A voice made Jonah jump out of his skin. “Not sure there’s room for three,” it said. In the gloom Jonah saw a hulking figure.
“Huge-oh. Boy, am I pleased to see you!”
“So you met our bandit friends then, I see,” whispered Hugo. “Got a plan, Stan?”
“Shutting up might be a start!” hissed Grace.
Through the gap, they saw a mutant come through the thicket followed by a second. A third crossed the brow of the hill behind. They were on the hunt, looking at the ground for footprints.
“Surprise is the best form of defence,” Jonah whispered, with a shrug of his shoulders.
Grace nodded. She shoved a finger at Jonah and pointed to the first mutant, Hugo the second, and gave herself the third. What do we do when there’s more than three, he wondered, then settled the pistol on his left arm, looked through the sites and spied a leathery face with three holes that may have been nostrils. A shudder passed though him before he steadied his aim and squeezed the trigger.
A laser combines the shattering physical force of lightning with the heat of a tiny nuclear reaction. Old Three Nostrils was a smoking, headless corpse before Jonah released his finger. The other mutants, too, lay toasting on the sand.
“We need to move,” said Grace and edged out of the cave. They sprinted away from the action, around the bottom of a steep hill into a narrow, dry valley – and into the tail of a second bandit party. There was no time for a plan. Jonah dived and let rip, his pistol becoming an inferno of yellow flame. Screams filled the valley as lasers sliced through the mutant flesh. For a few moments the sides traded a fierce volley of shots, dust and shrapnel spitting up around Jonah’s face. Hugo and Grace had rolled to the bottom of an escarpment and were firing a constant stream up the valley.
This needs to stop or we’ll run out of power, Jonah thought. He looked at the gauge on his weapon: quarter full.
He buried himself deeper behind a boulder, bullets bouncing around him.
“Think!”
He removed his pack searching for a drink bottle. “It’s black, at least.” He took a quick gulp of water then threw the bottle with all his might towards the bandits and yelled, “grenade!”
A hoot went up as the mutants dived for cover. It gave the three friends enough time to rush forward. Suddenly they were on top of the ragged bunch, their lasers carving up the enemy. It was over in seconds, the bandits now a smouldering pile of robes and bodies.
Adrenalin was pumping through Jonah. He counted to five then back again, forcing himself to relax.
“Next?”
Grace wiped sweat from her face. “There’ll be more, and they’ll be angry. I haven’t seen the bald one yet, either.”
Hugo was drawing deep breaths. Some blood trickled down his neck. He turned to show Jonah who grimaced at a wound on Hugo’s fleshy ear. “Nothing life threatening, but there go your good looks.”
Hugo harrumphed and tore off his sleeve and wrapped it around his head. He looked like a cartoon gangster.
They were standing at the top of the valley now, with three brown hills around them. “I don’t like this place,” said Grace. “We need to keep moving.”
She’d barely finished her words when a volley of bullets kicked the rocks around their feet. A metallic voice sounded – was it a machine? “Move and you’re dead! Lay down your weapons – now!”
Bandits appeared on the three hills, their rifles pointing at the Metricians. A jeep, with a gun mounted on the back, rushed up the valley and skidded to a stop. They were trapped. Jonah tossed his laser to the ground and raised his hands.
The bandits bounded down the slopes, their feet kicking little avalanches of scree. From the jeep emerged a short man, dressed in a leather trench-coat and bowler hat. He waddled towards them, his hands cradling a short, twin-barreled shotgun. Jonah recognised him – the bald man they’d seen earlier.
Behind him, a second vehicle rumbled into the valley: a truck with a steel cow-catcher on the front and a gun turret behind the cab. It was pulling two carriages, cobbled together with iron and wooden planks. The truck’s engine rumbled like an earthquake.
Baldie moved slowly up to the three captives. He sniffed the air.
“You’ve caused quite the commotion, you Metrician scum.” His voice was neither human nor robot. It breathed out in a mechanical monotone.
He raised the shotgun and ran it along Jonah’s cheek. Jonah swiped the barrel away.
“Ohhhh,” crackled the voice. “What’s the matter Flyboy, don’t like the way we host people here in Landerland?”
Baldie raised the gun again, this time pushing it into Jonah’s neck and gestured at the scattered bodies. “Well, I don’t particularly like the way you treat my friends. They were good men. Ugly, but good. Now you’ve carved them all up with your fancy little shooters.”
In a single swift movement, he flipped the shotgun, grasped it by the barrel and drove the butt into Jonah’s stomach. Jonah doubled over and gasped for air. The man flipped the gun again and caught it with his other hand. Smiling, he stepped over to Grace and lifted her chin with a finger. “And what have we here? More bounty,” he breathed.
Grace pulled away but he laughed. “Going somewhere?” Then he turned round and shouted: “Round ‘em up! Back to the wagons!”
“What about them?” one of the mutants asked, pointing at the dead.
“Who? Oh, leave ‘em. The dead will bury the dead.” And he began to waddle back to the jeep.
Jonah marvelled at the man’s callousness. So, this is how the Landers treat their own, he thought.
As the bandits turned to follow their boss, Hugo snatched a rifle from an inattentive mutant and fired a shot from the hip. The mutant yelped and fell in a heap. Hugo swivelled round and aimed at the fat man, letting loose a burst of gunfire that sent everyone sprawling.
“Run!” he cried. But something hit Hugo and he dropped the gun. He was on his knees, his suit red with his own blood.
Two bandits threw themselves onto the boy and Grace and Jonah were grabbed from behind.
“Hugo!” yelled Jonah, but he was bustled down the valley towards the convoy. Over his shoulder he could see the mutants dragging Hugo by the legs but lost sight of them when he was shoved inside the wooden trailer. Grace followed. The door slammed shut. Engines fired. The wagon shuddered and lurched, throwing them against the wall.
The skirmish was over in less than a minute and Jonah trembled with the shock of it all.
“Get a grip on yourself,” hissed Grace. She could feel his body shake. But he couldn’t control himself. And the more he tried to stop, the more his hands shook.
“Take deep breaths and relax,” she said angrily.
He was in shock. Only hours ago they were on top of the world, flying over the desert like gods. Now they were trapped. By bandits. The very Contagion-filled scum he’d vowed to kill. And they had Hugo. Maybe even killed him!
It took an age, and all his powers of concentration, but he eventually got his breathing under control. The trembling reduced too but he felt exhausted, as if he’d been run over.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to adjust to the darkness. Day-light filtered through holes in the walls, creating shafts of dust. The wagon smelt of sweat and urine. Shapes formed in the shadows and, for a second, he thought he saw something move, but it just blurred into the dark.
He closed his eyes for 30 seconds and opened them again, this time wide, trying to absorb all the light he could.
“Wait, Grace, we’re not alone,” he whispered.
Grace was sitting on her hands. “What do you mean?”
“Hello? Is there anyone in here?” he asked.
A shadow loomed out of the corner, followed by hands which shoved him to the floor.
“Be quiet!” a voice hissed, thick with an accent. A boot was on his neck now.
“Okay, okay, I’m quiet,” Jonah whispered and raised his palms in defeat.
The boot withdrew and a hand reached out
of the gloom and lifted Jonah up from the floor. Two faces, young and tanned looked back.
“I’m Nassim,” said the girl, “and this is my brother, Wadid. Welcome to paradise.”
Chapter 11 - Tricks and cheats
Jonah stared at the girl, trying to understand what was wrong with her face. No obvious marks of mutation, no scars or deformities. She looked okay to him. In the twilight of their prison, Jonah saw that she had olive skin with a narrow face, high cheekbones and dark, straight hair. For such a petite person she had a surprisingly crushing handshake.
The boy looked younger but also healthy, with a thin face and a shock of thick black hair.
“You’re Metricians aren’t you?” asked Nassim.
Jonah nodded.
“I’ve heard about your kind. But never met any before. Are there more of you? We heard a lot of shooting.”
Jonah looked at Grace. ‘Um, well, there is one.”
“He was alive when we left him,” said Grace.
They sat down and were silent for a while. The wagon bumped.
“But I sure did let those Landers have it!” laughed Grace. “I killed four and together I think we got nine, at least by my count. Filthy Lander scum got it in the neck hah, hah!”
Jonah was about to laugh as well but saw Nassim’s brow furrow.
“Just who are you calling scum?” Nassim said.
Grace hadn’t noticed Nassim’s tone. “Landers, you know, filthy Landers. Mutants. Brutes. They’re all scum,” and she spat on the floor of the wagon for effect. “Can’t wait to wipe out more.”
Suddenly Nassim launched herself at Grace, wrestling her to the floor. Jonah jumped up but was grabbed from behind by Wadid.
“Scum, eh? Is that what you like to call us,” yelled Nassim. “Can’t you be a little more creative? How about wretches?
Or freaks?”
Grace writhed. “Get off me, you stupid …”
“Stupid what? Animal? Monster?”
Nassim, squeezed her hands tighter around Grace’s neck.
Jonah elbowed Wadid in the guts and tried to spin round. But Wadid was strong, and his arm tightened around Jonah’s neck.
Nassim pushed Grace’s head down with a dismissive shove and then retreated to Wadid’s shoulder. Grace rolled sideways gasping for air, coughing and holding her neck.
“Let me go, please,” Jonah asked.
The four backed to the ends of the wagon. No one spoke. Jonah and Grace had been stunned by the ferocity of the attack. Clearly they were strong but inferior, dressed in rags and mutated in some unseen way. Probably diseased. Hopefully sterile. Landers were a rabble, disorganised and primitive. This is how they treated each other: killing, pillaging, kidnapping.
He shuffled over to Grace. “How’s the neck?”
“Warm.”
“What’s the plan?” he whispered.
“You mean the one about killing these two mutants and escaping the circus train, meeting up with Metrician rescue squad, eating a decent meal followed by a revenge attack?”
“Um, no, not so much that one. I was thinking more about how we survive the next few hours with our roommates over there.”
He stared through the gloom and saw that Nassim and Wadid were also conspiring.
“Well, we stay where can see them. And make sure we don’t start treating them like old buddies,” she growled.
“Hey, it wasn’t me that was boasting about killing Landers!” he hissed.
She paused. “Yeah, I know, I’m sorry. I just got tricked into trusting them. At least with old Baldie you know that he hates you from the start. These are trickier scum, no doubt.”
The wagon was jolting along in a more regular motion than before, making Jonah wonder if they had reached a rough road. And if it was a road then there would be other travellers and perhaps some of kind of civilisation. He had an idea.
“We have to think carefully about this. Right now, our enemy is this couple. Clearly they’re strong and possibly could kill us with their bare hands. That kid might have some kind of Samson gene mutation. I read about it once. It’s a mutation on the sixteenth chromosome ...”
“Can we skip the science lesson?”
“Sorry. Anyway, we need to negotiate some kind of truce inside this wagon until we can escape.”
“So what’s your plan, Houdini?”
“Well, we share a common enemy, right? We need to convince these two that they need us; that we have something that will help us all to escape.”
Grace looked at him for what seemed like a minute. Finally she spoke. “Your logic’s correct. But what have we got that they don’t?”
“This.”
Jonah reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his game pod.
“Brilliant, we’ll negotiate with toys,” she said.
“No dummy. To you and me it’s just a game player. But they don’t know that. They probably don’t even know what games are. We’ll tell them it’s a communicator and that all we need to do is activate it and the rescue team will find us.”
Grace looked at him again. “That’s the first good idea you’ve had all day.”
Jonah looked up and cleared his throat. “Hey, you two. Nassim. Grace and I, we’d like to apologise.”
“You mean for taking up our precious oxygen? Or perhaps you mean the extermination of our people. Where do you want to start?”
“Um, well, how about right here? I just think we need to get along if there’s any chance of escaping from these Lan..., I mean, from these bandits.”
“We could just kill you now and save them any trouble – and maybe save you some torture,” said Wadid, rising from his corner.
“Yes, you could. But before you do I’d like to share with you an idea that might change your mind.”
Nassim grabbed Wadid’s arm. “What is it?” she asked.
“It’s this,” and he stood up and showed them his pod. “It’s a communicator. I activated it as soon as we landed. It’s sending a beacon to our rescue team at Sky London, our home base.”
“Excellent, more Metricians,” snorted Wadid.
Nassim glared at him. “Wait, let’s listen to what he has to say.”
“Thank you. When the squad arrives they’ll be armed to the teeth with weapons that this lot can’t even imagine. They won’t stand a chance against the Metrician tek. They’ve got mini-nukes and flesh-seeking bullets, hoverbikes and a very nasty little bomb that detects mutant-only tissue. As long as this device is operating, our wagon will be protected from the attack. Not much else will survive.”
“Fine then, just give it to me!” said Wadid.
“Ah! You see, that’s the thing,” said Jonah pulling the pod back. “It doesn’t work like that. The communicator is powered by, um, me.”
“You?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of hard to explain, but it’s powered by my heart beat, well, not exactly my heart beat, more like my energy, but even then it’s not so much that, it’s more like my life-force.”
“Ugh, it’s tek, okay?” said Grace, joining them in the centre of the wagon. “The communicator is powered by our bodies. I’ve got one too, see.” And she held up her pod. “The point is, we need to be alive if these are going to work.”
Jonah could see Nassim was interested.
“It’s a locator beacon. Each one has a unique code so that our HQ knows exactly where we are at any time. They’re on their way already.”
“Let me see it,” Nassim asked.
Before Grace could object, Jonah handed over his pod and the two examined it closely, shaking it, holding it up to their ears, tapping it.
“I hear and see nothing.”
“Yeah, well, it’s emitting ultra-waves. They’re too small to see or hear. Trust me.”
Nassim weighed the device in her hand and then tossed it back to Jonah.
“Okay, here’s what we will do,” she said. “If what you say is true then we should be rescued within hours. In exchange for preserv
ing your life now we expect the same in return when your people arrive.”
“Sounds fair,” said Jonah.
“I haven’t finished.”
‘Oh.”
“After the rescue you will take us with you to this Sky London.”
“Okay, but ...”
“And you will ensure that we are treated fairly and not imprisoned or tortured or returned to this godforsaken place.”
“Well, I think we can ...”
“And there’s one more thing.”
Grace sighed. “Oh, for goodness sake, what else? A fine apartment near the sea? A foot massage in the morning? You’re Landers! You are our enemy. You are in no position to negotiate terms with the Metrician army. You’ll be lucky to be left alive. And anyway, even we wanted to give you these things, which we don’t, it’s not in our power to do so. We’re just soldiers, not generals. You can beg for it from them!”
Provoked by Grace’s outburst, Wadid punched her in the stomach. But this time she was ready and hardened her muscles and then whacked him so hard that his head snapped back and he tottered for a moment seeing the Milky Way for the first time in his life. She was about to land a second blow when Jonah gabbed her arm from behind and twisted it up her back.
“Stop! Stop it, both of you!”
Nassim stepped in. “He’s right, we need to make peace. There’s time for justice and perhaps even revenge later. For now, we must cooperate.”
She extended her hand and Jonah took it. Grace and Wadid glowered.
“Peace!” spat Grace. “He’ll rest in peace once we’re done with him.”
“Yeah, well, let’s wait till that moment, shall we?” counselled Jonah. Still holding Nassim’s hand he asked. “Now, what was that other thing?”
“No matter,” she said, shaking her head. She let his hand fall and retreated to her end of the wagon with Wadid.
Night comes quickly in the desert and through the gaps in the timber Jonah could see the clouds reddening. The sun was sliding behind the hills and the entire sky was a crimson duvet.
He felt tired. Grace and Wadid had slumped into opposite corners and were already asleep or making a good show of it. Sleep didn’t feel safe. There was no rescue coming. He knew that they had vanished from Metricia’s eyes. They were alone and needed to stay awake to live. So long as he could keep Nassim talking, no matter what rubbish it was, he felt confident of at least keeping the peace.
Road to Abaddon Page 9
