Lifers

by M. A. Griffin

  “What’s he on about?” said Ryan, scowling over his shoulder as he peered upward at the hung ceiling of their prison. There were no gaps, pipes, or vents. Just an air-conditioning system. When the guys with guns had locked them in here, they’d chosen carefully. Now there was one of them stationed outside, and Armstrong’s assistant had gone, Preston guessed, to let Armstrong know the threat had been neutralized.

  Preston sighed. “Mace is always like this,” he said. “Go on. Tell us how this is all linked to a secret society.”

  Mace threw up his hands. “I am one hundred and ninety-five percent serious, brotherman,” he said, stabbing the air with an extended finger. “Black helicopters are the emergency vehicles of some sinister military order. There’ll be a whole fleet of them on the roof right above us, I bet. I read about it on the net.”

  “Yeah,” said Ryan. “On a website with a black background and fifteen different fonts.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” spluttered Mace, aghast.

  “Can we stop this?” Ellwood said. She was straight-backed and pensive, chewing her lower lip and checking her watch with twitchy regularity. “We need a plan.”

  There was a frustrated silence. Ryan pulled a chair from under the table and sat, tipping himself back on his long legs. “Chloe. Your last plan was let’s just walk through. I don’t think we’ll be trusting you to dream up a classic. Why not ask your new boyfriend?”

  Preston bit his lip at this and prayed he didn’t blush. But he felt the heat in his neck and cheeks all the same. Ryan could be a prick sometimes.

  Ellwood gave him the finger. “Screw you.”

  Ryan laughed bitterly, waving her away. “There’s no way out of here,” he said. He glanced at his phone. “And in five minutes, Armstrong starts. They’ll keep us here until he’s made his speech—make sure we don’t rain on his beautiful parade. Then it’ll be the cops.”

  “Or worse,” said Mace. Preston nodded. When he found out, Armstrong wouldn’t be letting them go. He’d be arranging a number of unfortunate accidents.

  Mace had his phone out again. “A claustrophobic office space is our prison,” he muttered darkly. “Low ceilings, no windows. An elongated table with six chairs. An armed guard outside and—I’m guessing—a fleet of black helicopters on the foyer roof.” Mace’s hysteria had no place here, Preston thought, making fists with his hands. He was about to shout him into silence when the door opened.

  It was sudden and unexpected. It was Armstrong.

  Elliot Mason was so shocked he dropped his phone and it bounced once, tumbling under the table.

  Armstrong was dressed in a chalk-stripe gray suit, white shirt, and blue tie. His eyes were the coldest things Preston had ever seen; his jaw was tight and his lips were thin and bloodless. He stared at the assembled group.

  The worst thing, Preston realized suddenly, was this: When he saw Chloe Ellwood, his face betrayed nothing. Not a flicker of recognition for the daughter of the man he’d murdered. The girl back from the dead.

  Ellwood, though—she was giving it everything she had just to stay upright. Preston watched her as she struggled to keep hold of herself. She’d grabbed the back of a chair and her arms, bare below her rolled-up shirtsleeves, had come up in goose bumps. Her eyes had filled up and she had to blink them clear of tears.

  Armstrong’s icy gaze took each of them in. Beneath his eyes, gray skin gathered in bags, and when he blinked they quivered. He held a hand out stiffly. “Phones,” he said.

  There was immediate compliance. Ryan, white-faced, handed his over. Preston gave his up; Mace turned to collect his from the floor, but terror got the better of him, and he froze in his standing position, trying not to tremble. “I only have a moment,” said Armstrong, pocketing the devices. He seemed frighteningly calm. Preston had never been so scared of anybody in his life. He’d read about psychopaths before—people without any empathy or remorse—and he knew then, as he watched Armstrong’s emotionless dismissal of Ellwood’s presence, that he was listening to one. The man spoke with a finger upraised. His cuff links were gold. “Let me make this very clear,” Armstrong said. He blinked his gray eyes once and began his list, counting on his fingers. “You will not speak to anyone about what you have seen. You will not communicate anything of your visit to Axle Six. You will not discuss or describe the work of the Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. You will have no further contact with Mr. Jonathan Shade or Ms. Esther Klein.” He looked at each of them again. Ellwood looked back at him. She’d found some strength somewhere, mustered something close to defiance. Ryan, though—he seemed to have shrunk. And by the look of him, it was all Mace could do to stay on his feet and breathe. Armstrong carried on, his voice chilly and measured. “And let me be equally clear on the consequences of disobedience,” he said. The word disobedience sounded horrific the way Armstrong said it—as if it would be the most sickening mistake in the world. He checked his watch—it was heavy and glistened—and continued. “Your liberty,” he said, “is at stake.” It took a moment’s silence for that to truly sink in. Mace was biting back tears, his shoulders jumping the way they do when you’re on the edge of crying. Armstrong smiled, and it looked reptilian. “If any of you here were to go missing again, your families would be devastated. And, of course, if you went missing this time, it wouldn’t be alongside others. You would be missing and alone.” He rubbed his dry palms together. Preston thought of being the only person alive BTV. Him and Robinson Crusoe. “It would be a desperate and sad way to spend your final days,” said Armstrong. “Wouldn’t it?” He made for the door, then turned. “I have a speech to give,” he said. “We will talk again afterward.”

  The door clicked softly shut behind him.

  Mace fell against the table like a stringless puppet.

  The idea of being forced back through the valve—of having to relive that journey, arrive alone at that place, was like a bullet in the gut. Nobody spoke as they contemplated it. Mace made it to a chair, then folded his arms, dropped his head against the table, and trembled. Ryan stared at the wall unblinking.

  Preston thought about Shade. Of all the things Armstrong had warned them against, that one stood out. He’d named the nightwardens. That meant they presented a threat to him, even now. What had he said to Esther once? The only way is forward. They had to expose Armstrong, and they had to do it tonight. Or they’d be heading back BTV. Shade would arrive. He’d said nine. Even now, he might be crossing the city.

  “What time is it?” Preston said, his voice a broken croak.

  Ellwood checked. “Nine eleven p.m.” She was thinking the same thing as he was. Armstrong would be on stage now. They needed to be out and through the halls toward the other side of the building; they needed to be running for the Exchange Auditorium.

  This was close to all over.

  Ellwood hammered the table with her fist and yelled her rage and frustration. She swore and ranted. Mace looked nervously at Preston. They backed off, gave her some space to mourn. Ryan watched impassively.

  After Ellwood’s rage had burned itself out, Preston couldn’t help but pace. He asked the time twice: 9:16 p.m. came the answer, then 9:25 p.m. Where was Shade? He squinted out of the office window at the guard. Mace went searching for his phone under the table.

  And Ellwood sat nursing her hands, her knees up against her chest, her face distant and defeated.

  It was 9:40 p.m. when it happened.

  Mace gave a high-pitched yell. Ryan nearly fell off his chair. Ellwood scrambled to her feet. The door had just buckled inward—a huge pounding blow had struck it. Someone outside had tried to kick it in. It had held tight.

  “Bloody hell,” Ryan managed.

  Then came another.

  The door folded inward at the second blow and a huddle of bodies fell into the room, a chaotic tangle of limbs. There was a figure framed in the doorway then: a slight grinning kid with brown skin and a mop of black hair.

  It was Chowdhury. It was bloody Ch
owdhury. He raised an awkward hand. “Greetings,” he said. “All is revealed.”

  Preston felt his jaw drop open. Shade had made it.

  On the floor, Gedge was fighting his way to standing. There was another of Ellwood’s crew too, looking stunned by the crush, lying on his back, blinking at the ceiling.

  And then there was Alice.

  She was on her knees, rubbing her shoulder and grinning. Her eyes were wide and bright, her hair all knotted and filthy, her skin smudged in the chalky grit of Axle Six. She looked fabulous. Preston laughed out loud, a surge of happiness and pride climbing inside.

  “Oh my actual God,” Mace managed. Ryan gave a big shout and jumped across the table to her. They held each other for a second, Ryan crushing Alice with relief. He was laughing too.

  “Gedge,” Alice said through his hair, “is a pretty formidable guy.” Gedge grinned at them, brushing down his filthy clothes with his big left hand. On his right was a nightwarden’s glove. Ellwood slapped him on the shoulder and they hugged. “Evening,” Gedge said in his soft Irish accent. He looked embarrassed, dominating the room almost apologetically, holding up a gloved hand.

  Preston waited his turn, and when Ryan had put her down, he stood next to Alice. They were as near to each other in that small room as they had been in ages. She raised her eyebrows and shrugged, a greeting of sorts.

  “Glad you made it,” Preston croaked.

  Alice nodded. “Nice to be home. Well … nearly.” She laughed.

  Gedge said, “You’ll never guess what happened on the other side.”

  “A nightwarden showed up to save you all?” Preston said, imagining what the last few hours must have been like for Shade. He’d have driven out across the swiftly darkening moor with a van full of databands. He’d have gone through up at the abandoned valve up there, then once BTV, he’d have had to find Alice, find Chowdhury, swerve the Longsight lads, and lead everyone back. Then, somehow, he’d gotten them across Manchester. Some of them, at least.

  Chowdhury frowned. “Yes,” he said. “Pretty much exactly that.”

  “Is he here?” Preston asked, heart thumping, half-hopeful for once. What time was it? Was there still time?

  Chowdhury gave a half shrug. “He said he’d try to be.”

  Gedge said, “So listen. That Shade guy said something about hijacking some sort of speech?”

  “It’s Armstrong,” Ellwood put in.

  Gedge nodded. “Yeah. Got it. Well, we better get moving. Your security guard said the speeches are nearly finished.” Gedge grinned and raised a gloved hand. “Before I shook hands with him, that is. Magic stuff, this,” he said.

  The Sleeptight. “It’ll wear off quicker than you expect,” said Preston, remembering suddenly the morning that started all this; the one where he’d woken in his clothes in his room with a punctured palm and a thumping head.

  Ryan made his way forward, Alice with him. They were holding hands now. “We’d better get moving,” he said. “We’ve got maybe ten minutes.”

  Mace cleared his throat and everybody stopped. He had his hand raised, like a kid in class. “Listen,” he said, lowering it self-consciously. “How do we get back there, exactly?”

  “What do you mean?” said Chowdhury.

  “I mean,” said Mace, “there’s security out there. Lots of them. And some have got guns. What are we doing? Just running at them?”

  Ellwood ran a hand through her hair and let out a long breath. “Guess so,” she said. “Anyone got anything better?”

  No one spoke.

  Mace shook his head. “This is nuts,” he said. “Let’s just say we do get as far as the speeches. What then? Do we just burst in yelling hellfire?”

  Preston had been working on this bit as he’d paced. “We go in ranks,” he said. “And we go in silent. We get as far as we can. Ellwood, you need to be up front. All these delegates and politicians, they’ll have known your dad, right? They’ll recognize you. It’ll be a missing-kid-comes-back-from-the-dead moment. We stand there silently.” We’ll be like ghosts, Preston thought, improvising.

  Ellwood looked stunned. She licked her lips. “Sounds like a plan,” she said. This was their last chance. No time for subtlety.

  Outside there were even more kids. Close to thirty of them, all standing shoulder to shoulder in the corridor, kids in torn clothes, some with hollow cheeks, faces lined with fear and fatigue; escapees with nervous glances, some with wild grins; kids who smelled bad, looked ill. Preston didn’t recognize most of them. But he did see Fox. His eyes were black and swollen. At the feet of the boys on the front row of the group was the security guard, balled up and dreaming.

  This is the stupidest plan ever, Preston thought. Once out into the exhibition space there’d be nowhere to hide. It’d just be a gang of prisoners sprinting through a conference center, looking for a speech to disrupt. Surely their luck was going to run out. “What time is it?” he croaked.

  Ellwood was next to him. Their arms were touching. She shook off her father’s watch—the one that was three links too big for her. “Borrow this,” she said.

  Preston blushed. He took it. “Yeah,” he said. It was 9:54 p.m. Somewhere in an auditorium at the other side of the center, Armstrong was probably pacing the stage and making his bid for leadership. Maybe he was already accepting the applause. Maybe he’d already contained them long enough to make his great speech and sweep away the secrets of Axle Six and the Kepler valve experiment forever.

  Ryan had no map to check anymore—Armstrong had taken his phone—but he’d gotten the measure of the place. He knew which direction to run in, and that was all they’d need. They had maybe seven minutes. “This is suicide,” he said as they all lined up. “Whatever happens, keep running.”

  Then they ran out into the light-flooded spaces.

  They ran with all the energy they had left; they ran hard, in a pack, Ellwood in the lead, Chowdhury and Gedge and Preston just behind, Mace and Ryan with Alice somewhere off to his left. They coursed across the polished parquet flooring of the main hall under the big arc of the glass roof. It was coming toward changeover for some of the smaller events; workshops and debates were closing and delegates were beginning to come out of smaller rooms into the conference spaces, and as they passed, there were cries and shouts.

  They kept running. They made it out across the exhibition hall, their footsteps hammered out and echoing. Thirty kids were sprinting in a pack, thirty-odd wild-eyed children who weren’t stopping for anything or anyone.

  The crowds thickened, and it stopped being easy to run. Instead, it became like sprinting through a railway station at rush hour; it turned into ducking and weaving, into dodging or shoulder-barging. The pace slowed. Someone’s papers scattered. A tray of drinks tipped and shattered; someone slipped and fell. There were furious faces, angry exclamations. A burly gray-haired guy tried to hold Gedge back but the boy shrugged him off and he clattered backward into a nest of chairs and tables.

  They ran on and the thickening crowds started parting as the cry went up.

  Cops. There were five or six officers with batons and a couple who looked like an armed-response team, holsters and guns, heading across the open space toward them. Preston caught a commotion off to his right and realized a group of kids had split from the main pack—it looked to be five or six, and one of them was Fox—and were heading for the main foyer and for the freedom of the night. Bad move, he knew. Security were closing in. With the group split, it became harder to track them, but those armed officers were quick and clever. Guns were out.

  They were doing well—through the main hall and into the area near the gallery, running through the shouts and exclamations, running past groups of startled delegates, pushing, shoving.

  Then the whole vase thing happened and it all went crazy.

  A pair of ornate vases, white and purple, had gone over ahead of them, Preston saw. Maybe it had been Chowdhury, overexcited as he wove between tables, heading for the Gallery and the Ex
change Hall beyond. Whatever, there was a crash, and shattered porcelain spun in a silver sheet of water sluicing across the floor; big floral displays tumbled. The spaces ahead were plushly carpeted, but the main hall’s floor was shiny hardwood. Preston felt his feet go from under him in the wet, and before he could adjust his footing he was down on one hip, skidding and pedaling madly, one hand in the water, trying to push himself up. Someone clattered into him and he heard a couple of other kids go down and then there was a scrum of slipping legs and pushing arms.

  Preston could see Chowdhury and Ryan were up ahead, still running, but he was aware of Mace losing his footing somewhere to his left. There was a lot of shouting. Preston was on his back in a pool of icy water. Was Ellwood caught or still free? He didn’t know.

  He made it to his feet eventually, clothes clinging to him and dripping, but there was already a mob of cops or security by then: angry faces, shouting, radios. They were standing well clear, Preston saw. It was a crooked kind of compliment in a way, the cops making a circle fifteen feet away from them. Don’t try anything crazy, it said. Mace was at his shoulder, checking his pockets. Making sure his phone was dry, Preston realized, which seemed a pretty screwed-up priority, given they were about to get arrested.

  Alice was with them too.

  Preston checked Ellwood’s watch.

  It was one minute to ten.

  Preston felt too tired to breathe. He looked at the floor, and the smudged puddles of water seemed to pulse. He blinked and tried to focus. To his left, Alice was staring at him, pale and drawn; around him, other exhausted and frightened faces.

  Somewhere beyond the edges of the web of cops, Chowdhury and Gedge were being led back, their hands on their heads. They were all caught—all rounded up now. Guns were up and guys were shouting instructions. Stand still; don’t move. Do. Not. Move. All that stuff.