Extinction Game

by Gary Gibson

  On the way through town, we had narrowly avoided crashing into a jeep full of Patriot agents speeding down a narrow road, and had seen other agents wandering in and out of vacant houses. Fortunately, in the chaos none had thought to stop us and ask where we’d been all night.

  I saw most of the other Pathfinders gathered in a loose knot farther down the street. They were watching as two of Major Howes’ troops half-heartedly poked through the still-smouldering remains. A few of them glanced our way and muttered among themselves. I also noted the presence of three Patriot agents standing by another jeep parked next to Wallace’s front gate, caught up in what looked like an intense conversation. That was fine by me, because it meant they weren’t paying us much attention.

  It didn’t look to me as if Wallace could possibly have got out alive, particularly given how very inebriated he had been the last time I saw him. I could see how the palm trees lining the street nearest were themselves blackened from the blaze. Faint wisps of smoke still rose from their singed leaves.

  I looked around at the houses next to Wallace’s – all of them built from wood and brick. It struck me that, if not for the late-night storm, half the town could easily have gone up in flames. I wondered whether that might in fact have been Casey’s intention, and realized any remaining doubts regarding whether he was responsible for the fire had fled.

  As I watched, one of the soldiers stepped out through the gate and went to confer with the Patriot agents. Where was Mayer, I wondered? Or any other of the Authority’s civilian staff? Shouldn’t they be here?

  Or were the Patriots now in charge?

  ‘We were away for just one night,’ said Chloe, ‘and now . . .’

  ‘Casey did this,’ snarled Rozalia from the back seat. ‘I guess he got tired of waiting for Wallace to find someone else to confess to. Well, fuck it. He got what he deserved.’

  ‘Nobody deserves that,’ I said, staring at the smouldering walls and the collapsed roof.

  She leaned forward, putting her mouth close to my ear. ‘I have no doubt now that Wallace had a hand in murdering Nadia. There’s every reason to believe he also helped to murder the first Jerry. That’s almost like he murdered you. Or did you forget?’

  ‘We should try and find Mayer,’ I said, trying to change the subject. ‘We can show him what we found. He can help protect us from the Patriots once we’ve explained everything.’

  ‘Maybe we should find out just what happened here before we do anything at all,’ said Chloe. She nodded towards the other Pathfinders. ‘One of the others might have seen Casey around.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Rozalia, her voice full of venom. ‘The more of us out looking for that son of a bitch, the sooner we can kill him.’

  From the sound of her voice, I had little doubt that Rozalia would try and kill Casey at the first opportunity.

  Winifred Quaker stepped away from the other Pathfinders and came towards us. ‘Oh, thank God you’re here,’ she said, her thin arms wrapped around her chest as if to ward off cold, even though it was showing every sign of being a warm day. ‘Yuichi and Selwyn went around to your houses to see if you were there, and when they couldn’t find you we started to get worried that something might have happened to you.’

  ‘What exactly did happen?’ I asked.

  She looked over at the charred ruins of the house and shook her head. ‘I guess it’s not hard to figure out, really. I woke up when I smelled the smoke. It’s everywhere, you know? It’ll be weeks before the stink is gone. You should have seen the flames.’

  ‘Hell of a way to die,’ I muttered, thinking of the lava licking its way towards me, down in the deep vaults of a dead world.

  She darted a look at me. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t explain properly. Wallace is still alive.’

  ‘He is?’ I exclaimed, getting out of the jeep and stepping closer to her. I still had my satchel slung over one shoulder, my oilskin-wrapped treasure within. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘They took him to the base compound, to the hospital there,’ she said. Chloe and Rozalia had joined me beside the jeep. ‘Selwyn and Randall were the first on the scene, and they managed to fight their way inside to him. They’ve both got a couple of minor burns, but nothing serious. Wallace, though . . .’ She shook her head.

  ‘Go on,’ Chloe prompted.

  ‘He’s alive,’ said Winifred. ‘But I don’t know if he’s going to stay that way for long. I think he inhaled too much smoke.’

  Selwyn was next to join us, his face dirty with ash. I saw that he had heavy bandages wrapped around one arm. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I figured I’d better warn you now you’re here. Kip Mayer’s been arrested.’ He inclined his head towards the Patriot agents. ‘By them.’

  Rozalia grabbed his arm. ‘What?’

  ‘I heard about it from Yuichi just now. He saw Mayer being bundled into a jeep by a couple of Patriot types, back in town, outside the Authority’s offices there. They drove off towards the base, so they’ve probably got him locked up there, unless they’ve already taken him back to the Authority’s own alternate.’

  ‘What do you mean “bundled”, exactly?’ I asked.

  ‘I mean that Mayer was in handcuffs, so Yuichi said.’

  ‘But why?’ I asked. ‘What possible reason could they—’

  ‘They don’t need a reason,’ Rozalia said, her voice full of a terrible finality. ‘They’ll just make up some damn excuse. And with us stuck here, and no way to talk to anyone else in the Authority except through them, they’ll be free to take control of the transfer stages and consolidate their power over the island and all the alternates it gives access to.’

  Selwyn stared at Rozalia with his mouth open.

  ‘Anything else we need to know?’ I asked him, to forestall the inevitable flood of questions.

  ‘I-I heard that they interrogated Wallace, up at the base hospital.’ He thought for a moment. ‘It seems kind of weird they’d put Kip in chains like that, right after they finished talking to Wallace.’

  ‘So Wallace can still talk?’ asked Chloe.

  Selwyn made a face. ‘Just about. Right after me and Randall got him out of that inferno he was babbling something, but nothing that made any sense. We got him in a jeep and drove him up to the hospital and raised seven shades of bloody hell until they all woke up and helped get him inside. We stuck around long enough to see him get wired up with tubes and monitors and all kinds of stuff, but then the Patriots turned up and threw us out on our arses.’ He shuddered. ‘I don’t even want to imagine how much pain Wallace must be in, the state he was in when we got him there. I really thought we’d carried a corpse out of there at first, he was so badly burned.’

  I stepped up close to Selwyn. ‘What did Wallace say, exactly?’

  Selwyn looked at me with a troubled expression. ‘I already told you, nothing that made any sense to me—’

  ‘Just tell me, dammit!’

  ‘Take it easy,’ said Chloe, putting her hand on my arm.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Selwyn. ‘He was babbling about Casey and people dying.’ He peered at me. ‘Why? You know something I don’t?’

  ‘We saw Patriots searching through houses all across town on our way here,’ Chloe said to me, her voice full of alarm. ‘I can’t think of any reason why, unless Wallace told them about the secret transfer stage.’

  Or they’re looking for Casey. But wherever Casey was, I felt sure, his transfer stage would be also. And if the Patriots found either him or the stage before we did, then any hope we had of obtaining it for our own use would be gone forever.

  I glanced surreptitiously towards the knot of Patriot agents still standing nearby and wondered if any of Greenbrooke’s men had the skill to hunt down a Pathfinder with years of experience in traversing multiple hostile environments. Assuming, that is, Casey hadn’t already fled to some other alternate, using whatever transfer coordinates he had filched from Bramnik’s stolen briefcase. And if Rozalia was right about the Patriots wanting to take control of
the island, we had to move fast.

  To be back on some world so close to my own I could hardly tell the difference . . . it was so near that I could almost taste it.

  But as soon as the thought passed through my head, I felt a spasm of guilt. Wallace had told my predecessor that Casey was planning some act of genocide against the Authority. It was a threat, I now knew, that he might well be capable of carrying out. Could I really flee to some other world, and leave the billions who presumably lived on the Authority’s alternate to die at Casey’s hands?

  I pressed the heel of one hand against my forehead, feeling the blood throb through my skull. Telling any of this to the Patriots would be tantamount to suicide, that much was clear – assuming they even listened to us. And that left only myself, and my fellow Pathfinders, to do what had to be done and find Casey first.

  Both Winifred and Selwyn were regarding us with suspicion. ‘What’s been going on with you three, exactly?’ Winifred demanded. ‘What’s all this about a secret transfer stage?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ Rozalia replied. ‘And we’re going to tell you and everyone else about it first real chance we get.’

  I took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Selwyn, do you think there’s any way we’d be able to get back inside the base hospital to talk to Wallace ourselves? Are the Patriots likely to have him under guard or anything like that?’

  Selwyn rubbed at his jaw. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Greenbrooke’s got pretty much every last one of his agents running all over town. If there is anyone guarding him, I’m guessing that it’ll more than likely be just the one guy. But I’d better warn you, I’m not exaggerating when I say how bad Wallace is. I’m not placing any bets on him surviving the morning.’

  I nodded and put my hand on Selwyn’s shoulder. ‘How many Pathfinders are on the island just now?’ I asked him. ‘How many of us are away on missions?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘I checked the schedule the other day, and as far as I know we’re all on the island.’ He frowned. ‘Except I also went looking for Haden and Casey after the fire, and I still haven’t been able to find either of them. If you happen to see them . . .’

  ‘I’ll be keeping an eye out for both of them,’ I promised, although I had no idea what might have happened to Haden. ‘I want you to get together everyone you can find and get them to meet us later this morning at the Hotel du Mauna Loa. It’s about eight right now, so let’s say midday at the latest. Will you do that? We have something to tell you all, but I’d rather not do it with them around,’ I added, casting a significant glance in the direction of the Patriots.

  Selwyn flicked his eyes towards the agents, then back at me. ‘Sure,’ he said carefully, looking as if he had a million questions. ‘I’ll do that.’

  Selwyn walked back over to join the others. Winifred made to follow him, then paused, fixing me with a steady eye. ‘Whatever’s going on,’ she said, ‘I hope for your sakes you know what you’re doing.’

  So do I, I thought, as she turned and walked away.

  The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that Casey had tried not only to kill Wallace, but also to make Wallace’s death appear to be an accident. No one would have been surprised by someone like Wallace accidentally setting themselves on fire, especially given the depth of his alcoholism.

  It struck me that none of this would ever have happened if I hadn’t stumbled across that coin in Wallace’s drawer. Casey, of course, had understood the significance of that broken piece of metal just as well as I now did, given all that I had learned about him from my predecessor’s carefully concealed evidence. Everything since then had been like a line of dominoes toppling over. A series of unavoidable events, ultimately forcing Casey to make what struck me as a sudden, desperate gambit – before we had a chance to confront Wallace and wrest the truth from him.

  ‘I hate to say it,’ said Rozalia, a brittle edge to her voice, ‘even though I’m going to choke the life out of the murderous son of a bitch the moment I find him, there’s a part of me wonders if what Casey’s planning for the Authority is such a bad idea.’

  At first I thought I had misheard her. ‘What are you talking about?’

  She turned to face me. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know. Wallace told your predecessor that Casey’s going to try and find some way to destroy the Authority. I hate to be the one to say it, but if he can do that, it’d solve a hell of a lot of problems for the rest of us.’

  I stared at her in disbelief. ‘You want to just stand by and let Casey commit genocide?’

  ‘No, I’m not saying that,’ she said, her voice taking on a defensive edge. ‘I’m just saying that if it came to that, we’d still be safe here on the island, with full access to the transfer stages. And I’m willing to bet that, if push came to shove, Major Howes and his soldiers would side with us against any Patriots still here on this alternate with us. We’d be able to take our time finding somewhere safe to go, without worrying about the Authority trying to stop us.’

  A part of me that I didn’t like saw the appeal in what she was saying, and yet the flaws were immediately evident. ‘Do you seriously think either Howes or his men would be grateful to us for standing by while Casey murdered their entire world and everyone they had ever known?’

  Rozalia clenched her jaw. ‘I didn’t say we’d stand by and let him do it.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But maybe you’d prefer not to try too hard?’

  Rozalia’s nostrils flared in anger, and she looked away. I didn’t have to be a genius to work out she was still hurting badly over Nadia, and to see how much it was affecting her thinking.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘we don’t know if Casey can pull something like this off – even assuming he’s really planning to do any such thing. We can’t be sure Wallace wasn’t lying to my predecessor.’

  ‘And if he can pull it off?’ asked Chloe, looking between us.

  ‘Well, then we’d better find him first.’

  Chloe’s eyes grew suddenly wide. ‘The stage,’ she hissed excitedly at the both of us. ‘I think I know where it might be!’

  ‘You do?’

  She grabbed hold of both Rozalia and me, pulling us close. ‘Don’t you remember when we passed the beached trawler on the coast road, on the way back into town this morning?’

  ‘Sure.’ I nodded. I remembered the rusting trawler, stranded on the beach and tipped over on its side.

  ‘I thought I saw something,’ she said. ‘I was so tired I thought I was just imagining it. But I swear I saw something moving down there, inside the hull.’

  ‘Inside it? Can you even get inside there?’ I asked.

  ‘You can walk right in,’ she said. ‘The hull broke in half when it was beached. You could easily hide a small portable stage in there if you wanted.’

  ‘You know,’ Rozalia said slowly, ‘it’s not as if there are a lot of places to hide something like that on an island this size, and that trawler’s about as far away from town as you can get, while still being within reach.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, nodding towards the Patriot agents.

  Rozalia and Chloe turned in time to see the three men get back in their jeep and drive away. The soldiers, meanwhile, continued to search the burned ruins. I wondered if Howes was still in charge of them, or if they were now entirely under Greenbrooke’s command.

  ‘We need to talk to Wallace,’ I said, ‘and find out what we can from him, if he’s lucid enough.’ Assuming he’s even still alive – and assuming we can get past any guards.

  ‘In that case,’ said Rozalia, ‘I think you should speak to him, Jerry. I’ll go check out the trawler.’

  I shook my head. ‘Not on your own,’ I said. ‘It’s too much of a risk. I’ll come with you.’

  She put her hand on my wrist. ‘I appreciate that, but this is personal, Jerry. And . . . don’t take it the wrong way, but you haven’t been at this job long enough. You’re good, but you’re still new, and I can track him a lot better if I g
o on my own.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Chloe. ‘You and me can go and talk to Wallace, if it’s at all possible. Rozalia can handle things on her own just fine.’

  I looked back at Rozalia. ‘If Casey’s there . . .’

  ‘Well, even if he is, he won’t know I’m there.’ Rozalia’s mouth spread wide in a rictus-like grin that sent shivers through me. ‘Not until he feels my knife against his throat, anyway.’ She nodded towards our jeep. ‘Mind if I take that? It’s a lot farther to the trawler than it is to the hospital.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, and Rozalia moved towards the jeep. Chloe reached out a hand and stopped her.

  ‘I need more of those pills,’ she said. ‘I can’t afford to feel tired. Not while all this is happening.’

  Rozalia hesitated a moment, then took the plastic tin out of the pocket where she’d stashed it and dropped it in Chloe’s hand. ‘Don’t overdo it,’ she warned.

  I watched her drive off, and felt Chloe’s hand slip into mine.

  ‘C’mon,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and see Wallace.’

  TWENTY

  The stink of ashes followed us all the way across town. Not far from the Hotel du Mauna Loa stood Government House – a grand name for a small, nondescript office building that had been the island’s former seat of government. Bramnik and Mayer used it as a base, and it was also the location of the commissary, where the Pathfinders got their regular rations of basic household supplies. As at the base compound, a line of jeeps were kept outside, fuelled and ready for the taking.

  Every now and then, as we walked, another jeep packed with Patriots would go racing past us, and at one point we observed a couple of agents using a handheld battering ram to smash down the front door of a house. I wondered if they’d do the same to my place, and felt queasy at the thought of them picking through my stuff.

  When we got to Government House, I was less than surprised to discover that everything on four wheels had already been appropriated. I was beginning to think we were going to have to walk the whole way to the medical facility.