Against Gravity (33 page)

But just as the pain in Kendrick’s sinews and joints threatened to become unbearable it faded away magically, becoming distant, easier to ignore. The augmentations had just kicked in,
tweaking his nervous system to allow him to keep going far beyond his usual limits. He wished it had been that easy when he had suffered the seizures.

After a couple of hours the going got harder as the terrain began to rise. Buddy glanced down at his wand from time to time, checking the GPS and keeping them on course.

They had run into no one so far, which made Kendrick paranoid. He wondered if they had just been lucky, or if they were being tracked without their knowledge.

“Okay,” Buddy announced some indeterminate time later, halting with his back against the vast trunk of a banyan tree, his shirt stained black with sweat. “Okay, that’s
good time. Only five kilometres to go, and we’re ahead of schedule. Maybe another couple of hours if we keep up this pace, and we’ll be there.” He nodded, as if attempting to
convince himself. “Maybe we’ll make it.”

They rested a little while longer, Kendrick swilling water that tasted like the sweetest wine round his throat. It wasn’t hard to imagine that he could get drunk on it, if only he were to
drink enough.

Having crested the hills, the two men were on ground that now sloped downwards again. Before too long they heard a sound like static crackling. It came at them across a stream that rushed over
boulders before falling several metres to form a wide pool below a nearby cliff. Vines and roots trailed in the clear water below them and they stopped, briefly spellbound by the sudden beauty of
the place.

They were getting near. Very near.

Between twisting trunks they could see slivers of the distant horizon as the jungle dropped further towards a flat plain: a broad expanse of cleared land that looked as though it stretched on
for ever. Kendrick squinted into the near distance, seeing a needle-thin road leading towards a huddle of breeze-block buildings. In an instant, his memory flashed back to that day when a transport
plane had dropped out of the skies, spilling himself and countless others into a searing daylight that they would not experience again for several months.

Buddy consulted his wand. “Somewhere around here,” he said.

Kendrick looked around him. “I don’t see anything.” He stepped up beside Buddy, studying the wand’s readout over his shoulder. It definitely showed a clear match between
their current location and the GPS read-out for the hidden entrance.

Kendrick felt his resolve waver. He’d brought them out here on the whim of a man who had been dead for years. It was insane, after all.

He stepped across to the cliff edge, peering down through the dense foliage. A shelf of rock, jutting out above the cascading water, cast deep shadows across the base of the cliff.

“Down there,” he said, stepping back.

Buddy stuck his head over the edge, peering down the sheer drop. “You think?”

“Only one way to be sure.”

They picked their way carefully around the cliff top until they came to a less sheer descent, clinging for support to roots and rocks as they went. There were probably easier ways to get down
but neither of them wanted to waste another hour trying to find one.

It came close a couple of times, as Kendrick’s hand slipped on a slimy tree root and he tumbled before fetching up against another tree growing from the hillside.

This close to the Maze they would be extremely vulnerable if they were spotted. Defending themselves when trapped on a near-vertical gradient would be impossible. They moved patiently, quietly,
carefully, picking their way over rocks and vines, making slow but steady progress.

Kendrick was the first to notice something strange. He was clambering over a scattering of loose boulders when he spotted a silvery glint in the nearby foliage, mistaking it at first for a
spider’s web.

Then he looked much more closely. “Hey, Buddy. Check this out.”

They could discern the thread-like substance everywhere – a fine nacreous filigree, so thin and delicate that it was almost invisible, spreading across trees and rocks and bushes
alike.

Buddy reached out to touch a thread and jerked his hand away almost immediately.

“What’s up?” asked Kendrick.

Buddy looked afraid. “Touch it and see.”

Kendrick fingered the strand. For a moment he was somewhere deep and dark as a sense of unutterable loneliness washed over him. He quickly wiped his hands on his jacket, aware that they were
shaking.

“Remember following that kid Louie halfway across Venezuela?” he muttered. “This is the same kind of thing we found then.” He suspected that the threads extended deep
beneath their feet, all the way down into the Maze itself.

Buddy nodded. “Like I could forget.”

Kendrick stepped away. “We shouldn’t be surprised by this. This stuff is what keeps Los Muertos so close to the Maze.”

Buddy shrugged. “I know, but . . .”

Kendrick nodded in turn. Sometimes there just weren’t the words, but he was shocked by the fear that he detected in Buddy’s voice.

Buddy’s eyes widened and he pointed over Kendrick’s shoulder. “Hey, I think I see the entrance!” He picked his way between two vast tree trunks, sliding down a muddy
slope until he reached the base of the cliff. Kendrick followed, grabbing at roots or anything else he could use to stop himself falling too fast. The air was filled with the sound of exotic and
primal wildlife, and those silver filaments were everywhere: it was like being on another world.

The threads had even woven themselves into the rough surfaces of tree trunks and were also visible in patches of mud, or stretching between blades of grass. As the sun sank towards the western
horizon they reflected its light in an unearthly glow, giving the surrounding forest an hallucinatory dimension.

Sure enough, at the base of the cliff, hidden behind bushes and moss-covered rocks, lay the mouth of a cave, its interior dark and mysterious. Kendrick gazed long into its lightless depths
before kneeling and brushing his fingertips against some of the thin fibres that extended ahead.

It was like someone finding, while standing in the middle of a vast crowd, that they possessed a hidden talent for telepathy. A rapid series of impressions flew through Kendrick’s mind,
faint enough for him to be uncertain whether or not they were the product of his own imagination.

Suddenly he had an image in his mind of a clearing in the jungle . . .

He lingered, feeling a powerful urge to look over his shoulder as if someone – or something – was standing there watching him. Something malevolent.

Buddy stepped past Kendrick and on into the cave. More threads glinted from deep within, making it appear that he was walking into the innards of some great metallic worm.

Kendrick gave in to the urge to glance over his shoulder. Nothing there – just the deep, darkening jungle behind them.

But it felt so strongly as if someone had been
right there
. He walked back towards the fading daylight. The clearing he’d seen in his mind’s eye, like a scrap of someone
else’s memory . . .

“Where are you going?” Buddy demanded, staring after him with a bewildered expression.

Whatever it is I felt when I touched the thread, it knows we’re here. Not Peter McCowan, but something else
.

Kendrick crossed the banks of a stream that drained the pools beneath the cliff, his boots splashing noisily through the shallow water.

Over – there
.

The jungle around him suddenly felt full of an overwhelming sense of presence.

Buddy shouted after him. “Kendrick! Where are you going?”

“Two seconds.”

He pushed deeper into the jungle, past trees and bushes, almost slipping and twisting his ankle on wet rocks. He cursed and pulled himself upright, moving past more trees. Then he saw it.

He stared at it for a long time. After a little while, he heard Buddy come up next to him, breathing hard.

“Kendrick, what the fuck are you— Oh, hell.”

Threads had gathered together to form a vast woven bowl extending between the tree trunks, filling a wide glade beyond. Thick ropes, comprising thousands of filaments clumped together, extended
downwards from the underside of this bowl, entangling themselves in the living soil below.

Kendrick had
seen
it earlier, when the threads had first brushed his skin.

“Do you know what it looks like?” Buddy breathed.

“I know what it looks like. Like a transmitter – or a receiver.”

As they looked up, through the thick matting of strands glistening in their millions, they could make out the dusk’s sky and the sparkle of its stars.

A few dozen metres into the cave they came to a familiar shield door. The sight of it sent a riot of memories surging through Kendrick’s mind.

“The question is, can we still get it open? The electronics might be shot.” Buddy shone his torch across the surface of the door.

“
Damn
,” he exclaimed, jerking his hand away.

“More threads?” asked Kendrick.

“Yeah.” Buddy’s face was pale, even in the darkness.

Kendrick reached out and touched the shield door’s rusting metal. Nothing happened, although he was surprised to detect a faint glimmer of current. Then he slid his hands across the
surface and sensed something shift subtly, deep within the metal.

Something inside him reached out and twisted.

The door rumbled, filling the humid air with an appalling groaning sound. At first it looked as though this entrance had been too long neglected to function any more and all their efforts would
come to nothing. But then it creaked again and slowly, slowly began to slide open. Then it stopped, leaving a sliver of space barely wide enough for one man at a time to slip through.

“Okay,” said Buddy. “I’m going to die underground.” He shrugged. “Suits me.”

The two men worked their way through the gap to find themselves in a near-absolute darkness that brought back unpleasant memories for them both.

Kendrick looked around him. It was almost as if he’d never been away, or as though the whole complex had become indelibly stamped into every cell of his brain. He shivered, only partly
because it was cooler behind the shield door.

“Like a haunted house,” said Buddy, coming to stand beside him. “Have you seen how there’s these other threads – gold ones – as well?”

Kendrick nodded, and reached out to one stretching along a wall. As soon as he touched it, he felt again that strong sensation of being watched. But, although it seemed deeply irrational, the
gold threads felt somehow
friendlier
.

He turned, suddenly half-expecting to see Peter McCowan standing there just behind him. He almost imagined he could smell the man’s warm, beery breath – but he saw only Buddy.

“Okay,” said Buddy. “What now?”

“Might as well keep moving,” Kendrick replied, and they set off.

Several minutes later, Kendrick noticed that Buddy was behaving oddly.

The shield door was now far behind them, but with their augmentations they could see well enough. The sense of being watched only grew more intense the deeper into the tunnel they went. At first
Kendrick dismissed this as merely his own nerves playing up. But in truth this
did
seem like a haunted place, just as Buddy had said, full of the spirits and the memories of the dead.

“I remember when they tried to cordon off this whole area,” said Buddy. Kendrick knew that he was referring to the nanotech infestation.

“I remember.” They’d seen the first intimations of that when they’d escaped the Maze. “For something so dangerous, you wouldn’t expect it to look so – I
don’t know.” He shook his head. “So beautiful, I guess.”

Buddy laughed harshly. “It isn’t what it looks like that matters. It’s what it can do to us. This was a
bad
idea.”

“Take it easy there, Buddy. Are you feeling okay?”

Buddy stared at him, his face pale and sweating. “No, I keep . . . I keep hearing things, like . . . oh fuck, like
whispering
.”

Kendrick could hear nothing and saw only the empty corridor, silent and dark ahead. “Can you make out any words?” he asked carefully.

“No.” Buddy put his head back and yelled, letting loose a series of expletives that rattled down the corridor and echoed for long seconds afterwards.

“Buddy—”

“I can’t go on.” Buddy shook his head, as if a swarm of wasps were buzzing around it. His breathing was rapid and ragged. “I just can’t.”

“What is it?”

“It’s just . . . I can’t. Not beyond this point. Something won’t let me, Kendrick. Let’s turn back. You’ll have to think of something else.”

“Look, we’re almost at the end of this section. Try going a little further, see how you are then. It’s probably only nerves,” Kendrick assured him.

Just ahead of them rose another shield door, barely visible in the murk. It stood half-open, and the heart of the Maze lay beyond.

Buddy shook his head, sounding more reluctant with every passing second. “I can’t, Kendrick, I swear. I don’t have any choice in this matter. If I take one more step,
I’ll die, or . . .” He started to retch, leaning over, his hands on his knees. Kendrick could see that he was shivering badly.

Then Buddy looked up. “I’m heading back.”

“I can’t go back myself, Buddy. Wait for me at the stream, by the cave mouth. Stay hidden. I won’t be long.”

“If I go any further, I’m going to die,” Buddy repeated, looking at Kendrick with an expression that said
So will you, if
you
go any further
.

“Go back,” he urged Buddy. “Go back and wait for me.”

The other man didn’t need any more prompting. “Good luck,” he whispered, and handed Kendrick his wand, the map of the Maze still displayed on its screen. “Keep it.
I’ve got another one back at the ’copter. If anyone appears while I’m waiting and I have to take off, this way we can make sure we stay in contact.” He also gave Kendrick
the backpack. It still contained most of their water and the torch.

Then Buddy turned and moved as fast as he could back towards the entrance and the fading light beyond. Kendrick watched him go, cold dread filling his stomach.