The Rig (11 page)

Care for a strawberry bonbon, Will?

Drake slammed his fist into the table, startling Tristan, and took a deep breath.

He did not believe for a moment that she had gone to ‘pursue other opportunities' as Farrington put it.
Two days ago?
Drake had seen the Seahawk flying in and out these last few days, busy with preparations for Lucien Whitmore's arrival, and he had not seen Doctor Lambros leave.
She would've said goodbye!

Drake's worry for the doctor was matched only by worry for his own neck. If she had started asking questions, based on Drake's suspicions about Grey and the locked doors on the eastern platform, then had she confronted Brand and Storm? Had Doctor Lambros mentioned his name?
What if Irene's name had come up somehow?

Worst of all, had Drake's concerns gotten Doctor Lambros hurt? Did Drake think the warden and his number one guard were capable of hurting one of their own?
She never liked Brand,
whispered a voice in his head.
You saw that your first day here
. But why? To hide what was happening on the eastern platform? Drake swallowed. He had no proof of anything, but he believed he'd come to the right conclusion all the same.

‘You okay, Will?' Tristan asked.

Drake shook his head.

The hairs on the back of his neck tingled and stood to attention – someone had just walked over his grave. Taking slow, measured spoonfuls of lentil soup, Drake looked over to the swinging cafeteria doors and saw Marcus Brand standing there, staring straight at him from across the hall.

Brand held his gaze, cocking his thumb and forefinger like a gun, and shot Drake another of his all-too-friendly grins.

13

Beneath the Deep Blue Sea

The southern platform was abuzz with activity the morning of Monday the tenth of March. Lucien Whitmore would be arriving at some point in the afternoon and Drake knew Warden Storm was keen to impress.

As such, inmates were directed that under no circumstances were they to stray from their assigned duties that day. The guards issued strict and stringent warnings at breakfast that anyone caught doing something they weren't supposed to be doing would be dealt with severely.

‘If any of you sneeze without asking permission first …' Brand warned, standing at the head of the cafeteria, flanked by four masked guards on either side, ‘by God, my little lawbreakers, there will be hell to pay.'

Drake spooned his porridge into his mouth and ignored most of the bluster. He was more convinced than ever that something was amiss on the Rig. Doctor Lambros' abrupt departure –
disappearance
– had dissuaded Drake of any lingering doubts
.
Tonight, he'd sneak away before lights out, leaving his tracker in 36C, and see what he could find. If he could make it as far as the eastern platform, perhaps Irene would be waiting.

I'll be waiting. On every fifth day at midnight. The fifth, the tenth, the fifteenth, and so on, you understand?

Irene Finlay, one of the inmates that Doctor Lambros had not been permitted to see during her counselling sessions.
Would she be there? What about her tracker?
A flutter of unease and nervousness clawed at Drake's gut, but he forced another mouthful of thick porridge down his throat. He'd need his strength tonight. It had been some months since he'd met Irene at the infirmary, and seen the insistence in her eyes about getting behind those rusted and locked doors, but Drake wanted to know more. He'd use the heating ducts or the overflow in the lower levels of Tubes, if he had to, but he was going through those doors – whether or not Irene was waiting for him.

Drake finished his breakfast and checked the time on his tracker – now nothing more than just a disguise. Coming up for
0900
and almost time to head for the exercise area. Then lessons, followed by lunch, then work in Tubes and dinner. The Rig ran like clockwork, and Drake intended to use that system to his advantage, and no one – not Storm or Brand or even Lucien Whitmore himself – would stop him.

It was the longest day Drake had spent on the Rig so far. The minutes crawled towards dusk, and his time in Tubes had never gone so slow. Drake tried to keep from staring at his tracker every two minutes, but he was anxious about tonight. So much could go wrong, but he had to know what was happening here.

Drake forced himself to eat the fish curry for dinner, if only to try and settle his nerves. After dinner, during the two hours of free time before lights out, he and Tristan headed back to their cell to prepare.

‘Okay,' Drake said, retrieving the magnetic key from within his mattress. ‘You sure you're okay with this?'

‘For the last time, yes,' Tristan said, exasperated. ‘If anyone notices, I'll just tell them I had no idea you weren't in your bunk.'

‘Good, I suppose.' Drake collected a few other items from around the room. Specifically, a thin bar of steel with a narrow, flat head – a makeshift screwdriver without the handle that he'd nicked off one of the machines down in Tubes that afternoon – and a black felt-tip marker he'd borrowed from the art supplies in the common room. It was
2030
. Only an hour before the cell doors would automatically lock for the night. Drake's plan called for them to be in the bathroom on the ninth tier of the cellblock by no later than nine.

At quarter to the hour, Drake removed his tracker and stashed it under his pillow. He didn't know how closely the security cameras were monitored, given how effective the trackers were when they couldn't be removed, but this was, perhaps, the most risky part of the plan – moving up through the cellblock without his tracker. If anyone in Control was paying particularly close attention to the cameras that night, they'd see two William Drakes. One as a GPS dot in his cell and another moving about freely.

A risk I'll have to take.

‘Ready?'

Tristan nodded, then shrugged.

‘Let's go, then.'

Feeling almost naked out on the tiers without his tracker, Drake hunched his shoulders and tried to act normal as he and Tristan ascended the platform towards the washroom on the ninth level. From there, Drake knew, the vents ran under the corridor to the centre platform – he'd studied them enough over the last few months – and represented his best chance of reaching the eastern platform.

No one intercepted them, no alarm bells rang. Drake and Tristan entered the washroom without being accosted, trying to suppress nervous grins.

‘Made it –' Tristan began.

Drake cleared his throat and pointed across the washroom. One of the stalls was occupied.

Tristan nodded and they made themselves busy, standing around the urinals until whoever was in the stall cleared out. Drake couldn't help but stare in the mirror, up to the metal vent in the ceiling positioned just over the row of sinks.

A flush of water came from the occupied stall and Emir emerged. He grunted in Drake's direction, scrubbed his hands, and left.

‘Right, then. You need to keep an eye out while I unscrew this thing.'

Tristan stepped back outside the washroom and Drake hauled himself up onto the sink underneath the vent. The sink wobbled but took his weight, though he had to bend his neck to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling. He retrieved the makeshift screwdriver from his pocket and began working on the screws holding the vent cover in place. Warm air blew into his face from the outlet, which was a good sign that the vent was connected to the heating system. The heat vents ran straight to the boiler tanks on the eastern platform, or as near as Drake could tell.

The cover was held in place with crosshead screws, and after some wiggling Drake managed to loosen the first one – just as Tristan stepped back into the bathroom.

Drake leapt down from the sink and dashed into one of the stalls. He heard the door swing open, footsteps outside in the washroom, several pairs, and then the tinkle of urine against porcelain.

‘All clear,' Tristan said a minute later and headed back outside on watch.

Drake hauled himself back up onto the sink and worked the screws loose, one at a time, slipping them into his pocket. The vent was only about half a metre wide, and Drake knew that this would be a tight fit, if he could scramble up into it at all.

The vent outlet didn't fall away, which was exactly what Drake hoped would happen. The cover was wedged in tight, which meant that with some help from Tristan, they'd be able to replace the cover over the vent once he was inside without replacing the screws. No one would notice some missing screws, but there would be questions if the entire cover was removed.

Drake slipped his hands between the vent slats and pulled gently. The cover fell away, showering him in specks of plaster and plumes of dust. Coughing, but smiling, Drake pushed the cover back over the vent. It held steady.

He stepped down from the sink again and out of the washroom, four tiny screws jingling in his pocket. Tristan was leaning against the railing of the tier, looking down over the exercise area nine floors below.

‘We're good,' Drake said, casting a glance up and down their level. ‘Quickly now, while no one's coming.'

Drake and Tristan stepped back into the bathroom and moved fast, having rehearsed this part of the plan several times in their cell last night. Back up on the sink, Drake removed the vent cover and handed it down to Tristan. Then, wasting no time, he reached up into the vent and scrambled for purchase.

Drake had picked this vent, and not the ones on the levels above or below, for a particular reason. This one only rose vertically into the ceiling for about ten centimetres before it curved horizontally. Standing on his tiptoes, on the edge of the wobbly sink, Drake could just reach the horizontal pathway with his hands. There was no way he could pull himself up, however, and that's where Tristan came in again.

Placing the vent cover on the floor, Tristan linked his hands under Drake's foot and heaved him up as high as he could. Standing at five feet and change, that wasn't very high, but it was enough for Drake to get his head and shoulders up into the vent. He sneezed as dust tickled his nose, but managed to get his elbows over the curve and onto flat metal. From there, Drake wiggled his way into the tight vent, and was surprised to find it widened by another fifteen centimetres or so once he was up and in. He couldn't turn around, not when the vent was this narrow, but he'd be able to crawl forwards.

‘It look okay?' Tristan called from below.

‘Just get the cover back on and get out of here!' Drake replied, trying to keep his voice low.

‘Right.'

Drake heard scrambling from the washroom below, as Tristan pulled himself up onto the sink with the vent cover. A moment later, after some grumbling and squeaking, Tristan said, ‘It's on. Are you good?'

‘I'm good. Just remember to be here in the morning.'

‘Got it. Be careful, Will.'

Drake heard him step down from the sink, the washroom door opened and closed, and then he was alone in the ceiling.

Dim slivers of light from the washroom below lit up the vent for about three metres ahead. Beyond that, he could make out nothing. He had ten hours or so, between now and when the cell doors would open in the morning. In another fifteen minutes it would be lights out, and no turning back.

There's already no turning back
, whispered the voice in his head.
Come on, this is the exciting part!

Drake took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he began to crawl forwards into the dark, making as little noise as possible. Tubes had more than prepared him for shuffling through narrow spaces. If anything, this vent was a treat, being devoid of muck and slime from the sea.

He rounded a curve in the vent and the darkness began to recede. Up ahead he could see more outlet vents and mesh coverings, which allowed pale light to stream in and highlight the path. After another ten metres or so, Drake came to his first crossroad. The vent veered away to the left, moving slightly down, or up and to the right.

After a moment's indecision, playing over the layout of the Rig in his mind, Drake thought that down and to the left might lead him to the transparent corridor that connected the western platform to the centre. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the felt-tip pen. As he turned left, he drew an arrow on the roof of the vent just above his head, pointing back the way he had come. Underneath this arrow, he scrawled the number ‘
1
'.

The vent widened again, so much so that Drake could turn around if he wanted, but only on his stomach. Moving past one of the overflow vents, Drake looked down and saw some of the inmates fooling around in the common room below, in the last few minutes before lights out. He was less than three metres above their heads, but they had no idea he was there.

I'm on the right track
.

Up ahead the path once again split in two directions, and Drake took the right route this time, marking the vent over his head with another arrow leading back and the number ‘
2
'. For the next half an hour or so Drake navigated the vents, trying to visualise the layout in his mind and head as far east as he could. At one point he was up and over the tiered cellblock, looking down at a drop of over fifty metres to the exercise area far below. At the next point he'd somehow gotten turned around and found one of his arrows, number ‘
7
', leading back the way he'd come.

At times the vents grew warmer, but never uncomfortably so, and once he had to spin onto his back and pull himself up through a Z-shaped bend. His jumpsuit was, at this point, covered in dust. It beat the grime and worse from down in Tubes.

Eventually Drake got to where he wanted to be.

The vent narrowed again, and he had to pull his arms ahead of himself, stretched out from head to toe, and shuffle forwards as best he could as he left the eastern platform. A mesh panel on the side of the vent showed him the underside of the clear walkway between platforms, and if he pressed his face against it, he could see the cold ocean far below.

Elated, Drake crossed, unseen and undetected, from the western platform to the centre – well and truly out of bounds.

In time he found himself over the cafeteria, after navigating a maze of familiar corridors from overhead. The dining hall was quiet and the lights dim.
Strange to see all these places empty
, Drake thought. Strange to be off the Rig's stringent schedule at all. The path diverged just ahead, straight on or down towards the left and the heart of the centre platform. In the rough blueprints he'd been keeping in his head, Drake guessed the guards' quarters were down that way.
Probably best avoided
.

Sticking primarily to vents that moved ahead or seemed to hug the outer shell of the platform, Drake crawled onwards into the night. He estimated he'd been in the vents for just over an hour when he heard muffled voices from below. Drake took a slow, deep breath and held it in. A nearby outlet vent gave him a view of Hall and Stein, two of the Rig's most hated guards after Brand, marching along a corridor Drake wasn't sure he recognised.

‘Yeah, they're going down tonight,' Stein said. ‘Warden has them all eating prime rib and caviar on the south platform now, but they're going tonight.'

‘Does Doc Elias know …' Hall trailed away, out of Drake's hearing range.

Giving it a few minutes before he moved again, Drake shuffled forwards. The next vent led down and to the right. He made his mark in black felt-tip and journeyed on. He felt a cool breeze blowing from this way and thought it might be the corridor to the eastern platform, but unless his sense of direction had failed him completely, it was more likely to be the crossing from centre to south.