Hideout Jack Heath (reading the story of the .TXT) 📖

off, someone would have to crawl under my bed and fire a gun into the vent. They’d die a split second before I did.

So the bomb must be en route to somewhere else. But where? Why?

I think of Fred, taking the gun out of Samson’s dead hands. The whole house could have gone up. Jesus.

Did he mean the bullet might have tunnelled through two walls and the floor before igniting this small package? Seems unlikely. Unless …

With an awful sinking feeling in my chest, I drag the bookcase sideways. A spot high up on the wall has been repaired. Someone made a hole, and then patched it up. Like everyone in it, this house is beautiful until you start looking behind things.

I press my ear to the plaster, and knock gently. It’s an interior wall, so it should sound hollow. It doesn’t. Something has been packed inside.

I tap a different spot, just in case I was knocking beside the stud. Then I try a different wall. I hear a dull thud each time.

I hope I’m wrong. Because if I’m not, the walls of this house are packed tight with bags of ammonal, mixed and ready to blow. If the cops ever show up, it would be easy to turn the building into a fireball, destroying all the evidence.

I think of Fred, ready to push the red button on his phone. Are you sure? This action cannot be undone.

CHAPTER 26

Sometimes I am the ground beneath your feet, sometimes I am the air above your head. I swallow men whole, yet they die without me. What am I?

‘You unscrew these two, lever out the battery, put in the new one, and screw those back in. It’s not rocket surgery.’ Donnie chuckles at his own joke as he inspects his handiwork.

It’s Thursday morning. I’ve volunteered to help change the batteries, mostly so I can learn the position of all the cameras.

I hardly slept last night. It wasn’t just the knowledge that I was surrounded by explosives—it was the fear that I wouldn’t be able to get Thistle out of here before the Guards resume their torture tomorrow.

‘How often do you have to do this?’ I ask.

Donnie wipes some sweat off his brow and peers down at the checklist. ‘Every four days.’

‘You must go through a lot of batteries.’

‘We recharge them at a wheel upstream. Hydropower. Disposable batteries are really unethical. Mining of lithium and zinc and cobalt destroys animal habitats. It’s the main reason that gorillas are endangered.’ He shakes his head sadly. ‘But all these assholes keep buying them.’

‘Don’t the rechargeable ones also require mining?’

Donnie shoots me a suspicious look. ‘What’s your point?’

‘No point.’ I follow Donnie downhill through the brush towards a narrow creek. ‘How often do you move the cameras?’

‘We don’t move them, exactly—just point them in different directions. There’s no real schedule, but we last did it on Sunday, so there’s no need for a while.’

Four days ago. Right before the hiker showed up. ‘Why not do it every time you change the batteries?’ I regret suggesting this as soon as the words are out of my mouth.

‘Planning a new layout is pretty complicated,’ Donnie says. ‘You can’t just point them in random directions. We don’t have enough cameras as it is, so we need to make sure we’re not doubling up.’

‘You don’t want two covering the same ground?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Can I change the next battery?’

‘Sure.’

We both jump over the creek. It’s shallow and muddy. I see why the Guards don’t make the prisoners wash in it. As I look around, I spot two more cameras up ahead. It’s not easy to memorise the locations and angles, since all the trees look so similar. Harder still is knowing that I won’t spot all of them. Thistle’s life depends not only on my memory, but on sheer luck.

‘Is this where the water for the house comes from?’ I ask, looking back at the creek.

‘A little further upstream, yeah.’ Donnie looks proud. ‘I rigged up the purifier myself.’

‘You did? How does it work?’

Donnie explains that he was an apprentice plumber, once upon a time. At first, he was drawn by the money—he’d heard from a friend that plumbers made more than office drones or store clerks—but after going on a few house visits, it started to feel like a calling.

He and his boss would park their pick-up truck in front of a suburban home. A woman in sweat-stained clothes would answer the door, her hair all over the place, a screaming baby in her arms and another two dirty kids yelling on the floor. Everything would smell terrible. After only two hours without water, their lives had fallen apart. Donnie soon realised that every living thing on Earth needed water. It was the world’s most important resource.

‘What about oxygen?’ I ask.

He ignores me. ‘Did you know that once the human population hits eight billion, there won’t be enough fresh water to keep everyone alive?’

‘I did not.’

‘Three days without water and you’re dead.’ He snaps his fingers. ‘Like that. Some countries have already started water rationing. We’ll all have to do it pretty soon, especially if certain people keep breeding.’

He catches himself. Glances over his shoulder. I guess the other Guards aren’t very tolerant of intolerance.

‘Which people?’ I ask. If I can work out who he’s prejudiced against, maybe I can use it to turn him against the rest of the group, or the rest of the group against him.

But he doesn’t bite. ‘Whichever. You heard of “day zero”? It’s when City Hall switches off the water. Then everyone has to go to collection points to get it. Suddenly water isn’t just valuable—it’s currency. People steal it. So other people guard it. Fights break out. Wars start. You know how the Arab