Mutant City (28 page)

Tia croaked and pointed to her throat.

‘Why didn’t you call for backup?’

‘No need. We took care of them, and when we get them into the cells we’re going to take care of them again.’

There was a brief pause and then the voice instructed, ‘Come on through.’

The metal shutter in front of them rose. The noise was almost deafening inside the enclosed space, and Tia used it as an excuse to shut her window again. They both stared out at the long tunnel slowly being revealed. Illuminated at regular intervals by orange lights, the road sloped gently downwards.

‘It leads to the underground garages below the agency’s headquarters,’ Tia pointed out. She softly depressed the pedal, and they set off.

Silas approached the entrance gate. It felt strange to be in city clothing after all this time, and he secretly relished the feel of the soft material against his skin. He was next in line, and as he stepped forward into the free-standing frame that was the scanner, he felt the waft of a draught flash past his left cheek. It was all he could do not to smile. If the wall wardens felt it too, they didn’t react.

The scanner made a loud howling noise and two armed men levelled their weapons at him.

‘Stop right there!’ the first man said, looking down at the monitor. He frowned, swiped his hand across the screen and refreshed the data. When he turned to his colleague he looked even more confused. ‘He came in alone, right?’ He received a nod. ‘Then this damned scanner is on the blink again!’ He kicked the frame with his steel-toed boot. ‘According to this –’ the man gestured at the screen – ‘
two
people just came through that portal, and
this
one is dead.’

‘I can assure you both, wardens, I’m not deceased. I am, however, President Melk’s brother and the uncle of Principal Zander Melk who shortly hopes to accede to that role.’ He smiled at the astonished looks on the men’s faces. ‘I’m sure they’ll both be very interested in seeing me.’ He held out his arms, hands together so the men could easily cuff him. ‘Take me to your leaders.’

Tia pulled to a stop in the underground car park, choosing a corner space away where the shadows were deepest.

Rush opened the boot and looked down at Jax, who grimaced up at him. ‘Comfortable journey?’ he asked, offering the albino a hand.

‘You have no idea,’ Jax said, wincing as he straightened up to his full height. He reached into the boot and retrieved Rush’s usual clothes, handing them to him and looking away while the youngster slipped out of his jumpsuit and put them on.

Tia had already pressed the button to call the elevator, so the doors were open by the time Jax and Rush approached.

‘The custody suite and the cells are all on the third floor,’ Jax said, pressing the appropriate button.

‘How do you know that?’

‘I didn’t, but Messrs Lacroix and Masters did. I took the liberty of delving into their heads while I was in the boot. They don’t know where Brick is being held, so we’ll have to find that out when we get upstairs.’

‘What if they come round before we get out of here?’ Tia asked as the lift rose.

‘They won’t,’ Jax said in a tone that left her in no doubt.

The elevator doors opened. Directly in front of them was an extremely tall counter that stretched the full width of the room. An overweight man sitting behind the desk glanced up and beckoned them forward. Behind him, in a large open-plan office, at least ten uniformed men and women went about their work.

‘Who have we got here?’ he asked, his attention only half on the newcomers.

‘Two Mutes that were hanging around the perimeter fence.’

‘I was referring to you. You new?’

‘Yes, sergeant,’ Tia said, spotting the insignia on the man’s shirt. ‘I was assigned to the ARM only this week.’ The agency had been fervently recruiting recently, and Tia hoped her story would sound plausible.

‘Are these Lacroix and Masters’ mutants?’ the man asked, looking at his screen.

‘That’s right.’

‘Then why aren’t
they
booking them in?’

‘They’re in the infirmary. Masters got hurt during the arrest.’

He glanced across at Jax and Rush. Thanks to the albino, the custody sergeant saw two bloodied individuals who’d clearly been roughed up during their apprehension. He raised an eyebrow. ‘I see Lacroix has been up to his usual tricks. Never one to miss a chance to beat up on a resident of Muteville, that one.’

The man gave Tia his full attention for the first time. ‘Now listen up, rookie. I don’t care
who
asks you – in the future, somebody asks you to book their prisoners in? You tell them to go to hell. Those two officers are taking advantage of you.’ He sighed and heaved himself out of his chair, nodding towards a door on Tia’s right. ‘Bring them through to the cells,’ he said.

Tia, Rush and Jax waited until the custody sergeant pressed a button to open the entrance from his side. Stepping through, they found themselves in a narrow corridor, the right-hand side of which was taken up by a row of metal and plaziglas doors. The custody sergeant beckoned for them to follow him as he waddled off towards the cells.

‘Busy?’ Tia asked.

‘Not really. Just a couple of freaks in.’

‘I heard you had a special guest. One of the Mutes that Melk has been looking for?’

‘The big guy? Yeah, he’s in Cell 4. But not for much longer.’

‘No? Why’s that?’

‘Melk wants him moved to the Bio-Gen labs. The transportation team is on its way over here now.’

Tia watched as the man approached one of the cell doors and pressed a button on the small pad on the wall beside it. When he pushed his palm – fingers splayed – against the pad, there was a loud
clunk!
as the locks slid open.

‘Put your guys in here. I’ll –’

The man slumped to the ground.

Holstering her shock-rod, Tia glanced up the corridor before turning to Rush and Jax. ‘Well, that went a lot more smoothly than I thought it would.’

Rush was already hurrying towards the cell numbered 4. Through the plaziglas viewing window he could see Brick sitting on a low bench, hunched over, his massive forearms resting on his thighs. At the far side of the cell was a large mirror and another door. Even from where he stood, it was clear to Rush that Brick was even more sick now than he had been at the safe house. With a bunched fist, Rush banged on the door to get the big guy’s attention.

Rush struggled to contain his emotions when his friend slowly raised his head; on Brick’s face was a bewildered look that turned to recognition, swiftly replaced by joy. Brick clapped his hands together and pointed back in Rush’s direction, shouting loudly until Rush, glancing behind him, gestured for him to be quiet.

Jax and Tia had dragged the custody sergeant over to the door so his hand could be pressed to the pad. As soon as the door was released, Rush pushed his way inside, hurrying over to Brick, where he was enveloped in the big guy’s arms.

‘I said I’d come for you,’ he said.

‘Good to see you again, Brick,’ Jax said from the entrance. ‘This is Tia; she’s helping us.’ He closed his eyes and small frown lines appeared on his forehead. ‘Silas is with Melk. Let’s get out of here.’

Silas

‘You’ve got some gall, coming here like this,’ the president said, glaring across at his brother, who was standing with his back to the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up one wall of the penthouse. The two men were alone, Melk having sent his guards out of the room and locked the door.

‘What? No hugs? No tears of joy at our fraternal reunion?’

‘When they said you just walked in through the gates, I assumed you must have lost your mind. But you don’t sound like a jabbering lunatic.’

‘If I could have come carrying a white flag, I would have.’

The two men stared at each other.

‘Why?’ Melk asked eventually.

It was only a single word, but Silas knew exactly what his brother meant.

‘Because what you were doing was wrong. That place . . . “the Farm”? That was wrong. What you’re doing now is wrong.’

‘I want my property back.’

‘They’re not your property. They’re living human beings.’

‘Mutant hybrids! Not one thing or another. They’re aberrations. Freaks.’

‘If they are, it’s because you made them that way! Call them what you want. You can’t escape the fact that they have a right to life – a life that has meaning and purpose, and not just so you can experiment on them, clone them and discard them when they’re no longer of any use.’

‘Who said anything about cloning?’

‘Don’t insult my intelligence. We both know what you were planning.’ Silas stopped. A shouting match with his older sibling was not what he had come here for. ‘I heard you were ill. You don’t look it. I wonder why that might be.’

‘Maybe I have a fairy godmother and used up one of my wishes.’

‘If you let him go, all this can end peacefully.’

The president stared back at him in disbelief. ‘You really are something, you know that? Let me just see if I’ve got this right –
you
are threatening
me
?’

‘Do you have any idea what it’s like to live out there?’ Silas gestured over his shoulder towards the slums beyond the wall. ‘Poor health, poor hygiene, not enough food, freezing in the winter, roasting in the summer, no lights at night, no hot water in the morning.’ He looked across at his brother’s sneering face. ‘I could go on, but I see that I’m in danger of breaking your bleeding heart. The mutant people have had enough. At the rallies the talk is of uprisings and revolution. Your Agency for the Regulation of Mutants is doing nothing to help the situation – they’re mindless thugs. Nothing more than a big stick you’re using to stir up the beehive.’

‘You,’ Melk said, jabbing a finger back at his brother, ‘and the likes of you, are the reason there is such discontent out there. People like you, telling the Mutes that they have rights to the same things we city dwellers have.’

‘Where’s my nephew?’ Silas stared stonily back. ‘Except he
isn’t
really my nephew, is he? Oh, I guess you had his face altered a bit when he was very young so the similarity isn’t quite so striking, but even so, I’m amazed that nobody else seems to have worked it out. I caught one look at him on a news broadcast and I instantly knew what you’d done.’

‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ the president said in a small voice.

‘You never could resist flouting the rules, could you? Neither state laws nor those of nature mean anything to you. What did you think? That a clone of you would somehow fulfil all the dreams you were unable to? That you could achieve some kind of immortality if you reproduced yourself and shoehorned that individual into the position you had to vacate? What memories did you give the poor thing? Does it think it’s really your son?’

‘Shut up.’

‘What do you think the people of the Six Cities would have to say about that, hmm? How do you think they’d react if they found out the man standing as the next president is nothing more than a clone of the former one – a pitiful puppet whose very memories have been implanted by the man pulling the strings!’

‘It’s stupid to limit a man – a man with the dreams and aspirations I had for my people – to no more than three terms! That isn’t long enough!’

‘What you’ve done is illegal and immoral. And despite all that’s bad about the vast majority of the people inside the city wall, it is something that even
they
will not stand for.’

Another long silence stretched out between the two men. ‘You always were too clever for your own good,’ Melk muttered, walking over to his desk and opening a drawer. He regarded the gun in his hand for a moment before turning it on his brother. ‘I have to say, it’s an interesting theory, brother. But even if it’s true, nobody will ever have the chance to hear it. You walked into this building as a dead man, and now you’re going to be carried out as one.’

Silas’s gaze didn’t waiver. ‘It doesn’t have to end like this. All you have to do is give Brick back to me, and this can end. For now, at least. You can take that as your final warning.’

‘The fact that I’m the one holding the gun doesn’t seem to have registered with you. You’re in no position to issue warnings.’

‘I take it you won’t let him go then?’ Silas let out a weary sigh. Behind his back he pressed the button on the small torch device he held in his palm. A red light blinked on and off repeatedly. ‘You disappoint me.’

Melk raised the gun, aiming at his brother. ‘Save it for somebody who gives a damn.’

The first explosion was a low, rumbling boom from somewhere deep beneath the earth. Despite this, the building Melk and Silas were standing in shook, as if trembling with fright.

‘What was that?’ Melk asked.

‘That was either the underground tunnels that lead to the dumps or
.
.
.’

There were two more resonant explosions, one after another. These too were clearly underground, but seemed a little nearer. ‘No, I think
that
was the tunnels. The first would have been the pumping systems for the water and sewage.’