The Rig

by Joe Ducie

  Drake agreed. He was sure there was more to the Rig than he and Tristan knew about. He was certain some of the inmates were in on the secret – Alan Grey, and his gang – and he was certain that it was dangerous. Very dangerous. He thought of Irene. I’ll be waiting. On every fifth day at midnight. ‘Something strange is going on in this place, mate.’

  ‘You only just getting that, huh?’ Tristan laughed bitterly.

  Their trackers beeped as one, marking half nine and lights out. The automatic steel cell door slid across, locking them inside for another night. The overhead light flickered and died, leaving nothing but flashing lights outside the window, along the outside of the platform, casting the dancing shadows along the wall in the cell blood-red.

  ‘Why aren’t you allowed to touch a computer?’

  Tristan sighed. ‘Because last time I did eight people died. God, eight people died.’ He moaned and Drake heard him shuffling around. ‘It wasn’t like I meant to do it, but it happened, and that’s why I’m a special case, Drake. Most of the kids in here, they … they did mean to do what they did. To kill or … or worse, I guess. They knew what they were doing. Mine was an accident.’

  Drake said nothing. Tristan was working his way towards whatever he wanted to say, moving in slow circles around the truth.

  ‘My dad’s a software engineer. He’s pretty good with computers, and I used to watch him all the time growing up. He’d teach me things. By the time I was five I knew three coding languages, and was working on my fourth. My dad was good with them, but I was a natural. I could do anything online, anything. They used to call it hacking, once upon a time. Now it falls under the International Cyber Terrorism Act.’

  ‘Call what hacking?’

  ‘I was one of the best by the time I was twelve. Diving in and out of networks – civilian, military, it didn’t matter. I was … I’ve thought about it a lot, since coming here. I was too clever. That’s what happened, in the end, I was too clever and I didn’t see all the people I was affecting. All I saw was the display, you know. Lines of code, numbers on a screen, moving information back and forth like it was a game.’

  Drake kept silent, which Tristan took as invitation to continue.

  ‘By the time I was thirteen, I’d figured out that people were willing to pay for access to the networks, or to have those networks destroyed, modified, unlocked and dispersed … Everything is connected these days, Drake. I mean everything. I could hack into NATO using one of the consoles behind the counter at Burger King.’

  ‘Really?’

  Tristan chuckled grimly. ‘No, not really, but you get the idea. I was good.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Like I said, I didn’t see the people, you know. Just the screen. I … I shut down the power grid for all of Perth one night. A million people in the dark. Sounded cool, you know, and I wanted to see if I could do it. They still use the old CERCO systems down there …’

  Drake didn’t know what that was, but from the tone of Tristan’s voice he imagined it was something outdated. ‘So you switched off the lights?’

  ‘All of Perth, in the dark, in the middle of summer, where the heat often forces power cuts anyway. The generator at Princess Margaret Hospital couldn’t handle it, and blew. Eight patients there died, and a whole load more got a lot worse.’ Drake could almost feel the wave of despair from the bunk below. ‘One of the patients was only nine years old …’

  ‘Damn, mate,’ Drake said. ‘I … I don’t know what to say. So they caught you and threw you in here?’

  ‘They didn’t catch me. Like I said, I was good. One of the best for my age, even. No way they could have found me.’ There was pride in Tristan’s voice, but also regret. ‘I turned myself in.’

  Silence reigned in the small cell for a few minutes. Drake could hear Tristan shuffling around.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more, Will.’ Tristan sighed, and Drake was thankful for the dark, because he thought he heard tears in that sigh. Last thing he needed was the awkwardness that would follow seeing Tristan cry. ‘Let’s just say I deserve to be here and leave it at that.’

  Thinking of how isolated the Rig was from the real world, of Tubes and the heavy-handed tactics of the guards, particularly Brand, and of that line between justice and vengeance, Drake said, ‘I don’t think anyone deserves to be here, mate.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tristan said. ‘Maybe not.’

  Something Tristan had said a few minutes ago clicked over in Drake’s mind. Not as secure as you think …

  ‘Tristan, do you know how to get the trackers off?’

  Nothing save silence from the bottom bunk. After a minute, Drake turned to face the wall, thinking Tristan was done talking for the night. Then a moment later a tiny, almost inaudible word floated up from below.

  ‘Yes …’

  10

  Rigball

  Drake tried, in the weeks following Tristan’s revelation, to enlist his help in removing the tracker, but his cellmate wouldn’t budge. His reluctance irked Drake, who didn’t like to rely on anyone for anything, but despite his best efforts he had failed to come up with a way of removing it himself, short of cutting off his hand. Despite his frustration, Drake needed Tristan. But Tristan seemed resigned to a fate that saw them both spending the next five years on the Rig.

  In the first week of February, Tommy cornered Drake after work in Tubes and handed him an old, faded jumpsuit.

  Drake held the suit up and raised an eyebrow. The number 10 was scrawled crudely on the back in black spray paint. Ruby-red stains also dotted the collar, the sleeves, and – well, most of the suit. Drake didn’t like to think what those stains might be.

  ‘What’s all this then, Tommy?’

  Tommy stroked his beard and grinned. As of two nights ago, he was officially eighteen and one of the Rig’s adult inmates. Drake almost envied the two years he had left on his sentence. ‘You ever heard of rigball, William?’

  ‘Don’t call me that, and no, no I haven’t.’

  ‘Well, you’re our crew’s new rigball wingman. Congratulations.’

  Mario punched the air and applauded. Greg and Neil, as always, glared and smirked.

  ‘No, thanks,’ Drake said and tossed the suit back at Tommy.

  Tommy’s smile faded. ‘We need a sixth since Anderson was sent home, and you’re it, Drake. We all saw you fight your first day here. You can look after yourself, which is what rigball is all –’

  ‘No means no, mate.’ Drake ran a hand back through his hair. He could do that now – his fuzzy dark brown hair was fast becoming a mop. Last time he’d had hair this long was years ago.

  ‘Did we mention,’ Mario said casually, ‘that we’re one of only two teams in the league? And that the other is captained by none other than Alan Grey, your best mate?’

  Drake considered, then nodded. ‘Is that so?’

  Tommy pushed the jumpsuit jersey into Drake’s chest. ‘You play, or you’re on crap tubes until you do.’

  ‘The winter league starts up in a fortnight,’ Greg growled, stroking the scraggly mess on his chin that he thought passed for a beard. ‘We get to practise Wednesdays and Fridays during free time, on the field up on top of the centre platform.’

  Drake recalled seeing the ‘field’ during his excursion to the infirmary. He had seen tiered seating surrounding a concrete slab, with two worn nets at either end. Hard to call something so devoid of plant life a field, but then here they all were on an oil rig being called a prison.

  ‘What are the rules?’ Drake asked, turning the jumpsuit over in his hands.

  ‘You ever played lacrosse?’ Mario asked.

  ‘Years ago during PE at school. The one with the sticks and the ball?’

  ‘That’s the one. Well, rigball is just like lacrosse, only more … electrifying.’ Mario snorted and Tommy slapped him upside his head.

  ‘The racquets are magnetised, so is the ball. When we’re in control, going to score, we have to pass the b
all between three of our racquets before a goal can be made. The other side can intercept, steal possession.’ Tommy waved his hand back and forth and chuckled. ‘Body checking is not only allowed, but encouraged. That’s where you come in, Drake. None of these pansies would dare touch Grey out on the field, but we figure you’ve got nothing to lose.’

  Drake actually laughed. ‘He’s going to kill me anyway, huh? Might as well make myself useful before then.’

  Tommy grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Now you’re being a team player.’

  Drake glanced at the wicked scar tissue that stretched in a thin line across his arm from Grey’s knife attack. A little payback was more than deserved, and if he could do it without any headaches from the guards …

  He slung the jersey over his shoulder. ‘Practice tomorrow night, then?’

  The next night a cool snap to the air had Drake shivering in his jumpsuit, bouncing on his toes, as Tommy and the lads handed out old, battered bicycle helmets from a large wooden trunk, along with shin and elbow pads, and a thin chest plate. Drake and Mario had just hauled the trunk up five tiers of cells and across platforms, with the help of a large boy Drake had never met before named Emir. He was from Turkey, the team’s goalkeeper, and spoke no English.

  The sweat running down Drake’s back threatened to freeze now, as he watched his breath mist on the air, under a cloudless sky scattered with roughly ten billion stars.

  The field atop the centre platform had been fitted with a few more features since Drake had last seen it on his way to the infirmary. That building was all quiet, save for a few lights shining between the blinds. He wondered if Irene was in there, and thought it more likely she was in whatever passed for the girls’ common room on the northern platform. Fresh white paint marked the borders of the field – a football pitch made of stone – and at either end stood a goal about the size of an ice-hockey net. Strung above the hockey nets was a board of circular lights, three in a row, that looked like it had been nicked from a traffic intersection. A separate raised box of seating, with a shaded tin roof, stood behind the far net. A simple scoreboard hung from the roof of the box seating.

  ‘What are the lights above the nets for?’ Drake asked.

  ‘That’s so we can see how many passes we’ve made. Remember, three before we can score, and it resets if we lose possession,’ Mario said. He hefted a long, thin racquet from the trunk and tossed it at Drake.

  Drake caught it and his eyes widened at the weight. The handle was wooden, reinforced with strips of thin steel and wrapped with what looked like gauze bandages. There was a small button embedded in the handle about halfway along its length. At the top an oval-shaped plate was ringed with an array of small metal lumps, interconnected with wires that ran into the handle, and backed against a net of hard, stretched leather.

  ‘Switch it on like this.’ Mario flicked a switch at the base of the racquet and a tiny blue light lit up the plate.

  ‘Wait –’ Tommy cried.

  Half a dozen racquets were thrown from the trunk as something exploded from within and flew through the air. Drake only had time to gasp before a heavy metal sphere, about the size of a tennis ball, smashed into his racquet and tore it from his arm. The racquet landed with a dull clunk, handle sticking straight up and humming softly.

  Emir, the large Turkish goalkeeper, grunted harsh laughter.

  ‘Blimey,’ Drake said, as Tommy gave Mario yet another slap. He hefted his racquet back up, with the ball in the net. It was heavy, but manageable if he was expecting the ball. He gave the racquet a practice toss, but the ball was well and truly stuck to the magnetised net.

  As the other lads picked up their racquets from the mess Mario had caused, Tommy explained a few more of the rules. ‘If you’ve got possession, as you do now, then you’ve got to pass within three seconds or we’ll be penalised. Understood? Better to lose possession than hold it too long, because that gives the other team time to organise their field.’

  ‘How do I –’ Drake lifted the racquet over his shoulder and swung with all his might. The ball remained stuck to the net. ‘– toss it?’

  Mario snorted. ‘Thought a guy your age would’ve figured that out by now.’

  Greg and Neil laughed as Tommy pointed to the small black button on the handle of the racquet. ‘Swing just like you did then, and hit that button when you’ve got the aim right. Let’s do a practice one.’

  Tommy jogged across the hard, concrete field, about a dozen metres away. He switched his racquet on and, under starlight and the pale, poor lights blinking along the top of the platform, gestured at Drake.

  With a shrug, Drake took a lunge forwards and hurled the rigball as hard as he could. The racquet swung over his head and, at the top of the arc – when you’ve got the aim right – he pressed the button in the handle.

  The ball flew from his net, straight for Tommy, and snapped back as if on a tight elastic band. For the second time, the force of the impact pulled the racquet from Drake’s hands.

  ‘You’re supposed to keep the net demagnetised until the ball’s properly away,’ Mario said, tutting and shaking his head. ‘Keep the button pressed a good second or two after you’ve hurled it.’

  ‘Right.’ Of course. Drake lined up another shot and this time the ball flew true, if a little wide, as Tommy had to take a staggering step to the side, into his racquet. It struck Tommy’s net with a loud chime.

  ‘If the scoreboard was switched on, you’d see a light in one of those traffic lights,’ Neil said, pointing to the goals at either end of the field.

  ‘Yeah, I get it.’ Drake flexed his arm. He’d need a bit more practice, if he didn’t want to wrench his shoulder from its socket.

  Neil scoffed. ‘Sure, you get it. Let’s see how well you do when Grey’s thugs are throwing that thing at your head and smashing you into the ground.’

  Drake exhaled a cloud of misty, warm air into the cool night and picked up his helmet. ‘I’ll be right, mate. I’ve got a bicycle hat.’

  Later that night, just before lights out, Drake stumbled into 36C covered in welts and bruises and cursing the sport of rigball. He hadn’t stayed cold for long, up on the centre platform. No, no. Tommy had seen to that. After an hour and a half of running drills and tossing a heavy metal ball at each other as hard and fast as they could, Drake had been ready to strip down to his boxer shorts. All the rules of rigball, possibly the most dangerous sport he had ever played, fumbled around in his head. Three passes to a goal … The keeper doesn’t get a racquet, just catcher’s mitts … No, checking above the shoulder is a foul …

  Tristan chuckled when he saw him, lying on his bunk and reading his tech magazines purchased from the vending machines in the common room. Drake was sure Tristan was the only one on the Rig that bothered with those magazines. I guess if he can’t touch a computer, he can at least read about them.

  ‘I can’t believe you signed up for rigball,’ he said. ‘I’ve been here for two seasons of it, and do you know how many bones have been broken?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘I don’t think the infirmary does either. There’s a reason they built the field next to the doctor’s office, you know.’

  Drake chuckled and went over to the sink. He found it a touch too painful and didn’t bother to wash. The climb up the ladder into his bunk was the Rig’s worst torture yet, but he sighed with relief once he was up on his paper-thin mattress and cardboard pillow. The trackers beeped over 2130 a moment later, and the solid steel cell door slid closed, sealing them in yet another night.

  ‘If I die in my sleep,’ Drake groaned, watching the orange lights from outside play along the wall, ‘bury me at sea, would you?’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  Staring at his tracker, as the minutes ticked by towards ten o’clock, Drake cursed the device and tried, once again, to pull it from his wrist. He attempted to weasel his fingers under the edge of the tracker, between his skin and the hard shell, but it was clamped on too tight
. He smacked it hard against the bed frame, but that barely scratched the finish of the device.

  ‘These things,’ he muttered, ‘are really well made. What say you get this thing off me now, Tristan?’

  ‘You know I can’t touch them, Will,’ Tristan said, a note of honest regret in his voice. ‘Besides, what if I do get it off? What’s your next move? The guards are all over this place, half the doors between platforms are sealed and need swipe cards, and let’s mention the security cameras, shall we?’

  ‘We shall not.’

  ‘I just don’t see it, you know.’ Tristan paused. ‘I mean, say you get through all that – and you won’t – what next? There’s a hundred miles of ocean, at least, between the Rig and the mainland.’

  Drake thought of Tubes, of the vast array of vents and wide conduits that interconnected the diamond-shaped platforms of the Rig. ‘I’ve been secretly whittling a canoe out of soap, elbow grease, unicorn tears and a teaspoon of shenanigans. Almost ready to set sail, if only I could get this damn tracker off.’

  ‘Can I see the canoe?’

  ‘You can, yes, if you use your imagination.’

  Tristan chuckled and then fell silent.

  Drake held his breath. He could almost hear Tristan’s mind working, weighing up whether or not to help him.

  ‘I … I could do it,’ he said finally. ‘But what if you got hurt?’ The last was barely a whisper, and Drake knew Tristan was thinking of the people he had hurt last time he’d messed with computers.

  ‘I’m already getting hurt, mate, and …’ He paused, wondering just what to say. Drake needed to escape – for reasons more important to him than anything in his life. ‘Look, you’ll just have to trust me, but if you don’t help me, if I can’t escape … then someone is going to get hurt. Maybe … maybe even die.’

  Tristan sighed. He was quiet again for a few minutes, shuffling around in his bunk. Drake heard him sit up, as the orange lights danced on the walls, playing with the shadows like the tide washing in and out.

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said. ‘I’ll give it a shot, I guess. But you have to understand that it may not work, okay?’