“You can count on me, sir.”
“Good man.” He saluted me. “Okay, Soldier. Do your duty.”
The Gator-Raptors moved at a run. They’d seen their prey. Those animals wanted to gorge on human flesh.
Behind us, the mass of people in the tunnel didn’t seem to be shifting at all. Part of me wanted to scream at them in frustration: Get moving! Hurry! We can’t hold these things back for long!
Of course I couldn’t shout those words. If the girls rushed pell-mell through the workings of that big engine, they’d wind up being smashed to pieces by that high-speed confabulation of moving parts.
The first blue-skinned lizard roared as it darted forward. Mott jabbed the point of the lance into its glittery eye. A burst of liquid nitrogen turned it from silver to black. The creature used the claws on a foreleg to rip out its own dead eye. It writhed in agony as it did so; screaming roars smashed against our ears. The other creatures eagerly clambered over their dying pack member to reach us.
I drove the lance against the throat of the creature. The tip didn’t penetrate. Even so, I fired a short blast. When the ultracold jet hit the monster’s skin the thermal shock made it convulse so fiercely that its head slapped against the tunnel’s ceiling before it crashed back to the floor. These things were tough. The injured animal didn’t even pause. Once again it lunged forward.
Mott jabbed the lance into a hole in the side of its ugly head. The entrance to the ear, I guessed. A sneeze of nitrogen froze its brain. Its eyes turned dull. A second later it lay twitching on the floor, the tail whipping in death spasms.
“Fall back,” he shouted.
We steadily moved backwards along the tunnel. By now, thank God, it had started to empty. The girls were filing out through the machine.
Mott and I fought a carefully measured retreat. Every so often, we counterattacked, driving the Gator-Raptors back. I found that even a short squirt in the eye blinded the creature. Once they were blinded in one eye they seemed to have difficulty with depth perception. When they pounced at us they were too far away to make the lunge effective. Sometimes a creature that was blinded in one eye would attack its own shadow on the tunnel wall. Their eyesight was screwed.
“I’m out of juice,” Mott called.
“It’s okay, I can hold them. You follow the rest.”
“Thank you, Soldier.” He slapped me on the back. “You’re the one with the memory, so remember this: You’re a warrior now. Wear that uniform with pride.”
Mott followed the last girl out. There were six Gator-Raptors that were still unhurt. They pressed home their attack with refreshed savagery. Those monsters were determined to make a meal out of at least one of us. In this case: me.
I stabbed the lance into the mouth of the one at the front, thumbed the trigger, and…
Ffftt…
The last of the gas gave out. The final pop of liquid nitro froze its tongue. It went from a pale pink color to black in three seconds flat. When the lizard snapped its jaws the frozen Popsicle of a tongue broke off at the root.
That mutilation didn’t worry it much. The predator leapt at me.
The attack was prompted by an agony-driven rage rather than the calculating strategy of a hunter. Its teeth missed ripping off my face. Even so, the weight of its body knocked me back along the tunnel. The lance skittered away.
The other five animals roared with anticipation. Fresh meat was coming their way.
Hurting, dazed by the blow, panting, I scrambled away as fast I could.
Seconds later, I climbed through the machine. The interior was a mass of flickering lights, spinning shadows—whirrs and sighs. The moving parts were a blur. Turbines hummed as they revolved faster than the eye could see. Air blasted my face from the violent gyrations.
I caught sight of Mott’s boots as he crawled through the hatch onto the Factory Floor. Behind me came the skitter of claws on the iron surfaces. Those things were hell-bent on catching me.
Before I even reached the hatchway Mott and Athena had leant in, grabbed a wrist each, then hauled me out. Mott kicked the steel hatch shut. That done, he slammed the bolt across.
Not a second too late. The head of a Gator-Raptor slammed into the hatch at the other side.
The relief at escaping those vicious predators lasted no more than a second. A howitzer shell exploded against a machine just fifty paces away. The fiercely cold gas turned water moisture in the air into hail. White particles cascaded down on us. The noise was something else, too. Shells wailed overhead. Rounds from Nitro Muskets shrieked. Huge metallic thuds echoed through the building as shells struck solid objects.
Mott shouted, “Anybody seen any Flukes?”
“Not yet,” replied Athena.
“Okay, follow me. Keep your heads down. Look out for Flukes.” As he moved, he called out to Grunt, “You’re the only one with a lance. We’re all depending on you, Soldier.”
Grunt nodded. He waved everyone forward as he took up position as rear guard.
There we were. In the surreal domain of the Factory Floor. Trees grew out of solid concrete. Some machines were covered in viper ivy. Nevertheless, the engines still worked tirelessly. I saw the glitter of moving rods, spinning wheels, and the abrupt up-down motion of pistons.
As I hurried along the aisle in the direction of Bastion, I glanced back at the hulk of a contraption I’d just emerged from. What I saw next indicated that those from-hell Gator-Raptors must have tried to find another exit.
The fatal problem for them is that they strayed into the path of the high-speed turbo fans. Sprays of blood exploded through vents. Droplets of crimson resembled the spray from an aerosol on a mammoth scale. Atomized clouds of blood coiled in the vortex of air. A red fog formed around the machine.
I should have been looking the way I was running. Not at lizards being pulverized in the heart of the metal monster.
Because the first sign of imminent death was the yell: “Flukes!”
* * *
—
White columns of vapor appeared. They rotated—slow-motion dreams of a whirlwind. Or so it seemed to me at that moment. Veins of red fire ran through those white phantoms. The first girls they touched flickered out of existence. Their screams still lingered, though. As if projected from another realm…from another reality. Ghost screams from beyond the here and now.
The survivors ran as Mott pointed the way toward Bastion. The bunkers could be clearly seen now. The main part of the fort rose like a gray cliff. On top of the huge block-like structure were the dome shapes of the cupolas. Artillery muzzles pointed this way. Blasts of white from the muzzles told us that shells were being fired. A whoosh, a bang!
The shells burst a hundred paces behind us, discharging liquid nitrogen.
The gunners were aiming at the Flukes. In all fairness to the combatants in Bastion, they wouldn’t even notice us out here in the deep canyons of the Factory Floor.
There were few choices now. We could either run toward Bastion. Or we could run in some other direction. What we couldn’t do was fight the Flukes bare-handed. Only Grunt had a lance now. He hurtled along the aisle to tackle the Flukes that had claimed the lives of a dozen girls.
However, Flukes poured from all directions. Grunt couldn’t be everywhere at once. Even though he tried with all his heart to do exactly that. He blasted the Flukes that were nearest, turning them into a powdery white residue on the floor. Then he dashed to the front of this group from what Mott had called the Girl Farm.
If you didn’t steel your mind against the Flukes, you felt their influence. More than once I found myself wanting to just stand and gaze at those lazily rotating pillars of mist. The moment you did so, a sense of well-being floated through your body. You found yourself relaxing. Becoming drowsy. They messed with your mind, turning you
into an easy victim. The moment you fell under their spell you were marked for death.
I realized that Mott had helped prepare me when he exposed me to the rogue Fluke that had approached the bunker. He knew that initial exposure would harden my mind to the evil, psychological influence of the Fluke.
Some of the girls hadn’t experienced such close proximity to the Flukes. They didn’t understand what it would feel like to have their emotions and thoughts anesthetized by those damn fog monsters.
As soon as we saw a girl’s eyes become all sleepy we roughly shook that individual by the arm and shouted: “Wake up!” “Move!” “Snap out of it!” “Run!”
Mott and Athena urged everyone forward. The girls charged like warriors. They had no weapons, and yet they still ran bravely. Something near as damn-it to a battle cry erupted from their mouths. This race for the protection of Bastion might be their last few moments of life. They were determined to cross the Factory Floor in a glorious blaze of courage. Battlefield poets have described soldiers who displayed such bravery and determination as “having a shining about them.”
They moved forward. And they did shine with an inner glory. To this day, I remember their shining faces. Eyes flashed with strength. No longer were they scared. They were alive with energy.
And they wanted so much to live.
Grunt led the way. He deployed the lance with such speed and precision. His skill was astonishing. Time and again he blasted every single one of those misty totems that tried to attack from the front. A jet of gas from the lance: The Fluke would dissolve into ice dust. The threads of flame inside their vaporous bodies instantly died.
Now we were two hundred yards from the huge metal doors of Bastion. They were sealed shut for the duration of the attack. I could only hope that those manning the bunkers would see us and call for the doors to be opened to allow us inside where we’d be safe. Then would they open the doors if they knew that there were still Flukes out here? What would happen if the enemy penetrated Bastion? Would that be the end of the Bastion Boys?
Then: tragedy.
Grunt’s supply of gas was gone. He unscrewed the spent cylinder and tossed it aside, then he plucked another cylinder from the backpack. Quickly, he tried to insert the replacement canister of liquid gas.
I caught up with him.
“The thread’s broken on the screw connector,” he shouted. “It won’t go on.”
“Let me have a go.”
“No way, Soldier, this is my weapon. I’m responsible.”
People started to shout. Three Flukes eerily glided toward us along the aisle that led to Bastion’s entrance.
Grunt snarled. He hurled the lance aside.
Turning to me, he said in a surprisingly calm voice, “When I’ve dealt with these get everyone to the gates.”
“You can’t kill them!” I shouted. “You’re unarmed.”
“Credit me with some initiative.”
He pulled a knife from a sheath at his waist. Carefully, he gripped the canister in one hand. With the other hand he pressed the blade’s point against the brass plunger that formed part of the gas valve.
“Grunt. Don’t try to…”
The way his eyes fixed on mine, they were asking me quite calmly not to beg him to abandon the attack he was planning.
I nodded. “Good luck, Soldier.”
Grunt nodded back. A second later he raced toward the three Flukes that blocked the way to safety. He didn’t hesitate. Throwing himself at the one in the middle, he jammed the knife-blade’s tip into the plunger. The stabbing action released gas from the valve in a single explosive discharge. The intense cold froze Grunt’s body. One second later the expanding cloud of freezing gas hit the Flukes, destroying them instantly.
When Grunt hit the floor he broke into a thousand frozen shards.
“He’s cleared the way.” I stood there—frozen by emotion not the intense cold that had killed Grunt. “He’s cleared the way.” I couldn’t run anymore. That’s the moment the shock hit me.
Not just the shock of witnessing Grunt sacrifice himself—his death gave us the chance to live. What stopped me dead was emotional overload. I remembered the way I’d blundered into the bunker just a few days ago. My sudden arrival at Bastion had disoriented me. I recalled the blast of freezing gas hitting my face. I had found a fortress occupied by soldiers aged eleven through to sixteen. There were no adults. Bastion Boys governed themselves. I remembered Casie Fitton being carried into the room. He’d been stung by the Bog Hornet. Sometime in the night he’d vanished. Nobody remembered he’d even existed. Even when they did remember him, after my persistent jabbing, they only vaguely recalled there was a boy called Casie Fitton.
All those memories, coated in searing emotion, flooded my head.
This world of the Bastion Boys and the Farm Girls made me angry. I wanted to yell. I would have loved to punch my fists into the face of whoever had plunged these young people into a living hell. Most were children. They should be protected. Not exposed to danger, terror, and death.
I erupted into a howling rage: “It’s not fair! This shouldn’t be happening to you! We’ve got to start fighting the real enemy. Not these scraps of fog. The real enemy are the people who dumped you here!”
Mott ran with the others in the direction of Bastion. As he passed by, he grabbed hold of me. “We’re going home, Soldier!”
“No!”
“You’ll die if you stay out here.”
“Maybe that’s the better option. Because someone’s stolen our lives—don’t you understand? We’ve been turned into slaves. We’re following someone’s fucking crazy plan! Where children work the fields. And over there in Bastion kids are left to figure out how to run an underground fortress. We deserve to live as free human beings!”
I yelled this as he dragged me along. He paused long enough to shout, “I believe you, Soldier. I believe everything you said. But we’ve got to get outta this battlefield!”
The guns fell silent as we approached the gates. At last, those twin slabs of metal slowly began to swing open. ‘
“We’re home!” Mott yelled.
“No, we’re not home yet.” My thoughts became sharp again. I’d begun to plan what I’d do next. It was time for the real show to start.
* * *
—
“Twenty-eight years ago!” Mott returned to the revelation he’d heard in the tunnel. “Athena, I’m sixteen. And you told me that we were friends twenty-eight years ago.”
“You’ve still a lot to learn,” she said as they followed me up the steps into the artillery cupola. “Someone made sure we stayed frozen as children. They decided we were easier to manipulate if we were just kids.”
I shouted back over my shoulder, “Or that we’d be more likely to survive. You know, a bunch of Peter Pans? Always with a youthful outlook, always bouncing back from tragedy.”
“And in some cases,” Athena added shrewdly, “always forgetting.”
I entered the curving structure that housed one of the big guns. I called to the chief artilleryman, “Hey, do these guns shoot anything else but frozen gas?”
“Sure,” answered the thirteen-year-old. “There’s a stock of high explosive rounds. We never use those. They’d smash the machines on the Factory Floor.”
“Order those shells up here.”
The kid blinked in astonishment. “We can’t—they’d cause too much damage.”
“Do as he says,” Mott told him. “We want high explosive ammo ready for firing—now.”
The two boys exchanged worried glances. Orders were orders, though. So they headed for a dial set into the wall. This resembled a clock-face that possessed only one hand. The hand pointed at the words NITRO—FIFTY POUND SHOT. On the circumference of the disk were references to other t
ypes of ammunition that the big gun fired: SMOKE—FIFTY POUND SHOT. INCENDIARY—FIFTY POUND SHOT. One of the boys tried to turn the iron hand to point at the ammo described as HIGH EXPLOSIVE—EIGHTY POUND SHOT. The iron pointer didn’t budge.
“It’s rusted solid,” he said. “We’ve never had to change the setting.”
I crossed the cupola to the dial. “Try again. I’ll help.”
We gripped the iron hand and attempted pushing it upward: to what would be the twelve mark if it were a genuine clock.
“It’s not moving,” panted the boy.
“Push harder.” I thought about the children being used as slaves and boy soldiers. My rage came back. Rage is Power.
I shoved as hard as I humanly could.
The hand made a grating sound. Suddenly, it rotated. When it reached the upright position, pointing at HIGH EXPLOSIVE—EIGHTY POUND SHOT, the kid pulled a lever beside the clock. A series of bells rang.
“How’re you doing, Soldier?” Mott asked.
The boy replied, “High-explosive shells being delivered now, sir.”
He spoke the truth. Within moments, the reload mechanism received its first shell. This killer device took the form of a three-foot-long cylinder, pointed at one end. This was old stock. The brass casing was covered with a dull green corrosion.
“Load up,” Mott told him. “Prepare to fire.”
“But, sir—”
“Fire when ordered, Gunner Graham.”
“Sir. High explosive will smash the machines.”
“You will obey orders, Gunner Graham.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Load her up.”
The gunnery boys heaved the weighty shell into the breach of the howitzer. Its glittering chrome barrel pointed out across the Factory Floor.
One of the boys asked, “Sir? What’s the target?”
Mott turned to me. “John. You best take over from here.”
I glanced around the cupola. The gunnery boys waited for my orders. I also noticed the expression of hope in the faces of Mott and Athena. They trusted me. And they believed I knew the answer to get them home.
Volume Ten Page 9