Doomsday

by Chris Morphew

  The explosion swelled, blinding, deafening, drowning me in its heat, filling my nostrils with the smell of my own singed hair. Gravel-sized bits of exploded antenna rained down on top of me.

  With a terrified glance out at the edge, I lurched to my feet, eyes readjusting as the explosion passed.

  There were guards at my back, but they didn’t seem to be in a hurry to grab me. They looked on, stunned as I was, as a massive section of the antenna came plummeting out of the smoke.

  I ducked pointlessly as it tumbled overhead, staggeringly huge, catching the corner of the building on its way down, smashing through the concrete and sending shockwaves across the roof. I lost my footing, landing hard on my hands and knees.

  Somewhere far below, the giant bit of antenna hammered into the ground with an earth-shattering crunch.

  I’d done it.

  I hung there, head between my arms, struggling to even process it. The whole scene seemed to drag to a stop, everyone frozen in place, until the sound of someone else climbing the stairs woke me up again. He paused at the top, let loose with a long string of expletives, then snapped at the guards. ‘What are you doing? Grab him, you idiots!’

  The two guards latched onto me from behind, hauling me to my feet, and I saw who was handing out their orders. Arthur van Pelt, the weedy little guy who used to run Phoenix Mall. I’d only ever seen him once or twice, but I knew he was another one of Shackleton’s inner circle.

  ‘This is a disaster,’ he muttered, pushing his glasses back up onto his nose. He stared through the clearing smoke at the shield grid, which was collapsing rapidly. Not down onto the town, but back out to the wall, like it had just been switched off rather than blown up.

  The guards dragged me towards the stairs, and again, I felt that weird sense of calm drift over me. If they were going to kill me, there was nothing I could do about it. And if they weren’t …

  Then I might just have found myself a way into the bunker. From there, I could find Shackleton and –

  ‘Where’s Melinda?’ van Pelt demanded, suddenly up in my face. ‘Ms Pryor. Your principal. Where is she?’

  ‘She’s dead,’ I told him, and watched his face turn pale.

  He spun away from me, barking at his guards. ‘Quickly! Take them away!’

  Them? I wondered, as the guard shoved me down the stairs ahead of them. But then a shout from downstairs answered my question.

  My heart lifted. It was Jordan’s dad. He was alive.

  I stumbled back out into the office and saw Mr Burke glaring darkly at two very nervous-looking guards as they cuffed his hands together behind his back. His right sleeve glistened red with blood.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said van Pelt, slipping into the room behind us. He advanced on Mr Burke, jabbing a finger at his chest. ‘But let me warn you, an escape attempt would be unwise. We’ve been ordered to keep your friend,’ he jerked a thumb at me, ‘alive for questioning. We’ve received no such orders for –’

  Van Pelt swore as Mr Burke landed a sharp kick between his legs.

  ‘Oi!’ snapped a guard behind Mr Burke, tugging backwards on his enormous arms. Mr Burke gasped at the strain on his wounded shoulder.

  One of the guards pushed past me, drawing his pistol.

  ‘No!’ I shouted. ‘Leave him!’

  ‘Not –’ van Pelt winced, grabbing himself as he leant against a desk. ‘Not yet. Take him down with the others. If he wants to see his family again, he’ll be sure to co-operate.’ He limped determinedly up to Mr Burke. ‘Won’t you, Abraham?’

  Mr Burke sneered but didn’t bite back, and the guards hauled us through the mess of our gunfight to the lift. As we passed the giant, shattered window, I looked down at the fallen antenna stretched out across the street, cracked concrete snaking out around it.

  The shield grid had completely retracted by now. Nothing but cloudy sky all around.

  As we squeezed into the lift, one of van Pelt’s men hammered the bunker button. ‘Bloody lockdown,’ he muttered, when the lift wouldn’t budge. ‘Sir, I thought Shackleton got inside already. Can’t you just call and ask him to let us down this way?’

  ‘Would you like to call him?’ said van Pelt, pulling a phone from his jacket. ‘He’s only working furiously to save all of our lives. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind hearing from an insolent security officer with a complaint about his orders.’

  The guard’s eyes flickered. ‘Why don’t we just take the long way around?

  ‘Yes,’ said van Pelt, returning the phone to his pocket. ‘Why don’t we?’

  The lift brought us down to the floor with all the Co-operative heads’ offices. The two guards on Mr Burke shoved him outside, steering him towards the other lift. I moved to follow him, but van Pelt clamped a hand down on my shoulder. ‘I’m afraid not, Mr Hunter. We’ve made other arrangements for you.’

  He nodded at the two remaining guards, and they started dragging me off in the opposite direction.

  Mr Burke twisted around to see where they were taking me. His two guards freaked out, shoving him into the wall, shattering a painting of some rust-red animal. Mr Burke cried out at the pain in his arm. He jerked back his good elbow, catching one of them in the face.

  ‘Get him under control, will you?’ van Pelt snapped, straightening his glasses again, and my two guards ran off to help. But before I could even think about making a run for it, I felt the cold muzzle of van Pelt’s pistol pressing between my shoulder blades. ‘This way, Mr Hunter.’

  He marched me up to the end of the corridor. I realised where we were headed seconds before we got close enough for me to read the name on the door. The noise of Mr Burke’s scuffle with the guards seemed to fade into the distance. My legs went numb, stumbling to a stop, like they’d suddenly lost their connection to my brain.

  ‘Move,’ snarled van Pelt, pushing me forward again.

  My eyes hovered over the name on the door and whatever warmth my body had left drained away.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said van Pelt, stretching up to whisper into my ear. ‘I know I said he was busy, but I’m sure Mr Shackleton will be extremely pleased to see you.’

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 1.09 P.M. 3 HOURS, 51 MINUTES

  ‘What if they find her?’ I said, as we jogged up the gentle slope through the rocks. ‘We know they’ll be coming after us – How could they not? And she’s just sitting out there, waiting for –’

  ‘Yes Jordan, I do understand the situation,’ said Calvin impatiently. ‘Whatever else I might be, I’m not a fool. And as I’ve already said, she’s far safer there than we are here. Whoever Shackleton sends after us, they won’t come climbing over the wall. They’ll go through the gates. They won’t get within half a kilometre of her.’

  ‘Unless they see the rope we used to get over the wall,’ I said.

  Calvin stopped, catching his breath. ‘Jordan, please, try to keep this in perspective. We are out here in an attempt to save the world. Amy may be your friend, but I will not stake the lives of billions on –’

  ‘Who are you to decide what happens to the lives of billions?’ I spat bitterly. ‘You’re the one who –!’

  ‘I’m the one who can show you how to save them,’ said Calvin. He turned his back on me and continued up the slope.

  It was just over an hour since we’d touched down on the outside of the wall. It had been terrifying scaling the side with Tobias, but we’d both reached the ground in one piece.

  The wasteland stretched all around us. Just rock and dirt and the occasional scraggly plant. Still no sign of the release station.

  We’d made it far enough from Phoenix now that I could see the curvature of the wall and the wasteland stretching out behind it on both sides. It was so weird to be outside it all – to see all of the past hundred days, everything we’d been through, sealed off in its own little world within a world.

  ‘What about me?’ I asked Calvin, holding my side as we reached the top of the rise. ‘If you’re so worried ab
out rogue elements, then what am I doing here? Why didn’t you just take Tobias and do it all yourself?’

  ‘Because I can’t,’ said Calvin, voice cracking. He slowed again, gazing down the hill. ‘I cannot do this on my own. I need you here with me in case …’

  ‘In case what?’ I said, but something about the sudden shift in his body language made the fire drain out of my voice.

  ‘I did plan to come alone, at first,’ said Calvin, slipping back into creepy-introspective mode. ‘Last night, when Shackleton first learned of your whereabouts, my priority was to extract your brother and bring him here as quickly as possible. And I almost managed it. But then I was attacked by – by the man you call Crazy Bill.’

  ‘But you had us,’ I said, pushing aside sudden, swirling images of Peter. ‘When you ambushed Amy and me out at the skid, you could have just –’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ said Calvin, voice even softer now. ‘I couldn’t take him. After everything I’d already inflicted on you …’ He sighed deeply, staring out into the distance again. ‘I am not accustomed to making emotional decisions. But I made one then. I felt you deserved the opportunity to come out here and see this through for yourself. But then you informed me of the apparent disappearance of the fallout. And however I might have responded at the time …’

  I looked up, ready to prod him to continue, and was startled to see tears welling in his eyes. And it was more than just sadness or regret or whatever. I could see it all over his face: he was scared.

  ‘The fallout was –’ Calvin swallowed hard. He wiped his eyes, pulling himself together, and tried again. ‘Whatever change you see in me – Whatever good you see … This is not something I chose. I did not summon up this change of heart from some deeply hidden store of my own inner goodness. You of all people know what I was before. I was dead. The fallout dragged me out of that. It gave me back my humanity.’

  He stared down at hands, still covered up by the same Phoenix-red gloves he’d found to keep from soaking up everyone else’s emotions.

  ‘And now the fallout’s gone,’ I said, feeling suddenly cold, ‘and you don’t know what the rules are anymore. You’re worried that it’s all going to go away again. So you’ve brought me out here to – to make sure you actually see this through.’

  Calvin drew his pistol, holding it out to me. ‘And for as long as I am able to, I’ll do the same for you.’

  I took the gun.

  It was so unnerving, seeing him like this. An actual human with actual vulnerabilities. But even worse was the thought that he might just lose all that and revert to his same old evil self.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, sticking the pistol down into the back of my jeans, ‘okay, but look, if we’re doing this, then you need to tell me what we’re actually out here to do.’ ‘I will. When we get there.’

  ‘Calvin, if you’re that worried about me flipping out and –’

  ‘Shh!’ he said, dropping behind a boulder, eyes back out the way we’d come. He rested his rifle on top of the rock.

  I crouched behind him, one hand on Tobias, and whipped out the binoculars. I could hear it too, now. The hum of an engine, faint, but getting louder.

  I swept the binoculars back in the direction of the wall. There. A pillar of dust, trailing out from the oversized tyres of a skid unit as it streaked across the wasteland towards us. One guy in the driver’s seat, and a few more hanging on at the back.

  I jumped as Calvin suddenly let loose with his rifle, opening fire right next to my ear. Tobias flinched. I honed in on the skid again just in time to see it crunch down on its side in a cloud of dust and smoke.

  I stared at Calvin. ‘How on earth did you do that from all the way up here?’

  ‘That was not my first time firing a weapon,’ he said, getting up from the rock, looking uncharacteristically shaken by what he’d just done. He started walking again, down the far side of the hill.

  ‘They’ll keep coming,’ he warned. ‘The ones who still can. Today more than ever, they know what Shackleton will do if they fail him.’

  I hurried after him. ‘It’s too late though, right? They’re not going to catch up to us on foot.’

  Calvin nodded. ‘Not far to go now.’

  I trod carefully down the slope, both arms tight around Tobias, my mind running back over what Calvin had said about the fallout.

  I tried to reassure myself. Whatever other fears he had, he still believed Tobias could do what he needed to do out here. That, or he was just clinging desperately to the same shred of hope that I was.

  ‘What I don’t get,’ I said, more to fill the silence than anything else, ‘is how you guys were expecting all this to go. I mean, if you knew about the fallout, then surely you must have known what it was going to do to us. Did you really think people would just turn a blind eye when their neighbours started randomly developing superpowers?’

  ‘Of course we didn’t,’ said Calvin, who for all his apparent changed ways was still weirdly defensive of the solidness of the Co-operative’s plans. ‘Do you honestly think we would have bothered to construct the whole elaborate facade of the town if we’d known these things were going to happen?’

  ‘But that was the whole point!’ I said. ‘I mean, wasn’t it? Wasn’t the fallout supposed to change us? Isn’t that why we were all chosen in the first place? Isn’t that what a genetic candidate is?’

  ‘The point,’ said Calvin, ‘was to create a society that could survive the release of Tabitha. And to that end, yes, candidates were selected for their genetic susceptibility to the effects of the fallout. Over the course of one hundred days’ exposure, we knew the fallout would render such candidates immune to Tabitha. We were also aware that the fallout would boost your immune systems and accelerate your bodies’ natural healing abilities. What we did not expect were the other side effects.’

  ‘How could you not have expected them?’ I said, picking up my pace as the ground levelled out again. ‘What about Bill? What about Galton?’

  ‘We learnt about Bill’s abnormalities at the same time you did. The night out at the airport. His outburst –’ Calvin winced at the memory, ‘– was our first indication that the fallout was doing more than we’d anticipated. We didn’t know about Galton’s powers until days after –’ ‘But she’s Shackleton’s daughter! How could you not have known she was …?’

  Calvin narrowed his eyes, like he thought I was messing with him. ‘What?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ I said.

  ‘Galton isn’t Shackleton’s daughter.’

  ‘She is! She lived here as a kid with the Vattel Complex people! Shackleton adopted her when the Complex was destroyed because he knew something was up with her. She’s how he discovered the fallout in the first place!’

  Calvin shook his head, taking it all in. ‘If that’s true,’ he said slowly, ‘then why was Shackleton as surprised as the rest of us when he found out about her telekinesis?’

  I thought back to our first real run-in with Dr Galton, under the medical centre. She’d strode into the room with complete calm, lifting up furniture and people and hurling them at the walls, every movement so smooth and perfect. So controlled. Definitely not the first time she’d used her powers.

  And in that vision I’d had last week … A teenage Dr Galton, out in the bush with a ten-years-younger Shackleton. She’d got all antsy as soon as he’d started talking about what the fallout had done to her body, and then weirdly relieved when –

  When she realised he was just only talking about the small stuff.

  She was hiding the rest of it, I realised. She knew she had other abilities. Way back then, she knew. But she was keeping them from him.

  And she’d kept on keeping them from him. All this time. All through their plotting and planning for the end of the world. Right up until – when? The day Dr Montag started blood-testing everyone in town?

  ‘Just up here,’ said Calvin, apparently taking my silence as an admission that I’d been wrong about Galton.
/>
  I looked where he was pointing, but all I could see was more rocks and dirt.

  Movement against my chest. Tobias was stirring in the sling. I brought up an arm to cradle him through the blanket, thoughts still wandering back to Dr Galton.

  Why hadn’t she told him?

  Shackleton had obviously brainwashed her enough to help him with his plan for world domination. Tabitha might have been his idea, but Galton had been the one who’d created it, and she’d never been anything but fully committed to the cause.

  Or had she? Was there some part of her that still clung to that old resentment, that knowledge that Shackleton wasn’t her true father, that he was just using her the way he used everyone else? Had she wanted him to fail?

  Or was she too scared of what he might do to her if he knew she could throw him across the room with her brain?

  Calvin stopped in front of me.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. We’d come to the top of a little hill. Not even a hill. Just a slight rise in the ground, low and circular, like the top of a giant ball poking up from the dirt. Still nothing but wasteland all around.

  Calvin crouched at the top of the rise. He pulled off his gloves and started clawing at the ground with both hands, scratching away the dirt. There was something under there. Gleaming silver, like Shackleton’s tunnels under the town.

  I looked back out over the rise we were standing on and couldn’t believe I’d missed it: the perfect, symmetrical roundness; the complete absence of rocks and plants. This wasn’t a hill. It was a bunker.

  Calvin continued brushing away the dirt, revealing a square panel set into the metal. He slid back the dirtencrusted cover to reveal a single silver button beside a little round hole.

  Out of nowhere, Tobias started squirming against me, like he was trying to fight his way out of the blankets.

  Calvin pulled his gloves back on. His hand slipped into his pocket, coming back with a plastic vial filled with what looked horribly like blood.

  He looked up, smiling grimly. ‘We’re here.’