The Rig

by Joe Ducie

  The doors didn’t open and Drake saw why. ‘Look, there’s a panel for an access card. It won’t open without one.’

  ‘Damn it, you’re right. I missed that …’

  A thought occurred to Drake. ‘But we’re in the lower Tubes – the next stop down is the ocean. So where’s this elevator going anyway? It’s wide, as well. Like for freight or something?’

  Irene grinned. ‘Now you’re beginning to see, right? We have to get in there, Will.’

  ‘How? I don’t have an access card. Do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  Somewhat defeated, Drake and Irene stepped away from the elevator, to the edge of the junk piles littering the lowest level of the platform. They stood silently for a moment and Drake could hear the swell of the ocean crashing against the pillars below. The warden had told him, on his first day, that there was no way down to the water.

  What else has he lied about? Drake was beginning to think a whole lot.

  ‘Can we climb up on top of it, do you think?’ Irene asked. ‘Give me a boost.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘It’s an elevator, right? That means there’s a shaft. I’m going to check and see if there’s a ladder.’

  With no better idea, Drake linked his fingers and put his back against the elevator. Irene slipped her foot into his hands and steadied herself on his shoulders. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yep.’

  With a grunt of effort, Drake heaved her up by her foot and Irene pulled herself onto the roof of the elevator car.

  Drake took a step back so he could see her, standing amidst the pulleys and weights. ‘See anything?’

  ‘No, nothing. Wait! Yes, there’s a gap between the car and the wall, and like concrete handholds built into it leading down.’

  Drake didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Give me a hand up?’

  Irene’s beaming face appeared over the rim of the elevator and she reached down to grasp his hand. ‘Ready?’ she asked.

  Drake lifted his foot against the car doors and, with Irene’s help, scrambled up the side. The top of the car smelt of grease and machinery, and wobbled slightly as he moved across it. Irene had been right about the handholds leading down the back of the shaft. A ladder built into the wall itself.

  ‘I’m game if you are,’ she said, and nudged Drake in the ribs.

  ‘Ladies first, then.’

  Irene rolled her eyes and stepped out off the car, gripping the handholds and steadying herself before taking a step down. She disappeared out of sight and Drake steeled himself, worried he was going to hear her slip and then scream as she plummeted to depths unknown down the shaft.

  Shaking his head, he stepped off the car and followed her down.

  The shaft was dark, but not entirely. Light from the junkyard did reach down into the depths, and Drake could make out the bottom of the shaft – a good fifty or so metres below. Blimey, he thought, it goes down under the ocean as deep as the platform is tall.

  ‘See, this is easy,’ Irene said just beneath him a few minutes later. ‘I can’t believe – oh, oh damn.’

  ‘What is it?’ Drake looked down and saw that she had stepped off the ladder onto a ledge about a metre below. He saw the problem immediately. ‘The ladder doesn’t go all the way down.’

  He joined her on the tiny ledge, backs pressed against the wall. The junction box for the elevator was locked to their right. One step forwards would mean a swift and fatal drop of about a dozen metres to the bottom of the shaft.

  ‘We need a rope or, or a …’ Irene huffed.

  ‘We have one,’ Drake said, staring straight ahead. It was hard to see through the dull gloom, but the elevator cable hung in the air just in front of their faces.

  Irene was silent for a long moment. ‘You’re not serious.’

  Drake stretched his arm out and touched the cable with his fingertips. It wasn’t slick with grease or oil. Most likely it lifted one of the counterweights as the car rose and fell.

  ‘I’m halfway down an elevator shaft built below the Arctic Ocean with a girl who won’t stop smiling. Who’s being serious any more?’

  ‘This is the best first date I’ve ever been on,’ Irene said. Drake raised an eyebrow and Irene laughed. She swatted his arm. ‘Were you any good at rope climb back in England, Will?’

  ‘Didn’t have a rope to climb, where I went to school.’ He took a deep breath. ‘It’s only about ten metres, yeah? Take two minutes.’

  ‘I don’t think I can do it,’ Irene admitted.

  ‘How much do you weigh?’

  ‘Oh, charming. You ask all the girls that?’

  ‘Well, then you’re not going to like my next question. Want to climb down on my back?’

  Irene squeezed Drake’s upper arm and frowned. ‘You’re not overly bound with muscles, you know. Do you think you can hold us both up?’

  ‘Oi, I’ll leave you here if you keep that up.’

  Irene chuckled and gazed down the shaft. She licked her lips and looked back at Drake. ‘My life in your hands, Will.’

  Taking a moment to build his nerve, Drake reached out and gripped the steel cable with both hands. He stood like that for a second, stretched over the shaft, then stepped out and locked his ankles around the cable. It was taut, but there was some give to the line, and he swung back and forth a few centimetres.

  Irene waited for him to stop swaying before she reached out, placed her hands on his shoulders, and wrapped her whole body around his back. Her legs came up around his waist, feet wrapped around the cable, gripping Drake almost like a vice.

  ‘Loosen up a bit, please,’ he whispered. Irene’s weight wasn’t too much for him to handle, but he began to feel the strain in his biceps almost straight away. ‘Now let’s be quick about it.’

  Drake was anything but quick as he lowered himself and Irene down the shaft. He had to let the cable go with one hand and reach down, gripping the cable tight again before lowering his other hand half a metre at a time. His ankles remained locked tight around the cable – not that it would have done much good if his arms gave way.

  He didn’t want to think about how they were going to get back up.

  Drake’s hands were becoming a touch sweaty. He started wiping his palms on the knees of Irene’s jumpsuit every time he lowered them down another half-metre or so.

  ‘How you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Fine and dandy like –’

  The cable shook in his hands and the sound of whirring machinery filled the shaft. Drake’s heart leapt into his throat but he clung tight to the cable and, dreading what he was about to see, looked up.

  The freight elevator was coming down the shaft and picking up speed.

  Oh.

  Shit.

  ‘Damn it – hurry!’ Irene whispered in his ear, her breath hot and panicked.

  Drake began to move, taking larger sweeps of the cable between his hands. The descent jarred his arm with each sweep, threatening to tear his shoulders from their sockets. Irene’s hands dug painfully into his neck and her legs about his waist bit hard. The cable began to shake in his hands as the elevator approached – a descending behemoth threatening to knock them to their deaths.

  ‘Ah …’ Drake fought against the burning strain in his arms and shoulders. He looked up and saw the elevator closing in on them fast. He looked down and saw about five or six metres of open air to the bottom of the shaft.

  ‘Faster!’ Irene said.

  Drake loosened his grip and slid down the cable. At first it was just uncomfortable, but the friction soon took over and set his palms on fire. He gritted his teeth and bit back a scream as the cable shredded his hands and set his nerves on fire. A few metres above the bottom of the shaft, his flayed hands could no longer hold the steel rope.

  Drake and Irene fell – quickly and suddenly. Too quickly. Too suddenly. They hit the ground hard, Irene on top of Drake. Air exploded from his lungs in a vicious torrent, forcing breathless gasps, but that was small pain compared
to the fire eating his hands.

  The elevator car drew closer and through the pain Drake knew they would never be able to get out of the shaft in time. He could see no vents, no tubes – nothing to slink through. Why would there be anything this far below the surface? If they had time, perhaps they could wedge the doors open – doors that led to whatever secrets were buried under the Rig.

  But there was no time.

  Hot tears stung Drake’s cheeks from the pain in his hands. Irene rolled off him and onto the cool stone floor at his side, next to the vast array of pulleys and counterweights built into the shaft. Drake was dead and he knew it. And he’d gotten her killed, too.

  ‘Irene, I’m sorry –’

  ‘Shut up!’ she whispered.

  ‘But –’

  The car came down on top of them and Irene slapped her hand across Drake’s mouth. Shrieking brakes rang out and rattled Drake’s brain. The car came to a screeching halt just half a metre above their heads, sealing them in darkness peppered with small circles of light through the porous floor of the freight elevator. Muffled voices from inside – Drake thought one belonged to Warden Storm – and then footsteps, shoes and heels clicking against metal, as the doors pinged open and the occupants stepped out.

  Drake and Irene lay next to each other in the dark for a long minute. The darkness, spoiled only by the dim light shining through from the car, did nothing to calm the nagging thought that they were at least fifty metres below sea level, trapped and alone.

  Irene removed her hand from his mouth. ‘Okay, I think they’re all gone,’ she whispered. ‘You okay?’

  ‘My hands … they feel cold.’ Drake’s voice was tight with pain. ‘No.’

  He was almost thankful for the half-light. Drake didn’t want to see the extent of the damage the cable had done.

  ‘Let me see,’ Irene said.

  He felt her soft fingers slip down his arm, feeling her way in the dark. She touched his wrist and paused. Drake didn’t feel her on his palms or fingers – they stung too fiercely – but from the way her arm tensed against his he knew she must have found something bad.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh, Christ.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Drake could almost hear her biting her lip. ‘Let me try something …’

  ‘What could you possibly – ?’

  A flash of brilliant, cerulean light lit up the shaft and the fire in his right palm went out. Drake could feel his skin tingling across his fingers. He looked down and saw an amazing thing. The flesh on his hands was rippling, as if still water had been cast with a pebble, and knitting itself back together. It took only a moment before the mysterious warm light faded, but before it was done his hands were whole and unscarred.

  Irene gasped and stifled a whimper. She was panting hard, as if she’d run a mile. ‘Does that feel better?’ she asked.

  ‘Better …?’ Drake was gobsmacked. ‘What in the hell was that?’

  ‘I think there’s a panel in the floor of the elevator car. Here, look.’ Irene pointed to a latch just above Drake’s head. ‘I can almost … can you reach it?’

  Drake turned onto his side and used his miraculously healed hands to work the bolt from the lock. It came free with a few good tugs. ‘Help me push.’

  With Irene’s help, Drake managed to lift and squirm up through the panel in the floor. The light in the car was better, burning from a halogen bulb bar. He examined his hands, amazed and … frightened.

  ‘Are you going to help me up or what?’ Irene asked. She had wedged herself between the counterweights and the floor panel. ‘Give me a hand.’

  ‘I had a scar,’ Drake said. ‘On the back of my hand from … from where I tried to …’ pull Aaron out of the blaze at Cedarwood. ‘It’s gone.’ He reached down and gave Irene his hand. With a bit of shifting, she managed to worm her way into the car.

  Irene rolled her shoulders and stood up. She tilted her head and her neck cracked. ‘Oh, that’s better.’

  ‘That was like magic, what you did. You … you just healed my hands.’

  ‘I did, yeah.’

  Drake tried to clean the blood and grease from his hands on his jumpsuit. ‘What the hell are they teaching you in the infirmary?’

  She laughed. ‘I didn’t learn that in the infirmary.’ Her laughter faded and the look on her face became pensive as she turned to face the elevator doors. ‘No, I learnt that through these doors.’

  ‘What? So you’ve been down here before then?’

  ‘Oh yes, didn’t I mention it? I’ve been trying to get back for six months.’

  Drake saw her eyeing the button panel and stepped between it and her. ‘What’s down here, Irene?’

  She offered him a dazzling smile. ‘Magic. It’s hard to explain, but we’ve come this far, Will.’ Irene put a hand against the doors. Drake wondered if she were about to blast the metal off its hinges with a bolt of lightning, Jedi-style. ‘Come with me a little further and see what they’re doing here?’

  Drake had suspected the Rig was hiding its secrets. But nothing like this – never anything like this. He hesitated. The entrance to the freight elevator above was unguarded, he knew, and there was no slot for an access card inside the car. He could take the elevator back up and avoid whatever madness was waiting beyond these doors.

  Drake entertained that idea for all of three seconds before stepping to the side and pressing his back against the wall. ‘Hide there, just out of sight, in case anyone’s waiting outside.’

  Irene suppressed a smile and did as he said.

  Drake’s fingers hovered over the two outward-facing arrows on the button panel for a moment. He strained his ears, listening for any sound beyond the doors, and then pressed the button. The doors slid open and Drake beheld something breathtaking.

  A wide, arched walkway shot as straight as a bullet out from the elevator. An eerie blue light covered the walkway, as the curved walls were made of some kind of reinforced glass, at least ten centimetres thick. Drake gasped and stepped out into a cold, silent bubble below the surface of the ocean.

  ‘Neat, huh?’ Irene said.

  ‘I’d say so …’ Drake was reminded of the London Aquarium, of the conveyor belt that took you around and under the water, shielded from the sea creatures by this same sort of glass. Heavy, bright floodlights were attached to the outside of the bubble, illuminating the dark water in all directions.

  ‘We better be quick. There’s nowhere to hide along here.’

  Irene took Drake’s hand and pulled him along. His neck turned every which way trying to take in the view from outside. As they ran, keeping their footfalls as quiet as possible, Drake saw a ridge of underwater rock stretching away to the left.

  The rock was speckled with glowing, electric-blue light. He thought back to his first night on the Rig, to the strange light show he’d seen out of the window in Processing. This was the same light, only locked in rock dozens of metres below the surface. A school of bio--luminescent fish swam past the window, eyes shining blue.

  ‘Wait a minute …’ Drake said, pulling Irene to a halt. He pressed his face against the glass, trying to see further down. The rock descended into the inky depths below, studded with that locked-in light the whole way down. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Magic,’ Irene said. ‘Now hurry. If someone comes back this way we’re dead.’

  The walkway ran for about thirty metres towards a portal of artificial light. A huge shadow extended in the water above the portal, on the outside of the glass, and it took Drake a moment to realise what he was seeing.

  A massive underwater complex had been built beneath the Rig – connected to the prison by this bubbled path. He let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding, as they ducked through the portal of light and into the complex.

  Drake and Irene entered a wide open space, crisscrossed with metal walkways leading up and down and all around. This felt like more familiar ground, like the Rig. Faintly, Drake heard the
sound of machinery and what he thought might have been a vast turbine somewhere up above. The air was fresh, and as he swallowed, Drake’s ears popped. Wherever they were, the pressure was being regulated.

  ‘Do you think there are cameras around? Like up on the Rig?’ Drake asked.

  Irene pulled him towards a set of metal stairs that led downwards, deeper underwater, and deeper into the complex. ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘They wouldn’t want anybody seeing what they’re doing down here.’

  ‘Who’s “they”? The Alliance?’

  Irene nodded.

  ‘And how do you know what they’re doing down here?’

  ‘Like I said, I’ve been here before. This way.’

  The stairs descended into a narrow corridor built alongside the edge of the complex. As quiet as mice, Drake and Irene jogged down the corridor and lost sight of the network of steel walkways and the roar of distant machinery. Windows of reinforced glass, at least three metres high by the same across, ran along the length of the corridor. More of that glowing rock shone with neon light, casting the corridor in shades of ghostly blue.

  Drake kept his eyes open and his ears strained for any sign of people down here, but all was quiet. The corridor branched off as they reached the edge of the complex. Another corridor led to the right and what looked like a viewing platform made entirely of glass was to the left, dark and concealed save for the uncanny light from the rock outside. Irene led Drake this way, out of sight, and together they sat down against the wall, hidden from view if anyone happened to be using the corridor they’d travelled down.

  ‘This is amazing,’ Drake said. He could see down through the glass-bottomed floor, at the miles of glowing rock stretching away in all directions. The complex itself had been built into the ridge of rock. Marine life – dozens of fish and exotic creatures, all glowing softly – dotted the reef. He had the feeling he was looking at something immense and powerful. ‘What is the Alliance doing?’

  Irene stared at the bright flecks in the rock with hunger in her eyes, pressing her fingers against the glass as if she could reach through into the freezing Arctic Ocean and retrieve a shiny prize. ‘They’re experimenting,’ she said. ‘With whatever is in the rock.’