Outpost (44 page)

Sian
and Ghost ran down the corridor. Ghost struggled to zip his coat.

'Why
the fuck didn't you come and get me?'

'We
couldn't find you. There wasn't time to wait.'

'How
long has she been gone?'

'About
ten minutes. She made it to the island. I lost sight of her once she reached
the coast.'

'I'm
going after her.'

'She
said no. She said you would want to follow her, and she said no. She reckoned
it would be easier on her own.'

'Fuck
it. I'm going anyway.'

They
ran across the deck. Ghost pulled on gauntlets. Sian handed him an axe.

'I'm
not staying here alone.'

'We
need someone to stay behind and operate the crane. You want to help? You want
to be crucial? Stay in that cab. Watch for our flare, and be ready to lift us
off the ice.'

Sian
rotated the crane jib towards a gantry. Ghost stood on the walkway. He embraced
the half-tonne hook as it swung towards him. He stepped on to the hook and
wrapped an arm around the chain. He gave a thumbs up. Sian swung him over the
railing. He looked down. Two-hundred-metre drop on to the ice. He gripped the
chain hard.

Sian
lowered the hook.

Rampart
was ripping a gouge in the polar crust half a kilometre wide. The pristine
snow field already scarred by a long wake of bubbling seawater and bobbing ice
plates. The forward legs of the rig shunted a continual avalanche of ice-rubble
ahead of them. Ghost would be lowered in front of churning snow and
ice-boulders. He estimated he would have less than ten seconds to run clear or
be pulverised and submerged.

The
moment the hook touched down and dragged on the ice Ghost stepped clear and
started to run. He fell. He had forgotten to buckle crampon teeth to his boots.
He slipped and skidded as he tried to run clear of the advancing refinery. It
was a waking nightmare. Trying to sprint, trying to cover ground, sliding on
glass. He was eclipsed by shadow as the rig bore down on him. The roar of
shattering ice was deafening. You've made a simple, stupid mistake, he thought,
and it's going to kill you.

Moment
of decision. Should he turn back and try to reach the hook? Or keep running and
try to reach Jane?

He
ran towards the island.

The
ice beneath him began to crack and buckle. He hopscotched across tilting,
bobbing plates. He threw himself clear of the approaching avalanche. He rolled
and watched the massive gantries and girders of the refinery pass by high above
him. A dream image. Towers and crenellations. A floating sky city.

He
got to his feet and faced the island. He picked up his axe. He took two paces
then the ice beneath him cracked and broke. He slid waist-deep into Arctic
water. Sudden, heart-stopping cold. He scrabbled at the snow. Gauntiets grasped
and raked, clawed for some kind of purchase.

Instinct
saved him. The axe lay beside him. He reached, stretched until his fingertips
snagged the shaft. He slammed the axe into the ice and hauled himself out of
the sea. He lay shivering like an epileptic seizure.

He
got to his feet. He still faced a choice. He could run to the island and try to
help Jane. Hope vigorous movement would warm him up. Or he could radio Sian and
get her to haul him back to the warmth and safety of Rampart.

'Get
the job done,' he murmured.

He
decided to head for the island. He couldn't pull the axe free so he left it
behind.

Despite
his predicament, despite his viciously tight bonds, Punch fell asleep. One moment
he was leaning with his back to the cell wall, trying to stay awake, stay
alert. Next moment he was sunk in dark dreams in which he screamed and squirmed
as he was slowly crushed by strange machines.

He
was jolted awake. Footsteps. Key turn. Nikki opened the
door, grabbed him by the ankle
and dragged him into the corridor.
She
hauled him down a tiled passageway.

Green
walls. Flickering strip-lights.

'What
the fuck are you doing?'

No
reply. She didn't even look him in the eye.

The
passage met a wide, ribbed tunnel, big enough for a subway train.

She
tied him to a wall girder. She left a lamp burning on the tunnel floor. She
left.

A
man lay tied to the opposite wall of the tunnel. He was dressed in polar
survival gear and bound hand and foot. Nail. Bruised face. Split lip. His right
sleeve was ripped and bloody. White nylon stuffing spilled from the quilted
fabric. A wound caused, Punch guessed, when he and Nail fought for possession
of a shotgun.

Nail
was lashed to the girder by rope tied round his chest. Punch couldn't tell if
he was dead or alive.

Punch
looked around. Raw rock buttressed by girders. At a guess, some kind of
excavation tunnel. The bunker was half- built. Plenty of wide access
passageways throughout the complex to get mine machinery below ground.

'Hey.
Hey, Nail.'

No
reply.

Punch
squinted into darkness. Something round in the shadows, like a giant
cannonball. An open hatch. The capsule. Soviet space debris. Fell to earth
miles away. How did it get here? Did
Hyperion
passengers retrieve the object? Drag it across the ice? Could the mindless
mutants be guided and controlled?

He
whistled.

'Hey.
Nail.'

Nothing.

Why
leave them by the capsule? Did Nikki expect something to crawl out and feed? Ghost
said he tossed a thermite grenade into the capsule interior. Nothing could have
survived.

'Hey,'
shouted Punch. 'Nail. Nail, you fuck.'

Nail
slowly looked up. Exhausted, frightened eyes.

'What's
going on?' asked Punch. 'What does she want?'

Nail
looked him over, but didn't reply. His hands were bound in front of him, rather
than behind his back.

He
spat a fifty kopeck coin into his palm and started to sharpen it against the
tunnel floor. There was a deep scratch in the concrete. He had been sharpening
the coin for a while. Maybe he hid it in his mouth each time Nikki passed by.

'So
what's the deal?' asked Punch. 'Is she going to eat us or what?'

Nail
didn't reply. He continued to sharpen the coin.

'Guess
it didn't work out. You and her.'

Nail
tested the edge of the sharpened coin. He put the coin between his teeth and
tried to tear open his wrist, quickly drew his arm back and forth across the
crude blade.

'Dude,
what the fuck are you doing?' demanded Punch.

Nail
drew blood but couldn't reach an artery. Either the coin was too blunt or he
didn't have the courage to kill himself. He let the coin drop to the ground. He
leaned his forehead against the wall and sobbed.

'Talk
to me,' said Punch. 'Say something, you dumb fuck. What the hell is going on?
Has she got us lined up for dinner? Is that it?'

'Worse.
Way worse.'

'Like
what? What's on her mind?'

'I
knew she was nuts. Talking to herself. But I had no idea. She's pure darkness.
She's sicker, way sicker than those infected fucks. She's a black hole. Total anti-matter.'

'Is
she infected? Does she have this disease?'

'No.'

'But
they are here, aren't they?'

'She's
got an army out there in the tunnels. I've heard them. I've seen them.' 'Get
your shit together, Nail. How sharp is that coin? Can it cut rope?'

'No.'

'Throw
it over here. I want to try, anyway.'

Nail
threw the coin. It chimed and skittered across the tunnel floor. Punch hooked
the coin with his boot and kicked it towards his hands. He fumbled with his
fingers. He tried to saw the rope binding his wrists. Nail watched.

'So
what's your name?' asked Punch. 'Your real name? It's not Nail. I know that
much.'

'What
does it matter?'

'I'm
curious.'

'Dave.
My name is David.'

'Why
change it?'

'You
never wanted to reboot your life? Start again from scratch?'

'Every
hour of every day. Changing my name wouldn't help, though. So who was the real
Nail Harper? What happened to him?'

'I
honestly don't think that's any of your business.'

'What
kind of army are we talking about? What's out there?'

'Passengers
and crew from
Hyperion.
They follow Nikki. I don't know why.'

'What
does she want from me? What is her plan?'

'You're
bait. She wants to lure your friends from Rampart. Jane will come running to
your rescue. Ghost will come too. Sian will tag along.'

'But
what does Nikki want? Where is all this leading?'

'She
wants to keep you all here. She says this is our new home.'

Punch
sawed at the rope.

'You
know what?' he said. 'Everyone gets tested. You never see it coming. But sooner
or later the moment arrives and you have to account for yourself. Snivel like a
bitch if you like, but I'm getting out of here.'

Ghost
reached the island shore. Boulders and scree. He climbed fast as he could,
trying to generate metabolic heat. He was slowly succumbing to hypothermia.
Creeping numbness. Limbs weak and starting to stiffen.

He
reached the bunker.

'Jane?'
he called into the dark tunnel entrance. 'Jane, it's me.'

He
took a flashlight from his pocket. Water behind the lens. Useless. He threw it
aside.

The
campfire was cold and dead. He piled more wood and slopped petrol from a jerry
can. His hands shook. He poured too much gasoline. He struck a match anyway,
and shielded his face from the flame-ball. Fire scorched the tunnel roof.

Ghost
tried his radio. Waterlogged. Dead. He threw it aside.

He
closed the bunker doors.

He
didn't have time to dry his clothes. He poured water from his boots then held
them directly in the flames. Water fizzed, boiled and steamed. He wrung his
coat, balled it and held it in the fire until it smoked.

He
dressed.

Ghost
took a burning stick from the fire, held it above his head and set off down the
dark tunnel mouth.

Sian
left the cab to fetch a flask of coffee. Kill time, she told herself. Do
something ordinary. Kid yourself everything is fine.

She
boiled a kettle in the canteen kitchen. Silent corridors. Empty rooms. What if
Jane and Ghost didn't make it back? Drifting for thousands of miles in the dark
and derelict refinery. She was terrified of isolation.

She
returned to the cab, unscrewed the Thermos and poured coffee. She let the metal
mug warm her hands. The windows steamed up. She wiped away condensation. The
island was receding. The wreck of
Hyperion
was a distant, ragged silhouette against the Arctic twilight.

She
put her cup on the cab floor and uncapped binoculars. She looked south. She
could clearly see the edge of the ice-field. The point where snow gave way to
heavy black waves.

She
estimated Jane, Ghost and Punch had less than three hours to make it back to Rampart
before the refinery reached open sea and they were left behind. Sian took out
her radio.

'Rampart
to Jane, can you hear me, over? Jane, do you copy?' Static.

'Jane?
Ghost? Can you hear me?'

Jane
stood at the open doors of the bunker.

A
weak voice:
'Jane,
do you copy? Jane, do you copy, over?'
Jane took out her radio. 'Sian? Sian, can you hear
me?' Nothing but feedback. Weak LED. Dying batteries. The campfire was lit. She
crouched and examined sticks of burning furniture. A recent fire. Someone was here
moments ago.

She
examined a discarded flashlight. It belonged to Ghost. Weeks ago, she had
watched him bind it with duct tape to seal a crack in the case.

Ghost
had travelled from the rig. He must have headed straight for the bunker and
reached it ahead of her. 'Ghost?' No reply.

Jane
aimed her flamethrower down the dark tunnel. Flame- roar. She glimpsed concrete
walls receding deep underground. Jane checked her watch.

41:54

She
shone her flashlight on the tunnel floor. Scuffed boot- prints led into
shadows.

She
hitched the flamethrower, gripped her flashlight and followed the footprints
downward into the dark.