Simon swore, drawing me from my thoughts in time to see an army truck up ahead. There were bodies inside, but nothing that I could make much sense of. I heard Simon take a deep breath, holding it as he jumped onto the back of the truck and carefully pulled a grenade belt off one of them. He grabbed another, taking three in all, before leaping back down to the ground.
‘Might come in useful,’ he said as he strung the belts over his shoulder.
We continued in silence, and although I’m not a believer I mouthed a prayer as we passed that truck, the constant drip of blood from the tailgate like a ticking clock. I wasn’t sure if that prayer was for the dead soldiers or for me, though.
The blacksuit had told us that the funeral parlour was off High Court Road and he hadn’t been lying. We ran across the cracked tarmac of the main road, past the corpse of a berserker – a fat freak whose blubbery torso had been detonated over the street like so much pink and black blancmange – the shops flashing by one by one until we reached a building painted black. ‘A. Gold-burn and Sons’ was written in faded bronze, the windows tinted so that we couldn’t see inside.
We were much closer to the centre now, and even though the buildings here were big the skyscrapers towered over them. I couldn’t make out the one we were heading towards, but I could almost feel it, as if it was hiding behind the others waiting to pounce. I pictured the tunnel that burrowed beneath the streets, a wormhole that led into the heart of darkness, and wished that Zee had this job and I had his.
I couldn’t see any way of getting round the back, and neither could Simon as with a strangled cry he charged at the front door, knocking it inwards in a storm of splinters. We dashed inside, momentarily blinded by the gloom as we did our best to rest the broken door back on its hinges. There was an odd smell in here, a mix of chemicals and that unmistakable tang of death that hung in the back of my throat. It wasn’t surprising, really, given what the place was used for. We stood by the door, not even breathing, listening for noise. But I knew it was empty. Years of breaking into houses had given me a knack for understanding stillness.
‘Over here,’ said Simon once our eyes had sharpened. We pushed past a heavily curtained door, through a pristine waiting room and behind a mahogany counter. A set of stairs led down to the basement, and we stopped at the top of them, leaning against each other for support.
‘Underground again,’ Simon said with a shudder. ‘Can you handle it?’
I nodded at him, trying to ignore the claustrophobia that pulled itself over my head like a lightless hood.
‘One last time,’ I said, setting off down the stairs. ‘One last time.’
Talking to the Dead
I’d been in a funeral parlour once before, years ago when my gran died. But we’d never gone behind the scenes. Up top it’s all thick carpet and patterned velvet and heavy quiet. Down below it was exactly the opposite, hard steel surfaces, white-tiled floors and every step we made seemed to echo for far longer than it should have. More than anything else it reminded me of the surgery rooms beneath Furnace, which came as no shock, really, considering who owned this place.
‘I still think he was full of crap,’ Simon said as we stepped into the basement. It was a big room, three massive steel tables taking up most of the space. Only one was occupied, the body covered with a pristine white sheet. ‘The blacksuit. I think he was just making up stuff; don’t think any of it was true.’
‘I guess we’ll find out soon enough,’ I replied, hearing my words murmured back at me from the bare walls. ‘Hurry up, this place is creeping the hell out of me.’
We scurried across the room, heading for the only door. As we passed the corpse, though, I swore I saw the sheet move. I skidded to a halt, Simon speeding on ahead of me. I studied the sheet, now motionless again. Or was it? I took a step closer, convinced that the fabric was moving up and down, almost imperceptibly, as if whatever was underneath was breathing.
Fear held my chest in an iron grip but I couldn’t stop myself. I reached out with my good hand, curling my fingers around the material. It felt cold and wet, and for an instant I wondered whether it had grabbed me, not the other way round.
Then I pulled.
The sheet was heavy, but it came away like silk, riding on the cool air and folding delicately over itself in soft, graceful loops until it met the floor. Underneath, the corpse lay still, not breathing at all. How could it be? Its chest was a basket of ribs, empty but for shadows. It was a boy’s body, so emaciated it already resembled a skeleton. I looked at the skinny limbs, the scrawny neck, and by the time I reached the face I knew what I would see.
The corpse was me.
I barely recognised myself, the kid I’d been before the warden had started my procedure. I felt my legs grow weak, grabbed the table to stop myself falling.
‘It can’t be,’ I said, the words not quite finding their way out of my mouth. But the corpse heard them, because its eyes flicked open, pale and wet as they studied me.
And then its thin lips parted and it spoke in a voice that was also my own except a hundred times louder, so immense that I felt rather than heard it. It emerged like a shock wave, shattering the jars that lined the shelves, sending gleaming surgical tools flying, causing the ceiling to buckle, raining dust.
‘Trying to hide from me is like trying to hide from yourself,’ it screamed, loud enough to crack the walls. ‘I know everything you know, because I live within you, I flow in your veins.’ The world shook, disintegrated, the floor falling away into a void of swirling smoke and raging fire. I felt like I’d been sucked up by a tornado. ‘You cannot hide from me, Alex, and you cannot hide from the truth. Once you have made your choice, there is no turning back.’
And in a flash of madness I saw it again, the vision of the city, the tower rising above me and him, the same creature standing triumphant on the roof – a hulking behemoth howling at his ruined kingdom, at his dismembered subjects.
‘There is no turning back,’ my corpse told me.
I staggered away, vertigo making my head spin as the undertaker’s basement suddenly snapped back into view – the walls in one piece, the glass jars resting where they had been when we arrived, and the steel tables empty. All of them. There were arms on me, Simon’s, pulling me close to him as he tried to calm my thrashing limbs, the grenades clinking against each other.
I stopped, sliding down the wall onto my backside, my heart pumping so fast and so hard that it was almost one continuous beat. I swore under my breath, again and again, and each time it seemed to slow my pulse until it was drumming in time with my voice – still quick but not out of control.
‘Wanna tell me what that was all about?’ Simon asked, his face several shades paler than usual. ‘You just went mental.’
I started to speak, realised I was talking gibberish, took a deep breath to compose myself then started again.
‘Furnace,’ I said. ‘I thought I saw …’ I didn’t bother continuing, the nightmare or hallucination or whatever it had been already disintegrating like a sculpture of sand in the top half of an hourglass. ‘He knows we’re coming, I think.’
‘How?’ Simon asked. ‘How can he possibly know that?’
I looked at my arm, flexing the weird strands of nectar that rose from the char-black flesh like sea plants hanging in the tide.
‘It’s the nectar,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how; it’s like he’s part of me or something. Part of us. He knows what we’re trying to do. He knows we’re going to kill him.’ I paused, picturing the beast in my vision – a monstrosity that made even the biggest berserker look like a cuddly toy – perched on his tower, his throne, above a sea of fire. Was that really Furnace? If it was, if that’s what was waiting for us, then we didn’t stand a chance. ‘Going to try to kill him,’ I amended.
‘You want to carry on?’ Simon asked, holding out his hand. ‘It’s not too late to turn back, we can still get out of the city.’
I reached out and grabbed him, letting him hel
p me to my feet. I cast a nervous glance at the table beside me, nothing on it but the distorted reflections in its polished surface. There wasn’t even a sheet on the floor, and I wondered how Furnace could make his visions seem so real.
‘It really isn’t too late,’ Simon said. ‘We could be back out there and on the move in no time. If Zee keeps his side of the bargain then we don’t even need to go to the tower.’
I took another ragged breath then set off towards the door, the one that I hoped led to the tunnels. Simon was right: if Zee was successful then it didn’t matter if our part of the plan was accomplished or not. But Furnace wasn’t the only reason I needed to go there.
Maybe the tower was where we’d find answers, I thought to myself as I pushed open the door with my mutated arm, stepping through. More importantly, maybe it’s where we’d find a cure.
Beyond the door was a short corridor which led past an incinerator. It was smaller than the one in Furnace, but the sight of it – and the smell, too, that unforgettable residue of ashes – didn’t help the sickness churning in my guts. We walked past it, peeking inside a storeroom full of medical equipment, before reaching a large double door which barricaded the end of the hallway. Simon grabbed the handles and pulled, the heavy steel portals swinging open to reveal yet another staircase beyond, dropping into darkness.
There were switches on the walls but we didn’t bother with the lights. Both Simon and I had warden-vision, our silver eyes dissecting the gloom as we traipsed downwards, leaving the doors open behind us just in case we had to make a quick exit. The stairs cut back on themselves four times before we hit the bottom, the air cold and damp. We were in a long, straight corridor – just wide enough to wheel a stretcher through, I thought – and I was thankful that the walls were made of breeze block rather than stone. The lights were on, embedded in the ceiling and stretching off into the distance, so far that it reminded me of an upside-down runway.
‘So they brought corpses down here?’ Simon asked as we started walking again, his whispered words scouting the path ahead of us. ‘Sick bastards.’
It made sense, I guess. If the tower was anything like the prison, if they really were doing experiments there as well, then they’d need somewhere to dispose of the bodies. A funeral parlour was perfect.
‘You have any idea?’ Simon went on. ‘That they were doing this outside Furnace.’ I shook my head, keeping my eyes peeled for the end of the tunnel that just wasn’t coming. ‘What if the blacksuit was telling the truth?’ Simon went on. ‘What if the prison was just part of it? What if there are places all over the country, all over the world, churning out rats and berserkers and blacksuits.’
‘Then we’re well and truly screwed,’ I replied.
Simon grunted, hoisting the grenade belts up over his shoulder. There was a change of light up ahead, and as we drew near I saw that it was a junction. Our tunnel kept on going, another one branching off to the right. I stopped, closing my eyes and trying to get my bearings. It took a while to work out which way I was facing.
‘That one should lead downtown,’ I said, pointing to the tunnel on the right.
‘What about that one?’ Simon asked.
‘Probably goes to another one of their buildings,’ I guessed. ‘A gym or something.’
‘Or a suit shop,’ Simon said, breathing a laugh through his nose. ‘I bet they’ve got a few of them.’
We turned right, trying to hear past the gentle tap of our feet to make out any sounds ahead. But there was a deathly silence down here, too deep to be marred by the deafening chaos on the streets over our heads. I wondered whether Furnace would have left a berserker for us, a trap or a test, especially as he knew we were coming. But there was no sign of life other than our own laboured breathing.
We passed two more junctions, tunnels stretching off in all directions with no clue as to where they led. We carried on straight, imagining the city passing over our heads, doing our best to visualise where we were. I was pretty sure we were on course, though. The tunnel was sloping down, angling towards hell.
There was one final junction, just a single tunnel skewing off at a forty-five degree angle to the main one, and less than two minutes after that we reached a door. It was unlocked, leading to a flight of concrete steps identical to the one beneath the funeral parlour.
‘I don’t like this,’ Simon said. ‘It’s too quiet.’
‘Makes a nice change from Zee blabbing on nonstop, though, doesn’t it?’ I whispered back.
‘That isn’t what I meant,’ he said. ‘Well, here goes nothing, I guess.’ And his words brought back a memory, the day – or night – that we had tried to climb the steeple, back in Furnace. We’d only made it a fraction of the way before we hit a nest of rats and were forced to retrace our steps. And for some reason, right at that moment, I knew that if we both went up those stairs together then something similar would happen. I don’t know how, call it instinct, or call it luck. Maybe just call it madness.
‘Listen to me,’ I said to Simon. ‘I need you to keep going.’ He started to argue but I didn’t let him. ‘If Zee doesn’t make it then I need you to do his job. Use those grenades, find a way.’
‘Where are you going?’ Simon barked back. ‘The pub?’
‘No,’ I replied. I was about to explain but Simon got there first.
‘He told you he was waiting for you, right?’ he said. ‘In the underground station, when he spoke to you. He said he was waiting for you to make a choice.’
I nodded, knowing that Simon had experienced the same vision back in Twofields.
‘He told you that you could be his soldier, his right-hand man?’ Again I nodded. He bit his lip, as if not sure he wanted to continue, but after a second or two he did. ‘Not me. I didn’t hear that.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, frowning.
‘I mean Furnace didn’t say he wanted me. He told me that it was too late for me, that I had no place in the future. He said that if I help you then I die.’ He paused for a moment before continuing. ‘Alex, he said that if I help you then sooner or later it will be you who kills me.’
‘Come on, Simon,’ I said. ‘You know that would never happen, not in a million years.’
But we were both looking nervously at my arm, at that obsidian blade.
‘He wants you here, Alex,’ Simon said. ‘That’s all I’m saying. So be very, very careful. Tell me, where are you going?’
I leant forward and gave Simon a hug, holding him tight for a second before letting him go. He didn’t protest, just stood there, dumbfounded.
‘I’m doing what Furnace wants me to,’ I said, heading back to the last junction. ‘I’m going in the front door.’
The Tower
I looked back once, just before I turned into the angled tunnel. Simon was standing half in and half out of the door, the grenade belts hanging limply over his shoulder. I waved, but he didn’t return it. He didn’t do anything, just watched. I wondered whether he’d carry on or whether he’d just head back the way we’d come, back up through the undertaker’s and onto the streets. I wouldn’t blame him if he did.
The tunnel was a short one, but there was still plenty of time for the questions to build up. Why had I left Simon? Why the hell was I planning to give myself up at the front doors of the tower, ready to accept whatever Furnace and the warden threw at me?
Maybe Furnace was controlling my actions the same way he’d been controlling my visions. I mean he could burrow right into the flesh of my thoughts, show me things that seemed real. Surely anyone with the power to do that could force someone to obey his will. But I doubted it. If that was the case then why hadn’t he stopped us breaking out of Furnace? Why didn’t he just make me kill my friends, and then kill myself?
No, what I was doing now was my choice, mine and nobody else’s. And I guess that’s why I wanted to be on my own. This way I wasn’t responsible for keeping anyone alive. It was just me and whatever crap destiny had to throw my way. I’d fight
Furnace, I’d give everything I had. But when he killed me – and deep down I couldn’t see any other conclusion – at least he wouldn’t kill them too. It was a bleak way of thinking, but I don’t know how else to explain it. What I wanted more than anything else was an end. One way or another, I wanted out.
The tunnel ended after a hundred metres or so at another double door. I tried the handle and it opened, swinging out towards a staircase. At the top was a small, cramped office basement, reams of photocopying paper stacked against mouldering walls, furniture collecting dust in the corner. I pushed through the clutter, finding more stairs and heading up into an equally gloomy, equally abandoned corridor – more like somebody’s house than an office. A short walk later and I was at the front door. I pressed the electronic lock and when I turned the handle it swung open.
The office was one of many on a small side street, facing a public square. I didn’t know where I was, but a quick scan of the skyline made it painfully clear. There were skyscrapers in every direction in this part of the city, rising like tombstones. And his was the nearest. From down here it looked vast, puncturing the heavens with its black steeple. The walls were so dark that the glass resembled rock, the entire structure more like some ancient Stygian totem than a modern skyscraper.
Just like in my vision.
I stood on the kerb for what seemed like forever, listening to the gunfire, so far away now that it could have been somebody popping bubble wrap. I wondered where Simon was, and it was that thought which shook me from my paralysis. I made my way down the street until I hit the nearest main road, a wide, tree-lined avenue that led right past the tower’s front entrance.
There was no sign of life here, none at all, but I ran all the same, keeping to the shadowed side of the street. I slowed only when I reached the large, open plaza that surrounded the tower. A huge, hulking figure stood in the middle of the open space, in front of the doors, and it took me a moment to realise that it was a bronze statue.