Furnace 5 - Execution (32 page)

‘Thank you,’ I said when my voice had returned. And he answered me with laughter.

The stranger looked like he was about to attack again but I moved first. My body seemed to expand, growing as big as the trees, far bigger than the creature. I wrapped a fist of my own around his scrawny neck, his skin as wet and cold as an eel, and I lifted him from the ground. I could almost see his outrage emanating from his body like a dark mist, but what could he do? It may have been his blood pulsing through my body, but it was still my mind controlling it.

I
WILL
KILL
YOU,
he screamed wordlessly.
I
WILL
SLAUGHTER
YOU
A
MILLION
TIMES
OVER
.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You won’t. Because if you kill me, then you die too. That’s what happens to parasites, they need a living host.’

The stranger knew that I spoke the truth, another strangled groan breaking free from him. He struggled against my grip, the same way I had against his own only moments ago. But he had no more power here, no more
power over me.

‘You’re a prisoner,’ I spat. ‘Inside my head. I’ll never let you out.’

I didn’t know whether I’d be able to make good on that threat, but the stranger believed me. He seemed to shrink, substance bleeding out of him like ink, pattering on the orchard floor. I let go, disgusted, watching him shrink into what he really was – the dried-up husk that was all that remained after he had poured his blood into the young Alfred Furnace. He had no body in the real world. He could do no harm, not any more. The roots of the trees coiled up from the earth beneath him, knitting a twisted cage around the stranger. A single spidery finger poked between the bars, one last desperate shriek creeping from the darkness. And then the last of the gaps closed over, encasing his soul – if such a thing as this could ever have one – in a coffin of living wood.

I took one last look at the orchard, knowing I would never return. Then I pushed myself up from the dream, rising from it as if swimming up from a great depth, leaving the stranger far below with only the crows and the maggots for company.

I emerged from the dream gasping for breath, coughing and wheezing so hard that the entire machine rattled and shook. Simon and Zee and Lucy all fell backwards in shock.

‘Jesus!’ said Zee when he had recovered. ‘You almost made me cack myself. What the hell was that?’

I clawed in a breath, hacking up a spitball that tasted like dirt and rotten fruit. It took me a while to remember what had happened in the dream. The events in the orchard were fading fast. But I could sense the stranger there, locked inside my thoughts, unable to escape. His blood still pumped through me, but for now his wordless voice had been silenced.

‘
My head, my rules
,’ I said, my voice a hurricane of sound.

Zee frowned, looking at me like I’d gone mad. It wasn’t surprising, really, considering that my eyes were still whirlpools of nothingness in my head.

‘All right, there’s no need to shout. You okay, though?’ he asked.

I nodded, reducing my voice to a whisper.

‘Just had to take care of something,’ I said. ‘But it’s done now.’

I could hear the muted bark of gunfire from outside, knowing that I still had a job to do. There were no doubts now, though. The blacksuits and the berserkers were kids, but they had been torn from their world and turned into monsters. Their thoughts were only of rage, of hatred, of murder, utterly relentless, and that was no way to live. At least in death they would be at peace.

‘What are we gonna do?’ asked Simon.

‘The right thing,’ I said. ‘It’s time for the war to end.’

‘How?’ asked Zee. ‘You just gonna surrender?’

‘I’m going to try.’

I closed my eyes, my mind splitting into thousands of pieces as I entered the heads of Furnace’s creations. They welcomed me back, and I could feel their fury there, their insatiable hunger for mayhem and murder. The battle on the mainland was still in full swing, the blacksuits and berserkers winning. I could see endless piles of human dead on the streets, slumped like sandbags. The stranger’s blood began to boil inside me at the sight, and for a heartbeat I almost succumbed to his call. But it was only a heartbeat, gone as quickly as it had appeared.

I focused my thoughts, trying to make my command as clear as possible. Then I sent out that message, directing it like a blade into the head of every single one of the blacksuits, berserkers and rats.

Stop fighting
.

Their reply echoed back to me, confusion quickly
becoming disbelief which in turn led to more anger. Some obeyed, even if they were in mid-battle. They simply froze, and I watched as their consciousnesses went black, substance turned to absence as they died. It was unbearable. I felt as if I experienced every one of their deaths, each more painful than the last.

But the ones who surrendered were the minority, just a handful. Most ignored my order. It was no surprise. I just didn’t have the control that Furnace had, the conviction. They didn’t obey me because they could sense that I didn’t really know what I was doing, that I didn’t believe in my abilities. Like a dog discovering that his master is weak. Even with the stranger’s blood inside me I had just a fraction of Furnace’s authority. He had been able to stop the ones on the island from fighting even when they were being attacked. But their instinct for self-preservation overrode my childish command. That and the fact that these creatures were machines built for war, for destruction. They knew no other way to live.

I opened my eyes, bringing myself back into the chamber. Zee, Lucy and Simon still stood there, looking up at me expectantly.

‘Any luck?’ asked Lucy.

‘They won’t listen to me,’ I said. ‘They won’t stop fighting.’

Zee ran his hands through his hair, deep in thought.

‘If they won’t give up …’ he said, leaving the end of the sentence hanging. He didn’t finish, he didn’t need to. I knew what he meant.

I thought back to the berserker from the city, the fleshy one that Panettierre had tortured and shot after we’d fled from my house. Trapped, scared, alone. I had put it out of its misery, ushered it out of life. And it had welcomed it, for a fleeting second it had remembered who it had once been, it had sloughed off the horrific shell that Furnace had given it and it had been free. It had died a child instead of a monster. That kid had died as
himself
. I hoped that was better than never remembering. It had to be better.

Zee seemed to read my mind, because he nodded.

‘Can you do that?’ he asked. ‘Can you do that for them all?’

I didn’t know. Last time it had been one berserker, on the very edge of death. But thousands of them, blacksuits and wheezers and rats too? Surrender may have been impossible for these soldiers, but the thought of freedom was a far more powerful thing.

I was about to answer, but a sad, quiet laugh cut me off. I looked at Simon, leaning against a pillar, and suddenly I realised what would happen if I went ahead with my plan. Zee did too, because I heard him curse.

‘It’s different with you, though, isn’t it?’ he asked Simon. ‘You’re too … human.’

Simon shrugged.

‘I don’t think it works that way,’ he said, looking up at me. ‘Right, Alex?’

‘I don’t know. I mean, Furnace never managed to control you while we were in the prison, or after we escaped, did he?’

Simon looked uncertain, lost in his memories.

‘I … I’m not sure,’ he stuttered. ‘I don’t think so. But …’

‘But what?’ asked Zee. Simon glanced at him, almost ashamed.

‘Something told me you guys were locked in solitary,’ he confessed. ‘It wasn’t that we’d seen you being taken there. I just
knew
it. I was never really sure how, but I guess it makes sense. I guess
he
was telling me.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Because he wanted you to escape,’ Simon went on. ‘And he wanted you alive. And that’s what I’ve been doing, Alex, helping you escape and keeping you alive.’

There was no point in arguing. Simon had been Furnace’s puppet the same way I was. He’d come here thinking he was acting under his own free will, but the truth of it was we’d been controlled and manipulated in exactly the same way.

‘It doesn’t mean you’ll die,’ I said, grasping at straws. ‘You’re not that far gone.’

I tried to sound convincing, but in my heart I knew that if I sent out a command for Furnace’s creations to let go of life then the sheer scale of what would happen would affect every living thing with nectar inside it – the blacksuits, the berserkers, the rats, and in all probability Simon too. It was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.

‘We find another way,’ I said. ‘There must be something else we can do to end this.’

But the silence that followed revealed my statement as false. Simon laughed again, shaking his head.

‘There is no other way,’ he said. ‘You know that, I know that. Furnace knew it too, remember?’

‘What do you mean?’ Lucy asked, wiping a tear from her cheek. Simon glanced at me again, his eyes unable to hold my own blazing portals for longer than a second.

‘The vision,’ he said. ‘Back in the underground station in the city, when that berserker grabbed us.’

I had seen the tower, Furnace calling to me, asking me to be his soldier in the new world. It was weird, thinking that he had been speaking from this very room, the same way I now communicated with his creations.

Simon hadn’t received that message, though. His had been different.

‘Furnace told me that I had no place in the future. You remember? He told me that if I helped you, then I’d die. He told me that if I helped you, then sooner or later it would be
you
that killed me.’

I shook my head, my thoughts reeling. Furnace had obviously assumed that by the time we’d got to the tower in the city Simon’s role in his plan would be over. Furnace had wanted me to fight the warden alone – even though in the end I’d needed Simon’s help after all. Had Furnace changed his mind when he saw me losing the fight? Had he guided Simon to me, made him shove a grenade into the warden’s mouth in order to save my life? It was impossible to know.

I guess Furnace had also believed that once I was here, once I’d seen his grand design, his vision of the world where only his children could survive, I would not tolerate a half-breed like Simon. It didn’t matter
now, all that mattered was that Furnace’s prophecy looked like it was coming true.

‘For real?’ asked Zee, his face a mask of shock. ‘Furnace really said that to you?’

Simon nodded, the room plunged into silence once again, only the two wheezers in the corner showing any sign of life, twitching gently.

‘He was wrong, though,’ I said eventually. ‘Because it doesn’t have to happen this way. We’ll think of another plan.’

‘What other plan?’ Simon spat back. ‘Go out there and kill all those things by hand? Hope that Panettierre wins the war and doesn’t start another one? This ain’t never gonna end by itself, Alex. Those freaks are still out there, and they’re winning. The rats are still infecting people, Furnace’s army just keeps getting bigger, stronger.’ He paused, taking a deep, ragged breath. ‘And what about when it starts to spread? What about when the blacksuits cross the border, cross the oceans? It might already have happened. This isn’t just about the country, it’s about the whole human race.’ He shook his head. Nobody else dared to speak. ‘You’ve got a chance to end this right now. If you take it then I might die, and that sucks. But if you don’t, you’re signing a death warrant for everybody else.’

‘Simon …’ Zee said, his eyes filling. ‘There’s no way, I won’t let you.’ He looked at me. ‘Right, Alex? We can think of something else. Right?’

‘That’s your problem, Zee,’ Simon said, smiling gently. ‘You always think too much.’

Zee was sobbing now, looking back and forth between Simon and me. Lucy was crying too, her sleeves in constant motion as they wiped her eyes. I would have burst into tears myself, if the stranger’s blood had let me. It didn’t mean I couldn’t feel it, though, the sadness clawing up from my gut, nesting in my throat.

Zee ran to Simon, wrapping his skinny arms around the bigger boy, his face buried in his neck. Simon hugged him back, so hard that I heard something pop, the two of them holding each other, the tears flowing freely now, as if by never letting go they would never have to say goodbye.

I just let my head hang, desperately trying to think of another plan. My thoughts wheeled around each other like birds in a flock, too many, moving too quickly, for me to catch them.

Simon shrugged Zee away, both boys patting each other awkwardly on the back. Zee’s tears had left a patch on Simon’s shoulder, on the hoodie he’d got back in the mall, the morning we escaped, when we thought that everything just might be okay. Lucy walked over, gave the bigger kid a hug. It was short, but she meant it.

‘Stay with us,’ she said. ‘We can make sure nothing happens to you.’

‘We can chain you to one of these pillars,’ said Zee. ‘That way you won’t do anything stupid.’