Survival Game

by Gary Gibson

  He shook his head. ‘But when you showed me that bead, and told me your story – well, that changed everything. I knew you were right, and we had to prevent that new Hypersphere from being activated – which it will be, the moment the Tsar lays his hands on it. So I began making new plans.’

  ‘You really threw us off,’ said Joanne Bertillon, ‘with your little stunt in the laboratory.’ She held a knife in one frail hand.

  ‘If you hadn’t kept me in the dark all this time,’ I nearly exploded, ‘I wouldn’t have had to!’

  ‘But you see,’ said my father, ‘I was afraid to tell you. You said yourself they were watching you more than ever before – and Herr Frank knows he can use you as a lever to control me. If you’d had any idea I was planning anything at all, he would have found some way to get the information out of you. And Leon told me he saw you being bundled off by Herr Frank the other night. Did they ask you questions about me?’

  ‘They did,’ I said, amazed. ‘But . . . what do we do now?’

  A savage grin spread over my father’s face, and for a moment it was like looking into the eyes of a stranger. ‘I’ll tell you as we go. The important thing is, working together, we have a much better chance at destroying the Hypersphere. But we need to move fast, while we still have the chance.’

  ‘Where are the others?’ I asked.

  ‘Too old or infirm,’ said Leon, pushing the door open and leading the way back into the corridor. ‘They had the choice to join us, but elected to remain behind rather than slow the rest of us down.’

  ‘Not even Pierre?’ I asked, taken aback. ‘I know he has trouble walking, but . . .’

  I saw a look pass between Sevigny and my father. ‘He chose to stay behind,’ Josef said evenly. ‘It was his decision.’

  Leon eased open the door at the far end of the corridor. A cold gust of wind blew inside, and I looked out at a moonlit courtyard. My father leaned out to look along the side of the building. I looked up and saw a camera directly above the doorway in which we crouched. Its lens had been smashed.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

  Josef slid Jerry’s leather-bound notebook out of a pocket and held it up. I stared at it in astonishment.

  ‘We had to kill two guards to get hold of this,’ he said, putting the notebook away. ‘We’ll head for the lab and set the magnetic containment systems to override, then transfer over to the Authority before they blow. Once they do, they’ll destroy everything inside the lab, including the Hypersphere. Now keep quiet, and stay low. We put most of the cameras out of action, but there are still plenty of guards around.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘This is the interrogation block, isn’t it?’

  Josef nodded, and I grabbed hold of his arm. ‘The Pathfinder that Borodin brought back, he’s in here somewhere! We have to get him out too.’

  Leon Gulley shook his head. ‘We already looked. He’s not in any of the other cells. Most likely he’s being interrogated in some other part of the building.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No, Katya,’ said my father. ‘It’s risky enough as it is. We need to go before they raise the alarm. Now.’

  I knew he was right. Of course I did. It did nothing to lessen my sense of shame as we made our way across the courtyard, running with heads low. I nearly stumbled over the body of a guard as we passed through a shadowed archway; I saw his throat had been cut. The sight of his body shocked me deeply. The exiles had always seemed such harmless old men and women: scientists, not fighters. It slowly dawned on me how thoroughly I had underestimated them – as, clearly, had Herr Frank.

  ‘But what about the guards inside the laboratory?’ I asked at the bottom of a stairway.

  ‘There are never any more than three, after curfew,’ said Sevigny. ‘We’ll take care of them the same way we took care of the others.’

  We took one of the main elevators the rest of the way down, and it carried us to the lower terraces. I was afraid the evening patrol might find us, but in even this the exiles were already far ahead of me: they had obtained computer records that told them precisely where the patrol would be, and when.

  Then, at last, we arrived at the lowest terrace. I saw more vandalized cameras as we disembarked from the elevator and hurried past the great wooden gates that guarded the entrance to the fortress.

  The building that led into the laboratory was in our sights when sirens broke the silence. Powerful floodlights leaped into life all across the Crag.

  ‘We’re lost!’ wailed Joanne Bertillon.

  ‘No matter,’ said my father, his voice full of grim determination. ‘There’s no turning back now.’

  The sirens became deafening in their volume. I heard shouting from back the way we had come, and I turned to see a number of Herr Frank’s men, as well as several of the Tsar’s imperial guards, appear through a gate at the far end of the courtyard.

  An amplified voice shouted at us to drop our weapons. A warning volley followed, bullets smacking into the cobblestones before us and showering us with particles of stone. A vice of frozen steel closed around my chest, and I waited for the exiles to drop to their knees and surrender.

  Instead, to my shock, Leon Gulley stepped past me and began to return fire. The rifle jerked in his hands with such force that I was amazed he could even hold on to it. As brave as he undoubtedly was, it would have taken extraordinary luck for him to hit anything at all.

  The soldiers, rather than immediately shooting back, ducked back out of sight.

  One of the exiles yelled in glee. ‘Look at them run!’ he shouted.

  Something clinked against the cobbles close by my feet. I stared down at a dull metal canister as it rolled past me, before coming to a halt next to Leon’s foot. He glanced down at it with a puzzled expression.

  Another canister landed, and another. Great clouds of gas erupted from them, stinging my eyes and burning my skin.

  I pressed my hands against my eyes, desperate to be free of the burning. A hand grabbed hold of me and I squinted through the haze to see it was my father, his eyes streaming with tears. He nodded to the laboratory entrance and I followed him inside. On the way, he stooped to grab up a rifle one of the others had dropped.

  Sevigny was the only other one who made it inside. He had wrapped a handkerchief around his mouth and nose. As soon as he entered, he swung the heavy doors shut with my father’s help, before locking and bolting them shut. I meanwhile collapsed against a wall, hacking and coughing, my lungs and skin on fire.

  ‘There are still the guards downstairs,’ I rasped.

  ‘I know,’ said my father. He pulled me into an embrace. ‘I suppose we might not get out of this, Katya.’ His voice was ragged. ‘But we’ve come too far to stop now, don’t you think?’

  The tears running down my cheeks were not entirely due to the tear gas. I nodded. ‘If we can, we destroy the Hypersphere. That’s all that matters.’

  He nodded, then gently pushed me away before shouldering the rifle he had picked up.

  I turned, startled, at the sound of something heavy ramming against the doors. There were muffled shouts from the other side.

  ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t delay,’ said Sevigny, making for the elevator.

  We ran into the service elevator, still coughing and gasping as it dropped down to the laboratory floor. Sevigny gazed down through the mesh surrounding the elevator cage and moaned with horror.

  ‘The Hypersphere,’ he shouted, pointing at the platform next to the stage with one wrinkled hand. ‘It’s gone!’

  I hooked my fingers through the mesh and stared down at where the Hypersphere was normally mounted, willing him to be wrong. My heart flopped in my chest when I saw he was not.

  ‘How?’ Sevigny hissed between his teeth. ‘How?’

  ‘The guards,’ I said, staring around. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘They must have removed the Hypersphere to safety as soon as they knew something was up,’ said Josef. ‘It’s the only explanation.’ He
grabbed hold of Sevigny’s shoulder. ‘Raymond, once we’re down, secure the door leading to the gardens. Make sure they can’t get in that way.’ He turned to me. ‘Find something to jam the elevator with so they can’t call it back up. We need to delay them as long as possible.’

  I didn’t stop to ask him what he had in mind. I merely nodded, then looked around before heading for a nearby work table. I tipped it on its side, spilling equipment and half-dismantled electronics across the floor, then dragged it halfway inside the shaft that housed the elevator. As soon as anyone tried to call it back up, the table would jam against the shaft exit.

  I turned to see my father tapping at a console mounted next to the containment systems. He made a final adjustment, then ran past me and over to the stage’s control rig.

  ‘But the Hypersphere . . . !’

  He tapped a button, and the field-pillars hummed into life. ‘Listen to me,’ he shouted. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it if it’s not here. If we stay, we die. Alive, we can still fight!’

  ‘Josef!’ shouted Sevigny, standing nearby. He pointed towards the top of the elevator shaft. ‘They’ve broken through the doors!’

  ‘Now, Katya!’ Josef shouted, to the sound of boots hammering on steel. ‘Get on the stage! You too, Sevigny!’

  An alarm began to sound, abrasive and harsh. A message flashed up on a nearby screen, warning that the containment systems were close to critical failure.

  Sevigny hurried towards my father’s side. ‘Josef! Your rifle!’

  Josef threw the rifle to Sevigny. ‘Now do what your father says,’ said Sevigny, stepping back and aiming up at the walkway. ‘Get onto the stage!’

  I heard shouts from overhead, but the light forming above the stage was too bright for me to be able to make anything out. There was nothing for me to do but quickly climb the ramp.

  Sevigny fired several shots upwards. I heard another sharp report, and Sevigny clutched at his chest, the rifle slipping from his grasp as he collapsed.

  Josef was still crouched over the control rig, his hair plastered to his forehead by sweat. Jerry’s notebook was open by his side.

  ‘Please,’ I shouted to him, ‘you need to get up here!’

  ‘No, Katya. I need to make sure you get across. Do what you can when you get to the other side.’

  ‘Wait!’ I shouted. ‘Not y—’

  In the very last instant before the laboratory disappeared from sight, I felt a savage rush of heat, accompanied by a terrible, deafening roar.

  I screamed, sure in that moment I would die.

  And then, miraculously, I found myself crouched low on a wooden platform at the centre of a portable transfer stage. To one side I saw the mouth of a cave covered by a tarpaulin, and heard the sound of ocean waves beating against rocks.

  Standing open-mouthed next to a fallen deckchair, a yellowed paperback clutched in one hand, was Nadia.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I slumped forward, still in shock, and Nadia rushed immediately to my side. She said something, but all I could think about was that last glimpse of my father, and the awful roar of the explosion. Part of me refused to acknowledge the thought that he must surely be dead; perhaps, I thought, I had been mistaken. Perhaps . . .

  But I knew how much damage a containment breach could cause.

  ‘I said, where’s Jerry, Katya? Where is he?’

  I looked up at her, and somehow found the strength of will to answer. ‘He’s still there.’

  ‘Still where?’ She kneeled beside me, one hand on my shoulder.

  I clutched my head, still disoriented. ‘I have to go back.’

  She shook her head, then glanced at the stage. ‘Back where, exactly?’

  The details came spilling out in a rush, the words all mixed together. I saw from her face that I wasn’t making a great deal of sense. She shook her head again, picked up a walkie-talkie from beside the deckchair and thumbed it on. I saw a rifle leaning against the cave wall on the other side of the chair.

  ‘Hey Randall, you awake, you asshole? Good. Listen up: I caught a fish – a big one, you get me? I want you to round up everyone else and tell them to meet me at the shack.’ She glanced at me, then added: ‘I think it’s going to be a long night.’

  She flicked the walkie-talkie off and dropped it down again. ‘Just to be clear: you just came from whatever place you and Jerry disappeared to?’

  I pulled myself to the side of the platform and let my legs dangle off the edge. My eyes were burning and I couldn’t quite breathe properly – not to mention that I was still severely bruised.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’ She raked a hand through her hair, looking perplexed as she studied me. ‘No offence, but you look like hell.’

  I nodded tiredly. She sucked at her lip, then picked up the rifle next to the deckchair and did something to it. She held it casually by her side, but I had no doubt she could bring it to bear on me in an instant.

  ‘I don’t mean to be lousy,’ she said, ‘but when you disappeared, you left a hell of a mess and no explanations.’ She nodded at the stage. ‘Anybody else likely to be joining us here? Like maybe Jerry?’

  I shook my head. ‘No one.’

  ‘Okay.’ She nodded at the deckchair. ‘I want you to come over here and sit down.’

  I hesitated, and she waggled the rifle towards the chair. ‘Now, Katya. Nice and slow.’

  I noticed for the first time the sheen of sweat on her forehead, but I did as I was told. I stepped past her, lowering myself into the chair.

  ‘Good,’ she said. She circled around me and knelt by a heavy rucksack next to the deckchair, angling herself so I was still in her sight. She rummaged around inside the bag and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

  She tossed them next to my feet. ‘Put them on.’

  I stared at them. ‘Do you normally carry handcuffs around with you?’

  ‘You’d be amazed the things I keep handy.’

  I slowly reached down and picked them up. ‘This really isn’t necessary—’

  ‘I’ll decide what’s necessary. Now put them on before anyone else materializes on that damn stage.’

  I gave up arguing and reluctantly closed the cuffs around my wrists.

  ‘There,’ I said, holding my bound wrists up for her to see. ‘Happy?’

  She nodded. ‘For now.’

  She moved past me and knelt by the laptop controlling the stage. She tapped at it, taking the stage offline.

  ‘It’s been weeks since I left,’ I reminded her. ‘Have you been sitting there the whole time?’

  ‘We take it in shifts.’ She moved over to the tarpaulin covering the cave mouth and unpinned it. It fell away, revealing early evening sunlight sparkling from Pacific waves, as well as the rowing boat Jerry had used to bring me here the first time.

  Nadia reached out and grabbed hold of a rope, tugging the boat closer. It made a hollow thunk when it banged against the rock.

  She gestured to it. ‘Get in.’

  I held up my cuffed wrists. ‘With these on?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll catch you if you slip.’

  She scrambled into the rowing boat first and it rocked slightly. She dropped her rifle onto a bench and bent at the knees, lowering her centre of gravity until the boat stopped swaying. Then she gestured to me to come closer.

  I sat down on the lip of rock, my cuffed wrists before me, and lowered first one leg and then the other over the boat while Nadia grabbed hold of a cleat to keep the boat steady. Then she reached up with one hand and held my shoulder as I half-dropped, half-fell into the boat beside her.

  ‘Nadia,’ I insisted, ‘there’s no need for such restraints. I am alone and unarmed!’

  She wordlessly helped me settle onto one of two benches, and I realized I wasn’t going to get an answer. I watched, resigned, as she untied the boat before slotting the oars through the rowlocks.

  She paused, the oars gripped in her hands, and looked at me fro
m where she faced me on the opposite bench. ‘I don’t know what the hell’s going on,’ she said, ‘or where the hell you’re really from – the Soviet Union, or that Novaya-whatever-the-fuck-it-is Empire you told Jerry about. But what I do know is there’s a bunch of dead guys nobody’s seen before all over Delta Twenty-Five, and . . . and those fucking beads. Man.’ She shook her head.

  I started. ‘The beads – you know about them?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Hell, yeah. Me and a couple of the other Pathfinders were the first back on Delta Twenty-Five once they decided it was safe to take a look around. We found them scattered all around the transfer stage there.’

  ‘I need your help,’ I said, ‘desperately. The information those beads contain—’

  ‘Save it for when you talk to the others. The Pathfinders.’

  I darted a look at her. ‘What about Director Blodel?’

  Her expression became dark. ‘Just shut up already and let me row.’

  I shut up. Nadia began to row hard, the muscles of her arms bulging under her shirt as she pulled and pushed at the oars. The rifle was behind her and out of my reach – not that I could have lunged for it even if I had wanted to.

  No more than a few minutes later I found myself standing back on the island proper. It felt as if years had passed since I last stood there.

  Nadia led me to a jeep parked behind the same copse of palms that Jerry had used as a hiding place. I climbed into the passenger seat, and moments later she guided us onto the road beneath a setting sun.

  ‘What about the other Soviets?’ I asked. ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘Sent home,’ Nadia replied, ‘just after you up and vanished.’

  We headed south, along the east coast. After ten minutes she pulled up next to a small dilapidated jetty with a motorized dinghy moored to it. A low-roofed shack stood a little way inland, and was the only other sign of civilization I could see. She got out and I followed her, my wrists already chafing from the cuffs.

  She nodded towards the shack. ‘We’ll meet the others here. Shouldn’t be long, assuming Randall got his sorry ass in gear.’