11

by James Phelan

  ‘I thought it was super—ah, doesn’t matter,’ Xavier said. ‘Anyway, your grades are as good as mine, sometimes better.’

  ‘Yeah, but I have to work like ten times harder than you do to get them.’

  ‘Not true,’ Xavier said, looking down at his feet as they neared the carnivore enclosure. ‘You’ve got no idea how many tutors Dad has over at the house, making sure I ace every test. Practically every night, and … I haven’t had a school holiday since fifth grade.’

  ‘What?’ Sam was stunned.

  ‘Dad organises classes for me, so the holidays are just like normal school days,’ Xavier sighed.

  ‘Oh man, sorry, I didn’t know,’ Sam said, feeling bad for his classmate who’d now become his friend. ‘I guess he’s into the whole “nature/nurture” thing. I’m sure he was only trying to do his best for you.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’

  ‘Look, for what it’s worth, I used to think your dad was a bit full-on, but it seems like he’s chilled out a bit now. This whole thing of you being a Dreamer, perhaps it’s changing him, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe … he does seem a bit different,’ Xavier said. ‘Like he’s got more confidence in me, more trust.’

  ‘He was probably pushing you so hard through school because he knew that one day this might happen, right?’ Sam reasoned. ‘You’d be a Dreamer, maybe one of the last 13, using your wits, your mind, to beat huge armed guys and trained Agents. So really, it’s like you’ve just been well prepared.’

  Xavier nodded. The tour guide stopped the group before entering the carnivore house and was talking, in English, about the history of the exhibit.

  ‘Any questions before we go further?’ the guide asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Sam said, getting to the front of the group. ‘Is there a large tower near here?’

  ‘Tower?’ the guide said.

  ‘Yeah, like a big concrete thing, maybe ten storeys tall?’

  The guide laughed and shook his head. ‘Not anymore,’ he said. ‘You are probably referring to the “Zoo Tower”, built in the Second World War to defend against air attacks. It’s long gone now—the British Army blew it up after the war ended. Where the tower was is now our hippopotamus park.’

  ‘OK, thanks,’ Sam said, and the guide ushered the group on, Xavier and Sam falling into step behind.

  ‘It’s time to ditch this group and begin our search,’ Sam said, pointing at a blue sign above them.

  ‘And not a moment too soon,’ Xavier said, grabbing Sam’s arms and breaking into a run as he motioned over his shoulder at Hans and his German Guardians, who were pushing through the crowds looking for them. ‘Let’s get out of here before they spot us,’ he whispered, pulling Sam towards the flight of stairs ahead of them.

  30

  SAM

  Sam and Xavier flattened themselves against the wall of the staircase as a Japanese tour group crowded up the stairs. Gently pushing against the tide of people, they slipped downwards to the animal house below. The high-pitched squeaks of bats greeted them as they pushed further in.

  ‘Where now?’ asked Sam. ‘There was an access panel above a steel door in the dream, is that how you remember it?’

  ‘Yep, and I know just where to go, c’mon, follow me,’ Xavier replied. He confidently wove his way through the exhibit. Sam caught sight of an owl behind the glass next to them, but then it was gone as they jogged along, the other animals a blur on either side.

  Xavier stopped suddenly, turning around, looking for something. ‘It should be near here, maybe back around the last corner.’ They retraced their steps for a moment, Xavier searching for something. ‘This is it!’ he said, excited. He walked up to a door with ‘Mitarbeiter Nur’ on it and tried the handle.

  ‘I’m guessing this is a staff area, right?’ Sam said as he stood close to Xavier, both of them shielding the handle from the view of passing tourists. Sam inserted the blade of his pocketknife between the door and frame and jiggled it, trying to dislodge the lock. ‘Well, you never know when you might need a knife,’ Sam said in reply to Xavier’s stare.

  There was a quiet click and the door cracked open. They grinned at each other as they slipped inside.

  The space was now clearly a storeroom, with equipment and boxes filling the small space. Xavier walked to the back of the room and shoved a large shelf to the side. ‘Look! Here’s the door,’ he said.

  ‘Except now it’s even more impossible to get through it,’ Sam sighed, looking at the years of dirt and rust all over it. ‘And we still don’t have a key.’

  ‘But, we do know how to get around it,’ Xavier beamed. He pointed out the access panel in the ceiling above and they began dragging boxes underneath it to create a makeshift ladder.

  ‘Think Solaris will show?’ Xavier asked as they squeezed along the air duct.

  ‘All of this looks pretty much as we dreamed it so far, so it’s a real possibility,’ Sam replied, leading the way with his torch.

  ‘OK, this is it, hang on.’ Sam prised his pocketknife into a seam of the duct and twisted and turned the blade until he had made a hole in the connecting join.

  ‘This way, we don’t have to do the waterslide part of our dream,’ Sam said, lifting out the panel and then shining the light down—’OK, well, it looks like it’s a decent drop.’

  ‘Define decent,’ Xavier said.

  ‘Maybe three metres, so make sure you bend your knees on landing, and roll out of it.’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ Xavier said. ‘I’ll just pull a few years of judo out of my butt so I can have landing skills like you.’

  ‘It’s not judo, it’s—’ Sam went out legs first, felt them dangling down in the air below, ‘—jujitsu.’

  Drop. Bend. Roll.

  ‘Ah, OK, it’s closer to four metres!’ Sam’s voice echoed up. He shone his light up at Xavier’s dangling legs, watching as he hung on right to the end of his fingertips before letting go and landing in a big crash and grunt of pain. Sam couldn’t help but laugh.

  ‘Yeah, laugh it up, buddy,’ Xavier said, getting to his feet and dusting himself off. ‘I’d like to see Hans do that.’

  ‘Yeah, well, they must find another way in, no way those Guardians could fit through that,’ Sam said, pointing to the duct above them. ‘Come on.’

  ‘I’ll get the lights,’ Xavier said, moving over to a row of switches on the wall opposite.

  ‘No, wait,’ Sam said, smiling. ‘Leave it dark.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Think about it—we know where we’re going because we’ve been here before in your dream,’ Sam said. ‘So let’s just use our torches, and leave Hans and his goons in the dark.’

  ‘I like it,’ Xavier smiled.

  Sam and Xavier ran side-by-side, trusting their recall of the dream. They rounded the corner and stopped dead in their tracks. Before them, a cavernous space stretched out into the darkness. They ventured inside, and soon, by their torchlights, the ghostly shapes of massive aircraft, heavy machinery and weapons parts were revealed, all of them covered in decades of dust.

  ‘When do you think someone was last in here?’ Xavier whispered. ‘This place is amazing. Look!’ He ranged his torch over the ancient planes, marvelling at the vintage aircraft.

  ‘We have to get past the finished aircraft,’ Sam said. ‘Wherever they are.’

  ‘And right here is where—’ Xavier said.

  KLAP-BOOM!

  They froze as an immense explosion resounded from the far end of the factory, echoing throughout the concrete bunker, the shock wave sending a cloud of dust billowing up against them and engulfing everything in a thick fog.

  ‘Hans must have blasted his way in!’ Sam said, coughing against the dust and pulling his Stealth Suit up over his mouth and nose to filter the air. ‘Let’s move!’

  ‘I can’t see!’ Xavier cried out.

  ‘Hang on to the back of my shirt,’ Sam said.

  Sam felt his way forwards, moving slowly around huge steel machin
es that formed the assembly line. At least Hans and his Guardians can’t see in this either!

  ‘Wait,’ Xavier said. ‘Turn right here—there should be stairs leading up.’

  In the settling dust, Sam could see the rungs of rusted steel stairs and Xavier took the lead as they raced upwards. As they went, they broke through the low-lying dust cover and saw that the stairs led up to a box-like office, the size of a large room in a house. The office was suspended over the production line by a series of steel rails that hung from the ceiling, enabling the whole structure to be moved around to hover over any area of the vast warehouse below.

  ‘I could use a little help!’ Xavier said at the top of the stairs.

  Sam climbed up to stand next to him at the closed metal door, stuck tight into its frame. Together, with two, then three heavy bumps from their shoulders, the door burst inwards.

  Inside, the air was clear. The room held a few desks and chairs, drawing-boards and filing cabinets. Glass windows ran all along the two long walls that looked up and down the long expanse of the warehouse, while the shorter side walls were solid metal panelling.

  Sam cranked a lever set next to the door that retracted the metal stairs from the floor and shut the door, cursing the noise that it made.

  ‘Cover your light,’ Sam said, as he smothered his own with his free hand so it became just a dull glow. From out the windows, they could see several sets of powerful torches coming from the furthest end of the factory. ‘They’re going to be slowed down thanks to their dust cloud, so we’ve got maybe a couple of minutes. We have to work fast. But I didn’t see this in my earlier dream—only the planes and you, holding a Gear in your hand.’

  ‘Way ahead of you,’ Xavier said, and in the darkness of the office he worked his way around the several desks. ‘This is what we need.’

  Sam came closer and could see Xavier’s torch shining on a small brass wheel attached to the wall.

  ‘Is that . .?’ Sam said.

  ‘The Gear?’ Xavier said. ‘No. Look.’ He waved his arm over a panel of buttons and dials, caked with dust, dull and corroded from years of neglect. Next to it was a simple switch. ‘It’s the control panel for the office. Let’s hope it still works.’ Xavier moved closer to the wheel and gave it a half turn counter-clockwise. He stood there, waiting, expectant.

  Sam said, ‘Was something supposed to—’

  ‘Look!’ Xavier pointed to the ceiling above them.

  A long row of red flashing lights had blinked on, illuminating a pulley system that spanned the length of the factory, set high into the ceiling.

  CLINK, CLINK, CLINK!

  ‘Um, what’s happening?’ Sam said, hanging onto a desk for stability as the whole room started to move, achingly slow, across the workshop floor.

  ‘It’s taking us where we need to go!’

  31

  SAM

  The control room trundled across to the other side of the massive factory and stopped when it butted up against the solid concrete wall opposite. Problem was, they were now almost on top of Hans’ advancing party.

  As the control room came to rest, Xavier went to the wall next to a cabinet and felt around the metal panelling, his hands flat against the surface, rubbing lightly, feeling around for—

  CLICK!

  The wall had a hidden door panel, which opened into the room.

  ‘Whoa!’ Sam whispered.

  ‘Cool, huh?’ Xavier grinned. They looked into the dark tunnel, barely a metre wide and two metres tall, which formed a perfect hole of inky blackness that their lights could barely penetrate.

  ‘Ah, Xavier?’ Sam said.

  ‘It’s in there,’ Xavier said, standing at the threshold.

  ‘Then why are we waiting here?’

  ‘I … this part of my dream was scary,’ Xavier’s smile vanished.

  ‘Scared of the dark?’

  ‘No, just … I never told you how I lost my mum, did I?’

  Sam shook his head, waiting for him to go on.

  ‘You know how you made that joke about being a secret agent? Well, my mum—she actually was one. Worked for the CIA, or some covert part of it, anyway. I didn’t know that until after she’d died, when my father thought I was old enough to hear the truth. She … died … on a mission, doing stuff just like this. It took me so long to even forgive her for leaving us. All I ever wanted after that was to keep me and my dad safe. Now look what we’re doing! And I don’t even know if my dad is OK …’ his eyes filled with sadness and anger.

  Sam took Xavier by the shoulders and shook him gently. ‘I hear what you’re saying but this is your destiny now. And what your mum would have wanted for you. I promise that we’ll stick together and we’ll get through this, OK?’

  Xavier blinked furiously, pushing away tears and wiped his arm across his face. ‘I know you’re right, but this is full-on … who knew that …’

  PLINK!

  A dart struck the glass window from an assailant down below.

  ‘Man, we gotta go!’ Sam said. ‘Come on!’

  Xavier nodded as he plunged into the darkness. He led the way, setting off down the tunnel at a run, Sam’s footfalls sounding close behind him. He slowed as they passed signs on the walls, written in red paint. Even in German, the liberal use of exclamation marks left no doubt that they were ominous warnings of what might be up there.

  ‘It should be close.’ Xavier stopped abruptly and Sam bumped into him. The tunnel ahead suddenly ended and in its place was the same solid concrete wall as those to his left and right.

  ‘It’s a dead end,’ Sam said.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Xavier replied, and banged his feet. A hollow sound rang out. They shone their torches down. Underfoot was a thick metal plate. ‘You get that side.’

  Together they put their hands into two rusted handles and heaved open the trapdoor, resting it back against the wall.

  ‘That looks like …’ Sam trailed off. Below the trapdoor was another, only this one was round, concave and with a huge wheeled handle to turn.

  ‘A submarine hatch,’ Xavier said, grinning. ‘I thought so too, when I saw it in my dream. They must have used a surplus hatch when they built this place during the war. I mean, why not use it? It’s the perfect door to seal out water and pressure, to keep what’s beyond it safe, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘On three,’ Xavier said, and they knelt down to the ground and counted.

  ‘Wait!’ Sam said. ‘All those warning signs leading in here—maybe there’s something dangerous under this hatch.’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ Xavier reassured.

  ‘Really?’ Sam worried.

  ‘Really. You all right?’

  ‘Yeah. You, ah, dreamed this, right? Whatever is under this hatch?’

  ‘A giant squid from outer-space,’ Xavier said deadpan.

  Sam smiled. ‘Nothing we can’t handle then.’

  ‘Right. On three.’ They counted again and then heaved with all their strength to open the wheel—to no avail. ‘Oh, it’s the other way. We have to turn it counter-clockwise, like that one back at the control room.’

  On three the wheel started to turn.

  And turn, and turn, until—

  HISS …

  It opened upwards. Beyond, a ladder led down to a steel mesh floor a few metres below.

  ‘After you,’ Sam said.

  Xavier didn’t need encouragement, he was down the ladder quicker than Sam could blink, and he followed.

  ‘Oh boy …’ Sam said.

  They were in a storage room, full of wooden boxes. Sam could see that they were labelled in German.

  ‘This one is full of books,’ Xavier read from a box then stopped at a dusty inventory list clipped to the wall near the ladder. ‘And this one,’ he pointed to another, ‘has artefacts of significance … this one is art, this one scientific papers …’ he continued to point out various boxes around them.

  ‘You can read German?’ Sam said, as Xavier scanned
through the list. ‘Of course you read German. I mean, who doesn’t, right?’

  Xavier tapped the list. ‘This is it—Operation New Swabia. Aisle C, crate 12.’

  ‘C12,’ Sam said, leading the way and heading two rows down to the junction that spliced through the aisles. ‘You’ve sunk my battleship.’

  Xavier tried to smile, letting go of his sadness once more.

  That’s right, Xav. Get back into the here and now. But wow, what a story about his mum …

  He counted off the numbered crates as he walked past them.

  ‘These crates sure didn’t get in here through that hatch,’ he said, pointing above them.

  ‘I know,’ Xavier replied. ‘There must be another access point.’

  ‘A big one,’ Sam said, and then stopped. He shone his torch at a crate marked ‘12’, along with one word.

  ‘“Antarktische”?’ Sam said.

  ‘Antarctica.’

  ‘The Germans sent an expedition to Antarctica during the war?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Looks like it.’

  The bang of an explosion echoed through the chamber.

  ‘What was that?’ Xavier said.

  ‘Sounded like a stun grenade. Maybe they’re at the control room now, trying to flush us out.’

  ‘Then we’d better hurry before they realise we’re not in there and come looking for us down here.’

  ‘Grab the other side,’ Sam said, and they dragged the washing machine-sized crate out into the aisle, broke the tape seals and undid the latches. They popped off the timber lid.

  ‘Ah … Xavier?’ Sam said, looking at the contents. ‘I hope you’re right about this.’

  Several gas masks stared up at them. Sam pulled them out to find the next layer was made up of large lead cubes, with U235 stencilled on the sides.

  ‘Are you sure this is it?’ Sam said, looking around them, trying not to touch anything with his hands.

  New rule … if I don’t know what it is, I don’t touch it.

  ‘Maybe there’s another crate. I mean, they all look the same.’

  ‘This is it, I’m sure,’ Xavier said. ‘This stuff is important—important enough to be kept here while waiting for submarine transport someplace.’