by Steve Feasey
‘Not so. Because you have something I want. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I walked back through the Wall straight into the clutches of your goons.’
‘So I give you your father?’
‘Yes. And you drop all charges against him.’
He actually laughed. ‘And what do I get in return? This all seems a bit one-sided to me. Although I have to admit, I’m rather intrigued about this “series of events” you refer to.’
‘In return for my father’s safe release, I’ll give you all the footage I’ve shot in the last few months outside the city walls. Footage and interviews that would destroy the Melk name forever.’
She allowed herself a small smile as she watched the supercilious smile slip away as it dawned on him that she might just be telling the truth. ‘Do you play chess, Miss Cowper?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Because if you did, you’d know you have just played yourself into a stalemate: a point in the game when neither side can win. If everything you say is true, and I’m not entirely convinced it is, you must see that it is a bad deal for me. I give you your father, and you give me your “evidence”. But who is to say you have not made copies of your work? I give you the thing you want, and you simply destroy me anyway.’
‘You would have my word.’
He stared at her unwaveringly, as if he could look straight into her soul and see whether or not she was lying. Then he stood up, straightened his jacket and turned towards the door. ‘I will give you my decision tomorrow. I need time to think these things through.’ He knocked on the door and waited as a small hatch slid away to reveal the eyes of the female guard peering back at him.
‘Open up, please,’ he said, stepping back as the officer did as she was bid. The politician stepped through and addressed the guard: ‘You can release Miss Cowper,’ he said. ‘She has answered all of my questions satisfactorily and is free to go.’ Before leaving, he turned to Tia one last time. ‘You know, you really should take up chess. I think you might be rather good at it.’
The guard rolled her eyes theatrically when Tia demanded to speak to the commanding officer, claiming she wanted to lodge a complaint about her treatment in the police station. The journalist had moments earlier been given her possessions back at the front desk, and the female officer must have thought she’d got rid of the young woman when she made the announcement.
‘That’ll take time, sweet cheeks,’ the woman said, giving her a look that said she’d also be wasting her time. ‘And that means you’ll be stuck in this place even longer. Is that what you really want?’
‘I believe it’s my right as a civilian. Or are we living in a police state now?’
‘Fine,’ the guard said, although it was clear from her tone that she thought it was anything but. ‘I’ll go and get an omni with the necessary forms loaded on it.’ The woman ushered Tia into a room next to the booking-in desk and was about to close the door when Tia stopped her.
‘You can leave the door, thank you.’
‘What?’
‘The door. You can leave it open. After all, you heard the president – I’m not a prisoner. I’m here as a free citizen of C4, of my own free will, so I’d like to be treated as such. You can leave the door open while you go and get whatever it is you need.’
The woman opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. ‘Whatever,’ she said, before walking off.
Tia counted to thirty in her head and then left the room. Telling the desk officer that she needed to use the toilet, she headed towards the emergency stairwell at the end of the corridor.
Deep beneath the earth, in the bowels of the CSP headquarters, Tia stopped outside the door to the police armoury, swiped her palm to activate the comms unit and lifted her hand to the side of her face. She wasn’t surprised when the call was answered almost instantly.
‘I’m here,’ she said.
‘Good. Now wait a second.’ She could hear Juneau humming to himself as he looked something up on the other end of the line. ‘OK, the code for today is as follows …’ He went on to relay a series of numbers and letters to her, saying them slowly as she entered them into the screen beside the door. ‘Now place your palm on the reader,’ he instructed her.
She hesitated. ‘You’re sure this will work?’
‘As far as that reader is concerned, your right hand is that of the quartermaster in charge there today.’ There was a pause. ‘That is if the rota I hacked was correct. I mean, I guess the guy could be ill or something.’
‘Juneau, I don’t need self-doubt and uncertainty right now.’
‘Right. Look, I have to believe the information I have is good. So put your hand to the screen and offer up a prayer for city police efficiency.’
Tia hesitated. It was hot as hell down here, and she wiped her forehead before placing the same hand on the scanner. An involuntary titter of relief escaped her when there was a loud buzz followed by a series of clunks as huge bolts slid back out of the wall into the body of the steel door in front of her.
‘You’ve got precisely one hundred and twenty seconds until the block I’ve put on the door-open alarm is deactivated,’ Juneau said. He’d already informed her that the palm-com wouldn’t work inside the steel shell she was about to enter, so he quickly and efficiently gave her the last-minute details she needed, finishing with, ‘Good luck, Tia Cowper,’ before cutting the connection between them.
It wasn’t too hard to find the case Juneau had described, although how the four-armed bioengineer had discovered exactly where in the police station it was kept was anybody’s guess. Setting it on the floor and opening it, she peered down at the thing she’d come here for, thinking how it looked nothing at all like she’d expected. Swapping her ill-gotten gains for the clothes and shoes in her backpack, she heaved the now considerably heavier bag over her shoulders, praying that the straps wouldn’t give out under the weight, and returned the case full of dirty laundry to the shelf. Walking out and hitting the door closure button, she had nine seconds to spare before the entire police force would come storming down to the basement floor to discover who was in the armoury.
‘Piece of cake,’ she said to herself, willing her hands to stop shaking and her heart to quit trying to smash its way free of her chest. She’d beaten the odds to obtain the thing she’d come here for. Now all she had to do was get it out of the building and out of the city.
The female police officer gave her a look like thunder when, having returned to the waiting room with the necessary equipment to register a complaint, she was informed by Tia that she’d changed her mind and no longer wished to lodge her objection. Somehow the woman managed to hold her tongue, although it was clear she wasn’t at all displeased to see the young woman with the heavy-looking backpack finally leaving her police station.
From there, trying her best not to look as panic-stricken as she felt, Tia hurried to the omnipad repair shop Juneau had told her to go to. With every step she took she expected a hand to land on her shoulder, or the sound of a city police officer bellowing at her to stop where she was.
The shop was dingy, the interior as dark and unwelcoming as the man sitting behind the counter who barely glanced up from whatever it was he was working on as she came in.
‘Help you?’ he grunted.
‘I have a problem.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘Some kind of virus. And I think it has mutated. My friend sent me here. He said you have a particular knack with this kind of thing.’
There was a pause and then the repairman finally put down the tools he’d been using. Nothing else was said; he just held out both hands, she handed him the backpack and he turned to a recycling chute behind him, slid the door open and put the bag inside. When he closed the door again, her hard-earned contraband would be carried away on a series of conveyor belts to Dump Two, one of a pair of huge refuse centres outside the Wall, where a couple of Juneau’s most trusted henchmen were waiting for it to arrive at the top o
f a vast mountain of discarded electronic equipment.
Tia was almost out the door when the man spoke again.
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘I hope you manage to get your old man out of prison. He’s a good guy.’
Rush
‘Move right down, please!’ the ARM officer, using a voice-amplifier, bellowed over the heads of the mutants pouring down the steps behind him and out on to the platform. As at registration there was a system in place, but the sheer number of people keen to be on the first trains to leave was causing problems.
Rush had chosen to sleep out in the open the previous night, setting himself down close to the disembarkation point where the transporter vehicles were to pick the mutants up the following morning. He was far from being alone in this decision – indistinct shapes, some out in the open like him, some under hastily erected tarpaulin lean-tos, could be made out in the murk. It had been a cold night, and with no blanket or warm clothing he’d hardly got a wink of sleep, but he must have dozed off just before dawn because he woke, stiff and full of aches, to the sound of approaching vehicles. Each was capable of carrying about fifty passengers at a time, and Rush soon found himself on the fourth transporter out.
In the back of the windowless vehicles the living cargo was thrown around like rag dolls. Unlike the people around him, who whooped and cried out, excited to be on such a wonderful machine for what was probably the first time in their lives, Rush found his mood getting darker by the minute, especially when the bumps smoothed out and it became clear that they were on a tarmacked road. It was also apparent that it sloped steeply downwards – Juneau had been right; they were going to use the old underground transportation system.
If any of his fellow passengers noticed his surly manner, none of them said anything, and Rush in turn spoke to nobody during the long trip. When the vehicles finally stopped and the rear doors were thrown open, he peered out at the huge circular subterranean space, before climbing out. Orders were shouted as the transporters spewed their mutant cargoes before swinging back around and returning to the surface so they might pick up the next batch of resettlers.
Exiting the vehicles, Rush and the others were urged down a wide staircase, the men and women doing the directing telling them it led to a platform where a train waited to ‘take them to their new home’.
Rush’s heart sank when he saw the heavily armed guards concentrated towards the front of the train. He’d harboured a hope that he might be able to get near to the driver or the engine cab and sabotage it somehow, but that was clearly going to be impossible. His only hope if he was to try such a thing would be to see if he could make his way through the carriages once they were en route.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, a feeling of nausea, strong enough to make him gasp, swept over Rush. His stomach lurched, and he felt a familiar sensation inside his head that made him stop abruptly and stare about him in all directions. Eager to keep moving, people tut-tutted or simply pushed into him from behind, but he remained frozen, even when the guard shouted for him to get going. In any case, he was only vaguely aware of any of these external voices because another spoke to him, one that filled his entire head so that he couldn’t have ignored it even if he’d tried. When he did glance over in the official’s direction, he saw that the ARM officer had set off towards him, the man’s angry expression making it clear what he thought of the teenager partially blocking the bottom of the stairway he was in charge of. Rush also noted that the man was reaching for the stun baton hanging from his belt. Concentrating on his would-be assailant’s helmet, Rush bent the item of uniform to his will. The guard was no more than ten paces away when his headwear somehow slipped down over his eyes, causing him to stumble into the moving tide of people, where he was buffeted about and almost went down under the crowd of moving feet and legs. Swearing loudly, the agent managed to keep upright, but when he pushed his helmet back he saw that the young mutant boy had gone; no doubt swept along with the others towards the train.
Back at the top of the stairs Rush watched as the next wave of transporters returned and offloaded their passengers into the circular disembarkation area. The unpleasant feeling of nausea continued and now he had the odd sensation of another mind looking out through his eyes, the experience so disorientating that he hardly noticed a little blonde girl and what appeared to be her brother approaching him.
‘Hello, Rush,’ the girl said, slipping her hand into his. ‘Shall we go?’ The small boy accompanying her had a grubby backpack over his shoulders, and he shifted it about as if to make it more comfortable before his hand also entwined with Rush’s. The disorientation was slowly ebbing away, so Rush, without a word, turned on his heel and led the pair back down the staircase he’d just come up.
It was only when they were all on the train, the three having made a small space among piles of luggage and hastily packed boxes so they might talk without being overheard, that Rush’s head completely cleared and he was able to see Jax and Brick clearly for who they really were. He’d known it was them – Jax had communicated to him inside his head – but even with that knowledge Rush had been unable to separate the reality from the illusion.
‘I hate it when you do that,’ he said, grimacing and pressing his palms against his eyes. Something occurred to him. ‘How long have you been in my head?’ He was thinking about the kiss with Tia and hoping that Jax had not been piggybacking on his consciousness then.
‘Not too long. I first made the link when you were in the medical room having your injection. You shouldn’t have done that. You should have waited for me.’
‘I had no idea when, or if, you would return, Jax. I couldn’t just sit on my hands and do nothing.’ He looked over at Brick. The big guy hadn’t said a word to him since boarding the train, and sat, eyes fixed on the floor between his feet.
‘Brick?’ Rush reached over and placed a hand on his friend’s. ‘Are you OK?’
The big guy shook his head. ‘Gone. Brick couldn’t help them. Metalman did it.’
Rush remembered how Jax had reacted back at Juneau’s when he’d felt his ‘disconnection’ with Silas. He didn’t want to ask the next question, as if putting it into words might make more real.
‘Silas?’ Rush asked in a small voice. It was only one word, but he found it almost impossible to get out.
‘He’s dead,’ Jax said.
Rush’s head spun. The man responsible for rescuing them all way back when they were little more than babies, the man who had saved them all again thirteen years later, was gone. He felt tears slip from his eyes, and would have given in to his grief completely had he not suddenly registered what Brick had said moments before. ‘Them? Brick, you said them. Who else couldn’t you help?’
Jax looked at his friend, a terrible expression on his face. ‘Flea’s gone too,’ he said in a whisper.
Rush sat trying to take the news in, his body gently buffeted from side to side as the train sped through the tunnel. ‘What happened?’ he finally managed.
‘It was the mutant, Steeleye,’ Jax said. ‘He’s working for Melk as some kind of bounty hunter, and it seems that we are his quarry. Brick says he’s different now: half man, half machine – a cyborg of some kind. He found our hideaway in the Dead City.’ He paused. ‘It seems brave little Flea died trying to get Silas out from under a collapsing ceiling. From everything I can gather, their deaths …’ Quite suddenly, his emotions got the better of him and he tailed off.
‘It’s OK, Jax. You don’t need to –’
‘No. You need to know.’
The albino took a deep breath and cleared his throat before going on. ‘Silas and Flea’s deaths do not appear to have been premeditated. In fact, they might not have occurred at all if Silas hadn’t attacked Mange. There was a cave-in and all three of them were buried. And despite what he says to the contrary and feeling that he failed, Brick did everything he could to save them both. When that wasn’t possible, he did the next best thing and captured the cyborg, who someho
w survived beneath the rubble.’
Another thought occurred to Rush. ‘Anya – was she there?’
A pained look flashed across Jax’s face. ‘Anya, for reasons I can’t imagine, set Steeleye free and helped him escape.’
‘What? W-why would she do such a thing?’
‘She doesn’t know about Silas and Flea’s deaths; Brick had already removed their bodies. Mange must have manipulated her into releasing him. I think we have to assume that Anya is lost to us now, and maybe that Steeleye or Melk will seek to use her in some way.’ There was another long silence. ‘We stopped by Juneau’s place on the way to the transportation lorries.’
Rush scanned the albino’s face for some clue as to what this cryptic announcement might mean. As always, his friend’s expression was impossible to read, but Jax nudged the bag that Brick had been carrying all this time in his direction. Rush pulled the drawstring loose and stared at the contents. The thing looked for all the world like a series of grey tubes surrounding a larger central one. On top of the main drum was a small domed light above two red push buttons marked 1 and 2.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t really know. He gave it a name, but then went into a whole load of science babble – something about a non-nuclear transient electronic disturbance – that I didn’t understand a word of and didn’t have time to ask. But if our friend Juneau is correct, it might be the only thing that can stop Melk’s plans to wipe out all of C4’s mutants in one fatal blow.’
‘Jax, are you sure you’re –’
‘We’ll mourn Silas and Flea later. But right now the three of us have to get on with the task in hand.’
Tia
Her father looked awful. He’d lost a lot of weight, which gave his face a sunken, skeletal look that was exacerbated by the deep shadows beneath his eyes. The overall effect was that he appeared to have aged ten years since she’d last laid eyes on him only a few months earlier, and the sudden change shocked her. He was sitting in a room not unlike the one in which Tia herself had waited for Melk to arrive the previous day. This one had a screen of some kind set into one wall, that allowed her to see in, but prohibited him from seeing out. Not for the first time since learning of his arrest, she wondered if this was somehow her fault; if her father had spoken out in the way he had, inviting Melk’s backlash, as a reaction to her disappearance. If that was indeed the case, it was even more important that she do everything in her power to secure his release.