It wasn't looking great. She'd been unconscious for the ride over to this place, which meant she had absolutely no idea where she was in relation to the others. She didn't have a tracking device on her, so she had no idea where she was in relation to O'Blarney either. The ship she'd come in on was a wreck, but even if it hadn't been she had no idea where to find that. She was, in short, lost.
She looked around her, but surrounding the small clearing she could see nothing but trees, thick with late-spring leaves. She sniffed experimentally, trying to pick up some trace scent, anything that might give her some clue to where she was. She could easily recognise the delicate smell of the wildflowers whose heads she could see nodding merrily in the short grass of the clearing. More powerful than that, the ripe odour of her already decaying kill. Beyond that, nothing.
The ground was flat but the air felt thin, so she guessed she was probably somewhere up in the mountains rather than back down near the plains. Not that that helped very much. It wasn't a small mountain range, and if she was on the wrong side of it, she could wander for months before finding O'Blarney or the others. Not that she had months. In a few weeks, she'd be dying of old age. Damn it! This was all Johnny's fault!
She looked at the trees nearest her, smooth-barked silver birches. Whatever the answer was, she knew she wouldn't find it down here. She needed some perspective and she'd only find it in the tree tops where she might be able to get a view of something other than yet more trees. But the trunks stretched up a good ten metres before they sprouted any branches. And despite her recent meal Red was still feeling weak and disoriented from the blow to her head. She didn't think there was any way she'd make the climb. Angry at her helplessness, she rubbed at the raw red mark where the leather cords had dug into her flesh.
A sharp spike of pain shot into her head from the wounds and seemed to dislodge a thought. The leather cords themselves were about the only thing around that could help her. Tied around her hands and feet, they might provide the friction which would allow her to shin up the bare trunk.
She looked up at the tree, all twenty-five metres of it, and sighed. It wasn't going to be a hell of a lot of fun, but at least it was just about possible.
Twenty sweaty and curse-filled minutes later, Durham Red pulled herself onto the first branch of the tallest tree in the clearing. Her muscles were screaming at her, and her clothes were ripped, but she'd made it. She paused a moment to catch her breath, then scrambled inelegantly up the remaining branches and poked her head up through the canopy of leaves.
Then she laughed.
She was, as she had thought, in the mountain region, in a high valley between two enormous, snow-capped peaks. It was very beautiful. Small goat-like creatures were grazing its slopes, while a bright stream danced and weaved through its centre. It all looked very pastoral and idyllic.
Except, that is, for the ugly growth which had sprouted out of one side of the mountain like a giant wart. It was clearly man-made, so new that it was like a scar on the landscape. It wasn't quite as large as she'd expected, perhaps the size of a small castle, but the huge heaps of rubble which surrounded it suggested that there was far more, hidden iceberg-like beneath the surface. It was brown and ugly and industrial and there was only one thing it could possibly be: O'Blarney's base.
Red grinned wolfishly. Looked like she'd got to the finish line well ahead of the rest of the field. That meant that she got to claim the prize, and didn't have to share it. If she played her cards right, the bounty on O'Blarney could be all hers.
Johnny didn't want to waste any more time cooking, so they ate their own cold rations. The other mutants - One-Eyed Jack most of all - glared at the Blimp. Only Middenface had been willing to forgive her. He was sitting beside her chatting now, though it looked to Johnny to be pretty one-sided. The Blimp was probably using up so much energy digesting her vast meal, she didn't have much left over for conversation.
When he'd finished his own food, Johnny hesitated a moment, bracing himself, then sat down next to Jo, who was leaning against a tree, picking at the peel of a green fruit. Its sharp smell stung Johnny's nostrils as he approached. She gave no acknowledgement of his presence, though he could tell from the subtle stiffening of her body that she knew he was there.
"Hurts like hell, doesn't it?" he said.
Her head twitched towards him, but she still wouldn't meet his eye.
"And you know something?" Johnny continued after a moment of silence. "It won't stop hurting for a long time, and whatever anyone tells you, the pain never completely goes away. There's always a dull ache somewhere inside, like some vital part of you is missing and no matter how hard you try, you can't get it back."
Now she did meet his eyes, a tear trickling out of the corner of hers. But her face was twisted into a slight smile. "That's the shittiest pep talk I've ever heard."
Johnny shrugged. "Thing is, you owe it to them to carry on. Doesn't matter how little you want to. The people who die are the lucky ones. We're left carrying the burden they left behind."
Without looking to see her reaction, he eased himself to his feet and shifted his pack into a more comfortable position on his shoulders. "Come on!" he called out to the others. "Past time to get moving."
The Strontium Dogs scrambled to their feet. After a second, Jo did too. He had just turned to head off when he realised that the Blimp was still sitting on the ground. "Hey, didn't you hear me?" he asked.
The Blimp didn't respond.
Middenface, who was standing beside her, leaned down. "Come oan, hen," he said.
There was still no response. Her eyes stared at them, unblinking, unseeing.
"Whit the hell's the matter with her?" Middenface shouted, crouching down in front of her. He might as well have been invisible for all the attention she paid him. Middenface placed his hand on her chest. "Sneck, Johnny, she isnae breathing!"
Johnny rushed over. Middenface was right. Her chest wasn't moving. But when he placed his hand in front of her mouth, he felt the very faintest stirrings of breath. And, as he watched, her eyelid began to move down agonisingly slowly.
"The stew!" Middenface shouted. "Some wee scunner's poisoned her!"
"Not poison," Johnny said, remaining crouched beside Middenface, using the cover of his body to draw his gun where the other mutants couldn't see it. "Chronite. Someone's slowed her down, and if she hadn't eaten all the food, they'd have slowed us all down."
As soon as he realised this, he knew that the attack was coming. But by that time, the pyro-bullet from O'Blarney's gun was already heading straight towards his undefended back.
Ladybird had run away from home. It was the only thing she could do. With Johnny moving further and further away from the village, she was no longer able to sneak out and see him in a night. Particularly since her father had caught her returning on her horse after she'd taken care of the red-haired woman. She felt a brief twinge of guilt as she thought about the other woman, but over the last few weeks she'd had some practice hardening her heart against what she'd done, and she did it again now. Anyway, the other woman would have done the same to her given half a chance, she was sure of it. She'd seen the fury in her eyes.
But her father had caught her and grounded her, and this time he'd made her move to the bed in the deepest corner of the house so that if she wanted to sneak out she'd have to climb over her father and two sisters to do it. So, one day when she'd been told to walk out to the furthest field and mind the yearlings, she'd just kept on walking. She had to leave. It wasn't about Johnny. Ever since the red-haired woman, Ladybird had felt cut off from the rest of her people. They carried on walking around in their bubble of niceness, flushing with shame if they accidentally said a harsh word to anybody. And here was she, a murderer. It made her feel different. Special.
She knew Johnny would understand. He carried a gun, she was sure he must have killed people too. What had happened could only bring them closer together.
She was thinking this happy though
t as she finally found Johnny, heading towards Brother O'Blarney's castle as she had expected. But the happiness faded as soon as she saw what was going on.
For a second, she couldn't believe it. Brother O'Blarney, the spiritual leader of her people, who had preached peace and love since before she was born, was firing a strange weapon at another human being. It was only after she thought this that she realised who exactly this human being was.
Johnny.
And, as she watched, the bullet gently flew another couple of centimetres towards Johnny's unprotected back.
Almost without thinking, she flung herself forward, barrelling into Johnny and pushing him out of the path of the bullet. In her haste, though, she forgot the effect that someone going at her speed could have on someone going at his. Johnny was flung a good five metres away from his position, towards the frozen river which she had crossed less than a minute before. Johnny didn't cross the river, though. He landed on it, then, as she watched in horror, began to slide rapidly downstream along the frictionless surface of the ice.
There was only one thing she could do. She flung herself onto the river after him.
It all happened faster than Middenface could register. One second, he and Johnny were kneeling in front of the Blimp, the next, Johnny had flown through the air, and was sliding away down the frozen river at a terrifying speed.
The second after that, Middenface realised they were under attack as a bullet thudded into the ground near his feet. He drew his weapon and spun to face O'Blarney, who was looking as good as new, though as puzzled by Johnny's disappearance as the rest of them. Middenface took the opportunity to let off a blaster round at O'Blarney, but the robot quickly ducked behind the cover of a tree.
Middenface dropped to his knees in front of the immobile Blimp, shielding her with his body as best he could, and continued firing, determined to keep O'Blarney pinned down, hoping that his covering fire would allow one of the others to outflank their enemy.
Except, he realised, the others weren't joining in. He chanced a quick look back, and saw that the members of Team X were all looking downriver, where Johnny had disappeared. In a split second, he knew what they were thinking: if their leader had decided discretion was the better part of valour, why should they stay and fight?
Before Middenface could do anything, Enigma had flung herself after Johnny down the frozen slide of the river. Min Qi Man and Woman Man followed moments after. One Eyed-Jack watched them dive, looking as horrified as Middenface felt. His head swung between O'Blarney and the river, like a man weighing up odds. Then he shrugged and flung himself onto the ice chute.
Middenface cursed as the last of his allies zoomed out of sight. When he looked back round, O'Blarney had stepped out from behind the tree.
"Oh dear," the robot said. "looks like they've scarpered and left you all on your tod."
Middenface let loose another round of blaster fire, but it splashed harmlessly off O'Blarney's silvery carapace, not leaving so much as a scorch mark. Then, calmly, O'Blarney marched up to him, snatched his blaster from his hand, tied the barrel in a knot and flung the weapon contemptuously behind him.
"Looks like me and you are gonna be getting better acquainted," he said. His hand swung lazily back to connect with Middenface's head, and everything went black.
17 / GOING UNDERGROUND
After a few seconds of utter confusion, Johnny realised what was happening. Somehow, something had knocked him onto the surface of the river. He tried desperately to slow himself down, or at least to straighten himself out, but it was hopeless. He was travelling too damn fast. The scenery to either side was whizzing by in a confusing blur of green and brown and the occasional flash of blue as he spun briefly onto his back and caught a glimpse of the sky.
After the initial impact, the journey itself was actually relatively painless. The surface of the ice was smooth as silk, and he glided along it, buoyed on a thin layer of water until the river entered an area of steep-sided ravines cut into rock and the pain came back full force as Johnny was bounced like a pinball from the cliff sides.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Everything around Johnny went dark, as the river plunged through the mountainside into an underground cavern. As the river took a sharp turn to the right, Johnny kept on going straight, and was flung away from the ice and onto the gritty surface of the cavern floor. He skidded a good ten metres, scraping his trousers bare and his hands raw - before, finally, slowing to a stop.
He had a few seconds to enjoy the sense of stillness, before four more bodies were flung out of the river to land straight on top of him.
Red would have liked to wait for cover of darkness before approaching O'Blarney's base. But she wasn't prepared to give up six months of her lifespan to do it, so she made the best of a bad job and used every ounce of stealth at her disposal as she crept up to the ramshackle structure.
The landscape was on her side, for once. The cratered, rocky surface offered plenty of hiding places. The sun had disappeared behind a cloud, leaving everything painted in shades of grey. Red knew that to any observer she'd look like just another monochrome blob in the dull landscape.
It all seemed too easy to be true, until she got close enough to make out the features of the base itself. Embedded in every surface, she could see the gleaming silver orbs of spy-cameras. She thought, as she often had before, that life would be a lot easier if she really were a vampire, unable to cast her image on film.
But she wasn't, so she'd have to do this the hard way. Sitting back on her haunches, she settled down to watching the cameras, following the tracking motion as they cast their electronic eyes over the landscape around them. After a second, she saw it, the small blind spot that, for two brief seconds, wasn't covered by any camera.
That was fine. Two seconds was all she needed. She rose to her feet and prepared to make a run for it.
Ladybird couldn't believe the bad luck. Of all the places to land, right in the middle of Brother O'Blarney's chronite mines would have been absolutely the last place she'd choose. It was, unusually, empty at the moment, but she knew that the miners, the menfolk of her village, would be back soon. She had to get Johnny out of there before any of her people betrayed him to O'Blarney, or before they saw her and let her dad know where she was.
She looked over at Johnny and his companions, all jumbled together in a pile near one wall of the large chamber. In the flickering glow of the torchlight, she saw them begin to make their slow, slow way to their feet.
She needed to talk to them, to warn them. And, most importantly, she needed to let Johnny know about the package she'd delivered to one of his companions. Because she was beginning to realise that the mission Brother O'Blarney had sent her on might not have been as innocent as it appeared.
She didn't have much chronite left, but she hoped it would be enough. Anyway, she was in the right place to find some more if she needed it. She took the package out of her skirt pocket, and prepared to swallow the bitter white powder within.
Because she was concentrating on that, she didn't notice the miners returning until it was far too late. Before she could do more than take a step back, her Uncle Badger had grabbed her arm. "There you are, young lady!"
"Let me go, I'm here on important business for my father," Ladybird said haughtily. She couldn't believe after all she'd been through, all she'd done, that she could be stopped now.
Her uncle obviously thought otherwise. "Really?" he said, with heavy sarcasm. "Funny that your dad sent us a messenger bird, then, begging us to tell him if we'd seen his little girl anywhere." He looked into her eyes and his expression softened a little. "He's worried sick about you, you know!"
"Well, you can tell him I'm fine, and that I'll be back just as soon as I can," Ladybird said.
The other miners, who had returned along with her uncle, murmured and shook their grimy faces.
"You're going nowhere," her uncle said sternly, "except straight back home where you belong."
But her uncle could. Even though she dug her heels in and pulled back with all her might, he began relentlessly dragging her out of the chamber and away from Johnny. She thought - in a sudden flash of fury - that she would have to kill him too. But she didn't have a weapon and he was far too strong for her.
There was only one thing she could do to stop him. She stopped her resistance, moving forward so that her arm was no longer pulled taught. And in the brief moment before her uncle realised what she was doing, she flung her hand up and threw the dregs of the chronite powder into her mouth.
There was a horrible wrenching sensation, as if her eyes were being turned back to front. "Johnny!" she shouted out. "Watch out for-"
Seeing his niece suddenly freeze, Badger took a moment to work out what was going on. As soon as he did, he flung her over his shoulder, and marched out of the chamber. She seemed to be trying to say something, but so slowly that he couldn't make out a word.
He sighed in exasperation and handed the unresisting body of his niece over to two of the other workers. "Better put her in chamber two till she thaws out. When she's moving properly again we can take her back to her father." He looked at the motionless girl and shook his head sadly. "She used to be such a lovely little thing. Shame they all have to grow up."
Back in the chamber, Johnny snapped his head round as the figure of the native girl who had told him her name was Ladybird materialised in the middle of the chamber. "Johnny!" she shouted as she appeared. "Watch out for-" and then she disappeared again.
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