Spiral (43 page)

Vane again gave the thumbs-up, then there was a thrashing of the undergrowth as she began to move at speed.

The Limiters hiked the man over the balustrade of the walkway, his arms and legs flailing for the short distance down. His fall was cushioned by the soil in the planting bed, so he wasn’t badly injured when he hit the ground; he sat up and looked around himself dazedly.

“Check him out!” Rebecca One shouted to Vane. “Enjoy!”

The explosion was so loud that several of them cried out. And the tremor so powerful that their teeth rattled and their vision blurred.

Then the concussive wave swept into the Hub. Will’s ears popped. There was a sudden crash as if something large had struck the door from outside.

Saucepans clattered down from the shelves above. As a crack opened up across the ceiling, sprinkling dust on their heads, the caterwauling from the wicker baskets reached fever pitch.

Stephanie began to cry softly to herself while Sergeant Finch recited the Lord’s Prayer in broken sentences. Will couldn’t help but notice that Chester, his head still down, was trembling violently — the explosion was obviously bringing back unwanted memories of his parents’ death. Elliott had noticed, too, and was holding Chester tight.

As the blast subsided, there was a low groaning sound.

“I hope that’s not the roof of Level 2,” Parry whispered.

Then, except for the confused calls of Sergeant Finch’s cats, all was quiet.

Drake stood up, brushing the dust from his head. “Bring lights and fire extinguishers,” he said.

The Colonel picked up Sergeant Finch, and Drake pushed the door open. The Hub didn’t look any different, but as they went down the stairs and out into Level 2, there wasn’t much left standing — nearly all the interior walls close to the stairs had been blown away.

Drake and Parry were checking the roof immediately above them as they advanced farther into the level, but the dense dust and smoke prevented them from seeing very far ahead. They all covered their noses and mouths with scarves and pressed forward, negotiating the rubble strewn over the ground. Eddie and Sweeney were blasting away with the extinguishers at small fires in their path.

As they made their way around a bath thrown on its side, the smoke cleared a little and Will caught sight of a chair. It was still the right way up, but every part of it was ablaze.

Holding up his fist, Drake came to a stop. He unwound his scarf. “Feel that?” he shouted.

And they all did.

The air on their sweat-drenched skin felt cold. A breeze was coming from somewhere.

Filled with hope, they ventured farther into the floor, where the corridor had previously been. In one place their way was blocked by debris, but Drake and Sweeney heaved aside a partition wall, enabling them to proceed farther.

The fires were more numerous as they came closer to the end of the floor. They were using the extinguishers and kicking pieces of burning timber out of the way, when Drake yelled a warning and they all hastily retreated.

There was a crash as a whole section of the ceiling not ten feet in front of them simply dropped to the floor.

They waited, but as the rest of the ceiling seemed to be holding in place, Drake waved them on again.

They came to where the rooms packed with explosive had been. As they stepped around a large hole in the concrete floor, through which the level below was visible, they were all far too preoccupied to notice what lay ahead.

But Drake had sped up. As he led the group, he’d been the first to spot the jagged breach in the Complex’s outer wall.

Then they all saw it, and clambered through behind him.

There were shouts of joy when, within a short distance, their feet ground not on shattered concrete but on the rocky ledge they’d seen in the cross-section plans on Drake’s laptop. They were high up on the side of the mountain, experiencing something that they hadn’t known for weeks.

There was a huge open space above them.

The night sky.

“Stars!” Will yelled. “We bloody did it!”

The Colonel was jumping up and down with Sergeant Finch still on his back, and they were both cheering.

“Oh, yes! Fresh air!” Stephanie cried. “And snow!” she added as she held out her hand to catch the flakes.

Everyone was hugging everyone else. Will grabbed his mother and squeezed her hard. It had been a long time since he’d done that and it felt a little strange. But he was quite unprepared for what happened next as Stephanie suddenly appeared before him and gave him a kiss on the lips.

“Oi!” Will laughed.

As Colly scampered madly around, Will saw that Drake and Parry were already at the end of the ledge, where they were pointing at the tiny points of light from a distant village.

Chester hadn’t moved very far from the jagged opening in the mountain. He tried to say something to Will, but a sudden gust of wind snatched his breath away.

“What was that?” Will shouted, but Chester averted his face as a flurry of snow fell in his eyes. He began to shake uncontrollably, although it wasn’t from the cold. Now that they’d escaped from their airless tomb in the mountain and were out of immediate danger, the stark reality of his parents’ death was finally coming home to him.

He was gibbering to himself as his legs buckled. Elliott had already begun to move toward him and was able to catch him before he hit the ground. Mrs. Burrows was also at the boy’s side, helping to support him.

Parry had been watching as Chester collapsed. “That snake Danforth is going to pay very dearly for his actions,” he promised in a growl.

“First things first. We need some transport,” Drake said. “If it’s true that we haven’t yet neutralized the Phase, we’ve lost valuable time. The key thing now is that we cover all the bases.”

Parry was looking at his son, waiting for him to continue.

“We’ll split into two groups, one to conduct a search up here on the surface,” Drake suggested.

“I’ll coordinate that,” Parry said. “I’ll call on the Old Guard again.”

“And I’ll lead the second group to the inner world. We can’t take the risk that Danforth was spinning us a line about the Phase resuming there.” Drake abruptly wheeled to his father as he thought of something. “Those TNDs,” he said. “How many did you say there were?”

“I didn’t,” Parry replied. “There are twenty in total, starting with a couple at one kiloton up to the largest, which used to be known in intelligence circles as the Party Stopper
— a single fifty-megaton device.”

“That’s way too much — a pair of the one-kilotons will be sufficient for what I have in mind. But I need a fast way to get them down to the Colony. From there I can take them on to your world, Colonel.”

Colonel Bismarck had come over to listen, and his distress was evident as he nearly let Sergeant Finch slide from his back. “You intend to destroy it?” he asked.

“Nothing that extreme,” Drake told him. “I just want to seal the two ways in that we know about.”

“
Gott sei Dank!
” the Colonel exclaimed, looking at the ground.

“Unless I’m left with no alternative,” Drake said, which made the Colonel’s head jerk up. “But time’s short and I need a really quick route down,” Drake continued, directing the request at Eddie.

The former Limiter shrugged. “There are any number of ways down to the Colony. You can take your pick.”

“We’ve got all the muscle we need,” Drake said, glancing briefly at Sweeney before he addressed Eddie again. “But I really don’t fancy lugging a pair of even the mini nukes down your usual convoluted routes. And, of course, the Norfolk river route is out of the question — there are just too many of us with too much equipment to risk shooting the rapids. No, something with an elevator would be perfect,” he joked.

Will’s ears perked up. “I think I might be able to help there,” he said.

“HELLO," THE YOUNG
woman said, as she answered the door.

“Mornin’,” Drake replied. He took a laminated card from the chest pocket of his blue overalls and passed it to her. “I’m afraid there’s a major gas leak in your house. We’re the instant response team sent to locate it.”

“A gas leak . . . I haven’t reported one,” she said, shaking her head. She pushed the laminated card back at Drake. “There’s no leak here, I can assure you. I’m surprised you people are still working — everybody seems to be on strike these days.” Her brow suddenly creased with annoyance. “Look, this isn’t a convenient time for me right now — I have to leave shortly to collect my son from my mother’s. Can’t you come back anoth —”

“Madam, I don’t want to appear impolite, but our grid sensors flagged this problem overnight. And they’re rarely wrong about these things.” Drake planted his toolbox on the ground by his feet as if he hadn’t the slightest intention of leaving. “If you don’t allow us in to make our report, then we’ll have to close down the supply to this whole street and several others on the same grid. Then I’ll be back in an hour with a court order forcing you to allow us access.” He hugged himself, shivering a little. “You won’t be popular with the neighbors if there’s no gas for their central heating, particularly with this cold weather.”

The woman immediately took a step back as if she’d decided to let Drake in, then looked curiously at Mrs. Burrows beside him, who was sniffing the air. “Do you both need to come in? Only I’m not comfortable w —”

“We do, I’m afraid,” Drake replied. “I have my electronic sniffer in here,” he said, nudging the toolbox, “but there’s nothing like the human touch. My assistant, Celia here, is what we in the gas trade call a Nose. She’s a trained detector.”

“Really?” The young woman inclined her head as if she was about to question this, then seemed to accept it and pulled the door fully open.

“OK, Celia, tell me what we’re looking at here,” Drake said as they entered the hallway.

Celia stuck her nose in the air. “The kitchen’s there,” she said, turning toward the closed door on her left. “But it’s clean.”

“Clean?” the young woman said, sounding slightly offended.

“What Celia means is that the boiler’s functioning properly and the problem’s not in there,” Drake explained.

“The sitting room is to the right,” Celia continued. “There’s a gas fire in the hearth, but it hasn’t been used for at least a year. It’s one of the older models with a ceramic grille, and faux wood panels at either end.”