“Yes,” Will replied.
Stephanie was shaking her head. “So you’re saying Elliott could still change . . . but wouldn’t she know this might happen? I mean, she must have known about all this Phase stuff?”
“Elliott wasn’t brought up by the Styx, so — no — she didn’t know. It’s a secret they’ve kept completely to themselves. And the Colonists don’t know anything about it,” he replied. “Eddie did tell us that Styx women can give birth like normal people, but the Phase is something else altogether. It’s a really powerful force . . . instinct . . . that affects the Styx race. And the Phase only shows itself when it takes control of their wom —”
“So does that make her dangerous to be around?” Stephanie interrupted.
“I . . . we don’t know yet,” Will replied. “But I suppose that’s what Drake’s trying to find out right now by X-raying her.”
“You mean he’s finding out whether Elliott’s turning beetle on us or not?” Stephanie asked with a genuine shiver.
Will nodded. He couldn’t really be angry with Stephanie for being so outspoken. It was only what everyone else in the room was thinking, even if they weren’t saying it.
“Poor sweetie,” Stephanie said sympathetically. “I do hope she doesn’t.”
Referring to the floor plan on the wall in the Level 4 lobby, Will and Chester found their way to the medical bay. Neither of them would have dreamed of entering while Elliott’s examination was still in progress, so instead they installed themselves on a bench in the corridor outside.
Danforth eventually emerged, but there wasn’t an opportunity to ask him anything as he tore off in the direction of the elevators. Before long he was back with a large briefcase that Will recognized — it was full of tools and electronics testingequipment. And as Danforth swept back into the medical bay, through the open door Will caught a glimpse of Elliott being led by her father. Although everywhere else in the Complex was still on emergency lighting, the medical bay didn’t seem to be affected at all, the interior bright and well illuminated. So before the door slammed shut, Will had been able to see that Elliott was walking barefoot on the linoleum, and dressed in some sort of loose-fitting hospital garment, which made her look very small and vulnerable. And she’d also appeared to be incredibly agitated. Will didn’t know if Chester had seen her, too, but made no remark to him.
As Elliott’s examination went on, the boys listened to the low drone of voices, not being able to make out distinct words but imagining the worst.
The murmur of male voices continued, but then there was a scream. It was Elliott. The scream wasn’t particularly loud, but Will and Chester both jumped.
“Bartleby,” Chester abruptly blurted out, pretending to scratch a callous on his palm. “It’s strange now he’s gone for good, isn’t it? I miss not having him around.”
The Hunter’s unfortunate demise certainly wasn’t what was preoccupying either Chester or Will at that moment, but it was less painful to talk about than Elliott’s situation.
“Bartleby. Yes,” Will answered, not really knowing what he was saying. “I miss him, too. I suppose he was sort of part of the team.”
There was another, quieter cry.
Will didn’t want to imagine what they were doing to her. His feelings swung from anger that she should have to endure this, to helplessness that he couldn’t do anything to stop it.
“Colly’s been very quiet lately,” Chester said, giving the door to the medical bay a sidelong glance.
“She dotes on Mum,” Will said, straightening up on the bench. “You know, she’s been complaining about her back a lot lately.”
“Huh?” Chester asked, turning to his friend.
“Elliott has,” Will said, his eyes glued to a faded poster on a bulletin board by the entrance of the medical bay. It had a pretty, smiling nurse pictured on it, and a man in a bowler hat, also smiling, as it proclaimed in bold red letters give blood. save lives. “I just hope that her back trouble isn’t due to the Phase.” Will couldn’t get the image from the Book of Proliferation out of his head, of the woman with the pair of insect limbs.
“Me, too,” Chester replied glumly.
Sweeney thumped open the door of the medical bay and came out. Still holding Elliott’s rifle, he sat between the boys on the bench, which creaked under his weight. Both Will and Chester were looking at him, eager for any news.
“Your girly’s passed the first part of her physical,” Sweeney said, a grin crinkling his singular face. “Passed it with flying colors. Nothing much out of place there.”
“Thank God,” Chester exhaled.
“So what’s next — the X-rays?” Will inquired.
Sweeney nodded. “I had to get out — they play havoc with the circuits in my bonce.”
The three of them listened to the high whir as the machine was activated, followed by a muted thump as the radiograph was taken. This happened once more, then Danforth bustled out of the medical bay. “I’m going to develop these. You need to go back in now,” he told Sweeney.
“Yes, sir, of course, sir,” Sweeney mumbled sarcastically, as he watched the Professor sail down the corridor to another office. It was almost impossible to read Sweeney’s expression, but there seemed to be no love lost between him and Danforth.
“I’ll leave this with you,” he said, handing the rifle to Will and then trundling into the bay.
It seemed ages before Danforth reappeared, wafting two X-ray plates in the air before him to dry them. He completely ignored the boys as he went back into the bay.
“I can’t stand this,” Chester said. Getting to his feet, he began to walk up and down. “It even smells like a hospital down here.”
Will remembered how Chester’s younger sister had died in the hospital after a car accident, and how much he loathed them as a result.
“If you don’t want to hang around here, I’ll come and get you when she’s finished,” Will offered.
“Yes, think I might nip upstairs for some water,” Chester said, leaning against the wall. “I’m incredibly thirsty.”
Will noticed that his friend was sweating heavily and looking distinctly peaky.
“Actually, Will, I think I’m going to be sick.” With that Chester broke into a run toward the lobby, leaving Will watching the empty corridor where he’d been.
Ten minutes later the door to the medical bay opened, and there was Elliott, with Drake beside her. She was still in the hospital gown, her clothes in a bundle under her arm.
“Oh, Will,” she said, dropping her clothes as she rushed over to him and hugged him tight.
“I think we’re in the clear,” Drake said.
As Elliott continued to cling to Will, hiding her face in his chest, he felt something across her shoulders. It was a large piece of gauze, taped into place, and there was blood soaked into it. Will stared at Drake in shock.
“Yes, we attempted a limited surgical exploration,” Danforth said, the X-ray plates rolled in his hand like a baton, as he stepped into the corridor with Eddie. Danforth’s tone was so dispassionate he could have been discussing one of his gadgets. “We found evidence of features that are clearly related to the Phase, but they’re only vestigial. Given that she’s a human/Styx cross, it may be that she’s carrying the recessive Phase gene or genes, but the traits will never reveal themselves in anything more than a partial manifestation.”
Danforth held up the rolled X-ray plates. “However, bearing in mind her age and the fact that she’s still in the throes of adolescence, it’s something we’ll need to keep a close eye on for the future.”
“But she’s OK? Really OK?” Will asked Drake, ignoring Danforth.
“Yes, she is,” Drake exhaled.
Maybe it was due to the intense stress he’d been under, but Will began to chuckle. “So my best friend i
sn’t a bug after all?”
As this set Drake off, Elliott raised her head to peer up at Will through her tear-filled eyes.
“You jerk,” she laughed, then kissed him on the cheek.
“YOU IMPERIAL PIG!” The grating cry reverberated around the quiet of the police station.
“Gappy Mulligan?” the Second Officer asked.
“Gappy Mulligan,” the First Officer confirmed. “It’ll be aimed at me. She was telling me how I should free her . . . and the rest of the prisoners while I’m about it.” Scratching his chest vigorously through his shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, he glanced in the direction of the Hold. “I must’ve left the aisle door open. I should go and close it.”
“Don’t bother. It’ll give them a bit of air in there,” the Second Officer said. He was studying his hand as the two men played poker on a desk in the main office.
The First Officer had finished scratching his chest but was examining something intently between his thumb and forefinger. Lice were a permanent problem down in the Colony. Grimacing because he wasn’t sure if he’d caught one or not, he pressed his fingers together and then wiped them on his leg. “You know, we haven’t got much food left in the store, and I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit tired of playing maid to the prisoners now that everyone’s refusing to work here.”
The Second Officer had been concentrating on his cards but now looked up sharply. “Smoke! I smell smoke!” he shouted.
They both leaped to their feet and began sniffing. Of all the things a Colonist feared most, a fire was top of the list. Throughout the three-hundred-year history of the underground society, there had been several outbreaks that had gotten a grip, and the deaths that ensued were not from the fire itself but from smoke inhalation in the enclosed caverns and tunnels.
“You’re right!” the First Officer yelled.
They both dashed through the opening in the counter.
At the entrance to the station — the only way in or out — huge flames were licking up over the swing doors.
“MY GOD!” the First Officer cried, rushing to the cabinet where red-painted buckets of water were kept for this very eventuality. “Patrick — free the prisoners! We’re going to need help to put this out!”
Dense smoke was already wafting into the Hold as the Second Officer quickly went along the row of cells and unlocked them. The occupants — Gappy Mulligan included — didn’t need to be told what to do. They formed themselves into a chain stretching between the entrance and the small room in the station with a freshwater faucet. Then they passed the filled buckets to the First Officer, who was throwing them at the blaze. He’d shed his tunic and wound some material over his nose and mouth as he continued to do battle with the flames. All the prisoners were coughing and their eyes watering as they worked tirelessly, passing the water-filled buckets forward.
After several minutes, they’d managed to douse the swing doors sufficiently to open them, but still they didn’t stop. The water was making a sizzling noise as it fell on the large pile of timber outside at the top of the steps.
Finally the fire was out. The First Officer, his shirt and uniform trousers soaked, was supporting himself against the counter as he broke into a racking cough. The prisoners were all coughing and trying to catch their breath, too, while the Second Officer began to inspect the damage. Grateful for the cool breeze outside the station, he examined the charred pile of timber. From the smell, there was little doubt in his mind that an accelerant had been used to start the blaze. Then the Second Officer spotted an old can that had been discarded by the side of the steps, and carried it back into the station with him.
“Gasoline,” he announced, placing the can on the counter by his senior officer. “They were serious about burning us down, but there’s nothing on this to show who it was.”
“You don’t say,” the First Officer replied, laughing and coughing. “I would have expected them to paint their name on it, at a bare minimum,” he went on sarcastically, then turned to the rabble of prisoners. “Listen, you lot, you can all go,” he declared. “You’re free.”
The Second Officer leaned toward him. “Sir, don’t you think that’s a bit hasty? I mean —”
“Give it a rest, Patrick. Are you worried the Styx will come down on us for releasing a motley bunch of losers whose crimes don’t amount to much more than rustling the odd chicken to feed their families?” the First Officer asked, then turned to all the prisoners. “No offense meant,” he added quickly. “I’m very grateful you all mucked in to help with the fire.”
Gappy Mulligan was grinning, but a muscular-looking man with mad, staring eyes didn’t look so happy. He was known simply as Cleaver, named after the digging implement used everywhere in the Colony. “Losers?” he said indignantly. “I’ll ’ave you know I didn’t steal no bloody chicken. I’m up for disord’ly conducks, and a’ unpr’voked attack with a’ ax.”
The First Officer guffawed loudly. “Is that an admission of guilt, Cleaver?”
Cleaver was confused by this at first, but quickly caught on. “No, sir, no way I dun what they said I dun. No, sir. I’m inn’cent a’ a newborn sluice fish.”
A petty thief with ratlike features, who was sitting on an upturned bucket at the end of the reception area, found this funny. He tittered loudly until Cleaver glowered at him.
The Second Officer still wasn’t comfortable with his senior officer’s pronouncement. “Are you seriously going to free them?” he asked in a low voice so the prisoners wouldn’t overhear him. “They’ve all got charges to answer to.”
The First Officer had no qualms about letting the prisoners know what he was thinking. “Patrick, we haven’t heard a squeak from the Styx in nearly three days now,” he said loudly, sweeping a grimy hand at the brass message tubes across the room. “And nobody’s seen one in the streets in as many days. For all we know, they’ve gone . . . they’ve scuttled the Colony.”
The prisoners gasped.
“And you seem to be forgetting the fire . . . an attempt was just made on our lives — by some of our own people. That’s how far things have gone.” For a moment he stared thoughtfully into the Second Officer’s eyes. “Where’s your warrant card, Patrick?” he asked. “Fetch it for me.”
The Second Officer did as he was bidden, going to his tunic where he’d left it on the back of a chair and retrieving the warrant card from it. As he handed it to the First Officer, the man plucked the quill pen from the pot on the counter. The Second Officer and the prisoners listened to the scratching of the pen, then the First Officer handed it back. “Congratulations,” he said.
The Second Officer read what he’d written on the warrant card. “No!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, I’m handing my chips in. I’ve had all I can take. I’m resigning and going home to take care of my family,” the First Officer said. “So now you’re in charge.”
The Second Officer reeled.
“Take these, Squeaky,” the First Officer said, detaching a large bunch of keys from his belt and lobbing them to the man with the rat face. “In the evidence room, on the bottom shelf, you’ll find a case of Somers Town malt. Bring it back here, will you? We’re going to toast the new First Officer’s promotion in style.”
PARRY LOOKED EVERY BIT the military leader as he strutted up and down in front of the map displayed on the big screen in the Hub.
He now turned to everybody. “Right . . . the Phase is under way at this very moment, so the clock is ticking fast. We need some positive action to find it and put a stop to it. We need to move quickly!”
“We do,” Drake agreed.
“So let’s analyze what we know,” Parry said. “The Phase will be taking place on the surface, because that’s one of the preconditions. And it’s somewhere . . .” — he twisted to the map of the UK on the screen — “somewhere here, and probably at a sin
gle location.”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Eddie confirmed.
Parry tugged thoughtfully on his beard as he went closer to the screen and pointed with his walking stick. “But can we reasonably assume it’s in the London area? It might be in the home counties, or anywhere in the country for that matter. Would the Styx bother to venture farther than a hundred miles from London?”
“London and its environs make sense,” Eddie said. “Unless they chose somewhere remote because it would be more secure.”
“That doesn’t help us at all. It’s like searching for a poisonous needle in a haystack,” Parry grumbled to himself, tugging even more forcibly on his beard. “But we do know that the Styx need an ample stock of human bodies for the breeding process. Unless they’re abducting Topsoilers willy-nilly, that means Colonists and maybe New Germanians are being used as the living hosts. Which would suggest somewhere around London, because they wouldn’t want their supply chain to be stretched too far.”
“Particularly not with the disruption to the transport network they’re responsible for down in the southeast,” Drake put in. “Getting around isn’t as easy as it used to be.”
Parry drew in a breath. “Everyone put their thinking caps on. How, precisely, do we find the Phase site?” he asked, then spun to Eddie. “Can’t we snatch a Styx from the London streets and interrogate him?”
“Even if you could find one, you wouldn’t get anything,” Eddie replied.
Parry wasn’t to be deterred. “OK, then — what if one of your men returned to the Colony? He could gather the intel we need down there.”
“No, I told you — my men have cut all ties with our people and covered their tracks,” Eddie said categorically. “One couldn’t just show his face as if nothing had happened. He’d be executed the instant they laid eyes on him. It would give us nothing, and simply put them on notice that there’s a splinter group of disaffected Limiters.”
Parry went on tugging his beard until his fingers came away with a tuft of hair. “But what are the Styx doing at the Phase site that will put up a smoke trail we can spot?” He looked pointedly at his son, then at Danforth, who was copying the Book of Proliferation page by page on a scanner so he’d be able to translate it with Eddie’s help. “Come on, you two — you’re the tech specialists. Any bright ideas?”
Spiral Page 17