Jim put his arm around Annette. The poor girl was trembling as though she had trekked for miles in the Arctic. Shock was setting in.
‘Oh fuck,’ Marcus said, pointing to their right into the darkness beyond the tunnel.
Three men stalked around the large floor-mounted fans towards the airlock. They were each carrying a small package the size of a cigarette box. They wore knowing smiles that Eva had seen too many times.
‘Oh God, they’re not . . .’ Jim began to say.
‘Yeah,’ Marcus said. ‘Explosives. This ain’t gonna end well.’
One of the men’s faces was covered entirely in red flaky skin. Like the earlier woman, his eyes were milky with cataracts. It didn’t seem to stop him from groping forward and placing the small box at the side of the glass tube. His two allies did the same.
He looked up at Eva, caught her eye – and smiled, exposing rotting black teeth and a swollen tongue that looked like an overcooked hot dog. From the trouser pocket of his suit, the man pulled out a detonator, which he held up like a trophy to taunt them.
‘Bastard,’ Marcus muttered. ‘Give me the gun. I’m going out there.’
‘No,’ Eva said. ‘No one’s going anywhere; it’s suicide.’
‘And staying in here’s any better?’ Jim said.
Eva eyed the elevator; there was no indication of where it was. This wasn’t a standard commercial outfit that featured helpful lights to tell you which floor it was on. For all she knew, it could have stopped halfway. What if the A20 had shut the system down remotely?
The other two men were busy pushing wires into the packs of explosive; their hands shook, making it a difficult task. In some ways, Eva pitied them. Stuck down here, infected with whatever that was on their faces; afflicted in such a way they could barely do the simplest task.
Not that it mattered; they were trapped and were going to be killed in a shower of glass.
But the man on the right suddenly looked back towards the way they had all come, into the gloom of the hollowed cavern. The man with the detonator took a step in that direction, confusion on his face. Then, the three of them stepped away from the explosives and towards the darkness, away from the airlock.
‘What’s going on?’ Annette asked. ‘Why are they leaving?’
Eva dashed to the door and pressed her face to the glass for a closer look into the darkness – and then she saw him: Tim! The wiry man was so pale now it was a miracle he was still alive: it didn’t appear as if he had a drop of blood left in him, but whatever he had was keeping him going, him crawling forward on gore-encrusted knees.
The men approached him, full of arrogance and bravado, hyenas stumbling across a lame gazelle. With shaking hands, one of them eventually managed to pull a pistol from a hip holster. He staggered forward and placed it against Tim’s head.
Annette looked away. Jim swallowed loudly.
‘What the actual fuc—’ Marcus was saying when Tim looked up at them, smiled, and spat out a thick gob of blood onto the floor by their feet. There was something shiny in the red spittle. A . . .
‘Pin,’ Eva said as she realised what was happening.
The grenade exploded.
Even Eva had to look away. All four men were caught in the epicentre of the blast. Pieces of . . . something struck the glass of the airlock, which reverberated with the boom of the blast. Eva’s ears rang. The glass rang a death knell, tolling for the dead.
Jim and Marcus shouted something but Eva couldn’t make it out. She was transfixed by the whirling plume of smoke. Something moved within it . . . The man with the milky eyes crawled forward, dragging his body. His scorched arm reached for the black device a few feet from him: the detonator.
Eva held her breath and watched as he tried once, twice . . . On the third try, his hand slapped the ground, limp, lifeless.
Jim slumped against the glass. Sweat dripped from his face. ‘I . . . I thought . . .’ he mumbled. Eva realised she was grabbing Marcus’s arm so tight he was wincing with pain. She let go, took a deep breath, and released a string of expletives until she had no more air left in her lungs.
When the smoke had cleared, Eva saw everything. And wished she hadn’t.
‘Fucking Tim,’ Marcus said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Who’d have thought that streaky sod would have had it in him. I will be lifting a drink for that crazy sonofabitch—’
The sudden clank of the elevator door opening stopped Marcus in mid-sentence. Marvin stood there. He looked at Eva and the others. ‘What happened? Are you all okay?’
Jim recovered himself and stood up straight. ‘We’ll tell you later. Right now, let’s get the hell out of this place. I can’t stand another minute here.’
No one spoke as they loaded the remaining two carts into the elevator and made their long journey up to the weather station. Marcus huddled next to Eva. She leaned against him and he bore her weight, nudging her gently once, his way of saying, ‘I know you’re okay.’
But she wasn’t. No one should be after any of that.
They climbed up, metre after metre. Sleep tugged at Eva like a powerful tide somewhere along that journey, and she gave in to it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
He was there: Marcus, sleeping on the bunk below Eva. He snored like an old dog. She could barely remember how they had reached the sub, but she didn’t care. She was in one piece, and safe – away from that cursed base.
At first, resting there in her bunk, her eyes open but unable to see anything in the dark, she wondered if it hadn’t all been some terrible dream, if Tom was still alive. Perhaps they were still on their way to the base – maybe all this had been nothing but a premonition, a glimpse of what awaited them. If she acted now, convinced the others that this course of action would lead to doom, they could avoid it. It wasn’t too late to return to the flotilla. The truth, whatever it was, could remain hidden, buried where it couldn’t cause any more pain and grief.
But, of course, it was too goddamned late.
She knew she must not blame herself; this search for the truth wasn’t solely down to her: the others had agreed too. Finding the base was the right thing to do, the only thing to do. And yet, regardless, the weight of blame pressed down on her chest, a mass, heavy and solid, crushing the air from her lungs. Beneath her makeshift pillow was a hard lump – a reminder: Victoria’s journal. Proof that, no, she couldn’t stop them now; it had already been done. The notes lay there, providing her with evidence that everything she had dreamed about was in fact real. It felt so far away, though.
How could events like this, events that had occurred just the day before, seem as if they were either ephemeral artefacts of her imagination or had taken place in another lifetime? The experience of time wasn’t linear; Eva had known that before the drowning. Countless times, the criminals she had arrested were unable to provide accurate alibis for their whereabouts during some crime. It wasn’t that they were lying; it was that they actually couldn’t remember.
Hell, there were days she could barely remember what she ate for breakfast. If one wasn’t present in the moment, then time ceased to exist. We live in a constant state of time elasticity, she thought, either dwelling on the past, wishing things were different, or living in the future, a world of hope and make-believe that we yearn to control. All that mattered, though, all that truly existed, was now.
Eva wiped the tears from her eyes. She had sobbed intermittently throughout the night, drifting in and out of sleep. She sat up, removed the journal from beneath the pillow, and switched on the overhead reading lamp.
The beam was weak, barely able to push back the shadows of the tiny cabin, but it was enough to let her read the notes on the pages. She had already committed most of the information to memory, but there was something comforting about reading it all again, as though the more she read it, the more meaning she would find behind the abstraction of words.
She supposed she didn’t like the version of the truth that had been presented to her �
� that Gracefield had started out as an honourable man, perhaps a man with a vision, but somewhere along the way, he had lost his humanity.
Eva got no more than a few entries in when Marcus stopped snoring. He yawned. The air shifted inside the cabin. Then he was there, looking at her, his eyes at her level. ‘Hey,’ he said, keeping his voice low.
‘Hey, yourself,’ Eva replied, peering over the journal. ‘How are you?’
‘I feel like hammered shit, but at least I’m still breathing, so it ain’t all bad. You?’
‘Something like that.’
‘What you reading?’
‘More of Victoria’s journal notes about Gracefield and the Banshee Project. Trying to make sense of it, you know? Trying to find out what exactly it was he and Wood were hiding.’
Marcus stretched his arms up. A crack came from his back, making Eva wince. ‘Anything we ought to be worried about?’ he said.
‘Beyond Gracefield potentially destroying the planet as we know it?’
‘Yeah, apart from that.’ Marcus smiled weakly.
‘They sound like a cult,’ Eva said. ‘The remaining A20, that is. The non-infected. Gracefield left the base on his private sub and took over a hundred individuals loyal to him to start again. According to Marvin, who opposed Gracefield’s leaving, the ex-president had gained some kind of charismatic hold over the people on the base – probably through fear, if the killing of the scientists is anything to go by.’
Marcus slid off the bunk and sat down on the small chair at the fold-up desk. Eva could just about make out his silhouette in the gloom. ‘Who exactly are they, these A20 members?’
‘It says here they’re various government officials and members of parliament from the twenty countries within the alliance. Some presidents, prime ministers, ambassadors, advisors, and so on.’
‘I’m guessing good old Britain, with its supposed special relationship, is involved too?’
‘Of course,’ Eva replied. ‘But the thing I’m most interested in is why he had the scientists killed. What did they discover, and how did that relate to this project of his?’
‘Maybe it was a weapon?’ Marcus suggested.
‘Could be. Which only makes our task that much more important, right? If he’s still got this device or whatever it is with him on the island, as the journal suggests, then we ought to stop him, and it. If it was responsible for drowning the world – what else could it still do?’
‘That’s fair enough,’ Marcus said, rubbing a hand over his face. ‘There’s also the thing with the island. Land! Could be what we all need . . . A place to settle. Got to beat living on that damned flotilla.’
‘Got your mind on colonising it, eh?’
‘If that’s what it takes,’ Marcus said. ‘Whatever the situation, I just want to find these fuckers and deal with them so we can all get on with our lives. Solar flares, magic devices, secret groups . . . It’s all just how the world’s always been: bullshit and drama.’
‘You were hoping for something else?’ Eva prompted, wondering why he had come along if it had meant so little to him.
Marcus said nothing but Eva imagined him shrugging; he often did that when he didn’t want to open up, and that was fine. She didn’t want to pry. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know his innermost desires. There were times during the events at the base that had made her believe she might have feelings for him, as though she had forgotten all the crap he had pulled on the flotilla over the years.
‘I should go,’ Marcus said. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Our shift doesn’t start for another three hours. You might as well use that to rest.’
‘I’m fine,’ Eva said. ‘Wait, why are we sharing a cabin anyway?’
‘You were exhausted after we buried Tom at sea, remember? You fell over, hit your head. I wanted to stay with you, make sure you were okay.’
Eva reached up and felt around her head, finding a swollen lump on the back of her skull. Touching it made the pain flare and brought back the memories of Tom’s burial. It had been a sombre affair, quiet. Jim had said a few words and then let Tom’s body drift out on the waves until the sea swallowed it.
‘I’m going to miss him,’ Eva said.
‘I will too,’ Marcus said. ‘To a degree.’
They shared a moment of silence, perhaps in remembrance of Tom and perhaps because of general awkwardness.
Eva closed the journal and sighed, reminding herself that she needed to stay focused on the task at hand: find the island, which was a few days’ journey west from McKinley on the edge of the Pacific plate, find Gracefield, and expose the truth, and, in so doing, secure a future for those few souls left. She thought of Danny then, of him standing on the dock of the flotilla, waving to her as she left.
He would be her focus from now on. Take the huge task that lay ahead and shrink it to one simple, easy-to-grasp item: secure a future for Danny.
It was clear that the Banshee Project still posed a threat. That had to end.
The drowning was bad enough; they really couldn’t afford any more disasters. Humanity was on the brink of complete extinction. Their actions in the next few days would determine which way they would go: into the sea, or into the future.
An hour later and Eva heard a knock on her door. She was sitting on the bottom bunk, reading one of Danny’s Batman comics that he had given to her before they left. It wasn’t exactly Tolstoy, but then she never had the knack of reading the so-called classics. For right now, Batman would do just fine. The knock came again.
‘Come in.’
The door opened and Duncan’s imposing form entered the cabin, instantly making it a great deal smaller. He smelled fresh, minty. His wild hair and beard were brushed and groomed.
‘Going out on the town?’ Eva asked.
Duncan looked embarrassed, then smiled. ‘I was starting to look like something that lives in a hole,’ he said. ‘While you were away in the base, I had to do something to take my mind off things. I was worried about you all.’
Placing the comic to one side, Eva patted the bunk. ‘Come sit down. You look like you want to talk.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, taking a seat next to her. His body was stiff, as though she were some great predator. Eva remembered her words to him over the whole Marcus thing. Both of them said, ‘Sorry,’ at the same time.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ Duncan said. ‘I shouldn’t have attacked Marcus like I did and accused you. You’re your own woman and can do what you please. It was just a heat of the moment thing. I’ve not found this very easy to deal with, and when you were all away, I . . . Well, I barely slept.’
‘It must have been hard for all of you,’ Eva said. She tried not to make it a competition about who’d had it worse, so she didn’t mention Tom or the struggles she had gone through – Duncan had been at the burial; he knew how everyone felt. She was just happy to be in a better place with Duncan. He really wasn’t a bad guy and she hated not being on good terms with him.
‘So,’ she said, trying to lift the mood, ‘how are you getting on with the new people?’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘They’re a little shy about their time in the base, but that’s understandable, I guess. They’re missing their friend Tim. What was he like?’
‘I don’t really know,’ Eva said. ‘I barely knew him. He seemed kind enough from the short time we interacted. Smart guy, though. And courageous. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have made it back.’
‘The admiral told me about that. I can’t believe how close we came to losing you and Dad, and Annette.’
‘And Marcus,’ Eva added.
‘Yeah, him too,’ Duncan replied reluctantly, but then, quickly changing the subject, said, ‘Dad seems to be getting on with the admiral well enough. With Tom’s passing, we really needed someone with Marvin’s experience to help us regroup. He’s put me on your team.’
Eva was genuinely happy about this. Perhaps it would be an opportunity for her and Duncan to spend some friendl
y time together without all the stress and baggage. ‘Did he tell you about the island?’ she asked.
‘Yeah,’ Duncan said, shaking his head. ‘It’s mad to think we’ve experienced such massive plate movement in our lifetimes. I remember studying geology at university and doing some classes on plate tectonics. This stuff usually took millennia to form. It’s no wonder the world changed so quickly if the kinds of forces that could create a new mountain range along the Pacific plate edge were in play.’
‘I suppose,’ Eva wondered out loud, ‘that if we all survive, future scientists and geologists will recognise this as an entirely new age: the age of no continents. Crazy to think that over the Earth’s lifetime it’s gone from being a single continent to there being none at all.’
‘Gloria told me about Gracefield’s involvement with the Banshee Project. I can’t imagine something humans designed could have these kinds of effects. Just what the hell is it?’
‘Honestly, I have no idea. Perhaps some kind of nuclear-powered machine? It was apparently something tied into alternative energy.’
The two sat in silence for a moment contemplating that. Eva began to feel uncomfortable and blurted out another attempt at small talk. ‘So did the admiral say how long it’d be before we reach the island?’ She of course knew this, and knew that Duncan knew she knew.
‘Yeah, a couple of days, apparently. At least that means only two shifts for us before we get to have a nice Pacific island holiday.’ This time, Eva genuinely smiled.
‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ she said, realising that for the first time since she’d left the flotilla, she was enjoying Duncan’s company again. Perhaps having the break while she was on the base had done them both some good.
‘How’s your dad doing?’ Eva asked.
‘He’s okay,’ Duncan said, his voice lower but not without a hint of optimism. ‘Losing Tom wasn’t ideal. They’d become pretty close friends since meeting on the Excelsior. I guess he was the first person Dad could really relate to. But this morning I went up to the command centre to see him and noticed him and Gloria laughing together. She seems to have taken quite a shine to him.’
Soil (The Last Flotilla Book 2) Page 19