In the Shadow of London

by Chris Ward

  The footsteps stopped. Mika opened her eyes to find Dreggo’s face just inches from her own. She gasped, flinching back, only to find the hands of a DCA agent holding her shoulders.

  Dreggo’s human eye was too terrifying to look at, so she concentrated on the robotic eye in the metal part of Dreggo’s face. Right now it was computing details of Mika’s emotional reactions, everything from the way her eyes flickered to hot and cold flushes in her skin too small for Mika herself to notice.

  ‘We need to establish a timeline here,’ Dreggo said. ‘I know that one of these renegade Tube Riders is your sister. Quite what that means for you will be decided in due course. What I need to know first is whether you called the Huntsmen off before you found out about your sister, or after.’

  Dreggo took a step back. She stood looking down at Mika with one finger rubbing at the scars on her chin.

  Mika looked up at her. ‘The Huntsmen—’ she started, her voice cutting off before she could finish. For the last six years the government had paid Mika to strip people of their humanity and turn them into monsters, and now one of those very monsters was standing in front of her.

  Her throat felt dry, constricted. ‘I’m government loyal,’ she croaked, as Dreggo gave a slow shake of her head.

  ‘You cannot understand the meaning of the phrase until you have seen some of the things that I have seen.’

  Dreggo’s eyes lifted to the guards, and her mouth opened to speak. Mika’s vision wavered as she felt alarms going off in her head.

  Then as flashing lights joined the sirens, she realised an alarm really was going off. A light above the cell door was flashing; people were running back and forth along the corridor outside.

  Mika knew the sounds of each alarm by heart; after all she had set them. It was a security breach, one of the highest magnitude of severity.

  It meant that somewhere down in the tunnels, something extremely dangerous had just broken out.

  Maths and numbers were Spacewell’s specialty, but he guessed there was some element of human compassion in there too. With a bag slung over his shoulder containing his most important work, he hurried through the corridors and up the stairs, buzzing himself through each security door with an ease that others no longer shared. A few adjustments to the security system had made his card region-free while leaving others restricted to sweet-fucking-nowhere.

  The doors, of course, were no match for the two deadly Redmen he had released.

  The two genetically engineered giants would never get as far as the street. Their sense of smell would recognise the release of the other, and their subsequent territorial battle would rip apart most of the lower levels until they were subdued or destroyed.

  He slipped through a door and held it open politely for a group of armed guards who really had no idea what they were about to face. Spacewell didn’t much care to release a Redman on the streets, but anyone who worked for the government was on his automatic fuck-you list, so he pressed his card against the locking mechanism just to make sure the guards would have to kill the two rampaging monsters in order to escape. It was a nice test for the value of their training, he thought with a smirk, as he headed for the holding cells on Level One.

  Spacewell had conveniently disabled the elevators, so the stairs were clogged with guards and military reinforcements as he tried to make his way up, waving an innocent clipboard in order to disguise the weaponry he had hidden under his shirt and stuffed into a rucksack.

  The security on Level One was light. All the really dangerous stuff was kept down on the basement levels, as far from harm’s reach as the government’s excavators could dig. Even if he hadn’t already known Mika’s cell number, it would have been apparent from the guards outside, looking around in confusion. Spacewell smiled. Two DCA agents and two soldiers, a worthless combination that added up to zero. Neither faction trusted the other, which meant cooperation was unlikely.

  ‘I’ve come to escort the prisoner to a safe zone,’ he said, marching up to them. ‘I’ll require two of you to accompany me. Open the door please.’

  One looked at the others, then back at him. ‘Identification?’

  ‘U.R. Goosed,’ Spacewell said, turning the utility board over in his hands and aiming it at a gap just between the nearest two men. When he pressed a button, a fizzle of electricity turned them both into twitching heaps. The third started to run for help, but the fourth dropped into a crouch, his gun coming up.

  Spacewell zapped him with a blast right to the face and the man joined the other two in a jerking spasm on the floor.

  His card opened the cell door, and Mika looked up. One side of her face was swollen and bruised. A cut over one eye had left a curtain of dried blood down the side of her face.

  Aside from Mika, the room was empty. Spacewell pressed a button to activate the safety on the electrical current he had been saving for Farrell Soars and Dreggo. They could wait.

  Mika stared at him like a mirage. ‘Rick.’

  ‘Yeah. Come on, getting out is going to take some effort.’

  ‘I’m bolted to the table.’

  He pulled a pair of bolt cutters out of his bag. ‘I noticed that during the TV show. Got it covered.’

  In a few seconds she was free. Mika stood uncertainly on her feet as if her body had already given up.

  ‘We have to be quick,’ Spacewell said. ‘They’ll expecting us to go up, but we’re going down. Here.’ He pulled a lab coat out of his bag and tossed it to her. It’ll get you past anyone except Dreggo, but I’ve got a special something for that bitch.’

  ‘She’ll be back any moment.’

  Spacewell smiled. ‘Well, let’s haul ass then.’

  They went out, past the twitching guards. Two were beginning to come around, but the third was still groaning on the floor. ‘That’s the one that hit me,’ Mika said.

  Spacewell went up to him, and before Mika could say a word, he fired a bolt of electrical current into the man’s groin. The man twisted and went still. The others stared at Spacewell with terrified eyes, as if expecting the same.

  ‘You’ll find mercy on the other side, brothers,’ Spacewell said. ‘The revolution has begun.’

  They headed for a maintenance stairway at the end of the corridor. They were only one level below ground, but reinforcements would be arriving soon, and within a few hours half of the government’s London-based military would be setting up their barricades. Redmen were an endlessly failing experiment, genetically engineered giants of men that had incredible destructive power. Unfortunately, a side effect of their treatment made them intensely territorial, a trait the government had so far failed to eradicate.

  ‘I let out the Redmen,’ Spacewell said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I had no choice. It was that or a couple of tracker-killers. I figured it would be easier to get past a couple of monsters more intent on killing each other than killing us.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘I’m guessing Level Seven. Probably wrecking the place.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘The water vents. Via the repair bay on Level Eight. I noticed you left something behind.’

  ‘The memory card. But there’s no time.’

  ‘We’ll make time. Just for the record, you owe me a fucking date for this.’

  Mika laughed. When he looked at her, he saw tears in her eyes. ‘Get me out and I’ll think about it.’

  Each level of the maintenance staircase was remotely locked, but Spacewell’s card let them through. Eventually someone would figure out what had happened and lockdown the entire complex, so they had to be quick. He jumped down each flight of steps, Mika struggling to keep up.

  ‘In here,’ he said, pushing through a side door on to an empty corridor. ‘Take me to them.’

  Mika, gasping for breath, took the lead as they hurried for the repair bay. Sirens were still blaring, and Spacewell could only imagine the destruction in action on the level above. From time to time th
e Redmen were pitted against each other in a battle of strength, some sick sideshow that the scientists considered research. They fought in steel cages with three-inch thick bars which would be bent and twisted by the time one bloody monster stood over the broken body of the other. Spacewell only hoped that this time they took a few of the scientists with them.

  ‘In here. Can you open it?’

  Spacewell swiped his card and the heavy steel door swung open. ‘I guess they haven’t caught me yet. I’ll prop it open, just in case.’

  The two damaged Level Threes still lay on the gurneys, wires connecting them to life support machines. Mika squatted by Kyaru and slid a hand into her body cavity.

  ‘Got it!’

  As she went to pull her hand free, Kyaru’s hand jerked up, her fingers closing over Mika’s wrist. She screamed as the fingers squeezed. ‘Rick!’

  ‘God damn it.’

  He dropped his bag to the ground and pulled the bolt cutters free. ‘Man, this is rank,’ he groaned, slipping the blades over Kyaru’s forearm and pulling the handles tight. Kyaru’s arm dropped away as her hand separated from her body. For a few seconds the fingers held on, then they released and the hand dropped to the floor.

  ‘Ghastly,’ Rick said, grabbing his bag. Kyaru’s face had shown no change in emotion as blood and a black oily substance dribbled from the stump of her severed arm. Eyes that might or might be able to see watched them with a bored apathy. ‘Did you get your chip?’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  They headed back towards the maintenance stairs. Above them, the rattling tumult of destruction echoed down.

  The stairs ended at Level Nine, a cavernous archives level where each room, carved out of solid rock, housed either ancient, moth-eaten data printouts or heaps of broken or disused machinery, some of it dating from before Mega Britain’s establishment. The corridors were a labyrinthine mess of designated walkways and partitions in the stacks of waste, many of which were blocked by collapsed stacks of metal and paper that no one had bothered to clean up.

  The spotlight on Spacewell’s utility board illuminated the ghostly world of the archives like the basement of a vast haunted house. ‘I hate this place,’ he said. ‘Gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Access is forbidden without my authorization,’ Mika whispered. ‘Who are you, Rick?’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘I’m someone who’s looking for a change of career.’

  ‘That makes two of us. Where next?’

  ‘You think we’re at the bottom, don’t you?’ Rick laughed. ‘It gets worse. Below us are water vents to pump groundwater out of the lower levels. That’s our way out.’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

  ‘Don’t worry, they’re dry. They were built as a precaution. Let’s go.’

  ‘How do you know all this stuff?’

  Rick turned back to her. ‘The same way I knew you were about to get the living shit kicked out of you and I couldn’t allow that to happen. I pay attention.’

  She put a hand on his arm. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Save it for when we’re somewhere beyond the perimeter walls. Let’s go.’

  They hurried through the archives, Spacewell’s light flickering back and forth. He had spent hours wandering about down here, making sure he knew every nook and cranny. When you were secretly batting for the other side it was important to know all your escape routes. He had hoped that when he eventually bailed on a life of aiding and abetting government-approved misery, he would leave by the front door. Unfortunately things hadn’t worked out that way.

  ‘Stop.’ He reached out a hand to hold Mika still.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You hear that? Footsteps. Something’s following us.’

  Mika’s fingers squeezed into his forearm. ‘Who?’

  Spacewell took a deep breath, trying to calm his beating heart. He reached into his bag and passed one of the other utility boards to Mika. He pressed a button to activate the control screen.

  ‘It’s user-friendly, designed for even an idiot to navigate. Scroll down to the function you need and make goddamn fucking sure it’s pointing away from you when you press activate. You’ve got your weaponry here, here and here. Spotlight. Grapnel. GPS, although it might be a bit flaky this far underground.’

  ‘Rick, what is this?’

  ‘My contribution. Take the bag. There are two more.’ He smiled. ‘I made one for each of them, and one for myself.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You’ll figure it out. Fix the electro-magnet, won’t you? Never could figure it out, but it’s kind of important, you know?’

  ‘Rick—’

  ‘Move. Go straight, left at the end. You’ll come to a fuck-off huge door that looks like an airlock.’ He pulled his ID card from around his neck. ‘This will get you through. Go down the ladder, then at the tunnels go uphill. When you get out, look for the tough guy. He’ll help you. Don’t go down. Down goes to the sea.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Spacewell gritted his teeth. ‘I’m going to give you a chance.’ A growl came from out of the darkness. Something shifted, coming forward. Spacewell pushed Mika behind him. ‘Go now, Mika. And for what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure I would have enjoyed our date.’

  She looked about to say something. Instead she gave a quick nod and hurried off into the dark. He watched her for a few seconds, then turned back to face whatever storm was coming. Something growled again, and a shadow shifted. Instinctively Spacewell took a step to the left as something fizzed through the air, missing him by inches.

  ‘Come on, let’s play,’ he said, switching on the spotlight, adjusting it to its brightest setting. A tall, robed figure stood between stacks of junk fifty yards away. Spacewell recognised it by its size. He swallowed down a knot of fear.

  Heyna. Dreggo’s dog. If they had found perfection among their endless experiments, this was it. Falling to Heyna’s claws was almost a noble way to die.

  ‘Let’s see how well this thing works,’ Spacewell said, flashing a smile just for the hell of it, his finger jabbing down on the grenade release.

  The stack to Heyna’s left exploded, crashing down around the Huntsman, who disappeared amidst a rush of collapsing wood, metal, and paper. The sparks caught hold of the brittle folders and in a few seconds fire flickered in a dozen places. Sprinklers came on in the ceiling, but they were weak, poorly maintained.

  A pile of debris shifted and the Huntsman rose up like a corpse from the grave. Heyna shook dust off himself and sprang forward, ducking and rolling, a genetically engineered cybernetic ninja. Spacewell gasped and pulled the board up, firing bolts of electricity that fizzed against the ground, missing the creature by inches.

  Heyna uncurled in front of Spacewell, standing seven feet tall, snarling like a rabid dog. Spacewell leapt aside, swinging the board back around to ward off a slashing arm. Something hard struck him in the stomach, but he didn’t have time to think about it. He ducked under another swipe and fired out the grapnel, retracting it quickly, dragging himself forward as a pile of old mechanical equipment crashed down around him. Something hard landed on his legs and Spacewell felt an agonising jolt of pain just below his right knee. He gritted his teeth and twisted over, bringing the utility board up in front of him.

  ‘If it has to be fire, then fire is what it’ll be,’ he muttered.

  The last grenades exploded in the stacks around him and suddenly fire was everywhere, lighting up the room, filling it with smoke. He clutched the utility board close to his chest, wishing he had thought to install some function to remove pain, then remembering that in a way, he had.

  He set the board to the function he wanted, then turned it over in his hands so that the active side faced inwards towards his chest. As a long shadow fell across him, he closed his eyes, not wanting the last thing he saw to be Heyna’s terrifying face.

  Good luck, Mika. In another world, another time, I’ll be seeing you.

&nbs
p; His finger stabbed the button, and everything went black.

  It was nearly nine p.m., but Spacewell still hadn’t shown up. Something had gone wrong. Lindon had no way of getting in contact with his friend, so he stared up at the dim moon through the clouds as it moved gracefully across the sky.

  Another five minutes, then he was gone. This was a mistake; he had been hearing sirens for the last hour just a couple of streets to the north. There was only so long he could stay here before he would draw attention to himself.

  Something shifted near his feet. He stepped aside, looked down and saw a manhole cover lift briefly then fall back down again.

  ‘Is someone down there?’

  A faint knock came from the underside. ‘Too heavy….’

  Lindon squatted down. ‘Push it again. I’ll catch it.’

  The manhole cover moved. As it lifted, Lindon hooked his fingers under it and hauled it up, tossing it aside. A woman’s face looked up at him, streaked with a mixture of grime and blood.

  ‘Are you him?’ she asked. ‘Are you the tough guy?’

  ‘Where’s Spacewell?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘He stayed behind.’

  She looked about to cry. Lindon felt a pang of worry for his friend, but he had promised to help. He lifted her up on to the street. She was carrying a heavy bag of stuff that she clutched to her chest like a baby as she looked up at him, her eyes fearful.

  ‘You’re safe now,’ he said, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, wondering if indeed anyone really was.

  30

  Home

  Pieces of shattered glass.

  A picture, long ago broken. A memory. A world that had been that was lost.

  Trickling water.

  The baby cried. Sorel reached a hand under her cloak and ran a finger down its face, soothing it. The cry dropped to a soft coo, and Sorel bared her teeth in her best attempt at a smile.

  Certain things floated on the ocean of her lost memories, bobbing up and down like driftwood in the aftermath of a wreck. It would need food. Changing. Bathing. A warm place to sleep.