In the Shadow of London

by Chris Ward

  Running on, he heard the clattering of a train on the rails up ahead, and when he saw a dirty Underground sign illuminated in a flickering streetlight he knew what he had to do.

  His carriage was empty, and it was just as well. Lindon leaned his forehead against the doors like a caged bull ready for the arena, his breathing ragged, his heart still thundering. When he got off three stops later, the only other passengers to alight quickly raced up the stairs as if sensing that he meant trouble. Lindon followed them up, his rage now under control, focused on a new purpose.

  Central London was far busier than the suburbs where he lived. The lights of shamelessly blatant illegal bars, clubs, and gambling dens illuminated basement staircases. Lindon’s position in the Tank could get him free drinks all night with just a single word, but drink was the last thing he wanted. He passed them all by with barely a glance, heading for a patch of waste ground where some years before an apartment building had once stood.

  At the far end was a metal shutter lying across the ground, looking as if it had been tossed there by the wind. Lindon squatted down in the grass and lifted one end, feeling a cool draft immediately come wafting out.

  He folded it back a couple of feet to reveal a staircase, illuminated by a faint light from somewhere below, some steps with the yellow plastic grips on their outer corners still intact. Lindon climbed down a few steps, then reached back up and pulled the shutter across.

  Feeling better than he had all night, he skipped down to the concourse of the old Charring Cross East London Underground station.

  Once the stairs had risen into the centre of a shopping mall, but the mall itself was long gone, the remaining station entrance covered over by the metal shutter like a mis-fitting manhole cover. There were three other entrances, but they had all been bricked over.

  The station was deep, still equipped with occasional emergency lights, but with escalators that had long ago stopped working. When he reached the second level and started down, the sound of voices drifted up to him.

  In the days before Dreggo, there had been several dozen Cross Jumpers, but her rule of menace and violence had seen their numbers dwindle. Lindon, with his work for the Tank taking over much of his free time, was leader in name only, his appearances rare and far between. Sometimes, though, there was nothing better than leaping out in front of a speeding train.

  He hit the platform at a full sprint. A handful of people were standing around near the far end, one or two dusting themselves off but most just talking, some even sitting down. Lindon ignored them all, running towards the tracks as a train burst out of the far tunnel entrance.

  He angled towards it, closing the distance. He could clear the tracks with ease at any time, but that wasn’t what cross jumping was about. Until a person felt the rush of the wind as the train passed behind you, so close it was like the fingers of death’s caress, they couldn’t understand. It was knowing, in that instant before they hit the far platform, that they had missed total annihilation by a hair’s breadth.

  Lindon roared as his foot touched the corner edge of the platform and he kicked up, arms making a swimming motion to propel him through the air. The train was everywhere, a massive, thundering wall of metal, then it was behind him, the rush of air turning him in a spin as he struck the platform side on, the air crushed out of his lungs.

  He rolled on to his back and sat up as the train thundered past, his feet so close to the platform edge he could feel the wind buffeting his shoes. The rage was gone, torn away by the train, as he had known it would be. As the train rushed away into the far tunnel, revealing some of the others standing by the platform edge—he recognised Carberry, Jacob, Whist, and a couple whose names he didn’t recall—he wondered just how close he had come. Without careful observation and measurements there was no way to know his jump length—the distance between the jump and the train—but it had been up there with his best.

  ‘Good to see you, Lindon, you crazy motherfucker,’ came the jovial voice of Dennie Carberry. ‘It’s been a while. Many of us thought you wouldn’t be back.’

  Lindon climbed up from the platform and brushed himself down. With his adrenalin dispersed, he could barely believe he had survived such a careless jump. He lowered himself over the edge on to the tracks and climbed up on the far side, where he was greeted with backslaps and outstretched hands.

  ‘How you been, man?’

  ‘Looking well, Lin.’

  ‘We’ve missed ya, bro.’

  Lindon exchanged camaraderie for a while, talking them through his jump, waxing lyrical about how close the train had come to hitting him. For some reason it all seemed so hollow, as if it was something below him, when for years it had been all he cared about. He guessed it was just a symptom of standing on the border between two worlds, that of the carefree gang life with the Cross Jumpers and the more serious world of the Tank. He was technically the leader of the Cross Jumpers until he quit or someone challenged him and won, but among them he felt like a stranger, an outcast.

  He joined them when they retired to a line of old plastic seats at the end of the platform, where they passed around a bottle of homebrewed liquor.

  ‘What news from the real world, Lindon?’ asked Jacob, an older bearded guy who looked like a less threatening Rusty Pete.

  Lindon softened them up with some rumours from inside the DCA about a possible relaxation on the alcohol brewing laws, and something else he had heard about new recruits to the DCA getting a free pass to leave the city. When he had their attention, he told them what he knew would interest them most.

  ‘The government is hunting anyone connected with the Tube Riders,’ he said. ‘Friends, acquaintances, former lovers, family, people who might have rode with them. There’s trouble in the city and they need scapegoats.’

  ‘Screw them, I say,’ said Jacob. ‘You’re not working for them, are you?’

  Lindon shook his head. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The Tube Riders aren’t our friends.’

  ‘Nor is the government.’

  ‘But the government can make things better for us. Wouldn’t you like to be able to grow your own stash? Brew your own booze in peace? No busts, no hassles, no tax even. Just free to do what you want.’

  ‘They’ll do that? Man, it’s been too strict for too long.’

  Lindon shrugged. ‘All I’m saying is that if we help them nail a couple of supposed Tube Riders in order to keep order, they’ll scratch our backs.’

  Carberry shook his head. ‘Man, I’m not feeling it. I ain’t got no love for those DCA chumps.’

  ‘This is above the DCA. This comes from the Governor himself.’ Lindon leaned forward. ‘And guess who’s the Governor’s right hand? Dreggo.’

  ‘You’ve got to be shitting me.’

  ‘No way. Isn’t she dead?’

  ‘She’s alive. I don’t know what happened, but I’ve seen her.’ He neglected to mention that half of her face was covered by a metal plate, the rest by scar tissue. ‘If they’ll reward her, they’ll reward you too. Now, if you know anything, I need details. Names.’

  The other Cross Jumpers looked from one to another, as if wondering who should speak first.

  ‘There’s this guy I’ve seen,’ Whist said. ‘I was at a couple of rallies. Not doing nothing, just sitting drinking with my buds. This guy was there, running his mouth. Young.’ He smiled. ‘Pretty. Name-dropped the Tube Riders a couple of times. Acted like he knew them like.’

  Lindon nodded. ‘Name?’

  Whist frowned. His mouth worked silently for a few seconds as if trying to figure out how to make sound.

  ‘Devan. No, Dale? David, that was it. Yeah. David Silverwood.’

  Lindon nodded. ‘David Silverwood,’ he said, rolling the name across his tongue, then grimacing as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

  15

  Dreams

  An old movie was playing on the TV. Greg shoveled handfuls of bland, stale crisps out of a bowl into his mouth, his feet u
p on a stool. Raine sat on a sofa across from him, Jake on her lap, his nappy half changed. The dirty one floated in a bowl of water at her feet, ready to be washed in the sink with the others from the last few days while the water was still working.

  Jake was sleepy, ready to go down for the night. Greg, drinking something he had brewed himself in the living room of the abandoned flat upstairs, was unlikely to move from the TV until the day’s scheduled broadcasting was done, probably at the end of the movie, or after the propaganda bullshit that would possibly follow.

  It was Tuesday. She’d been on edge all day, knowing that tonight David would be in Melling Road Junction, waiting for others to show up, and that men from the Tank would find him there if they were staking the place out. He had to be on his guard, surely? He wasn’t stupid. If he was right that a Huntsman might be tailing him, he would certainly be careful.

  Wouldn’t he?

  She finished changing Jake’s nappy and took him through to the pokey bedroom she shared with the baby and laid him down in his cot. It was the only decent piece of furniture she owned. A friend had donated it, and Raine had lovingly painted it with swirling blue and orange shapes that were supposed to represent fairies. Beside it, against the wall, her own bed sagged in the middle, the missing metal leg on the front left corner replaced by a pile of tatty books. Wallpaper peeled from the walls and the carpet was worn through in places, but she only had to look at Jake to forget everything.

  ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she whispered, tucking him under his blanket. She stroked the side of his face, marveling at the smooth sponginess of his skin. ‘I have to go out for a bit. I have to find your—’ She stopped. She couldn’t say it. ‘I have to find someone,’ she finished, then headed back into the living room. ‘I have to go out for a bit,’ she told Greg. ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘What do you mean? I might have plans—’

  ‘The TV’s staying here. Where else would you go?’

  ‘Don’t speak to me like that, you dumb cow. I do everything for you.’

  ‘Look, this is important. Jake’s asleep.’

  ‘He’d better be. You think I’m putting up with his whining you’ve got another thing coming—’

  She didn’t stick around to listen to his hollow threats. There was nothing he could say that she hadn’t heard a hundred times before. She grabbed the rucksack, which contained her clawboard and a couple of decent knives, and headed out, already moving in a jog as she hit the street, her bag slung over her shoulder as she hurried towards the nearest Underground station.

  It was already after nine when she boarded a southbound train. She sat in the third of only three carriages, the first two reserved for government workers, the doors guarded by men in military uniforms with guns on their belts. As the train came in to her station she waited by the doors, only for a crackly public address to announce that it was no longer stopping, that there was a disturbance in the station.

  As the train rushed along the platform she saw why. Several dozen men bombarded the train with rocks and other hard objects as it accelerated out of the hijacked station. A gunshot sounded from the carriage in front of her, and she couldn’t be sure if it came from among the men on the platform or the guards inside. She huddled back in her seat as a couple of stray rocks struck the windows of the carriage, then they were rushing into the tunnel and blackness enveloped them. Through the door at the end of the carriage she could see the few groups of government workers sitting casually as if nothing had happened.

  The train stopped two stations further along, and Raine climbed down onto a nearly deserted platform. By now she was a long way off her route. Another train would soon come from the other direction, but it was an express and wouldn’t stop at the station she had missed.

  She pulled her clawboard out of her back, turning it over in her hands. Taking a deep breath, she hooked her fingers through the rubber safety straps and held on to the metal handles. On the other side, the hooks she had polished and sharpened gleamed under the platform lights.

  It was said Marta and the others had escaped on a train going out of the city. The only trains going out of the city were freight or carefully regulated passenger trains, and everyone getting on or off was carefully checked.

  They hadn’t been riding the trains like regular passengers, Raine felt sure. They had tube rode.

  And if they could do it, so could she.

  The next train was approaching from the opposite direction. Raine tried to blank her mind as she dropped into a crouch, counting to five as the train emerged from the tunnel, its circular headlights a sickly orange glow, the grill between them like the mouth of some giant metallic worm.

  She smiled as she kicked off. It was like the old days. She dashed across the platform, giving her board three quick shakes for luck like she always did, counting down from three and then leaping up towards her preferred fourth carriage, her calves burning as they propelled her through the air, the clawboard slashing down like an axe to smite the train in two.

  She landed with barely a judder, her board’s sharpened hooks sliding neatly along the rail as the momentum settled her. She balanced her weight, spread her feet wide, and for a few seconds she leaned back as far as she could go, forgetting everything in the world except the perfect blissful delight of the ride.

  Then, as the tunnel came rushing towards her, swallowing the train in one endless bite, she flattened herself against the carriage side, pressing her face against the cool glass of the window.

  She was sure she wouldn’t fit, certain the hard, dusty bricks would rip her clean off and disassemble her body for the next ten trains to clear away, then suddenly everything around her was blackness.

  Like a tunnel into hell, the world became a cacophony of howling wind and clattering wheels, the screech and groan of the train’s carriage as it jerked her back and forth like the baying of a thousand devils. Raine opened her mouth and screamed, but her voice was lost in the thundering din.

  Then the wind relaxed and lights appeared around her, a scattering of people staring wild-eyed, a stretch of platform with flickering exit signs and faded posters for long forgotten products and entertainments. She lifted her head, smiled for a moment, then the express was hammering into another tunnel, Raine flattening herself back against the carriage just in time.

  By her estimation, Melling Road Junction was midway between the next two active stations. It would be lit only by a handful of emergency lights still required by some ancient law the government had forgotten to replace, easy to miss if she didn’t concentrate. Already her arms were aching, her feet humming from the vibration of the train.

  She felt the train start to slow. For a second she thought she had missed the station, then she remembered that the trains still slowed through passenger areas, even when the stations were abandoned. Many trains were automated, their programmed commands maybe decades old.

  Dim lights appeared around her. It had been so long since Raine had dismounted, but as the end of the platform rapidly approached, near the tunnel entrance she spotted the lumpy shadows of the breakfall mats. Back in the day she had practiced thousands of times, and now she pushed in and up, letting her body freefall backwards, the mats catching her, wrapping around her back, bouncing her back up in a plume of dust.

  She landed on her feet in a neat crouch as the rest of the train roared away. Her heart was thundering like the train’s wheels, and it was all she could do not to scream with satisfaction. Squinting towards the platform edge she couldn’t stop herself looking for the dismount length written in chalk.

  Twenty-four feet. She nodded. Her best was sixteen, but it was good for a comeback.

  She was still lost in her old world when she stood up and turned around, letting out a little gasp of surprise. Two teenage boys a little further down the platform were staring at her as if she were a goddess just hatched from an egg.

  ‘Oh my holy fuck….’

  ‘Wow….’

  She had a knife i
n her hand almost before she realised it, the heightened awareness and speed that tube riding had given her flooding back.

  ‘One more step and you’re food for the trains.’

  The nearest boy put up his hands. ‘Look, we’re not here for trouble. We just came to hang out and practice.’ He held up a piece of wood. In the dim lighting she saw two picture hooks nailed to one side, an old semi-circular door handle screwed to the other.

  Raine frowned. ‘You’re Tube Riders?’

  ‘We thought we’d come down and try out, you know. That guy said the Tube Riders were back and looking for new members—’

  ‘What guy?’

  One lifted a hand a few inches above his head. ‘About this tall. Dark hair. Kind of cool looking, know what I mean? Said his name was David.’

  ‘Leave,’ Raine said. ‘Get out of here while you still can.’

  ‘We want to try out. We didn’t mean any harm. We want to be Tube Riders—’

  ‘He lied to you. There are no more Tube Riders.’

  The other boy rolled his eyes. ‘Says the chick who’s just tube rode into the station.’

  ‘I quit, and you should too. People are after the Tube Riders and you’ll end up dead if you hang around here.’

  The first held up his clawboard again. ‘Can’t you just give me some tips?’

  Raine snatched the board out of his hands. She slammed the butt of her knife against one of the picture hooks. The nail half withdrew, leaving the hook tilted over. With a growl of frustration, Raine leaned the board against the wall and stamped on it. The cheap pine broke in two with a sharp crack.

  ‘Hey, I made that myself!’

  Raine turned and tossed the remains of the board down on to the tracks. ‘You think that piece of shit would last on a tube ride? I did that for your own good. Safest thing for you to do is walk back up those steps and forget you were ever here.’