Major Karnage (27 page)

The mountain slowly revealed itself. It sat alone on the flatlands.
A gleaming white wall ran around the mountain’s perimeter.
Roof peaks and spires jutted up behind the walls, running up the
mountain’s sides in an erratic spiral. A needle-thin tower with a
bulbous top dwarfed all the other buildings, its antenna peak just
touching the clouds above it.

“Seems kind of weird. A single mountain sittin’ out there all by
itself,” Karnage said.

“Used to be a whole range of mountains out here,” Sydney said.
“But they tore ’em all down. Used the aggregate to build Dabneyville.”

Ahead of them, the road began to rise. Sydney pulled the car off
the road and started driving on the plain.

“What are you doing?”

Sydney pointed to the road as it rose up from the desert floor,
revealing giant pillars of pitted concrete underneath. “That’s the
GDE. Don’t want to get caught up there.”

“GDE?”

“Gail Dabney Expressway,” Sydney said. “It’s the only road in or
out. They call it the Bridge to Nowhere, cuz no one in the city ever
wants to leave, and no one outside of the city ever wants in. They all
think they got it better than each other.”

Karnage thought about the squidbugs. “Little do they know
they’re all screwed.” He looked up at the road. “If that’s the only road
into town, then why aren’t we on it?”

Sydney pointed to cameras mounted on lampposts above them.

“They monitor all traffic in and out of the city. Not that there’s
much of it.”

“Wouldn’t they have spotted us already?”

Sydney shook her head. “Cameras don’t work this far out. Those
are only for show. It’s once you get closer to the city you have to
worry.”

She pulled the car under the GDE, and tucked it up on the inside
of one of the pillars. “We walk the rest of the way,” she said.

Karnage looked out towards Dabneyville. “Looks awful far to
walk.”

“We’re almost inside the perimeter of aerial surveillance. If we
don’t ditch the car soon, they’ll pick us up for sure.”

They stayed under the shade of the road, picking their way
through the rocks and debris. Garbage littered the underside of the
road: broken electronics, tatters of clothing, crumpled potato chip
bags and coffee cups, all emblazoned with the Dabney Corporation
logo.

“Is there anything the Dabney Corporation doesn’t make?”
Karnage said.

“No,” Sydney said. “They own everything. And everybody.”

“And now they’re handin’ it all over to the squidbugs.” Karnage
touched Patrick’s pistol in his pocket.
Only seven rounds.
He hoped
he wouldn’t blow his own head off when he used them.

They heard a high-pitched buzzing overhead. Sydney pressed
Karnage against the pillar. He peered around the side. He saw a
small circular shadow flowing across the desert floor. He looked up.
A Dabneycop flew overhead. He had a pair of hoverballs strapped
to his back. A pair of arching handles rose over the hoverballs into
the pilot’s hands. It sounded like a giant wasp. Karnage fought the
urge to swat him with the pistol. They waited until he disappeared
from sight.

“There’s the welcoming committee,” Sydney commented.

“Something tells me they won’t be that welcoming,” Karnage
said.

“How very perceptive of you.”

“How are we going to get in?”

Sydney
pointed
into
the
distance.
“There’s
an
unused
maintenance hatch around the west side of the wall. We can make
our way in through there.”

“Don’t they know about it?”

“When you’re in the business of wilfully forgetting your failures,
there’s a lot of things you train yourself not to know about.”

“So how come you know about it, then?”

“Because I make it a point to remember everything.”

The sun was setting when they finally reached the gleaming
white walls of the city. They waited under the bridge for night to
fall, then Sydney led them out along the perimeter of the outer wall.

The walls were at least a kilometre high. Moisture had flaked
the paint off along the bottom, revealing pitted grey concrete
underneath. They heard the buzz of an air patrol above them and
saw a spotlight fly across the desert. Karnage was reminded of the
pools of light that had helped them on the squidbug ship. Except
this particular light was anything but friendly. Karnage held his
pistol tight in his fist. The light passed by, missing them completely,
and disappeared around the curve of the wall.

Sydney pointed ahead of them. “There it is.”

Karnage squinted in the gloom. He could just make out a faint
dark patch on the wall. As they approached, he saw it was a ruststained door. It was slightly ajar. Sydney tucked her hand behind
it and pushed it open. The door’s hinges groaned in complaint.
Sydney looked into the darkness beyond, then turned to Karnage
and winked.

“Open sesame,” she said.

Karnage ducked his head to avoid hitting a pipe as they walked
through the dank narrow corridor. “What is this? Some kinda sewer
system?”

“No.” Sydney kept her flashlight in front of her. “It’s the old
subway system. They shut it down decades ago.”

Karnage eyed the narrow corridor. “Must have been one hell of
a skinny subway.”

“This is just a steam tunnel,” Sydney said.

“Why do they call it a steam tunnel?”

Sydney pointed to a giant pipe running along the wall beside
them. The words CAUTION: STEAM – HOT! were stencilled onto
its surface.

“That explains that mystery,” Karnage said.

“We’ll hit the main system up ahead,” Sydney said. “These
tunnels run under almost every building in the city. You can get
anywhere you want, so long as you know the right route to take.
Problem is there are no maps. They purged everything when they
shut it down. Most people don’t even know these tunnels exist.”

“How do you know about it, then?”

“I told you. I was stationed here. I made it a point to know about
them.”

“That mean the other Dabneycops know about them?”

“Not like I do,” she said. “There are a few main routes they patrol,
looking for fugitives and the like. But that’s about it. They don’t
bother with the rest.”

“But you did.”

“As much as I could,” Sydney said. “These tunnels go on for days.
It’d take years to find them all.”

“Sounds like a helluva big subway,” Karnage said.

“It’s a helluva big city. It’s not just subway tunnels, though. There
are maintenance corridors, steam tunnels . . . it’s crazy. If you’re not
careful, you could end up anywhere.”

The corridor ended at a half-open door. They squeezed through,
and found themselves on a subway platform. A row of rusted
turnstiles divided the platform in half. On one side, wide stairs
led straight up to a brick wall. On the other, the platform led off
to a steep drop into darkness. The floor was covered in mosaic tiles
of Dabby Tabby’s grinning face. A torn poster on the wall showed
Dabby Tabby wearing a train engineer’s cap and sitting astride a long
gleaming bullet-shaped subway train. RIDE THE BLUE ROCKET
ran across the bottom of the poster in faded blue text.

They climbed off the edge of the platform down onto the tracks.
The floor of the tunnel was covered in ankle-deep water. Karnage
recognized the toxic smell of squidbug. The beam from the flashlight
caught glimpses of orange creeper and pinkstink hanging on the
walls. Bright red lily pads with yellow veins drifted past their legs.

“This stuff always down here?” Karnage asked.

“No,” Sydney said. “This is new.”

They heard muffled voices up ahead. Sydney quickly turned off
her flashlight. Their eyes adjusted to the pitch black of the dark, and
they saw a soft blue glow lighting the tunnel ahead.

“I thought you said these tunnels were deserted,” Karnage
whispered.

“They’re probably just refugees.”

As they approached the light, the voice grew clearer. “. . . and you,
too, will learn to awaken The Worm within.”

“Well, shit,” Karnage said.

They rounded the corner and came into another station. The
light came from a giant D-Pad that was propped against a turnstile.
It showed Melvern standing before a clear blue sky looking off into
the distance. A pair of Spragmite priests stood to either side of the
monitor, nodding their heads solemnly.

A small group of people stood in front of the monitor. A man held
a baby in his arms, a young boy clutched to his leg. An old woman
sat in a wheelchair. An old man in a suit leaned against the handle of
the chair, a hand on the woman’s shoulder. A young man with spiky
green hair stood off to one side watching morosely. A pair of teenage
girls huddled together in the back, holding each other for support.
They occasionally exchanged terrified looks. Strings of numbers
were printed across the backs of the girls’ shirts. Karnage pointed
them out to Sydney. “What are those? Like serial numbers?”

“No,” Sydney answered. “They’re expiration dates.”

“Expiration dates? For what?”

“For the clothes. Lets you know when they go out of style.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I know,” Sydney said. “Used to be they’d put it inside the clothes,
so you’d know when to buy new ones. Then the fashion conscious
started putting them on the outside, to declare to the world how
trendsetting they were. Those poor girls. Look at those dates.
They’re at least six weeks old.”

Karnage found the sorrowful look on Sydney’s face a bit
perplexing, but surprised himself by keeping his opinion on the
matter to himself. “How are we gonna get by ’em?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sydney said. “They’re fugitives. They
won’t pay us any mind.”

“Fugitives?” Karnage looked the crowd over again. They appeared
completely harmless. “Fugitives from what?”

“Debt,” Sydney said. “You can’t make your payments, they ship
you out to the labour camps. Most of these people wouldn’t last five
minutes outside the city, and they know it. So they hide here. Pray
for salvation.”

“And in come the Spragmites.”

Sydney nodded. “That’s right.”

A searchlight flicked on at the top of the stairs, striking the
group of refugees, before a group of Dabneycops bounded down the
steps brandishing goober rifles.

“Everybody freeze!”

The green-haired youth leaped up and bolted. A Dabneycop
raised his rifle and fired. Screams erupted from the crowd as the
young man disappeared in a giant ball of pink goober. Nothing was
visible but a small tuft of green hair.

One of the priests charged forward. “You dare interfere with the
work of Spragmos?!” He gave a yelp as he disappeared in another ball
of goober. The crowd had pulled itself into a tight circle, clutching
each other and whimpering. One of the girls was crying.

The fattest of the Dabneycops waddled forward. He raised a
megaphone to his lips. “All right, everybody settle down and nobody
else will get goobered. Now there’s no point in running. We’ve got all
the exits covered. Everybody step forward in a line. Come on, let’s
go. You, too, grandpa. You’ll do your part and pay your own way.”
He put down the megaphone and turned to the other Dabneycops.
“Round ’em up.”

The Dabneycops moved down among the crowd. The other priest
shot the fat Dabneycop a glowering look. “You will pay for this
outrage,” he said.

“Tell it to the magistrate, Father.”

“You will refer to me as Presbyter, heathen!”

“Stick a sock in it, Father, or I’ll goober it shut.”

“He’s talking a big game,” Sydney whispered, “but look how he’s
coverin’ his badge number. Doesn’t want the priest to figure out who
he is.”

“McClaine! We got everybody?”

“Just gotta unstick the kid, sarge.” McClaine was spraying a can
of solvent at the base of the goober ball with the shock of green
hair. “We should do a full scour of the tunnel. Make sure the other
platforms are clear.”

The sergeant shook his head. “Forget it.”

“But our orders say—”

The sergeant stuck a finger out at McClaine. “I know our orders,
constable. And I am telling you that the lieutenant can go piss up
a rope. I am marking this sector as clear and that is final. Powell!
What the hell are you gawking at?”

“Behind you, sarge!” Powell pointed to a cigarette floating in
mid-air, smoking itself behind the sergeant’s head.

Karnage tightened his grip on his pistol. “We got a problem.”

The sergeant turned just in time to see a squidbug appear around
the cigarette. “What the hell is that?!”

The squidbug took a long drag on its cigarette, and levelled its
spear at the sergeant. The sergeant had just enough time to raise his
rifle before he disappeared in a ball of crackling green light.

More squidbugs shimmered into existence around the platform,
surrounding the Dabneycops and the fugitives. Shouts and screams
filled the air as the refugees ran in all directions. Squidbugs and
Dabneycops aimed their weapons at each other and started firing.
The air was soon thick with green energy balls and pink goobers
shooting across the platform.

“Let’s get the hell out of here before we’re spotted.” Karnage and
Sydney moved away from the chaos, retracing their steps down the
corridor.

A pipe floated in the middle of the subway tunnel in front of
them. A squidbug flowed into existence around it. It aimed its
crackling energy spear at them. Sydney drew her goober pistol and
fired. She caught the squidbug in the face, throwing it backwards.
Its shot went wide, green energy vaporizing a large scoop out of the
ceiling. Something groaned in the crater and bits of concrete and
metal dropped around them.