Doomsday

by Chris Morphew

  Final Lockdown Procedures

  00:00:00:00

  Tabitha Release

  00:03:29:57

  ‘Come here,’ said Calvin, pulling a biohazard suit from a cupboard built into the wall. ‘Put this on.’

  I took the suit from him, willing my hand to keep steady. ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘Just in case,’ said Calvin, taking down a second suit for himself.

  ‘In case what?’ I said. ‘I thought you knew what was down here!’

  Calvin gestured at Tobias. ‘Make sure he’s in too.’

  I squeezed my eyes shut, letting it go, lowering Tobias back into the sling. He kept still this time, like he somehow knew this was important. I pulled the biohazard suit on over the two of us, one arm in the sleeve and the other one guarding Tobias.

  Calvin finished zipping up his suit and pulled what looked like a toolkit out of the cupboard. He pushed the door shut and the cupboard disappeared into the wall again.

  I jumped as his voice crackled through a speaker in my ear. ‘This way.’

  Go, I thought, turning after him. See it through. What else is there?

  I followed Calvin clumsily out across the huge open floor, still getting used to moving in the suit, which felt somehow too big and too small at the same time.

  It was freezing in here. Or maybe that was just my nerves kicking into overdrive. Tobias started wriggling against me, his agitation rising again after the momentary lapse.

  We reached the pillar. Calvin circled around to the far side and crouched down. He opened his toolkit, pulled out a screwdriver, and started undoing one of the silver panels.

  I stood back, expecting an alarm to start blaring or something. Instead, as soon as the panel came loose, there was a deep, echoing hiss, and the air around Calvin began to distort, like heat rising off a hot road.

  Calvin froze. It was some kind of gas, almost invisible. I held my breath as it swam up around my head.

  Tobias tensed against me, a tiny groan escaping his throat. I looked down, but all I could see was the little bulge of his body inside our suit.

  The hissing sound cut out. Slowly, the gas began to dissipate.

  Calvin breathed again, the sound rasping in my ear.

  I stared down at him. ‘Was that …?’

  ‘No. Not Tabitha. A last line of defence. At least, we should hope it is the last.’ Calvin leant in with the screwdriver again, returning to work. ‘Tabitha is still inside, housed within a containment capsule at the core. All automated access was locked down the moment the hundred-day countdown was initiated. I’ll need to get inside and remove the capsule manually.’ Calvin said all this without looking at me, like he was trying to distance himself from whatever was coming next.

  ‘And then what?’ I asked.

  The last screw clattered to the ground and Calvin pulled the panel away. The opening was as wide as a doorway and half as high – big enough for Calvin to squeeze through in his suit.

  I don’t know what I’d expected to see inside. A computer console, maybe, or a mess of circuitry. Not this.

  The pillar was completely hollow. Empty, except for a set of metal rungs on the far wall, running up towards the roof and down into the darkness below.

  ‘Wait here,’ said Calvin, moving to crawl inside.

  I grabbed the back of his suit. ‘No. No further. Not until you tell me what happens next.’

  Finally, he turned to look at me. The face staring out from behind the glass of his helmet was more real than I’d ever seen it before.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said again, ‘and I’ll tell you.’

  I released him, clenching my teeth to stop the chattering. He crawled inside and started down the ladder, taking himself even deeper into the ground.

  I slipped my other arm into the chest of the suit, cradling Tobias against me. ‘Start talking.’

  Calvin took a couple of heavy breaths, already out of sight but coming in loud and clear through the speaker in my helmet. ‘The Co-operative has known about Tobias for some time now. Not by that name, of course, but we caught our first glimpse of your brother’s true nature at the same time you did.’

  ‘The night at the Shackleton Building,’ I said, shivering at the memory. ‘When we broke in to contact Luke’s dad.’

  It was the first of many narrow escapes from being murdered by Calvin. We’d made it out alive, only to find Mum and Dad stumbling to the medical centre in the dead of night, crying out for help, their unexpected pregnancy suddenly a whole lot more unexpected.

  Dad’s voice rang in my head. There’s something wrong with the baby!

  ‘Exactly,’ said Calvin, snapping me out of it, voice punctuated by the steady clank, clank, clank of footsteps as he continued down the ladder. ‘Over the days that followed, we began to understand how your brother’s condition fit into the bigger picture of all the other changes befalling the residents of Phoenix. We identified as many cases as we could and brought them into the medical centre for testing.’

  ‘You kidnapped my family, you mean?’

  Calvin was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, I could hear the tears in his voice. ‘Jordan, when this is all over, I promise you, I will sit down and confess to every crime I have ever committed here. I will make whatever amends I can, and accept whatever punishment is handed down to me. But cataloguing the full extent of my guilt will be a lengthier process than even you can imagine, and right now we do not have the time. You have asked for an explanation. May I continue to give it to you?’

  I didn’t answer.

  After a few seconds, the clanking of Calvin’s footsteps echoed in my helmet again. Slower now. Quieter. He’d reached the bottom of the pillar.

  ‘You and your friends managed to break into the medical centre and free your captured family members before we could complete our research,’ he pushed on. ‘But afterwards, we began to realise just how significant Tobias was.’

  ‘Significant how?’ I asked, staring out across the huge empty space around me.

  He grunted, and I heard a sound like splintering glass. ‘Your brother isn’t merely a candidate like the rest of us. His life began here. He has been immersed in the fallout throughout the entire course of his development. We believe that the last one hundred days have shaped Tobias in ways that are completely unique.’

  Calvin’s footsteps returned to their steady climbing rhythm. He was coming back up.

  I paced back and forth in front of the pillar, bouncing Tobias inside the biohazard suit. ‘So basically, you’re saying that any baby who was –’

  ‘No,’ said Calvin. ‘Obviously, our understanding of these developments is still limited, but your own experience should tell you that the fallout affects each person differently. When I tell you your brother is uniquely qualified to assist us, I am using the full meaning of the word.’

  Calvin kept climbing, and now I could hear his footsteps outside my suit as well as through the speaker. He made a noise that sounded almost like it could have been laughter. ‘In hindsight, the projected due date Dr Montag gave your parents might have given us a clue that Tobias was destined for some greater purpose in all of this. Though of course, Shackleton would dismiss such a thought out of hand even if it did occur to him.’

  ‘Not you, though?’ I asked.

  Calvin’s face reappeared. His eyes locked onto me, still streaked with tears. ‘Jordan, I’ve just been dragged out of my death of an existence and handed an opportunity to save the world. How could I not believe there was something greater at work here?’

  Calvin crawled back out of the pillar, a glass cylinder about the size of an energy drink can held carefully in one hand. It was capped with metal at both ends, with a bit of silver tubing hanging out the bottom where I guessed it had been disconnected from some machine. Sloshing around inside the cylinder was what could almost have been water but was just slightly too thick.

  ‘All right,’ Calvin sniffed, pulling himself upright. ‘This is it.’<
br />
  ‘What is?’ I said stupidly, looking him over again, trying to work out what I’d missed. My eyes kept sliding back to the cylinder in Calvin’s hand, but my brain refused to take it in. It was so small, so pathetic, so unworthy of all the anguish that had brought us here.

  But at the same time, from somewhere deeper than reason, I felt it. The weight of this moment. The dread like a bruise. And the tiny shards of hope that maybe – maybe – we were actually going to undo it all.

  ‘He’ll need to come out of there,’ said Calvin, looking at the baby-shaped bulge in the front of my suit. ‘Don’t worry, that gas should have dissipated by now.’

  ‘Should have?’ I said, focusing on that to avoid focusing on the thing in his hand, fighting to keep pushing back the tide of suspicion that had been rising against me all day, the relentless dread that there was only ever one way this could end.

  Calvin reached back to unzip his suit. He took off his helmet and sleeves, gently switching the cylinder from hand to hand as he did so, and let the top half of the suit fall to his waist. He waved an arm out, demonstrating that he was still alive.

  I was already unzipping my own suit.

  Calvin stepped forward, clutching the cylinder in one hand and the bit of silver tubing in the other, and all of my worst fears were confirmed in a heartbeat. But somehow my hands kept moving, trembling as they went, time slowing to an agonising crawl.

  By the time I’d peeled back the suit from the top half of my body, Calvin was right in front of me, tube pointed at Tobias like he was going to spray him down with it.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Put this –’

  Something snapped in my head. I couldn’t do it. ‘No! No – y-you’re not –’

  ‘Shackleton believes –’

  I stumbled backwards, hitting the pillar, survival instinct obliterating everything else. ‘I don’t care what Shackleton –!’

  ‘Jordan!’ Calvin bore down on me, matching me step for step, face hard again. He stared at me with such intensity that, for a moment, I was paralysed.

  Calvin took a breath, bringing his temper under control. ‘Jordan, please understand the stakes here.’

  ‘You think I don’t get –?’

  ‘Disconnecting Tabitha from the system has gained us nothing,’ he said. ‘We may slow the rate of dispersal, but there is no stopping Tabitha’s release. Not without Tobias. Which, abhorrent as it may be, leaves you with a decision to make: Either your brother consumes Tabitha –’ Calvin lifted his hands, holding the transparent goop up in front of me, ‘– or Tabitha consumes everyone else.’

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 1.29 P.M. 3 HOURS, 31 MINUTES

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Shackleton, gliding towards me, knife in hand. ‘Blood. It does seem rather a limited medium, doesn’t it?’

  I squirmed in my chair, eyes flitting around the room. Searching for an exit. Something I’d missed.

  ‘But the more I explore,’ he went on, ‘the more I realise just how versatile it is. As you’ll see,’ Shackleton cast a hand at the painting above his desk, ‘the tonal range one can achieve with just a bit of practice is quite remarkable.’

  My wrists rubbed painfully against the handcuffs, hands balling into fists. My legs were still free, but I wasn’t dragging this chair anywhere in a hurry, and the guards would be on me at the first sign of a struggle.

  ‘And of course, I need hardly mention the richness of the symbolism.’ Shackleton circled around behind me, gesturing excitedly with his hands. ‘Beauty wrought from pain. Life giving way to life. The human struggle for survival and significance, all enacted right there on the canvas.’

  I hunched forward. I was going to throw up. Any second now, I was going to lose control of my stomach and empty it out into my lap.

  Maybe he could make a painting out of that too.

  Shackleton moved back into view. Circling. Soaking up the moment. Whatever else was going on in his twisted brain, this part was extremely simple.

  He had me.

  I’d been a stone in his shoe since the day I got here, and now, finally, it was just him and me, and I was going to pay for the frustration I’d caused him.

  ‘You’re not a great appreciator of the arts, are you, Mr Hunter?’ Shackleton stopped behind me, leaning in to examine my bound hands. The blade of his knife gleamed in my peripheral vision.

  ‘No matter. My belief is that great art transcends such limitations. The true artist cuts through the intellect and into something deeper. Something visceral.’ Shackleton’s spit flecked against my cheek.

  ‘Above all else, I want my work to provoke a reaction –’

  I jerked my head sideways, smashing it into Shackleton’s. He reeled back, grunting, and I sprung up from the chair, still anchored by the handcuffs but manoeuvrable enough to throw a leg out at his stomach. Shackleton dodged, surprisingly agile for an old man who’d just been smashed in the head. My foot swung wide and I lost my balance, crying out as my wrists jerked against the cuffs.

  The office door burst open and two black-sleeved arms dropped into view, dragging me roughly back up into the chair. My eyes blurred with tears. I blinked them away and saw a guard with a shaved head standing over me with a pistol. Shackleton stood behind him, smoothing his hair back into place.

  ‘Thank you, Officer Lee.’ Shackleton bent down, retrieving his knife from the carpet. ‘While you’re here, would you mind holding our guest still for me? His restlessness is stifling my creative process.’

  Officer Lee glanced at the blank canvas. A glimmer of recognition passed across his face. He moved to the back of my chair, and I felt the cold muzzle of his pistol press against my temple. His right hand came down on my fist, pinning it to the arm of the chair.

  ‘Please,’ I whimpered, not daring to turn my head, ‘don’t let him do this.’

  Shackleton crouched at my hand. I flinched as he reached for me, but Lee mashed his palm down harder, holding my hand in place.

  ‘Lee!’ I gasped. ‘Lee, listen – We can stop him! We can stop all of this! Just –’

  Lee knocked his pistol against my head. ‘Quiet.’

  Shackleton pursed his lips, prising my forefinger out from my clenched fist. ‘Officer Lee,’ he said slowly, without looking up, ‘when we’ve finished here, would you mind putting in a call to maintenance for me? I suspect –’ My knuckle cracked loudly as he pressed my finger down against the wood of the chair. ‘– that I may need to have the carpets redone.’

  ‘No – no, no, no – no, please – please –!’ I was trembling uncontrollably now, tears rolling down my cheeks.

  Shackleton brought the knife gently down against the base of my finger, lining it up. He angled his hand, slowly increasing pressure, and I felt the blade pierce the skin. I gasped, head twisting away, pain spiking up my arm, small and sharp at first, and then –

  THUMP. THUMP.

  Two sharp impacts as something outside smashed violently against the door. I heard the guard in the corridor thud to the ground, and I realised that something had been his face.

  I winced as Shackleton reared up, taking a little chunk of my finger with him. He glared furiously at the door, and then disappeared behind me.

  Officer Lee let me go, rushing to the door. ‘Sir, permission to –’ He cocked his head. ‘Sir …?’

  A burst of compressed air hissed loudly behind me, followed by a mechanical clattering sound. I tried to swivel around to look, but –

  THUMP.

  My attention jerked to the door again. Officer Lee reeled back, grunting.

  THUMP.

  A rifle butt came down across his head again and he slumped to the carpet.

  A rush of feet stepped over the bodies. I looked up and saw two faces I hadn’t run into since before all this blew up last night: Tank and Officer Miller, both in security gear. Reeve and Katie flew in behind them.

  Reeve dropped to one knee beside me, firing his pistol at whatever was making that clattering noise.


  I turned again, finally catching a glimpse behind me, just in time to see a bookcase slide back into position against the wall. Another compressed air noise, and then silence. Shackleton was gone.

  ‘Trapdoors under the rugs and secret bookcase doors,’ said Miller, heading over to examine the back wall. ‘Shackleton’s a sucker for the classics, isn’t he?’

  ‘Where did he go?’ asked Tank.

  ‘Could be anywhere,’ said Miller. ‘Or still back there. It could just be a panic room.’

  ‘Doubt it,’ said Reeve, getting up again. ‘Not really Shackleton’s style to pin himself in a corner like that.’

  ‘He’s probably headed for the bunker,’ I said. ‘Safest place for him to be right now.’

  Reeve glanced down at me like he’d only just taken in that I was here.

  ‘Well, wherever he went, we’re not following,’ said Miller. He pointed at a little silver circle mounted to the wall. ‘Thumbprint scanner.’

  ‘Oi,’ said Tank, standing over me, clutching a rifle. ‘Move your hands.’

  I flinched, still coming down from the terror of almost losing a finger. Then I realised what he was asking. I stretched my arms out, twisting them so the chain of my handcuffs stretched across the arm of the chair. With a grunt, Tank brought the butt of his rifle down against the chain, smashing it apart and freeing my hands.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, sliding the cuffs up my wrists to check on the raw skin underneath.

  Tank shrugged. He looked so much older in the uniform. A different person from the big, dumb school kid I’d met on my second day here.

  ‘Here,’ said Miller, handing me a handkerchief from his pocket to mop up the blood dribbling from the gash in my finger.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said again, then turned to Reeve. ‘Where have you guys been?’

  ‘Loyalty room,’ said Reeve, as Miller moved to guard the door. ‘They’d upped the number of guards on duty since last time. We – we lost Wilson on the way in.’ His expression darkened. ‘Took them about two minutes to disarm the rest of us. We’ve been twiddling our thumbs with the rest of the prisoners ever since.’