The Rig

by Joe Ducie

  From there, his dreams were a smooth, fizzy ride into blissful, numb oblivion.

  Sunlight poured in through the large, barred window when Drake opened his eyes again. He groaned and blinked away tears from the harsh light. Everything still hurt, but at least he was aware of it. Memory of his nightmares still clung to the edge of his thoughts.

  Tristan was there. ‘Will, how’d you feel?’

  Drake mumbled something. His mouth felt like it was full of cotton wool. He ran his tongue over his teeth and found a gap along the bottom row.

  ‘Here, swallow these.’ Tristan handed him two white pills.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, his voice cracking.

  ‘Painkillers – Irene swiped them from the infirmary.’

  ‘How …?’ Drake shook his head. The ‘how’ of it didn’t matter. He tossed back the pills and forced them down his throat. Outside, on the open sea, he saw a massive cargo frigate sailing towards the Rig. The Titan, shining in the sun. ‘Is that thing coming or going?’ he asked.

  Tristan glanced out the window. ‘Coming, I think. Not really been paying much attention.’

  Drake nodded. He thought it was coming, too.

  More aware of his surroundings with each passing minute, Drake looked down at himself. He was naked save for his boxer shorts. Wicked, splotchy bruising covered most of his chest and down his right side. He touched the skin there and something twinged. A rib?

  ‘I was out all night?’

  Tristan shook his head. ‘Will, it’s Tuesday. You’ve been in and out of it for a few days. Mumbling all kinds of … I went up through the vents, on the second night, and Irene was waiting. She saw what you did at the game. The next day she managed to pass me some pills through the barrier in the cafeteria. That was … that was yesterday.’

  ‘Just painkillers?’

  ‘I think also antibiotics, but I don’t know. I trusted her.’

  Drake noticed a wad of toilet paper was wrapped around Tristan’s index finger. ‘What …?’

  Tristan smiled grimly. ‘You bit me,’ he said. ‘Hard. I had to force the pills down your throat last night, after dinner.’

  ‘They didn’t let you off work to tend to me then, eh?’ Drake chuckled, and it hurt.

  ‘God, no. Brand dragged me out of here by my hair Sunday morning. I think … I think he was hoping you’d die in here.’

  ‘Wanted me to suffer a bit first.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Tristan … Michael, thank you. That’s three times you’ve saved my life.’

  ‘Three? The baton and now this? What am I missing?’

  ‘The shark tank,’ Drake said. ‘Blimey.’

  Tristan shuddered. ‘Oh yeah, how could I forget the shark tank?’

  Drake took in as deep a breath as he could. One of his ribs was definitely cracked, if not broken. He swung his legs around and sat up carefully. ‘Still want out of this place?’

  Ready to catch him if he fell forwards, Tristan nodded. ‘More than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. We have to get off the Rig, Will, or we’ll die here. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Then you need to get a message to Irene at lunch or dinner today. I don’t care how you do it, just get it done.’

  ‘Okay. I can do that, I think. What should I say?’

  Drake stood and found the pain in his side actually lessened a touch when he was up and moving. Maybe that was the painkillers kicking in. ‘Tell her tonight. We escape tonight.’

  23

  Risky Business

  Drake spent the day in his cell working up his strength. He was a mess of cuts and bruises, and the painkillers only lasted until lunch. Tristan had left him a stack of candy bars from the machine, which he almost devoured whole. After two days of fevered nightmares, he was ravenous.

  He managed to get a glimpse of his face in the reflection of the window, and saw that he looked somewhat like a racoon – two black eyes and his tender nose, broken, had swelled to twice its normal size. He laughed at the sorry sight.

  The tracker on his wrist was buzzing an angry red, informing him that he was way off schedule and had been for days. He thought of Brand and Storm, smirking at his signal on a display up in the control tower, knowing he was bloody and beaten in his cell and watching the fines rack up. As it stood, Drake owed the Alliance nearly two and a half thousand credits for his time on the Rig.

  Let’s see if I can increase that debt, he thought, thinking of the night that lay ahead. There would be opportunity to cause some damage, if everything fell into place.

  Drake was tempted to head out and get some dinner at half six, but he didn’t want to draw the ire of the guards any more than he already had. He knew what he’d done at the rigball game had been careless, even stupid, and boy had he paid for it a dozen times over, but he’d be damned if it hadn’t felt good.

  The high of winning the game, beating Grey, coupled with his frustration and raw, finely tuned anger at the men and women in charge of the Rig had been unleashed. If Drake was being honest, his argument with Irene may have been weighing on his mind a touch, as well.

  At half-past seven, Tristan returned to the cell and smiled when he saw Drake pacing back and forth.

  ‘You look more like yourself,’ he said, and handed Drake a bread roll stuffed with the thin, poor beef the cafeteria served twice a week.

  Drake seized the roll and scoffed it down in three bites. ‘Thanks, mate. I needed that. Did you manage to speak to Irene?’

  Tristan nodded. ‘Enough to get her to meet us tonight in the hideaway.’

  ‘Good. That’s good. We’ll need to swing by there anyway. I want to pick up Hall’s rifle and that screwdriver I nicked from down below.’

  ‘This is it, isn’t it? We’re really doing it.’ Tristan tried for a smile, but fell somewhere between anxiety and fright. ‘I think I might be sick. Do you want to tell me the plan?’

  Drake had to sit down and let the beef roll settle. He waved away Tristan’s question. ‘Later, once we’re all together. Trust me, it’s a pretty awesome plan and I’m definitely not making it up as I go along.’

  Just before nine that night, Drake couldn’t wait any longer. Removing their trackers, he and Tristan hid them under their pillows and headed up to the ninth floor washroom. If everything went according to plan, no one would notice them missing until they were well away from the Rig.

  Follow the web … Drake’s mind muttered at him. A shiver of nervous excitement made him chuckle.

  Getting into the vents above the washroom was torture of a whole other kind for Drake. His bruised and battered ribs protested the stretch up, and Tristan had to support him from atop the sink the whole way in. Pulling Tristan up was likewise painful. Still, they got it done – and disappeared up into the network of secret, unseen passages.

  Drake had to move slower than usual and so it took them close to ninety minutes to reach the hideaway. They found Irene already waiting in the torchlight, her arms crossed and tapping her foot against the floor impatiently.

  ‘You look terrible,’ she said to Drake.

  ‘You look great,’ he replied.

  Tristan looked between them both and laughed. ‘Apologise, you moron.’

  Drake took a deep breath, which pinched at his side, and winced. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was angry and stupid the other day.’

  ‘Yes, you were. Selfish, too.’

  ‘Selfish, too.’

  ‘Cowardly selfish,’ she insisted. ‘You were a Rig-pig.’

  Drake rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, cowardly selfish, and a big old idiot, and any other names you want to call me.’

  ‘You are a big old idiot,’ Irene said, but she smiled when she said it. ‘What changed your mind then?’

  ‘Funnily enough, it was getting my teeth knocked out by Brand.’ Drake grinned. ‘Be sure to send him a postcard from Moraine Lake, once you get there.’

  Irene went perfectly still. ‘And how am I going to get there?’

  Dra
ke smiled. ‘Listen close, both of you.’

  For the next few minutes, Drake outlined his escape plan – which relied heavily on the Titan. ‘We sneak down into the Crystal-X facility, like we’ve done before, and hide inside one of those crates they load onto the Titan.’ Drake slammed his fist into his palm. ‘Once we’re inside and aboard the ship, we can see about borrowing one of those speedboats and aiming it at a nearby continent.’ He squeezed Irene’s shoulder. ‘Canada ain’t that far away, yeah? We could be drinking maple syrup for lunch tomorrow.’

  ‘You mean tonight?’ Irene squeaked. ‘We’re going tonight?’

  Drake touched his tender nose. ‘I’ve had enough of this place, Irene. Tonight’s our best chance.’

  ‘The speedboats?’ Tristan said, still processing the rough sketch of Drake’s plan. ‘That’s it? That’s your great escape plan?’

  ‘A lot better than some of my other plans, believe me. This will work.’ Drake tried for confidence, fell a touch short, and picked up Hall’s rifle. ‘It’s not risk-free, sure, but few things worth having are. Look, this is what I do, and I’ve got a pretty good record at doing it. It’s like, I see this pattern in my head and we can follow it out of here, if we’re brave enough. If you … trust me.’

  Irene sighed. ‘Oh, those are two dangerous words, Will.’

  ‘But … but so many things!’ Tristan said. ‘How do you know we’ll reach land? What’s the range on the speedboat? Will it even be fuelled?’

  ‘All good questions,’ Irene said. ‘I’m willing to have a little faith in this plan, if it means getting off the Rig tonight. How about you?’

  Tristan looked between Drake and Irene and then pulled them both into a quick hug. ‘I love the plan,’ he said.

  ‘No you don’t.’

  ‘No, no I don’t.’ He stared into Drake’s face, grimacing at his injuries and how unrecognisable he looked. ‘But let’s give it a shot.’

  24

  The Greater Good

  Whether it was the excitement or the fear, Drake felt alive as they descended the elevator shaft and entered the Crystal-X facility. He had the stolen rifle, full of stunning darts, slung over his shoulder.

  Drake almost hadn’t been able to carry Irene down the steel cable, but he found it possible after she placed her hands under his jumpsuit, on his bare chest, and bright light shone through the material. The pain in his side lessened greatly, as Irene gasped and fell back from the strain of using her power.

  ‘Did that work?’ she asked, her voice catching in her throat.

  ‘A bit,’ Drake said. The rest of his aches and pains would just have to settle on the fact that, yes, he was going to abuse them tonight and they best just go with the flow. ‘Was it harder this time?’

  Irene shook her head, then shrugged. ‘No, it’s just … Cuts and stuff are easy, but fixing things I can’t see, on the inside – I’m worried I’ll set your heart on fire or something.’

  Drake snorted. ‘Sweetheart, you already have.’

  ‘Shut up and carry me, Will.’

  The facility was abuzz with activity that night. The guards, Doctor Elias and his lab technicians were all running back and forth through the laboratories Drake, Irene, and Tristan had to move slowly and carefully, clinging to the shadows. Drake kept the rifle in his hands, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. He really hoped it didn’t come to that. Drake had never shot anyone before and wasn’t looking forward to discovering if he could – even if the darts were non-lethal.

  They stuck to the network of walkway off the main floors, and just after midnight reached the stacks of crates and shipping containers in the mining warehouse. Two of the submersible craft were docked in the tunnels of water that led out into the ocean. One was missing, presumably out mining.

  ‘This way,’ Drake whispered. Across the warehouse, a group of three technicians was loading the mineral into glass tubes and tanks, making sure none of it was exposed to the air. Stein supervised the loading, hand on her rifle, and every few seconds spoke into her radio.

  The transmissions were too faint to hear, but Drake thought he could make out Brand’s voice through the receiver. Yeah, him I’d shoot. A forklift was lifting heavy containers and crates onto trolleys, and pushing them onto the runners built into the concrete – cargo to be loaded.

  The rest of the crates and containers were stacked in long rows and aisles across the back of the mining area. Moving with care, Drake dismissed the open and empty containers, and moved towards the front rows, hoping to find one that had been filled and was ready to go.

  ‘You check the right side,’ he said to Irene and Tristan. ‘I’ll check the left of this row. We want one fully loaded, but with room to hide in.’

  They moved quickly, unlatching the bolts on the container doors and checking inside. Drake found the first few empty, but his fourth, stamped X-274AS, was partially filled with glowing blue mineral in seawater tanks. The next, X-776AS, was three-quarters full.

  He noticed the pattern.

  ‘These ones,’ Drake said, pointing down the aisle to the end of the row. ‘They’ll be full, I’m sure of it. These are the ones going out tonight. Have to be.’

  Irene nodded. ‘Which one do we use then?’

  ‘Nine-five-four, I don’t wanna be here any more!’ Tristan said slowly, almost reverently. ‘Carl … he said that weeks ago, remember? I’ve got a good feeling about this one.’

  Drake unbolted the latch and swung the door open on container X-954AS. Blue light from the Crystal-X, suspended in large square tanks secured to racks, spilled out onto the floor. My God, there must be at least five hundred kilos of the damn stuff. A narrow space ran between the racks of mineral, just wide enough to fit three tiny stowaways.

  ‘As good as any,’ Drake agreed. ‘Right, we can use the screwdriver to bar the door from the inside, make it look like it’s latched. We’re busted if someone notices it’s not and locks us in.’

  ‘Do you think that’ll happen?’ Irene asked. Her face was a mask of worry. ‘What if we get stuck in here? We don’t know how long it’ll be before the Alliance opens this container again!’

  ‘Worst comes to worst,’ Drake said, ‘we’ll start banging on the walls and making a lot of noise. Someone will hear us.’

  ‘And send us right back to the Rig, if not worse,’ Tristan said.

  Drake grinned. ‘We’ve got the devil’s luck on our side. We have to, to have gotten this far, yeah? Point of no return – last chance to back out, my friends.’

  Irene smiled. ‘You said friends.’

  Tristan rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Better than staying here. Anything’s better than staying here.’

  ‘Right. Then in you pop.’

  Irene went first, squeezing between the racks of glowing blue mineral. Tristan went next, taking up about a third of the remaining space. ‘Okay, I think this will work,’ he said.

  Drake thought it was going to be a tight fit.

  ‘Bring the forklift over this way!’ a voice called from the next row of crates over.

  Drake’s heart leapt into his throat. He closed the door to the container, sealing the latch so it didn’t look out of place, and slipped around the side of the row just as a set of heavy footsteps began to tread down the aisle towards him. He hoped Irene and Tristan had sense enough to keep quiet.

  ‘Okay, what’s going up on this run?’ Officer Stein asked.

  Drake heard papers being shuffled and then a familiar voice reading off crate and container numbers. ‘And X-stamped containers number two-four-seven, nine-five-four, and three-one-six,’ Marcus Brand said. ‘That’s the last of it for tonight. Load ’em up.’

  Drake gripped the handle on his rifle hard enough to turn his knuckles white. They were taking the crate he’d just sealed Irene and Tristan in away now. What can I do? He looked down at the rifle, shining pitch-black and ugly in his hands. No. If he shot them now, he might get the drop on them, but the crates wouldn’t get moved at all then. Brand
and Stein would be missed before too long and time was already short.

  Trusting that his friends would keep quiet, Drake took slow, careful steps back into the dark. He was running out of time, but not out of options. So long as he remained free, there were always options. As the forklift moved in and started loading the crates and containers onto trolleys, Drake fled back into the Crystal-X facility, alone but determined.

  He took the steel stairs up onto the walkways above the mining area and watched as the container concealing Irene and Tristan was loaded onto one of the trolleys, bound for the Titan. Brand had said this load was the last, so it would do Drake no good to hide in another container. He needed a new plan – another way to get onto the ship.

  He followed the trolleys at a distance as the runners took the containers up the concrete ramp out of the mining area, and into the network of corridors that led through the labs and, eventually, to the freight elevator.

  Could I cut in front? Try and sneak in? No, he’d be seen. What then?

  Drake shook his head. He had no plan for this, no fallback. If he followed the crates, maybe some option would present itself. He still had the rifle slung across his shoulder. The game wasn’t over yet.

  The trolleys were transported through the darker area of the facility, under yellow pipes overhead, and through an area Drake hadn’t seen yet, having spent most of his time up on the walkways. But Brand and Stein escorted the trolleys around and back into familiar territory – the first lab Drake had seen, with the fire pit and display monitors.

  The lab was empty and quiet and Drake ducked behind the workbenches. The runners in the floor led up another ramp and around through the wall that divided this lab from the one next door. He waited for them to move on before he followed. Given the light and the walkways overhead, he was far too exposed.

  Once the trolleys and the guards were out of sight, Drake moved out from behind the workbenches. He didn’t want to take the long way up the ramp, so he decided to slip between labs using the door in the dividing wall.

  Drake opened the door and ran into Doctor Elias. He bounced off the man’s chest with a grunt.