Tube Riders, The (23 page)

Phil’s mouth dropped open, his eyes widened. Growing up on the street had taught Switch many things, and one of them was that while cutting someone else was hard, cutting yourself was far harder. An adversary willing to cut him or herself was one to be feared.

The ruse worked. ‘What do you want?’ the driver said. ‘I have a wife, kids…’

‘The handbrake.’

Phil moved his hand slowly, pointing to a red handle. Switch felt a certain satisfaction in that it was the one he had guessed on.

‘Release it.’

The man did so.

‘The engine.’

‘Here.’

‘Start it.’

The driver hesitated just a moment, and Switch pushed the blade a little tighter. Phil turned the ignition and the roar of engines sounded all around them.

Switch smiled. ‘Thank you for your cooperation.’ Before the driver could reply, he made a dummy feint with the second knife. Phil jerked backwards, and Switch kicked out, causing the man to overbalance. Phil stumbled backwards down the steps on to the platform.

Switch pulled the door shut. As the train started to move, he heard shouting from outside. Back along the platform came the terrible grinding sound of wooden doors scraping on the tiles, the crash of overturning freight crates mixing with angry shouts. He only hoped the diversion would work long enough for the others to get away.

He glanced out through the driver’s window. People were running along the platform towards the front of the train. He saw the driver back there too. Now the knife was gone from his throat, the man had recovered some of his courage and was leading several other workers and security guards in a pursuit of the runaway train.

Switch was pleased. He was drawing them off; perhaps they thought he was alone. He hoped the others were safe.

He moved across the cab and looked out through the passenger side window. He saw more men running towards him from this side too. The train was barely moving at ten miles an hour and without any knowledge of its operation playing with the buttons and levers might cause it to stop rather than speed up. He was keeping in front of them, but only just, and if he tried to get out he risked being caught, or worse, shot.

‘Bugger it…’

He grabbed his clawboard, kicked open the door and swung himself up on to the metal roof of the cab. He walked in a crouch for a few feet then dropped flat on his belly, out of sight of the men on the platform. The metal felt warm to the touch and the heat made the wound in his side ache.

He lifted his head to look back, long enough to see several men still in full pursuit of the train as it rolled towards the end of the station. Behind them all, though, he saw the other Tube Riders running across the station, jumping over the tracks like a group of leaping deer.

He’d given them the chance they needed, and as he watched, one by one they vanished down a stairway near to a set of rusting ticket gates that had once fed passengers into the station. Marta was the last, and as she reached the stairs she looked back across the station towards him, lifted her hand and waved. He knew he had to find a way to follow.

He looked back towards the front of the train and found he had another problem. The line came to an end a few hundred yards further on, but blocking the way was another stationary locomotive. He was heading for a collision.

Switch looked up. Where the station building ended, an electricity wire hung from the highest eaves, stretching inwards towards a small building in the centre of the station that had antennae and aerials on its roof. If he could catch it with his clawboard, he could swing right over the chasing men, drop down and have a head start on them heading for the stairway. The only problem was that it was fifteen feet over his head.

Switch smiled. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a coil of climbing rope: thin, strong nylon. He had armed himself well before leaving London, not just with knives and other weapons, but with several other small objects that he thought might come in handy.

He tied it to one strap of his clawboard and then stood up in full view of his pursuers. One or two men had reached the cab and were trying to get a handhold to climb up. The train was still moving steadily, and they were running out of platform.

‘Oi, you!’

‘There’s the bastard!’

Switch threw the clawboard up into the air, above and over the electricity wire. As he caught it on its way back down and pulled the rope taut, he could only hope the wire would hold his weight. The wire across the street where Marta and he had escaped from the Huntsman had held both of them, but this one looked a lot thinner.

He wrapped the rope around his wrists and then sprinted back along the top of the train. At the end of the locomotive the wire began to angle away from the platform, so Switch jumped, the rope sliding along the wire and taking him above the heads of the men. One or two turned to give chase but he was gaining speed, the wire holding firm and beginning to angle more steeply down.

Behind him he heard a thundering crash and turned back to see the cab collide with the stationary locomotive. It toppled over on to its side, the next few carriages hanging at decreasing angles until the weight of the train load took over. People were running in all directions, shouting for security, for firemen, and for someone to catch Switch.

Twenty feet before he reached the small building at the end of the wire, he unhooked the rope from his wrists and dropped to the ground, pulling the rope down and wrapping it into a quick bundle around his clawboard. His heart was racing with exhilaration and sweat was beading on his forehead.

He glanced back and saw three men rushing towards him, still a hundred feet away but closing. In front of him was the stairway, across one more set of tracks. As he watched, Marta’s head appeared from the shadows. ‘Switch!’ she shouted. ‘Look out!’

He guessed she meant the men, but as he took a couple of steps towards the set of tracks separating him from her, he saw another cargo train rushing into the station.

It was moving too fast to stop; it had to be a through-train, heading on to another station further into the city.

Looking far up the platform, he couldn’t see the far end as the trucks continued to flow into the station.

It had cut him off. There was no way to get to Marta, and he couldn’t outrun three men, not with his injury.

One hand fell to his knife. He glanced back. They were big, burly men who probably knew how to brawl, maybe even work a blade. One, maybe two, he’d have a chance, but three–

He looked back towards the train and gripped his clawboard, his decision made. Riding the trains was his life, he would let the train claim him rather than the men.

As the train roared past he sprinted towards it.

Cargo trucks didn’t always have a drainage rail, but he saw one coming that did. He timed his run and leapt just as the truck came level with him, his clawboard out.

A second later and he would have missed it, hitting the truck behind which had no rail, but his timing was perfect. His clawboard caught the truck’s rail, just a couple of feet short of the end. He slid a few inches but used his feet to brace himself. Shouts came from the men behind him as he slipped his left hand free from the clawboard and gripped the rail with his fingers. Shouts of anger and surprise rose from behind him as he kicked off at the same time as he pulled, flicking his body over on to the roof of the train.

He rolled, started to stop, and then pushed himself onwards, rolling across the top of the train and off the other side.

He heard Marta screaming for him as he fell through the air, twisted and landed hard on the concrete. He gasped for breath and struggled to get up as the train rushed by, his wound sending daggers of pain up through his chest.

Then hands grabbed his shoulders and back, and he looked up to see Paul and Marta hauling him up.

‘Excellent job,’ Paul said, wrapping Switch’s arm around his shoulders and dragging him towards the stairway. Marta grabbed his clawboard and hurried after them.

Air slowly filtered back into his lungs as they descended the steps into a dusty pedestrian underpass. From the bottom of the stairs, Owen shouted encouragement.

‘We’ve found a way out,’ Marta said. ‘There’s a door into an old underground parking garage. We can get out into the city through there.’

‘Quick, this way,’ Owen said. The door beside him opened on to darkness.

‘Look!’ Paul said. ‘Those men found another way down!’ He pointed. The three men who had been chasing Switch were running towards them from the far end of the pedestrian underpass.

Marta pushed Switch through the opening. As Owen and Paul went through she dragged the door shut behind them.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The parking garage was vast, stretching away beneath the station. One or two rusty, long-abandoned hulks stood wheel-less in the dark.

She squinted. There, far across the parking garage, was the bright glimmer of an exit.

Owen was fiddling with the lock. ‘There, that should hold them until they get something to break it with. I’ve jammed it.’

Marta took a second to breathe. ‘Okay, we’ve made it this far. So far, so good. Now, Tube Riders, run!’

They sprinted off across the empty parking garage together.

Chapter Twenty-Six

White Rage

Clayton felt that familiar sense of foreboding as he walked down the corridor to the Governor’s chambers. The eyes of the upturned past political leaders seemed to be staring at him, the reversed mouths downturned in distaste.

The Governor was standing by the window as usual, his back to Clayton. One arm rested on the tinted glass. Clayton quietly closed the door behind him and stood there, looking at the floor, unsure whether it was wise to break the Governor out of his reverie.

After a few moments the Governor shifted slightly. One finger tapped against the glass, causing a dull thud. ‘Look at it, Mr. Clayton,’ the Governor said, not turning around. His voice took on a musing, wistful air. ‘The mess we made…’

‘Sir–’

‘Agricultural production in the southern GFAs is up six percent on last year, four percent in the north,’ the Governor said. ‘And in Scotland and Wales, the fisheries are working at closer to ten. Our great wind farms are producing more electricity than ever. We have problems in one or two of the GUAs, but production is still good in the south, industry good in the north. Most people are…’ He paused, choosing his word carefully. ‘Content.’

‘I–’

‘But here, in London, in our once glorious capital, crouching shamefully in the shadow of our pioneering space program, anarchy rules.’

Clayton said nothing. He had sensed a tightening of the Governor’s voice, and thought that to interrupt again might mean death.

‘There are many ways to improve a failing situation, Mr. Clayton. The use of force, for example, crushing the opposition with tanks and bombs. But equally powerful can be persuasion, or manipulation. All can achieve similar results. None, however, work as well as one extremely simple, often overlooked action. Do you know what that is?’

Clayton opened his mouth to answer, but the Governor cut him off. ‘
Generosity
. Give, and people respond. Give them what they want, and they will give what you require in return without question. Yourself, for example. When the government doubled your salary, Mr. Clayton, did it not make you happy? We gave you what you wanted, and in return you gave us what we wanted. You followed our orders without question, regardless of what you might consider
moral
, and you achieved the results we required…’

Clayton’s mouth was dry, but he managed to mutter, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Hmm. Until now, don’t you think?’ The Governor turned. Clayton took a step back as those red eyes bored through his own. The Governor continued, ‘With the Huntsmen in range, you called them off. Didn’t you?’

Clayton, of course, had done no such thing. Vincent was responsible for the order to halt the Huntsmen as the Tube Riders headed back to St. Cannerwells, slipping behind Clayton’s back to further his own ambitions, and then hiding behind his senior officer when things hadn’t gone to plan. Clayton wanted to expose Vincent and see him rot in the torture chambers beneath Dr. Karmski’s research facility, but he knew that protesting his own innocence would achieve nothing. As senior officer, he was responsible for the acts of his men. If he left this room with his life he promised himself that his score with Vincent would be settled privately.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said, hanging his head, unable to meet that gaze. ‘I thought–’

‘You are paid to
do
as ordered, Mr. Clayton, not to
think
.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The Governor reached out for a standing lamp just in front of him and in one astonishing show of strength flung it hard across the room. It struck a shelf unit and smashed, the glass shattering, the wooden shelves cracking and collapsing, unloading their books and ornaments on to the floor. Clayton shrank back as the Governor advanced across the room.

‘Sir, I – it won’t happen again–’

Ten feet from Clayton the Governor’s face jerked upwards towards the ceiling, the fiery red eyes revealing white undersides. Clayton felt his feet slip out from under him and suddenly he was lying on his back, his head not far from the door, his feet scrabbling at the carpet as the Governor advanced. Clayton was disorientated, but one thing was certain above everything else:

The Governor hadn’t touched him
.

He looked up at the Governor standing over him, red eyes like two cherries in a churning bowl of milk. The thick lips and high cheekbones of his face were blankly emotionless, the eyes alone carrying the threat of pain and suffering. Clayton gasped as one hand reached down, ice cold fingers closing about his neck.

For a second he couldn’t breathe, and then he was upright again, pressed back against the door. The Governor let go of him, and Clayton stumbled, unaware his feet had been off the ground. He stared at the Governor’s chest, too terrified to look the man in the eyes.

‘Negotiations have opened with the European Confederation,’ the Governor said in that dark chocolate voice, like an old cassette tape playing on weak batteries. ‘We have filed a report concerning the ambassador’s unfortunate death. We have made a case for certain trade routes to reopen, and in the meanwhile the provision of financial aid to allow us to reduce the poverty in London GUA. Negotiations are going well.’ He paused, his eyes falling to the ground. His mouth shifted as though he were chewing on something, and he frowned, thick white eyebrows descending like snow drifts on his eyes. ‘We created the mess, Mr. Clayton, and we have created the means by which to solve it. One man’s death for an entire city? The ambassador died for a noble cause, Mr. Clayton. If we receive the financial aid we requested from the European Confederation, his death will not have been in vain. His death would have been one of valour, honour, resulting in the saving of hundreds of lives. Do you want your stupidity to jeopardize that?’

‘I’m sorry, sir–’

The Governor ignored him. ‘Neither do I. If it happens again, Mr. Clayton, I will not be so generous with you as I have been this time. Now, I know you came here to request my authorization for the Huntsmen to be released outside of London GUA in the continued search for these street kids you call the Tube Riders. And my answer is this, Mr. Clayton: you do what you have to do to safeguard the future of our nation. Those kids have knowledge that could bring our nation to its knees. And I will not jeopardize that. I understand the danger of the Huntsmen, but understand this: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Do what must be done, Mr. Clayton, to stop the Tube Riders.’

Clayton managed a weak nod. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Now, get out.’

Clayton didn’t wait to be asked twice, bowing and stealing a quick glance at the smashed lamp before pulling the door shut and hurrying down the corridor past the immobile guards and the dozens of upturned photograph portraits. He ignored the questions of the reception staff and headed straight for the elevator.

Downstairs in the lobby, a security guard announced that a car was waiting for him, but Clayton walked past him without acknowledgement. He headed through the reception area and down a small corridor at the back, into the men’s restrooms. Spotlessly clean and smelling of peaches, he walked to the end stall and went inside. He locked the door, dropped the seat and sat down.

For a long time he just sat there with his forehead pressed against the back of the door, going over his confrontation with the Governor again and again. He couldn’t find the words, couldn’t make sense of what had happened, couldn’t comprehend the scale of the danger he had faced. Guns, bombs, even the Huntsmen, they were man-made, they were comprehendible. But the Governor … the albino monster possessed something else.

A lot of rumours circulated in the cesspit illegal bars and gambling dens of London GUA. But, like the legend of the Tube Riders, most were simple speculation, something small built up over a lengthening string of drunken conversations into something grand.

The rumours about the Governor, however, that he had some kind of unexplainable strength, that he had abilities and powers that no other human had, were beginning to manifest themselves in Clayton’s mind as truth.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but there, in the darkness where he’d hidden so many times, all he could see was that menacing milk-white face and those glowing red eyes.