Survival

by Joe Craig

  Jimmy was about to dive to catch the person’s ankles, but stopped just in time. His target side-stepped and disappeared into a dark hole in a building where there had once been a door. Jimmy followed without hesitation.

  The darkness was instant and Jimmy’s eyes were slow to catch up. He stumbled forwards a few steps. By the time his eyes prickled and his night-vision buzzed, he was falling – and not just to the floor. If this building had ever had a floor it had been destroyed in the blast. Jimmy fell for long enough to realise that at a mine, buildings can have very deep basements indeed.

  14 KNOWING THE DRILL

  Jimmy braced himself for the landing. He ducked his head and protected it with folded arms. He gulped in as much air as he could to cushion his ribs and locked his ankles together. He hit the bottom feet first, as painlessly as was possible. His legs gave way, but even before he was still he could tell that nothing was broken. There was just a sharp bite from the two ribs he’d already fractured in the mountains.

  Then: BAM!

  Something cracked into his cheek with the power of a wrecking ball. Jimmy rolled with the impact and a shower of saliva exploded from his mouth. His skull seemed to vibrate like a church bell. It was several seconds before he was able to jump up, ready to fend off another attack.

  He could see now that he had fallen into a large circular pit. It was about fifty metres across and Jimmy was crouched at one edge. A faint pillar of light filtered down from where he had fallen. It was bolstered by the blue haze of his night-vision. Jimmy felt lucky when he saw that he hadn’t fallen too far – only about fifteen metres.

  It looked like this pit hadn’t been caused by any explosion, but was part of the mining operation. The floor was rough clay and the wall was one huge circle of concrete breeze blocks, broken by gaping holes the size of buses. That told him this was just the first layer of whatever underground exploration was going on. Each hole was an entry point into the network of tunnels.

  In the centre of the pit was a column of chains leading right up to the roof of the building, and on every side was a battery of huge drills. The only thing Jimmy had ever seen like them before were forklift trucks, except these had giant drills instead of forks. They looked like a small herd of metal elephants on wheels. Their trunks pointed in all directions – some aimed into the tunnel entrances, some poking out of them. Others had swivelled into awkward angles, as if they were sleeping.

  Each of the drill bits was coated in clay as well as ash from the fires. Jimmy reckoned that in clear light they would have been orange and black, but with his night-vision they were blueish. At the base of each, where it joined its vehicle, was a large silver drill plate – a circle the driver would just be able to peek over. Only the very points of the drills gleamed silver in the half-light. It was like they were waiting for a giant dentist to come along and give Earth a set of teeth.

  Then above them, Jimmy caught sight of a silhouette clambering higher on the chains. He dashed across the clay to catch up, ducking between the machines, but as soon as the figure reached the scaffolding above the pit, the chains retracted swiftly towards the surface. Jimmy leapt forwards, his arm outstretched. The end of the longest chain slipped between his thumb and fingertips. He hit the ground with a bump and a face full of clay.

  Immediately there was the noise of a motor. The grating sound sent a shiver through Jimmy as if his vertebrae themselves were scraping against each other. He knew exactly what it had to be, but refused to believe it. He rolled on to his back to see it: the drill on one of the machines was spinning furiously. It flung clay into two huge arcs, which fell on either side like sparks from a Catherine wheel. But Jimmy couldn’t take his eyes off the tip of the drill. Centimetre by centimetre, it adjusted until it was pointing directly at the centre of Jimmy’s forehead.

  Then that noise multiplied. One by one, every drill started whizzing round and they all turned on their wheels to face Jimmy. Jimmy clambered to his feet and spun full circle. He was surrounded. He dashed for the only opening he could see in the line of drills. But before he’d taken two steps, the machines repositioned to close the gap. How could they be so well co-ordinated without drivers?

  Jimmy skidded to a halt and doubled back. On the other side of the circle he saw another chance to break out. He dived for it, but the machines weren’t just big, they were highly manoeuvrable. Two of them twisted inwards, mirror images of each other, dipping their drill points to precisely the spot that Jimmy was aiming for. He slid across the clay on his back, unable to stop himself. At last he slammed his elbows into the ground to push himself upright, just in time. Then he kicked with his heels to throw himself over the top of the spinning metal.

  He thought he was out of the circle, but two more machines quickly looped round to cover their teammates. Jimmy silently cursed the shadow above him. He knew that was the person controlling these things, trying to drill him into a slice of cheese. But why? Who was it?

  Jimmy ducked and dived between the drills. They swung over his head and beneath his jumps with such rapidity that the swishing of the air sounded like the propellers of a small plane. They stabbed at his head and his body with the speed and force of automated battering rams. Whenever Jimmy had the chance he ran for an opening, but another machine was always there to cut him off.

  It felt almost as if the machines themselves had minds. They were a team of murderous bullies. Their motors started to sound like laughs. Leaping and dodging for his life, Jimmy wondered whether a tiny part of the drills’ programming was human. Then, with panic, he realised that if these machines could think, they’d probably wonder whether any part of his programming was human.

  The breath was gone from his chest. His limbs were pumping with reserves of strength he didn’t know he could call on. He wished the machines would stay still for a moment to give him a chance to dash for the walls of the pit and climb out. That gave him an idea.

  Jimmy fell to the ground and hesitated there for a fraction of a second. He saw two drills spinning towards him like vultures descending on a carcass. The first stabbed at his head. Jimmy twisted his neck at the last instant. The drill plunged into the clay. As it kept spinning, it pulled itself deeper and deeper. Its own power was working against it now. Jimmy knew the only way it could pull out was if the person controlling it reversed the direction of the spin. And that would take a moment of extra care. Why bother when there were so many other drills still circling around the target?

  Jimmy waited right next to the submerged drill bit. Clay slammed into his cheek and he could hear the rotations of the drill like an animal’s scream. To his delight, the next machine took the bait. It charged at him. Jimmy waited as long as he dared, then dodged.

  The second drill missed Jimmy’s head by a hair, but connected perfectly with the first machine. With both drill bits spinning at maximum rpm, there was a piercing screech and a pounding CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK. A fountain of clay erupted all the way up to the surface.

  Both machines were hurled upwards. They flew in opposite directions and smashed against opposite walls of the pit. For a moment, the other drills stopped. Jimmy took his chance while the drill operator was distracted. He sprinted for the edge, ready to climb. He didn’t have much of a head start, but he was convinced he could make it.

  Then he heard the dreadful sound of ten massive drilling machines starting up again. They were chasing him down. How could they move so fast? Jimmy couldn’t understand his bad luck. Surely no drills in the world were designed to move at 50 kilometres an hour?

  The wall was so close now. Jimmy could leap for it, but he knew that even then he didn’t have time to climb out of reach of the machines. He would be drilled right through and pinned to the concrete. Instead he cut away at the final moment, diving into the protection of one of the tunnels.

  He pushed himself up against the side of the tunnel, desperate not to be seen. From the scaffolding above, it would take a few seconds to work out where Jimmy had disappeared to. And
at least one of the drills probably had its nose stuck in the wall by now.

  If only he could slip out of his hiding place and stay unseen. He could already feel the tips of his fingers tingling, still fighting the remnants of frostbite, preparing to dig into the wall as hard and as fast as they ever could. He listened for the movements of the drills outside his tunnel. What were they doing? Why were they so quiet?

  Then suddenly the opening of the tunnel went black. Jimmy didn’t even wait to see what had cut off the light. He could hear it. He ran down the tunnel at full speed, hoping frantically that the rougher terrain would slow down the drilling machine behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. His night-vision surged up a notch to show him as much as possible, but the detail didn’t matter. All Jimmy cared about was the blurred tip of the massive drill looming towards him and the shadowy figure that had now appeared on top of the machine to drive it down the tunnel manually.

  There’d better be another way out of here, thought Jimmy.

  15 CHASE YOUR SHADOW

  A floodlight on the front of the drill burst on. The white light was intense and urged Jimmy’s body to respond with pure speed. He hurtled down the tunnel, his boots pounding the clay. He could hear the drill catching up on him. As they chased deeper, the walls of the tunnel closed. He could see his own shadow ahead of him, stretching out several metres deeper into the tunnel. It leapt and darted as he did, and gave him something to chase.

  Jimmy’s mind was whizzing as fast as the drill bit behind his head. Who was this person so desperate to kill him? The question was pushed out of his mind when he sprinted round the next bend. Suddenly he was face to face with a drill that made the one behind him look like an electric toothbrush.

  Its central prong was as thick as a pillar box and around it were hundreds of smaller blades. It filled the entire tunnel and whirled like a tornado. And it moved towards Jimmy. He was trapped.

  How had the person behind him managed to activate this huge borer and turn it around to attack him? Or had they done it as soon as they saw which tunnel he was trying to hide down? It didn’t matter. Jimmy had no choice. He slid to a stop just in time and pushed off again to head back up the tunnel – but the smaller drill had already reached him.

  Jimmy was trapped. He squeezed himself up against the wall of the tunnel, the cold of the clay chilling his spine. The drill from the smaller machine hit its larger brother with a screech that nearly burst Jimmy’s eardrums. Massive sparks spat out from the connection. Some landed on Jimmy’s face and hands, scorching his skin. Still the two drills edged closer to each other.

  In seconds Jimmy would be mangled by two colliding blocks of sharp, spinning steel. But Jimmy’s programming was spinning too, and his determination was made of steel just as strong. He frantically clawed at the clay behind his back, scraping with his heels at the same time. Just a small indent would be enough.

  Jimmy felt his whole body trembling with terror, but his actions seemed controlled by a thick layer of assurance. It was like being hot and cold at the same time. Jimmy realised that his body wasn’t quaking with terror. It was wriggling with all its force to carve out a hollow for him in the side of the tunnel. He had become his own drilling machine.

  If he could create enough space fast enough, the two metal slabs could meet each other without making a minced Jimmy sandwich. He pushed all his strength into the clay. The drill bit of the smaller machine was crumpling now under the immense pressure of the larger device. The steel glowed orange, then red. The heat blasted into Jimmy. I’ll be cooked before I’m crushed, he thought.

  Then suddenly the drill bit snapped free from its holding. The two machines clapped together like lethal cymbals. Jimmy’s reflexes were faster than an electric current. He jerked backwards, pushing all the air from his lungs and stretching his spine to flatten himself against the side wall as much as was physically possible. The steel edge of the drill plate rushed past his face and scraped the skin from the end of his nose.

  Jimmy twisted himself free from his clay tomb. He wriggled past the body of the smaller drilling machine and forced himself out, back into the upper section of the tunnel. As soon as he was free, he ran. He felt the heat on his back growing. The noise was incredible – a screeching and whining like a pack of wolves going up in flames.

  Jimmy glanced behind him, still running at full pelt. The two machines were a molten mess of sparks and shards of steel. And diving from the chaos was that silhouette – the slim figure with the streak of long black hair. The figure landed with a graceful roll and at last Jimmy caught sight of a face, highlighted by the sparks further down the tunnel.

  A girl. Young, but older than Jimmy. Just as determined.

  She raced away from the drills. With the intense flickering light behind her, Jimmy could just make out the strong line of her cheek and the deep black of her skin. He kept running, but couldn’t help checking over his shoulder to watch how she moved and what decisions she made. Any little thing was a clue to her identity and her motivation.

  Then Jimmy saw her trip. As it grew hotter, the clay around them became less stable. The footing wasn’t secure and the girl had faltered. Now she was face down in the dirt.

  Then: BOOM!

  Jimmy thought the noise might crack open his skull. The heat of the drills, the sparks and the fuel driving them together – it was a highly volatile combination. A black globe ballooned up the tunnel towards them. The heat travelled even faster, nearly knocking Jimmy off his feet. But the girl was already down.

  In that instant, a million connections seemed to burn in Jimmy’s head. Each one came with an explosion of contradictory emotions. This young girl had gone to extreme lengths to kill him – and she’d done extraordinary things. Zafi’s face flashed into his mind. Then Mitchell’s. The other assassins. Was it possible that this girl…?

  Suddenly Jimmy didn’t care who she worked for. He didn’t care that seconds before she had been trying to rip him to pieces. If she was like him…

  Jimmy’s muscles jerked to change direction. He leapt back down the tunnel, head first, and reached out. He snatched the girl by the hair and snapped his arm up, pulling her to him.

  Locked together, they rolled to the edge of the tunnel. A metal spike half a metre long stabbed into the ground at the point where the girl’s neck had been and stuck there like a flagpole. For a second, Jimmy could see nothing but the girl’s eyes. They stared back at him, reflecting the orange and red of the explosion in deep brown. Then together they scrambled to their feet and sprinted for the surface. A ball of flame chased at their backs and clay rained down on their heels. The tunnel was collapsing behind them.

  Jimmy made it back to the pit first. He threw himself on the ground, panting hard, and held his face in his hands. The girl burst out of the tunnel after him and collapsed against the side of the pit, her hands on her knees.

  After they had taken just three breaths, they turned to each other and, in perfect synchrony, shouted, “Who are you?”

  16 MARLA RAKUBIAN

  Jimmy’s voice and the girl’s echoed off the concrete walls of the pit. They backed away from each other to opposite sides of the circle, both totally alert for an attack. Jimmy considered making a run for it – he could climb out and easily get away, but he didn’t want to. Not yet. He had to know why this girl was trying to kill him.

  “If you drill holes in strangers, I’d hate to see your enemies,” he said. His throat was so dry that his voice felt like a dagger. When the girl answered she surprised Jimmy with the deep sweetness of her voice and the round accent on her vowels – every “oo” sounded like an “ow”.

  “I did believe you to be from the French army, or British, or German, or…”

  “What?” Jimmy blasted. “Does it look like I’m in the army?” He dabbed blood from the end of his nose and went through the rest of his body in his head to work out which bits were seriously damaged and which just hurt like hell.

  “Actually, yes,” replied t
he girl. “Examine yourself.”

  Jimmy didn’t need to. He could feel the army boots bruising his feet and he hadn’t forgotten that underneath the layer of clay he was in desert camouflage. The coating of blood and sweat all over his body completed the picture.

  “But I’m twelve,” Jimmy insisted.

  “So what?” shrugged the girl. She was obviously in at least as much pain as Jimmy, but was trying to hide it. “I am sixteen and I have been fighting for as long as I can remember. It is what I do.”

  “It’s what I do too,” Jimmy mumbled. Then louder, “But not in the army.” His voice trembled with doubt. The whole situation was so strange he couldn’t be sure of anything. If this girl had been fighting for so long, which Secret Service organisation had trained her? Or designed her, he thought nervously. The questions in his head felt so important they even distracted from the pain that throbbed all the way through him.

  “Why not in the army?” asked the girl.

  Jimmy was fascinated by the way she spoke and tried to watch how she moved, for clues. She was about a head taller than Jimmy, and slim; her long black hair reached her waist. Her combat trousers and thin shirt hugged her figure. Jimmy could see she was made of nothing but perfectly lean muscle. Was she 100 per cent human, or something else?

  He remembered that appearances can be misleading: anybody looking at him would probably think that he was a normal human.

  “Age means nothing if you have something to fight for,” the girl continued. “All over the world there are young soldiers. Some fight for a cause; some are forced to fight. And some fight with me here. I mean…” She tailed off and froze for a second, with her arm half raised towards the bloodshed outside.