Future Tense (27 page)

I picked up the torch and shone it in one of the Duck's eyes. The eyeball moved about. I did the same to the other one. I dropped the torch and jumped back with a yelp. To my horror—the Duck's eye was still and staring, but worse than that I could see the telltale red light of a camera lens in the retina.

“What's up?” called Jemmons, sounding farther away than I wanted him to be at that moment.

“The-the Duck's a-cl-clone!” I stammered. I started to shake uncontrollably.

“He's a clown all right!” laughed Jemmons, and carried on whistling.

The Duck was still slumped against the wall opposite me. Not moving. I reached out slowly for the torch, without taking my eyes off the shadowy figure. My hand touched the torch. Suddenly, another hand grabbed mine and I dropped it again with a loud gasp. Instinctively my arms and legs recoiled from the thing I had thought was the Duck.

“Give me that!”

“Duck?” I said.

“What?” He shone the torch in my face. I winced and averted my eyes. “What the hell's the matter with you?” he said. “You look like you've just seen a Benetton ad.”

“You're a—you're a clone,” I said.

“Clone. I'm not a clone. How am I a bleeding clone?”

“Your eye—your left eye—it's a camera,” I said.

“Yeah, it's false. I had a digital one fitted years ago. Come on—to rest is not to conquer!” He stood up.

“So you're not one of them?” I said.

“Not the last time I looked. Here, hold that,” he said, handing me the torch. He shuffled backwards to wedge his heels. This time he remembered to throw his hands out to stop himself. And then he was away, jiggling up the shaft like a mechanical monkey.

“Who is Matthew Turner? And how did you first hear about him?” I said, shining the torch on his face, as he ascended into the darkness.

“Your so-called mate,” he laughed.

“They could know that,” I shouted up. “What did you show me about him?”

“Newspaper clipping!” called the Duck. “He sold his story to the Sunday papers—made you look a right pratt! I still read it when I want a good laugh!”

That was definitely the Duck up there. I braced my heels, put the torch in my mouth, and fell forwards. And then I was shuffling my hands and feet up the sides of the shaft to join him. It was easier than it looked. The walls were, of course, made of a plastic resin and were uneven, so they gave plenty of grip. However, after several meters of this crab-like wall-walking, my arms and legs began to tire—but what was worse, I could hear the Duck panting and gasping somewhere above me. Now, if he fell it would be—

“Aa-aghhhh!”

I felt an almighty jolt on my back and instinctively dug in with my toes and fingers. Arms and legs were all over me. The torch beam was flashing about on the wall as I tried to flick off the tangle of fishing line that had fallen around my face and hair. Someone was panting very heavily in my ear like a nuisance caller in a hurry. And then I felt myself slipping.

“Carn't rold oo—gerroff!” I said, through a mouthful of torch.

I felt an elbow in my back and then a knee—some of the weight lifted off me. I could hear fingernails scrabbling on the wall overhead.

“Hang about,” gasped the Duck. “Nearly there.”

“Gerroff—hine going!” I mumbled.

At last the load came off my back—my fingers and feet flexed. My spine almost sprang back into position with the release of tension. It was lucky the Duck was five feet nothing much and as light as a feather. Now, if Jemmons had fallen—but let's not go there!

I snatched the torch out of my mouth and held it on the wall under my hand. “You bloody idiot!” I screamed. I craned my neck round and saw the Duck's red and puffy face grinning down at me. “You nearly had me off.”

“I lost my grip,” he said.

“You'll lose more than that when I get hold of you!”

“Ahoy down there!” called Jemmons.

“Ahoy, Rog!” quacked the Duck.

“Everything all right?”

“Yeah—Stephen slipped and I had to help him!” smirked the Duck, and sped away from me.

I grabbed the fishing line and yanked it.

“Hey—no! Pack it in!” he panicked.

I laughed ghoulishly and yanked it again.

“If I go—you go!” he sneered.

I let go and carried on climbing.

“Pipe down,” whispered Jemmons. “Someone's coming.”

“Hey?” said the Duck. “He's there.”

I put all my effort into my climbing and got back into my rhythm. I found that if I exaggerated the movement in my shoulders I could climb better—just a little tip if you're ever in a similar fix. The best way I can describe it is you have to be like your own cox in a rowing team—egging yourself on in a set series of strokes. One, two, three—one, two, three, I was counting in my head. It really works.

“Wait—you pratt!” cried the Duck.

I felt my back crash into something bony. I rested my “oars” and held firm on the wall.

There was some scuffing and some groaning sounds above me. I closed my eyes and waited. I was burning up. The sweat was pouring off me. I tasted the salt in my mouth and felt its sting in my eyes. I shook my head to get rid of it. I felt tough. Like I could punch a hole in a wall with my bare knuckles. I made a few snorting noises—to psyche myself up.

“Cun on, arssholes!” I snarled.

“Right—up a bit more,” said the Duck.

I twisted my neck round to try and see where I was going, but I couldn't make anything out. I twisted it round the other way and saw the Duck's face sticking out rather surreally from the wall.

“We're in another drain,” said the Duck, sensing my disorientation.

I jiggled up the last few feet and he gripped my arms, to help me in, but I shrugged him off and hoisted myself in on my elbows. I spat out the torch and flopped down.

“Are you all right, mate?” said the Duck.

“Loose as a goose,” I panted, my face still pressed to the cold floor.

“Well, give us a hand up with these boards then?” said the Duck, flashing his torch in my face.

“Put that light out!” hissed Jemmons.

The light clicked off. I raised my head and looked along the square-shaped drain. It was about four feet high and maybe only eight or nine feet long. Jemmons was kneeling at the end, holding something up and peeking out. Outside light was pouring in. Jemmons lowered the drain cover and hunched down in the foetal position, the shadows from the bars cast higgledy-piggledy stripes across his face and body.

I shivered. My body temperature was coming down and there was an icy draught from the opening. The pounding of several pairs of running feet passed over our heads.

“Four,” whispered Jemmons.

“The riot's started,” said the Duck. “Quick—help me with these!”

I got up on my knees and turned round. The Duck had produced a pair of gloves from somewhere in his biggles and was pulling them on. I pulled my sleeves down and got my hands inside them. We both dragged on the thin line and I felt it bite. And then it was hand over hand in a synchronized routine. I got my shoulders moving.

“What you doing?” said the Duck.

“Uh?”

“That thing with your shoulders—you brute!”

“Arg!” I said. “Arg-arg!”

“Arg-arg!” grinned the Duck.

We slung the boards in and sat down to get our breath back. The Duck gave me five and I slapped his palm and gripped it tightly.

“You-me-escape!” I grimaced.

“Not if you break my bloody fingers—get off!”

I threw his hand aside roughly.

“I think prison life's hardened you up,” he said. “The sooner we get you back to civilisation the better—you're turning native.”

“Arrrg.”

“All clear, boys!” called Jemmons.

Jemmons was kneeling up and looking out again. We crawled along on our hands and knees to join him.

“Let me see,” said the Duck, pulling Jemmons down and sticking his own head up. “We've come up in the courtyard. That's the infirmary over there.” He swivelled his head round like a periscope. “No sign of any life. We'll chance it.”

I grabbed the seat of his biggles and dragged him back.

“What you playing at? Get off!” he said.

“What about Emma?” I said.

“She'll meet us on the wall with the Princess,” he said.

“Yeah, I've heard that one before,” I said. “I won't be leaving here without her—and neither will you!”

“She'll be here,” said the Duck, shrugging me off and climbing back up through the hole.

“After you,” I said to Jemmons.

He didn't need any second invitation. I was just about to follow him, when there were dozens of chings and the whole courtyard suddenly lit up with blinding floodlights.

Chapter 16

“Stay right where you are, Doctor Zirconion!” crackled a severe voice.

“Crikey—we've been done up!” I heard the Duck cry.

I was paralysed. My mouth and tongue felt as dry as wrapping paper.

“Lie down on the ground!” ordered the echoing voice.

“It's ice flippin' cold!” complained the Duck.

“Get down, mutants!” boomed the voice.

I heard the grate of boots on the frozen ground and saw the Duck and Jemmons in my mind's eye being forced down on their bellies.

“Hands behind your heads!” came the next chilling command.

I flinched and shivered. There was a tramp of boots, running across the courtyard, coming closer and closer. The sweat was pouring off me again. I felt trapped. Frozen with fear. Somehow I unlocked my limbs and started to slither backwards along the drain, inching my way towards the ledge. My feet bumped against the snowboards. I stopped. The slightest noise might bring them down into the drain, but they would surely search it anyway, I thought, so what difference did it make? I kicked the boards back and back—right over the edge! They fell down the shaft with a terrible clatter and crash. The whole tunnel reverberated with the din. And then there was silence.

But something must have happened above ground, while I was deafened by the tumbling boards, because the lights had cut out and I could hear scuffling and strained groans and thuds—fighting! I alligatored my body back along the drain and clambered out. The cold air hit me in the nose and made it smart. I could see half a dozen shadowy figures silently kicking and shoving each other around, like a dumb show, just a few yards away from me. The Duck and Jemmons were in there somewhere. But before I could run over and help them someone barged into me and we both fell in a heap. I realized it was one of the guards and gripped his wrist—just as he was about to level his tranquilizer pistol at my face and pull the trigger. And as I turned on him and looked up I saw the Princess charging towards us. She grabbed him by his fur collar and threw him aside like a brat discarding a cuddly toy, and then pulled me to my feet with a single jerk of her arm. She gave me two air kisses.

“You're safe now, darling!” she smiled. “Stay close to me!”

And with that, she charged headlong into the others and began throwing them around as though they were no more than glove puppets. I stayed with her and pushed and thumped any guard who came near me or was slung past me in her wake. The Duck jumped dramatically on a guard who had been tossed aside by our superhero Princess and started showboating. Jemmons actually had the audacity to pull the Princess off one stricken guard and almost got slung to the ground himself for his trouble.

“Not him!” I yelled.

The Princess released her grip on Jemmons and made a point of dusting off the shoulders of his biggles.

“Sorry, Roger,” she smiled.

“You don't need a bodyguard,” I said.

“And there's no need to kill 'em,” said Jemmons.

The Duck now had his victim in a Jap stranglehold and was shouting at the poor guy to submit. I think he must have already been unconscious when the Duck jumped him, because he wasn't responding.

“Leave him!” I said.

“He asked for it,” panted the Duck. “He's gonna get it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get off him,” I said.

The Duck dropped his head with a clunk on the hard ice and stood up. “Yeah, where were you when it kicked off? Hiding down the bleeding drain.”

“Look!” I said, grabbing him by the front of his biggles. “Behave yourself—or I'll send you to your room!”

He slapped my arm away.

“This way, Stephen,” said the Princess, patting my head.

We all ran down the quad after her to some steps in the western end, leading up to a square tower the Duck had earlier identified as the infirmary. All around us the high walls rose, crowned with towers and battlements. The courtyard was roughly the size of an ice hockey rink, with buildings in the form of towers flanking the middle of each side. To our left, on one of the long sides of the rectangle, was a large towered structure, with a faded old mock medieval sign across its façade, saying CASTLE AMUSEMENTS CO. It was decorated with laughing gargoyles and hieroglyphic gibberish. On the right was a matching building, only the sign wasn't in good enough condition to read, also it was covered in aerials and satellite dishes, which were obviously later additions. I don't know what was up the other end, but it looked like another square tower, matching the infirmary. A light snow began to fall.

I caught up and fell in next to the Princess.

“Where's Emma?” I said.

“She is waiting for us in the infirmary,” she replied, without breaking stride.

“You're a pretty tough girl,” I said. “I liked the way you handled yourself back there.”

“I work out.”

“You'd, uh, never—what I'm trying to say is: if we ever fall out after we're married, I want us to get counselling.”

We crunched up the snowswept steps and passed a smashed searchlight, with a guard slumped over the mounting.

“Your handiwork?” I said.

She smiled modestly. “He wouldn't turn it off.”

“He went out like a light,” I grinned.

“We've left the boards behind!” exclaimed Jemmons.

“You and Rog go back and get 'em, dad,” I said. “I'll stay with the Princess.”

“Who's giving the orders round here?” said the Duck.

“I am,” said the Princess. “Do as he says.”

The Duck muttered something under his breath and he and Jemmons doubled back down the steps.

“You've got a way with him,” I said.

“Through here.” She ushered me in under the porch.

I was just going to open the door.

“Wait!” she said.

“What?”

She grabbed me and planted a sweet tasting kiss full on my mouth. We broke. I licked the greasy lipstick off my lips.

“Have you told Emma about us?” I said.

“She is of no consequence,” said the Princess.

I remembered what the Duck said about us not getting out of jail without the Princess' help—he was damn right for once. I decided to play along.

“She's just a mortal,” I said.

She leaned in to sink another one on me. I placed my finger against her puckered lips.

“But let's not keep her waiting—after all, she doesn't have as much time as we do.”

I opened the door. A trapezium of light fell across the porch. I don't know why, but to my amazement, Emma was sitting on the first one in a row of six empty hospital beds, combing her hair. She was wearing a biggles just like mine. Only she looked good in hers.

“Emma!” I rushed to her.

“Hi, Steve,” she said quietly.

She stood up and we embraced.

“I never believed you were really here,” I whispered, holding onto her tightly. “I thought I'd lost you.”

“The Princess—” she whispered. She stopped herself.

“What about her?” I said.

“Travis is—he's dead,” she said.

I looked round to get the Princess' confirmation. She was applying some fresh pink lip-gloss. She closed her eyes and nodded. I turned back to Emma. I expected to see tears, but there were none.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I admit I never liked him, but I'm sorry he's dead.”

“Yes, well,” she said. She lowered her eyes.

“Did you love him?”

She shook her head.

“You do know about that other thing?”

“Yes,” she said. “I know everything now.”

“I'm really sorry,” I said, rubbing her shoulder.

“It's not your fault.”

“We must leave now,” said the Princess.

“Yeah. Tempus fugit,” I said.

I took Emma's hand and we headed for the door. The Princess opened it for us and I saw her look down at our hands. A corner of her upper lip curled a little. I hadn't noticed how glamorously she had made herself up when we were outside in the dark, but now in the light I could see the gleamer applied under her brows and on her high cheekbones and the dusky pink eye shadow and mascara. She looked like she was going on a Prada fashion shoot—not escaping from prison.

We stepped outside and the Princess grabbed my other hand and led us round the corner to the parapet and along the battlement walkway. By now the wind had picked up a little and the snow was swirling. But apart from that all was quiet and deserted. There was no sign of the Duck and Jemmons down in the quad, or any guards around the walls.

“Is this the west side?” I went to the wall and looked over.

“Yes,” said the Princess. “This is where we go off.”

Emma joined me and looked down.

“Down there? You are joking?” she said.

There was a fifty-foot drop and then what looked like quite a gentle slope, a bank of snow falling away to a slightly steeper one, and then beyond that the hillside gradually evened out until it reached the bottom. There was nothing then but the flat expanse of ice as far as the eye could see.

I squeezed Emma's hand. “Don't worry, love—I‘ll be right behind you,” I said.

“I'd rather you were down there with a circus net.”

The Princess caught my eye behind Emma's back. She did not look happy.

“Er, Princess,” I said. “Have you ever done anything like this before?”

She peered over the battlement and then back at me. “Like what?” she said.

“Well, you know, it's a long way to jump,” I said.

“That's not a jump, Sloane—that's a fall,” said Emma.

“My people are trained in all-terrain survival techniques—we can endure any hardship,” said the Princess. “We always get where we want to go and we always get what we want.”

“Sounds like a marching song.” I sang it, “Oh, we always get where we want to go and we always get what we want.”

“Stephen—it's not funny,” said Emma.

“Sorry—just trying to boost morale.”

“Here they come,” said the Princess, staring down into the courtyard.

I looked round. I could hear the Duck's voice even before I saw him. He was out of the drain hole and Jemmons was handing the boards up to him.

He looked over his shoulder and quickly spotted us.

“Well, come and give us a bloody hand then!” he quacked. His voice echoed eerily round the quad.

“I'd better go and help him,” I said. “Before he bursts a blood vessel.”

“Be careful, darling,” said the Princess.

I shot Emma a glance. She raised one eyebrow and turned her face away from me, into the buffeting west wind.

I ran around the side of the tower and back down the steps. I was just getting to the bottom when I heard a commotion above and directly behind me. I wheeled round and saw a horde of men pouring out of the infirmary door, led by the unmistakable figure of the Colonel. I counted about twenty of them.

“Em—!” I started to shout, to warn Emma and the Princess, but then cut my voice off, because I thought it would be better not to draw attention to them.

“There he is!” cried the Colonel, pointing his baton down at me.

I turned and legged it. The Duck had already seen them and was just standing around watching. Someone fired a tranquillizer dart at me and it pinged off the ice near my feet. And then two more zinged past my head and almost hit the Duck. He skipped up in the air.

“What the hell is he playing at?” he quacked.

“Who me?” I gasped.

“No—that old fart up there!” cried the Duck.

I skidded to a stop and hid behind Jemmons.

“Hand that man over to me, Zirconion!” bellowed the Colonel. “He is not coming on this escape. I'm taking charge and I'm taking his place.”

“Let's do a deal, Colonel,” said the Duck.

“No deals, Zirconion!” said the Colonel sternly.

“Oh, no!” said the Duck, out of the corner of his mouth.

“Is he coming?” I said.

“No—the Princess is getting involved—why doesn't she stay where she is?” he whispered.

I peeped out around Jemmons and saw the Princess sneaking around the corner of the infirmary tower, towards the porch. There was no sign of Emma on the wall. I guessed she must have been told to stay around the corner, out of sight.

“I'm going to count to three, Doctor!” shouted the Colonel. All the Colonel's men raised their tasers and tranquillizer dart guns as one and aimed them at us. “One…”

“I better hand you over,” said the Duck. “But don't worry, I'll come back for you some day.”

“Two…” said the Colonel.

“Don't bother,” I said. “I'm giving myself up.”

“There's no need for that—we can take this lot, mateys,” said Jemmons.

“Three!”

I patted Jemmons on the back and stepped out into the open.

“I'm coming in, Colonel!” I shouted. And I began walking back across the courtyard towards the steps, with my hands in my pockets and my head down. There didn't seem any point in holding up the escape on my account—if De Quipp could make the grand gesture then so could I. Anyway, I was fairly sure the Duck would be back for me—one day!

Suddenly, a piercing screech rang out—so loud that it gave me a sort of shock between my shoulder blades. I immediately looked up at the tower. Mayhem had broken out. The Princess was among them, flinging guys every which way and shrieking at the top of her voice. Grown men were screaming and scattering for their lives on that wall. They were firing their tasers and tranquillizer bolts at her, but nothing was having any effect. Some brave types were even leaping on her back, but they couldn't bring her down. I started running. I was near to the foot of the steps, when one of the Colonel's men came flying down at me. I dodged out of the way and he crunched into the ice, chin first. And then someone came charging past me from the other direction and bounded up the steps ahead of me, in a blur—Jemmons!