Earthfall (10 page)

‘Home sweet home,’ Jay said, ‘or to give it its proper name, the Operations Training Area. This is where we learn how to take the fight to the Threat. You see that guy down there by the range? That’s Jackson.’

Further down the room there was a shooting range constructed out of sandbags where Sam could see Rachel and another boy standing with pistols raised, aiming at paper targets. Standing behind them was a muscular man who looked to be in his late thirties or early forties wearing a black T-shirt and grey, camouflage-patterned trousers tucked into combat boots. His head was shaved and his cold grey eyes watched carefully as Rachel and the boy fired at their targets.

‘Trust me when I say that, apart from the Doc, Jackson is the one person in this place you really don’t want to mess,’ Jay said. ‘I’ll introduce you to him in a minute, but first I want you to meet someone else. Come on.’

Jay walked over to a heavy steel door set into the wall with a skull and crossbones hand-painted on it.

‘This is the armoury,’ Jay said as he opened the door, ‘where we keep all the really cool toys.’

Sam followed Jay inside and let out a low whistle.

‘OK, that’s a lot of guns.’

The room was divided in two by a long counter, behind which the walls were lined with racks and shelving, filled with a breathtaking array of different weapons. There were pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers and grenades, as well as numerous crates of ammunition. Sam reckoned that it looked like just about everything someone would need to fight a small war – or a
big
war for that matter. Sitting with his feet up on the countertop, reading a comic book, was a boy with bright red dyed hair, wearing jeans, flip-flops and a T-shirt with the words ‘From My Cold, Dead Hands’ on it. He looked up as Jay and Sam walked in and smiled.

‘Jay, how you doing, man?’ the boy asked.

‘I’m good,’ Jay said as he bumped fists with the other boy. ‘Just wanted to introduce you to the latest stray we found wandering the streets.’

‘That would be me,’ Sam said.

‘Sam, this is Jack,’ Jay said, jerking a thumb towards the boy behind the counter. ‘He’s pretty much certifiable, but he knows a lot about guns.’

‘Hey,’ Jack said, ‘you’re the one who goes up top and gets chased by homicidal aliens and you call me crazy? So, Sam, you going to the surface with these nutters or is Stirling going to have you washing test tubes?’

‘Umm . . . I don’t really know yet,’ Sam said.

‘Rach says he can handle himself,’ Jay said, ‘so I reckon he’ll be coming out with us.’

‘Sounds to me like Jay thinks you’re going to be one of my regular customers,’ Jack said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘Hey, it’s better than being stuck in a hole underground,’ Jay retorted.

‘Yeah, you know what, you’re right, there’s nothing worse than a nice, safe, warm hole underground,’ Jack said, nodding.

‘Where did you get all this stuff?’ Sam asked, looking around the room.

‘Oh, we’ve been collecting for a while,’ Jack said. ‘Jackson always seems to know where to find the best kit. You actually met the big man yet?’

‘No, I wanted him to meet you first,’ Jay said. ‘Thought I’d save the best till last.’

‘Just remember when you meet him, Sam, that his bark is worse than his bite,’ Jack said. ‘Actually, no, now I come to think of it, his bite’s just as bad. Never mind, I’m sure you’re going to love him.’

‘Are you going to be watching the movie later?’ Jay asked.

‘So what’s Liz got for us to watch tonight?’ Jack asked.

‘Oh, just a little something that Adam found on a scouting mission last week,’ Jay said with a smile.

‘Come on, don’t tease me,’ Jack said. ‘What is it?’

‘
Die Hard
,’ Jay replied with a grin.

‘Oh, I am so there,’ Jack said, grinning back.

‘OK, we’ll see you in the common room later,’ Jay said.

‘Later, guys,’ Jack said with a wave, picking up his comic book.

Sam followed Jay out of the armoury and across the Ops Area towards the firing range. Rachel and the other boy had finished shooting and Jackson was watching as they carefully field stripped and cleaned their weapons. Sam was impressed by the speed with which they disassembled the pistols and set about cleaning the component parts. When he had realised that there were other survivors fighting back against the Threat, he had expected to find a ragtag bunch of kids with guns, but what he saw around him was a well-trained and disciplined guerilla force. That had to be down to this man called Jackson. He looked every inch the professional soldier and, if what Jay had already told him was true, he was the one responsible for turning a bunch of frightened kids into something resembling the beginnings of an army. He looked up as Jay and Sam approached.

‘Good morning, Jacob,’ Jackson said. ‘I assume that this is our new recruit.’

‘Yeah,’ Jay replied. ‘I’ve just been giving him the guided tour.’

‘Robert Jackson. Pleased to meet you,’ he said, offering Sam his hand.

‘Sam Riley,’ Sam said, shaking his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you too.’

‘You’ve met Rachel, of course,’ Jackson said, ‘and this is Tim, another member of the Ops Team.’

‘Hi, Sam,’ Tim said as he pushed a brush through the barrel of his dismantled pistol. ‘Hope Jay hasn’t been annoying you too much.’

‘Rachel tells me that you put up a good fight when you encountered the Threat forces on the surface,’ Jackson said. ‘What’s even more impressive is that you did it while suffering the effects of a Hunter sting. How are you feeling now – fully recovered?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ Sam replied. He glanced over at Rachel who smiled back at him.

‘Good,’ Jackson said. ‘I understand what you’ve been through, Sam. I know that you’ve spent the past year and a half running, hiding, struggling just to survive, but we’re going to teach you to do more than that; we’re going to teach you how to fight.’

Sam thought of the world, the people he’d lost and he suddenly felt something cold and hard in the pit of his stomach.

‘You know, I think I’d like that,’ Sam said with a nod. ‘I think I’d like that a lot.’

‘Excellent,’ Jackson said, gesturing to a pistol on one of the tables nearby. ‘Then we might as well get started right now.’

A couple of hours later Sam was sitting with the others eating lunch. He hadn’t really realised how hungry he actually was until Toby had handed him the steaming bowl of vegetable chilli and rice that he was now devouring. The other kids he’d met over the past couple of hours were chatting and laughing as they ate. Sam ate in silence, partly because he was enjoying a proper hot cooked meal for the first time in a very long time, but also because he was simply enjoying listening to the bubbling sound of the conversation around him. It was funny how something that he would have once taken for granted could have now become so special.

‘Looks like you’re enjoying that,’ Rachel said with a smile as she sat down opposite him.

‘You have no idea,’ Sam said with a sigh.

‘I think you impressed Jackson on the range this morning,’ she said, ‘and trust me when I say that he is
not
an easy man to please.’

‘Yeah, I kind of got that impression actually,’ Sam said, raising an eyebrow. ‘How long have you been training with him?’

‘Since I first got here and that was only a couple of months after the Threat landed, so I suppose that must be getting on for a year and a half now.’

‘So were you one of the first people that they found?’ Sam asked.

‘Yeah, though Jack and Will were here before me.’

‘So how did they find you?’

‘I don’t really know, to be honest,’ Rachel said, shaking her head slightly. ‘After the Signal I was hiding in the back offices of a superstore. I only ventured out to grab what I needed off the shelves. Then one day Jackson and Redmond were waiting for me out in the store. I almost had a heart attack when I saw them. I thought they were a couple of the Lost at first. You know, people wiped by the Signal . . .’

‘Walkers.’

‘Yeah, then Redmond says, “Hello there” and I freaked out. I ran, but they caught up with me and explained that they weren’t going to hurt me, just take me somewhere safe. I was so glad to see other people who’d not had their brains wiped. Then they brought me back here.’

‘Who’s Redmond?’ Sam asked. ‘I don’t think I’ve met him yet.’

‘Yeah, well, you won’t,’ Rachel said, her eyes suddenly dropping to look at the table. ‘He and Jackson were really close. I got the impression that they’d served together for a while. Then, one day, about six months ago, they both went up to the surface on a retrieval op, but only Jackson came back.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sam said.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Rachel said with a sigh. ‘He’s not the first person we’ve lost and I doubt he’ll be the last. Nobody really knows what happened up there, but I’ll tell you this much; Jackson’s not been back to the surface since.’

‘He doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who scares easily,’ Sam said.

‘He’s not,’ Rachel replied. ‘That’s what worries everyone.’

They both ate in silence for a few seconds and Sam looked around the table at the others.

‘So, how come there’s no one else here who’s older than us?’ Sam asked. ‘Surely Stirling and Jackson can’t be the only people over fifteen years old that weren’t affected by the Signal?’

‘I wish I knew,’ Rachel said. ‘The only people we’ve ever been sent out to find were about the same age as us. I asked Stirling about it once and he told me that it probably had something to do with the fact that our brains were still developing and that somehow that made us immune to whatever it was that the Threat did to everyone else, but I’m not sure he was telling me everything. That’s not all that unusual, though. You’ll find that Stirling likes to play his cards pretty close to his chest.’

‘Yeah, so I keep hearing. Jay told me that he always seems to know where to go to find people who weren’t wiped by the signal, and that was how you found me.’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Rachel nodded, ‘but before we found you we hadn’t met anyone else who’d not been brainwashed by the Signal for a couple of months. We’re all worried that there might not be many more of us out there. Or worse, that there might not be
any
more of us.’

‘There’s got to be more people who weren’t affected,’ Sam said. ‘Just think, if you’ve found this many people already, then there have to be more. It’s a big planet.’

‘Sure, but what good does it do us if there are people like us in America or Australia? We’ve got no way of communicating with them, no way of organising any sort of concerted resistance to the Threat.’

‘So what do you suggest? Should we just hide and hope that eventually they go away?’

‘I’m not saying that,’ Rachel said, frowning, ‘but we do need hope. It’s not enough that we just survive – we need to fight back.’

‘Isn’t that what we’re being trained to do?’ Sam asked.

‘Of course it is,’ Rachel replied, ‘but I do wonder sometimes if we can really make a difference?’

‘Well, four days ago I thought I was the last person on the planet who had free will,’ Sam said, looking her in the eye. ‘I was convinced that I was going to spend the rest of my life running and hiding. Now, in the space of just a few days, I feel like there’s hope again and that maybe we can fight these things. And do you know why I feel that way? Well, it’s because, no matter what happens, I’m not alone any more. None of us are.’

Rachel stopped eating and looked up for a few seconds.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said finally, smiling at him.

‘Right about what?’ Jay asked as he sat down next to them.

‘I was just saying that I think that this might be the best chilli I’ve ever tasted,’ Sam said with a grin.

‘Yeah, it’s all right, I suppose. It could do with some meat in it, though,’ Jay said.

‘Here we go,’ Rachel said, rolling her eyes.

‘What? It’s not fair. No matter how many times I ask the Doc, he still won’t let me try to find some cows to bring down here.’

‘The sad thing is, he’s not actually joking,’ Rachel said to Sam. ‘He really has asked.’