Loop

by Ben Oliver

  ‘Do we go on or split here?’ Malachai asks. ‘There could be groups of Smilers all over Old Town.’

  ‘Pander might be across there,’ Tyco says, turning to look at us. ‘We should help her.’

  Tyco’s sudden burst of empathy puts me on edge – all I’ve ever known from him is homicidal single-mindedness, and now he wants to help a girl he barely knows? But I can see fear in his eyes, and I think that perhaps he’s scared and doesn’t want to be left alone.

  ‘He’s right,’ Malachai says. ‘Let’s go.’

  And so we resume moving from burnt-out cars to lampposts to pillars until we’re across the water and into Old Town.

  The cobbled streets are littered with the dead, all of them still grinning despite their violent final moments, and the heat of the day has amplified the odour of their decomposition until it overwhelms me.

  Among the corpses are more drones than I can count. Most of them are security drones: tiny insectile robots carrying 360° cameras to film every centimetre of the city at all times. We try to move silently, but the microdrones crunch under our feet.

  There must be more Smilers active in this area – we hear footsteps, slamming doors, explosions and more, but all we can do is keep on moving, keep on making our way towards the hospital and, hopefully, Pander and painkillers.

  That man wasn’t one of them, I think, my mind racing. He wasn’t infected, he wasn’t a Smiler. How? I can feel my mind reeling from all this insanity. I look to the east, towards the Black Road Vertical, my home on the 177th floor, and I remind myself of why I must survive. You’re still alive, I think, picturing Molly’s face, and my father’s, both of you, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to find you and find the cure to . . . whatever this is.

  We move on, weaving around dead bodies and stalled cars. We walk past another Church of the Last Religion – the city’s only remaining faith, where they worship the Final Gods – and turn on to street 41-40.

  He wasn’t affected by the chemicals, I think again, picturing the man sweeping the bridge.

  ‘There,’ Tyco says, interrupting my thoughts.

  I look to where he’s pointing: the Old Town Infirmary, an almost pyramid-like building with hundreds of blacked-out windows. From here we can see the rescue drone bay and emergency entrance.

  Malachai turns so he’s facing Kina, Tyco and me. ‘We go in and we split up. Tyco, you and I will start from the top and work our way down, Kina and—’

  Malachai’s words are cut off by the sound of smashing glass coming from the hospital. We all turn to see a figure leaping out of one of the middle floors of the building and sliding down several closed, sloping windows to a balcony three metres below.

  ‘Pander?’ Malachai gasps, squinting at the figure who is now hanging from the balcony by her fingertips and dropping to a windowsill below.

  But I’m not looking at the girl any more – I’m looking at the window she jumped out of. Five Smilers are crawling through after her, ignoring the deep cuts that the shards of glass slice into their flesh as they shamble down the building, stalking their prey.

  As the girl climbs rapidly down the pyramid and lands hard on the roof of an ambulance, I see that it is Pander, but there’s no time to celebrate – as she clambers down to the pavement, three Smilers slam into the roof of the same ambulance, while a fourth hits the pavement and lies dead.

  ‘Pander!’ Kina calls, and her frantic eyes find us.

  ‘Run, idiots!’ she screams back. ‘Go! Run! Move!’

  The chasing Smilers jump down from the ambulance. The fifth crawls down the side of the building and jumps on to the dead body of the one that hit the pavement, and now all four all running at us, Pander leading the way only a few steps ahead of the chasing killers.

  We come to our senses as one and turn, and as we start to run Pander has already caught up with us, but the sound of the Smilers’ footsteps behind us grows louder every second.

  ‘I’m starting to regret coming with you,’ Malachai yells as he sprints past me.

  We reach a junction; one way leads towards the river and the other back to the centre of town. I don’t get to choose as Tyco shoves me towards the river. I leap down the steps leading to the path that runs alongside the water, and as I run beside the fast-flowing river, and underneath the bridge that we had crossed minutes earlier, I feel the temperature drop so suddenly that I can’t help but slow down to see what’s happened. Dark clouds have rolled across the sky and snow falls so suddenly and heavily that the path in front of me turns white.

  ‘What the hell?’ I say, slowing down.

  ‘Run, stupid!’ Tyco hisses as he sprints past me.

  And I do. I force my exhausted legs to carry me onwards.

  I glance behind me – Kina, Pander and Malachai have got separated from us. Two of the Smilers are still chasing, silent apart from the sounds of their feet crunching on the snow. I turn and run faster, gaining on Tyco now despite his mechanical lungs, and I have just enough time to think, Maybe we haven’t been separated from the other three, maybe the Smilers got them, before my foot slips on the snow.

  I stumble forward, trying to regain my balance, but it’s too late. I fall, arms outstretched. My chin connects with the hard path beneath the cold snow and I see a white flash in front of my eyes. For a second the world turns black, and all I can hear is the sound of my heart beating fast and loud in my chest.

  I’m scrambling to my feet in a pulsing world of fog, unsure of where I am. All I know is that I have to move, I have to run, I have to get away.

  The sound of sprinting footsteps closes in.

  Smilers, I think, but I’m too dazed to make my legs work properly. I’m staggering forward like a stunned boxer, watching Tyco disappear into the distance, and knowing that any second I’ll feel the warmth of the senseless killers as they swarm me.

  This is it, I think, trying to breathe through frozen lungs. You die here.

  I feel a blow, hard and fast into my ribcage. All the air blasts out of my lungs and I’m falling again, this time towards the river.

  I hit the water. The freezing temperature clears my head and I kick my legs hard until I break the surface, just in time to see a tall skinny Smiler leap into the water and begin moving towards me, his smile unfaltering. Behind him the second Smiler jumps in and she moves towards me too, fighting against the power of the current.

  I take a deep breath and dive back below the flowing stream, kicking my legs and dragging my arms through the murky, cold water. I swim as fast as I can. I have no idea if my pursuers are close, if they’re gaining on me, if I’m getting away from them. All I do is swim and swim and swim. I stay below the surface, using the experience of the energy harvest to remain calm as my lungs feel like they are stretching to the ripping point in my chest.

  After what feels like for ever, I climb to the surface and suck the cold air into my body.

  I turn back to where the Smilers were and see only the fast-flowing water through the rapidly falling snow.

  ‘Hey,’ a shout comes from the bank and I turn to see that Tyco has stopped running. He’s pointing a finger into the stream in front of me.

  I follow the direction of Tyco’s outstretched finger. At first I see nothing, then, through the snow, I see the shape of a human body, floating face-down ahead of me. It’s the tall Smiler. I stand there, frozen in shock as the corpse floats by me, and, a few seconds later, the second Smiler floats by, her orange blouse almost glowing in the dirty water and white snow.

  ‘Get out of there,’ Tyco calls, ‘you’ll catch hypothermia.’

  I can’t think of anything apart from the unmoving bodies floating down river as I fight against the current and the rapidly forming ice. I make it to the muddy banks. Tyco pulls me onto the path. All of this seems to happen in snapshots – I feel as though I float away for a second and then come back. As I lie in the snow, staring up at the blizzard, I laugh. I don’t know why. Maybe Tyco’s right and this is the first sympto
m of hypothermia – certainly I can’t feel my fingers or toes, and my breath is coming out in clouds of thick white.

  ‘We have to go,’ Tyco says, leaning down into my field of vision.

  I can’t make sense of his words. The whiteness of the snow seems to fill my whole world until there’s nothing else.

  And then I’m indoors. Collapsed on to a couch in a vast, clean living room in a home I don’t recognize or remember getting to.

  ‘Where are we?’ I say, my teeth rattling together as my body temperature hits a new low.

  ‘My house,’ Tyco mutters as he moves around the place, opening doors, looking for signs of life.

  ‘Pander and Malachai?’ I ask, almost unable to get the words out I’m shaking so violently. The words are slurred as well, as though I’m drunk. ‘Kina?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replies. ‘I didn’t see what happened.’

  I nod, but I can’t really comprehend the meaning of the words. I no longer feel fear, or hope, or anything. I want to sleep, so I lie down and close my eyes.

  ‘No!’ Tyco yells, and then he’s slapping my cheek over and over.

  ‘What?’ I ask, annoyed by the disturbance. ‘What?’

  ‘Wait here, don’t fall asleep. If you fall asleep you won’t wake up, do you understand?’

  I nod again, even though his words make no sense to me at all.

  Kina can’t be dead, I think, my mind finding a moment of clarity. If she was dead, I’d be dead too. She has the trigger.

  I smile and look around the room. I want to tell Tyco the good news, but he’s gone, and I’m alone. I look around at the white walls, tiled floor, the 360 projector built into the floor, and the SoCom Unit on the glass table.

  ‘What a nice home,’ I mutter to myself. And I fall asleep.

  I’m on top of the Black Road Vertical.

  The boy with the blond hair is falling down and down, through the clear summer air. The boy is Tyco Roth’s brother, and pretty soon he will be dead.

  My sister turns to me and pulls the rubber witch mask off. There are tears in her eyes and her lower lip is trembling, the knife in her hand falling to the ground.

  ‘I didn’t mean to . . .’

  The wind whistles through the water pipes as we stare at each other.

  ‘Molly, you didn’t do it,’ I tell her. ‘I did.’

  I open my eyes.

  I’m in a bathtub. Warm water up to my chin. Steam rising all around me. I’m still fully clothed.

  Where am I?

  There is immense pain in the tips of my fingers and toes. I remember the river, the cold and the pain. It’s only now that I realize I was on the verge of death.

  And Tyco saved me, I think.

  As I lie here, I can hear his voice, day after day, year after year, screaming across the exercise yard that he was going to kill me.

  I lie still, letting the warmth of the water surround me. I look down at the wounds covering my body, the rat bites and the scrapes from the tunnel and the village and the river, and I’m surprised to see that they are already healing.

  I lie back and let the water heat the core of my frozen bones. I suck the hot, steamy air through my nose and feel it in my throat. My body is still shaking and convulsing but my mind is clear once more.

  I look around at the lavish bathroom. It’s about the same size as the entire flat that I grew up in. The curved wall in front of me is a screen that – when the power was on – would have shown interactive movies, social media, games. There are four sinks along one wall with retractable shelves full of self-replenishing products. An autowash shower the size of a small barn sits in the corner.

  I think about my dad, I think about my sister, about Kina, Wren, Pander, Malachai, Akimi, Pod, Igby, Blue. I hope they’re alive, I hope they’re OK. I think about how much time has passed already, and about how every second my sister and my father are left alone out there in the city is another second closer to their deaths. I think about the Facility, the massive structure where our Delays took place and where there just might be a cure for the Smilers.

  I push myself to standing and the water pours out of my clothes. My knees feel stiff and weak. I pull apart the Velcro of my prison suit and let it fall off me before stepping out of the bath.

  There are six towels hanging on a rack beside the door. I take one and wrap it around my waist before opening the bathroom door and stepping out.

  I’m in a long corridor that forms a mezzanine level. Below me I can see the living room where I sat dying on the couch. I see a large gas canister hooked up to a camping stove with water boiling in a large pot.

  That’s how he heated the water, I think, and walk towards the ornate wooden staircase.

  ‘You’re alive,’ Tyco says, coming out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dishcloth.

  I nod as I walk down the staircase towards him. ‘Thanks to you.’

  ‘Well, I’m only alive because of you. You let me out of the Loop.’

  I laugh at the drastic change in our relationship. ‘I never thought that you and I would be looking out for each other.’

  ‘Things change, I guess,’ he says as he lets the dishcloth hang over one hand.

  ‘This is a nice place,’ I say, looking around at the expansive home once again.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Tyco, when I said I was sorry about your brother I meant it. I—’

  ‘Luka, please, I’ll never be OK with what happened, but we’re in the middle of an apocalypse, so I have to put it behind me.’

  ‘I understand, I just want you to know—’

  ‘I know,’ he says, and he holds a hand out for me to shake. ‘It’s behind us, OK?’

  I look at his outstretched hand and can’t quite believe it. I had resigned myself to the fact that Tyco Roth had lost his mind the day his brother died, that something had broken inside of him, and he would go to his death believing that I was the devil, and here he is offering a truce.

  ‘OK,’ I say, and take his hand in mine.

  Tyco smiles and he lets the dishcloth fall from his other hand as he slaps me on the back. ‘We won’t survive this unless we work together,’ he says.

  ‘You’re right, I agree.’

  Tyco steps back and looks at me intently, the smile growing on his face.

  ‘The thing is,’ he says, great humour in his voice now, ‘I don’t actually care if I survive, just as long as you don’t.’

  Tyco walks towards me, his form leaving an afterimage, a trailing stream of colour as he moves.

  Something is wrong.

  I feel a jolt of panic as I register the feeling of something on my back where Tyco slapped me, something that feels like a small plastic strip.

  I reach for it, throwing my arms across my shoulder, but the Ebb patch is just out of reach.

  ‘I couldn’t let the cold kill you, Luka. It had to be me,’ Tyco says. His voice sounds like it’s coming from everywhere at once.

  ‘Tyco, what have you done?’

  I try to concentrate on the danger, the threat of Tyco, but my eyes focus on a small scratch on the arm of the red leather couch and it seems funny to me. I imagine Tyco as a toddler with a plastic sword running around the house slaying imaginary dragons, I see it so vividly that for a second I forget that the adult Tyco is standing in front of me, intent on ending my life. I laugh at how absurd that is.

  ‘Do you know how long I’ve waited for this moment?’ Tyco asks, and as he talks, I see his words coming out of his mouth in big purple balloons twisted into the shape of letters. I watch them float up into the air and then pop over his head.

  Focus, Luka, I tell myself. This man is going to kill you.

  But I can’t focus. My body feels as if it is being filled with pure, concentrated joy from the tips of my toes up to the top of my head. I laugh again and watch Tyco pull the knife from his pocket. I know it’s a knife, I know what he intends to do with it, but to me it looks like a cucumber.

  ‘Do y
ou know why I was sentenced to death?’ Tyco asks, his face changing from purple to green to yellow. ‘I tried to burn down the Marshal station because they let my brother die. My family paid thirty thousand Coin a year for personal protection, and they let him die. I think a part of me wanted to end up in the Loop with you, Luka, because I knew, somehow, that I would get a chance to make you pay for what you did.’

  I have a moment of clarity and I see the look of triumph on Tyco’s face, and the long sharp blade moving slowly towards me until the tip is against my neck.

  ‘Tyco, please,’ I manage, and then I’m gone again.

  I hear music, a great orchestra playing some jubilant concerto, and the sound is coming from Tyco. Every time he opens his mouth the orchestra starts again.

  He’s going to plunge that knife into you, any second now. He might have already done it and you can’t even feel it.

  I grab on to that thought. I have to escape, I have to run.

  I shove Tyco as hard as I can and watch him tumble over the couch, the cucumber – no, knife – clanging to the floor. I run into the kitchen, leaping over the island unit and sprinting across to the front door, which I kick open and run out into the sunlight.

  I did it, I think. I escaped.

  I’m in a field of tall grass, running without effort. I feel so alive and so free and the sunlight is so warm on my skin.

  Sunlight? I think. Wasn’t it snowing?

  And then I’m back in the living room. Tyco still standing in front of me with the cucumber pressed against my throat.

  I imagined the whole thing; I hadn’t escaped at all, hadn’t even moved.

  ‘Shit,’ I say, and my voice comes out as a low, long, slow-motion sound.

  ‘Why don’t you beg?’ Tyco asks, that sneer on his face making him look like a Smiler.

  The rat tunnel, the homeless village, the river, I think. You survived all of that just to die at the hands of Tyco Roth. You should have just left him in his cell.