Scavenger Blood

by Janet Edwards

  I stood up and moved to stand at the front of the train, looking into the blackness ahead of us. The lights of the train were just enough for me to see the rails stretching out before us.

  “I swear that I’ll never, ever criticize one of Donnell’s wild ideas again.” Vijay came to stand next to me and stare out of the window. “What happens if the train hits floodwater, or we reach a point where the rails are missing?”

  I tensed. Vijay was right to be worried. We knew this tunnel was in good condition down to where we’d entered it, but had no idea what state it was in nearer Parliament House.

  I realized we could reach a point where there was something even worse than missing rails. We’d explored a side tunnel that had been blocked by the foundations of a new building. We could smash straight into the foundations of Parliament House itself!

  Weston and Tad joined us. “The New York power grid control system is showing the third rail power is on and working all the way to the next station,” said Tad. “That means there can’t be any major hazards on the line, or serious structural damage to the rails or tunnel.”

  I relaxed again.

  “How can you sound so calm about us riding a two-centuries-old train, Tad?” demanded Weston.

  “It’s far less worrying than a lot of other things that have happened to me in New York,” said Tad. “I was scared to death when a falling star caught Blaze. I knew that if I messed up fighting it then Blaze would die.”

  Despite their panic, both Weston and Vijay must have noticed something about the tone of Tad’s voice, because they gave him speculative looks.

  “Is there a way to stop this train before the next station?” I asked hastily.

  “Yes,” said Tad. “I can either turn off the power to the third rail, and the safety system will bring the train to a gentle stop, or I can trigger a danger warning which would bring the train to an emergency halt.”

  “Good,” I said. “So, the power to the third rail is on now in the section of tunnel that Cage is using?”

  “Yes,” said Tad.

  “Can you tell if he’s been electrocuted?” I asked.

  “The power grid control system should flag any incidents,” said Tad. “Nothing has been recorded yet.”

  “Cage must be strolling along that tunnel without touching the third rail,” I said in frustration. “It’s natural to avoid the rails, because it would be easy to trip over them, but surely he should at least brush against them now and then. Has he moved to another section of tunnel yet?”

  “No more lights have been turned on or off,” said Tad. “There’s nothing happening at all.”

  I groaned. “Tell me when we’re near section 28.”

  There was silence for what seemed like an endless length of time before Tad spoke. “We’re in section 29 now, and passing the point where we entered the subway system.”

  A much briefer silence. “Reaching the start of section 28 now,” said Tad.

  The lights were on in section 28. Our train swept out of the darkness into brilliant light, and the voice of my gun spoke in my mind. “Primary target detected.”

  My gun’s tracking display appeared in front of my eyes. The dots of Tad, Weston, and Vijay were right next to me, and two parallel lines showed the tunnel stretching ahead and behind us. At the extreme edge of my gun’s tracking range, I saw a conspicuous red dot to the left of the tunnel, with a few extra lines around it.

  That red dot was Cage. I’d set my gun to have him as its primary target weeks ago. The tracking display was changing bewilderingly fast as our train rushed forward. I was opening my mouth to tell Tad to stop the train, when I saw the red dot move forward into the tunnel.

  I could see Cage with my eyes as well as my gun’s tracking display now. A figure in a dark-grey coat was stepping out from the side of the tunnel, moving with Cage’s familiar arrogant stride. He had something sticklike slung on his shoulder, which had to be his sniper rifle.

  Cage must have heard the train coming at that moment, because he suddenly turned towards us. I wasn’t sure if I’d really seen the expression of horror on his face as he saw the train, or just imagined it, but I definitely saw him grab for his rifle and aim it at us.

  “Down!” I screamed, and instinctively threw myself at Tad. We tumbled to the floor of the carriage together, and I heard three loud bangs mixed with the sound of shattering glass. An instant later, my tracking display showed the red dot of Cage was dodging out of the way of our train.

  I lifted myself up, intending to shoot back at Cage, but saw him caught by the front corner of our train and tossed sideways like a rag doll. I glimpsed flashes of blinding white as we headed on along the tunnel.

  “Tad, emergency stop!” I shouted.

  I was anxiously looking to check that Weston and Vijay were uninjured, when there was a deafening screech, and the train abruptly braked to a halt, sending Tad and me sliding into the front wall.

  “Fortunately, that was the sort of glass that shatters into tiny blunt cubes rather than pointy spikes,” said Vijay chattily. “I saw Cage was hit by our train. Are the young lovers all right?”

  I felt myself flush with embarrassment at the young lover comment. I’d been a fool to worry about Weston and Vijay getting hurt. They hadn’t just managed to take cover on the floor of the carriage before Cage shot at us, and seen the train hit him, but noticed the way I’d thrown myself on Tad as well.

  “The young lovers seem uninjured,” said Weston. “Cage only got a glancing blow from our train, which may not have killed him. Do the bright flashes after that mean he got electrocuted by the third rail?”

  I remembered Donnell warning me that Weston and Vijay’s comedy routines could push the line in combat situations, because they used them as a way to cope with the stress. They were obviously doing that now.

  “I think the flashes were Cage getting electrocuted,” Tad sounded completely untroubled by Weston and Vijay’s comments about young lovers. “The power grid control system shows a significant incident.”

  “Cage is probably injured, but may not be dead,” I said. I actually knew Cage wasn’t dead, because my gun’s tracking display showed his red dot was some distance behind us, and moving in the direction of the Unity Bridge. “Tad, can you reverse this train back along the tunnel?”

  “The subway system doesn’t let trains go backwards,” said Tad.

  The red dot of Cage went out of the range of my gun, and its tracking display vanished. I hammered a fist on the side of the carriage in frustration, sending a shower of dust into the air.

  “Tad, turn off the power to the third rail all along this tunnel, so we can chase after Cage on foot.”

  “Third rail power is now off everywhere,” said Tad.

  I got up from the floor, went to the nearest carriage door, and discovered it was shut. I shoved at it without success, and a glance around told me that all the other carriage doors were shut too.

  “Can you open the doors, Tad,” I asked, “or will we have to climb out of the broken front window?”

  Tad joined me at the carriage door, reached up to pull an overhead red lever, and the door opened with a grudging sigh. I jumped down onto the gravel in the middle of the tunnel, and started running back along the side of the train and on in the direction of the Unity Bridge. After a couple of minutes, I saw something black lying across the rails ahead of me, and paused to look at it.

  Tad, Weston, and Vijay caught me up. “When our train hit Cage, he must have dropped his rifle on the third rail,” said Tad.

  “A rifle but no body,” said Weston grimly. “Cage can’t be too badly injured because he’s gone.”

  Vijay picked up the rifle. “And he must have gone very quickly because I can’t see him further down the tunnel.”

  Tad grimaced. “If the train just hit Cage a glancing blow, and the white flashes we saw were caused by the rifle falling on the third rail, then he may not be injured at all.”

  I didn’t say anything,
just began running again. As the loose gravel slid away under my feet, I stumbled and nearly fell, but recovered and ran on, muttering one of the swear words that Donnell disapproved of his officers using.

  I’d be able to run a lot faster if the ground under my feet was solid fused rock like the walls and ceiling. Who the chaos had dumped all this gravel in these tunnels and why? I was too busy running to ask Tad the question, and I didn’t care about the answer anyway.

  “We’ll reach section 29 of the tunnel soon,” Tad’s voice spoke from next to me. “Shall I turn the lights on there?”

  I’d been trusting to my gun to warn me if I was getting close to Cage, and watching my feet to make sure I didn’t fall over. Now I lifted my head and saw darkness in the distance. I could only manage a one-word reply. “Yes.”

  Just as the darkness in the distance changed to light, the voice of my gun spoke again. “Primary target detected.”

  My gun’s tracking display reappeared. I saw the red dot of Cage was moving among a tangle of lines to one side of the tunnel.

  “Cage probably came into the tunnel using the same entrance as us,” I said. “He’ll be trying to leave the same way.”

  Weston gasped out words in staccato bursts from behind me. “If he came in ... that entrance ... wouldn’t he have been scared away ... by the fact we’d dug out the snow?”

  I threw up my arms in a gesture of ignorance and kept running. The red dot of Cage was stationary now. Why had he stopped? A minute or two later, I saw Cage start moving again, heading directly away from the tunnel at running speed.

  I staggered on and finally reached the doorway where we’d entered the subway. “I’ll go first,” I said.

  There was a sound of protest from behind me. I wasn’t sure whether that came from Weston or Vijay, but I pointedly waved my right hand in the air in response. “I’m the one with the gun. I’ll go first.”

  I went through the doorway, clattered along the familiar, dimly lit corridor, and up the staircase. All the time, I was conscious that Cage was rapidly moving away from me. As I reached the top of the steps, he went out of the range of my gun’s tracking display.

  I stepped out into what I expected to be snow but turned out to be heavy rain. I looked around in despair at the barricade, the statue of Thaddeus Carmichael Wallam-Crane, and the dozens of buildings. Cage could have gone into any of those buildings.

  “Typical,” said Weston, from behind me. “Just when the snow would have been useful for tracking Cage, the weather had to get a crucial couple of degrees warmer, and it started raining.”

  “The rain actually helped us,” said Vijay. “It washed away the snow before Cage arrived. If the snow had still been here, Cage would have seen someone had entered the tunnels ahead of him. He’d have turned back, so we’d never have had the chance to chase him.”

  “We had the chance to chase Cage, but he’s got away,” I said bitterly. “He’s got away from me a second time.”

  “Yes, Cage has got away, but we’ve captured his sniper rifle, and that’s a victory,” said Tad.

  “Yes, that’s a hugely important victory,” said Vijay, brandishing the rifle cheerfully. “If everyone comes back down the steps, I’ll show you something Cage left on the corridor floor as well.”

  We all went back down the steps into the corridor, and Vijay waved at a blood-stained cloth lying by the wall. I picked it up and studied the pattern of blood.

  “That looks like it was used to bandage an arm wound,” I said. “Judging from the amount of blood, it was a serious injury.”

  Weston frowned. “Electrocution wouldn’t cause the sort of wound that bleeds heavily.”

  “I think Cage’s arm was injured when the train hit him,” I said. “Perhaps it was gashed by that loose piece of metal at the front of the train. Whatever caused the injury, Cage dropped his rifle on the third rail. When he saw the electrical sparks flying, he didn’t dare to try to retrieve it, just ran.”

  “If you’re right that Cage was hit by the loose piece of metal, then his arm may be broken as well as badly cut,” said Tad.

  I remembered what Cage had done to me in the boathouse, and thought it would be ironic if we’d broken his arm today.

  “Cage must have sat at the bottom of these steps for a moment, rebandaging his wound to try to get the bleeding under control, before going out into the rain,” said Weston. “Do we try searching the nearby buildings for him?”

  I shook my head. “Cage wouldn’t risk staying in a nearby building when he knew we were chasing him. He’ll have found his way out of a back door by now, and will be moving on, with the rain washing away any blood trail he leaves.”

  Vijay shrugged. “We’d better go back to Parliament House then, and report to Donnell.”

  “No. We’re going back into the tunnel,” I said. “Cage entered the subway system here. He hasn’t been hiding up by the graveyard as Donnell expected, but near the boathouse. I want to know why he’s been staying in this area, and exactly what he was doing in the section of tunnel that runs past Parliament House.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  I trudged wearily along the tunnel. I was depressed that Cage had got away, but Tad kept repeating that capturing the sniper rifle was a victory, while Weston and Vijay were happily joking with each other. I understood that making jokes helped them recover from the stress of the encounter with Cage. I just wished the jokes weren’t about Tad and me.

  “Blaze is definitely worse than her father,” said Weston. “Sean sometimes hits people with his fists, but Blaze hits them with subway trains.”

  “Yes,” said Vijay, “and we thought Sean had chosen the most unsuitable partner possible when we went to London to negotiate a peace treaty between the London Resistance and the local gangs, and he fell in love with Ice’s cousin. You have to admit though, that’s nothing compared to Blaze falling for Thaddeus Wallam-Crane the Eighth.”

  “I may have had a fleeting relationship with Tad, but it’s over now,” I said, in a dignified voice.

  “Yes, we could see it was over by the way you threw yourself on Tad to save him from Cage’s bullets,” said Weston.

  I glared at the pair of them. “You mustn’t say a word about Tad and me to anyone.”

  They looked offended. “You should know that we’d never mention it to anyone except your father and Machico,” said Vijay. “Sean obviously knows what’s going on. We didn’t understand why he’d changed so rapidly from wanting to throw Tad off the roof to indulging the boy, but now it makes sense.”

  “And Machico is bound to know, because Sean always tells him everything,” said Weston. “It gets extremely annoying.”

  “Yes, Donnell and Machico know about Tad and me,” I said wearily. “Not that there’s anything to know. As I said, the whole thing is over.”

  “Do you think it’s over, Tad?” asked Vijay.

  “Blaze feels that the current situation is too dangerous for us to have a relationship and has ended things between us,” said Tad, in an unnaturally formal voice. “I accept her decision, but I hope she’ll reconsider it when the situation improves, because I remain sincerely devoted to her.”

  “He sounds as if he’s making an official statement to reporters,” said Vijay. “I suppose Tad does make lots of official statements on Adonis, though presumably about portals rather than his love life.”

  “Actually, I had to make three official statements last year that involved my love life,” said Tad bitterly. “Reporters make up stories about girls I’ve never even met. When they go as far as announcing wedding dates, I have to issue an official denial.”

  “I’d never imagined hordes of girls chasing Tad,” said Weston. “He doesn’t have Luther’s good looks or Julien’s muscles.”

  “The girls aren’t chasing me,” said Tad. “They’re chasing the Wallam-Crane name and fortune. Speaking for the record, I have never been interested in any girl other than Blaze, and I hope there will be an enduring relationship betwee
n us.”

  “We’re glad to hear you stating that for the official record,” said Vijay.

  Tad turned to stare at Vijay and Weston. “Why are you both teasing me about this? Shouldn’t you be trying to kill me instead? Donnell has been warning me that everyone in the alliance would be furious if they found out about Blaze and me, and I thought the Resistance members would be especially angry.”

  Vijay and Weston exchanged glances. “We’ve known you belonged to the Wallam-Crane family for quite a while now, Tad,” said Vijay. “We’ve had time to get over the initial shock, and realize that ...”

  He hesitated, and Weston took over the talking. “To be perfectly blunt about it, we’ve realized that having Thaddeus Wallam-Crane the Eighth on our side could mean the difference between life and death for the whole alliance.”

  Vijay nodded. “We have to leave New York this spring or die in the firestorm. Our first problem will be getting over seven hundred people, including a lot of small children, all the way to the working portals in Philadelphia. Our second problem will be finding a new home and getting established there before next winter. Our third problem will be staying hidden from what remains of the United Earth Government. However isolated a location we choose for our new home, some citizens are likely to stumble across us eventually.”

  He shrugged. “The government either didn’t know that a bunch of rebels and criminals were still surviving in the heart of abandoned New York, or didn’t care enough to try to do anything about it. If they discover we’ve left New York and set up our own settlement somewhere, they will care about it, and quite possibly send in forces to capture us. After that, they’ll execute us without bothering to hold a trial.”

  “Execute you without holding a trial?” Tad was frowning. “The United Earth Government can’t do that.”

  “The United Earth Government can do that,” said Vijay. “Decades ago, they passed a law which made membership of the Earth Resistance a criminal offence of rebellion, with an automatic death sentence. All of the older Resistance members are on record as political criminals, most of the older members of the other divisions are on record for criminal offences that carry the death penalty too, and everyone else in the alliance would be considered guilty of conspiracy to aid fugitives from justice.”