Doomsday

by Chris Morphew

  ‘Grab her!’ Alyssa shrieked.

  I heaved in a breath, half-blind but keeping hold of Galton’s arm. I got back to my knees, hauling her towards me, then flipped her over and pinned her down again, my hands shifting uneasily back to her head. One solid thump and it lolled to the side.

  The corridor went quiet again. I backed off from Galton, pushing down the sick feeling in my stomach, and turned to Alyssa, who was checking herself over for injuries. ‘Thanks.’

  She nodded weakly, pulling a set of handcuffs from her belt. I took them from her, locking Galton’s arms behind her back, then flinched at a light and low buzzing behind me. Galton’s phone, vibrating across the floor. I crawled over and read the name blinking up from the screen. Louisa Hawking. Cat’s mum, calling Galton back.

  I snatched up the phone and ended the call. Memories flooded back from a lifetime ago. Memories of countless afternoons at Cat’s place, when I had no idea that Louisa was anything more than a kind-ofhighly-strung mum. Memories of Cat, of a relationship requiring zero murders that might have actually gone somewhere if I hadn’t been so bloody –

  A rush of footsteps pounded the thoughts away. Mum and Dad, barrelling towards me. More torches coming behind them.

  I snatched up the key card and ran. Around the corner, down a little flight of stairs and there, finally, was the big steel door that led down into Shackleton’s tunnel network.

  ‘Stop! Stop right there!’

  A furious, too-familiar voice. Mr Hanger. Officer Hanger. Either Cat’s mum had realised what was up and called for help, or this was just the latest in a long history of him magically showing up to bust me. Either way, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t actually fire that gun until –

  Gunshots shattered the air above my head. Alyssa screamed.

  ‘Bloody Ranga!’ I shouted, diving for the metal door with the key card in hand. The door clunked open and I hurried inside, tripping on my gown and almost getting trampled as the others rushed in behind me.

  Hanger fired again. The bullets battered into the door as Dad heaved it shut after us, while Mum raced across the tiny, empty room to activate the trapdoor in the floor.

  ‘He’s – supposed to be – a teacher!’ Alyssa panted. She jumped aside as the section of grey tiles she was standing on sank down into the floor, revealing a glimmering silver staircase. ‘Whoa. What is that?’

  I ignored her, plodding down the stairs as soon as there was space, out into the light of a wide, narrow corridor. The Co-operative’s secret medical research facility, AKA Victoria Galton’s House of Imprisonment and Torture. My mind flashed with groggy halfmemories of drips and needles and ‘tests’.

  Dad looked at me out of the corner of his eye, pretty uneasy himself. He was the engineer who’d designed the containment machine that kept me trapped down here. ‘Sorry,’ he said warily. ‘For – for my part in all this. I had no idea who I was really working for. Truly. I had no clue about any of it. All I knew was that you were – They told me you were a dangerous monster.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, heading for a door to my right. ‘They weren’t wrong.’

  A shout echoed behind the double doors at the end of the corridor.

  ‘There’s someone in there!’ shrieked Alyssa, searching her belt for a weapon. The doors shook like someone was pounding them with their fists.

  ‘The prisoners,’ said Mum. ‘The ones who didn’t make it out last time.’

  ‘We need to get those doors open.’ Dad looked back at me, expectant.

  ‘I – I can’t,’ I said. ‘Something –’

  Mum broke off from the rest of us, striding towards the doors. Dad ran after her, realising what she had in her hands. Galton’s pistol. She must have grabbed it on our way down.

  I left them to it. Went through a door to my right, into a dark room filled with petri dishes and medical fridges. In the middle was a bed, empty and neatly made. More unwelcome memories. During my stay here, the bed had belonged to whichever of us the Co-operative were running their latest mad-scientist experiment on, which most of the time seemed to be a pasty-skinned kid named Jeremy.

  I ripped open the nearest fridge, scanning through the labels on the vials inside. Four shelves, arranged by name and then by number: Anderson, Burke, Burke, Kennedy. Not what I was looking for. I slammed the door shut, then raced along the line of fridges and opened one near the end.

  Bingo. Jeremy had a whole fridge to himself. I crouched at the bottom shelf and ran my finger along to the last vial in line: J_Thomas_Tissue_Modification_ Treatment_4-3-0

  This was it. Or at least, as close as they’d come to ‘it’. I pulled the vial loose and almost dropped it as I heard a gunshot outside, followed by voices and footsteps pouring into the corridor.

  I straightened, heart pounding, and crossed to a store cupboard. I tore the doors open, scattering equipment to the floor until my hands finally landed on the instrument I’d seen Galton using on one of her ‘assistants’.

  The infuser.

  It reminded me of the syringe/gun thing Dr Montag had used to inject me with a suppressor, all those years ago. One of the last nights of clear memory before the fallout swallowed me up. The thing was shaped kind of like a pistol, with an empty vial in the chamber and a syringe in place of the barrel. I ejected the vial, replaced it with my amber-coloured sample of J_Thomas, and raced for the door.

  In the hall, Mum, Dad and Alyssa had been joined by five scraggly prisoners in hospital gowns. My old neighbours. Alyssa had one of them, Jeremy, wrapped up in a hug.

  ‘Right,’ said Dad, walking over to meet me. ‘Where to now?’

  I ran a hand down over my beard, stress bubbling up again as I looked at this terrified rabble who had all apparently decided that Crazy Freaking Bill was the one to lead them to safety.

  I had to lose them. I ran through the tunnel exits in my head: security centre destroyed, Shackleton Building impossible, school on fire, mall –

  There was a shriek behind me. Alyssa had just released Jeremy from their hug. She was staring, horrified, at her arms. Everywhere she’d come into direct contact with Jeremy, her golden-brown skin was bleached pinkishwhite. Stained with Jeremy’s own pale skin tone.

  ‘It’s okay!’ said Jeremy weakly. ‘It’s – I swear it’ll go away!’

  Alyssa didn’t seem to hear. She was clawing at her arms now, trying to scratch the discolouration off.

  ‘Stop it!’ I snapped. ‘You’re fine. It won’t hurt you. It’ll go away.’

  Alyssa flinched and shut up. She stopped scratching, but still wouldn’t meet Jeremy’s eye when he looked at her.

  ‘This way,’ I said, making my mind up. It was risky, but so was everything. I led them all back the way we’d come, into the little room under the trapdoor.

  ‘You guys go that way,’ I said, pointing at a door leading up to Phoenix’s main office building. ‘You’ll come out up the other end of the main street. Then run for the east end of town and circle around to the Vattel Complex.’

  ‘What about you?’ Dad asked.

  ‘I’m – not coming,’ I said.

  I needed to get back to the Complex, and I needed to do it now. The direct route. Through the hub under the Shackleton Building and out the trapdoor in Aaron Ketterley’s office at the north end of town.

  The Complex would be crawling with security by now. Peter – the other Peter – would be rabidly dismantling the cave-in made by Soren’s explosion. But by the time these guys took the long way back, it would all be over and the whole place would be empty. All except for Jordan and, if by some miracle this all worked out, an unstabbed, still-alive Luke.

  Dad looked at me, uncertain. ‘All right, well – thanks, mate. Thanks for everything.’

  I couldn’t help it. I threw my arms around him, eyes going from zero to bawling in about two seconds. Dad tensed, probably thinking I was about to stab him with the thing in my hand, then relaxed enough to slap me awkwardly on the back.

  I released him, tur
ning to Mum. She glanced nervously at Dad, and then reluctantly allowed me to hug her. It was all tense muscles and more awkward patting. But I knew it was my only chance so I squeezed her tight, closing my eyes, taking what I could get.

  You did this, Murderer.

  Don’t act like you don’t deserve it.

  Mum pulled away, deciding my time was up. I wiped my eyes, but the tears kept coming.

  ‘Listen,’ I sobbed, barely getting the words out. ‘Both – both of you, listen. When you find out – When this is over and they tell you about me … You can’t blame yourselves, okay? Promise me. This wasn’t you. None of this was you.’

  ‘Sure, mate,’ said Dad, reverting to his talkingto-crazy-people voice. He moved closer to Mum, just in case I decided to freak out right here at the finish. ‘Yeah. We’ll keep that in mind.’

  I watched as Dad led the others out of the room. Knowing I could never get my parents back, but hoping that somehow the next hour would make the days ahead a little bit easier for them to handle.

  Assuming there were days ahead.

  I stared down at the infuser, at the sticky orange liquid sloshing around inside the vial, everything blurry with tears.

  Last chance, Murderer. See if you can do some good before your time runs out.

  I shoved open the door and ran.

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 1.54 A.M. 15 HOURS, 4 MINUTES

  Run, Murderer. Run.

  Through the tunnels, over the road and into the bush, running and then walking and then limping, chest caving in, everything aching and soaked with sweat.

  The shield grid snapped and snarled overhead, like some vicious animal, hungry for blood. I tuned it out, trying to work out where I was going, squinting through the darkness in search of a familiar landmark.

  My foot caught on a tree root and I staggered, the infuser slipping out of my hands.

  No!

  I dived to the dirt. My hands shot out, knocking the thing up into the air and then catching it again, centimetres from disaster. I got up, head spinning, holding the vial up in the moonlight to make sure it was still in one piece. Then a scream split the night and I almost dropped it again.

  Georgia. Breathless and hysterical. A guard boomed at her to shut up, but she paid no attention. They were behind me, coming up out of the Complex. I’d walked straight past the entrance without even seeing it.

  I was halfway back to them before I remembered my powers were gone. Guts churning, I crouched in the bushes, trying to quiet my wheezing breath.

  Now what?

  Torches swept between the trees, most of them pointing away from me, back towards the town. I dropped lower, joints cracking again, and scanned the huddle of faces. Georgia, Mrs Burke, Cathryn, Soren, Luke’s mum, and guards to keep them in line.

  No Jordan or Luke. No me.

  Georgia wailed again, clinging to her mum. A guard whose name I’d long forgotten stepped up to them, grabbing Mrs Burke by the hair. ‘You shut her up right now or I’ll –’

  ‘Saunders!’ growled a voice from down in the ground, and the guard shut up. Officer Calvin came up through the trapdoor in the grass, a tiny baby in one arm and a rifle in the other. For a second in the low light, I thought his hands were covered in blood, but it was just the red gloves he was wearing.

  Calvin turned to the guard holding Cat. ‘Get them down to the bunker. Find Hawking, she’ll let you in.’

  Cat let out a sob at the mention of her mum’s name.

  The guard’s brow furrowed. ‘Chief –’

  ‘Once inside,’ Calvin steamrolled on, ‘you are to put all the entrances under manual lockdown. Remain with the prisoners until I return. Keep them alive and unharmed at all costs.’

  ‘What about you, sir?’ said another officer, knees buckling slightly under the weight of a half-conscious Soren.

  ‘I’ll be back to interrogate the prisoners,’ said Calvin. He stared down at the baby. ‘But first, I have this one to deal with.’

  ‘NO!’ cried Mrs Burke, breaking her silence for the first time since I’d got here. ‘Calvin, please! He’s just a baby!’

  Calvin shot her a look I couldn’t read. ‘I think we both know that’s not true.’

  The guard who’d been arguing with Calvin started back towards town. The others fell into line behind him, leaving Calvin standing at the tunnel entrance.

  ‘Tobias!’ Georgia shrieked. ‘No! Give me back my brother!’

  Tobias.

  The name exploded in my head like a flare. It had been irrelevant to me for so long, just another part of the white noise, pushed aside in my obsession with getting back to Jordan. But now, finally, the pieces started slotting together.

  This was what they’d been looking for. First Kara and Soren, and then all of them. The cure for Tabitha. The only way to bring down the Co-operative.

  Take Tobias to the release station.

  Tobias. Jordan’s baby brother.

  Seriously?

  Georgia’s tear-choked screams didn’t let up. Calvin stood motionless, watching his men fade away into the night, waiting to make sure they were actually following orders. He muttered something under his breath. Then he turned, striding away through the bush.

  Striding straight towards me. No idea I was there, but he’d work it out quickly enough when he trod on me.

  I nestled the infuser in the grass and waited until he was two steps away, then heaved to my feet, screaming. Calvin lurched backwards, crying out in shock.

  The baby’s eyes snapped open.

  Calvin swung his rifle around. Too slow. I grabbed his head with both hands, slamming it sideways into a tree. He let out a grunt, eyes fluttering shut, and I swooped down to grab Tobias before he slipped out of Calvin’s grip.

  Calvin collapsed against the tree, then dropped heavily to the ground.

  I slung the strap of his rifle over my shoulder, switching the torch on to give myself some light, then scrounged for the infuser.

  Still intact.

  I raced to the entrance, carrying Tobias with me, but the trapdoor had already rolled shut. I stared down at the low, ragged lines of mouldy concrete that ran around the entrance – all that was left of some long-gone building. I traced my free hand around the edges of the ruin. Shackleton’s trapdoors all opened by flipping the switches on a fake power outlet. Maybe –

  There.

  Two little holes, side by side in the concrete. I leant closer, carefully poking the syringe end of the infuser into one of the holes. There was a tiny hiss and the door trundled open.

  I hurried down the winding stairs into an inky black corridor littered with upturned tables and chairs. I clambered through, frustrated that I couldn’t just blast it all away, stopping again as I reached a bed sticking halfway out of one of the doorways.

  The whole time, Tobias stayed silent, gazing up at me with his giant baby eyes. I held him against me, no idea what I was doing. I’d always just seen babies as weird attachments to their mothers, little wriggling things that got hurried across the street at the first sight of me.

  I climbed over the bed, into the room on the other side, looking for somewhere safe to ditch him. I took in the kitchen at the far end, ransacked and ripped apart, and the air disappeared from my lungs as I caught a vision of myself, as Peter, tearing those drawers open, scattering their contents, searching for something powerful enough to tear through flesh and bone –

  I turned away, dizzy.

  There was an old couch in the corner. I laid Tobias on it, tucking him in tightly with cushions to keep him there. His mouth stretched open in a tiny yawn. Even if they got him out to the release station, what exactly was this kid supposed to –?

  Not your problem, Murderer. You’ ll be long gone by then.

  I tightened my grip on the infuser, ready to run again. But before I had time to leave, the bed in the doorway started rattling with the weight of someone else coming in from outside. Luke. White-faced and panting.

  Both of us stopped moving. M
y hand shook on the infuser, sweat running cold against my skin.

  Luke sprung up from the bed, seeming to remember why he was here. ‘Where are they? Did you see Calvin? And the others? Did they …?’

  ‘Y-yeah. They’re gone. The guards are taking them to that bunker under the Shackleton Building. Calvin’s ordered them to put the whole place under manual lockdown.’

  I tried to subtly pull the infuser around behind my back, but what was the point? He’d already seen it. Plus, I had a freaking rifle hanging over my shoulder, so who was I kidding?

  ‘What about Jordan?’ asked Luke urgently.

  ‘She’s – fine,’ I said. ‘Still down here. Or not up there with the others, anyway.’

  Do it, Murderer.

  I moved towards him. Slow.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘For – for the murder. All of it. I was –’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Luke, hardly paying attention, like every second he spent talking to me was more wasted time. ‘Not your fault.’

  ‘Yes it was!’ I said, suddenly desperate for him to understand me. ‘Even with the fallout, I was still – Luke! Look at me!’

  Luke’s eyes snapped back from the doorway. He stared at me, scared.

  I kept going. ‘It was me, okay? I spent my whole life obsessing over her! I attacked all those people! I put the knife in your chest! Me. I was nuts, but I was still me.’

  I breathed in. A shudder, wet with tears.

  Luke stood there, frozen. Seconds ticked by.

  His expression shifted, just the tiniest bit. Not pity or understanding or anything as strong as that, but it did feel like maybe, just for a moment, he was considering the idea that I was still a person.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, finally. ‘Okay, well –’

  I lunged, latching onto his arm, and his face went right back to petrified.

  ‘No, wait! Bill – Pete – what are you –?’

  I hauled him around and threw him onto the nearest bed.

  ‘Let me go!’ he demanded, kicking at me. ‘Peter’s still out – oof!’

  I sat on his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. ‘Quiet, then. You want to lead him straight to us?’