The Rig

by Joe Ducie

  Drake settled in one of the old swivel chairs and watched Tristan work. The little fellow stripped wires, flicked switches, plugged and unplugged cables, and was so enthralled with his work that Drake promptly fell asleep sitting up in his chair.

  What felt like two minutes later, he was jostled awake with a start and almost slipped from the chair.

  ‘There he is,’ Irene Finlay said. ‘Another few seconds and you would’ve got a slap.’

  Drake yawned, thought about it, and yawned again. ‘Good evening, Irene.’

  ‘Good evening, Will. You invite this straggler along?’ She gestured to Tristan, who was almost knee-deep in wiring and dust, looking rather sheepish.

  ‘Never seen him before in my life.’

  ‘We’ll have to throw him overboard, then.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  Tristan started to untangle himself. ‘You two are hilarious.’

  Drake stood and stretched. ‘Irene, this is Michael Tristan. My cellmate that’s good with magnets.’

  Irene helped Tristan free himself from the knots of cable wrapped around his knees. He blushed beet-red when she pulled his leg up and out of the mess. Drake almost smiled.

  ‘You got the trackers off, then?’ she asked him.

  Tristan nodded. ‘Nothing to it, really. Drake tells me you’re a witch.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  Tristan read the look Irene gave Drake and stammered, ‘Er … I mean, that was a joke, you see, I’d … I’d like to see what you can do, if that’s alright.’

  Irene laughed. ‘Oh you’re harmless, aren’t you? Very well. I’ll show you how I got my tracker off.’ She rolled up the sleeve of her red jumpsuit and held up her arm.

  Drake switched off the torch, plunging the small control room into darkness.

  A moment later, Irene’s hand began to shine with that ethereal blue light. Bright spots, tiny stars, danced beneath her skin, running across her palm and down to her wrist. Drake thought Tristan might have stepped back, afraid, but the only reaction his cellmate gave was a slight widening of his eyes behind his glasses.

  Irene bit her tongue, frowned, and Drake and Tristan watched an amazing thing happen. Her arm … lengthened. Her forearm, wrist, and hand rose up into the air, although she didn’t raise her elbow at all, and grew thinner. The bone, her flesh and skin, lengthened and narrowed until her arm looked comically long. Or horribly disfigured. All the while, that blue light darted with frenzy beneath her skin.

  ‘And the tracker just slips off,’ she said, wiggling her arm. The elongated limb shrunk back to its normal size and width. ‘Like magic.’

  ‘That can’t be good for your bones,’ Tristan said, once he found his voice.

  Irene shrugged and cracked her knuckles. ‘It doesn’t hurt. Tickles, mostly, and I’ve been doing it every night for the last few months without damage – waiting for Drake to get his act together.’

  ‘Still …’ Tristan decided to shrug as well. ‘I guess all bets are off with this blue stuff.’

  ‘So what are we doing tonight, boys?’

  Drake uncrossed his arms and clapped Tristan on the shoulder. ‘What do you think? We’re going back down and having a proper look around. Tristan thinks he knows that … that boy we saw in the cage. With the red eyes,’ he added, as if they’d seen more than one poor sod trapped like an animal.

  ‘I want to go back down, too,’ Irene said, with a firm nod. ‘I’ve been thinking about it all day and I believe it’s about time we took our leave of the Rig.’

  The trip back down into the Crystal-X facility went far smoother than the previous night’s expedition, even with Tristan tagging along. He balked a bit at crawling through the filthy pipes, and almost lost his nerve climbing up the rim of the overflow pipe hanging out over the dark ocean, but did surprisingly well climbing down the cable to the bottom of the elevator shaft.

  Drake was more than a little hesitant at first, but after some encouragement from Irene he climbed down the cable again, with her clinging to his back, and all three of them stood in the dim light at the bottom of the shaft.

  ‘What next?’ Tristan asked.

  ‘Eh …’ Drake chuckled. ‘Well, damn. Last night the elevator car came down and we snuck up and in through a panel in the bottom.’

  ‘So we wait?’ Irene asked. ‘Or can we pry the doors open?’

  Drake stepped across the shaft and approached the automatic sliding doors leading into the Crystal-X facility. He pressed his hands flat against the door and pushed. They didn’t budge. ‘Damn. Irene, can you abracadabra them open, or something?’

  ‘If I could, I wouldn’t need you, pretty boy.’

  Tristan tutted and pointed up to the frame. ‘Give me a boost, Will. That’s the release latch up there.’

  Drake heaved Tristan up and he got his hands around a triangular-shaped box stuck to the doors. A few clicks later, he pushed the latch up and the doors released. A pool of eerie blue light flowed through the gap. Drake lowered Tristan down and they peeked through into the facility.

  ‘Looks like the coast is clear,’ Drake said. He gave the doors another push and this time they slid open on smooth rollers. He climbed up out of the shaft and gave Irene and Tristan a hand to do the same.

  ‘Oh … my God,’ Tristan said, gaping in wonder at the walkway leading down into the facility, and at the arched glass displaying the marvellous ridge of glowing blue mineral. ‘You weren’t kidding. This is amazing.’

  Drake pressed the call button for the elevator, which, as he’d hoped, reset the doors with a small hiss. He put them at his back. ‘Right, let’s be quick then.’

  Drake set off at a run with Irene and Tristan keeping up in his wake. None of them could take their eyes off the ridge outside the glass, holding back the entire Arctic Ocean.

  ‘Incredible, just incredible. And what are these? Runners in the floor?’ Tristan asked, his voice just above a whisper. ‘I guess they haul stuff up and down this way.’

  ‘Brand mentioned something about shipments to Whitmore, yeah,’ Drake said. ‘They mine the blue stuff and ship it elsewhere, probably to some Alliance warehouse or something.’ He paused, struck with a realisation. ‘Onto the Titan …’

  ‘What?’ Irene asked.

  ‘Nothing, let’s move.’

  The Crystal-X facility was as quiet as the night before. Drake and Irene led Tristan on a similar route down through curving corridors overlooking the vast meteorite, and up onto the steel walkways above the twin research laboratories. Unlike the previous night, the labs were quiet – Doctor Elias and his squad of technicians were absent.

  ‘Through that roller door over there,’ Drake said. ‘That’s where they wheeled the boy in the cage.’

  ‘Do you think we can get down there without being spotted?’

  ‘There’s no one around …’ Tristan said.

  ‘Which I don’t like,’ Drake said. ‘You’d think there’d be some guards, or the lab assistants or someone. It is pretty late, I suppose. Maybe last night was just for Whitmore’s visit.’

  No sooner had he spoken than the double doors in the first lab swung open and two technicians entered, a man and a woman, carrying sample vials of the blue mineral and chatting quietly. They placed the samples on the workbenches and began retrieving equipment from the stores.

  Irene cursed. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘Let’s see where this walkway leads, then,’ Drake said. ‘It curves around up ahead, down to the other side of the facility where we haven’t been yet. Maybe we can get behind that door without going through the lab.’

  ‘I know there’s a whole load of rooms somewhere around here with beds and bathrooms. I stayed in one for a week when they brought me down here.’

  The path did lead to the rooms Irene remembered. Much like the Rig’s cells far above, the rooms were small and sealed with strong, automatic doors. Drake peered in through the windows and saw that some of them looked well lived in. Candy-bar wrappers, magazines an
d computer tablets littered the floors.

  ‘I think we’ve found where Grey and his gang come for “advanced lessons”,’ Drake said, keeping his voice a low whisper. ‘Do you think –?’

  Shadows flickered over the wall in the next room along. Drake motioned for Irene and Tristan to step back over to the other side of the corridor. He approached the room slowly, taking care, and glimpsed someone he hadn’t missed in a few weeks.

  Mohawk sat, rocking back and forth and holding his head in his hands. Drake watched him for close to thirty seconds before he stopped moving and, quick as a flash, turned around and grinned.

  Drake snapped his head back, wondering if he’d been seen. Mohawk made no sound, rang no alarm. After half a minute, Drake peeked back around through the window and saw him rocking back and forth again.

  He shook his head and moved on.

  The corridor of rooms ended with a set of stairs leading down into a dark and somewhat dank area. Yellow pipes ran across the ceiling, covered in condensation, dripping water every few metres. The pipes disappeared around the corner, out of sight. With no better plan, Drake, Irene and Tristan followed the pipes.

  This part of the facility was poorly lit, with a single bulb stuck to the grey brick wall every five metres or so. Piled alongside the corridor were stacks of crates, empty steel cages, and all manner of tools. Drake saw a screwdriver, a proper one with a handle, and slipped it into his pocket.

  The pipes led them to a room that stank of decay, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Along the wall were animal cages stacked at least six metres high. Most of them were empty, but a few held the remains of what looked like cats, maybe a few rabbits, and definitely a dog.

  ‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ Irene whispered, covering her nose.

  Banks of computer monitors lined the other wall, glowing softly in the dull light. Tristan examined them, found they needed a user name and password, and determined there was nothing he could do without his tools back in Perth.

  The yellow pipes led on, deeper down the widening corridor. Apart from the drip-drip-drip of the pipes, and the splash of their feet in the puddles on the concrete floor, Drake heard nothing. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were walking down the cool, dark throat of some monstrous beast.

  Up ahead, someone laughed.

  Drake paused, fear gripping his heart.

  ‘Oh, you’ve come this far,’ said a voice from around the corner. A pool of light spread across the floor – a small cone of illumination against the dark. ‘Come a little further, would you?’

  Drake didn’t think they’d stumbled across a guard. He held up a finger, keeping Irene and Tristan still and quiet, and stepped around the corner.

  The boy in the glass cage stood alone in a row of similar cages. At the back of the room was a set of roller doors that, Drake assumed, led back into the laboratories. They had come full circle, almost.

  ‘I expected you sooner,’ the boy said. His voice was harsh and, even muffled by the glass cage, like icicles shattering against stone. ‘And later. But I suppose it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Carl Anderson?’ Drake asked.

  ‘Who else?’ Anderson said with a smile. His gums were split and blood stained his teeth. ‘Who else is with you? I can hear two heartbeats fluttering away in the darkness there. Step forwards and be counted, my little friends.’

  Irene emerged from the shadows, her face solemn, and Tristan followed. Anderson turned his attention back on Drake. ‘They’re gonna have trouble stopping you,’ he said, and the red light in his eyes seemed to bounce as he chuckled. ‘Oh yes, you’re going to send the Alliance a message they can’t ignore, William Drake.’

  ‘How do you know who I am?’

  Anderson spat on the front of his cage, a globule of blood and spit, and began to draw patterns on the glass. ‘How do you know who I am?’

  ‘I told him, Carl,’ Tristan said, and stepped forwards next to Drake.

  ‘Hey, lil’ Mikey Tristan,’ Anderson said, still running figure eights back and forth on the glass in his blood. ‘What you doing down here? They didn’t give you the magical juice too, did they?’

  ‘No, Carl,’ Tristan said softly. ‘I came to get you out –’

  ‘Not the right time for that,’ Anderson said, and winked at Drake. ‘Besides, you really don’t want to let me out. No, no.’

  Tristan’s voice was a whisper. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Oh, because I’ll rip your heart out of your chest with my bare hands.’

  Tristan paled and took a quick step back.

  Drake didn’t know what was worse – the threat, which he believed Anderson more than capable of carrying out, or the hopelessly sane tone in which he delivered it.

  ‘But thank you for the thought. I always liked you, Mike. You didn’t belong in a place like this.’ Anderson cocked his head and looked like he was listening to something no one else could hear. ‘And you’ll need that kindness with what’s to come.’ His eyes flared. ‘Oh yes, oh yes. I’d steer clear of Red here, by the way. She’ll only break your heart.’

  Irene opened her mouth to say something, considered, then pursed her lips.

  ‘Daddy’s little girl, this one,’ Anderson said, and burst out laughing. He slammed his forehead against the glass.

  Irene gasped and turned away. Drake could see tears in her eyes as she stepped back out of the cone of light above the cage.

  ‘How much of that blue stuff did they give you?’ Drake asked.

  Anderson sniffed and rubbed his eyes, leaving bloody smears on his cheeks. ‘Too much, you know. About ten teaspoons. They gave Grey the same. He comes down here and taunts me sometimes. Not so much lately. It’s getting to him, too … he’s gonna be like me soon.’

  Tristan put his hand on the latch of the cage, a determined expression on his face. Anderson grinned and crossed his arms.

  ‘Come on,’ Drake said. ‘We can’t help him now.’

  With a sigh, Tristan let go of the lock.

  ‘Stay safe, Mikey,’ Anderson said. He pressed his bloody hand against the glass and winked. ‘Don’t let the bastards get you down! Nine-five-four, I don’t wanna be here any more!’

  His laughter echoed down the corridor as they moved on, away from the cages of dead and insane things. A new set of metal stairs soon led up to the network of walkways that crisscrossed the facility. Drake and the others headed up and to the left, following the yellow pipes overhead.

  ‘I can smell the ocean,’ he said, after a few minutes. The walkway led to a concrete ramp with runners built into the floor for transporting something, most likely crates of the Crystal-X. Moving silently but quickly, Drake, Irene and Tristan ran down the ramp and into an open, brightly lit area.

  The space was as large as a warehouse, and piled high with Alliance-crested crates, shipping containers and drilling equipment. As opposed to the equipment up on the Rig, the drill bits and machinery looked shiny and new – like they were ready to be used. Drake tried to lift the bolts on a few of the crates to have a look at what was inside, perhaps something useful, but they were locked tight. Across the warehouse were a row of three pools, and floating in each one was a triangular-shaped vessel.

  Drake headed over that way, a surge of excitement rising in his chest.

  The pools were of cold, dark sea water, which meant they went down and, given the craft floating in the water, probably led outside into the ocean. The vessels were small, about the size of the old Mini Coopers – Drake had grown up wanting one of those – with a tinted windshield and single seat visible amidst a myriad of controls and display screens. Attached to the nose of each craft were circular drilling bits and metal claws.

  ‘This is how they mine the rock,’ Tristan said.

  ‘Do you think …?’ Drake shook his head. He saw visions of stealing one of these sleek, matte-black mining submarines and escaping the metal prison once and for all. ‘No, I don’t even know how to get inside the bloody things.’

  ‘Lo
ok over there,’ Irene said, pointing away to the left at the far side of the warehouse. ‘Through that door there’s another walkway. Want to keep looking?’

  Drake nodded.

  The narrow walkway led out of the mining warehouse and into another space, smaller this time, with large windows framing the reef of glowing meteorite. Pale blue light flooded the space, rippling across the floor in gentle waves. The walkway, suspended two metres above the floor, was built over a tank of water that descended down into the rock ridge, much like the mini-subs back in the mining warehouse.

  Dark shadows swam just below the surface of that blue water, and Irene grasped Drake’s arm and breathed in sharply as they walked over the tank. Something was alive and swimming down there. ‘What are they?’ she whispered.

  A sharp, grey fin, riddled with scars, pierced the surface of the water, as silent as the night, and dipped back under.

  ‘Sharks,’ Tristan whispered. ‘That was a shark.’

  ‘Let’s get off this walkway,’ Drake said. A set of stairs curved around and down and brought them alongside the edge of the tank. The same shadows swam along the glass, back and forth. At least two of the creatures knew they were there, and were interested.

  More crates were scattered about this room, separated from the mining warehouse by the walkway and twin sets of massive roller doors. These weren’t as secure as the crates in the previous room and Drake began unlatching the locks and peering inside, looking for anything that might be of use. A weapon of some sort, perhaps, or a pair of angel wings and a map back to the mainland. The first box was empty.

  ‘Have a look through those crates,’ Drake told Irene and Tristan, unlatching the next crate along. ‘See if there’s anything that we can …’

  His voice trailed away as he got a look at the contents of the second crate. Something, he wasn’t sure what, began screaming in the back of his head. A low, desperate wail that made him shiver and want to cry all at once.

  Drake did neither.

  Doctor Lambros was in the second crate. Vaguely, he heard Irene gasp and Tristan stifle a small cry.