Tube Riders, The (51 page)

Back up the tunnel, Dreggo screamed, ‘Kill them!’ and the Huntsmen surged forward. Marta, Paul, Jess, and Owen grabbed their clawboards as the beasts closed the gap between them, still fearsome but looking so, so tiny as the train bore down on them all.

‘Tube Riders, get ready to ride!’ Marta shouted.

As the train reached them, Marta, Jess and Owen dashed forward towards the tracks. The Huntsmen turned in their attack to try to cut them off but it was too late; all three leapt forward and caught on to the wooden slats on the side of a cargo car.

Paul looked back. ‘Carl!’

In their panic they had forgotten the boy had no clawboard, Paul realised. After all he had done for them Paul would not let him be left behind, but when his eyes searched for the boy he saw Carl had taken the last of their guns and had turned to face the oncoming host.

‘This is for my father!’ Carl shouted, raking them with bullets, the recoil causing his body to judder. Behind the Huntsmen, Dreggo and the Governor dived for cover. Several of the Huntsmen fell away, wounded. Others came on, crossbows rising. As the gun spat out its last bullets, Carl threw it aside and pulled a knife from his belt. ‘Come on!’ he screamed.

Paul had seen too many people die; he wasn’t about to watch Carl join them. He grabbed the boy’s arm and swung him around, pulled him towards the train. He held out his clawboard, offering one strap to Carl.

‘With me!’ he shouted, starting to run, pulling Carl after him. ‘When I say, you jump for your life, Carl!’

Ahead, the front of the train smashed into the fake rock wall with a deafening crash, sending chunks of plaster raining down on the roof of the cab.

‘One … two … three …
jump!
’ Paul shouted, and then together they leapt, the clawboard between them.

The metal hook caught on a wooden slat of the passing freight truck. Paul slammed against the side of the train. He was terrified the wood would break under their combined weight, and his feet scrabbled for a ledge somewhere. Beside him, Carl had found a hold with his free hand, and was struggling to find purchase for his feet. He glanced across at Paul and flashed a smile. As Paul smiled back, he could only think how he wished Switch could have seen them.

Madness. Complete madness. One moment he had been facing certain death, and now they were speeding on towards France, the Huntsmen and the Governor left in their wake. He looked for the others and saw they were all hanging on. He afforded himself a little smile of satisfaction.

#

Switch leaned out of the cab as the train raced on. Behind him, Marta and Jess were closest, with Owen on the same car behind them. Paul and Carl were several cars back.

‘You have to move forward!’ he shouted. ‘I need to release the back trucks! It’s our only fucking chance! Get into the cab!’

He watched, frustrated, as Marta and Jess inched towards him. Behind them, Owen was calling to Paul and Carl to get on to the roof and jump across the gaps between the trucks. He saw them make it across one, then dash forward, Carl far nimbler than Paul, who looked set to fall off at any moment. They made it across another, but they were still too slow…

Switch grimaced. They were on the first of the trucks he needed to release. With his right hand he steadied himself as he leaned out of the window, while in his left his fingers drummed against the casing of what looked like a radio transmitter.

‘Come on…’

Marta and Jess had reached the cab. Switch helped them climb inside.

‘Owen…?’

‘Don’t worry, he’s fine.’ Switch pointed, as he saw Paul reach across and get a hold on the first truck, Owen holding his hand steady. Carl stood behind him.

‘Marta,’ Switch said. ‘Keep an eye on the controls. Keep the speed rising.’

‘Why?’

He gave her a wide grin, his bad eye flickering wildly. ‘Because I’m about to unleash arma-fucking-geddon,’ he said, lifting up the radio.

‘What do you mean?’

Switch stepped forward and pressed a button on a digital control screen. A computer image of the train appeared. Switch pressed a button that hung in the space between the first and second trucks. The word “release?” appeared, the words “yes” and “no” flashing below it.

He glanced out and saw that Paul had made it across. As he watched, Owen helped Carl get over the gap.

Switch looked up and grinned. ‘Heads down,’ he said. His finger jabbed out and hit the ‘yes’ button.

The train lurched forward as the rear trucks detached, leaving just one truck attached to the cab. Switch looked out of the window to see the detached trucks slowing behind them, falling away, coming to a gradual stop.

‘One, two, three, four, five … once I caught a fucking fish alive … six, seven, eight, nine, ten … then I let it fucking go again–’

Switch’s finger depressed a red button on the radio control. A second passed. Then an explosion louder than he could have imagined rocked the tunnel behind them. The walls shook around them, and further back, increasingly large chunks of rock fell from the roof to smash into the tracks below. The train bucked, and for a moment he was worried it might derail itself. Then, as the tremors eased it shimmied back into line and sped on, carrying them away from the destruction.

Marta, pushed to her knees by the shock, stared at him. ‘
What
was in those trucks?’

‘Our get-out clause,’ Switch said. ‘Guns, arms, explosives. Old ones, left behind. This whole train was armed as a supply for an invasion force. Everything was a little musty, a little old. I just wired up a simple charge. Looks like it worked.’

He glanced out one more time, to see what looked like a wall of water pursuing them down the tunnel.

‘Ah ha ha, it worked!’ he screamed. ‘It fucking worked!’

‘Switch, what the fuck have you done?’ Paul yelled at him, climbing into the cab.

‘Just made sure no one could follow us,’ he said, grinning.

‘You’re fucking
insane!
’

‘Too late,’ Marta said. She pointed. ‘Look!’

#

The Governor watched as the train plowed past them, the coverings over the rails breaking up in front of it like a wooden wave. His heart was heavy with disappointment, with the shame of being outsmarted once again. These kids, the Tube Riders, had displayed a level of ingenuity that he would have to try to follow, or his carefully sculpted Mega Britain would disappear in the same way that they had.

He turned and started walking back toward the truck. The Huntsmen still followed the Tube Riders, but it was too late now. The Tube Riders were gone, escaped, and all that was left for the Governor was to begin preparations for war. The European Confederation would undoubtedly come now, and when it did he had to be ready. He felt quietly confident, though; Mega Britain had a few surprises that their military leaders would not be anticipating.

‘Dreggo,’ he shouted. ‘Order a retreat. We leave for London, now.’

It took him a few moments to realise she was no longer there. When he looked back, the train was speeding away, its last trucks just passing him, but his eyes were still good. He could see her, up near the front, hanging on to the side.

He sighed, saddened. She would have made a perfect second. She was a rare person, one who might understand him, but she possessed demons of her own, and despite his best efforts, she still had to chase them down.

‘Good luck,’ he whispered, climbing into the front of the car and starting the engine. ‘One day I hope you come back to me.’

He started to pull away, but he had gone no more than a few hundred feet when a massive explosion rocked the tunnel.

Behind him, he saw a row of freight trucks explode. The roof of the tunnel above the explosion seemed to shimmer, to vibrate, and then the whole thing collapsed with a deafening roar. The Governor slipped the car into gear and it lurched away, just as a wall of grey-green water burst down through the rock above.

As the huge wave rushed towards him, the tunnel roof collapsing above it, the Governor slammed his foot on the accelerator and drove for his life.

#

Dreggo pulled herself up over the back of the cab and pulled a knife from her belt. Her face, her arms her legs, her entire body ached from the jump. But she had made it.

It ended now.

She watched as the youngest Tube Rider helped the teenager from the GFA into the cab. The one with the bad eye was climbing out onto the roof, while the cowardly one was hiding back inside with the two girls. No matter. They would die together, or one by one. It was their choice. She braced herself against the rocking train, while behind her the water roared.

#

‘Switch, no!’ Paul shouted, as he tried to haul Marta back. Marta struggled against him, wanting to get out of the window after Switch, who was closing on Dreggo as she climbed up on to the roof of the train.

‘Let go of me, this is my fight–’

‘Stop him!’ Paul shouted at Carl and Owen, but it was too late, the boys were already climbing out after him. Was he the only one with sense? They had no chance against Dreggo; their best chance was to get into the cab and attempt to knock her off when she tried to climb in. Going out to fight her on the roof of the rocking train was suicide. She would cut them down one by one.

‘Let me go!’ Marta shouted. ‘She killed Leo! She killed my brother!’

‘So you want her to kill you too?’

‘Let me
go,
Paul!’

He looked towards Jess for support, but all he saw was the other girl’s ankles as she climbed out of the window.

#

Owen put one hand on the roof of the train to steady himself as he tried to follow Switch and Carl. Carl looked as uncertain as he felt, but Switch looked as at home on the moving train as he did on the ground.

‘Come on!’ Switch roared, and leapt forward at Dreggo, knife flashing. She easily parried, and knocked him sideways with a back-handed slap. Carl leapt at her feet but she kicked him in the head. As he slid over the edge, Owen jumped after him and caught his hand. With his other hand Owen held on to a drainage rail as Carl tried to find a foothold, his legs dangling out over the rushing rock below. A little further along, Switch was climbing back up as Dreggo turned on him.

‘The water’s getting closer!’ Owen shouted. ‘Knock her off! You have to knock her off the train!’

Switch swung himself up, knife hand flashing through the air. Dreggo stepped deftly to one side, one lightning-fast hand catching hold of his wrist. Switch cried out in pain and dropped the knife as Dreggo held him out in front of her. He tried to reach her with his other hand but she was too strong. His eyes rolled in his head as Dreggo’s iron grip crushed his wrist.

‘You can run and you can hide, but can you swim, Tube Rider?’ she shouted at him. ‘
Can you swim?
’

She turned towards the side of the train, ready to fling him off into the roiling mass of water that was just a couple of hundred feet behind them now.

‘Switch!’ Owen shouted, but he knew it was too late. Holding on to Carl he had no chance to stop her, and he knew they would be next.

From the corner of his eye he saw movement, someone running along the top of the train. He twisted his head and saw Jess, two knives held high over her head as she sprinted towards Dreggo. The girl’s face was set, her lips tight, her eyes hard.

‘Jess, no!’ Owen shouted. The girl ignored him, leaping at Dreggo and plunging her knives into either side of the girl’s neck. She rammed them in to the handles as Dreggo let go of Switch and staggered backwards.

Switch slid sideways over the edge of the train, head lolling, the pain of his shattered wrist sending him close to unconsciousness. ‘Grab him, Carl!’ Owen shouted, and Carl reached out with his spare hand and caught Switch’s shirt. Owen watched Carl brace himself with his feet and pull Switch close.

Owen looked back towards Jess. Jess was screaming incomprehensibly into Dreggo’s face, as the leader of the Huntsmen staggered backwards, her arms tight around the girl.

Owen tried to scramble forward but it was too late. Dreggo took one more step backwards and then vanished, falling over the end of the train.

Owen caught one last word, hollered over the cacophony of sound: ‘
Simon!
’

For a second they looked impossibly small as they struggled together in front of the looming wall of water. Then it engulfed them, and they were gone.

#

Paul looked out of the front of the cab. In a rear view mirror he could see parts of the battle going on behind them, but his focus was on the front. Up ahead of them, the tunnel started to angle upwards as it approached the French side. How much longer they could stay ahead of the water as it brought the tunnel roof crashing down, he didn’t know.

Marta was crying somewhere behind him. He pushed forward on the accelerator control, and the engine’s scream filled the cab. It would be close.

‘Paul, Jess is gone,’ Marta cried, and he glanced back once to see Marta holding something tiny up in her hands. It looked like a computer chip.