Itch Rocks

by Simon Mayo

  He felt the sweat prickle on his back, then trickle down his spine. By the time it was running in rivulets down his sides, he could feel the masking tape losing its adhesiveness; the cesium was definitely shifting.

  Itch was getting desperate, the sweat now blurring his vision. He tried to wipe his eyes with his arm, but the movement caused the cesium tube to drop again. Quickly he sank down and felt the glass and metal hit the wooden floor and push against his chest. But the noise it made sounded wrong; the metal clang was accompanied by a brittle, crunching sound. If the glass broke, it would be a matter of seconds before the cesium exploded.

  He found a position on his side that supported the tube and eased the pressure on the damp tape. But when a fresh trickle of—what? Sweat? Oil?—ran from his stomach and down his leg, he started to panic. He pulled his handcuffed right hand as hard as he could away from the pipe. It made a loud clanging noise, but he didn’t have much choice. He had wanted to wait until Shivvi was safely down in the well, but time was running out. The cuff bit into his hand, but nothing else moved. More moisture ran down his leg, and he pulled against the handcuff as hard as he could. The skin of his hand started to shear off; he felt no pain at that moment, but he knew that would come soon enough.

  The silver arm of the handcuff was embedded in the skin above his knuckles; blood oozed from the wound and dripped onto the floor. Itch knew he couldn’t stop now: he pulled again. This time the pain shot through his body, and he swallowed his cry, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. When he could, he opened one eye. The cuff was over the knuckle of his forefinger but had made a deep gouge in the other three. He had made his hand as thin as possible, but it was still too big.

  The fear of turning into a fireball gave Itch new strength: squashing his fingers together as tightly as he could, he yanked his hand hard through the steel. With a snap and a stab of pain that shot right through his body, his hand came free. His middle finger hung limp, and a huge flap of skin had sheared off his knuckles—but before he could register the full extent of the damage, he was tearing at his shirt buttons, spraying blood everywhere. When his shirt was open he leaned back to support the tube and pulled at the masking tape that held it in place. He had only removed two strips before it came free. He stopped it from crashing to the floor with his damaged hand, crying out as he was forced to move his broken finger. His eyes wide with fear, he listened for Shivvi, but there was no noise from the well. He eased the cesium to the floor and, slowly but as firmly as he dared, rolled it a little way away from him. He studied the contents through the glass: the oil, moving in the casing, with the molten, liquid-gold cesium.

  It looked intact. It looked full. It wasn’t leaking.

  Itch lay on the floor, his breathing wild, and cradled his bleeding hand against his chest.

  At the well head, Jack waited for Shivvi to figure out what she was doing. For the first time, Jack thought, Shivvi seemed unsure how to proceed. The hole in the steel plate did not look big enough for her diving equipment to fit through; Shivvi had been doing her strange breathing routine again—she appeared to have some kind of inhaler in her mouth—and was sorting through ropes and what looked like buoyancy devices. Again, Jack found herself wondering if she could just push her in. Shivvi was standing close to the opening, but it was quite small, and she wouldn’t necessarily fall right through. And with Itch chained up, the risk of failure was too high.

  Her mind apparently made up, Shivvi gathered all the ropes she could and handed the duffle bag to Jack.

  “OK. Lost some equipment in the car swap, but it can still work. Take out the tubes and put them in one of the crates.” She indicated the now-empty boxes in the wheelbarrow.

  As carefully as possible, Jack eased the cesium tubes out of the bag with her shaking hands, and placed them in a wooden crate. There were four in total, each one glistening with oil and silver.

  “Now take yours off and put it with the others,” ordered Shivvi.

  Jack, surprised, didn’t need to be told twice. It was a tricky operation with her right fingers still in splints, but she managed to remove the tape and ease the tube out of the vest pocket. She added it to the others and took off her suicide vest.

  She was expecting Shivvi to shout at her, but she didn’t seem to notice; she had the baseball bat back in her hand.

  “You’re going down first,” she told Jack. “I’m doing the dive, but I need you there too. Let’s go.” Shivvi pushed the bat into Jack’s sore ribs. “There’s a metal ladder along one side. I’m going to lower you down, and you grab hold when you can.”

  Jack felt expert hands passing a rope around her waist and chest.

  “It’s tight—you’re going to have to trust me. Move.”

  Jack looked around. On the other side of the security door, life was continuing as normal; on this side, her cousin was chained up, and she was about to be lowered into the deepest hand-built well in the world. On the bulletin board was a sign saying: TAKE CARE AT ALL TIMES. IF IN DOUBT, DON’T!

  Trust me, I wouldn’t, thought Jack, and walked to the edge. The truth was that she was scared out of her mind—the well opening loomed dark and terrifying at her feet—but she was determined to show no fear to Shivvi. Itch had gone down here on his own even though he had been desperately sick with radiation poisoning; if this was what she had to do to help her cousin, then so be it.

  And if I could stop my legs from shaking, that would help, she thought.

  “Turn around,” said Shivvi.

  Jack turned to see that she was holding the rope in one hand and the bat in the other.

  “I hate you,” Jack said quietly, and Shivvi laughed.

  “Of course you do! But you should be nice to me for a little while longer.” Producing a third set of handcuffs, she closed one end around Jack’s undamaged hand. “Down you go. Now.”

  Jack sat on the steel plate and edged closer to the hole. The strip lights on the ceiling lit up the well for several feet, revealing moss, bricks and the narrow ladder Shivvi had mentioned. She sensed the ropes around her tighten, and Shivvi’s boot in her back. Willing herself to stay calm, she eased herself toward the edge, her legs now dangling over the abyss.

  “Here we go,” said Shivvi, and gave her a shove.

  She shot downward, her scream echoing around in the darkness. She gasped as the rope jolted, breaking her fall fifteen feet down. The nylon cord cut into her bruised ribs and, instinctively, she grabbed for the rope above her head with her good hand, and spun in space until her eyes adjusted. The narrow metal ladder slowly materialized, and she reached for it. Hooking her right thumb around a rung, she pulled herself closer. Her feet found another rung, and she let go of the rope and grabbed the ladder with her left hand, the handcuffs banging against the metal.

  “Now lock yourself to the ladder,” Shivvi called down, “and quickly. I’m dropping the rope.” Jack barely had time to lock the loose cuff to a rung before she felt the rope go loose and saw its end snake past her into the darkness. She pulled herself close to the wall; it was clammy, some of the bricks slimy with moss. Jack suddenly felt a rising panic. Trapped and handcuffed inside a well, four hundred feet above where Itch had said the water level was, with her cousin locked in the science lab and a sadistic escaped convict in charge … things were just about as bad as they could get.

  She counted fifteen rungs above her and only five below before the light from above was lost in the darkness. She was gauging the strength of the rungs when a bright light appeared above her and another rope spiraled past. Within seconds, Shivvi appeared, now wearing a shiny black diving suit. A hooded jacket and high-waisted trousers were topped by three lights shining powerfully from a headset. On Shivvi’s back was the black duffle. She paused only long enough to reach out and check that Jack’s handcuffs were secure, then began to rappel down the Woodingdean Well.

  As Itch’s breathing calmed, the pain in his hand started to kick in. Tearing off the masking tape from his mouth, he tied his fore
finger and broken middle finger together; the pain was so intense he nearly passed out. He was sure he had some painkillers in his backpack—as they were in a zipped pocket, there was a chance they had survived the shakedown at Mr. Watkins’s house. Pity Shivvi has it, he thought.

  Gingerly, he pushed back the flap of skin that had been gouged out by the handcuff. It was bleeding less now, and he looked at his other hand, still chained to the pipe. Now that the threat of turning into a fireball was past, Itch knew he wouldn’t be able to force that one through the cuffs.

  But he couldn’t just stay here and wait for Shivvi to return. The thought of seeing her with the radiation-proof box containing the rocks of 126 in her hand was making Itch very restless. He pulled at the pipes with his good, but cuffed, hand. He swiveled around so that he could kick at the pipes, but from a sitting position his efforts were wasted.

  Enraged by his helplessness, Itch made himself think again. In the past his backpack had delivered stench weapons and xenon gas when he needed them; without it, he had no access to any chemicals that might help him. He still had the tellurium packet in his jacket pocket, but that wouldn’t be any use now.

  Come on, Itch, you’re in a science lab! He closed his eyes. There must be something! he thought. He looked around. There’d be cutting equipment somewhere, and lubricants too, but all out of reach.

  Then he remembered coming into the lab—the rows of jars in the cabinet at the front, and the bottles of acids on the workbenches, which were now above him.

  Itch stopped pulling on the pipes and sat still. Which acids? And in what order? He was sure there were three, and that sulfuric acid had been the first in the line. Was the next hydrochloric acid? Or nitric acid? He wasn’t sure—he couldn’t be sure—but at least he was going to do something.

  But even with his height, Itch couldn’t quite stretch up tall enough to see the bottles on the lab bench. He reached out with his damaged hand as far as he could, but the throbbing pain forced him to pull back. He waited a few moments and tried again, but he was a few inches short. I need longer fingers! he thought. Would his belt work as a lasso? He didn’t love the idea of blindly throwing a leather strap at bottles of acid, but he was about to give it a try when another thought struck him.

  Removing one shoe, he slid his hand inside. The pain was excruciating, but the shoe gave him a few precious extra inches. At full stretch, he pushed his shoe across the bench until he touched glass—he heard it clink against the bottle next to it. Now he hooked the shoe around the back of the acid—whatever it was—and pulled. Inch by inch, a stoppered glass bottle came into view. He pushed it to the very edge of the bench. The label said HNO3.

  “Nitric acid,” said Itch. “Nasty. Very nasty.”

  Taking his hand out of the shoe, he found he could pick up the bottle with his thumb and little finger. It was small, but the glass was thick and heavy, and another spasm of pain shot along his arm. He managed to set the nitric acid down on the floor before crying out. He forced himself to bite most of the sound back—but it was enough to scare him rigid again.

  Keep it shut.

  When he thought his hand could bear it, he picked up the bottle and put it next to the pipes. He shifted his weight uneasily, suddenly nervous. He remembered a demonstration in which a small copper coin was added to nitric acid. The results were spectacular; the acid had turned green, and clouds of brown nitrogen dioxide fumes appeared. He also recalled that the experiment had been conducted behind a safety screen by someone wearing protective gloves.

  He put his shoe back on and tied the laces as best he could; he was going to need to get away from this fast. Without safety gloves, goggles, or a screen, his plan was unbelievably dangerous. Nitrogen dioxide was toxic and could kill him if he got it wrong. The lack of ventilation in the lab only added to his worries.

  But you know you’re going to do it, so just get on with it, he told himself.

  How long could he hold his breath? Years ago, in the sea, he and Chloe had had a competition; however, buffeted about by the Atlantic waves, they had both soon given up. When getting rid of the rocks down the well, he had had to hold his breath, but had no recollection of how long that was. His plan now, such as it was, was to hold his breath and use a very few drops of nitric acid—just enough to get the reaction going. With luck, the copper pipes would corrode quickly enough for him to pull the cuffs free.

  A formula ran through his head. Out loud, he muttered, “3Cu + 8HNO3 = … I think it’s something like 3Cu(NO3)2 + a bunch of H2O and lots of NO2 and that’s the easy part.”

  Removing the glass stopper, Itch held the bottle just above the copper pipe that held his handcuff fast. This in itself was painful, but he forced himself to focus as the clear liquid flowed along to the neck of the flask. He righted it too soon, and the acid streamed back. He tried again, and this time a single drop escaped and fell the fraction of an inch onto the pipe.

  He took a deep breath and held it. Immediately the liquid bubbled and turned a greenish blue. A few wisps of brown smoke appeared, and Itch instinctively started to pull against the pipe.

  Too soon, idiot! Patience! Try again!

  Turning his head away, he risked taking a breath, as the fumes hadn’t reached him. With renewed focus, he rested the bottle on the pipe and tipped it again. This time he allowed more acid to flow, and the reaction started again with new ferocity. The pipe bubbled, and Itch shut his eyes and mouth as tightly as he could. And pulled….

  Outside the Fitzherbert School, everything looked normal. The morning traffic, most cars with headlights still on, made good progress on its way to Brighton, Woodingdean, or beyond. It takes time to set up a police cordon properly, particularly one that has to surround as large an area as the Fitzherbert School and its grounds. But all around Brighton, police officers were racing to take up their positions. Some were heading for the nearby shopping center parking lot; some joined the dog walkers out around the school; some were intercepting parents and pupils on the way to school. Slowly, life around the school was coming to a halt.

  Shivvi Tan Fook was Greencorps’ most experienced diver. Recruited from the streets of Kuala Lumpur, she had, in addition to her innate underwater skills, become a hardy survivor and a first-class thief. Rising through the ranks of the multinational operation, she developed a reputation for ruthlessness that brought her to the attention of Nathaniel Flowerdew. Between them they ran the Greencorps operation in the Nigerian delta, siding with the government against the warring ethnic groups and united in their greed and determination. Shivvi ran a team of fearless women divers who became her gang, her protectors. Shivvi and Flowerdew had both been involved in the disastrous drilling operation that had cost many lives; he was the instigator, she its executor. Even in Lagos, the oil-pollution capital of the world, with three hundred spills a year, it had caused outrage.

  To no one’s great surprise, Greencorps had protected their senior man; Shivvi had gone to prison, and her diving sisterhood was disbanded.

  Now, as she lowered herself into the depths of the Woodingdean Well, she was motivated by the desire for revenge. Revenge against the company that had left her to rot; she had already taken her revenge against the man who should have been in that prison—the man who had told her about the 126 and about Itchingham Lofte. She’d had the idea of enrolling as a student in order to get the information from the boy, and she might have succeeded if it hadn’t been for Lucy Cavendish. Now, with Flowerdew gone, she could help herself to the wealth and power she deserved.

  At three hundred feet down, she slowed her descent. The horizontal tunnel that led off the main shaft was close now, and she needed to be ready. According to Itch, the water started at the bottom of this drop, but her headlamps picked out nothing but bricks, moss, and sludge. She angled her head so that the powerful beams were shining downward: no water. Eighty feet from the bottom her rope ran out, and she had to use the metal ladder. Shivvi could now see that the bottom of the shaft was covered in mud and
broken bricks but was dry. She was so absorbed in looking for water that she nearly missed a run of five broken rungs, snapped through the middle like twigs. She stopped just in time and, guessing the drop was no more than twelve feet, unhooked the duffle bag and other ropes, letting them fall to the bottom. They landed with a thud, and Shivvi risked a jump. She needed to avoid snagging her delicate Neoprene diving suit, but she was in a hurry. Her DANGER! HIGH EXPLOSIVES! notice by the security doors would only work for a while. She needed to be back up before the school day proper started.

  She landed cleanly, her heart racing. Where was the water? As she straightened, she found she was staring down a large tunnel that ran off horizontally from the main shaft. Circular and about ten feet in diameter, it was thick with sludge and refuse. Pieces of wood and crumbled bricks were strewn across Shivvi’s path as she stepped slowly into the shaft. Her headlamps picked out green mosses like wallpaper covering the entire tunnel—but it was all dry.

  “Itch, you son of a gun. You’ve actually made this a whole lot easier than you thought….” Shivvi had been expecting to swim along this section and then prepare for the toughest dive of her life, down the remaining eight hundred and eighty-five feet. She had never done more than six hundred, and when she’d discarded some of her equipment because of the size of the well opening, she had wondered if the dive was even possible. But with every step the realization took hold that the sodium explosion had cracked the walls somewhere and the water had seeped away.

  The horizontal shaft was around thirty feet long, then it dropped out of sight. How much water was left? Might it be dry all the way to the bottom; if so, did she have the equipment for the climb? As she approached the edge, she sensed moisture in the air, and the smell of old, dank vegetation. There was water down there somewhere.

  Shivvi had dived in extreme conditions before, but never anything like this. More than four hundred feet below the ground, she stood at the mouth of the circular shaft, looking down into the void. Her lamps were picking up dark reflections far, far below her, and she threw a piece of broken brick over the edge. Several seconds passed before a splash was heard—the water was there all right, but three hundred feet away? Four hundred? The rungs continued down this shaft, but as Itch had never come this far she didn’t know how useful they would still be.