by Steve Feasey
Brick pulled the long cone of rock up first, then sent the rope back down so he could do the same for Rush.
Rush’s idea was for Brick to throw the stalagmite, rope still attached, up through the hole and for them to gently pull it back so as to wedge it in place. Rush would then climb the rope and, once topside, secure it to something more substantial so Brick could follow. Easy, he scoffed when Brick gave him a doubtful look. Yeah, right, he said to himself. Easy. Easy if Brick had the strength to hoist the thing up there in the first place; if it didn’t come crashing down on top of them when they pulled on it; if it would wedge at all; if it would hold Rush’s weight and if the rope was long enough. There was a whole host of other things that could go wrong, but with no other options they simply had to give it a go.
‘Brick’ll miss,’ the giant said as he assessed the opening above their heads. ‘Brick a bad shot.’
‘You won’t miss,’ Rush assured him. ‘Not this time.’
‘How’d you know?’
‘Trust me.’
Brick proved himself up to the task of hoisting the heavy cone up towards the hole. Holding it in two hands, he leaned forward, setting his legs wide. He swung the piece of stone back and forth a couple of times, increasing the swing each time until he finally gave an enormous grunt and heaved the thing upward. He’d been right about his aim though. He would have missed. Not by much, but enough for the stalagmite to catch an edge and come crashing down on them. But as the long cone of rock soared, Rush reached out with his mind, concentrating with all his will until he and the rocky thing were one. Like this, he guided it to one side so it sailed cleanly through and out into the open air beyond. The two of them gently pulled the rope to drag it back towards the hole, and when it lodged itself at the first attempt they shook hands and clapped each other on the back. After a few experimental tugs, Rush spat on his hands and set about climbing the rope. With every hand-over-hand grip he took the air got fresher and fresher, until he gave a cry of joy and scrambled over the lip into the sunshine, flopping on to his back and pulling in lungful after lungful of sweet mountain air. As soon as he could, he crawled back over to the edge of the hole and peered inside, giving Brick a grin and a thumbs-up.
‘Let’s get you out of there, shall we?’
Tia
Tia and her father, having revealed their scheme, were waiting to hear what Eleanor thought the chances were of its being successful. Six foot tall, with honed muscles, even when seated the ebony-skinned woman was imposing. Of course, as the former head of C4’s CSP – the City Security Police – she’d needed to be, but Tia thought she also managed to look not just elegant but beautiful. She’d noticed the look her father had given Eleanor when he’d introduced them, and couldn’t help but wonder just how close a friendship the two shared.
‘What day did your little monkey friend get back into the city?’ Eleanor asked. She gestured towards the marmoset sitting on Tia’s shoulder, but her eyes never left the girl’s.
‘Thursday, I think.’
‘You think?’
‘Thursday. Definitely Thursday.’
‘What time?’ The questions were fired out, no doubt a throwback to Eleanor’s days interrogating suspects back at her former post.
‘At about six o’clock. I remember that because I had to get the footage we’d shot sent off in time to make the deadline. I was cutting it a bit fine.’
‘At about the time of the guards’ handover,’ Eleanor said, more to herself than to her guests. She pursed her lips and sighed. ‘Sloppy. Would never have happened in my time. The areas around the masts are closely monitored. Your little friend must have picked just the right moment to slip past them. You won’t be that lucky twice.’
Cowper turned to his daughter. ‘You see? It’s not possible. If the monkey can’t get back inside without being detected, your whole plan is doomed.’
The former head of security gave her friend a sly smile. ‘I didn’t say it was impossible. I said you were lucky last time. If you were to try it again, you’d need to replace that luck with . . . something else.’
The look Cowper gave her was anything but warm.
‘What do you mean?’ Tia asked, feeling her hopes rise again.
‘As former head of security, I’m still employed on a consultancy basis by the Principia. That means I still have access to certain areas that are closed to others. It would be simple for somebody like me to create a momentary diversion at the handover.’
‘I don’t want to implicate you in all of this, Eleanor,’ Cowper protested.
Tia watched as the woman stretched her neck. She had a cat-like grace about her. ‘You already have. Merely by revealing these plans, you’ve involved me.’ She held out a hand to halt his interruption. ‘I’m not blaming you and I’m not angry. Who else could you ask about all this stuff? But don’t think you can turn around now and use me as an excuse for Tia not to give this a go. You know how I feel about the ARM and its treatment of those poor unfortunates out there. Their agents are vicious thugs, just like the man who set the agency up in the first place.’
‘How is our beloved president?’
‘Sick. He seems to be worse than ever. Thanks to blood replacements and a cocktail of drugs he’s able to hide it from most people. I find it hard to have any sympathy for the man.’
Cowper nodded. ‘I just don’t want you to take any unnecessary risks.’
Eleanor shook her head and took a sip from the drink she was holding. That mischievous smile was back on her face. ‘It doesn’t have to be anything big. Merely turning up at the observation point should be enough to do it. I can still cause a stir, you know.’
Looking at her, Tia had little doubt about that. Not yet reassured, her father continued.
‘There’s still the matter of the security log at the entry gate.’
Eleanor wafted a hand in his direction. ‘Easily put straight. To be honest, and despite what our leaders would have the Citizens believe, glitches in the system do occur from time to time. Upon the monkey entering your apartment, the chip will be flagged as being there. The anomaly with the lack of an entry log will be followed up, but it’ll almost certainly be little more than a comms call from a city security officer, asking you to confirm Tia is indeed home. Your confirmation will be enough for them to write it off as a software error.’
‘Then what?’
‘It’s important that the monkey – or, as far as the CSP are concerned, Tia – moves about. You can’t just keep the animal confined to your residence. That would bring unwanted attention.’ She looked over at Cowper. ‘You’ll have to take the animal around with you while Tia’s gone.’
This was greeted by a snort of derision. ‘It’s a monkey! What am I going to do? Turn up to business meetings with a monkey on my back?’
‘I think you could do with a well-earned holiday, Cowper. Take some time off. Maybe visit some of our city’s tourist spots.’ She looked from father to daughter. ‘Nobody will bat an eye at a man with a pet in those places, and the crowds mean the security services won’t be able to spot who’s where and with what. As far as they’re aware, Tia is with you on a little vacation.’
Tia narrowed her eyes at the older woman. ‘Have you done this sort of thing before?’
‘No, but I’ve arrested people who have tried.’
‘That doesn’t sound too encouraging.’
‘That’s why I’m telling you where they went wrong – so none of us suffers the same fate.’ She smiled back at the girl. ‘You’re the one taking the biggest risk here though, sweetie. Your father might be able to protect you from the powers that be while you’re in City Four. But once you’re out there you’ll be cut off from everything and everybody inside the wall. Not just that, but you’ll be unchipped and therefore viewed as a mutant by the ARM and anyone else. Not all mutants have physical deformities or unusual appearances to identify them as such, you know.’ She peered intently into the girl’s eyes. ‘Are you sure you want
to do this?’
There was a moment as the girl took in everything she’d just been told. ‘I’m sure.’
‘Then I’ll hook you up with a man on the other side. He’s a good person – runs a school for orphans and abandoned kids. If I were about to do what you are, I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather have on my side.’
‘What’s his name?’ Cowper asked.
‘Silas. His name is Silas.’
Silas
‘Is that her?’ Silas asked. ‘Is that Flea?’ He was standing next to the tall, skeletal Jax, the two of them watching the girl as she moved among the people in the marketplace. It was getting late in the day, and the traders were eager to shift their stock before the darkness closed the market and the night people came out to sell their own particular brand of goods and services. Silas narrowed his eyes. Something was wrong with the way the girl moved, but despite all his senses telling him this was the case, he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.
Jax gave a nod. ‘Watch.’
Silas studied the scene. The girl, elfin-featured and extremely small for her age, moved between two people waiting to be served at a stall selling dubious-looking meats of unknowable origin. The trader was calling out the late bargains he was willing to make when the girl did that odd, jerky thing again, as if her arms and legs were in one position one moment and then seamlessly in another. It wasn’t a big change, and you could only spot it if you were watching very carefully, but it was definitely there.
‘She did it, didn’t she?’ Silas asked the albino. ‘Wow, she’s fast.’
Never one for many words, Jax just tilted his chin in the direction of the girl who was moving back across the other side of the street towards the entrance to an alley, where she handed a couple of items to a man. Words were exchanged, and the man gestured back in the direction of the crowd. When the girl shook her head, Silas didn’t like the look the man gave her. The creep leaned forward, pushing his face into hers, and said something, jabbing his finger over her shoulder to emphasise each word. Her shoulders sagged and she moved off into the thronging mass again. The man stood and watched her for a few moments, as if to be sure she would follow orders.
‘Come on,’ Silas said, moving out from their hiding position. ‘You get Flea. I’ll deal with our friend over there.’
The creep was opening the second wallet, the first one already emptied and discarded at his feet, when Silas stepped up and took it out of his grasp.
‘Hey!’ the man said. ‘What the hell –’
‘Didn’t your mother teach you not to take things that aren’t yours?’
The man reached into his coat pocket, whipping out a small but vicious-looking knife. It was only in his hand for a moment. Silas moved in, grabbing and twisting the man’s wrist so the knife skittered to the ground at the same time that Silas’s right knee connected solidly with his opponent’s groin. There was a loud ‘Oof!’, and Creep sagged to his knees, eyes bulging in a plum-coloured face.
Silas kicked the blade away up the alley as Jax and the girl turned up.
‘Do you know who I am? Who I work for?’ Creep said through gritted teeth.
‘A lowlife piece of trash that forces little girls to steal for him?’
Creep glanced over at the girl and the albino. ‘Hey, I’m just the middleman. She don’t belong to me. But the man who owns her –’ he gave Silas a look of warning – ‘he would not be very happy to find out you’d interfered with us in any way. You wanna muscle in on someone’s patch, take my advice and do it somewhere else.’
‘Owns her?’ Silas took a step towards the man, who put his hands up in front of him as if to ward off any further attack.
‘OK, OK. Employs her.’
Fighting back the urge to inflict more physical damage on the man, Silas turned his back on him and faced the youngster.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
He was about to say something else when the man on the ground spoke up. ‘She don’t speak. She can’t.’
‘You’re safe now,’ Silas went on, ignoring him. He looked at Jax and raised an eyebrow.
The albino took a deep breath, his expression becoming one of concentration as he stared at the teenage girl. ‘She doesn’t know what his name is, but the man who sent her out to steal still has Lana,’ he said, referring to the female guardian who’d looked after the youngster all these years. ‘It seems our odious friend here is telling the truth when he says he’s a middleman. Flea has been told that the only way she’ll be reunited with Lana is if she uses her gift to steal enough money to buy her freedom. This is her first day on the job.’
‘How the hell does he know all that?’ Creep spluttered.
‘Who’s the man that’s holding my friend prisoner? The woman – Lana,’ Silas asked the man.
‘Go to hell,’ Creep spat.
Silas dropped down beside him and put his hand around the man’s throat, forcing him to shuffle backwards until his back was up against the alley wall. There was a strangled cry. He leaned forward and whispered into the man’s ear, ‘You have three seconds to tell me what I want to know. Believe me, right now nothing would give me greater pleasure than to wipe you off the face of this earth. I’d rather not do that in front of the little one, but you give me no choice. One . . . two . . .’
‘A’ righ’, a’ righ’,’ the man managed. He massaged his throat and glared up at his assailant. ‘Mange. Steeleye Mange.’
‘The Mute who runs Dump Two?’
Creep nodded. There was a triumphant look in his eye. No doubt, in the past, the mere mention of his boss’s name had been enough to get him out of any scrape he found himself in.
The two remote refuse dumps fed by the inhabitants of the city were hot property in Muteville. They were fought over by vicious gangs because the pickings from them were so profitable: food, clothing, building materials, even electronic equipment could be scavenged from the huge industrial sites. Dump Two was currently controlled by Mange, while another gang boss, a mutant called Hogg Venschen, was king of Dump One. Silas knew of Creep’s boss, but their paths hadn’t ever crossed. The fact that Mange was in charge of one of the dumps showed he’d risen considerably up the Muteville scumbag rankings, no doubt proving his ruthlessness to anybody who chose to cross him on the way.
‘Get up,’ Silas said to Creep, half dragging the man to his feet. He held a hand out, palm up. ‘Return the things you made her steal.’
Mumbling under his breath, Creep dug the money out of his pocket and handed it to Silas, who replaced it back in the discarded wallet.
‘That didn’t all come out of there.’
‘Shut up and get out of here,’ Silas said to the man.
‘You’re letting me go?’ Creep stared at him incredulously. ‘Just like that?’
‘Go to Steeleye and tell him he has exactly two hours to release our friend. He can take her to the Dog and leave her there. Tell him that failure to do so would not be in his best interests.’
‘Are you insane?’
‘Tell him what I said. Word for word. Now go.’
The man needed no further invitation. He turned on his heels and hurried away. When he felt he was at a safe distance, he paused and called back to Silas, ‘You are a dead man! You hear me? A dead man!’ With that he scurried off.
Turning to the girl again, Silas knelt down so he could be closer to her level. She was beautiful. Reddish blonde hair hung halfway down her back, and her blue eyes looked out from a delicate face whose cheeks were bedecked with tiny freckles. ‘You won’t remember me, Flea, but we’ve met before.’ He smiled at her and handed the wallets over. ‘Do you think you could use your gift to give these back to the people they belong to? Without getting caught?’
The girl shrugged and nodded as if it would be the easiest thing in the world.
‘Good. You go and do that. I’m going to wait here for you. When you come back I’d like to take you to a place where you’ll be safe. Then Jax and I are goin
g to find Lana and bring her back there too. Would you like that?’
The girl smiled for the first time. She nodded and beamed up at Jax.
‘OK.’ He smiled as the girl disappeared, a blur that moved too swiftly for his eyes and brain to register properly.
Alone again, the two men faced each other.
‘Do you think Steeleye Mange will just give Lana up?’ Jax asked.
‘I doubt it. Men like him are used to getting their own way, and they tend to get pretty ticked off when people spoil their plans.’
‘So what are we going to do?’ Jax asked, but the smile on his face suggested he already knew the answer.
‘I think we’ll have to pay our friend a visit.’
Rush
Much to his dismay, there was no sign of the mountain men or of Dotty when Rush came across the camp they’d clearly used the night before. The group had already packed up and moved on. Alone, Rush would easily have caught up with them, but despite the big guy healing faster than the younger mutant believed possible, Brick’s leg was still causing him considerable pain. So Rush scouted ahead, using the hunting skills Josuf had taught him as a young boy, and when he returned he was satisfied he knew in which direction the men had gone.
‘There are at least two of them. There might be more but it’s hard to tell,’ he told Brick. ‘They’re not travelling particularly quickly, probably due to Dotty slowing them down.’ He nodded encouragingly at his friend. ‘We’ll catch them. And we’ll get Dotty back.’
They set off together. Rush had become so used to having the rogwan at his side, it felt wrong to be travelling without her. In her absence he realised how very fond of the ugly little creature he had become. After three hours of monotonous walking, they spotted a clearing where the trail stopped and the men had made a new camp. Putting a finger to his lips and pointing, Rush signalled for Brick to halt. They’d agreed on a simple plan: find the men, wait until dark, creep into their camp and free the rogwan. Watching the encampment from behind a bush, Rush thought he might not even have to wait for nightfall; the men were off somewhere, probably hunting or collecting wood for a fire. There was a big pile of animal skins on a wooden sledge device. The men must be trappers, the skins merchandise to be sold.
