Dark Side of the Moon

by Les Wood

  ‘We let him go after that, watched him stand up, tryin to catch his breath, coughin, splutterin, blindly staggerin about, arms outstretched, seekin help. But it was no use. The paint was coating the inside of his lungs. He collapsed onto his knees, still hawking paint, makin this horrible noise, hopin to get his lungs inflated, get that precious air into his body. But no. His head hung forward and – Ah remember this more than anything – the paint oozing out of him like a burst egg yolk, long strands of yellow stuff stringing from his nose and mouth. He vomited up a plug of paint and blood. He tried opening his eyes, but the paint was in them too. He couldn’t see a damned thing. Started pawing at the air, frantic and futile, gaspin for breath.’

  Kyle climbed a few feet more, then paused and looked back at Campbell. ‘It took him a good two or three minutes to die. To drown. And me, standing watching with my hands all yellow, and Prentice at my back, laughin.

  ‘For days after it Ah would find wee splashes of paint on my fingernails or on my jacket, in the creases of my trousers. Wee reminders... That… That was the worst…’ His voice tailed off.

  Kyle’s face was lost in the glare from his head torch and Campbell felt a tinge of regret at asking the question. Regret and fear.

  Kyle cleared his throat. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Ah think we’re nearly there.’ He pointed to a valve in the pipe a few feet above his head. ‘This is the one.’ They had passed three of these valves on the way up, a rusting, knurled wheel protruding from the main body of the pipe. According to McKinnon these were the water outlets for the old fire appliances. She had told them to count four of these, one for each of the floors as they moved up through the dry riser. Opposite each valve was a panel in the wall, a red door with latches at each corner. Campbell hadn’t quite followed the logic of what she’d told them, but supposedly if there was a fire, water was pumped up the pipe to the sprinkler system and to these valves where the firemen could open the panel and attach their hoses.

  The fourth valve – the one just above them – was directly opposite the panel which led to the manager’s office.

  Kyle scrambled up the last few feet and hooked his arm through one of the rungs. Campbell joined him, his own hands gripping the rungs tightly, acutely conscious of the empty drop into the dusty blackness of the shaft below. They directed their torches onto the panel in the wall. The panel had four latches, each secured into little metal slots in the brickwork at one end and rotated about a hinged bracket on the panel at the other. Kyle reached out to the first latch and twisted it. Nothing happened. ‘Bastard’s stuck,’ he grunted through gritted teeth, straining with the effort.

  ‘Want me to try?’ Campbell asked.

  Kyle raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Aye, well, okay… keep going,’ said Campbell, giving him a thumbs-up, or at least the best approximation of one he could manage with his hand spot-welded to the ladder rung.

  Kyle gave the latch a bang with the side of his fist and tried again. This time it screeched open, the metal bar grating against the rusting grit surface of the panel. Kyle grinned. ‘One down, three to go.’

  The other latches were less problematic, turning smoothly with little forcing. As the last one came free of its securing slot the panel slid forward into the room beyond, landing on the floor with a heavy dull clang.

  A thin blue light oozed from the room, leaking an eerie spectral glow into the shaft and casting inky shadows on the wall behind them. A blast of air-conditioned coolness ruffled their hair, carrying with it the same cut-grass smell they had encountered in the Bubble what now seemed like a year before. Kyle and Campbell stuck their heads through the opening and surveyed the space before them.

  They were in.

  ***

  Boag kept hearing noises: little ticking sounds as the building settled in the cooling night, the muffled echoes of Kyle and Campbell as they clambered through the spaces in the ceiling and walls high above, the banging of doors in the depths of the store as McKinnon went about her business with the security checker.

  But there was something else; something different. He couldn’t be entirely sure he had heard anything at all, he thought perhaps it was just the intensity of the situation that had heightened his senses, made him aware of the least thing; or it was his mind playing tricks on him – the empty store, the dark corners, the mannequins with their weird faces; they were all freaking him out. Nevertheless, there had been clicks and thuds, a faint scraping once or twice, sounds that didn’t seem part of the normal night-time vocabulary of the building.

  He put it to the back of his mind, tried to focus on the task in hand. He opened his rucksack and took out the last unused detonator rig, together with the remote trigger. He placed them on a glass display case containing an array of silk scarves, gold bracelets and necklaces. He felt he’d done a more than passable job with the remote; a set of eight toggle switches feeding through a digital relay to a model aeroplane radio transmitter. Each detonator rig had a small receiver which picked up the signal from the different switches, a separate frequency for each one.

  It had been good to put his training to use once more. Transistor-transistor logic pulses, optical isolators, microchip controllers, it all came flooding back to him. He had actually enjoyed himself, sitting in his tiny kitchen with all the gear spread out on the table, assembling the rigs and the remote. Sixty quid’s worth of cheap and cheerful goodies from Maplin’s had got him everything he needed, Boddice footing the bill of course.

  The only weak link was the detonators themselves; the stuff the Rastahman had provided was old, second-rate, one step removed from being junk. Fuck knows where Aiken had picked them up, but at the time Boag hadn’t felt himself to be in a position to point out the somewhat shite quality of the goods, not with Boddice acting the big cheese, pretending he knew what he was talking about.

  Which was why Boag had added his own little pièce-de-résistance.

  All in all, Boag was pleased with what he’d managed to achieve with the shoddy materials provided, how he’d added his own little something extra to spice things up. In fact, he felt rather proud; he’d been useful again, had made a proper contribution to the work of the team for once. It was a pity, if everything went to plan, that no-one would get to see how good a job he’d done.

  He gave a contented sigh; in a way, he might have turned a corner, begun to get some self-respect back, maybe even…

  There it was again.

  Close this time. Somewhere just behind his left shoulder. A shuffling scuff against the floor.

  He spun around.

  He just had time to register the crouching figure in front of him before the punch slammed into his nose and everything went dark. As he crumpled to the floor and consciousness seeped away, his fading mind struggled to comprehend the leering face behind the fist. The name seemed to glow like a red neon sign in the blackness that closed in on him. The last feeling he had before he went under was one of puzzlement.

  Leggett?

  ***

  The strongroom differed from the ostentation of the Bubble in so many ways: no glittering pedestals, no triumphant music, no crowd-control barriers, and, most of all, no lasers. The room was a study in understatement: a solitary white sofa sat on a dark blue carpet, facing a pale desk the colour of a full moon behind clouds. The surface of the desk was bare save for a small white cushion which sat in the centre. On the wall behind the desk, illuminated by a cool blue spotlight was a black metallic panel, the size of a hardback book, and with a red LED blazing from its centre. On either side of the panel, perhaps five or six feet away and also set into the wall, were two six-inch computer monitors with a digital keypad mounted underneath. The whole set-up reminded Campbell of the crazy computer in that space odyssey film; the one that lost its marbles and started killing the crew of the spaceship.

  Kyle gripped the edge of the hatch and hoisted himself into the room, Campbell following somewhat less elegantly. The two men stood in the middle of the floor breathing heav
ily, glad of the clean air after the stale brickdust of the shaft. They looked at each other, wide-eyed, barely able to believe they had made it this far.

  Kyle let out a low whistle. ‘This looks the business alright,’ he said. ‘It’s somehow scarier than all that hi-tech shite downstairs.’

  ‘More evil,’ suggested Campbell.

  Kyle looked at him and nodded slowly. ‘Aye, ye’re right.’ Kyle moved towards the panel with the red LED, squinted at the thin handle which ran horizontally across its otherwise featureless face. ‘This’ll be it then. The safe.’

  ‘Ah guess,’ Campbell said. He picked up the dry riser door from the floor and rested it against the wall. The inner fascia was identical to the woodgrain panels of the office wall. Campbell smiled; when the door was in place it would be practically invisible. Someone’s head was going to roll for not paying enough attention. He could just imagine some poor schmuck trying to explain it to the corporate suits: ‘What do you mean you didn’t know there was a door in the wall? What the fuck were we paying you for?’

  Kyle snapped his fingers. ‘You ready for this?’ he asked.

  Campbell straightened, walked towards him. ‘As ready as Ah’ll ever be.’

  McKinnon’s instructions were simple. Kyle delved into his pocket and brought out the piece of paper she had given them down on the shop floor. The safe opened by inputting two sets of numbers into the computers on either side of the safe. Easy-peasy. The catch, though – the element that required both of them to be here – was that the numbers had to be punched in simultaneously to both keypads. Any appreciable delay beyond a few hundred milliseconds and the alarms would be triggered. On top of that, the numbers were not just a straightforward sequence. No, they were much more than that; the computer screens showed a five-by-five grid of coloured squares. Each square corresponded to a number written on a similar pair of grids on the paper McKinnon had passed to them:

  When activated, the computer would flash a particular square on the screen, a different one in a different random position for each control panel, and the corresponding number found on their piece of paper had to be entered from the keypad as quickly as possible. When all the squares were completed, the resulting table formed what McKinnon said was called a magic square – all the numbers in any single column, row or diagonal added up to the same value: 60. The thousands of different combinations of possible squares meant that the code would be almost impossible to break.

  Unless, of course, there was access to the kind of information McKinnon had left them on the sheet of paper.

  Kyle studied the numbers. ‘Ah hope to fuck this works,’ he said. He folded the paper and carefully tore it down the middle, giving Campbell the left-hand grid.

  They positioned themselves in front of the keypad. Below the coloured grids on the computer screens a single stark message blinked: Press 0 to initiate sequence.

  Kyle adjusted his latex gloves, laced his fingers and cracked his knuckles. Campbell winced at the sound. Kyle blew out a long exhalation and nodded to Campbell. ‘Ready?’

  Campbell swallowed and nodded back.

  ‘Okay,’ Kyle said. ‘Here we go. On my count… Three… two—’

  ‘Wait!’ Campbell shouted.

  Kyle wheeled on him. ‘For fuck’s sake!’ he yelled. ‘What the hell is it? Ah thought ye said ye were ready?’

  ‘Ah did… Ah know… it’s just, should we not… ye know, practice this before we start? Make sure we can do it right? Get in synch with each other.’

  ‘Practice? Practice? Jesus Christ, we don’t have time for any of that shite. We’ve spent long enough in this place. Any minute now the polis could walk through that door, and there would be me and you tryin to explain how we’re just workies doing a night shift repair on that big fuckin hole in the wall. That’s gonnae be convincin isn’t it?’

  Campbell stared at the floor.

  ‘So, if it’s all the same to you, we’ll just forget the practicin bit and get straight on to the job in hand, eh?’

  Campbell looked up. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Ah’m a wee bit twitchy, that’s all.’

  ‘Fuck twitchy, let’s just do this and get the hell out of here.’ ‘Okay.’

  Kyle sucked his teeth and poised his finger over his keypad. ‘Right. Again. Let’s go… three… two… one… now!’

  They both jabbed the square with the zero on their respective pads. The computer gave a tiny beep and the relevant square of both grids on the screen turned black. Immediately, Campbell’s grid flashed the centre bottom square, while Kyle’s flashed two along and three down. They checked their sheets and keyed in the correct numbers as quickly as possible – 20 for Campbell, 6 for Kyle. The coloured squares went black and the next flashed up.

  Thin pellets of sweat snaked through the stubble on Campbell’s cheek as he keyed in the rest of the numbers, the tension in his muscles forcing his hand into a tight claw with only his index finger protruding to stab at the digits on the keypad. By the time the last square was left blinking on the now black-filled grid, his hand was shaking so violently he almost fumbled the very last number, his finger brushing against the adjacent 5 as he prodded the final 4.

  His screen went completely blank.

  Campbell glanced across to Kyle who appeared equally drained by the experience. Like Campbell’s, his screen was also blank.

  Nothing appeared to have happened; the room was silent, no message appeared on the screens, no beeps from the keypads, though, more importantly from Campbell’s point of view, no alarms going off or sliding bolts sealing the doors to the room.

  ‘What happens now?’ he asked Kyle.

  ‘Fuck knows.’ Kyle licked his lips. ‘Maybe there’s—’

  ‘Wait!’ Campbell shouted. He pointed to the panel on the wall. ‘Look!’

  The LED had changed from red to green. It burned like a brilliant star, a vivid, electric spangle against the flat black of the metal plate.

  ‘Do ye think…?’

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ said Kyle, placing his fingers on the handle below the green light. He pulled gently and the door slid open with a liquid heaviness to reveal the dark space within.

  Campbell joined him and they both leaned forward to look inside. The light from their head torches flooded the interior of the safe. At the back, resting against the rear wall of the compartment, sat a plain black box, perhaps six inches to a side, unadorned except for a picture of a crescent moon etched onto its upper surface. The detail in the etching was such that individual craters and ridges could be seen, the line marking the boundary between the light and dark sides jagged and fractured by encroaching mountain ranges and crater rims. Kyle reached into the safe and ran his index finger along the top of the box, tracing the raised lines of the etching. He looked at Campbell and smiled. ‘This is it,’ he said and lifted the box from the safe.

  At that instant a loud explosion rocked the floor beneath their feet. Campbell frowned. What the fuck was that? His mouth made the appropriate movements to accompany the words, but Kyle never heard them.

  A second explosion, much closer this time, obliterated any sound Campbell might have made, and this time the alarms did go off.

  Big time.

  ***

  Boag had a cold. A deep, heavy, snotter-filled, nose-clogged stinker of a cold. He sat on the sofa in his gran’s house trying to pinpoint when it had first started. He didn’t remember having it yesterday. Yesterday? What had he been doing yesterday? He couldn’t bring that to mind either. Was there something to do with arrows? Arrows and diamonds? He shifted in his seat; something was digging into his back, making him uncomfortable, something sharp and angular, pressed hard against the skin between his shoulder blades. Was it an arrow? He thought it might be. There was an idea there. Yes, an arrow. Or a diamond. Had he been shot by an arrow? His nose was streaming and he blinked back tears that were beginning to brim in his eyes. This fucking cold. This stupid fucking…

  A huge bang, a dry, chest-thudd
ing thump, brought him awake with a start. He sat up quickly, struggling to get his bearings. His surroundings tilted and swayed and he closed his eyes in an attempt to steady the lurching pitch of the floor. He felt the warm, slick trickle of blood oozing from his nostrils, the sensation triggering an almighty sneeze. Immediately his head exploded in a white-hot flash of pain, his legs buckling beneath him. He brought his hands up to his face, cradling his smashed and splintered nose and fighting the promise of the sweet bliss of fainting.

  ‘Wee-hoo mama!’ came a high-pitched voice off to his right. ‘Ah’m fuckin back ya bastards! Ah’m a weapon of mass destruction!’ Boag opened his eyes to see Leggett standing with the detonator remote in his hands, his finger poised above the second switch on the control panel.

  Boag stretched out a hand towards him, flapping feebly at the black plastic box. ‘No, wait!’ he shouted.

  Leggett turned towards him, a gleeful malice sparkling in his eyes. ‘Oh-ho!’ he said. ‘Managed to rouse yourself, Ah see.’ He held up the remote. ‘This is an interestin wee toy isn’t it? See what happens when ye throw these wee switches? It’s fucking great!’ He flicked the next switch and a second shuddering boom, this time on one of the upper floors, shook the building. A fine white powder silted down from the ceiling far above. Boag shook his head, tried to clear the fug in is mind. The action sent another jolt of blinding pain through his forehead, but at least it forced him to get to his feet. He wiped the blood from his mouth, inspected the clotted slickness of it between his fingers. A howling blare sounded in his head, rising and falling in a deafening, grating discord. At first, he thought it was the pain from his broken nose crystallising in a yammering wail in his skull and he clutched at one of the display counters by his side to steady himself. Leggett swaggered towards him, his head tilted back as he echoed the sound in Boag’s head: ‘Eeee-oooo, eeee-oooo, eeee-oooo! Look at me, Ah’m fuckin howlin at the moon, man. Ah’m a werewolf bastard, eeee-oooo, eeee-oooo. Holy mama and sweet Christ on the cross,’ he punched the air to punctuate his words, ‘Ah’ve fucked youse up good style! Eeee-oooo!’