Doomsday

by Chris Morphew

  ‘You c-can’t do this!’ Cathryn said, taking a shaky step forward. ‘I’m Louisa Hawking’s daughter!’

  You IDIOT! I pressed my face up to the grate, panic washing over me, wave after wave. You stupid, brainless coward! You think that’s going to make any difference?

  Calvin laughed. ‘Your mother’s wishes do not concern me, Cathryn.’

  ‘If you kill me, she’ll –’

  ‘She will do the same as the rest of us,’ said Calvin. ‘She will do what she is told.’

  Cathryn opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She looked back at the panic room, despair on her face. Her one bargaining chip had failed – of course it had – and now she had –

  One of the guards let out a shout, and a dark blur spun across my grate. A rifle. Cathryn shrieked as it hurtled past.

  I heard a grunt and a click as Peter caught the weapon, and then gunfire filled up the corridor again. The sound ricocheted inside my locker, pounding my head from all sides.

  ‘EVERYBODY BACK!’ yelled Peter, charging up behind Cathryn who was still on her feet, paralysed with fear. ‘EVERYBODY –!’

  One of the guards returned fire, drowning him out, and a scream rose up in the corridor. Cathryn collapsed, clanging noisily against one of the fallen lockers. Peter glanced down at her, focus slipping for just a second.

  And suddenly Calvin was leaping into my field of vision, through the mess of battered, bullet-strewn metal, rifle swinging out over his shoulder like a baseball bat. He cracked the weapon down across Peter’s head. Peter staggered, swaying on his feet, but didn’t fall. Calvin pounded the weapon into his head again, and he finally dropped to the ground.

  I slumped against the locker doors, my knees threatening to give way. The doors thunked into whatever Peter had jammed through the handles, but the sound was covered up by another wail from Cathryn.

  Calvin glanced down at her for only a moment before turning back to his men, hand outstretched towards the panic room. ‘In there. Bring Tobias to me.’

  It took everything I had not to start pounding on the doors in an attempt to break out.

  They rushed past me. Still four of them, even after the carnage back up near the entrance. Calvin must have roped in a couple of others after the corridor caved in.

  ‘Do not harm the others,’ Calvin called after them. ‘Shackleton wants them alive.’

  One of the guards spoke up. It sounded like Officer Cook. ‘Sir? Barnett’s orders were to –’

  ‘Officer Barnett is no longer in command,’ Calvin said coldly.

  An uncomfortable pause, then: ‘Yes, sir.’

  Screams flew from the panic room as the doors were flung open. Ms Hunter started to yell, but there was a clatter of metal on concrete as her pistol was tossed aside. I heard Georgia wailing, Mum begging the guards to leave her children alone. Then one of the guards fired their weapon and my heart almost burst out of my chest.

  The screaming stopped.

  My insides went cold.

  I slumped down inside the locker.

  No, no, no, no …

  ‘On your feet!’ Cook boomed. ‘Now! All of you! Next person to speak gets a bullet.’

  Georgia sobbed again, and I felt the light flicker back on inside me. Just a warning shot. They were all still alive.

  Footsteps shuffled into the corridor. A guard stepped into view in front of me, waving the others through. Mum came out after him, Georgia shuddering in her arms and the barrel of another guard’s rifle poking into her back.

  I pressed my face up against the grate, clenching my fists, telling myself over and over again that my best hope of helping them now was to stay hidden and wait until I actually had a shot at doing something constructive. It was excruciating, every second an eternity.

  They paraded the others out, over the unconscious heap of Peter’s body, with Cook at the back, cradling a silent Tobias.

  Cathryn whimpered as Calvin dragged her to her feet. Cook came up to hand Tobias over. He looked Cathryn up and down, then rolled his eyes. She was completely uninjured.

  Calvin shoved her roughly across to Cook, and then reached to snatch up Tobias. A smile broke across his face, eerily reminiscent of the one in Georgia’s drawing.

  ‘Everybody out,’ Calvin ordered, nodding at the entrance. ‘We’ve got work to do.’

  The guards filed past him, hauling my family away. I choked down a shudder, fingers clawing the walls of the locker, only barely managing to stay quiet.

  ‘What about the others?’ asked Cook in an undertone, hanging back to speak with Calvin in private. ‘Hunter and Burke?’

  Calvin glanced back down at Tobias. I couldn’t read his expression in the darkness, but the next words out of his mouth were clear enough. ‘We’ve got what we came for. If you find them, kill them.’

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 1.56 A.M. 15 HOURS, 4 MINUTES

  I held out for as long as I could, waiting for the guards to get some distance on me, hands wrapped around myself to keep from breaking down before they got out of earshot, head filled with so many blood-spattered images of Mum and Georgia and the baby that I barely even knew where I was anymore.

  Finally, my resolve gave out and I started hammering on the doors of my locker, trying to shake loose whatever was holding the handles shut. The doors rattled but didn’t budge. I felt the tears pricking my eyes again, panic threatening to boil over completely and send me into meltdown.

  ‘Come on!’ I pleaded, pounding the metal. ‘Come on, come on, come on, COME ON!’

  I threw myself, screaming, at the doors. An explosive bang shot up and down the corridor and the locker rocked, almost toppling over. I backed off, panic shooting up my spine. The locker tipped into place again, and I crashed into the back wall, shaking.

  I straightened up, trying to steady my breathing. Think, you idiot! Get it together before you kill yourself.

  I stared through the grate at Peter, still unconscious among the bullet-riddled lockers, face lit up by the torch on his rifle. I swallowed hard, trying to work out if waking him up would put me in more trouble or less, and then a burst of clarity flashed just bright enough for me to see another way out. I couldn’t tip myself forwards without crushing Peter’s legs and trapping myself even worse in the process. But Peter had thrown aside the locker next to mine.

  If I could knock this thing over sideways …

  I spread my feet, digging them into the foot of the wall on each side of me, heart still threatening to punch its way out of my chest. With another furious shout, I threw my weight hard to the left. The locker rocked slightly, but clunked back down again.

  I swung to the other side, building momentum, then heaved left again. Another swing and a miss but I kept moving, back to the right, and then back to the left, and then right, left, right, left –

  And then suddenly I was in free-fall. I twisted around, trying to brace myself, barely even getting my hands down under me before –

  CRASH!

  My arms cushioned some of the blow, but not enough to stop my head thumping down into the ground. I groaned, head spinning, maybe even blacking out for a bit. As soon as I’d got my breath back, I rolled over and kicked at the door in front of me. There was a thump as whatever had been blocking the handles came loose, and the door fell open, crashing to the ground.

  I jolted backwards. Peter was right there in front of me, face lit up like he was about to tell me a ghost story. Eyes closed, but still breathing.

  I crawled out, doing my best not to touch him, skin crawling as my mind flashed back to the night he’d cornered me in his bedroom. My foot caught on the strap of his rifle and I almost face-planted into the ground. Peter stirred, mumbling something under his breath. I wrenched myself away, half-expecting to get thrown into a wall, but he settled into unsconsciousness again.

  My torch lay on the ground in front of him. I picked it up and pushed myself back to my feet, still woozy from the fall.

  What now? I thought, leaning against the w
all.

  The panic inside me had settled for a moment as I’d escaped the locker, but it was already surging to the surface again. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to focus.

  Calvin would have them all out of the Complex by now. Off to be interrogated by Shackleton. He’d keep them alive for a while at least.

  Or would he? How did I know that? How did I know Shackleton didn’t just want to slaughter them in person? And what about Tobias? Would he even make it to Shackleton, or would Calvin just wring his neck out in the bush somewhere? If Tobias died, so did everyone on the outside. So did –

  Luke.

  I had to find Luke.

  I took off, but made it only a few steps up the corridor before skidding to a stop and running back to Peter. I crouched down again, tearing his rifle away from him. I ran my hands over the ground, searching for his knife, but it was like it had just disappeared.

  No time! I screamed inside my head. Just go!

  The panic took hold again and I abandoned the search, reaching down and rolling Peter over, into the locker I’d just escaped from. I slammed the locker shut and ran around behind it, pushing it over onto its front, sealing him inside.

  Even dizzy with fear, I wasn’t stupid enough to think that would hold him for long. But it might give us a few minutes, and maybe that would count for something.

  I started running again, through the mould and the dirt and the decay, straight for the epicentre of the explosion that had started all of this. The explosion I’d caused, twenty years ago, on the night of Luke’s murder.

  My head was a dead weight, throbbing with the pain of my fall and still reeling from the revelation that everything we’d been through in the last hundred days had only been possible because of me.

  I’d caused the fallout, which had caused my powers, which had caused the fallout.

  What would happen if we changed it? What if Luke never went back in time? What if I didn’t let him? If there was no trip back through time, then there was no explosion to bring down the Complex, no fallout to attract Shackleton here in the first place, no any of it.

  We could stop all of this before it even started.

  So why hadn’t I?

  Surely I’d known all of this the last time around. But I’d still made the way for Luke to go back. I’d still let it all happen.

  Why?

  I kept moving until finally my torch lit up the entrance to the tunnel. Instantly, the impossible, circuitous time travel questions flew from my mind and things became a whole lot simpler: I needed to get inside, get Luke out of here, and go after my family.

  I crawled into the tunnel, head still pounding, but with a clear goal to latch onto now, at least. My torch flashed into the room at the far end, slipping over the grimy walls.

  ‘Luke!’ I hissed. No answer.

  I scurried forward, faster now, a fresh burst of dread shooting through my stomach. ‘Luke!’

  I reached the end of the tunnel and dropped to the floor, spinning my torch in a frantic circle. He was gone.

  I shone the light into every corner, as if I could have missed him the first time in this tiny, empty room, then dropped back against the wall, raising a hand to my injured head.

  Calvin had found him. Luke must have left to come after me and got caught by security on their way back from –

  I snapped upright at the sound of heavy breathing in the darkness, fingers playing over the torch as I debated whether or not to turn it back on again. The breathing grew louder. I couldn’t take it anymore. I switched on the torch and thrust it back in the direction of the tunnel. It was Luke.

  My heart lifted for just a fraction of a second before plummeting back to earth as I realised what he’d done.

  He’d been back out to the living area. He’d changed his clothes.

  Luke crawled out of the tunnel, dressed in a mudstained tracksuit with the hood pulled up over his head. His murder clothes. The same ones he’d been wearing in Kara’s surveillance video.

  He wasn’t just letting things happen the way they had before. He was making them happen, making sure everything played out the way it was supposed to.

  ‘No!’ I said, backing off from him. ‘Luke, please – please – you’re not doing this. You can’t …’

  Luke stepped towards me, eyes bloodshot and streaming. He opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a sob.

  My arm was still frozen in place, lighting him up with the torch. Luke pushed it gently aside, closing the gap between us. He wrapped one hand around my waist and brought the other up to my cheek. His lips closed around mine, soft and slow, and the tears that had been needling my eyes since I crawled in here spilled over and ran down my face.

  Luke’s hand traced across my back, rubbing slow circles between my shoulder blades. His thumb moved over my cheek, brushing away the tears, and I tightened my hold on him, overwhelmed with the deep, dark wrongness of it all – that this brave, beautiful boy should lose his life while a murderer lived to see another day and a sick old man built an empire on the back of –

  What are you DOING?

  I pulled away from him, overwhelmed with my own stupidity. Luke shows up in his murder room in his murder clothes on his murder day and I just stand there and kiss him? I dived at the tunnel entrance, ignoring his gasp of confusion, desperate to get out before history had a chance to repeat itself.

  But I didn’t get two steps before the nausea erupted in my stomach. I collapsed mid-stride, a breathless groan tearing its way out of my throat.

  Luke was by my side in an instant.

  ‘No,’ I pleaded, shoving him weakly away. ‘Run! Leave me! I won’t let you –!’

  The protest died in my mouth and I curled into a ball, wracked by another bout of uncontrollable gagging. The room hurtled in circles around me, the torchlight fracturing into a thousand tiny shards, and still Luke would not leave me. He cradled my head, both of us trembling out of control.

  ‘Please …’ I choked, not even sure I was saying it out loud.

  I could hear Luke speaking to me, trying to comfort me, but his voice was all warbled.

  ‘I’m sorry …’ I murmured as he swam in and out of view above me. ‘I’m so, so sorry …’

  And then I was gone, falling to pieces in a hurricane of swirling blackness. I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking it out.

  But slowly the pain died down, the universe straightened out, and harsh, white light blasted through my eyelids. I lay on my back, forgetting where I was for a moment. Forgetting everything. Then it all came flooding back and I opened my eyes and dragged myself up from the floor.

  I was sitting in a stark, white laboratory. Completely empty. And spotless, unstained by Luke’s blood. In front of me was a second room, sealed off from mine by a wall of glass. I’d been in a place like this before. Vattel and her people used these rooms to investigate the mysterious ‘events’ at the centre of their research. Events that, as it turned out, were me.

  I wiped my eyes, dragging in shallow, shuddering breaths.

  On the other side of the glass were desks covered in boxy computer equipment, which had been designed to pick up the trace or residue or whatever that I left behind whenever I popped in from the future. Previously, I’d seen Vattel Complex scientists working the computers, running scans to try to figure out what I was. Today though, the room was unoccupied.

  I stood up, arms out to balance myself. This was it. The day from the video. The day of Luke’s –

  No. Not this time.

  I turned, searching for Luke, waiting for him to appear like he did every time I faded out, the only one who could drag me back to the present.

  A door clunked open behind me. I leapt back, some stupid part of my brain freaking out that it was Peter.

  A head poked through the door, just below the handle. A little girl, Georgia’s age or maybe a bit younger, with long brown hair and deep, penetrating eyes. A young Dr Galton, back before Shackleton secretly adopted her. She peered
furtively around the room, like she was looking for a place to hide. Her eyes swept straight through me without any hesitation. As far as she could see, the room was still completely empty.

  Galton froze as a voice called along the corridor outside. ‘Ashley!’

  She ducked back out of the room. The door swung wide and I saw her scamper away.

  Any other time, I would probably have gone chasing after her, fascinated to find out what was going on out there. Not now. I didn’t care about any of it. There was no room in my mind for anything but Luke.

  ‘Ashley! What will your mother say when she finds out you’ve been sneaking off again?’ The voice up the hall raced closer. Kara, two decades younger and gentler, but still unmistakeable. She waddled past the open doorway and I caught a glimpse of a flowing white nightgown and an extraordinarily pregnant belly before –

  Jordan! Luke mouthed, flashing into view, centimetres away from my face. I reeled back, startled, then reached out, grasping for his arms. My hands passed straight through him and I lurched, almost tripping over. He tried again, nose running, tears streaking his face with mud. But again, we failed to make contact.

  Luke looked away for a second, like he’d heard something behind him, and I felt my chest turn to ice.

  Peter.

  ‘Run!’ I screamed, trying pointlessly to shove him away. ‘Go! Get out of there!’

  But where was he supposed to go? There was no other way out. If Peter was coming up the tunnel, then –

  ‘– BACK!’ Luke gasped, suddenly audible again, hands collapsing at my sides. His voice was all stretched and distorted, like a Skype call on a bad connection.

  Out behind the wall of glass, the computers whirred to life – an automated process to track the ‘events’ when there was no-one here to do it in person.

  Luke’s gaze flickered back out behind him again and I could see the pale, sick dread rising in his eyes. ‘Please – please – you have to let me –’

  He flinched, almost losing his grip on me as I jerked backwards, convulsing. I clung onto him, nails digging in through his jumper. All around me, the room began to decompose, swirling away into a sludgy blur.