The Tube Riders

by Chris Ward

  ‘Stevie! Is that really you?’

  ‘Hey, Unc! Long time no fucking see!’

  Switch jumped up from the sofa and was swallowed up in a huge bear hug. Marta thought William’s face would crack if he smiled any wider, and she thought she saw the glimmer of tears in his eyes, the light of answered prayers. He looked like he’d witnessed a miracle, and she found herself smiling too. She listened to William’s laughter, great heaving gasps, and realised he was sobbing, tears streaming down his face. She found herself thinking about her brother, and her own eyes filled with tears.

  William pushed Switch out at arm’s length and looked him up and down. Switch was no more than a toy in his huge hands.

  ‘Oh, my boy! My boy! I never thought . . . Goddamn, you’re so different!’ William said, pulling a hand across his face to wipe away his tears. He frowned. ‘What the hell happened to your eye?’

  Switch grinned. ‘I jumped off a train and hit a wall,’ he said, causing William to bellow with laughter.

  ‘As good a reason as any,’ he said, and Marta was not sure if he believed Switch or thought the little man was making a joke. Switch was grinning but Marta remembered the day it had happened, the sickening thud he’d made as he slammed against the wall, the way he had seemed to slide down to the breakfall mats in slow motion. Her, Paul, Simon and a couple of others they’d been riding with had gone running over, expecting the worst. Switch had looked up at them through one bloody eye, and muttered, ‘Fuck, that hurt.’ They’d actually laughed.

  ‘Uncle, you haven’t changed at all,’ Switch said. ‘I was expecting you to look older.’

  ‘Ah, you’re too kind,’ William said. ‘I always wondered what became of you, Stevie.’ His eyes welled up again. ‘I should never have let you go out that day . . .’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Switch said. ‘The damn government keeps fucking people in the ass, and it’s about time we turned around and fucked them right back.’ He turned to the others. ‘Uncle, these are my friends, Marta, Paul, and, um, Paul’s brother.’

  ‘My name’s Owen, you wanker,’ Owen said.

  William roared with laughter. ‘Got spirit, this one. Like you had!’

  The others were looking at Switch with questioning expressions. The physical resemblance was not exactly close. Switch explained, ‘My natural parents were killed in the riots, I think. I’d been through one or two bad foster homes before Unc took me in.’

  ‘I was taking a nap on a park bench,’ William said. ‘I felt this tugging on my shoe. I kicked out, and when I looked up I found Stevie here lying flat out on his back. He must have been five or six, and I’d just flattened his nose, blood everywhere. He’d been trying to steal my shoes. Six sizes too big for him, but hey.’

  ‘I was going to sell them.’

  ‘Man, that kid’s spirit impressed me,’ William told them. ‘So I took him in. I raised him as my own, right here in this place. But, fuck, I turned my back. You can never turn your back, goddamn . . .’

  ‘The government was rounding up street kids and transporting them up to the Manchester-Birmingham GUA to work in the steel factories,’ Switch said. ‘I was down at the homeless shelter scrounging a free meal and the next thing I know I’ve got two guys dumping me in the back of a truck. I was ten years old but one of those guys is half blind now.’

  Marta smiled. She didn’t doubt that for a moment.

  ‘After a few months in some sweatshop in Manchester I was moved again, down to London where I was put to work cleaning the crap out of some abattoir.’ He shook his head, grimacing at the memory. ‘Those plastic mops, snap them and sharpen up the broken handle ends, that’s the way I did it. Left the guard captain to bleed to death among the pig carcasses. Got out, took a bunch of other kids with me, and the streets looked after me from then on.’

  William laughed. ‘That’s my boy.’

  Owen was beaming at Switch. ‘Man, if I ever get to be as cool as you . . .’

  ‘You’re doing okay as it is,’ Paul said, putting an arm round his brother’s shoulders, but shooting a look at Switch that to Marta clearly said, don’t encourage him.

  William couldn’t keep the smile off his face, but he said, ‘I’m glad you’re back, Stevie, but I hear you have more problems.’

  Switch gave him a brief account of the last day. ‘We have to get out of Bristol,’ he concluded.

  ‘To France,’ Marta added.

  William turned to Ishael. He raised an eyebrow. ‘If we can get these kids across to France, do you think they can raise us an army?’

  Ishael shrugged. ‘All the ports are closed except those transporting freight along the coast. Even if we could get a ship away, there are sea mines moored ten miles offshore. Not to mention the damn coastal guns, the patrols . . .’

  ‘I had no idea it was so bad,’ Marta said.

  Ishael nodded. ‘That son-of-a-bitch has got us roped off from the rest of the world. He gives our country a dumb new name, but there’s nothing “Mega” about this failing place. It’s falling apart under his nose and the rest of the world is laughing at us. It’s apathy that’s kept Europe from intervening, or worse, razing the whole country. I guess milk-face finally ran out of money for that dumb space program he’s killing people for.’

  ‘You know about that?’ Paul said.

  ‘Yeah, we know. We don’t know why he’s sending those overweight freighters up, just to watch them hit the lower atmosphere and disintegrate, but we can guess.’

  ‘Europe, the States and China have fully active space programs,’ William said. ‘We think that the Governor wants a piece of the action, and a large slice at that.’

  ‘Or more, he wants something that’s up there. Something he can only get with a large, deep-space cruiser.’

  ‘What?’

  Ishael shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  Owen yawned, making William laugh. ‘Looks like the youngster’s had enough action for one day.’ Despite Owen’s loud protests, he continued, ‘We’ll find you a place to rest a little more. Meanwhile we will send some men over to the station to wait for the inevitable convoy. Maybe we can set them a trap to buy you some more time.’

  ‘The Huntsmen?’ Marta said.

  William nodded. ‘Rolling out those beasts takes time and effort. The DCA know they have to maintain some control. Let them off the leash in the GFAs and in a couple of days there’d be no cattle left alive between here and London, but what you can be sure of is that if they’ve gone to the trouble of releasing them in the first place, they’re not going away until you’re dead.’

  With that grim prediction ringing in their ears, the Tube Riders were taken back to the old changing room they’d been allowed to sleep in earlier. Marta, who’d barely slept before, felt weary beyond words.

  ‘Although this is our headquarters,’ one of the guards told her, ‘There are very few people who actually live here. Most of our recruits live in normal society, undercover. It’s safer that way. Sometimes, though, we have training and we congregate here.’

  ‘We’re very thankful,’ Marta said.

  ‘What happens if the Huntsmen come in the night?’ Owen asked.

  The man smiled grimly. ‘We’ll post someone outside your room. You’ll probably know from the screams.’

  #

  Back in the meeting room, alone now, Ishael turned to William.

  ‘They didn’t think this out too clearly, did they?’

  ‘They’re just kids. They’re hurt and tired and on the run. I imagine they’ve seen a lot of death in the last few hours.’

  Ishael grimaced. ‘They might have Huntsmen on their trail yet Steve brought them straight here? Strikes me as stupid.’

  ‘Stevie’s not dumb. He knows how easily we can vanish, empty this place, leave no trace. The Huntsmen will come in and follow the scent until it leaves again. The DCA will write this place off as just somewhere they sheltered. Remember, the Huntsmen aren’t looking for us.’

&
nbsp; ‘Can we help them? Can we get them to France?’

  William shrugged. ‘It’ll be easy enough to blow a set of gates and get them out of Bristol. Where they go from there is a little more tricky. I have an idea, but it’s a long shot. You know what’s in Cornwall, don’t you?’

  Ishael frowned. ‘You know that’s beyond risk.’

  ‘It might be our best chance. There’s no port we can get them out of.’

  Ishael nodded. ‘It’s still risky.’

  ‘First of all we need to buy them some time.’

  Ishael looked grim. ‘And in order to buy them time to get out we have to go to war. We have to go to war, William.’

  The bigger man nodded. He frowned deeply, his lips tight. ‘A lot of men are going to die if we go up against the Huntsmen. It takes a lot of firepower to stop one of those monsters.’

  ‘A lot of men are going to die if we don’t. The question is whether the information these kids have is worth it.’

  Ishael looked grim. ‘We might never know.’

  ‘You’re in charge. It’s your call.’

  Ishael took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Okay. Send out the alert. Call the men together and get them armed. We need to have a watch on the station within the hour.’

  Chapter Thirty

  Darkness Rising

  Dreggo still felt groggy from the drugs, but she had been given little time to recover before guards had hauled her, still shackled, out into a large, dirty room where a group of Huntsmen and their handlers waited. At first she thought this would be her fate, to be set upon by a dozen or more of the things for the amusement of the scientists and government officials who waited in a group at one end. By God, she thought, I’ll take a few of them with me. The scientists, too.

  Her senses were slowly coming back. She felt changed, different, and not just physically. She knew something had happened to her face and a metal plate now covered half of it. With her right eye she could still see normally, but when she closed it her left was like a computer screen, with the images she saw moving differently, pixilated. She knew they’d wired it up to her neuro-transmitters, because a simple decision would alter the vision in her left eye from infra-red to night-vision to heat sensitive. They’d modified her as they had the Huntsmen, as they’d planned to do before but not risked for fear of taking away too much of her humanity.

  Her sense of smell was stronger too. She could almost see the scent trails each man in the room had left. She could tell to within seconds how long they’d been standing in each particular position, which door they’d entered through, who they had talked to while waiting for her entrance.

  And it also revealed to her something else that she suspected but had not known for sure until now.

  The doctor, Karmski. His scent was all over her body, strongest in her most intimate areas.

  While she had lain broken and unconscious, he had raped her. And she felt certain it wasn’t the first time. His scent had a familiarity, one which she associated with all the darkest memories of her past, when she was first brought in and affiliated into the Huntsman’s ranks. Those memories, she felt sure, had happened here, her transformed, unconscious body used as a plaything in dark chambers far underground, where, even if she could have made a sound, no one would have heard her cries.

  ‘Dreggo.’ Karmski stepped forward now, gesturing to the men around him.

  ‘This is Mr. Clayton, and his associate, Mr. Vincent, from the Department of Civil Affairs. I think you might have met Mr. Vincent before.’

  She didn’t respond, but Karmski was right; Dreggo remembered the inept fool from St. Cannerwells Underground station, and she felt a little angry to realise he was still alive. Still, like the others, his time would come. They had let her live, and she fully intended to make that the worst mistake any of them could have made.

  Clayton stepped forward. ‘Dreggo,’ he said, her name sounding awkward on his lips. ‘I am Leland Clayton, Commander in Chief of the Department of Civil Affairs. I’m sure you’re wondering what is going on here.’

  ‘No,’ she growled, and immediately realised her voice sounded different. Running her tongue over her teeth, it felt strangely synthetic, and she knew the Huntsman must have torn it out or bitten part of it off. They had repaired her well, but she felt less human than she had before; the memories of the girl she had once been were distant now, photographs forgotten on a foreign shore.

  His voice took on a sharp tone. ‘Well, we have decided that, rather than let you die from your wounds or simply kill you for interrupting a government investigation, you can be of some use to us.’

  ‘Why would I help you?’

  ‘Because we want the same thing. We both want the Tube Riders dead.’

  ‘Who says I want them dead?’

  Clayton smiled. ‘Vincent told me about your grand entrance. He told me what you said. But neither he nor I believe you had any intention of aiding the Tube Riders. You just wanted to get close enough to kill them yourself.’

  Dreggo actually smiled. The synthetic part of her face felt strange, alien. ‘I guess we’ll never know now, will we?’

  ‘We don’t care for your reasons,’ Clayton said. ‘But we’re going to give you a chance at another shot, while at the same time doing a job for us. You will lead the Huntsmen in pursuit of the Tube Riders.’

  She glared at him. ‘Now, why would I do that?’

  ‘Because you want them dead, and we want them dead, but the Huntsmen are a law unto themselves.’ He smiled. ‘We want to try to keep the death toll down, if we can.’

  ‘Why not just send me alone?’

  ‘The Tube Riders managed to escape five Huntsmen, our own DCA agents, and, um,’ – here he coughed a little – ‘yourself. We want no more mistakes. We sent five Huntsmen before, one of which is now dead. This time we are sending twenty. You will act as their guide. Think of them as beetles inside a piece of drainpipe. We want them to get to the other end, we’re just letting you hold the pencil that guides them.’

  ‘I don’t think you heard me,’ she spat. ‘Why would I ever help you?’

  Karmski stepped forward. ‘Because you have no choice.’

  ‘I have every choice,’ she said, eyes boring into his, wanting him to fall to the ground, wanting him to die.

  Karmski laughed. ‘Ah, my beautiful Dreggo. You have no choice at all, my dear. When we fixed you up, we left a little chip inside your head. One to make sure you do as you’re told.’

  Dreggo glared at him. ‘So set it off. Do it! Kill me.’

  Karmski looked surprised. ‘Kill you? Don’t be ridiculous! What fear do you have of death after all that’s happened to you? Something of a relief it would be, wouldn’t it?’

  Dreggo just frowned.

  ‘It won’t kill you, my dear. But it’s attached to the neuro-receptors in your spine. If we activate it, it’ll just hurt like God himself has struck you. And we’ll keep doing it until you start to obey. Of course, it’ll kill you eventually, but all the nerve tissue in your body will have to fall apart first.’

  ‘You wouldn’t –’

  Dreggo screamed as a surging white heat race up her spine. She arched her back, her legs collapsing under her as a sensation like a thousand scalding needles exploded across her body.

  And as quick as it came it had gone. Dreggo found herself lying on the floor, the residue of pain fading away like water drying on her skin. Two guards stepped forward and hauled her back to her feet. Her back was stiff, leaving her only able to stand hunched over. She gasped for air.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Karmski said. ‘But we felt it best you know exactly what we’re talking about. It has higher settings. Oh, and I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you it kind of cramps up the muscles a little. I guess it feels like you’ve run a marathon now, right?’

  Dreggo glared at him. ‘One day, I will kill you,’ she muttered, spit rolling down her chin, her mouth as numb as the rest of her body.

  ‘I love cooperation,’ Karmski
said with a grin.

  ‘What do I get from this?’ Dreggo said, turning to Clayton.

  ‘Aside from staying alive? You leave the Tube Riders dead, and you get to go free. That’s it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere you please. The GFAs, Scotland. Wales? We’ll give you enough money to buy a small house in a remote area and some money to live on. What you don’t seem to understand is that the government rewards those who work for it. It’s a shame we had to persuade you to take the job.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, relenting, accepting she had no choice. ‘Tell me when I start.’

  ‘Good,’ Clayton said, smiling. ‘You start right now.’

  Dreggo looked towards the cluster of Huntsmen at the other end of the room. Most of them looked sedate, drugged. She wondered how she was supposed to control them when the modifications had left them little more than extremely dangerous and slightly rabid animals.

  Whatever, she thought. Her priority wasn’t with the Huntsmen, but with finding a way to free herself from the chip inside her, and then to find a way to take revenge on Karmski and his brethren. She didn’t know how she would do it, only that somehow, she would.

  #

  Clayton waited until they were out of the building before he pulled Vincent aside.

  ‘Vincent, I need a quick word,’ he said, walking away towards the rear of the building.

  ‘Sure, what is it?’

  ‘Just follow me a minute.’

  Clayton waited until he had turned the corner and was out of sight of his driver behind the warehouse that doubled as the entrance to the research facility.

  He took a deep breath.

  As Vincent followed him around the corner Clayton stepped backwards, swung his elbow up and slammed it into Vincent’s face. With a grunt of pain and surprise Vincent dropped to his knees, hands clutching at his face. Clayton swung round, and before the younger man could start to defend himself Clayton kicked him hard in the stomach. Vincent grunted again and rolled on to his side.

  ‘What – wait –’

  Clayton pulled his gun and knelt beside Vincent. He pressed the barrel to Vincent’s forehead, and the younger man’s bloody face stared up at him in horror. Clayton flicked back the hammer.