by C. J. Harper
‘How do we know we can trust Ty?’ I ask. ‘We don’t know anything about him except he works with Janna. What if these people hurt us? What if this tunnel doesn’t even lead anywhere?’
A terrible image of us, just crawling around in an underground maze until we die, blazes up in my mind. Efwurding hell. Panic surges inside me again. I want to be out. I need space. And air. My lungs are pressing against my ribs. I fight to get my breathing under control.
‘Listen, Blake,’ Kay says gently, ‘you’re a big brainer, so use your brain to think about this. People made that place down under the warehouse, yes? And they cut that bit of pipe so you can get in the pipe, yes? They were making a way, an escape way. It must be a way out.’
This, at least, makes some sense. The only way to get to the end is to keep going. I mustn’t think about where I am. I just have to crawl.
‘Do you think they’ve got guards chasing all the Specials who escaped from the Academy?’ I ask Kay.
‘Maybe. But I’m thinking it’s you they want the biggest. It’s you that got all the Specials to fight. It’s you that was saying The Leader is bad, to all the journalists.’
I wonder how many of the journalists escaped. I’m pretty sure that the ones the guards managed to catch are dead now. And they’re not the only ones who lost their lives.
I won’t think about Ali now. I can’t.
But the guards didn’t catch Janna. There’s no denying that her sense of self-preservation is strong. ‘Do you really think Janna reported us?’ I ask Kay.
‘Yes,’ Kay says flatly. ‘Why do you big like her? Is it because she’s all pretty?’
‘I don’t “big” like her. Why do you hate her so much?’
Kay only sniffs in response.
To be fair, I have noticed that Janna is rather condescending to Kay, and even though Kay’s upbringing at the Academy means that she’s got a very limited vocabulary, she has no problem recognising a patronising tone of voice. When we arrived at the warehouse in the pitch-black, Kay deliberately tripped Janna over and the two of them actually came to blows. Ty and I had to drag them apart.
‘Listen, Kay, we may still need Janna’s help,’ I say. ‘I don’t think we should be pointing out her faults. And you definitely shouldn’t be punching her in the mouth.’
‘I can do my own deciding about who I’m going to punch.’
For a few minutes we shuffle onwards in silence. I tell myself everything is fine. The further we go, the closer we are getting to the end. I listen hard. No sound comes from behind us. In fact, I can’t hear anything at all. I slow down and push between the cables to slide my hands over the bottom of the pipe. I want to know if it slopes down, but it’s impossible to tell. The gradient could be very gradual. What if we’ve been going deeper and deeper all this time?
‘Don’t go slow, Blake,’ Kay says. Her voice comes from several metres ahead of me.
Where are we going? What the hell has happened to me? Just a few months ago I was totally sure of my place in the world. I was a big success at school and I knew that there was a great career in the Leadership waiting for me. I thought I was set, but then my world collapsed and I found myself with no home, no family and no future. And now I’m stuck in a tunnel heading I don’t know where. For a moment I feel so utterly lost that the absence of any place where I belong throbs inside me. I miss the way that things were. And yet I can’t even wish them back because what I’ve discovered means that old life can’t exist any more.
I now know that kids who aren’t deemed worthy are hidden away and mistreated, and that people who don’t fit in with the Leadership plans are made to disappear. And I know that my father is responsible. If I want to bring down the system that deleted me and abused kids like Kay, then I have to kill him.
I will not fall apart down here. I will get out.
I crawl onwards with renewed energy. I may not have any place to go or anyone to look after me, but I do have a plan, a mission. I’ve got to kill that man. And that is what matters.
That and Kay. I was so afraid that I’d lost her back at the Academy that I realised just how much she means to me. I want to tell her exactly how I feel, but I can’t, not now, not here.
We crawl on and on.
‘More people coming to fight us again,’ Kay says in a mocking tone. ‘It’s all times fighting with you. Blake, you don’t like fighting. Why do you keep getting to having people want to fight you?’
In spite of everything, my lips twitch. ‘You think it’s hilarious, don’t you?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Funny.’
‘Yes, it is hilly-arious. Because you’re not good at fighting, are you?’
‘I’m better than I was.’ I flex my back, it’s starting to ache. ‘You know, it’s strange, at the Learning Community they used to teach us about battle tactics and strategy and stuff—’
‘What does that mean?’
‘We had lessons called Future Leaders and they taught us about . . . the ideas of war and fighting. The mechanics of weapons and the science of explosives. We had a lot of shooting practice, too. But they never taught us how to actually physically fight with our fists – which would have been more useful.’
‘Useful?’
‘Something I could use. I could have used some fight lessons.’
‘Yes, you could. You could use some fight lessons now.’
It’s better when we talk. It helps me keep my mind from spinning into panic again. I let Kay go on about how terrible I was in the fight competitions at the Academy, where the Specials were ranked by how many fights they’d won. She might laugh, but my physical fitness improved dramatically in the time I spent at the Academy. I touch my arm. I think I may have even developed some muscle.
Even in the dark I can tell my filthy hands are leaving a smear on my sleeve. When we started crawling, the earth that had got into the pipe was dry and dusty, but now the cables feel wet with mud.
‘Ah!’ Kay screams.
‘What? What is it?’ I reach forward for her, imagining in an instant all kinds of horrible things: that she’s stumbled on a dead body, or she’s cut herself on broken glass.
‘A thing! It was a thing!’
‘What was it? Are you hurt?’
I’ve got hold of her shoulder. The darkness is so frustrating. I keep thinking that I need to open my eyes, but of course they already are open and I can’t see a damn thing.
‘It didn’t hurt. It was a surprise. A bad surprise. What do you call those things? Not people, the other things with lots of legs?’
‘Caterpillars?’
‘With four legs and . . .’ Her clothes rustle as she gestures, but it’s no use to me in the dark.
‘Animals? Did you feel an animal?’ I suppose an animal is better than a guard. As long as it’s not a rabid dog. It must have been something small because I didn’t feel anything. ‘It was probably just a rat.’
Kay sniffs. ‘I know rats. I’m an Academy Special. I’ve seen big lots of rats. This was biggerer, I mean, bigger.’
If one thing has made it into the pipe there could be all sorts of things sharing this space with us. I imagine what I would see if I could light up the way in front of us. My mind fills with things that crawl and scuttle and bite. It’s probably best that we can’t see.
I feel my insides tightening again. ‘Let’s just keep moving, shall we?’ I say.
So we press on. My knees are burning and my shoulders ache. It feels like we’ve been shuffling along for hours. The cables are increasingly slippery and I try not to think about what exactly might be coating them. I don’t even want to turn around and go back any more, it would be too far. Once again I’m horribly conscious of the earth wrapping itself around us. Enclosing us. I wish that the pipe would crack and the ground would split open above me. I close my eyes again and concentrate on the rhythm of moving forwards.
‘Can you hear a thing?’ Kay asks.
I tense up, afraid to hear the
sound of someone following us. I concentrate. Under the creaking of the cable sleeves as we press on them there is something else. A plinking.
I let out a sigh of relief. ‘It’s just a drip.’
‘What’s a drip?’
‘A little bit of water.’
‘Stop.’
I do as she says, thinking it might help to rest for a moment, but there isn’t room to sit so I have to hunch over. As soon as I cease crawling, my knees flame with pain.
‘It’s water here,’ Kay says. ‘Give me your hand.’
I reach out and she guides my hand into a shallow puddle.
‘Probably nothing to worry about. It’s just water that’s trickled in. The pipe must have cracked somewhere. You know, a little bit broken.’ Which means the cables are wet with water, and not any of the horrible fluids I’d been imagining.
‘I think it’s not little broken. I think it’s big broken. All the dirt got in and that rat thing.’
I really don’t need anything else to worry about. My list is already pretty long. ‘The pipe must be damaged in places. Does it matter?’
Kay takes a breath to say something and then stops.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘I have to tell you a thing. Don’t get scared.’
Oh hell. She’s going to tell me that there’s no way out. ‘Go on.’ My voice wobbles.
‘When I looked out of the window and saw the guards coming . . .’
‘What? What is it?’
‘I didn’t just see guards.’
‘What else did you see?’
‘Blake, it was raining.’
It was raining. We’re buried in a leaking pipe and it’s raining. Which means water is soaking through the ground to fill the pipe up and drown us.
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute,’ I say. ‘The pipe probably won’t let in large amounts of water. We just need to keep calm.’
But, as Kay pointed out, there must be some pretty sizable holes in the pipe. And there are already puddles forming. We need to find the exit as soon as possible.
‘Just keep moving,’ I say. ‘Everything will be all right, if we just keep moving.’
But a few minutes later it’s clear that everything is not all right. The occasional puddles have joined to make a stream around our knees.
‘When you say raining . . .?’ I ask.
‘Big raining. Hard. Lots.’
But, it doesn’t make sense. Somehow there is a serious amount of water filling up this pipe. ‘It can’t just be what’s seeping through the earth.’
‘You’re saying it can’t, but it is. It’s coming.’
I’m balancing on a narrow edge. I could very easily tip into hysteria. ‘We’ve got to move faster.’ My voice sounds like it’s coming from someone else.
Crawling quickly is hard. I’m shivering and my trousers are soaking. The cables make the surface of the pipe uneven. My knees are killing me. My back aches so much that every movement sends a wave of pain like burning needles up my spine.
We stop talking and there’s only the pathetic sound of us sloshing along in the dark.
‘Blake?’ Kay says in a tiny voice.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know how to do that thing to stop you going down in the water.’
My heart contracts. Poor Kay. I can’t even begin to tell her that it’s not swimming that we need to worry about. The water is over my wrists now. ‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘I can swim. I’ll help you. We’re going to get out of here.’
But the further we go the more convinced I am we’re trapped. I pray that the water has levelled off, but after a while I know that it’s still creeping up my forearms. I close my eyes and listen to the constant dripping of water. I’m so cold yet my knees are on fire. We go on and on and on. Imprisoned in the earth. A scream tries to claw its way up my throat. I force myself to swallow.
Eventually, Kay says, ‘Can you see that?’
I open my eyes. The water is over my elbows now. Fuzzy spots are floating in front of me. I can’t see anything. ‘What?’
‘It’s more lighter.’
It’s a while before I think she might be right. But then I can definitely make out the dark outline of Kay in front of me.
‘It is! It’s lighter. We’re getting to the end,’ Kay says.
If there’s a light, then that means a way out. Back into the open, out of this suffocating plastic tomb. My arm muscles are twitching with exhaustion, but we hurry towards the light. Soon I can see Kay more clearly. The water still looks black and has reached her hips.
‘Can you see anything?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know. Wait . . .’
The light seems to be coming from above. Kay stops. ‘It goes up,’ she says.
I lean to the side to look past her. The pipe makes an abrupt corner turning upwards. Horror jolts through me. If the pipe continues straight up, how on earth will we climb it?
‘Where does the pipe go?’ Kay asks.
I can’t speak. I squeeze past her and push upwards into the bend. My legs shake as I stand. Straight away, I can see the circle of light above me that is our exit. It’s within reaching distance.
It’s also covered in bars.
I take hold of the bars, but they won’t budge.
‘Can we get out?’ Kay asks. She’s sticking her head above the water, somewhere around my knees.
I can’t bear to tell her that we’re doomed. ‘I’m not sure . . . there are bars covering the way out.’
‘Can you get them off?’
Even though I’ve already tried it, I grip two of the bars and pull. They don’t even bend. Then I push. Nothing.
‘I can’t do it.’
I need to think. There must be a way out. There must. Ty told Kay that this pipe was used as an escape tunnel. It wouldn’t be any use to anyone if there wasn’t an exit at this end.
‘There might be a different hole somewhere,’ I say. ‘It could be covered up, like at the other end. Feel under the water.’
Kay starts splashing about near my feet. I run my hand around the upright section of the pipe. The cables disappear into a number of holes, but none of them is large enough to be any help. I can’t see any other edges or openings.
‘I can’t find anything,’ Kay says.
‘Maybe there’s a catch on the outside.’ I push my hand between two bars and slide it upwards. It jams at the wrist. ‘It’s a bit tight.’
I feel around the edge of the hole. The bars are attached to a rim. It’s like a lid. It must be designed to lift off. It must. I push my other hand through a gap between the bars on the other side of the hole and I strain my wrists to grip the rim with my fingertips, then I pull. The lid doesn’t move. I feel around again. There’s something sticking out at the side. The lid is bolted on.
I look down at Kay’s hopeful face staring up at me. ‘There’s a bolt,’ I say.
Kay looks blank.
‘A bolt.’ I remember how valuable things like bolts were at the Academy. They called them shrap and wore them as jewellery. ‘Like the shrap on . . . on Ilex’s belt.’ God, I hope Ilex is somewhere safe now.
She nods. The water is up to her chin.
‘I can’t get my hand out far enough between the bars to try to unscrew it.’
‘Let me try. My arms are more little than yours.’ She tries to get to her feet but this upright section is narrower than the rest of the pipe and there just isn’t enough room.
‘You’ll have to back up into the pipe and pass me there,’ I say. ‘Take a deep breath.’
Kay gulps and slips under the water. I crouch down and slide backwards into the now almost full pipe. I open my eyes underwater, but I can only see Kay as a dark blob as she scrambles past me. Once she’s standing, I pull the top half of my body around the bend. I’m in a sitting position. I’m up to my shoulders in water.
‘I can’t reach,’ she says.
‘Climb on my shoulders.’
But she can’t
. The pipe is so narrow here that she can’t get her knees high enough to climb up.
‘I’ll go back under the water. You get on my shoulders while I’m down there, then I’ll push you up as I come out of the water.’ I take a deep breath and duck back into the freezing water. I’m so tired and the water rushes up around me in a way that makes me think it’s going to suck me back down the pipe. When I feel Kay’s feet on my shoulders it takes all my energy to force my head above water. I break the surface and gasp for breath. Even as I’m spluttering, I look up. Above Kay’s legs and body, the bars are still in place.
‘I tried,’ Kay says. ‘It’s all watery and my hand is watery.’
‘You need more purchase. Pull your sleeve over your hand.’ I feel like a rock is wedged in my windpipe.
I listen to her struggling and the moment seems to stretch. Water rushes and drips and splashes around me. We’re never going to get the lid off. We’re stuck. There isn’t enough room for us both to fit in the upright part of the pipe. And the water level keeps climbing. All the fear that I’ve been holding down threatens to bubble up and take me over. We’re going to die here in the cold and the filth.
‘I’ve done it!’ Kay shouts.
I look up and the bars have been lifted away. We’re saved! I can get out. Out into space and light.
I grasp a cable in each hand like a rope to pull myself to my feet with Kay still on my shoulders. Once she’s climbed out, she leans back in and sticks out a hand to me.
‘You’ll never get me out like that,’ I say. ‘Move out the way and let me try to pull myself up.’
She retracts her hand. I grip the edge of the hole. I try to heave myself upwards by bracing a foot against the side of the pipe for traction. My arms are shaking. I manage to pull myself up a little, but then my foot skids and I splash back into the water. I try again. There’s not enough room to walk my way up the side of the pipe. Fresh panic knifes through my lungs. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’ve come all this way. I’ve crawled through the tunnel of death only to get stuck here. At the exit. Because my stupid efwurding arms are too weak to pull me up.