Aftershock (19 page)

Pete awoke to a horrible silence, and for a moment he could not move. He tried to sit up but was stopped by a heavy object across his chest. He looked down and saw a steel beam. It had come within centimetres of crushing him. Pete pushed against it. It was incredibly heavy and had stuck fast. Taking a deep breath, he pushed again with every ounce of his strength. The beam shifted. He lifted it away from his chest and pulled himself out from underneath.

He sat up and felt a sharp pain across his forehead. His right leg was stiff, and when he moved it, his nerves screamed at him. He brought his arm up and stared at his wrist monitor. It glowed warmly in the dark. Tapping the screen, he checked the integrity of his suit. It was unscathed. Next, he instructed the suit to release painkillers. A glance at the medistats on the screen showed that he had torn a ligament in his right ankle, but nothing was broken. A few taps on the screen and several million nanobots were on their way to the damaged area to repair the tissue. Until that was fixed, he would just have to make do with the painkillers. He checked the time. He had been out for no more than a couple of minutes.

Wincing, he stood up. His helmet light illuminated the room. The ceiling had caved in. Two steel girders lay on top of a heap of rubble. He picked his way to where the injured had been lying. Gazing down at the monitor on his wrist, he checked for life signs, then using his cochlear implants, he listened for heartbeats. Other than his own, there were two. They were both strong and steady. He touched a control at the side of the screen.

‘Mai? Mai? Come in, Mai.'

Nothing.

‘Mark? This is Pete calling Big Mac. Do you read me?'

Nothing.

Pete cursed and lowered his wrist to his side. Then he heard a voice.

‘Pete?'

He turned towards the sound. The beam from his helmet seared through the dark and lit up a pale face a couple of metres away. It was Archie Barnet.

‘Can you help get this thing off me?' the boy called.

The remains of a table lay across Archie's body, a chunk of concrete with metal rods sticking from it at odd angles lay on top. Pete bent down and lifted the concrete, resting it on the floor beside him. Then he levered up the table with his left hand and helped Archie up with his right.

‘You hurt?' Pete asked.

Archie patted himself, then put a hand to his head. His cut had reopened and blood was running down his cheek. His face was blackened with dirt and dust. ‘I'm okay ... I think.'

Pete turned as he heard a whimper. Taking two paces across the room, he found Sandra Rimmer. She was pulling herself from under a pile of debris. Pete took her wrist and she clambered to her feet. Her right sleeve was red with blood, the fabric clinging to her. Pete helped her over the rubble into a clear area. He ripped open the woman's sleeve and studied the laceration.

‘Here,' Archie said. He pulled off his jacket, tossed it to the ground and tore a strip of fabric from one of his shirt tails.

Pete took it and wrapped it around Sandra's arm just above the cut. ‘That'll stop the bleeding,' he said, and looked into the woman's face. ‘You all right otherwise?'

She nodded.

‘She's shaking,' Archie said. ‘'Ere, Sand, love.' He plucked up his jacket and put it over the woman's shoulders. She gave him a weak smile.

Pete left them and checked to see if anyone else was alive. It took him only a few minutes. Sandra and Archie both watched him as he picked his way back through the debris. He simply shook his head, and Sandra burst into tears.

‘Come on,' Pete said.

‘Where?' Archie asked.

‘First we find Mai. Then we stick to the original plan. Try to get you to the dock.'

He turned, and the other two followed him through the door and along the passageway. He stopped and lifted his wrist. ‘Mark? Mark, Pete here. Do you read me? Mai? Mai?' He paused and tried again.

Nothing but a quiet hiss of interference.

At the end of the passage, the floor was strewn with rubble. They clambered over it and turned into Reception.

It had been hit hard. The desk was reduced to firewood. A curved line of metal stumps were all that remained of it. At first glance, the sculpture of Neptune looked untouched, but even this had been blasted. The god's toes on his left foot had been blown away, steel rods protruded from the feet. All along the left side of the sculpture there were pits and marks, and Neptune's nose had been snapped off.

Mai lay with her back propped up against the plinth. Her legs were spread and her arms hung limp at her sides. The god towered over her.

‘Mai,' Pete yelled and dashed over. He slipped on some loose plaster, almost went down, but just managed to keep his balance.

‘Mai.' He crouched beside her. She opened her eyes, taking a few seconds to focus.

‘Pete! What...?'

Pete scanned her with his wrist monitor, running it over her torso, her head and then along her limbs. ‘Anything hurting?' he asked.

Mai shook her head and looked round as Archie and Sandra appeared to her right. ‘The others?' she asked.

‘Dead,' Pete said. ‘Come on, up you get. You seem to be in one piece, lass.'

Mai leaned on Pete's arm and pulled herself to her feet. ‘Wow! Do I have a headache.'

‘I'd think yourself lucky.'

‘Oh, don't worry, I do,' she retorted and glanced at her wrist monitor. ‘According to my sensors, the aftershock was less powerful than the first, but it's caused some serious damage. Bound to have weakened the hotel's infrastructure.'

Pete nodded and tried his comms again, but the system was still down. ‘We have to get to the dock.'

‘Lead the way.'

The floor was treacherous. Covered with shards of glass and rubble, there were great holes in the marble, and some parts of the floor that looked intact were little more than a crust of tile with nothing under them.

It took them several minutes to cross Reception. From where they stood, the view of the exit was obscured by a giant mound of masonry, twisted metal and shattered tiles. They picked their way towards the obstruction and then around it to the left. They could see a clear space stretching towards the door to the service stairs. Then, 2 metres in front of it, the ceiling had collapsed, bringing down a second, larger mound of rubble. It blocked the door, making it completely impassable.

‘Well I guess that narrows our options to one,' Pete said, turning to the others. ‘We'll have to press on to Beta.'

Harry, Kristy, Jim and Nick tumbled through the smashed glass panel one after the other, collapsing onto the floor and gasping for air. Water was only a couple of centimetres deep here, and that was draining away into some hidden hole or invisible opening. Harry tried to pull himself up, but his knees gave way. He was chilled to the bone and shaking. It was several minutes before he could roll over and sit up, his back against the wall. He looked down and blood ran into his mouth. His left foot was throbbing. He tugged gingerly at the lace of his shoe and loosened it carefully. The pain screamed through him and he gasped. Very slowly, he pulled the shoe away from his foot, removed the sock and stared at his foot. It was torn to ribbons, great cuts ran along the top of it and along both sides. The sock coloured the puddle of water pink.

He turned to the others. They were in little better shape. They looked like drowned rats. Kristy's stage costume was in tatters, the bandana long-gone, and the silver jumpsuit soiled and ripped. Nick was the closest to him and seemed to be the least injured by the trauma of their escape.

‘You're hurt,' he said.

‘Looks very much like it,' Harry replied.

Jim turned to them, saw Harry's injury and pulled himself to his feet. He came over and slumped down against the wall next to him. ‘Let me see,' he said and bent forward to study Harry's wounds. ‘You're losing a lot of blood,' he said. He staggered to his feet and pulled a length of black fabric from his trouser pocket. ‘Don't think I'll be needing this for some time,' he said, holding up his bow tie. He settled himself unsteadily on one knee and, with great care, wrapped the tie tight around Harry's ankle, just above the uppermost laceration. ‘Best I can do, I'm afraid.'

Harry smiled at him. ‘It's Armani, isn't it, Jim?'

‘Certainly is. Cost a fortune at Barney's.'

‘Well, thanks. And thank Barney for me,' he quipped. Without missing a beat, he pulled himself up. Holding onto the wall for support, he managed to keep his injured foot off the ground. ‘I'm going to have to improvise a crutch or at least a walking stick,' he said. ‘Without that, I'm, going absolutely nowhere.'

Jim glanced around. ‘Hang on,' he said. ‘Nick, I can see a metal rod over there. It's stuck under that smashed up table. Can you see it?'

The boy nodded and headed over. He could just squeeze through an opening in the rubble covering the remains of a mahogany table that had once stood close to the foot of the grand staircase. Pushing his head and shoulders through, he emerged a couple of seconds later with a metal pole about a metre long. Beaming, he walked back to the others.

‘Perfect,' Harry said and leaned his weight onto it. He caught Kristy's eye. She was sitting against a sturdy metal box that had somehow found its way into the hall. Harry limped over and, leaning on the stick, he offered the singer his right hand. She looked at it for several moments and then glanced up at Harry's expressionless face, before she slipped her small hand into his. She was so light, it took little effort to pull her to her feet in one smooth movement. She let out a quiet groan as she straightened.

‘You're injured,' Harry said.

‘I'm cool. Just ache, like ... all over.'

Harry produced a faint smile. ‘I owe you an apology,' he said gently. ‘And, I also owe you my thanks.'

Kristy looked startled, as though no one had ever spoken to her in this genuine way before. And it was only at that moment Harry and the others saw the singer for who she really was – a confused, lost little girl, a child who was never treated with any
real
respect. To some, Kristy was a vile bitch who had to be sucked up to, to others she was a golden goose, a piece of meat. To many more, she was a mythical creature, an object to be adored, copied, loved. No one any longer treated her simply as a human being.

Tears welled up in the girl's eyes and she went to pull her hand away. Harry held it firm and fixed her with a sincerity and clarity she had rarely seen. ‘You're welcome,' she said finally, slipping her fingers from his and looking away.

There was a sound from across the hall. All four of them turned in unison. They heard footsteps, people running towards them, the sound muffled by the thick carpet. A door opened slowly. Harry, Kristy, Nick and Jim were rooted to the spot, staring at the door as it swung out into the hall. A woman wearing what looked like a skin-tight futuristic space suit appeared in the opening. For a second, she seemed surprised to see them. Then she took a step into the hall.

‘Hi,' she said. ‘I'm Maiko Buchanan ... E-Force.'

Harry lay on the wet floor at the foot of the main staircase. The massive marble edifice took up half the hall. Plush red carpet ran up the centre of each tread, fastened to the stone with brass runners. It was mottled and stained with oil and dust. The marble looked untouched by disaster, an incongruous symbol of stoicism surrounded by death and destruction.

Mai replaced the makeshift tourniquet Pete had put on Sandra's arm, cleaned the wound, gave her a shot of painkiller and applied a special material called SkinGloo which could seal lacerations temporarily. Then she transferred her attention to Harry, running a medscanner over his injured foot. ‘Nasty cuts,' she said and used the Vasjet, a needleless hypodermic delivery system, to give him some strong pain relief before cleaning his wounds and applying the same sealant.

Harry looked down at Mai as she worked. ‘This is all getting a little surreal,' he commented.

‘A very normal reaction, Mr Flanders,' she replied.

‘Please. Not Mr Flanders! That's my grandfather. It's Harry.'

Mai smiled. ‘Well, Harry, it's to be expected. This sort of thing doesn't happen every day. Thank God!'

‘Yes, but you do find yourself in these situations more often than the average person.'

‘True. But you never get used to it. Let's just say that, to me, it doesn't feel quite so surreal as it must do to you.'

Harry nodded. ‘I also have to say, the pictures I've seen of you don't do you justice.'

‘Really.' She gave him a cynical smile. ‘Now is that a fact? Perhaps, Harry, you don't need the painkillers after all.'

He gave her a mock horrified look. ‘Oh no, keep them coming, please. I was just being friendly!'

Mai laughed and helped him to his feet. He leaned on the metal pole Nick had found for him. Pete approached. ‘The emergency subs are not far from here,' he said, studying his wrist monitor displaying a schematic of the dome.

‘There's a quicker way,' Archie said. He'd been standing beside Pete, staring in fascination at the wrist monitor. ‘Through there,' he went on, pointing to the far wall beyond the staircase. ‘There's a service point for unloading supplies. It's all hidden away, on the north side of the dome. The two emergency subs are docked right by there.'

Pete studied the boy's earnest face. ‘Okay, lad,' he said and turned to the others. ‘Archie here knows a quick way to the emergency subs. Is everyone up to moving on?' He looked from one to the other and thought, what a bedraggled bunch they were. He walked over to Sandra who appeared to be the most exhausted and frightened. ‘Come on,' Pete said, helping her to her feet.

Archie led the group across the marble floor to a pair of oak doors. He pushed them open and headed through to a long, carpeted corridor that ran directly north. Doors led off left and right. It was disturbingly quiet. Even the creaking and groaning of the infrastructure of the hotel was inaudible here. It was a sound they had become so accustomed to it was only when it stopped they noticed it was missing.

They traversed the length of the corridor as fast as they could. At the end there was a metal door. Beside it, on the wall, was a sign that said: ‘SERVICE AREA. STAFF ONLY'. Archie pushed on the handle and opened the door outwards, holding it in place for everyone to file through.

The first thing they sensed on the other side of the door was the cold. The floor and walls were rough concrete. The light was duller than outside in the corridor. A single fluorescent strip ran along the ceiling. In a space about 5 metres square, half the floor was taken up with piles of cardboard boxes. There was a wall of metal shelving and on the shelves stood more boxes.

‘Through 'ere,' Archie said, letting the door swing shut and pushing past the others towards the gap between the towers of boxes and the metal racks. At the end of the room, a short flight of stairs stretched up to a gantry. They all trooped up. ‘Along there,' Archie said, pointing east towards an opening. ‘It's the staff access corridor above the main passenger collection point. Down some stairs and we're there.'

Through the opening they could make out a brightly lit area. The corridor Archie had described was just out of sight, with only a reflected glow breaking through the gloom of the storage area. It lit up the expressions of relief and optimism on their faces.

Archie turned quickly and Pete walked on, following close behind. Jim, Nick and Kristy were next. Harry and Sandra did their best to keep up. Mai held back a few paces.

A row of huge windows ran along the north wall of the corridor. Beyond the windows lay the stunning vista of the Pacific Ocean – dark blue, streaked with multicoloured coral banks and hundreds of fish caught in the light from the hotel. But at that moment, the beauty of the sight meant absolutely nothing. A dozen metres away were the two emergency subs. One of them lay on its side, a rip in the hull running from bridge to starboard engine. The other was crushed under a rock the size of a London bus.