by Piers Torday
I look at the rest of the room, pale screen-washed faces staring blankly through me as if I’d already gone. I look at the others, who broke into our house, but they gaze at their feet. Eric examines his knuckles as if he’s never seen them before.
The General whispers in my ear. *Wildness, I do not get a good feeling from this man or these children. We should return to our wild. Besides, that dark call you heard, the stag said it was in the dream, that we should –*
His voice fades away in my head, as I turn to look at Aida. She’s staring straight at me. Her gaze, it’s like a beam cutting through the murk and glare of the rubbish dome. A beam that hits me dead in the chest, smashing everything else – Littleman, his gang, the animals’ dream – far away into the shadows.
I’ve only seen an expression like that once before. On the face of another girl, in a messy kitchen far, far away. An expression that means only one thing.
Help me.
Polly’s gone. And with her the Iris, that she promised her parents she wouldn’t let Stone get. I only hope it means he won’t be coming back for the wild now. But Aida seemed to think there might be a way of getting both of them back.
I’ve helped the animals enough. Maybe it’s time to help some humans.
The others are still looking at the floor. Now is the moment. *Wolf-Cub?* I say. *Do you want to prove how brave you are again?*
*Always, Wildness,* he replies. Not taking his eyes off the old-young man, he crouches low, growling and baring his teeth.
But with a glint in his eye, Littleman just chuckles. ‘Oh, it’s like that, is it? Well, two can play at that game.’ He sticks two fingers in his mouth and whistles. The wolf-cub stiffens, ears pricking.
Parp! Parp!
And there, standing in the patchwork doorway, staring at us, is the animal I saw in our street.
The dog with no bite.
The big white dog stands proud on his massive paws in the doorway to the shack. Seeing him clearly for the first time, he is even more ugly than before. His eyes are tiny black dots above a long snout, purple gums sticking out over rolls of flesh, like they’re swollen and too big for his mouth. He pants heavily in the heat.
*Hello, dog,* I say. *We mean you no harm.*
But nothing comes back in reply: not a word, not a thought. Just silence between us.
The first animal I have not been able to talk to.
The wolf, hackles raised, also challenges the dog, meeting his stare dead on.
*Dog! Answer your ancestor. What are you doing here?*
The air is empty. It is like talking to a void. The dog just eyes us and pads over to Littleman. Aida gives the dog a strange look as he lumbers past her. Not fear exactly, more like sadness. The dog sits at his owner’s feet, staring up at the images on the ultrascreen with a fixed gaze.
‘Now my dear,’ says Littleman to me, in his friendly voice again, grabbing the white dog by the scruff of his neck. It looks really painful, but the dog doesn’t resist. ‘I’d like you to meet Dagger, our house guard dog.’ He squeezes Dagger’s neck. ‘Say hello to our guests, Dagger, there’s a good boy.’
And the dog opens his jaws wide, just as he did outside our house. It wasn’t a dream. He was there. The inside of his mouth looks just the same as it did then. No teeth, just raw sockets, and a red stump of a tongue.
‘Do you see now why I call him Dagger? That’s his dagger, right there!’
Littleman points to the stump, which does now – close up – look like a short dagger. Not a very frightening one though.
*Who did this to you, dog – tell your ancestor, and he will rip out their tongue!*
The wolf-cub is readying for a fight, and I place my hand on the back of his neck to steady him. But the dog just stares at us and closes his mouth.
The man slaps Dagger’s flank and stands up again. ‘He was nothing but junk, tossed on to the street, just like these kids. I rescued him from his nasty former owners. I protected him from the virus. I saved him from the cullers. And how did the brute repay me at first? He ran away.’
Littleman has skipped over from the dog, who stands facing the wolf head on. He whispers in my ear, with his prawn-cocktail breath, ‘So do you know what I did, dear? I fed him some bad pink. And I’ll do the same to you and your pal here if you don’t watch it.’
He squeezes my neck tight, as if I was the dog. I think of the man with the clock around his neck outside, the acrid smell, what Aida told me it did. Then he spins around, twirling his hand in the air.
‘So set your little friend on him or me, please, be my guest. Although Dagger’s never lost a fight yet, I have to tell you. Of course … house rules do apply.’ He rattles around in the pocket of his baggy shorts. ‘After I’d punished Dagger, he never disobeyed me again – did you?’ He kicks the dog with his foot. ‘So I felt it only fair to give him back what I’d taken away. On my terms, of course.’
His hand comes out of his pocket, and I catch a flash of steel. Then, quickly, he’s forced something into the dog’s mouth. He stands back, and the dog chews for a moment, before opening his jaws once more. Jaws that are now filled with false teeth. Razor-sharp steel ones.
Dagger hunches forward, gnashing them together, and the cub recoils. *Wildness, I want to be brave like a full-grown, but … I have never fought with a creature like this before.*
‘Still want to play?’ asks Littleman, grinning.
Which is when the alarm goes off: a howling siren, followed by the old traffic lights dangling from the walls flashing like crazy. Now it is the white dog’s turn to recoil, withdrawing from the pulsing lights back into the shadows.
The ultrascreen is suddenly full of maps whizzing across and a network of grids that I don’t understand.
Aida steps forward. ‘You see!’ she says triumphantly to Littleman. ‘It’s a Code 8. You said we might get the girl and the Iris back for the right price.’ She jabs her finger at the screen. ‘Now we got our chance.’
We all look at one another, waiting for Littleman to respond.
A sly grin creeps over his face. ‘Indeed you do, my dear.’ He squeezes his horn a couple of times, and says to me, almost apologetically. ‘A Code 8 is my young associate’s somewhat military term for a formula delivery. Of the most substantial nature.’
The thundering trains we passed on the way here. A whole train full of precious formula.
‘Exactly,’ says Aida. ‘You said it yourself, formula is running out. If we took a Code 8, we could ransom it in return for the girl and the Iris …’
The old-young man furrows his brow. ‘But what if you don’t succeed? What if he doesn’t agree?’
Now it’s her turn to laugh at him. ‘You stress too much, old man.’ A slyness creeps into her face. ‘You wanted the Iris, remember? A prize of immense value, you said. A weapon that could destroy Facto once and for all, you said. Wouldn’t we all want that?’
There’s a cheer from the watching kids.
Littleman is backing away, cringing. ‘I know I said that, but when it was easy to get, a matter of just kidnapping a little girl … Now I fear … the price might be too high.’
‘Trust me,’ says Aida. ‘We’ll get you your prize after all. He gonna help us too.’
She points at me.
No way, I’m not robbing a formula train …
But Littleman places his long-nailed hand on her shoulder and gives it a squeeze. ‘Very well,’ he says. ‘Go. And take him. If he really wants his friend back, make him work for it.’ He smiles at me. ‘Everything for the right price, my dear.’
‘No!’ I stand in front of the cub, while Dagger peers at him through my legs, growling.
The old-young man in his sun hat and T-shirt shrugs, turning back to his shack. ‘Fine. Then you will probably never see her again. People who go to the Four Towers tend to … disappear.’
I run after him, pull his shoulder, but he whips round and grabs my wrist in a grip that is super-strong for someone who looks so old.
‘If you want to see your friend again, this is the only way,’ he hisses. ‘Or do you have a better offer?’
I worry whether Littleman having the Iris is any better than Stone – but like she is right by my side I can hear Polly saying, ‘Come on, Kidnapper, there isn’t time for that now!’
Our eyes lock, then Littleman squeezes my wrist hard, before letting my arm fall. He turns around and sounds his horn one last time before disappearing behind the patchwork curtain into his plastic shack.
I crouch down and stroke the wolf-cub’s head. *Listen, you were very worthy of your father just now. Can you be a good full-grown wolf and hold off attacking this dog until we have completed this mission?*
*Speak for yourself, cub, but I may be unable to restrain myself,* pipes up the General, who has somehow made his way into the fur between the cub’s ears.
*I’m serious, General! If what they say is right, this is our best chance of getting Polly back.*
*Hmm. I still have grave misgivings about this operation,* he grumbles.
*If that silent descendant of mine comes near me with his metal teeth, I shall destroy him,* warns the wolf-cub. *I have the sharpest teeth in my pack.*
I don’t reply, but pat the cub on his flank and stand up. Aida is waiting to give me a large empty rucksack. Eric and the others line up behind me to also collect a bag from her, although they are putting things in theirs. A crowbar made from an old car bumper. Binoculars made out of bottle ends and tin cans. An ancient computer held together with string and tape. Things I’m clearly not going to be given.
It reminds me so much of Polly stocking her rucksack at Wind’s Edge before our adventure started, and suddenly I have to turn away from them all, hoping no one can see the brightness in my eyes.
But there is a voice behind my shoulder. Softer than she’s ever spoken to me. ‘Listen,’ says Aida. ‘Just to be clear – I don’t like you. I mean, I really don’t like you. I don’t like your nice house or your stupid scarf. This thing you’ve got going on with animals, it’s weird. And I never met this Polly, but just the idea of her bugs me big-time.’
I turn around to face her. She’s really got the knack of making someone feel better about things. I thought she wanted my help.
Her gaze doesn’t falter for a moment. ‘But I respect you. You came after us. No one ever comes after us. You stood up to me; you even stood up to the boss. So just you remember – I respect you.’
I’ll try to bear it in mind. I try to push past to follow the others down to the bikes, but her gloved hand stops me square in the chest. ‘I ain’t finished yet,’ she says. ‘That doesn’t mean you can get any fancy ideas. You know nothing about me, you understand? You know nothing about where I come from or who I am. So don’t ever pretend that you do.’
Then she turns and I’m hurrying after her back down to the silver bikes, which glow into life, like the fluorescent creatures once found at the bottom of the ocean.
I know what she just said should freak me out. But somehow it’s OK – at least I know where I stand.
No, what freaks me out is what Dagger does just before we prepare to leave. He twists his massive head, his black eyes bulging, metal teeth gleaming, to give me a look.
A look that I have never seen any animal give me.
One I hope I never see again.
The convoy of four bikes slips up the tunnel out of the mountain, through the crowds and rubbish beyond. Glancing back, I see the sofa swing shut behind us. The Waste Mountain looks as massive and closed up as before. There are still rubbish pickers dotted about on its slopes, with helmet lamps, like the twinkling faraway lights of a distant city. Waste Town doesn’t seem to care about the curfew.
As we speed past Clockface snoring fast asleep under his keg of pink, we spray him with dust. Aida leads us out under the white road, Dagger bounding along without even breaking a sweat, the wolf-cub just behind, slowed by his wound.
The night air is thick and dry, burning the back of my throat. Premium spreads out before us, living and glittering. The moon in the sky above is a little less full than it was, but still bathing us in cool blue light as Aida guides us away from the lit main roads, down side streets, shooting across pavements, bumping off kerbs, now through wasteland, then straight down the middle of a dried-up ditch, before heading back on to the road.
Faster and faster we go, trying to outrun the twitching cameras on every corner.
The bikes slow as we reach the edge of the city, the no-man’s-land where I had to leave the stag when we first arrived back here. At a wire fence, Aida dismounts and slides her machine through a cut-out hole. We follow and wheel ours in silence behind her, down a slope of grey chippings and on to a bridge, above the railway line we passed before.
We lean our bikes against the bridge. The rails beneath are silent and lifeless. About half a mile ahead they are swallowed by the open black mouth of a tunnel. We’re much further out along the railway line I passed before.
Far off in the distance, I can hear the steady buzz of a helicopter. I think of Polly, being hustled into one, and where she might be now, whether she’s wondering why I’m taking so long to come and get her.
Aida sees me looking up at the sky, and sneers. ‘That nothing to worry about. Just a Facto patrol, checking the curfew. It miles away, tough man. Now let me check that.’
She grabs my wrist and studies my watch, before leaning over the bridge. She raises the big pair of homemade binoculars from her rucksack, now hanging round her neck, to focus on the tunnel ahead. Dagger is panting at her feet, his short tail wagging as he presses his paws up against the bridge wall, trying to peer over. Wolf-Cub keeps his distance, crouching next to me and giving the dog suspicious glances.
We are just some kids on a bridge overlooking a railway in the middle of the night. That doesn’t stop my chest suddenly feeling tight and my mouth going dry. In the distance there is a very faint rumble. It might just be the wind, but somehow I don’t think so.
None of the others speaks. Eric is hidden by the shadows of the wire fence just above, 123 is at the end of the bridge, sitting low beneath the wall, both keeping lookout, prods at the ready.
Perhaps the General was right. I’m really starting to wonder if this is a good idea. Aida must see the doubt in my face. ‘Hey. The trains are unmanned, controlled by computer from Four Towers. We stop them, no one gets hurt, and we got a big ransom for your friend. There is nothing to worry about.’
But how do you stop a moving train? More to the point, how do four children, a dog and a wolf-cub stop a moving train?
A smile curls up Aida’s face. ‘Of course, when I say we stop it, I mean you. You got the most to get out of this – you take the biggest risk.’
I just stare at her.
‘Come on,’ she says. ‘We don’t have long. We gotta be real quick, you understand, unless you want to join your friend in them towers rather than get her out.’ Aida flicks on a torchlight, making Dagger flinch at the brightness, before shining it down on to the tracks. All I can see are the lines and joins of a railway line, straight and then forking apart, one line leading off into a siding with buffers at the end.
‘Points,’ she explains with a grin. ‘We change the points just before the train arrives and –’ she claps her hands together – ‘it runs into that side track there rather than reaching the city. Which is where you come in.’
‘No,’ I say without even thinking. Wolf-Cub rises to his feet.
But her eyes don’t even flicker. ‘What – you thought I brought you along for decoration?’ Aida lifts the electric prod dangling from her waist and points it in turn at every member of the gang before aiming it head-on at … the wolf-cub. ‘We’ve all done it,’ she says. At her feet, Dagger bares his razor teeth with a growl.
*I am not scared for you, Wildness,* says the wolf-cub. His eyes tell a different story, as he huddles down behind the wall.
The rumbling is growing louder and nearer. It’s definitely not wind.
Aida is prodding me. ‘You need to hurry.’ She aims her torch back at the line, at a rough metal lever sticking up from between the rails. ‘All you do is pull that lever. And then run.’
I look again down at the track. The rumbling is turning into a very definite approaching roar.
‘Go now,’ says Aida. ‘Go!’
I slip-slide down the gravel on the side of the embankment, sending clouds of dust up into the air, until I come tumbling on to the track. I crouch down and touch one of the rails. It’s still warm.
Polly, I say to myself, this had better work. This Iris had better be worth it. And then I think of her sitting on the lab steps, her bruised knees hugged in tight, staring down at the river and worrying about her parents.
I look back to the bridge. Aida is watching me, Dagger next to her, peering over. ‘That’s the manual points override. Just pull it towards you,’ she hisses. ‘Pull it right down, flat to the ground. Then get back here.’
I stand frozen for a moment, almost unable to believe I’m actually about to do this. Then I grab the heavy iron switch lever in both hands and try to pull it towards me.
It’s either broken or rusted up, but it won’t move.
I try again, pulling as hard as I can.
Nothing.
Bracing my trainers against the tracks, I bend right over the lever, trying to force it down with my bodyweight.
It moves a tiny bit – then stops.
I look up at the bridge, but Aida just waves at me. ‘What you waiting for? Pull it all the way down! Hurry.’
The rails my feet are resting on begin to vibrate and hum with noise. Sweat running down my sides, I try one more time. I push and pull that lever until the skin on my hands starts to come away.
Looking up, to wipe my forehead with my sleeve, I notice two lights I hadn’t seen before. They are far off in the black tunnel ahead, but heading towards me, like twin suns.
I try pushing the lever back to the starting position, to see if I can maybe loosen it that way, but now it won’t move in either direction at all. It’s jammed.