‘Oh.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m glad you got away,’ I said.
‘Maggie?’
‘Yep?’
‘Can we stop talking and get on with the job now?’
I smiled. ‘Yes,’ I said with relief.
We walked silently, taking corners carefully as we moved deeper into the rabbit warren of tunnels.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Liam murmured at one point as the tunnel we were in gradually got tighter and tighter. I didn’t respond, just clenched the flashlight in my hand like a lifeline.
‘Here,’ I said when we finally came across a small alcove. ‘This must be the doorway to the parking garage.’
‘This is one messed-up place.’
‘Yeah,’ I said distractedly as I started to check the door for any traps. It was one of the usual tunnel doors, which meant it was unlocked from our side, but needed a code to open from the other side.
I took a deep breath. ‘Only one way to find out,’ I whispered to myself, grasping the handle and pulling down.
The slide mechanism activated and the door slid open, revealing a smug-looking Travis on the other side. ‘What’d you two do, stop for tea on the way?’
I rolled my eyes and stepped aside. ‘Hurry up and get in here.’
They filed through, Quentin coming in last, brushing up against my body as he did. He leaned towards my ear. ‘Everything okay?’
I knew he was referring to Liam. He’d seen my intentions from the beginning.
I nodded. ‘All good.’
He kept moving into the narrow corridor, his hand lingering on my hip.
Luckily the narrow section of the tunnel didn’t last too long. As soon as we reached a wider walkway, Ned quickly shook out his arms, causing Travis to laugh quietly. But apart from that, we said little as we all followed the direction we’d learned by heart until we reached a much larger transit tunnel.
‘Hell,’ Ned murmured. ‘I’d heard the stories, but this … this place is overflowing with bad vibes.’
I nodded. ‘Just count yourself lucky we’re nowhere near the core,’ I said.
‘You been that far?’ Ned asked incredulously, not knowing that in fact I’d been imprisoned in the core for over a month.
‘Yeah. And I’m never going back.’
I felt Quentin’s hand grasp mine. No one else could see and I squeezed his hand back. Whatever was wrong with us, we would always be in tune with one another and that drew us together.
I made everyone wait in the side tunnel until I was sure I couldn’t hear any transit pods coming in our direction. When I was satisfied, I motioned them forwards.
‘We run from here.’ With that, I took off, the rest following behind as we ran hard, passing Junction 78, then 79, and finally to Junction 80. It wasn’t a huge distance, which was why we’d chosen this route specifically. We’d need to run the entire hub of negs back along this route soon enough.
We found a narrow tunnel to the side, helping us avoid the main junction entrance and the men followed me into it. When we reached a small opening – a ventilation hole – I dropped to a crouch with Quentin beside me. We gave the rest of them a moment to absorb what they were seeing.
You can tell people that there are prisons underground where negs are locked up. You can describe the way they’ve been dug out of the black rock and resemble giant salad bowls containing a number of buildings. That each hub represents only a small fraction of the many hundreds of hubs that exit beneath the streets where we walk free. You can tell people all you want. Explain the plain grey uniforms. How the negs are forced to remain in bare feet to make them easier to control. How they are made to exist in a world with nothing more than dim light and stale air that’s delivered with the following promise: It. Is. Limited.
You can tell people.
Then they see it.
And their world changes.
And grown men suddenly want to cry.
Then, of course, they do what grown men also do. They swear.
‘I knew there was a reason I never wanted to come down here,’ Travis whispered, crouching beside me.
I nodded as we all continued to stare.
‘Definitely one of those things you can’t damn well un-see,’ Hex said, glaring at me as if it was all my fault.
‘You got my respect if you’ve been coming and going from this place, like the rumours say,’ Ned said. ‘That’s some nasty shit going on down there.’
I didn’t respond. I didn’t deserve anyone’s respect. Sure, I’d been coming and going. But in the worst possible way: every time, I’d simply turned my back and left them all behind.
‘Four guards on the entrance,’ Quentin said, pointing down to the main entryway we’d sidestepped on the way in.
‘Three on the far entrance over there,’ Liam added, gesturing to an aqueduct where trucks entered and exited. ‘And I’d say we’re looking at somewhere between four and six guards inside each of the buildings.’ He glanced at me, unhappy with the ratios.
I studied the layout. It was similar to many of the hubs I’d broken into before. And Gus had been right; it only looked big enough to contain a maximum of a hundred or so prisoners. But something about this hub was different. To start with, the walls of the main building were white, but not made out of cement. They looked like they were glass or something. I shuddered. I’d seen similar buildings before. In the core.
‘How are we doing this?’ Travis asked.
I snapped out of my thoughts. ‘It’s past curfew, so there will only be two guards inside each building. They run a skeleton shift overnight because the negs are locked in their rooms. The four at the main entrance will be easy enough. We can drop down from above and surprise them from behind. It’s the guards on the far side who are going to be the problem,’ I explained.
‘Hex and Ned, you drop down first and take the guards at the front. Fast and quiet. Tranqs only,’ I said. When I saw their lukewarm reactions, I pushed. ‘I mean it, guys. You kill them, this is all over. They all have mortality zips, and alarms will start going off everywhere.’ Waiting for them to all give me a nod, I went on. ‘Travis and Quin, at the same time you drop down onto the rooftop of that building.’ I pointed to the main building, which I knew housed the negs. ‘You’ll get access through the vents, which will take you into the corridors. The main guard will be in the security room down the end of the corridor. You need to be fast in case he’s watching the monitors and sees us taking down the other guards.’
They nodded.
I swallowed, fighting my nerves and adrenalin. I handed Quentin the zip program that Gus had written. ‘Plug this into the central computer in the security room,’ I told him. ‘It has a five-minute activation delay on it. That will give you enough time to find the second guard, take him down and then get into a safe position.’
I stressed the last words because as soon as those five minutes were up, all of the doors to the negs’ rooms would slide open and there’d be a level of chaos we could only hope to try to control.
Quentin pulled a rope from his bag. ‘We’ll get it done.’ He locked eyes with me and I felt the urge to grab his hand and run. Suddenly I wasn’t sure of anything and just wanted to get him to safety. But I also knew we had to do this. I had to do this.
‘Guess that leaves you and me with the far entrance?’ Liam said, jolting me from my fears.
I nodded quickly. ‘We’ll use this ledge,’ I instructed, pointing towards the walkway carved into the granite walls, which ran the entire length of the salad-bowl-shaped hub. ‘If we move fast and go unnoticed, we should get pretty close to the far entrance.’
‘Looks like fun,’ Liam said, somehow managing to drag a smile from me. The ledge was unforgivingly narrow, and there was no doubt that if one of us fell it would be the end. Not to mention we’d be sitting ducks if someone spotted us and decided on some target practice.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘When Liam and I reach the halfway mark, everyone else
is a go. All clear?’
Everyone nodded, prepping their weapons and anchoring their abseil ropes. Everyone except me had a fully loaded gun – bullets and all – even Quentin. It was their right to be armed, and Quentin had been upset when I’d insisted I only wanted to carry my taser and tranq gun. I’d argued that my current weapons, backpack and equipment were already weighing me down. But I knew he saw right through me to the truth. I just didn’t know if I could live with myself if I crossed that final line. Killing a person was the one thing I’d managed to avoid in all this. I wanted it to stay that way.
Twenty
The world around me narrowed in. I felt my muscles contract each time I swallowed; I heard each breath in and out. My sight constricted to tunnel vision and I looked at the guys, knowing I was somehow becoming separate. How I needed to be.
I sent Gus a message, letting him know we were moving in. He replied that he was readying the transport. It was a huge task, detouring an empty train and stopping it in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention preventing any other trains coming that way until we were ready. But no matter how we had looked at it, this was the only way we could think of to get the negs to safety without causing absolute mayhem. And I knew Gus would make it happen.
Nods were exchanged as we took up our positions. Me in front, Liam behind. With one last fleeting glance over my shoulder – not to Quentin because I couldn’t, but to Travis, my message clear – I crouched low and ran.
My heart rate increased and I faintly acknowledged there was a time when I would have worked hard on controlling it, just to prove I could. Now, knowing my black-market M-Band would not alert any authorities that I was in a state of panic, I let it slide and focused on moving ahead.
The ledge we were navigating was barely wide enough for one foot at a time and eventually forced us to slow down and stand tall, our backs flat to the rock as we neared our goal – a small boulder jutting out from the cliff. Just big enough to tie a rope to.
As soon as we reached it, we got to work tying the rope and linking up our D-Rings to our waist harnesses.
‘They’re down,’ Liam said behind me.
I nodded, not looking back.
‘Let’s go,’ I said, leaping without another word, knowing that every second counted.
I dropped down the rope fast, barely using the hand behind me to slow the descent. Liam moved just as fast above me.
I hit the ground and leaped aside just in time for his arrival. We had landed behind the building closest to the far entrance. It was a good place for us to hide – in front of the building was an open space about twenty square metres and beyond that stood the three M-Corp security guards who were guarding the aqueduct.
We unclipped from the rope, grabbed our weapons and moved silently, using the cover of the building until the very last moment.
I glanced at Liam, my heart pounding. He moved like the pro he was, and I could see why M-Corp had first tried to recruit him and then not taken no for an answer.
He pulled a chain from around his neck and kissed the gold ring that hung from it. ‘I’ll go right,’ he whispered, and with a mere nod from me we were running, staying in the shadows for as long as we could.
Luck wasn’t on our side. The guards spotted us within moments.
They were fast.
We were faster.
Liam threw a smoke bomb just as one raised his gun.
I took down the first guard with two tranqs in the shoulder before he’d managed to take aim. But as he fell, he got off two shots and I grimaced as the noise reverberated around the underground hub. If the others hadn’t taken down the rest of the guards, they would now know something was going down.
Liam moved behind the cloud of smoke and quickly out of sight. After a pause, I heard the unmistakeable sounds of flesh hitting flesh and knew he’d found at least one of the other guards.
I looked around for the third guard, but the smoke was thicker than we’d anticipated and I couldn’t see a damn thing. I definitely didn’t see the fist flying my way until it hit me square across the jaw. I dropped my weapon as I stumbled back a few steps. I righted myself just in time to receive another round of blows, a particularly hard jab going into my side.
I felt something warm slide down my cheek and neck and knew it was blood. But only one thought ran through my mind: he still hasn’t called it in.
I would’ve heard if the guard had radioed in the attack. And I wasn’t going to let the team down. I staggered forwards and waited, focusing all of my attention on the fight.
Sure enough, his attack came from the right. But this time I was ready. I ducked his fist and spun around, coming up behind him, where I swiftly delivered a hard blow to his lower back. It shocked him long enough for me to lever my body back and jam my foot into his calf, stomping down as hard as I could manage. I was fairly certain I heard a crack. He was down on his knees in seconds. I didn’t hesitate, spinning and delivering a fast round-kick that collided with the side of his head, knocking him out instantly. Just to be sure, I found my tranq gun on the ground where I’d dropped it and shot him twice in the chest.
My handheld cell buzzed and I checked the screen.
Zip’s active. 5 minute countdown started.
I stared at Gus’s message then set the timer on my M-Band. Quentin and Travis had done it. In less than five minutes, the doors to all of the cells would open and the negs would be released.
‘The other two are both out,’ Liam said, coming up behind me. ‘I’m sorry. I lost you in the smoke.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. It had all happened in seconds, not minutes. ‘Let’s go help the others.’
We wound our way towards the main building.
‘What the hell?’ Liam said, stepping away from me to inspect what looked like two water tanks sitting on the bed of a truck.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘You see those tubes? They’re running from those tanks into the main building.’
‘And?’ I asked, getting impatient.
‘Nothing good is in those tanks, Maggie. I … I told you what I used to do for the military.’
I nodded, watching his eyes dart about and his face turn pale. ‘I got a real bad feeling we need to get the hell outta here.’ He continued checking out the tanks, looking for God knows what.
But I was already moving. Sprinting towards the main building entrance.
‘Quin!’ I screamed at the top of my lungs. ‘Quin!’
I was moving faster than my legs could manage, falling over myself as I reached the main doors and started thumping on the glass. I didn’t have an access key so I just pounded on the door hysterically.
‘Quin! Damn it! Please! Travis!’ I yelled.
Suddenly they were there, running down the hall. I checked the time. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I kept banging on the door, screaming at them to move faster. They heard my panic, or saw it. They picked up the pace and reached the doors. My heart stopped.
Liam was now beside me. ‘They gotta get out of there, Maggie. Now!’ he yelled.
My eyes went wide. Time slowed down. I stared into Quentin’s eyes. No. My stomach turned. They needed door-activation keys. They wouldn’t have had time to get them.
God. No. They couldn’t take him from me.
‘No!’ I screamed, my voice carrying all my fears.
But just then the door slid open. I blinked as they raced out, Travis stopping only to flash me a grin and the set of swipe keys he’d obviously picked up in the security room.
The doors closed instantly behind them.
‘What the hell’s going on? The negs will be coming out in a few minutes,’ Travis said just as a number of shots rang out from the front of the hub, where we’d left Ned and Hex to take care of the guards.
‘They’re coming,’ I said. ‘They’re here.’
We started moving back into the depths of the hub, running between the buildings as the sound of gunfire neared and then, even
worse, footsteps. Dozens of jogging feet thundering towards us.
‘Run!’ I screamed. We were heading towards the aqueduct. It was our only hope, even if it was incredibly slim.
Liam led and we ran in single file. I made it with him to one building while Travis and Quentin were caught behind another when a volley of gunfire exploded around us. I jolted at the noise, the sounds amplified in the stone structure, as I desperately assessed the divide that now separated us.
‘Quin!’ I screamed. ‘Run! Now! You have to! Travis!’ I implored. ‘Travis, please!’
Travis looked right at me. His eyes knowing. Defiant. He pushed Quentin ahead of him and suddenly they were running towards us. Liam had pulled out his gun and was firing bullets randomly to offer what cover he could. But there were so damn many of them shooting back.
They were so close.
Shots fired.
They dodged.
Ran.
Quentin’s eyes locked on mine. He was only ten metres away.
Then Hex was there, standing behind Travis with a smile on his face. Gun raised. And pointed right at Travis’s head.
‘Runnnn!’ I screamed.
Travis looked over his shoulder and saw Hex leading the charge, an army behind him.
Liam threw another smoke bomb.
But it was too late.
Gunfire erupted.
Travis launched forwards and to the side.
Quentin went down.
Smoke clouded everything.
I ran into the haze, skidding to my knees beside Quentin.
The shooting suddenly ceased.
He was bleeding. I kicked into gear, ignoring the fact that my insides were breaking apart, and looked him over quickly.
He was shot in the arm.
‘Quin!’ I snapped, shaking his other arm.
His eyes opened.
‘Can you run? You have to run!’
He blinked. Nodded at me. ‘Travis?’ he asked, getting to his knees.
I scrambled over to Travis, who had landed behind Quin. I tilted his head towards mine only to see his lifeless eyes staring back at me. They’d hit him in the neck and chest. He was riddled with bullets. Bullets that had been aimed at Quentin.
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