“Why do I need this?” Elliott demanded, holding her beacon up.
“Will?” Chester said, close to losing his patience.
“Oh, yes, nearly forgot — you’ll need this, too,” Will added, thrusting a tracker into Chester’s hand. “Follow the bread crumbs and you’ll get yourself home.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m not going anywhere without you,”
Chester growled, now very angry. As he tried unsuccessfully to give the device back to Will, it picked up the signal from the tall boulder and gave a rash of loud clicks. “I don’t want this!”
But Will seemed to be in a world of his own and wasn’t listening to a word that was being said to him. “My guess would be that the twins made it to the sub, and they’re down there in Smoking Jean somewhere.” He chuckled to himself. “Isn’t it funny? The Styx brainwashed me with their Dark Light so I’d jump and kill myself, but Drake helped me to stop it. And now that I’m over it, that’s exactly what —”
Chester noticed the glint in his friend’s eye, and that meant trouble. “So help me, Will, if you …,” he said, interrupting him, but he never completed the sentence.
Will turned the second tracker on and, following in his father’s footsteps, he broke into a run toward the void.
And flung himself from the edge.
“Noooooooooo! You crazy maniac!” Chester screamed, but Will never heard him, his ears filled with the sound of rushing air.
In his time at the station, the Second Officer had seen and heard things a normal person would find difficult to deal with. It was as if he’d become numb, as if he’d erected a barrier around himself so that he could filter out the horror.
Now, as he waited in the corridor outside the closed door, that barrier didn’t seem to be working. The screams were chilling — the sound of a human soul being torn in half. And he couldn’t understand how they seemed to be sustained for so long, hardly pausing even for breath to be drawn.
Then, all of a sudden, a silence descended, which was even more chilling than the screaming.
He heard the footsteps of the First Officer thudding on the damp flagstones as he approached. But the man had only come halfway down the corridor when he stopped and gave the closed door a quick glance. He grimaced, unhappy that the interrogation was taking so long, then slowly turned on his boot heel and began to walk away again, most likely to return to the front desk. In case any more Styx decided to turn up at the station.
Thankful to be alone, the Second Officer wiped the sweat from his brow. For an instant his face contorted, as if he was about to weep. He didn’t know why he should be feeling like this, but perhaps he’d had about all he could take of the misery and suffering that went on in this place. He regained his composure — and just in time, too, as he caught the low rumble of voices and the door swung open.
The old Styx strode imperiously out, accompanied by his young assistant.
“All done?” the Second Officer said.
The old Styx looked up at him, mildly surprised by his interest.
“We got what we needed,” he replied curtly. “We always do.”
“Er … she … is she … I mean … is she still …?” the Second Officer asked.
Arching his brows, the old Styx broke into the policeman’s incoherent stream. “If you’re asking if the Burrows woman is still alive, her heart appears to be beating and somehow she’s breathing,” he said, then moved to the side of the doorway. “See for yourself.”
The Second Officer stepped into the light flooding from the room. He could see the back of the chair in which Mrs. Burrows was still strapped. One of the Styx had unfastened the restraint around her head and it was slumped forward, unmoving. Beyond her he saw three Styx, who were packing up a whole bank of Dark Lights. There must have been six or seven of these lights on the table, but at that moment the Second Officer was so overwrought he couldn’t even count them.
“She was a tough nut to crack,” the young assistant commented. This was said with the detached air of a doctor discussing a patient’s case notes. “One of the toughest yet.”
“Yes,” the old Styx concurred. “Unusually resilient.” He swept his hand in the direction of Mrs. Burrows’s motionless body. “What you see is merely a husk. I’m afraid there won’t be anything much left inside — we had to break all the crockery in the shop. It’s a shame, because I was rather hoping we might use her again in the future.”
“She probably won’t last the night,” the young assistant said.
“I was wondering …,” the Second Officer began, his voice failing as the old Styx’s hard eyes switched to him.
“Yes?” the old Styx said.
“If she hasn’t got long, I could look after her,” the Second Officer blurted out.
The old Styx lowered his head, as if inviting an explanation. To say that the Second Officer’s request was irregular would have been a rank understatement.
“I mean, rather than let her die in the Hold. Even though she was a Topsoiler, she … she seemed like a good sort to me,” the Second Officer gabbled, then shut his mouth and looked at his feet.
For a moment no one spoke, then one of the other Styx came out of the room carrying a Dark Light in his arms, and passed down the corridor.
The old Styx smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. It was the smile of someone who had learned something they could use, and would use, in the future.
“Have you got anyone at home, officer?” the old Styx inquired. “She’ll need to be cared for while you’re on duty.”
“My mother and sister,” he replied.
“Take her, then, but it’s probably kinder just to let her fade away in the Hold,” the old Styx said, and began to move off with the young assistant several paces behind him, like a shadow. “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again,” he recited without looking back.
The Second Officer waited until they were out of sight, then slid a finger around the inside of his starched collar. It was slick with sweat. He didn’t know what had come over him. He should never have spoken out of turn like that. But he’d felt he had to.
He took a deep breath to prepare himself before he went into the bright room.
35
THIS TIME Will was fully conscious.
As he hurtled through the air, he went into an uncontrolled spin, then came out of it only for the same thing to happen again. The G-force was so powerful that his head swam and he thought he was going to be sick. But he quickly found that if he spread his limbs like a skydiver, he could bring himself out of the spins, which made his downward passage far smoother. And by angling his arms and legs, he could precisely direct his flight, despite the encumbrance of the bulky Bergen and the weapons he was carrying, and avoid any collisions with the sides of the void.
He fell and fell and fell, and there was ample opportunity to ask himself if there would ever be an end to it, a happy end.
“What have I done?” he shouted at the showers of water that fell with him, licking his lips and tasting their saltiness. He tried to mop the moisture from the lens of his headset so he could see more clearly, but his movements caused an imbalance and his trajectory became erratic. He quickly extended his arms again. His speed was so great that everything was shooting past, a blur, but he was doing his best to look out for the submarine. He had made a commitment to Drake that he would deal with the Rebecca twins and the Limiter, and he wasn’t going to let him down.
He could see the needle flickering on the tracker in his hand, and just about hear the clicks it was emitting. His father was somewhere below.
His father …
What if Dr. Burrows had got it dreadfully wrong? What if the gravity didn’t reduce any further, or, more to the point, what if the void wasn’t deep enough for him to reach the areas where there was lower gravity?
He hadn’t thought of that!
It had seemed like the right thing to do when he’d flung himself into the voi
d…. He had listened to his father’s words about faith, and they’d made sense to him then. For the first time in a long time, Will had really understood why Dr. Burrows had been acting so incredibly selfishly. And Will had wanted to demonstrate that he, too, had faith; faith in his father.
But now … Well, he must have been out of his head to jump. Maybe this was one grand gesture too many.
Then he noticed that the onrush of air against his face seemed to be less intense. It wasn’t snatching his breath away anymore. And, although it was difficult for him to be certain because the change had been so gradual, he could have sworn that he wasn’t falling quite so rapidly.
The tracker continued to click away merrily to itself, but there was still no sign of anything below — just the crimson glow from the incandescent rock on the sides of the void as he plummeted past. He felt the intense heat on his exposed skin for the milliseconds he sped by these red-hot rocks, and heard the hiss as some of the cascades of brine were instantly turned to steam.
Then he was absolutely sure he wasn’t falling so fast.
He could mop the moisture from the lens on his headset without going into a helter-skelter tumble. And he could study the sides of the void as he descended, take in the patterns created by the shifting water droplets accompanying him down.
Some time later, he began to feel as if he was actually floating, but he realized that this might be his brain playing tricks on him because he’d been falling for so long. It was also around this time that he began to hear a low rumbling sound. Maybe it had been there from the beginning of his drop but he’d been too preoccupied to notice it.
As he listened further, the sound seemed to be growing louder, much louder even than the rush of air in his ears. He scanned down below him.
What could be causing it?
A bizarre picture of monstrously huge cogs and gearwheels flashed through his mind — maybe it was a vague memory of some children’s story he had read when he was young. He tried to laugh it off, but the picture persisted. Perhaps he was heading toward the earth’s engine room, full of giants operating equally giant machines.
He shook his head, as if he was trying to shake himself from a ludicrous dream.
Due to the rumbling sound he couldn’t hear the clicking from the tracker anymore, but he could see that the needle was going crazy.
He scanned below him.
There!
In the corner of his eye he caught a tiny pinprick of light far, far below.
As a gust of wind buffeted him and he rotated in his flight, he lost sight of it and couldn’t locate it again. Had it really been a light that he’d seen? It wasn’t lava, that much was for sure — wrong color.
Then he spotted the light again. And when Will pointed the tracker in its direction, the display seemed to show a higher signal. He angled his limbs and maneuvered his flight path toward it.
As the light grew in size, he became less certain. Was this such a good idea? Although the tracker was indicating that his father’s radio beacon was somewhere close to the light, he also couldn’t dismiss the possibility that it might be the Styx.
By now his speed had diminished to the point that he hardly felt as if he was falling at all, more like a soap bubble being buoyed along by the wind.
The light grew bigger. It was giving off a blue glow, but he couldn’t judge how far away it was.
Making sure he had his Sten ready, he continued to glide toward the blue light.
Just as he made out a long sleek shape below him, it came up much faster than he expected, and he crashed straight into it. It wasn’t a hard impact by any means, but he banged his head and felt a little dazed.
Someone grasped his arm and hoisted him to his feet.
“Get off!” he shouted. He tried to struggle with what he thought was the Styx, then saw the glint from a pair of glasses.
It was his father. Will registered the intense blue glow emanating from behind him. Dr. Burrows had evidently set off one of Drake’s flares. And it took Will a couple of seconds to realize that he was actually standing on the submarine. He hadn’t recognized it right away because it was tipped over onto its side. Will had landed near one end of its hull, although he couldn’t tell if it was the prow or the stern.
Not knowing if he felt so euphoric because he was still alive, or because now he wasn’t alone in this remote and isolated place at the bottom of the world, Will flung his arms around Dr. Burrows. Even that small movement sent them both shooting along the hull of the submarine for quite some distance. Talk about being weightless!
As Will got back on his feet, he could almost feel himself drifting off the surface of the hull. His father was wagging his finger at him, then put his thumb and forefinger together to form a circle. Zero gravity—that was what Dr. Burrows was trying to tell him. It wasn’t quite zero gravity, but Will was going to have to be extremely careful about how he moved around or else he’d float over into the void, like a space walk gone wrong. Will nodded at his father to show he understood, and tried to talk to him, but his voice was lost under the rumbling sound. He realized then just how tumultuous it was.
Still a little dazed, Will allowed Dr. Burrows to lead him to the conning tower, which, because of the way the vessel had come to rest on its side, was sticking out into the void. Then his father was pointing at something far below them. Will leaned over. In the distance, glimmers of light came and went, like lightning on the far horizon during a thunderstorm.
Dr. Burrows attempted to tell him something, speaking directly into his ear.
Will shrugged — the noise was far too great for him to hear.
Dr. Burrows produced a scrap of paper and wrote on it. He showed the paper to Will. It was a single word.
“Triboluminescence?” Will mouthed back at Dr. Burrows, who nodded excitedly. Will knew what that was — his father had demonstrated it to him once using two pieces of rock quartz that he’d rubbed hard together. In the darkened cellar of their home back in Highfield, Will had marveled at the eerie flashes of light suffusing through the milky crystals. Although at the time it had seemed like magic, it had something to do with energy being released when the bonds are broken in a crystal. So below him, unbelievably large pieces of some type of crystal must be grinding against each other. That would explain the sound.
Will wondered if this was it — was this really the center of the earth?
The spectacle of the lights as they rippled in all directions — something like electrified cotton — was hypnotic, and father and son simply stared at it, filled with wonder. But there were other matters on Will’s mind, and he eventually pulled his eyes away from the lights and looked down at the thick metal shell beneath his feet. As he contemplated the runnels of water running over its dull gunmetal surface, he was alert to the fact that the three Styx could be inside at that very moment. Inside with the Dominion virus. Perhaps it didn’t matter anymore — perhaps there was absolutely no way for him, Dr. Burrows, or any of the Styx to get back up the void again, so the threat had effectively been neutralized. But he was here now, and he had to make sure.
He took out the climbing rope from his Bergen and knotted one end to a metal cleat he found on the side of the conning tower. Better safe than sorry — even a small slip on the wet hull might send him careering off toward the huge crystals below. Keeping a tight grip on the rope, he stepped very carefully to what would have been the top of the conning tower if the submarine had been the right way up.
As Dr. Burrows watched, Will began to lower himself over and into the conning tower. It only required the most minimal effort to make any sort of movement — the pull of gravity was almost nonexistent.
But as soon as he reached the observation platform, he froze.
Not three feet away from him, there was something disturbing stuck to the duckboard flooring, which of course was now vertical rather than horizontal given the orientation of the submarine. Two crumpled white wings waved slowly in the air currents.
&nb
sp; “A Bright!” Will said through his clenched teeth. But as he looked further, he saw that its head and most of its abdomen were missing. In rigor, the barbs at the end of its articulated legs still gripped the duckboard, which was the reason it hadn’t drifted away.
Will had left his Bergen with Dr. Burrows back on the hull, and with it his cans of repellent. So instead he extended his Sten and prodded the Bright with the tip of its barrel. Nothing. He was pretty sure it was dead — from the Bright’s appearance he guessed that the Limiter had made short work of it, hacking the creature apart. Will jabbed it even harder, but there was still no sign of life, so he moved across to the main hatch and tried it. It was firmly shut.
Still giving the Bright carcass wary glances, he began to rotate the wheel in the center of the hatch. As the wheel reached the open position, he checked his Sten to make sure the safety was off. This time he was ready for the twins. This time there would be no hesitation — he was going to open fire the moment either of them, or their pet Limiter, popped their heads up. He closed his eyes for an instant, steeling himself.
Then, just as he was about to yank the hatch open, a small hand seized his wrist, stopping him.
He jerked his head up.
It was Elliott.
He couldn’t believe it. Had she followed him down because of Drake’s orders? He couldn’t imagine any other reason she would have jumped into the void after him. Straightaway he looked behind her to see if Chester had come, too, or Martha for that matter, but neither of them was there.
Indicating to Will that he should move aside, she opened the hatch the tiniest fraction, then ran her fingers around the inside. She was suddenly very still, then shot a tense glance at Will. She delved inside her pocket and took out a length of twine, which she carefully attached to something just under the rim of the hatch. Not paying any attention to the dead Bright, she tied the other end of the twine to one of the slats of the duckboard flooring just beside it. After making sure the twine was drawn tautly, she produced a pair of rusty clippers, which she nosed under the hatch and then used both hands to operate. It was only then that the tension left her face and she allowed herself to relax.