by Kevin Brooks
We heard the heavy groan of the doors opening then, and a moment later we were following Gun Sur and Pilgrim into the storehouse.
The interior of the building was just a vast open work area – no separate rooms, no hallways or corridors, just wall-to-wall open space – and because all the shutters were closed, the whole place was illuminated with dozens of burning torches. The walls were lined with workbenches and tables, and everywhere I looked there were piles of scrap – metal sheets, wooden boards, rods and axles and chains – and all kinds of mechanical equipment. There were 5 or 6 Fighters working away at the benches and tables – hammering, sawing, cutting, drilling – and over to our left, Captain Luca and another 2 Fighters were pounding away with sledgehammers at what looked like the remains of a steel cabinet, trying to hammer it flat.
In the midst of all this activity though – standing alone in the center of the room – was the one thing it was impossible to take your eyes off.
It was some kind of vehicle, I was fairly sure of that, but it was unlike any wagon or cart Ide ever seen. In fact, the only feature I recognized – and the only reason I guessed it was a vehicle – was its wheels. There were 8 of them – 4 on either side---8 solid wooden cartwheels with metal rims, each of them almost as tall as me. The vehicle itself was essentially a massive rectangular box, a bit like an elongated covered wagon. It was at least 40 feet long, and maybe 10 feet wide and 12 tall. The 4 wheels at the front were closer together than the 4 at the rear, and there was an enclosed compartment at the front which I assumed was the drivers position. I could just about make out 2 seats and a control wheel of some kind, but it was hard to see clearly because, just like the rest of the vehicle, it was almost entirely encased in a patchwork covering of scrap metal – old steel doors, tin panels, sheets of corrugated iron---all cobbled together and fixed to the body of the vehicle with a mixture of screws and plates and tightly bound cables and wires.
As I stood there staring at this gigantic contraption, one of the Fighters came over to it carrying a large metal plate with holes drilled round the edges. He held up the plate against a gap in the patchwork – checking it fitted – then he took out a screwdriver and began fixing the plate into place.
I realized then that whatever this monstrous thing had once been, it was now being turned into an armored vehicle.
Its an ancient motorized wagon called a truck, Gun Sur explained. We discovered it when we first arrived here. Most of us had never seen one before, and we only found out what it was from the Olders. According to Soyaan, there used to be millions of them.
What happened to them all? I asked.
No one seems to know, but they were powered by oil-based fuel, and its possible that at some point in the past the reserves of oil ran out, making the vehicles redundant as a means of travel. So over the years, most of them may well have been stripped down and their parts used for other purposes---but for some reason this one was left mostly intact.
Does it still work?
Wele come to that later. This is just---well, this is just a small part of what I wanted to show you, and it will make more sense when youve seen the rest. Its this way---
As he set off towards the far end of the building, and Pilgrim went with him, I waited a moment then turned to Chola Se.
Are you okay? I asked her.
I dont know, Jeet. I dont understand whats going on---
We can go if you want.
I dont know what I want. I just---I dont know. I suppose we might as well see what he wants to show us.
Are you sure?
No. She shrugged. But weve come this far---
As we followed Gun Sur and Pilgrim across to the far end of the building, I couldnt work out where they were taking us. There was nothing obvious where they were heading – no doors, no windows, just an empty space at the end of the storehouse. But then, as they slowed down and stopped a short distance from the far wall, I noticed 2 lengths of heavy chain stretched out on the ground at their feet. The chains were about 10 feet apart, and as we got closer to them I could see that they were attached to a large slab of metal lying flat on the ground, and I suddenly realized it was some kind of hatch. It was a lot bigger than the one at the Dau camp, and it didnt look very much like it, but it was still a hatch--- an opening to the underground.
I looked at Chola Se.
Her face was blank, her eyes cold and empty.
Are you all right? I asked her quietly.
She just nodded.
Gun Sur and Pilgrim had taken hold of the chains now, and as they began walking back, pulling the chains as they went, I watched the metal hatch slide open. It was obviously very heavy, and it sounded as if it was rolling back on some kind of wheeled mechanism that allowed it to slide back beneath the floor. And as it rolled back it revealed what lay below it – a ramp, cut into solid rock, sloping down into a torchlit tunnel 20 feet below.
We discovered this when we first arrived here too, Gun Sur told us.
Where does it lead to? I asked.
Youle see when we get there.
He turned to Chola Se then and was about to say something to her when he saw the piercing coldness in her eyes. He blinked – momentarily taken aback – and from the corner of my eye I saw a flicker of amusement in Pilgrims face. It was gone in an instant, and Gun Sur was totally unaware of it. But I wasnt. And neither was Chola Se.
Wede both seen Pilgrims truth.
The slope down to the tunnel was quite steep, but from the way Gun Sur and Pilgrim walked down it – with the thoughtless ease of familiarity – it was obvious theyd been down here many times before. I looked at Chola Se again, checking to see if she still wanted to carry on. She didnt say anything, just nodded, and we followed Gun Sur and Pilgrim down the ramp and into the tunnel.
It was nothing like the old animal burrow beneath the wall. It was much larger for one thing – easily big enough to walk through without stooping – and while the tunnel under the wall was dug out of packed earth, this one was carved out of solid rock. It wasnt pitchblack either – there were torches on the walls every 30 feet or so – and in the light of the flames it wasnt hard to tell that the tunnel had been constructed a long time ago. The massive wooden support beams were so blackened with age that they were almost indistinguishable from the surrounding rock, and as we passed along the tunnel, I kept seeing primitive drawings and ancient graffiti etched into the walls, the writing of a kind Ide never seen before.
Apart from an almost imperceptible humming sound, which I guessed came from a ventilation system – the air was noticeably cool and fresh – the tunnel had an overwhelming sense of silence to it. It was the kind of silence that seems to quiet everything else – including the air – and as the 4 of us made our way through the hollowed-out rock, we barely made a sound.
The tunnel seemed to go on forever, and as we carried on through it – with the silence continuing – I found myself gazing around, studying everything I could see, trying to work out how the tunnel had been made. It appeared at first sight to have been carved out of the rock all around us, but the more I thought about it, the more unbelievable it seemed. Everything was pure black solid rock – the walls, the roof, the ground – and I simply couldnt understand how the rock could have been excavated to create a tunnel of this size. It didnt look as if it had been dug out by hand – there were no pickaxe or sledgehammer markings, no telltale signs of digging or carving – and the overall size and shape of the tunnel was far too uniform for it to have been blasted out with explosive.
It didnt make sense.
Then I began to notice that every now and then the solid blackness of the rock was broken up with patches of a slightly paler color – a dark brownish gray – and as I passed one of these patches and ran my finger over it, I realized that it was soft enough for my finger to leave a line on the surface. And when I examined the residue left on my fingertip, rubbing at it with my thumb, it didnt feel like powdered rock. It wasnt actually soft, but it wasnt rockhar
d either. It had a grainy kind of hardness to it, a hardness that I could imagine digging through.
An idea began forming in my mind – a possible answer as to how the tunnel had been constructed – but just as I started rubbing at the residue on my fingertips again, Chola Se suddenly appeared at my side.
What is it? she whispered, looking down at my hand. Have you found something?
No, I said, wiping my fingers on my shirt. No, its nothing.
And it was nothing, I realized.
Whatever it was, whatever my idea had been, it was of no relevance whatsoever. It meant nothing. It was nothing. It was human thinking – a complete waste of time. I should have been thinking, or nonthinking, like a dog.
Ime in a tunnel. Where does it go?
Any other thoughts were meaningless.
It was hard to keep track of distance in the underground silence, but by the time we began nearing the end of the tunnel, I guessed wede probably traveled about 250 yards, maybe a bit farther. Gun Sur and Pilgrim had stopped up ahead of us and were waiting by an opening at the end of the tunnel that led into some kind of large open space. I couldnt tell what it was, but the closer we got to it – and the more I could see of it – the more I realized how huge it was. When we finally reached Gun Sur and Pilgrim, and they stepped aside to let us see through the opening, we were both so amazed that we couldnt help letting out quiet gasps of astonishment. It was a massive chamber, an enormous cavern – roughly cube-shaped – that must have been at least 150 feet across. The roof of solid rock towered so high above us that we had to angle our heads back to look up at it. It was easily 100 feet high.
Burning torches lit up the cavern with a bright orange glow, and in the light of the flames I could make out dozens of little caves and ledges cut into the rock walls – from ground level up to about head height – and every one of them was crammed full of tools and equipment – drills, sledgehammers, pickaxes, spades---metal drums and canisters, coils of rope, countless spools of cable---
One of the caves, just over to our right, was larger than all the rest, and it was piled high with large wooden crates. Ide seen the remains of similar crates before – splintered fragments half buried in the rubble of the Eastside ruins – and Ide also seen the ruined remains of what the crates had once contained. If these were the same, and their contents werent spoiled---
Do those crates contain what I think they do? I asked Gun Sur.
My voice echoed eerily around the cavern.
What do you think they contain? Gun Sur replied.
Explosive.
That would be something, wouldnt it? he said. Especially if the explosive was still viable.
Is it?
Come and have a look.
We followed him over to the cave, then stood back and watched as he picked up a crowbar from a ledge and pried open the top of one of the crates. I knew I was right about the explosives now, but when Gun Sur stepped aside to let me see, and I went over and looked inside the crate, it was still hard to believe my eyes. The wooden box was filled to the brim with bright orange rectangular bars, each one about 5 inches by 3 inches. Foreign lettering was printed in black on the front of each bar.
ТРОТИЛОВАЯ
Шашка
Вес 200гм
Ide seen the lettering before – on the crumbled remains of similar bars scavenged from the ruins. I didnt know what the words actually said, but I knew what they meant. They meant that the orange bars were TNT, a powerful high explosive.
Is this where the old TNT in the ruins comes from? I asked Gun Sur.
He nodded. We think this must have been the main stockpile. The crates were here when we discovered the cavern, piled up in this cave exactly as they are now. We knew what was in them, of course, but although the crates themselves seemed to be in mint condition – unopened and undamaged – we didnt think there was much chance of the TNT still being viable.
Why not?
Because it was ancient, like everything else down here, and TNT degrades with age. Thats why every scrap of TNT weve ever dug out of the ruins has been useless.
He shrugged, gazing thoughtfully at the pile of crates.
We just assumed that all this would be useless too. But it turned out we were wrong.
He reached into the crate and took out a bar.
As far as we can tell, every one of these is in perfect condition – no degradation at all. Its probably something to do with the atmosphere down here. The airs very dry, and it never gets too hot or cold---it seems to prevent things from decaying.
He turned and gazed around at the cavern.
Everything stored down here is still useable, he continued. Weve got gunpowder, fuses, blasting caps, cable---the only thing we found that didnt work properly was the faulty detonator---
He turned round and looked at me.
But thanks to you, thats no longer a problem.
How many crates are there? I asked him.
116, with 150 bars in each crate – enough to blow up a small mountain.
I gazed around at the vastness of the underground chamber, wondering if thats how it had been made – blown out of the solid rock by huge amounts of TNT – but in the same way that the tunnel hadnt looked as if it had been blasted out with explosive, neither did the cavern. But it didnt look natural either. I thought about asking Gun Sur if he knew anything about it – whether or not the cavern was manmade, and if so whode made it, and how, and why, and when---but then my thinking suddenly switched again – from human back to dog – and, just like before, I realized that the history of the cavern was irrelevant. It didnt matter how it had been made, or whode made it, or how, or why, or when---
It was a cavern. It was here.
And thats all there was to it.
What are those holes for? I asked Gun Sur, pointing up at the roof.
I couldnt see the actual holes, but I could see the tiny rays of daylight streaming in through the rock that told me the holes were there. At first I could only see 3 or 4 of them, but as I carried on looking I realized there were dozens of them spread out all over the roof.
The rock up there is only about 6 inches thick, Gun Sur explained. Its incredibly hard – even harder than the surface layer of glassrock – but we managed to drill through it with a diamond-tipped bit that we found among all the mining equipment down here. It took us a long time, but by drilling the holes and inserting marker sticks through them we were able to work out the exact location of the cavern in relation to the landscape above.
He raised his hand and pointed at the lefthand corner of the cavern roof.
If you put a marker stick through a hole up there, he said, it comes out directly in front of the Central Tower. And if you put a stick through a hole over there – he indicated the opposite corner of the roof – it comes out in front of the East Tower.
He moved his hand again, this time pointing straight up at the roof directly above us.
And if you put a marker stick through one of the holes up there, he continued, it comes out about 50 yards south of the wall, in the open ground between the wall and the ruins.
He lowered his hand.
So basically the cavern lies beneath a roughly square-shaped stretch of ground that begins at the wall – directly inbetween the Central and East Towers – and runs for about 50 yards in the direction of the Eastside ruins.
He looked at us.
Are you with me?
I nodded – visualizing the ground above us – but when Gun Sur turned to Chola Se, expecting her acknowledgement, she just stood there staring back at him.
You told me you were going to show me something that would help me understand my pain, she said to him.
She glanced at Pilgrim, then turned back to Gun Sur.
I dont see what any of this has got to do with what he did to me.
Perhaps it would be best if I let Deputy Pilgrim answer that, Gun Sur told her.
There was a slight coldness to his voice, and I sensed
– not for the first time – that although Gun Sur believed Pilgrims side of the story, he wasnt entirely comfortable with it, and he didnt like having to defend it. And as Pilgrim began speaking, I also sensed a growing air of impatience in the Marshal, as if he felt there were far more important things he should be doing than this – whatever this was – and that he held Pilgrim responsible for putting him in this situation.
The reason the Dau were celebrating that night, Pilgrim told us, was that Ide finally given them the information theyd been waiting for – the full details of our battle plan. Ide already told Hensch that we had a stock of TNT – and Ide given him a few samples to prove it – but he didnt know exactly how much we had or what we were planning to do with it. But that night I told him everything.
Pilgrim glanced across at Gun Sur, as if doublechecking that it was okay for him to tell us the full story, but the Marshal wasnt paying any attention to him. He was just standing there, staring at the ground, deep in thought.
Pilgrim turned back to us and carried on.
I told Hensch that we had a fully operational armored truck, and enough TNT to blow the Dau encampment to pieces. I told him that at a certain time on a certain day we were going to blast a hole in our wall, then drive the truck through the gap and across Nomansland into their camp. The truck would be packed full of TNT, and once it reached their fort, the explosive would be detonated. The blast would be so powerful that the entire camp would be obliterated, and anyone within a quarter-mile radius would be killed or seriously injured. Immediately after the explosion, our Fighters would enter the camp and finish off any survivors.
As he finished speaking, Pilgrim kept his eyes on us, waiting for our reaction.
Thats the battle plan? I said to him.
Its what I told Hensch.
And he believed you?
He believed me as much as he ever believes anyone. He wont be fully convinced until hese seen the truck himself, and seen that its just as I told him – in full working order, and capable of being driven across Nomansland and into their camp. But thats not a problem. Weare already making arrangements to put his mind at rest, and in the next few days or so hele not only see the truck with his own eyes, hele see it in action. Pilgrim grinned. Or at least, thats what hele think hese seeing.