Tube Riders, The (43 page)

Paul, recovering his composure, shook his head. He gave a wry smile. ‘I knew that ruse would come in handy someday. They’re fakes. I’ve never needed them. Signs of vulnerability came in handy in my line of work.’

Switch grinned. ‘Sly bastard. I’m impressed.’

‘Yeah.’ Paul was staring at Kelly’s corpse.

‘Get up,’ Switch said, nudging Matt with his foot. ‘Get back against the wall, hands in the air.’

The man did as he was told. ‘Look,’ he pleaded. ‘Don’t kill me, okay? I’ve got kids. Take whatever money you can find, take the guns, the jeep, whatever. Just don’t hurt me.’

‘We need you to open the gate,’ Switch said. ‘We need to get inside.’

Matt’s eyes widened. ‘What the hell do you want to do that for? You do know what kind of people live in there?’

Switch lifted the gun. ‘That’s our business.’ He cocked the rifle with an efficient flick of his finger, like a veteran assassin lining up another kill. ‘My friend here has a conscience; just look how he reacted to killing your friend. But I don’t. I’ll kill you like a pig without a second thought.’ He took a step forward. ‘Your choice,’ he said.

‘In the control room,’ Matt said, one shaking arm lifting towards the door.

‘Take us there. And remember, move too quick and you’re fucking dead. We’ll find it ourselves.’

Matt moved off down the corridor, hands still in the air. ‘Get the others,’ Switch told Paul. ‘Bring them up here.’ He turned back towards Matt, who had reached a door further down the corridor. The guard looked back. ‘In here, all right?’

‘Go inside. Slowly.’

#

Paul glanced back at the bodies on the floor behind him as Switch followed after Matt. Ray’s body did little to him, but at the sight of Kelly his legs turned to jelly and he had to grip the edge of a table for support.

He had killed her.

He’d never killed anyone before. A bluffer not a fighter, he’d kept himself and Owen alive using whatever means he could to keep them fed and safe. Never before had he aimed a gun at someone with the intent to kill. Even if he’d missed, his heart would have hung heavy, but with Kelly dead, it was far worse. He felt like someone had driven a bore down through his spine and ripped out his soul. All he wanted to do was lie down and close his eyes, but he didn’t have time. Switch needed help, and the demons in his head were nothing compared to those on their trail.

Outside, the cool air felt sticky against his face. Paul found himself gasping for breath, his hands on his knees. Looking up through eyes blurring with tears, he saw a group of people running towards him.

‘Paul?’ Marta said. ‘Paul, are you all right?’

‘Where are your specs, bro?’

Paul squeezed his eyes shut and wiped a hand across his face. He thought of all those who had died because of them, and all those who might die yet.
Their lives won’t be wasted. They can’t be
.

‘We killed two guards,’ he said. ‘We took a third prisoner. Switch is getting him to open the gates.’

‘Where?’ Ishael asked.’

‘Go around the back and in through the garage.’

Ishael hurried off, followed by Reeder. Paul forced a smile. ‘I lost my glasses,’ he said to the others. ‘Never really needed them, so doesn’t matter anyway.’

Marta gave him a strange look.
I’ve actually impressed her,
he thought.

He glanced at the building, just as a muffled gunshot came from inside. Reeder hadn’t yet reached the building, but they stopped and looked at each other.

Marta started after them. ‘Oh God, Switch–’

They heard a door slam. Paul felt at his waist for his gun, but somewhere he must have lost it. ‘Get cover–’

‘Hey.’

‘Switch!’

The little man stood behind them all, around the front of the building. ‘The main entrance is around this way. Quickly, we need to load up their food and weapons.’

‘The gate?’ Reeder said.

‘I know the controls. It’ll be open shortly.’

‘Where’s the guard?’ Paul asked.

Switch’s eyes were hard as he said, ‘No loose ends.’

Paul gulped.

None of the others said anything as Switch went back inside. Paul exchanged a glance with Marta, whose bottom lip was trembling. Jess looked as cold as Switch. Carl and Owen just looked tired.

After a few moments they turned and headed back towards the Land Rover in the forest, leaving Switch alone to operate the gate. As Paul climbed up into the back with Owen and Carl they heard a low humming noise. The Land Rover’s engine covered it for a few seconds until they were out of the woods and moving up the slope to the checkpoint.

The gate stood open. Switch was outside, the rifle in his hands. Reeder pulled up alongside him and leaned out. ‘Jump in.’

Switch shook his head. ‘I’ll close the gate then bust up the lock mechanism. It’ll buy us some time.’

‘Switch, no!’ Marta said. ‘The fence is electric. There’s no way through!’

He grinned at her, his eye twitching furiously. ‘I’ll find a way,’ he said.

The jeep was already waiting on the other side of the gate. Switch had moved it. All he had to do was get over somehow.

‘We’ll wait for you,’ Marta said.

‘No.’ Switch leaned into the Land Rover and put a hand on Ishael’s arm. ‘You lead them. Don’t wait. There’s no time.’

Ishael looked around at the others. ‘There’s no telling what state the tunnel might be in, even if we can find the entrance. We have to go.’

Switch looked at Marta. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.’

Before she could reply, he stepped back and waved the vehicle forward. As they passed through the gates Paul turned to look back. Switch briefly raised a hand, then turned and jogged back towards the checkpoint building.

Switch, always the hero. Paul’s stomach felt knotted. He wondered if perhaps this time his friend had taken on one feat too many. Simon was gone, a loss that Paul was still trying to comprehend. Jess was grieving, Marta too, but Paul hadn’t had time to think about it properly. He thought if he lost Switch as well, his mind might just go into shutdown.

Turning away from the gate as though it were the grave of a long lost relative, Paul closed his eyes as the Land Rover bumped over the uneven surface of the field.

#

Switch watched from around a corner of the checkpoint building until the Land Rover was out of sight. Then he made his way back into the control room.

Matt, the last of the three guards, was tied to a chair, feet secured to the chair legs, hands tied tight behind him. Switch hadn’t bothered with a gag.

Above them, a light fitting hung loose on its wire, having come unstuck when Switch fired a shot into the ceiling.

‘We’ll wait five minutes,’ Switch said, undoing the cord that bound Matt’s hands. ‘We have that long. Then you will open the gate long enough for me to pass through. Once I’m through you will close it again. If it doesn’t happen within one minute of it opening I will come back in here and I will find you and fucking kill you. Do not try to trick me. You are alive now only because I want you to be.’

The man looked up at him. ‘Why pretend? They think I’m dead, don’t they?’

Switch cocked his head. ‘I find it difficult to trust,’ he said, his voice never losing the icy, sharp tone that threatened to kill wantonly and at random. ‘Sometimes, it’s better for people to believe you are dead.’

‘I won’t tell a soul,’ Matt said. ‘I’ll tell them someone operated the gate then went out. I don’t know what happened.’

Switch ignored his pleas. ‘I need to seal the gate from the other side. How do I do that?’

‘There’s a manual operation switch to the right of the gate once you’re through. You need a pass card to open the control box.’

‘I’ll take the woman’s.’

‘Inside is a control panel. Bust that up and the gate is stuck. There’s an override in the basement, but it’ll take time to find. Who’s chasing you, man?’

‘If you stay alive you’ll find out. I’m quite happy to kill you, though, if you’re scared.’ Switch cocked the rifle and held it up towards Matt’s head.

‘No, man, no! I’m sorry I asked, really sorry! I’m just an honest guy trying to earn a living.’

‘Another reason you’re still fucking breathing.’ Switch put a hand on Matt’s shoulder and leaned close, speaking quietly straight into Matt’s ear. ‘But cross me and I’ll find you. My friends might be nice people, but deep down inside I’m an evil little shit and I’ll quite happily cut your fucking face off.’

‘I won’t! I promise.’

‘Good. Now, it’s time.’

Switch pushed Matt’s chair closer to the controls. ‘When it’s done, free yourself. The bonds are loose enough. I recommend you start running as soon as you can. Any direction is good. The people following me aren’t as generous as I am.’

He grinned and went out of the control room, leaving Matt to operate the gate controls. On the way out he took the woman’s wallet from her pocket and fingered through it for her ID card as he walked down the corridor. Just as he got outside he saw the gate swing slowly open. Good, Matt had kept his word. Switch walked through to the other side, and stood out of the way while he waited for the gate to close, swinging shut in a lazy arc.

Switch went to the door control box and used Kelly’s card to open the outer panel. As soon as it opened, he lifted the rifle and fired one shot into the middle of the small keypad. He ducked his head away as it exploded with a crackle and a cloud of dust.

He glanced back at the building as he walked to the jeep. Matt didn’t come outside, which was just as well, because Switch really was feeling in the mood for tying up loose ends. It was best that Matt stayed out of sight.

He slipped the key into the ignition and turned the jeep west, following the tracks left by the Land Rover in the soft, wet grass of the hillside.

Chapter Fifty-One

Vengeance

‘My God, Clayton, what the hell is that? What are they doing?’

Clayton’s land cruiser bumped down the lane towards Fence Checkpoint Two in the valley below. The checkpoint itself was a low squat building nestled up against a tall fence that stretched out of sight in either direction. What had caught Dreggo’s attention, however, was the raised monorail line that led along the valley floor and up to it, ran alongside it for a short way, then ducked back on itself and followed the same route back among the sparse trees of the valley floor.

At regular intervals of perhaps a few hundred feet, small ore-transporting trucks rode up to the fence, slowed as they came alongside, and then tipped sideways, emptying their contents over the fence on to the ground below.

The smell was astonishing. The pungent stench of rotting food hung like a veil over everything, as thick as foam.

‘How the fuck do they stand it?’ Dreggo said, glancing across at Clayton, who looked grim. She patted his knee, digging her nails into the cloth, feeling smug. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure you get used to it.’

She knew her heightened sense of smell made it worse, but it was strong just the same. Clayton looked just moments away from vomiting. And over her neuro-sensors she could feel the Huntsmen growing into a frenzy.

Feeding time.

The fence and the huge trash pile had obscured their view, but as they climbed out of the truck a couple of hundred feet from the checkpoint, she was able to see the activity on the other side of the fence for the first time.

A horde of what she could only describe as human detritus crowded around the pyramid of waste, pulling the rubbish away, stuffing the rotten foodstuffs into their mouths, filling bags and primitive wooden carts with anything else they could carry. A steady stream of them trailed to and from the fence, half-human creatures staggering back and forth like zombies. And as Dreggo watched, every so often one would just stop, drop whatever it was carrying, and slump down into a crouch, head hung forward.

‘Good God, so it’s true after all. I never quite believed it,’ Clayton said, coming to stand beside her. ‘This is where they bring all Mega Britain’s crap,’ Clayton told her. ‘Human and otherwise.’

Dreggo had never heard of this place. ‘This is an utter abomination,’ she muttered.

Clayton didn’t appear to have heard her. ‘The result of every failed government experiment, be it gene-splicing, mind-alteration, cryogenic, carbon fiber enhancement,
anything
, on human, animal or plant, gets brought here. And then we load up all our waste and bring it here to feed them.’

‘You knew about this?’

‘I’d heard of its existence, but I never quite realised the extent of it. I’ve never had reason to come here though. Few people do.’

Dreggo stared at the side of his face until he turned to face her. ‘I can
hear
them,’ she said. ‘In my mind. Whatever your bastard scientists put inside me, it’s in some of them too.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. There are a lot of bad prototypes wandering around in there I imagine, many as deadly as the Huntsmen but with even less control.’

‘I can feel their anger and hatred. If we go in there they’ll kill us all.’

Clayton pointed. ‘You see those over there? The ones sitting on the ground?’

‘Yes?’

‘The people in there are known as Mistakes. Most of them suffer from brain damage caused by whatever happened to them in the research labs. They can be dangerous, but studies made by researchers down here say that they won’t usually attack without provocation. Most of the more dangerous burn themselves out within days of being put inside. They either fight until something stronger kills them, starve to death, or die of exposure. Those that survive are more docile. They only attack when disturbed. It’s our bad luck that those fucking kids disabled the gate at Fence Checkpoint Three, but short of going another twenty miles north this is our only choice. With luck they’ll be distracted by the dumping ground and we can slip past them.’

Earlier, Clayton had been fuming when they found the gate at Fence Checkpoint Three inoperable and two guards dead. Another guard was missing. Worse was that Clayton himself had been forced to call the Governor and rearrange the rendezvous, leaving yet another black mark on his record.

Dreggo had asked why the DCA didn’t just cut a hole in the fence. Clayton had stared at her with disbelief and then asked how she’d like to have several thousand half-finished Huntsmen wandering through the GFAs.

Clayton shrugged. ‘Don’t worry, once we’re over the hill we should be away from the worst of them. Then it’s your job to keep us safe.’

‘You’d know I’d never do that by choice,’ Dreggo said with a thin smile.

‘Then it’s a good job you have none.’

They were interrupted by a nearby agent, who greeted Clayton with a salute and pointed back up the road down which they had come. They turned to look. A long black car moved slowly down the potholed track. Its windscreen and side windows were blacked out too, leaving the car so dark that it seemed to suck the light from the pale morning sun.

Judgment day
, Dreggo wanted to quip, but her mouth had gone dry and no sound would come. She glanced at Clayton and saw his hands were shaking. A single bead of sweat made a trail down the side of his face.

The car pulled up in the shade of some trees behind their convoy and stopped. The engine cut out. There was a hum of a fan working somewhere, and then it too stopped. A few slow seconds passed, then the front doors opened and two suited men got out. One went to the back and opened a rear door, saying something they couldn’t hear to the person inside.

Dreggo flinched as the Governor, the man on whose dreams and ambitions Mega Britain had been built, climbed out of the car and stood up straight in the shadows below the trees. He was far taller than any normal man, perhaps taller even than the Huntsmen, and beneath the black suit he wore his body was thick with muscle. He turned towards them, his movements slow and languid, his paper-white face expressionless.

‘Clayton,’ he said as his gaze found them, his chocolaty deep voice floating across the wet, dewy grass. Dreggo knew in that moment that everything Clayton had told her about this man was true, that he harbored a power beyond understanding, be it of the body or the mind. Beneath his blood-red gaze she had an overwhelming urge to drop her eyes and kneel. She knew, as Clayton did, that this was the man who controlled everything, that the so-called government ministers were just puppets to do his bidding, that the elections, held every few years, were merely for show. Even the mock parliamentary debates were merely a way of narrowing and refining policies which were then submitted to the Governor, the immovable Head of State. Whatever uncertainties existed about the set-up of Mega Britain’s government, one thing was beyond any doubt: this man ruled.

The Governor glanced left and right as he trod carefully towards them across the grass, keeping to the shadows where possible. A low mist hung in the valley below them but the sun still shone overhead, and on one occasion where its light passed across his face, Dreggo saw his expression tighten, his eyes narrow, his mouth curl into a slight grimace. As he looked up towards it, he seemed to be issuing a challenge, that for whatever pain it caused his skin he would not back down, that he was a man prepared to fight even the sun itself.

The two guards who flanked him wore belts heavy with guns and stun weapons, but Dreggo knew they were as unnecessary as her thoughts of ambushing this man were foolish. Power emanated from him thicker than the mist, and Dreggo knew there was no one present who could touch him, not Clayton’s men, nor the Huntsmen she commanded.

About five feet away the Governor stopped, standing in the last vestiges of shadow. His eyes flicked from one to the other, his face once again expressionless. His head tilted back, and his big nostrils flared, sucking in the stench around them.

‘This place stinks like the gate into Hell itself,’ the Governor said at last. His lips parted in a small smile which he aimed at Dreggo. Then, looking at Clayton, he said, ‘I was wondering why you haven’t had the gates opened yet.’

Clayton didn’t bother to argue against what wasn’t a question. Instead he nodded at the nearest agent and barked a quick command. The man rushed off.

‘Sir, we’re happy that you could be here,’ Clayton said, ‘to watch the capture and death of the fugitives in person.’

The Governor cocked his head a fraction. ‘It’s time to end this game of cat and mouse, Mr. Clayton. And it seems, in your incompetence, that I will have to do it myself.’

‘Sir, I can assure you–’

‘Few people see my anger twice, Mr. Clayton,’ the Governor said, and Clayton fell silent. ‘Maybe one of these …
children
… would like your job, since they seem so much more capable than you.’ Before Clayton could speak again, the Governor said, ‘Perhaps you should check on the work of your men.’ Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, ‘While you still can.’

Clayton ducked his head and without another word he hurried off towards the checkpoint. Dreggo could almost smell his relief.

The Governor glanced at his guards. ‘Help him,’ he commanded them, and wordlessly they turned to follow Clayton.

Dreggo faced the Governor, her eyes trying to hold his gaze. She simultaneously loathed, feared and stood in awe of him. Part of her wanted to strike at him simply to see what he would do, see what extent of his power she could lure out.

‘Dreggo,’ he said, and his milky face softened, his lips parting slightly in a smile. ‘I have anticipated meeting you with interest. Walk with me a while?’

She nodded and they fell into step, heading away from the Fence and the trucks. After only a few steps she realised that the Governor was deliberately leading her away, up through the trees towards the crest of the hill, until they were out of sight of Clayton’s men, with only the cries and growls of the monsters crawling over the garbage clinging on to them. Even the smell began to wane.

At the same time she wondered how he knew her name, and where he was leading her, but the simple strength of his presence made every question seem trivial, as though
of course he would know
, and
who was she to question where he led her? She would know soon enough.

‘Are my thoughts entering yours?’ he asked, breaking five minutes of silence.

‘I think maybe,’ she answered.

‘Because yours enter mine,’ he said. He took a couple more steps and then stopped, turning towards her. He lifted one hand and ran his fingers down her bare arm. Dreggo tensed for a moment then relaxed. His touch was not seductive in any way, it was more the way a proud father might caress a daughter. It was a feeling Dreggo could barely remember.

‘Do not fear me,’ he said. ‘Clayton is right to fear for his life, but you should have no fear for yours.’

‘I have failed you also,’ she said, feeling guilt seep into her mind, aware it probably came from his. ‘I was given command of the Huntsmen but only one Tube Rider is dead. The others are still free.’

The Governor shook his head. ‘These ... Tube Riders ... possess more skill than they are credited with. No one running for their life should ever be underestimated. To learn how to capture is far easier if one knows how it feels to run, something Mr. Clayton knows nothing about.’

‘Clayton is a fool.’

A thin smile touched the Governor’s lips. ‘Then we agree on something. Look at me, Dreggo.’

She turned her eyes upwards towards his, and though she stared hard, she could see no other colour there. His eyes were like two crimson marbles built into his face.

‘Are we not one and the same?’

At first she didn’t understand, because in her eyes they had no common ground. But in her mind –

‘You were made like this too, weren’t you? By scientists.’

‘I prefer to call them God-mongers, or even devils, playing with a technology that was not theirs to use. But you are right, we both are, or were, experiments.’ He cocked his head again. ‘And depending on what way you look at it, we could both regard ourselves as failures ... or successes.’

Dreggo felt a frankness flood her, compelling her to speak. ‘You’re the cause of everything. All those people inside that fence are there because of what you did to our country. Everything is fucked, including me, because of you.’

The Governor began walking again. ‘I know you went into Reading GFA,’ he said. ‘Did the people not seem happy there? The people you slaughtered as though they were nothing more than lame, useless dogs?’

Dreggo squeezed her eyes shut, the memory still fresh. ‘I was angry –’

‘And you don’t think I am? Look at me. I am a monster. Every minute of every day I live in agony. I can’t even stand out and watch a sunset without experiencing pain.’ He wiped a hand across his huge forehead and sighed. ‘It was my dream to have the country working as I knew it could. And from that everyone would be happy.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve made mistakes, believe me. But I am trying to put things right. Do you trust me on that, Dreggo?’