The Rig

by Joe Ducie

  ‘Experimenting?’ A scary thought fled across Drake’s mind and took hold in his heart. ‘What, like, on you?’

  ‘On a lot of us, Will.’ She pointed up towards the surface. The Rig wasn’t visible, this far below, but the leviathan prison was up there somewhere. ‘Whatever’s glowing in that rock, those crystals, they mine it and bring it into this place, then leave us in a room with a piece. Just a little bit, no more than a teaspoon full.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Drake was being serious.

  ‘Yes. I was brought down here. They put me in a room with this fishbowl full of water, and a piece of the glowing blue stuff at the bottom of the bowl, and when I touched it the crystal sort of melted into my hand. Like it … dissolved into me. They kept me down here a week to see what would happen. If it would do anything.’

  ‘And that’s how you were able to fix my hands?’

  Irene shook her head. She casually looped a loose strand of auburn hair back behind her ear. ‘No, not at first. From what I gather, the crystals don’t work on everyone. The scientists down here observed me a week, but nothing happened. I couldn’t do a thing.’

  ‘So you were sent back up?’

  ‘Right. It wasn’t until months later that I realised … if I concentrated …’ She bit her lip and held up her hand. After a moment, soft blue light began to dance within her fingers, beneath the tips. She wiggled her fingers back and forth, and a trail of smoky luminescence floated through the air. ‘I can’t always make it work, but I cut myself pretty bad a month back and … well, the light healed me – within seconds.’

  ‘Christ,’ Drake cursed. He flexed his own hands. ‘Are you radioactive?’

  Irene smiled softly. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Drake’s mind was racing with the implications of what Irene was telling him. He felt almost sick to his stomach with nerves. The Alliance – Warden Storm and his staff – were experimenting on inmates, on teenagers. And what?

  Giving them abnormal abilities.

  The thought was so absurd that Drake snorted laughter, but the evidence was right here in front of him. Still …

  ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘Is the dried blood on your hands a joke?’

  Drake had to concede the point. ‘So one small piece, about six months ago, and now you’re a magician?’ He shook his head. ‘Do you know if it’ll last? Will it just … go away, do you think?’

  ‘That one small piece was half a year ago, and I’ve only been getting better at healing in the last month or so. Getting stronger at it,’ she said proudly.

  ‘Can you do anything else? Or just the healing?’

  Irene frowned and grabbed Drake’s hand, waving it in front of his face. ‘Just the healing?’

  ‘Okay, sorry. But why didn’t you say anything to anyone after you were back on the Rig? Like Doctor Lambros?’ She wasn’t allowed to see Doctor Lambros. ‘What if it’s hurting you?’

  ‘What if I did and they shoved me back down here in a cage? Oh yes, there are cages down here. I’m not certain what for, but I can make a good guess.’

  ‘Do you think they’re all in on it? Storm, the guards … They can’t all be, can they?’

  ‘Can’t they? I saw Brand down here, that woman with all the muscles –’

  ‘Stein.’

  ‘– and Hall, as well as Doctor Elias from the infirmary.’

  Drake knew he had uncovered something he wasn’t supposed to know. Not by a long shot. The Alliance wouldn’t just transfer him to another prison for knowing this secret. Would they kill for it?

  ‘Still …’ he said. ‘They gave you superpowers! This blue stuff could be doing anything to you. You have to tell someone!’

  ‘They don’t know it worked, do they?’ Irene shrugged. ‘And anyway, the warden said if I kept quiet the Alliance would take two years off my sentence – that means I’ll be out in eighteen months.’

  ‘You think they would have hurt you if you didn’t keep your mouth shut?’

  Irene nodded and exhaled. ‘Come on, let’s keep moving. I want to find more of this stuff.’

  Drake stood and followed her as they crept back out into the corridor, and this time took the branch forking away to the right, deeper into the complex. There were no more windows this way, just cool white plaster and high ceilings dotted with hanging lights. Trolleys and canisters of what looked like oxygen lined the walls. Crates of unmarked material were stacked two metres high, next to empty crates stamped with the silver crown of Alliance Systems.

  ‘Why do you want to find more of it?’ he asked, as they moved forwards with care.

  ‘One piece gave me the power to heal,’ Irene said. ‘What would another do? Or another? I want to find out.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ he said. ‘No, you’re bonkers. You don’t know what the hell this stuff is doing to you.’

  ‘Honestly, I’ve never felt better. It’s exhilarating.’ Irene rubbed her hands together. ‘Aren’t you even a little curious, Will? It could work on you. I know your story, you know. Escaped from half of the Alliance’s juvy prisons. What if it can do more than just healing? It could help you get off the Rig.’

  Superpowers. He shook his head to clear those thoughts away. ‘I don’t need some glowing hocus-pocus to get me off the Rig. I’ll manage that on my own.’

  Drake and Irene followed the corridor down and around. At one point, a metal set of stairs led up to an overhead walkway and they took this path. The walkway extended up and over the walls of the corridor, and as Drake and Irene tiptoed quietly across it, keeping their heads down and crouching behind the panelled railing, they heard voices ahead, echoing up quite distinctly.

  ‘Is that …?’ Drake asked.

  Moving with extreme caution, Drake and Irene took a left and emerged above a wide open space packed with laboratory equipment, pressure pipes, scientific apparatus and dozens of tanks containing large quantities of the glowing blue rock. Drake took all of that in quickly, before his gaze was drawn to the gathering of people below.

  They had caught up to the group from the freight elevator.

  Drake saw Warden Storm, Doctor Elias, Brand and a group of ten or so men and women dressed in fine business suits. At the head of that group, his silver hair slicked back and wearing tinted sunglasses, was Lucien Whitmore – the President and CEO of Alliance Systems.

  ‘Mr Whitmore, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my lab,’ Doctor Elias announced, his voice echoing up across the vast ceiling to where Drake and Irene hid up on the walkway. ‘Here is where your generous donations have been spent, here is where the forefront of chemical and biological science has been implemented to harness and adapt the power in the glowing mineral you saw on your way down.’ Elias spread his arms and gestured to the laboratory at large. ‘My friends, here is where we better humanity forever.’

  14

  Crystal-X

  What Drake saw next changed his entire outlook on the world.

  ‘As most of you are aware, but for the benefit of those only just brought into our select loop,’ Doctor Elias smiled at Whitmore’s entourage, ‘the Alliance has been operating this facility for just over eighteen months. We mine the glowing rock, which I’ll hereafter refer to as Crystal-X, and experiment on it in a vast array of ways down here, in the privacy afforded us below the Rig.’

  ‘Do you know of anywhere else this mineral, the Crystal-X, can be found?’ a tall, attractive woman asked. She stared into one of the tanks, fascinated. ‘Or is this location naturally unique?’

  ‘Our leading theory is that the mineral itself is actually not natural, madam,’ Elias said. ‘We think this entire facility has been built on a gigantic meteorite. Yes, that was my reaction, too. We’re standing on a massive chunk of space rock that collided with Earth some millions of years ago. And …’ Elias cleared his throat. ‘And it’s been growing ever since.’

  Most of the crowd was stunned into silence, as were Drake and Irene. Does he mean …?

  ‘My tech
nicians have been working around the clock to prepare for your arrival,’ Elias continued. A group of six men and women, wearing white lab coats, stood in a line behind the doctor. ‘This, ladies and gentlemen, is what you’ve travelled so far to see.’

  Elias flicked a switch on his workbench and four glass display monitors hanging from the ceiling flickered to life.

  The displays played footage of a dozen different tests on a dozen different subjects. Drake didn’t recognise most of the boys he saw in the clips – and none of the girls – but they were dressed as he was in the Rig’s green jumpsuits. One or two seemed familiar, but he was more focused on what the people in the videos were actually doing.

  One girl held out her palm and created a sphere of rippling energy, like a tennis ball of lightning. She tossed it at the wall and burned a hole through the metal. Another boy lifted a massive crate over his head with one hand and smirked at the camera.

  ‘That weighed three metric tonnes.’ Doctor Elias provided commentary.

  A boy who could be no older than sixteen sat with his legs crossed. Not overly impressive by itself, but he did it two metres off the floor. He was levitating.

  Irene’s eyes gleamed in the half-light. She looked at Drake and grinned, as if to say ‘See? I told you so.’

  Doctor Elias paused the footage and addressed his audience. ‘As you can see, the results have varied. Most subjects show zero affinity for Crystal-X. Some develop a minor talent that requires a constant source of the mineral to maintain.’ Elias shook his head. ‘We classify those as unworkable.’

  ‘Thank you, Nathan,’ Warden Storm said, glancing sideways at Lucien Whitmore and his entourage. ‘However, I think Mr Whitmore would like to hear more about our success.’

  Elias nodded. ‘A small percentage of the subjects tested – currently fifteen per cent, although that figure could be skewed by the small sample size available above, as we have to be rather selective – absorb Crystal-X and develop immediate and, often, amazing abilities. Abilities that not only last well beyond the initial dose but increase in strength and durability over time without requiring additional Crystal-X.’

  Whitmore looked pleased. ‘How powerful are these successful subjects?’

  ‘I’ve one boy that can harness the energy in his body to create physical objects out of what I’ve dubbed “hard-light”. Another who can fire bolts of neon-blue energy through concrete and steel and a minor, unconfirmed, telekinetic ability. One of the girls managed to successfully guess what randomly generated picture a computer console would show three hundred times in a row. Unfor-tunately, she hasn’t been able to repeat the feat, but we’re working on it.’

  ‘She could see the future?’ Whitmore asked.

  Doctor Elias shrugged. ‘Perhaps. A split-second ahead, at least.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ a portly man to Whitmore’s left said. He was bouncing back and forth on his heels.

  ‘The boy capable of manipulating light has so far shown the most promise. He’s absorbed a not-insignificant amount of Crystal-X without … notable detriment to his health.’ Elias rubbed his hands together. ‘In a month, he’ll be eighteen, and I think a more than eager recruit into your programme, Mr Whitmore.’

  Drake frowned. Programme?

  Warden Storm smiled and tucked his hands into his belt. ‘Yes, Grey’s coming along in leaps and bounds. Bit of a temper on the lad, but that’s what you want in a good soldier, eh?’ He laughed.

  Grey … Drake swallowed hard. The knife attack a few weeks ago, in the exercise area, suddenly made a whole lot more sense. Grey had created the knife out of nothing. He’s a damn wizard. Drake didn’t know what was worse, the fact that Grey could conjure weapons, or the fact that the Alliance considered that a success.

  Storm clapped Elias on the shoulder, clearly enjoying his opportunity to show off. ‘There are also weapons applications to the mineral, aren’t there, Doc.’

  ‘Oh yes. If you’ll allow me to demonstrate.’ Elias stepped over to a workbench that held a thin, cylindrical glass tube about half a metre tall. ‘There is only a small amount of the mineral preserved inside this canister, suspended in the centre here by these clasps. As you can see, the glass is sealed and full of seawater. There is good reason for this. Exposed to the air, Crystal-X becomes highly flammable and violently explosive. Please watch.’

  Elias picked up the tube and carried it across to the far side of the laboratory. Along the wall was a pit about two metres wide by the same deep. What looked like an industrial exhaust port to Drake was built into the roof over the pit. Doctor Elias flicked a few switches on the wall and the port began sucking in air. He then climbed down into the pit using a ladder fixed to the wall and emerged a moment later without the canister.

  ‘The canister is draining now. It’s designed to take a few minutes. You’ll see why.’ Whitmore and his entourage had moved in close to the pit. Elias chuckled. ‘I’d advise you all to step back at least six metres.’

  A minute later and a great torrent of white-hot flame erupted from the pit. A wave of heat and energy knocked everyone in the lab back and rattled loose tools on crates, the display monitors, and the panelled railing Drake and Irene crouched behind. Even at their distance, up and above the lab, Drake could feel the heat as if he were sitting around a bonfire.

  The port above the pit sucked up the flame and kept it from spreading. Storm was laughing at the dumbfounded expression on half the faces in the room. Drake watched Whitmore, eyes still hidden behind his dark glasses. The man had not even twitched.

  Over the roar of the flame, Whitmore asked, ‘How long will it burn for?’

  Elias held up four fingers.

  ‘Four minutes?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Elias smiled grimly. ‘Days. Four days.’

  A team of technicians moved in wearing black full-body protective gear and large helmets connected via a pipe to a tank on their backs. Reflective visors obscured their faces. Each of the technicians carried a wide silver hose strapped to a canister on a trolley behind them. They approached the roaring flame and gouts of white steam burst from the hoses.

  ‘Liquid nitrogen,’ Irene whispered. ‘Has to be.’

  ‘It’ll take them about half an hour to douse it,’ Elias said. ‘Shall we continue to discuss the human applications?’

  ‘How much of the mineral will be shipped this week?’ Whitmore asked.

  ‘Four crates,’ Brand said promptly. ‘About three hundred and fifty kilos. We’ve stepped up mining, as you requested, Mr Whitmore. Next shipment should be in the region of six to seven hundred kilograms. Third drill comes online in two days, which should double our daily hauls.’

  Whitmore nodded and said nothing.

  ‘Let’s show ’em the bees, Doc,’ Storm said, almost bouncing on the spot. ‘You’ll like this, Mr Whitmore. Perhaps you’d also like to see the sharks, if you have time? No? The bees then, Doc!’

  Elias straightened his coat and nodded. ‘Please follow me.’

  Drake and Irene waited a minute before moving after the group, casting nervous glances at each other. Irene held a finger to her lips, offered Drake a weak smile, and then shrugged her head along the walkway. They followed the group below quietly, aware that a too-heavy footfall could give them away, as Elias led Whitmore’s entourage through a door to the next room – another laboratory, this one filled with steel cages, glass tanks and workbenches scattered with paperwork and tablet computers. Elias stepped behind one of these benches and the rest of the crowd gathered in front.

  Drake and Irene watched from above, still partially hidden by the walkway, but feeling all too exposed. If Elias had reason to look up, they’d be seen.

  ‘Here we have a glass container fitted to a crushing press. As you can see, ladies and gentlemen, a small colony of bees inhabits this tank.’ Elias flicked a switch on the side of the tank and a thick metal plate began to move across it. ‘Watch what happens.’

  The press slowly narrowed the space the bees had to
buzz around in. Enclosed within the glass tank, the tiny insects were about to be crushed. Only … no. It wasn’t very clear to Drake, but a few bees were now buzzing around the other side of the tank. The press kept moving, and bees kept appearing behind it, as if …

  ‘Good God.’ One of the entourage, a tall, handsome man with sandy-blond hair, gasped. ‘They’re flying through the solid metal!’

  ‘Phasing through it, actually,’ Doctor Elias said. ‘We exposed these bees one at a time to a droplet spray containing six parts Crystal-X to four parts water. Of two thousand bees, three tenths died, the rest survived. These twelve are the last test subjects. They all developed the same ability to phase through solid metal.’ Elias laughed. ‘First few nights, we’d come back an hour later and they’d be gone. Poof! Just vanished. It took us a few days to realise what was happening.’

  ‘They can’t phase through the glass?’ Lucien Whitmore asked.

  ‘No, sir. For some reason, no. Metal, surely. Plastic and concrete, definitely. Glass, well, is as solid to them as you or I.’

  ‘We’ve been finding dead bees all over the Rig for weeks.’ Storm laughed. ‘Mad scientist that he is, Doc here created an army of teleporting bees.’

  ‘Phasing bees,’ Elias corrected. ‘They phase.’

  ‘Is there anything else you’d like to show me?’ Whitmore said. From his tone, Drake thought that the man had given Elias and Storm all the time he was willing to give, and his question was a conclusion to the tour.

  ‘Actually, sir, there is one final thing, concerning side effects of human application.’

  ‘Now, Nathan,’ the warden began, ‘that’s grist for another day’s mill. Mr Whitmore’s time is val—’

  ‘It will only take a moment, and it’s something I think he needs to see.’

  Whitmore turned and whispered in the ear of one of his associates. The he said, ‘Very well, Doctor Elias. You have five minutes.’