Heart of Granite

by James Barclay

  ‘Heaters . . . best price on the best heaters, flippers, doubleOs, and hardhats.’

  ‘You jocks love a peach. I’ve got them, fresh from hydroponics. Originally destined for the Commander’s table, now destined for yours.’

  Hands were all over him, fleecing him, and he brushed them off as best he could, pulling his suit back from grasping hands eager for the payday it represented.

  ‘Share the wealth.’

  ‘Keep the market thriving, friend.’

  ‘I’m just passing through,’ said Max.

  ‘Not without spending, boy.’

  Max stopped to stare at the rat-faced man elbowing his way forwards to loom over them. He had a grey, unruly beard, long fingers and blank eyes. Marsan swore under his breath.

  ‘He has spent. With me. He bought safe passage to CTunnel, past the gland locks and all the way to alpha. A deal is a deal, Feral, you respect that. We all do.’

  Max could feel Marsan’s anxiety despite the confidence in his tone. His body was tense, poised to move forwards but Max was tired of the jostling and looking for a chance to get involved.

  ‘Yeah, Mars, a deal’s a deal and we want to make a few more. Share the wealth, right?’

  ‘My client’s funds are seriously diminished,’ said Marsan.

  ‘Enough to pay you, right? That’s pretty rich,’ said Feral, drawing approving noises from his audience.

  ‘Even if I wanted to trade,’ said Max. ‘Your friends with the clever fingers would have lifted any cash sticks I had. How about I drop back this way when I’m not so pushed for time?’

  Feral laughed and a nervous titter followed from the otherwise quiet crowd.

  ‘There’s a rule in the market place, jockey. A promise ain’t worth shit unless it’s delivered with Euro Marks attached.’

  ‘Mes amis,’ said Marsan, edging forwards, intending to stand in front of Max. ‘You have to respect me or where is our market place?’

  ‘Ours?’ barked Feral. ‘When did you last trade here, Mars? Too elite for us now, eh? Collectors not mods-men now, so I heard.’

  ‘Does that make me disloyal? Have I been disrespectful? Let us pass. My client has no funds.’

  The HoG was slowing. Dawn would be in full cry outside and the time to tail-up was getting short.

  ‘It’s been lovely talking to you all,’ said Max. ‘But I really must dash.’

  Feral’s eyes lit up like someone had plugged him in. He grabbed Max’s shoulder in a painfully strong grip.

  ‘You’re Halloran,’ he said. ‘Fugitive, that’s why you’re down here. Price on your head, right? Looks like a pay day just walked in, my friends.’

  This was going to go south, really, really fast so Max did what he did best: he acted completely without thinking. He slapped Feral’s hand away and smashed a fist into the Blammer’s gut. Feral staggered back and Max leapt at him, jabbing an elbow up into his face and bringing them both crashing to the ground. He cracked in another punch as they fell, and the back of Feral’s head bounced from the bone floor, stunning him.

  While the crowd in the market place assimilated the speed and ferocity of the attack, Max was back on his feet, one foot on Feral’s throat with enough pressure to choke him. Max scanned the crowd who were beginning to twitch.

  ‘Any one of you moves on me or Marsan, Feral stops breathing. Feral? Move a muscle and I’ll crush your throat. Now. Enough of this. I have somewhere to be.’

  ‘You won’t kill him,’ said a voice from the crowd. ‘You haven’t got the guts.’

  Max pushed a little harder and Feral, his eyes wide and desperate, squawked a protest. He grabbed at Max’s leg. Max increased the pressure and the scrabbling became weaker and more desperate.

  ‘Before Feral chokes to death, be aware I’ve just escaped from Landfill,’ said Max, his body feeling like it was rippling with sudden energy. ‘If I am caught, I will be killed. If I escape, I’ll probably die anyway. I’m a dead man walking, and I’m really happy to take a few of you along for the ride.’

  Seeing his cue, Marsan moved in front of Max and the prone Feral.

  ‘How about you make us a path. I don’t think my client’s foot can stay so gently on Feral’s throat for much longer.’

  Reluctantly they began to move aside and Max could see the flesh tunnel just ten metres away. He kept the pressure on and made a point of staring all around him, noting those who had moved in.

  Marsan was at the flesh tunnel entrance now and there was sadness in his face that made Max regret what he had done but for once, the disappointment wasn’t aimed his way.

  ‘All I wanted was the safe passage I negotiated,’ said Marsan. ‘You have all let yourselves down, disrespected the rules of the market. We should talk when I get back. Put ourselves right. Come on, Max.’

  Max moved quickly, taking his foot from Feral’s throat and striding to the tunnel, feeling their discontent like a weight across his shoulders. They were filling in the space in his wake and Max sensed Feral was back on his feet and risked a glance. He was grey-faced and massaging his throat.

  ‘We’ll talk more on my return,’ said Marsan.

  ‘I have nothing to say to you,’ said Feral.

  Max strode off up the flesh tunnel and back into the stinking, slushy gloom. Marsan hurried to catch up with him and diverted him down a right hand spoke that began to angle down gently.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Max. ‘I think I’ve made enemies for you.’

  ‘It’ll blow over,’ said Marsan. ‘Anyway, Feral needs a lesson every now and again and I have other routes in and out of my place. He was right about one thing, I don’t need the market place.’

  Max smiled. ‘How far is it?’

  ‘Just a couple of turns to alpha junction.’

  ‘Good. I’ll be fine from there.’ Max blew out his cheeks. ‘It’s a different world down here. Can’t believe the military let any of it be built.’

  ‘Ha! They didn’t know it was happening to begin with. Those were fun days. It’s a bit different now, and we’re just about tolerated but there’s still plenty of space they can’t close down because they don’t know it exists. Fortunately for you, that includes alpha tunnel. They told you where it comes out, right?’

  ‘Yeah. I was thinking you might want to architect it right into Martha’s pen.’

  ‘I’ll get right on it,’ said Marsan. He paused mid-stride. ‘Martha?’

  ‘My drake.’

  ‘Merde.’

  They passed more unfortunates in drug dens where Marsan said poorly cut drugs were smoked or injected, further shortening already pitifully brief lives.

  ‘So much for the thriving black economy,’ said Max. Marsan shrugged. ‘The weak fail.’

  ‘You’re one big bowl of compassion, aren’t you?’ ‘It does not pay to care. You of all people know that.’ ‘I’m paying right now.’

  ‘My point exactly. Right, here we are.’

  Max was somehow expecting alpha tunnel to be a grand entrance of some kind, but of course it was just like all the others. There was rough structure at the junction to stop a collapse or even a regrowth . .. a ‘heal’, as the illicit architects called it. But beyond that, the walls were cauterised like everywhere else and the floor matting just as full of ichor. It made Max crave fresh air.

  ‘Where are we exactly . .. relative to the behemoth proper.’

  ‘We are in the starboard flank beneath Seepage. Your path takes you round the belly, through the muscle and fat and down to your exit point. It’s tight up there and you’ll have to pick a careful path to your drake across the deck. If you’re spotted, you’re toast . ..’ Marsan smiled and shook Max’s hand. ‘Good luck, mon ami.’

  ‘I’ll need it. Hey, be careful back there. It’s an ugly crowd and I don’t just mean the beards.’

  Marsan chuckled. ‘Look to yourself. And if you live, remember you owe me.’

  ‘Surely you won’t allow me to forget.’

  Max headed along alpha tunn
el, seeing the downward slope in the gently moving flesh and the way it curved in an anticlockwise direction, following the belly wall. He began to plan before realising the futility of it, since he knew bugger all about how the flight deck would be when he arrived. It was the key smuggling route for goods coming onto the flight deck, but that’s all he knew. Its whereabouts was the most closely- guarded secret on the HoG . . . another reason that if he survived he’d be broke for the rest of his life.

  Chapter 26

  I argued that thirty pairs of legs were too few but unfortunately more would mean losing architectable living space. So we went with the minimum. At least I convinced them to increase tib and fib bone density. Even so, the loss of just five pairs would leave a behemoth struggling to move unless it was entirely unloaded.

  Professor Helena Markov, ERC command log entries.

  The quality of the tunnel improved as it spiralled gently down towards the flight deck. The base plating became a more solid rubber matting and the walls were coated in increasingly large sections by rubberised panelling. It didn’t diminish the smell at all but at least Max could shake the notion that he was paddling in behemoth guts.

  He made quick progress through the well-lit tunnel and knew he was closing on the flight deck when the sounds of reptiles of all shapes and sizes began to echo up to him. They were book-ended by metallic clangs and, more dimly, by orders booming across the cavernous space of the flight deck. He paused for a moment, struck by the normality of all he could hear and feeling a pang of regret that he had to leave it all behind.

  Max saw the end of the tunnel from a hundred metres or so away. It was ringed with lights, the central one of which, above the round-cornered square doorplate, was a solid red.

  ‘Wow,’ said Max when he reached the door. ‘High -security or what?’

  He studied the screen set on the wall to the left of the door plate. It was split into three sections. The upper panel showed the view directly outside, which was just a bunch of equipment crates, no signs of life. Bottom left were the readings from four movement sensors and even Max could see that there were people near two of them, wherever they were positioned. Bottom right was the input panel which displayed a single command tile marked ‘Open’. It was currently crossed through and coloured red.

  ‘No prizes for guessing what that means,’ muttered Max.

  He sat on the tunnel floor and waited for the light to go green. He stared at the levels on the two offending movement sensors, willing the people to start moving away. While he waited he plotted and listened, straining to hear Martha but getting nothing bar a muffled soundtrack of a flight deck bursting with activity. He didn’t want to be waiting too long; he was desperate to see Martha again and he could afford to miss the wonderful chaos of the first missions of the day.

  Max felt he should be able to feel her now, just on the outer edges of his consciousness but there was nothing when he pushed his mind out towards her. He wondered if Inferno-X was out there, or Anna-Beth. He’d give anything to be looking into her eyes right now.

  Max slumped where he sat, trying to control his anticipation and his fear. He brought his hands up in front of his face and turned them over and back to confirm they were actually trembling. So much had changed, so much more would if he escaped. Whatever came next, there was no coming back. The thought brought tears to his eyes and he shook his head and growled.

  ‘Dammit.’

  He knew that his anxiety should have peaked when the exit light went green but instead he felt relief from the torture of waiting. He took a deep breath and pushed the screen tile. The door plate slid backwards with the merest hiss and he moved out into flight deck storage. He heard a minimal beep and the door slid shut behind him. He turned to see it close.

  ‘Wow,’ he breathed.

  He was facing a bone wall, set with air duct grilles floor to ceiling and a large stencilled sign above them saying ‘No stowage’. He’d just walked through the opening and he still couldn’t see where the seams met the rest of the duct-heavy section of wall. He put his hand to a grille at chest height and found it had airflow.

  ‘Wow.’

  The beautiful violent sounds that characterised the flight deck registered the next instant and he was reminded of his precarious position. He was in the middle of a short corridor which, the grilles excepted, was walled by storage shelving and stacked metal crates. The flight deck storage facilities were open-fronted areas about a third of the way down the deck – there was one either side of the runway.

  While much space was given over to equipment specific to the flight deck’s smooth operation, the zones were also used for temporary storage of anything and everything that came onto the flight deck before onward transport to its final destination . .. or its smuggling into the flesh tunnels and the Blammers’ hands.

  The din of the flight deck was coming from Max’s left, so the pens were all across the deck and up toward Flight Command. It meant a walk across open space. Tricky but at least it would be busy.

  Max needed a hidden spot to assess his chances of making it there unseen. He looked down the aisle; he was at the right end of the storage zone but he couldn’t see without poking his head out so he walked to the back of the zone and then along the ends of the twenty numbered aisles, glancing down each one before ambling across to the next, appearing very much the ordinary flight deck crewman.

  With each glance, he gained a snapshot of the flight deck. Every time he did, he felt a pang that he wouldn’t be able to stride across it ever again, head held high and proud as he prepared for a mission or returned triumphant from one. There were drakes on the runway and he yearned to be lining up with Inferno-X. This lot were the Firestorm.

  ‘Don’t Fall,’ he whispered.

  Looking at Firestorm waiting for the go, a thought struck him and he hurried to the end of the zone and walked down aisle two, staying in the shadows. He reached the end and let his gaze travel up the deck. It wasn’t quite as bad as he feared.

  Max was about three hundred metres from Flight Command and more concerned by the possibility of being recognised by a wandering security guard. He could see all the way up to the bulkheads on the right side of the deck, and sure enough, they were guarded. Same with the back stairs and stores lifts. It would be the same on his side.

  With drakes on the runway, the geckos were watching on warily, stilled by the proximity of predators. For their part, the drakes ignored them completely, standing serene, gazing out at the sun-drenched desert and the heat washing in, warming the chilly interior.

  The Flight Command alert tones sounded and the prerecorded message began. ‘Attention, flight deck. Launch imminent. Clear the runway. Lights up in thirty seconds.’

  Across the flight deck, the orange lights flashed and rotated. Along the flight deck, green arrows lit. Drakes roared and their pilots moved them to the ready position. The lead Firestorm drake beat a talon against the bone floor then charged off. The noise and spectacle were all-consuming, even for those who had seen it a hundred times.

  What Max needed was the cover of another squad. He peered out again and could make out Hammerclaw pilots mustering outside the guarded locker room, watching Firestorm take off. His breath caught in his throat. Anna-Beth would be among them. He was desperate to let her know he was back and okay for now. For a moment, he considered trying to reach her before she flew. He sighed…one way or another, she’d know soon enough.

  Max dragged his gaze away from the Hammerclaws and watched a couple of Firestormers depart before hurrying back into depths of the storage area to strip and drag on his suit, storing the scalpel against his thigh. He knew when he did, it would go active but at least without the chip they wouldn’t know where he was, nor have his ID. With any luck, it’d be dismissed as a rogue signal.

  Luck. Right.

  Max dragged the hood over his head, zipped up the suit and was back at the entrance to the deck in time to see the Hammerclaws heading to their pens. Max watched until
he’d counted the last of them leaving the locker room, mouthing a prayer for Anna-Beth to be safe.

  He pulled his zip up all the way to his throat. ‘I’m coming, Martha,’ he whispered.

  He hesitated a moment, then headed out onto flight deck alpha.

  Chapter 27

  Am I shallow? If you call the link between jockey and drake, ‘shallow’, then yes. If you call the camaraderie of a drake squad, ‘shallow’, then yes. If you call choosing to shorten my life to help guarantee my family lives in peace, ‘shallow’, then yes.

  Valera Orin, Squadron Leader, Inferno-X

  Gerhard Moeller was normally a man of complete focus and direction. His entire life had been drawn around certainty. Today he had none. He was conflicted and it made him intensely uncomfortable. He’d barely slept, questioning everything he’d done and said since the Halloran incident had blown up and he still couldn’t work out if he’d done all, or indeed any, of the right things.

  Walking into Flight Command well before dawn he’d been more deliberate than ever: checking the schedule had no holes, no possibilities for confusion and that there was the maximum chance for Halloran to get to his drake and escape. Not that he thought for a moment Max would succeed, not least because Kirby had ordered a hefty dose of tranquilisers fed down his drake’s feed tube. Martha couldn’t be wiped yet, but she was deeply asleep.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted Max to succeed, even in getting as far as Martha’s pen. But if he didn’t, why had he gone to Inferno-X last night and risked his career? Actually, he knew the answer to that: it was so that whether Max made it or not, Valera and her squad wouldn’t hate him. He shouldn’t have cared about that but he did, and it made some of Kirby’s words ring loud in his head.

  This time, though, he reckoned he’d called it right. If Max didn’t get away, he was Kirby’s problem. If he did, well, escaping with Martha was its own death sentence. One way or another, Max was a problem that was going to solve itself.