The Rig

by Joe Ducie

  Elias nodded and stepped briskly across the second lab and back into the first. He returned a moment later and stepped over to the rear of the lab, behind the empty animal cages, and pressed a glowing green button on the back wall. A metal roller door began to ascend, revealing another, darkened room beyond.

  ‘They’re bringing him in now,’ Elias said, returning to the group. ‘We keep this area dark – he seems to prefer it that way.’

  ‘Bringing who in?’ Whitmore asked.

  ‘Ah,’ the warden said. ‘Well, sir, there are still some problems with the human application of the mineral.’

  An ear-piercing scream howled from beyond the roller door, followed by a cackle that sent shivers of fear running down Drake’s spine. Irene gasped and covered her ears. The sound, scratching at every corner and high ceiling of the laboratory, could only be described as insane.

  Three technicians wheeled a cage into the lab that had been made of glass and reinforced along the edges with metal bindings. Air holes were dotted along the face of the cage, which stood just over two metres tall. The occupant inside the cage was a teenage boy. He hurled himself at the walls of his small prison, clawing and screaming. Topless, he wore a pair of torn and bloody green trousers. His upper body was corded with thick muscle, below a head of long, brown hair.

  ‘My God …’ Irene whispered. ‘His eyes. Look at his eyes!’

  The boy pressed his face against the wall of his cage, glaring at the men in suits and lab coats all around him. Drake stared in growing horror. The boy’s eyes were red – and glowing.

  ‘At first,’ Doctor Elias said, gesturing to the cage, ‘the subject responded well to Crystal-X. One of the best responses we’ve seen so far. The mineral increased his muscle mass, his strength. He became capable of lifting weights in excess of nine metric tonnes. Then he developed energy-manipulation abilities, followed by the phase ability you just witnessed in the bees. That’s why he is confined behind reinforced glass.’

  ‘It drove him mad,’ Whitmore said. He stepped forwards, ignoring the warnings of his colleagues, and stood in front of the cage looking up at the boy – face to face, almost.

  ‘Overexposure has, in three cases now, caused irreparable damage to the brain,’ Elias said. ‘This subject is the only one of the three that has survived this far, but his condition is deteriorating.’

  Whitmore tapped on the glass. ‘Why are his eyes glowing?’

  ‘We … we don’t know,’ Elias admitted.

  Whitmore stood a moment longer as the boy thrashed in his cage. After a moment, he calmed, and looked down at Whitmore with his hands and nose pressed against the clear panel. They stood that way for a long moment, staring at one another.

  ‘I’ve seen enough,’ Whitmore said and turned back to face his entourage, the boy in the cage glaring down at the top of his head. ‘Continue human trials. I want the process refined and ready to administer to Crystal Force. Send me the files on this promising recruit of yours.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Warden Storm said.

  Whitmore and his men swept out of the lab and back the way they had come towards the freight elevator. Drake and Irene stayed hidden up on their walkway, almost pressed against the cool steel. The pale, terrified look on Irene’s face told Drake all he needed to know about her plans to absorb more of the mineral.

  ‘How could they?’ she whispered to herself over and over again. ‘How could they?’

  As the technicians wheeled the boy in the cage away, he fell back against the wall of his tiny prison and wept. Just before he disappeared back through the roller door, his head snapped up to the walkway. Drake wasn’t sure, given those haunting crimson eyes, but he thought he saw the boy stare straight at him, and smile through his tears.

  15

  Hideaway

  Drake and Irene had an easier time of it getting back up to the Rig than they had getting down. The freight elevator didn’t need an access card to operate from below in the Crystal-X facility.

  They rode the car back up in silence, worried about guards up top, and emerged back in the junkyard, ears popping from the pressure change, quiet and solemn. They were alone.

  ‘Well …’ Drake said, ‘that was horrific.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it.’ Irene’s pale skin, dashed with freckles, looked almost porcelain in the dull light overhead.

  ‘Let’s get out of here in case anyone else wants to use the lift.’

  Irene nodded. ‘I know a place we can talk.’

  They used the same overflow pipe to get around the locked, rusted doors and soon found themselves back out on the lower levels of the eastern platform, overlooking the dark ocean. Flashes of orange light, from the beacons strung along the outer shell of the Rig, lit up the shadows.

  ‘This way,’ Irene said. ‘There’s an old control room towards the north platform, I think from when this was the only platform. Took me a few nights to clear away all the debris and get in, but it’s cosy and warm – and private. I don’t think anyone but me has been in there in years.’

  Irene led Drake down a level, past the rusted doors with the shiny padlock hiding such terrible secrets, and along a walkway towards the northern platform. He was conscious of the time as he followed her, knowing they were probably close to three or four in the morning now. He’d need an hour, at least, to follow his map of arrows back through the vents to the western platform before seven, when the cells opened for the day.

  ‘Up here,’ Irene said.

  ‘Blimey, another vent,’ Drake muttered, as Irene lifted herself up into a vent hanging low in a bracket.

  ‘This is how I get from the northern platform to here,’ she said. ‘You used the vents too?’

  ‘Yeah. They rely too much on the trackers,’ Drake said. ‘As far as Control’s concerned, I’m asleep in my bunk and have been all night.’

  Irene chuckled. ‘Me too.’ She came to a stop at an intersection in the vent and Drake almost got kicked in the face for following too closely. ‘Down here.’

  The vent spat them out in a small room, fully enclosed from the outside, the door barred, with a single porthole window overlooking the dark ocean. A sprinkling of stars could be seen through the porthole. The air smelt of rust and, as always, old oil.

  Irene swiped the torch from Drake’s pocket and switched it on, lighting up the dark. Dusty desks, old metal chairs and a bank of flat-screen monitors, unplugged and lifeless, came into view.

  ‘Welcome to my hideaway,’ Irene said. ‘I usually don’t bring boys back here until the fourth or fifth date.’

  Drake laughed but it sounded forced even to him. Irene was trying to reclaim some of their earlier banter, but given what they had just seen, deep beneath the sea, he wasn’t in much of a laughing mood.

  ‘It doesn’t feel real,’ Drake said. ‘I mean, I know we just saw it, and you healed my hands, but I still almost can’t believe it.’

  Irene nodded. ‘I know how you feel. It took me a few weeks to come to terms with … well, with this.’ She raised her hand and made the blue light appear beneath her fingers again, as if the alien mineral were swimming in her blood vessels.

  ‘From what we saw, it seems like you got off easy.’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘Can I … can I touch your hand?’

  Irene shrugged and nodded.

  Drake brushed his fingertips against her blue fingers. Trails of luminescent smoke seeped through her skin and she felt warm. ‘That’s so strange.’

  ‘Will Drake, have you never held a girl’s hand before?’

  Drake smiled. ‘No, not that.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  Drake let go of Irene’s hand and soon the only light came from the torch again. They stood in silence and Drake stared around the small room. He thought Irene had been right and this was once used to control the platform. None of the equipment looked like it still worked. He flicked a few switches on the panels and nothing happened.

  ‘So, what bri
ngs you to the Rig?’ Irene asked.

  ‘You mean the world’s number one holiday destination?’ Drake shook his head. ‘The brochure promised girls in bikinis and all the seafood I could eat.’

  ‘Fine, don’t tell me.’ Irene crossed her arms. ‘But I know you’re wondering the same about me.’

  Drake had been. Only the worst of the worst got sent to the Rig. Or, in Drake’s case, if all other cages had failed. So what had the auburn-haired girl with the magic powers done to be sent here?

  ‘I’ll show you mine,’ Drake said with care. ‘If you show me yours.’

  Irene snorted and elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Perhaps when you’re older.’ She stared at him in silence for a moment. ‘Can you meet me here tomorrow night?’

  ‘I …’ Drake nodded. ‘I can try.’

  Time was short when they parted, Irene through her vents to the northern platform, and Drake back up and out onto the eastern platform’s outer rim. He returned the torch to the hose in Tubes and made his way back to the vents that would take him, after much crawling, to the washroom on the ninth level of the western platform.

  It was still dark when he crossed the central platform, but the sky towards the east was softening when he crossed from central to western, using the vents running under the transparent connecting corridor. Drake felt like years had passed since he’d first come this way, a handful of hours ago. He was tired through to his bones and his elbows and knees were raw and numb from all the crawling.

  Even with his felt-tip arrows to guide him, Drake managed to take a wrong turn above the empty common room on the western platform, and had to waste valuable minutes backtracking to correct his path. He could almost feel the sun rising over the horizon, the new day dawning, and the cells about to open. Finally, after a night to remember, he was back above the outlet cover he’d first unscrewed to access the warren of vents that had led him all across the Rig. Drake let his head fall into his hands and waited.

  He was dozing just on the edge of sleep when he heard someone calling his name.

  ‘Will?’

  Drake frowned and tried to roll over back to sleep. His eyes snapped open a split second later.

  ‘Will? Drake? It’s me, are you there?’

  ‘I’m here,’ Drake whispered. ‘Is it safe?’

  ‘Be quick – everyone’s waking up, buddy.’

  Drake slipped his fingers through the slats in the outlet cover and pushed. It came away as easily as last night and he wiggled out of the pipe, arms first, then head. He was halfway out, dangling from the ceiling, when he realised he was going to have to fall.

  Michael Tristan, wide-eyed and hair askew from a good night’s sleep, darted out of the way as Drake wrangled himself out of the vent and hit the rubber floor hard, laughing and groaning.

  ‘Good morning,’ Tristan said.

  ‘Is it?’ Drake muttered. ‘You brought it, right?’

  Tristan handed Drake his tracker and he slapped it back around his wrist. The time read 0706. Six minutes into the new day, and as far as Control knew, Drake was hitting the showers early.

  ‘Also a clean jumpsuit and towel,’ Tristan said. ‘Thought you might need a shower.’

  Drake was covered in dust, grime, sweat and blood. ‘You will not believe the night I’ve had.’

  ‘How far did you get?’ Tristan asked, as Drake stripped out of his dirty shoes and jumpsuit and headed over to the showers. ‘And is this blood? Are you hurt?’

  Drake shook his head and wasted no time stepping under the freezing cold spray from the showerhead. He gasped, but it was invigorating, and washed away the vestiges of his little nap in the vents. ‘Yes, that’s blood. No, I’m not hurt. Little bruised and battered, but not hurt.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Not here. Back in our cell, once I’ve had a chance to clean up.’

  The water warmed up after a minute and Drake hung his head over the drain, washing away the night’s horror. He thought of Irene and wondered if she were doing the same.

  Tracker attached firmly to his wrist, Drake almost felt normal again wandering down through the tiers towards 36C on the third level. He kept his head lowered, avoided the gaze of the guards, and wondered if any of the boys he walked past had superpowers.

  Back in the cell, Drake leaned against the ladder and thought about going to sleep, but it was only half an hour before breakfast. He had a long day ahead of him before he could rest – the price for leading a life outside of the tracker’s schedule.

  ‘So, what did you see?’ Tristan asked.

  ‘Blimey, where do I start?’ Drake took a deep breath, and started at the beginning.

  For simplicity’s sake, and because time was short, Drake left Irene and most of the crawling through the vents out of the story, but filled Tristan in on the rest. The junkyard, the climb down the ladder, the Crystal-X facility and the glowing underwater ridge that was actually a bloody meteorite. He told Tristan about all of it and watched his eyebrows climb up under his fringe.

  ‘Come off it …’ Tristan said, but his voice was low and awed.

  ‘Warden Storm was down there, so was Brand, and get this – Lucien Whitmore and a whole bunch of Alliance people.’

  He told Tristan about the mineral presentation, the things he’d seen some of the inmates do on the display screens, how the Crystal-X exploded, about Alan Grey, and what the bees could do.

  ‘Remember you noticed that, your first night in here,’ Tristan said, pointing at the window. ‘The dead bees.’

  ‘There was also a kid down there, in a glass cage.’ Drake told him about what Doctor Elias had said, about how the blue mineral had overwhelmed his mind.

  Tristan frowned. ‘Did you get a good look at him?’

  ‘Good enough. Tall, muscular. He was a big guy. Brown, shaggy hair and a sharp chin. Like, his chin could’ve cut steel.’

  All the colour drained from Tristan’s face. ‘That’s Carl,’ he said. ‘Holy God, I thought he’d been sent back to the mainland. That’s … that’s …’

  Carl?

  Of course. Tristan’s last cellmate. ‘Carl … Anderson?’

  Tristan slumped onto his bed and held his head in his hands. ‘Do you think … maybe it’s not … was he definitely an inmate, Will?’

  Drake considered and then reluctantly nodded. ‘He was wearing a tattered green jumpsuit. What was left of one, at any rate.’

  ‘He was kind to me,’ Tristan said and smiled sadly. ‘You know, tough but kind. Sort of like you are, a bit. Carl watched out for me my first few months here. Made settling in less … awful. Not even Grey and his gang would mess with Carl.’ He slammed his fist into the mattress. ‘I knew something had happened to him. I knew it.’ Tristan removed his glasses and rubbed his eyelids. For once, he looked not only his age but a lot older. Seventeen going on forty.

  ‘He’s mad,’ Drake said. ‘Like, out of his mind crazy. And his eyes …’

  Tristan put his glasses back on and met Drake’s gaze. ‘I want to see him.’

  ‘Mate, it’s pretty hard to get –’

  Tristan nodded and turned back to his bed. He reached down the side of the bunk and retrieved the magnetic key that unlocked Drake’s tracker. No, this key was different. Without saying a word, Tristan ran the new key along the seam of his tracker and the device popped open and fell away.

  ‘We can go tonight, Will. Please.’

  Drake gave a heavy sigh that turned into a small chuckle. ‘You cheeky bugger. Tonight, then. I was going to meet Irene in her hideaway anyway – may as well risk our lives two nights running, eh?’

  Tristan secured his tracker back on his wrist. ‘Sure. Who’s Irene?’

  ‘Magical nurse.’ Drake slapped his cheeks to stay awake. ‘Come on, breakfast time.’

  16

  Once More into the Deep

  ‘Do you think she’ll be mad at me?’ Tristan whispered, as he and Drake snuck along the outer, windswept edge of the Rig’s eastern platform. The ai
r was warmer tonight, given the immense, roiling storm clouds spread across the sky, blocking the stars and threatening rain.

  ‘What? Mad at you?’ Drake frowned. ‘For what, tagging along?’

  ‘She’s not expecting me. I don’t even know her.’

  Drake chuckled. ‘Tristan, you’re out of bounds on a floating prison where the guards shoot first and ask questions later. Irene’s just like you, only prettier.’

  ‘She can’t really do magic, can she? There’s no such thing. You were just pulling my leg, yeah?’

  ‘No.’

  Tristan sighed. ‘No, I didn’t think so. Imagine what would’ve happened if they’d caught you down there.’

  ‘That’s where we’re heading again tonight, with or without Irene, so you can see Anderson for yourself. You insisted, mate, and I want a proper look around myself. Back out now, if you’re not up to it.’

  Drake stood before the access port to Irene’s hideaway. Crawling through the vents from the western platform had been far easier for Tristan than it had been for Drake. He was a lot smaller and wilier. Their trackers lay tucked under their pillows back in 36C. Tomorrow morning’s walk back from the washroom was going to be interesting, if they bumped into anyone – like a guard.

  ‘No, I want to see this.’ Tristan clenched his fists, fighting shivers. ‘Seeing is believing, right?’

  ‘With what they’re doing below this place, I’m not so sure. Quickly now, one more vent to go.’

  Drake had retrieved the torch from Tubes on their trek down and used the narrow beam to light their way into the old control room, buried and forgotten along the northern edge of the platform. A perfect little hideaway from prying eyes.

  ‘I think we beat her here,’ Drake said, shining the torch up and along the control room. ‘We’ll give her an hour and then head down with or without her.’

  Tristan was intrigued by the old computer monitors and, after a moment’s hesitation, started tinkering with the cables and pulling panels off the walls to get a better look at the wiring.

  ‘Wow, this place used to run on old broadband fibre cables,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Say what you want about the Alliance, but their global nano-wireless network is spectacular.’