Page 124 of Crocodile Tears

“That’s great.” She smiled at him, her eyes bright with tears.

“You’re still crying. That croc must be really good stuff,” he exclaimed, wiping away her tears with the edge of the pillowcase.

She snuggled into him, tears still running down her face. “I’m so happy for you, Alex. This is the start of something wonderful, I know it.”

Chapter Twenty-One

OCTOBER 2095

Josiah

Alexander was silent as they drove to collect his clothes from Dacre’s house. He seemed lost in thought as he gazed out over the grey water of the lost zone.

Josiah tried to imagine what his life had been like as Dacre’s indentured servant. It was one of luxury compared to the lives many still led, but it made Josiah feel claustrophobic just thinking about it. He could never submit to someone else’s orders about what he said, ate, and wore, or how he accounted for his time.

When he was growing up, many of his friends had opted to become indies, wanting something more than the damp, depressing future the Quarterlands offered. Most had never returned, but a few visited briefly, proudly wearing their houders’ ID tags and smart liveries. They spoke of a life of comfort, ease, and riches that a young Josiah could barely imagine, but he saw also the trapped look in their eyes.

IS recruiters and government officials made sweeps of the Quarterlands all the time, trying to “save” the inhabitants. But all they had to offer was a form of slavery, no matter how they dressed it up. It was either wear an ID tag and be chipped like an animal or go into the government work camps to be ordered around and treated like dirt.

Work camps were like the workhouses of old; you would at least befed and receive minimal medical aid, but you were also put to work doing menial jobs for the government for no pay.

Conditions in the Quarterlands were bad, but at least you could come and go as you pleased and call yourself free. There was no future in the Quarterlands, though, only a lifetime of poverty, in thrall to the gangs that ran them; it was often a short life.

He could so easily have become an IS. He could have worn IS livery and worked as a security guard, or gone into the boxing ring on the underground prizefighting circuit, taking punches to earn money for his houder’s purse before being put out to pasture with his memory shot to pieces and his hands shaking from brain damage.

But that had never been an option, because of the promise he’d made to his father. Matthew Raine had been a good man but a cussed one, with a stubborn refusal to bend even if it meant he must break – a quality Josiah had only really appreciated when he was dying.

“If you take the king’s shilling, you become the king’s man,” he’d rasped, his chronic lung condition making his voice wheezy.

Josiah hadn’t known what a shilling was, and the king was a remote figure whose clean, shining face shone out from screens and on the news feeds on the sides of buildings, no more real to him than anything else beyond the Quarterlands.

He’d understood the sentiment, though, and his father had backed it up with another message, drumming it in repeatedly: “Never give up your freedom – it’s the only thing you’ll ever really own. Don’t ever sell yourself, Joe. Promise me.”

He had, and he’d stayed true to that promise ever since, no matter how hard it had been at times or how hungry he’d been.

Alexander’s freedom had been ripped away from him seven years ago, and now his very existence belonged to someone else.

Had it been worse for him, coming from a background of wealth and privilege, to adjust to such a huge reversal of status? Was it harder for him than for all those sad-eyed Quarterlands kids running away to wear a Drylander’s ID tag?

He shot a surreptitious glance at Alexander. There was an expression in his eyes that reminded Josiah of another IS, many years ago.

“Joe – I’ve had some news,” Hunt said, sitting back in his chair.

Hattie’s chin was resting on Josiah’s knee, and he was stroking her head gently, the way he always did during their evening briefings.

The easy tone of their meetings was gone, though – Josiah kept them brisk and professional and didn’t linger to chat over a box of fine dark chocolates anymore. “Sir?”

“Our mission is coming to an end earlier than expected. We’ve been recalled to Geneva – they need our supply AVs urgently. Cock-up with logistics, I suspect.”

“But if we go to Geneva now, you won’t get a chance to…”

“Take Liz to Hanover as I promised. I know.”

“Well, you can’t just drop her off here alone – this area is teeming with scavs.”

“I intend to keep my promise.”

“How? Are you going to disobey orders?” Josiah wasn’t surprised. Peter Hunt seemed to thrive on doing just that.

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