Fallout

by Chris Morphew

  I froze. Luke was gone.

  I jumped at the sound of a door opening, and he emerged from one of the side rooms.

  ‘It’s empty,’ he said in a hollow voice.

  He’d gone straight to the External Communications room. I went over to join him. The whole place had been gutted. Nothing left but a little hole in the wall with a cable hanging out where the computer used to be hooked up.

  I guessed the Co-operative had moved the equipment somewhere else after we discovered it the first time. That or they were just past needing it. If all went to plan, by this time tomorrow there’d be no-one left to answer the phone.

  ‘Reeve’s right,’ I said, turning away. ‘If help’s coming, it’s already on its way. Come on, let’s – hey. That’s new.’

  A monitor had been mounted to the wall across from us, back over near the entrance to the lift. The monitor showed two digital clocks counting down in unison:

  Final Lockdown Procedures

  00:00:06:24

  Tabitha Release

  00:18:06:24

  ‘Final lockdown procedures?’ said Luke. ‘What’s more locked down than a concentration camp?’

  But it was the second countdown that had my attention. ‘Eighteen hours,’ I murmured. We’d been doing that countdown in our heads for months now, but there was something about seeing it up there on the screen in stark white numbers that made it seem so much more imminent.

  This was all really happening.

  ‘Five o’clock tomorrow afternoon,’ said Luke. ‘A hundred days after Mum and I landed.’

  ‘Better get to work, then,’ I said, tearing my eyes away, annoyed at being so easily distracted. ‘I’m gonna check some of these rooms we didn’t get to last time.’

  Luke nodded and sat down at the nearest computer.

  I moved to the next door over: Research Centre.

  More lights clunked on as I went into a short corridor that had three gleaming silver doors spaced out along the opposite wall. Alongside each door was a bank of monitors, all switched off. The whole setup made me feel vaguely uneasy. Get a grip, I told myself, pushing the first door open. It’s probably just –

  I recoiled, almost falling over.

  It was Dr Galton’s testing room. The one from the DVD Bill had slipped us, way back in the beginning. The place where those two unsuspecting construction workers (and who knew how many others) had spent their last terrified moments before Tabitha tore them apart.

  I forced myself to stay long enough to check the other two rooms – exact copies of the first – then backed out of the corridor and slammed the door, skin crawling like I’d been infected with something.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Luke, glancing up.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, cold shivers shooting up my spine. ‘Find anything?’

  He sighed, typing something else into the computer. ‘Not yet.’

  I kept going, shaking off the rush of nerves. This was no time for a breakdown.

  In the corner of the room was a door marked Roof Access. I tried the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. Funny that that was the one they bothered locking.

  Not like they’ll be keeping Tobias up on the roof, anyway.

  But how did I know? What was I expecting? A shiny little box with Tobias stamped on the front?

  You’ll know it when you see it, I thought, pushing on. You didn’t come all this way just to end the night empty-handed.

  The next door was the conference room Shackleton and Calvin had dragged us into when they caught us up here last time. Nothing useful.

  I pulled the door closed again. Luke had given up on the computer and was flipping through a filing cabinet next to one of the desks.

  His head jerked up as a burst of gunfire rang out from somewhere downstairs. It sounded like things weren’t going to plan for Reeve and the others either.

  Luke slammed the filing cabinet shut. He started circling the desks, more and more frantic, not even looking properly, just scattering stuff across the floor.

  ‘Luke,’ I said, ‘slow down. You’re going to –’

  ‘What if it’s not even up here?’ he snapped. ‘I mean, what are we basing this on anyway? Rumours from security. How do we even know they’re –?’

  ‘Stop. It’s here, okay? It’s got to be. Just keep looking.’

  Luke grabbed the back of a chair, fighting to calm himself. ‘Yeah. Sorry.’

  But where was it? As much as I didn’t want to admit it, we were running out of places and time to look.

  I left Luke rattling through a row of cupboards and went into the last unexplored side room. Medical Analysis.

  More sensor lights flashed on, but not just from the ceiling this time. The walls flickered to life as well, revealing a sprawling grid of grey and white transparencies.

  X-rays.

  My feet echoed on the tiled floor as I took in the glowing images of arms and legs and heads, all labelled and grouped together by name.

  Watson, Thomas, Reeve, Park, Lewis, Kennedy, Burke, Burke, Anderson, and a set labelled Unidentified, which I assumed belonged to Bill. Everyone who’d been dragged down under the medical centre by the Co-operative.

  Mum and Amy had told us as much as they could about their time down there, but the reality was that they’d spent most of it locked up in their communal sleeping area or knocked out in the labs. Who knew what Montag and Galton were doing with them while they were unconscious?

  After all the X-rays came some brain scans. There were only two sets, and my breath caught in my throat when I read the names.

  Georgia Burke and Bruce Calvin. Side by side, like they’d been trying to compare their brains.

  I turned away, revolted, and a monitor in the centre of the room caught my eye. It seemed to be running some kind of scan.

  J_Thomas_Tissue_Modification_Treatment_4-3-1 Analysis: 51% Complete

  ‘J. Thomas’ was Jeremy, a Year 7 kid from school. Out of all the weird abilities that had resulted from the fallout, Jeremy’s habit of imprinting his skin tone onto anyone he touched was probably the most useless. But it was enough to have him hauled off to the medical centre along with all the others. As far as we knew, he was still down there.

  I stared at my right hand, at the place where he’d marked me with his fingertips back at school. The discolouration had faded by now, but –

  Enough, I ordered myself, starting back towards the door. This isn’t what you’re here for. The best thing I could do for Jeremy and the others now was to hurry up and find –

  I stopped moving, taking in a set of pictures across the room that I hadn’t noticed before.

  Ultrasound images. Pictures of Mum’s baby lined up in neat rows, dated from the time Dr Montag first discovered the pregnancy right up until the day before we’d freed Mum.

  I stepped closer to the wall, tracing a hand over the timeline of this tiny life. ‘We’re going to get you out,’ I whispered, tears stinging my eyes. ‘You are not getting dragged into this –’

  ‘Jordan!’ Luke shouted from outside. ‘Get out here.’

  ‘What? What is it?’ I asked, snapping out of it and sprinting back into the main office. ‘Did you find –?’

  I grabbed the doorframe to bring myself to a stop. The lift doors had just slid open again.

  Mr Shackleton stood on the threshold.

  ‘Ah,’ he smiled, like he couldn’t be happier to see us. ‘I was wondering when the two of you might pay me another visit.’

  Chapter 29

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12

  1 DAY

  ‘Stop!’ said Luke, pulling Soren’s pistol from the back of his jeans and levelling it at Shackleton. ‘Stay there. Stay where you are.’

  Shackleton raised his hands into the air, opening his mouth in a caricature of fear, then smiled again and lowered them to his sides. ‘Come now, Luke. Do you really think yourself capable of that?’

  ‘Where is it?’ I demanded, charging over. ‘Where’s Tobias?’

 
; Shackleton eyed me curiously. ‘Tobias who?’

  I slammed him into the wall, smashing his head into the countdown monitor behind him. ‘Listen,’ I said, shaking. ‘It’s over, okay? We’ve got the cafeteria. And any minute now, every guard in the building is going to know it. So either you tell us where you’re keeping Tobias, or –’

  I stopped as another round of gunfire echoed up through the floor. Was that our guys protecting the cafeteria? Had they even got that far?

  Shackleton raised an eyebrow.

  How much did he know? Clearly he hadn’t come looking for us, or he would have brought security.

  Shackleton reached up and touched the back of his head. It came back glistening with blood. ‘I assure you, there is no Tobias here – as you seem well on your way to discovering,’ he added dryly, casting an eye over the mess Luke had made. ‘However, if you would like to discuss the matter further, the conference room might be a more suitable place to –’

  ‘No,’ I said, a desperate plan forming in my head. ‘Luke, see if you can find some rope or something.’

  ‘How is your mother?’ Shackleton asked as Luke took off, like we were just catching up over lunch. ‘The poor dear. It can’t be easy, out there on the run in her condition. It really would have been much kinder to –’

  I punched him in the stomach. ‘Shut up.’

  Shackleton coughed, a tear trickling from one eye. He smelled like old man’s cologne.

  ‘And your sister?’ he said, recovering. A smile crossed his face. ‘Precocious little monster. She gave Dr Galton quite a time until I suggested –’

  More noise from outside cut him short. Not gunfire this time. These were deep whirring and clunking sounds, like heavy machinery warming up. The sound was coming from above us.

  On the screen behind Shackleton, Final Lockdown Procedures had ticked down to zero.

  ‘What’s going on out there?’ asked Luke, rushing back to us. He tossed me an extension cord.

  ‘Well?’ I said, giving Shackleton another shove.

  His smile spread wider, exposing perfect teeth.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, spinning him around and mashing that stupid smile into the wall. ‘You can tell us when we get outside.’

  ‘Wait – what?’ said Luke.

  Luke held Shackleton’s arms in place while I tied them together with the extension cord. ‘Jordan, what are we doing?’ Luke asked warily, as if he knew he wouldn’t like the answer.

  ‘We’re taking him with us,’ I said.

  Luke shook his head wearily. ‘Of course we are.’

  ‘We can’t stay here. And I’m not leaving him. Either he tells us where Tobias is or we use him as bait so that someone else will.’ I shoved Shackleton’s watch up his arm and pulled hard on the ends of the cord. ‘Done. Let’s go.’

  Luke brought Soren’s pistol out again, although I think it was pretty clear that we weren’t going to use it. Shackleton didn’t struggle at all as I dragged him back from the wall and shoved him inside the lift. His confidence unsettled me a bit, but I guess that was the point.

  I hit the button to take us down to the bunker. The doors slid closed.

  ‘You’re remembering the fire, right?’ said Luke.

  ‘Plenty of other tunnels,’ I said, mind ticking over the options. ‘We can get out through Ketterley’s office. Nice and close to the bush.’

  ‘Your attention, please,’ said a voice over the P.A. My heart leapt as I realised who it was. ‘Repeat: Your attention please, all security staff. This is Matthew Reeve speaking. If you turn your attention to the video screen in the town hall, you will see footage, captured only a few minutes ago, recording the liberation of the Shackleton Building’s cafeteria.’

  Shackleton’s face registered only the slightest flicker of concern before returning to its normal wide-eyed amusement.

  ‘The threat to your loved ones has been neutralised,’ Reeve continued. ‘I invite you to join us in taking up arms against the leadership of this town.’

  Reeve kept going, giving more instructions to anyone who wanted to join him and pleading with the rest of the town to stay calm and keep out of the fighting, but something else shoved its way to the front of my mind, distracting me from his speech.

  Our lift wasn’t moving.

  I punched the button again. Nothing happened.

  Shackleton frowned. ‘Perhaps your escape won’t be as easy as you’d hoped.’

  I shoved him again and hit the other button, the one leading down to what everyone else thought was the top floor of this place.

  The lift slid downwards. In a few seconds, we came to a stop again, doors opening on the tiny room Reeve and the others had left through before. The entryway to the main office complex. The fire-fight downstairs now seemed a whole lot louder.

  ‘Now what?’ said Luke. ‘We can’t exactly –’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Looks like we’ll just have to take him out the front door.’

  Chapter 30

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12

  1 DAY

  I pushed Shackleton through the little room and out into a corridor lined with offices, heading for the other lift, the one that would take us down to the ground floor. Abstract artworks hung along the walls on either side. Shackleton sighed wistfully at them as we passed. ‘I hardly ever seem to have time for my painting anymore.’

  We reached the far end of the corridor. Luke hit the button on the wall and we waited for the lift to arrive. Shackleton started humming to himself.

  Luke glared at him. ‘Stop that.’

  The lift finally arrived, and we got inside. Reeve’s speech over the intercom had ended, but the machinery or whatever it was on the roof was still clunking away above our heads.

  As we started moving again I realised the button for the floor below ours was lit up too. I glanced at Luke. ‘Was that you?’

  Luke shook his head. He raised Soren’s pistol again. I dragged Shackleton around. They wouldn’t shoot if he was –

  The lift stopped and the doors slid open on another office level. Gunfire blazed just out of sight. There was a rush of movement, and the first thing my eyes landed on was another weapon.

  ‘Whoa, hey, stop!’ said Luke. ‘Stop! It’s us!’

  I got a second look and realised who they were. Amy blurred into the lift, followed by Soren, who’d somehow managed to get his hands on another rifle.

  ‘Close it! Close it!’ shouted Amy, spinning in a circle.

  A guard appeared at the far end of the room, spotting us just as the doors began to slide shut. He opened fire, and I dived sideways, dragging Shackleton with me. Bullets pelted the other side of the lift.

  And then we were moving again. On our way to the ground floor.

  Soren raised his rifle at Shackleton’s chest. Shackleton flinched, backing into me, seeing straight away that Soren wasn’t playing by the same rules as the rest of us.

  ‘Wait – no!’ I said. ‘We need him!’

  ‘Where’s Tobias?’ Amy asked us.

  ‘Not up there,’ said Luke. ‘At least –’

  ‘That’s why we’ve got Shackleton!’ I said, eyes still on Soren. ‘We need to get him out so we can question him.’

  Soren relaxed his grip on the trigger but kept the weapon right where it was.

  Shackleton straightened, the veneer of calm back up. He nodded at Soren, tugging slightly against my grip. ‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.’

  Soren sneered.

  The lift stopped again and we peered out across the enormous Shackleton Building foyer. As far as I could see, it was completely empty. Abandoned in a hurry when the explosions started going off outside. Food sitting uneaten on tables. Toilet doors hanging open. Water still running in one of the portable showers.

  I balled up the end of Shackleton’s tie and shoved it into his mouth. ‘Keep quiet.’

  ‘Where are the others?’ Luke whispered.

  ‘Busy,’ said Soren.

  ‘Doing what?’


  ‘Tank went back to help defend the cafeteria,’ said Amy, still jittering. ‘Reeve is – somewhere. We got separated, getting out of the A/V place.’

  The sound of weapons fire was almost constant now, but it looked like the fighting was contained to the floors above us for the time being. The entrances to the town hall were all closed, and I could hear shouting coming from inside, but no guns. At least, not yet. We moved out past the doors and I slowed to the back of the group. Dad was in there somewhere. He’d be able to help us if –

  ‘No,’ said Luke, pulling on my arm. ‘We can’t. We have to get out of here.’

  I gave it up.

  I pointed through the front doors at the exercise area. A hunk of wreckage from the mall had punched a hole through the razor-wire fence. ‘There’s our way out. Straight through there, and then follow me.’

  Surprisingly, Soren didn’t argue about the following part. I peered out and then sprinted at the automatic doors, dragging Shackleton with me. I half expected the doors to be locked, but they sprang open and a gust of scorching air blew in from the street. Luke grabbed Shackleton’s other side, and we dragged him down the front steps of the Shackleton Building. Out into the heat and the haze and the rubble.

  We veered towards the gap in the fence, dodging the debris underfoot. Security were still way across the street and I was hoping they’d all be too caught up in fighting the fire to notice us slipping out.

  I squeezed through the hole and then turned to pull Shackleton through. He winced as a bit of the fence dug into his back.

  ‘This way,’ I hissed when we were all out, and we darted up the bike path between the Shackleton Building and what was left of the security centre.

  I glanced back. It didn’t look like anyone had followed us. And between the fire and the mutiny, I doubted there’d be any guards left on patrol out here.

  Shackleton spat the tie out of his mouth. ‘I believe you were wondering about the source of that noise earlier?’

  I followed his gaze to the top of the Shackleton Building. A thick black pillar was slowly stretching up from the centre of the roof, ten metres tall and still growing. An antenna or something. It made the whole building look like a giant walkie-talkie.