Exodus (36 page)

Which way? Oh, which way?

As soon as she chooses, she knows it's the wrong one because the tunnel rises up in a slope, instead of dipping downward. She's gone right when she should have gone left. Mara shoots another glance back. The tunnel is empty. Whoever was behind her is gone. Her nerves have got the better of her—no one is tailing her after all. Mara screams to a heel-sparking stop and zaps back up to the fork. She's about to take the left-hand fork when all of a sudden there he is, right in her face.

Tony Rex.

“Mara!” He acts surprised, as if he hasn't been following her at all.

“Tony! Well, hi. Sorry, but I'm in a bit of a…”
Rush
, she is going to say then stops herself. Because he'll want to know why.

“What's a nice girl like you doing way out here?” Tony asks. His sleazy charm does not mask the disturbing glint in his eyes.

“Oh—just needed a long zap after a hard day's work.”

“Out here? That's a pretty dangerous zap.” He nods behind at the snarling robo-dogs.

Mara shrugs with affected carelessness. “Why not? It's a great speed zone. I can deal with a few robos.”

And what's a nasty character like
you
doing out here?
Mara asks herself. She must think of an excuse to get away, now. If he
is
a rook—and with each heart-thumping moment she is more and more sure that he is—she must throw him off her trail and get a move on or the whole plan will fail. Any moment now New Mungo's system will be in wipeout and the nexus will plunge into darkness.

But what is she to do? What is
he
going to do? He's blocking her way, not moving. Then he does move. Mara's heartbeat thuds in her ears as, with his eyes fixed on hers, Tony Rex raises his crystal knuckle phone to his mouth.

“Yeah, I remember—you're a girl who likes a taste of
real, extreme
fear, aren't you, Mara? Well, I think I've got just the thing for you.”

With his mouth over the knuckle phone on his left hand, his right hand moves quickly to a jacket pocket. His eyes, sharp now with that indeterminate something that disturbs her so much, never leave hers. Holding his eyes, aware of his every movement, Mara slips fleet fingers into her trouser pocket. Her thoughts fly faster than light. What's in his pocket? A weapon? A gun? Who is he calling? If he's a rook and he's calling security, then it's all over for her; but she can't let that happen—not now when she's so close to escape. She
won't
let it happen.

In her pocket, her fingers make contact with the small, cold, sharpened stone blade of Wing's dagger. Carefully she turns it around in her fingers to grip the ancient bone handle. Blood pounds hard in her head, all through her body, right to her fingertips. The dagger seems to pulsate.

Tony Rex pulls a clenched hand from his jacket and opens his mouth to speak into the knuckle phone. And Mara lunges for her future. She stabs Tony Rex in the heart with the bone-handled dagger.

Stone ruptures soft flesh. Bone crunches against bone; ancient animal bone on live human bone.

Mara lets go of the dagger. She reels back against the tunnel wall and watches a world end. Tony Rex crumples and, with a cry that fills the nexus, dies slowly and brutally at her feet.

The moment is enormous, empty, and ugly.

Mara stands helplessly beside the body. The awful gush of blood makes her want to pull out the dagger, plug the gaping wound, and somehow bring him back to life. But she can't do anything. Her limbs are useless, and she can hardly breathe.
He is dead
.

Mara looks at his clenched fingers and sees the sleek, pencil-like cylinder that he reached for. She doesn't know what it is but she's sure it's some kind of weapon.

Numb and trembling so violently that she can hardly stand, Mara follows the animal fear and instinct that tell her to get away, now, as fast as she can.

She has killed Tony Rex. And she must live with that.

The window of time has been smashed wide open and New Mungo is in seizure.

Everything that holds the city together, all the electronics, lumens, lights, and security—even the backup systems—are shuddering under the onslaught of Fox's cyberflood. He has timed the wipeout to hit as darkness falls to give their escape the cover of night. But Mara cannot focus on the next part of the plan; all she can think of is what she has just done to Tony Rex. Yet she must calm down and fix her mind on getting to the Eastern Sea Bridge, where she hopes with all her might that she will find Gorbals and Wing.

She veers out of the nexus and zooms along a single main artery, a long arm of tunnel that dips into a steep slope that seems to stretch forever downward. When, finally, it breaks up into building rubble, she stops. Under the dim flicker of failing lights, Mara kicks off her zapeedos and the too-tight shoes, and pulls out the scrap of paper, folded up into the tiniest parcel, from a toecap. Her fingers are trembling so much she can hardly unfold Caledon's sketch
of the Eastern Sea Bridge extension. She smoothes the paper flat on the ground and rubs her sore feet as she studies the sketch in the glow of her cyberwizz halo.

Well, she's definitely in the right zone. From where she is she can just see the dark circle that is the end of the tunnel. Beyond that should be the incomplete arm of the Eastern Sea Bridge that runs high above the ocean of Eurosea.

A distant clanking makes her press an ear to the tunnel wall. Now, the noises are amplified into industrial clangs and bangs that give her hope that she's right. But even so, it's all guesswork—
will
Gorbals be here? And Wing?

Once—
if
—she finds them, she will gather together as many people as she can and tell them the city is in breakdown, that they must follow her and take this chance to rush the guards and run for their lives to the fleet of ships harbored in the legs of the city's support towers. She will issue the watertight packets containing navigation disks with their set of instructions, which say that everyone must grab food supplies from the stock halls in the great towers. Meanwhile, Mara will get the Treenesters onto a ship. Then, without delay, they will sail out of the city gates and due north to the mountains of the melted ice lands.

It's all crazy. Impossible. Mara tries to remind herself that the impossible can happen—but she knows she'll need nothing short of a miracle for it all to succeed.

The lights give one last buzz and flicker, then the tunnel falls into darkness. Mara gets to her feet, chucks away the cramping shoes she has come to hate, and begins to run barefoot out of the tunnel mouth onto the Eastern Sea Bridge.

With the lights down, and the backup systems gone too, the city guards and their robo-dogs stumble about in confusion.
Mara hears their bewildered shouts, knowing what they don't—that all their communication systems have crashed. She runs until she's out on the open bridge, high above the ocean. The cold night air feels brutal; realworld has no temperature control. Mara feels she is running through an empty universe, yelling for Gorbals and Wing as hard as she can, her cyberwizz halo held high, the only light in the blackness.

No one answers her cries. There's no sign of anyone at all. At long last she stops, drenched in cold sweat, scared she might hurtle off the unfinished end of the bridge and crash down into the ocean far below. She delves into her backpack and finds the now-crumbly sprigs of herbs. Mara shreds the dry sprigs between her fingers and breathes their scent deeply.
Clear head and courage
, she tells herself over and over.

Now she moves more calmly, walking forward, holding her halo high. And with a shock she sees its glow alight upon a great huddle of dirty, exhausted faces among piles of tarpaulin and building materials. Her earlier noise and speed must have frightened them into hiding. Now, at every step, the halo glow reveals more and yet more huddles—masses upon masses of slaves.

“Gorbals! Wing!” she shouts, frantically searching every face, but there's no answer. Then at last someone moves out of one of the huddles and grabs her arm. It's a girl. She thrusts a hand toward Mara's face. Mara flinches, but the girl only reaches up to trace with a finger the now-faded line of the scar on her cheek. Suddenly Mara is both laughing and crying at once, hugging the girl in relief, because it's Scarwell—the wild girl who attacked her in the cathedral. She never thought she'd be so pleased to see
her
again.

“Scarwell, where's Wing?” Mara cries. “Do you know where Wing is? Wing!”

The girl frowns in concentration, as if she is trying to decipher Mara's words. Then her expression clears and she turns to another urchin and babbles something unintelligible. And something begins to happen. The urchins are passing some communication between them. Mara can feel it ripple through their flock, then hears some of the urchins scampering down the dark road of the sea bridge. Mara waits in the dark for what feels like an eternity. Then at last, out of the darkness, a small figure emerges. Mara holds her breath. She hardly dares hope … but yes—it's Wing, her own little urchin. She runs and grabs him and holds him close, crying with delight, babbling as unintelligibly as any urchin.

But Wing doesn't want to be hugged. He yanks himself free and runs back off into the dark before Mara can stop him.

“No, wait! Wing, I need you. Come here! You must help me find Gorbals!”

But Wing seems to be activating another ripple of communication; again Mara can feel the message spread. Now the urchins seem to be parting, making a clear pathway to pull a figure through—a tall, thin, gangly figure who is pushed toward her by the urchins. He's only a shadow beyond the reach of her halo beam but when he trips clumsily over a bit of rubble, Mara knows who it is.

“Mara, Mara!”

Gorbals lurches into her arms. Mara hugs him tight and feels him flinch.

“Are you hurt?”

“It doesn't matter,” he assures her, but he is suffering from some pain or injury, she can tell. And he is changed: shaven-headed, thin, and utterly exhausted looking. “I'm so glad to see you, Mara. But no,” he corrects himself. “No, I'm not! If you're here then it means they've taken you as a slave too.”

“No, Gorbals. I'm free and soon you will be too. We're going to get the other Treenesters and all these people and children and escape onto the ships. There's no time to explain—we have to go now. Listen, everyone!” Mara raises her voice to make sure she's heard above the mass of fearful, excited voices. “The city is in breakdown. We're going to escape and make for high land in the far north of the world. We need to get to the ships in the legs of the great towers. Everyone—spread the word and follow me! Grab anything that can be used as a weapon—bricks, tools, anything—and be ready to fight for your lives. Now let's go!”

Grabbing both Gorbals and Wing by the hand, Mara
races back along the sea bridge, into the great arm of tunnel that leads to the nexus, followed by a seething mass of slaves. They have to fight through a posse of guards. Gunfire ricochets off the walls, and Mara hears people scream and fall around her as they are hit, but the mass of slaves—brutal with desperation, makeshift weapons at the ready, their eyes used to the darkness of the open sea bridge—have the advantage over the shocked and confused guards.

They climb the steeply rising tunnel that connects the bridge to the city and head for the maze of the nexus. Mara must find the nearest air vents, as quickly as possible. She tried to memorize their positions on the way in, but there was light then. Now, apart from the glow of her halo, it's pitch dark.

At long last, her halo alights on a vent. With the help of Gorbals and some of the others, she kicks the metal grille until it hangs loose and can be yanked from the tunnel wall. Then, at top speed, she hands out the watertight packages that contain the navigation disks and their penciled instructions.

“We must escape down the spiregyres!” Mara yells. “The sea bridge is too high to jump from and too far from the ships, and the city's electrics have crashed so the lifts won't work. Look for more air vents and jump in! Once you're down, swim for the ships in the tower legs!”

People begin to race along the tunnels in search of escape routes. Mara begins launching people down the spire-gyre.

Gorbals stares into the coiling air chute in horror.

“No, Mara, no! I can't.”

“You must, Gorbals! It's the only way. You'll never see Broomielaw or any of the others again if you don't. Once
you hit the water, swim to the Hill of Doves and I'll meet you there. Quick—go! You're almost free!”

Mara gives him a fierce hug then pushes him brutally into the chute of the spiregyre. She waits a moment, then, with another fierce hug, launches Wing. Then herself. Feet first, she begins the immense helter-skelter on a cushioning blast of waste air down the great spiregyre that coils the entire length of New Mungo's vast towers.