Rise

by Victoria Powell

  Defoe grabbed the boy by his shirt and forced him back into the bars of the cell door. “Listen here, you little mutt. She is an illegal. She is scum. But the Ambassador has made it very clear that he wants words with her. You keep her safe and unharmed. Don’t bloody touch her.”

  The boy, taller and brawnier than Defoe, cowered and nodded meekly. “‘Course, sir.”

  Defoe dropped him and pushed him out of the way. He pointed at Alex. “You. Come here and turn around. I want my cuffs back.”

  Alex was half tempted to step away from the bars and make him come and get them, but he might just leave her here wearing them. Defoe took off the cuffs and pushed her gently into the middle of the cell.

  “Good luck,” Defoe said.

  Alex watched him go.

  The clang of the grilled door closing, the grind of the lock, the muted fall of footsteps. All of those sounds were her final hope of rescue leaving her behind. Defoe had caught her and delivered her to prison. The cell she was in was covered in slick mildew or sticky patches of dark ooze. There was no bed, no toilet, not even any straw to sit on. One wall was a black brick, the other three were just bars.

  A dry patch of floor invited her to sit. Cold rose through the concrete into her bones. She would only be here two or three days, but that left her with little hope. The guard promised to keep her safe, but he couldn’t save her from the disease and vermin that covered every surface. Then, when she finally leaves, who knows how long the Ambassador’s torturers would keep her alive.

  An arm reached from behind her and wrapped around her neck. It pulled her back into the bars, squeezed down on her windpipe, choking down her screams. Her head was locked forwards. Rank breath caressed her ear.

  “Look at the pretty girl they brought me.”

  A second hand slipped through the bars and stroked her hair. His arms were strong, packed with muscle and covered in hair. She yanked at his arm and was rewarded with a gasp of air. She flung her legs out wildly and raked her nails across his skin.

  “Argh. You bitch.” He took his hand away from her hair and groped at her. “You’re mine now. I might not kill you if you’re good to me.”

  Black spots crossed her vision.

  Clanging sounded behind her. “Oi! Enough now. Let her go.”

  The guard appeared at the edge of her vision. He was holding a baton in one hand and fiddling with his keys. The arms tightened on her chest.

  She reached out to the panicking guard. The young cop was a smart one. He threw his baton through the bars and it landed on Alex’s thigh. She fumbled it into her hand, feeling the heft of the iron as she brought it back behind her. Clang. It hit the bars. The guy grabbed for it. She twisted and swung it again.

  The arms released suddenly and she lunged into the middle of her cell. Deep jagged breaths. The air burnt her lungs, her throat, her head. Ecstasy flooded through her veins.

  The cell door clicked open, the guard was at her side and snatching the baton back. Sounds started coming back to her, above the noise of her pulse in her ears. Cursing came from the cell next door. He must have been in his sixties and was pocked with metalworks burns. His nose was bloody and a red mark stretched across his forehead.

  The guard nudged her with his foot. “You’re lucky the Ambassador wants words with you. Women don’t last long down here.” He pointed at the two cells next to her. “Murderer, rapist. Don’t go near the bars.”

  “Thank you.” Alex felt awkward saying it, but his advice might save her.

  He smirked. “I wouldn’t say that yet. If you’re still down here in a week it’ll mean they’ve forgotten you. Then anything goes.”

  He picked up the baton, locked the door and went back to his bunk.

  Bloody faced, the man in the cell nearest the exit leant into the bars and smiled sadistically at her. His arm stretched slowly into the cell towards her and paused at its furthest limit, about a foot from her face.

  “Remember where my fingers are now. This is my space, bitch. Sleep well, ‘cos if you turn over in the night I’ve got you,” he said.

  She sat up straight. “Touch me again and I’ll take your eyes out with my thumbs.”

  He snorted. “I like you, bitch. You’ll be my bitch when I catch you. That guy over there though...” Alex glanced over to the other cell. It was too dark to see who was inside. “That guy doesn’t play. He’ll snap you the second you’re in his reach.”

  She shook off his words and lay down on the sticky floor, crossing her right foot over her left bent knee. “Thanks for the heads up.”

  “I can be good to you. Come on. Let’s have some fun.” His voice fruity and coy.

  “Sod off,” she said. “I’ve slept in a line of sleeping mats for years. Rolling over means kicking someone in the face. I’ll take my chances.”

  The guy kept on for a few more minutes. Alex zoned out, staring at the ceiling. These cells had cement ceilings too. Had they expected people to try drilling down through the wooden floorboards? It was such an expense to build layered concrete structures. This building had hundreds of cells. It must have cost a fortune to build.

  The barrack prison was a warren of corridors and stairways that wound around old mine shafts and the underground train system. The prisoners were recorded at the door when they came in and at the morgue when they left, but there could be decades of unexplained time between entering and leaving. What would happen to Alex if the Ambassador changed his mind and never called for her? Perhaps a quicker and less painful death. All she had to do was lean against the far bars and wait for a murderer to break her neck.

  Snores came from the policeman’s bunk. They harmonised with those coming from the murderer. Then a third set jarred from the bloody nosed pervert. Alex stared up at the mournful purple LEDs embedded in the ceiling. Dozens of them emitted a low glow, just enough to cast shadows. Like surreal stars watching over her, keeping guard.

  It had been a long day. The drugs that still floating through her veins began to overpower her ebbing adrenalin. Tomorrow, or someday soon, she’d be scooped out of this place and taken somewhere new. Maybe Martyn would come to rescue her or the Ambassador’s men would drag her to a torture chamber. Wherever she ended up, she should sleep now. Sleep and get ready for the next fight. Sleep while her cell neighbours were sleeping. Her eyes closed.

  Martyn would not come. She knew that really. This prison was secure. More so than last time. Even if they did try to rescue her they probably thought she was still at Central. Martyn would attack the wrong prison and get caught. Did he still care for her? Did he know that she was having second thoughts about dating him? If she died he would never need to know.

  Then there was her father. She should have known what he was planning. What if the Ackersons blamed Alex for it? What if they’d been caught, or killed? Bile rose in her gullet and she rolled over, forcing it back down. Then she remembered the murderer in the cell and sat up quickly, looking around. Three sets of snores continued.

  Her father was a traitor. What would her mother say? Alex habitually reached for her dove pendant. Her neck was bare. They’d taken it. They’d taken every last scrap of her mother’s life from her. That last bit of the outside world was gone.

  Holding her chin in her hand, she stared back towards the exit. All she wanted was to be back home in the warehouse, lying a foot from Martyn’s side with people all around her. They wouldn’t be at the warehouse now. They’d be at a new safehouse, whoever was left of the Ackersons. The cops would tell her if Martyn was dead or captured. The sadistic bastards would enjoy that.

  Movement by the outer gate caught her eye. No noise, but there was definitely someone there. The gate opened silently and a shadow slipped inside. The guard still snored in his bunk. Was it friend or foe? Should she wake the guard?

  It was too late for that. The shadow leant over the guard. The snores continued after the shadow moved on. Features became clearer as he approached. The flash of silver on his epaulettes, the outline of h
is flak jacket, the shine of his baton and angle of his holster. He was a cop. He was the cop who had brought her down here with Defoe.

  Finger on his lips, one key in his other hand. He soundlessly unlocked the door. It creaked quietly as it opened. The snores went on. He summoned her with a finger. She paused. Was he going to take her to the Ackersons or find somewhere quiet to kill her? The man was nobody to her.

  He stepped inside and pulled her to her feet. He put his finger to his lips again, then took her by the hand. It felt so strange. A cop was holding her hand. She searched his eyes for some hidden meaning.

  He led her out and shut the cell behind them, but did not lock it. He pointed to her feet, then raised his finger to his lips again. She nodded and followed him past the sleeping guard. He picked the guards keys off him. Then they were out of the cell block.

  He led her down a corridor tinted in purple light, past another cell block and then on to an upward spiralling staircase. He tapped his pass as they moved through security barriers. The lights morphed to a soft white as they passed the third floor. Then they cut into a service corridor lined with cardboard boxes. Perhaps it was safe to talk here.

  “Sir, where are we...”

  He cut her off with his finger against his lips. Shaking his head, he pulled her onwards. Pausing at a plywood panelled door, the sergeant pressed his ear to the surface. All was still. Somewhere further down the corridor tinny music played from a DAB radio. People were chatting close by.

  The sergeant opened the door slowly and closed it quietly behind them. He breathed out heavily and smiled at her.

  “Sergeant Willis. I work with the illegals.” Alex shook his hand. “They’re coming to take you out.”

  Alex clutched at his arm. “Thank you. Really, I.... Why?”

  He held her shoulders steady. “Keep quiet. You’re not out yet. I have connections with survivors from Larton Logistics. They’re coming.”

  “Larton Logistics? They’re dead,” Alex said.

  “No,” Willis said. “Seven of them are still in contact with me. They’re broken, but they come when I need them.”

  “Why? Why are you helping me?” She asked again.

  Willis tapped his head. “They’re after your secrets. That sort of thing could kill hundreds. I had to get you out or kill you.”

  She paused. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not doing this for you, I am doing this for the collective.”

  She nodded, but watched him carefully.

  “Help me with this.” He walked over to a seven-foot-high steel cabinet that was screwed to the wall. Willis opened it up to show rows and rows of containers filled with CD-ROMs.

  “It’s a load of surveillance backups. They have to keep backups on old tech just in case the system is attacked,” Willis said.

  “But they’re really easy to break.” Alex grabbed a box and put it down onto a table, copying Willis.

  “Breaking isn’t the problem they’re worried about. These are here to limit corruption.”

  Alex laughed. “The police want to stop corruption? That’s their whole backbone.”

  Willis shrugged. “Just move the boxes, we need to get the back board off the cabinet.”

  Beep, beep. An alarm echoed in the corridor.

  “No, no, no!” Willis said, panic in his eyes.

  “Is that for me?”

  Willis sped up, throwing boxes onto the floor. “It’s too soon. I’m not back at my post yet.”

  “You’re going to get in trouble?”

  He gave her a sarcastic glint. “They’ll hang me. For helping you.”

  Two shelf planks were thrown aside. Willis pried off one of the metal shelf supports and levered the metal under an edge of chipboard. The lifting board exposed long nails underneath. Someone started pushing from the other side.

  Willis backed away. The board slowly popped from its place. A dark-haired muscle man stepped through and a spiky woman waited in a rough-cut tunnel entrance.

  “Come on. Hurry,” The man urged.

  Willis pushed Alex through. “Tim, I’m coming too.”

  “We need you here,” Tim said.

  “It’s too late. I don’t have time to cover up the entrance and get back to my post,” Willis begged.

  “Penny,” Tim called. “Take Alex into the tunnel. Willis and I will catch up.”

  Penny switched on a palm torch and pointed down the damp brick tunnel.

  “Girl, follow me.”

  15 - The Guard

  The sharp stench of sewage told Toby they were close to the Middle Meadston underground system. With a blindfold on, that’s all he knew. Hard hands sat him down on something wobbly.

  Flickering orange shocked him when his eyes were freed. The orange splashed on concrete walls and across the arched ceiling. A bulky man was hunched over holding a cup of steaming, dark liquid.

  “Rex Jacobi?” Toby said.

  Turning in his chair, Toby recognised the wiry old man. He looked gentle, grandfatherly and amused at what he saw. “And you are?”

  Toby shrugged. “I’m not important.”

  Jacobi leant forward into the light, revealing the extent of molten scarring across his face. The poked pink skin stretched from the stump of his left ear down to the last puckered drip on his chin. If tales were accurate the visible deformation was only a tenth of the scarring across Jacobi’s body.

  Jacobi’s lip curled. “You’re in a hurry to leave.”

  “Yeah, I am. I want to get back to base,” Toby grumbled.

  “I bet.” Jacobi slurped his black liquid cautiously. “And that’s because you are...”

  Toby let the silence bend around him.

  Jacobi tapped his cup down next to his chair. “Do I have a cop in my house? Have I got some scum, some baby killing prick, in front of me?”

  Toby absorbed the sharp transition. Grandfather to executioner. Jacobi’s reputation was brutal, Toby had to remember that.

  Jacobi checked something over Toby’s head.

  “Tim,” Jacobi said, “call Henry Bryant in.”

  Toby dredged his memories for the name. No, nothing. Was he their torturer? Was he new?

  Toby flinched as the door opened. A man carrying a black computer tablet entered the room. He was in his early twenties, slim built, more like a librarian than a thug. The man stood quietly, waiting for a command.

  Jacobi smirked. “What’re you hiding?”

  Toby didn’t answer.

  Jacobi nodded to Henry Bryant. “Henry, tell us what you know.”

  “Who’s this guy?” Toby blurted.

  “We’re not technologically impotent like you. I can access any government database on this.”

  “Good for you, gadget boy,” Toby muttered.

  Bryant held the tablet like an alien baby. He clicked on the device and flicked across it a few times. With a flourish he produced a photograph of Toby. “Tobias Russell.”

  Tim leant over the screen and laughed. “A night guard. He scouts out in town in the week.”

  “How do you know that?” Toby said.

  Jacobi stood up to take a better look at the tablet. “That’s Henry’s job.”

  Toby was impressed. Someone had tracked him, the untraceable shadow. “You spy on other groups? Aren’t we on the same side?”

  Bryant tapped away on his device, searching for more information to wear Toby down.

  “Your kids were cute,” Bryant said, twisting the screen to view in landscape. “Shame what happened to them. And your sister too.”

  Toby dug his nails into the chair arms.

  “And Dayna? Your wife? You could’ve handled that better.” Raw memories spewed from Bryant’s lips. Chunks of history twisted, but Toby held strong. He steeled himself. The Erikssens knew nothing.

  “I can’t change any of that.”

  Rex smirked. “Yes, you can. You can join us. Put your anger into action.”

  Tim paced behind Jacobi. “He’s an Ackerson. Usel
ess. They do a bit of Robin Hooding occasionally, but nothing with an impact really.”

  Jacobi said, “We need skilled scouts. We need people to defend our base.”

  Toby paused. “I won’t help you.”

  “You could have a real purpose here,” Tim said. “If you go back to the Ackersons they’ll lock you up for months in whatever hole they hide in. You’re a wanted man now.”

  “You’ll be worthless to them. You’ll be a burden,” Jacobi muttered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Toby said.

  “Oh yes, it really does,” Jacobi said.

  Toby resisted the need to check his watch. It must be getting on for six hours since he left the hideout. Most of that time he’d been tied up in a van. If his orientation was right, he was a twenty-minute sprint from base. Well, the old base. They should be long gone now.

  Tim leant forward on the table. “Where are your buddies, eh? Wedged into an abandoned hotel in Falisans? Split across apartments in Middle Meadston? Laid out in a warehouse in the business district?” Tim noticed a flinch. “A warehouse filled with screaming kids – and that’s only Alex Jenkins. I bet she’s gonna be pissed that you’re not bringing her Daddy back.”

  Toby shrugged. “She’s stronger than she looks.” He hid his relief – they didn’t know she was missing.

  “She’s broken,” Tim goaded.

  Toby shrugged. “She’s one of the group. We’ll look after her.”

  Jacobi nodded, his eyes glittering. “She’d make a good addition to our group. Full of rage. Experienced with breakouts.”

  Toby pumped his fist feeling the nails dig in and release. “Do what you like.”

  Bryant put the device back in his jacket. “Look, we’re getting nowhere. He knows nothing, he doesn’t want to join, so I say we throw him back in the water.”

  Jacobi launched his cup at Bryant. “Out! Get out!”

  Bryant nonchalantly strolled out the door. “You know I’m right.”

  Tim watched from the far wall. “Rex, he’s right. We need to prepare to move if things turn sour for our own people tonight.”