Terminus

by Adam Baker

  Tombes stood guard. He scanned tunnel shadows. He shook his flashlight to coax the last power from dying batteries.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Yeah. Think I’ve got something.’

  Cloke crouched on hands and knees, flashlight trained beneath a coach. He unhooked his radio.

  ‘There’s some sort of grating beneath one of the cars.’

  ‘Get a closer look.’

  Cloke squirmed between the wheels of the thirty-ton car. He slid beneath a traction motor and massive suspension springs.

  ‘Bars. Steel bars. Hinges and a big-ass padlock. Any idea what I’m looking at?’

  ‘One of the utility maps shows a large ground-water channel running beneath that section of subway tunnel. You must have found some kind of storm drain.’

  Cloke squirmed further beneath the carriage. He leaned over the grille and shone his flashlight downwards into darkness.

  ‘A narrow pipe. Rungs set in concrete. It goes deep. Way deep.’

  ‘That’s it. That’s your route out.’

  36

  Galloway leaned against a ticket hall pillar. Drugged stupor. He hugged his mutilated arm to his chest. He was pale with blood loss.

  His eyelids drooped. His knees began to buckle. He snapped awake, caught himself as he toppled forwards. A stumbled recovery. He glanced around, wild-eyed, disoriented. He looked down at his stump. The events of the last few hours repopulated his mind like a fast reboot.

  Something lying at the base of the pillar. Galloway slowly crouched, picked up the blood-caked belt he had used as a tourniquet, and threw it into corner shadows.

  Sicknote held up a Sharpie.

  ‘The pen has run dry.’

  ‘Only one I got,’ croaked Galloway. ‘Sorry.’

  Sicknote scratched his forehead with an inked finger. It left a smear like a soot streak.

  ‘You don’t think they’ll let you board that chopper and fly out of here, do you?’

  ‘What?’ asked Galloway.

  ‘Why are you still here? Hanging round with these guys? They won’t offer you a ride home.’

  ‘Fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘You’re bitten. Sooner or later, you’ll turn.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘How long before the chopper arrives? Twelve hours? Fourteen? Do you think Lupe will wait that long? Sooner or later, she’ll take steps.’

  ‘The others would stop her.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Shut up, all right? Just shut your damned mouth.’

  Galloway dug an energy bar from a holdall and tore the wrapper with his teeth. He chewed. He looked around.

  Wade lay on the bench. He moaned and murmured. His limbs twitched and trembled as he fought monsters in his dreams.

  Donahue sat at the head of the platform stairs, antiemetic medication and painkillers scattered on the step beside her. Her shoulders were slumped. She stared down into darkness.

  Lupe stood in the office doorway. She was watching him. Backlit. He couldn’t read her expression.

  She took a swig of water and turned away.

  Galloway searched inside the trauma kit. He found a scalpel capped with a rubber stopper. He tested the blade on the fabric of the bag. It sliced through thick Cordura like it was paper. He re-capped the blade and slipped it into his pocket.

  Tombes crawled beneath the subway car. He bit a Maglite between his teeth. He squirmed into position over the drain grate. Steel bars. Hinges. Padlock.

  He took the flashlight from his mouth and laid it on the track bed.

  ‘Pass me the gear.’

  Cloke pushed the plasma cylinder between coach wheels.

  Tombes grabbed the webbed cylinder and hugged it to his belly. He unbuckled a strap and unravelled the hose. He pulled on leather gauntlets. He balled a fire coat and pushed it between himself and the grate as a partial heat shield.

  ‘All right. Here we go.’

  He twisted the regulator and triggered the handset. The cutting flame burned brilliant white, roared a high, continuous scream.

  He shielded his face and held the cutting head at arm’s length. He pressed the exothermic flame to the padlock. Thick smoke. Steel began to sweat and drip. The heavy padlock melted like butter and fell away.

  He pressed the cutting head to the grate hinges. The underside of the carriage was lit by flickering arc-light. He blinked sweat. He worked by touch, unable to look directly at the incandescent flame.

  He cut through the first hinge, then the second. The grille twisted, detached and dropped into the shaft.

  Tombes shut off the cutting flame. Sudden silence. He listened to the grate as it tumbled down the pipe, abrading concrete, slamming tunnel rungs, hitting water with a deep and distant splash.

  They examined Ekks.

  Tombes checked pulse and blood pressure. He checked the saline drip.

  ‘How’s his respiration?’ asked Cloke. ‘Any better?’

  ‘Not great. But better.’

  Cloke searched the carriage. He kicked over a couple of boxes. He upturned a suitcase and emptied it over the floor.

  ‘Forget it,’ said Tombes. ‘I already looked. Nothing in the bags, nothing under the bed.’

  Cloke picked up the notebook.

  ‘Just this?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tombes. ‘Just the book.’

  Cloke thumbed pages.

  ‘Reckon he found a cure?’ asked Tombes. ‘These notes. Reckon they amount to some kind of formula?’

  Cloke held up a random page. Dense, urgent text.

  ‘He spent hours writing this stuff. Days. It’s got to mean something.’

  ‘Reckon you can hack it?’

  ‘Given time.’

  Cloke dropped the notebook into the document bag, and lashed the bag with tape.

  Tombes watched him work.

  ‘Well, guess I got the short straw,’ he said, looking down at his hands. ‘Three guys. Two dive suits. I’ll cover your back. I’ll make sure you and Ekks get safely into the water. But do me a favour, all right? Achieve something. Get that back to Ridgeway. Crack that damned code.’

  Cloke shook his head.

  ‘You’re not staying behind.’

  ‘How do you figure?’

  ‘Nariko. She’s down there, in the water, with a helmet and air supply. We can lash her tanks to an NBC suit. Probably enough residual oxygen to make the journey.’

  ‘You want to strip her body?’

  ‘She would want you to live.’

  Galloway climbed the steps to the street entrance.

  He watched hands claw the opaque polythene that curtained the gate. Fingers daubed blood on the plastic.

  He looked down. His bandaged stump was flecked with blood. Spines pushed through the gauze. He breathed deep. Part sigh, part shuddering sob.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Wade climbed the steps. He gripped the stairwell balustrade for guidance and support.

  He listened to ragged fingernails rake plastic.

  ‘Is that them?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Galloway.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Plenty.’

  ‘They never let up, do they?’

  ‘No. No, they don’t.’

  ‘Lupe said there was a bike in the street.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Chopped. Chromed out. Big-ass ape hangers. Wish I had my eyes, you know? I’d like to see that Harley. The world has gone to hell, but that bike is still out there, sitting in the alley. Something beautiful. Something that makes sense.’

  He bent double. He coughed and retched. He hacked and spat.

  ‘You don’t look so good,’ said Galloway.

  ‘Getting worse by the hour. Guess I don’t have long. Maybe I’ll head outside, when the time comes. I’d like to feel the rain on my face one last time, know what I mean?’

  ‘You’d get torn to pieces.’

  ‘Any of those bastards lays a finger on me, I’ll fuck them
up.’

  ‘Always the rain with you guys.’

  ‘I did some time in Texas. All the guys on The Row, sealed in the same six-by-nine year after year. Some of those guys were running multiple appeals. State. Federal. Any motion to commute their lawyers could dream up. Pretty much a full decade locked down under artificial light. They didn’t give a shit about sun. They just wanted to feel rain.’

  Galloway unclipped a bunch of keys from his belt one-handed, did it slow and quiet. He selected a cuff key with his teeth. He silently released the handcuffs that clamped the gate closed. He let the cuffs hang loose and open.

  ‘Hell with it,’ murmured Galloway. ‘We all got to die sometime, right? Just got to pick our terms.’

  37

  Tombes floated in dark water. He squirmed deep into a crevice between massive concrete slabs.

  A half-cut girder. He triggered the plasma arc and touched the cutting head to steel. Metal bubbled, liquefied, ran in rivulets like tears.

  Cloke hung back. He watched stuttering flame light from deep within the heart of the rubble pile.

  Tombes shut off the arc and withdrew from the fissure. He pulled a chunk of girder clear and threw it aside.

  ‘Can you reach her?’ asked Cloke.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Want me to do it?’

  ‘No. It’s my job.’

  Tombes forced himself deeper into the crevice. He reached Nariko’s body. Her face behind the visor: eyes closed as if in a deep sleep.

  He unsheathed a knife and began to saw through the fabric of her suit.

  ‘The pistol should be tucked in her weight belt. Can you reach it?’

  ‘No.’

  Tombes backed out of the space dragging Nariko’s tanks and helmet behind him.

  ‘We’re done.’

  He shouldered the gear and swam for the surface.

  Cloke took a last look inside the fissure. His helmet lamps lit Nariko’s body, half-buried beneath tumbled masonry blocks. Her hair gently wafted in the current. The water around her tinged pink with blood.

  He turned away and kicked towards the surface.

  The subway car.

  They lay diving equipment on the floor beside Ekks. They knelt and inspected the gear.

  ‘She looked peaceful,’ said Cloke. ‘She looked at rest.’

  Tombes ignored him. He checked valves. He checked each tank gauge.

  ‘How much air left in the bottles?’ asked Cloke.

  ‘About an hour. Maybe less.’

  Cloke got to his feet.

  ‘Get him ready to move. I’ll meet you back here in fifteen.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Tombes.

  ‘Couple of things I need to do before we leave.’

  Cloke returned to the radio carriage. The operator fused to the transmitter, broadcast lights flickering intermittent red and green.

  Cloke retuned his Motorola.

  ‘How you doing, son?’

  ‘Please. I don’t want to be here any more. It’s cold. It’s dark. Are you on your way? Will you be here soon?’

  ‘We’re coming for you, son. We’re almost there. Just hold on. It won’t be long. It won’t be long now.’

  Cloke laid an FDNY shoulder pack on the floor. He unzipped, and took out a cardboard box labelled with brissive warning icons.

  DANGER

  EXPLOSIVE/EXPLOSIF

  Dannex blasting charge Type-E

  He pulled back the flaps. Half-pound sausage tubes of ammonium nitrate demo charge wrapped in wax paper.

  He carefully picked his way between metallic tendrils snaking across the floor. He crouched beside the radio operator. He lashed a tube of explosive to the table leg with duct tape.

  ‘I hate it here. It’s so dark. So cold.’

  ‘Hang on, kid. It’ll be over soon.’

  The subway tunnel. Cloke walked the track, peering into shadows. He was spooked by the silence, spooked by the dark.

  A buttressed arch. He mashed explosive against the brickwork.

  Tombes unrolled a yellow radiation suit. He dressed Ekks as gently as he could: rolled him in the cot, manoeuvred the rubber suit beneath him, zipped arms and legs. He sealed the gloves and overboots with tape.

  Cloke joined him.

  ‘All set?’

  ‘The seals should remain hermetic unless we dive deep. They’ll keep out water, but not under pressure.’

  Cloke dumped the explosive pack on the floor.

  ‘Laid a couple of charges. Last thing I’ll do when we leave this damned place. Bring down the roof.’

  ‘Whatever. I just want to get the hell out of here.’

  ‘You got some kind of detonator?’ asked Cloke. ‘How do I trip them off?’

  Tombes picked up the backpack and unzipped a side-pocket. He took out a plastic box and unclipped the lid. Silver cylinders laid out like cigars.

  ‘Time pencils. Old school, but they work. Each tube holds a little glass capsule full of acid. When the time comes to start the clock, pinch the top of the tube with pliers. The glass will break. Acid will start to corrode a lead wire. When the wire burns through, it releases a spring-loaded percussion cap. Kaboom.’

  ‘All right.’

  Tombes held up a time pencil.

  ‘Blue band. Burns for fifteen minutes.’

  ‘How many do I use?’

  ‘One. Two to be sure. Those demo charges are ammonium nitrate, stuff they use for blasting quarries. Pop one charge, and the blast will trigger the rest.’

  ‘How’s Ekks?’ asked Cloke. ‘Any improvement?’

  ‘Holding. Just holding.’

  They carefully lifted Ekks and strapped him to the backboard. They lashed cylinders either side of his arms. They put the helmet over his head and sealed the neck with tape.

  ‘Sure this is airtight?’ asked Cloke.

  ‘Probably maintain integrity for an hour or so. Long enough to get him to Fenwick.’

  The IRT office.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ said Wade. ‘It’s chickenshit. Shooting the guy like a sick dog.’

  ‘You’ve seen what this disease can do.’

  ‘The guy deserves to make his peace. Sure, if Galloway were walking the wing, if he got shanked, I wouldn’t give a shit. Probably cheer when I heard the news. But we’re not in the joint any more. The man has a right to die on his own terms.’

  ‘We’ve given him plenty of time, plenty of space. When he turns, it will happen fast. We can’t wait for ever.’

  ‘What does Donahue say about this shit?’

  ‘She doesn’t give a damn. She just wants to get home.’

  ‘So what do you want from me? I’m blind. If you off the guy, nothing I can do about it.’

  ‘I guess I want your blessing.’

  ‘Looks like Donahue left the phone off the hook. So you’re stuck down here with two dead guys and a madman. Do whatever you’ve got to do.’

  Galloway sat on the bench. Blue lips, cold sweat. The stump of his wrist tucked beneath his left armpit. He rocked back and forth.

  Lupe wandered from the office. She walked across the ticket hall slow and casual. She sat beside him, kicked back and crossing her legs. She laid the shotgun across her lap.

  ‘So how you doing?’

  ‘Not so great. Painkillers are wearing off. Might need another shot.’

  ‘How’s your arm?’

  ‘Minus a hand. How’s yours?’

  ‘Let me take a look. Maybe we can redress the wound.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll dig out some fresh bandage later. Patch myself up.’

  ‘Come on. Let me take a look. See what I can do.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  Lupe spoke softly:

  ‘Show me your arm.’ Edge of menace.

  Galloway stopped rocking back and forth. He turned to look at Lupe. He observed the shotgun laid across her lap, barrel trained on his belly.

  ‘Show me your arm,’ repeated Lupe.

  Galloway s
lowly held out the stump. Metal spines protruded through bloody gauze.

  ‘Sorry, man.’

  ‘Amputate,’ said Galloway. ‘Make another cut. Take my arm at the shoulder.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please. You’d do the same in my position. You’d fight to your last breath.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘When my time comes, I’ll look it in the eye. I won’t go out snivelling.’

  ‘Bullshit. You’re no different from anyone else. You’ll cling to life with everything you’ve got. You’ll want every last moment.’

  ‘Don’t make this hard on yourself. Don’t drag it out.’

  ‘You’re my executioner, is that it? Bet you’ve been dreaming of this moment. Talking everyone round.’

  ‘Swear to God, it’s nothing personal. You could bite a cyanide capsule, but you are so far gone there is no guarantee poison would have any effect. Right now the disease, the parasite, is burrowing into your brain. Shot to the head. Only way to be sure. For your sake as well as ours.’

  ‘Fucking bitch. Bet you lay in your bunk fantasising about a moment like this, didn’t you? Life-or-death power over a correctional officer. You must have prayed for a riot. You, and every other recidivist thug. Tiers gone to hell, inmates trashing the place, guards at your mercy. Relishing a few snatched hours of anarchy until the takedown squad toss CS and kick their way inside, batons flying. And here it is. Your sweet daydream come true.’

  Lupe shook her head.

  ‘I’m just trying to do right.’ She got to her feet. She stood in front of Galloway, shotgun at the ready. ‘Time to go.’

  Galloway shouted across the ticket hall:

  ‘Hey. Hey, Donahue. You’re leaving her in charge? This bitch? Fucking barrio trash?’

  Donahue sat on the platform steps, staring downwards into the dark. She didn’t turn around.

  ‘What the hell happened to you people?’ shouted Galloway, addressing the ticket hall. ‘Taking orders from some spic gangbanger? Some crack whore? Is she the boss now? Shaking a cup outside Citibank, and now she’s calling the shots?’

  No reply.

  ‘Come on. She’s picking us off, one by one.’

  He looked around. Sicknote absorbed in his art.

  ‘Hey,’ said Galloway, trying to get his attention. ‘Hey, dude. Help me out.’