Tube Riders, The (27 page)

‘I had no idea it was so bad,’ Marta said.

Ishael nodded. ‘That son-of-a-bitch has got us roped off from the rest of the world. He gives our country a dumb new name, but there’s nothing “Mega” about this failing place. It’s falling apart under his nose and the rest of the world is laughing at us. It’s apathy that’s kept Europe from intervening, or worse, razing the whole country. I guess milk-face finally ran out of money for that dumb space program he’s killing people for.’

‘You know about that?’ Paul said.

‘Yeah, we know. We don’t know why he’s sending those overweight freighters up, just to watch them hit the lower atmosphere and disintegrate, but we can guess.’

‘Europe, the States and China have fully active space programs,’ William said. ‘We think that the Governor wants a piece of the action, and a large slice at that.’

‘Or more, he wants something that’s up there, floating around.’

‘What?’

Ishael shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

Owen yawned, making William laugh. ‘Looks like the youngster’s had enough action for one day.’ Despite Owen’s loud protests, he continued, ‘We’ll find you a place to rest a little more. Meanwhile we will send some men over to the station to wait for the inevitable convoy. Maybe we can set them a trap to buy you some more time.’

‘The Huntsmen?’ Marta said.

William nodded. ‘Rolling out those beasts takes time and effort. The DCA know they have to maintain some control. Let them off the leash in the GFAs and in a couple of days there’d be no cattle left alive between here and London, but what you can be sure of is that if they’ve gone to the trouble of releasing them in the first place, they’re not going away until you’re dead.’

With that grim prediction ringing in their ears, the Tube Riders were taken back to the old changing room they’d been allowed to sleep in earlier. Marta, who’d barely slept before, felt weary beyond words.

‘Although this is our headquarters,’ one of the guards told her, ‘there are very few people who actually live here. Most of our recruits live in normal society, undercover. It’s safer that way. Sometimes, though, we have training and we congregate here.’

‘We’re very thankful,’ Marta said.

‘What happens if the Huntsmen come in the night?’ Owen asked.

The man smiled grimly. ‘We’ll post someone outside your room. You’ll probably know from the screams.’

#

Back in the meeting room, alone now, Ishael turned to William.

‘They didn’t think this out too clearly, did they?’

‘They’re just kids. They’re hurt and tired and on the run. I imagine they’ve seen a lot of death in the last few hours.’

Ishael grimaced. ‘They might have Huntsmen on their trail yet Steve brought them straight here? Strikes me as stupid.’

‘Stevie’s not dumb. He knows how easily we can vanish, empty this place, leave no trace. The Huntsmen will come in and follow the scent until it leaves again. The DCA will write this place off as just somewhere they sheltered. Remember, the Huntsmen aren’t looking for us.’

‘Can we help them? Can we get them to France?’

William shrugged. ‘It’ll be easy enough to blow a set of gates and get them out of Bristol. Where they go from there is a little more tricky. I have an idea, but it’s a long shot. You know what’s in Cornwall, don’t you?’

Ishael frowned. ‘You know that’s beyond risk.’

‘It might be our best chance. There’s no port we can get them out of.’

Ishael nodded. ‘It’s still risky.’

‘First of all we need to buy them some time.’

Ishael looked grim. ‘And in order to buy them time to get out we have to go to war. We have to go to war, William.’

The bigger man nodded. He frowned deeply, his lips tight. ‘A lot of men are going to die if we go up against the Huntsmen. It takes a lot of firepower to stop one of those monsters.’

‘A lot of men are going to die if we don’t. The question is whether the information these kids have is worth it.’

Ishael looked grim. ‘We might never know.’

‘You’re in charge. It’s your call.’

Ishael took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Okay. Send out the alert. Call the men together and get them armed. We need to have a watch on the station within the hour.’

Chapter Thirty

Darkness Rising

Dreggo still felt groggy from the drugs, but she had been given little time to recover before guards had hauled her, still shackled, out into a large, dirty room where a group of Huntsmen and their handlers waited. At first she thought this would be her fate, to be set upon by a dozen or more of the things for the amusement of the scientists and government officials who waited in a group at one end.
By God
, she thought,
I’ll take a few of them with me. The scientists, too.

Her senses were slowly coming back. She felt changed, different, and not just physically. Something had happened to her face and a metal plate now covered half of it. With her right eye she could still see normally, but when she closed it her left was like a computer screen. She could call up information just by focusing her attention on menu buttons along the top edge, while the images she saw moved differently, pixilated. It was wired it up to her neuro-transmitters, because a simple decision would alter the vision in her left eye from infra-red to night-vision to heat sensitive.

Her sense of smell was stronger too. She could almost
see
the scent trails each man in the room had left. She could tell to within seconds how long they’d been standing in each particular position, which door they’d entered through, who they had talked to while waiting for her entrance.

And it also revealed to her something else that she suspected but had not known for sure until now.

The doctor, Karmski. His scent was all over her body, strongest in her most intimate areas.

While she had lain broken and unconscious, he had raped her. And she felt certain it wasn’t the first time. His scent had a familiarity, one which she associated with all the darkest memories of her past. Those memories, she felt sure, had happened here, her transformed, unconscious body used as a plaything in dark chambers far underground, where, even if she could have made a sound, no one would have heard her cries.

‘Dreggo.’ Karmski stepped forward now, gesturing to the men around him.

‘This is Mr. Clayton, and his associate, Mr. Vincent, from the Department of Civil Affairs. I think you might have met Mr. Vincent before.’

She didn’t respond, but Karmski was right; Dreggo remembered the inept fool from St. Cannerwells Underground station, and she was disappointed to see he was still alive. Still, like the others, his time would come. They had let her live, and she fully intended to make that the worst mistake any of them could have made.

Clayton stepped forward. ‘Dreggo,’ he said, her name sounding awkward on his lips. ‘I am Leland Clayton, Commander in Chief of the Department of Civil Affairs. I’m sure you’re wondering what is going on here.’

‘No,’ she growled, and immediately realised her voice sounded different. Running her tongue over her teeth, it felt strangely synthetic. The Huntsman must have torn it out or bitten part of it off. They had repaired her well, but she felt less human than she had before; the memories of the girl she had once been were distant now, like faded photographs.

His voice sharpened. ‘Well, we have decided that, rather than let you die from your wounds or simply killing you for interrupting a government investigation, you can be of some use to us.’

‘Why would I help you?’

‘Because we want the same thing. We both want the Tube Riders dead.’

‘Who says I want them dead?’

Clayton smiled. ‘Vincent told me about your grand entrance. He told me what you said. But neither he nor I believe you had any intention of aiding the Tube Riders. You just wanted to get close enough to kill them yourself.’

Dreggo actually smiled. The synthetic part of her face felt strange, alien. ‘I guess we’ll never know now, will we?’

‘We don’t care for your reasons,’ Clayton said. ‘But we’re going to give you another chance, while at the same time doing a job for us. You will lead the Huntsmen in pursuit of the Tube Riders.’

She glared at him. ‘Now, why would I do that?’

‘Because you want them dead, and we want them dead, but the Huntsmen are a law unto themselves.’ He smiled. ‘We want to try to keep the death toll down, if we can.’

‘Why not just send me alone?’

‘The Tube Riders managed to escape five Huntsmen, our own DCA agents, and, um,’ –here he coughed a little– ‘yourself. We want no more mistakes. We sent five Huntsmen before, one of which is now dead. This time we are sending twenty. You will act as their guide. Think of them as beetles inside a piece of drainpipe. We want them to get to the other end, we’re just letting you hold the pencil that guides them.’

‘I don’t think you heard me,’ she spat. ‘Why would I ever help you?’

Karmski stepped forward. ‘Because you have no choice.’

‘I have every choice,’ she said, eyes boring into his, wanting him to fall to the ground, wanting him to die.

Karmski laughed. ‘Ah, my beautiful Dreggo. You have no choice at all, my dear. When we fixed you up, we left a little chip inside your head. One to make sure you do as you’re told.’

Dreggo glared at him. ‘So set it off. Do it! Kill me.’

Karmski looked surprised. ‘
Kill
you? Don’t be ridiculous! What fear do you have of death after all that’s happened to you? Something of a relief it would be, wouldn’t it?’

Dreggo frowned.

‘It won’t kill you, my dear. But it’s attached to the neuro-receptors in your spine. If we activate it, it’ll just hurt like God himself has struck you. And we’ll keep doing it until you start to obey. Of course, it’ll kill you eventually, but all the nerve tissue in your body will have to fall apart first.’

‘You wouldn’t–’

Dreggo screamed as a surging white heat race up her spine. She arched her back, her legs collapsing under her as a sensation like a thousand scalding needles exploded across her body.

Then as quick as it had come it was gone. Dreggo found herself lying on the floor, the residue of pain fading away like water drying on her skin. Two guards stepped forward and hauled her up to her feet. Her back felt scrunched up like an old cloth, leaving her only able to stand hunched over as she gasped for air.

‘Sorry about that,’ Karmski said. ‘But we felt it best you know exactly what we’re talking about. It has higher settings. Oh, and I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you it kind of cramps up the muscles a little. I guess it feels like you’ve run a marathon now, right?’

Dreggo glared at him. ‘I’ll kill you one day,’ she muttered, spit rolling down her chin, her mouth as numb as the rest of her body.

‘I love cooperation,’ Karmski said with a grin.

‘What do I get from this?’ Dreggo said, turning to Clayton.

‘Aside from staying alive? You leave the Tube Riders dead, and you get to go free. That’s it.’

‘Where?’

‘Anywhere you please. The GFAs, Scotland. Wales? We’ll give you enough money to buy a small house in a remote area and an allowance to live on. What you don’t seem to understand is that the government rewards those who work for it. It’s a shame we had to persuade you to take the job.’

‘Okay,’ she said, relenting, accepting she had no choice. ‘Tell me when I start.’

‘Good,’ Clayton said, smiling. ‘You start right now.’

Dreggo looked towards the cluster of Huntsmen at the other end of the room. Most of them looked sedate, drugged. She wondered how she was supposed to control them when the modifications had left them little more than extremely dangerous and slightly rabid animals.

Whatever, she thought. Her priority wasn’t with the Huntsmen, but with finding a way to free herself from the chip inside her, and then to find a way to take revenge on Karmski and his brethren. She didn’t know how she would do it, only that somehow she would.

#

Clayton waited until they were out of the building before he pulled Vincent aside.

‘Vincent, I need a quick word,’ he said, walking away towards the rear of the building.

‘Sure, what is it?’

‘Just follow me a minute.’

Clayton waited until he had turned the corner and was out of sight of his driver. Then he took a deep breath. As Vincent followed him around the corner, Clayton stepped backwards, swung his elbow up and slammed it into Vincent’s face. With a grunt of pain and surprise Vincent dropped to his knees, hands clutching at his face. Clayton swung round and kicked him hard in the stomach. Vincent grunted again and rolled on to his side.

‘What – wait–’

Clayton pulled his gun and knelt beside Vincent. He pressed the barrel to Vincent’s forehead, and the younger man’s bloody face stared up at him in horror. Clayton flicked back the hammer.

‘Leland, wait, don’t–’

Clayton pulled the trigger. Vincent gasped as an empty click sounded. Clayton smiled.

‘Go above me again and I’ll kill you,’ he said, voice barely above a whisper. His eyes narrowed, as hard as they’d ever been.

Vincent spat blood out of his mouth. The fear in his eyes told Clayton that Vincent understood.

‘I thought–’

‘I gave you a little rope and you hanged yourself. Every single order you give goes past me first from now on. I know you think getting the Governor’s favours will get you my job. What your back-stabbing, sniveling ass doesn’t realise is that when you fuck up I have to take the flack, and the Governor’s disappointment is not something any man should have to face.’

Clayton stepped back, then reached down and hauled Vincent to his feet. Vincent pulled a cloth from his pocket and dabbed at his nose, not looking at Clayton.

‘A word of warning,’ Clayton said, voice still low. ‘Don’t get too power-hungry. The Governor has all the power, and he doesn’t want to give much of it up. Enjoy what you have and be happy with it. Now clean yourself up and I’ll see you at Paddington at six, ready to move out. I trust you can find your own way back?’

Vincent, who had come with Clayton and wasn’t sure where they were, nodded. Right now, he probably just wanted to be alone.

‘Good.’ Clayton stalked off around the building.

#

Vincent waited until Clayton was out of sight. He listened for the sound of a car door opening and closing, then a starting engine, and finally the sound of the vehicle moving off at speed.

As the sound of the car faded, Vincent sat down against the wall and dabbed at his nose again. During his training he’d been taught how to reset breaks and dislocations, and now he reached up and gripped his nose, feeling a little give where the bone had cracked. Counting down from three, he shoved it back into place, his eyes filling with tears.

He thought that the scream he let out might have been heard by the Huntsmen, ten levels or more underground.

Clayton, you’re a bastard
, he thought.
This isn’t over
.