Survival Game

by Gary Gibson

  ‘Right so far.’

  He grinned, looking pleased with himself. ‘In other words, the danger isn’t so much whether or not the Hypersphere’s activated – it’s where it goes. Now, this fortress they had you all locked up in – you said the alternate it’s on is deserted?’

  ‘There are guards in the Crag along with the prisoners, but there’s nothing outside its walls but ancient ruins.’

  ‘Okay.’ Casey leaned back and spread his hands. ‘Now, say the Hypersphere got activated for the first time while it’s still in the Crag – boom, the Portal-Monoliths turn up. But since that whole alternate’s unpopulated anyway, it’s not really any great loss, is it?’ He leaned forward again, a peculiar gleam creeping into his gaze. ‘The real danger is if your Tsar takes it home to your Empire, or anyplace where there happens to be a lot of people.’

  ‘What are you driving at, Casey?’

  ‘Say someone else got hold of the Hypersphere first and, instead of taking it back to the Empire, or any place that’s populated, headed for some entirely different alternate that’s deserted. That way no one gets hurt, right?’

  I studied him frankly. ‘By “someone else”, can I take it you mean you, Casey?’

  One corner of his mouth twitched in a grin.

  ‘You’ve only just been rescued by these people – when? A few months ago? – And now you’re going to go behind their backs?’

  The grin faded a little. ‘You know why. Did you hear about the first Casey Vishnevsky they rescued?’

  I nodded. ‘He betrayed his friends too.’ I had learned the full story shortly after my rescue from Delta Twenty-Five.

  ‘They think I’m just the same. Well, maybe I am just the same. Did you see the way Selwyn looked at his rifle when I walked in, like he was thinking of reaching for it?’ He shook his head. ‘They’ll never accept me – not any of them. They’ll always be watching me with one eye, waiting for me to stab them in the back.’

  ‘So you’ll repay them for that,’ I said, ‘by actually stabbing them in the back.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head tightly. ‘This is a win-win situation.’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ I said. ‘Even if you did everything you’ve just said, and you got your hands on the Hypersphere, the fact is you’d be stuck all alone on some deserted alternate. How is that winning? The Portal-Monoliths will still come chasing after you. You’d have no choice but to keep using the Hypersphere to transfer from alternate to alternate – forever. Doesn’t that strike you as a somewhat grim fate?’

  ‘But you’re not thinking far ahead enough,’ he said, with no little fervour. ‘Even with limited time and moving from alternate to alternate, I can still use the Hypersphere to find out the answer to every imaginable question. I could scavenge technology and weapons and know-how none of us could even conceive of – maybe even find something that could stop the Portal-Monoliths. We already know there’s no lack of post-extinction alternates, but with the Hypersphere, I can find exactly what I want, anything I can dream up, each and every time. And all just by thinking about it!’

  I looked at him with newfound respect. ‘But what if you couldn’t find a way to stop the Portal-Monoliths? You’d still have to keep moving.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head abruptly. ‘If it came to that, I’d find myself an abandoned alternate with a transfer stage and leave the Hypersphere there once I had everything I could possibly want. I’d transfer myself to some new alternate, where the Portal-Monoliths could never find me.’

  I shook my head in amazement. The whole plan was completely insane, but I wasn’t going to tell him that, not if it meant there was even a sliver of a chance he might free me. ‘How long have you been thinking about all of this?’

  ‘Ever since I held those beads,’ he replied with manic fever. ‘And especially since you turned up back here and told us all your story. Here’s what I’m saying: I’ll get you out of those cuffs, if you agree to take me back to the Crag with you. With me tagging along, your chances of getting back inside that place without being caught or killed go way, way up.’

  ‘So, just to be absolutely clear,’ I said, ‘instead of destroying the Hypersphere, I let you steal it and take it far away from the Novaya Empire?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Why not? I get what I want, and you get rid of the biggest threat your entire civilization has ever faced.’ He looked at me hopefully. ‘Like I said, win-win.’

  ‘As long as you realize that if you fail, I will do my utmost to destroy it.’

  He nodded and stood. ‘Then I guess it’s a deal?’

  I suddenly understood just why Casey Vishnevsky had the reputation he did. There was a dangerous, manic edge to him I hadn’t perceived before – not, of course, that I’d spent much time in his company. But if he could really get me back into the Crag . . .

  I swallowed hard. ‘And if we get there, and the Hypersphere is gone?’

  Casey smiled wanly. ‘Like you said, still gotta try.’

  ‘Then it’s a deal,’ I said.

  ‘Great! Now put both hands on the table and I’ll get you out of those cuffs.’

  I did as he said. He unravelled a narrow strip of wire from his belt and carefully bent it at the tip, before inserting the wire into a hole in my cuffs. After several minutes of fidgeting and re-bending the wire, the cuffs finally came loose and fell to the floor.

  ‘Before we go,’ he said, pulling a notepad out of his bag, ‘how well would you say you know the Crag’s layout?’

  ‘I was there for many years, Casey. There are few parts of it I haven’t yet been to.’

  ‘So you think you could draw or sketch it from memory?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘I’m pretty sure I could, yes.’

  ‘Okay then,’ he said, putting the pad and a pen in front of me. ‘See if you can come up with a map to show where Jerry’s locked up.’

  I looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why?’

  ‘The least we can do,’ he said, ‘is leave something here for the others that’ll help them find Jerry. With any luck, by the time they figure out what I’ve done, we’ll both be long gone.’

  I hesitated, wondering again if all of this might still be some convoluted trick to get around my refusal to cooperate. Then I looked at Casey and decided he’d be the last one they’d want to take into their confidence.

  ‘Win-win, yes?’ I said.

  He nodded, a gleam in his eye. ‘Win-win.’

  I pulled the notepad towards me and began to sketch out as much as I could remember. I had decent drafting skills, since we had to build so many of our tools in the Crag from scratch. Even so, I had to start again several times when certain memories conflicted with each other. But eventually I had at least a dozen torn-out pages covered in detailed drawings.

  Casey had gone to the door, peering up at the grey clouds as I worked. When I told him I was finished, he stepped back over and looked through the pages one after the other while I talked him through them.

  ‘Okay. I guess that’s enough.’ He scribbled some additional notes on the pages, then dropped them back down. ‘Ready?’

  I nodded. ‘Ready.’

  We stepped towards the door, heads bent against the wind and rain as we ran for his jeep.

  Half an hour later, we had rowed back out to the hidden stage and transferred over. I adjusted the coordinates so that we materialized deep within the forest that spread beneath the Crag.

  Ancient trees loomed all around us. Frost clung to the hard ground, glowing red in the fading light of day. I shivered, once again woefully underdressed for the environment.

  I didn’t move until Casey had gathered up rocks that he arranged in a loose circle centred on my feet. Finally, he pulled a red handkerchief out of a pocket, and tied it to a branch where it flapped loosely in the freezing wind. We had set the hidden stage back at the island to automatically power up every twenty minutes, and bring back anyone or anything standing within this circle of stones. If Casey succeeded
, and I managed to make my way back here, I would be able to return to the Authority’s island.

  I looked around, seeing a clear path through the forest. ‘This way.’

  He picked up his bag, following me. He came to a halt when the trees began to thin out, staring towards the machines that rose up high above the horizon.

  ‘What the hell are those things?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He looked at me askance. ‘All this time you were living here, and you’re telling me you don’t know what they are?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m not saying nobody tried to find out. I have no answer for you, Casey.’

  He looked the other way, towards the Crag, rising high above the trees. This was the first time I had seen it from the outside; to say it appeared forbidding would have been an understatement. There were lights all across one of the upper terraces, and I thought I could hear faint noises drifting down towards us – an unusual amount of activity for the middle of the night.

  I nodded at the holstered pistol strapped to his thigh. ‘You said you were going to give me a gun once we got here. How about now?’

  He squinted at me. ‘Know how to use one?’

  ‘Not really,’ I admitted. ‘But I still want one so I’m not completely defenceless.’

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘if it gets to shooting, we’ve pretty much lost. Just the noise alone is going to put the whole place on high alert. We need to avoid trouble.’

  ‘Then why bring guns at all?’

  ‘Because they’ll have guns, and I’d rather take some of them with me if it comes to the worst.’

  ‘Even so,’ I said, reaching out a hand.

  He gave me a look, then shook his head. ‘Fine. But you’re about to get the fastest lesson in how to use a firearm in history.’ He reached around his back, pulled a small pistol out of his waistband and handed it to me.

  I took it from him and regarded it uncertainly. ‘It’s a lot smaller than yours,’ I complained.

  ‘That,’ he said, nodding at the gun in my hand, ‘is a .38 Special. Anything bigger’s too powerful for someone who’s never had any practice. This,’ he continued, patting his holster, ‘is a nine-millimetre Glock semi-auto, and definitely not for beginners.’ He nodded up at the Crag. ‘What’s our best route up there?’

  ‘There’s an old path leading up the side of the mountain,’ I explained. ‘Or at least, that’s what I’ve seen from inside the Crag.’

  ‘They don’t ever let you out?’

  I shook my head. ‘You can see it from the lower battlements quite clearly. Assuming my memory serves me, it starts not too far from here.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk you through some of the basics on the way.’

  We stopped several times so he could show me how to aim and squeeze the trigger, and how to hold the revolver in a two-handed stance. Then he had me repeat each action several times.

  ‘Now pass it back here and I’ll load it,’ he said. ‘Remember, we’re not going to use these things unless we’re absolutely forced to.’

  Casey was a fast walker, and I hurried to keep up. My breath frosted white, hands and face prickling from the cold. Finally we came to the foot of the steep path that climbed one side of the mountain all the way to the Crag’s gates. Now we were closer, I could more clearly hear the noise coming from the upper terraces. I thought I could make out occasional voices over the drilling and hammering.

  He nodded upwards. ‘What’s going on up there, d’you think?’

  ‘No idea,’ I replied. ‘There’s usually a curfew by nightfall. I’ve never known there to be this much activity coming up to nightfall.’

  Then, for a few brief moments, the underside of the clouds above the Crag lit up.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ breathed Casey.

  ‘I think it was an outward-bound transfer,’ I said, then frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense. The Crag’s main transfer stage is indoors, not outdoors.’

  Casey nodded, then dropped his bag on the ground before rummaging around inside it. ‘By the sounds of it, they’re building something.’ He pulled a pair of binoculars out of the bag and tipped his head back, scanning the lower battlements.

  He passed the binoculars to me and I took a look. ‘Doesn’t look like anyone’s guarding the place against intruders,’ he said from beside me.

  I handed him the binoculars back. ‘This whole alternate is a prison, Casey. The only way in or out for anyone is by transfer stage. There’s nothing out here for them to guard against, and as far as they know I’m dead.’

  He used the binoculars again, tipping his head all the way back as he peered up at the upper terraces. ‘I’d really like to know what they’re doing up there.’

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ I said, and started to make my way up the path.

  Casey muttered something under his breath, and moved to follow.

  It was dark by the time we neared the Crag’s entrance, my thighs were threatening to cramp up. The road was better suited to mountain goats than anything else. We scurried past tumbled boulders and half-frozen bushes towards the iron-strapped oak doors that, transfer stages aside, were the only way in or out of the fortress.

  We dropped into a crouch by one of the oak doors where there was a gate just big enough to admit a single person. I peered through the iron bars of the gate at the darkened courtyard beyond, breathing hard from the long climb.

  Casey reached through the bars and rattled a chain that held the door shut. ‘Padlock’s on the other side,’ he muttered, dropping his bag to the ground. ‘That’s going to make things more difficult.’

  ‘Do we have to find some other way inside?’

  ‘I said difficult, not impossible.’ Casey dug around inside his bag and produced a leather wrap of various spindly looking tools.

  ‘Lock picks,’ he said, when he saw me staring at them. He leaned forward, pressing his face against the gate as he reached through the bars with both hands.

  I watched as he worked at what was clearly a very awkward angle. The long climb had warmed me up, but the cold was already seeping back into my bones.

  After another minute the padlock came loose, and Casey sat back with it in his hands. ‘Now tell me,’ he said, holding it up with a grin, ‘could you have got this far without me?’

  ‘I take your point.’ I watched as he put his tools away. ‘What else do you have in that bag?’ I asked, remembering Jerry’s steel tube and Nadia’s handcuffs.

  He paused, thinking. ‘Hacksaw, miniature crowbar, extra ammunition, a knife, can-opener, two two-way radios, six feet of ultra-light nylon rope, painkillers, a roll of bandage, antiseptic, needle and thread and . . . I forget what else.’ He sucked his lip. ‘A box of safety matches.’ He put a hand on the gate, then paused. ‘What’s on the other side of this door?’

  ‘A courtyard. The laboratory is to the right. There are stairs leading up to the next terrace past the building on the left.’

  ‘You said there’s usually a patrol at night?’

  ‘Cameras, too, but they’re out of action – my father and his friends took care of that.’

  ‘I remember you said. No guarantees they’re still out of action, though. We should keep to the shadows in any case.’ He took a firm grip on the gate. ‘Ready?’

  I swallowed drily. ‘As much as I’ll ever be.’

  ‘Okay.’ He took a deep breath, and pulled his gun out of its holster. ‘On a count of three. One.’ He leaned towards the door. ‘Two. And . . .’

  He pushed the gate open, then dropped to one knee just inside the courtyard, panning his gun around.

  Three, I thought to myself.

  The courtyard was deserted. From far above came the clatter of machinery.

  He pushed the gate shut behind us. ‘So where do we look first?’

  ‘I want to see the laboratory.’

  ‘Why? It’s been blown apart, right?’

  ‘It’ll only take a moment. I . . .
need to see it.’

  He looked disgruntled, and for a moment I thought he might argue. ‘Just don’t take long,’ he muttered.

  The air inside the courtyard smelled of smouldering wood and plastic. I motioned to Casey, and we followed the stink towards the burned-out entrance to the laboratory. Piled onto the cobblestones around it were several huge mounds of blackened junk. I picked through some of it and saw that it was mostly the remains of lab equipment.

  I glanced up, listening to the noise from above. ‘If the Hypersphere’s still on this alternate,’ I said, ‘I think we’ll find it somewhere up there.’

  He looked up, then back at me. ‘You sure?’

  ‘I’m not sure about anything,’ I said. ‘But that’s where the transfer stage is, and sooner or later, that’s where the Hypersphere’s going to be.’

  He waved a hand. ‘Lead the way.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  We passed through an archway, climbing the steps to the next highest terrace. Casey saw the elevators dotted here and there about the fortress, but we decided they were too risky to use.

  The next highest terrace proved to be just as deserted as the one we had just passed through. We came across the remains of a bonfire of desks and chairs, as well as immense amounts of paperwork. I tentatively picked out a few stray sheets that had escaped the flames and glanced through them.

  ‘It’s all administrative stuff,’ I said, throwing them back. ‘They’re burning everything. Why?’

  ‘Looks to me like they’re covering their tracks before they clear out of here for good.’

  I glanced at a security camera, deeply relieved to see that its lens was still broken, and its status light still dark. ‘I guess you’re right.’

  He nodded upwards. ‘We should keep going.’

  We climbed more stairs, still keeping to the shadows and listening out for voices or the sound of approaching boots. The third terrace was just as silent: if not for all the noise and light from above, I’d have thought the fortress had already been abandoned.

  I led Casey down a narrow cobbled alley to the prisoners’ quarters, then left him waiting outside while I slipped inside. It was deserted; there was no sign of any of the exiles, not even those who had played no part in the breakout.