Spiral

by Roderick Gordon

  “We were friends when we were young.” Joseph frowned and seemed to have difficulty in continuing. “The last time she was here . . . when the White Necks trapped her and brought her back, we saw each other again. I looked after her for the weeks she stayed in the Garrison.”

  Although Joseph had lowered his head, Will could see that his expression was incredibly sad. And when the man gave Will a fleeting look, his pale blue eyes — with identical coloration to Will’s own eyes — seemed to reflect the light as if they were brimming with tears.

  “I think she knew what was coming,” Joseph mumbled. “She could tell it wasn’t going to end well for her.”

  Will suddenly felt such a strong kinship with this massive man that he briefly put his arm around him as they continued to walk. Like Joseph, Will, too, was overcome with sadness, but at that moment they reached the entrance. Will could feel the buzzing in his skull — there was a field around the steel doors, but, surprisingly, they were unlocked.

  They entered the building, and Will walked the polished stone floor that his real mother had once trod, with her friend beside him.

  “I don’t think she ever really believed a single word of what the White Necks were trying to fill her head with about you,” Joseph said in a low voice. “She went along with them because she wanted to find you.”

  “Thank you for telling me that,” the boy said.

  “Are you two OK?” Drake asked, eyeing them curiously as he noticed they both appeared rather overwrought.

  “We’re just fine,” Will replied.

  “Good, then let’s put a stop to the subaural field in this place. I know there’s an armory in here, so if you show us where it is, Joseph, let’s break in and see what the Styx have left behind,” Drake said. “You’ll want something a little more businesslike than that pickax handle if they pop up here again.”

  Will, Drake, and Mrs. Burrows were heading back to the Quarter, when Elliott appeared from nowhere.

  “I thought I told you to stay put,” Drake said, clearly annoyed.

  Elliott didn’t reply, and Will noticed that she was purposefully avoiding his gaze. Perhaps all wasn’t well between the two of them after Mrs. Burrows had attacked her father and the angry exchange that had ensued. And Elliott didn’t speak to him during the time it took for them to rejoin Sweeney and Colonel Bismarck, who had been guarding the nuclear weapons and the rest of the equipment.

  Although the First Officer had had other matters to attend to and wasn’t yet with them, he’d suggested that they wait for him at his police station. So that was their next stop, and once they’d moved all the equipment over there, they sat around in the main office, eating their rations. The nuclear weapons were safely under lock and key in one of the cells in the Hold, somewhere that held only bad memories for Will. So bad that he’d found himself unable to go into the dank and dismal place again.

  When the First Officer finally turned up, strolling breezily in through the swing doors, he’d only made it a few feet when there was the frantic noise of claws scrabbling on stone from beside Mrs. Burrows. If Colly hadn’t been carrying so much extra weight, she would have undoubtedly leaped over the top of the counter. Instead she cannoned straight through the opening in it.

  “My girl!” the First Officer bellowed as the Hunter reared up and put her paws on his shoulders to lick his face. “I thought I’d lost you for good.” Purring at deafening volume, Colly rolled onto her back, inviting him to rub her stomach. “Who’s Daddy’s girl, then? Who’s Daddy’s girl?” he cooed at the animal in baby talk.

  He looked up when Mrs. Burrows came over to the counter. “My Hunter was with you all the time!” the First Officer said to her. “Thank you! And she looks so fit and well — she’s really filled out.”

  “It’s a bit more than that,” Mrs. Burrows said.

  “Kittens! No?” he asked, as he examined the cat.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Burrows.

  A big, stupid grin creased the First Officer’s face. Still grinning, he stood up. He stuck a finger in the air as something occurred to him. “And I have a little surprise for your son.” He trundled through the counter and into his office. Reappearing with something hidden behind his back, he went over to Will.

  “Here,” he said, revealing what it was.

  “Awesome!” Will burst out. It was his trusty spade — his favorite possession from his time in Highfield. He reached for it.

  “Not so fast,” the First Officer said, teasingly putting it out of the boy’s reach. “It’s yours on one condition: I want you to promise never ever to clobber me with it again!”

  “Done!” Will said, taking his spade and inspecting the brightly polished blade.

  Colly wouldn’t leave the First Officer’s side and was now rubbing herself affectionately against his legs. “I missed her,” he mumbled.

  “She’ll be stopping here with you when we go,” Mrs. Burrows said. “It wouldn’t be fair to take her along.”

  “Of course,” the First Officer agreed readily, stroking the cat’s broad head and making her purr at even greater volume.

  “Um, I’d like to make a proposal, Celia,” Drake began, putting aside his sandwich and rising from his chair. “I’ve talked this through with Will . . . and we think you should remain behind in the Colony, too.”

  “O-kaaay,” Mrs. Burrows said slowly.

  “I’ve got all the manpower I need for the mission,” Drake continued. “And you’ve already given us a glimpse of how useful you can be to the Colonists now that the Styx are out of the picture. Not least that, with your supersense, you’d be invaluable as an early warning system if the Styx try to pick up where they left off. You’ll be able to smell them coming.”

  Mrs. Burrows considered this for a moment. “I can see the logic in that,” she said. “Yes, I’ll stay, then.”

  Will was surprised she’d decided so quickly, but the First Officer was overjoyed. “Excellent,” he kept repeating as he clapped his meaty hands together.

  While everyone thought about going back to their sandwiches, Drake remained on his feet. “There’s something I need to air with all of you. And this involves you, too,” he said, turning to the First Officer.

  Drake slid a small attaché case from his Bergen and took it over to the counter, where he laid it on the worn oak surface. “As you know, our objective is to seal the inner world with the nuclear weapons. So that the Phase — if it’s been resumed there — is fully contained.”

  Drake undid the catches on the attaché case. Inside, there was a metal canister nestling in a foam inset, which he took out.

  “During the year I was held prisoner in the Laboratories, I overheard the Scientists discussing a virus,” Drake said, then smiled. “Academics do like to boast to each other.”

  “It wasn’t Dominion?” Elliott asked.

  “No, not Dominion.” Drake unscrewed the top of the canister and ever so carefully eased a small test tube from it. “The Scientists knew exactly what they’d unearthed in the Eternal City. They’d trialed this on a range of subjects, and they were in awe of what it did.” Drake held up the test tube. “This little baby is far more powerful and more indiscriminate than Dominion. Not just humans but the Styx and many of the more developed life-forms are susceptible to it. It’s deadly with a capital D.”

  “So you got it from the Laboratories?” Will said.

  “Yes. When Chester and I raided them and fortuitously rescued Celia at the same time, I had the opportunity to grab it from the secure vault in the secondary path lab. That was why I was late on the scene and Eddie got the better of me.” Drake thought of something. “By the way, none of you need to worry — you were all immunized against it when I gave you that shot back in the Complex. And when I was in London, I had my friend Charlie weaponize it — so it’s now not just transmitted by dir
ect contact but by droplet nuclei transmission.”

  “That being . . . ?” Mrs. Burrows interjected.

  Drake’s eyes were slightly unfocused as he stared at the clear fluid in the test tube. “It can spread in air . . . on the wind. And I doubt there’s anything quite as lethal or as toxic anywhere on this whole blasted planet right now, inside or out.”

  “But you made it worse when you weaponized it. . . . Was that wise?” Mrs. Burrows asked.

  “Maybe not, but when we’re on the ground in the Colonel’s world, if all else fails I might need a bargaining chip. The Styx know what this virus represents. They know it will bring about what the scientific community calls an Extinction Event . . . and that means an end to their race, too.”

  He turned to the First Officer. “The reason I’m bringing you in on this is that I have enough vaccine for all your people.There’s a chance — a slim chance — that if it’s released in the inner world, it might eventually work its way up to the surface. And you’d be bang smack in its path if it does.”

  “What about Topsoilers?” the First Officer asked.

  “Parry’s got the vaccine, too,” Drake replied as he slotted the test tube back into the metal canister.

  Mrs. Burrows was frowning skeptically. “Enough for everybody?”

  Drake closed the clips on the case. “No, and there wouldn’t be time to vaccinate everybody, anyway. I don’t have the slightest intention of letting it loose, but ask yourselves this . . .” He took the case back to his Bergen, then turned to everyone, looking at them each in turn: at Sweeney, Colonel Bismarck, Elliott, Will, the First Officer, and finally Mrs. Burrows. “What’s worse, this deadly pathogen or the Phase? Because I don’t think there’s much in it.”

  THE MINERS' TRAIN chugged out of the station in the Colony as they set off on the first leg of the journey that would take them deep into the bowels of the Earth. Unlike the last time, when Will had stowed away in one of the open trucks, he was now in the guard’s car at the very end of the train. And although the warped timber planking that formed the sides and roof of the car had numerous gaps in it, at least it offered a degree of protection from the smoke and soot spewing from the locomotive up ahead as it began to build up a head of steam.

  Over the roar of the engine, Will could hear the pair of pure white stallions whinnying in the next car. The First Officer had requisitioned them from one of the Governor’s residencies — the official had kept them hidden away in his personal stables during the troubles, knowing that the starving masses would have devoured them, given half a chance. The Governor had been beside himself with rage when Cleaver turned up with an official letter from the newly formed Colonists’ Committee, although he’d had no choice but to let them go. The horses would be a real boon in the Deeps; Drake wanted to cover the distance across the Great Plain as quickly as possible, and the railwaymen assured him that there was bound to be a cart somewhere in the Miners’ Station to hitch them to.

  The guard’s car was dimly lit by a single shaded luminescent orb suspended at its rear. For a while Will watched the odd fiery spark as it found its way into the car, then traced a short streak in the air until it burned itself into invisibility. Watching the brief lives of these sparks, he found himself thinking about the parting from his mother. Will didn’t know quite what had changed between them, but she hadn’t given him the send-off he’d had on other occasions. Mrs. Burrows was aware of the risks her son would be facing, yet she simply hugged him in a perfunctory way and wished him good luck.

  And Will had to admit that this time he himself had felt differently about leaving her.

  Perhaps they had both changed because of all they’d been through. Or, he asked himself, was it because he was growing up and didn’t need his mother in the same way that he’d used to? He was still mulling this over when the rocking motion of the train began to make his eyelids feel heavier and heavier, and he drifted into sleep.

  And, as the temperature gradient gradually rose the deeper they penetrated into the Earth’s crust, none of them did much more than sleep and eat for the next twenty-four hours. Their journey was broken several times for the horses to be fed and watered, and for the huge sets of storm gates across the track to be cranked open to allow the train through.

  They finally drew into the Miners’ Station, and it was much as Will remembered it — a ramshackle row of rather unimpressive huts. He jumped from the guard’s car, his boots crunching in the layer of iron ore, coke, and clinkers covering the ground. Drawing in a long breath through his nose, the arid air evoked the time when he, Chester, and Cal had stolen through this very cavern. And Bartleby. They’d all been killed or touched by death, and that’s why not one of them was with him at that moment.

  He was still mulling this over as he began to walk toward the station huts but then came to an abrupt stop. The old Will would have taken the opportunity to explore the huts, but he found that he had no desire whatsoever to investigate them. It just didn’t seem important to him anymore. Instead he helped Sweeney and the Colonel unload the equipment while Drake went off with the Colonist engine driver and his assistant in search of a cart. They quickly located one, and once the stallions were harnessed and the equipment in place, Elliott and Drake led the way from the cavern on foot, as the Colonel drove the cart.

  Will had shown the Colonel how to wear one of Drake’s headsets, adjusting the drop-down lens over his eye so he could see the way clearly without the need for any light. Then Will had found himself a place to sit at the very rear of the cart behind the equipment, and put on his own headset. Now back in the familiar world of shifting orange light, he was quite content to watch the sides of the tunnel slipping by as Sweeney jogged along behind the cart.

  Drawing on his enhanced senses, Sweeney was scanning the tunnel behind and checking the side passages for any lurking Limiters, when his gaze fell on Will.

  “Hey, lazy boy,” the huge man ribbed him. “Don’t strain yourself too much.” Will was framing a suitably indignant response when Sweeney continued, “You know, I just love this place.”

  “What do you mean?” Will asked, shifting uncomfortably as sweat trickled down the small of his back. “It’s hot and dusty . . . and just foul.”

  “Sure,” Sweeney answered. “But for the first time in a long time, I’m not getting any radio interference.” He touched one of his temples. “You have no idea what it’s like to have some tosspot of a DJ burbling away in your head all day and all night. Some weeks it’s not too bad, but then it suddenly kicks in big-time, and I have to listen to bleedin’ Ryan Seacrest prattling on whether I want to or not.” He curled his lip in disgust. “But in this place, there’s not a whisper . . . there’s nothing. Just glorious peace and quiet.”

  Will nodded to show he understood.

  “Yes, sirree, I can really see myself settling down here one day,” Sweeney said.

  They hadn’t encountered a single living soul — human, Styx, or Coprolite — as they emerged into a vast cavern where the ground was peppered with large, teardrop-shaped boulders.

  Will had taken advantage of the incline to stretch his legs and was jogging behind the cart alongside Sweeney.

  “Oh God!” the boy suddenly burst out.

  “Whassamatter?” Sweeney asked, peering around them. “Got something?”

  “No, it’s not that,” Will assured him. “I know where we are . . . and I hoped I’d never see it again. My brother died not far from here. And my real mum, too.”

  Sweeney was silent for several of his lumbering strides. “That’s tough, Will. I’m sorry.”

  They crossed a path of well-worn paving slabs, and an hour later the huge opening in the ground came into sight.

  “There it is . . . the Pore,” Will told Sweeney gloomily.

  Drake and Elliott had come to a stop and were waiting for everyone to catch up.
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  “We’ve spotted something new,” Drake informed them. “There appear to be some huts by the side of the Pore.”

  Elliott had her eye glued to her rifle nightscope. “Three . . . three huts,” she confirmed.

  “We know this area well, and they weren’t there before,” Drake said. He’d spent years in this land of eternal night, latterly with Elliott, and as Will watched them both now, he realized they were back in their element. “We’re going in to investigate,” Drake said, then he and Elliott moved ahead again. Colonel Bismarck followed at a distance, keeping the stallions to a steady trot, as Will and Sweeney remained on the lookout for any Limiters.

  When they finally reached the Pore, the continual deluge of water from above splattered their heads and shoulders, helping to cool them. The ground by the basic huts was strewn with deflated hot air balloons, and beside them a wooden platform extended almost forty feet over the huge void. Will, the Colonel, and Sweeney stepped around the sagging forms of the balloons as they moved to the end of it.

  Sweeney whistled as he tried to see across to the other side of the titanic void and, not finding it, peered down. “That’s one . . . big . . . mother. You threw yourself down it, didn’t you, Will?” he asked.

  “Didn’t have much choice at the time,” Will mumbled. It dawned on him that they were here to do precisely the same again. Unless Drake had a better idea, such as using one of the balloons to carry them down to the fungal ledge far below.

  Will began to retrace his steps along the platform, repeating to himself, “I really don’t want to do this.” And he really didn’t — the prospect of taking a step off the edge and pitching headlong into that black nothingness again filled him with unremitting dread. He sought out Drake where he and Elliott were deep in conversation. They fell silent as he arrived.

  “What’s the plan now?” Will demanded. “Are we really going to jump down the Pore? And how the heck are we going to know when we’re deep enough to find the passageway?” He was furious that the two of them seemed to be leaving him in the dark, just as it had been all that time ago when they’d first rescued him, Chester, and Cal on the Great Plain. After all he’d gone through, hadn’t he earned the right to know what they were intending to do?