Tube Riders, The by Chris Ward Read Free Book Online

like human water trickling away. He looked over the sea of heads, searching for Owen. As always he started to panic until at last he saw his brother ambling across the playground, a school bag slung across his shoulders. Owen’s head was lowered, his face sullen, and Paul recognised this as a sign of wellbeing. His twelve-year-old brother loved school. They got on well, but Paul always felt school was the only thing that truly made his brother happy. Inside those walls Owen was safe within his learning. The violence and the struggles of life in Mega Britain didn’t figure, and it was as though he was just a normal school kid, working at his studies with the future bright ahead of him.
    ‘Hey,’ Paul said, as his brother came up to the gate amidst the last trickle of children. ‘You okay?’
    ‘Hi, Paul.’ Owen handed Paul the bag. It was Paul’s job as big brother to carry the luggage. As always he was surprised how heavy it was, loaded down with the science and math textbooks that his little brother loved so much.
    ‘You just missed one of the spaceships,’ Paul said as they turned away from the school and headed for the nearest bus stop.
    ‘Did it make it?’
    Paul raised an eyebrow. ‘What do you think?’
    Owen smiled. ‘Don’t worry, one day I’ll show them what to do. I’ll make sure they all stay up, and we can all go and live on Mars.’
    ‘I hear the weather’s pretty good there,’ Paul said.
    ‘There’s a whole industry in dust baths,’ Owen quipped.
    ‘Yeah, well, water’s overrated, don’t you think?’
    Owen punched his brother on the arm. ‘I want to go to the ocean, someday,’ he said. ‘I was reading today about tropical reefs and all the fish you can see–’
    ‘Talking of fish, how about we go get fish n’ chips for tea?’
    ‘Sounds good.’ Owen smiled. ‘Do you have enough money for takeaway?’
    Paul patted his pocket. ‘Yeah, of course.’
    It was more of an estimation than a lie. If they had no extras and he only bought a small portion, he could afford for Owen to feast. Paul, twenty-one and thirteen stone, didn’t need to grow anymore. He’d gained weight since he’d given up active tube riding, something that was difficult to do with the food shortages London often suffered from.
    They headed out of the school grounds and turned up the street. Ahead of them the intersection was clogged, so Paul led them across the street and down a road heading right. Once-stately Victorian buildings loomed over them from either side. Perhaps just one in three of the buildings they passed had windows, while many had been gutted by fire. For a while they would walk on clear, tidy pavement, then a moment later they’d be negotiating their way around a heap of garbage or an abandoned car, holding their noses against the stench of something rotting, or stepping through potholes where the tarmac had been torn up.
    ‘I hate this shithole,’ Owen was saying. ‘There are so many nice places in the world, Paul. Why are we stuck here?’
    Paul shrugged. He didn’t know whether Owen should believe what he read in books anyway. For all they knew, the rest of the world was as bad as London GUA.
    ‘Look, Paul! What’s going on over there?’
    They had just turned a corner and a short distance ahead a group of men were approaching a small mini-mart. They swaggered rather than walked, probably the result of illegal homebrew, and the assurances of the knives and bits of wood they carried. Paul had seen their kind a thousand times before: anarchists, rioters, troublemakers. Wasting away the day in a dark, basement bar somewhere, they’d got drunk and riled each other up, wound themselves tight like a coil. They’d convinced themselves that this was right, that going on a rampage was what the city deserved, what the people needed. In truth it meant most of them would be dead before the end of the day, but probably not before taking a few innocents with them.
    ‘Owen, get behind me,’ Paul