Outpost

by Adam Baker

  'Feel that?' said Ghost. 'We're actually moving.'

  Ghost headed for the canteen. Weeks ago, he rescued a bottle of champagne from Hyperion and set it to chill in a refrigerator hidden behind big blocks of cheese.

  'I know Sian is hurting. But I want to celebrate. Maybe that's selfish. Plenty of people have died. But we made it. We're going to live.'

  Jane searched for Sian.

  Sian wasn't in her cabin.

  Jane checked the observation bubble. No one around. She stood at the window and watched the burned-out wreck of Hyperion slowly recede. The current was carrying the refinery south at a brisk walking pace. It was gouging through the ice at six or seven kilometres an hour.

  Jane switched on the short-wave radio and turned up the volume. Hiss of static. She sat back and put her feet on the mixing desk.

  The rig was moving south. They would pass through shipping lanes and European territorial waters. Maybe she should resume broadcasting a mayday message. Or maybe she should just monitor the airwaves. They had no idea what kind of world they would find when they reached home.

  Jane became aware of a faint voice from a console speaker.

  'Rampart, do you copy, over?'

  She sat forward.

  'Kasker Rampart, do you copy, over?'

  She grasped the mike. 'Nikki? Nikki, is that you?'

  'Hello, Jane. How have you been?'

  Jane ran down the stairs two steps at a time. She sprinted down corridors.

  She kicked open the kitchen door. She vaulted a counter, scattering pots and mixing pans. She skidded to a halt. She fumbled for keys and unlocked a freezer.

  They had been using the freezer as a gun safe.

  She checked the breech of the remaining shotgun.

  Empty.

  She checked ammunition boxes.

  Empty.

  'Fuck.'

  She threw the empty boxes across the room.

  She took out her radio.

  'Ghost? Ghost, do you copy?'

  No reply.

  'What's going on?' asked Sian. She sat on a counter in the corner of the kitchen, swinging her legs and eating yogurt.

  'I need Ghost. Where is he?'

  'No idea.'

  Jane slapped the yogurt from her hand and pulled her upright.

  'Come with me. Right now.'

  They ran down a corridor.

  'Let me ask you something,' said Jane. 'I need you to think hard. Punch liked comic books, right? Graphic novels. Did he ever mention his favourite character?'

  'No. Not that I remember.'

  'Constantine? Did he ever mention John Constantine?'

  'Actually, yeah. Some sort of gumshoe tough-guy. He battled demons. There's a poster in his room. Punch bought a trench- coat so he could dress like him. Why do you ask?'

  They reached an airlock. Jane grabbed clothing from a rack. Heavy over-trousers. She buckled crampons to the soles of her boots. She zipped an Arctic parka.

  'Punch is alive,' said Jane. 'Nikki and Nail have him hostage on the island.'

  'Nikki?'

  'She's back. Don't ask me how.'

  Jane found a toolbox. She slipped a big claw hammer into her coat pocket. She buttoned a diver's knife into the utility pocket of her trousers.

  Sian helped Jane shoulder the flamethrower and buckle it to her back.

  'He's alive?' asked Sian. 'You're sure?'

  'He's out there, and I'm going to bring him back.'

  'My God.'

  Jane buckled gauntlets.

  'We should search for Ghost,' said Sian.

  'No time.'

  'What does Nikki want?'

  'She wants to swap him for food.'

  'Give it to her.'

  'We don't have time to play games. She's a nut. Unbalanced. She has some kind of sick agenda I bet even she doesn't fully understand. I'm going to find her and I'm going to kill her.'

  Jane opened a locker full of fire-fighting equipment and took an axe.

  'I'm coming with you,' said Sian.

  'No. I need you to lower me on to the ice.'

  They heaved open the outer door of the airlock.

  They ran across the deck.

  'You can operate the freight crane, right?' asked Jane.

  'Ivan showed me the controls during the fire.'

  'You can raise and lower the hook, right? That's all I need.'

  'Yeah. I think so.'

  'The refinery is ripping a channel south. There is nothing beneath us but seawater and broken ice. The platform lift is no good. It'll drop me in the ocean. If you lower me in front of the rig I'll have eight or nine seconds to get clear before it runs me down.'

  'How will you get back on board?'

  'Catch up with the rig. Stand in front of it. You can lift me off the ice with the crane hook before I get squashed like a bug.'

  'Bloody risky. It would be a split-second thing.'

  They climbed a ladder to the crane platform. The cab hung over the edge of the refinery. There was a window in the floor. They could see the ice two hundred metres below. Sian swivelled the jib with a joystick. The half-tonne hook swung like a pendulum.

  'Like I said. Up and down. That's all I need. Just raise and lower the hook.'

  'See that?' Sian pointed south. Waves in the far distance. 'Open sea. We lost the zodiac when Hyperion caught fire. Once we pass out of the ice-field you won't be able to get back on board. You'll be marooned.'

  'Yeah.'

  Sian unbuckled her Casio watch and strapped it round the wrist of Jane's gauntlet.

  'Find him, all right? Find him and bring him back.' She set the stopwatch. 'Sixty minutes. That's your turn-around time. Sixty minutes from now you head back to the refinery no matter what, okay?'

  She pressed Start.

  59:59

  The seconds ticked down.

  Part Four

  Endgame

  The Final Hour

  Jane jogged across the ice towards the island. She clumped in heavy boots. Crampon teeth bit into ice. Diesel sloshed in the SCUBA tanks strapped to her back.

  She climbed the rocky shoreline. Gauntlet hands searched out niches and outcrops. She scrambled over the jumble of basalt boulders and hauled herself up on to the snow plateau of the island plain.

  She headed for the burned-out hulk of the ship.

  The blackened hull of the superliner was split in two. The interior of the ship was exposed like a picture book cut-away diagram. Bilge and plant equipment near the keel, then ascending layers of opulence. A dance floor, glitter ball swinging in the breeze. Padded treatment recliners hanging over a steel precipice. Charred staterooms.

  The multiple blasts that ripped the ship apart had ejected debris across the snow. Twisted hull plates like jagged petals. Giant worm-lengths of air-con ducts.

  Jane walked among cabin refuse. Cupboards, chairs and lamps. It was like someone set up home on the ice.

  Jane stood in the shadow of the ship and looked up at the exposed rooms and stairways. Ragged bed sheets wafted in the breeze. Flakes of ash drifted from the wreck like black snow.

  Quick inspection of the broken hulk. Nikki might anticipate a raiding party might come calling. She might vacate the bunker. Hide herself aboard Hyperion.

  A hand gripped Jane's ankle. She looked down. An infected passenger half buried in snow. Jane pulled herself free. The frozen figure tried to stand. Legs missing from below the knee. She stamped on his head with a crampon boot. Skull-burst. Snow stained red.

  The snow beside her bulged and split, and a second frosted figure struggled to its feet. The creature stumbled like a drunk. Jane kicked him over. He lay on his back, still struggling to walk like a toppled automaton.

  Snow cracked and crumbled. A dozen passengers sitting up, struggling from the ice. Jane triggered the flamethrower. Slow pass, back and forth. Burning figures thrashed in the snow.

  One last glance at Hyperion. The ship was too trashed, too burned-out to provide refuge. Nikki must still
be in the bunker.

  Jane jogged away from the ship, skirting spastic, flailing bodies. She swerved beds, wardrobes and chairs.

  Sian climbed down from the crane and ran to the deck railing. Binoculars. She followed a thin, hairline track across the ice. A channel dug by Jane's crampons as she headed back to the island.

  She took out her radio.

  'Ghost? Ghost, do you copy? Come on, Gee. Where are you?'

  She searched the rig. She ran room to room. She found Ghost in the canteen cold store. He had uncorked a bottle. He poured frothing champagne into a paper cup. She stood panting in the doorway.

  'Well. On our way home,' he said. He held out a cup. 'You're probably not in a mood to celebrate. It's good champagne, though.'

  'Where's your radio?'

  'Why would I need to carry it? We're out of here.'

  'Jane is heading back to the island. She's gone to find Punch.'

  Sian and Ghost ran down the corridor. Ghost struggled to zip his coat.

  'Why the fuck didn't you come and get me?'

  'We couldn't find you. There wasn't time to wait.'

  'How long has she been gone?'

  'About ten minutes. She made it to the island. I lost sight of her once she reached the coast.'

  'I'm going after her.'

  'She said no. She said you would want to follow her, and she said no. She reckoned it would be easier on her own.'

  'Fuck it. I'm going anyway.'

  They ran across the deck. Ghost pulled on gauntlets. Sian handed him an axe.

  'I'm not staying here alone.'

  'We need someone to stay behind and operate the crane. You want to help? You want to be crucial? Stay in that cab. Watch for our flare, and be ready to lift us off the ice.'

  Sian rotated the crane jib towards a gantry. Ghost stood on the walkway. He embraced the half-tonne hook as it swung towards him. He stepped on to the hook and wrapped an arm around the chain. He gave a thumbs up. Sian swung him over the railing. He looked down. Two-hundred-metre drop on to the ice. He gripped the chain hard.

  Sian lowered the hook.

  Rampart was ripping a gouge in the polar crust half a kilometre wide. The pristine snow field already scarred by a long wake of bubbling seawater and bobbing ice plates. The forward legs of the rig shunted a continual avalanche of ice-rubble ahead of them. Ghost would be lowered in front of churning snow and ice-boulders. He estimated he would have less than ten seconds to run clear or be pulverised and submerged.

  The moment the hook touched down and dragged on the ice Ghost stepped clear and started to run. He fell. He had forgotten to buckle crampon teeth to his boots. He slipped and skidded as he tried to run clear of the advancing refinery. It was a waking nightmare. Trying to sprint, trying to cover ground, sliding on glass. He was eclipsed by shadow as the rig bore down on him. The roar of shattering ice was deafening. You've made a simple, stupid mistake, he thought, and it's going to kill you.

  Moment of decision. Should he turn back and try to reach the hook? Or keep running and try to reach Jane?

  He ran towards the island.

  The ice beneath him began to crack and buckle. He hopscotched across tilting, bobbing plates. He threw himself clear of the approaching avalanche. He rolled and watched the massive gantries and girders of the refinery pass by high above him. A dream image. Towers and crenellations. A floating sky city.

  He got to his feet and faced the island. He picked up his axe. He took two paces then the ice beneath him cracked and broke. He slid waist-deep into Arctic water. Sudden, heart-stopping cold. He scrabbled at the snow. Gauntiets grasped and raked, clawed for some kind of purchase.

  Instinct saved him. The axe lay beside him. He reached, stretched until his fingertips snagged the shaft. He slammed the axe into the ice and hauled himself out of the sea. He lay shivering like an epileptic seizure.

  He got to his feet. He still faced a choice. He could run to the island and try to help Jane. Hope vigorous movement would warm him up. Or he could radio Sian and get her to haul him back to the warmth and safety of Rampart.

  'Get the job done,' he murmured.

  He decided to head for the island. He couldn't pull the axe free so he left it behind.

  Despite his predicament, despite his viciously tight bonds, Punch fell asleep. One moment he was leaning with his back to the cell wall, trying to stay awake, stay alert. Next moment he was sunk in dark dreams in which he screamed and squirmed as he was slowly crushed by strange machines.

  He was jolted awake. Footsteps. Key turn. Nikki opened the door, grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him into the corridor. She hauled him down a tiled passageway.

  Green walls. Flickering strip-lights.

  'What the fuck are you doing?'

  No reply. She didn't even look him in the eye.

  The passage met a wide, ribbed tunnel, big enough for a subway train.

  She tied him to a wall girder. She left a lamp burning on the tunnel floor. She left.

  A man lay tied to the opposite wall of the tunnel. He was dressed in polar survival gear and bound hand and foot. Nail. Bruised face. Split lip. His right sleeve was ripped and bloody. White nylon stuffing spilled from the quilted fabric. A wound caused, Punch guessed, when he and Nail fought for possession of a shotgun.

  Nail was lashed to the girder by rope tied round his chest. Punch couldn't tell if he was dead or alive.

  Punch looked around. Raw rock buttressed by girders. At a guess, some kind of excavation tunnel. The bunker was half- built. Plenty of wide access passageways throughout the complex to get mine machinery below ground.

  'Hey. Hey, Nail.'

  No reply.

  Punch squinted into darkness. Something round in the shadows, like a giant cannonball. An open hatch. The capsule. Soviet space debris. Fell to earth miles away. How did it get here? Did Hyperion passengers retrieve the object? Drag it across the ice? Could the mindless mutants be guided and controlled?

  He whistled.

  'Hey. Nail.'

  Nothing.

  Why leave them by the capsule? Did Nikki expect something to crawl out and feed? Ghost said he tossed a thermite grenade into the capsule interior. Nothing could have survived.

  'Hey,' shouted Punch. 'Nail. Nail, you fuck.'

  Nail slowly looked up. Exhausted, frightened eyes.

  'What's going on?' asked Punch. 'What does she want?'

  Nail looked him over, but didn't reply. His hands were bound in front of him, rather than behind his back.

  He spat a fifty kopeck coin into his palm and started to sharpen it against the tunnel floor. There was a deep scratch in the concrete. He had been sharpening the coin for a while. Maybe he hid it in his mouth each time Nikki passed by.

  'So what's the deal?' asked Punch. 'Is she going to eat us or what?'

  Nail didn't reply. He continued to sharpen the coin.

  'Guess it didn't work out. You and her.'

  Nail tested the edge of the sharpened coin. He put the coin between his teeth and tried to tear open his wrist, quickly drew his arm back and forth across the crude blade.

  'Dude, what the fuck are you doing?' demanded Punch.

  Nail drew blood but couldn't reach an artery. Either the coin was too blunt or he didn't have the courage to kill himself. He let the coin drop to the ground. He leaned his forehead against the wall and sobbed.

  'Talk to me,' said Punch. 'Say something, you dumb fuck. What the hell is going on? Has she got us lined up for dinner? Is that it?'

  'Worse. Way worse.'

  'Like what? What's on her mind?'

  'I knew she was nuts. Talking to herself. But I had no idea. She's pure darkness. She's sicker, way sicker than those infected fucks. She's a black hole. Total anti-matter.'

  'Is she infected? Does she have this disease?'

  'No.'

  'But they are here, aren't they?'

  'She's got an army out there in the tunnels. I've heard them. I've seen them.' 'Get your shit together,
Nail. How sharp is that coin? Can it cut rope?'

  'No.'

  'Throw it over here. I want to try, anyway.'

  Nail threw the coin. It chimed and skittered across the tunnel floor. Punch hooked the coin with his boot and kicked it towards his hands. He fumbled with his fingers. He tried to saw the rope binding his wrists. Nail watched.

  'So what's your name?' asked Punch. 'Your real name? It's not Nail. I know that much.'

  'What does it matter?'

  'I'm curious.'

  'Dave. My name is David.'

  'Why change it?'

  'You never wanted to reboot your life? Start again from scratch?'

  'Every hour of every day. Changing my name wouldn't help, though. So who was the real Nail Harper? What happened to him?'

  'I honestly don't think that's any of your business.'

  'What kind of army are we talking about? What's out there?'

  'Passengers and crew from Hyperion. They follow Nikki. I don't know why.'

  'What does she want from me? What is her plan?'

  'You're bait. She wants to lure your friends from Rampart. Jane will come running to your rescue. Ghost will come too. Sian will tag along.'

  'But what does Nikki want? Where is all this leading?'

  'She wants to keep you all here. She says this is our new home.'

  Punch sawed at the rope.

  'You know what?' he said. 'Everyone gets tested. You never see it coming. But sooner or later the moment arrives and you have to account for yourself. Snivel like a bitch if you like, but I'm getting out of here.'

  Ghost reached the island shore. Boulders and scree. He climbed fast as he could, trying to generate metabolic heat. He was slowly succumbing to hypothermia. Creeping numbness. Limbs weak and starting to stiffen.

  He reached the bunker.

  'Jane?' he called into the dark tunnel entrance. 'Jane, it's me.'

  He took a flashlight from his pocket. Water behind the lens. Useless. He threw it aside.

  The campfire was cold and dead. He piled more wood and slopped petrol from a jerry can. His hands shook. He poured too much gasoline. He struck a match anyway, and shielded his face from the flame-ball. Fire scorched the tunnel roof.