Min Qi Man and Enigma were the last to get to their feet. The simian mutant still seemed disoriented from his fight with O'Blarney. Middenface was beginning to think the blow to the head had done him some permanent damage. Enigma was probably the most healthy of all of them, and also the one putting the least effort into the whole endeavour. Probably worried that she'd break a nail, Middenface thought sourly.
Finally, they were ready to move again, and Middenface took the first tentative step forward. As soon as he did, there was a loud yelp from Min Qi Man and the trunk smashed to the ground again, this time landing square on Middenface's foot. Only the softness of the earth stopped him from getting a collection of broken bones. And he now had a boot full of mud. He cursed colourfully.
"This isn't working," Johnny said. Thats the the understatement of the century, Middenface thought.
"Yeah," the Blimp agreed, panting. "At this rate, we won't need to worry about drowning in the river. We'll be dead before we get there."
Enigma perched delicately on the trunk and crossed her legs. "Even if we do manage to get it down there, what are we going to do? It's not like we can throw it across the river, is it?"
Middenface glared at her. "What, and ye couldnae ha' mentioned this earlier?"
Enigma smiled sweetly at him. "I assumed you had it all planned out. I mean you wouldn't have got us to drag this thing all the way down here for nothing, would you?"
Both Woman Man and One-Eyed Jack were glaring at Middenface now. So was Johnny.
"What exactly are you planning, partner?" he asked Middenface, not making much of an effort to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
Middenface shrugged. "Toss it."
None of the others looked any the wiser. "What?" Enigma said.
"Toss it," Middenface repeated. "When we reach the bottom we can lean it up against the bank here, then I can heave it ontae my shoulder an' toss it over the river. Like a caber," he added at their blank looks.
"And this was your plan?" One-Eyed Jack said incredulously.
"Aye," Middenface said. He glared round at all the others. "Why, is anyone sayin' I'm nae man enough tae dae it?"
Nobody answered him directly. They didn't have to; their expression spoke for them.
Middenface sighed. "Folks ha' got no faith these days. Awright, if ye're all tae feeble too carry it any further, I'll take it from here and dae it myself."
He thought they'd argue with him. But to a mutant they folded their arms and looked at him.
"Fine," Johnny said. "Go ahead." His cheek was scratched and coated with mud where the trunk had brushed it on its last descent. He looked very thoroughly pissed off and as if he would like nothing better than to see Middenface try to carry the tree on his own to the riverbank and somehow toss it over.
"Fine," Middenface said, his face mulish. He folded his own arms and glowered at his so-called comrades in arms. "I will!"
Red was in agony. She felt like she was being eaten alive - and if she didn't manage to free herself, she would be. But the stone was in her hand now. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she sawed at the leather tie around her wrist with the last of her strength. She felt it give, slightly, but she was finding it harder and harder to concentrate, to keep sawing... The pain was so intense it would be so easy just to drift away from it, float away, float somewhere warm and safe...
Her eyes reopened a second later with a snap. The pain returned full force, but she was grateful for it, glad of this sign that she was still alive. The ants were all over her arms. They felt like they'd been dipped in burning hot flame. The material of her jerkin had long ago been eaten away by the voracious creatures.
Unable to stop herself, she let out a small whimper. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could take. Desperately, she continued to hack away at her bonds, but she was weakening, each stroke of the stone less powerful. She wasn't even sure if she was cutting through the leather at all any more.
Her eyes were streaming with tears of pain and frustration. Her vision was blurring, a grey-brown streak moving across it at random intervals. She blinked her eyes, trying to see more clearly, refusing to slip back into unconsciousness.
The grey-brown streak remained. It was, she realised, slowing down. The pain was lessening too, the constant buzz of agony gradually breaking up into discrete little nips of discomfort. For a moment she thought that she was passing out again and fought against it. But she could still feel the pain of the old cuts, and the raw sunburn on her face. It wasn't her consciousness which was disappearing - it was the ants.
She looked more closely at the streak, and as she did it slowed and stopped until she found herself eye to long snout with a waddling, armour-plated thing. It was, she realised, an ant-eater. Its tongue suddenly flicked out, and she flinched back, afraid that it was about to make her its next meal. But it just flicked along its prehensile nose, cleaning off the last few ants, then slid back inside its mouth. The creature continued staring at her. It almost looked like it was smiling.
Red smiled back and began to work again at her bonds with the stone.
Middenface had never lifted anything so heavy in his entire life. He thought his shoulder was going to break under the weight of it. He thought it was going to push him all the way into the ground like a hammer banging a nail into a piece of wood. He thought he'd never be able to breathe again.
He thought what an incredibly stupid idea this had been.
Johnny, who might have been pissed off with him, but clearly didn't want him to come to any actual harm, gazed at him in concern. "Why don't you put it down," he said. "We can find another way."
"Naw," Middenface gasped. "I'm doin' just fine." He staggered a few steps to the right. The top of the tree trunk, pointing into the air above him, wobbled alarmingly. Middenface staggered a few desperate steps to the right and the trunk mercifully righted itself.
"Right," he said. "Wish... me... luck!"
"Just be careful," Johnny said, frowning at him as if wondering whether he should let him go ahead with this.
"Yeah, we wouldn't want you to hurt yourself," Enigma said sweetly but obviously insincerely.
Middenface turned towards the river before Johnny could make up his mind. It looked impossibly far away. Intellectually he knew that it was less than thirty paces, but with a two-tonne weight wobbling precariously on his shoulder - not to mention digging splinters into both the hands he was supporting it with - every metre was an additional burden of impossible agony.
With an enormous effort of will, he lifted one foot, then let it drop a few centimetres in front of him. Then, with another great effort, he lifted the other foot and did the same. After that he had to stand still for a few moments until he was able to gasp enough breath into his body to stop his head spinning like a top. At this rate, it would be nightfall before he reached the river.
Gritting his teeth, Middenface forced his legs forward, not waiting till one had landed before he lifted the next.
Slowly, painfully, he gathered momentum. After a few seconds, it became easier. After a few more seconds, he realised why. The huge log was slowly falling forward, its top plunging towards the ground.
Desperately, Middenface called on reserves of energy he didn't know he possessed to run even faster, to try to keep the bottom of the log in line with the top and to stop it plummeting to the ground.
It felt like trying to empty a bucket with a sieve. For every step he took forwards, the top of the trunk moved two. He couldn't keep up with it. It was falling... falling...
Then he realised that he was there. That the river bank was only a few paces in front of him. With a huge grunt of effort, he pushed up and out with both his arms and flung the log towards the far bank. The sudden loss of the weight made him feel so light he thought he might float away. Only the agony of his arms - which both felt like they'd been torn out of their sockets - kept him anchored to the ground.
But it was a perfect toss, the kind of toss that would have won
him first prize in the Highland Games, if they'd ever let mutants compete in them. The huge branch flew through the air in a graceful arc, then splashed back to earth, its centre spanning the river, the ends embedded in either bank. An ice-cold sheet of water splashed up into his face.
There was a stunned moment of stillness from the other mutants, then they rushed up to the river to see what he had done. When they realised that he'd succeeded, they looked stunned. Then the Blimp grabbed him, hugged him so tightly he thought he might burst, and kissed him long and hard on the lips. "My hero!" she said.
Middenface would have replied but he was too busy kissing her back.
When they both finally surfaced for air, it was to see that the others had already walked across the thick wooded bridge to the far bank. Middenface grabbed the Blimp's hand and joined them. The water spat icy spray at him as he crossed, as if angry that he had outwitted it.
Only when he reached the far bank did Middenface's adrenaline-fuelled strength desert him, and he fell abruptly on his backside. The Blimp looked down at him in alarm. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, hen. Just need a few minutes to recharge the auld batteries."
One-Eyed Jack unhooked a cooking pot which was hanging from his backpack and thumped it onto the ground. "Reckon we could all do with a square meal before we get any nearer O'Blarney," he said. "Why don't you all give me some rations and I'll cook us up a nice stew."
As the others dug out ration packs and scavenged food from their packs, One-Eyed Jack started chopping ingredients into his pot. He was taking out small packets of spice from the folds of his jacket and biting his lip in concentration as he poured out carefully measured dollops into the mix, looking as intent on cooking them a perfect meal as a chef in a fine restaurant.
Johnny, who generally regarded eating as refuelling, not something to be treated as a fine art, gave himself the job of finding some firewood.
So he didn't see the extra ingredient a hand slyly dropped into the pot: the small sachet of white powder which Ladybird had delivered a few hours ago.
16 / BETRAYED
Johnny looked over at One-Eyed Jack for the tenth time, but he was still hunched over the stew pot, stirring it with an expression of concentration that seemed out of proportion to the difficulty of the task. Johnny grimaced. They needed to be getting on, getting moving, and this lunch stop was a waste of time. While they were sitting around waiting for One-Eyed Jack they weren't getting any younger - and O'Blarney was probably using every moment to get back up to full fighting fitness.
Not that anyone else seemed to care. Johnny had tried to get things moving along, but the other Strontium Dogs were clearly glad of the break. Even Middenface had been unwilling to get moving. Johnny could see him now, sitting next to the Blimp, no room to slip a cigarette paper between them. Johnny sighed. He didn't like having Middenface distracted. He didn't like his team exhausted. Whatever Middenface thought, he was convinced there was a traitor among them and it wasn't Red.
Then there was Red herself, maybe hurt, maybe captured by O'Blarney. Maybe worse. Johnny didn't like the thought of that, didn't like to imagine the fiery mutant lying somewhere like the poor Sloth, nothing but cold white bones. Red was too alive to be dead.
He wasn't the only one with dark thoughts. Standing by the river's edge, Joe was looking into the roiling white water as if he'd find some kind of answer to his problems there. Throughout their trip, he'd remained in his male form. Perhaps, Johnny thought, it was easier to deal with his feelings that way, locking them up behind an uncaring front. Johnny knew what that was like, but it didn't mean the feelings weren't still there, or that they didn't hurt like hell.
As he watched, a strange, all-over ripple suddenly passed through the other mutant's flesh, and when it had gone the person standing by the river was smaller, female. Johnny was sitting on rocks only metres away, so he saw the expression of agonised grief that seized Jo's face as soon as the change was finished. And he also - a second before she did it - realised what she was going to do.
Further up the bank One-Eyed Jack finally shouted out, "Food's up!"
But his voice was drowned out by Johnny's roar. "Don't!"
The grieving woman on the riverbank didn't listen. For a second, she squeezed her eyes shut, as if in prayer, then she opened them again, wide and tearless now, and walked calmly out into the racing river.
Alerted by Johnny's shout, the other mutants spun round. Middenface leapt up and ran towards him. Min Qi Man and even Enigma did the same. But they were further away than Johnny, and Johnny was already too late.
The water snatched up Jo's body and flung it violently downstream.
As if in response to the mutant's act, the sun abruptly disappeared behind a bank of clouds. The landscape instantly flipped from a cheerful collage of sparkling greens to one composed of dull greys and browns. An icy chill swept over them.
Johnny waded knee-deep into the water, struggling to resist its fierce pull. He reached an arm desperately towards Jo, but she was already in the centre, swirling away in the current, and he knew if he went any deeper he risked death himself.
He chanced another step, plunging thigh-deep into the water, flung out his arms as he fell forward - and then, suddenly, stuck fast. His legs burned with a cold pain, before going entirely numb.
It was only when he looked down, baffled, that he realised what had happened. His legs, from the thigh down, were hidden beneath a gleaming white surface. The water, the entire river, had frozen around him. Further out, Jo too was frozen in place. She looked disappointed.
The other mutants had arrived at the riverside by now.
"Holy Paloojie!" Middenface said. "Ye dinnae see that too often!"
"Are you okay?" Enigma asked, sounding as if the answer was a matter of supreme indifference to her.
"I'm fine," Johnny said. "Bring Woman Man back here. And make sure she doesn't pull any other damn fool stunts on the way."
"Hold on, I'll get ye both oot," Middenface said. Before Johnny could stop him, he pulled his blaster and shot a burning beam into the ice beside Johnny.
The ice instantly boiled into steam and scalding water, which splashed straight towards Johnny's face and eyes. Johnny flung his arms in front of him. "Stop!" he shouted, barely containing a scream of pain as the boiling hot liquid struck his bare hand.
"Sorry! Sorry!" Middenface said, hastily reholstering his weapon. "I should ha' thought that through."
"You don't say!" Enigma said dryly.
Middenface scowled, but was stopped from replying by Min Qi Man who walked up to Johnny, drew his swords and bowed. "Where the dragon's breath has failed, perhaps the monkey's claw might succeed."
Johnny nodded. "Be my guest."
Min Qi Man bowed again - then sprung into motion so fast that for a moment he looked like a native inhabitant of the planet. His swords whirled around him in a lethal grey blur. They passed so close to Johnny's face that he felt the breeze and imagined that he could smell the oil on the steel.
It only lasted a few seconds. When it was over, Johnny was standing in a shallow basin of ice, with only a thin layer covering his legs. He bent his knees, the ice cracked, and he clambered out of the hole.
As soon as he saw that Johnny was free, Min Qi Man moved off to do the same for Jo.
Middenface leant over and offered an arm to help Johnny off the icy surface of the frozen river. "Och, now that was just showing off!" he muttered. He sounded upset, but Johnny knew Middenface well enough to know that he didn't really mean it. Once Johnny was beside him, Middenface's expression became more serious, and he lowered his voice. "Trying tae kill herself, was she?"
Johnny nodded.
"It's a right wee bunch o' neep-heid's we've been landed wi' here, eh, Johnny?"
"She was grieving."
Middenface shook his head impatiently. "We've all lost folks. You dae ye grievin' oan yer own time. There's nae room fer it on a mission like this one."
"I
'll talk to her," Johnny said. "And as for the rest, they've had their uses."
"Aye, an' a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day. Face it, Johnny, Woman Man wants to kill herself when she's a lassie an' he's such a pain in the arse you want to kill him when he's a mannie. Min Qi Man was addled before he got hit on the heid, an Enigma's aboot as much use as a chocolate fireguard."
Johnny shrugged. "You work with the material you've been given."
Middenface didn't seem reassured. "They're more trouble than they're worth."
"Get no argument from me," Johnny said. "But what can we do, leave them behind?"
Middenface grimaced. "Dinnae think I havenae considered it," he said, but Johnny knew it was just for show. Middenface was no more capable of leaving the other mutants to almost certain death than he was. The conversation stopped for good as Min Qi Man helped an unsteady Jo onto the bank beside them.
"I'm sorry," she said shakily to Johnny. "I slipped."
He didn't bother arguing with her. But as they walked back towards One-Eyed Jack's fire, he examined her pale face, the blue-black shadows under her eyes, and thought that at the first opportunity she'd probably try it again. Middenface was right. They were more trouble than they were worth. "Don't worry about it," he told Woman Man gruffly. "Let's get some food inside us. We'll all feel better."
"Erm," said the Blimp, who was standing by the pot. "Actually..."
Johnny stared into the pot. It had been licked clean.
One-Eyed Jack looked furious. "You stupid bitch, I only left it for ten seconds."
"I'm sorry," the Blimp said, shrugging. "I was hungry."
Red sat back up and licked the blood from her lips, savouring the last taste of it, then reluctantly let the corpse of the anteater drop to the ground. It flopped wetly down beside the stone she'd used to cut herself free. She shouldn't have eaten it, she supposed, not after it had saved her life. But when she'd reached out to stroke it in gratitude, it had stayed still, and it had felt so warm, and she had sensed the blood pumping just beneath the furred skin... It had simply been too much to resist. Anyway, at least it had died happy, with a bellyful of ants inside it. She mentally dismissed the creature and went back to considering her own situation.
Bad Timing Page 15
