exactly how many days. The time she’d spent in the cattle shed had felt like months at the time, years even. But since then, since meeting Brooks - Adam, she corrected herself - there’d been a surprising convergence of purpose, and with this man even a possibility of escape.
She had only one single goal; thoughts beyond that were just noise.
I have to warn her.
Adam was right. There was something going on in the middle of the dome. Yesterday they’d watched about a hundred workers, many of them work-group leaders - the ones who’d earned the Chief’s trust and been awarded McDonald’s plastic name tags - being herded through the entry kiosks and up into the central arena. Panic rippled amongst those looking on as a rumour spread that this was some sort of an act of punishment, that one of the praetorians had been assaulted by a worker and an example was going to be made of them all. Beaten in batches. But no more people were herded through, and the young boys in jackets barked orders at them to go back to their jobs.
Today’s rumour-mill was spinning with stories that the workers were building something in the middle. There were certainly noises coming out, of things being shifted and dismantled, the sound of scaffolding poles clattering heavily on the ground. The idea that something was being built seemed strangely reassuring to everyone else, but Leona knew it could only be the noise of approaching departure.
How soon, though, that was the question.
‘We’ll need a gun,’ she said quietly. ‘Can you get a gun?’
‘The only way we’ll get one is wrestling it out of the hands of one of those boys,’ said Adam. ‘What about food and water?’
‘Water’s not a problem. Any river or stream will do,’ she replied. The waterways were no longer a thick soup of nitrates, heavy metals and used condoms. You could scoop a handful of water from the Thames now and drink it without doing yourself any harm. It tasted like pond life but it wasn’t going to kill you. Best thing that could ever have happened to mother nature, she decided. Mankind screwing himself over for a change. There were canals and rivers up through Norfolk. They could easily find some plastic bottles, rinse them out and fill them with the Thames. Water wasn’t a problem.
‘If we can find some bicycles from somewhere,’ she said, ‘we could be back up in Norfolk in three or four days. We won’t need food.’
Adam shook his head. ‘We will. None of us have any fat to burn. Seriously. A day or two without food and we won’t be able to walk, never mind cycle.’
‘We’ll find something,’ she replied. ‘There’s still food out there.’
‘And what if your mum won’t let me and my lads on? We’d be in poor shape to go anywhere else. We’d be fucked.’
‘She will.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘They’re going to need you, aren’t they? To fight off Maxwell’s little army.’ Leona dropped a handful of pods into his bucket. ‘So how do you think they’ll travel there? They got trucks?’
‘The barges,’ said Adam. ‘Thames barges. We used them a few years back when—’ He stopped talking for a moment as an elderly man came down his row, sprinkling water from a can into each grow trough. Adam let him pass by before continuing. ‘There’s a tugboat moored up on Thames Wharf with a nearly full tank of diesel. Hasn’t been used since the last time. He’ll use that to tow the three barges.’ He looked at her through the leaves. ‘That’s how he’ll get there.’
Leona caught his eyes. ‘Can those barge things go out on the open sea?’
‘If they hug the coastline and as long as the sea’s calm, yeah, they can do it.’
‘How long will it take them?’
Adam shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Your place - did you say it’s off the north coast of Norfolk?’
‘Not really. It’s not far from Great Yarmouth. Do you know th—’
‘I know Great Yarmouth. My grandparents used to live there.’ Adam pinched his lips in thought. ‘Lemmesee, that’s what? A hundred and fifty . . . two hundred miles of coastline for them to follow?’
Leona shook her head. She had absolutely no idea.
‘I don’t know,’ he continued. ‘Maybe it’ll take them a day or two if the weather stays good.’
She felt her heart quicken. ‘Oh, God!’ she whispered. ‘I thought it might take weeks! Then . . . shit . . . then we have to go—’
‘Don’t say tonight.’
‘Yes, tonight.’
He shook his