Terminus (11 page)

Nariko drew the Glock.

‘Get me out of this suit.’

Nariko kept the pistol trained on the ticket hall above them. Cloke and Tombes flanked her. They pulled back duct tape and zippers, helped her squirm from cumbersome NBC gear.

‘You guys hang back.’

She crept up the ticket hall steps, pistol gripped in both hands. She was stripped down to T-shirt and pants. Her skin prickled in the cold. Her breath fogged the air.

Cloke and Tombes followed behind her.

A face appeared at the top of the stairwell. A chubby guy with black-frame glasses.

‘Hey,’ shouted Nariko.

Shotgun roar. Smack of impact. The wall beside Nariko erupted. She shielded her eyes from whirling tile splinters and stone chips.

She fired back. 9mm rounds blew craters in the ticket hall roof.

Gunfire died slow like thunder. Silence and dust-haze.

Nariko heard a distant shout. Lupe’s voice. She couldn’t make out words. Angry, like she was calling some kind of ceasefire.

Nariko crept upwards.

The ticket hall.

Wade, sitting on the bench. He sat, legs crossed, arms stretched over the back of the seat like he was sitting in a park, enjoying the sun.

Nariko took aim at his chest.

‘Where’s Donahue?’ demanded Nariko, glancing round the empty hall. ‘Where’s the other guy? The guy with glasses? The guy with the shotgun?’

Wade didn’t reply.

Tombes grabbed a crowbar from the equipment pile. Cloke grabbed a hammer.

‘Donahue?’ shouted Nariko. Her voice echoed through the vaulted ticket hall.

‘Donnie?’ yelled Tombes. ‘You okay?’

Muffled shout from the office:

‘Yeah. I’m all right.’

Nariko turned back to Wade.

‘Come on. Talk. Who the hell are you?’

‘Just a guy waiting for a ride.’

‘Who’s the other creep?’

‘My spiritual advisor.’

Something weird and unfocused about the convict’s expression. Nariko leaned sideways. His gaze didn’t shift as she moved from his field of vision. He continued to stare straight ahead.

‘Cut the crap. What do you want?’ she asked.

‘Like I said. I’m looking for a way off this island.’

Nariko crept closer. She waved her hand in front of his face. No reaction.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Maybe I can get you a ride.’

Wade twitched, startled to hear her standing so close.

‘That easy?’

‘You were down here with Ekks, is that right? You were one of his lab rats?’

‘Yeah,’ said Wade.

‘Listen. I honestly don’t give a damn who you are, or what you want. But I don’t have time to waste on some lame-ass Mexican stand-off. Just stay out the way until we’re done. That’s all I ask. Call off your friend. I’ll get you home.’

Nariko engaged the safety and tucked the Glock into her belt. She sat beside Wade.

‘You’re blind.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Totally blind?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How long?’

‘Couple of days. Vision went blurry. Thought my eyes were tired. Tried to sleep it off. Woke the next day and couldn’t see a damn thing. Nothing. Not even black. It’s got to be a temporary thing, right? Eye strain. Down in the dark too long. Be fine, once I’m out of here and get some sun.’

Nariko checked out Wade’s shin. Red on red: a deep crimson streak below the knee of his scarlet state-issue pants.

‘What’s up with your leg?’

‘Cut it shaving.’

‘Let me take a look.’

Tombes picked a trauma bag from the equipment pile and threw it skidding across the floor to Nariko.

‘Roll your leg.’

Wade rolled his pant leg. Black, crusted blood.

‘That’s a pretty bad sore.’ She double-gloved and cleaned the wound. She probed the lesion. Wade winced.

‘Doesn’t look infected.’

She packed the wound with gauze and wrapped bandage round his shin.

Cloke discreetly unhooked the Geiger counter. He set it to silent. He took a background count, then swung the handset towards Wade. Flickering digits. The LCD readout flashed a threshold warning.

‘You folks here for Ekks?’ asked Wade.

‘Yeah,’ said Nariko. ‘Any member of his team left alive. Failing that, his research.’

‘The guy is long gone.’

‘We know where he is. Just got to figure how to reach him.’

‘You’ve got a chopper set to pick you up?’

‘Yeah. A JetRanger. It’s fucked up, but it flies.’

‘And go where?’ asked Wade.

‘Ridgeway. An old airfield upstate. It’s a temporary base. A few cops, reservists and civilians. Handful of folks trying to stay alive. You can join us, maybe find a role. Or we can dump you by the side of a highway somewhere, if you want. Try and make it on your own. Your choice.’

Wade cocked his head, tried to gauge if she was lying.

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s Year Zero,’ said Nariko. ‘I don’t give a damn who you are, or what you did. Doesn’t matter much any more. I’m happy to give you a ride out of here. I’m happy to blow your brains out. Honestly don’t care either way. I came here to do a job.’

‘On the level?’

‘A straight deal. Stay out of our way, and you get a ride.’

‘What’s waiting for us at this airbase?’

‘It’s safe. Safer than here.’

‘Have they got doctors? Can they fix my sight?’

‘Let me take a look.’

Nariko shone a pen torch into Wade’s eyes. No dilation.

‘They’re okay, yeah? My eyes. No actual damage?’

‘Where were you when the device exploded?’

‘Hiding in the plant room. Me and my buddy. Waiting for the bomb. Felt it before we heard it. I was about to drink some water. Had the bottle raised to my lips when there was a sudden weird change of air pressure. My ears popped like I was dropping in an elevator. Then the ground shook. A massive jolt. Half a second later, we heard the blast. The loudest thunderclap you can imagine. We covered our heads. Thought the roof was coming down. Thought we were dead for sure.’

‘We have to tell him,’ said Cloke.

‘Tell me what?’ demanded Wade.

‘The bomb,’ said Cloke. ‘It was a Sandman. A tactical nuke. Small. Probably fit in the trunk of a car.’

‘And?’

‘The Sandman is an enhanced radiation warhead: a fissile core jacketed with cobalt. At the moment of detonation the device pulsed a wave of fierce neutron energy strong enough to pass through bedrock. Everyone for miles around caught a lethal dose. Wouldn’t matter if you were sheltered within a building or hidden in a basement. Wouldn’t matter if you were shielded by lead, steel, or concrete. The wave would pass right through you like an X-ray.’

‘We were forty feet below ground.’

‘Not deep enough.’

‘But I feel good. Apart from my eyes. I feel fine.’

‘Open your mouth.’

Wade opened his mouth. Cloke peered inside.

‘Ulcers. Bleeding gums.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’ve got a sweet taste in your mouth right now, don’t you?’ said Cloke. ‘Kind of like honey.’

Wade nodded.

‘You’re exhibiting the typical symptoms of acute radiation poisoning. The prodromal stage lasts a couple of days. Nausea and vomiting. Dry throat, hacking cough. Burns, blisters. Random neurological effects, like blindness. Then there is a latent phase, the illusion of recovery. The initial symptoms abate for a while, but remission doesn’t last long. Day or two at the most. You’ll go downhill fast. It’ll be bad. Brain swelling. Congested lungs, internal bleeding. You may shit your guts out, literally excrete your own stomach lining. That’s the reality of the situation. So if you’ve got any thoughts about hijacking the chopper and heading south to the Caribbean, put them from your mind. You’d never make it.’

‘Can we beat this thing? Me and Sicknote? Do we have a chance?’

‘The dose you took? No. Nobody has received that kind of exposure and lived. You’re going to die. You should be dead already.’

‘Take us back to Ridgeway. Send for the chopper.’

‘If the world were still intact, if there were hospitals and surgeons, then we might have options. We could put up an oxygen tent, isolate you from infection. We could transfuse blood, maybe find a marrow donor. But we don’t have much equipment back at base. A few bandages. A few antibiotics. Enough to fix a broken arm, maybe pull a tooth. Basic first aid. But we’ve got morphine. We can manage the pain. That might not matter much right now. But in a day or so you’ll be screaming for a shot. At that moment you’ll need us more than you’ve needed anyone in your life.’

‘Fuck.’

‘There’s an alternative.’

Cloke unzipped the trauma bag. He took out a cardboard box. The box looked like it had sat on a shelf for a couple of decades. Faded serial number. Faded radiation emblem.

He opened the box. Little brass cylinders in rows, like a pack of rifle bullets. He put a cylinder in Wade’s hand. Wade held it to his ear and shook it. Faint rattle.

‘What’s this? Lipstick?’

He uncapped the cylinder and shook a glass ampoule into his palm. He rolled it between his fingers.

‘Cyanide,’ said Cloke. ‘We all carry one. My advice? Keep that capsule in your pocket. Hold out as long as you can, then use it.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Like I said. Forget about fleeing south. You got bigger problems.’

Wade stroked cold glass.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘Cyanide? I hear it’s a pretty quick way to go. Takes effect within seconds. Shuts down respiration. You might convulse a little, fight for breath, but not for long. Your world will be over in less than a minute.’

‘Christ.’

‘Better than the alternative.’

‘You should have just put it on my tongue,’ he said quietly. ‘Told me it was a painkiller or some shit.’

‘If I were dying, if I had hours to live, I would want to know. I would want to choose my moment, make my peace.’

‘Sorry man,’ said Nariko. ‘Guess you reached the end of the line.’

Wade turned the cyanide cylinder between his fingers.

‘Do you think he’s lying?’

‘About the radiation?’ said Lupe. ‘About the bomb? I doubt it.’

‘You trust him?’ asked Wade.

‘Yeah, I guess. Broom up his ass, but he’s on the level.’

‘We were below ground. Me and Sicknote. Miles from the blast site. We didn’t set foot outside. We didn’t breathe fallout. Maybe we’ll be all right.’

‘Yeah,’ said Lupe. ‘
Asi es, asi será
. Some people beat the odds. It’s like cancer. Someone has a big-ass tumour. Melanoma the size of an apple lodged in their lung. Next time they take an X-ray it’s gone. It happens. Don’t bite that capsule just yet.’

She looked towards Sicknote. He sat on the street exit steps, staring into space, lost in waking nightmares. His lips moved. He whispered to himself. He pulled strands of hair out of his scalp and watched them drift to the floor.

‘Is he cool with this truce?’

‘He’ll do whatever I say.’

‘So what do we tell him?’ asked Lupe.

‘Nothing. When the time comes, I’ll feed him the capsule myself. Say it’s vitamins or some shit. Let him bite down and fall asleep.’

Nariko and Cloke stood in the IRT supervisor’s office. They leaned over schematics spread on the table.

Cloke uncapped a Sharpie and scribbled a break in a Liberty Line tunnel.

‘One of the buildings flanking Broadway must have pancaked, crushed the tunnel flat. And I’m guessing there was another collapse, further north.’ He scribbled a second break. ‘It’s created an air pocket. That’s how this Ivanek guy, the young man you heard on the radio, survived. The subway train must be sitting in a sealed section of tunnel, cut off from rising flood water.’

‘We haven’t got equipment to shift that much concrete aside,’ said Nariko.

‘We brought scuba gear,’ said Cloke. ‘We could check beneath the waterline. There might be a gap between some of those big slabs. Some way to worm our way to the other side.’

‘The flood water is tainted with fallout,’ said Nariko. ‘You said it yourself: if anyone dives in that water, they will get seriously irradiated. It’s potential suicide.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Cloke. ‘This is a military mission. I brought you here. It’s my responsibility.’

Nariko wearily shook her head.

‘How long since you pulled basic? Twenty years? Thirty? You’re a lab tech. You spend your time behind a microscope. I trained for this shit. Confined space operations. I do it every day.’

‘This is a little bit worse than a neighbourhood house fire. A whole different league. If you get in that water you’ll pay for it. Maybe not right away, but somewhere down the line.’

‘Comes with the job.’

‘You need to keep your exposure to the absolute minimum. Make a brief survey. Be thorough. But don’t hang around.’

‘Yeah.’

‘If there’s a route through the rubble, some kind of crawl-space to the other side, we’ll send a team.’

‘Okay.’

‘Like I say. Do it quick, but get it done. We can fail but we can’t quit, understand?’

‘Yeah. I know the score.’

Lupe and Donahue pushed the Coke machine across the tiled floor of the ticket hall, inch at a time. Metal shriek. Flaking rust. They hauled the Coke machine up the stairwell. Donahue called a breathless three-count each time they hefted the heavy cabinet a step higher.

‘Hold on.’

Donahue wiped sweat from her forehead. She winced as she touched her bruised and swollen cheek.

‘Sorry about your face,’ said Lupe.

‘Sorry about yours.’

They reached the top of the stairs and paused for breath.

Donahue bent double, like she was about to vomit.

‘You all right?’ asked Lupe.

‘Yeah,’ she said, straightening up. ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

‘Is it the sickness?’

Donahue clapped a hand over her mouth and fought back rising bile. She waited for nausea to subside.

‘I’ll be all right.’

Clawed fingernails raked polythene. The plastic bulged as hands tried to pull it aside and reach fresh meat.

‘Got to admire their persistence,’ said Lupe. ‘This virus, this parasite, whatever the hell it is pulling their strings. A single driving purpose.’

‘You prefer it to humans?’ asked Donahue.

‘Darwinism in action, baby. This bug wants the world more than us. You can’t win against that kind of enemy. Trust me. I’ve seen it. On the street, in the yard. Some guys have their own dark purpose. Spooky fuckers with a weird, Charles Manson charisma. They’ve got an aura, like they’ve seen further, deeper than anyone else. They’re driving headlong to hell, and nothing better get in their way. You can’t beat that intensity. All you can do is back off.’