Authors: Chris Ryan
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #General, #Juvenile Nonfiction, #Science & Nature, #Environmental Conservation & Protection
Fault Line (23 page)
What was the last sense to go? Was it smell? No, it was hearing. Well, there was nothing to hear.
He moved the screen of the palmtop around, trying to use it as a torch. Even that wouldn’t last for ever. The batteries would go. He knew every shadow so well by now. That bulge that was the remains of the T. rex’s humerus. That pale oval in the corner was Susana’s face. He should have turned it towards the wall so it couldn’t look at him. But he didn’t want to touch it now.
He hadn’t written anything more for about five minutes now. He’d said all he wanted to say. All the palmtop was now was a torch. It showed how tiny the space was.
He whispered, ‘I think I prefer the dark.’
He turned the palmtop off.
23 U
NDERWORLD
NDERWORLD
Amber, Paulo, Li and Alex had spread the plans on the bonnet of the van.
‘Where haven’t we searched yet?’ said Alex.
A word on the plan suddenly leaped out at Paulo like a neon sign.
WORKSHOP
.
WORKSHOP
.
Miguel brought Felipe over. They’d got two pickaxes as well as Miguel’s crowbar.
‘Felipe,’ said Paulo decisively. ‘We know where to look for Jorges.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Li.
Felipe looked at him. His eyes were full of hope and anxiety. ‘Where?’
‘He’s gone to see the animatronic dinosaur in the workshop.’
Felipe hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. ‘Of course! He was angling to see it last night.’
Paulo gestured to him. ‘It’s your territory. Lead the way.’
Alex had the night vision goggles and his belt pack. Paulo had the makeshift first-aid kit. Li and Amber had torches – as did Felipe and Miguel. They walked back into the building with purpose. This was a positive lead – someone else they could get out. Maybe at some point they’d get a lead for Hex.
Felipe took them down the fire escape to the basement. When they reached the small office with the fallen ceiling, he gasped. ‘Ana was under that? It’s a miracle they got out alive.’
Amber patted his arm. ‘They were clever. The safe burst open and Ana got them in for protection. Hopefully Jorges will be clever too.’
Miguel was impressed. Amber instinctively understood they had to keep the man’s morale up.
Felipe took them past another office and peered in. ‘It’s not too bad in there,’ he said. But it was empty, so he continued to the next one.
A little further on he stopped. His torch flashed on a heap of rubble. It went from floor to ceiling, like a roughly built wall. ‘Jesus,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The workshop is just through there. The T. rex must have crashed through the floor. It weighs tonnes.’
‘We can’t get through there,’ said Li.
‘Alex, have you got the plans?’ said Miguel. ‘With all these little rooms we might be able to knock a way through.’
Alex handed the plans over. Miguel tapped the map confidently. ‘This side wall is a plasterboard partition. We should try knocking it down and see if there’s a way in there.’
Paulo had a pickaxe ready. ‘Where do you want the hole?’
Miguel pointed. ‘About here, quite low down.’ Amber and Li trained the torches on the area.
Paulo gripped the axe with both hands and swung. The point crashed into the wall. He hooked it out, leaving a ragged hole and a shower of dust. With the next blow he levered out a bigger piece.
Felipe let out a great long worried breath. Li put a reassuring hand on his arm. She understood what he felt. He was afraid of what he might find.
Amber took the other pickaxe and helped Paulo make the hole bigger.
Li crawled in, then stuck her head back again to report what she’d found. ‘It’s fine. Not much damage.’
Miguel consulted the map. ‘OK, we go in there, then knock another hole through to the next room.’
The party squeezed through the opening and Miguel inspected the left-hand wall. ‘Paulo, make a hole about here.’
Paulo lined up the axe. ‘With pleasure.’ He took a couple of big swings and Amber helped him enlarge the hole.
Li went through first. ‘Clear,’ she called.
Amber followed. Alex handed her the night vision goggles and climbed through, awkwardly because of his injured hand. Paulo followed, then Felipe, then finally Miguel.
‘Hey, this is the kitchen,’ said Li. Her torch picked out a steel sink, taps and a draining board. ‘Anyone fancy a cup of tea?’
Miguel consulted the plans. ‘The next wall to take out is’ – he pointed – ‘there.’
Amber flashed the torch over. ‘You mean the one with the big hole in it?’ Sure enough, there was a big hole like the one they’d made in the other wall.
‘Felipe,’ she asked, ‘have you got a problem with rats here?’
Felipe was looking at the hole, tight lipped. ‘Human rats. Looters.’
Amber played her torch over the walls. ‘But how did they get in here? They didn’t come down the fire escape. There must be another way out.’
Li bent down to step through the hole, but Alex stopped her. ‘We’d better be careful. They might still be here. Take the goggles in case someone’s hiding.’
Li handed her torch to Alex, then put the goggles on and stepped carefully through the hole.
On the other side was a bigger room, like a garage. To her left was a mass of rubble. To her right was a carved stone stele like the ones in the entrance, partly wrapped for transit – but nothing warm and breathing.
‘All clear,’ she called back.
The others came out carefully.
‘Hey, Felipe,’ she said, ‘you’ve got one treasure left intact.’
Felipe put a hand on the stele and looked up into the beautiful stone face. ‘That’s on loan from Mexico City. I’m glad we don’t have to tell them we broke it.’
Amber’s voice called him back to reality. ‘Felipe?’
They all turned. Leaning against the outside wall was a ladder. It led to a long dark hole like a letter box, just below the ceiling. Outside, it must be at ground level.
Felipe looked up the ladder. ‘That was a window. We blocked it off for security reasons. Not that we ever thought anyone could get a stele out through it.’
Amber shone her torch on the ground. ‘Well, someone’s unblocked it.’ A couple of breeze blocks lay broken on the dusty floor. ‘Guys, we have to be very careful.’
Miguel was holding his torch over the plans. He spoke in a quiet voice. ‘Were we looking for the workshop? Because it’s there, where that pile of rubble is.’
The other torches converged on the wreckage. Pieces of ceiling, chunks of wall from the floor above, formed an impenetrable mountain.
Felipe walked towards it with heavy steps. ‘Jorges?’ he called. ‘Jorges?’
The whole room held its breath, waiting for a reply. There was nothing. Just the constant sound of sand and pebbles settling.
Paulo looked over Miguel’s shoulder at the plans. ‘Can we get any further round?’
‘No. The other walls are solid concrete. We can’t smash through them with what we’ve got.’
Paulo strode forward with his pickaxe. ‘Then we dig.’
Miguel set to with his crowbar. Felipe used the other pickaxe. The others took what they could find: Li seized an ancient axe; Amber found a long stick leaning up against the stele. It was covered with carvings but it was good when used like a cricket bat to whack lumps of concrete onto the floor. Alex pulled pieces of masonry away with his good hand.
Paulo dug the axe in and was suddenly thrown violently aside.
He rolled over and looked up. In the incomplete light from the torches, he saw something he didn’t want to see.
Debris was trembling down the heap like it was alive.
Paulo picked himself up. ‘Get out,’ he yelled. ‘It’s coming down!’
He raced towards the ladder, the others hard on his heels. Lumps of masonry tumbled after them as they climbed to the hole. In moments they were outside on the grass.
‘What happened?’ said Amber.
‘I don’t know,’ said Paulo. ‘I must have hit something unstable.’ Behind him, Miguel and Felipe gasped, getting their breath back.
Li looked through the window using the goggles. The debris was still falling, spreading the pile across the floor like a cold lava flow. It now blocked the hole they’d cut in the wall. ‘This is weird,’ she said.
She handed Alex the goggles. ‘Here, you have a look.’
Alex saw Paulo’s pickaxe sticking up. Under it, something was moving, jerking like a big animal trying to surface. What was it? Then he had an idea.
‘Felipe, how is that animatronic dinosaur powered? Is it mains or battery?’
‘Battery. Why?’
‘I think it’s come to life. Paulo, look at where your axe is.’
Paulo took the goggles. There was his axe, the handle at forty-five degrees, like a fence post trying to remain upright after a rock fall. And there was an object about three metres long like the tail of a swimming shark. It jerked fitfully and whacked against a square concrete pillar, sending lumps of masonry tumbling. Further up the pile, the jagged pieces of broken wall and ceiling were rocking dangerously.
‘My axe must have completed a circuit. It’s turned the dinosaur on.’
Miguel was shining his torch in. ‘It’s destabilizing the entire thing. See that pillar it’s hitting? That’s holding up what’s left of the upper floor.’
Paulo knew what that meant. He gave Li the goggles and turned to climb back in. ‘I’ve got to stop it or it’ll bring down everything.’
‘Do you think you should go back in?’ said Felipe. But Paulo was already shinning down the ladder. Li, Amber and Alex watched him nervously.
He reached the ground. The end of the tail was five metres away. The pickaxe had gone in high up, around where it met the hind legs. He crept closer and his torch picked out the row of plates along where the top of the spine would be. Some child part of his brain thrilled – it was a stegosaurus! Then something hit him hard and slammed him into the pillar.
Paulo stayed there for a moment, winded. It was like being knocked down by a car.
Li’s voice called out. ‘Are you OK, Paulo?’
Paulo gasped a couple of times and finally got his lungs working. ‘It’s really heavy.’
He heard Felipe. ‘Of course it is. It’s a model of a very big animal.’
Li’s voice rang out. ‘Watch out!’
Paulo looked behind him. A vicious spiked thing was hurtling towards him. He dived out of the way. It whistled past him, dug into the pillar, then flicked away, leaving a sprinkling of concrete dust. Of course. The stegosaurus had four vicious spikes on its tail. It lashed upwards and Paulo saw ragged masonry tumbling towards him like huge boulders. He pressed himself flat against the pillar, eyes closed. The tail thundered past, missing him by centimetres. If he didn’t get that axe out and break the circuit, he’d be buried.
He heard one of the others shout from the window. But it was too late – he screwed up his courage.
He lined up the torch on the axe handle and ran for it. The tail came searing towards him again. His boots scrabbled on the loose rubble and he leaped forwards. As he landed, one of the sharp fibreglass plates along the stegosaurus’s spine dug into his chest. But he had to get the job done. He pulled the pickaxe handle.
Just as suddenly as it had started, the monster was still.
Paulo took a breath, seeing if his lungs would inflate. Not too bad. No blood. Amazingly, nothing seemed to be broken.
Li was picking her way towards him, wearing the night vision goggles.
Paulo’s face was grinning with delight. ‘Hey, frog-woman,’ he said, ‘I fought a stegosaurus.’
But Li had seen something else. A small glowing glove, rising like Excalibur from the greyish rubble. ‘Hey,’ she called, ‘we’ve got a survivor!’
Felipe stuck his head through the window. ‘Jorges?’ he called out.
A shrill voice replied, ‘Daddy!’
In moments the group were back down the ladder. Li was already digging, pulling away masonry from where she had seen Jorges’s arm. As the others reached her she looked in the hole and saw a face, a miniature Felipe, glowing about half a metre down. His eyes and mouth were wide, white-hot pools of wonder.
‘He’s all right,’ she gasped. ‘He’s all right. Let’s dig.’
Six pairs of hands began to pull debris away. In no time, they had widened the hole. Li reached in and hauled the little boy out.
Felipe hugged him hard, like he would never let go of him again.
The others shone torches into the hole. It was deep; reaching beyond the floor and into the foundations of the basement. Shattered fibreglass and wires mingled with the masonry; the remains of the stegosaurus.
‘Paulo,’ said Miguel, ‘if you hadn’t stuck the pickaxe in the dinosaur tail I don’t think we’d have been able to move all this.’
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