Outpost

by Adam Baker

How much further should he explore? The plank was half burned down. He should head back.

  He crouched and examined the tunnel floor. Fresh footprints in the dust. The grip-tread of his own heavy snowboots. And a second set of prints heading deeper into the tunnels.

  He measured his foot against the print. Whoever had recently walked down this passageway wore small boots with chevron tread.

  A white tiled chamber, dazzling after miles of drab concrete.

  Nail knew he should turn back and head for the surface, but he was overcome by curiosity. This vast subterranean necropolis held secrets. He and Gus were in a hopeless situation, injured and marooned. Maybe if Nail pushed further, travelled deeper into the tunnel complex, he might unearth some kind of salvation.

  Lockers, shower heads, a hatch in the floor.

  Chemical warfare suits in the lockers. Rubber hoods with glass eye-holes.

  The room was a decontamination suite. Soldiers could wash away radioactive fallout, unzip their suits, climb down the shaft and seal themselves inside the hermetic environment of Level Zero.

  Nail approached the floor hatch. A hinged lid like the turret hatch of a tank. He heaved the door open. A gust of foetid air from far below ground. His torch fluttered and died.

  Absolute dark. Nail fumbled in his pocket for his lighter. Three strikes. Sparks, then a steady flame. He re-lit the plank of wood.

  He looked down the shaft beside him. Walls lit by flickering flame-light. For a moment, deep at the bottom of the shaft, he thought he glimpsed a figure looking up at him.

  Nail returned to the bunker entrance an hour later. He carried a wooden chair over his shoulder. He smashed the chair and put the pieces on the fire.

  Gus sat by the fire and rocked back and forth. The man was clearly in agony, sweating the pain minute by minute.

  Nail chiselled ice from the wall with a spanner.

  'Rub it on your burns. It'll help.'

  'You found some wood.'

  'There are some bunks down there. And some tables and chairs. Dormitories for the team that built the place. Enough wood to buy us some thinking time.'

  'Nothing to eat, I bet.'

  'I'll check the Skidoo panniers in a minute. I need to sit down a while. I'm exhausted.'

  They dried their boots over the fire.

  They heard a thud against the bunker door. Then another. Fists pounded. Fingers scratched.

  'I truly don't get it,' said Gus. 'Can they smell us? Is that it? How do they know we are in here? Some kind of super- sense?'

  'They can smell you all right. You stink like cooked bacon.'

  They sat by the fire for an hour. A gentle draught drew wood- smoke down the tunnel like cigarette fumes sucked into a smoker's lungs. They listened to fists thump against the doors.

  Gus watched the smoke.

  'Are there vents down there? A second exit?'

  'Fuck knows. It goes on for miles. A secret city. Some kind of major naval facility.'

  'How many of them do you think are out there?' asked Gus.

  'Two, I reckon. They're half frozen. We could get round them easily enough. If more show up I'll go out there and kill them. Thin out the herd. They're slow. They're stupid. I could do it. Wouldn't be a problem.'

  'My face. Is it bad?' 'Yeah, it's pretty bad.'

  'If I asked you to kill me, if it came down to it, would you help?'

  Nail turned away.

  A sudden flashback. The big argument. Mal shouting and cursing, jabbing his finger. A blur of steel as Nail lashed out. That shrill, bubbling squeal. That gush of arterial spray.

  Nail hadn't slept for a month. Scared to close his eyes.

  'Maybe it won't come to that.'

  Nail pushed a couple more chair legs on to the fire.

  'We have to get back to Rampart,' said Gus. 'That's our only chance. There will be food, heat and morphine. I'm in so much pain.'

  'Let me think it over.'

  A couple of nights earlier Nail had sat in the bridge of Hyperion unable to sleep. He sat in the captain's chair and looked at the stars. He was joined by Reverend Blanc. They made small talk. Little more than noise. But he could tell straight away she knew his big secret. She seemed too pleasant, too casual. Somehow she had figured out he killed Mal.

  Maybe Jane and her friends were dead. Maybe they were ripped apart or died in the fire. But perhaps they escaped Hyperion. They might have taken refuge on Rampart armed with shotguns. Would Jane shoot on sight? What would he do, if their situation were reversed? Sorry, guys. I thought she was one of those infected freaks.

  'I don't want to worry you,' said Gus quietly, 'but I've been watching the shadows behind you for a while and I swear there is someone standing against the far wall.'

  Nail slowly turned around. The fire cast flickering shadows across the tunnel walls. He saw a figure in heavy snow gear half hidden in darkness.

  Nail stood up.

  'Hi,' he said. 'You're welcome to join us.'

  No response.

  He took a burning chair leg from the fire and approached the figure.

  A Con Amalgam parka patched with duct tape.

  'I'm Nail. Nail Harper.'

  No reply.

  'Hello? Can you hear me?'

  He held up the chair leg so he could see the face beneath the hood. Chapped, peeling skin. Mad, staring eyes.

  'Nikki. It's Nikki.'

  The Plan

  Jane and Ghost fled the island. Punch and Sian were close behind. They ran headlong. Jane was glad to trip over rocks. Rocks meant they were still close to shore. If they found themselves running through pristine snow it meant they had blundered inland and were running further and further from safety.

  They scrambled down basalt boulders and ran out on to the frozen sea. They skidded and struggled to keep balance. The glow of the burning ship stained the ice blood red.

  Jane had the only flashlight. They followed her lead.

  'Keep together. Don't get separated.'

  A succession of muffled thumps behind them. Floor by floor, room by room, Hyperion was blowing itself to bits. Grenades strapped to propane cylinders. Ghost's failsafe plan. If infected passengers broke through the barricades they would be incinerated. But localised detonations had run out of control. One by one the ship's fuel tanks exploded fore and aft, blasting holes in the hull, jetting flame through corridors and stairwells.

  'We have to slow down,' shouted Jane. 'This is fresh ice. I don't want to break the crust and fall into the sea.'

  They slowed from a run to a walk.

  'Are you folks all right?' she asked. 'Everyone okay?'

  She and Ghost had been in their room when the attack began. They were lying on the rug, listening to Johnny Cash and talking about the life they would build when they got home. They heard shouting. They heard a fight. 'Breakout: They had the presence of mind to grab polar coats and glacier boots.

  The corridor outside their room was filled with bitter smoke. Thermite detonations nearby. They covered their mouths to mask acrid fumes. Burning paint. Melting metal.

  They ran on deck. Fire from below. Windows blew out. A row of burning lifeboats. The zodiac was reduced to scraps of burning rubber hanging from a crane.

  Punch and Sian had already retired to bed. They fled the ship wearing tracksuits and sneakers.

  'We're fine,' said Sian, starting to shiver uncontrollably.

  Jane switched off her flashlight. They stood in the dark.

  'We have to get moving,' said Punch.

  'Everyone keep calm,' said Jane.

  'There.' A green, pulsing glow high above them in the fog. One of the aircraft warning strobes at the corner of the rig. 'The west leg,' she said. 'Come on.'

  Jane helped Sian. Ghost helped Punch.

  They hurried across the ice. They were beneath the refinery, heading for the south leg. They ran so long Jane wondered if they had missed their target and were fleeing blindly out into the Barents Sea.

  'Do you think they are f
ollowing us?' asked Punch.

  'We've outrun them for now,' said Jane. 'But yeah, if we hang around long enough they'll catch up.'

  The south leg. A Cyclopean cylinder of steel. Jane's flashlight played across a wall of metal studded with bolts and seams like the suture marks of an operation scar.

  'Jane,' shouted Ghost.

  She turned. A forklift truck drove straight at her. Pallet prongs slammed into the steel wall either side of her head. Wheels span on ice.

  'What the fuck?'

  An infected crewman part-melded to the controls.

  Ghost grabbed the cab cage and kicked at the driver. Flesh tore. The crewman ripped away from the forklift and fell on the ice, steering wheel welded to his hands. Ghost stamped on the man's head until it burst.

  'Konecranes. Not one of ours.'

  'Must be from Hyperion. Most liners have a big marshalling area amidships. Side doors in the hull.'

  'He just fell out and started driving around?'

  'Sure. Why not?'

  Punch and Sian hugged each other for warmth.

  'Hold on, guys,' said Ghost. 'Nearly home.'

  'I think the rope is round the side.'

  They circled the leg and found a knotted rope dangling from the mist like a ladder to heaven. Jane seized the rope and climbed upwards into nothing. The platform lift was parked four metres above them. There was a brief silence, then a metallic grind as the lift descended to the ice. They climbed aboard. Jane hit Up.

  'So fucking cold,' said Punch.

  'Soon be warm,' said Ghost. 'A couple more minutes and we'll be inside.'

  It wasn't until Sian collapsed they realised she had been stabbed in the side and her red tracksuit was crisp with frozen blood.

  They carried Sian to the canteen. They laid her on a table. She tried to sit up. They pushed her down.

  Jane ran to Rye's old room and swept medical supplies into a plastic bag. Bandages. Sterile dressings.

  Jane examined the wound. Sian yelped and hit her. Punch held Sian's arms. She turned her head to avoid looking at the hole in her hip.

  Jane wriggled on surgical gloves. She selected tweezers from an instrument pack. She sterilised the tweezers with a Zippo flame then dug into the wound. Sian writhed. Jane extracted a big, rusted woodscrew dripping gobbets of flesh.

  'Any idea when it happened?' asked Jane.

  'That last explosion as we reached the boat deck. I didn't feel it at the time. Too much going on.'

  Jane swabbed the wound and taped a dressing in place.

  'It should be okay, as long as you keep it clean. Let me rustle up some painkillers.' She dug in the bag.

  'Did anyone see what happened to Gus?' asked Ghost.

  'No,' said Jane.

  'How about Nail? Did anyone see what happened to him?'

  'No.'

  'Yakov? How about Yakov?'

  'Dead,' said Sian, struggling to sit up.

  'Are you sure?'

  'Punch and I ran from our room. He went back for his sneakers. I was alone on the upper deck. Just for a moment. Yakov was below me on the promenade. He was fighting off a guy in clown costume. Other passengers showed up. They had him cornered. I called to him. I leaned over the railing and held out my arm. I told him to jump for my hand. I don't know. I still think he could have made it. I could have hauled him up. He pulled the pin from a grenade with his teeth and held it beneath his chin. He looked up, looked me straight in the eye. I shouted. He just kept looking at me. I was the last thing he saw.'

  'Jesus,' said Punch. 'I barely spoke a word to the man. He seemed nice, though. Quiet, but nice.'

  'Bollocks,' said Jane. 'Don't give me that. He was one of Nail's muscle clones. None of you could stand the guy.'

  'I asked him to sign his name on a couple of safety chits,' said Ghost. 'He put a cross. I don't think he could write at all.'

  'How do you think they got in?' asked Punch. 'I swear those barricades were solid.'

  'There were two waves,' said Jane. 'The first bunch, the bunch in fancy dress, they didn't trip any grenades. I heard screaming and shouting long before the first grenade blew. They must have found a way to circumvent the barricades. A back door. Something we missed. God knows how. I swear we had all the exits covered. But they just showed up in the corridors like they had been invited, like someone let them in. They second wave smashed their way inside. They crashed the party. They wanted some of the action, and that's when the fires began.'

  'We should lower the platform lift,' said Punch. 'Some of the other guys might have survived.'

  Jane checked her watch.

  'It's been nearly two hours. If anyone stayed aboard Hyperion, hid or something, they burned. The ship was gutted, top to bottom. And if they made it over the side, they died of exposure. Face it. We are the only ones left.'

  'Yeah.'

  'And you know what? A little part of me is glad. Happy families. But look around. Whole lot of empty chairs. Whole lot of dead guys. Four of us left. Are we just going to sit around all nice and cosy and watch each other die?'

  'It might be better if they didn't make it,' said Ghost. 'Nail. Better if he doesn't show up again.'

  'Why's that?' asked Sian.

  'I'm pretty sure he killed Mal.'

  'You're kidding me.'

  'There was some kind of argument, some kind of confrontation.'

  'Jesus.'

  'He might not even be Nail Harper. He might be using a stolen name.'

  'Christ.'

  'Nothing we could prove.'

  'What happened? What was it all about?'

  'There was some dealing going on. Murky shit. Even if he made it off Hyperion, he's too dangerous to allow back on the rig. I vote we pull up the drawbridge. Fuck him.'

  'That's pretty harsh,' said Sian.

  'Come on,' said Jane. 'Is there anyone in this room who isn't glad he's gone?'

  Jane sealed the blast door that connected the accommodation block to the rest of the rig. She ripped the switch panel from the wall with a knife.

  The rig was now a fortress. Accommodation Module A was their castle keep. Even if anyone managed to climb aboard Rampart they would freeze in unheated rooms and passageways.

  'It's minus fifty out on the island,' said Ghost. 'Insane wind- chill. No one could survive more than a couple of minutes.'

  'Let's be double-sure. Just for the next day or two, so we can sleep safe in our beds. Touch the wires and the door opens, all right? Otherwise it stays closed.'

  'We should have stayed here all along. My idea to move to Hyperion.'

  'It's all right.'

  'It's not all right. People died.'

  'I crashed the fucking ship into the island, so we've both got blood on our hands. But no more grenades, okay? No more booby traps. We've had enough excitement.'

  'None left. We used them up.'

  'The fire probably took care of most of them,' said Ghost. 'The infected. Everyone aboard the ship is toast. Couple of hundred left on the ice. They won't last. Nothing can survive that intense cold for long.'

  'Great. But our ride home just went up in smoke.'

  'I'm heading downstairs for a while,' said Ghost. 'I need a bit of quiet time.'

  Jane returned to the canteen. She sipped tea.

  'How's Ghost doing?' asked Punch.

  'He'll get his shit together soon enough. He's a practical guy.

  Not the kind to sit and mope. He wants to get out of here as much as any of us.'

  'So what now?'

  'We leave,' said Jane. 'We've wasted too much time pursuing abortive schemes. No more home-made rafts. No more sit-and- wait. We cook up a solid strategy right here, right now. Seriously. We've spent all our time reacting to events. Fuck that.'

  'We should head for Canada,' said Punch. 'Fetch the snowmobiles from the bunker. Load up and run for it before the sea melts. Yeah, I know. It's an old idea. You've heard it before. But I still say it's our best shot. It's mid-winter. The sea is cold as it is going to get
. If we are going to travel, if we are going to make use of the ice, we'd better do it now.'

  'We would never make it,' said Jane. 'Not all four of us. Too much kit to haul. Food, clothes, tents. Besides, what if the sea didn't completely freeze this winter? Global warming. I doubt we have a clear run to Canada, even now. We need to do better. We need a fighting chance.'

  'So what's on your mind?'

  'Get your coats. It's easier if I show you.'

  Jane led Punch and Sian to a gantry overlooking the corner of the rig. Fog-shrouded walkways. Pipework and decking slick with ice.

  They stood shivering in the darkness. Jane shone a heavy spotlight downward at one of the massive cables that anchored the refinery to the seabed.

  'What if we detach the cables and float the refinery free?' said Jane. 'We already lost one of the cables when Hyperion collided with the refinery. Three left.'

  'How do you plan on doing that?' asked Punch. 'Each weighs the same as a battleship. You need monster equipment to manipulate them.'

  'There's no way on earth we could cut the cable. It would take an atom bomb. But look at the coupling. That's the weak point.

  It's anchored by a four-tonne pin. If we could kick the pin out of its socket then the cable would drop and Rampart would drift free.'

  'Be my guest.'

  'That stuff from the seismic research station. The explosives. There should still be a bunch of C4 left, yes? Couple of cases at least. Ghost hid it in the bunker. We could pack a big wad of plastic round each pin and touch it off. Fire the pin clean out of the coupling. It would be our last roll of the dice, but worth a try.'

  'Yeah. Fuck it. Let's go out with a bang.'

  Jane went looking for Ghost. She found him on C deck, the lowest level of the accommodation block. Dark, low ceilings. Pipes and discarded tools. The kind of place a grease monkey like Ghost would instinctively make his den.

  Ghost was stripped to the waist. He stood over a table. He was strapping a couple of SCUBA tanks together.

  Jane kissed him between the shoulder blades. She put an arm round his waist.

  'You okay?'

  'Yeah,' he said. 'Just got a little frustrated at myself. I got seduced by Hyperion. The luxury. You were right all along. We should have stayed here. Kept focused.'