Pandora Jones: Reckoning

by Barry Jonsberg

  Pan knew exactly what she meant, and judging by the expressions on the others’ faces, the two girls weren’t alone in their feelings. But Pan had nothing to say. She only had one more idea and even that was not going to be of any great help.

  The mood had turned sombre, but then Sanjit, Nate and Ruby returned. Judging by the smile on Sanjit’s face, the expedition had been a success.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, moving towards the bench. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’

  ‘You got what you need?’ said Wei-Lin.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Batteries, a torch – useful for when we lug this stuff down the tunnel – plus, the big one. A casing.’

  Nate struggled with a large section of metal pipe. He dumped it on the bench. ‘Found this in one of the labs upstairs,’ he said. ‘Luckily, it was a lab Ruby could access.’

  ‘Help me, Nate,’ said Sanjit. ‘I need to work out the detonator.’

  It took another half-hour before Sanjit was satisfied. He poured the chemicals into a plastic container and then loaded up two computer chairs with the casing, the container and a few other bits and pieces of wiring and switches. He turned on the torch.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s wheel this stuff down the tunnel. Another hour, Pan, and it’s showtime.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Jen. ‘Sanjit, obviously, and Nate, you guys go down the tunnel. Karl, you too. We might need some muscles when we get there. Wei-Lin, I’ll go with them for protection. No offense, but your arrows will not be as good as a knife if we have to fight at close quarters. The rest of you stay here. Wei-Lin, keep your eyes open and your bow ready. Remember that Morgan is still around, and we don’t want surprises. Let’s go.’

  Not for the first time, Pan noticed how Jen became decisive and energetic when there was something to be done. It was instinctive for her to take control and everybody seemed happy to let her. Karl took one chair and Nate the other. It wasn’t easy to manoeuvre them. There was a tendency for the castors to swivel to the right or left, rather than in a straight line, but it was certainly going to be easier than carrying all that material. Pan wondered how long it would take for them to reach the doors.

  Once the group had entered the tunnel, the others sat back and watched until the light from the torch dwindled. After a couple of minutes, they couldn’t even hear anything. Wei-Lin stood, her back to the wall, and watched the entrance into the lab from the third-floor staircase. Her bow was in her hand, but dangled, though Pan was sure she was prepared to use it at a second’s notice. Sam bit at her lip and watched the tunnel. She doesn’t like being away from Karl, even for a short time, Pan thought. Ruby sat at the bench and gazed at Pan with frightened eyes.

  ‘What are you going to do with me?’ she asked. ‘If you manage to find a way out. I mean, I’m sure you will . . . I wasn’t suggesting . . .’

  ‘Relax, Ruby,’ said Pan. ‘You’ll stay here and we won’t harm you. You’ve been very helpful and we owe you. I guess, if I was you, I’d sit tight and wait for your colleagues.’

  Ruby nodded. She still appeared anxious, but Pan’s words seemed to have provided some comfort.

  Pan walked to the furthest part of the room, away from the others, and sat on the floor. She glanced at Ruby’s watch. Eight forty-five. Another forty-five minutes before the scheduled start of lessons. She was banking on one assumption – that Tom, the boy with the falcon, would use the session for physical activity to spend time with his beloved Kes. She put one hand into her pocket and extracted the hood that Tom had given to her, supposedly so she could make copies. She rubbed the leather between her fingers and closed her eyes.

  Pan blinked to clear her sight, but there was a hood over her eyes and she could see nothing. Her other senses, however, were alert. Beneath her feet was a gloved hand and there were jesses binding her to the glove. She hopped from one talon to the other, but was held fast.

  She would have to wait. But there, inside the bird’s mind, she wasn’t patient. She needed to ride the wind, both as herself and the creature she occupied. She bent her head and gripped the leather glove with her curved beak, ripped at it.

  ‘Hey, steady girl.’ Tom’s voice. ‘Ready? Okay. I have a mouse, Kes. A big, fat juicy mouse. Do you want that, my lovely? I bet you do.’ The hand moved. She felt bark beneath her talons and gripped it.

  When the hood was removed, she saw Tom’s face. Part of her knew she should stay there, that there would be a reward if she did. She could sense the mouse that Tom had in his pocket. It was fresh, dead only a matter of minutes. She remembered the sensation of tearing, could anticipate the meat and blood and entrails as they slid down her throat.

  But she had other plans.

  She took flight and paid no attention to the human’s cry of despair.

  Pan opened her eyes and glanced around the lab, for a moment or two not fully understanding where she was. This time, the surge of bitter disappointment, the sense of being heavy, clumsy and desperately earthbound lasted just a few seconds. Then she was on her feet.

  Wei-Lin was still in position, her eyes fixed on the door. Ruby was slumped at her stool, Sam still staring at the tunnel. Pan checked the time. Nearly an hour had passed. How long would it take them to set up that bomb and get back? Surely they must have finished by now?

  She moved to the tunnel entrance and listened. Nothing. So she paced up and down, but kept coming back to the tunnel. Still nothing. Relax, Pandora, she thought. But she couldn’t relax. Like Jen, she was ready for action.

  Ten minutes later, she heard the group returning. Sam scrambled to her feet and joined her, peering into the darkness in the hope of seeing Karl’s face. But it was Nate who was the first to appear. He grinned at Pan and she smiled back.

  ‘Is it ready?’ she asked.

  ‘Believe so,’ Nate replied. ‘Sanjit’ll give you the lowdown.’

  Sanjit squatted at the entrance to the tunnel and fiddled with something in the darkness. The others gave him space. ‘Okay,’ he said. He stood and dusted off his pants. ‘Ready. I think.’

  ‘You think?’ said Jen.

  ‘The science is good, in principle,’ said Sanjit. ‘We packed the bomb up against the door hinge, or where we guessed the hinges would be. Nate suggested that. More chance of blowing a hinge than solid sheets of metal. Plus, there’s a good chance of disturbing the rock around the doors. Then we put the train cab flush against the casing, to help with the direction of the blast. After that, it was simply a matter of attaching a basic switch to the rail tracks that run along the length of the tunnel.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Sanjit held up a wire. ‘I’ve attached this to the track at this end. We send a current down it and . . . boom.’ He unscrewed the bottom of the torch and shook out the batteries. ‘I just need to set up an electrical connection with these and away we go.’

  ‘Then let’s do it,’ said Jen.

  ‘Before we do,’ said Pan, ‘I’ve got some information about what’s waiting for us out there.’

  There was silence. ‘And how did you manage that?’ said Wei-Lin. ‘You can’t have been inside someone’s head, otherwise you’d be out of it with one of those migraines.’

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ said Pan. ‘There’s no time now. But trust me on this. The School has abandoned classes for the day and as far as I can tell no staff are on duty on The School side of the wall. The village appears abandoned and the boats are sitting way offshore.’

  ‘Any soldiers waiting on the other side of those doors?’ Wei-Lin, at least, didn’t seem to doubt the accuracy of Pan’s information.

  ‘Not that I could tell. But I think the watchtowers are manned. In fact, I know they are manned. And something else. The helicopter is back, sitting on the Garden on Top of the World. And it has a reinforcement. There’s another helicopter sitting by the dock, close to where we got on that boat with Gwynne.’

  ‘Inside the helicopters?’ asked Karl.

  ‘Armed men. In both. I think they’re waiting to see
if we get out of here before deploying. Once that door blows I reckon we have very little time before they’re all over us.’

  ‘So what do you want to do, Pan?’ said Nate.

  She spread her arms. ‘What can we do? We blow that door and get into the village, find cover. But we need to be quick. So I suggest we move as far down the tunnel as it’s safe to do so, then set off the bomb and run like hell.’

  Jen chuckled. ‘Fantastic. If the blast doesn’t get us, the soldiers will. Have I ever told you I love you, Pandora Jones?’

  Pan smiled. ‘Not to my recollection, Jen.’

  ‘Well, I do. Come on, guys. Let’s move it. Sanjit, put that torch back together, gather up your wires and shit and let’s do this thing.’

  Maybe it was Jen’s genuine enthusiasm, but no one even hesitated. The group entered the tunnel and made their way towards the distant doors. Pan glanced back and saw Ruby staring after them. She still seemed scared, but Pan couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that it was for their safety rather than her own. But then she put Ruby out of mind and followed the bobbing light of the torch. There was too much else that needed focusing on. The prospect of imminent death, for one thing.

  Sanjit stopped and the others gathered round him.

  ‘I have no idea of safe distance,’ he said. ‘We could be in the blast zone now, for all I know. But I reckon it’s ten minutes to the doors from here. Less if we can see well enough to run. What do you think? Is that good enough?’

  Pan thought. Ten minutes? How long would it take for soldiers to get there? The helicopter in the Garden could be discounted. By the time it lifted off and landed again, they’d be well out into the village. The other chopper was much closer, but they might have to wait for orders. Even if they didn’t, it was probably a good fifteen-minute run. There was no way of telling. She would have to rely on her instincts. They had rarely failed and they told her now that the time was right.

  ‘Do it,’ she said.

  Sanjit knelt down and handed the torch to Karl, who directed its beam onto the metal tracks running in the centre of the tunnel. Sanjit fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a length of wire. He made some connections to the track and then threaded the wire to a small device. ‘I need the batteries from the torch,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to be in the dark.’

  ‘Won’t you need to see what you’re doing?’

  ‘It’s okay. I can do it by touch.’

  No one spoke, so Sanjit unscrewed the casing of the torch again. The sudden darkness was shocking, even though they’d all been anticipating it. Pan could hear the thick rasp of her own breathing and the faint scrabble as Sanjit connected the batteries.

  ‘Okay,’ said Sanjit. ‘Get on the ground and cover your heads.’

  They did as instructed.

  Pan could feel the cold stone against her forehead and the pumping of blood in her ears. She waited. And waited.

  She raised her head.

  The explosion was unbearably loud in the tunnel and then the sound abruptly stopped.

  My ears, Pan thought. I can’t hear anything.

  She scrambled to her knees and the shock wave hit her. It was blisteringly hot and knocked her backwards, so that she hit her head on the rail. Everything was at once violent and silent. It was bizarre. Pan shook her head to clear her mind and got to her feet. The darkness was still intense, but far off she could detect a glimmer of redness.

  Pan started towards it, moving as fast as she could in the dark, and hoped the others were doing the same. She was in her own weird pocket of silence, striking out towards the unknown.

  Chapter 20

  It seemed much less than ten minutes to Pan before they reached the doors. Maybe that was because of the frantic pace they’d set. Just a few seconds after she started running, the light from the torch came on again. Sanjit must have retrieved the batteries and put them back. Nate had grabbed the light and had overtaken her to lead the way. She glanced around and saw that all members of the group were accounted for.

  Pan still couldn’t hear anything and she wondered if she was the only one. Am I permanently deaf? she thought.

  The group skidded to a halt at the tunnel doors. The devastation was impressive, though there was no fire. Running through flames might have been something Jen would relish, but Pan was grateful for anything that made their escape easier. There was a gap that admitted daylight, but it was narrow. The explosion had caused more damage to the rock formation around the doors than the doors themselves, which were only slightly scorched. Of the bomb itself there was no sign. Even the twisted wreckage of the train cart had been flung back a good ten metres, an indication of the bomb’s potency.

  Jen approached the hole in the wall and put her head out. Immediately she turned and said something to the group, but Pan had no idea what. She tapped at her right ear, but it didn’t do any good. Wei-Lin slipped through the gap first. A guard, thought Pan. The bow and arrows. Jen was still thinking clearly. After Wei-Lin it was Karl and Sam, then Sanjit.

  Nate turned to Pan and said something, but Pan shook her head.

  ‘I can’t hear anything,’ she said. ‘The blast has stuffed up my hearing.’ At least, she hoped she’d said that. It was strange that she couldn’t even hear the sound of her own voice.

  Nate nodded, grabbed Pan by the upper arm and gestured towards the gap. Pan scrambled through. Nate will come next and then Jen, she thought. Protection at the front and at the rear.

  At first the sunlight was dazzling, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Even then, the landscape was so unfamiliar that she was disorientated. Wei-Lin stood a couple of paces in front, her bow raised and drawn. Sam, Karl and Sanjit had their backs pressed up against the sheer wall which housed the doors to the tunnel. Ahead of them, the buildings and roads of the village stretched into the distance. Everywhere seemed deserted. Pan joined the others against the wall, while Nate and Jen squirmed through the jumbled rock pile.

  This silence makes me vulnerable, Pan thought. I have no idea if there is a sound of approaching danger. I have to trust the team to protect us.

  Jen took the lead. She ran towards the nearest building, a house separated from the others. It had two floors and the windows were dark. They ran full tilt to the front door of the building, Wei-Lin bringing up the rear. She ran half-backwards, her eyes roaming the landscape, her bow poised, ready. Jen reached the door first and tried the handle. Nothing. Locked. She didn’t hesitate, but took a step back and then shoulder-charged it. The door flew open and the group piled through. As soon as Wei-Lin was safely in, Nate and Karl brought a dining table and barricaded the door shut. Everyone immediately went to a separate window and peered through the gaps in the curtains.

  Pan stood alone in the centre of the room. She took deep breaths to try to calm herself, but her eyes pricked with tears. They had come so far. She didn’t want to die now, not like this, not even able to hear the last words of her friends.

  Jen was right to come here. They needed shelter. But this could also be a trap. The watchers in the towers would certainly have seen them enter the building. What could they do other than wait for capture? At that point, Pan realised she was desperately close to giving up. She closed her eyes and concentrated. You are still breathing. Everyone is still breathing. There is hope. There has to be hope.

  The others were talking, slinging words over their shoulders as they kept watch out the windows, but Pan had no idea what they were saying. She slumped onto a long leather couch that occupied the centre of the room. It felt luxurious, a reminder of another world and another time. She put her head against the backrest and closed her eyes. Maybe this wasn’t a bad place to die. Comfortable and unable to hear when the end came . . .

  A hand gripped her arm and she jerked upright. Nate’s face was close to hers and he was talking. She watched his lips.

  ‘Can you hear me, Pan?’

  She shook her head. There was nothing, not even the faintest suggestion of sound.<
br />
  Nate smiled and when he spoke again he exaggerated the movements of his lips.

  ‘Don’t worry. Probably temporary, because of the explosion. You rest, okay? We’re keeping guard.’

  ‘Nate? Is anyone coming?’ Pan tried to keep her voice low. She remembered how people tended to shout when they couldn’t hear their own voices, when they were listening to music with headphones on. Funny how the old world was coming back, at least some memories of it. Maybe it was because of the surroundings. The house was like an ordinary suburban home. There was a flat-screen television on the wall opposite, and to her right a kitchen and a fridge. A few herbs grew in containers on windowsills. If she allowed herself, she could see a family living here, watching TV, eating dinner, the kids going out to play before it got dark. Normal life. The way it had always gone on.

  Until now.

  She forced herself to pay attention. Nate was speaking, but she’d missed the first part of his sentence.

  ‘. . . as far as we can see. It’s deserted out there. No sign of soldiers. But they’ve got all the time in the world. We’re sitting ducks.’ He smiled, but it was lifeless.

  Pan gripped his arm. ‘Don’t give up, Nate. Don’t you dare give up.’

  He smiled again.

  ‘I won’t if you won’t,’ he mouthed. ‘But we can’t stay here for long. I’ll talk to the others, see what they think and we’ll pool our ideas. Yours too.’

  Pan believed she had caught most of his words, at least enough to get the general meaning. She nodded and Nate went back to the window. Judging by the way everyone was glancing around the room, the conversation was animated. Probably panicked. At least in the Infirmary, they had been protected by the mountain and the steel doors. Here, it felt like they were tied to a stake while an unseen predator circled stealthily towards them.

  Pan closed her eyes. Nate was right. They must move, but where to? Perhaps the time had come for a last desperate gamble. Send someone out to reconnoitre, possibly kill one of the soldiers in a helicopter and take his gun. They needed guns if there was to be a fight. A bow and arrows and a knife were no match for automatic weapons. Jen would be the logical choice. Pan had no doubt she would volunteer to go.