by Joe Ducie
Drake removed the glove on his right hand and was happy to see his fingers weren’t aglow and no blue light danced beneath his skin. He slowly punched in the numbers on the touch screen, as if he were afraid that the phone would shatter or disappear – or that he was still dreaming.
He dialled his home number from memory, sure it was right after the better part of two years away, and pressed the call button. The screen changed to a picture of a telephone with signal bars rippling out from it, and Drake held his breath. As the train zipped across the snow-swept plains of Newfoundland and Labrador, a tiny burst of signal from Drake’s phone bounced through the Alliance drone and shivered over the global wireless network.
The phone beeped.
The phone connected.
And the dull sound of a ringtone, travelling from over five thousand kilometres away, rang in the silent cabin.
Drake pressed the phone against his ear, heart racing, as someone picked up on the other end.
‘Little Caesar’s Pizza,’ said a man with a thick London accent. ‘Pickup or delivery?’
Drake blinked and pulled the phone from his ear. He read the number on the screen and cursed. ‘Misdialled,’ he muttered and ended the call. ‘Food on my mind. Don’t think they’d deliver this far out, anyway.’
He dialled the number again, more slowly, and switched the two last digits to match his actual home phone.
The tone rang twice before his mother picked up.
‘Hello,’ she said, her voice frail but unmistakable.
Drake paused, felt a wild chuckle rising in the back of his throat, and couldn’t think of a thing to say. She’s alive!
‘Hello,’ his mother said again. ‘Is anyone there?’ She sounded sick, to Drake’s ears. She was sick.
Drake felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced at Irene. Given the comforting look on her face, he probably looked like a deer in headlights. His gut churned as if he’d blown up a supertanker on a full stomach.
‘Will?’ his mother asked. ‘Will, is that you?’
Drake took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘Hey, Mum. Yeah, it’s me. Um … hello.’
‘Oh, Will, what have you done? The news is saying such terrible things about you –’
‘Mum, don’t believe them –’ The line squealed, and Drake pulled the phone from his ear with a hiss of pain. He checked the screen – still connected – and gently put the phone back to his ear. ‘Hello? Mum? Are you there?’
‘Good evening, Mr. Drake,’ said a deep, smooth voice. ‘Do you know who I am?’
Drake recognised the voice – most in the world would. He clenched the phone almost hard enough to snap the battery cover from the device.
‘Lucien Whitmore,’ Drake said. ‘King of the Alliance. Looks like we’ve got a crossed line … sorry, I was trying to order a pizza.’
Whitmore chuckled, and Drake pictured him behind some massive mahogany desk, dressed in an expensive suit, in an office overlooking New York City – the headquarters of the Alliance – at dusk. Or, as Drake had first seen him, deep below the Rig, staring up at Carl Anderson in his glass cage, from behind the tinted sunglasses Whitmore wore in every picture and interview. The man was a monster who bred monsters.
‘Are you hungry, Mr. Drake?’ Whitmore asked. ‘It is well within my means to provide pizza, if you just tell me where you are.’
Across the table Tristan had clenched his fists hard enough to turn his knuckles white. ‘Hang up,’ he whispered.
Drake raised a finger and shushed him. ‘Have you hurt my mum?’
‘Quite the opposite. I’m seeing she gets the care she needs, given her condition. You gave the Alliance quite the black eye with your recent escape.’ Whitmore tutted, his voice like silk against sandpaper. ‘What better way to protect our reputation than by caring for the mother of the young and misguided William Drake?’
‘Misguided?’ Drake scoffed. ‘Your news channel is calling me a terrorist.’
‘What you did on the Rig was cause for great terror,’ Whitmore said. ‘And public opinion is all about perception, Mr. Drake.’
‘Yeah, but I didn’t kill anyone!’
‘No? What of the boy you let out of his cage in my facility beneath the Rig? Carl Anderson? Why did you let him out?’
Drake swallowed and said nothing.
‘Was it because you knew what he was going to do with his brief freedom? You loosed that particular arrow from the bow, and it struck the spark that caused the wildfire. He died so you could escape, and he took a great many of my staff with him.’ Whitmore’s tone suggested unshakable confidence. Drake was dealing with the man who controlled the world, and Whitmore knew it. ‘Not the first young man to die for your cause, though, was he? Haven’t enough died for your freedom, Mr. Drake?’
Aaron … Drake still felt the heat of those flames from his unsuccessful escape attempt at Cedarwood. ‘Goodbye, Mr. Whitmore.’
‘How did you escape Harronway?’
Drake hesitated. ‘I walked right out the front door, whistling a merry tune and clicking my heels together.’
Whitmore laughed. ‘No, no, you didn’t,’ he said, with such sincerity that Drake’s shoulders slumped. ‘You cannot run forever, Mr. Drake.’
‘Just watch me.’
‘I have been, lad, and now I’m afraid you’ve reached the end of the line.’
Drake’s heart leapt into his throat. End of the line … he ended the call and slapped the phone down on the table. ‘He knows where we are. We need to –’
The train lurched. The momentum tossed Irene and Drake back against their seats, and it threw Tristan chest-first into the table. The brakes squealed against the tracks and spilled Irene’s gummy sweets on the floor.
Outside, a sudden beam of light swept along the ground, making the snow sparkle, until it lit up the compartment. Heavy, sharp helicopter blades buffeted the air, and Drake watched, grim-faced, as masked men descended from two Alliance-branded attack helicopters on cords of black rope.
The chopper swung over the train, out of sight, and the thump of heavy boots clunked against the roof.
Drake got to his feet and clenched his fists. ‘End of the line, is it? We’ll see about that.’
Chapter Five
Derailed
‘Tristan,’ Drake said, ‘you carry the pack – what’s that drone going to do?’
‘Follow our signal,’ Tristan said, hoisting the pack of money and supplies onto his shoulders. Without the drone, the pack looked heavy but manageable for his small frame.
Drake shifted his beanie and slipped his sunglasses into his pocket. ‘Right. Follow me.’
‘What are we going to do?’ Irene asked, fear written clear across her face.
‘Follow the web,’ Drake said. ‘Keep following the silly old web. Trust me, we’re not caught yet.’
‘But they’re soldiers with guns!’ Tristan clutched his phone hard enough to turn his knuckles white.
Drake nodded and removed one of his gloves. ‘Yes, they are.’ He held up his right hand and concentrated. Hot blue flame burst from his fingers, singeing the cuff of his jumper. ‘But they’re not ready for this.’
‘How the hell do you know what you’re doing with that?’ Tristan asked.
Drake shrugged and stepped out into the corridor. ‘I don’t, but it’s worked so far, and it’s working now. Let’s keep at it, eh?’
‘What about …’ Tristan hesitated. ‘What about the warden’s revolver?’
‘No,’ Irene said.
‘Best not,’ Drake agreed. ‘More likely to shoot ourselves – not that we should be shooting anyone.’ Haven’t enough died for your freedom, Mr. Drake? ‘Come on. We need to hurry.’ He set off along the corridor at a steady clip, heading for the rear of the train.
Confused travellers stuck their heads out of their compartments as Drake dashed past, the tassels on his hat swinging. His glowing right hand left a trail of sparks floating in his wake. He entered the dining car, the smell of r
oasting coffee on the air, with Irene and Tristan at his heels.
The next carriage was sparsely populated, with twin rows of seats running the length of the car. Drake slowed his run to a brisk walk. He ignored the strange looks he was getting from the other passengers. When he was about halfway down the aisle, the door at the far end of the car burst open. A tall soldier, dressed in black combat fatigues and a familiar gas mask, stepped into the carriage with his sleek rifle raised. He swept the gun across the carriage and settled it on Drake.
A long second passed, and the soldier’s finger twitched on the trigger of his rifle at the same moment Drake raised his hand. The rifle hissed. Drake staggered back.
A dart slammed against an invisible barrier in front of his face. It stuck in the air for a moment, as if crumbled against a sheet of thin glass. The tranquilising agent in the dart dribbled down towards the floor. Drake felt his shock mirrored behind the soldier’s mask.
Before the soldier could fire again, Drake stepped forward – acting purely on what he’d been able to figure out in the past two weeks – and cut his hand down through the air. A wave of concussive force shot down the aisle, shattering windows, splintering the wood panels on the walls, and forcing the passengers back against their seats. The soldier took the brunt of the wave and slammed into the rear of the carriage. He slumped, head against his shoulder, and the rifle fell from his grip.
‘Let’s keep going.’ Drake started to run again. He removed the glove from his left hand, but hid the sparkling mess from sight in his pocket. ‘There’ll be more than one.’
Stepping over the unconscious soldier, Drake pushed the carriage door open. A cool, biting breeze carried in flurries of icy snow, as well as the harsh sound of the hovering helicopters. Bracing himself against the cold, Drake stepped down off the train – sweeping his head left and right for the Alliance soldiers – then turned back to make sure Irene and Tristan were keeping up.
‘Cold out here, isn’t it?’ he said, as if the weather were the most important thing on his mind. The train had stopped in a wide, snowy clearing surrounded by dark silhouettes of trees – another forest.
‘Bit brisk, yeah,’ Tristan agreed. A half-dozen darts pinged off the carriage, the three of them bright targets where they stood highlighted against the light from the train. Irene shoved Tristan from the carriage and fell with him into the knee-deep snow.
Drake spun and saw three soldiers crouched against the snow, the muzzles of their rifles flaring as they fired at Drake and his friends. Drake raised his hand, and an invisible shield formed in the air. He couldn’t feel it, but the crumpled darts showed him it was working.
I need the shield to follow us. Can I do that?
‘Only one way to find out,’ he muttered. ‘Come on. We can lose them in the trees.’
Drake hauled Tristan up from the snow with his left hand, keeping his ignited right out of harm’s way, and set him on his feet. One of the helicopters swooped over the train, and gusts of wind and snow buffeted the three of them. At least, the wind and snow tried – but the invisible shield forced the gale to split around them.
‘That’s so cool,’ Irene marvelled.
‘I know, right?’ Drake chuckled and began to take wide steps through the knee-deep snow. ‘Just hope it isn’t frying my brain.’
‘I think that was fried long before the Rig,’ Tristan quipped. He was covered in snow from his dive off the train and shaking – whether from the cold or the adrenaline, Drake didn’t know. He had his phone out and was recording as best he could.
‘Three Alliance psychologists and a court in London would agree.’
Trudging through the snow was slow work, and the soldiers were having trouble closing in, keeping their distance but also keeping the three of them in sight. Drake’s shield was stopping their darts, but he wasn’t certain why the shield had popped into existence at all – just that he’d wanted it to happen – or why it hovered level with him as he broke through the snow.
The power bleeding through his arm and out of his hand felt warm, inviting. And something else. Vast … no, not vast. Deep. Old.
The second chopper had moved from over the train and hovered above the dark line of trees, buffeting the tall branches of the white pines and shaking loose fallen snow. Drake slashed his glowing arm upwards, and wicked energy arced along the snow – digging a deep furrow – and curved up towards the chopper.
The pilot veered the chopper away, but not quickly enough. The crescent of white energy sliced cleanly through the tail, severing the rear rotor. The chopper spun out of control above the trees – the spotlight underneath scattering light wildly across the edge of the forest – and crashed against a drift of deep snow. The blades snapped and flew across the clearing, ultimately embedding themselves in the ground and the trees. A chunk slammed against Drake’s invisible shield with a resounding thunk of crumpling metal. The other chopper swung away from the crash, away from Drake.
Glittering crystal as blue as the sky had formed along the path of Drake’s crescent bolt of energy. He marvelled at the crystal – like a frozen wave forever about to crash against the shore – and touched it with his fingertips. The crystal sang, with a chime like church bells, and shattered.
Irene and Tristan dived for cover but Drake watched the shards fall like sparks of electric-blue snow mixed with white. They disappeared into the actual snow and melted the hard-packed powder beneath. The lighter sparks were swept away on the wind, marking the pristine snow with hundreds of tiny burns.
I did that. Whatever it was, it was beautiful, and I did it.
‘OK, that’s one chopper down,’ Drake said. Dozens of tiny darts, the Alliance’s favourite weapon on the Rig, were still striking his shield. ‘Think I can get the other?’ He rubbed his hands together, and a waterfall of blue sparks fell to the ground, as if his palms were a spinning grinder wheel striking metal.
‘Will, don’t!’ Irene said. ‘Just don’t!’
He blinked and looked down at her. She was on her knees in the snow, terrified. Not terrified of the soldiers – at least, not only of the soldiers, but also of him and what he was doing.
The other chopper had pulled back beyond the soldiers and landed next to the train. A man emerged from the belly of the steel beast and …
Drake blinked. Something wasn’t right about the man. His proportions were … off. He was tall – at least seven feet tall – and his arms were elongated, thin, and pale. His face was half-concealed behind a breathing mask, but the eyes, above the mask and a slit of a nose, looked as black as coals. An intense wrongness, an invisible aura of malice, clung to the man. Drake fought an urge to scream in horror – and run.
Just a trick of the light. This can’t be what I’m seeing.
The image of a skeleton geared up in Alliance solider armour wasn’t far from what Drake was seeing in the pale light from the chopper reflecting off the snow. The soldier stared at him, across the distance, and waved at Drake as if they were old friends. The wave felt almost like a blow to the gut. Every instinct in his body told him to run and hide – to flee – even as the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stood rigid.
Twin blades of crimson fire burst from the man’s arms, and he thrust both limbs forward. Rippling flame spiralled a rough course through the air towards the three of them. Some gut instinct told Drake his shield wouldn’t withstand the blast. He mirrored the soldier’s move, right palm blazing.
The electric-blue and ruby-red light struck in mid-air. A colossal boom echoed across the clearing, melting snow and rocking the train on its tracks. The flames melded together, red bleeding into blue, and blended into white. A thin spire of hot energy raced towards the clouds. At its base, the fire split to reveal a space of dark air that should have shown the snow and trees beyond, a gap through the blaze. Instead, surrounded by flames, the gap seemed to bend inwards against the air.
A consuming rage hammered in Drake’s chest, as he lost all feeling in his left arm – sa
ve for the rush of crystal power. What was that? A terrifying thought ran through his mind but he pushed it aside.
‘Are you seeing this?’ Tristan held up his smart phone, watching the firestorm through the lens of his drone, which hovered above their heads. ‘What the hell is that?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Drake whispered.
‘The drone …’ Tristan took a deep breath. ‘The drone is picking up all sorts of weird readings. Bloody hell.’
The gap beneath the column continued to bend, to twist, and formed a tunnel back through the blaze, like a drill bit burrowing into thick wood. A cone of fire surrounded the tunnel, cascading inwards towards something impossible. Drake glimpsed blue crystal and felt a rush of air colder than the Canadian weather. A rush of air that stank of stagnation and decay.
Glimpsed within the depths of the tunnel was a world of grey ash and storm clouds flashing red lightning. The view was lost as, from within the tunnel, a creature of dark, obsidian stone, with at least half a dozen long legs bristling with barbs, clawed towards the snowy clearing. The white light seemed to fail against its hide. Not stone, Drake thought.
‘Oh, it’s made of glass!’ Irene said.
‘Crystal,’ Drake muttered, holding his head. ‘It’s made of crystal.’
‘What is it?’ Tristan managed, his voice rough and choked. ‘What is it? What is it? What is it?’
It looked like a spider the size of a small car. The creature pulled itself out from within what Drake could only think was a portal to … somewhere else. A tear in reality caused by the conflicting, unnatural power. Its bulk left a deep furrow in the snow. Twisted legs as thick as bollards, a nest of blinking eyes, and a maw of sparkling silver teeth dripping with some clear substance; the crystal spider clawed from the maelstrom of blended white fire. As the creature emerged, the spire of flames flickered and died – whatever energy powered the light had been expended – and the portal snapped closed with a sound like tearing paper.
Two crystals, glowing blue and red, hung in the air above the bulk of the creature. The crystals hovered for a moment, sparkling, and then the blue one shot through the air towards Drake and the red went the other way, towards the tall soldier with impossible power of his own. Acting instinctively, Drake snatched the crystal, which was about the length of his forearm, out of the air. He tossed it to Tristan who gave a cry and let it fall into the backpack.
