by Gem Jackson
If Long was right and there were two more coming up the stairs, he had seconds to get out. Long was already on it. She had smashed through a the glass barriers at the edge of the roof and was standing precariously on the edge, Abbas on her shoulder. The others huddled around her.
“This should work. Shouldn’t it?” she said, pointing downward at the floor fifteen storeys below. More gunshots. He could see what she was planning. It was as good an idea as any.
“Do it!” he yelled, ducking and weaving towards them.
As one, Long, with Abbas, Ramis and Ramachandran leapt from the roof, disappearing from sight. He reached the edge himself and scanned below. They were falling in slow motion. He knew people did it. Every year scores of young men, and it was almost uniformly young men, would drop from the roof of the Hollow to the streets below. If you did it right, there was only seven or eight metres of acceleration capping each end of the drop and so it was certainly survivable. Providing you didn’t hit anything on the way down or begin tumbling end over end and land on your neck.
He hurled himself after them in what he hoped was a plumb-line descent. For a second his stomach churned horribly as he dropped and then, without the gravity of the roof, the acceleration stopped and he continued downward at a pace that was only slightly quicker than was comfortable. He assumed the others had landed by now, but no matter how he twisted, he couldn’t see them. The base of the Cadex tower was a wide open plaza, and it was opening up rapidly around him.
Re-entering the gravity field felt like being body-slammed to the ground from a great height by an extremely angry, extraordinarily strong person. He had been aiming for a landing of cat-like grace; the reality was far removed. He overbalanced during the fall, leaning backwards too far and so hit the ground with an agonizing jolt. For an instant he couldn’t see, hear or appreciate anything of the outside world, only the shrill ring of the pain that wracked his entire body. It subsided quickly, but it didn’t help his confusion as he lay on his back, gasping for air. Ramis’s face appeared before his eyes, grinning.
“Not bad for an old man.”
Anton groaned.
“Get up, we’re not done yet.” Long’s voice was calm and decisive. She was right. They weren’t done yet. Anton had anticipated that they might evade the initial hit. That was one of the reasons he arranged it down in the Hollow rather than up on Junction. It meant they could still be pursued. To get to safety they would have to make it back to the surface, then up to Ceres Junction and then beyond that to the Aggressive itself. Be flexible, he thought to himself, be agile, be determined. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply and counted to ten.
Given his rudimentary understanding of the many worlds theory, Anton knew that in some fractal branch of another universe there was a different Anton Biarritz sitting in a pub. He would be on Earth, somewhere in the northwest of Scotland, enjoying a dram of single malt whisky. This uninvited thought caused Anton a degree of deep resentment as he dragged himself to his feet. The concrete plaza floor felt icy against his hands as he pushed against it. He was sure he’d cracked at least two ribs and since his coccyx had broken his fall, his backside hurt like hell.
Ramis grabbed Anton’s jacket at the shoulder and threw him forwards. They were running. Long, dead weight and all, was sprinting away at speed, barking commands as she did so.
“McVeigh, get the fuck up here. Front and centre, come on!” It riled him to admit it, but right now she was his best chance of staying alive. The woman was a machine.
Wincing every other step, one arm clutching his ribs, he dug deep and caught up. They were about half-way to the edge of the plaza. They were surrounded by people, but it wasn’t a dense crowd. There were a few workers leaving the Cadex building after a late finish, while others were cutting across the open space on their way home or out into the livelier parts of Ceres. Their footsteps echoed against the high buildings around them.
“What?” he asked, breathing hard.
“You know this place better than anyone. Get us back to the Aggressive.”
“We need a hopper. There.” With his free hand he pointed at a nearby vehicle sat in the middle of the pavement. New York had its yellow taxicabs, Venice had its gondolas, Lunar One had its red Magline trains and Ceres, strangest of them all, had the hopper; frog-like contraptions with a large, bulbous cabins and powerful, hunched legs. This one wasn’t far away. The driver stood outside the cabin, leaning against the hull and watching them intently. The group shifted course and made a beeline towards it. The driver turned from them and scrambled inside, hoping to make a getaway. Unfortunately for him, Long had been holding something in reserve and closed the gap between them in a matter of seconds. Anton stumbled as gunshots barked from behind. He craned his head round and saw that three of their pursuers had followed them down. They were close and gaining ground.
He reached the hopper with the others. It was old and well used. The pale green paint was peeling around the moving parts and worn edges of the doors. Long had already tossed the driver from his seat, leaving him prone upon the floor, shouting at them. Other than him, they were alone; everyone else in the plaza had scattered at the sound of gunfire. Anton ducked instinctively as a bullet pinged off the hopper’s fuselage.
“McVeigh, can you fly this thing?” shouted Long. She had laid Abbas out across one of the reclined passenger seats and was occupying its opposite number. Ramis was already in sat beside Abbas with Ramachandran half-way aboard.
“Yes,” said Anton. He couldn’t just fly the hopper, he could fly it damn well—a legacy of his misspent youth. He estimated that they had maybe ten seconds before the hitmen reached them. He would only need half of that. With practiced skill he engaged the hydraulics and launched them upwards, springing them into the air with a jolt. He quickly engaged the engines and directional thrusters as they moved into the low-gravity expanse of the Hollow. It felt good to be back in control. After beginning their ascent towards the top of the Hollow, he spun the craft around to get a view the plaza beneath them, absentmindedly harnessing himself in and activating the on-board gravity.
His hopes of using the hopper to run down the gang members below were cut short as he saw them chasing down their own vehicle to continue the pursuit.
“Where to now?” asked Ramis. Anton heard someone groaning in pain behind him. It seemed too much to hope that it might be Abbas drawing his last breath.
“We need to get to the Central Launch to get from here back up to the station,” said Ramachandran.
Anton weighed it up in his head. “Agreed,” he said. “Those fuckers down there aren’t giving up. They’ll be on us all the way back to the Aggressive.”
“How do you know?” asked Ramis
“Because they just jumped off the same building we did. You think they’re going to do that and then give up just because we hijack a taxicab?”
“Fair point,” acceded Ramis. Anton gunned the thrusters, driving the hopper higher and higher. Acceleration like this within the Hollow would surely be picked up by the authorities, but there wasn’t a chance in hell he was getting caught. The hanging city above them loomed larger and larger through the reinforced screen of the cockpit. The mass of hanging structures became an intricate labyrinth. Like all experienced pilots, Anton rolled the hopper one hundred and eighty degrees to better navigate between the structures at speed.
“I’m going to lose them in the city. Hold on.” He angled the craft along a major thoroughfare and entered the flow of drone traffic, dipping further down bringing them frighteningly close to what he now thought of as the floor. Many years before he had used this route to evade the authorities after heists. If it had worked then, it would work now. With no effective rear camera, he couldn’t check if anyone was still on their tail. He swung the craft round one building, then another and another, skirting the structures by as little as a hoppers width each time, powering on the thrusters to accelerate out of each turn. The cursing and shouting from the passenger c
ompartment dimly entered his consciousness. He smiled. A few more turns and they would be there. Be flexible, be agile, be determined.
Chapter 17 – Leon
“Get in the cell. Get in now.”
Leon did as he was told. At least, he tried to. He wasn’t given much choice by the guards, who shoved him forwards into the wall. A crack of pain split his skull as it came into contact with the back of the cell. The guards were obviously still ramped up from the violence of the past hour.
“Watch it, prick!”
Leon winced, expecting to be punched or kicked. It took him a moment to realise he wasn’t being addressed. Rather, the second guard had hit his comrade in admonishment.
“The boss said we’re to keep him intact, remember? Do you want to have to explain a fractured skull? You’ll have us both locked up in here like that poor bastard.” He nodded at the whimpering, bandaged prisoner in the opposing cell.
“Lock, cell four.”
The guards left. Leon slumped to the floor. Everything was quiet in the cells, which served only to emphasise the ringing in his ears. Or was it his head? The screen at the end of the room was blank. Hours drifted by, probably. Leon found his eyes resting on Murray. He looked smaller than ever, hunched in the corner of the cell with the others. His uniform was battered and torn. Looking closely at him, Leon could see his legs shaking a little. He winced a little every time someone moved or shifted position. Leon scrunched his eyes up and looked again. Empty. There was no Murray, no uniform, no shaking. Just an empty space. A hallucination? Or a waking dream? It didn’t matter either way.
What was happening? He closed his eyes and leaned his head backwards. He thought about his life since leaving Titan. Going from bad to worse didn’t cover it. He had a job on Titan. A good job. With people who, well, they weren’t exactly nice, but they didn’t hate him. And he’d screwed it up—for what? Not being fulfilled? What a stupid reason. For that he had travelled across the Solar System to work for a bunch of people who really did hate him. No. That wasn’t fair. They didn’t hate him on The Aggressive. They hated anyone from Titan. In a weird way it wasn’t personal. It was ordinary, run-of-the-mill bigotry. So he’d run from that too, onto the Jackdaw’s Straw. He pictured himself sitting on the bunk, soaked wet through, no towel, balls-out naked because Murray had stolen his clothes. At the time, he believed it was the lowest point of his life could reach. It was all he could do not to roll over laughing.
Someone shouted over to him. It might have been Hail. “What the fuck are you laughing about? You fucking came back, didn’t you? Where’s your friend?”
He didn’t care. He would give anything to be back on that ship now, just him, Murray and the rest of Cold! Dark! Hard!, third season. He fiddled with the pen hidden in his pocket.
“I’m going to be tortured to death.” He whispered it softly. Testing how it sounded in the air. Saying it out loud made it more real. His mind painted a picture of the future, tomorrow maybe, or even a month's time. He pictured himself chained to the fire block, waiting for the grenades; waiting for the agony to begin. Or maybe he would be in the chair, bag over his head, praying to lose consciousness sooner rather than later. Would he beg to return to the cell? Would he look back at the interrogation with the Captain as a fond memory? Pain free and broadly comfortable? Someone else getting hurt. No. Not that future. He felt its inevitability bearing down on him. There was a way out. Maybe. One way or another, anyway.
“No, not tortured to death. No.”
“Will you shut the hell up? Please?” It was Hail again. It wasn’t said with anger. She was pleading.
Leon called across the cells, “Sleet?” She was lying on the floor, eyes closed. “Sleet!” he repeated.
“Huh?” She cocked her head sideways and opened an eyelid.
Carefully, Leon slid the pen from his pocket and angled himself to show her. It was just a pen, but it was something. “Be ready. Be quick.” He threw her a quizzical look. Did she hear? Did she understand? Almost imperceptibly, she nodded before closing her eyes again and going back to her thoughts.
This has to work.
Leon woke to the clamour of a door bursting open. They were back. Back to take another one, which meant it was time. His mouth was dry and his body ached. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have because it felt as if all his muscles had contracted a few inches in the meantime and the act of sitting upright was suddenly a trial.
They need me to live. They need me to live. They need me to live.
He focused on the thought, pushing everything else away, and scrambled to get one hand into his pocket and onto the pen. He pushed the body of the pen downward, separating the lid which he tucked into his palm.
It wasn’t calm this time. Sleet and her crew, as he now thought of them, weren’t going to go quietly. The guards were already shouting at them to get back from the cell door, weapons raised. Leon recognised the guards. It was Four and Six. He looked at the floor so as not to catch sight of them.
“Cell Four, open!” yelled Six. The wire door swung open as it had before and immediately the crew leapt forward. Six fired twice and Hail hit the deck, muscles spasming uncontrollably. High voltage rounds—Leon had learned about them in basic training. The others held back, wary of getting hit themselves. It didn’t matter how big or tough you were, an HV round to the chest could down anyone in a milliseconds.
“C’mon Four, get this big one,” Six gestured towards Hail. “She’s practically volunteered.”
Four stepped towards the door, shouldering their rifle as they did so.
This is it.
Leon pulled the pen lid from his pocket. “Four!” he yelled. Nothing. “Four,” this time louder, and the guard glanced over. Leon smiled and rested the pen lid onto his tongue. He exhaled one last time, steeling himself against the panic in his chest, before inhaling sharply.
He felt the lid lodge in his throat, which constricted in response. Straight away the panic he had felt just a second before exploded in a tsunami of fear and agony. He couldn’t see anything beyond two sharp points of light in the centre of his vision. Everything burned as he heaved in a pitiful stream of air—but it wasn’t enough. His entire body was fighting for life, flooded with adrenaline, grasping, writhing, clawing for more oxygen. He needed more, but it wasn’t there, nothing was there.
He was dimly aware of being manhandled by someone. Whoever it was they were fighting with him, pulling his hands away from his throat, yet his mind focused instead on the strange, cold tingling that replaced all feeling in his face. He was dying. This was death.
Then it was over. A series of sharp yanks to his midriff and the pen lid flew out across the cell. Leon drank in the air. One breath, two breaths, three… his mind came back to itself and he jerked into action. Do it now. Act now or die.
Still unable to see properly, Leon twisted and arched backwards to grasp the body behind him. Four had saved his life, just as he hoped he would. He had rushed into the cell and stopped him from choking to death on a piece of stationary. That gave Leon a window, a gap of seconds to escape torture and death.
He wrestled himself atop his saviour and as fast as he could manage, gripped either side of Four’s head. Worming his thumbs over Four’s face, and ignoring the hands and arms trying to lever him away, Leon found the soft pits of the guard’s eyes and pressed as hard as he could. The guard pulled at Leon’s wrists trying to wrest them from his face but Leon had a good hold, his fingers splaying wide around the back of Four’s skull finding purchase wherever they could. As Leon’s thumbs pushed deeper, he felt the ridges of Four’s eye sockets and tightened around them like they were climbing holds. The tips of his thumbs were wet now, creeping slowly between the resisting eyelids. There was shrieking, lots of shrieking. Then it happened. It was a feeling like nothing he had experienced before. One after another his thumbs overcame the immediate resistance opposing them and slid deeper into the soft hollow of Four’s eye sockets. The sensation laste
d less than a second but it was enough to send an emetic shiver through Leon and before he could stop himself he was on his hands and knees, retching onto the floor.
He still couldn’t see anything, but he felt hands lifting him upwards. It was all too much. He felt consciousness slip away. There was nothing left to give.
Leon could recall nothing of how they left the holding cells. He didn’t remember passing through the medical bay, but they must have done because they were at the airlock to the Jackdaw’s Straw when he regained consciousness. His vision swam as he fell from Hail’s shoulders and landed in a heap upon the floor. Leaning against the bulkhead, he got to his feet and rubbed the back of his neck.
“You carried me?” he asked.
“You’re not heavy,” she said and winked at him. Leon wasn’t sure how to take that.
“What about the other guy?” In the cell?”
“There was no time.”
They were in a small space with a corridor extending away from one end and an airlock on the opposing side. It was very similar to the airlocks on The Aggressive. The crew looked beaten up, though not as badly as he might have expected given their situation. Sleet was armed with a weapon taken from the guards, one of whom was busy opening the hatch, supervised by Torren. It was Six.
The guards. Four. Leon felt faint again as flashes of the struggle with Four leapt across his mind's eye. His thumbs were covered in blood. It was dark and sticky, lodged beneath his nails and into the folds of skin around his knuckled. The rest of his hands were flecked and smeared with the same.
“You all right there, fella?” asked Hail.