‘Next time,’ he says casually, earning a horrified look from Zara.
‘I AIN’T DYING MAN,’ Tom screams.
‘Not much choice,’ Bear mutters, watching the timer.
Tears spill down Zara’s cheeks and her bottom lip quavers when she looks to Bear but she forces a brave nod, steeling herself against the surge of fear and panic inside.
‘Even if we get the wires from both bombs they still detonate,’ Bear says, watching the timer.
‘There’ll be a way,’ Zara whispers. ‘TOM? WE NEED TO MOVE FASTER NEXT TIME.’
‘Aw, hell no,’ the American summons courage from the depths of his soul as the timer counts back from ten seconds. He moves to the girl, lowering behind her the way Bear did, shielding her from the bomb with his body as Pete reaches a hand to nudge Jacob, motioning for him to look at Thomas. ‘It’s okay sweetie, we’ll be okay sweetie,’ he murmurs to the kid, closing his eyes.
0:04. 0:03. 0:02.
A click. A boom. Another click. Another boom and the two rooms erupt with scorching fire that sears out, eviscerating everything in its path as three scream and one waits silently.
Death to life. Three still scream. Still on fire. Still dying. Still feeling the wall of heat engulfing them, melting their skin as their lungs shrivel and burn in their bodies.
‘UP,’ Bear shouts, on his feet and pulling at Zara’s arm. She lurches to her feet, screaming and dancing in panic on the spot. ‘Zara…Zara…’ he grabs her face, cupping her cheeks, robbing the air from her throat and bringing her down from panic. ‘Reset,’ he says calmly. ‘We’ve reset…’
‘Reset,’ she whispers.
‘Reset,’ he says. ‘We have to move…get Thomas on the first one…okay?’
‘Okay,’ she gasps, pulling back as Bear runs off for the door. James screams and wails curled in a ball and trapped in utter terror of what just happened. She grabs at Thomas, working fast to ease his whimpers, wiping the tears from his cheeks. ‘We’ve reset…Tom, we’ve reset…we’ve got to move now…’
On the gantry Jacob exhales slowly as the two older men track Bear running to the door. Another look between them. ‘Tea break after this one?’ Jacob whispers.
Bear starts work in the second room. On his knees, his hands steady because this is not new to him. Movement at his side. Zara running down from getting Thomas started on the other bomb, her motion and gait jerky and uncoordinated but she rushes in, breathing hard and stares round at the children, at the pillar and the sticks of explosive then moves away out of sight of the door and drops to her knees to puke, gasping for air and wiping the strands of spittle hanging from her mouth.
‘You okay?’ Bear asks, risking a quick look at her and the timer.
‘No,’ she whispers, her voice ragged and hoarse. The explosion was awful, the feel of it, the seconds of living that came after the blast when all around her was just heat and fire and pain. She can’t do it again. She won’t do it again. She glances back to see James still curled up on the floor crying hard. A big man he may be, but his fear has rendered him useless.
She moves to the pillar, grasps the sticks and pulls, feeling a second’s worth of resistance before they came away in her hands. ‘Magnet,’ she says, looking at the back then at the metal plate on the pillar. A thought. A tight grin. A glint in her eyes.
‘Almost done,’ Bear says, seeing her form in his peripheral vision.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ she says.
‘What?’
‘Focus on that first,’ she says firmly, her hands on her hips and a weird feeling of being watched that makes her look up and round.
‘Done!’ Bear calls out, surging to his feet to start pulling the wires free from the box with a look to the closest child and making ready to start untangling him.
‘No,’ Zara says, rushing to the pillar. ‘Get to Thomas, do his box…’
He falters for a second, thinking to argue then sprints hard over the pitted floor to reach Thomas.
‘Can I finish it?’
‘Huh? You done the other one?’ Thomas asks, handing it over.
‘Yep…’
‘What the…’ Thomas says, getting to his feet at the sight of Zara running towards him with the explosives and other box in her hands. ‘Zara…what the…’
‘We’ll leave this bomb here and take the kid down to the other room behind the door…’
‘Wow,’ Thomas says, his mouth dropping open. ‘That’s really smart.’
‘I am smart,’ she says bluntly as Pete and Jacob share another glance on the gantry and lean forward to watch closer. ‘Get James down there…;
3:58. 3:57. 3:56.
‘James, get up dude…come on…’ Thomas heaves him up, fighting against the bulk of the bigger man trying to sink back down. ‘Get up man…we’ve got to get out…Zara, he ain’t moving…’
The final wire snaps clear and Bear yanks the threads from the box, loosening the tangle to tug it free from the child still repeating the same few phrases and now he’s done it a few times he can see the replay. Like a constant reset happening. The same motions and words in a set order. Help me. I want to go. I want my mummy.
He lifts her up into his side and sets off running for the door, sprinting past Zara and Thomas dragging James while Jacob and Pete lean over the railing on the gantry with intense scrutiny of the actions below.
‘BEAR,’ Zara shouts, turning to see only thirty seconds left on the timer.
Bear ditches the last two children at the side and runs back, seeing James crawling on his knees with his face streaked with tears and snot and the other two heaving on his arms.
‘They won’t get James through the door,’ Jacob says.
A burst of strength, an application of speed and James starts moving faster from Bear wrenching him up from behind and driving hard knee strikes into the back of his legs.
Pete grips the rail tighter, his knuckles turning white while watching intently as Jacob glances at the timer, ten seconds, nine seconds.
They surge through and Bear drops back to grab the handle and pull the heavy thing over the squeaking rollers, leaving Thomas and Zara to drag James bodily over the ground, both of them grunting and crying out from the exertion needed.
0:05. 0:04. 0:03.
The door slams and Bear runs with everything he has to reach the others, diving through the air to cover their forms with his own body as the bombs in the other room detonate with two solid percussive whumps that shake the walls and make the ground heave. The door rattles in the frame. The air becomes charged, but it holds, the door holds, deflecting the intense searing heat and raging furnace from getting through.
‘Yes!’ Pete says, clenching his fist with a look of victory, impervious to the raging fire broiling just metres below them.
‘Flawed test,’ Jacob announces, folding his arms. ‘Roshi interfered.’
‘Ah, this was good, they did good,’ Pete says, gesturing towards the door hidden in the fires.
‘Flawed,’ Jacob repeats. ‘They had an advantage.’
‘Zara is smart, she would have worked it out.’
‘We can hypothesise to our hearts content, but the fact remains that Roshi interfered,’ he claps his hands, instantly killing the flames rolling beneath them that suck back and away as though simply removed from existence, leaving the room unmarked.
‘Then we go on,’ Pete says, waving a hand.
‘We were going for a tea break,’ Jacob says with a slight blanch at the concept of missing a refreshment break.
‘No, we go on,’ Pete says.
‘Did it work?’ Thomas asks, his voice muffled from being buried underneath Bear and Zara. He pokes his head up as the others turn to look. ‘We did it…’ he gasps. ‘Dude…we did it…’
‘Bloody hell,’ Zara says, rolling free to sit up and look over at the closed door. ‘I really didn’t think that would work. What’s next?’ she asks Bear.
‘I don’t know. I never got this far.’
‘The freaky ass robot kids are gone,’ Thomas says, looking round. ‘This place is so messed up…’
‘Understatement,’ Zara mutters.
‘You were smart, Zara,’ he says earnestly.
‘Thanks. You both did well…apart from you, James. You need to stop eating. You weigh too much…’
A squeak brings them to silence. A noise of a heavy door moving an inch on old rollers. Then it slams back hard, making Zara and Thomas flinch from the noise as a black-clad figure stands silently in the frame.
‘A cop?’ Thomas asks, glancing at Zara.
‘Oh, shit,’ Bear launches up, vaulting to his feet as the cop charges in, drawing his baton as he moves.
‘BEAR!’ Zara shouts. ‘What you are doing?’
‘MOVE BACK,’ Bear shouts, running to intercept as the cop flicks his wrist, extending the baton that he pulls back readying to strike.
‘He’s a cop,’ Thomas says quickly, pushing to his feet. ‘Bear, get back man…holy shit!’
A sickening crunch of bone as Bear breaks his arm then snaps his neck with a noise like a dry twig and the cop falls dead with his head at an unnatural angle.
‘What did you do,’ Zara whispers. ‘Bear…what did you do?’
‘He’s not a policeman,’ Bear says, picking the baton up. ‘It’s one of them…the robot things…’
‘Bloody Roshi,’ Jacob mutters, waving his hand to create another two uniformed cops.
‘You killed him dude,’ Thomas whispers.
‘Well, yeah, those sticks really hurt…’
‘But…dude, you killed him…’
‘They killed me loads of times…well, not the cops but the men in the blue did…and…’
‘What men in blue?’ Thomas asks.
‘Bear did a different circuit to us,’ Zara says, unable to take her eyes off the dead man at Bear’s feet.
‘What?’ Thomas asks. ‘What circuit did he do?’
‘LOOK OUT!’ Zara screams as two more cops run through the door, both with batons out already extending and held ready to strike.
Bear moves with a blur of motion. His instincts sharp from having done the same thing over and over through so many deaths. He goes low, feinting left then darting right to slam his baton into the throat of one, making it drop with a gargle to writhe on the ground. The other spins into him, lashing out with vicious strikes that Bear blocks with his own baton, dancing back three steps before moving in with a knee to his groin then a strike down to the back of the skull and he clears back, creating distance while the two cops squirm in pain on the ground.
‘Bitch,’ Jacob snaps, waving his hand to create four more uniformed cops that start running the second they appear.
‘Man, we’re gonna be in trouble…you don’t hurt cops,’ Thomas says, instantly back to fretting. ‘Even pretend freaky-ass robot cops…’
‘How did you do that?’ Zara asks, stunned to the core at what she just saw. Not just the brutal explosion of violence but the speed of Bear. The way he moves, the fluidity of him and the calmness exuding as he did it.
‘Er…just kinda learnt really,’ Bear replies.
Zara leans over to look past Bear at the open door and four more cops running through the other warehouse. ‘Er…so…’ she waves at the door, wincing politely. ‘There’s some more?’
‘More?’ Bear asks, turning to face the door.
‘More,’ she says as the four cops run in.
‘Fuck, dude,’ Thomas says. ‘Fuck, dude…’ he says again at the speed of Bear charging in to attack them head on. ‘Fuck, dude,’ he says when one falls dead with the point of a baton stuck through his eye.
‘Ooh,’ Zara winces when another one falls with a broken neck. ‘Ew,’ she flinches at the next bone snapping from Bear ramming his knee into the back of an elbow.
‘Fuck, dude,’ Thomas says as Bear throws the third cop into the fourth cop then runs to attack them both.
‘Ooh, that one’s getting up,’ Zara yells as a cop starts pushing to his feet. ‘Bear…him…that one…oh, yep, he’s dead now…anything we can do at all?’
‘I’m fine,’ Bear grunts.
‘Sure?’ she asks in the abject surrealness.
‘My god,’ Pete says from the gantry, as shocked as Zara and Thomas. ‘What did Roshi do to him?’ he asks as Jacob waves a hand to create another eight men in blue coveralls, each holding the bigger fighting sticks as they sprint the length of the warehouse towards the door.
Zara flinches, counting quickly. ‘Bear? Can you do eight?’
‘I can do eight,’ Bear says.
‘You can do eight?’ Thomas asks.
‘Yep,’ Bear says, running to the doorway. ‘Didn’t you do this?’
‘Do what precisely?’ Zara asks.
‘These men in the Hexa…hepta…the room with seven sides?’
‘Heptagon,’ Zara says, her hands still on her hips while she holds conversation with a man fighting eight others. ‘And er no, strangely enough. I had to go through a big bucket of keys to find the right one to unlock a door while it got really hot.’
‘Same,’ Thomas says.
‘What?’ Bear snaps, turning to glare for a second with three dead men in blue coveralls at his feet. ‘Bitch…’
‘Bitch,’ Jacob growls on the gantry.
‘She is a bitch,’ Pete laughs.
‘Who’s a bitch?’ Thomas asks, flinching and wincing at the mass slaughter taking place just a few feet away.
‘Roshi,’ Bear shouts.
‘Damn, Roshi,’ Jacob mutters.
‘When did you die?’ Bear asks, lashing out to fend two off then grabbing a wrist to turn and snap while kicking into the side of a knee.
‘At the beginning,’ Zara says, sharing a look with Thomas.
‘The parachute right,’ Thomas says.
‘Yeah,’ Zara says.
‘Parachute? Are you taking the piss?’ Bears asks, snapping a neck.
‘I woke up falling from the sky with Pete, obviously I didn’t know he was Pete then…just some guy screaming at me to pull the cord,’ Zara says.
‘You swim for the boat?’ Thomas asks her.
‘Yep, went to the cliff, used the rope to reach the top and went down the path,’ Zara says.
‘Rope?’ Bear asks. A crunch. A grunt. A snap. A body falls. A gargle, another snap and Bear comes back to the doorway breathing hard and holding a fighting stick in each hand. ‘What bloody rope?’
‘What?’ Zara asks, looking completely confused. ‘Did you have rope?’ she asks Thomas.
‘Sure did. Ain’t no way up that cliff without rope.’
‘Fucking bitch,’ Bear mutters, shaking his head.
‘Fucking bitch,’ Jacob mutters, shaking his head while Pete wipes tears of laughter rolling down his cheeks.
‘How did you get to the cliff?’ Bear asks with a sudden sinking feeling.
‘We just said…in the goddam boat,’ Thomas says. ‘How else we gonna get there? Swim?’
‘I’ll fucking kill her…again. I’ll kill her again…what about the lightning?’
‘What?’ they both ask at the same time.
‘Oh, my god,’ Bear says. ‘The path? You run down it but don’t get anywhere while the…the…one you killed comes back to life and…why are you looking at me like that? Poisoned arrows? Dogs? A fucking twat in a red jacket with a gun in a room full of idiots in masks…’
‘This is beyond reckless,’ Jacob seethes.
‘It’s too much,’ Pete says, bent double from laughing.
‘Oh, I had the people in the masks,’ Zara says.
‘They were all laughing,’ Thomas says.
‘Yeah, at being naked right?’ Bear asks.
A howl of laughter from somewhere high and far away makes them turn to look.
‘Naked?’ Zara asks.
‘Dude, were you naked?’ Thomas asks.
‘Were you not naked?’ Bear asks.
‘I wasn’t naked,’ Zara
says.
‘Me neither man,’ Thomas adds.
‘That is unacceptable,’ Jacob snaps.
‘She made him…he…’ Pete gasps for air, clutching his stomach.
‘I was naked,’ Bear says.
‘Wow,’ Zara says.
‘Dude,’ Thomas says.
‘Naked,’ Pete sputters, sinking to a knee from laughing so hard. ‘He was naked…’
‘How many times did you die, Bear?’ Thomas asks quietly.
‘I don’t know,’ Bear says with a shrug. ‘Few hundred?’ his head cocks over as a frown shows while he lifts a fighting stick to point behind them. ‘There’s a door.’
‘Door?’ Zara asks, spinning round to see a single plain wooden door now in the far wall, her head spinning from her mind trying to process too many things at once. ‘Did you say a few hundred?’
‘At least,’ Bear says.
‘Door?’ Jacob asks in alarm from the gantry.
‘Oui,’ Pete says, wiping the tears from his cheeks and still chuckling. ‘Naked…this is too good.’
‘Why is the door there?’ Jacob asks.
‘They have passed stage two no? They can go on.’
‘No,’ Jacob says, waving a hand. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘The door’s gone,’ Thomas points out at the sight of the solid wall.
‘You are not the only one that can wave a hand, Monsieur,’ Pete says, gesturing at the air.
‘Sooo,’ Zara says, looking from Bear to the door that keeps popping in and out of existence.
‘That is operative training,’ Jacob whispers angrily ‘They are not operatives…’
‘They have passed stage two…they can go on.’
‘Roshi needs to learn not to meddle,’ Jacob asserts. ‘These tests do not count…’
‘It is not our job to punish Roshi,’ Pete fires back as they wave at the air, making the door exist then not exist. ‘Ah, you leave me no choice,’ the Frenchman adds, delving a hand into his pocket to pull out a shiny coin. ‘Heads or tails?’
‘Good lord man! We are not deciding on the flip of a…’ Pete lifts an eyebrow, giving his old friend a knowing look. Jacob narrows his eyes, firming his resolve. ‘Fine! Heads.’
Pete grins and flicks it up to spin over and over before slamming it down onto the back of his hand as Jacob leans in. ‘Tails!’ Pete announces happily as Jacob tuts and huffs again.
A Town Called Discovery Page 13