Freefall

by Roderick Gordon

  “No, far from it,” Drake said as he took hold of the boy again. “We’re going to do this over and over again until there’s nothing left of their conditioning. I can help you to beat it.”

  “But I wasn’t like this in the Deeps. Why now?” Will asked, his head sagging as if he was completely exhausted.

  “It’s what they wanted,” Drake shrugged. “Probably the Styx’s insurance policy in case you went on the run. A fail-safe measure.”

  Dr. Burrows clucked with disapproval. “What a load of old baloney!” he said. “I think you need help, Drake. You’re so delusional, it’s scary.”

  Drake swung around to him. “No, you’re the one who won’t admit what’s going on, even though you’ve seen it with your own eyes. That old woman was set on killing you. How do you explain that?”

  “She …,” Dr. Burrows began, but then trailed off.

  “Mrs. Tantrumi might be a full-fledged Styx agent, or she could have been brainwashed. And if she was brainwashed, she’s one of many. There are probably thousands of people all over the country who have had varying degrees of conditioning, and some of them hold influential positions — businessmen, members of Parliament, high-ranking officers in both the police and the army. All it takes is a keyword or a signal from the White Necks and these people have no option but to do their bidding.”

  “Bartleby,” Will said. “At the submarine the Rebecca twin spoke to him. He was acting like I was his worst enemy or something. Does that mean it works on animals?”

  Drake nodded. “Sounds like it does.”

  “And Sarah — Sarah Jerome — what about her?” Will asked as the thought occurred to him. “Did they use it on her so she’d come after me?”

  “I didn’t get that impression in the short time I knew her. I think the Styx recognized she was vulnerable and they tricked her, plain and simple,” Drake replied.

  “Tricked her?” Will echoed.

  “Yes. If they can’t coerce people into doing what they want using threats, bribery, or their elaborate lies, then they resort to mind control. But it takes weeks, if not years, of Dark Light sessions to induce anything more than impulsive actions in the average person.”

  Will frowned, not understanding what he meant.

  “Anything more than short bursts of behavioral change — inducing a person to do something in response to a keyword or, in your case, Will, when you are confronted by a steep drop.”

  Will still wasn’t sure what he was talking about. “But can I really stop it?”

  “Sure you can. It sounds as though you only had a few weeks of conditioning, so with any luck I’ll be able to reverse it. Others might not be so fortunate, and their programming is so deeply ingrained that nothing can be done for them.” He took a deep breath. “We’re going to stay up here for a while,” he said. “Can you handle that?”

  “I think so,” the boy replied.

  They waited for half an hour, Drake perched by the edge of the roof and occasionally glancing at his watch as darkness gathered in the sky above.

  Then he abruptly beckoned to Dr. Burrows to come over. “There’s your wife,” Drake said, pointing down at a road that joined the corner of the square.

  “Celia?” Dr. Burrows said, hastily getting up from the lead flat.

  “What’s she doing here?” Will asked as he stood alongside Drake.

  “See that house three in from the end?” Drake said, glancing at the terrace on the opposite side of the square.

  “Yes,” Will confirmed.

  “Your mother’s renting an apartment on the first floor. She’s taken a temporary job to pay for it.”

  “Job?” Will spat as though he’d been stung, his face a picture of incredulity. “You’re saying my mum’s got herself a job?”

  “Yes,” Drake replied. “And she goes to the gym every morning…. Quite the reformed character, as if she’s trying to turn over a new leaf. She’s also been researching Martineau and Highfield’s history at the local archive, to see if there’s any connection with your disappearances. She’s thorough, I tell you. That’s why the Colony is keeping tabs on her.”

  “Oh, so you’re saying the Styx are after her now,” Dr. Burrows snorted. He and Will watched as she came nearer, noticing that she wasn’t alone as she turned into the square. “But she’s with someone! A man!” Dr. Burrows said, becoming quite agitated.

  “Yes, and he’s not to be trusted,” Drake informed him.

  Dr. Burrows was frantic. “I need to speak to her! I have to go to her!”

  “Sorry, Doc, no can do. Not right now,” Drake told him in no uncertain terms.

  But Dr. Burrows had opened his mouth and yelled “Celia!” before Drake, in the blink of an eye, had bundled him away from the edge of the roof. As Dr. Burrows tried to fight him off, Drake flipped him onto his back in a single fluid move, putting his head in a lock so he couldn’t make a sound.

  “Stupid fool!” Drake scowled, then snapped an order at Will. “See if anyone heard that! And if you do anything silly like jumping, I’ll kill you myself!”

  “Did you hear that?”

  Mrs. Burrows had been about to unlock the door, but was now scanning the road around the square and the unkempt garden in its center.

  “Hear what?” Ben Wilbrahams asked.

  “I thought I heard … I thought someone shouted my name,” she said, a bemused expression on her face. “It sounded like …”

  “Well, I didn’t hear anything,” Ben Wilbrahams said unequivocally. “Other than the wind.”

  Mrs. Burrows shrugged and inserted the key in the lock to let them in. As Ben Wilbrahams followed her, she was unaware of the tall thin men flooding into the square, and the activity on the rooftop across from her apartment building.

  Any problems Will had had with heights were put aside as soon as he saw what was happening below.

  “Trouble,” Will called back to Drake. “Looks like at least four Styx coming our way, and fast.”

  “You’d better behave yourself, Doc,” Drake warned as he released Dr. Burrows, then joined Will at the front of the roof.

  As Will craned his neck to see into the corners of the square, he felt rather than heard something land close to his feet. He looked down. Where the angle of the roof dipped forty-five degrees toward the guttering at the very edge, a neat hole perforated the surface of the lead. The same thing happened again, but this time he was looking down at the roof as another hole appeared next to the first.

  “Um, Drake,” he said, pointing.

  Drake reacted in an instant. “Sniper!” he hissed, quickly pulling Will back with him.

  Huffing resentfully, Dr. Burrows had gotten up and was just about to give Drake a piece of his mind when a sharp sound made him flinch. Inches from his face, one of the chimney pots simply exploded, pieces of it raining all over him.

  “What the —?” Dr. Burrows spluttered, and flung himself down with his arms around his head. He didn’t stay down for long, immediately scrambling back over the roof and scattering fragments of the red chimney pot as he went.

  Drake raced to the rear of the roof, where he checked the alleyway behind. “Keep low and stay close,” he ordered Will and his father as he scrambled over the brick parapet to reach the adjoining roof.

  “Are you telling me we were just shot at?” Dr. Burrows asked, wiping dust from his face.

  “Yes, you gave our position away. Can’t you ever do what you’re told, Dad?” Will said in an exasperated voice as he followed Drake.

  Crouching and in single file, they continued to cross from roof to roof as they made their way along the line of houses.

  “But I didn’t hear any shots,” Dr. Burrows whispered as they went.

  “They’ll be using silencers or some kind of suppressor, and maybe low-velocity ammunition,” Will said.

  “Go to the top of the class, Will. You really have mugged up on your military manuals, haven’t you?” Drake smiled. As they came to the last house in the terrace, D
rake crawled forward on his chest and heaved up a hatch in the roof. He swung himself through the opening, crashing into some old cardboard boxes in the attic below. Will and Dr. Burrows dropped in after him.

  “So what do we do now? The whole block will be surrounded,” Will asked, looking quickly around at the empty attic, identical to the one they’d been in before, as he imagined an army of Styx and Colonists taking up positions outside.

  Drake flicked on a small flashlight. Gripping it in his teeth, he went to where the chimney flues ran up the wall and began to tap the brickwork. “Never get yourself into any situation where you haven’t got at least two escape strategies,” he said out of the corner of his mouth as he worked his way along the wall. Although there was no difference in the appearance of the brickwork, the sound changed — it became hollow, as if the wall was made of metal. He pushed against it and a small trapdoor swung inward. Will and Dr. Burrows were beside him in an instant, peering down into the duct. Inside it a rusted metal ladder was bolted to the wall.

  Will was relieved they had a way out. “Now that’s a really cool escape strategy!”

  “Yes. Thanks to Martineau,” Drake said.

  “Sir Gabriel Martineau?” Dr. Burrows asked.

  “Sure. He loved his secret passages, and got his workmen to build them on a whim. And he was usually in such a tearing hurry, he often didn’t stop to make records.”

  “So the Styx don’t know about this one?” Will asked.

  “I truly hope not.” Drake turned to Dr. Burrows. “And, Doc, do you need any more convincing that the Styx are a threat?” he said pointedly to him. “Like a bullet in your head?”

  Dr. Burrows frowned, but said nothing.

  “Good. Now pick up your kit and get down the ladder — and take a left at the bottom,” Drake told them.

  Will and his father descended the old ladder, then began along the stone-lined passage, which was high enough that they could both stand. A small stream of brownish water trickled down the center of the passage, and its sides and roof were covered in glistening black slime. As they walked, the light from Dr. Burrows’s luminescent orb revealed there was more to the walls than they had first noticed.

  “Look! A mural!” Will cried. “A man with a boat!”

  “Noah and the Ark, I’d say,” Dr. Burrows proclaimed as he inspected the image under the garlands of black algae and pale smudges of limescale. “But they’re not murals, they’re carved in relief, cut into the stone.”

  “And here’s one of a man and a woman,” Will said, squinting at the other side of the passage.

  “Adam and Eve, probably,” Dr. Burrows said. “They’re all Biblical scenes, sculpted into the limestone with such skill. The artistry is just breathtaking. Remarkable!”

  Drake seemed to be taking his time to close the trapdoor, but as he slid down the ladder and caught up with father and son, he found they were both so captivated by the murals that they had hardly gone any distance at all.

  “I told you two to make tracks!” he snarled.

  “But this is an important discovery,” Dr. Burrows insisted. “Why on earth would anyone have put these down here?”

  Drake glanced warily down the passage behind them. “Three centuries ago this led back to Martineau’s house, so he could walk to church without getting wet when it was raining.” Drake took Dr. Burrows by the arm, guiding him on. “And now, if you don’t mind, please can we wind up the sightseeing tour for today, gentlemen.”

  They moved at a fast pace, finding the passage was beginning to rise. Then it split and they took the left fork, but after several hundred feet they appeared to have hit a dead end. Drake went to the front and, handing Will his flashlight, felt around until he located two blocks of stone that were slightly recessed.

  “Bet you there’s a hidden catch or something for another secret door,” Will whispered excitedly to his father.

  But to Will’s surprise, Drake braced himself, then aimed an almighty kick at the recessed stones.

  “Hidden catch, huh?” Dr. Burrows whispered back, as Drake took several more kicks, driving the heel of his boot into the stones with all his strength.

  A whole section of the wall crumbled away with a crash. Drake retrieved his flashlight from Will and played it through the opening. As the dust settled, the first thing Will and Dr.

  Burrows laid eyes on was a skull. Then they saw a jumble of decayed bones on the ground, where the old lead coffin Drake had dislodged had fallen and broken up.

  “Where are we?” Will asked in a hushed voice as he climbed out behind Drake.

  “It’s all right, you’re not going to wake ’em up,” Drake told him, making no effort to keep his voice low.

  As they moved farther into this new area, something crunched under their feet.

  “Ye gods!” Dr. Burrows gasped, examining the mass of human remains scattered across the floor. Then he raised his light and spotted other intact coffins on stone ledges around the walls. He and Will saw they were in a space about thirty feet square, but the ceiling was far above them, as if they were in some sort of well. “We’re in a burial chamber!” Dr. Burrows realized.

  “You got it, Doc. After Martineau decided he didn’t need his personal subway, he gave it over to an industrialist friend to use as his family mausoleum. Looks like they’re all in here.” Drake crossed to the opposite wall and began to climb the ledges until he reached the uppermost one. “Give me some light,” he said as he edged along what Will thought was a stretch of stone wall. He located a short bar of rusted iron attached to it, then pivoted it to the vertical.

  “Is that a door?” Will asked, shining his lantern up.

  “Sure is. Luckily for us, it can be opened from the inside,” Drake said. “I suppose it was in case any of these guys wanted out!”

  Putting his shoulder against the heavy stone door, Drake applied his weight. With a low grinding sound, it slowly swung away from him. “Well, what are you two waiting for?” he said to Will and Dr. Burrows as he slipped through the open door. Will was a little uneasy about where he was putting his hands as he clambered up the ledges. Quite a few of the caskets seemed to have fallen apart and their contents spilled out, and he didn’t fancy touching the slime-covered bones.

  Reaching the top, Will stepped outside the mausoleum. He breathed in the night air as he took stock of where he was. Before him he saw row upon row of headstones, dimly lit by the streetlight seeping over the cemetery wall. A building loomed before him. “Highfield Church,” he muttered under his breath.

  “This way,” Drake said. They wove their way through the thickets of small trees and knee-high tangles of horsetail to another part of the churchyard. “Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen — we’re stopping here for a second,” he told them. Perching on a large slab of moss-covered stone, Will and Dr. Burrows were grateful for the opportunity to rest — and now that they were experiencing earth’s normal gravitational pull again, theirs felt like quite a considerable weight.

  “Did you know that’s actually the Martineau family grave?” Dr. Burrows informed Will, pointing at a tomb with small stone statuettes of a pair of men, one holding a pickax, the other a shovel, at its apex. Will had explored the graveyard before, but never after nightfall. But now, as he looked where his father was indicating and felt the damp, cold stone under his palms, there was something strangely familiar about the spot. Stirring deep within him was a memory, so distant that as he tried to remember more he might as well have been attempting to catch a wisp of smoke in his hands. Shrugging to himself, he began to hum as he scratched at the moss with a fingernail.

  “So what did you make of the journal?” Mrs. Burrows asked Ben Wilbrahams as he shifted two piles of books from the armchair and onto the table to clear a place to sit. “Sorry, they’re my husband’s,” she apologized as Ben Wilbrahams studied the spine of what was obviously a self-help book from its cover.

  “The Power of ME — Exercises in Self-Belief,” he read, raising his eye
brows quizzically.

  “Well, a few of them are mine,” Mrs. Burrows was saying when a blinding flash of light filled the room, followed by the most incredible explosion. One of the curtains billowed out as if the wind had caught it, followed by the tinkle of glass.

  “What on earth —?” Mrs. Burrows cried, racing over to the window and yanking the curtains aside. The roof on the end of the terrace opposite was completely wrecked, flames leaping from the remaining timbers. Car alarms cried out as tiles and pieces of the roof rained down throughout the rest of the square.

  “Somebody might need help,” Ben Wilbrahams said. “I’m going down there.”

  Mrs. Burrows was scanning the pavement in front of the house. “I don’t think anyone’s been hurt. But what in the world could have caused that?” she asked, noticing that the blast had shattered a pane in one of her windows.

  “I don’t know. Maybe a gas leak,” Ben Wilbrahams replied, slipping on his jacket as police and ambulance sirens sounded in the distance.

  “I don’t get it,” Dr. Burrows had been saying to Drake. “With what you know about the Styx and the Colony, you could give the whole game away. Why don’t you just go to the authorities?”

  “You really aren’t grasping the scale of it, are you, Doc? The wolf is inside the house, and has been for centuries,” Drake replied. “They’ve got their claws into people at all levels of the police and the government.”

  “Then go straight to the newspapers and make them run the story,” Dr. Burrows suggested. “Make it all public.”

  “It’s been tried. Any proof mysteriously goes missing, and people end up getting killed,” Drake said. “Good people.”

  At that moment there was a tremendous explosion. Will and Dr. Burrows jumped to their feet. They could see that an area of the night sky was suffused with light.

  “Is that coming from Martineau Square?” Dr. Burrows asked.

  “Yes, I rigged a grenade on the door into the duct,” Drake told him.

  As the light faded away and the sky returned to darkness, there was a quiver in Dr. Burrows’s voice. “But … you can’t go around blowing things up … this is Highfield … this is London …”