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tasks. Nothing was said. Strangers’ brains were so eaten
     away by disease they’d lost the power of speech.
    Until now Shadowman had thought that all
     adults had lost the capability of rational thought. They hadn’t. Their brains had
changed
, that was all. The higher level, the conscious reasoning level,
     might have been destroyed, but the animal part of their brains was still going strong.
     The brainstem it was called. Shadowman had learnt about it in science. It was the
     oldest, simplest part of the brain that humans shared with all other creatures.
    And even the smallest creatures, worms,
     insects, microbes … even
they
had some kind of functioning brain.
     Maybe flies didn’t actually
think
. It didn’t stop them from taking
     over the world, though.
    Did the malaria parasite know what it was
     doing when it infected someone? Did it wonder what it was going to have for supper? What
     the other parasites were talking about? No.It just did what it did.
Plasmodium falciparum
, that’s what it was called. He’d studied
     the parasite at school. A very successful creature. Spreading itself worldwide. It
     wasn’t evil. It had no plan. It had no idea what it was doing. Like all animals,
     it simply had an in-built programme that allowed it to survive. You couldn’t blame
     the parasite for killing people, any more than you could blame a shark for having big
     teeth. Sharks were no more evil than hedgehogs or fluffy bunny rabbits.
    So were these strangers evil? Or were they
     just doing what they needed to do to survive? And were they any more conscious of what
     they were doing than
Plasmodium falciparum
?
    It made no difference. Scientists
     hadn’t worried about morality when they’d set about trying to rid the world
     of malaria. Now the healthy, undiseased kids had to not question it when they killed
     strangers. And it was down to Shadowman to somehow try to stop The Fear from
     spreading.
    The strangers had to be wiped out, because,
     like malaria, it was a case of
us
or
them
.
    When Shadowman thought about the disease, he
     couldn’t help but picture adults shuffling about like zombies. They had become the
     model of their own sickness. They acted like the disease itself. Spreading, destroying,
     growing, showing outward signs of purpose and intelligence, but with each individual
     member, each human cell, being essentially mindless.
    They reminded him of something. A flock of
     birds. The way they seemed to anticipate each other, to move as a single unit, a single
     coordinated creature.
    A flock of birds, a shoal of fish, a pack of
     hunting wolves … 
    A disease.

7
    ‘There’s something going
     down.’
    Ed looked up from his breakfast of lumpy
     porridge and blinked at Kyle. He’d been up late on guard duty and wasn’t
     properly awake yet. As Captain of the Tower Guard, he was meant to be ready for anything
     at all times, but the one thing he struggled with was early starts.
    ‘How serious is it, Kyle?’
    ‘Well, you know, like,
pretty
serious.’
    ‘What? A red alert? Orange?
     Purple?’
    ‘Oh, come on, Ed. You know I
     can’t get my head around those stupid colours.’
    ‘OK, on a scale of one to ten then.
     I’ve only just started breakfast and I don’t want to come back to cold
     porridge. It was never very warm to begin with.’
    ‘I’d say a ten.’
    Ed swore and threw his spoon into his bowl.
     He slid the porridge across the table to one of his team, a quiet, curly-haired girl
     called Ali.
    ‘Look after this for me, will
     you?’ he said, standing up from the table. ‘Don’t eat it.’
    Ali peered at the grey porridge and wrinkled
     her nose.
    ‘It’s safe.’
    Ed buckled on his sword and looked around
     theguardroom, which was situated at the bottom of the Bloody Tower. He
     picked out three girls and a boy who had finished eating and were playing cards at
     another table.
    ‘You lot, come with us.’
    They hustled out of the tower after Kyle who