The Plague Forge [ARC] (37 page)

“Any funny business,” she added, “and I’ll do you up a treat.”

This time he did laugh, but managed to turn it into a clearing of the throat that sounded reasonably like shock.

Kelly went on. “Anyone tries to prevent that climber from leaving, or announces our arrival to those up top, and your friends here will die.”

In the hallway at her back, Sam heard a sharp whisper from Skadz. She glanced back. “Yeah?”

“Empty storage room back here. Toss the lot of ’em inside and lock it.”

“You’ve got a key?”

Skadz shook his head. Vaughn shifted his weight, causing a ring of keys on his belt to jingle softly. Just enough.
Damn, I’m glad to see you
. She yanked the key ring from its loop of Velcro, the ripping sound sharp enough for a few of the room’s inhabitants to jump. “Right,” she said. “Everyone in there, except you and you.” She nodded to Vaughn and the senior tech Kelly had singled out.

The group began to slowly rise from their seats. Some still held their hands in the air and moved with acceptable speed. Others, though—Sam saw their sidelong glances, their hesitation. The hardening of eyes. Thoughts of heroism finally cracking through the fog of shock and fear.

She was about to say something when Prumble came through the door, pushing her aside as if his personality created its own bow shock. He hefted a machine gun in each hand and looked like one of Darwin’s ragged, dead skyscrapers in his long, straight coat. “You heard her,” he said in a growl. “Rickity-fucking-tick. We haven’t got all day.”

As if to quash any last lingering thoughts of revolt, he simultaneously thumbed the safeties on both weapons. Total showmanship, the brilliant son of a bitch. His presence, the implied threat in his voice, had the desired effect. The stragglers were up and moving, avoiding Prumble’s gaze as they squeezed past him and into the hall.

“Keep moving, keep moving,” Skadz was saying as they filed into the storage area. “Get cozy, plenty of room.”

“What’s going to happen to us?” someone inside asked.

“Beats me. Good time for an orgy if you want my advice. Oh, blimey! Forgot who I was speaking to. Sorry, that was ruddy insensitive. Prayer circle, then? Hail Jacob and all that shit?” He slammed the door and locked it. “Tossers.”

“Can we go?” Sam asked of no one in particular.

Kelly gave her captive a little shake. “Soon as this one gets to work. What’s your name?”

“Miles.”

“Hello, Miles,” she said, tone light and friendly. “About that climber. Let’s lock out the main entrance, okay? Can we do that from here?”

“Um, yes. I mean, maybe. I’m not really sure—”

“Do as she says,” Vaughn said. He managed to sound drained, defeated, and stern all at once. Sam wanted to bite his earlobe, just the way he liked. “Not the time to fuck around, Martin.”

Kelly’s eyebrows went up. She studied Vaughn, then glanced at Sam and perhaps caught the hint of admiration in Sam’s face. “Martin, is it? Well now. Better do as your friend here says and we’ll all get through this with our fingers still attached. Understand?”

Prumble stayed by the door through which they’d come. Skadz gave him a respectful slug on the shoulder as he came back in, hauling the bundle and foisting it up onto one of the desks with an unceremonious thud.

While Kelly worked with the tech, Sam moved Vaughn over to the exit on the far wall, had him open the door, and peered out into the hallway beyond. It sloped down to join with a sparse loading area, polar opposite to the once-luxurious passenger entrance on the other side of the building. There were a few handcarts about, some crates of varying content. No workers, thankfully.

The far wall of the loading area had an open section in the middle, blocked by a half-height metal gate. As Sam took this in the building vibrated slightly and she heard the deep sound of large machinery begin to whir. Beyond the gated gap in the wall, she saw the familiar sight of a climber car rotate into place like the chamber on a revolver.

“What’s in that bundle, Sam?” Vaughn asked. He kept his voice low.

“Something important.”

They were facing each other now and some internal debate raged behind Vaughn’s eyes. “Something Grillo’s going to miss?”

“He’ll be mad as a cut snake. I guarantee it.”

Vaughn grunted. “You’ll be stuck up there. Eventually he’ll win. Starve you out, or—”

Sam heard the goodbye beneath the words. She closed the distance between them and kissed the man. She gripped his head, her thumb in front of his ear, fingers entwined within his fine brown hair. When he kissed back she let her lips part and felt his tongue dart into her mouth with a profound urgency. She pulled him away, met his gaze. “Come with us. It’s too much to explain now, but there’s a way out. Another Elevator. I know, it’s crazy but it’s there. In Brazil. That’s where they went. The traitors.”

“Bollocks,” he said. He sounded more amazed than doubtful.

“Come with us. We need you. They don’t know you and I are … you know, acquainted.”

“Grillo does.”

She smirked at that. “Then imagine how fucking surprised he’ll be when he realizes you’re our hostage.”

Sam saw that sparkle in his eyes again, and knew she had him.

They made their way back into the control room. “All clear,” Sam said.

“Just about ready here,” Kelly replied. “A few passengers made it onto one of the cars before we could lock up the climber. Nothing to be done about it until we’re above, unfortunately.”

Skadz stood in front of the big screens on the long wall, his mouth agape. Sam turned to look and felt her heart lurch. A row of video feeds at the bottom provided a live view of the loading yard. Each image seemed worse than the last. Scenes of harrowing violence rendered in cold, austere silence. Subhumans numbering near a hundred rushed in from every angle toward shell-shocked guards who stood in a rapidly folding line in front of the climber port. The creatures had the smell of blood now, and the guards, used to minimal action in Grillo’s world of order and piety, were being quickly overwhelmed.

Through the walls came the distant chatter of gunfire from somewhere within the facility.

“Time we were off,” Skadz said.

“Yeah. Prumble? Kelly? We need to move.”

Kelly went first, her captive prodded along in front of her at an apprehensive run. He stumbled the last few steps into the climber car and yelped when Kelly yanked him back to his feet with one powerful movement.

Skadz went in next, smartly moving straight to stairs that led to an upper deck of the tall, narrow compartment.

Sam ushered Vaughn in, making little effort now to pretend he was a true captive. If the technician hadn’t guessed already, he was unlikely to figure it out, and if he knew, well, he probably also knew that would get him killed. Regardless, the man was staring at his shoes as Kelly strapped him into one of the jump seats along the wall. Vaughn glanced at Sam, then caught Kelly’s eye as well and winked at both of them as he took a seat next to the tech.

“It’s going to be okay if we just cooperate,” he said.

The other man kept his eyes on the floor but his head bobbed in agreement. “Pray with me?” he muttered, not looking up.

Vaughn looked at the two women and rolled his eyes. “Of course, of course,” he replied to the man, giving him a gentle pat on the back.

Sam grinned slightly and caught Kelly looking at her. “Old friend,” Sam mouthed.

A Klaxon sounded, then an artificial voice announced the cabin door would seal automatically in thirty seconds.

Sam turned to make room for Prumble but the big man still stood at the control room’s exit, twenty meters from the climber. He moved awkwardly down the sloped ramp, and still had fifteen meters to cross when the door behind him burst open.

“Go!” he shouted. Then Prumble whirled and brought both assault rifles to bear, one tucked into each armpit.

A group of Nightcliff guards piled through the open doorway at the far end as Prumble’s guns began to bark thunder. Flashes of muzzle fire lit the incoming men even as the bullets tore through them. They were falling, screaming, and yet they continued to file in. Whatever came behind them, a hail of bullets was apparently preferable.

The climber door began to swing shut on its own accord. Sam stepped forward to block it. She put her shoulder into it and fought for purchase on the floor with her boots. The heavy airlock door kept moving. Silent, robotic, unforgiving. Sam shoved an arm out around the edge of the doorjamb, groaning with effort and feeling the pressure waves of Prumble’s gunshots roll over her.

Kelly grabbed her, hauled her back an instant before her hand would have been crushed.

“No!” Sam shouted, pushing Kelly away and moving toward the porthole, helpless now but to watch. She pounded her fist on the thick metal. In a clearer state of mind she would have looked for an abort button, an emergency-open lever. Later that idea would hit her. Too late.

The thick door shut with an almost imperceptible sound as pressure seals connected and the motorized latches glided into place, muting the thrum of Prumble’s twin rifles and the cries of the dying.

Suddenly the climber car lurched. Not up but to the side. The noise of violence faded. The last thing Samantha saw was the hulking form of Mr. Prumble, twin cannons gripped in two meaty hands, spitting fire and death. The desperate guards already lay dead. Climbing over them in a tidal wave of ragged limbs was a writhing mass of subhumans.

“Stop this fucking thing!” she screamed without turning, both fists now hammering the tiny round window.

A gibbering, feeble voice answered from somewhere at the back of the cramped cabin. “It’s all automated now. Only the control room can—”

“We get it, Martin,” Vaughn said. “Shut the hell up.”

Sam felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find Skadz standing next to her. His face was a grim, hollow mask. “Nothing we can do, Sammy.”

Balled fists still against the door, Sam leaned until her forehead pressed against the cool porthole glass. Black cables and industrial piping slid by centimeters away as the climber went through its departure motions.

“He didn’t have his suit,” Skadz added, voice distant and numb. “Bought us time rather than burden us. Shit. If only I’d …”

Sam turned to him, anger welling up over her grief, harsh words on the tip of her tongue. When she saw Skadz’s teary eyes, she bit down and kept her mouth shut. He’d wanted to stay behind. Needed to, if only to find some relief for the guilt he’d carried like a goddamn cross all these years. He would have traded places with Prumble in a heartbeat had the opportunity been there. Only it hadn’t. Prumble had been the last in line, and simply did what needed to be done. Selfless in the end. A hero.

She gritted her teeth and faced the small window. “Thank you,” she whispered to the glass. “We won’t forget.”

A stark five minutes passed in absolute silence. The climber stopped and started a few times, first turning and then lifting. Then came one final lurch upward that didn’t abate as the vehicle began to accelerate and climb toward the heavens.

Last climber out.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Belém, Brazil

1.APR.2285

The idea of breathing fresh air took time to settle in.

Leaving Mexico, Tania had been one foot into the rear cabin when she realized she no longer needed to confine herself to the dreary loneliness that waited within.

“Need a co-pilot?” she asked Vanessa at the cockpit just before the other woman closed the hatch. Vanessa grinned at that and let Tania inside.

They spent the three-hour flight back to Brazil in near-constant conversation. Vanessa shared a few tales of her time in Gabriel’s cult of immunes, stories that involved Pablo and even young Ana and her now dead twin brother, Davi. She stuck to warm stories, and a few times let the endings fall by the wayside when Tania sensed they were drifting into darker waters.

Whenever Vanessa trailed off, Tania stepped in, happy to find someone who would listen attentively to everything that had happened since the disease first arrived. She even told her new friend about the daily life and—in hindsight—comical politics that went on aboard Anchor Station both before and after SUBS broke out. She told of how she’d only been down to Earth once since the disease confined everyone to Darwin’s meager footprint, on the harrowing journey to Hawaii on which she’d met Skyler.

“Did you and Skyler have a …” Vanessa paused. “You know, a relationship?”

Tania felt her pulse quicken, kept herself quiet long enough to compose her thoughts. “I think we both had hopes, but circumstances … well, there was so much else going on.”

Vanessa said nothing.

“I’m happy for him,” Tania added, aware of how lame the words sounded and wishing she hadn’t said them.

“He’s had a remarkable influence on Ana,” Vanessa said. “I guess you probably don’t want to hear that.”

“It’s okay,” Tania replied.
Please stop talking
.

“She came of age after the disease took her parents, took everyone she knew except Davi. Her brother was the grounding force in her life, you know? They grew up together, riding in Gabriel’s fleet. Can you imagine going through that? At that age I was in university. You were probably studying aboard a space station, for God’s sake. Those two were riding through a demolished world with a psychopath. It’s amazing they both survived, much less escaped. They could have fled. But instead they brought Skyler to rescue us.”

And at the same time, I was agreeing—apparently—to give Skyler up to save the rest of the colony.
Tania felt a familiar wave of regret course through her and this time she allowed it to run its course. The past she couldn’t change. The future, though, was another matter and there was still work to do. She let the conversation drift away from the topic, and spent the last hour of the journey learning the basics of the
Helios
’s navigation systems.

Vanessa guided the craft along the coastline of Venezuela and Guyana, avoiding the mountains where Doppler indicated a vicious storm. When Belém finally came into view on the horizon, the city looked like a jagged, uneven row of dirty teeth jutting upward from low, cotton-ball clouds. It was midday, hot and rainy below.