The Cut Out

by Jack Heath

  Just as they were about to turn a corner, the soldiers burst through the door. The first few slid and fell immediately. The ones behind tripped over them. When they tried to stand, they slipped again as though standing on ice. Their boots and gloves shone with the fluid.

  ‘Frictionless liquid,’ Cormanenko said as she raced after Fero. ‘But we don’t have much time. The soldiers at the back will climb over the ones in front without getting any on them. Which way?’

  Fero didn’t point. He just kept running. He turned right, left, and left again, trying to remember the route he had followed with Vartaniev.

  They emerged into the cave-like locker room. Fero had worried that it would be full of soldiers. It wasn’t. He and Cormanenko were alone. But—

  ‘Oh no,’ he said.

  The giant metal barrier was closed.

  They were trapped.

  BLOWN COVER

  ‘Tell me that wasn’t your way out,’ Cormanenko said.

  Fero cringed. ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘There must be a button to raise it,’ she said. ‘Take a look over there.’

  Fero ran his hands along the stone wall but there was no sign of a button, a switch or a keypad. He had heard a motor running when the door opened the first time, but he couldn’t see anything which looked like an engine.

  Cormanenko was rapping the door with her knuckles. Thunk. Thunk.

  ‘Can we cut into it?’ Fero asked.

  ‘It’s designed to withstand force from outside, not in. But there’s no way we’d break through in time.’ She ran over to the lockers on the other side of the room. ‘Keep looking.’

  There must be a way to open it, Fero thought. He tore open one of the lockers looking for a remote, and instead found several racks of guns. This must be the armoury. The gigantic steel roller door made sense now.

  He could hear the soldiers approaching through the labyrinth of corridors. ‘I’ve got nothing,’ he cried. ‘You?’

  ‘Duck.’

  With the absurd thought that she had found a duck in one of the lockers, Fero looked over his shoulder. Cormanenko stood beside an open locker, a rocket-launcher hefted on her shoulder. She took aim at the metal barrier.

  Fero didn’t duck. He turned back to the locker he had been searching, dived in and dragged the door shut.

  Hiss.

  BOOM!

  The locker shook as the super-heated air rushed past it. Black smoke flooded in through the vents. Fero sneezed wildly, and then yelped as Cormanenko wrenched the locker open and yanked him out.

  ‘There’s our exit,’ she said. ‘Move.’

  They ran towards the twisted, semi-molten hole in the barrier. The metal was so hot that Fero felt like he got a tan just crawling through the gap. The lights were out on the other side – a long, straight ramp led up into the darkness.

  The soldiers’ voices echoed through the smoke behind them.

  Fero started running, but Cormanenko grabbed his shoulder. ‘Stay,’ she said, as if talking to a dog.

  She pulled the grappling hook launcher off her back. The hook was a tangle of wicked blades, loaded into a tube with two safety switches on the side. Cormanenko flicked the switches, took aim and fired the hook up into the tunnel.

  The cable unspooled for a long time before Fero heard the splink of the hook connecting. Without releasing the cable, Cormanenko swept Fero into a hug.

  He said, ‘What are you – argh!’

  Without letting go of him, Cormanenko fell over backwards. She landed on the longboard that was strapped to her back, with Fero on top of her.

  ‘Don’t let go,’ she said, and pushed a button on the launcher.

  The cable started to retract. The longboard rocketed up the slope at an incredible rate, with Fero and Cormanenko face to face on top of it. The lights in the tunnel walls strobed past. The wheels clattered and the launcher motor whined right next to Fero’s ear. It was like lying down on an escalator – a faulty escalator that moved at quadruple speed.

  Bullets sparked against the concrete around them. The soldiers had reached the bottom of the tunnel.

  ‘Focus on your balance,’ Cormanenko hissed. ‘If we fall, we’re dead.’

  She didn’t need to tell him twice. Fero gripped Cormanenko’s harness as the longboard swayed violently underneath them.

  The acoustics changed as they got higher and higher. Fero remembered seeing Vartaniev’s head hit the wall, and braced himself – but Cormanenko stretched out her hand and stopped them just as they reached the grappling hook.

  She retracted the prongs and wrenched it out of the wall, releasing a cloud of concrete dust. ‘Get up.’

  It was an enormous relief to see daylight. The streets of Tus were clogged with much more traffic than before – Fero guessed this was peak hour. A polished taxi cruised past and pulled over near the public entrance to River National Bank. A beggar laid his coat on the footpath and sat on it, ready for the day’s work. A courier whooshed past on a bicycle, Lycra glowing.

  Fero went to cross the road, but Cormanenko grabbed him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘We’re going back in.’

  She spoke in Besmari. Now that they were in public, Fero guessed that speaking Kamauan was likely to get them killed.

  He boggled at her. ‘Back in?’

  ‘Via the public entrance. The Tellers will have cordoned off the immediate area – even if we had a vehicle, we wouldn’t get through the roadblocks. But it will be a while before they start looking for us inside the bank.’

  That’s because there’s nowhere to hide in a bank, Fero thought. But Cormanenko was already ascending the steps to River National.

  The doors slid open. Fero followed her past the ATMs, computer terminals and queues of bored account holders to the lift, which was tucked into a corner near the currency exchange counter. A sign above the call button read STAFF ONLY. Cormanenko pushed it.

  A titanic security guard in a black suit approached.

  Cormanenko glared at Fero. ‘Don’t breathe on me, you little brat,’ she said. ‘You’re still contagious.’

  Fero frowned. ‘Contagious?’

  But the guard had already stopped, keeping his distance. Cormanenko flashed Vartaniev’s ID at him, and he nodded. He was too far away to see the picture didn’t match.

  ‘You’re a little slow,’ Cormanenko muttered.

  ‘You could have warned me,’ he replied.

  ‘Sorry. I’m used to working with people who can think on their feet.’

  ‘That could be the most disingenuous apology I’ve ever heard.’

  If Cormanenko was impressed that he knew the Besmari word for ‘disingenuous’, she didn’t show it. She pushed the button again.

  ‘How are we going to get out of the country?’ Fero asked.

  ‘Let’s focus on getting out of the city first,’ Cormanenko said. The lift doors opened. A man in a business suit walked out and Cormanenko crashed right into him.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ Cormanenko said. ‘I’m so sorry! Are you okay?’

  The man neatened his freshly gelled hair. ‘I’m fine. Just watch where you’re going.’

  He strode away towards the entrance. Fero followed Cormanenko into the lift.

  The card slot caught his eye. ‘You can’t use this lift without a security pass,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to go find—’

  Cormanenko was already slipping a plastic card into the slot. ‘That guy who bumped into me will be very disappointed next time he reaches for his wallet,’ she said.

  ‘There is no way you picked his pocket that fast.’

  Cormanenko pushed the button marked Roof/Pool/ Gym. The doors slid closed. ‘Believe what you like.’

  ‘What would you have done if the lift had been empty?’

  ‘Waited for someone on an upper floor to call it. You only need a key card on the ground floor.’

  Fero stared at the button. ‘Why does a bank need a pool and a gym?’

  ‘It doesn�
��t,’ Cormanenko said. ‘But an intelligence agency does. Many of the Tellers live on the upper floors of this building.’

  ‘So we can hide in that guy’s room until the soldiers give up on the cordon?’

  ‘No. I don’t know his room number. Even if I did, we wouldn’t be hidden very long. Eleven cameras spotted us on our way through the lobby. There’s another one above your head right now.’

  Fero looked up at the tinted plastic bubble.

  ‘They’re probably sending someone up after us as we speak,’ Cormanenko added.

  Adrenaline flooded Fero’s muscles. ‘Then why go to the roof? We’ll be trapped!’

  She eyeballed him. ‘Do you always ask so many questions?’

  Fero met her gaze. ‘Only when my life depends on the answers.’

  For a fraction of a second, her composure almost slipped. Fero saw a smile fight to appear on her lips – and fail.

  ‘We’re going to the roof,’ she said, ‘because that’s where I parked.’

  The doors opened.

  The RNB logo loomed above them, so much bigger than it had looked from the ground. Fero stared at the deckchairs and the umbrellas around the huge sapphire pool, which stretched all the way to the edge of the rooftop. The Tus skyline lay beyond, smoky and distant. Tellers live well, he thought, when they’re home.

  The pool was deserted, but he wondered how long that would last. This building had thirty floors. If there were ten rooms per floor, any one of at least three hundred people could show up at any moment.

  He followed Cormanenko past a row of potted plants and a tower of folded towels, to see—

  ‘What is that?’

  Cormanenko unfolded the frame. The grey sailcloth snapped into shape. She tightened aluminium tubes over the joints, keeping the support struts straight. ‘It’s a hang-glider.’

  ‘It’s a tiny hang-glider,’ Fero said. ‘There’s no way that’ll carry us over the cordon.’

  ‘It will.’ Cormanenko pointed at a neighbouring skyscraper. ‘It took me here from that rooftop, and that’s much further away.’

  ‘But you were by yourself!’

  ‘And I had a big, soft swimming pool to land in,’ Cormanenko admitted. ‘Well, if you want to stay up here and get arrested, be my guest.’

  Fero crept over to the edge of the building and looked down. His stomach clenched. The windows beneath him got smaller and smaller until he couldn’t distinguish them. The cars looked like toys down below, jammed bumper to bumper by a distant roadblock no bigger than a Lego brick.

  A gust of wind rose behind him, and he nearly fell. He stumbled back from the edge, heart pounding.

  Cormanenko lifted the glider above her head. The sail puffed up in the breeze and she gripped the handlebar to keep it from blowing away.

  ‘Are you coming?’ she asked.

  Fero hesitated, and then nodded.

  ‘Are you left- or right-handed?’

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  Cormanenko peeled off her right glove and tossed it to Fero. ‘We’re going to fly like one person. You’ll be the right hand, I’ll be the left.’

  Cormanenko was a twenty-five-year-old woman – she would be heavier than Fero. He would normally be too polite to point that out, but not today.

  ‘You’re bigger than me,’ he said. ‘Won’t we swing sideways?’

  ‘Put your hand all the way over on the right side of the bar. Mine will be a bit closer to the centre. That should balance the load.’

  Fero pulled the glove on and gripped the right-hand side of the handlebar. The lightweight frame felt too fragile to support him, let alone both of them. Cormanenko wrapped her right arm around his waist.

  ‘We’re going to run towards the edge,’ she said. ‘As fast as we can. And when I say jump, you jump. Focus on distance, not height. We don’t want to get blown back against the building. Got that?’

  Fero nodded, his jaw clamped so tight that his teeth hurt.

  ‘One more thing,’ Cormanenko said. ‘It’s really important that you—’

  Gunfire erupted behind them.

  Fero turned to see two soldiers emerging from the lift. Two more were in firing stances by the entrance to the stairwell. Pot plants shattered. A line of splashes raced across the pool towards them as though the invisible man were sprinting across the water.

  ‘Too late!’ Cormanenko shouted. ‘Run!’

  They dashed towards the edge of the building. Ancient instincts unfurled in Fero’s brain. Evolutionary forces, more frightened of heights than of guns, screamed at him to turn back.

  Just run and jump, he told himself as his feet pounded the concrete.

  Run and jump, he thought, as they raced towards the edge of the building.

  Just run . . . and jump—

  Fero and Cormanenko hurtled out into the void, the sailcloth rippling above their heads. Fero gripped the handlebar so tightly his knuckles cracked.

  The street was a long way down – but they were getting closer every second. The glider couldn’t take their combined weight.

  ‘Cormanenko,’ he yelled, tightening his hold on her waist.

  ‘The glider isn’t designed for long distances,’ she shouted. Her voice was painfully loud in his left ear. ‘It’s just supposed to slow down the fall, like a parachute. Can you see the cordon?’

  ‘Yes.’ He didn’t have a free hand to point with, but he could see the four soldiers on either side of the street, bulletproof armour gleaming. They had funnelled traffic into a single lane so they could look at every passing driver. They were masked and bulked up with body armour. Each one cradled an automatic rifle.

  The glider plummeted towards the street. It might just take them over the roadblock. But, to Fero, it seemed more likely that they would crash-land right on top of the soldiers.

  ‘We’re not going to make it,’ Cormanenko said.

  ‘What do we do?’

  She kept one hand on the glider. With the other she let go of Fero’s waist and drew her gun. They wobbled in the air.

  ‘They’re armoured!’ Fero yelled. Surely rubber bullets wouldn’t pierce the helmets and vests.

  ‘I’m not aiming at them.’

  Cormanenko squeezed off three shots. Three rear windshields cracked.

  It took a moment – but then the drivers panicked.

  The leading car lurched forward, knocking down one of the barriers. The second car followed it through the gap. The air filled with screams.

  The first two fleeing cars set off the others. The soldiers, who had been taking aim at the glider, scattered as the pent-up traffic zoomed forwards at them, destroying the roadblock.

  The closer they got to the ground, the tighter Fero’s hand fastened around the bar above. The road was thick with speeding cars, but if they tried to swerve over the footpath they were likely to crash into a streetlight.

  Cormanenko tossed her gun away and grabbed Fero’s waist again. ‘On the count of three, we’re going to let go of the glider,’ she said. ‘Understand?’

  ‘Let go of it? But—’

  ‘One.’

  The cars whooshed past beneath them, spurred on by frightened drivers.

  ‘Two,’ Cormanenko said.

  Fero watched as a van appeared beneath his kicking feet.

  ‘Three!’

  Fero let go of the bar and fell for a heart-stopping second before landing on top of the van. He hit the roof face first and slid sideways across the slick paint, nose stinging, fingers scrabbling for purchase. He almost tumbled onto the road, but Cormanenko grabbed his hand and dragged him back up.

  The glider slammed into the asphalt up ahead and crumpled beneath the speeding van. The driver slammed on the brakes and another car crashed into the back of it. Fero and Cormanenko hurtled forwards, sliding down the windscreen onto the road.

  Cormanenko landed in a crouch. Fero was less graceful – his tailbone absorbed most of the force. He rolled over, groaning.

  ‘We made it,’ he gaspe
d.

  ‘For now.’ Cormanenko hauled him to his feet. ‘Keep running.’

  EVASIVE MANOEUVRES

  After five kilometres the adrenaline had faded. Fero’s feet ached, even in the special shoes. He was used to running long distances, but not without food or sleep.

  After ten, his head was pounding. His coat was tight and hot under his armpits and between his shoulderblades. His throat felt like it was bleeding. He had slowed from a dash to a jog.

  He tried to distract himself by examining the scenery. But it was too much like Kamau to be interesting. The same crooked birch trees, the same dented road signs, the same chipped pavement. Billboards advertised exactly the same fast food chains, although the text was in Cyrillic. Take next exit for delicious Bodan’s Burgers!

  On the way out of Tus he hadn’t seen any starving children or roaming gangs. No giant rats, no chalk outlines on the footpaths, no spent shells in the gutters. Of course the Kamauan media would have a skewed perspective on Besmari life, but it shocked him how much this country felt just like home.

  After twenty kilometres, he couldn’t take it any more.

  ‘I need to stop,’ he gasped.

  ‘We’re almost there.’ Cormanenko didn’t even sound puffed.

  ‘Please.’

  Cormanenko stopped. Fero doubled over, wheezing. He hadn’t slept in almost twenty-eight hours.

  ‘Look.’ Cormanenko pointed.

  Fero looked. They had almost reached a small cluster of shops on the outskirts of Tus – a grocery store, a pharmacy, a post office. There was a graffiti-covered park bench under a withered tree which provided no shade whatsoever. A spiderweb of cracks surrounded the tree where its roots had wrecked the brickwork. Fero looked longingly at the bench. Was Cormanenko offering him the chance to sit down?

  ‘That’s where we’re going,’ Cormanenko said. ‘We both need to eat. Then we have to keep moving. Got that?’

  Fero nodded, unable to speak.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  He limped after her as she ran towards the grocery store.

  The sliding doors chimed as Cormanenko approached. The shop looked old. Perhaps it had existed before the enormous supermarkets took over the industry. There were no automatic checkouts. An old man with no eyebrows stood behind the counter, his shoulders dusted with dandruff.