Children of the Mountain (Book 3): Lightning Child

by Hakok, R. A.

  But that would mean leaving her in there.

  He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, summoning his courage. There is not as much of it as he had hoped; already far less than there was when he left the helicopter, just moments ago. Before even that has the chance to desert him he stands, takes several quick steps into the shadow of the portico.

  The colossal columns tower over him. He makes his way between them, continuing up the steps to the entrance. He stands on tiptoe and peers through the door, but beyond the lobby is dark, empty. Above the light on the camera blinks, then goes out again.

  His heart is pounding; he can hear it now, hammering away inside his chest; it is all he can do not to run. He closes his eyes, tries to push the fear back down, like he saw the girl do in the airlock.

  He takes a deep breath and steps under the oblong box mounted to the wall. He lifts his goggles onto his forehead and looks up. The camera’s single mechanical eye stares down at him impassively. He raises his hands above his head, waves them hesitantly. The light blinks and he almost bolts, but then it goes out again.

  He keeps his arms above his head while he watches through the glass for any sign of their approach. The doctor wants him back; the dangerous man said so, when he came to take the girl away. As soon as they see he’s here they’ll come out for him. He needs to lead them away, to give the boy time to go inside and find her.

  He looks up into the camera. But how much longer should he wait? Surely they’ve seen him by now. He imagines them, sprinting along whatever corridors and passageways lay beyond, only seconds from bursting into the lobby. The muscles in his legs tense at the thought. He mustn’t let them catch him.

  A soft whirring from above, barely audible above the sound of the wind. His eyes flick upwards, just in time to see the camera’s iris narrow as it focuses on him.

  His hands reach up for his goggles even as he bolts for the path that’s been cleared through the snow. He takes the steps in short, urgent strides and then his feet are crunching powder. For a second he thinks he hears something behind him, a sound that might be the thud of boots on stone, but he forces himself not to look back – surely they can’t be here already?

  The thought of it spurs him on; he tucks his elbows tight to his sides and runs for all he is worth. When he reaches the spot where he left his snowshoes he steps into them and drops to a crouch, fighting the impulse to look over his shoulder while his fingers works the straps. As he tightens the last one he hears the clunk of a handle and the unmistakable clatter of a door being thrown back on its hinges. There’s a harsh shout and then he is on his feet, mittens bouncing on their tethers, arms and legs pumping as he scrambles up the embankment and takes off into deeper snow.

  *

  I DRAW HICKS’ PISTOL and break into a run, ignoring the vacant stares from the cages on either side as I sprint towards the source of the sound. The room seems to stretch out, like I might never reach the end, but eventually a door separates itself from the gloom ahead. The voice begs me to be careful, but it is small now, drowned out by the shrill whine that grows louder, the rage that builds with each step.

  I reach the door, crash through it without slowing. I find myself in dazzling brightness; instinctively raise a hand to shield my eyes. The sound is coming from somewhere in front of me, but the light is so intense I can’t stand to look directly at it. My entrance seems to do the trick, however; the pitch drops as whatever’s causing it is switched off.

  A complicated raft of smells pack the air. The sharp tang of disinfectant, the coppery aroma of blood, the burn of an electric motor. And underneath it something else, stale, familiar. The voice inside my head really wants me to pay attention to that but I can’t, not till I’ve found her.

  The light’s too bright to look at so I squint into the corners, trying to gather details. The room is square, wider and higher than the one I’ve just left. Counters run most of the way around the walls. A sink, a microscope, other equipment I don’t recognize. Above, shelves, stacked with bottles, jars, other containers, an array of glass and ceramic, all gleaming in the brilliance. To my right a doorway, or maybe a large alcove, a dark curtain hiding whatever’s behind.

  I force my gaze back to the center. What looks like an operating table, its angular surfaces ablaze under a huge domed light hanging down from above. I catch a glimpse of movement on the other side of it and I step forward, narrowing my eyes against the glare. I point the pistol in the direction I thought I saw it.

  ‘The light; turn it off.’

  ‘It bothers you?’

  A long pause and then the light is cut, leaving only the soft glow from a handful of bulkhead lamps bolted to the walls. Pinwheels and starbursts swirl and explode across my vision, but if I squint past them I can make out shapes.

  She’s lying in front of me, wearing only a surgical gown. A thick Velcro strap circles her waist; cuffs bind her wrists and ankles to the table. Her head has been shaved and a dotted line that looks like it might have been drawn there with a sharpie circles her scalp. A metal clamp holds it in place. A trickle of blood where the screws have pierced her skin.

  I call her name but she doesn’t respond. I search her face for any sign she knows I’m there, but her eyes have been taped shut.

  I look up, for the first time seeing Gilbey. She studies me over her glasses, the rest of her face hidden behind a surgical cap and mask. In her hand some type of electric saw, the jagged-toothed disc still spinning as it grinds slowly to a halt.

  ‘What have you done to her?’

  She pulls the mask down.

  ‘Nothing, yet. I was just about to begin.’

  I step forward, touch her shoulder.

  ‘Mags.’

  ‘She can’t hear you.’

  I point the pistol across the table, still struggling to keep the rage from bringing down the brace wire.

  She holds up her hand, says Wait. My vision is still swimming with color, but it’s almost like the instruction isn’t meant for me. The voice inside my head concurs; something is wrong.

  She should be afraid of you, but she’s not.

  She sets the saw down.

  ‘You’ve infected yourself.’ She tilts her head, as though considering her own statement. ‘You saw what it did to her; thought it might give you a chance against the soldiers. Reckless, given how little you could possibly understand of the pathology, but there’s a certain logic to it. It is what the virus was designed for, after all.’

  She takes a step around the table, then stops. She looks down at Mags and then back to me, as though another thought has just occurred to her.

  ‘You’re no longer contagious; you wouldn’t have touched her like that if you were. How did you manage it?’ She looks up, not waiting for my answer. ‘I’m guessing an electrical shock of some sort?’ She leans closer, studying me over her glasses. ‘It looks like you may have overdone the voltage.’

  ‘Wake her up, now.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  She points at a metal stand beside the table. A plastic drip bag hangs from a hook. A tube snakes down from it, entering her arm just below the elbow.

  ‘She’ll be out for a while yet. I had to give her quite a large dose. The changes to her physiology were…profound.’

  I point the pistol at the straps.

  ‘Then untie her. I’ll carry her.’

  She just ignores me.

  ‘And how do you feel, Gabriel?’ She studies me over the rims of her spectacles. ‘You seem lucid, but perhaps not entirely…in control?’ She pinches the bridge of her nose, shakes her head. ‘The delivery mechanism: that was always the problem. The virus was supposed to shut itself down, once the remap had been completed, once the subject’s central nervous system had been optimized. We could never get it to do that, however. It always seemed to want to keep on going.’

  I raise the pistol, thumb back the hammer.

  ‘I said untie her.’

  Gilbey’s eyes flick to the gun, then for
an instant they cut right and narrow. She gives the briefest shake of her head, but something’s wrong; the gesture is far too calm.

  That’s because it’s not meant for you.

  I hear a sound from behind me and suddenly there’s that smell again, stronger than before. Too late I recognize what it is. Stale sweat, and underneath it, tobacco.

  I turn around, just as Truck steps from the shadows behind me, a baton in one hand. He lunges forward with it, an arc of blue light dancing between the metal prongs.

  *

  I TRY TO BACK UP, but the operating table’s in my way, blocking my retreat, so instead I swing the pistol around. The speed of it takes him by surprise, and for an instant I see the shock re-arranging his features. But even as my finger tightens around the trigger, I know it won’t be enough. I feel the prongs of the baton pierce the thin material of my thermals, jabbing hard into my ribs, just as the last of the slack comes out of the mechanism. The pistol bucks in my hand and in the same moment there’s an instant of pain, quickly cut off as some internal circuit breaker I didn’t know I had gets tripped.

  Darkness rushes in from the corners of my vision and the ground beneath my feet lurches alarmingly. I hear the gun clatter to the floor and then my legs give way and I’m falling in some indescribable, slantwise direction. I expect to hit wall, but instead I feel something soft give way behind me. I reach for it with the hand that still seems to work and for a second thick material passes between my fingers, but I can’t get a grip on it. I feel something sharp slam into my back, and then the floor comes rushing up to hit me.

  I lay there for a moment, uncertain whether I am still conscious. I think I might be. Afterimages of the light from the other room swirl across my vision, but the darkness beyond is not complete; it has texture, grain. From somewhere on the other side of it I hear voices, furry, indistinct.

  ‘…have to do that, Corporal?’

  ‘…bastard shot me.’

  I shake my head, trying to clear it, but it’s like someone’s ripped out a bunch of the wires inside me, and now nothing works like it should. The right side of my body seems to have switched off completely. I try to push myself up, but the arm there is limp, useless; it ignores whatever messages my brain tries to send it. My other side’s better; I can still feel things there, enough to tell me I’m trapped against something hard, with ridges, presumably whatever I fell against on my way to the floor. I reach out with my hand. My fingers close around plastic.

  I turn my head in that direction. The bars of a cage. When I look down I can see a section of the floor has been marked off with tape. I stare at the striped perimeter for a moment. It reminds me of another place. There was tape on the floor there, too, but the bars were metal, not plastic. I’m still trying to make the connection when I hear a shuffling sound behind me and then a single click, low and guttural. The hairs on the nape of my neck raise like hackles.

  A face presses itself to the bars, only inches from mine. What once might have been a girl, not much older than I am now. The furies that occupied the cages in the other room seemed unaware of my presence, but this one knows I’m here. It stares back at me from deep, shadowed eyes, its nostrils flaring. I lie there, not even daring to breathe. After a few seconds it retreats.

  The curtain I fell through is pulled back and Truck stands over me, the baton loose in one hand. The shot I fired before he zapped me has torn a gash in his fatigues and the material there is already dark with his blood. More of it runs down inside his sleeve and drips from his fingers. I feel something flicker inside me at the sight of it, but weaker then before, like the jolt I took from the baton has disabled it, too.

  Truck takes a step closer. Unfortunately my bullet doesn’t seem to have impaired him significantly. He wipes his hand on his pants leg, then tightens his grip on the baton, flicking the switch with his thumb. I watch as blue-white electricity sizzles between the prongs. Gilbey appears at his shoulder.

  ‘He’s no use to me dead, Corporal.’

  ‘Don’t worry, ma’am, I ain’t going to kill him. Just going to mess him up a little. You can have him when I’m done.’

  He smiles down at me, his face a mask of dull, lazy violence.

  There’s a soft, scrabbling sound beside me and I glance over. On the other side of the bars the fury has stiffened like a dog on point. It stares out, the muscles along its jaw clenching and unclenching, its fingers slowly raking the floor of the cage.

  Truck doesn’t seem to have noticed; it’s dark in the alcove, and right now he seems more preoccupied with the vengeance he’s about to extract from me. He takes another step towards me, thumbing the switch on the baton’s handle again. I slide my good hand along the top of the cage, like I mean to pull myself up.

  ‘That’s it, Huck, you try that. Just make it that much more fun for me when I put you down again.’

  I grasp the front, like I mean to do just as he says, but at the last second I shift my hand over. For a second Truck’s brow knits together as he tries to work out what I’m doing, then he raises the baton, brings it down hard. There’s a sickening crunch and I hear myself scream as the bone in my finger snaps like a twig. I pull my hand back, but he’s too late; I’ve already released the catch. The gate springs open and the fury bounds out, teeth bared. Truck staggers backward, surprisingly fast for a man of his size. He raises the baton to ward off the attack, but Gilbey steps between them and grabs it, trying to wrest it from him.

  ‘Don’t! You’ll hurt her!’

  The fury’s on her in an instant. I hear something clatter to the floor and then all three of them disappear from view.

  I lie there for a moment, cradling my busted hand to my chest as I wait for the pain there to subside. To my surprise it quickly settles to a dull throb. I haul myself slowly to my feet. My right arm’s still useless, but a measure of feeling seems to have returned to the leg on that side. I grab hold of the curtain and peer through. The fury has dragged its kill into the shadows underneath the operating table. It looks over at me, its jaw dark with blood, then returns to its meal. I watch to make sure it’s settled, then turn my attention to the rest of the room. On the other side of the table, pressed up against the counter, stands Truck, one hand held to his injured arm. He shifts his gaze to me for a second, then his eyes dart back to the fury.

  The pistol I dropped lies on the floor. I bend down to recover it. Mags is lying on the operating table, still unconscious. I’ll need to get a lot closer to the fury if I’m to free her. I tell myself it’ll be alright. It had the chance to attack me, when I fell against its cage, and it didn’t. The one in the basement of Starkly was just the same; it paid more attention to the flask Finch left than it did me. Maybe whatever I am now isn’t of interest to them.

  I’m not sure I’m ready to trust everything to that theory, however, so I grip the pistol with the fingers I have that still work and pry the hammer back. It’s awkward work getting the middle one through the trigger guard, but it gives me the courage I need to shuffle closer. The fury glances up as I start to advance and I freeze, but after a few seconds it returns to feasting on Gilbey. I hold the pistol on it a little longer, then take a deep breath and step up to the table.

  I set the gun down, trying to ignore the grunts and snaps coming from by my feet. I start with the needle on her arm, removing the tape that holds it in place, sliding it out as carefully as I can. Then I turn to the clamp that’s holding her head. I have to feel with my fingers for the screws, but one by one they come free. A trickle of her blood wets my fingertips as I withdraw the last one.

  Truck watches me close, his eyes darting between the pistol and what’s going on under the table. As I move on to the straps at her ankles he takes a step away from the counter. I shift my hand to the gun.

  ‘You don’t want to test me, Truck, not today.’

  I can’t be sure if it’s me or the fury at my feet that’s keeping him back, but he returns to the wall, glares at me for a while, then hitches his pants up
and starts pacing, a slow shuffle back and forth along the length of the counter, like a wounded bear. There’s a crunch and a wet sucking sound as beneath the table the fury takes another bite out of Gilbey. Truck’s gaze flicks to the floor and back again, but he comes no closer.

  I go back to Mags’ restraints. The Velcro’s tricky to manage one-handed, with the digits I still have at my disposal, and every now and then Truck gets a look in his eye and I have to pick up the pistol and show it to him again, but eventually I get the last cuff open. There’s a couple of sensors stuck to her skin, but they come off easy.

  I spot a roll of tape on the counter, like the kind Gilbey’s used on Mags’ eyes, sitting on top of a spiral bound notebook. I slip the tape into my pocket, adding the notebook for good measure. Then I slide my good arm underneath her and hoist her onto my shoulder. Truck shuffles forward, but I’m ready for him; I snatch the pistol up before he gets close enough to rush me. I back up slowly, watching as he starts to inch his way around the table.

  He doesn’t get very far before the fury lifts its head, flicks it in his direction. A single click, low and menacing, emanates from somewhere deep in its throat. I grip the pistol, getting ready to switch aim if I have to, but it’s not me that’s caught its attention. Truck freezes, unwilling to come any closer.

  I take the opportunity to make our exit. The heel of my boot clips the baton he dropped, sending it clattering against the baseboard, but the fury pays it little mind; it returns to its meal, like I’m not even there. I put my shoulder to the door and then I’m out, letting it swing shut behind me. I set the pistol on the ground, lay Mags down as gently as I can and return to the door. I push it open with the toe of my boot, checking that the fury’s still busy chowing down on Gilbey, then I bend down to retrieve the stick. On the far side of the operating table Truck hitches up his pants and hisses across the room at me.