reassure him that there was someone else out there, but caution kept her silent.
Then she had a fleeting recall of something Dizz-ee had been saying to Jacob; goading him to attack. Snoop told me we’re leaving this place. Gonna go live on your place. Cool, uh? Said your mum’s the big boss there.
Oh, God.
First thing we gonna do when we get there is fuck your mum. Shit, man, reckon we’ll all have a go at her.
They already knew about the rigs. Jacob must have told them.
‘Look, Leona, are you anything to do with the two boys who were picked up last month?’ asked Adam.
Two boys? Nathan must have survived the ExCel Centre as well.
‘Black boy and a white boy. Only, apart from those two and you, the only people we’ve seen approach the zone in the last couple of years are those wild kids. Sometimes they come begging for scraps, you know, when they’ve run out of dogs to eat.’
Her eyes remained on the bowl in front of her.
They know.
‘There’s rumours floating around, Leona. Rumours of another big community like ours. That that’s where you and the two boys came from?’
She knew her face was giving her away. ‘Not true,’ she said evenly.
Adam lowered his voice a little and leaned forward. ‘But, if it was true then I would be very worried for them.’
‘Why?’
‘Especially if Maxwell and his boys knew where exactly they were.’
Her mouth was hurting. She’d already spoken more words today than her jaw wanted her to. ‘Why?’
‘Because we’re dying here.’
Dying? She’d taken a look out at the acres of green in front of the dome; row upon ordered row of vegetable crops; a soup kitchen not unlike theirs back home. They seemed to have managed thus far on what they could produce.
‘You grow food,’ she replied.
Adam’s lips curled with a derisory sneer. ‘It’s not enough. Nowhere near enough. There are two thousand, two hundred and seventy-nine people living here. What we’ve managed to produce out there would sustain less than half that number. This is our third year of trying to grow our own stuff. Last summer was better than the first. This summer was worse than either. I don’t know whether we’re doing things all wrong; same crops in the same soil, or the soil’s being over-used . . . there are no bloody horticulturists here.’
‘Where . . . where do you get . . . ?’
‘Where’s the rest of the food coming from?’
She nodded.
‘A stockpile. A rapidly shrinking stockpile.’ He dipped his spoon into the murky broth in front of him and slurped a mouthful. ‘Last time I had a look down there was over three years ago, and it was three-quarters gone even then. Maxwell’s got us all out there every day, tending those plants, tilling the soil, turning the crap from the latrines into the earth to make it more fertile, but it’s largely window dressing.’
He leant forward again, lowering his voice still further. ‘It’s for show, that’s all it is. To keep everyone busy, to assure them there’s a future here, that there’ll always be food for everyone.’
He was almost whispering now. ‘But there isn’t. It’s a fucking sham.’ He looked down at his bowl. ‘Only half of what’s in there came from the vegetable garden out front - the rest is tinned goods.’
Leona looked down at her own bowl and studied the grey liquid.
‘When we finally run out of what’s stocked downstairs, then we’re all going to be screwed. That’s when things will turn fucking nasty here. Maxwell knows that. The bastard has known that for the last ten years.’
‘Why . . .’ She pursed her lips, and felt an ache course across her face. ‘Why did he not . . . start growing . . . earlier?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose he started out thinking a decade’s worth of supplies was enough to see us through. That some relief effort would have come to the rescue by now.’
Leona remembered a conversation with Dad from a long time ago; asking him why the world carried on using oil if they knew it was running out. That was just silly, wasn’t it? He’d replied that people had a tendency to instinctively stick their heads in the sand; to expect to be rescued by someone or something else - technology, market forces, whatever.
Old habits: a hard thing to change.
‘I think he’s been expecting it all to fall apart at some point. His plan has been to delay that for as long as possible.’