Upworld

by Ian Woodhead

  The hatch had brought him into a small grey room full of cleaning materials. Dane pulled off the jacket, unrolled the extra pair of trousers, and dropped them into a decrepit-looking janitor’s trolley before he pushed open the door and lost himself in the sea of people outside the room.

  As Dane shuffled along with the other shoppers, moving past the stalls, each one doing everything in their power to draw in potential customers, he seriously hoped that the Chinese lady was joking about cutting up that dead kid. He watched a butcher expertly jointing half a carcass for a moment before moving on, making his way towards the side exit that would take Dane out, opposite to where the boys in blue were gathered.

  As perverse as it sounded, it wasn’t only the Chinese lady who had enjoyed themselves at the sudden exposure to possible death. Dane found it hard to credit that he’d missed all this during his self-imposed three years of quiet solitude.

  He took his thoughts back to the incident in the cafe, in particular to that look of reserved triumph which spread across Nelson’s face when the gem from Dane’s necklace snapped into the base of that artefact. Right now, Dane felt both excited and frustrated over his lack of knowledge over that thing. He needed more information, much more information. For a start, Dane would so love to know everything that Nelson knew. And, how the bastard knew that his necklace would activate the device.

  Dane pushed through a crowd of old women, stood around a mother and her young child, each one making the standard cooing sounds. Over the chorus of their annoying noises, Dane overheard a more official voice emanating from the main entrance. The boys in blue were now inside the market and spreading out. This was his cue to get out of there. The determined way they moved suggested that they knew exactly who they were looking for. The side exit was a few more metres away by the side of a stall selling cooked meat.

  He stopped in front of the glass counter and watched two policemen walk down the next aisle. They were stopping people at random and showing them a photograph. Dane’s instinct for self-preservation kicked in when he saw a market trader point towards the door where he slipped into the market. It seemed like a ridiculous idea that London’s police would be suddenly after him, but his instinct told him that it was the case, no matter how paranoid it was.

  “If you come with me now, Dane, I should be able to get you out of here,” whispered a familiar voice by his side.

  He turned his head to find a man, who Dane believed dead, grinning up at him.

  “I see from your expression that you’re surprised I’m still alive?”

  “Oscar Delano. I should have known that you would be involved with this mess. The smell should have given it away.” The short, dark-haired man was another blast from Dane’s past. Unlike Nelson, this vile rat would receive no redemption from him. “If we weren’t in a public place, I’d smash your ugly face right into this counter.” He moved, only for the man to grab his arm.

  “Give me the harmonic blade, Dane, and I’ll show you a way out of here. You do know that the filth are after you now?” The man shook his head and sighed loudly. “To think that you had it in you to murder those three men. They’ll put you away for a long time for that, you know. Not even your millionaire dad will be able to save you from your fate.”

  Dane knocked the man’s hand away. “Go stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.” He pushed his hand deep into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the salt cellar, as Delano pulled out a short snub pistol.

  “You really don’t have a choice here. Hand it over right now, before the filth see you.” He peered over Dane’s shoulder. “They’re almost on top of you, my friend!”

  “Can I help you two gentlemen?”

  Dane turned to find a young blonde woman smiling at him for behind the counter. Her lips melted to utter terror when her eyes noticed the gun in the other man’s hand. Delano turned the gun to point at the girl.

  “One word, pretty lady, and you die.” The man turned his attention to Dane. “Let’s try this again, shall we? No more delays. Give me the harmonic blade!”

  Dane grinned at the man. “Found your father yet? I heard he left you for some dirty Thai ladyboy.” The sounds of the approaching policemen were getting louder. Now, thanks to the addition of another gentleman, who’d just arrived on the scene, Dane felt a little more in control. “Oscar, why don’t you look behind yourself?”

  “Do you honestly think I’m so stupid?”

  Dane watched with interest as Bradley efficiently pulled the weapon out of the man’s grip before a highly focussed punch dropped Delano to the stone floor. “I’m so sorry about that, miss.” He tipped his imaginary hat before following Bradley towards the side exit.

  “How did you find me?”

  “You never left my sight, Dane.”

  “Why the hell did you allow those monkeys to chase me all the way around London then?”

  Bradley opened the door. He shrugged. “For fun?” The man hurried over to the maroon Range Rover parked illegally outside the market exit. He opened the rear door. “Best hurry, sir. Your dad and Nelson are waiting for you back at the house.”

  Dane walked up to Bradley, dug into his other pocket, pulled out a napkin, and unfolded it. “I saved you this,” he said, grinning at the man’s irritated expression. When Bradley didn’t reach for the present, Dane pick up the cold sausage and bit it in half. “Suit yourself,” he said, climbing into the four-wheel drive.

  Chapter Three

  It didn’t matter how much effort he put in his leg muscles, his feet refused to move. It felt like he was stuck in thick honey. Dane swivelled his head, noting that the swarm had reached the cave entrance. It had taken him a good minute to squeeze into this small chamber, and he considered that to be his greatest achievement today, considering Dane truly believed he was going to find his body stuck between the rocks.

  Dane tried once more to move his legs and found he could shift them a few inches forward, as long as he didn’t think about it. Instead of worrying about looking for somewhere to hide in here, Dane focussed on trying to stem the bleeding. One pointed shard of rock sliced through the side of his stomach as he finally fell into the chamber. The wound wasn’t deep, but it had opened up a good few inches of flesh. Since the fall, he’d been pressing what remained of his blue shirt tightly against the wound. His efforts hadn’t stopped his blood from streaming down his thigh and dripping onto the stone.

  Strange how he felt no pain. Dane put that down to shock. The first of the swarm had reached the gap on the rock face. A wasp the size of a lion landed on the surface. Its front legs glided along the edge of the rock, stopping when it found the blood-stained shard.

  Dane tore his gaze away from the monstrous creature and attempted to push his way further into the interior of the chamber. The little light available to him vanished as more wasps landed on the rock. He knew he’d made the worst mistake of his life when his feet crunched on something thin and brittle. Dane looked down and saw he was walking over a thick bed of bones.

  In trying to get away from the swarm, Dane had taken refuge in their home. This is where the things had built their nest! The sound of their wings grew louder and louder, reaching ear-piercing proportions. He dropped into the ancient bones and clapped his hands over his ears in a futile attempt to block out the noise.

  The wasps were all around his shivering frame. At first, Dane thought that the wasps weren’t aware of him, that perhaps that somehow, their senses hadn’t picked him up. That hope died when, from the back of the chamber, another wasp, twice as large as the others, crawled across rock and bone, heading straight for him. It was their queen.

  The creature lifted its large frame and rose into the air. The other wasps moved out of its way. Dane knew that this was it, his life was to come to an end. If he didn’t die from the shock when her fist-sized stinger pierced his tender flesh, then he would surely die when her baby hatched inside his paralysed body and ate its way out.

  He pulled a huge femur from bes
ide his hip and wrapped his fingers around the bone. The queen hovered directly above Dane, her dangling feet coming within inches of his outstretched arm. He violently thrust the bone up, aiming for the creature’s head, only for the wasp to move out of his reach at the last moment.

  Several other wasps had now landed around Dane and were slowly moving towards him. He scrambled to his feet and ran towards the arc of light, smacking any wasp which came within distance of his improvised weapon. He thanked the hundreds of deities he knew that the feeling of swimming through honey had finally left him.

  The warm breeze coming from outside the chamber brushed across his cheeks. He was going to make it. The entrance was now almost in front of him. He spun around and found to his surprise that the wasps had not moved, they weren’t in pursuit at all.

  He saw no point in questioning his good fortune. Dane needed to get out of he before his luck turned sour again. He spun back around, grabbed the edge of the rock, and pushed his head through the opening and looked down.

  Twenty feet below him, where the rock met the grasslands, over a dozen giant humanoids raced towards him. Each one carried a thick wooden stake, taller than Dane. He turned around and saw the wasps were now inches from his face. Dane screamed.

  Chapter Four

  “For crying out loud, man. Will you keep hold of his arms?

  “I’m trying, Bradley.”

  Dane’s eyes shot open. He saw his two friends struggling to keep him still. He managed to raise his head and found there was no sign of any wasps, giant or otherwise. Dane would have relaxed there and then put his experience down to a stupid dream, if it wasn’t for the fact that he had no idea where he was. He blinked a couple of times and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. One thing was sure, they weren’t inside the plane anymore, nor were they on the surface. Dane had spent enough time underground to recognise the characteristics. He turned his head to the side, and his gaze rested upon a large collection of bones piled up against one of the walls.

  “What the hell is going on?” He managed to sit up. Dane glanced over at Nelson. “What happened to us?”

  Bradley got to his feet. He walked over to an upturned box. The man picked it up and walked back, placing it next to Dane’s thigh. “Let’s get you off the floor.”

  Both he and Nelson lifted Dane off the floor and gently sat him down on the box. He took a deep breath and asked the last question one more time while taking in his surroundings. This wasn’t the chamber from his dream. Dane took some comfort in that. He wasn’t sure how he would have coped with that scenario. He detested wasps.

  “Tell me what you remember last.”

  He decided to keep the events of that dream to himself. “We all boarded the jet.” Dane pulled up the bottom of his shirt and breathed a sigh of relief when he found the dream wound wasn’t there. “Both you and Bradley were arguing over something, and then…” Dane frowned. “That’s it, I’m afraid. Then I woke up here.”

  Bradley nodded to himself. “You fell asleep, Dane, missing the fun and games.”

  “We were shot down,” continued Nelson. “The plane was about a hundred miles from the airport when…” The older man shivered. “Jesus, I’ve been in some scrapes in my time, but seeing that missile heading towards us through the plane window almost stopped my poor heart. In fact, I was kinda hoping that my heart did give out before the missile hit the plane. I did not want to be incinerated.”

  “Through luck, or design, it punched through the wing. I believe it was design.” Bradley picked up one of the small bones scattered across the floor and casually used the splintered end to clean his fingernails. “There was no warhead attached. Whoever launched it obviously wanted us to live.” He dropped the bone and rolled up the shirt sleeve on his left arm. “We hit the water pretty hard. I think the impact must have knocked me sideways, as that’s as much as I remember.” Bradley tapped his forearm a couple of times. “I did notice this a minute ago.” He looked at Dane. “It’s a puncture mark. I think we’ve all been drugged.”

  “Drugged?” He sighed to himself. That would probably explain the weird dream. His eyes had adjusted enough for him to discern more of their surroundings. He slowly scanned the inside of the large cavern, only stopping when he saw the three of them weren’t alone.

  There were another two individuals in the cavern. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out their features, a difficult task in this dim light. Dane looked up at Nelson. “We have company,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  “Who are they?”

  Nelson shrugged. “Not sure yet. We haven’t asked. We wanted to make sure you were okay before the introductions, you know?”

  A young, dark-haired girl pressed herself against a smooth rock. Judging from her posture, she too had no idea what was happening. Her head shifted to the left. Dane guessed she had realised that she was being scrutinised. Her eyes found his. She released a quiet gasp before vanishing behind the rock.

  “Your charm strikes again.”

  “Shut up, Nelson. The poor thing’s probably scared out her mind.” He stood, holding onto Bradley until he was confident that he wasn’t going to fall over.

  “Steady there, Dane,” said Bradley. “Whatever they used on us was pretty powerful.”

  “You and Nelson check on the girl. See if you can find out anything.” He let go of the bodyguard and slowly made his way across the cavern floor, heading towards what appeared to be a large bundle of rags.

  The gender of the remaining individual became apparent when he groaned as Dane reached him. He dropped to his knees and gently turned over the body. “Bloody hell!” he exclaimed when he found himself staring into a face which he had not seen in over ten years.

  The man on the floor opened his eyes. He saw Dane looked down at him and grinned. “Small world.”

  “Benedict Harris. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Synchronicity, old friend. I was about to ask you the same question. Don’t just look at me with your mouth wide open. Stop looking like a dumb fish and help me up. My body doesn’t appear to be functioning at full capacity.”

  “I believe that we have all been drugged.”

  “Oh, that probably explains why I feel like utter dog shit.”

  Dane helped the man sit up, watching him take in his surroundings. Finally, the man’s gaze settled on the other three. Benedict smiled. “Looks like the band is back together. Isn’t this jolly. I don’t recognise the pretty lady though. Is she your new squeeze?”

  Benedict Harris worked in the same field as Dane. Their paths had crossed on more than one occasion. The last time was almost five years ago, when the pair of them were both investigating the possible sighting of a tribe of halflings in Indonesia. “Why don’t you tell me what you remember? As I’m sure that this isn’t any of your doing.”

  “Oh, the faith you have in me really does warm my heart.” Benedict got to his feet. “After all, it is you who have sold their soul to some shadowy organisation. Unlike me, who managed to stay freelance.”

  “Come on, Benedict, stop it with the guilt trip already.”

  “Fine,” he huffed. Benedict frowned. “There’s not much I can recall. I had managed to bluff myself into a group of researchers who had permission from the Mexican authorities to dig close to the Calakmul pyramid.” The older man grinned. “Not that I much cared about their excitement. Although, I will say that two of those young researchers were rather pretty. Long straight blonde hair, Californian complexion, legs that went all the way up to their…”

  “Yes, I get it. What were you there for?”

  “Have you heard of the Calakmul dragons?” Benedict chuckled when Dane shook his head. “Didn’t think you would. In the sixth century, Tikal ruled the region. The southern Mayan city was like a superpower.”

  “Yes, yes, I do know my pre-history, Benedict. What’s your point?”

  “I don’t think that the Calakmul snake kings could have possibly s
acked the southern cities without help, and that help was in the form of domesticated dragons.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “As ridiculous as your futile search of offworld intelligences? Look, it’s irrelevant now anyway, considering our current predicament. As to your original question, Dane, I remember finding a hidden doorway and becoming tremendously excited, then in my last moment of awareness, I saw three men in ski masks coming at me.” The older man got to his feet. He walked past Dane and tentatively placed the palm of his hand against the cavern wall. “That’s interesting,” he muttered. Benedict turned around. “When I awoke from a rather peculiar dream, I thought that those men had left me where I fell, but I now know that’s not correct. Judging from the evidence, we are possibly a thousand miles south from where those thugs attacked me.”

  Dane didn’t bother asking the old archaeologist how he could possibly know that. Instead, he turned and walked over to his two friends, hoping that they have had some luck in extracting some information from the girl.

  The girl crouched beside the rock with her slender arms wrapped around her knees. Unlike Benedict, she showed no sign of wishing to share her history. She didn’t run back around the large rock when he approached her, so he took that as a positive sign. Although, her not moving could be down to his two friends standing at either side of her.

  He crouched in front of her and slowly extended his arm. “Hello there,” he said. “My name is Dane. It’s okay, we’re friends.”

  The girl didn’t respond.

  “I think she’s in shock,” said Nelson.

  “My guess is that she just doesn’t like you, Dane,” suggested Benedict. “Or maybe your breath smells?”

  “You’re not helping here.” Dane took off his jacket and gently placed it over her knees before standing. “Put that over your back, honey. It’ll help take off the chill.”

  “We don’t know where we are, who did this, or why. I’m taking consolation that we’re not dead.” Dane walked over to the only source of light, a circular hole the width of a small car, leading from the cavern ceiling to, he believed, the surface. There was no way that they were leaving through this route. Even if they somehow managed to find a way to reach the cavern ceiling, he saw no possible solution to scaling the inside of that tunnel. From what he could discern, the surface was as smooth as glass. The sunlight cast a perfect circle upon the cavern floor.