by Tom Becker
“Thanks!” Adam called back. “What are you going to do now?”
“Get back to the radio station,” Echo replied through cupped hands. “If you can’t stop Mr Pitt, maybe Mr Cooper can. Good luck!”
The boy cast off the guide rope, and with a sickening lurch the balloon wobbled into the air. Caught by surprise, Adam had to grab on to the side of the crate to stop himself from toppling out of the basket. He tugged on the burner, and the balloon rose higher. For the first time, Adam became aware of the incredibly dangerous nature of his journey. For all the months that Luca had laboured building the balloon, he had never been able to test it properly. If the burner failed, if a rope snapped or a seam tore, if the crate cracked under Adam’s weight, it was a long, long way down to the ground. Even if the balloon held, there was no guarantee that Adam could wrestle it in the right direction – he could be swept out over no-time, condemned to float above the wilderness until the gas canisters ran out and he crashed to the earth. As the wooden slats beneath his feet creaked painfully, Adam felt his mouth go dry with apprehension.
At least some parts of Luca’s scheme were going to plan. No one noticed the small craft as it floated past the radio station and through the darkness on the other side of the prison, bursts of flame hiccupping from its burner. A strong gust caught hold of the balloon as it passed over the punishment cells, propelling it further north. The Commandant’s quarters loomed increasingly large in the foreground. As he remembered the detailed plans of air currents littering Luca’s attic, Adam felt a newfound surge of respect for Luca. He had predicted that the prevailing currents would take the balloon in the right direction, and he had been dead right. Adam’s confidence was growing now: the whistling of the wind through his hair felt exhilarating, not threatening, and he had to stop himself from whooping with glee.
But as the balloon maintained its collision course with the tower, a new thought made him falter. Reaching the tower was all very well, but how was Adam supposed to get inside? At this rate, all he was going to do was crash straight into it. A crosswind caught the balloon, sending it floating past the left edge of the tower. With a jolt Adam realized that the nearest window had been flung wide open, and a shadowy figure was standing watching him.
The Commandant.
The silhouette held out a hand and gestured at Adam to throw the mooring rope to him. Adam hesitated, paralysed by indecision. There was no way of knowing whether he could trust the Commandant – but if he floated past the tower, Luca was a dead man. Taking a deep breath, Adam picked up the coiled mooring rope and hurled it over to the window. The Commandant caught it smoothly, and began powerfully pulling the rope towards the window. Adam had to cling on to a guide rope as the balloon veered sharply towards the tower, until the crate was nearly touching the stone window ledge. The Commandant disappeared into the darkened room, and the mooring rope went taut as he fixed it to something.
Gritting his teeth, Adam wrapped a hand around the guide rope and stuck a leg out of the crate and on to the ledge, slowly shifting his weight towards the safety of the window. As he tried to bridge the gap, another gust of wind caught the balloon, and for a horrifying second Adam felt the crate slipping away from him, but then a strong hand reached out from the tower and pulled him through the window.
Adam tumbled to the floor, thankful to feel solid ground beneath him. As he lay on his back, panting, there was a small whoosh of flame as a gas lamp was lit, casting a wavering light over the room.
“All right, mate?” a familiar voice asked.
Adam’s eyes snapped open.
Through the suffocating layer of drugs pressing down on his mind, Luca D’Annunzio was dimly aware of being marched across the Dial’s walkway. The prison was engulfed in noise, sirens pounding his skull, shouts raining down from the perimeter wall. There were people on either side of him, roughly pulling him along by his arms. They came to a halt by a heavily padlocked gate – there was a jingle of keys as it was unlocked. The gate swung open, revealing a squat windowless building beyond.
Though he was too dazed to comprehend what was happening, something about the structure sent a nameless shiver of dread down Luca’s spine. As he passed underneath the gate sign marked “Wing XII – Re-education Wing”, Luca’s head began to swim, and he was grateful when the blackness enveloped him once more.
“Danny?” gasped Adam.
It seemed impossible, but somehow his best friend was standing in front of him, wearing his favourite jeans and baggy T-shirt, his dark hair cropped short as usual, and the same slight smile playing on his lips that appeared every time Danny knew something Adam didn’t.
“Hello, Adam,” he said.
“You’re the Commandant?”
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
“But that’s impossible!” Adam stammered. “You can’t be!”
Danny raised an eyebrow. “Sure about that?”
“But this doesn’t make any sense,” said Adam, slowly picking himself off the floor. “You set up all of this just to get back at me?”
“Partly.”
“What about everyone else? Doughnut, Luca, the Tally-Ho? They didn’t do anything to you. Why are they being punished?”
“If they were here, they wouldn’t be seeing me. They’d be seeing the person they betrayed. Only you see me like this, Adam.”
“But this is your prison. You’re the reason why we’re all here.”
“You’ve got it the wrong way round,” Danny replied, with a shake of the head. “Sure, it’s my prison. I built it myself, so long ago that if I told you when it’d make your head spin just thinking about it. But only traitors get sent to the Dial, Adam. If you hadn’t betrayed me, you’d still be on Earth now. I only opened the gates. You’re the ones who walked inside.”
“Yeah?” Adam retorted. “And who put you in charge?”
“Did anyone need to? There are traitors, so there’s a Dial. It’s necessary. Or do you think people should just be allowed to get away with it?”
“But it’s not fair!” Adam protested. “Lots of people do bad stuff – liars and robbers and murderers. Why don’t you kidnap them too?”
“How do you know that I don’t?” Danny said sharply. “No-time’s a big place, Adam. You don’t think there’s not room for another Dial here? You don’t think there’s room for another thousand?”
As the boy’s voice dropped to a hiss, the hairs on Adam’s arms rose in warning. He reminded himself that it wasn’t his friend standing there in front of him, but a powerful potential enemy. And Adam was here for a reason. As he scanned the room for the warphole controls, his gaze settled on a large machine by the far wall, its nozzle pointing directly towards a set of bay windows. The Commandant followed his gaze with interest.
“Maybe we should catch up another time,” he said. “After all, you’re running out of time to save Luca.”
So the Commandant had known all along. Of course he had. He appeared to know everything. But did that mean that he was going to stand aside and let Adam turn on the warphole machine? In Danny’s frame, the Commandant was several inches taller than he was, and much broader across the shoulders. And if he fought like Danny did, Adam didn’t stand a chance.
“Are you going to try to stop me?” Adam asked, his heart pounding.
The Commandant studied Adam’s face intently for a moment before seemingly reaching a decision. Then he stepped to one side and gestured invitingly towards the warphole machine.
“Be my guest,” he said.
A hand was slapping Luca’s cheek.
“Wakey, wakey, D’Annunzio!” Mr Pitt said pleasantly. “You won’t want to sleep through this.”
Luca stirred reluctantly, shying away from the powerful light burrowing into his eyes. He tried to sit up, but there were leather straps digging into his wrists and ankles, pinning him to a chair. Through half-closed e
yelids, he saw that Matron was fixing wires to his forehead, pinching his skin with metal clips. Somewhere beyond the deadened senses in his mind, a voice was warning Luca that he was in desperate trouble and needed to fight his way free, but so faintly that he could barely hear it.
Mr Pitt walked over to the small machine wired up to Luca’s head and began adjusting the dials on a control panel.
“How much power are you going to use?” asked Matron.
“Quarter power is usually enough to remove memories of the Dial.” The guard’s monocle gleamed. “So I thought I’d turn everything up to full.”
“Quite right too, Mr Pitt,” Matron agreed. “Can’t be too careful with a troublemaker like this.”
Mr Pitt flicked a row of switches on the machine, bringing forth a high-pitched noise that shivered around the Re-education Wing. Resting his hand on a lever, the guard smiled thinly at Luca.
“No. . .” Luca mumbled. “Please . . . no. . .”
“Sweet dreams,” hissed Mr Pitt, and pulled down the lever.
Adam ran over to the bay window and threw open the shutters, sending a gust of night air into the room. There were no complicated controls on the warphole machine – just a steel wheel. But no matter how hard he tried to turn it, the wheel stuck fast. The Commandant looked on emotionlessly, his hands clasped behind his back. Adam knew better than to ask for help.
Throwing his jacket to the floor, Adam adopted a bracing stance and grabbed hold of the wheel again. Gritting his teeth, he pulled with all his might, every muscle in his arms straining with the effort. He cried out as the wheel gave – suddenly it was spinning freely, and the warphole control began to hum. Adam spun faster and faster, ignoring his aching arms, completely focused on the whirling wheel.
The hum grew louder and louder, until it felt like a swarm of bees had flooded into the room, and then a dazzling beam of light shot out from the nozzle of the warphole control, arrowing straight up into the night sky. The blast sent Adam sprawling to the ground; shielding his eyes, he watched as the air around the beam rippled and writhed, and then the warphole sparked into nebulous life above the prison, fiery tendrils creeping across the sky, and the Dial fell abruptly, gloriously, into darkness.
Mr Pitt howled with rage as the lights went out in the Re-education Wing and the machines around Luca died.
“What’s happening?” wailed Matron.
“They must have switched the warphole on!” Mr Pitt replied. “Damn it to hell!”
There was a loud crash: something thrown against the wall. Luca was too woozy to feel any sort of triumph. Somewhere in the pitch-black, a loudspeaker crackled into life.
“Attention! Attention!” Echo’s voice rang out around the room. “Emergency at the Re-education Wing! Illegal mind wipe in progress! All guards to Wing XII! Repeat: all guards to Wing XII!”
“Mr Pitt!” screeched Matron. “The little brat’s set the guards on to us! How are we going to explain this?”
“For pity’s sake, woman, keep it down!” snapped Mr Pitt. “I’m thinking!”
“Let’s leave the boy and get out of here,” Matron said, in an imploring tone. “If the warphole’s open, we could go back to Earth!”
Mr Pitt laughed hoarsely. “Whoever said anything about ‘we’?”
There was a thud, and a woman’s weak moan of distress. Luca felt a draught of stale cigarette smoke in his face. He flinched.
“Maybe you think you’ve won, D’Annunzio, but this isn’t over,” a voice hissed in his ear. “I’ll be waiting for you when you get out.”
Footsteps moved away through the darkness, and a door creaked open as Mr Pitt strode out of the Re-education Wing, leaving an acrid aftertaste of smoke lingering in his wake.
From his vantage point at the tower window, Adam watched as the Dial’s guards responded to Echo’s alarm, hurrying down from the perimeter wall and congregating by the nearest wing gate. But the walkway was already moving, the two giant stone hands sliding into place outside Wings XII and I. A figure hurriedly opened the gate outside the Re-education Wing and strode stiffly in the direction of the Docking Port.
“Looks like you did it,” the Commandant remarked. “Judging by the hastiness of Mr Pitt’s exit.”
Adam was still straining at the wheel of the warphole machine, only now he was trying to turn it in the opposite direction and shut it off. But in his efforts to save Luca, he appeared to have jammed the mechanism completely. There was no shifting the wheel this time.
“I think it may be broken,” the Commandant said evenly.
“You have to do something!” cried Adam. “You can’t just let Mr Pitt get away with this! He’s not even a proper guard – he lied about being betrayed!”
“I know.”
Adam stared at him in disbelief. “You knew? Then why did you let him come here?”
“Maybe I was waiting for a prisoner with the will and the heart to expose Mr Pitt. A prisoner who displayed sufficient bravery and loyalty to make me question whether the Dial needs to stay open at all.” A faint smile played on the Commandant’s lips. “After all, no-time is an eternity, even for me.”
“Then help me stop him!” urged Adam.
The Commandant shook his head. “You asked me to stand aside earlier. The rest is up to you, I’m afraid.” He paused. “Where are you going?”
“To get my balloon,” Adam replied, moving back towards the window. “If you’re not going to do anything, I will.”
“You think you can steer it down to the Docking Port before Mr Pitt escapes?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve got to do something.”
“I suppose you could go that way,” the Commandant said. “However, it might be easier if you took the corridor.”
Adam stopped in his tracks. “What corridor?”
“The one that runs from here to the Re-education Wing. If you hurry, you can follow Mr Pitt across the walkway to the Docking Port.” A reflective look crossed the Commandant’s face. “Of course, there’s always another option. The warphole’s open. The guards are occupied with Mr Pitt. You could use your balloon to go back to Earth, if you wanted. You know I won’t stop you.”
Adam glanced up at the warphole, which was pulsating invitingly only metres from the tower. He couldn’t deny the powerful tug of the thought of leaving the chaos and the confusion behind him, the sirens and the gunfire and Mr Pitt and the figure standing in front of him – who was his best friend and at the same time something completely alien and unimaginably powerful. Adam had spent months dreaming of returning home, to his family and his friends, to the blissful monotony of school lessons and television programmes and summer holiday lie-ins. And now that dream was within his reach.
“No.” Adam’s voice rang around the tower. “I’m not leaving my friends behind.”
The Commandant nodded. “Fair enough. Take the lamp with you. I wouldn’t want you tripping in the dark.”
“Thanks.” As he reached up and unhooked the lamp from the wall, Adam glanced back at the Commandant. “Listen, if there’s any way you can speak to Danny somehow, tell him I’m sorry. I never said it at the time, but I am. Really sorry.”
“I know you are,” the Commandant replied. “And he does too. I promise you that.”
“Good,” Adam said uncertainly. “I hope so.”
The other boy’s face broke into a grin, and at that moment Adam was certain he was talking to his best friend. “What are you waiting for – a hug?” Danny urged. “Go and stop Mr Pitt!”
Adam nodded fiercely, then ran out of the room. Halfway down the tower, a corridor branched off from the staircase, leading directly into the Re-education Wing. Taking a deep breath, Adam plunged down the passageway.
Adam came out on to a small semicircular platform high up on the wall of the Re-education Wing. From here the Commandant would have had a bird’s-eye v
iew of the departing prisoners as their minds were sieved for memories of his prison. Swinging the gas lamp in a wide arc around him, Adam saw that the room below was laid out like a dentist’s surgery – a single chair in the middle of a white tiled floor, surrounded by squat machines. Luca D’Annunzio was strapped into the chair, his head lolling to one side.
A set of steps curved along the wall from the platform to the floor; on reaching the bottom, Adam nearly tripped over the slumped figure of Matron. She groaned pitifully as Adam ran past her and over to the chair.
“Luca!” he cried out, wrenching the straps from around the boy’s wrists and ankles. “Are you OK?”
Luca stirred, groggily clutching his forehead. “Yeah, I think so,” he mumbled. “Where’s Pitt gone?”
“He’s making a run for the Quisling.”
“Then what are you waiting for? Go after him.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Luca said, hauling himself out of the chair. “Don’t let Pitt get away!”
He pushed Adam towards the door. After a brief hesitation, Adam pressed the gas lamp into Luca’s hands and slipped outside, where the warphole was still shining brightly in the sky like a second moon. Although the power was down around the prison, Adam could see candles flickering in the windows of the prisoners’ quarters, the red glow picking out faces pressed up against the glass. There was no sign of Mr Pitt. Adam leapt up on to the walkway and hurried towards the Docking Port.
He had reached the island in the centre of the chasm when a sharp report, like the crack of a whip, made him falter. Glancing to his left, Adam saw a detachment of guards had lined up by the gates of the prisoners’ quarters, and were aiming their rifles at him. They must have thought he was trying to escape!
“Stay where you are, inmate!” a loudhailer shouted. “Put your hands up!”