Spiral (38 page)

“No, I bloody don’t,” the old man roared. “We all did what our country asked of us, and none of us expected medals in return.”

For the first time, Danforth lost his cool repose, his voice going up an octave as he rocked from foot to foot. “I didn’t expect flaming medals. I expected
gratitude
.” He took a breath, calming himself. “All I wanted was someone to say, ‘Good work, Professor Danforth — you made the world a better place with your ingenuity.’ But instead, I received a gag order in a buff envelope and a one-way ride in a police car to your moldy old estate, Parry.”

“So, like some whining brat, you’ve decided to betray us,” Parry said.

“It was a simple matter to trace the Rebeccas’ cell phone number. It was too late to salvage their operation in the factory, but I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. They didn’t. Once the new order is established, they want me to take over the development of their technology. It’s a job made in heaven!”

“You’re deluding yourself,” Eddie said. “They don’t need you.”

Danforth’s confidence wasn’t shaken by this. “Far from it. I’ve been guaranteed a place with the new kings of the castle.”

Eddie’s voice was its normal monotone, but Will could have sworn a vindictive note crept into it as he responded. “When you show up, they’ll simply execute you. You’re a Topsoiler.”

Danforth laughed drily. “On the contrary, I’m on the protected list, while the rest of you — including any turncoats like you, Eddie, old fellow — are most definitely the endangered species, along with the poor old pandas.”

“So you’ve told the Styx where to find us? Are they on the way here?” Drake demanded.

Danforth shook his head. “No. Call me sentimental, but I didn’t want your blood on my hands. They didn’t ask where you were — probably because the game’s moved on, and all of you will be dead within a matter of months, anyway.” He smiled to himself. “Don’t think that your antics at the factory have made one iota of difference. You can’t stop the inevitable, and the Phase is meant to be. It’s progress.”

He drew himself up to his full height, a conceited smile playing on his lips. “The Styx need me. My detailed examination of the
Book of Proliferation
showed them how they could have done things differently . . . done things better.”

“What are you talking about?” Drake said.

“Well, where else has conditions identical to the surface, with a supply of fresh human hosts and no interference from Neanderthal Topsoilers like you lot?”

There was a moment of silence, then the Professor rapped his forehead with his index finger. “You never think anything through, do you? On my advice, the Rebeccas are relocating the Phase to where it should have been staged in the first place — down in Colonel Bismarck’s inner world. Did not one of you dimwits anticipate that? The conditions down there couldn’t be more ideal.”

Danforth consulted his watch. “Anyway, it’s high time I went to meet my new chums.” Taking a step back, he waved the control in the air. “None of you is going to follow me because I’m going to lock this place down long enough to get clear. And my able assistant here, the delectable Emily Rawls, is my insurance that you won’t try to force your way out.”

In the darkness at the very edge of the Hub, Will became aware of a dim, slowly moving presence. He was about to alert Drake when Mr. Rawls broke from the shadows, stepping into the soft yellow light of the passageway. He’d clearly come straight from having his dressing seen to: His shirt was still unbuttoned.

“Emily! It’s me, my love. It’s Jeff.” Increasing his pace, Mr. Rawls extended his arms toward his wife.

“No, Dad!” Chester shouted.

“I’m warning you! Call that moron off!” Danforth said, retreating farther down the passageway.

But Mr. Rawls didn’t stop. “Emily — it’s me . . . Jeff. Don’t listen to that man,” he pleaded with his wife.

“Jeff, get back! That’s an order!” Drake shouted.

“This isn’t good,” Parry whispered.

Will saw Danforth operate his control. He was shaking his head as the section door slid across the passageway in front of him.

Mr. Rawls was still striding toward his wife, but he’d slowed to a crawl as he talked gently to her, his voice calm, soothing.

As he reached her, Mrs. Rawls swung around to face him.

Her expression was vacant.

“Mum! Dad!” Chester cried in desperation and began to sprint toward them.

“Take cover!” Parry yelled. He seized the handles of Sergeant Finch’s mobility scooter and rammed it toward the elevator area.

There was a searing flash of light and the bone-shaking roar of an explosion.

Will was thrown into the air, slamming against one of the desks and losing consciousness.

Then there was just darkness and dust in the Hub.

And the rumble of tons of earth and rock on the move, as the mountain reclaimed the entrance tunnel as its own.

The only way in or out of the Complex was sealed.

WILL CAME TO ON THE
floor. He was laid out on several blankets and covered in a fine dust, which he was forced to wipe from his eyes before he could open them properly, though this didn’t do much to help because there was scant light in the room. On a nearby table, someone had connected a bulb in a portable holder to what looked like a car battery, and it was flickering only very dimly.

As Will sat up, his head throbbing viciously, he was seized by a coughing fit. Once it had passed, he became aware of low, somber voices. One of them was Elliott’s.

“You should lie down for a while,” Colonel Bismarck advised, coming into Will’s field of vision. The New Germanian had a bag slung over his shoulder with a large red cross on it.

“How did I get here?” Will asked, still in a state of confusion.

“You’re in one the briefing rooms. You had a bad knock,” the Colonel said, indicating Will’s forehead. “I stopped the bleeding and bound it, but you need to rest.”

Will felt the bandage as he tried to remember what had happened. “The explosion,” he mumbled, and it began to come back to him.

Despite Colonel Bismarck’s protestations, Will had made up his mind that he was going to get to his feet. In the penumbra cast by the feeble light of the bulb, he saw Chester and Elliott sitting in chairs at the other end of the room.

“Hey!” Will exclaimed, overjoyed that his friends were safe.

Then a memory — the split second before the explosion — dropped into place like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. He remembered Chester’s parents in the entrance tunnel. They were together. Mr. Rawls was holding his wife, but the memory didn’t lead anywhere, dissolving into a spiral of fire and darkness and nothing.

As if a powerful gust of wind had propelled him forward, Will sought the edge of the table for support. “Hey,” he repeated, only this time it was more like a gasp.

“Hello, Will,” Chester replied, his voice expressionless. “How are you feeling?”

“Head hurts . . . bit dizzy. And my ears are ringing,” Will answered.

“Mine, too,” Chester said. “I’ve got a burn on my arm, but it’s not too bad. I was lucky.”

Will moved down the side of the table, meeting Elliott’s eyes as she looked up. He could see that she’d been crying, her tears leaving tracks in the grime on her face.

Chester was sitting ramrod straight and gripping the arms of the chair as if he were on a roller-coaster ride.

Will cleared his throat. “Chester . . . I . . . I don’t know what to say. I’m . . . so . . .” He took another step, extending his hand toward his friend’s on the chair, although he didn’t touch him.

Chester had been staring straight ahead at the flickering bulb, but now he focused on Will’s hand. His jaw began to quiver as if he was about to give in to his grief. But then he pulled his head up, his face blank as he stared at the light again.

Will remained before him, his hand still outstretched, fingers slightly splayed. He knew only too well how he’d felt when his father had been gunned down in cold blood by the Rebecca twin, but in that split second the explosion in the entrance tunnel had claimed both Chester’s parents.

Will wanted to say something to fill the silence. “Is everyone else OK?” he asked, regretting his choice of words immediately upon uttering them.
Is everyone else OK? Why am I bothering my friend with this right now?

“Yes, I think so,” Chester replied in monotone. He glanced fleetingly at Elliott, who nodded in confirmation, then moved his gaze back to the light. “Sergeant Finch lost some of his cats, though. That was sad.”

If Will could have felt any worse, this response did it. His friend was expressing sympathy for the cats when he’d suffered the worst loss imaginable. Chester had always been close to his parents, particularly after the untimely death of his sister. And Mr. and Mrs. Rawls had doted on their sole surviving child, only to have him snatched away from them when Will had taken him down to the Colony.

And through no fault of Chester’s, his parents had been sucked into the whole nightmare with the Styx, and now they’d paid the ultimate price for their unwitting involvement. Will felt such a crushing weight of responsibility that he wanted to throw himself at Chester’s feet. He wanted to beg his friend for forgiveness.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he reached again for Chester’s hand, this time actually making contact. Chester didn’t move as Will’s fingers brushed his fist, tightly clenched on the arm of the chair.

It was an awkward act, and Will didn’t know where to go from there. He wasn’t Elliott — he couldn’t hug his friend. Mumbling, “I’m so sorry,” he took his hand away and stumbled from the room. He had to get out, had to escape.

In the pitch black of the passage, he came to a stop. “Oh God . . . why did this have to happen?” he croaked, his throat constricting with regret and self-reproach. “Why did they have to die? Why them and not
me
?”

He edged backward until he found the wall — the wall beyond which his poor friend was trying to deal with his loss.

What twisted Will into knots was that, however much he wished for it, he couldn’t make things right again for Chester. He couldn’t bring his friend’s parents back. It felt precisely to Will as if he was in the throes of one of the fevered nightmares he’d suffered in early childhood, when he’d wake up with the unshakable feeling that he’d done something monumentally wrong. Although he’d never known what his crimes had been, the guilt was as powerful as any knife twisting in his guts.

Will’s forehead still hurt badly, but he swiveled around and pressed it hard against the wall. Then he began to slam it repeatedly on the unyielding surface, grateful for the stinging relief of the pain.

“No, no, no, no.”

Will stopped when blood began to run into his eyes, making him blink. As he did so, he caught shouting from the Hub, then a crash. Drake was yelling something. The thought that someone might need help made Will pull himself together, and he began to feel his way along the passage and then into the Hub.

Although a few clouds of smoke still hung in the air, emergency lights had been positioned around the area, so Will could immediately see the extent of the damage. A film of fine gray silt coated everything in sight, and many of the desks had been blasted over — those closest to the mouth of the entrance tunnel blackened by flames.

Stepping over the debris strewn across the floor, Will made his way toward the tunnel. Some twenty feet along, it was completely cut off by massive slabs of rock that had fallen through the reinforced concrete roof. The jagged ends of air-conditioning ducts and wiring conduits hung loosely from the ceiling and walls like slashed arteries. And much of the surviving length of tunnel was mottled with carbon patches where fires had evidently been put out.

“We’re lucky to have survived,” Parry said, as he appeared beside Will and surveyed the damage with him.

“Chester’s parents . . . is there any way they could have escaped?” Will asked, staring at the rocks.

Parry shook his head. “Danforth probably made it out because he was on the right side of the blast door, but not them, I’m afraid.”

Will was silent for a moment. “Can we dig our way through this?” he said eventually.