by Tom Becker
He firmly tied off the bandages and rolled down his trouser leg, which fell shapelessly around the canister, masking it from view. “Might have to walk with a bit of a limp, but that’s the advantage of the bandages. No one questions an injury.”
“You’re the expert,” said Adam. “Ready?”
He nodded. “Thanks for helping me, Adam. You and Doughnut. I couldn’t have done this without you two.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Adam replied. “It was nothing.”
“No, it wasn’t, and I appreciate it. Friends like you make me think twice. . .” He trailed off.
“About what? Escaping?” Adam laughed. “Don’t stay here for us, mate.”
Luca looked away. “Yes, of course,” he said quickly. “I was just being silly.”
They walked stealthily out of the cellar and up to the ground floor, which had regained an air of calm following the evening’s excitement. Near the front exit, Adam asked softly:
“So now that you’ve got what you need, when are you going?”
“Soon,” Luca replied. “You’ll know, believe me.”
He patted Adam on the arm, turned on his heel and marched purposefully past the guards and out of the prisoners’ quarters.
Though he should have felt triumphant at the successful theft of the canister, something about his exchange with Luca had troubled Adam. He couldn’t escape the suspicion that there was more going on than met the eye, and that the other boy was hiding something. The next day, Adam roamed restlessly around the Dial, trying not to think about balloons and explosives and escape plans, refusing to let his gaze wander to the top floor of the infirmary. But by evening time, Adam’s patience had snapped, and he was crossing the walkway to Wing VIII. Thankfully it was Nurse Waters sitting behind the reception desk. Her face lit up as he approached.
“I need to visit a friend,” Adam whispered. “Matron’s not about, is she?”
The nurse shook her head conspiratorially. “Coast’s clear – she’s been summoned to the guards’ quarters. Best hurry, though.”
“Thanks,” said Adam. “I owe you one.”
He hurried up to the top of the staircase and pushed through the swing doors into the Infectious Diseases and Hysteria Ward. The room was cloaked in darkness; not a murmur or a stir greeted his entrance. Adam tiptoed through into the next room, shivering at the instant, eerie drop in temperature.
He was about to slip through the curtain around the far bed when there was a movement in the darkness, and suddenly he realized he wasn’t alone.
“Luca?”
A hand snaked out from the gloom, grabbing his arm. Startled, Adam tried to pull away, only to find himself face to face with the sallow features of Echo.
“Get out of here!” the boy hissed.
Adam stared at him in amazement.
“Didn’t you hear me? Go! You’ve been betrayed!”
Before Adam could reply, footsteps loomed on the staircase outside. Echo swore, then grabbed Adam with surprising strength and bundled him down to the floor, rolling the pair of them beneath the bed opposite Luca’s hiding place. The door to the ward flew open, and a pair of feet marched in. They beat a tread that Adam had learned to fear above any other, whether it was devouring the gravel of the exercise yard, striding across the walkway, or hungrily pacing the mess hall. His heart sank.
“Keep up, Matron!” Mr Pitt said briskly, marching into the ward.
“I’m doing my best!” the woman panted.
From his hiding place beneath the bed, Adam saw a pair of gleaming leather boots stride past inches from his face, followed by a worn blue pair of women’s shoes.
“Wait down here,” Mr Pitt ordered. “This won’t take long.”
Adam heard the creak of bedsprings as the warder climbed on to the bed directly beneath Luca’s attic. Part of him wondered whether he should rush out to try and stop the warder, but Echo caught the look in Adam’s eye and shook his head silently.
“Not now,” he mouthed.
There was a rattle as Mr Pitt opened the hatch up to Luca’s attic and the rope ladder tumbled down. Adam heard Luca cry out – there came a series of thumps and muffled shouts, and then a loud crash as a heavy weight hit the ward floor. It was followed by a more measured creak of the rope ladder as someone descended it.
“Get up, D’Annunzio,” said Mr Pitt. “It’s not that far a drop.”
There was a faint groan in response.
“Do you have any idea,” the guard continued conversationally, “how often I’ve dreamt of this moment? I genuinely thought you’d outwitted me – that you’d worked out my and Caiman’s little trap and hotfooted it away on the Quisling. Escaping on my watch! Every night for an entire year, I went to sleep with a smile on my face imagining you back in my grasp. Every morning, I woke up, heavy-hearted, with the realization that your throat was out of reach of my fingers. Not any more, sonny. Not any more.”
“Thought you were so smart, didn’t you?” crowed Matron. “Hiding away in your little cubbyhole, wrapping up your face in bandages? Well, it turns out Mr Pitt’s smarter.”
There was a short pause as Luca considered his response.
“Shove it up your arse,” he muttered.
As Matron screeched with indignation, Adam heard Mr Pitt haul Luca up and deliver a series of methodical slaps to his face.
“You. Will. Not. Speak. Like. That. To. A. Lady!” the guard barked.
“Hit me all you want!” Luca shouted back. “Stick me in solitary for a year – I don’t care! Whatever cell you put me in, I’ll get out eventually, and then I’ll trap us all here in no-time! Just you wait and see!”
“Solitary?” Mr Pitt repeated, in a mock-quizzical voice. “Who said anything about that?”
“But you’re not just going to let me go free.”
“Oh, no,” Mr Pitt laughed. “There’s no telling who you might talk to. If Mr Cooper finds out that I encouraged Caiman to betray you, he’s certain to fire me. And I like the Dial. I like taking you miserable traitors and reminding you what worthless wretches you are. I like it when you cry. So I thought that we might take a little trip down to the Re-education Wing. After all, if anyone needs re-educating, it’s you, D’Annunzio. I’d imagine that, with such a tricky case as yours, we might have to turn the machinery all the way up – not just make you forget the Dial, but wipe your mind completely. Leave it as clean as one of Matron’s bedsheets.”
Luca gasped. “You can’t do that!”
“Really? Who’s going to stop me? The only people in this prison who know that you weren’t on that wretched airship are in this room. Are you going to tell anyone, Matron?”
“Not a living soul,” she replied.
“No!” Luca howled. “Help me! Someone help me!”
Mr Pitt cleared his throat. “Matron?”
Luca yelled with pain, and then there was a thud as he slumped to the floor once more.
“That shot should keep him quiet,” Matron said, with husky satisfaction.
“Good girl,” Mr Pitt replied. “Take him to the ground floor. I’ll follow you down in a minute.”
The burly woman grunted with effort, and there was a soft sliding sound as Luca was dragged across the floorboards. The sight of the boy’s glazed eyes chilled Adam to the core.
Mr Pitt waited until Matron had left the ward, tapping a steel toecap impatiently on the floor. One minute passed, and then another. Adam frowned. What was he waiting for?
His answer came when the guard said: “You can come out now.” Adam stiffened, convinced for one terrible second that Mr Pitt was talking to him. Then the swing doors at the end of the ward creaked open, and soft footfalls crept through the shadows. Mr Pitt emitted a rasping chuckle.
“Even in a prison full of traitors, you take the biscuit,” he told the newcomer. “Is there anyone yo
u wouldn’t sell out? Still, I can’t deny your efficiency. First you lead me straight to the Tally-Ho’s tunnel, and now you’ve handed me Luca D’Annunzio on a plate. Never let it be said that Mr Pitt doesn’t keep his word. You’ll be out of here on the next flight, free to return to whatever miserable existence you lead on Earth. No one here will ever be the wiser. Does that sound good to you?”
Adam held his breath, waiting for the traitor to reply.
“Perfect,” said Jessica.
At the sound of her voice, all the certainties in Adam’s world shattered. Jessica was the traitor? The girl he had fallen for, the girl he had kissed, the girl who had saved him when a knife had been at his throat, had all this time been an informant, selling out inmates for her own freedom?
“I thought I’d seen it all,” Mr Pitt marvelled. “But you, girl, are a Judas and no mistake.”
“It wasn’t that difficult,” said Jessica calmly. “The Tally-Ho are just little boys playing at escaping. All I had to do was bat my eyelashes at Corbett and he was putty in my hands. He’d have told me Major X wears a bra if he thought it would impress me. He was also amazingly careless when it came to handling top-secret plans – especially those describing tunnels beneath theatres. It’s a miracle the Tally-Ho managed to get as far as they did.”
“But D’Annunzio,” Mr Pitt said admiringly. “Now that was another matter entirely. How did you find out he was still on the Dial?”
There was a pause. When Jessica spoke again, her voice had lost some of its certainty. “That was by coincidence. I ran into Luca in the girls’ dormitories – I wouldn’t have recognized him if I hadn’t seen a picture one of Adam’s friends had drawn of him. When I realized who he was, I stayed up by my window and waited until I saw him walking back to the infirmary. Luca’s so cocky, he didn’t expect anyone to follow him. He led me straight back to his hideout.”
“You’re a treasure, my girl!” Mr Pitt barked. “A dirty piece of gold. One of Wilson’s friends, you say? Don’t suppose he was involved too, was he?”
“I brought you Luca,” replied Jessica, with a note of defiance. “You didn’t say anything about Adam.”
“Come, come,” said Mr Pitt. “Let’s not sour the evening. You don’t want me changing my mind now, do you? There’s always room for you alongside D’Annunzio in the Re-education Wing.”
“Please, sir, no! I’m sorry if I sounded ungrateful.”
“That’s the spirit. The next time the Quisling is scheduled to fly, I’ll make sure you’re on it. We can arrange for you to make a daring escape of your own back on Earth. In the meantime, I trust I can rely on your discretion?”
“Of course, sir.” Jessica hesitated. “There’s just one more thing.”
“Spit it out then, girl. I’ve got a mind to wipe.”
“It’s just . . . all these years we’ve spent copying out the Betrayals in class. All the guards are in there apart from you. Why is that, sir?”
Mr Pitt snorted with laughter. “Of course I’m not in there! No one would ever dare betray me!”
“But that’s impossible!” said Jessica. “How did you find out about the Dial?”
“Back on Earth that idiot Harker used to be one of my teachers. Even at that age, he was scared of me. One time I stole his briefcase and found a letter from the Dial inside it. I cornered Harker and made him tell me all about it. Instantly I knew I had found my home: a proper prison, with good honest sentences for dishonest little rats. So I waited, every now and again writing to Harker to make sure we stayed in touch. I think the old coot thought I genuinely liked him. Then, when the time was right, I made up some cock-and-bull story that I’d also been betrayed, and had Harker vouch for me with Cooper. He didn’t take much convincing. Finding guards to work here is ten times harder than finding prisoners. People have grown soft and weak. They whimper about ‘cruelty’ and ‘human rights’; they don’t understand the need for rigour and discipline. But I do. I understand it very well indeed.”
There was a long pause, and then Jessica said quietly: “Oh. I see.”
“Glad to hear it,” snapped Mr Pitt. “Now scram.”
Adam heard Jessica walk away, and the swing doors creak open.
“Hold on a minute,” the guard rapped suddenly. “You say you ran into D’Annunzio in the girls’ dormitories. Miss Roderick’s reports said that he had two accomplices. Did you catch their faces too?”
There was a pause.
“No – just Luca’s,” Jessica replied levelly, and pushed her way through the doors.
With a hoarse chuckle of triumph, Mr Pitt followed her out of the ward. Echo waited until the guard’s footsteps had died away before rolling out from beneath the bed. Adam followed suit, feeling sick to the pit of his stomach.
“I can’t believe it,” he said faintly. “I can’t believe she did that.”
“A traitor on the Dial?” mocked Echo. “Who’d have thought it?”
Adam gave the boy a sharp glance. “What are you doing here? Why did you save me?”
Echo shrugged, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I didn’t come here to save you – but you blundering around was going to get us all caught. I came here to save Luca.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? He’s my brother.”
Adam’s jaw dropped. “You’re Nino D’Annunzio?”
“The one and only.”
“You’re lying!” Adam protested. “You’re the guards’ pet! Everyone hates you!”
“A necessary price to pay,” Echo retorted. “For our plan to work, no one could know the truth about me.”
“What plan? You and Luca don’t even talk to each other!”
“We didn’t – for a long time. But we are brothers, after all. And we found there was one thing we could agree on: this place. We made up the morning Luca was supposed to escape with Caiman. That’s why he called it off – he didn’t want to go without me. All those years, he waited for me to finish my sentence! Can you believe that? So when I was through, I repaid the favour. I stayed on the Dial and got a job with the guards so I could warn Luca if they came sniffing around while he was finishing the balloon – and so I could steal some proper food for him.”
Adam thought back to the night in the guards’ pantry, when he had become angry watching Echo stuffing his pockets with chocolate bars. They had been for Luca! And his first meeting with Luca in the chapel, when the Collaborator had left minutes before the guards had caught Corbett tunnelling. Adam had thought Echo’s message had been aimed at him – as with so many other things on the Dial, he had been wrong.
“It worked like a charm,” Echo said proudly. “No one suspected a thing. Our plan was set to come into operation tonight.” His face fell. “And then Jessica ruined everything.”
“You have to help me!” Adam urged. “We’ve got to stop Pitt before he wipes Luca’s mind!”
“Easier said than done,” Echo replied grimly. “He’ll be halfway to the Re-education Wing already, and even I don’t have a key for that gate.”
Adam perched on the end of the nearest bed, his face etched with thought. He glanced up at Echo.
“What did Luca mean earlier – when he told Mr Pitt he was going to trap everyone in no-time?”
Echo looked uncomfortable. “Look, I know what Luca told you about our plan, but he wasn’t being entirely truthful. He wasn’t going to use the Volcano Chilli to blow up the granary. He was going to blow up the Commandant’s Tower.”
Adam gasped. “But if the warphole machine was destroyed we’d be trapped here for ever! Why would he do that?”
“To put an end to this. The way Luca sees it, we’re all traitors one way or another: me, you, Mr Cooper. How come it’s only us who get punished? Even if we could escape, tomorrow there’ll be another shipload of kids arriving for more centuries of punishment.” Echo’s voice hardened.
“Either all of us escape, or none of us do. One way or another, this has to stop. The Dial has to be closed down.”
Adam couldn’t believe his ears. All this time, he had been unwittingly helping Luca in his attempt to trap every-one in no-time! Had Luca gone mad? Wasn’t a three-hundred-year sentence enough? Wasn’t there enough misery and despair on the Dial as it was, without stripping the prisoners of their one and only hope – that someday they might be set free, and be allowed to return home? Though it hurt Adam to admit it, maybe it had been for the best that Luca had been caught, and kept away from the warphole machine. . .
“That’s it!” Adam cried, scrambling to his feet. “If we can open the warphole, that’ll shut off the Dial’s power. Mr Pitt won’t be able to turn on the machines in the Re-education Wing then.”
“And how are you planning on getting into the Commandant’s Tower?” enquired Echo. “Knock politely on his door and see if he’ll let you in?”
“I’ll go the same way Luca was planning to. Come on!”
Adam raced over to the hatch above the bed and scrambled up the rope ladder into Luca’s attic. The room bore the scars of recent battle – a desk had been overturned, and the floor was strewn with torn plans. But as Adam crept through the door and out on to the balcony, he saw that Luca’s patchwork balloon had been inflated and was still moored to the side of the building, bobbing proudly in the air, sheltered from view by the slanting infirmary roof.
As Adam scrambled inside the crate beneath the balloon, Echo gave the home-made contraption a dubious appraisal.
“You really think you can fly that thing?”
“What choice have I got?” Adam called out over the roar of the burner. “There isn’t time to try anything else.”
“Watch out for the Volcano Chilli!” Echo warned. “Luca wouldn’t have set off without it.”
Looking down by his feet, Adam saw that a bulky sack had been stored in a corner of the crate. It had to be the explosive. In a typically mischievous move, Luca had drawn a large smiley face on the fabric.
