The Cold Pools (2 page)

I glanced back at the black wall of the glacier as I headed back up the overgrown trail, feeling a mixture of awe and disappointment.  It
did
move, as the brochures claimed, but I knew that after a handful of years they moved it
back
again, reopened the “abandoned” hotels and began the process again.  It was all part of the big illusion, the work of far advanced technology that could create an elaborate theme park but could do nothing about the burning sun smiling through the thin glass that remained of the atmosphere, as it slowly cooked us off the world.

Mankind would survive a while, I knew.  Fighters, always, if not against each other then against attacks on their lifestyle.  Mankind would go underground, living in tunnels as the Earth’s surface baked and crusted, surviving on life-support technology to provide water or food.  One day, though, it would all end, maybe five hundred or a thousand years from now.  None of that was my concern, though, as I pushed back through the doors of our hotel and headed up to bed.

#

The next morning, there was no sign of Karen, as I knew there wouldn’t be.  I got up and dressed, went downstairs and ate a light breakfast of toast and bacon.  In the warm light of day the glacier looked more fake than it had under twilight, the surface cracked and glistening, but
too
cracked,
too
glistening, to be real.  People liked to pretend, but when you knew the truth you could see nothing but the lie.

Outside, the air was cool as I’d known it would be, as I’d
paid
for it to be, and I felt strangely comfortable as I headed out of town, retracing the way we’d walked last night.  The bath houses and karaoke bars and nightclubs rose up on either side, gaudy and classless, divided occasionally by thin, tree-lined roads leading out to bigger, expensive country club resorts that ringed Cold Pools like a group of overpaid sentries.

The town was fading behind me as I came to the abandoned hotel on the edge of the lake.

In the daylight it was obviously fake, a mock up building with nothing but plaster walls behind the broken plastic windows, brown, crumbly rust made of plaster-cast on the chairs, cracks in the wooden terrace made by paint and power tools.  A few hundred metres distant, the glacier rose up magnificently, glimmering in the sunlight, and I was sure I could make out tiny people climbing up the steps built into its face.  That we would never do that now, didn’t matter.  Whatever was on the other side was no longer important, and I felt numbness wash over me as I slumped down into a chair and looked out at the lake.

In the air I heard the occasional pre-recorded bird call, in the lake I saw the occasional splash caused by what was probably a timer set under the surface, and around the lake at regularly intervals I saw the signs that warned
strictly no swimming
.  The small print told of chemicals in the water and of toxins discharged as a result of efforts to keep the water cool.  The brown crud at the edge of the water and the metre-wide ring around the lake which was devoid of plant life were a message that told me Karen wasn’t coming back.

She had known, as I had.  But she had chosen to swim anyway.

I looked up at the blue-white wall of the glacier, then back at the red sun pushing through thinning clouds.  I felt the chill of manufactured air around me and thought back to the night before, when we had walked together, when we had stood by the lake, alone in the perfection of it all.

‘Goodbye, Karen,’ I said to no one, wondering when it would be my turn to swim.

END

Please continue reading for the first chapter of the author’s debut novel,

The Tube Riders

The Tube Riders

A Dystopian Novel

Chris Ward

Chapter One

Breakfall

The roar in the tunnel grew louder.

The noise came from far back in the dark, building from a low, distant rumble into a rolling, thundering crescendo like a thousand hurricanes colliding, tearing each other apart.  Marta, squatting in a sprinter’s crouch, closed her eyes as she always did, concentrating, seeing in her mind something monstrous, untamed.  She let out a slow breath, looped her wrists through the leather safety straps and closed her fingers over the cold metal handles of the wooden clawboard.

Bring it on
.

She smelt engine oil, heard the hum of the vibrating rails on the track below.  She grimaced and shifted her wrists as the straps rubbed against the old marks on her skin.

Seconds, just seconds . . .

Come on.  I’m waiting
.

The roar was almost deafening now.  Marta’s eyes flicked open, her concentration sharp.  Muscles tensed in her legs and arms.  Her fingers clenched so tight she thought they might break.  She glanced up at Paul standing further down the platform, one arm raised into the air.

Marta waited.  Three . . . two . . . one –

‘
Go
!’ Paul screamed, as the wind rose to wrap itself around her.  His arm dropped, and the fear, the exhilaration, the sheer adrenalin rush struck her like a hammer.

She dashed for the platform edge.  Behind her, she heard Simon, Switch and Dan – the new boy – fanning out as they followed.  She hoped Dan made it, of course, but in the moment of the ride it was only herself that mattered.

Racing across the cracked, dusty tiles, Marta pressed her wrists against the leather straps and squeezed the metal handles until her fingers ached.  The wood creaked, and she prayed today wasn’t the day the clawboard failed her.

She held the board up, the metal hooks on the outward surface angled down.

The train exploded out of the tunnel, its glaring headlights blasting through the dust curtain that hung over the station’s pallid emergency lighting.  The engine roar filled the air.  Marta looked up as it came level with her and then rushed ahead, one, two, three carriages clattering past.  She saw the thin metal drainage rail that ran along the top edge of the nearest carriage and she steeled herself for the mount.

‘
Now
!’ she screamed, a war cry partly for herself, partly for the others behind her.  Then she was leaping at the train, the clawboard arcing in towards the rail.  Her heart slammed against the back of her ribs, the rush of adrenaline so great she thought it might burst out of her chest.  Eyes narrowed, teeth gritted, she stared down what in these moments was the Reaper, was Death. 
Don’t fuck up
, her mind screamed. 
You fuck up, you die
.

The metal hooks, two of them, four centimeters wide, dropped towards the outer lip of the drainage rail.  Marta’s feet brushed the side of the carriage, and for a second she was flying.  Then the hooks caught, a massive jolt shuddered through her shoulders and upper arms, and Marta had won, this time.

Her scream rose over the rushing wind: ‘
Yeeeeeeesssss
!’

With her feet apart, she braced herself against the side of the carriage.  Her battered, often-repaired trainers left tread smears in the oily dirt coating the metal.  In front of her, from the carriage window, a reflection of her own face stared back, thick dreads of hair fanning out around her like columns of smoke.

Behind her Marta heard two metallic crunches as first Simon and then Switch caught.  In a group ride you rode in order of seniority.  That was the rule. 
And I’ve survived the longest so that makes me leader
.  She listened for Dan, but there was only the roaring of the train and the rapid clattering of the wheels over the rails.

Something had gone wrong.

She glanced back, terrified of what she might see.  Dan should have been exactly one second behind Switch, but he was still running towards the train like a commuter who had overslept, his movement jerky, out of time. 
He hesitated!  Shit, he lost his nerve and now his timing’s all screwed up
.

‘Pull out!’ she tried to scream, but her lungs, still empty, failed her, and the words trickled out like the last rains of a flood.  She stared helplessly as Dan lifted the clawboard, jaw set, eyes hard.  His pride was driving him on.  When pride was all you had it was difficult to give it up, but down here where the trains roared it could get you killed.

Dan tried to leap.  Going far too slow, he was way out of position.  His clawboard fell short of the drainage rail, and his body slammed against the side of the train.  The motion of the carriage spun him around in the air like a demented ballerina, eyes wide in terror, arms and legs flailing.  He ricocheted off, a staccato, barked scream escaping his throat just a second before he landed hard on the platform.  Momentum rolled him; the gap between the platform’s edge and the rushing train loomed close. 
Don’t end up like Clive.  Please don’t.  I can’t handle that again
.

Dan got lucky.  The straps of the blocky clawboard still circled one wrist, and the board arrested his roll, inches away from the edge.  He rolled back as the train thundered past, and the clawboard finally spun loose.

‘He’s hurt!’ Simon shouted as the train sped on, carrying the others away.

‘Wait!’ Marta shouted back as the braided dreads of her hair buffeted her face.  ‘Wait for the mats!  Okay . . . three, two, one –’

She kicked off from the side of the train, pushing forward and up as she’d done a thousand times before.  The clawboard released its hold on the rail, reluctantly, as always.  Marta leaned backwards as she fell, pulling her arms in and ducking her head forward.  She grimaced as the pile of old mattresses and blankets at the end of the platform came up to meet her.

The fall knocked the wind out of her.  Coughing, she glanced up to see Simon dismount after her, followed by Switch.  They landed on the breakfall mats beside her and came to an untidy stop.

As the train roared away into the tunnel and the noise receded, all three climbed to their feet and dusted themselves down.  Marta rubbed at her hip where she’d landed on a mattress seam.

‘Fuck yeah,’ Switch muttered.  He shook the straps off his wrists and turned the board over, checking for abrasions.  ‘Paul, you fat chump, what’s my score? 
Paul?
’

‘Forget your score!’ Marta shouted at him.  ‘Dan failed the mount.  He could have died, you idiot.  Didn’t you see it?’

‘Ah, whatever.  Live and die by the trains, ain’t it just?’

Marta gave him a scowl that said
just sod off
then looked back up the platform to where Paul was crouching next to Dan.  Dan was curled up on the ground, hugging his chest.  He tried to stretch his legs out, then grimaced in pain.  His voice floated back down the platform towards them, echoing off the high rafters.  ‘Ah fuck, I think I busted my hip. 
Shit
, that hurts.’

Switch cocked his head and gave Marta the kind of smirk a cheeky kid would give a scolding teacher to say he didn’t really give a shit.  ‘Fuck that clown,’ he said.  Looking back towards the platform edge where chalk lines marked the distance in feet back from the end of the platform, he grinned.  His bad eye flickered.  ‘That must have been sub-twenty feet for sure.  Eighteen?  What do you reckon, Si?’

‘Don’t be a cock, Switch,’ Simon answered.  ‘Let’s go check he’s okay.’

‘You pussy.  Just cos you can’t get no distance now you’re getting ass, but whatever.’  Switch rolled his good eye at Simon and went over to the platform edge.

Simon glanced back at Marta and gave her his best
don’t worry
smile.  She felt instantly relaxed.  Simon was tall and thin with an androgynous face straight from an anime cartoon, all angular and smooth.  He didn’t even seem to shave, his face clear of any stubble shadow.  He was beautiful rather than handsome, a pretty boy that seemed more out of place than any of them, but he had a way about him that was calming, peaceful.  He was a polar opposite of Switch, who was a ratty little man who’d never win any prizes for charm.  Switch was a shameless asshole.  He prided himself on it, wore it like a badge around his scrawny neck.  But he was loyal.  Switch would take your back in a street fight without hesitation, whether you were up against some stumbling drunk with a broken bottle or an armed unit of the DCA.

Marta broke into a jog along the platform.  She reached Paul’s side as he was helping Dan to his feet.  Paul was huffing like an old man trying to start a car, sweat standing out on his brow.  For an instant she recalled just how little she knew about any of them.  They congregated here whenever they could but they all had separate lives which they rarely talked about.  No one knew what Switch did.  Simon said he worked in a market, and Paul claimed to be a pickpocket.  Overweight since he’d stopped riding, balding and with no obvious muscle, she found it difficult to imagine someone as slow and cumbersome had much sleight of hand.  She knew what people did around Piccadilly at night and had her suspicions, but here you were as anonymous as the trains that roared past every eight minutes, if you chose to be.

Dan had been introduced to them as Paul’s friend.  He had greasy black hair, and thick brows which pushed his eyes into a permanent frown to make him look nervous, suspicious.  He had a deep authoritative voice that suggested he preferred to give orders rather than take them.  He’d only hung out with them a few times, and Marta had harboured doubts from the start.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked him.

Dan looked up and shrugged.  He rubbed his hip and winced.  ‘I don’t think anything’s broken . . . the fall just winded me.  Shit, I can’t believe I missed the hook.  I thought I had it.’  He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, one hand rubbing his forehead.  ‘I almost died there, didn’t I?’

Marta looked away and said nothing.  You didn’t tell someone new that if you messed up you could end up unidentifiable, a mangled, bloody chunk of meat which the next twenty trains would wipe away.  She closed her eyes, and the image that appeared was of Clive, as always, his eyes desperate, his hands scrabbling uselessly against the broken tiles of the platform as he was dragged down into the gap between the platform edge and the train.  There had been others too, but that one, that one was the worst.  That they’d been dating at the time too . . . it was the closest she’d ever come to turning her back on the trains for good.  The nightmares still haunted her.