Elysium. Part Two (21 page)

‘And the bubo?’ He had asked, still horrified by the speed of its pollination.

‘Fire neutralises it, and kills the virus... But once it’s burst and it’s in the atmosphere, well, we can’t recreate that here. There’s no telling what would happen.’

He considered these words as the council looked at him expectantly.

‘We’ve a busy day ahead of us. Garth? I believe you already have the antitoxin on standby? I want everyone inoculated. Tam, Richard, Greg, you go and help, take vaccination kits with you and go door to door. I don’t want anyone missed.’ He turned back to Garth. ‘I want you to prepare a cultivation of the virus. Those here who have the documents containing the DNA strings hidden in your homes, go now and take them to the hotel. Robert, Garret, Frank, Mark, we need to discuss our strike, I’d be grateful if you’d remain here.’

Several people turned to leave the library, the rest stood immobile, unable to comprehend what was to happen to their community.

‘If they want a fight, we’ll give them one they never expected.’ Semilion said, drawing some from their trances. He had meant it to rouse a fire in them, though by the looks of it they were more nervous than he had ever known them.

Chapter Thirty-Three
.

Bridgewater.

Dusk was some
hours away, yet the roiling cloud darkened the grassy landscape of Bridgewater and made the border upon the horizon appear more lonesome than Stone Hill.

Beano manoeuvred the old carrier to a copse of trees, well out of range of the motion cameras, and cranked the handbrake swiftly.

‘We’re here,’ he said gruffly as he pressed the ignition and gestured away from the border. ‘Head north until you hit the water.’

Tranter followed Beano’s finger, catching the scent of a lifetime’s nicotine-permeated skin. He knew where they should go, he had planned the possible routes captain Stumm could take down to the last detail. That had been years ago, two lifetimes with the interim of prison, yet it was still as fresh in his mind as though he had been scouring the maps with Stumm that very morning.

‘Thank you,’ he said quietly, fishing in the black bag on his lap uncomfortably and retrieving several black disks. He handed them to Beano, whose yellow eyes became mesmerised.

Toubec sat forward. ‘What the hell? They’re ministry chips! How do you expect to spend those?’

‘Believe me, darling, there’s a lot one can do with these chips. I might not be able to buy bread with them but I can enlist the silence of a few officers, if you know what I mean?’

‘Tranter...’ She began.

‘Well, just don’t tell them where you got them,’ he interrupted. ‘There’s enough there to make you a target.’

‘If anyone asks I’ll say me and the tooth fairy’ve got a thing going.’ He smiled and bared the debris of his mouth.

Toubec unbuckled herself and stepped from the carrier, the wind rousing her hair as she did so.

‘Suppose you’re hoping for a repeat performance of Stumm with that one, eh? Bring her down especially to take one in the forehead? No loss, if you ask me.’

‘I didn’t.’ Said Tranter, patting Beano on the forearm as he stepped from the carrier.

The ignition growled and the vehicle reversed, disappearing into the copse. The engine hummed on the wind until it was imperceptible, leaving Tranter and Toubec alone in the countryside, the border and horizon flanking them.

‘Come on,’ Tranter said with feigned determination. ‘Over that hill’s the channel. We should aim to be there by nightfall.’

‘What else have you got in your purse?’ Toubec asked. She hoped he had brought some useful provisions with him though it seemed he had gathered only the barest of necessities. Isotonic and protein boosters, a torch, and an old two way radio he had bought from police-surplus.

He trudged through the high grass and Toubec followed, keeping a few paces behind. She had heard the comment Beano had made, and though her prime reaction was one of anger, it had left an aftertaste of fear in her stomach.

For an hour they walked in silence, a break in the clouds illuminating the land floridly.

Toubec stopped, her chin in the air as though a scent captivated her. Tranter continued walking, until he became aware that he could no longer hear the accompanying swish of grass behind him. He turned, and saw her inquisitive stance.

‘What is it?’

Toubec remained quiet, and after a moment Tranter began to retrace his steps toward her. She held out her hands and he stopped, looking around as though she had perceived something invisible to him.

‘Don’t you hear it? There....’

He heard nothing but the wind rushing through the grass.

‘And there...’

He looked into the middle distance, switching perception to his hearing. There was nothing but grass and wind. And birdcall, and the random buzz of insects now that he thought about it as he tried to marshal all the sounds of the countryside. He lowered his eyes further, trying to perceive beyond the grass, to make the rustling a baseline. And then he heard it also.

It was nothing more than a drone, a resonance that seemed to emanate from nature, like the churn of the sea or the humid expectancy preceding a storm, but this vibration was irregular, changing with the wind.

How Toubec had heard it minutes ago under the snapping briar beneath their feet he didn’t know, it was only barely perceptible to him now.

‘Is it getting louder?’ he asked, looking up to her. The moment he focused on her and drew attention away from actively listening he knew that it was. He could easily hear it now, and she nodded at him nervously.

His first thoughts were of the garrison at Bridgewater behind them. Had they discovered and come to collect them? He cursed under his breath and turned in the direction of the border. It was out of sight, far beyond the horizon, and he spun around to find cover.

There was another copse a quarter mile or so to the east, and he grabbed Toubec by the arm and thrust her in its direction. She was pulled from her concentration and almost plummeted to the ground, though she corrected the fall and wrenched her wrist from Tranter.

Birds erupted from the grasses and the trees, flooding high into the air, predator and prey alike spiralled in the russet rays of the shifting heavens. In her confusion Toubec saw a group of white-tailed deer prancing from the copse in a wild panic. They’re heading in the wrong direction, she thought fleetingly, though disregarded them to their own fate as she disentangled herself from a bramble.

A moment later they heard the roar of a helicopter rotor tearing at the sky followed by the unmistakable emphasis of an engine. Still the wind drew at the sound, but now there was no misinterpreting it.

Rhinox had been deployed.

They looked over their shoulders as they ran, expecting the elephantine craft to appear out of the sun in the west, from Stone Hill, low on the ground and churning the earth in their pursuit, but for the increase in vibration
they could still see nothing.
The ground reverberated, and the thunderous throb of the blades became deafening. Toubec clamped her hands to her ears, and although Tranter resisted, it wasn’t long before he followed her example.

The copse was little under a hundred yards away, and for the shaking earth and screaming in their ears it was as much as they could do to stumble forward, falling to their knees as their feet were shaken from their purchase. Still they struggled on, checking the horizon for any sign of the machines that were shattering their eardrums. Nothing. Where where they? Tranter worried for a moment of the effect they would have when overhead if this were the devastation they wrought from a distance.

Toubec cast a glance once more over her shoulder, and saw the herd of deer separate across the grassland when the obvious struck her.

‘We’re heading straight for it!’ She shouted, reaching for Tranter. Her voice was whipped away and she hurled herself forward, her fingers hooking his flapping jacket. He turned, shielding his eyes from the driving leaves and refuse. They both stumbled to their knees as the sky above the copse began to ripple.

They arrived in a wave of internal thunder, not from behind as expected, but from beyond the copse before them. Two Rhinox, some distance apart, escorted by six small police helicopters encircling them. They ascended from behind the rise; heat vapours pluming from turbines as they crested the trees and shattered them.

Three of the small helicopters thrummed overhead as the closest Rhinox hauled its shadow over the ragged trench it was ploughing in front of Tranter and Toubec. He felt their downdraught push him, almost nudge him out of the way of the Rhinox, which he knew would either launch them so forcibly that their every bone would be crushed to shale, or pin them to the ground with much the same effect as the demolished earth. He screamed and grabbed Toubec once again, and this time she didn’t resist.

He drew her from her knees, her cries lost to the pandemonium of vibration, engine’s roar, snapping branches, and cracking earth. He dragged her as far as he could before the Rhinox’s downstream thumped him hard in the back. He felt it as a shovel to the spine, and he was lifted from his feet as though swept up by a tsunami. The great shadow of the machine drew closer, the broken earth in its wake rushed towards him. He knew his ears were damaged beyond repair, and he expected to be crushed alongside the earth about him as the craft passed overhead. But not Toubec. He wouldn’t have her blood on his hands. Not again.

He pushed her forward, little aware of what he was pushing her into. A wedge of soil, from which protruded a shaft of flint, struck him in the cheek. He saw blood spray into the winds, felt the flesh ripple in the vibrations that penetrated him. Dust and grit burned his face, stung the wound, and filled his mouth. The hulking form of the Rhinox was above them, the screaming reverberations seemingly reduced to a singularity, piercing his skull and draining colour, sight, then consciousness from him in a precipitous embrace.

He hit the floor like a discarded marionette, pushed several feet by rolling detritus. The shadow of the Rhinox passed, the singularity of disorder diverged into a commotion of winds, turbines, rotors and vibrations; the earth stopped shaking, and the dust began to settle.

Toubec lay face down, her arms gripping the back of her head desperately. Half covered by loose soil and scattered branches, she got to her knees and turned to find Tranter, cuffing blood from a cut on her brow. Her ears rang loudly, screaming an echo of the vibration that was now long passed. It made her dizzy, and she stumbled forward before vomiting in the grass. The heaves turned to tears of shock, and for a moment she remained on her knees, retching and sobbing and wiping the blood from her forehead.

The hum of the second Rhinox passed some distance away, a shadow in the pastel afternoon, a mile-wide trail of dust bulbous at its tail.

Two of the smaller police helicopters whined overhead, lashing at her hair. She hooked it behind her ears and watched the retreating craft. Were they the result of her call to Michael? Were they on their way to Stone Hill?

She watched them in a daze, the thought of Michael reminding her why she was throwing her guts into the grass, why she was deaf, why she was crying.

‘Laur!’ She called, running her forearm across her eyes and stepping on to the wide furrow of split and turned earth.

She saw him, buried up to his torso and bleeding profusely from his cheek. She rushed to him and hovered over his wound anxiously. It gaped wide, and she could see his bloody tongue and torn gums.

Instinctively she held her hand to her mouth as she placed a finger to his throat. A pulse beat weakly. Though at least it beat.

Should she wake him, she wondered as she tore an arm from her shirt to cover his wound. She hesitated. How could she bandage a cheek?

She cursed, wishing she had taken advantage of the first aid courses offered by employers. She had taken some years ago, but they had been preliminary courses, bandaging, slings, and recovery positions; there was nothing that dealt with treating a torn cheek from both sides. Blood pumped across his face, turning her stomach again, though it spurred her to take the cloth and wrap it about his jaw. She tore away her second, before tossing the muddied fabric away, and then ripped Tranter’s inside jacket before pressing it between his gums and his inner cheek. It was pathetic, and already the outside bandage was blossoming scarlet. She reached down and ripped her tights, adding them to the dressing and tying them at his crown.

She lay her finger on his throat again. His pulse was metronomic. What she was waiting to feel she didn’t know; a break in rhythm to indicate impending arousal? She had no idea how much time would pass before he might wake.

A glance about her solidified her fear that there were no local materials to aid her, no shelter even, not after the Rhinox had near decimated the copse. She thought of the two-way radio Tranter had purchased and considered calling for help. Perhaps this was as far as their journey should take them, she thought, wondering if one of the smaller helicopters might receive her broadcast and return. It was gone, however, lost under the earth and debris.

They were alone.

She remained beside him, her ears wailing and her fingers resting gently on his throat; the breeze tousling her hair and the birds reeling in disorientation.