by John McNally
“Bring … me … the … fool …” he said.
As the Siguri dragged Santiago to Kaparis, Hudson at last began to crack.
“Stop! I’ve told Commander King everything. They are coming. You must surrender or die.”
Kaparis gasped in laughter and locked his hands awkwardly around Santiago’s neck.
“You think I am not ready for Commander King? People like me always win. Because we deserve to,” he said.
“I’ll tell you anything you need to know – just let him go!”
Kaparis laughed again and Santiago began to choke … splutter …
This wretched creature, he thought, the antithesis of all that I am… Kill … Yes, kill …
Kaparis passed out and his hands released, letting Santiago slump to the floor, choking.
“He’s lost consciousness again. Heart rate dropping!”
The Big Swiss Cheese and his team dived in to save Kaparis. Hudson could feel the tension rising in the room, the first tendrils of panic.
“Get the clot-buster!” snapped the surgeon.
Hudson knew all about panic. As a nurse hurried to fix up a bag covered with toxic warning marks onto the drip stand, Hudson said with quiet assurance, “Give up.”
The surgeon turned.
“Save yourselves. This place is surrounded. This man is going to die and there’s no way you’re going to save him.”
The eyes of the Big Swiss Cheese and the surgical team were, for a moment, fixed on Hudson. Then –
Click.
As one, the eyes of the team turned to the source of the noise. Heywood had pulled out a pistol and was levelling it at the head of the Big Swiss Cheese. “Save him or die.”
The nurse finished connecting the bag of pink liquid clot-buster to the intravenous tube, and squeezed.
FEBRUARY 22 05:40 (GMT+3). Body of D.A.P. Kaparis
5% LCA REMAINING. 13 MINUTES. CRITICAL!
Finn was so hot he was delirious. They all were. The words had stopped. They had said all there was to say. They were exhausted and waiting for death.
Nico’s eyes closed.
Finn let his own lids drop, just for a moment, and from somewhere in his mind’s eye he saw a faint, uncanny sparkle … Was this death coming? No … It looked to him like the sparkle from a Spharelite stone, the stone that had once hung round his neck, that had been the only thing left in his father’s lab after it had burnt down, part of his experiments, part of himself. When you scratched it, it sparkled.
Spharelite …
He gasped and took a huge breath, snapping awake. And as he did so, the heartbeat beyond him seemed to shift gear from distant jungle drums to a cacophony—
Dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, DHU-DHU-DHU-DHU-DHU-DHU-DHU-DHU …
He wondered if his air had run out and if this was his own heart, if this was his end.
But Carla could hear it too. “What’s happening?”
Nico’s eyes sprang open. “They’re trying something!”
Spharelite, thought Finn. He did not question it, he did not try to make sense, he just thought: I must not go without a fight. And so for one last time, he clenched his right fist in the cramped space and drew it back the few inches he could. And he reached out one last time, for the sake of it, from death to life and life to death and back again.
He thumped the meat of his fist against the tomb, against fate, and with all his might …
Thud … Thud …THUDPOCCCCCCCCCOOWWWWWWW!!!!!
The world exploded.
“ARRGGHHgggggggghhhhh!” Finn screamed, as the shockwave burst through them and through the surface of the detonating abscess.
“ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!” Nico and Carla screamed, as they clung to each other, the hard pus shattering around them as unleashed tension propelled them away from the abscess core into a liquefied blur of swollen tissue …
Nico rebooted from emotional wreck to highly trained medic in less than a second.
“IT’S BLOWN!”
“IIIIIIII KNOOOOOOOOW!!!” Finn yelled in cathartic ecstasy as they slowed to a halt in a confusion of water, random cells and – red blood cells.
“Find fresh blood!” shouted Nico. “Find an artery! All roads must lead back the way we came, they have to … Just find a blood flow and swim against it!”
But where? They were in a grim ocean of debris. Only one thing appeared clearly – the projection on the front of Finn’s visor:
3% LCA REMAINING. 8 MINUTES. CRITICAL!
But they were free.
Finn grabbed the scoot where it still dangled from its tether at his ankle and ripped away the lumps of white goo that blocked its intake, as if picking its teeth. Carla did the same, while Nico frantically searched for fresh blood, looking every which way.
“THERE!”
2% LCA REMAINING. 5 MINUTES. CRITICAL!
Dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu, dhu-dhu.
It’s like those deep-sea diving films, thought Finn, those ocean trench explorations. The swollen tissue was a soup, crowded with debris, jet black beyond their headlight beams. But Nico had spotted it – fresh red blood cells rising like smokestack from somewhere deep beneath.
Carla and Finn with Nico between them spiralled down around the smokestack until they found the billowing source. It was like a magma-spewing vent on the ocean floor. A blood vessel blown open by the exploding abscess and not yet sealed.
“That’s it! In there!”
Finn and Carla, getting used to the three-legged race they were in, bowed their heads and angled their scoots and shot straight into the snowstorm of blood cells.
2% LCA REMAINING. 4 MINUTES. CRITICAL!
They bounced off the walls of the open blood vessel, felt the pressure increase, and found themselves back in the game, back in the arterial system, scooting up against the flow of blood, flying up the tight wriggling pink-white tunnels they’d been washed down so long before, into the blizzard flow of blood cells, the clear plasma a joyous relief after the clouded inflammation, as they twisted and turned until suddenly—
SWOOOOOOOOOSH!
They emerged out of the tunnels into one of the big pipes, the larger blood vessels where surely, if they just kept going …
“Follow the red brick road!” Nico urged them, her mind beginning to drift as the oxygen levels began to fall. Finn could feel his own heart thumping as it fought to squeeze every atom of oxygen from his tanks.
“GO!” agreed Finn, starting to panic—
1% LCA REMAINING. 3 MINUTES. CRITICAL!
“I can’t …” Carla mumbled. He could hear her panting. If she lost consciousness …
“JUST KEEP GOING!” he cried, yelling his mum’s words, urging Carla on with all his heart as they steered out into the largest artery yet.
“This must be it!” Finn shouted. He dipped his head and pointed his toes and led them speeding on into the darkness, into the flow, into more red, into unconsciousness, stars now beginning to appear before his eyes, and—
THUD.
They hit the artery wall, the shock waking him up.
“Light!” yelled Carla.
They drove forward once more, their heads ringing and their vision contorted, fixed on a single expanding eye, a searchlight, and – around it – a body and two huge arms.
The Vitalis! The mother ship had found her young.
Carla and Nico passed out as the mighty impellers eased the vessel round in the stream, her hold doors opening to scoop them up.
FEBRUARY 22 05:56 (GMT+3). Great Cavern, Monastery of Mount St Demetrius of Thessaloniki
Back … Back he came, rushing back, his mind clearing, the nightmares floating away … The gargoyle faces, the panther child, the curses and hisses of the dead and undead … all gone.
“BP 120 over 49 falling, heart back under 120, temperature reverting to normal,” reported the nurse to the Big Swiss Cheese as Kaparis started to come round.
“We’ve done it …” the surgeon said, sweat pouring off him.
T
he fever had broken, the moment of maximum danger had passed.
“You can put that away now,” he barked at Heywood, still holding the gun. “We’ve saved him.” The gun was slowly lowered.
“Sir!” interrupted a nurse, pointing to Kaparis’s chest. It was no longer rising and falling in a mechanical pattern, in time with the cycle of the ventilator. It was rising and falling of its own accord – almost fighting against the ventilator.
“Take off his mask,” ordered the surgeon.
They unclipped the breathing apparatus.
HISSSS … The chest continued to rise and fall.
“He’s breathing independently. We’ve done it!”
An eye popped open. “I think you’ll find I’ve done it …” Kaparis said, his first freely spoken words in more than fifteen years.
“Yes … Master,” whispered the surgeon, in awe.
Kaparis felt a whole continent of new sensation … of new being. He felt the cool sweat running down his body. He felt his lungs fill and deflate. He felt like a creature washed up on a beach.
Reborn.
TWENTY-SEVEN
FEBRUARY 22 06:02 (GMT+3). Body of D.A.P. Kaparis
Deep in the patient’s neck, Dr Leopold surveyed the night’s work. The great crevasse between the two severed sections of spinal cord was lit up like Christmas, a glade of glittering cables, swaying like seaweed in the crystal-clear fluid.
The last of the cables was about to be deployed.
Sir James scooted over, exhausted but in a similar state of wonder. He grabbed Leopold’s hand, shaking it in emotional congratulation.
“This is the resurrection, this is the light!”
0% LCA. 0 MINUTES
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS – air gushed into the airlock. Finn ripped off his helmet and gulped, gasping at the cool, fresh, life-giving air. Sweet oxygen, knocking sense back into him.
He hauled up Carla and Nico, tearing at their helmets, willing them to breathe. Both were deathly pale. He beat at their sternums and slapped their backs, trying to pummel them back to life.
And there was life left in them, just. They began to splutter and take desperate shallow breaths.
“COME ON!” Finn yelled, as the waters subsided around them. “BREATHE!”
They groaned. He didn’t know which one to help first. He was in a blur of panic. He had to bring them round before …
Tschchht—
The wheel on the airlock turned and the door automatically opened, spilling the three of them into the body of the Vitalis. Finn thumped open an emergency medical panel and pulled out a mask. Oxygen began to flow. He jammed it onto Carla’s face—
Tschchht – the door of the next airlock opened.
A fluorescent green spectre emerged and barked out an order to the bridge.
“Return to base,” said the pilot’s voice over the intercom.
“Roger,” said Pan. Their most unlikely saviour. He had emerged from the airlocks when they were in the hold and shoved them straight back inside.
Finn slumped to the floor and pretended to recover. The moment Pan saw his face, he would be finished. Pan grabbed the hair at the back of Carla and Nico’s heads to check they were still breathing.
“Where’s Amazon?” Pan demanded. “We’ve been patrolling every hour!”
Finn took a gasp for effect. “She’s dead.”
Carla groaned as she regained consciousness. Finn knew he had to talk before she gave them away.
“Her battery failed. The body attacked her,” said Finn.
“Why didn’t she use her flare?” demanded Pan.
“She panicked,” said Finn. He could feel Carla’s eyes on him, figuring out what was going on.
“Panicked?” spat Pan in disgust. “She did not accept death for the Master?”
“No.”
“Scum!” barked Pan, and slammed his helmet against the airlock door. The shame of it! His eyes bulged in psychic pain. Then they lighted on the prone green form of Nico. The prisoner.
“Amazon had orders to kill her!” His face became a snarl and he raised his helmet again, ready to dash it against Nico’s head.
“NO!” ordered Carla, and Finn jumped across Nico’s body to protect her.
Pan hesitated for a fraction of a second … Processing shock at their disobedience. Processing the face he was looking at … Infinity Drake’s face …
Pan’s whole body became a snarl, a downward killing force led by the helmet—
Tzzzzot – Tzzzzot – anchor lines fired from the hull of the Vitalis as it docked. The craft twitched, Pan rocked, and Finn kicked out to ensure – SMASH! – the helmet missed his head and crashed into the metal floor.
“Vitalis secured …” came the pilot’s voice over the intercom.
“ALARRRRRM!” cried Pan. As Finn instinctively struck out – BAM – Pan clipped him hard with the back of his helmet. Finn felt his eye scream and his head slam against the floor. Pan appeared over him and shot an iron hand down to snap around Finn’s neck.
“Ag … Uc …” Finn tried desperately to breathe. The pain in his Adam’s apple was excruciating.
BAM – relief came as Carla slammed into Pan like a tornado of hair, knees and nails. Finn kicked himself free just as the Tyro pilot jumped down through the engine-room hatch. With a kick, he sent Carla flying. Now it was two against two.
Finn saw red, roared up from the floor, and in a desperate playground scramble managed to butt the pilot and headlock Pan. But Pan was pure wire, pure brainwashed Tyro strength, and he dug claws into Finn’s face to prise himself free.
“Arrrgghhhhhhh!” Carla screamed as – SLAM – the pilot shoved her into an airlock, spun the wheel and threw a locking bar across to open the valves and flood the chamber.
“No!” cried Finn, but – BANG – Pan caught him with a karate kick to the side of his head. Time slowed as he flew sideways, seeing stars … Then speeded up again as he hit spent air tanks. SLAM. Finn grabbed one and with a great grunt of effort lifted it, and swung. Hard, heavy metal arced through the tight space – WHUCK – clipping the pilot on the point of the jaw. In a sickening instant he was down, and out cold.
Pan ran back to the crew quarters. For one triumphant moment, Finn thought he was on the ropes … but then he reappeared. With a harpoon gun.
He raised it like a rifle, and pointed it square at Finn. With only a second to think, Finn grabbed the dazed pilot and raised him as a human shield. Pan gave a bark of laughter and simply fired – KSCHHOOOOOTD! – WHAM! The harpoon shot straight through the midriff of the stricken pilot. Finn felt hot steel skim the right side of his belly and he dropped the pilot in shock.
This is the end, Finn realised, he’s going to kill me. But his blood was up and he didn’t care. In fact, he’d never felt more alive. He flew at Pan, just as Pan swung the butt of the harpoon gun – WHACK. Finn took a savage blow and hit the floor.
Pan appeared over him, and raised his harpoon butt again to bring it down and finish Finn off.
Then from nowhere – WHAM! – an air tank smashed into the side of Pan’s head, almost knocking it off.
Finn looked across.
Nico … Still a little dazed. Still amazed at what she’d just done.
“Quick!” shouted Finn, and dived for the airlock. He unlocked the wheel and spun it in reverse to let the air back in. Pan was struggling up again, staggering back, determined to fight on to the death, wanting more, but for the moment as harmless as a drunk.
The airlock opened and out spilled a spluttering, swearing Carla, a little mermaid gone bad. Finn then grabbed Pan and shoved him into the airlock in her place, delighting in kicking his desperate hands from the riveted frame and – SLAM – banging home the door. The wheel spun and he threw the locking bar across, leaving Pan to his fate.
“Come on!” he said, and the three of them climbed up to the bridge.
Beneath the great glass bubble, glorious in the Vitalis lights, was the endless flow of surging blood cells. But
they could also see, emerging from the entrance to the intravertebral foamina, a line of fluorescent yellow and green figures; the returning Tyro crew and two medics, making their way back to the mothership and about to discover they were locked out.
“We can’t kill them,” said Carla.
“They’ve got the radioactive flares. They can get out,” said Finn.
“And what about us?” asked Nico.
Finn turned and jumped into the pilot’s chair, trying to figure out the controls, dual joysticks set into the armrests, fingertip panels and screens cascading data.
“What are you doing?” asked Nico.
“We need to get out of here, before they get in,” said Finn, as concerned Tyros started scooting up to the glass canopy, signalling to them to open the airlocks.
“Stay out of view, Nico,” warned Finn. “We can’t let them know you survived.” Nico ducked back down the stairway.
On his screens, Finn saw the Tyros outside had managed to open the airlock and release Pan. He would live. Finn felt a pang of regret, but also, Better out than in. He gripped the twin joysticks and nudged them forward. The Vitalis lurched, nearly knocking Carla off her feet, as it strained against the anchor lines. The Tyros at the glass stopped trying to signal and instead started hammering and threatening. Even Leopold popped up to stare through with disbelieving eyes at Finn.
Finn shoved the joysticks forward again, and again the craft kangarooed on the spot.
“Let me have a go!” said Carla, all but kicking Finn out of the hotseat.
CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK! The Tyros were now smashing something against the glass canopy.
With a curse and a prayer, and trusting the instincts of her flying-ace sister, Carla scrolled through the screens.
CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK!
“Quick!” shouted Finn.
“Just have to figure out how to – aha! – disengage the anchors.” She touched a hyperlink and – Tz-Tz-Tz-Tzoot! – at once the four anchor lines were released.
For a moment, the Vitalis drifted, then as Carla eased the joysticks forward, the mighty craft SWOOOOOOSHED off at maximum thrust, leaving Leopold, Sir James, Pan and the Tyro crew tumbling and struggling in the receding darkness.
