The Truth App

by Jack Heath

  The old man slipped over and hit the concrete, yelling with rage. Anya spun around to face Gorman, expecting him to attack her.

  He didn’t. Instead, Gorman grabbed Jarli by the hair. His other hand pressed a sparkling blade to Jarli’s throat.

  ‘Don’t move,’ he said.

  DEEP CUT

  Jarli could feel the knife touching his skin. He didn’t think it had drawn blood yet, but it felt sharp. He was afraid even to swallow.

  Jarli hoped Anya had a plan. But it didn’t look like it. She was motionless, feet shoulder-width apart, fists by her sides. She seemed to realise that any sudden movements could put that blade into Jarli’s neck.

  But doing nothing wasn’t an option. The old man had dropped his gun, but he would pick it up again in a second. Then the two kids would be at an even worse disadvantage.

  Jarli did not consider himself an angry person. He didn’t know who Viper was, but right now he hated Gorman more than he’d ever hated anyone or anything. Jarli had just wanted to make an app. Anya was just a girl who had tried to help him. Dad was just a regular guy who wanted a normal job. Gorman had ruined all their lives.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Gorman said again.

  Cobra was getting up behind Anya. ‘If he touches me,’ she told Gorman, ‘I’ll put him right back down on the ground.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ Mr Gorman said. ‘You’ll go with him to his car outside. Jarli’s going to come with me.’

  ‘The cops already know everything,’ Jarli said, keeping his chin up to avoid the blade. ‘What’s the point of taking us with you?’

  ‘No talking,’ Gorman snapped. ‘Now, walk towards the door. Slowly. And don’t—’

  SMASH! The brown ute crashed through the walls, sending shards of wood flying. The bull bar knocked over the warehouse generator, spilling petrol across the concrete floor. The front wheels slammed into one of the steel beams and the ute stopped with a colossal thump. The vehicle door swung open, and they had a clear view of the inside.

  It was empty.

  Bess watched from the top of the hill as the ute hit the warehouse, plunging through the wall like a bowling ball through a set of pins.

  She had promised Jarli a distraction, and a speeding ute hitting the wall had seemed like a good one. Better than just honking the horn. But after she broke the window and released the handbrake, the ute rolled down the hill way too fast. She had expected it to hit the wall and stop, making a loud noise. Instead it shattered the wall and ended up inside the warehouse. She hoped Jarli and Anya hadn’t been standing near that wall.

  Should have gone with screaming, she thought.

  When she called the police, they had told her not to go into the warehouse. ‘Don’t be a hero,’ the dispatch officer had said. ‘We’ll be there soon. Don’t do anything stupid.’ Bess wondered if crashing a car into the building counted as stupid.

  Sirens wailed on the breeze. If Bess had heard them a minute earlier, she wouldn’t have released the handbrake. She would have waited. Why weren’t they coming quietly? Did they want the criminals to get away?

  Maybe they were in on the whole thing, like Mr Durras had suspected.

  Bess hobbled back up the trail. She couldn’t outrun the bad guys, so she needed a head start if they came this way. Her wrists and palms ached from the crutches. Too much walking today.

  Something flashed between the trees. Headlights. A police car zoomed past without slowing down, tyres growling along the dirt.

  A second patrol car was right behind it. This time the driver saw Bess. The car stopped and the window rolled down. A woman with a chipped tooth was behind the wheel.

  ‘You’re Bess?’ she said.

  Bess nodded.

  ‘I’m Constable Blanco,’ she said. ‘More officers are right behind me. We’re going to surround the warehouse. You stay well back, behind the cordon.’

  ‘My friends are inside,’ Bess said. ‘Jarli and Anya.’

  Down the hill, the first patrol car had screeched to a halt next to the warehouse wall. A cop leapt out and ran towards the door. Another cop stayed near the car, his eyes on the hole in the wall. He held a megaphone to his lips.

  ‘This is the Kelton Police Department,’ he bellowed. ‘The building is surrounded. Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up.’

  He was exaggerating, since only he and his partner had reached the warehouse so far. But technically they did have both exits covered. Bess wondered if Jarli’s app would think he was lying.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Constable Blanco told Bess. ‘We’ll get your friends out. You just need to stay back, OK?’

  Bess nodded.

  Blanco drove down the hill towards the warehouse. A third car followed. Bess watched anxiously, cracking her knuckles. Did the police have guns? The kidnappers certainly did. What if Jarli or Anya got caught in the crossfire?

  But there was nothing Bess could do other than stay out of the way. Feeling helpless, she hobbled back up the trail towards the road.

  ‘Back!’ one of the cops screamed. ‘Get back!’

  Bess turned around in time to see the cops scrambling away from the warehouse. A dim light flickered in the broken windows. She could hear a faint crackling sound. Smoke stung her nostrils.

  ‘Fire!’ Blanco shouted.

  NO ESCAPE

  When the ute crashed through the wall, Jarli took the chance to slip out of Gorman’s loosened grasp. Recovering from his shock, Gorman tried to grab him again. Jarli darted out of reach, heart pounding, his eyes on the deadly blade.

  Cobra reached down for the gun on the floor, but Anya was quicker. She kicked it across the room. It skated across the floor like a hockey puck across ice.

  The four of them stood poised in a loose square, each waiting for the other to attack. Jarli felt the most vulnerable. Cobra was huge, Gorman had the knife, and Anya was apparently some kind of ninja. Jarli had nothing.

  The stink of petrol filled Jarli’s nose. A puddle was spreading out from under the fallen generator. This place must have been abandoned years ago, but there was still sawdust on the floor. If the building caught fire, it would burn quickly. And after months without rain, the bush around it was ready to explode.

  ‘Call out to Bess,’ Gorman said, pointing the knife at Jarli. ‘I know she’s nearby. Tell her to come here.’

  ‘No,’ Jarli said.

  A voice echoed from outside: ‘This is the Kelton Police Department. The building is surrounded. Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up.’

  Gorman and the old man looked at each other.

  Jarli let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. They were saved!

  ‘Better do what they say,’ Anya said. ‘If you wait for them to come in and get you, things could get ugly.’

  ‘They’re not coming in.’ Cobra pulled a gold lighter out of his pocket. He opened it, and a flame danced inside, like a toy ballerina in a clockwork box.

  ‘What are you doing?!’ Gorman shouted, alarmed.

  ‘I’m not going back to prison,’ Cobra said, and he threw the lighter into the puddle of petrol.

  Flame spread over the surface of the puddle like a shockwave. There was a whumpf as half the air in the room was sucked into the hungry fire. The workshop had been dark before—now a dull orange glow cast shadows upwards across the walls. The heat cooked Jarli’s skin, but his insides were frozen with terror.

  FIRE. EVERYWHERE. Jarli felt like a cornered animal. He was too scared even to think.

  Anya grabbed his hand. ‘This way!’ she hissed, and pulled him towards the hole the ute had made in the wall. Jarli kept his nose buried in the crook of his elbow as he stumbled through the workshop, trying not to inhale the smoke and fumes. His eyes were streaming.

  They’d almost reached the spot where the brown ute had come to its crashing halt . . . when a tongue of flame shot across the floor towards the fallen generator.

  ‘Down!’ Anya cried, and threw herself down on the concre
te.

  Jarli copied her, just in time. The generator exploded with a deafening bang, sending pieces of hot metal flying in all directions. They clanged against the roof and rained down against the floor, splashing against the burning petrol.

  A sizzling fragment landed on the back of Jarli’s neck. He screamed and slapped at it with his hands. He got it off, but his fingers blistered where he had touched it. The spot on his neck felt suddenly cold, like a chip of ice was stuck there.

  ‘You OK?’ Anya asked.

  Jarli dragged himself to his feet. ‘I’m OK.’

  But when he looked around, he saw that there was a lake of fire between them and the hole in the wall. He turned to the front door, but couldn’t even see it through the flames.

  Now there was no way out.

  DOWN THE HATCH

  ‘Help us!’ Jarli screamed. ‘Help!’

  But it was not the fire department outside, it was the police. What could they do? Arrest the fire?

  ‘Stay low,’ Anya said. ‘The smoke is more dangerous than the fire.’

  ‘We’re trapped,’ Jarli rasped. His windpipe felt like it had been shredded.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We’re going to die.’

  ‘I know.’ Anya had none of Bess’s optimism.

  ‘Where are Cobra and Gorman?’

  Anya looked around. ‘I don’t know.’

  All the walls were burning now. As the fire closed in, Jarli spun around, perplexed. Both criminals had vanished. They couldn’t have reached the doors, and they couldn’t have burned up already. They had simply disappeared.

  Jarli paused amid the chaos. It was impossible for them to be gone. Unless . . .

  His heart fluttered with hope as it dawned on him.

  ‘Look for a hatch,’ he croaked. ‘Or a trapdoor. Anything!’

  Anya crawled along the concrete floor, hands fumbling. Jarli wriggled in a different direction, towards where he had last seen Gorman. He squirmed as the heat started melting the rubber of his shoes. He ducked under some fallen debris, hoping there was something beneath.

  While he felt around the floor, his mind raced. He was now sure Cobra hadn’t intended to die in the fire. A plan had been forming behind those menacing sultana eyes. He had thrown the lighter down just to keep the cops out. To buy himself some time to get to his secret UNDERGROUND BUNKER, or—

  Clunk. Jarli’s hands had found something on the floor, right in the middle of the room. Something made of metal.

  Jarli traced around the edges. There were hinges. A handle.

  ‘I found it!’ he yelled. But the yell came out more like a whisper. He could barely breathe.

  He stood up and waved his arms to get Anya’s attention. ‘Anya! I found it!’ he croaked.

  Anya didn’t look up. She was lying facedown on the concrete, one arm outstretched, like a swimmer frozen in mid-stroke.

  ‘No!’ Terror squeezed Jarli’s chest. He waded through the smoke towards her and rolled her over. Her eyes were closed.

  ‘Anya!’ he cried. ‘Wake up!’

  She didn’t respond.

  It felt like they were drowning in smoke. Jarli tried to lift Anya, but she was too heavy—or maybe he was just too weak. Instead he grabbed her wrists and dragged her across the floor towards the trapdoor. Her shoulders would be sore when she woke. If she woke.

  Smoke stinging his eyes, the fire creeping ever closer, Jarli turned the handle. He lifted the door—it felt as heavy as a dining table—to reveal a square of darkness. Sweet, cold air flowed out of the hole from deep underground. Metal rungs were built into the concrete on one side, stretching down into the gloom. Jarli had no idea how deep the hole was.

  He climbed halfway in. With one hand and both feet on the rungs, he dragged Anya towards the hole. When she was close enough, he wrapped his arm around her waist and tried to lift her onto his shoulder like a firefighter.

  But she was too heavy. When Jarli tried to move his foot onto a lower rung, his legs couldn’t take the weight. The rungs slipped out of his hands. He and Anya tumbled backwards into the dark.

  SECRET NETWORK

  THUD! Jarli hit the dirt hard, and Anya landed right on top of him.

  All the air rushed out of Jarli’s lungs at once, and he couldn’t get it back in. Even after he rolled Anya off, it felt like his chest was being squashed by a safe or a pallet of bricks.

  He turned his head to look at Anya. He could hardly see her—he could hardly see anything, it was so dark down here—but he thought her eyelids were fluttering.

  Jarli tried to say her name, but he couldn’t find the air.

  Finally Anya opened her eyes. ‘Jarli?’ she said, and then coughed wildly for a whole minute.

  Jarli still couldn’t speak, so he squeezed her outstretched hand. Some air was coming back into his lungs now. It was like a leaking tyre, but in reverse. How did lungs work, anyway? If he survived this, he promised himself he’d find out.

  When she was done convulsing, Anya sat up and spat on the floor. ‘Jarli,’ she wheezed. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Can’t breathe,’ Jarli gasped.

  ‘Don’t try. Just relax your chest. Let the air come and go as it pleases.’

  Jarli tried. But it was hard to relax when he was in so much pain.

  ‘Imagine that you are floating,’ Anya said. ‘Whenever I am winded, that always works me.’

  ‘Happens . . . often?’ Jarli gasped.

  ‘Do not try to talk. Yes, it happens. Sometimes at the gym I take a punch to the chest. It is never fun.’

  Jarli closed his eyes and pictured himself in the ocean, floating on his back, the sun on his face. Eventually his diaphragm stopped spasming, and he could breathe again.

  ‘I’m OK,’ he said.

  Anya was looking around. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Jarli sat up. He had expected to see some kind of doomsday shelter, full of canned food, batteries and bottled water—and two killers.

  But they weren’t here. Because it wasn’t a bunker.

  It was a tunnel.

  Ben Gorman hurried through the dark. He didn’t dare slow down. If the fire fighters put out the flames, it wouldn’t take the police long to figure out where he had gone. They’d be right behind him.

  But he didn’t dare speed up, either. The low ceiling had crags and beams, ready to break his skull if he was careless. And the floor was littered with rotted railway sleepers. Mine carts used to carry coal along these tunnels, before someone ripped out the rails. The walls were split by dark turnoffs, leading who knew where.

  Cobra—Ben didn’t know the old man’s real name—was ahead of him, carrying a torch. The bouncing, swinging light was all Ben had to guide him.

  Cobra had worked for Viper longer than Ben had. He’d said that this tunnel was part of a network of tunnels, some abandoned after the coal mining stopped, others newly built by Viper and a secret group of contractors. There were exits in dozens of secret locations. If you knew the tunnels, you could get from almost any part of Kelton to any other part without being seen.

  But if you didn’t know the tunnels, you could spend the rest of your life down here, wandering through the darkness, searching for a way out until you hit your head or fell down a hole or died of thirst.

  So Ben stayed close to Cobra. Cobra knew the tunnels.

  ‘How much further?’ Ben wheezed. He wasn’t used to this kind of strain. He had a platinum membership at Kelton’s only gym, but riding an exercise bike while watching TV was not the same as staggering through an abandoned mineshaft in a half-stoop.

  ‘Another hundred metres or so,’ Cobra said, turning another corner. ‘You struggling, rich boy?’

  ‘I’m your boss,’ Ben snapped. ‘Show some respect.’

  ‘Viper pays my salary, not you,’ Cobra said. ‘You’re the one who got us into this, and he’s the one who’ll get us out.’

  ‘How?’ Ben asked, trying not to sound desperate. He had never met Viper, and did
n’t know much about his operation. Ben secured Viper’s data, but he didn’t read any of it. Until now, he hadn’t wanted to know.

  ‘You’ll see,’ Cobra said. ‘As long as you keep up.’

  Ben gritted his teeth and kept running.

  After three more turns and a trek up some steps, Cobra pointed out a ladder bolted to the wall. The rungs were so grimy that Ben would have walked right past without seeing it.

  ‘This should be outside the police cordon,’ Cobra said. ‘Hopefully the fire hasn’t reached that tinderbox of a town yet. Come on.’

  He climbed up the ladder, the torch a dull glow in his pocket.

  Ben hurried up after him. The rungs were rough with rust. The muscles in his legs burned.

  Above him, Cobra was opening another hatch. Ben could hear insect noise, and the distant crackling of flames. Cobra scrambled out into the moonlight. Ben followed.

  They found themselves surrounded by trees, creaking and rustling. The hatch was half-buried in the undergrowth—no-one would ever find it unless they already knew it was there.

  Cobra switched off the torch. Ben could hardly see anything in the dark. The burning warehouse flickered in the distance, surrounded by police. The fire would destroy all the evidence, including the two kids. With the bush so dry, it would spread to Kelton—that’d keep the cops busy for a while. Ben just hoped he could get out of town before then.

  ‘The main trail is just over here,’ Cobra whispered, pointing.

  ‘Then what?’ Ben asked.

  Something rustled in the bushes nearly. Cobra held up a hand, and Ben fell silent.

  Nothing else happened. Only the distant shouts of police officers broke the silence. Cobra must have startled an animal. It was gone now.

  ‘If we can get to the highway,’ Cobra said finally, ‘Viper will send someone to pick us up. Be ready to—’

  He didn’t get any further. Ben heard the impact as a metal crutch swung out of the bushes and broke Cobra’s nose. He made a strangled cry and fell over backwards into the scrub.