Vulture's Gate (12 page)

The Nekhbet Tower was easy to navigate towards, dark and solid above the ruined city. Its black glass walls rose up like the muzzle of a gun, pointing straight into a hazy blue sky.

‘It doesn't look like a homey sort of place,' said Bo.

‘Don't let that or the security put you off. Once we're inside, everything will be great. But there are checkpoints to get through before we're safe. The first test will be the security drone at the gateway,' he said nervously.

But as they drew closer to the black gates they could see that the entrance to the Nekhbet Tower courtyard was a bombsite. One of the gates lay twisted and torn from its hinges, jutting out of a crater.

‘What should I do?' asked Bo.

‘Don't stop,' said Callum. ‘Skirt around it and take us straight to the main doors.'

Bo revved the Daisy-May and drove straight up the steps of the building and along the colonnaded entrance. She braked only when they were close to the vault-like front doors.

‘Home time!' said Callum. Bo pressed the release and the protective shield of the Daisy-May slid back. They were hit by a wave of sticky, humid air. ‘We have to be fast. Once Ruff and Rusty know I'm here everything will be fine, but we don't want anyone mistaking us for Festers.'

‘Festers?'

‘Don't worry.' Callum grabbed her hand and dragged her off the Daisy-May.

Bo set Mr Pinkwhistle on guard while they turned their attention to the access boxes on the south wall. Callum counted his way past the blank screens until he reached Box 217. When he found it, he was almost too excited to speak. He pushed his hand against the imprint bar and his face against the retinal scanner and waited for the screen to light up. ‘I have to still be in the system! I have to,' he muttered. He gave a shout of relief when Ruff and Rusty's faces appeared on the access screen.

‘Dads, it's me!' he said. ‘Let me in!' But the faces staring back at him smiled blankly and intoned, ‘You have activated Ruff and Rusty's message box. Please say your piece and we'll get back to you.'

‘Why aren't they answering you?' asked Bo.

‘Maybe they're asleep. Or they might be out. I hope not. I can get into the building but if someone spots me looking like this and with no microchips in my ears, I could be in trouble.'

Bo glanced over her shoulder anxiously, scanning the arcade.

‘Should we wait somewhere else until they come back? My 'twitian says this is a bad place to be,' she said, pointing up at the surveillance cameras monitoring the arcade.

‘Don't rush me. I want to leave a proper message first.' Callum turned back to the message bank. ‘I'm safe. I'm going to try coming up but if someone stops me, at least you know I'm here in Vulture's Gate. And I've got this friend with me and you're really going to like . . . them.' He was suddenly uncertain about calling Bo a ‘she'. It seemed rude.

At the entrance to the Tower, there was another retinal scanner. Callum turned to Bo and put his hands on her shoulders.

‘You wait here,' he said. ‘You can't come into the building unless you're in the system. I'll talk to someone and sort everything out. Stay with the Daisy-May. I won't be long. I'll come back for you,' he said.

Inside, the white-and-silver foyer was empty. Callum was relieved to see it looked the same as he remembered. But where were the squadrones that guarded the place? Where was the Colony drone who usually manned the front desk? Callum caught sight of his reflection in the polished metal of the lift doors. He looked like a runaway. He touched his scarred ears anxiously. Would a drone believe he had once been a Colony boy? He could hardly believe it himself.

No one stopped the lift as it rose up through the building. On the seventeenth floor, Callum made his way to the old apartment, down long, silent corridors. It was eerie how empty the building appeared. Nervously, he pressed his hand against the apartment's imprint sensor. What if the scars on his hands interfered with the reading? When the panel failed to acknowledge him, he leaned his head against the smooth, shiny door and sighed. This wasn't the homecoming he'd dreamt of. A single tear ran down his cheek. ‘Dads,' he whispered.

As if the apartment itself heard him, the door swung open. Inside, nothing was as he remembered it. The place was a mess. There were piles of filthy crockery on every surface and the air smelt stale. Drawers had been pulled open and sheets of paper were scattered across the floor. Callum picked up a small square of stationery with a black flower in the middle. There were no words on the page, only neat ebony petals fanning out from the centre of the white sheet.

‘You, Fester! How did you get in here?' yelled a voice.

Callum jumped. A grey-haired man stood in the doorway of the apartment, blocking Callum's exit.

‘I'm Callum Caravaggio. I'm looking for my fathers.'

‘There are no Caravaggios here.'

‘Where has everyone gone?'

‘Anyone with brains or luck is living on South Head.' The man walked towards Callum, as if approaching a wild dog. ‘You can't be a Caravaggio.'

Callum backed away until he was pressed against the window. Down in the Tower courtyard the Daisy-May was waiting for him, but it was no longer parked discreetly. It was speeding around the edge of the building with a Pally-val hovering in pursuit.

‘Bo!' he cried.

Before the grey-haired man could stop him, Callum dived past, skidding over the scattered paper, slamming the apartment door shut behind him and dashing down the hallway. He could hear the man chasing him but he didn't stop. He swung into the lift and hit the ground-floor button.

When he stepped outside again, a pair of drones on a Pally-val were hurtling down the arcade towards him. Callum zigzagged between the colonnades, making it impossible for the drones to take a clear shot at him.

Suddenly the Daisy-May came roaring around the corner of the building and the shield slid back.

‘Quick, Callum,' called Bo as she slowed near him. ‘Jump.'

Callum didn't need to be told twice. As the bike glided past him, he mustered all his circus training. He took a running leap and flung himself into the air, landing neatly on the slow-moving vehicle. The shield of the Daisy-May was barely closed when the guards opened fire again. Bo revved the engine and the bike leapt off the top of the steps. Callum felt his bones jar as it landed in the street. He could see the muscles and sinews in Bo's arms quivering as she tried to keep control.

‘Where can we hide?' shouted Bo.

‘Just drive,' said Callum. Why hadn't he anticipated this and made a back-up plan? The Daisy-May sped out of the central area and into the cluttered streets of the city's dark side. It fishtailed wildly as Bo gunned the accelerator. Out of nowhere, a monster truck pulled in front of them and before she could steady it the Daisy-May was on its side, careering down a narrow city street. Mr Pinkwhistle let out a long, shrill cry. As soon as the bike came to a stop, Bo tried to make the shield peel back but it was jammed shut. For a moment, Callum had a horrible vision of the patrols smashing the blue glass, dragging them out and shooting them both before they could explain. Bo screamed at him to cover his eyes as she set Mr Pinkwhistle against the shield. The roboraptor sat back on his haunches and then launched himself against the cover, blasting a hole through it that generated a shower of tiny dark shards. Callum shook the glass from his hair and looked out into the street.

There was noise everywhere – sirens, shouting and the sound of jackbooted feet racing towards them. Bo and Callum crawled out of the wreckage of the Daisy-May and ran. Bo grabbed the handrail at the top of a long, slimy flight of stairs that disappeared beneath the city, and started descending into the dark.

‘Stop, wait,' called Callum. ‘We can't go down there.'

‘There are people chasing us,' said Bo. ‘People with weapons.'

‘That's an old underground train station. They're all flooded. I've heard about them. We go down there, we'll drown in the darkness.'

‘There's a muon detector in Mr Pinkwhistle. He'll help us find our way.'

‘Maybe we should put our hands up and surrender. Then they can take us to my dads. They'll know I'm on the register.'

‘But I'm not,' said Bo. ‘What if they won't listen to you?'

Callum bit his lip. His dads had always warned him against being found alone, being mistaken for a runaway or a reject. If it was dangerous for him, how would a girl be treated?

The sirens grew louder and still Callum stood transfixed, staring into the darkness.

‘Callum?'

Bo gazed up at him, waiting. Callum followed her down into the fetid dark.

18

BLACK WATER

For one long and terrible moment, Bo had thought Callum was
going to leave her.
She had seen it written on his face when he stood at the top of the stairs – that split second of hesitation as he contemplated whether to follow her into the darkness. As they hurried into the underground, she reached for his hand.

Black water washed around their ankles. Shadows fell like dark wings as they descended the steps and walked along a tunnel. Once they were below the streets, slivers of light pierced through cracks above them. Soon the darkness thickened to soupy blackness. Bo stroked Mr Pinkwhistle until his eyes shone with thin, bright LED lights that cast a pale glow before them. As the tunnel started to dip downwards, the water grew deeper. Bo tied her string bag into a bundle to carry on her head.

‘This water stinks,' said Callum. ‘I think I'd rather be pulverised by the squadrones than drown in a sewer.'

Bo hooked one arm around Callum's shoulder and drew him close. ‘Be very still and listen.'

They stood side by side, concentrating, alive to the smallest movement of the black air. At first, all that was audible was the sound of dripping water. Then she heard it again. Something was slapping against the surface of the floodwater.

‘It's coming this way,' said Bo.

She turned off the lights in Mr Pinkwhistle and the darkness pressed in around them. A moment later, she could sense something nearby. Something big – a boat or canoe.

‘Coo-eee?' came a voice, not much more than a whisper but soft and shrill.

Bo held her breath.

‘You Fester or Foe?' came the whisper again. ‘You be Fester, you be safe,' it said in a wheedling tone. It was not until the sound of the slapping oars faded into the distance that Bo felt she could breathe again.

‘Maybe they could have helped us,' said Bo, though even as she spoke she doubted that anyone in Vulture's Gate could help them. Not even Callum's fathers.

‘C'mon,' said Callum, ‘we're going above ground. There's nowhere safe down here and my feet are getting soggy. Besides, it creeps me out, this dark.'

Bo grabbed his arm and held him back. She flicked open Mr Pinkwhistle's chest.

‘Look,' she said, pulling him over to stare at the tiny screen. ‘See this green light? That's muons. It means there are spaces down here.'

‘Yeah,' grumbled Callum. ‘Spaces full of water. We can't go further.'

Bo ignored him. She peered closely at the grid on Mr Pinkwhistle's screen.

‘Off to the right, there's some big, open place, like a cave. There's a little narrow tunnel that leads into it – a pathway we can follow. It might be a good place to hide for the night.'

‘I hate the dark,' said Callum.

‘It's comforting. It feels like the burrow,' said Bo.

Before Callum could stop her, she started wading through the water with Mr Pinkwhistle held high above her head, feeling her way along the slimy wall, looking for the narrow path that the roboraptor's sensors had displayed.

From above, they could still hear the wail of sirens out on the street. And faintly, an echo bouncing across the dark water, came the eerie voices calling ‘Coo-ee'. They were so deep into the tunnel now that all that was visible was the ember glow of Mr Pinkwhistle's eyes. Small pinpricks of red light glanced off every surface.

The water grew deeper until it was washing around their chests. The air was fetid and it felt as if there was little oxygen left in it. Bo tried not to breathe too deeply. Then she felt Callum tugging at her belt. ‘Let's turn back, Bo. This feels wrong.'

‘Listen,' she said. From some way ahead of them, they could hear the sound of falling water.

‘So?'

‘So it means there's a cavern ahead. We'll be safe there. I know we will. My 'twitian tells me.'

‘Bo,' he said, the single word an admonition. She was glad she couldn't see him rolling his eyes in the gloomy darkness.

‘Just a little further,' she said. ‘Trust me.'

The water grew shallower and began to move faster, rushing around their knees so that they had trouble keeping their balance. And then they were at the lip of the waterfall, looking into a cavern.

‘See,' said Bo. They knelt at the entrance and stared in amazement. A black pool lay twenty metres beneath them, lit from above by a soft greenish light. The air smelt different here, sharp and salty, and down by the water there was a metal dock.

‘This place is humungous,' said Callum, peering into the gloom.

Bo leant into the cavern, checking for a way down. Beneath them, the wall was layered with rickety, tiered platforms. Mr Pinkwhistle let out a husky growl as Bo slipped over the edge of the tunnel and onto a platform two metres beneath them. It shuddered as she landed.

‘C'mon,' she called. ‘It's safe.'

The platform was a metre wide and was edged with a rusty metal railing. Bo watched as Callum shut his eyes and jumped, landing sure-footed as a cat on the narrow shelf.

‘You're crazy,' she said, as she steadied him with one hand.

‘Me?'

‘Yes. You. Why did you shut your eyes? You couldn't see where you were going to land.'