She shook me up badly. I had been trying so hard to focus on the task at hand, and Inaret brought back too many memories. Memories of ice cream spilled on the floor of the Health Centre, and clumsy fairies dancing at the annual Christmas pantomime, and Caromy wearing her hair twisted up in two golden antennae. Memories of cold lemonade, and virtual snowfalls, and streams of silvery music. A host of beloved faces flashed into my head – Caromy, Teillo, Sloan, my mother and father. They were laughing, or smiling. Their eyes were clear, and their skin was clean.
My heart almost burst into a million pieces. Because I realised – with a sudden, cold clarity – that these things belonged to a vanished past.
But I jerked my chin, to drive the memories away. I couldn’t succumb now. If I did, we were finished.
‘It’s okay, baby,’ I murmured, watching Haemon slither to a standstill at my feet. I didn’t have a hand to spare, but he struggled upright unaided. ‘You okay, Haemon?’
‘Yeah . . .’ Haemon stared at the little girl. ‘What happened to Inaret?’
‘I don’t know. I guess she was hiding.’ I felt her grip tighten. ‘Were you hiding there, baby?’
She nodded, without raising her head from my shoulder.
‘It was a smart place to hide,’ I said.
At that point Merrit joined us, having come downstairs at a more sedate pace than Haemon. She put her hand on Inaret’s crusty curls, and said, ‘Are you hungry, Ret? Are you thirsty?’
Another nod.
‘I wonder how long she’s been there?’ Merrit looked at me. Something had changed in her face; I could see a trace of the old Merrit, instead of the stupefied, shell-shocked zombie who had been following me around so far. Inaret’s sudden appearance hadn’t shaken her up. It had helped her pull herself together – I don’t know why. ‘Could there be anyone else inside the conduit?’ she went on.
‘I can’t see anyone!’ Dygall interjected, and we glanced around to see that he was hanging off the open conduit hatch, one foot wedged against the rim of the opening, another against the wall. His free hand was clutching the pressure flask to his chest. ‘It’s pretty dark in there, though.’
Inaret mumbled something. I didn’t understand it, because she was talking into my shoulder.
‘What’s that?’ I said.
‘I was all by myself . . .’ She began to cry.
‘Here,’ Merrit offered. ‘I’ll take her.’
Inaret, however, wouldn’t be moved. She squeezed so hard that I nearly choked. While Dygall shot down to our level (he had missed his footing, and his descent was more abrupt than he’d originally planned), Merrit tried to persuade her Little Sister that she would be perfectly safe, with Merrit. ‘Cheney needs both arms, Ret,’ she said. ‘He has to protect us with his sword. Don’t worry. I’ll carry you.’
‘You’ll be safe with Merrit.’ I coughed, my anxious gaze on Dygall. ‘Is that flask all right?’ I asked him. ‘You didn’t bump it, did you?’
‘No.’
‘Come on, baby, please.’ I had to be firm. ‘We can’t stay here. It’s time to go.’
Slowly, with great reluctance, Inaret allowed herself to be peeled off me. She crawled into Merrit’s arms. Freed of her weight, I was able to check the street again.
Our way was still clear.
I took a deep breath, and turned my head to survey the little group behind me. Merrit stood there, holding Inaret. Haemon was huddled beside Merrit, clinging to her pressure suit with one hand, while with the other he gripped his bottle so tightly that his dark fingers were white at the knuckles. Next to him, Dygall, grim-faced, cradled the oxygen flask. His freckles stood out vividly against his stark white skin. They all seemed so defenceless. So horribly, appallingly
young
.
I realised, for the first time, that I was in charge. That I had to take care of them, because there was no one else available to do the job. I realised that Sloan and Arkwright were not about to come to my rescue. Not any time soon.
The lives of my friends were now
my
responsibility.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I think we’re pretty close to BioLab, and BioLab’s probably a good source of chemicals -’
‘Unless they’ve already been used,’ Dygall interrupted. We gazed at each other, and I remembered my last glimpse of BioLab: a battleground, if ever there was one. It occurred to me that Zennor’s body was still there. Lais’s too, perhaps.
And . . . my father’s?
‘I don’t want to go back to BioLab,’ Dygall whispered. His expression chilled me. ‘Do we have to go back there?’
‘I thought we were going to the Vaults,’ said Merrit. ‘Didn’t you say they were safe?’
‘They might be.’ I considered our options. ‘And Mum might be there, too. On the other hand, there’s no proper Interface Array in the Vaults, and Arkwright needed an Array. He
had
to have one.’ I checked the street again. Still nothing. ‘You know, the Bridge was never attacked, and the best Array on board is there. If I were Arkwright, I would have gone back to the Bridge.’
‘But -’
‘We have two options,’ I said. ‘I can check out the Bridge myself, while you guys head back to the Vaults. Though,’ I added, frowning, ‘I don’t know how you’re going to get in, with those double pressure-doors, and the air ducts all inflamed -’
‘We can’t split up!’ Merrit exclaimed. ‘We’re not splitting up, Cheney!’
‘Yeah.’ Dygall stuck out his chin. ‘No way are we splitting up.’
‘Well – okay.’ I could understand their vehemence. ‘Okay, so we’ll check out the Bridge first. And if it’s empty, I’ll take you all back to the Vaults. I reckon there’s still enough room in those air ducts for Haemon and Inaret, anyway. Maybe they can take something in with them, to prop open the swollen bits . . . I don’t know. I’ll think about it.’
‘What we have to do,’ said Dygall fiercely, ‘is fortify ourselves. Choose a room and defend it. With electrical fields and chemical mines and things. A room with a food dispenser, and an Interface Array, and everything else we need.’
‘Maybe one of the loading bays,’ Merrit suggested. ‘They have reinforced walls
and
airlocks.’
‘Or the food processing area.’ Dygall knew what he was talking about; his mother had worked in that unit. ‘Some of the compartments there are triple-sealed, and if we can’t work the dispensers -’
‘Okay, fine.’ I held up my hand. ‘We’ll fortify. But we can’t fortify this stair shaft, so let’s talk about it later. When we’re a little less exposed.’ I took a deep breath, fixing each of the others, in turn, with a long, serious look. ‘If there’s no one at the Bridge,’ I said, ‘then we’ll stop looking. We’ll stop looking, and we’ll start fortifying. We’ll start taking care of ourselves. Agreed?’
Solemnly, everyone nodded.
‘Right, then.’ Sword poised, I gave the street outside one last, lingering glance. ‘Let’s go.’
We were two streets from BioLab, and I was undecided. Should I raid it for more chemicals? Would the gain be worth the risk? In the end, however, I wasn’t even given the opportunity.
Because, after crossing the first junction without incident, we reached twenty-sixth street only to discover that it could
not
be crossed. One quick peek told me that.
I jumped back from the corner so abruptly that I trod on Merrit’s foot.
‘Ah!’ she yelped, and I slapped a hand across her mouth.
When Dygall questioned me with his eyes, I pointed. Back. Back to the nearest stair shaft.
We retreated in a panic.
‘What? What was it?’ Dygall hissed, as we piled into the shaft on twenty-fifth street. Luckily, it was open. Even more luckily, it was clear. ‘What did you see?’
‘Something . . . bad,’ I replied, my chest heaving. In fact, I had seen an On-board Transport Vehicle.
Two
Onboard Transport Vehicles. One had been consuming the other, for some reason. Had they been fighting? Or had the dead one met its end by some other means, and attracted the second OTV simply as a piece of waste to be tidied up?
I didn’t know. My fleeting glimpse hadn’t told me enough.
‘We’ll go up and across,’ I continued. ‘Come back down on twenty-fourth, or something.’
‘Was it an OTV?’ Dygall pressed, and I frowned. I jerked my head at Inaret, who was watching me with round, frightened eyes. (
Not in front of the little ones
, I was trying to say.)
‘It’s all right,’ I declared, as calmly as possible. ‘We can take a detour.’
‘It won’t follow us?’
‘It was . . . busy,’ I said. Seeing Dygall wince, I added, ‘It was cleaning up. They really
are
scavengers. They eat each other, as well.’
‘Oh.’
‘Come on.’
Climbing up those stairs was no easy job. Like the other flight, they had turned into a kind of greased, uneven slope, almost impossible to grip. I had to exert all my strength just to keep my fingers and the toes of my boots wedged into each yielding surface. I couldn’t stop moving, either. If I stayed in one place too long, I would slide out of my foot- or hand-hold. The only certain mode of attack was to keep jabbing away, hauling myself up in one continual movement.
By the time I reached the top, I was exhausted.
‘Right,’ I gasped, after a quick scan of the street outside. ‘Come on up. Merrit, you’ll have to put Inaret on your back.’
‘How are we going to do this?’ she groaned. ‘It’s so
slippery
.’
‘You don’t have to get far,’ I pointed out. ‘If I stretch down – like this – you’ll be able to grab my hand, pretty soon.’
‘Maybe she should use the scissors,’ Dygall remarked. He was keeping a close eye on the downstairs door. ‘Maybe she could stick them into the stairs every so often, and pull herself up on them -’
‘No!’ I snapped. ‘God, no!’
‘But -’
‘You want to sound the alarm, Dygall? That’ll do it for sure! We’ll have OTVs pouring in from every direction!’ Seeing Haemon’s terror, I quickly lowered my voice. ‘It’ll be fine,’ I assured them, staring down at their upturned faces. ‘Merrit, if you can crawl far enough to reach my hand, then Haemon can grab your foot, and we’ll do it like that. I’ll pull you all up together. In a chain.’
I did it, too, but not without an awful lot of effort. It was very hard to brace against that slick, springy surface. Though the others tried to help me, pushing against the stairs with their feet and grabbing at whatever leverage they could, they were still a terrific weight. I had to put my sword down. I had to focus all my energy on dragging them to the top landing, where we finally collapsed in a disordered heap, rubbing wrists and gulping down air. For several minutes, I completely forgot about watching the door.
Once again, though, we were lucky. This lapse didn’t have any fatal consequences.
Merrit was the first to recover.
‘Are you all right, Cheney?’
‘Yeah . . . yeah . . . in a second . . .’
‘Did you hurt yourself?’
‘No, no . . .’ Actually, my arms felt as if they must be at least a metre longer. They didn’t seem to want to bend at the elbow. But I flexed them anyway, and picked up my sword with trembling fingers. ‘Everyone okay? Haemon?’
He nodded. Dygall said, ‘Let’s go.’ I staggered past them both, and took up my usual position at the edge of the door. Slowly, carefully, I peered around the corner . . .
And pulled back quickly.
There had been movement. A shape. It took me a second to process what I’d just seen; meanwhile, Merrit nudged my arm. She and the others – they were all wide-eyed. Frozen. Poised to run.
I shook my head.
‘Wait,’ I mouthed, and peeked around the corner again. Sure enough, there was a man crawling along the street. He was wearing a pressure suit, and something else . . . something I didn’t recognise. At first I thought it might be some kind of cloak, because it hung off his shoulders, trailing along the ground after him – a big, flattish, oval shape, as limp as a pancake but cream-coloured, with two long, black cords wrapped around his neck . . .
Suddenly I caught my breath. That wasn’t a cloak. That was a street shuttle. The flat oval base, the two black handgrips – I recognised all its essential features, despite the fact that they were no longer rigid.
This time, when I pulled back, I had my eyes shut. I was breathing through clenched teeth. Preparing myself.
‘Cheney?’ Merrit whispered. I gulped down a lungful of air, and let it out again slowly. Tried to be calm.
‘Wait here,’ I ordered.
‘No!’ She grabbed me, almost dropping Inaret in the process. I shook her off, and she flinched. She must have seen my expression.
‘
Stay here!
’ I hissed.
They were all staring at me in horror. I don’t know what they were thinking. I didn’t really care, at that point. I was concentrating on the man around the corner; I had to speak to him, at all costs.
So I marched out into the street – three strides – and turned to face him.
‘Hello?’ I said, my sword lifted.
He heard. We were about ten metres apart, and his ears were still functioning. With a huge, convulsive effort, he raised his head.
His face was a living nightmare. The skin was mottled with purple blotches; his jaw hung open, exposing a swollen grey tongue; his eyes were swimming, not with tears, but with some kind of gluey stuff that dripped like honey. They seemed to be melting away.
Even if I’d known him, I probably wouldn’t have recognised him.
He was a stranger.
‘Oh no.’ I couldn’t help myself. The wail just burst out of me. ‘Oh
no
, oh no . . .!’
‘
Don’t!
’ he squawked. ‘Don’t come near!’
‘What – what can I -?’
‘Nothing.’ He could barely talk. Something – the street shuttle – was draining his life away. I could see it. I could feel it. ‘Who is that? I can’t see.’
‘Cheney,’ I sobbed. ‘Cheney Sheppard . . .’
‘Sheppard?’ He coughed, feebly. The thing on his back seemed to swell with each breath he took. ‘Tuddor’s boy?’
‘
Please!
’ I cried. Nothing had prepared me for this: not Haido, not Zennor, not Sadira. Nothing. I felt as if I was going mad. As if I was plunging into the head of something sick and inhuman. I couldn’t control myself any more.