perhaps our clothing, which was, to be honest, not much more than rags, looked like flattened nettles from a distance.

We decided to stay right where we were, night was already coming to an end and it would be very easy to be seen out in the open. So, as quietly as we could, we burrowed into the wet earth under the wall. We pulled clumps of earth and weeds from under us and lay them on top and gradually disappeared into the ground.

We dozed off and woke to the sound of an engine starting. The noise was incredible, if we let out a gasp no one would have heard it above the roar. A cloud of blue smoke drifted over the wall.

It was light now and looking round we could see for many kilometres over rolling hills with cloudy mist gathering in the lowest areas. We lay on the north side of the wall so it was still in shade, not deep shade but every little bit helped.

We heard voices and could smell warm food that made our stomach grumble alarmingly.

"Any sign?" A distant voice shouted.

"No. Nothing our end. Are you sure it came this way?"

"Not sure," the voice was closer now, "but possible, probable."

There was some noise of a wall being climbed. "No, I can't be certain. We've not seen any tracks for the last mile or so. "

"So eight got in this time I hear?"

"Yes eight, another four were stopped at the gate. Two were shot inside the gatehouse, three have already been caught and I suspect one was killed last night. You hear those shots? So three still on the loose: this one I was tracking up here and two more coming up the valley close to Gorse Lane."

"Any pictures?"

"None yet, but there will be, the gate camera wasn't damaged."

"Any idea where they're headed?"

"Not sure. This one seemed to be heading straight north towards Buxton. But they're taken in by the farmers sometimes. They make for cheap workers."

"Yes, I've heard that. But still. I'll be taking my men back to the Ireton Barracks and I guess you'll be heading back to the Gate?"

"Oh no, I've not finished. I'm sure I'll pick up a scent soon."

"OK, well, good luck and if you need us you know where we are." The engine roared again and with vibrations we could feel through the ground, it drove off. We wondered how many soldiers remained and where they were exactly. In all the time we had lain there we had never dared look over the top of the wall.

There were more sounds: footsteps and talk which we couldn't make out and wafts of cigarette smoke.

The talk continued. We could make out three or four different people now, but the voice in charge talked a lot to no one and yet seemed to get replies.

"Yes, no, no sign, not since last night. Yes we're going to retrace. No, not giving up. Yes heading north. Buxton maybe, upper Macclesfield. Yes. Yes. Yes."

Then the conversation stopped. There was a pause, some steps, and then quiet until:

"Right. We're going back to the A517 where we last saw some tracks. It should be easier in daylight. Johnson you stay here in case we flush one out. And remember, shoot first."

"Yes Ma'am."

There were sounds of soldiers climbing the far wall and walking off over the field. Then silence.

We waited, it could have been an hour hour, more?

We were just about to move when a soldier lent over the wall right above us. With elbows on the stone the soldier gazed out over the countryside smoking a cigarette. Any second now the soldier was going to look down and... the cigarette fell to the ground.

We jumped up in an explosion of mud and weeds.

The soldier staggered off the verge, tripped and fell backwards onto the road and lay motionless.

After a few seconds staring at the unmoving body we turned and ran up the field, staying close to the wall. Then, realising that we would leave less tracks on the tarmac, we jumped over the wall and, still staying low, continued on up the road. Now at least we were blocked from view on either side. We hoped we hadn't killed the soldier.

We ran up the road. When we got to the top of the hill we were able to see a couple of kilometres in every direction. Behind us to the south, but also to the east and west, the hill rolled down into mist, but northwards there was a gap in the fog about a kilometre wide and a road ran through the middle and onto a much larger stretch of land. Beyond that were a line of hills so high they had to be mountains.

We needed to get across the gap and onto the mainland before they realised where we were. How long before they found the soldier's body?

Still keeping low we continued running along the road, now heading downhill. There was smoke rising from some houses and in one field we saw huge black and white cows.

We slowed down to a walk hoping that it might seem less suspicious.

Luckily the mist was starting to close in again and soon it began raining as well so visibility dropped to a few hundred metres.

By mid morning we reached the point where the road crossed over to the mainland. But here the road split in two with one heading east and the other more north west. A signpost stuck out of the ground pointing east to Kirk Ireton and north to Knockerdown. As the soldiers had mentioned Ireton, we thought it safer to take the Knockerdown road.

We were not long on the north road before we heard another vehicle coming. We saw lights in the mist to the east so we lay down in the ditch by the road and waited. A big green lorry with a cab at the front and a canvas roof at the back drove past heading back the way we had come. It carried on up the hill and out of sight.

They would find the soldier's body and come after us. It was time to run.

The road curved round first west and then south, and soon we were splashing in and out of water. This went on for a couple of kilometres before the road disappeared completely. We could feel the tarmac under our feet so we kept going, unsure if this was the right way at all.

We wondered about the wall. Was it somewhere to the south? Was it flooded? Could this be a route in for the Wetland clans?

We waded on. It felt good to feel the sea again, safer. If a lorry appeared now we felt we could swim off into deep water and escape pretty easily.

After another couple of kilometres, after the water had changed levels many times, the road started to climb again. We hoped we had thrown the pursuit off a bit. Though now we had a choice: continue north or turn south to find out about the wall?

We decided to go south so, sticking close to the water's edge, we started walking on round the coast. After ten minutes the coast curved west again but about a kilometre away, straight ahead we could see land, so we took to the water and swam across.

This continued for the rest of the day, walking and swimming between spits of land always heading further south until just before nightfall we saw the wall again in the distance. We could see it rising out of the water onto land and we could see the water breaking over the wall where it was just below the surface. Above the wall and following its line over the water was a single chain moored on each side to great rocks. There we noticed, on my side at least, a small camp of three tents and a smoking fire.

So, even here there was a guard, maybe not difficult to overrun but it would make it harder for the clans to get in unnoticed.

We decided to settle down for the night, in some trees that were close to the water's edge but tucked away in a dip of land. We slung up our hammock as high as possible in the tree and, after a meal of snails and some raw cauliflower, went to sleep.

Chapter 4  
Wayland's Smithy

"Well, we reckon it's an aeroplane," said Leicester, dragging the latest find across the soggy ground.

"How?" asked Shefford, another younger kid who hung around with us but who wasn't really supposed to. "In what possible way does that get you into the sky?"

It was a funny looking machine but in its favour was the fact that it did have an engine, though a very small one. The motor sat on one side of a wire bowl inside of which were three fan blades looking a bit like the propellers of a boat. Not that many boats had propellers nowadays, or at least not ones that turned. But these were bigger blades, flatter too.

"Why do you think it's a flying machine Leicester?" we asked.

"Well," Leicester explained patiently. "It's got a sticker on the side saying Property of Lambourn Paramotor Club and there's a picture of someone sitting with this on their back and it looks like they're flying through the air."

We all crowded round to have a look. Leicester rubbed the mud away so we could get a better look at the label. The figure was sitting with this engine on their back and with a very round head, probably some sort of helmet. Their arms were stuck out sideways at a funny angle.

"We think it blows away dangerous levels of fart." Joked Shefford.

"Now that would be useful on our parent's boat." Stanford said peering over our shoulders. "But there are no wings are there? Maybe you lie on your back with this under you and kind of float up."

No one was convinced by that either. But this was an engine that could be of some value.

"Are you going to take it up to the White Horse?" Stamford asked Leicester.

The White Horse was a village a few miles west of us. Some folks called it a castle. The village was in a giant ring of earth above a huge white horse carved into the chalk. As the waters had risen more and more people had moved there so now the village ran along the entire length of the ridge to Wayland's Smithy. The Smithy, with its stone walls and roof, was one of the few solid houses we had ever seen above water. For as long as we could remember the Smithy was a pub and if ever there were any celebrations (which were surprisingly often), they were held there.

The White Horse was home to many hundreds of Wetlanders, probably even thousands now, and food was a very real problem for everyone living along the Downs. But despite all that, or maybe because of it, there was trade to be had: trade for food and trade for old machines and artefacts pulled out of the sunken valleys around us.

"We'll come with you." We said, before Leicester had even agreed but we knew what was going to happen; there wasn't much else to be done with it.

"Right well, suppose so." Leicester looked at the paramotor. "Sort of hoped... well, you know."

We patted Leicester on the back. Yes, we knew. But hopes were not very useful around here.

"Hang on" interrupted Stamford. "What about Alne and the big plan? Aren't we supposed to be hearing more about that today?"

"Sure," we said, "but all they're going to say is: head north and save us somehow. Youi go along and find out who we're going with and we'll try to bring back something decent to eat."

"Chicken, get a chicken," said Shefford eagerly, "we haven't had chicken in weeks."

Which was probably true. We'd had a lot of seagull and duck, and a couple of times a year even a goose if we got lucky but chicken was a rare treat. On the Ridgeway the eggs certainly came before the chickens.

"Where's the Purple Leak then, may as well get going now." said Leicester. The Purple Leak was the worst boat at Treetops and, therefore, the one least likely to be noticed if we borrowed it. It was also purple.

"Sure," we said and together we carried the paramotor over to the boat and lowered it in carefully.

"You just pulled it up?" We asked Leicester as we set off, each taking an oar after Stamford had pushed us off.

"No, we were swimming down there by the old farm." Leicester meant the buildings half a mile south of us and about thirty metres underwater. It was a big house surrounded by a lot of farm buildings. It had been picked dry by folk, maybe our grandparents, long ago when the waters were still rising but we still liked to swim down and take a look.

The oldies couldn't believe that we could see much underwater and they loved to bang on about our 'big eyes': Ooh haven't you got big eyes, such wonderful big eyes, who needs carrots when you've got eyes like that?

It's not like all of us had eyes that worked better than theirs, but... things change, maybe we were different from them, but wasn't it better to be able to see in the dark?

"The old farm, yeah."

"Well, we noticed a sort of shed by the smaller house to the side, a few days ago." We nodded, we knew it. "So we put a hook on the roof and pulled it off."

"Who?" we asked, surprised that we hadn't been involved.

"Oh, Amesbury, Neston and that other kid," Leicester saw our look. "We looked for you but you weren't around."

Oh, yeah, we remembered now. We may even have heard them calling but we were up in our hammock having a bit of a moment to ourselves.

"It was a laugh actually when we pulled the roof off we tipped the boat over, nearly lost it. Anyway, we swam down and took a poke around. It hadn't been cleared, it was all really well locked up. That's where we found this motor. Looked like there's some good sheeting too and ropes. We were going to take another look tomorrow? You should come down."

"Yeah, sounds good. Could do with some more chicken." Though we doubted we would get a chicken or even an egg for this old motor. Nice thought though.

We rowed on in silence for a bit, getting into the swing of the oars. The mist and rain broke around us but it wasn't bad weather, the water was calm and we could see that the sun was up there, somewhere.

We were coming to White Horse hill from the east but if we had been rowing in from the west we would have seen the huge horse carved into the hillside, half above water, half below, an incredible thing. It was hard to imagine a horse. The largest animal we had ever seen, other than eels of course, were pigs, but they didn't gallop the way these horses seemed to.

Eventually the clatter and chatter of the township around Uffington reached us over the water. We passed other traders in their boats and children splashing in the water and, finally, we ran the Purple Leak up onto the grass. Leicester hammered the anchor spike deep into the thin chalky soil and we lifted the paramotor out of the boat.

We were going to go to the Pot Men at Wayland's Smithy. Bill and Ben pretty well single-handedly (or should that be double-handed?) ran anything that was remotely fun or interesting on the ridge. The pub obviously, with their various beer brews of which nettle beer was the most popular (it was also the flavour of the soup they served), a potato peel spirit (Tattygin or Tattynger depending on whether you understood Bill and Ben's jokes, which, in this case, we didn't, however often they explained it to us.) They also had the biggest garden on the ridge and grew the best everything, but especially the best grass. They even had a greenhouse.

We loved coming to see them for all these reasons, but also they were fun and kind and interesting, and they did the best trades.

We set off with the engine swung between us, our hammock taking the weight. We walked through the tents, caravans, shacks and allotments, heading up hill to the tall trees that still stood in a circle around the Smithy.

A few folk called out to us, asked after the clan at Treetops and we swapped news, what little there was, and showed off Leicester's find, though we were careful not to mention where it was found. It all took quite a long time.

Eventually we reached the stone steps that went down into the Smithy. We dropped the paramotor on the ground, glad to rest our shoulders from the cutting weight of the ropes.

"We'll wait here and watch this," said Leicester. "See if you can get us a pint."

We smiled and nodded and, ducking down, went in.

Wayland's Smithy was old, like the White Horse. Bill and Ben said thousands of years old, but who knew? But it wasn't like Park Farm where Leicester found the paramotor. There, everything was bricks and slate and corrugated iron roofs. Wayland's Smithy was big lumps of stone lying on top of each other with earth piled round.

We walked down the steps into the dark. It was not totally dark because Bill and Ben had put holes in the ceiling into which they had stuck big plastic bottles with water inside that shone like bulbs during the day. They did sod all at night, but still.

"Bill! Ben!" We called out. Someone walked out of one of the side rooms, swaying a bit.

"They're down there." They pointed and, with a triumphant burp, headed out.

"Thanks," we said, wincing at the smell, "thanks for that."

"Bill!" we shouted again, "We've got something for you."

Further in, the space got bigger. Bill and Ben had said that they had dug it out a few years ago, before the ridge got popular. They had put in steel beams and a cement floor. It was a big room, probably the biggest, most modern room we had ever been in. And there was music because they had electricity from the many little wind turbines they had built from old car dynamos. They also had a couple of bicycles that could be peddled for payment in beer or whatever. These were always popular. They had tables and chairs and a pool table! At the end of the room was the bar and sure enough there were the Pot Men.

"Felixstowe!" shouted Bill. Ben looked up.

"Hi Felixstowe," said Ben as I reached the bar. "We hear you're going to take the North for us."

"What!" It was always incredible how they got to know everything. "How the freak do you...?"

But there was no point going on. Of course they knew. They supplied happiness in its many forms in a pretty awful world. Bill and Ben were the first contact for everything, especially news.

"So it seems," we confirmed, "Alne has spoken, so we're going."

"How soon?" Asked Bill.

"Is this farewell?" Asked Ben.

"No," we said, "well, we don't know, maybe, hopefully not for a week or so. They've stuff to prepare supposedly."

"Ah, the bombs," said Bill.

"Yes the pesky bombs," agreed Ben, "that's been fun."

"Aye, not had that much fun since we found Hymenogastraceae by the Horse's arse."

Ben nodded. We were lost, which was fairly normal when talking with Bill and Ben.

"Look, Leicester's found a motor. A paramotor? We've got it outside. Thought you might..."

"We'll be right out." Said Bill. "Ben, the honours?"

Ben looked around and saw someone peddling one of the bicycles.

"Frankly!" Frankly looked up. "Come and barkeep will you? Just got to nip out and see a man about a dog."

Frankly looked a bit puzzled but nodded and went behind the bar.

"Right, paramotors. Lead the way." Bill waved an arm and we went outside.

"Leicester, my poppit." Bill shook Leicester's arm enthusiastically while Ben knelt down to get a closer look at the engine.

"Lambourn Paramotor Club," read Ben, "but..."

He turned the motor over.

"It's not petrol."

"It certainly isn't is it?" Said Bill. "That would seem curious."

"To say the least," said Ben, "and no obvious battery either."

"No, no obvious battery," continued Bill, "so either the pilot carried it."

"Which would seem unnecessarily awkward."

"Unless."

"Unless it was a balance issue."

"Or?"

"Or they had another source of energy?" The two thought outloud together all the time, we got used to it. "Like mini power cells..."

"No."

"OK, like solar powered parachute-y material?"

"Super light-weight?"

"And strong?"

"Or?"

There was silence for a minute.

"Whispering Grass?" asked Ben.

"Oh! That would be good." Agreed Bill. Seeing our puzzled faces Bill continued. "Whispering Grass was a current multiplier."

"In theory," interrupted Ben. Bill nodded.

"Yes in theory but possibly in practice too. They had moved their research centre out here somewhere."

"Somewhere where Leicester here fishes?"

"Well it has to be somewhere so why not where Leicester happens to fish?"

We still looked puzzled.

There was a sound like a big wave and as it got louder we could make out what it was: a lot of people shouting: "Mugs!"

Everybody stood up. If Mugs attacked in one place they always attacked somewhere else as well and in the mist and fog it was difficult to know where.

"We'll continue this later." Said Bill. Ben was already organising a group of children and old folk into the Smithy for safety. The able-bodied were arming themselves with their knifes, sticks, bows and guns (that may or may not have had any ammunition but the sight of them was often enough to frighten a Mug away).

"Where are they attacking?" We asked Bill.

"It sounds like they're attacking on the far side of White Horse but they'll try for here soon enough. They always do. So if you don't mind helping out we could do with a few more folk round here who are handy."

We pulled our knife out, a long dagger that we used for everything. We were told once that it was called a bayonet. We also had a lethal spike in our hair but for the moment it was more useful up there, our hair was kind of long.

After a minute, during which the shouting from Uffington continued at the same level, we noticed a new noise back from down the way we had come.

"Right, let's go." Said Bill and a dozen or so of us spread out and began jogging down the hill back towards our boat. We had to push past a lot of folk running the other way with their children and belongings, some paused to tell Bill or Ben what they had seen.

We could see fires from burning shacks and then a Mug ran out from behind a tent and swung an axe, we twisted out of the way and Leicester stabbed the Mug in the back, we stabbed the side of the chest and the Mug collapsed. We turned, expecting more, none came. We pushed on. We could see Mugs further ahead with bags over their shoulders, one was pulling a pig; they were heading back to the sea.

Then we were standing at the water's edge in time to see their boats disappear into the mist and the Mugs were gone.

We spent the rest of the afternoon putting out fires, rescuing what we could from the demolished homes and reuniting parents with children. At the end of it all, twenty or so families had lost vital food and some irreplaceable equipment: water bottles, cloth, plastic sheeting, knives and axes, books, kettles, pots and pans, bedding. Luckily the allotments were mainly untouched so not much food was lost though the pig and two chickens would be sorely missed.

"Four Mugs killed, we lost two and another dozen or so with bad cuts. We may lose another one or two if they don't heal well." Said Bill.

"Better get cooking up some more Tattynger." Ben gave us a look. "For sterilising the needles and things. It keeps the wounds clean, more chance of survival."

"And yes, I could do with a drink." Ben continued. Ben used the selfish I. The oldies did that sometimes, especially when they were stressed.

"We don't think we should head back tonight." Said Leicester quietly as we walked back to the Smithy. "The Mug could still be out there, we don't want to run into them."

"Good point," we said, "let's stay and get wrecked."

"There's that," Leicester replied, "but we want to hear more about the Whispering Grass."

"Whispering Grass my arse," we said, "but fine, we like the Pot Men's stories."

Later, after a baked potato and nettle soup, we settled in for the night at the Smithy. We sat at a table with a few others we knew from around the Ridgeway, chatting, drinking and smoking Bill and Ben's fine grass. We had a tab at the bar 'for helping out with the Mugs'. The paramotor was under our table getting a fair bit of attention.

The Smithy was packed that night anyway with folk celebrating the defeat of the Mugs, mourning the dead and nursing wounds.

Early on in the evening there was a collection for the families who had lost members and belongings. We donated our fourth knife. (So? We had four: our main one, spike in the hair, a wee one in the sock and a spare in the bag. We donated the spare in the bag.) We would have given more but that was all we had on us.

Then there were toasts and singing and even later when we were feeling really rather mellow: music and quiet chat.

"Put on Perfidia." We shouted over to Bill. "Phyllis Dixon. Perfidia."

"It's Dillon, Phyllis Dillon, anyway we prefer Desi Arnaz's version." Explained Ben coming over and pulling up a chair beside us. "Keep peddling old boy, we need music."

Frankly was on the bicycle but having a break with a pint and with what looked like one of the largest reefers we had ever seen.

"Are you sure Frankly'll survive that?" We asked Ben.

Ben laughed. "Frankly'll be fine and'll peddle 'til morning."

"Desi Arnaz roars like a pregnant seal. We don't know how you can put up with it." We laughed. Ben pointed a finger at us, but we continued, "we know, Phyllistine. Still don't get the joke."

"And," we went on, "we didn't get the whole Whispering Grass multiplier thingy thing either."

"Ah, well," said Bill joining us, "it's all about nano filaments. Nano Filaments? No? OK, look on your arm, you have tiny hairs. Imagine if those hairs were so small you couldn't see them but they were there, millions of them. The wind blows over them and they move. With every movement each hair makes a tiny bit of electricity."

"Like a windmill." Leicester butted in from over the table.

"Yes, just like a windmill, but they don't spin, they just flick from side to side."

"And because there are millions of them," Ben took up the explanation, "that tiny bit of electricity starts to add up to a usable amount."

"And that powers the paramotor," it was Bill, "but also, the flick of the filament creates an extra eddy, a sort of stream of air, so the next filament along flicks just a little bit more, and these streams build up, getting faster and faster."

"So it starts to make even more electricity than it really should," back to Ben. "The bigger the area of filament the more electricity it makes above what it should make."

"And!" Bill was actually getting excited now. "And there's this gale blowing across this sheet that's getting faster and pushing back more and more."

"So actually, not only does it make more electricity than it should to power the motor it also creates an additional push off the back of the parawing. Oh that's clever," said Ben. "Oh that's very clever."

"Isn't that making more energy than what goes in?" Asked Leicester. "We thought that wasn't possible?"

"Well it's not." Said Bill, nodding, "but maybe it is."

"Aye," said Ben, "maybe it is."

"So, you want us to see if there's a big sheet, the wing for this paramotor thing then?" We asked. It was getting difficult to focus our eyes now, but we wanted to get to the bottom of this.

Bill pointed a finger.

"Yes," said Ben, "exactly, we need," there was a pause. "We need you to go down wherever you got this and find that wing."

"It's really quite important. Perhaps, maybe," said Bill, "if it still works."

"Which it probably doesn't." Said Ben. Bill nodded. "But it might."

We couldn't quite be arsed to go outside so we slept on the floor of the Smithy. There was a lot of snoring. Though we do remember finally hearing Phyllis Dillon singing Perfidia. Good song.

Chapter 5  
Fenny Bentley

"So you think you saw it around here somewhere but it ran off north? What time was this? Six, five... six? Right, north, probably went on for a couple of hours before resting up. That's beyond Hognaston, more like Knockerdown or beyond."

It was the same voice we had heard earlier and it sounded like they were standing directly under our tree. A commanding voice, a bit like Alne's but a bit... ruder, more demanding. The replies were so quiet we couldn't really make them out. It sounded like the same group who had been tracking me before.

We must have been seen. We hadn't really considered that. Maybe the soldiers guarding the chain had been a bit more watchful than we had thought.

Still, that was hardly the problem now. If anyone looked up they might see our hammock above them in the branches.

The hammock may have started out a bright yellow but now it was all shades of mud, almost perfect camouflage, so we kept still and once again found ourself hoping for the best.

After a few minutes we heard them head back north. We loosened the ties of the hammock and sneaked a peek out. While the other soldiers had helmets, there was one soldier in the middle with a soft peaked cap. This soldier was waving and pointing, giving commands to the rest. Soon they were over the skyline and were gone.

We slid out the bottom of the hammock, untied the ropes and climbed down through the branches to the ground.

If we went east, back across the sea, we would be back where we had started when we broke into Topland. Going north, following the trackers, would be asking for trouble. We decided that it would be best to try and shake them off for good and head west for a bit and then try and turn north.

We set off uphill, making sure we didn't come into view of the soldiers.

We skirted round and above a small village called Kniveton. Some of the houses were underwater but most looked lived in. The fields were filled with crops, mainly vegetables again and potatoes. We had always thought that there would be animals everywhere, sheep, cows, pigs, but we hadn't seen that many, which was a surprise. Like so much of Topland.

After Kniveton the hills rose again. We filled our pockets with carrots and 'tatties as we walked through the fields. Once again we saw that we were on spit of land. Across the water we could see a big town.

The town looked like a proper port, we could see ships coming and going from a stone dock. The town was five or six times the size of Kniveton. There was a main road heading out of the town that went north up a steep hill. There was a lot of traffic on it.

But that was not all. There were huge windmills with slow turning fans, all the way to the horizon. They looked far taller than any tree or house we had ever seen. They must have been producing an enormous amount electricity. The ones at home had fans the length of our forearm and kept a small bulb lit if you were lucky. These looked like they could power the world!

This had to be Tissington Gate, our original target: the main trading gate for the south of Toplands. The plan had been to enter here, set off our bombs if need be to cause a distraction and sneak in during the mayhem. It looked like it probably would have worked here, if only we hadn't been driven so far east.

We had to pick a spot to get down to the sea unnoticed, swim across and work out what to do on the far side. About a kilometre to the south we could see the line of chain that marked the submerged Threewall where it crossed over to Tissington. That probably meant that there were more soldiers keeping watch somewhere in that direction. We had to be careful.

We studied the port and the traffic for sometime.

There was a choice to be made: cross over close to the port and try and scramble on to one of the huge lorries as they moved slowly up the hill and get a lift north far and fast or avoid the road, head north a bit, and try and cross over more inland and continue heading north on foot. Both had their obvious dangers.

But getting a lift would be quicker and more fun.

As the sun started to set we crept down to the sea and, with the hammock rolled up tight on our back, we swam across.

On the Tissington side we headed up a little dark valley. When we got to the top of it we found ourself close to the big north road. It still wasn't quite dark enough so we hid and watched the lorries coming and going.

This gate certainly did not close at night: vehicles drove past every few minutes.

Using what cover we could find we edged closer to the road to get a better look at the lorries.

Some of the lorries were enormous, fifteen or twenty metres long, with a cab at the front and a huge trailer behind. They rolled on many wheels and were very loud, spewing a thick black smoke into the night. Others were smaller, vans, that seemed to not notice the steepness of the hill and flew by at quite some speed. We could see the faces inside, some concentrating on the road, others talking or looking at things in their hands. One lorry had the words 'Fenny Bentley' on the side.

As the night got darker we began to work out how to catch a ride on one of these.

We wanted one of the really big lorries, with a trailer that had a lose cover we could crawl under, not a metal box and, most importantly, it had to pass at a time when there was no other traffic on the road, we did not want to be caught in the headlights of a following vehicle.

Finally we saw a lorry drive up the hill slowly. There was nothing else behind it nor was anything coming down the hill either.

Before the lorry got too close we darted across the road and lay low in the ditch on the far side. It seemed the drivers all sat on the road side of their cabs so, with luck, they wouldn't see us.

As the truck passed we got up and began running along beside it. We managed to get a grip on a canvas strap and jumped up and tried to reach the next loop with a foot. We scrabbled up the side of the trailor but there was nothing to get a purchase on. We were hanging almost upside down when the lorry hit a pothole. We lost our grip and fell heavily onto the road. Two huge wheels raced past our face. We rolled back into the ditch and lay coughing and gasping for breath, staring up at the night sky but all we could think about were the lorries' black tyres, so close we had felt the wind of them on our face.

We gathered our thoughts and breath and studied the next few lorries. We noticed, when one truck followed another close enough for the rear to be lit up, that the bigger trailers had handles at the back and big metal bars lower down behind the wheels making a ladder. This would seem a much better route up and into the trailer.

After another hour or so waiting, a lorry came up the hill nice and slowly. There was nothing following behind it. It rolled past and we were up and running again, we caught up quickly and, grabbing a handle, we got a foot up onto the bar and we were away.

We climbed up the ladder at the back and found that the canvas cover was tied down. We slipped and fell onto the canvas and rolled around for a bit trying to find a gap lose enough for us to squeeze through. Eventually we cut one of the ties and scrambled in.

It seemed to be soil inside, or mud. The ships were bringing in mud? That was a revelation too far. We smelt it again.

"Mud?" we said out loud.

"It's topsoil," said a voice from the dark. We reached for our knife and retreated as far into the corner as we could.

"Have you just pulled out a knife?" Asked the voice. "I'm not going to fight. I don't want to fight. I'm not interested in fighting. But a knife is interesting."

"Why is a knife interesting?" We asked. "And why don't you want to fight?"

"Umm," said the voice, "I have a loaf of bread and a nice lump of beef but I can't really get one into the other without a knife."

There was a pause.

"I could bite them separately but that rather goes against the whole sandwich thing."

I thought for a bit and asked: "What's topsoil?"

"Ah, OK, let's start there shall we?" Asked the voice. "Right, well, topsoil is, as the name suggests, the soil that sits on top of the ground and is very good for growing stuff."

"But Toplanders have lots of ground with lots of soil. Why do they need more? Are they building into the sea? Are they very overcrowded?" This was a puzzle because we hadn't really seen that many folk in Topland so far. Which had rather gone against the belief we had that Toplanders couldn't have us because they were already so crowded

"Well, I am not a farmer," said the voice, "but I believe the problem is that a lot of the soil we have here is pretty well shit, not great for growing stuff, heather and bog mainly. Did you say Top land or Scotland?"

"We said Topland. What's Scotland?"

"We? Are there more of you? I didn't see. Wait, you're a Wetter aren't you?" Asked the voice. "Are you dangerous? I mean are you going to come over here with your knife and kill me because if that's the case I think I'll just get out, if that's OK with you."

"We're not dangerous. We don't want to kill you. Are you dangerous?" We asked.

"Again, what's with the 'we'. There's only one of you isn't there?"

"Oh sorry, yes, we say we don't we? We're sort of taught to. The Oldies think that the I's caused all the problems. The Selfish I, they call it. So we try to be less about ourselves and more about the us: to care for each other a bit more. That sort of thing."

"Oh OK, I kind of get it. Kind of sweet I guess. We guess, sorry." Said the voice. "Tell you what. My name's Jane. Why don't you come over with your knife, in a non-stabby kind of way and I'll make a sandwich. We'll share. I, we, what? I give up."

"That sounds good." We said. "What's a sandwich?"

"Really?" Asked Jane.

"And what's beef and what's bread?"

"Jesus fuck," said Jane, "get your arse over here and I'll show you."

We crawled over the mound of earth towards the Jane. We could see flashes of sparks from a flint and then the glow of flame. Jane was sitting, leaning against the front end of the trailer. We slid down close to where Jane sat and heard the fearful intake of breath.

"We're not going to hurt you." We said, holding up our hands.

Jane stared at us for a long time.

"You've, you're," she started, "you have very big eyes."

"Oh," we nodded, "yes we do, a lot of us do, well, some of us have these big eyes. They are big. Are they? Guess so, just don't get to see them often."

"You know what a mirror is?" Asked Jane.

"Yes, we know what a mirror is." We were a bit afronted really. "Just don't have one on us, sorry. But yes we've seen our eyes and they are a bit bigger. Quite a bit bigger, a little bit bigger. Not too big. They're not like weirdly big."

"No, sorry, I don't mean anything nasty. It was just a surprise. It must be useful to have big eyes. I wish my eyes were bigger, a bit." Said Jane.

"We look, you know, different, we suppose." We agreed. "But it's nature isn't it. We spend a lot of time in the water, swimming, pretty deep and dark, it's only normal that our eyes got a bit bigger. That's what some people say, anyway."

"Do you all have bigger eyes then?" Asked Jane. "I mean the young ones, the new kids?"

"Maybe half, maybe, yeah, something like that. Not really counted." We tried to explain. "We don't notice this stuff much. We mean we know a lot of folk with webbed feet, some have got fairly webbed fingers. It'll be gills next."

"There aren't people with gills, are there?" Jane gasped.

"No! That'd be freaky, well no not really, dead useful actually, could do with gills." Jane looked horrified. "It would be great, hidden under the armpits or something. You know: bup, bup."

The fishy noises were probably a bit too much. Jane went very still, staring at us, and then, thankfully, laughed.

"Yep, that would be too freaky." Jane agreed. "So if I could borrow your knife?"

We pulled out all three, not sure what size Jane wanted. Jane looked at them in our hands.

"Do you need all three of these?" Jane picked the third and smallest knife. We put the spike back in our hair and the bayonet back in our belt.

"Suppose so. That one you've got is our small knife, keep it in our shoe, for picking at stuff, or emergencies, this big one." We pointed to the bayonet. "Is for everything really, swimming, eating, getting at stuff, fighting."

Jane raised an eyebrow.

"There's a lot of fighting then in the Wetlands?"

"No. Yeah, well, a bit. The Mugs are a pain in the arse but we can scare them off normally, or fight them off."

We saw Jane's look.

"Mugs? They're folk who don't want to help, just sort of take stuff, stealing, for themselves."

"But they're not in charge?" Asked Jane, "because that pretty well describes the people in charge here."

That seemed an odd thing to say. We weren't too sure what to say after that.

"Sorry, go on," said Jane.

"Oh well, Mugs and eels, big eels. They're a problem."

"Eels?"

"They've been getting really big. We're told it's the food, the bodies and things in the water. They've been feeding and getting bigger. They're pretty dangerous. They can come out of the water and grab you."

"Jesus Fuck, just when I was starting to get jealous." Said Jane shrinking into the corner as if something bad was going to come out of the soil and bite. "But, you know, good to hear, learn new stuff about the world and all. So, here comes a sandwich."

Jane pulled out a brown thing, a bit like a giant slug, but dead and hard, stuck the knife in and quickly sawed off the end.

"Get your chops round this. It's bread." Jane handed us the rounded end. It was very light and sort of delicate. We bit into it. It was crazily odd, crunchy and yet super soft and fluffy and clean tasting or clean feeling. It didn't have much taste, but just a sort of lightness. We picked some crumbs off our lap.

"You liked that then?" Asked Jane. We hadn't noticed that Jane now had a roll of black meat that smelled really good, really strong. Jane cut a bit off and stuck it between two slices of bread and passed it over.

"Let me introduce you to a sandwich."

We looked at it.

"Oh, we get it now. We do know what a sandwich is, but we call it that when we share hammocks." We explained. Jane looked at us with a big smile.

"You," Jane paused, "sandwich?" and paused again, "in your hammock?"

We looked at Jane and didn't know what to say. So we bit the sandwich. Sweet mother of baby seals that was good. We looked up. Jane was still watching, mouth twitching a bit. We said nothing, but may have blushed. But then we thought we had better say something.

"This is nice." We said, waving what was left of the sandwich. "We may have been in a sandwich but not, you know, sandwiched."

Which we thought covered it nicely.

"Oh, OK," agreed Jane, "yeah, same here."

We nodded, good to get that out the way.

"So, this is beef.. from a cow?" We asked. "And you have lots of them?"

It was Jane's turn to nod.

"And, this is topsoil, used to improve land for crops?" More nods.

"And it's carried in lorries that are either red or yellow?" We asked. Jane almost spat food out at that and ended up coughing into a hand.

"You're serious?" Jane asked. We thought it safer to laugh that one off, but we had been serious, these things were said for a reason weren't they? But, fair enough.

We each had a second sandwich and ate in silence. We shared some water with Jane and then made ourself a bit more comfortable. We offered to share our hammock, but Jane wasn't keen.

"It's not that, the sandwichy thing," Jane explained, "but I have a big coat, I'll be fine thanks."

It would have been warmer to share, but, well, OK. So we got comfortable but not close together, we didn't want to push that, so we sort of lay opposite Jane.

"Where are we going?" We asked.

"Oh, right well I reckon Buxton first. It's the big town on the Pennines. Some people call it Upper Macclesfield, as Macclesfield was closest to Buxton," explained Jane, "the Pennines are the hills from here to Scotland, Topland as you say. Buxton is the biggest town on the Pennines."

We nodded along, not following it much. But old folk around Treetops said similar stuff.

"This road is the A515, it goes to Buxton. If this soil was for Scotland it would have been sailed up to, well, almost anywhere, Blair Atholl if it's for Aviemore." Jane rolled her eyes when she saw our look. "Aviemore is the capitol, the main city of all of Scotland, it's the main city for North Scotland, Biggar is for South Scotland and Buxton for the Pennines. They don't teach you much geography do they? Can you read?"

"Yes we can freak'n read. A, B, C, F, G, Z." We replied grumpily. "Course we can freak'n read."

"But no," we continued, "we don't know our geography." We almost spat the word out, "because Toplanders don't tell us anything, nothing, don't speak to us, don't help us. And we're just drowning and dying and you've got all this space and food and freak'n electricity for freak's sake. And we've got nothing."

"OK, OK, sorry, I didn't know, we don't know, we're not told much about you either." Jane paused as if not wanting to go on.

"What, go on, what?"

"Well, we're told you're different."

"Well of course we're different, we stink to high heaven for a start, and we've never seen bread before and." We stopped and took a breath. There was that smell again, the one that was Wetter but with that horrible extra tang, the Mug tang we had only acquired recently. Jane looked worried. We had maybe been a bit frightening. "Sorry, sorry. The bread was amazing, thank you."

"It's OK, I understand."

We gave her a look.

"OK I don't understand, but it's not great here either. No I know, it is great, or it must seem great, but it's not really. It's actually really messed up. I mean it."

"How?" I asked. Jane looked at us.

"I'll try and explain," Jane started, "but first we ought to plan ahead a bit. I mean, when we get to Buxton what will you do? What are you doing? Actually, that's a very good point. What are you doing and why and where do you want to go to, well, do whatever it is you want to do?"

We took the pin out of our hair and gave it a good shake. We were stalling. But then so was Jane with the 'it's all terrible here' line. Where were we going? And what were we going to tell Jane?

"We're looking for friends." We began.

"Friends?"

"People who might be friends and actual friends, other Wetters, in Topland?"

"There are other Wetters in Topland?"

"Aren't there?" We were not really sure what we were saying now. "Look, some people think the water has stopped rising, but we're not sure. It's risen really high and there's very little dry land left. We're dying and we need help. So, we've been sent up here."

"You've been sent?" Asked Jane, sounding a bit disbelieving.

"Yes? We've been sent."

"And these others?" Interrupted Jane. We didn't want to answer that.

"We've been sent to see if there is any way Topland would help us."

"So, you want to speak to Prince John?"

"Do we?"

"No!" Jane laughed. "No! He'd have you killed on sight."

"Why?"

"Because you're a fr... you scare.. they don't want to know. They have this thing," Jane continued, "that they like, about purity, keeping things clean."

"And we're not clean?"

"Not in their eyes."

"Sounds a bit like the Priests." We replied. Jane laughed.

"Oh, you know them then?" She asked. We nodded

"Oh yeah. Do they do that Last Supper thing here?"

"No, but they talk about it. It's real then? Fuck they're crazy fuckers. But," Jane continued, "but, there is Linux, Lady Linux and that lot. They're... kinder. They might be interested. If we could get you to them you might stand a chance."

"Lady Linux?" We asked. "Not related to the Lord the Priests go on about."

"Oh fuck no," laughed Jane, "no, Linux're sort of in charge of a lot of stuff, technical stuff that keeps Scotland going."

"And us?" We asked.

"Us what?" Asked Jane.

"Well, you said 'If we could get you', what do you mean we?"

"Um," Jane took a breath, "I, um, don't want to be around here. I was supposed to be on a boat going to the Monasteries and I'm not on it, and I don't want to be and maybe the Priests are looking for me. Probably are actually and they've probably got the cops, the police." Jane explained, not that it did really, "Soldiers?"

We understood that.

"So?" We asked.

"So, if you don't mind, and incidentally I don't think you should mind because you've not got a chance in hell without me, I think we should go together up to Aviemore and see if we can meet Linux or someone to sort of sort me out and you at the same time. In fact, I think that's almost a plan."

We nodded.

"Well if you think it's a plan, let's go with that." We said. "How long have we got before we have to wake up? We could do with a kip."

"Yes," agreed Jane, "good point. I reckon we have two or three hours before we get to Buxton. And then the driver'll park up for the night. They're not going to unload now. So we'll sneak off before morning, sunrise. OK?"

"OK, night."

"Night," said Jane.

After a minutes silence, we heard Jane roll over.

"Sorry. I forgot to ask your name."

"What? Us?" We asked. Jane laughed.

"Yes, please, all of your's name."

"Felix, it's Felix."

"Cool. Hi Felix."

"Hi Jane. Night."

We curled up and went to sleep to the rumble of the lorry on the road north.

Chapter 6  
Paramotor Club

"Come back my love."

It was going to be a slow morning but we were not sure why we were hearing a medley by the Darts in our head. The Darts were a band we were never going to admit to liking but actually did. But when were they played? Who knew? We remembered hearing Phyllis, just about.

Bill and Ben were crashing round the Smithy getting ready for the breakfasters. Frankly was snoring, still on the bicycle, which showed impressive balancing skills while still asleep. We watched the morning start, our back to the wall, body still cozy under the blanket.

Someone must have put a blanket over us. Must have been Bill or Ben.

Soon we were thinking about the paramotor and the sheet of tiny nano filaments. Could you see the filaments or were they so small they were invisible? Just how small was nano? It sounded much smaller than tiny.

We leant over and gave Leicester a shove.

"Wake up Leicester." Was about all we could manage. Leicester grunted but the eyes opened.

"What?" Leicester asked, "what time is it anyway?"

We reckoned it was about eight.

"Oh freak off," said Leicester and went back to sleep. We considered giving Leicester another shove but couldn't see the point. We weren't in any particular hurry to be anywhere so we got up and shuffled over to the bar.

"Hi Ben."

Ben looked up.

"Morning Felixstowe. Looking good. Fancy a nettle tea?"

We nodded and Ben poured out a large cup of hot and slightly green water. We sipped it slowly.

"Remember what we talked about last night?" Asked Ben.

"About the nano filaments and current mulitiply-y stuff, yes."

"Anything else?" Asked Ben looking up at us.

"Um, no?" we weren't sure what Ben was on about; always the more complicated of the two we found. "Was there? Can't remember."

"No," said Ben smiling. "We were just, you know what it's like, not sure."

"Yeah, good night," we agreed. "Thanks for the tea."

Ben went off to wipe down tables. We took big sniffs of the nettle infused steam. It was all very soothing.

Leicester appeared beside us and took a sip of our tea.

"So, what's the plan?" Leicester asked.

"Guess we head out to Park Farm and take a dive down and see what we can find?"

"Do you reckon the Mugs are away now?"

"Probably. Got no reason to hang around. Should be OK. Do we need anything else for the dive?"

"No, the roof's off, reckon it should be OK just from the boat."

"OK," we said and looking round for Ben. "Hey Ben any chance of some food, added to the tab?"

Ben nodded. "Bubble'n Squeak?"

Leicester looked up. "That would definitely hit the spot."

Some time and somewhat greasier later, we left the Smithy and headed back down to our boat. It was still there.

"Not even the Mugs wanted it." Some wit called out from an allotment. It was a joke that had obviously been doing the rounds as there were repeats of the line and laughter coming from various homes as we passed. It was all good natured, though sometimes we felt that the Ridgeway looked down on us clan folk for living out on the water. At least we had a bit of land, there were some who just floated about on giant rafts.

"You know, we should call this boat Prince," announced Leicester.

"OK, why?" we asked. Leicester shoved us off and jumped in. We spun the boat round and settled down to row.

"It's purple," explained Leicester.

"OK."

We rowed back the way we had come, through low clouds and rain. Within a few minutes there were no landmarks to see and we only had a fat hazy sun to guide us though the mist. We heard a few other boats nearby but nothing particularly threatening or Mug-like. We passed a boat from Treetops on a fishing trip but they had no news so we didn't feel any rush to get home. Instead we drifted south a bit until we were over Park Farm and the paramotor club shed.

"Are we going down together or taking it in turns?" We asked.

"Reckon," began Leicester, "that we'll go down alone and find the shed. You stay here and keep Prince on the spot. Then when we've found it we'll take a line down and tie it to something, a door handle. Then we'll both go down and have a hunt for this sheet stuff?"

"Fine by me," we moved to the stern with one oar and sculled gently to keep the boat in position, "good luck."

Leicester sat still for about ten minutes to slow the heart rate then took a deep breath and dived in.

No one had taught us diving but it was a skill nearly everyone, OK not Bill and Ben, but most, a lot of Wetters, had. Being in water or on it was the norm. We didn't feel the cold much, we were just so used to it. And we could hold our breaths, we could really hold our breaths.

The trick was to slow down your heart rate before the dive, take a deep breath and very, very, very slowly let it out again during the swim. We can do about eight to ten minutes under water, Leicester claims to be able to do fifteen but we thought it was more like twelve. Some said that they have heard of folk who could do twenty or more. We could see how that would be possible.

And the big eyes were useful. It was pretty murky and muddy down there, not a lot of light. Not a lot of light up here either which made it even worse down there. And there were bad things, not just eels to worry about. We got caught on a bit of old farm machinery once. A thing like a big wheel but with hundreds of bent wire spikes sticking out. We got some clothing caught in it and whichever way we pulled the wheel just turned. Eventually we had to take our trousers off and swim back up. Oh how our friends laughed. There was a whole week of bad trouser jokes.

And there were old trees, a lot of barbed wire, some of it sort of floating around attached to fence posts which was really scary if you got caught up in that.

People always asked about the eels. They were bad and getting worse, but like the floating junk you just have to get on with it. This was where we lived and this was our livelihood.

Leicester reappeared and swung an arm over the side of the boat and climbed aboard. We reckoned that had been about 6 minutes. We let Leicester rest first, quietly staring up at the sky and clouds.

"All right?" we asked after a bit. Leicester nodded and gave the thumbs up. We waited a bit longer.

"Yup," said Leicester after a few more minutes, getting up on to the seat and taking an oar. "Let's go over this way ten metres or so, then we'll take a line down and tie up."

When we were lined up right and after another pause Leicester took the boat's rope and dived in. We fed the line out. After a couple of minutes the rope went tight and a minute later Leicester reappeared.

"There's lots of crazy shit in there. We're not going to know which one's the right one." Leicester explained.

"Guess we'll have to bring it all up then. Let Bill and Ben sort it out." Leicester nodded.

"Yeah, ready?"

"Let's go," we said. We prepared and dived in together.

We followed the rope down. Soon our eyes got used to the dark and the world opened up around us.

The big grey H-shaped farmhouse was over to our right with a large collection of barns to the north of it. We swum down, over the farm buildings, over a smaller pair of houses, to a little triangular field filled with old machinery and rotten tin huts. There was a line of tree stumps to our left and another line ahead. All the wood had been chopped down long ago and probably made up the majority of the huts, boats and rafts for miles around. But, tucked into a corner of the field, was a more modern looking corrugated shed, maybe six metres by three. The roof lay beside the hut where Leicester had dropped it.

We swam over the hut and looked down. It did not look promising. We were surprised Leicester had gone in there alone. To be honest it looked like a death trap. There were hundreds of trailing lines of white rope swaying gently in the water. Getting caught up in that lot would be deadly. But Leicester had got in and out successfully so that was what we were going to do.

Leicester signalled: one at a time, Leicester going in first. We watched as Leicester swam down and grabbed a couple of lines. As Leicester reversed away, the lines grouped together as if alive and reaching out for a meal. Slowly a dark bundle followed out through the tangle and then floated free. Leicester signalled for us to try.

We swam forward, grabbed the first line we could and started pulling. Again all the lines curled out towards us. With a jolt, a lump came free and we could see a tightly packed roll of material rising out of the hut. We headed back up to the surface together.

Going up was slow with the extra weight and we were getting very close to our limit, our diaphragm was throbbing painfully despite regularly letting out air. We were very grateful to reach the surface. We heaved the roll onto the boat and then floated for a minute catching our breath. Then we climbed on board. Leicester was already there, unrolling the material.

"Not sure how we'll know which one is Whispering Grass. Terrible name though." The material was a tough nylon, almost unaffected by what must have been decades underwater. It had quite a lot of muck on it, slime and algae, but otherwise seemed undamaged.

We nodded, not really wanting to speak yet.

Leicester unrolled ours. It was the same. A bright blue sheet with what looked like the start of words in red with a white outline. An L and an A, probably Lambourn or maybe something daft like Lazerlight. We had noticed how folk of old loved dramatic text for boring stuff. 'Buffing a turd' the oldies would say.

"Next time," we said, Leicester looked up, we continued, still catching our breath. "Next time, could we go first? We don't have the gills for this."

"Yeah, sorry," Leicester replied. "Should have let you go first that time hey? Sorry."

"We're just going to have bring them all up aren't we?"

"Reckon so, just to get them out of the way if anything. They probably put the special stuff away somewhere. Locked it up."

"So we're going to have to clear the room you mean." We pointed out, Leicester nodded. We swore. This was going to be a long day. Or longer than that.

We went down three more times before stopping for a bite to eat at midday and kept going down all afternoon. By five we had cleared the hut of the lose lines and had nearly filled our boat with paramotor sails.

It was early evening before Leicester suggested stopping again.

"What, for the night?" We had been getting quite into it all. Plus the sheets would make decent covering for huts and good fresh water collectors and a whole lot more besides. We were sitting on a goldmine.

"Come on, one more dive."

Leicester looked at the sun.

"Suppose we've got an hour or so yet. But we're just going to look around, see what's what, try a few drawers."

We agreed, eager to get on.

"OK Fishface, let's go!" Leicester only called us that when in a really good mood. We dived in and followed the rope down.

Soon we were at the hut. It looked different now, empty. A few helmets swayed on the ground, rocked by the gentle currents. One wall had a floor to ceiling cupboard, another had a worktop with cupboards underneath, while the other two walls were bare. We swam in and held on to the cupboard door handles to stay in place. Then we began looking around.

When you spend a lot of time underwater you learn to feel the currents swirl and eddy around you. So we felt the eel's movement in the water before its shadow passed over us and made us momentarily colder. It was a big one. We watched its body snaking over and then it was gone.

Leicester reached over and held our arm. No movement, that was the message. Maybe the eel was gone but maybe it had come round and was about to come over any one of the walls behind us and strike. We would have held our breath excepting we already were.

Leicester signalled a countdown from five and then swam slowly up to the top of one wall and peered over. Thumbs up: all good. We moved to the other wall and looked over that: no eel. We swam to the other ends of the hut. Leicester checked over the wall and then we looked over ours. Again nothing.

Leicester looked at us and pointed to the cupboards: time to check them. As Leicester turned, the eel curled back over the wall, caught an arm in its teeth and wrapped Leicester with its thick body, a good third of a metre in diameter, spiralling round in a black coil of muscle.

We swam over as fast as we could and stuck our bayonet into its body. It reacted immediately, uncoiling from Leicester and spinning round us. But it kept its teeth locked on Leicester's right arm. We could see that Leicester was trying to get a knife out of its sheath but was finding it difficult to reach with the left hand. We pulled out our steel hair pin and stuck that in the eel as well. The water was starting to turn dark with blood. We pulled the bayonet out and, pulling ourself up the body, stuck it back in above the pin. We were trying to work our way up towards the eel's head. The higher we got the harder it was for the eel to wrap its body around us. Leicester got the knife out of its sheath at last and managed to stab one of the eel's eyes. It let go and with a lightning fluidity it swam over the hut wall and out into open water. We were still clinging to our knifes. We pulled the bayonet out and in the rush of water the pin just slid out of the body and the eel was gone in a cloud of blood.

We hung in the water for a bit, then felt Leicester touch our arm. We turned and, putting an arm under Leicester, we swam up together clumsily, but as fast as we could.

We got straight into the boat and wrapped up Leicester in a blanket and took a look at the bite on the arm. There were teeth marks either side of the elbow, biting deep into the muscle. We cleaned them out as best we could and bandaged the arm with some old cloth.

It was starting to get dark now. We had to get back to Treetops and get Leicester's wounds looked at properly. Then we realised that the anchor rope was still attached to the hut. We would have to go down and untie it. We could just have cut it but we can't waste good rope.

"No," said Leicester, "just cut it, we'll come back another day."

"If we cut it someone might find it and follow it down to the hut, and then they'll find the sheet." We argued.

"We'll come back tomorrow."

"You're not swimming again for weeks." We pointed out. "You arm's a mess."

"Look," we continued, Leicester tried to interrupt. "We'll go down, check out the last cupboard, untie the line and be back in minutes."

"No, just wait a..." Leicester began but we dived in. We hadn't even waited to slow our heart rate. After so many dives it was already much slower than normal, though the fight with the eel had been a rush, in every sense.

We swam down. It was much darker now but we kept touching the rope with every stroke. We reached the hut and checked the cupboard under the worktops first. They held books and papers that were now just a pale cloud of mush.

The first tall cupboard at the end of the hut held more kit: helmets, ropes and boxes of carabiners which, though normally something we would take, were not what we were interested in now: we wanted the parawing. The last cupboard was empty apart from the remains of a cardboard box that drifted apart as we opened it. Inside was a tight roll, it was another paramotor sail but it felt completely different from the nylon of the earlier sails. This felt smooth in a liquid, almost untouchable way, as if it would slip though your fingers. It was like trying to hold an eel.

This had to be the one.

We attached it to our belt and untied the mooring rope. It was dark now as we swum up. The mooring rope drifted as we rose but we were not too bothered. We knew which direction to head even though we couldn't see the boat above us yet.

It was slow going, dragging the sail, especially after such a long day swimming. We got to the surface further from the boat than we had thought and floated for a moment as we caught our breath.

It was then that we heard voices: Mugs.

Two of their boats were alongside ours. We could hear Leicester arguing with them which was in itself risky, Mugs only had one way to solve an argument: fatally. But what was worse was that we could see that one of the boats was Trumps', the leader of the of the Mugs. We don't know what Trumps' real name was but whatever Trumps did it was always as the biggest arsehole on the planet. We could hear the insane shouting and ranting across the water.

"Wow! Whoa! That is some great stuff. Worth thousands. So nice, thank you very much. That's really wonderful. Thank you. It's great to be here. It's great to be in a wonderful sea of giving like this. And it's an honour for you to have me here. This is beyond anybody's expectations. There's been no gifterizing like this. And, I can tell you, some of our divers, they went in. They didn't know the air didn't work. They sweated like dogs. Hard work. Cold work. Thankfully you this here now me."

We swam closer. Luckily the two Mug crews were watching their leader, laughing and cheering at every word. Or more to the point, if a boat had turned up they might have spotted it, but they were not going to notice one slow swimmer with a heavy bag attached to their belt. We swam up to the stern of our boat where the fewest number of eyes could spot us. Leicester was sitting at the other end where Trumps was standing, raving, spitting and waving.

"I take this, you give me this, we'll be friends, best friends, these are my friends. Good friends. I love them. They love me. We love each other. They were abandoned, uncared for. Why? Why not? They're the best, the truest and we know the truth and now we're here so this is mine wind."

We weren't sure if Trumps has said wind or winned? Neither made much sense and it made us pause briefly before we began rocking the boat ever so gently but adding a little more with each pull. Leicester saw us and was moving in time with the rocking, increasing it.

"Are you listening? I'll not have you disrespecting to us," said Trumps.

"We really respect your nuts," said Leicester and in one movement kicked Trumps between the legs and dived overboard. At the same time we let go of the stern in mid swing and pulled it the other way. The boat, already top heavy with all the paramotor sails stacked up on it, threw Trumps off balance and into the water

We ducked down just as the shouting started. The dead weight of the paramotor sail pulled me down. Leicester, swimming slower with the bandaged arm, grabbed us as we sank.

Looking up we could see the flourescent splashes of Mugs diving into the water above us. They might not see us in the dark beneath them, but we would not be able to stay down for long.

An idea started to form in our mind, not a vision as such, but a possibility that, to some part of us, made sense.

We signalled for Leicester to climb on our back for a piggyback ride. We cut the loops holding the paramotor sail and it billowed out above us. We twisted the twin left and right sail ropes around our wrists and suddenly the sail flattened out and we were gliding underwater.

First we just went down at an angle then, as we started to get the idea of how the ropes worked, we pulled back on the two rear ropes. The sails began to cut down through the water at a less steep angle. We pulled more and we levelled out. Then we tried angling up and all the while it felt like we were moving faster and faster.

We wondered if Trumps' Mugs had seen the sails unfold and had watched us silently slide away from them.

We flew for about five minutes, guessing the direction we wanted to head as it was now too dark to see any of the underwater landmarks. But we had to come up to the surface for air. We angled the parasail up.

Just below the surface we stalled the sails and before they had time to pull us down we gathered them up and swam to the surface.

The first thing we heard was Leicester laughing.

"What the freak was that! You're a freak'n genius! How did you know?"

We tried to shrug but in the darkness it would have been hard to see.

"Dunno," we said, "we've no idea where that came from. It just seemed like something that might work."

"Was it Ben?" Leicester asked. We looked puzzled as we trod water.

"What? Why?"

"Well, Ben was talking to you for hours last night."

"When? We went to sleep."

"After they gave us a blanket, you and Ben chatted forever."

"Really?" We had no memory of that, must have been worse off than we thought. "Whatever, we've got to get to shore, there's a good couple of miles to go yet."

"OK," said Leicester. "We're up for it."

Leicester paddled round and climbed on our back again. We sank down and let the sail unfold and we were off. We had got a sight of the moon in the dark and had an idea which way to head.

For the next hour or so we flew north underwater, heading for Treetops.

Eventually we felt the land rise beneath us and saw lights ahead. We had reached land.

It turned out we missed Treetops by a fair bit but had got to the Ridgeway a mile or so east of the White Horse.

We rolled up the sail as we stumbled out of the water and headed towards the nearest fire and asked for help.

Soon Leicester's wound was getting cleaned, stitched and bandaged, while we sipped hot soup by a fire.

We told our story of Trumps and the Mugs but kept quiet about the sail and quite how far out to sea we had been. Even then our story of swimming so far at night gained us some notoriety. But, eventually, they left us alone.

Later, we rolled up together in the parasail and went to sleep.

Chapter 7  
Diggle, Dobcross, Delph and Denshaw

"Bacon roll?" a voice shouted.

The whole trip had been very soothing. Or we were very tired. But when we woke up we could see daylight round the edges of the canvas.

And there was no sign of Jane. There was a sign of Jane in that there was flattened earth in Jane's corner of the trailer. But no sign of Jane herself.

"Oh freak."

The bacon roll conversation continued outside. Various options were mentioned: ketchup, brown sauce, sausage, egg, white or brown. It sounded like the first speaker opted for everything. Oh, and chips with that. We never found out what 'that' was.

There was rustling at the end of the trailer and before we could do anything Jane rolled under the tarpaulin clutching a paper bag that smelled far far beyond fantastic.

"Sorry, some truckers were blathering forever just outside." Explained Jane and then paused in her crawl across the soil. "You all right?"

"Er, yeah," we said, "thought you'd gone."

"Ah, did you miss me? Get your chops round this."

Jane handed me a paper bag.

"It's a bacon roll."

We peered inside. We recognised bacon, it was inside some bread that had been sliced in half and had kind of bled really thick blood everywhere. We were not sure about this.

"Is there a problem?" Asked Jane.

"What's um..." We began, not wanting to sound rude, or stupid for that matter. "What's the blood stuff? Do you need to tell us something about Toplanders?"

We stopped.

"Oh my freak! You're cannibals!" It came out before we could stop it. Some jokes are just irresistible. We looked at Jane. Jane smiled back and sighed.

"You've got to stop this: 'We've had nothing but shit wrapped in shit and then we go to bed in shit', you know. I mean it's sad, it's funny and then it's boring and then it's annoying.

"This," Jane continued, waving a bacon roll and licking the red stuff, "is delicious tomato ketchup. Made from tomatoes, a fruit, or possibly a veg, I'm not sure, that is normal, safe, nice. And not the blood of our babies. Eat it."

We did. It was great and we wished we hadn't made quite such an arse of ourself about it.

"Thank you." We said when we had finished. "That was unbelievably good."

"You're welcome." Jane bowed a head. "Lucky I had a bit of money left."

"Money?" We asked. But we laughed before Jane could react. "Don't worry, we know what it is, we've got loads of it."

"Really? That seems unlikely?"

"Stacks of it, everywhere. Coins mainly, with a king on. We use it for weighting fishing nets and lines, some folks make it into jewellery."

"Oh I see," said Jane, "but you can't spend this money? No, sorry, silly question."

There was a bit of a silence then. We picked our teeth and rolled up the hammock.

"So," we started, "what's happening now? Are we getting off this? Going somewhere?"

"Well," began Jane, "I reckon this is going to a farm supplies place in Buxton that probably opens at eight or nine, so we've got an hour at least before the driver gets his fat arse out of the cafe.

"We're in Buxton," Jane continued, "well, we're just outside Buxton in a big roadside cafe. Our best bet is to see if we can change trucks and get a bit further north."

"How far have we got to go?"

"It's four or five hundred miles from here to Aviemore and we have to cross a few seas to get there."

"Can't we just steal a boat and sail up there? We're pretty good at sailing you know."

"Yes, I'm sure you are. But it's too dangerous to sail around here, for you and for me."

"Why?"

"Well you know the Scientologists are in Wales yeah? To the west, pretty well straight west of here? You know what they're like, especially what with us kind of being young, we'll be swallowed up into the cult before you can say sod off. We want to avoid them."

We nodded.

"And out to the east is the Moors Monasteries, it's covered in Priests, loads of 'em and I want to sort of avoid them, a lot, at the moment, if possible. So I think it would be safer, to get further north, quite a lot further north before we try a boat."

"OK," we agreed, "so what now?"

"Well, if you come down here."

We crawled to the back of the trailer. Very slowly we lifted the tarpaulin and looked out. There were more big lorries lined up and beyond them was a building with a lot of windows. Beside that was a smaller structure which people went in and out of. They always came out adjusting their trousers so we reckoned it was a loo. Quite a grand one for just a hole in the ground, unless...

"Jane, what happens in Topland loos?"

Jane banged her head a few times on the wall of the trailer. We thought it best not to ask again.

"So that van there, the small lorry, three away from us, white, muddy. You can't see but it's pulling a small trailer filled with building stuff. I overheard the driver talking, it's going north to New Huddersfield and the M62."

"How are we going to get to it without being spotted?"

"I think we should climb out of this trailer, back at the top behind the cab. We'll disguise you a bit so folk can't see you so much, and we'll walk past the van and see if there's a hiding place in the trailer. You get in. I'll walk on by, see if anyone noticed. Then I'll come back and jump in after you."

"That's it?" We asked. "That's the plan? Just get in?"

"It'll work," said Jane, "honestly, if you move slowly and normally no one will take any notice of you."

"But the driver will."

"Yes, so we have to hope he's not looking. That's why I'm going to walk past, just to see."

"This isn't going to work."

"It'll be fine," said Jane, "just... wrap your baggy thing round your neck and er... your top, like it's raining and it's some kind of scarf. So people can't see your..."

"The eyes, you're on about our eyes again aren't you?"

"Yes, your eyes. Sorry." Jane paused. "So, look, I'm going to climb down, take a look around and when I give you a wave, just come out sharp-ish and we'll get you hidden."

And that's what happened. In broad daylight. Jane climbed out and jumped off the end of the trailer. There was some traffic on the road but they didn't seem bothered by this, they just drove past. Then Jane gave us a wave and we clambered out and dropped down with our hammock all wrapped round our head.

Jane reached out to touch it.

"That's some crazy material." Jane muttered. We pulled away from the touch. "Sorry, just wanted to... well never mind, later maybe, hey?"

"Sorry," we muttered, "it's not really mine."

We walked down the line of lorries and past the trailer so we could get a look at where it might be possible to hide. Then we walked back, Jane tried the van's back doors without luck. We peered over the high walls of the trailer.

"We reckon we could get into the back of this and not been seen."

So we walked off again at Jane's insistence and then walked back and jumped over the trailer gate and scrambled to the back. There was a big blue barrel with the top cut off, filled with long tools and bits of wood. This was tied to the side of the van but there was enough space behind it for one person to squeeze in and sit down. We sat there while Jane sat opposite arranging various bits and pieces of what she called plasterboard and other stuff around her. It was not the greatest hiding place but it would have to do.

We wanted to talk but Jane told us to shush, at least until we were on the move.

Time went rather slowly. We wondered quite how many bacon rolls the driver was having. Or if they were calling the soldiers, or plotting something horrible, or just asleep.

We were already very uncomfortable by the time we felt the trailer dip as the driver got into the van (we guessed a lot of bacon rolls had been eaten) and heard the door slam. After a minute the engine started and it was difficult not to cough as the blue-black fumes clouded around us. Then the trailer jolted forward and stopped and jolted again and then we were moving.

It was not a comfortable ride. Lying asleep on topsoil seemed quite luxurious now.

"Where do you get all this oil?" We asked. "We haven't seen many dandelions, let alone fields of them. Is it bark oil?"

"Sorry," shouted Jane back, "did you say dandelions?"

"Yes, that's how we make oil for engines."

"That's nuts!" We weren't sure if Jane was joking now or not. "Dandelions?"

"Yes we use dandelions. How do you make it?" I shouted. If Jane could shout then we guessed it was OK to shout too.

"We've got oil rigs. In the north sea. They pump it up."

"Hang on, aren't they what caused the problem in the first place, you know oil and stuff?" We asked.

"Yes."

"But you're covered in wind mills."

"Yes, but they're owned by the wrong people."

"The wrong people? What does that mean?"

"Well some windmills, a lot really, are owned by the local towns and villages, or the farmers. Some are owned by the big families. But Prince John and that lot, they make a lot of money by keeping the oil rigs pumping."

"So they don't care about the sea levels and that?"

"Well, no, not really, the oil rigs float, kind of on legs."

"No, we mean the people, us, the folk who are drowning."

"Look, they could not give a flying fuck about you. In fact the sooner you were all dead the better." Jane looked cross though we felt that we were the ones who should have been cross at this point.

"Why, what have we done?"

"You," Jane stopped and looked a bit less cross, "remind them of something they did wrong and on top of that you're different. Most people don't like different. Especially if they think it's getting in the way of their money and making them feel bad about it too."

We didn't say anything for a bit.

"But if the seas keep rising they won't have anywhere to go either. One day. Can't they see that?"

"I know," said Jane, "but they just don't see it like that. It's like they're ill. With money."

After that we just drove. At first the road was smooth but there was a lot of stopping and turning and we caught glimpses of houses. They seemed normal, like in the picture books we read when we were young. They looked so solid and secure, permanent, built of brick and stone, with heavy slate roofs. They looked warm and dry and safe. In fact, we hadn't seen any shacks or tents, any crowds of the homeless and hungry since we had arrived north. Was this a sign of the success of the Topland world, its system of care for its people and a sign that they could, if they wanted to, help many more people, maybe all of us Wetlanders? It was something to ask Jane about.

Eventually we got out of Buxton.

"So," we shouted over to Jane, "why were you running away from Tissington?"

Jane pointed at a spot closer to us, I nodded and Jane crawled over, squeezing in.

"Do you know music?" Jane began.

"Doh. Of course, we know all music."

"All music?" asked Jane raising an eyebrow.

We thought about that for a second and answered: "OK maybe not all music but we've heard a lot. There's a pub, with electricity and everyone brings along the CDs they find in the water. We've heard a lot of music there."

"Who do you like?"

Even we knew that was a dangerous question. To get it wrong was to risk ridicule or even loss of friendship and now was not the time for that. Goodbye Brenda, as the Darts would sing. We were not going to mention them, safest to start on the outer edges and come in gently.

Though there was the problem of the death of music: we found so few CDs dated after 2020. Bill and Ben said music moved 'online' and got lost. We could have missed some incredible stuff.

"Oh you know, Sister Sledge, DJ Shadow, Jean Knight, Pixies, Princess Superstar," How could we forget Phyllis? "Phyllis Dillon, ELO."

"ELO!" Laughed Jane. Freak'n freaks, who knew? Backtrack or attack?

"Yeah, Time, their electronic album. 1981. Really good."

Jane seemed taken aback by this.

"Oh, OK. I don't know that one."

"What about you?" Now the boot was on the other foot.

"Oh, Bowie, Hole, Japan, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees" Ah, we had Jane pegged now.

"Ah," we said. "The Raincoats: No One's Little Girl."

Jane laughed.

"Yes, exactly. How do know them? You must spend a lot of time in this bar."

"Well, suppose we do. It's the only place to go. Electricity, booze, music, grass. It's fun. And there isn't much of that normally. We all go." We said. Which made me think of our friends. Who were now dead, or lost, or maybe hiding somewhere here in Topland?

"Yeah, well I know somewhere similar: The Cat and Fiddle Inn. Not much grass sadly but music. I was," Jane paused, "I was in a band."

"No way!" now we laughed, "freak sake, really? With drums and guitars and keyboards and things? What did you play? We mean what instrument? Did you play an instrument? What sort of music was it?"

"I... er sang and... er played a bit of guitar." Jane smiled.

"Wow. What sort of music?"

"It was a Goth band, playing covers of Beatles songs mainly. Or at first anyway. We were called the Sisters of Mersey."

"That's freak'n genius."

"Yeah but..."

"But what?"

"Well, we wanted to play other stuff, you know, proper stuff."

"Why couldn't you?"

"It's illegal. You get arrested."

"What?"

"Yeah, I was arrested. The Priests got me. I was being taken to the Monasteries. I escaped."

"From Tissington?"

Jane nodded.

"Yeah."

"And the others?" We asked.

"Dunno," Jane said, "they're... I don't know. They've gone on without me?"

Jane sounded sad. We wanted to leave it at that but wasn't really able to.

"You can't play other music, or you can't listen to other music?"

"Both. Most folks have a computer." Jane stopped and looked at us.

We nodded: "Yes, the Smithy had one. It's a box that does stuff that you control. It thinks."

"That'll do. But they are all connected and they are all connected to the government and the government controls the library of music that we're allowed to listen to and they don't allow much. Sixties stuff is pretty well it."

"Freak'n hell! But CDs?"

"Yeah, well we have them, but they're not allowed really, and a CD player that is not connected to a computer is pretty hard to come by."

"So they know everything you listen to?"

"Yeah, what you listen to, what you say, where you go, what you buy, who you meet. Everything."

"Are we being watched now?"

"The driver is."

"Freak! How?"

"His phone'll be on. He'll be a dot moving on a map somewhere."

It had started to rain. We pulled out our hammock and dragged it over the two of us.

After an hour the van slowed down as the road narrowed to single track. Sometimes it would stop to let other traffic go the other way.

Then the driver stopped for a pee. It was hard not to giggle about that until we had set off again. Though we had similar problems so we decided that we would take it in turns to crawl down to the end of the trailer and relieve ourselves without the other watching.

Also, we were getting hungry again, so we swapped stories of our favourite foods. Jane was disgusted by our recent meal of raw cauliflower and snails and what, when we left the trailer, we said we could find for us to eat. By the sounds of it Jane was going to go hungry until we found a shop or a pub.

Jane explained that we were travelling up the west side of the Pennines close to the coast. Often, we had to drive through water, though most of the time the roads were rebuilt above sea level. These new bits of road could be very rough, often just a layer of crushed rock.

Sometimes we glimpsed road signs over the back of the trailer: Chinley, Hayfield, Chunal. We did feel like we were making real progress north though Jane said we had a long way to go yet. At Crowden we got on to a fast road again, the A628 to Penistone and we got really worried that the driver would hear us both laughing at that.

Then we turned off and began climbing up the A6024, higher and higher, as it started to get dark.

By the time the van started to head downhill it was night and we were getting really cold.

The rain stopped and as the sky cleared we saw millions of stars. We had seen stars before but this was the first time we had seen so many.

Jane was just starting to tell us about The Plough when the van slowed down, pulled over and stopped.

"He needs another pee," whispered Jane. We tried not to laugh.

Then the tailgate fell down with a crash and a torch was shone in our faces.

"Come on you two, out yer come." The torch was shining straight at us so we could not see who it was. Presumably the driver.

Neither of us moved.

"I can see yer both now come on, out of it." The torch shone down the trailer to show us the route. It stopped at the tailgate. "Oh you bleeding messy fucks. You've pissed in me trailer. Come on, get out!"

Jane reached round and arranged the hammock over our head again. Then we stood up and rather sheepishly made our way down the trailer. The driver stood back as we jumped down.

It was then that we noticed we were not alone. There were three other cars parked up on the bank under some trees, their drivers were leaning against the cars watching us and we felt that this had gone from embarrassing to bad, in fact, dangerous. Jane noticed the others too.

"Look, we're sorry, we just wanted a lift. We've got family up New Huddersfield way. Our Mum's ill. We're just trying to get home." Jane lied.

"Aah," said a voice from the dark, "family, that's sweet. No harm then hey?"

"Where's your family then?" Asked the driver, pointing the torch in Jane's face

"Colcar," said Jane quickly, "Colcar. Just off the M62."

"Oh, I know where Colcar is. I'm the bleeding driver. But tell me, what's the name of the butchers in Colcar then?"

"Um," said Jane, "I wouldn't know. We're vegetarians see. After that whole Phages thing my parents stopped eating meat."

"Fucking hippy," someone said. They were circled round us.

"Enough of this shit," said a voice and a man grabbed Jane from behind. Someone else grabbed us. We had been expecting it.

"You got a lift from Des here. It's time you two paid the fare by giving us a ride."

"Yeah!" whooped the third man.

"Now then, I think it's time we saw what your sister looks like, hey?" More cheers. They were drinking and passing a bottle around.

A hand came up and pulled the hammock off our face.

"Wow, Jesus!" The man who held us let go. "It's a freak."

"It's a Wetter!"

"Will you fucking look at that," said Des the driver. Jane was struggling. We stood still, waiting. We had been in this sort of situation before with Mugs. They were the same the world over it seemed.

"What is it? A boy or a girl?"

"Looks like we're going to get our freak on tonight!"

"I've never had me a fucking freak before."

"Haha a fuck'n freak, a freak fuck'n. That's what's happening, a freak fuck'n."

"We'd better take a look-see then. See what the package is."

"Well I'm not having some rag covered freak, I want the sister."

The first person to try to pull on our clothes lost a hand. We always kept the bayonet sharp and it sliced through the wrist just as the fingers touched us.

Then it all happened very quickly.

The man was clutching the wrist as we put the knife up through their chin. The next man took a swing with a bottle, missed and lost their balance, we pushed the bayonet into the armpit, then we got a foot up to the torso and kicked the body off the blade. The man went down as we spun in midair to face the third as they came up behind us. We swapped the grip on the bayonet and stabbed backwards into the gut. The man stopped and reached down to the stomach. We caught the look of surprise on their face as we turned round, dragging the knife sideways and the man collapsed.

A car started and screeched away up the road. We turned and saw that there were still two men left. Des was holding Jane in front like a shield, the other stood behind but then turned and ran off across the moor.

"Fucking coward Jack!" Shouted Des, gripping Jane tighter round the neck. Keeping Jane between us. "One step closer and I'll fucking break your sister's neck."

Fishing and hunting birds is an art. Some Wetters use long spears for fish or flick stones in a sling at birds. Some even have working crossbows or bows and arrows. But you need to be prepared, ready to fire and often the moment is lost. A heavy, sharp pointed thing, like our hairpin for instance, can be, with a lot of practice, very effective, very fast, and very accurate.

We pulled the pin from our hair and flicked it. It went through Des' eye and into the brain. The hand slipped from Jane's neck as the man folded down to the ground in a kneeling position. Jane stepped away from the body on tip toes.

"You killed them," she whispered.

"They would have killed us after they raped us. There's probably bodies buried all around here."

"But they might not have killed us. You don't know that." Jane's voice was louder now.

"How else could we stop them?" We tried to put an arm round Jane but we were pushed away.

"We'd better get going."

"Can you drive?"

"Yes," said Jane and bent down and got Des' keys out of a pocket. "Fuck it, let's go."

We unhitched the trailer and pulled it off the road. Jane opened the bonnets of the two remaining cars and yanked handfuls of cables off the engines and threw them into the woods. Then we got into the van and drove off.

"Clever, about the cars," we said, watching the sheeps' eyes flashing red in the darkness.

"Goth bands," replied Jane.

"So," Jane went on, "we began removing lines from the songs. Made 'She Loves You' very sarcastic. And louder. And slower."

"Nice."

"Then we noticed that if we introduced a song as, say, the B side of How Do You Do It? By Gerry and the Pacemakers, we could play almost anything. So we claimed A Forest was by the Swinging Blue Jeans, In Between Days was an Elvis song, we had to throw in a few Uh-Huhs to keep the adults happy, if they cared. Well, until..."

"Don't tell me, a Priest showed up."

"How did you know?" Jane snorted quietly.

"Oh, they just love finding ways to stop the fun. So, what did the Priest do? Did they actually know all their Elvis?"

"No. He began looking up the songs on the internet."

"Well, we're not really clear on what the internet is, but we thought you said it was totally controlled."

"Yes, for us, but not for them. They can look at anything."

"Of course."

"Of course. Actually, I've just got to stop." Jane stopped the van, ran round the back. We could hear the sounds of retching. We got out and leant against the van so we couldn't quite see Jane.

"You all right?" We asked after a bit.

"No," Jane replied, "yes. I don't know. Are we murderers now?"

"You're not," we said, "but for us it was self-defence. Bad things were going to happen and... How did they know? Is this the internet thing again?"

"It's mobile phones. Telephones. Des, the driver, must have seen us get in and phoned ahead."

"Oh OK, we've found phones in the water. Just didn't realise they still worked."

"Probably aren't that many masts in the Wetlands. We've got lots. The Linux bunch fixed it all up and got it working again."

"So are we still trying for them then? This Linux lot?"

"Guess so. If we can. It's a long way to go and I think the cops'll be after us now. Though I'm not sure how those men'll explain it," said Jane. "But perhaps they don't need to. They just mention mutants and that's all the explanation they need."

"Better get a wriggle on then, hey?"

"OK." Jane spat a few times and got back in the van.

"Do you know where we're going?"

"I mentioned Colcar. So I would expect them to look that way first. I guess we had better get over the other side of the Pennines and see if we can head north from there.

We drove on. We pointed to the signpost that read Upperthong but said nothing.

Later we saw signs to Diggle, Dobcross, Delph and Denshaw before we fell asleep.

Chapter 8  
Cat and Fiddle

There was a bang at the back of the trailer as if something soft had bashed against the metal, something soft like a hand. There was more noise; the scrapping of feet followed by a deep thump as a body fell onto the tarpaulin above me. The canvas tightened and dropped down almost to my face. Then a shadowy figure began crawling around, trying to look for a way in. It crawled right over me. I was amazed it couldn't hear my terrified breathing. Then it moved away back down to the other end of the trailer and a knife sliced through the material and a body dropped down onto the soil. There was silence and then... sniffing?

"Mud?" asked a puzzled voice. Not a particularly scary voice either. But a funny accent. A Wetter! Of course! I had heard the warnings of another break-in.

OK, new experiences and all. Here goes.

"It's topsoil," I said into the dark.

This had not been how the day was supposed to have gone.

Well, day, if you start from the night before. I don't think days start until about five in the evening. If you have a job then definitely nothing happens until after work. Or if you don't have a job then, well the same; depending on whether you can find any money. And I hadn't had any money for a couple of days. Actually right now, I probably did have a bit of money, though not exactly mine as such.

I'd spent the day hitching from Colcar down to Buxton. The Sisters of Mersey were playing at The Cat and Fiddle Inn and I had really wanted to see them.

Of course you couldn't trust your phone or computer, as any files on them would be read by the cops. That meant the only way to get hold of illegal music was to transfer the songs around on SD cards and stick them into old MP3 players, if you were lucky enough to have one, or you could burn them to blank CDs, though no one had blank CDs anymore, they were even harder to find. So it was very difficult to hear different music. I'd got my hands on a tiny MP3 player with a cracked screen and a few hundred songs. I'd listened to that thing for the past two years and knew every song by heart. Three of the songs were by the Sisters.

The day I found out that the Sisters of Mersey actually existed was one of the most exciting days of my life.

So, I passed on what songs (and books and comics) I had with my friends, and word had seeped out about The Sisters of Mersey. Then we heard that they were touring round the country and were playing a date down at the The Cat and Fiddle Inn outside Buxton. I had begged, borrowed and stolen what money I could and set off the morning of the gig.

Luckily friends had a boat that ran a route from Huddersfield down to Holmfirth from where I hitched rides in various cars down through Chapel-en-le-Frith until I got to Buxton by the mid-afternoon. Then it was just a matter of spotting the other kids gathering by bus stops and around cars, chumming up to a few and getting a lift out to the Inn. Got there before five. Easy.

Just in time for the start of the day.

So, I chatted with my new friends, drifted around, seeing who was there. Basically, about a hundred folk like me, prone to black and interesting clothing, and about twenty locals intent on drinking their way through the evening and eight or ten couples and families having dinner.

It was a warm summer evening. Warm and dry, such a change from New Huddersfield and the coastal towns like Colcar. But the views were not great: rolling moorland with the only eye catching point being the huge telephone mast round the other side of the pub. Most of us were wandering around the big car park, chatting, swapping stories and drink.

It looked like the band were setting up in the double-doored barn behind the inn. A crowd were gathering, watching the band move gear from the van into the barn.

One of the band members was carrying a stack of drum cases and as one began to slip and fall I ran forwards and grabbed it.

"Well caught," she said, "can you bring it in? I'm kind of stuck."

"Yeah," I said, "course."

And I was in.

"Can I help?" I asked as I unloaded the drum cases onto the small raised stage at the end of the barn. "I've got all your stuff."

That got me a look of disbelief.

"Three songs anyway. I love them. Travelled all the way from Colcar to see you. Please can I help. Set up, carry, whatever?"

"Sure," she said, "what's your name?"

"I'm Jane."

"Well, I'm Cathryn. Drummer. If you could give us a hand with the van, that'd be great, god knows where the others have buggered off to."

So I helped Cathryn unload the van, unpack the drums, set them up and then helped hitting drums while she set up the microphones and the PA.

We were there an hour before the rest of the band returned.

"You ready 'Tryn?"

"Aye, no thanks to you wankers. Where've you been?"

"Well, you know you take forever with the drums so we were just checking out the bar."

They began setting up their own gear: bass, guitars, vocals. I helped Cathryn ('just call me 'Tryn') again with mics and cables and an hour on from there the band were ready.

So we went to the bar. I was invited to join them.

There was a big cheer when we walked in which felt incredible even though I wasn't in the band. But just to be seen with them, sitting down at their table (a bunch of kids cleared out for us) was just the best feeling. I kept laughing and stayed close to Tryn.

The bar was full now. The families were gone. The full-time drinkers were herded into a corner and what seemed to be two or three hundred fans swarmed around getting more and more excited.

The band talked about set lists and encores and how late they would dare go on, whether the bar would pay them the full door takings as promised, all sorts. It seemed a dream life.

They bought me another drink ('it's part of the rider'), so maybe they weren't buying, maybe it was free, even better!

The noise in the bar was getting louder and louder, singing was breaking out, often songs covered by the Sisters, sometimes the songs we weren't supposed to know. But no one cared. We could do what we liked, in public. No one could touch us.

Then the band finished their drinks all at the same time.

"Come on," said Tryn, "I need you."

Which made me swell with pride. It turned out that I had to stand behind the mixing desk to make sure no one touched it or spilled drinks on it.

One of the doors to the barn was opened and over the next thirty minutes the crowd paid their way in. During that time each band member, one way or another, came up to me and told me to turn up their volume if they gave me their special sign. Tryn also told me to look after the lights.

"Look Tryn," I began at one point, "I'm not sure..."

"Buff up Jane," interrupted Tryn, "you wanted this, you can do it. Do it."

A CD was playing songs I had never heard before through the PA. Then I got the nod from Tryn. I turned off the lights and faded down the music.

Tryn gave four hits of her drum sticks and with a roar from the crowd the Sisters of Mersey began their set. I got the stage lights on just in time. It was so cool!

It was loud and messy. Occasionally one of the band members would shout into the microphone for me to turn up their whatever: microphone, amp, drums. I did. The band steadily got louder. I was fielding questions from stray punters as they squeezed up to me to ask something about the band: what songs they would play, could they play this or that, where were they playing next, what amplifier did the bass player prefer? I answered as best I could.

Even an hour after the band began people were still coming in and the barn was at bursting point. Now it was a matter of just trying to keep people from falling on to the mixing desk as they leapt up and down. At least there was no room for drinks any more and no one wanted to lose their place in the crowd to fetch more. Bottles and glasses were crushed underfoot.

The Sisters played through their Mersey beat songs, played a few of their own songs and were now deep into illegal territory playing L7, Slits, Breeders, Blondie, Wannadies, that I recognised and more stuff I had never heard of.

Then after two hours and what must have been forty odd songs they finished with The Ramones.

"This is the end for all of us!" Shouted the guitarist, Flora. "Rockaway Beach! 1 2 3 4!"

The band started. Everyone screamed, the band, the audience, me.

Then, as the last chord faded and it was over. I switched on the room lights. The band had disappeared into the crowd, apart from Tryn who was, once again, left to sort out the band's gear.

Slowly the barn emptied though there were large groups surrounding each band member until finally Flora made it over to me.

"I'll finish up here if you fancy helping Tryn," she said, so I climbed on stage and began rolling up cables round my arm and giving it a slight twist with each loop so it would lie flat, just as Tryn had shown me. I was a quick learner.

That took about an hour. By the time I looked up again there was almost no one in the room. Gina, the singer, was still talking to fans, but the rest had packed up their gear and the PA.

Something made me shiver. I turned and saw a man at the back of the room, a Priest. He was staring at me.

He was tall but slight, dressed all in black with only a hint of the white dog collar showing at his neck, and a very pale face, almost dusty looking, with sunken eyes.

They always made me think of vampires, but worse, they made me think vampires were real.

I nudged Tryn.

"What's he doing here?" I asked.

"Oh, they always have someone following us around. He's been at every show this tour. Taking notes. Apologizing and then complaining. Don't worry about it. They can't touch us." Explained Tryn.

"Why not?" I asked, packing away the last cables.

"Ah, well, we've got protection. Of sorts."

I gave a quizzical look.

"Gina's Mum's a Linux, a sister."

"Fuck, so she's minted?"

"No, not really. Her Mum doesn't have much money but she can get help if we need it. And the Priests know it. So they watch but, I don't know, they haven't done anything yet, so who cares?"

Wow. Being able to be so carefree about Priests. I was already experiencing a most bizarre sensation. You read about it in books, but it made no sense until you actually experienced it. I felt I was walking on air. Or maybe it was ten feet tall. Head in the clouds? Maybe it was just happiness. Is that what happiness felt like? I suspected I was feeling happy for the first time in my life.

I stood there smiling, watching the band preparing to move their stuff into the van.

Tryn, Flora, Gina, Karen the second guitarist and Betty the bass player were talking together. Then they walked over to me.

"Look Jane," began Tryn, "we've been talking and we were wondering, if you weren't doing anything, whether you would like to roadie for us?"

"Roadie?" I asked.

"Yeah," said Gina, "be our slave for a few weeks, carry stuff, help us set up, do the sound with Tryn. We just need a hand and you did a great job today."

"There's no money in it," explained Betty, "food and booze and maybe a bed if you're lucky. Though we often sleep in the van."

"I'd love to." I said quickly, before they could change their mind. Though it was difficult to speak. I felt like crying. My throat hurt.

"Group hug," said Tryn and we all put our arms round each other.

Which was when I felt the handcuff going round my wrist. I spun round.

"This is an intervention," said the Priest, smiling, "young lady, I'm saving you."

He pulled his arm back and I stumbled to his side, almost going on my knees.

"Lord have pity on your souls." He said to the Sisters.

Tryn stepped forward and punched him right on the nose. I laughed as he went down even though I went down with him. The others rushed forwards but then he pushed them away and waved a flip wallet: it showed his Moors Immunity Badge.

"I have immunity. Any attempts to hinder my actions will invoke the severest response." His voice was quiet, as if he wanted to shout but didn't know how.

I pulled and twisted trying to get my hand out of the cuffs.

"Tryn!" But I didn't know what else to say.

"Please be quiet. I'm saving you." He said in a kind voice.

I could see that Gina trying to make a phone call.

"We'll get you back Jane!" Shouted Tryn, and then he was dragging me out of the barn towards a dark expensive-looking car. The band followed us out. There was a crowd of fans around us whispering and staring.

The priest opened the rear door pulled out a second pair of handcuffs and cuffed my hand to the inner door handle. Then he unlocked the first cuffs and slammed the door.

He turned round and looked at the crowd.

"Grow up," he said to the crowd, "calm down, smile."

No one moved. He got into the car.

"You can't do this. Let me out. Now!" I screamed.

He turned to me. "You're coming with me to the Moors."

I screamed quite a lot. The Priest put on some hellish music I'd heard used in horror films. It was very loud. I stopped screaming and stopped pulling at the cuffs. My wrist was sore, and so was my throat.

We drove south.

Then we stopped briefly in Buxton, in a dark corner of an all-night store car park. During the minutes the Priest was inside the shop I struggled with the handcuffs and shouted for help. No one came.

The Priest got back in the car and put a carrier bag on the front seat.

"Cold supper tonight," he explained with a smile, "we'll share."

He started the car and continued south.

He was heading for a port somewhere. I wasn't sure of the names down here. Was is Tissingdon? Something like that. I had my feet up across the back seat. My arm, still handcuffed to the door handle, was totally dead. I hoped the Priest thought I was asleep.

Some time later he made a phonecall.

"I've got someone... Female.. teenager. No, I doubt it, maybe. If she makes it. No, No, Yes. Berth three. Thirty minutes, so, around two A.M. I would expect. Thank you."

My eyes were shut, well, very nearly shut. I could see lights of a town ahead. We headed downhill, probably to the sea as it was getting misty outside. There was a fair bit of traffic coming the other way, up the hill. Lights flashed by.

The car slowed and I could see streetlights. The car turned this way and that. Then we got to a gate and the Priest rolled down his window and said: "Berth Three."

We went through and it all got a bit darker and quieter though there were occasional very loud noises, ship noises.

We stopped. The Priest got out and I heard the car lock itself with a beep. I wasnot sure how long he was away for: fifteen or twenty minutes. He came back and unlocked the boot and took something heavy out, presumably a suitcase or something. Then he opened my door and my arm was stretched out above my head. He bent down and unlocked the cuff from the door. My arm fell down to the tarmac but I lay still.

The Priest stood there for a seconds then he came closer and leant into the car to shake me awake.

"Wake up." He said.

I held the lose handcuff in my fist and brought it up as hard as I could between his legs. With a grunt he lost his balance and tipped over me and rolled into the foot well of the back seat. With his back on the floor he tried to reach up and grab me. I batted his arms away and punched him in the face with the handcuff ring. There was a spray of blood as his nose burst. I punched him again but his waving arms caught my fist and I hit his Adam's Apple. He began to cough and splutter. I punched again and broke a tooth. Then I punched him a few more times in the groin and then a few more in the face. Finally he stopped trying to grab me.

I put my hand inside his jacket and pulled out his wallet and phone and... a gun! I got the car keys and I grabbed the bag of food off the front seat.

He was still coughing and breathing raggedly.

"I'll find you. I'll save you. Don't worry." He whispered.

He watched me while I locked the car. I threw the keys into the water. Then I ran for the shadows.

I got to a high fence and ran back and forwards along it like a frightened rabbit until I found a gap and squeezed through into the back of a huge lorry park. I saw a big lorry with its lights on and engine running, I hoped it was about to leave. I climbed up the back of the trailer and rolled under the cover. It was filled with soil. I crawled over the mound of earth until I was right at the front, behind the cab, with my back to the trailer wall.

I felt the lorry move and had to put my hand over my mouth to stop myself squealing. I started to shake. And shook and shook.

I watched the lights slipping away through the gaps of the tarpaulin. When there were no more lights I guessed we were safely were out of town. I stopped shaking.

That was when I heard a bang at the back of the trailer.

Chapter 9  
Blowingstone

We slept in, kept calm by the normal noises around us: the dawn chorus of birds and babies, then breakfast and the children going off to get a bit of education while their parents settled in to another day of surviving.

Then, towards lunchtime, when our stomachs really couldn't face any more emptiness, we got up. Leicester's wound was checked and we were given cups of hot water and fed fried potatoes, turnips and swede.

After that we decided the best thing to do would be to walk round from Blowingstone, where we had come ashore, to Wayland's Smithy and sell Bill and Ben the parawing for as much as we could. We reckoned on staying the night there and then head back to Treetops the next day.

So, although our families and friends might have been worrying about us, if they hadn't already heard of our clash with Trumps and the Mugs, a trip to the Smithy would come first.

Anyway, we folded up the parawing and set off, walking along the Ridgeway.

When we were out of earshot we talked about the parawing. It was on our minds constantly: flying under water. We weren't really talking about the amazing science of the thing but the sensation, the outright fun of flying.

After about an hour of walking we sat down and talked about what we could do.

"The thing is," we said, eventually, "is that we don't really want to take it back to Bill and Ben."

"Not yet anyway," agreed Leicester, "we've not even had a proper go with it yet."

"We think we can get it to go faster, you know, instead of just dangling like that, getting in the way, what if we were sitting back, sort of feet first?" we suggested.

"Or lying on your front on a..." Leicester paused to think, "plank of some sort with two cross bars for each of the control ropes so you could tip them forwards or pull them back."

"OK, yes," we said only half listening as we considered our own theories, "as we come up, the wings will collapse when we reach the surface, but if we were going fast enough would there be enough forward momentum to get our head out of the water for a breath and then dive and keep going?"

"Or, there's talk of the underwater cities, we could make a submarine and cover it with this and just travel forever, go looking for them."

"We'd need a lot more of this stuff to cover a whole submarine." We pointed out.

"Yes but, maybe we could work out what it was and make more of it."

"What? With our awesome nano skills?"

Leicester punched us. We tapped Leicester's bandaged arm and smiled at the yelp of pain.

"Or," we wondered, "or we are looking at this all wrong."

"How?"

"Well, we're forgetting something quite important aren't we?"

"Are we?"

"Yeah, this stuff isn't meant for underwater, it's for the air. It's for flying. Forget submarines. We could fly anywhere. Fly to Topland."

"Holy crap!" exclaimed Leicester, "we completely forgot. Oh!"

"What?"

"Well, we can't swim because of our cut and all, but we could fly."

"Your arm's shagged," we pointed out, "but ours aren't. We could give it a go."

"Freak you!" said Leicester, "it was our idea."

We looked around. It was too open, too many folk would see and word would get out and then, well, we weren't sure what mwould happen then, but when we found stuff underwater it was normal to keep quiet about the whereabouts for a bit and this was sort of the same: a secret we wanted to keep to ourselves.

The question now was where to go. We wanted to avoid Bill and Ben for a bit anyway now. Really, we needed to get back to Treetops to explain the loss of the boat, get a change of clothes and then tomorrow maybe, sneak off to one of the tiny islands and see if we really could fly.

The problem then was we needed a lift back to Treetops and the most obvious place to get one was from The Smithy. There were always folk coming and going between Treetops and Bill and Ben's. It felt bad, cheating them somehow, but we just did not want to hand the wing over to Bill and Ben quite yet.

"We can't think of anyone who would come over this way." We weren't even at Uffington yet.

"We know," agreed Leicester, "we should hide out here for a bit, out of sight and wait until it gets dark, then sneak along to the mooring below The Smithy. There's bound to be someone heading back after the pub. We could catch a lift and Bill and Ben won't get to hear about it."

So, guilitly, we agreed to stay low, among the reedy damp grass of the water's edge and wait.

At sunset we got given food from a family in an old double-decker bus and then walked along the shore heading west to the Smithy. It was a pleasant evening, not too damp, just about as nice as it could get on the Ridgeway. We stopped at a few shacks along the path where people were gathering for the evening's chat and a sharing of whatever homemade entertainments there were. Cider was the most likely. So after a couple of hours slow strolling we were quietly tipsy, feeling very pleasant and relaxed.

A lot of the talk was of the gossip of the day. We, it turned out, were quite high up that list.

"Where have you come from?" We were asked.

"Oh, just down from Warren way," we replied which was roughly accurate.

"Do you know about the Mugs attacking a couple of kids?" Someone would ask.

"No," got in Leicester quickly, "what happened?"

And we would hear our story again. How we had been diving and come up to find our boat captured by Mugs, by Trumps himself. How we had fought them off. Kicked Trumps in the nuts a lot, then swum for miles, fought off a giant eel. The story got wilder as the night got darker.

Sometimes someone would point at us and go:

"Hang on, wasn't it you?"

"Nah," we would say, "there's a few of us at Treetops. We've been away for a bit. Might have been a sibling, the ugly one."

They would laugh and we would wander on.

Eventually, close to midnight or maybe later, we made it to the strand most used by Treetops. We recognised a couple of boats there.

We talked about taking one and heading back but it would have been a bit unkind to whoever had come over in it.

So we camped down in the stern of one boat and waited for whoever was using it to turn up.

We had almost fallen asleep when we heard the rising noise of fighting. This time it was coming from straight up the hill. It sounded like the Smithy was under attack. Ridgeway folk were coming out of their homes, deciding what to do and then getting armed and heading off.

There was a burst of flame in the distance.

"That'll be one of Bill's bombs," said Leicester. Another went off, lighting up the trees around Wayland Smithy. "It must be a pretty big attack to use them."

"We should go and help." We said reluctantly. "Stay here, look after the parawing. You can't do much with your arm."

"Freak that!" said Leicester, "we're coming too."

So, with the wing wrapped around us in a hammock fashion, we jogged up the hill. The noise of fighting grew louder. This had to be a really determined attempt by the Mugs.

When we got up to the Smithy we could see that the Mugs were being held back on the far side of the Wayland Trees. A determined line of Ridgeway folk were holding the line against a mass of Mugs. Arrows, spears, the odd heavy object littered the ground. Occasionally there would be a single gunshot and every one would duck and freeze a bit.

We had just reached the doorway of the pub when it burst open and Brentford came out hauling Cam who looked semi-unconcious.

"Freak's sake Leicester, Felix," Brentford said, "give us a hand with Cam, got clubbed by a Mug. We barely dragged Cam away in time before they pushed forward."

"How many are there?" shouted Leicester above the noise, "why are they attacking? What are they after?"

"You! You freak'n numb nut. They're after you two." Shouted Brentford. We took Cam's other arm and headed back down to the boats. With Cam and Leicester wounded it seemed best just to get away.

"Because we kicked Trumps in the balls?" Asked Leicester.

"Aye, you know what Trumps is like. Gone freak'n bananas about it." Said Brentford, "and Trumps' after something."

We stopped dead.

"What do you mean Trumps is after something?" We asked. "Like Leicester's head on a plate sort of thing?"

"No." Brentford replied, giving us a funny look. We were down by the boats now and loading Cam in. We helped Leicester get aboard and then Brentford pushed the boat out and jumped in. We began rowing.

"Trumps reckons you've got something," continued Brentford.

"The Mugs got all our stuff." Said Leicester indignantly. "We got all these sheets up into our boat, then the Mugs arrived and took them all. We had to swim for miles."

"And the eel," whispered Cam, "you fought off an eel."

"Yes! We freak'n did too." Said Leicester pulling down the bandages. "Look at these bastard freak'n teeth marks!"

Cam groaned.

"Well, we bet it feels better than our head."

We rowed on.

"What make you think think Trumps wanted something?" We asked after bit.

"It was well weird actually. We were in the bar and these two small Mugs came in. Seems they had rowed ashore alone and asked to be taken to see Bill and Ben. They bought a box of apples as a kind of gift to get them through safely."

"Apples?" asked Leicester.

"Yeah. As a kind of peace offering. Anyway," went on Brentford as Cam let out another groan. "They came in and talked with Bill and Ben who they kept saying no, and after a bit the Mugs left and Bill and Ben came over to us and asked where you two were. Well, we didn't know but everyone had been telling this story about two Wetter kids kicking Trumps in the nuts and then swimming for miles and it sounded just like the sort of thing you two nimrods would do."

"Did Bill and Ben say why the Mugs were asking for us?" We asked.

"No, Bill just sounded really worried. Anyway the next thing we know it's another Mug attack but this time there were hundreds of 'em."

"It was a shit scary sight seeing that lot come up the hill. We were outside having a wee toke. Almost shat ourselves. Ugly freaks that lot." Said Cam, trying to sit up. We bent down and pulled Cam's shoulders up against our legs.

"Freak," said Leicester quietly. "Folk are dying because of us."

"Bollocks," we said, "those Mugs were going to kill us. We escaped. It's not our fault that Trumps is one enormous shit-brained rat turd. In a wig."

"It is a wig isn't it?" Leicester smiled.

"Yes!" we said, "and you almost knocked it right off. Must be glued on tight."

"Nailed on more like."

We could see the lights of Treetops in the distance and headed towards them. A few minutes later we splashed ashore carrying Cam who was still a bit woozy.

"Got a message from Ben, come round later." Cam whispered, grabbing our arm.

"OK." We said though not at all wanting to hear the message. In fact, having been considered heroes last night we were beginning to feel that we had brought about a lot of hurt and maybe even death because of... of what exactly we weren't sure. Trumps jumped us, we escaped. That surely was not our fault? But it felt like it was. And now we were avoiding Bill and Ben when they had always been good to us.

The Treetops folk crowded round and helped Cam to the doctor's hut (yes, not exactly a doctor but that was the word we used).

"Alne wants to see you." Someone tapped our shoulder. We went over to Leicester who was retelling our story and adding the new bit about the battle at Wayland Smithy, though we noticed that Leicester was missing out the part about the Mugs asking for us first.

"Leicester, Alne wants us." We still had to wait a few minutes for Leicester to finish. It was news that had to be told.

We climbed up the rope ladder to the big treehouse and found Alne making tea.

"So, you two have finally made it back have you? And lost a boat by the sounds of it? How are you Leicester? How are the bites?"

Leicester pulled up a sleeve up and showed Alne the wounds.

"Well, you were lucky weren't you?" Alne turned to us. "And why were you diving so late?"

"Yes, we know, sorry, it was just one last dive." It was always difficult talking to Alne. Alne knew everything and had known us since we were born pretty well. Kindness and cleverness were great but we could never talk with Alne like a normal person.

"You should know better," said Alne, "you're supposed to be the clever one, not like this chump."

Alne waved at Leicester.

"What have we done?" Asked Leicester, feigning offence. "OK, sorry about the boat, but it was going to sink any second. And we found some great stuff."

"That Trumps got?" Alne pointed out.

"Yes," we interrupted before Leicester could say any more, "Trumps took it all. Good stuff too. A lot of sheeting and ropes."

"Nothing else?" Asked Alne. "No great find?"

Suddenly we felt very aware that we had the nano filament parawing wrapped around our shoulders just as we would have normally carried our hammock.

"Oh, well, on our last dive we brought up a sheet, this one." I patted the parawing. "Trumps' got our hammock in the boat so we were thinking of making this into a new one."

"Fine, whatever," said Alne, "go and get some sleep. Tomorrow we're going to prepare you for your trip north."

"Right, OK, thanks Alne. Sorry about the boat." Alne waved us away.

"It's the least of our worries at the moment."

"Sorry! We almost gave it away." Whispered Leicester as we climbed down from the treehouse.

"We did notice, for freak's sake. Anyway, we're going to keep this disguised as a hammock for the time being." We saw Leicester's look. "We won't lose it. At least we'll know where it is."

"Look, we don't care too much as long as we get a go at flying."

"We know, us too. We just think we should keep quiet about it for a bit longer. Let everyone forget about it."

"We just want a go." Repeated Leicester.

"Yes," we replied, "yes, but Bill and Ben want it, Trumps seems to have got wind of it (Leicester snorted at that) and Alne's asking questions. Let's just see what it does and then we'll take it to the Pot Men."

We walked on in the dark.

"We're whacked," yawned Leicester.

"Us too," it must have been two or so in the morning, "said we would have a word with Cam first though."

Leicester went off to bed and we went to the doctor's hut.

There was a lamp on low that smelled of bark oil. Cam lay on a camp bed, head bandaged but clean looking. The doctor was already asleep in the room at the back.

"How's things Cam?" We asked quietly. Cam looked round and smiled.

"Hey Felix. Worked it out yet?"

"Worked what out?" We asked. It was a strange greeting.

"Yeah, you know, your problem."

"Problem? What's our problem?"

"Oh, you know, Ben wants you and Trumps wants you and Alne wants you. Who doesn't want you?"

"You?" We asked.

"Oh no, we wanted you. Remember?" We nodded. Another embarrassing moment in recent history. It wasn't that we didn't like Cam, we really liked Cam but we had panicked when Cam had leant in for a kiss. We still hadn't spoken about it. And it had been weeks ago.

We weren't sure what to say.

"OK, so what's the message from Ben then?"

"Yes, the message. The message is." Cam paused for quite a long time. "The message is: KEEP IT SAFE. RAID KNOWS WHAT'S BEST."

Cam stopped talking, eyes closed.

"That had better not be all the message. Cam... Cam is there more?"

Cam woke up a bit.

"What? No sorry that's it, that's all the message."

"It's a shit message."

"We did say that actually. We said: 'That's a shit message'. And Bill said: 'No, it's a cryptic message' and Ben said 'they're the best' and we said 'We don't think Felixstowe is going to understand it', then they said 'fuck me it's the Mugs attacking again' and ran off."

"Keep it safe. Raid knows what's best?"

"That's the one," said Cam, "what have you got to keep safe?"

"Um, er, me?" we replied, "we're going on this raid north?"

"You think that's what they meant?" Asked Cam.

"Don't you?" we asked back.

"No, not really. We think you and Leicester found something on that dive. And Trumps saw it but then you swam off with it. How can you swim with it, it must be tiny, like a big tiny gun? You found a gun?"

"No, we didn't find a gun, we didn't find anything. No, we found lots of sheets." We almost said: like this one, but managed not to. "And Trumps took them all and the boat. Leicester did kick Trumps in the nuts though."

Cam laughed gently.

"Maybe it's Leicester you're supposed to keep safe."

"That must be it. We've got to go and get some sleep."

"Sure," said Cam, "come and see me tomorrow."

"Sure, night Cam."

We left the doctor's hut and went over to our favourite tree and then remembered that we didn't have our old hammock. We would have to turn the parawing into one in the morning, disguise it more.

We rolled ourself up in it and lay down at the foot of the tree and were soon fast asleep.

Chapter 10  
Clogger Lane

"That's living alright."

"Surely they banned Chas'n Dave?" We muttered. It was time to wake up.

We had been rolling around on the van's double front seat trying to sleep as Jane drove on through the night. The problem was Jane's tendency to sing, a lot. Maybe singing helped with staying awake but there seemed to be an obvious problem with that: we didn't get much sleep.

Now, by the sounds of it, we had stopped but, as the engine was still purring away, we reckoned there had to be a problem. Not just Chas'n Dave either.

"They did ban Chas'n Dave. Prince John disapproved. But actually that was the socially acceptable Joe Fagin."

"Wow, is there a difference?" We asked, sitting up.

"No."

"Ah, OK, so, what's the problem? Why have we stopped?"

"Well, I drove all night and now we're here, the Calderbrook crossing, which is the only way to continue north by road. They've built a new bridge, as you can see."

We peered down the hill. The sun had not risen yet but would soon. There was light enough to see the road running downhill to a heavy concrete bridge that crossed over a narrow valley. A few roofs of farm buildings could be seen in the water.

"So, what's the problem?" We asked again.

"There's a checkpoint in the village. The two lorries in front of us were stopped." Jane paused. "They might be looking for us or maybe they are just looking for you. Or maybe they don't know about this van yet or anything. But I don't know what to do. In two minutes time I could be arrested for murder. I don't know what to do."

Jane sounded scared.

"So," we continued her thought process. "They might just let you through or they could search the van and find us."

Jane nodded.

"On the other hand they could be watching us now thinking that it's very suspicious that we've stopped here and are not driving down the hill."

Jane shrugged and nodded again.

"So, let's play it safe. Think of a story about why you're driving this van. Then get out and have a pee." Jane looked at us. "It explains why you've stopped! Anyway, you pee, or not, and we'll sneak out and go round, where does this road go? Up there?"

We pointed to a bit of road we could see about a mile to the north on the other side of the valley.

"How the fuck would I know? Sorry, yes probably."

"It's OK. We'll meet there in an hour say. OK?"

Jane nodded again and took a deep breath.

"Right, well, I'd better go have a pee then."

We crept out the back of the van and, keeping to the shadows where possible, leapt over a wall and ran along behind another stone wall leading away from the road.

We heard Jane slam the door of the van shut just as we reached the water's edge. We watched as Jane drove the van over the bridge and turn onto the road going through the village.

The van stopped suddenly. Someone in uniform was standing on the road, another was coming out of a house nearby.

Jane wound down the window and talked, then got out of the van and went round to the back doors followed by a soldier. The second soldier climbed in the front. We heard the back of the van being opened and then slammed shut.

Jane reappeared with the soldier and they walked round the front of the van, the other soldier got out and joined them.

We couldn't hear anything but they seemed to talk for a long time until finally Jane bent over a bit and put an arm on one of the soldier's shoulders and then turned and got into the van and started it up. With a wave out the window, which the soldiers returned, Jane drove out of the village.

We dived into the sea, quickly swum the hundred metres or so underwater, climbed out the other side and ran up the hill to the road, where the van had already stopped.

Jane sat and waiting with an arm half out the window.

"You're a quick swimmer aren't you?"

"What took so long? What did they want?" We asked as we got in.

"Oh they were lovely." Jane said with a smile. "Worried I might be attacked by some monster Wetter that's been seen about."

"Me!" we gasped, suddenly wondering how Cam and the others were doing.

"Not just you. Seems quite a few got in by the sounds of it."

"Good, that's good." We said and was rather surprised to hear Jane then ask:

"Is it? I mean they were saying that it was some sort of attack, that you Wetters were just wanting to kill us all."

"What? In your sleep? And eat the babies? Like what we've done to you?"

"No, but are they all nice like you, and anyway you've killed, I've seen you. Only last night."

"OK, sorry. No, we are not all nice, and there are the Mugs and the Priests, and Evangelicals and Scientologists, they're all evil freaks. But if the ones who have broken in are who we think they are then yeah, they're like us, they mean no harm, they're just trying to find out how to save our families."

"Fine, sorry," said Jane, "didn't mean to bring up last night, that was, probably, you know, amazing, what you did."

"S'Ok," we replied, "stressful times. So, what else did they say?"

"Well," said Jane, putting the van in gear and setting off, while we put the fans on to try and dry off a bit. "They wanted to know who I was and where I was going and where I was from and what I did, the usual."

"And you had a story?"

"Oh, yes," said Jane proudly, "I said I was the roadie for the Sisters of Mersey and I was on a road trip picking up gear in Haworth and then heading onto New Keighley to catch a ferry to Scotland."

"But there's no gear in the back of the van?"

"Ah, I said the band were going industrial and needed this crap to hit and grind and stuff."

"And they believed you?"

"Well the old one was all: 'what, who, why' but the other one was younger and had even heard some of the Sisters' stuff and knew about the Linux connection, so it was all OK."

"Freak! Well done."

"I know!"

We drove on.

We wondered if Cam or Brentford or Stamford were sitting in a van somewhere headed north like us or if, well it wasn't worth thinking about: trapped, or being torn apart by dogs, cold and dead on a hillside, or dragged though a village on the end of a chain, naked and laughed at. We just had to hope for the best.

"Breakfast," we said, "can we get any bacon rolls? Have you got any money left?"

"Have you ever had a sausage roll?" Asked Jane laughing.

"No," we replied, "we've had sausage, but any meal that ends in the word roll is new to us remember."

"Wow! How about pizza?"

"No."

"Pasta?"

"No."

"Pretzels?"

"Now you're just making words up to make us feel bad."

"No, they're real, honest, they're squiggley shaped round things, a bit stale."

"Sounds delicious."

"Well they're a damn sight better than slugs and snails and turnips."

"We've never eaten slugs!" we began, "Recently anyway."

"Ha!"

"Look, imagine we've just made a really long tearful speech about life in the wetlands and babies crying, OK. And it was really effective." We looked at Jane concentrating on the road. "It's bad back there and this place seems so easy."

The van wavered on the narrow road.

"It's pretty shit here too you know. You don't know what it's like here. Sure it looks nice and dry and there's food. But there are evil wankers here."

We tried to interrupt.

"I know, you've got wankers too," Jane continued. "They're everywhere, but here we're all too scared to do anything about them, too scared to end up like you, outside the wall, so we just let them get away with everything."

"So, to recap: life is shit, then you die."

"Yes!" Jane shouted banging the steering wheel. "Exactly. It's shit. Then you die.

"But," Jane went on, "but, we have to hope."

"Yes we do. For bacon rolls. What're the money levels like?"

"Ah," said Jane fishing in her jacket pocket looking for something and finally pulling out a leather wallet. "Have a look in that."

Jane tossed it onto my lap. We had a look inside. There was a picture of an elderly couple.

"Your... grandparents?"

"Get to fuck, that's not my wallet. I got that off a Priest."

"You robbed a Priest!" That was astonishing. "Wow. How? What happened? Is this why you said the Priests are looking for you?"

"Sort of. They took a dislike to me and this Priest tried to take me out to the Moors on a boat. I escaped and stole his money, jumped in the back of a lorry and met you."

"Freak, OK, well done, again." Jane nodded and kept driving. We had driven past road signs to Walsden and Todmorden, their roads disappearing down into the water.

It was fully morning now as we came to Cornholme and Jane asked us to hide in the back of the van. So we sat in the back making a nest out of the junk and our hammock.

"Ooh," said Jane as we drove through the village. "A bakers. Bacon rolls coming up. How much money we got?"

"There's quite a lot of different types in here. What works? There's dollars, pounds and euros."

"Gimme the pounds. The dollars and euros are worth more but might raise a few eyebrows coming from my grubby hands."

"Call that grubby?"

"Oh I'm sure I'm cleany clean clean by your standards, you filthy Wetter. Stay here you minger." Jane got out the van and shut and locked the door.

We looked through the rest of the wallet. There were a couple of cards with a picture of a bearded person on one side with their heart out on view with 'we eat his flesh and drink his blood' underneath on one side and prayers on the back. There was a hard plastic card with the picture of a man, presumably the Priest, the card said: 'We Love The Lord', with his date of birth, and a long number. There wasn't much else. Just a lot of money.

I heard Jane unlock the van door and climb in. Immediately the cab filled with the delicious smell of bacon rolls.

"Two each," cried Jane throwing us a steaming paper bag. We got stuck in. It was fantastic, again. Then Jane passed us a cup with a lid on it.

"Try this. It's tea." We took the lid of and took a sniff. It was sort of grassy but bitter. We tried it. It was OK.

"This is nice." We said.

"Don't like it?"

"We didn't say that!"

"No but I heard it."

"Well it's not exactly nettle tea is it?"

Jane laughed and laughed and tried to eat but couldn't.

"What?" We kept asking but got no answer.

We carried on eating.

"So," we began when we had finished the rolls. "What's tea (without nettles) then that makes it so great?"

"Well, it comes from India for a start."

"What! Topland has contact with India?" We had a few maps and globes at Treetops so we kind of knew our way around the world.

"Yeah!" Jane replied. "I mean we don't have much to trade but some stuff: whisky, oil, sheep, wool. Stuff comes in."

"So who else do you trade with, do all the other countries exist then. Malaysia, Venezuela?"

We tried to think of some others, but that's education for you: deserts you when you actually need it.

"Well," said Jane, "to cover it quickly: we've got America which is mainly there, missing its east and west coasts and practically cut in half by the Mississippi Flood, the Two Americas now. Crazy World Ending loving Evangelical creeps in the east mainly and crazy Scientologist creeps in the west. Hate each other, always fighting. Both with a lot of money, dollars." She said nodding at the wallet.

"There's Fortress Europe which is the bottom half of Europe, top's underwater. Kind of wants to call itself The New Roman Empire \- Priests and Euros."

"There's almost no Russia, so they tried to move south into China. That went badly, loads of nukes, not much of anything left that way. Half the 'Stans have gone, half of Australia, half of South America. Most have gone extreme religion one way or another. Afirca is silent, no one's very sure what's going on there. The only decent ones are..."

"The Scandies," we interrupted.

"Yes! Yes, exactly, the Scandies, the only sensible ones in the whole fucking world. But they've got bad volcano problems, like Canada, when the ice came off."

"The ice came off?"

"Oh right, yes, the north pole and south pole were covered in ice. We do our global warming thing, ice melts, less weight on the poles, earth crust cracks, volcanoes pop up, melt the rest of the ice. Water levels rise to whatever they are now - 200 metres last I heard."

"Freak."

"Fuck indeed."

"Some folk back where we come from reckon it's stopped rising." We pointed out.

"Na. I reckon we're all going to be dancing on Rockaway beach before long."

"What happened to your hope?"

"There's no hope after two bacon rolls." Which had us flummoxed. What was Jane meaning by that?

"OK, well, where to now?" We asked.

"Yes," said Jane, "there's a garage up ahead. We need to fill up and maybe a map would help."

"If we could do that and then drive on somewhere I would like a moment or two among some trees, if possible. Kind of urgent actually." We tried to sound unembarrassed.

"What? Oh, I see, yes me too probably. OK, let's go."

Jane started the van and drove the short distance to the garage to fill up with diesel, bought a map and soon we were off again.

"Are we being chased do you think?" I asked sometime later, after we had both spent some time in the bushes. "I mean, the soldiers at the bridge were on the look out for us, but what about the men who attacked us?"

"No, I don't think they're going to come after us, not after what you did. But I think they'll tell the cops that you attacked them and stole the van."

"Oh. How long have we got before they start looking for the van then?"

"I think they'll be too frightened by you at first to say much, but with some of them being actually dead they'll be missed by family. I reckon the story will be coming out now. What are we, eleven or so in the morning? Word will be getting out. Perhaps they've already spoken to the soldiers on the bridge. Oh God, I shouldn't have mentioned the Sisters of Mersey. We might be remembered at the garage. They know where we are and will phone ahead. We're about to be caught!"

"So we need to get off the road now?" We asked.

"I don't know! Maybe I'm talking crap. I just made that up. It might not be real at all." Jane replied sharply.

"Doesn't matter." We said, looking at the map. "If you've thought of it then someone else will have too.

"OK," we continued, "we're on the brilliantly named Pudding Lane, going up to the Long Causeway. Right takes us to Blackshaw, Colden, round to Shakleton and the A6033, a big road straight to Haworth. That's where they'll expect us to go if you mentioned Colcar. But if we go left then it's a long drive to Mereclough, Worsthorne, Lane Bottom, Wycoller and then we swim from somewhere like Laycock or Cononley to somewhere with no name, walk and swim again to Halton East, or a bigger swim from er... the West road near Sough, how do you even pronounce that, to some islands and on to er... beyond Hellifield."

"Look, I know you can swim but that's bonkers. Those are swims for miles. I'm not like you. Can't we steal a boat or something?"

"Yeah, maybe we'll find a boat, in which case sure we'll use it, but a boat might be missed and then they would know our route. But if we swim we could go completely unnoticed."

"Unnoticedly dead," pointed out Jane.

"We swam carrying a friend for a couple of miles recently. We can carry you, you don't even have to swim."

"It's freezing. I'll freeze my tits off."

"Then we'll keep you warm." That got a look from Jane. "Not like that but you know, it'll be fine, and we'll have escaped. They'll have no idea where we were."

"Fine, we'll do it, we'll go your way. And Sough is pronounced Sough."

"We're really not sure what you said then."

"Fuck you. Let's go to Hellifield. Great names up here aren't there?"

"OK, left at the top of this hill and foot down." We laughed.

Soon we were on the Long Causeway, though it seemed to change its name every few kilometres: New Road, Kebs Road. There was other traffic, some faster than us and we would pull over to let them past, always frightened that it was the police giving chase, and then lorries and buses coming towards us. These were narrow old roads, sometimes running straight for miles, sometimes curling round a tree or a house or, for no reason at all, just a pointless kink in the road.

Once for instance when we got to Hurstwood, the road disappeared into the sea and we had to travel along a rough track that skirted the water and connected with the old road rising back out of the sea a few hundred metres further along. Sometimes the roads were rough and muddy tracks that barged through centuries old stone walls to avoid the sea and at other times, like at the new bridge at Calderbrook, it would be brand new tarmac.

"Who keeps these roads open?" We asked some time later.

"Dunno," replied Jane, "local Village Councils? I doubt Prince John does anything, he only likes it 'quaint and rustic like it should be'."

"What was that?" We asked.

"That's how he speaks." Jane replied.

"Why?"

"I don't know. They've always been like that. I guess it's the only way he knows: the sound of his own voice. Probably sounds normal to him."

"OK, we admit it." We said.

"You admit what?"

"You also live in a very freak'n freaky world."

"Ha!" Jane cried. "Yes! Quite! We do. It's a fuck sight cleaner than yours but very very fucking odd all the same. But was it ever normal? Was it ever kind?"

"Well, we think we're pretty kind."

"Yes but you are a bit of a lethal weapon aren't you? Look what you did to those men back there."

"They were going to hurt us."

"Yeah well," Jane went quiet again.

After Hurstwood we had a choice: go on to a big town called Worsthorne, stock up on supplies but maybe be recognised or go up the hill past Hurstwood reservoir and bypass Worsthorne all together.

"How about," we started, "how about we nip up to the reservoir, you drop us off there and we'll see about trying to catch some fish. No snails for you today, honest. Then you go into town and get what you want and come back out and pick us up in an hour or so. That way no one will see us and you and the van are last seen driving south out of Worsthorne."

"Fine Dining then, where?" Jane peered over our shoulder at the map, tracing the roads north past Wycoller and Lothersdale. "West Road, West Road, Cloggers Lane. Fantastic. Evening picnic at Cloggers Lane. How romantic."

"Cloggers Lane," we agreed, "looks good. Morning swim. We'll be right as rain."

"We'll see about that." Jane did not look convinced about the swim.

But we knew it was doable. And it would totally throw our pursuers off the scent, if anyone was actually looking for us.

Before Worsthorne we turned right and went uphill to the reservoir as planned. The afternoon was warm and clear, weather we were not used to at all. So when Jane turned round and drove back down the hill, we found a nice grassy spot by the water's edge and just lay down.

Obviously, first, we checked out various escape routes and hiding places should anybody show up: into the water, up the hill to a small group of trees, a slight dip in the ground with longer grass we could just disappear into. Really, there were lots of places to hide.

It was like being home at Treetops on a perfect day when the clouds would clear and we would finally see the sun and feel its warmth directly on our skin, let ourselves be hypnotised by the twinkles of light on the water where the grass sank below the wavelets that lapped at our feet. It was quiet in a human-less way, with birds and insects providing a backdrop of natural noise.

We knew we should be swimming but this was just a wonderful and rare moment. We reckoned Jane would be two hours at least, chatting probably, so we had an hour, easy, just to lie and do nothing.

What did keep nagging us though was the map Jane had bought. It was a normal map of the area with a thick border for the new shoreline printed on top of it. So it showed all the old towns and cities that now lay underwater. Those cities were very close to where we lay, like Bradford, Leeds, Burnley and Halifax. Cities so much bigger than Worsthorne which itself now looked like a big placeon the map. We got to thinking about everyone who had been nuked by their own government. Just for being too poor to buy their way into Topland.

We knew millions had been taken in by Europe before it had closed its borders, more had been helped by Africa and America but many had stayed, even after the bombing, to be killed by the new diseases that came with the warmer wetter weather: West Nile virus, Dengue fever, Lyme disease and Chikungunya. And then the cancers had started. But here in Topland there were no new towns or settlements it seemed, no huts, containers, shacks, sheds and caravans that we had in the wetlands. It was as if they had made no effort to take in extra people before they bombed us. It made no sense. They could have taken thousands more.

Had they just not cared about anybody else?

We stripped to our underwear and dived into the water. It was so warm! It was almost a bath. Not that we got many baths, but when we were younger we would get dropped into an old tin tub and be scrubbed clean, nice memories.

Anyway, we had our hand line at the ready and found a few good spots that brown trout might hide in and began working those areas.

It took longer than we thought but we did manage one decent sized trout and a smaller perch. We weren't impressed by that, but we hoped Jane would be.

When we surfaced we saw that Jane was already back and had parked a few hundred metres away. We swam to shore, underwater so she wouldn't see us and crept up to our clothes and got dressed quickly, still keeping out of sight. Then, when we were ready, we gave a whistle and a wave as Jane turned to look.

Jane's head shook. We stopped and slowly crouched down. Sure enough a few seconds later an elderly couple walked by the van and stopped for a chat and then walked on past our hiding place and disappeared from view. We gave it a few more minutes before getting up and carefully making our way to Jane.

"What did they want?" We asked as we got close.

"Nothing, the weather, what was I doing out here on such a lovely summer's day by myself? How I should have a boyfriend. What my parents did. Did I know someone called Deborah who lived in Brackenall? How I should get the tomato ketchup stain on my dress in to soak. I told her it was blood and she said 'Oh dear have you not been told about tampons'! Oldies are bonkers."

"And do you?" We asked.

"Course I know about tampons. What do you think? That I looked down and went crazy and started killing my mother. Sorry you've probably not seen Carrie."

"No, we have, with the forks and stuff. Bill and Ben put on films sometimes. Never mind. But no, we meant Deborah."

"Deborah? Oh Deborah! Course I don't know Deborah. Fish!" Jane pointed to the trout. "Well done."

We felt strangely pleased about that. Though not all together clear on the tampon part of the conversation.

"How was Worsthorne then?" We asked as we got back into the van and set off.

"Not as big as it looked on the map. It did have a shop with some vegetables. We got some loo roll. Result! Um, and some other stuff. Some beer too. So we've kind of shopped for a really nice picnic. More bread and some bacon for tomorrow morning. Hang on, we don't have a fucking pan or anything. Oh shit!"

"It's fine," we said, "there's bound to be something useful in the back of the van."

We hunted round for a bit.

"Look, we can cook on this, if we can knock this weird handle off the back."

"It's a hawk." Said Jane.

"A what?" We looked at the curious flat metal thing with the handle in the middle. The flat side had flakes of some fine grey mud on it.

"A plasterer's hawk. You use it to hold your plaster while you spread it on a wall. My dad used to do a bit."

"No idea what you're saying. Again. Plasters on walls. Fine. Anyway, this will work as a skillet. This bucket for boiling water. We're good to go."

"OK, you cook, just give me a nice plate of food. On something that resembles a clean plate. I don't need to know how it got there. Bit like in a restaurant."

"Restaurant?"

"Cafe? Bistro? No, I guess not. Bar? Pub?" We nodded. Jane continued. "OK, we're in. A pub. I used to work in a sort of smart pub called a restaurant. Folk come in and order food, a cook cooks it, I take it to the table."

"A good job?" We asked. It was getting late in the afternoon now and the sun was going down. We hadn't seen any traffic on this bit of road at all so we had climbed back into the front seat. The road was more of a track now, called the Pennine Bridleway. Some effort had been spent making it a bit more usable but it was slow going and pretty bumpy.

"It had its moments. I had to serve some right plonkers. I never understand how people can be so full of themselves, especially when they don't see how the food's made."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it depends on the scale of their wankerdom. If someone is really rude and bossy, then we would spit in their food. For some folk you had to do extreme measures. I mean I didn't expect thanks for everything but, you know, it's nice to be thanked. The thing is, the ruder they are the more you smile back. I once pulled an entire meal out of a bin and served it to a complete shite. I made a mistake while taking the order and read it back wrong and he was all: 'Oh did I talk too fast for you, DO. YOU. WANT. ME. TO. SPEAK. SLOW. ER. IN. SHORT. WORDS. SO. YOU. CAN. UN. DER. STAND.', and every time I took something to the table he would congratulate me. Anyway, it was fun watching him eat his food. I gave big smiles."

"I know the sort. There's this turd called Trumps. He leads the Mugs. He's kind of famous for being a vile idiot. But the world's full of them."

"Yeah," said Jane, "crowded."

Finally we reached a proper road again: the Halifax road. We passed though Hollin Hall village where we ducked down beneath the dashboard, then on past Wycoller and onto the Old Skipton Road, the West Road and then back on the Pennine Way and on to our destination: Clogger Lane.

A bumpy ride later and we were at the water's edge. There was a farmhouse a couple of kilometres away. We just had to hope they didn't notice us.

We collected wood while Jane threw stuff out the van.

"What are you doing?" We asked after we had a fire going and the skittle was warming up nicely.

"Well if I'm camping out here tonight then I'm damn well going to sleep in the back of this van and it's going to have to be a lot cleaner than it currently is."

We shrugged. We were looking forward to a decent night's sleep on the ground in my hammock. Especially after a bit of beer.

We pulled out a knife and sliced the fish from bum to chin and with a scoop of a thumb pulled the guts out. We put the gutted fish on the skittle.

"What's the veg you got there?" Asked Jane pointing to a small pile of plants we had foraged.

"Oh, we've got some Hogweed, a bit of Hedge garlic and some Cicely." We picked up each in turn, though we lifted the Hogweed with the bayonet.

"Hogweed! Isn't that like dangerous or something?"

"It's not good to touch, but after it's cooked it's pretty amazing actually." Jane inspected it.

"Oh what the fuck. I'm going to drown tomorrow anyway. Sure why not? What about the carrots I bought?"

"They're roasting in the ash with the potatoes. It's all under control. Where's the beer you were on about?"

"Here it is: Black Isle Brewery: Mad as Fook. Not tried it before, sounded good."

We popped the lids off with the bayonet handle and clinked bottles together.

"Cheers."

"Cheers to you," replied Jane. "Fucking crazy couple of days."

"Yes. But made a lot easier thanks to you."

"Why thank you," said Jane, blushing a bit. "I know I haven't thanked you for saving me yesterday. Yesterday? Was it? I can't remember now. It's...er."

"Don't worry about it. We would have done it for anyone."

"Oh thanks."

"No, we don't mean that. Just, it happened and and we're glad we survived."

"But people died. You killed people with your bare hands. Maybe that's something you Wetters do, fighting for survival, survival of the fittest, eat or be eaten but I can't... I can't..."

"We're not animals you know. We're not fighting all the time. There just happens to be a group of nasty people who don't understand the idea of working together, helping each other. But last night something happened that you shared the same... spacetime with. It's gone. Forget it."

We weren't sure what else to say so we busied ourself with the fire and the cooking.

Jane sat down opposite and stared into the fire.

When things were looking ready Jane got up and rummaged through everything she had thrown out of the van. She got two lids from some paint tins, washed them in the sea and brought them back to the fire.

"Plates," she said putting them down beside us.

"Thanks," we said, starting to dig around in the fire for the potatoes and carrots. "Would you like a knife to eat with?"

"Not your pin please." Jane said quickly. "You've got a third knife?"

"Sure." We pulled it out of our boot, opened it and put it on the plate. We sliced the potatoes and carrots open and put the biggest fish on too.

"Don't do that!" Jane said seeing the size of the fish. "You're swimming tomorrow."

"It's OK. We had a small one earlier while we waited for you at the reservoir." We lied.

"Raw!" Jane half laughed, half sounded disgusted.

"Raw like sushi." We laughed back. It was something the oldies would say at Treetops. Jane laughed again.

"How do you know stuff, some stuff and not others?" Jane asked.

"Oh, parents, when we were younger, and other oldies would tell us things too. And we would find all sorts in the water and ask about it."

"So you had parents? Sorry, of course you had parents. But are they about? You have a family?"

"Yeah, no, we had parents. They died. A lot of people died. Mainly cancer, they got tumours. But others live and we look after each other as a group."

"I'm sorry," said Jane, "that's shit."

"Yeah, not great," we agreed, "but we have a library!"

"Really!" said Jane, "how?"

"Books were saved. We brought up a lot of books. If you brought them up from a tightly packed shelf they could be dried out, sometimes. Though they also made good fuel. So it was always a bit tempting to read them and then burn them."

"You can read then? Course you can I've seen you, sorry."

"Yeah we had schools, sort of, taught us the basics: reading, writing, maths, you know."

"This is good," said Jane tasting the trout.

"Not going to use your fingers are you?"

"Sorry, I know I should. I'll eat a bacon roll. But it's just so... moist. And the head with its eyes."

"Ah, the cheek muscle's the best bit."

"Ee-oo. That's horrible." But Jane was laughing, which felt nice.

"Any more beer?"

"Loads. I bought a dozen! Sorry I know I should have bought sensible stuff but tomorrow I'm going to drown so I thought I would get pissed tonight."

"You're not going to drown," we pleaded. "Honestly. We carried a friend for miles, been bitten by a giant eel."

"Stop with the giant fucking eels. Oh for fuck's sake. Give me another beer." We popped another one and handed it over.

"OK," she went on, putting her plate down and shifting round the fire closer to me. "Tell me about the giant eel then."

So we did, missing out the stuff about the magic parawing. But that did make us sound more heroic: swimming that far carrying Leicester.

"So is Leicester your lover then?" She asked, we giggled at that.

"No! We've known Leicester since we were kids. Maybe our best friend? We've done a lot together, but no not that. What about you?"

"Me? No, not really. Not met the right one yet."

"Oh aye," we said, "same here, maybe."

"Kissed?" Jane asked.

"Yeah! And other stuff, but no one special."

"Yeah, I'm the same," said Jane, "'nother beer?"

"Oh yes," we said, taking one. "Thanks."

We were quiet for a bit.

"What do you think happened to everyone? Did they really all just die? There were millions?" We asked.

"I know. I asked my parents once. But they got cross. They just won't talk about it. Miserable fucks."

"Really? You don't get on?"

"It's not that. It's just that they always want to make out that their life is so bad. But, you know, they've got a nice house, they're alive for fuck's sake. They've got telly and food. But they're just miserable. I don't know what's up with them."

"Sorry about that. That can't be nice."

"'S'not your fault." Jane punched us on the arm. "But thanks. I think they're just sad, but I'm not sure what about, they won't tell me. But I think everybody is, really. Miserable about something."

"Well, they've probably had it harder than you think."

"God you're kind aren't you! You've had a shitty life but you worry about my parents! They do fuck all. They've done nothing. I mean my dad was an engineer, he owned a building company, but he's retired now. Just watches old TV."

"Oh," we said, seeing the mists coming in at last. We had had an unbelievably clear evening, despite being practically on the water, we just weren't used to this weather. Maybe it was being this far north?

We took out some grass and pipe from our waterproof pouch and had another beer.

"This is nice," Said Jane later. "Shame, there's no music."

She leapt up.

"Fuck!" And ran over to the van. There was some screeching noises and then we heard music.

"What's that?" We asked.

"It's a Scandie radio station. On good nights it reaches over here. They play some great stuff."

And they did. We didn't recognise it all, but it washed over the evening in a glorious blur of sound.

We ended up staring up at the stars, sharing the last bottle of beer with a lot of giggling, wrapped up in our hammock until we fell asleep together.

Chapter 11  
It's Tissington again

The phone rang. I rolled over and answered it. My husband muttered something nonsensical. Probably about ponies with wings. Zika Heads. I don't know why Trident Force puts up with them. We're supposed to be the cream of the crop, not a dumping ground for the mutant waste from the zika sluts. Just because they look like fantasy whores from animes and do what you want, you shouldn't breed with them. Mutants for fuck's sake.

Still, if I intended to continue my rise then I would have to abide by these ridiculous social standards and fashions.

I answered the phone: "Commander Colme."

It was late in the evening but things suddenly took a turn for the better. A break-in at Hulland gate and I was the nearest officer with mutant-tracking experience. It was a side-line I had taken up some years before. Now that the submarines were immobile it kept my military life interesting. It was also a great excuse to get away from my family holiday. The fishing and shooting had not been great anyway.

I left him in bed and donned my uniform, left a note for the family help and marched out the door of the holiday cottage to the waiting car.

As soon as I was in the car it set off. It was a forty minute drive to Hulland Gate.

"Tell me." I ordered the young Lieutenant who was sitting in the front seat beside the driver.

"Yes Ma'am. Hulland Gate was closing at six pm. Two liquid-based bombs were detonated in the gate window. Subsequently eight intruders made it though the gate before the guards were able to lock it down. Two were shot within the walls. Three have since been caught. Four have evaded capture so far. No military casualties. Civilian casualties: five wounded, all gate traders. The remaining four intruders have split up. Teams are in pursuit."

I snorted. The teams would be useless. Under-trained, untested soldiers led by young idiots from rich families.

"Any of them caught on film?" I asked.

"Yes Ma'am," he pulled some printouts from his folder and passed them to me.

They were not high quality, nor good angles, but I could see from their rags that they were mutants from the wetlands.

"Find out which team is after this one." I passed the photographs back to the Lieutenant pointing to the the wetter who had gone east.

"Yes Ma'am," he got on the radio.

Hulland Gate was a curious target. It was probably the most difficult gate to get in through. Tissington, just a few miles west was bigger and harder to protect and there were hundreds of miles of coastline, most were walled, but some were just chains across waterways. There were lookouts on land and patrols at sea. Admittedly the patrols would kill on sight unless they were certain it was legitimate traffic like gate-traders, Priests and Scandies, so maybe the wetters thought a gate was easier? They must have come up as gate traders. Or maybe they had no idea where they were? Mutants probably weren't great map readers.

The driver pulled up inside Hulland Gate. I got out and inspected the damage, which was minimal, and took a look at the bodies of the mutants already killed. None had any major outward signs of mutation. Beyond their dire smell and the wretchedness of their clothing they could have passed for human. Though I felt I would have known had I met one in the street, however smartly dressed.

The Lieutenant came up and saluted.

"Ma'am, the mutant you are interested in is being tracked by Pursuit Team Two. They are currently heading north towards Turlowfields Lane. I have let them know you will be taking command in the next thirty minutes. We have a car waiting."

I acknowledged the Lieutenant who snapped a salute, turned and marched off. I took one last look round and got in the waiting car.

"You know where to go?" I asked the driver, he nodded and we set off.

We drove to Dog Lane. I got out and let the car go. It was better to wait in the dark.

Four mutants all within a two mile radius of me. I could almost sense the hate in their revenge-crazed minds. It made me feel that I could just turn towards wherever they were hiding and point.

I waited. Night animals and birds moved about me. Bats swooped around in the dark with accuracy I was suddenly jealous of.

Then I heard the sound of the Pursuit Team clumsily working their way up the hill. They were a hundred yards east of me. I walked down the road to where I expected them to cross. I could see their torches now in the field below me. I found the tracks of the mutant before the team got to the road. Even in the misty moonlight they were clear to me. He had climbed the wall here, jumped down, flattening the longer grass in the ditch there, then crossed the road, across the ditch and up and over the wall here. I was inspecting the soft ground in the field on the far side when the team finally appeared. There were eight of them, most were breathing heavily.

"Corporal?" I asked, he stood to attention. "Have you caught sight of the mutant yet?"

"No Ma'am. But he is not far ahead Ma'am. I would estimate eight to ten minutes."

"More like fifteen and he's moving fast, getting further way." I looked the team over. "Caps on, helmets away, packs off, you."

I pointed to the soldier who was bent over trying to catch his breath.

"Take the helmets and packs back to the Gate. Yes all of them." I saw him glance up at the Corporal with an appeal on his lips, useless worm of a man. Shouldn't be a soldier. Would never make it in the Navy. "Corporal give me the map, right, call up the base and organise a line of soldiers along this road, here, in one hour."

I pointed to the top of Gibfield Lane.

"That should catch him."

"Yes Ma'am."

"Right. He's gone over the wall here and into the field beyond. We can easily track him through it. Do not, I repeat not, tread on his footprints, we may need to backtrack if he gets clever. Spread out, ten yards apart. Shoot on sight. On the double. Corporal, take the end of the line. Keep the line straight. We don't want him slipping through."

The Corporal shouted out my orders and the soldiers spread out along the road with me in the middle.

I jumped the wall and began to follow the mutant's tracks.

When we reached the far side of the field I could see that he had stopped and turned round for a look, presumably having seen us.

There was an outbreak of shots to the west. I counted seven. Five rifles fired quickly, then a gap and followed by two pistol shots. Probably a wounded mutant being killed. Odd, normally we would want to take them alive to take intel: numbers, plans.

After that our Wetter's tracks got more difficult to follow as he tried, where he could, to hide his route. When he crossed a stream or rivulet he would never come out opposite. We lost many minutes searching up and down the banks, looking for his footprints. And with these soldiers one could never be sure they hadn't walked all over them.

Eventually we lost all sign of him.

I estimated that he was between twenty-five and thirty-five minutes ahead of us now. If the soldiers had been sent ahead as ordered we could still be in time.

Abandoning the tracking for the time being I ordered the soldiers to hold their line and to continue towards Gibfield Lane.

Some of the soldiers were finding it hard work marching through the damp heavy soil. I rather enjoyed their looks of pain; about time they did some real work for their money.

After another thirty minutes walking I could just make out Gibfield Lane on the horizon. The large Personnel Carrier making a dark rectangle against the night sky.

Ten minutes later we reached the road.

"Any sign, Captain?" It was pointless asking.

"No. Nothing our end." There was a pause, I suppose he was waiting to see my uniform. "Commander, are you sure it came this way?"

"Not sure," I replied and shook the Captain's hand, "Commander Colme, but possible. He was headed north up this slope. But no, I can't be certain. We've not seen any tracks for the last mile or so. It could have side-stepped us at quite a few points."

"Captain Huntley," he introduced himself. "So eight got in this time I hear?"

"Yes, eight. Four were stopped at the gate. We shot two inside the gatehouse. Three have already been caught and I suspect one was killed just now. You heard those shots? So three still on the lose. This one I was tracking up here and two more coming up the valley close to Gorse Lane."

"Any pictures?" asked Captain Huntley.

"Some, not good ones yet, but I think there will be. The gate cameras weren't damaged." I explained.

"Any idea where they're headed?"

"Not sure, this one seemed to be going straight north, Buxton maybe? But I've seen them taken in by the farmers sometimes. They make for cheap workers."

"I've heard that. But still. Anyway," the Captain continued. "I'm taking my men back to Ireton Barracks and you'll be returning to the gate, Commander?"

"Oh no, I've not finished. I've not lost one yet. I'm sure I'll pick up the scent soon." I answered.

"Good luck Ma'am," the Captain saluted. "If you need us you know where we are."

The Captain collected his men into the truck and soon they drove off.

I looked back down the way we had come. Somewhere out there, maybe even watching us, was the mutant. I bit down my anger and wished I could have had a cigarette, but then the men would all be wanting one and I didn't want to delay a minute longer.

My phone rang. It was the Admiral, Southern District, wanting to know what was going on. I told him what I knew, which wasn't much, but it got him off the phone.

"Right. We're on our own now." I told the Corporal, though I thought I would be better off bringing in my own team of Trident sailors.

"Will they send down an airship Ma'am?" asked the Corporal.

"No Corporal we won't be doing that."

What a ridiculous question. Everyone wants to see one of the fabled airships. A bag of wind that can barely make headway in a mild breeze and everyone can see you coming from miles away. Submarines... But no one wants to talk about them. Even though it was us that saved them, us that made the tough choices and did what had to be done. I imagined grinding a cigarette into the ground. Like my barely sentient husband's head.

"We'll get them soon enough, Corporal. Right, we're going back to the A517 where we last saw the tracks. It should be easier in daylight. Johnson you stay here in case we flush him out. And remember, shoot first."

"Yes Sir." Names came quickly when you worked in the military.

"Corporal, line them up, on the double."

We climbed back over the wall and set off jogging back the way we had come.

Twenty minutes later we found his tracks again close to where we had lost them. Knowing that he had got further away from us now, I concentrated the men on either side of the tracks, only spreading out when we got to water. The mutant was using every trick in the book, at one point I even think he ran along a wall. It was a long night.

By dawn we were heading back towards Gibfield Lane. In fact almost the exact same point we had been before.

I climbed the wall and got onto the road. Up ahead I could see a body. I ran up, calling to the Corporal to Ready Arms.

It was Johnson. There was blood on the road behind his head. I knelt down and felt for his pulse. Still beating.

"Is he dead Ma'am?" Asked the Corporal as he joined me.

"No Corporal. He may have taken a blow to the head. Who's Medic?"

"We don't have one Ma'am."

"Oh for fuck's sake." I searched Johnson's body for any other wounds and found none. His pulse seemed strong.

"Johnson! Wake up Johnson." I considered slapping him but then his eye lids flickered open.

"What?" he whispered, then he saw me. "Sir. Ma'am."

Johnson sat up abruptly.

"Sorry, apologies, Ma'am," then he looked at me first frightened and then pathetically slyly. I knew whatever was going to come next was going to be a lie.

"What happened here Johnson?" I asked. The other soldiers were gathered round now. Making it even less likely I was going to get the truth.

"Corporal. Will you send these men away, search the locality. He could be close."

The Corporal sent two men up and two down on either side of both walls.

"Right Johnson tell me exactly what happened."

"Yes Ma'am. I was," Johnson began, "I was keeping watch, watched you go back down the hill and kept awake all night, as ordered. Saw nothing, no sign of the Wetter, but as dawn was breaking, when was that?"

"Two hours ago," said the Corporal.

"Yes, two hours ago then, I was looking that way, south, when I..." Johnson paused to rub the back of his head. "The mutant hit me on the back of the head."

I looked at the Corporal. He looked at me, waiting for me to respond.

"Johnson," I started, "you are telling me that the mutant had already got over the road but came back to hit you on the back of the head?"

"Yes Ma'am," I think Johnson was realising the weakness of his story. "He must have been dead close all along."

"What? He was here, all along, even when we were here late last night. He was here?"

"Yes Ma'am. I suppose."

There was a shout behind us and I looked round and saw a soldier barely five yards from me, over the wall and pointing excitedly at something on the ground. I got up and walked over.

Behind the wall was a thin patch of earth. It had been scraped away, clods of earth and grass lay around it. It was as if... as if...? As if someone had tried to bury themselves right under wall, covering themselves with grass and mud so they wouldn't be seen.

"Dear God," muttered the Corporal. "Sorry Ma'am."

"Yes Corporal."

"I didn't think Johnson was telling the truth."

"No Corporal. I still don't. Not all of it anyway."

"Johnson," I turned to the soldier, "you seem to have a nasty cut on the back of your head. But you'll make it. Get your gear together. We're moving out."

Johnson was trying hard not to smile. I wasn't sure if it was relief at not being found a liar or joy at pulling a fast one on an officer and a woman at that. Little shit, I would make him pay later.

But first I wanted to kill this mutant. After all we had done to keep them out of Topland and this one had just lain here, feet away from where I stood, listening to what I said and had then attacked one of my idiot men just because he could. Just to send me a message that I couldn't stop him. Well, we would see about that.

Looking downhill to the north I could make out the small strip of land that joined the spit of Hulland to the mainland. If I had got here twenty minutes earlier I might have seen him walking across.

Where was he headed?

Perhaps he hoped to disappear in Buxton, lots of people to mingle in with, maybe get a job, cash in hand. Or maybe he'd stay out in the countryside and try and get work on one of the farms.

Either way, he'd be leaving tracks that I could follow.

Time to get down to the bottom of the hill and see which way he went after crossing onto the mainland.

The Corporal came up to me.

"Ma'am. The men are tired. They've been on the move all night with little food or rest. They need a break Ma'am."

"They've just had one Corporal. Now get them together. I want us down there." I pointed to where the lane crossed from Hulland to the mainland, "in one hour."

"Ma'am?" the Corporal began.

"Corporal," I stopped him, "do you wish to disobey my order?"

"No Ma'am," he rounded up the soldiers. There was a lot of groaning, pathetic lot.

Now, which way did the mutant go? There were no immediate tracks here, he must have either gone up the road or down the road before crossing the field but I had no doubt that he wanted to head north. They always did. I split the men up into two groups, the Corporal checking the field for signs downhill and I took a group uphill.

A few minutes later I found his footprints on a verge. We got to a small crossroads. I split my team in two again. I turned left and began going downhill. Again I found a print on a bit of mud on the road. I was getting used to his print: small, light shoe, very worn, probably found underwater.

We started jogging, the Corporal's team cut across the field and met us half way down the hill. We were jogging into the mist.

"Corporal," I said as he caught up, "tell your men we will have a rest when we get to sea level. I will call up a supply truck, maybe see if we can call in another troop for today's work."

"Yes Ma'am," he replied. I made the call. If they wanted to give up I didn't want them.

It looked like the mutant came down this lane and was heading north. It was amazing to think he could just stroll down here without a care, without anyone seeing him, without being shot dead.

I wondered how the other teams were getting on. It certainly sounded like one was killed last night so, two left plus my one.

We reached sea level and stopped. While the soldiers rested on the side of the road, having sneaky cigarettes when they thought I was far enough away, I combed the ground looking for tracks. He couldn't have just continued strolling up the road towards Buxton? Could he be so casual, so cock sure of himself? My gaze went over to Private Johnson. I wondered what he was keeping secret. It didn't make sense. He was attacked from behind, but why would a mutant attack him when they had already got past the line? If you are going to attack, why not kill? Why not take the gun? But if it wasn't an attack, then what was it?

As I cast to the left and right of the road I tried to put myself into the mind of the mutant. What were his aims? Where was he headed? What would he do to throw off the pursuit?

Finally I sat down and took a look at the map.

It was madness to carry on up the road. You would end up going past the barracks at Kirk Ireton. But then you might not know about the barracks. On the other hand that way was north east. If you went west along the spit of land at the head of Carsington Water then... what? That spit of land disappeared underwater, but if you're a Wetter what does that matter? That was the most direct way to Buxton. And going through water would throw the pursuit off wouldn't it?

I walked over to where the lake that formed Carsington Water was closest to the sea, a patch of earth only yards wide separated the two bodies of water. It didn't take long to find his small footprints again. He had come this way!

I heard a truck. It was the replacement patrol.

"Corporal!" I shouted as I marched back to the road, "change of plan."

I could see the other soldiers suddenly paying attention.

"I'm taking the truck. I know where the mutant has gone. I may be able to cut him off if I am quick enough. I'll send the truck back for you. It'll take, I would estimate, three hours for it to come back. I would suggest you start back for Hulland Gate on foot."

The Corporal did not look happy but he could break it to the men. The truck came down the hill and I strolled out into the middle of the road to flag it down.

I explained to the driver what was happening and swung up into the cab as we headed off. I was glad to be free of those soldiers. I had no expectations of the new ones in the truck either, but I was certain that they were glad to be staying in the truck instead of having to get out and march somewhere though.

It took longer than I thought to make our way along all the narrow lanes round Carsington Water before we reached the faster B5035 and turned to head south again to Knockdown.

There was a radio in the cab so I contacted Hulland to let them know the change of plans.

They confirmed that there had been a kill last night and that the other two mutants were still unaccounted for. I signed off.

The truck had the food for my previous troop, their loss I thought, as I tucked into some cold tinned stew and tinned cake. The sugars gave me a good lift.

I considered my options and checked the map again.

In theory, the mutant would come ashore south of Knockdown and would have an almost straight run to Buxton. He could go cross country or hitch a ride if he didn't look too deformed or smell too bad. Or what? Could there be another plan? I wished I knew what he wanted to do here.

Most just wanted to settle on dry land, work, have a family, help other Wetters get in, maybe get family in.

But the thing with Private Johnson still puzzled me: why attack when you didn't need to, unless he was just stupid and scared. It seemed hard to believe anyone could be scared of that layabout Johnson, but then Wetters were weak bodied and weak minded so one could never underestimate their stupidity.

We arrived at Knockerdown and I got the soldiers out. They looked much the same as the previous troop and about as useless. Yet again I found myself longing for my Trident sailors. They would have shown this lot what real military should look like.

Still, it was all I had for the time being. I was about to send the truck away and line up the soldiers when the driver called down to me.

I climbed back up into the cab.

"Colme. Over," I said into the microphone, clicking it off to hear the reply.

"Sir, we believe we may have just seen your Wetter er... Ma'am. Over."

I ignored the mistake but found the message hard to believe.

"Are you sure? Over."

"Yes Ma'am. We saw a man about a mile north of us. He seemed to be checking our position. When we reacted to his presence he disappeared. We've checked with the two local farms, they had no workers on the west shore. There are four of us but our orders are to stay in position. Over."

"When was this? Over."

"About ninety minutes ago, Ma'am."

"Thank you. We will be sending a patrol down now. Over."

I handed back the radio to the driver.

"You're staying with us. Things have changed."

Checking positions? He could have escaped into the mainland? Instead, he risked getting caught by going south!

This was not a random wetter break-in. This was something else. This was an operation. A reconnaissance mission? Was that what this was?

I set my men out in a static line a mile or more long, each soldier two hundred yards apart and spent the rest of the afternoon going along the line checking the fields of view of each soldier, making sure they knew where each position was on either side and making sure they were not visible from the front. Hopefully the mutant would not see them until it was too late, if he came back north at all.

I sent the truck for more food and set up a rear base to keep the soldiers supplied with coffee and rations. This would be another long night.

By sundown everything was in place. My new Corporal and I took it in turns to check the soldiers and made sure no one was asleep. It was four hours now since the wetter had been spotted by the outpost, which was probably at least 2 hours away. It was possible that he had seen our preparations and was planning to slip through during the night.

The weather was not bad but being so close to sea level meant a lot of soldiers were lying on wet ground in low cloud. Good conditions for someone trying to creep past us quietly.

At midnight I tried to catch some sleep in the cab, I had been up for the past twenty-four hours and felt as though I should sleep but I couldn't. At two in the morning I decided that I had failed yet again to capture the mutant. It occurred to me that he could easily just swim past without giving us a second thought.

I took half the men and headed down to Hognaston point where the outpost had said they had spotted the mutant. We radioed down for one of the guards to meet us there.

It was nearly dawn when we arrived at a wooded dip tucked round from the point where he had been seen. It was still in deep shadow. I recognised the footprints among the trees. It looked like he had had some primitive meal of raw cabbage and snails. I would have admired that in a soldier but in a mutant it just seemed typically disgusting.

The soldier from the outpost was pretty unhelpful but I hardly expected more. My men were tired and surly.

Despite my lack of sleep, or maybe because of it, I could feel my anger and hatred for this mutant turning to rage. His ability to evade us was infuriating.

As the sun rose we turned and headed back to the truck.

Where, I wondered, would he go next? Was he mapping our southern defences? Was he reconnoitering for a full assault or maybe he was looking for somewhere he could sneak in a larger group of Wetters for an attack inland?

I would have to tell someone higher up about this. Though what would I say: a mutant was seen near a lookout post on our southern border when normally they try to head north after a break-in? It did not seem much to go on.

I pulled out the map. If it were me, where would I want to take a look next? Where would be the next obvious point of interest?

I barely had to look at it to see the answer: if I was correct the mutant would want to take a look at Tissington. It was the next promontory to the west, it was our main southern port and it held a lot of military, both army and navy.

So, last night he checked out the outpost then had a meal and a rest before heading west. Probably thinking about swimming across in the early hours of the morning. In fact, right about now.

As we marched back to the truck I phoned through to the navy command at Tissington but it was too early to get anyone with the authority to send a ship round to the B5056 firth. Despite my frustration I kept my voice calm as I explained what I needed and that, as soon as a commanding officer could be reached, they were to call me. At least I could feel some confidence now that I was dealing with the Navy.

But it was still another hour before my call was returned, by which time we were back at the truck. I explained again that I thought a wetland spy had probably crossed over to the Tissington mainland and that he was in the hills above the base noting their defences. The officer said he would raise the threat level, notify the various forces involved and await my arrival.

I gathered up all the men, got them back on the truck and then ordered it to drive me round to Tissington first before taking the men back to their barracks.

It was a long drive whichever way we went: by fast road north all the way to Newhaven and then back south on the A515 or curling round the coast along the country lanes. Neither way was good for my frustration.

I told the driver to take the fast roads as the ride would be smoother. I fell asleep almost immediately.

Chapter 12  
Wham to Feizor

"Really?" I was quite shocked.

"Really?" I asked again. Of no one in particular, not even God. I could feel him shaking his head and reaching down to lift me out of the rear floor well.

"Do you really think you are going to get away with that?" I could hear the girl's footsteps fading away as she ran off.

She wasn't going to avoid God's damnation at death but it did look like I was going to have to speed up the process, The Monasteries would be wasted on her. I probably wouldn't even bother with a Last Supper.

I got up onto the back seat. My groin was delicate. Even after all these years since the Viennese choirmaster's knife, a well aimed blow could crumple me.

Well, I would give her a well-aimed blow when the time came.

I pulled myself out of the car. I couldn't see anyone. I started off at a jog and soon got up to a sprint.

I reached a high fence. She would have been stuck here. Left or right? Left, they always thought left was unusual. I jogged down the fence line. Hah! A gap. I squeezed through into a trailer park.

I ran down the first row of lorries and then the second, running quietly, hoping to catch her movements. Nothing. Beyond was a wide open space and another row of trucks on the far side.

Lord, where was she?

Then it came to me, as it does. I could see an eighteen wheeler leaving the park. She was going to be hiding in the back of that. I started to run again. It was five hundred yards away.

But the trailer park was not tarmacked. It had big deep puddles and a covering of lumpy cinder that slowed me down.

By the time I reached the gate the lorry was 700 yards away, slowly making its way through town. I watched it turn left: it was heading north.

I run everyday, perhaps not in this clothing but that was not a problem. My body was sore, but what was that when you were doing God's work? Not even an inconvenience, more like a reward. I liked the pain. It was encouraging to know that I laboured for the Lord.

When I turned the corner I could see that the lorry was still the same distance away. My only hope was to catch it as it slowed down going up the slope out of town.

The driver changed down gears to go up the long hill. I was six hundred yards away.

I imagined Jane sitting in the trailer, probably laughing at the way she had escaped, counting my money, throwing away my prayers.

I noticed a dark figure rolling out of the ditch behind the lorry, chase after it and then jump up onto the back of the trailer. Within seconds the figure had climbed up and disappeared under the cover.

They hadn't seen me. Or at least they had given no sign that they had seen me. Who could it have been?

I ran on. Five hundred yards, four hundred, three hundred and the lorry was nearing the top of the hill. Two hundred. I heard the lorry change up a gear, it was starting to pick up speed. One hundred and fifty yards. I could read its number plate and I memorised the contact phone number stencilled on the trailer. Fifty yards and I was still gaining but only just, if it could just hold this speed for a little longer, just another minute, give me another thirty seconds! I could smell the fumes from the exhaust.

But it was not to be. It reached the top of the hill, changed gear in rapid succession and was off into the night.

I stopped to catch my breath.

But only for a second. Then I set off back down to Tissington.

I found a pay phone in a bar by the waterfront and phoned the Head Office to get the address of the Tissington Parish priest. Then I woke the priest and commandeered his car and took a few hundred dollars off him. I drove back to the port and using a tyre wrench as a crowbar forced open the boot of my car and got my suitcase out.

Then I drove off in pursuit of the truck which now had a good two hours head start on me.

I hoped it was heading to Buxton.

I stopped at an all-night garage and bought a disposable mobile phone and entered the number of the trucking company. They were closed. I would start again at 8am and keep dialling until I got an answer.

In the meantime I drove through the night as fast as the car and the road would let me.

I had daily prayers to catch up on and I found them calming in their repetitiveness. They cleared the mind and let God in.

I hoped I would learn why I had not caught up with the truck. I knew all would be revealed in good time but it was always nice to be given a heads up. God did work in mysterious ways.

My rosary beads trickled through my fingers as I mouthed the words.

The sun was rising as I drove into Buxton. The streets were empty but I found a cafe close to the centre of town. I waited in the queue and bought a coffee and a cheese sandwich. I asked where the lorries might go in Buxton, was there a business park or something like that? The cafe owner was not helpful but someone else in the queue pointed out that nothing would be open yet anyway and that most truckers liked to stop at a cafe just out of town.

I thanked the man and went back to the car. It seemed probable that I had driven right past Jane. I had let myself down and I had let the Lord down, again. I threw away the sandwich as penance and headed back the way I had come.

It was, as I suspected, right on the road I had driven in on. I could even see the lorry parked in amongst a row of other trucks. I should have been paying more attention earlier.

I parked as close as I could to it and sat watching the lorry and the cafe for a few minutes just to see if Jane would appear.

She could, I thought, still be in the trailer or sitting in the cafe watching me.

I took my jacket off and got out of the car. It was not much of a disguise but it might give me a few extra seconds.

I walked over to the back of the truck and climbed up and looked under the tarpaulin. The trailer was full of soil. There were hand and footprints everywhere. I could see where they had slept and probably had sex together. There were remains of food. Nothing personal though, no bags to come back for: they had left.

I climbed out and dropped to the ground straight in front of a man, presumably the driver.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" He started. "I knew there was someone back there."

I ignored him and went back to my car. The driver followed me, shouting. I put on my jacket. He recognised me now for what I was, a Priest, someone you do not mess with.

"Oh Father, I'm sorry I didn't recognise you. Do forgive me, I thought you were... sorry, nothing."

"Any idea where they went?" I asked him.

"Who? What? Them? It was more than one. Little Fu...Sorry. Er, no."

"No one came into the cafe who wasn't a driver? No family cars for them to get lifts with?" I asked. He shook his head.

"Who has left in the last half hour or so?"

"No one, none of the trucks can get in anywhere until after eight thirty. A couple of vans have come and gone. One had a trailer actually."

"Remember anything about it?" I asked.

"Er, it was white. Probably a builder's?"

"What's it to you Priest?" Asked a surprisingly aggressive voice behind me. Most people are naturally quite afraid of us. After all, we are above the law having both diplomatic immunity and the complete cooperation of Prince John. But we also have an ambience of superiority that I like to think shows that we know more about, well, everything in life and the afterlife.

I turned to face the new speaker.

He was, much like any driver of lorries anywhere, large in all the obvious dimensions.

"Do you know where he went?" I asked quietly and politely.

"Are you interested in stowaways?" That was a mildly interesting reply, I thought. Then I caught a glimpse of his reversed ring. Ah! a mason, of course. They do like to consider themselves somehow equal to the clergy, laughable really but surprisingly useful sometimes, times, for instance, like this.

"Maybe I could buy you a coffee?" I offered.

"You're very kind but maybe you would like to step into my office?" He pointed to a garishly painted truck across the car park.

"Yes," I said, "that sounds like the very place. So, tell me, do you have a lot of 'brothers' in this line of work?"

I tried not to make my emphasis sound too comical. I don't think he noticed. Probably just delighted to show me his cab.

He enjoyed unlocking his truck from a distance, the whole rig flashed in some specific order of lights. It probably looked more impressive at night. He climbed up one side and I the other.

"Dennis," he said, holding out his hand when we were both seated, "Irish coffee?"

"Thank you Dennis, Father Jacob. Yes I would like a coffee, thank you."

"I thought you might." The great buffoon said, chuckling. I wondered how long this was going to take and whether it was going to be worth it in the end. He handed me a coffee from his thermos.

"This is an impressive machine." I said looking round the dismal interior of black plastic and polyester curtains.

"OK Father, I'll get to the point." He said putting down his mug. "You're after that girl we saw getting into the back of... of my friend's trailer, aren't you?"

"And if I am?" I asked.

"Well, my friends have other interests let's say, but maybe, for the right price we can come to an arrangement that will appeal to all of us."

"And what sort of arrangement would appeal to your friends exactly?"

After that it all got a bit boring really. Dennis seemed unsurprised that I wanted Jane dead and agreed to killing her once his friends had raped her. I would pay two hundred dollars now and three hundred when I saw the body. Dennis said I would be able to see the body in the morning. We agreed a drop off point for the rest of the money: under the Withens Brook Bridge on the A6024. Dennis made various poorly veiled threats about not paying up which I ignored and that was that. I handed over two hundred dollars.

While he was making the call to his friends I checked his itinerary for the next couple of days. It was all listed out on a clipboard tucked into a bay behind the gear stick.

When the call was finished he recounted the money and held out his hand.

"Cheers Gerard. Good doing business with you. Hope we don't meet again."

I suspected, well, I knew, he was being funny so I smiled and thought it best to give him a decent professional warning.

"Yes, I hope for your sake we don't." For the first time since we had met I saw a slight hint of fear, or maybe just doubt, that he might have finally gone too far this time, in his life.

And in a way I hoped he was right. I didn't like it when people thought they were our equals. They needed to be shown the error of their ways.

I climbed down from the truck and considered going to the Buxton parish office but I decided that it was best to keep my current activity separate from our official endeavours. And anyway, the parish priests could be so provincial. Some even thought that they were here to help the locals. They had lost sight of the bigger picture. They had got too close to this world and forgotten about the next.

Instead, I booked myself into what Buxton presumably thought was their best hotel.

The Very Old Hotel was as I had suspected: the food was hot, the sheets recently cleaned and the decor expensively tired. But I had a long soak in what was probably not a bath used by the Queen of Scots.

Then I went down for lunch and ate an acceptable meal and spent the afternoon on my knees, in my underwear, flagellating my back to make amends for my many failings and failures.

Dennis had been unintentionally helpful when talking on the telephone to his compadres, his brothers. After a brief inspection of the map it seemed likely that the A6024 was not only the road for the drop off for the remaining money but also where the action would take place. Presumably at a suitably far off point, away from prying eyes. So I picked the highest point on the road that had trees around it and decided to head for there.

I considered staying for supper but thought better of it and set off in the late afternoon for the drive north. If I was right I might be in time to witness Jane's killing at first hand.

I left Buxton and drove north fast. Like most laws in this land, speed restrictions did not apply to me. Considering the steepness of the many hills between Buxton and my destination I calculated that I could be going twice as fast as the van the entire time and that in two and a half hours I would be close behind.

There were, of course, other white vans on the road, but none with a trailer.

It was getting dark when I actually got to the A6024 and, shortly after leaving Woodhead, I thought I saw the van. I decided to turn off my car lights in the hopes that they would not see me following them. This made driving slower but they were not going fast anyway. I tried to keep them a mile or more ahead, their lights occasionally lancing out round distance corners.

After ten minutes or so I was surprised to see that they were signalling to turn off. It's funny how some people, even those breaking the law in such a dramatic fashion like murder, will still abide by other rules like signalling before a turn, even when there was no one behind them.

A little time later I drove past their turn off and only stopped when I had gone on far enough so that anyone watching would assume that I had driven past. I put my car up on the verge, stopped the car, got out and headed back to the turn off.

The lane shone with white pebbles and silver puddles in the moonlight. I could see a bungalow and out-houses in the distance. The van and trailer was parked to the side where I could just see them. The outdoor lights switched off as I crept forward. This was not what I had lead myself to believe was going to happen, but it was a lot more sensible to do this off the road in a barn than on a main road like I thought the thrill-seeking murder-rapist masons were going to do. Who would have thought they had this much sense?

I went forwards carefully, very aware that this sort of establishment was likely to have the larger variety of guard dog, or worse, geese.

I climbed a fence into the garden. The most likely place was the barn but by now I was beginning to suspect I was very wrong about this, so I went up to the biggest front window and looked in.

A family sat watching the television. Father, mother and two children quietly glued to the box. The adults were drinking tea. I couldn't help but shake my head in disgust. Such a homely sight might please a parish priest but it made my blood boil. Did the children know one single prayer? Slothfulness, greed, unholiness! I felt like torching the place with the doors nailed shut and them screaming within. Give them a taste of what was to come.

I walked away, not caring now if they heard me or not.

I got back to the car and set off again, this time with the lights on to get some speed up.

But it didn't take long in the end. A few minutes later I saw reflections from a group of cars' taillights up ahead. I switched off my own lights again and drove the last mile in the dark.

When I was a hundred yards away I stopped the car and after a few seconds peering into the darkness switched on my lights.

Two cars were up on the verge and what looked like four bodies lay on the road. There was no van.

I got out the car and inspected the bodies. All four were stabbed: one in the eye, one in the belly, one through the armpit and one up through the chin.

"My, Jane," I muttered to myself, "is this really you?"

The wounds were different. Two different weapons, one a thick blade, the other a needle-like point, a poniard?

Jane could not have done this surely? She had my pistol for a start, why use a knife? This was someone who had the training to kill four men seemingly very quickly and efficiently, there were no other wounds, no misplaced cuts, no actual signs of fighting in fact, just death. Actually, there was a single hand lying on the ground, but still. It looked like some sort of professional? That figure, the dark figure who had got into the lorry as we had come out of Tissington was some assassin who had taken up with Jane? They knew Jane? No. Surely not. Was this just a coincidence then?

The bodies were an hour cold at least. The van must have been travelling faster than I had estimated. Would the alarm be sounded? Yes. How soon? Soon, easily soon, but on the other hand possibly not until morning. I checked the cars. Someone had pulled the distributor caps out of both cars. Why? Unless there were others still alive who could return. They had run off. They would return or keep running to get help. Or make a call.

I was in a quandary now: pull the bodies off the road so I could get past (or just drive over them) and risk coming to the attention of the police for not contacting them about this discovery or; contacting the police and being in control of the situation. There might be other benefits to that.

I pulled out my phone and called the police.

After a few rings I got an answer. I explained what I had found and was put through to the police station back in Buxton where mystification and puzzlement ensued.

The police did't have much to do in Scotland to be honest. If someone considered doing anything illegal then normally the threat of being put outside the walls, banishment, put an end to it before it had even begun. And there was a lot of military around. In fact, I was expecting the military to get involved quite quickly once news of assassins got out.

I was wondering how to drop that nugget into the conversation when the policeman asked how the deaths had occurred.

"It looks like they were stabbed."

"A knife fight then?" Asked the policeman.

"I'm not sure about a fight." I said. "I'm no expert but there are no other wounds, not even a bruised knuckle. I think they were murdered before they knew what was happening."

"Someone killed four men you say with a knife and there's no sign of a struggle?"

"That does seem to be the case, Officer, yes." I replied. "Though there may have been more than one killer, a gang maybe?"

"I think I had better contact the military about this."

"Goodness, do you think?"

I was told not to move the bodies and to stay where I was. He said someone would be on their way immediately but from Buxton that meant a good few hours before I would be able to get any more information.

"A white van overtook me some time ago. I wonder if that was involved? Maybe they saw something?"

"Maybe, sir. Did you get the numberplate?"

"No, I'm sorry I didn't. It was dark by then."

"A big van? Medium? Would you know the make and model?"

"Sorry," I replied, "I'm not good with makes. But it was medium sized."

"Yes sir, I've got that. Right well, as I said, you stay there, don't touch the bodies. If you could stop any other traffic from having an accident or destroying evidence then that would be most helpful."

I could have given the police the numberplate on the trailer but I wanted to speak to Jane before they did. I didn't want her saying anything untoward.

So, for the rest of the night, and into the early morning I stood by the roadside being civic.

I stopped traffic from both directions. I had to explain again and again what had happened, which was useful: it perfected my story in time for the arrival of the investigating officers.

By the time the military arrived at five in the morning there was quite a queue. A few cars had turned round and gone on the wide loop round the moors but most had just settled down to a night of broken sleep.

So, the army arrived and I explained again what I had found and when, and gave various other bits of information about myself.

The military were very interested in the wounds, as well they should have been. Whoever had made them knew what they were doing. They rolled the bodies over looking for more. So much for forensic evidence! But I think they were right, this was not some knuckle-headed yokels getting into a fight (well, I knew that already) but something much more. Something that did not need clever investigation, it needed to be chased and killed.

It turned out that there had been a break-in by Wetters at Hulland Gate. A mutant! Godless bunch. Now that made sense.

But did it mean that Jane was dead? Was she buried in the soil of the original lorry's trailer? No. She had been seen by the truckers at the cafe, though not with a mutant. So she was alive and assisted by, or working with, or had become friends with a mutant Wetter?

The girl really was capable of the most extraordinary evil! I felt very justified in wanting her dead as soon as possible. The four masons here were of no consequence in comparison. Jane had to be stopped.

I went up to the Officer in charge.

"Did the police mention the white van that overtook me last night?" I asked, as helpfully as possible.

"Yes, they did Father, thank you." She replied. I certainly did not agree with women officers but one has to be civil to them sometimes.

"And has it been seen?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure Father. I'm sorry, why do you ask?"

"Well, I can't be certain but I have been asked to find a young lady who may be in considerable danger. It's possible that she has been kidnapped by this gang."

"And what makes you think that?"

"Well, she was last seen outside Tissington in the company of a stranger who people, witnesses I spoke to, say looked different, let's say."

"Tissington?" repeated the officer, "and when was this?"

"It was two evenings ago now."

"I see. And this woman is of interest why?"

"I'm sorry Captain, I'm not at liberty to say. But I am very worried for her." I meant for her soul. Her life could go to hell. Which almost made me laugh. As it was I smiled in the fashion I know upsets everyone: benignly, beatifically.

"I'll check again, see if anyone has called anything in," said the lady officer.

The bodies were cleared off the road and the cars drove past slowly to get a good look. This was going to be the story of the week around here. Bigger still when they got to hear that Wetters were involved.

I got in my car and waited for the traffic to clear. I didn't have much hope that the army would have any news for me but just as I started the engine the officer waved to me and I wound down my window.

"It's possible the van has been seen."

"Where is it?" I was annoyed that she made me ask, she could have just said.

"Calderbrook Bridge it seems. About an hour ago."

"I am sorry, where is Calderbrook?"

"North of the M62, it's the only way of reaching Pendle by land. Seems your girl is heading north."

"I am sure she doesn't want to," I replied. I thought the woman officer was being bitchy, someone else I would have to deal with later.

I set off. Jane was nearly eight hours ahead of me now thanks to the bungling masons. All those songs about oranges and rolled up trousers, what a waste of skin. At least I wouldn't have to pay for their efforts. But they had! Ha! A joke.

There then followed a long and tediously windy drive north, first to one coast then over to the other side, zig-zagging across this literally god-forsaken land, chasing a whore and a devil mutant wetter.

I needed to catch up on my prayers and I found the hard plastic ribbing of the parish priest's cheap car quite satisfying to rub the welts and crusted sores on my back. My shirt would be bloody tonight. But I kept it up for a serious round of praying and self punishment.

My mission was simple really. For as long as I stayed in Topland I had to inflict personal damage on the Linux clan and its acolytes. To wound and tar its image of openness and freedom and generally be a thorn in its side. I had been following the Sisters of Mersey on their tour hoping for a way to hurt Linux and the appearance of Jane had provided that. It should have been simple enough: visibly and physically stop anyone getting close to the the band. It had seemed a reasonable plan at the time and the opening dramatics had gone well. But Jane had proved more able than anticipated.

I just could not understand this mutant connection. Was she really so liberated as to find it easy to join forces with a deformed Wetter?

This was becoming less about inflicting damage on Linux and more about Jane herself. Burning felt more appropriate now.

At noon I reached the Calderbrook Bridge and as I crossed it I was waved down by a soldier.

I stopped and opened my window.

"Mind if we check your car sir?" Asked the soldier. "If you could step out."

I got out the car. Immediately his attitude changed.

"I'm sorry Father. We've been asked to stop and search all traffic over the Calderbrook Bridge."

"So I hear." I said allowing some anger into my voice. "But I fear that they have already got through. So why you have to stop me I don't know."

"Wasn't my watch Father." Said the soldier defensively. "But we've been told there may be more. So we have to search everyone I am afraid."

"What time did they drive through here then?" I asked.

"I'm sorry sir you'll have to speak to my CO about that." He pointed to a cottage at the end of the road. A cosy billet for a layabout I thought.

"Thank you, I shall. Are you finished now?" I asked as he closed the boot of the car.

"Yes Father, thank you."

I got back in the car and drove the short distance to the cottage, parked and knocked on the door.

A young man appeared doing up his top button as he opened the door. There was a slight pause to his actions when he saw who it was.

"Can I help you Father?" He asked.

"Yes. I am in pursuit of gang in a white van who have kidnapped a girl, a young girl. I have been told that she passed through this checkpoint earlier this morning. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the van and its occupants. The girl is in considerable danger."

The young officer stared at me for rather a long time.

"As I have already explained, but I am happy to tell you too, yes, a van did pass through here this morning. We checked it thoroughly and there was only one occupant, a young woman who was willing to let us look in the back of the van. She seemed happy and unconcerned. There was no gang of mutants, no mutant assassins. No sign of danger. It was, in fact, clean."

"Did you manage to enquire why she was here or where she was going, alone in this empty neck of the woods?" I asked pointedly.

"Yes," replied the officer, "we did. She said she was working with a group of musicians and was looking for machines and materials for the band to make music with."

"Make music with machines and materials?" I asked not even bothering to hide the sarcasm in my voice now. "Really? And you believed this?"

"Why not? That pretty well defines how music is made don't you think?"

"And the name of this wonderful group of talented musicians?"

"I think she said The Sisters of Mersey." He was smirking now. "Good band."

Sometimes I felt let down by the lack of smiting by the power that is.

"Did she say where she was going?"

"Yes, Scotland, by ferry from Keighley."

"Thank you, you've been very helpful." And I wanted him to believe me that for all his facetiousness he had helped me.

And the thing was, he had. I knew Jane was telling the truth about Scotland: she was running to Linux, it was her only hope of protection. She lied about Keighley though. It would be difficult to get a Wetter onto a ferry. But there might well be places they could cross elsewhere.

I got back in the car and looked at the map.

There was a possible route west: over Colne and Clitheroe to the Forest of Bowland but then another journey to the mainland: Wham to Feizor, but that was too long with too many sea crossings. The north east was a shorter route, maybe just a single boat trip somewhere over Skipton or West Marton.

They were able to travel fast and hide on land, but at sea there would be nowhere to hide.

I decided that I needed a boat, that I needed to get ahead of them and be waiting for when they crossed.

I phoned the Cardinal's Office and explained what I wanted.

I was phoned back twenty minutes later. There was a Fisher Of Men patrol boat only thirty miles to the west. It could get to the King's Causeway in Briercliffe in two hours. Briercliffe was only 20 miles from Calderbrook.

I set off.

Chapter 13  
The Naglfari and the Archieflower

"Wake up Ma'am." I'm not sure how many times he had been saying that before he touched my arm. That was what woke me up. I almost reprimanded him but thought better of it.

"We're just coming into Tissington." He explained, though I could see that for myself.

I straightened my uniform and ordered the driver to go straight to Headquarters to drop me off and then take the rest of the platoon back to Kirk Ireton.

It occurred to me that I probably ought to phone my husband to let him know what was going on. But first I had to report to the Tissington Commanding Officer.

When we arrived I got out of the truck and marched into Headquarters and asked to see the CO.

The CO wasn't in. I asked for the Head of Security and was told to wait. I sat down and telephoned my husband who was very understanding and sympathetic, sure I was miserable to not be with him and the children. I let the call go on as there was nothing else to do and it would help in the long run if I seemed interested and caring. I didn't want to go home later to shouts, arguments and recriminations. So, he talked, I listened, then I was put onto the children who told me about their games and dreams and recent smells. Eventually I said I had to go.

"I'll be back home as soon as I can. I'll see if I can extend my leave as well to make up for it." I said, fairly certain that I wouldn't be able to.

"That would be good darling, you take care and don't let those nasty Wetters touch you," my husband said, "love you."

"Love you too." I disconnected the call.

Thing is. I did love him. God he was beautiful. And good with the kids. So much better than me. He knew what to say to them. I'd sit on the floor and want to talk and laugh with them but I didn't know what to say. What do you say? Whatever I said: how was school, is the teacher nice, what's your favourite subject? I just got monosyllabic answers: OK, all right, fine, good. He's not even very clever, my husband. Well, not at all. Good family, rich. Beautiful, good god, you should see other women look at him. But... but what, sod it? Think about the job. I was a Trident sailor. We were the ones that pushed the button when it needed to be pushed. We saved what could be saved by amputating, cauterising the country. We were hated for it, we were feared for it, but we saved their lives. I was not going feel guilty about it.

"Commander?" I looked up. A captain was looking down at me.

"Commander Colme," I stood up and shook his hand.

"Captain Cronin, yes, you've been in pursuit of some Wetlanders I believe. Do come up to my office." I followed him. The Tissington Headquarters were not purpose built. This had been some small country house before the docks were built up around it. It was a maze of passageways and small rooms in the sub ground floor, large bright rooms on the ground floor and first floor and then ever smaller rooms as we got into the eaves. Walls had been knocked through, computers and their operators lined the sloping walls.

"Who are you listening to?" I asked, not expecting to be told.

"Oh, the usual suspects: the locals, see what's being smuggled in, the importers and exporters, see who they're dealing with, the Priests, see who they hate today, Evangelicals, Scientologists, sometimes even the Wetters when they come in range."

"Do they have phones?" I asked, surprised. "Can they get online?"

"Yes, some have phones, some even seem to be able to connect to the web. They have some electricity. Most of the satellites are still up and running. So, yes. Not sure if they have old computers that never got wet or they've managed to dry some out or bought them. But they're there."

"Who would sell them computers?" I asked.

"Scandies, I suppose, who else?" Replied the Captain taking me through to his little office.

"Can't listen in on Linux though?" I asked.

"No, sadly, Linux, Linux is difficult, and ever more difficult as well, they keep improving it, but Windows hasn't been updated for 20 years now or more. Anyway, what can I do for you? Have a pew."

"You know about the break-in at Hulland?" I started.

"Curious choice of place to enter." The Captain pointed out.

"Well exactly. And the behaviour of the one I have been following has been odd to say the least. For a start he's not bolted inland, he cut across to Hognaston where it seems he took a look at the outpost there and then again this morning instead of heading north to relative safety he's moved on to here, the docks."

"And you think he's actually spying? Marking our positions?"

"That would seem to be what he's up to. Yesterday he got past my line and instead of escaping north he headed south and west, here. And he attacked a soldier when he didn't need to. Though that makes even less sense. It's possible the soldier was lying but I can't think why."

"I see," said the Captain. He paused as if deciding whether to tell me something. "You're under Admiral Rackson, yes?"

I nodded.

"Well, I'm going to have a word with him as I think you may be on to something. We've been hearing things out of the South and well, yes, look, why don't you go down and get some lunch. Corporal!" A small man rushed in and saluted.

"Take Commander Colme here down to the canteen and get her fed, show her where she can clean up. I'll probably be a couple of hours. Maybe see you for a cup of tea around fifteen hundred hours?"

I agreed.

"Good, well, see you then. Should have some news for you later."

"This way Ma'am," the Corporal lead me away, back through the warren of attic rooms and down to the canteen, a rather nice room with large windows and a polished wooden floor.

"I'll see what the kitchen's got ready Ma'am." The Corporal showed me to a table and left through another door.

I got up and went over to a sidetable with a large hot plate and huge pots of tea and coffee and helped myself.

An orderly came out and took my order. The choice was standard military fare: a large pot of stew, a large pot of curry, a large vegetarian lasagna. I went for the lasagna. Not because I was a vegetarian but I thought it better for me to not eat meat every day. Perhaps I was a part-time vegetarian? That would mess with the hippies. Not that there were many nowadays though it did seem that there were more every year. And that was because people like Linux were allowed too much leeway. Just because they got a lot of technology going again after the EMP, the nation-wide Blue Screen of Death (something else we got the blame for, rightly so, in that particular case), does not mean we should be eternally grateful to them. In fact the longer we left it the bigger the problem would become. Not that the military should get involved with politics. Unless it absolutely had to step in. If things went too far. If chaos was coming. Then we would have to press the button. Like we had last time.

My husband didn't think about it. He had the kids, a nice house, I got a decent pay and we were the cream of the Scottish military and in the Senior Service, we had a certain cachet. The nice uniform helped. And the fact that the sea had become more important again of late. We were important, so I was important, so he was important and it never seemed to occur to him to worry about the price I paid.

But why did I still keep thinking about it, nearly thirty years on. Fifty million people dead, though no one was sure. Millions made their way to Southern Europe and America. Tens of thousands just sailed away, still were sailing in their millionaires' paradises. Many bought their way into Scotland. Sorry Topland. The rest: I nuked them. Sorry.

The lasagna was cheesy and when I had finished it the Corporal came back and showed me to a room with an ensuite bathroom. He had laid out a new uniform (and guessed or found out my sizes correctly). So I had a shower and changed my clothes and discovered that the Corporal had also provided me with a complete kit: a wash bag, some rations, underwear. Enough for a few days on the road. He knew his stuff.

There was a knock on the door, the Corporal had come to take me back to Captain Cronin.

We went up to the Cronin's Office where the Captain sat waiting for me. He stood up as we entered and shook my hand again.

"Ah, Commander, I hope everything was satisfactory. The mess is not too bad down here."

"It was all good, thank you," I replied, "and thank you for the room, your Corporal was very thoughtful."

"Yes, he knows his stuff doesn't he, couldn't do without him. Look," he went on, "following on from what we were talking about this morning I've had a chat with the Admiral and he's happy for you to be seconded to us for the time being, to sort this mini Wetter invasion we seem to be in the middle of."

"OK," I said, taking a seat, "is that what you think is happening?"

"Well, we don't have much to go on. It's not like they are sending encrypted messages to each other. It's just a matter of hoovering up all the conversations, see who's talking to who and listening to what they're saying."

"Who is saying what to whom?" I asked.

"It seems that Linux is in contact with some Wetters. The Wetters are talking about a raid. And it seems that Linux is, I wouldn't say encouraging it but is interested, curious, I think."

"But that's treason!" I exclaimed. "We can finally shut down Linux if that's the case."

"Maybe. I share your enthusiasm as does High Command in fact. But we need a bit more. You know, something a bit caught red-handed, light goes on: hand in the biscuit tin sort of thing."

"So, you want me to not catch this mutant but see who he leads me to?"

"Yes, I think that would be good."

"And therefore to help him on his way even, if er... things go against him?"

"Maybe. You say he's not killed anyone?"

"No."

"But he could have, your soldier..."

"Johnson, yes, alive and well, unfortunately perhaps, but yes, not killed. Which was odd."

"Well exactly," said Cronin, "I, we, think this Wetter is trying to reach Linux. Maybe the others involved in the break-in are the blinds, to mislead us, spoil the hunt."

"So, I'm to follow and find out what Linux is playing at."

"Yes. Up for that?"

"I think so." I replied. "But there is one problem: I've lost him."

"Well, he's got a long way to go. As far as we can tell Linux is still in Aviemore being the Prince's 'Saviour of the Nation'. A position I believe you in Trident feel should be your place."

It wasn't just me who kept bringing it to mind then. But this time I wasn't sure if there was some measure of spite in Cronin's voice. Maybe he wasn't so on our side as he made out. But, he wouldn't be in this position if he wasn't, so...

"We did, and do, our duty."

"Quite."

"So, what happens now?"

"Well, if Linux is in Aviemore then that's where our Wetter has to get to. He can't lie low and get a job picking fruit on the moorsides. He has to go north. He'll be seen somewhere. We're setting up checkpoints at all the crossings between here and the Capital. As soon as he's spotted you'll be on your way. In the meantime I would get a bit of rest and be ready."

I thought for a second.

"Do you have a firing range here?" I asked. Cronin laughed.

"Yes, it's small, in the cellar here. I'll get the Corporal to take you down." He pressed a button on his desk. The Corporal reappeared and a few minutes later we were at the firing range which was, as he said, in the cellar.

We were allowed through the gate and I went into one of the stone archways off the central passage. I asked for 2 boxes of cartridges from the armoury. At the far end was a wall of sandbags and some remains of targets. There was a table just inside the door with large ear defenders. I put on a pair and took out my Glock.

Two hours passed in seconds. I do find target practise completely engrossing. Time flies when you are having fun.

I spent another hour in the armoury stripping down my pistol and cleaning it all thoroughly.

Then I went back up to my room and sat on the bed wondering what to do next. I considered telephoning my husband again?

Instead I got changed, left a note at the front desk and went for a run round the streets of Tissington.

I got back. Had another wash. Changed back into my uniform. Went back down to the mess and had a cup of tea.

I tried to find something to read but there were no books, not even magazines. Since the recent changes to copyright law making infringement criminal, even public bookcases were seen as file servers, and magazines or newspapers on tables were frowned upon. And copyright wasn't for life plus a hundred years, it was forever now. At least it encouraged artists to produce long after their death.

My cup of tea stopped midway to my lips: that was exactly the sort of thing Linux would say. Was I becoming a liberal?

I shook the thought out of my head and had a sip of tea.

I tried to browse the internet on my phone but there was very little new to see, as ever.

I left another note at the front desk and went for a walk round Tissington.

Back to my room.

Back to the mess for a light supper.

Back to my room.

Finally phoned my husband again. Same conversation as before. Felt worse at the end.

Back to the mess to see if anything was on television. Nothing.

Left another note at the front desk and went for an evening walk round Tissington.

Back to the mess.

Back to my room.

Got undressed and got into bed.

Stared at my phone. Played solitaire.

Midnight. Turned my light off.

Stared at the ceiling. Watched the lights move with the night time traffic.

Wished I could fall asleep if just to pass the time.

I woke the next morning and did everything again and nothing for a whole day. I never spoke to Cronin.

Midnight. Turned my light off.

Stared at the ceiling. Watched the lights move with the night time traffic.

Wished I could fall asleep.

There was a knock at the door. I checked the time, nearly five in the morning. Had I slept?

I got up and opened the door. It was the Corporal.

"Sorry to disturb you Ma'am, the Captain would like to see you."

"Thank you, tell him I'll be right up, I know the way."

"Yes Ma'am." He saluted and I shut the door.

I dressed quickly and made my way upstairs and entered Cronin's office.

"Ah Commander, yes well done. That didn't take too long did it?"

If only he knew. Except he probably did.

"Something come up?" I asked accepting a cup of coffee from him.

"Seems so, quite interesting actually. You thought your man might be a professional, well if this is the same person then you could well be right."

"What's happened?"

"We are still piecing it together but four bodies have been found on the road between Woodhead and Holme."

I shook my head.

"It's north Peak District. It's a road you would pretty well have to use if you were heading north from say here in Tissington to Scotland. If you were driving." He explained.

"He's driving? So this is what sixty, seventy miles north of here by road?" I paused. "Hang on, he's driving? He's a Wetter that knows how to drive?"

"It's not impossible. There are a few islands big enough to have roads. How they have fuel I don't know."

"Maybe he's not a Wetter at all." I interrupted. "That would explain his abilities. One of the Americans? But why bother with entering like that?"

"I agree it makes things more interesting." Replied the Captain. "But, to continue..."

"Yes, sorry," I shut up.

"Four bodies, all locals, all tradesmen in the area, not perhaps the pleasantest of characters."

"Meaning?"

"A few prior arrests, a few rumours, probably Masons, possibly missing persons, young female missing persons."

"Oh. So inter-gang violence or vigilantes surely. What makes you think it's our man?"

"Well, that's the funny thing. The first person on the scene was a Priest. He said he was trying to trace a girl who may have been kidnapped."

"OK, so that might make sense. Gang kidnaps girl?"

"Yes, except this was a Father Jacob, a Priest who is over here to discredit Linux and had 'Saved' the girl the night before at some music event up near Buxton and brought her here to Tissington to take her to the Moors."

I raised my eyebrows.

"Yes, well we like to keep an eye on these things. He keeps in contact with the Cardinal's Office and we, we have access to these lines of information let's say."

"So, this Father Jacob kidnapped her and then lost her?" It was unsettling to think this had happened in the very streets that I had been walking only this afternoon. "And somehow he knew enough to follow her? What time was this?"

"We believe early yesterday morning? We're checking video cameras now."

"And the Wetter in all of this?"

"Well, it seems unlikely that this girl, a Jane Dray, has the ability to stab to death four grown men, all with a history of violence, with no signs of a fight. Well, apart from a single cut off hand. They seem to been standing in a circle almost and died within seconds of each other."

"So our Wetter..."

"Our Wetter was close to Tissington yesterday and maybe has impressive king fu skills? Or is more than one person? Or was not involved at all."

"No survivors on the road?"

"Possibly, probably. Two cars were disabled at the scene and it looks like there may have been a third vehicle. And this group is known to include a few other men. They haven't been contacted yet, but they're not at home."

"Any idea what this Jane Dray was driving." I asked.

"Yes a white van."

I thought for a minute.

"Any reason why this Jane Dray would be heading north? Where's she from?"

"She's from Colcar, which she had already passed on her way north. Who knows, I suppose it depends if she has a say in the matter. Maybe she was kidnapped. As a side note the band she was seeing in Buxton have Linux connections."

"So, I suppose I had better get up to Woodhead and see what's what. Do I have a car? Is anyone coming with me?"

"Yes, we will supply you with a car. No, I can't spare anyone at the moment, but there's plenty of help to be had if and when you need."

"Well, I think I had better pack and be on my way." I stood up and shook hands with Captain Cronin.

"The Corporal will sort you out with money and transport when you are ready. Stay in touch, we'll keep you informed as and when we hear anything. Good hunting."

He saluted me and I left with the Corporal close behind.

I packed in two minutes and was sitting behind the wheel of a nondescript car in five.

I drove out of Tissington and headed north up the A515. Traffic was light this early in the morning so I got to Buxton by seven and changed to the A6 for Chapel-en-le-Frith but after that the roads became more broken up as I skirted round the coast. I didn't make it to Woodhead until nearly eleven and the scene of the murders shortly after that.

There wasn't much to see now the road had been cleared and the coroner had taken the bodies. A solitary policeman stood guard by the two remaining cars and the trailer. He didn't have much to say, he had arrived not long before I had.

I was just heading back to the car when my 'phone rang. It was Cronin.

"Yes?"

"Ah, Commander, bit of news. The van with a number plate matching the trailer's passed a checkpoint at Calderbrook earlier today."

"And they didn't stop it?"

"They checked it. Driven by a young woman called Jane Dray who, by all accounts did not seem kidnapped in any way. The van was checked, no other persons found."

"Did the girl say anything?"

"Just that she was working for a band, The Sisters of Mersey, incidentally that is the group Miss Dray had been watching when the Priest took her."

"So it definitely was our girl Jane. Did the guards get any feeling that she was faking it?" I asked.

"Both the Lieutenant and the Private who stopped the car were convinced that there was nothing amiss."

"Calderbrook?"

"Yes, it's the bridge to Pendel, the furthest you can drive north before taking a boat to the Yorkshire Dales."

"Did she say where she was going?"

"Ah, now, that is interesting. Seems she was very specific about going to Keighley and taking the ferry to Scotland from there."

"So, she did say she was going to Scotland, but was probably lying about Keighley."

"Or maybe she's lying about Scotland and telling the truth about Keighley and is going to run off to Scandinavia."

"Which do you think Captain?"

"It's your call, but you may be interested to hear that Father Jacob turned up at Calderbrook and asked much the same questions."

"I see," I answered, "and what do we think he made of it?"

"Well," said the Captain sounding rather pleased with himself, "I know exactly what he made of it because he phoned home."

"Oh?"

"He's got a patrol boat picking him up at Briercliffe this afternoon and he's going to be patrolling the sea over Skipton and West Marton."

"And," Cronin continued, "he said he saw a lone figure jump on the lorry that Jane was in, just outside Tissington."

I felt my grip on the telephone get tighter.

"He saw our Wetter?" I asked.

"Seems so. And just the one. And if this is the one who took out those four Masons outside Woodhead then I'd take jolly good care around it if I were you."

"Father Jacob could be wrong. They could be going to Keighley."

"Might be," said Captain Cronin.

"Do we have any ships at Keighley?"

"I can see what we've got and make sure the fastest is waiting for you?"

"Yes, please. I'll go to Keighley, make sure it wasn't a double bluff, and if that draws a blank come round the coast over Skipton and see what we see."

"Sounds like a plan. Stay in touch."

"Will do."

I drove off with half an eye on the map. As ever there were short bursts of decent road then lots of single track country lanes and half finished strips of road that cut round the ever rising sea.

It wasn't particularly far to go but I reckoned that it would take two to three hours. I would be in Keighley by early afternoon maybe.

Sometime later Cronin phoned again to say that there was a ship waiting at Keighley docks if I needed it.

I asked if he could check passenger details in Keighley or if he had access to any cameras to look round the docks for the van.

An hour after that he called again to say that not much was computerised at Keighley and that they only had cameras at a couple of points around the dock, not enough to be sure.

I drove on thinking about Father Jacob.

When I was a young 1st Lieutenant on board the Vigilant, thirty years ago, when we were ordered to make the Trident strike on our own people, we knew we had to do it. It was the same with any strike: it's the best worst option and most of us didn't question it. They were just coordinates hundred of miles away from us. The captain had hung himself that night and I had had to take over. Those first few hours had been tough. I had shot a man and arrested many more. I had been promoted. It was only later that we found out that those that were allowed onto high ground were not the worthy, the good, the indispensable, they were just the rich who could afford to buy their way in.

The Priests had been curiously quiet about it all. I heard one say 'there are more children in heaven now'. I had almost shot him at the time.

But I suspected they had kept quiet so as not to upset Prince John. It helped them get close to the Prince, to be a moral support.

Now they were almost unanimously feared and despised by all.

I wondered what Father Jacob would be like. I could almost picture his calm, caring, listening smile, just waiting for right moment to shove a lit cigarette up your nose.

I breathed out and calmed down.

I reached Calderbrook and was flagged down at the checkpoint. I showed my ID card and enquired after the white van. The Lieutenant sounded exasperated as he explained yet again that yes, it had passed through the checkpoint, yes they had checked it thoroughly, no there had been no sign of other occupants, just a lot of junk in the back, no nothing had caught his eye, yes she had seemed perfectly happy and at ease, yes a Priest had passed through earlier and asked much the same questions and yes he had seemed a particularly unpleasant one.

I thanked him for his time, assured him that he would not be in trouble for this and that he had done everything correctly, and drove on.

I looked back over the valley. It would have been easy to spot the checkpoint before heading down to the Calderbrook Bridge. Easy therefore to drop off a Wetter or two and let them make their own way across the water and pick them up again when the van was over the bridge and out of sight of the soldiers.

About here? I stopped the car and got out and searched the verge for those small light footprints I had got to know so well. I found one on a molehill in the grass below the road about twenty yards from where I had stopped. It was a bare foot, it was small. Maybe? I looked closer, imagining seeing a slight webbing to the toes. I couldn't tell.

Inconclusive, though I had a ferling that it was his. I got back in the car and continued the drive.

On the map I noticed that it was the A6033 that runs underwater along the valley floor, this became the A646. All underwater. But on the map it read in big letters over the blue: Great Britain. It marked the middle of old, dry, Britain, the centre point of land, furthest from the sea.

Was that irony?

Finally, after driving round Blackshaw Head the A6033 rose out of the sea and I was able to drive on a good road for the last twenty miles or so to the docks of Keighley.

Keighley was much like Tissington: a point on a map selected for its position, its new bay-like qualities and vaguely decent roads. From here the south of Topland traded with Scandinavia, and the Monastic Priests of the Moors.

Keighley was probably not as big as Tissington, but is was similarly a mish-mash of old houses and stacked containers, warehouses and lean-to pubs and I wasn't surprised that there was little computerised here.

I drove round the car parks first. There were quite a few white vans but none with the right numberplate.

I checked at the Harbour Master's office to see if there were any ships from Scandinavia or if there were any likely to be going in that direction. There were two: the Naglfari, a Scandi ship, more like a floating freezer, taking mutton back across the North Sea, and a Toplander ship, the Archieflower, that traded in artifacts and was stocking up on supplies

I had to bring the Harbour master himself along to be allowed on the Naglfari, they were very particular about hygiene, so they said. But for all that they were just a freezer ship of no great size and few places to hide goods. More importantly I let it be known that if Jane Dray turned up in Scandinavia any time soon then their licence to trade would be pulled.

The Archieflower was more helpful. I searched it from top to bottom and found most of their hiding places. As a Wanderer they were prone to attacks from pirates, so they had quite a few of them and though they probably would have taken Jane I doubt they would have taken a Wetter too, unless they had a lot of money. And if the Wetter had money then this whole escapade wouldn't be happening: there were ways, even now, to buy your way into Topland and, in fact, pretty well anywhere in the world. It just took gold, or good technology.

So, at the end of it I thanked the Harbour master and went to the small naval dockyard where I was piped on board and given the Captain's cabin of the Archer Class Patrol Ship.

It felt good to be at sea again. I was served a hot meal from the galley and lay down in the cot to catch some sleep before the chase that night.

As long as I got there before the Priest. As long as I caught the mutant before it reached the mainland.

I heard the engines start up and heard the cast off. I dozed off to the irregular bounce of the patrol boat as it picked up speed across the waves.

Chapter 14  
More Hellifield than Otterburn

"Yes sir."

That's what finally woke us up, not the beery breath and general windiness inside the hammock but Jane sleep-talking. There had been a bit of muttering earlier which we had managed to ignore but this was loud and clear.

"Who's sir?"

"What?" asked Jane opening an eye.

"Who's sir?" we asked again.

"What?" she replied again and then rolled over and went back to sleep.

We got up, went down to the water's edge for a quick clean and searched around for a bit of breakfast.

We had had quite a party last night and left little for breakfast: some sliced bread seemed to be the sum of it. We got the fire going and began toasting. I found some butter as well and put a tin of water on to boil.

We reckoned that it was about six in the morning, hopefully the folk at the farm were not too bothered by our music and singing last night. We had got quite drunk. That was a bit careless considering.

We took the handbrake off the van and let it roll down the lane and into the sea. A few seconds later it was gone.

About twenty minutes after that Jane woke again and sat up.

"What time is it?" she asked, "hang on, where's the van?"

We pointed to the sea.

"We hid it. Don't want to give them too much of a clue where we are."

"Oh, I liked that van," she shrugged, "Ah well. Oh God we're doing this crazy fucking swim today aren't we."

"Yes," we nodded, "we think we've seen the first island we can swim to."

We both tried looking for it but the mist was getting thick again.

"It was sort of in that direction." We waved an arm. Jane squinted trying to see through the clouds.

"Oh fuck. I'm going to die cold and wet. Can't I wrap up in your hammock and you just kind of push me?"

"Well, I was thinking about that actually." We answered "There are some planks from the van that we can tie together. We were going to put our stuff on it, but maybe you could lie on it a bit if it gets too tiring? Kick a bit? That would help."

"You're going to tow me? How many miles?"

"It looked about three kilometres to the first island."

"What's that in miles? Two? I don't think I've ever swum two hundred yards let alone two miles. What about currents?" She paused. "And your eels! Fuck!"

"It won't be too bad, honestly." We tried not to emphasise the 'too'. "And currents don't happen so much this far inland."

Again a bit of a lie but we thought it was getting close to high tide so if we set off soon, it might not be too much of a problem. There was that 'too' again.

We got the planks together and found some twine in amongst all the van junk and tied the hammock on and wrapped what little food we had left inside it to keep dry. We took most of our clothes off and persuaded Jane to take off some as well and put that inside the hammock too.

Then, as we stood shivering at the water's edge we gave Jane a hug.

"What the fuck's that for? Are we going to die?" Asked Jane.

"No! You just looked very worried and we thought you might like a hug."

Jane relented and we hugged again, properly.

"Let's do this then, motherfuckers." Muttered Jane and we walked together down into the sea.

Jane kept the swearing going until long after she had started to breaststroke her way through the water. We swam behind, towing the little raft and giving encouragement.

After a few minutes Jane stopped swearing and called back:

"Hang on, you never answered about the eels."

"What?"

"Eels! What about the fucking eels!"

"Too far north," we shouted back, another lie. We could hear Jane swearing again with every stroke.

We were not swimming very fast. When we had seen the island, as we made breakfast, we had thought that it would take about forty minutes at our normal pace. But Jane was not fast. It could take an hour and a half, easily.

Now we were in the water we weren't able to see anything really, just mist and cloud so we were relying on instinct to keep us swimming in the right direction.

We noticed Jane has stopped swearing so we swam up alongside.

"How's it going?" We asked.

"Jesus, this is," she took a breath, spitting out water, "fucking hell and fucking Baltic too."

"We'll get there soon."

"Get fucking where? We could be," pause, "swimming anywhere."

"No, we're OK."

"Because," breath, "you're a fucking," breath, "mutant," breath. "with bat sense."

"Yeah," we replied, "basically."

She tried to laugh.

"Sorry."

"What for?"

"Calling you a," breath, "you know," breath, "the M word."

"That's OK," we replied, "guess we are. We are the freaks."

We swam on for a bit until Jane asked:

"Can-I-have-a-break?" She said it very fast between breaths.

"Course. Climb on board." We trod water as Jane struggled onto the planks .

"Kicking would be good, or paddling, it all helps." We said and started swimming again. We could really feel the weight now. Jane was doing a bit to help but it was mainly just to keep warm.

"Fuck it's cold."

"Nearly there."

"How much further?"

"Ten minutes," we said. We weren't sure, but then suddenly we felt the sea get fractionally warmer. It meant the water was getting shallower. We looked down and sure enough: ground. A few seconds later and we were able to tiptoe along the bottom and soon after that, walk. Jane slid off the plank and walked beside us. Perhaps the valleys were not as steep as we had thought.

We probably walked for another twenty minutes before finally stepping out of the water onto a low island of grass about a kilometre long running north/south.

It was a narrow strip of land with no sign of human life. Off to the north west about another two hundred metres away we could make out another island. We walked towards it, only having to swim for a few strokes before finding the ground rise up beneath us again.

This island was the same size as the last and we got to walk its length before getting back into the water to reach the following island.

The fourth was larger still, in a C shape, and for the next couple of kilometres we hardly got wet at all.

At the end of the longest island we had been on, we stopped for a break and to eat what little food we had left. We sat shoulder to shoulder under the hammock eating plain bread looking out across the sea to the next island. It was far enough away to come and go in the mist.

"How far do you reckon then?" Asked Jane.

"To that island?" We nodded towards it.

"Yeah. But to the mainland as well."

"'S'pose that's four, five hundred metres away. The map had a couple of islands beyond that one. It's another kilometre or so to the mainland after that."

"So, we're going to do it?" Asked Jane.

We looked round at Jane.

"Did you really think we weren't?"

"Dunno, tried not to think about it."

"OK, but..." we stopped, "lie down!"

We were flat on the ground but Jane hadn't moved.

"Now!"

Grudgingly Jane lay down beside us in the long reedy grass.

"What?" Then Jane heard it too: an engine. A boat was coming, fast. "Fuck."

Out of the mist, barely thirty metres away, came the bow of a military looking boat. Grey and purposeful with a large machine gun at the front. It skidded round the head of our island and sped down the channel between our's and the next. In a matter of seconds it was gone.

"That was the Priest!" There was panicky note to Jane's whisper. "How did he find us? How's he here?"

"That farmer must have seen the van. We did make a bit of noise last night." We whispered back, though there was no need, the boat was gone, even the noise from its engine was fading away. "Must really hate you though."

We tried to make a joke of it but it was frightening that they had found us so easily.

"Fuck," said Jane.

"What?"

"I phoned my mum when I was in Worsthorne. They must have been listening." We thought about that for a bit.

"But everyone's got a phone haven't they?" We asked.

"Yeah, but they can listen to everything. Fuck, even when it's off."

"Freak. Bin it!"

"Bit late now. Anyway, I want to phone my mum later."

"What?" we looked at Jane, "we're..."

Jane looked back at us.

"I like to phone my mum. She might be bat-shit crazy and bang on about how they used to own half of Bradford and be somebody and now Dad's a bitter old man, but I still want to speak to them."

"Fine," we said, "whatever. Let's not phone them now though hey? And maybe we'd better get moving. If they see us we're freaked."

"Are we swimming there?" Jane pointed to the next island.

"Yes. Ready?" Jane stared at the sky, a vaguely blue tint above us through the mist and sighed.

"OK, come on, let's go."

We walked down to the water and waded out to sea dragging the planks.

We were half way across when we heard the boat returning. We tried to swim faster but it sounded like it was going to burst out of the mist at any second.

At the last moment we tipped the planks over and dragged Jane underwater with barely a warning to take a breath.

Then the boat shot past. We felt the pressure of the bow wave against us and saw the churn of the propellers as it passed. Jane fought against us, broke free and went up for air.

Spluttering and coughing Jane splashed about and then sped for the next shore. We followed after, dragging the little raft. We hoped our stuff had managed to stay dry.

Jane ran in a wide-legged fashion up the shore and out of the water, turned and shouted after the boat.

"Fuck! What the fuck is wrong with you? Just leave me a-fucking-lone!" Jane sank to the ground. "Why is he still fucking after me? What did I do? I didn't do anything? I just lifted a few amps and turned a few knobs. What's he... why?"

We came over and put an arm round Jane's shoulders.

"We don't know. Religious folk are strange. They seem to hate everything in this world. Desperate for everyone to be in the next."

"If they're so keen on the next world why can't they just kill themselves and fuck off? Leave us alone."

"Don't know. They think they're right. And they think they've got to bring everyone round to their way of thinking."

"Too many people think like that."

"Oh yeah, far too many." We picked up the planks and headed north, along the latest island.

"Look," we said, pointing, "it's the mainland."

Sure enough through a break in the mist we could see a couple more small islands and beyond that the rising hills of the mainland.

"Almost there."

"How far do you reckon?" Asked Jane.

"Couple of kilometres."

"Which is what in real distances?"

"A couple of kilometres?"

"Fine, come on."

We walked over the island. We made sure we kept to cover, the dips in the ground and close to the reeds and bushes as much as possible. We couldn't hear the boat but we could feel it nearby, looking for us.

"Ready?" we asked.

Jane took a deep breath.

"Come on, let's go."

And we were in the water again, swimming for the next island. It was quite a long swim, ten minutes at least before we felt the ground underneath us and were able to wade ashore. We had dipped our head under the water occasionally to listen out for the boat and we could hear it, but it seemed a fairly safe distance away so we never mentioned it to Jane.

This island was only a few hundred metres long. Beyond that was another ten minute swim to the next but it never got deep enough for that and we were able to wade the whole way. We wondered if the draught of the Priest's boat would manage in this depth. Thankfully we didn't have to find out.

"One more island by the looks of it," said Jane. We could see the mainland clearly now.

"Two swims, then a nice warm fire and some quality free food." We said. "OK maybe we'll have to head inland a bit before we risk a fire, but: fire, food."

Jane didn't say anything and started into the water. We followed, dragging our little raft of belongings.

This time we swam for a bit first, then it got shallow and we walked and then it was deeper again. This happened a couple of times. We wondered if, from a distance it looked like we were walking on water. Now that would have impressed the Priest.

Then suddenly the boat was there again. We pulled Jane down into the water but it was very shallow, we couldn't get fully submerged. Surely they would see us?

The boat slowed, some distance away and almost stopped, then it sped up and was gone again.

"Think it's time to run." We pulled Jane up and started to run as best we could for the next island.

We got to it.

We heard the boat, this time behind us and to our left. We lay low on the island and as the boat came round the top of it we crept over to the opposite side. Then it disappeared off to our right.

"Why didn't they come ashore and grab us?" Jane asked.

"Maybe they didn't see us, or perhaps they saw something else. Dunno, let's just get on. One more swim."

"We should stay here," said Jane suddenly, "we shouldn't swim out there, they'll run us down."

"They won't, they can't," we replied, "we can keep you safe, it'll be OK. The sooner we get ashore the sooner we'll be away from them."

It was the last stretch of water. We waded out.

It was knee deep for the first hundred metres but then it started dropping away until half way across when we had to swim.

We were swimming underwater a lot so we could listen to the movements of the boat. We heard its engine change tone and then it started to get louder and louder. We came up for air and called to Jane.

"Jane! Just swim as fast as you can now for the shore. They're coming." We had about four hundred metres left to cross. We expected to see the boat at any second.

"I can hear it." Panted Jane between breaths, front-crawling towards the shore. "It's coming."

The boat appeared. Its bow angled up high with the speed it was coming at, cutting a white V of froth and foam. A man, in black, obviously the Priest, stood at the bow rail. He raised an arm to point at us and shouted something back to the crew. The boat turned more towards us. In seconds it would be on us.

We let go of the raft, grabbed Jane and dragged us both down deep into the water. The boat ran over us forcing us even deeper. We felt the churn and push of the propellers as they sliced their way past our feet.

We spun round and pulled Jane up again in time to see that the boat was already half way round its wide turn and was going to come at us again. The raft had survived. We tried to pull it and Jane along in the water, hoping that every metre closer to the shore was worth it.

We went down again. The boat went over us. We came up and swam on again watching the boat as it arked round.

It came at us a third time but, just before we dived, it twitched suddenly, the engines screamed and the boat changed direction. The Priest rolled over the bow rail, hanging on with only one hand, feet dragging in the water as the boat turned away from us. The engine died and the boat settled down into the water and slowed, drifting away.

We could hear the Priest shouting for help.

We called to Jane to swim. We both swum as fast as we could for the shore.

When we looked back we could see that the Priest was back on board and ordering the boat's dinghy into the water. At the same time a second, bigger, faster boat came out of the mist.

We felt the ground beneath our feet but kept swimming until it was shallow enough to run. We ran up onto the shore and straight into a small wood.

Behind us we could hear the outboard motor of the dinghy starting up, a much higher note than the roar of the the second boat's engine.

We dropped the raft and cut the string that held it together and freed the hammock, scooping it all up as we ran on.

The wood was not large and soon we were out of it. Beyond were open fields with stone walls marking the boundaries. Further away and higher up, the fields gave way to moors. We climbed the fence and started running across the first field, then ducked behind the wall of the next.

We could hear shouts and what sounded like an argument. We pulled at Jane to keep moving and ran low behind the wall, through a gate and then up the next wall, hoping they couldn't see us.

The noise of the dinghy engine stopped. They must have reached the shore. We got to the end of the second field.

There was a shout and a shot was fired, it hit the wall some metres from us. Jane squeaked and we swore.

Ahead we could see a farmhouse.

"Head for the house." We shouted to Jane who was in front of now.

"What fucking good will that do?" Shouted back Jane as we ran through the last gate.

"Dunno. We'll stay in the house. You run out the back and keep going. We'll hold them off for a bit."

"They'll kill you." Jane cried, almost in tears.

"They'll kill you." We replied. More shots were fired and there was more shouting.

We reached the farmhouse gardens, ran though a side gate and across the grass. The shooting stopped as we slapped the door handle down and ran inside, into a kitchen.

An elderly couple backed away from us, clutching each other.

"Don't hurt us!" Screamed one.

"Please don't hurt us!" Pleaded the other and started choking.

"Dan!" shouted the first and turned to a bag hanging up behind the door. We dropped the hammock and pushed them away, put our hand in the bag and pulled out a tiny green gun with the feel of an old water pistol. We pointed it at the couple.

"Don't move!" We shouted. "Jane, get out of here."

Jane moved towards the door.

"Go! Now!" Jane turned and ran out the door. I moved over to watch Jane run down a passageway to a big half glass door, open it and leave. We turned to the couple who were edging away from us, one still choking and gasping.

"Please," they held out a hand towards the gun. We looked down and at that moment the one choking fell against us. We pulled the trigger. There was no noise but they both collapsed to the floor.

The door behind us burst open and soldiers filled the room, all carried guns, all pointed at us, all shouting. The Priest came in with them.

There was nowhere to go, to hide, we shrank back away from the guns, until we felt the wall behind use. So many guns, all pointed at us. We sank to our knees and then slid under the table and hid our face.

When we looked out from behind our hands we saw that the couple had both been helped out of the kitchen and an argument was going on, mainly about whether to kill us or ask us questions. Questions about raids and troops, about Jane and assassins. It was all very loud and angry sounding.

Then there was a shot, sharp and loud in the confines of the kitchen and we heard Jane shout.

"Everybody down!"

No one got down. We could see their legs all turn round and face away from us. We stuck our head out from under the table. No one was looking at us, they all had their guns pointed at Jane.

"Now Jane," said the Priest, in that quiet, reasonable, priestly voice. "Put the gun down. You don't want to hurt anyone."

"That's not actually fucking true." Screamed Jane. "I really want the fuck to shoot you, you creepy fucking shit."

We noticed at least one of the soldiers raise an eyebrow and nod approval. We stood back up and Jane saw us.

"Are you OK Felix, has anyone hurt you?"

The soldiers turned their guns back to us and then back to Jane, unsure which way to point. The Priest stayed looking at Jane.

"We're fine Jane, still breathing but you were supposed to run away." We said, though we were also wondering: how's Jane got a gun?

"Sorry, I couldn't." Jane replied.

"Ma'am, who do we shoot?" Asked one of the soldiers.

We noticed a smell of flowers.

"I don't think there's any need to shoot anyone is there?" Said a very calm voice over our shoulder. Everyone turned to see who had spoken.

It was the whitest dress we had ever seen. Like untouched snow, so fresh and clean looking. It made everyone else in the room look filthy, sweaty, scruffy.

"Sorry I'm late. I thought you were coming ashore slightly to the west of here, more Hellifield than Otterburn. Just goes to show doesn't it?"

"Lady Linux," started the Priest.

"No, call me Mint, or if you prefer a longer name Mint Ubu. I like them both."

One of the soldiers stepped forward, there was something familiar about them. When the soldier spoke we recognised the voice. It was the commander who had tracked us from Hulland Gate, they had managed to follow us here too!

"Lady Linux," said the voice we recognised so well. "Do you know these two?"

"Yes I do Commander Colme." Lady Linux replied, and pointed at us. "This is Felix and over there by the door with Father Jacob's gun, is Jane Dray. Tell me, are Priest's allowed to carry guns?"

"I don't know what you are doing here." Said Father Jacob, "and I don't care what happens to the mutant, but this young woman here is coming with me. She desperately needs to find the grace of God."

"I totally fucking do not. God and you can fuck right off. You're both wankers." Shouted Jane, almost hysterical.

"Commander you can see for yourself that this mutant has kidnapped this poor girl and destroyed her mind. I suggest you shoot him now and let me save this girl." Said Father Jacob.

"If I may," said the Lady Linux, "I have a pass here signed by Prince John specifically for one Wetlander called Felix to enter Toplands and carry out a delivery, as is the job of a courier."

Someone behind Lady Linux produced a sheet of paper which was passed on to Commander Colme.

"As you can see it is all in order and," Linux continued, "I have another letter here for Jane Dray who is employed by the Linux family as an assistant. She is currently working with an outreach art project of ours called The Sisters of Mersey, from where she was kidnapped not by Felix here but by Father Jacob who tried to take her overseas to the Moors against her will."

"This is ridiculous," spluttered Father Jacob, "you can't believe this nonsense. Commander, did you not hear about the four innocent men this mutant murdered, just outside Woodhead?"

"They weren't innocent, they were going to fucking rape us!" Countered Jane. "If it wasn't for Felix I'd be dead."

"It is true that Felix here did have to defend himself against four attackers paid by Father Jacob to intercept our courier. But luckily he is well trained in defending himself."

"He was hiding under the table, just a minute ago!" Shouted Father Jacob finally losing his temper.

"You paid them?" screamed Jane. She pointed the gun at the Priest and pulled the trigger. At the same time Father Gerard brushed the gun aside and reached for Jane's neck.

There was a shot. We felt something. We put a hand up to our head and touched blood. It was dripping down into our eye. We felt very weak and then we were on our knees and then everyone was standing at the wrong angle and we realised we were lying on the ground. There was lot more noise and shouting.

Then Jane was holding us. She was crying. We tried to move our hands to brush away the hair from Jane's face and to smile but we couldn't do either.

"We think we've been shot in the head." We said. "We're dying."

"You'll be OK, just hold on, you'll be fine." Sobbed Jane.

"But there's a hole in our head." We whispered back. "That's got to be a problem?"

"Maybe... ." answered Jane.

"Everyone's very angry here aren't they."

We could feel ourself fading.

"Is it the eyes?"

"No," whispered Jane cradling our head, "they're all just fucking crazy."

And that was the last thing we heard.
