‘Just where is this entrance?’ said Helena, fearing he would say the processing plants.
‘Fortunately for us,’ said Daniel, ‘it’s between the processing plants and the main fishing berths. There is an inlet close to the edge of the port where supplies are exchanged. Most of the signals we’re picking up are in the processing plants, so we should be able to make the best of it and enter undetected.’
You’re sounding optimistic, thought Helena. Considering how they’d found Daniel and the others cooped up in a small storage cupboard, she suspected coming back and not immediately dying had restored some of his confidence.
‘We’re almost there,’ said Helena. ‘I don’t see much point in straying far.’
‘Agreed,’ said David. ‘Stay within visual contact.’
Helena ran ahead of them and left the street. Knowing where they were all headed, she scurried through town towards the harbour. The streets were beginning to collect water; small channels and shallow pools sucking up space lent them an air of antiquity. The collapsed buildings and damaged streets left much of the drainage system dysfunctional. Consequently, Helena found herself wading through dark, calf-deep puddles. The wet didn’t bother her but the prospect of tripping and falling did. By the time she reached the edge of the Harbour quarter, she was finding it difficult to make any ground on the rest of the group, who had adopted the easy option of sticking to the middle of the road.
Peering out into the harbour district, Helena could see a number of intact buildings. The bombardment had not been completely ineffectual here; the number of smouldering piles of rubble about equalled the number of structures left intact. Tacking right along the edge of the road, Helena crossed over and into the shadow of one of the upright buildings. As she leant against a wall, it gave her a start; it was warm to the touch. Something inside was still burning and, judging by the heat, there was a raging blaze.
Where is everyone? asked her AI suddenly.
What? she responded.
We have been here some time now and apart from the few individuals we have encountered the town is empty. The population here before the attack was in excess of five thousand.
If you remember we didn’t see anyone yesterday, replied Helena.
Twenty-fourhours ago they had homes to live in, was the AI’s dry answer.
You’re right, thought Helena. I assume the bombardment killed most of them. Except as she thought about it, she realised she’s seen no bodies. The Normals in the town would not have been equipped to transmit signals, so most of them should have been invisible electronically, but for so many of them to have physically vanished didn’t make sense — at least not before Indexiv arrived with their liquidation teams. The others were about a hundred metres away. Seeing no one else on the street, Helena rushed towards them.
‘Have you seen any bodies?’ she asked hurriedly.
‘Have we what?’ asked David, wiping moisture from his eyebrows with the tips of his fingers.
‘Have you seen any bodies?’ asked Helena. ‘Any at all?’
‘Why do you want to know?’ asked David, looking confused.
Jane looked at Helena and then spoke. ‘No. I’ve not seen any.’ She looked around her uneasily. ‘I think we should get off the street.’
David looked from one woman to the other, but they were already moving towards the building from which Helena had sprung. The other two followed, and David quickly brought up the rear.
‘This place is like a ghost town,’ said Helena. ‘I’ve not seen a single dead body.’
‘It does have a certain Marie Celeste quality to it, now you mention it,’ said Jane. Helena didn’t know who she was talking about.
‘Are you saying they fled before the bombardment?’ asked David.
‘It was quiet yesterday as well,’ said Helena. ‘For a population of five thousand it is the least busy place I’ve ever visited.’
Jane was looking at Daniel and Jens. Daniel shrugged defensively. ‘Don’t expect us to explain. We were holed up for days. They could have done anything in that time.’
‘So what now?’ asked David.
‘It’s plain they’re not in Skagen,’ said Jane. ‘I expect they’ve decided upon the classic guerrilla warfare stratagem, ambush and retreat.’ She seemed surprised when she noticed the others listening carefully. ‘Even five thousand of them are no match for the splinter force headed this way — they’re not stupid enough to believe otherwise — so they’ll repeat the strategy which worked so well against us yesterday. One Normal killed three of us. That’s a ratio they’ll be happy with.’
‘So where are they likely to be?’ asked Helena.
‘Who knows? There are woodlands and wild countryside on every side.’
David held up his energy pistol. ‘These weapons are antiques, but we have no idea how many of them Edith was able to distribute. However, judging by what Helena pulled from the manse, I’d bet less than one in ten of them is armed.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Jane. ‘History is replete with small, poorly armed groups causing havoc amongst occupying forces. Their general aim might simply be to stay alive. I’m just relieved we haven’t run into any booby traps.’ No one said anything as Jane visibly shivered at the thought she’d uttered out loud. ‘I said I was relieved because if they were planting them we’d have run into them by now.’ She trailed off.
‘Depends on where they’re planted,’ said David. ‘Your suggestion is logical, and I trust you know your history well enough to back it up, but if we go with what you’re saying then the Normals would only booby trap those locations they felt would do the most damage.’
‘Makes sense to me,’ said Helena.
‘There are ample precedents for such an approach,’ agreed Jane.
‘Are you forgetting the Normals still in the town?’ asked Daniel.
‘Jane, what do you think they’re doing here?’ asked David. Helena saw an interest in his face and thought about his earlier remarks. She ground her teeth at the thought of the two of them as lovers.
‘Some of them won’t want to leave,’ said Jane, shrugging. ‘Some never do; sometimes it even works for them. A number will be working as part of the guerrilla force, trying to gain access to ammo dumps, weapons stores, high technology.’
‘Then they will fail,’ said Jens. ‘Skagen is an unarmed facility.’
‘I’m just trying to suggest ideas based on what historical groups have done,’ said Jane cautiously.
‘Is this building on fire?’ asked Daniel in surprise, coming away from the wall he’d been leaning against.
‘Yes,’ said Helena solemnly, trying not to laugh at the look of panic on his face. ‘Jens, Daniel, how do we get to the service tunnel?’
‘It’s accessed via the lower ground floor of the harbour master’s building, three blocks north-east.’ Daniel pointed in the general direction.
‘Let’s get going,’ said David.
The group walked together this time, making their way along the walls of each block of warehouses until they emerged into the open at the edge of the ocean, with the rising tide to their right and Skagen to their left.
‘At least the rain’s easing off,’ said David lightly as they surveyed the sunken fishing fleet, the wreckage of which groaned mournfully in the water.
‘Yes, because drizzle is so much more appealing than a downpour,’ said Jane unhappily.
For the first time, they saw bodies: floating, bloated, in the water. Two or three of them carried by the swell bumped repeatedly into the stanchions holding up one of the piers. A fetid smell of rotting flesh and stagnant seawater rolled in with the waves.
Helena wrinkled her nose, nervously watching the docks for signs of movement. Seeing nothing, Helena and David made a dash for a door in the side of the harbour master’s warehouse.
Before Helena could open the door, David put a hand on her arm and said, ‘Helena, were you really not listening to Jane?’ At her blank look he said, ‘Bo
oby-traps.’
Helena allowed him to withdraw her hand from the doorframe. Leaning in she sniffed the door, its edges and the floor at its base. Her AI could not find any traces of explosives.
‘It seems clear to me,’ said Helena reproachfully.
David was satisfied and Helena opened the door. Almost nothing inside had been spared by the plasma which had entered through melted windows along the roof ridge.
The roof had partially collapsed into the centre of the building. Water was collecting around and over the debris. With nowhere to drain to, pieces of wood and remnants of partition walls, swollen with moisture, bobbed gently in a sea of filthy ashen liquid.
Water gushed around Helena’s feet as the door opened. She stepped into the warehouse. The junk inside made it hard to tell whether the harbour master had originally had a room to himself, but Jens pointed at a corner of the building and strode out in front of her towards it.
Helena hadn’t taken more than four steps when her AI alerted her to a transmission being made from the room where she was standing. Looking around wildly, she waved at David, Jane and Daniel to stay still. David saw her expression and his eyes widened as his own AI detected the same signal.
‘Where’s it coming from?’ mouthed Helena across the room.
Jens, ahead of them and unaware of their caution, was still traipsing through the muck, oblivious.
‘Right here,’ said David. Jane looked around her feet and above her own head.
‘Here,’ said Daniel, pointing his finger at a small, rectangular junction box above the door they’d come through.
This is indeed the source of the signal, confirmed Helena’s AI.
David jumped up and, grabbing a firm hold of the box, ripped it from the wall; trails of wire and damp plaster came with it. With a swift yank, he pulled the protruding circuitry from the detector to get a better look at the model ID etched into the components. Smiling sheepishly, he threw the box into the water at his feet. ‘Nothing more than a doorbell.’
‘What’s going on?’ said Jens conversationally from the other side of the warehouse.
With a final glance at the junction box, they crossed the warehouse. With each step Helena expected someone to appear, for a shot to ring out. Despite the flow of water running through the doorway and down the stairs on the other side, there was a well-lit corridor leading into the complex.
‘There are loading bay doors in the next warehouse. This is just the route used by employees in this building, accessing the tunnels.’
Within a couple of minutes, they were standing on the lower ground floor in front of two doors. The doorway was five metres high and six metres wide, enough for a small train to pass through. Helena was more impressed by their state; what remained of the doors themselves had been ripped from their casings and hung twisted, like orange peel, from their runners.
There was no sign of plasma fire; the Normals had been this way before them. Jane poked her head around the twisted panels to peer into the tunnels on the other side.
‘This isn’t what I expected,’ said David slowly.
‘I’m certain Edith didn’t give them anything which could have caused this level of damage,’ said Helena. Turning to Daniel and Jens, she asked, ‘What exactly were you doing here?’
‘Nothing covert,’ said Jens firmly. ‘Nothing illegal.’
‘Many of the Normals in Skagen are optimised for lifting and carrying. Any of them could have done this if they put their mind to it,’ offered Daniel.
‘Rip them from their runners you mean?’ said David sceptically. Neither of the Insel employees replied.
‘Well the power’s on,’ said Jane brightly, having finished a brief inspection of the entrance way. ‘I can’t see anything obviously waiting to blow us up either.’
David took a deep breath and said, ‘I’ll go first.’ Jane caught Helena’s gaze and rolled her eyes at David’s assumed sense of bravado.
Multiple tunnels branched away from the doors. Most were well lit, but two, both running south, out under the sea bed, were in darkness.
‘Nothing covert, eh?’ said David.
Defensively Jens said, ‘A small amount of the rare earth elements we process come from extraction operations on the sea bed.’
‘It’s not relevant,’ said Daniel to Jens, then, turning to David, he continued, ‘Insel’s business operations are their own concern, Mr Chalmers. They have no relevance here. Let’s proceed; I’ll show you the way.’
David flashed Helena a suspicious look but followed Daniel. Helena walked at the edge of the party, alert to the itch at the back of her neck, the enclosed space making her feel paranoid. The tunnels were a sound trap, the high tiled ceilings reflecting their footsteps back on them a hundredfold, as if they were a chaotic horde entering Hades.
The air was cool and crisp; their breath hung in puffs in front of them as they advanced. Helena was grateful for the geometric uplink she’d sequestered before leaving London; without it, she would have lost her bearing after the first fork in the tunnel. Underneath their feet ran superconducting rails, which were cold even though the lights in the tunnels were still on.
‘Aren’t superconducting rails always on?’ she asked anyone who’d listen.
‘Of course,’ said Jens. He bent down to touch the runners beneath his feet as if not quite believing his senses.
‘I don’t mean to be squeamish,’ said Jane nervously, ‘but this is exactly the type of place I’d plan an ambush.’
‘Really?’ asked Helena very seriously, pulling out the projectile pistol her mother had provided. She rued her decision to leave her Duplick pistol in the hovercraft; its solidity would have provided the sense of security she needed right then.
‘Where’s the power for the transport system come from?’ asked David.
Daniel shook his head. ‘For sure, the Normals couldn’t access it; they wouldn’t be able to shut it down, the plasma wouldn’t have penetrated the building housing it.’
‘Daniel...’ began Jens.
‘They didn’t have access Jens, you know that,’ said Daniel, cutting him off.
‘What aren’t you telling us?’ said Helena.
‘Now’s a really bad time to be withholding secrets,’ said Jane.
‘Nothing,’ said Daniel. ‘The Normals didn’t do this and we don’t have any evidence to offer any other alternative.’
‘Fine,’ said David, who was looking increasingly agitated. ‘How far is it?’
‘Just about four hundred metres,’ said Daniel. Jens cast his eyes to the floor and followed his colleague. Helena felt the hollow burn of panic flipping lids. The further they went into the tunnels the less confident she was that they’d chosen the right option. The very fact that the doors had been ripped from their hinges, like a film of tissue meant Normals were down here with them.
Helena had given up trying to roll her senses out. Each time she had attempted it, the echoing of the tunnel assaulted her with disorienting white noise. As she listened to the reverberations of the tunnels, Helena thought she heard a clunk from behind them. She stared down the corridor in the direction of the disturbance, but the lighting was too bright to allow anything to hide down there. If there was someone tailing them, they were still in another branch of the network.
‘A hundred metres now,’ said Daniel as they turned into yet another passage. This one was smaller than the others had been. Metre square tiles, used to display information, lined the walls of the corridor showing static, cut off from their feeds.
Helena saw David glancing around nervously. Seeing his concern, she pulled level and caught his eye. ‘Behind us,’ she said quietly. Jane looked over at them and then behind; no whisper in these tunnels would be secret.
‘In front,’ said David, nodding ahead of them. The yellowed corridor curved round to the right, the arc just tight enough so that they couldn’t see the entrance to the Spire. Helena hadn’t heard anything, but David’s confidence convinced her.
<
br /> ‘Jens,’ said Helena, ‘does this corridor branch again before the Spire?’
Jens shook his head. They were in the last straight. ‘It sounds as if the door opened,’ said Daniel.
David sighed heavily. ‘Helena,’ he said, indicating Jens and Daniel with a wave of his hand, ‘we can’t let them get hurt. Are you happy?’
Helena thought over the implications of what he was asking and nodded calmly. Her AI twittered in her mind,get out, get out, get out.
‘We make for the exit,’ said Helena.
‘No, the door is less than seventy-five metres,’ said Daniel desperately.
‘Helena,’ said Jane, ‘what is it?’
‘Can you colour?’ asked Helena urgently.
‘Of course I can. Helena, what is going on?’ Jane looked from David, over Helena’s shoulder and then back towards their destination.
‘We’re leaving,’ said Helena again. ‘You need to match the walls.’ She was already blurring her skin, allowing her hair to become a pale yellow and her skin sickly cream. David began to undress, followed by Helena and Jens. Jane saw them changing and, gritting her teeth, followed suit.
Daniel watched them, hissing frustration through his teeth, ‘We’re so close.’
No one spoke to him, but just as David’s body almost entirely matched the ambient lighting, he grabbed hold of Daniel by the arm and in the firmest of voices said, ‘Change, now!’
Daniel spat on the ground in disgust before disrobing and letting his skin meld with the colours of the environment.
‘We need to leave. Helena will make sure we get out together.’ David’s voice came from an outline of his body in the centre of the tunnel. He had moved to the back of the group. Helena watched in the direction of their abandoned goal. There was no mistaking the sound of creeping footsteps and tightly held breath. Whoever was approaching was slowly reaching the apex of the bend. Their clothes formed five careless piles in the midst of them. Without speaking again, they moved; their small arms were the only distinguishable sign of five humans moving down the corridor.
‘Go!’ hissed David; they broke into a run, charging back the way they had come. Less than fifty metres down the corridor, at the triple junction leading into their tunnel stood a dozen Normals, all of whom were wearing makeshift plates of plasteel. They were such a mixture of flesh and cybernetics that Helena couldn’t see where they ended and their weapons began.
A People's War (The Oligarchy Book 2) Page 17
