The Rig (17 page)

18

Blink

Three days after Drake had uncovered the Rig's secrets, three days since he'd found Doctor Lambros and plunged into a tank of mutated sharks, Drake was back on the southern platform under the late-afternoon sun, dismantling the tents and tables that had served as a dining hall for Lucien Whitmore and his henchmen.

Henchmen's the right word …
They had all expressed wonder and amazement at what the Crystal-X mineral could do, deep below the ocean's surface, but Drake had seen not one of them express remorse or even a glimpse of sadness at what had become of poor Carl Anderson. Some had shown fear, and in Whitmore's case, a horrific curiosity, but none of them had
cared
.

Why would they?
he thought.
They're the Alliance. They murder and steal
. In a prison full of the worst juvenile offenders in the world, not even the jailers were innocent. Drake felt a cold anger and a bitter frustration.

The
Titan
was back again, offloading supplies onto the Rig via the tall, yellow crane on its stern. The mighty ship buzzed with activity along the deck. Dozens of men in hardhats and orange overalls were at work around the cargo hold. The hold was open, revealing the inside of the ship. Drake had a sneaking suspicion he knew just what was being loaded onto the
Titan
that afternoon.

‘Drake, eyes on the tent!'

Tommy directed Drake and the crew as they disassembled the makeshift dining area. They folded up the tarp of the pavilion and unscrewed the bolts in the scaffold that had held it all together, as the sun sank towards the west and an orange deep enough to almost be called red bled across the sky, scattered with thin, grey stratus clouds.

‘Good for the game this Saturday?' Mario asked, as they loaded the tarp onto a small, hand-operated Transpallet forklift. ‘We'll beat them this week, for sure.'

Drake stared at Mario for a moment before he realised what he was talking about. His head was full of so many things that he'd forgotten about rigball. It was the fifth game of the season this Saturday, and as of last Saturday it had become quite impossible for Tommy's team to win the league, given that they'd lost every game in the last month.

And now I know why – Grey's been taking the Crystal-X
. His whole gang may have been in on it which, as far as Drake could tell, meant they may have been holding back in the rigball games. Images from the video display Doctor Elias had shown Whitmore danced through his head. Video of impossible things.

‘Blimey, Mario, what makes you so damned optimistic all the time?'

Mario's smile faded. ‘You've had a face like a smacked arse all week, Drake. What's your problem?'

‘Nothing,' Drake said.
Everything
. ‘This place just gets me down sometimes, yeah.'

‘Well suck it up,
mi amigo
, and save it for the game on Saturday.'

Drake nodded. He and Tristan hadn't ventured out through the vents these last few nights to meet with Irene. For one, after crawling back to the washroom after the shark attack adventure, Drake had been awake and on his feet for almost two straight days. He needed a good night's rest, if he was going to be any use at all. For another, he didn't want to get too attached to either Tristan or Irene. When the time came to escape, he'd be going alone. As he had always done since the fire at Cedarwood.

Across the platform, along a bridge the inmates never used that connected the southern platform to the eastern platform, Drake saw his suspicions about the
Titan
's open cargo hold confirmed. Two trolleys, stacked high with the same Alliance-marked crates he'd seen down in Doctor Elias' mad scientist laboratory, were being wheeled under armed guard towards the supply crane.

Brand stood in front of the two trolleys, directing the movement of the electric-blue Crystal-X. The amount of mineral in the crates must have been significant, because the trolleys were being pushed by two masked guards each.
Probably just the first load of many tonight
.

Nothing had been said of Hall's disappearance, but the guards had been on edge the last few days, and more heavy-handed than usual, cracking down on even the littlest of broken rules.

As Drake lifted folding chairs off the forklift and stacked them against the wall of Processing, he watched the procession of crates move past him and the crew. The first trolley groaned under the weight, and he noticed with a start that the seal on the rear crate was broken. Drips of water seeped through the crack, pooling on the trolley and leaking over onto the platform.

‘What are you lot looking at?' Brand snapped. ‘Get back to work!'

‘Eh, Officer Brand,' Drake began, wheeling the forklift back from the storage shed. He'd seen what the mineral did when exposed to the air. If one of the crates was
leaking
… ‘That crate –'

‘Drake, by God, lad, keep your eyes on your own damn –'

Just as the guards pushing the crates circled the Seahawk, the rear wheel on the front trolley snapped and gave way. The trolley wobbled and the broken wheel dug into the concrete, which prevented it from going over onto its side completely. The load of crates, fastened and secured, shifted but didn't fall.

However the sporadic drips from the bottom crate became a steady trickle – and Brand noticed.

‘Christ!' he roared, and turned on his heel to run. ‘Move away, all of you! It's going to blow!'

As the guards scattered, Drake, acting purely on instinct, turned the forklift around and dashed across the platform, running past the Seahawk and towards the broken trolley.

What are you doing?
his mind screamed at him.

‘Drake!' Brand growled. ‘You stupid son of a –'

Drake wheeled the forklift around and got one of the prongs under the broken trolley. Sweat ran down his back and his stomach was doing somersaults. He'd seen what a small amount of the mineral, enough to fill just the head of a pin, did when exposed to the air. Given that Brand had told Whitmore that this shipment would be hundreds of kilograms of Crystal-X, Drake couldn't even imagine how large the explosion would be.

Enough to destroy the Rig, surely.

Can't outrun the blast, Brand
, he thought.

At any other time, Drake would have almost welcomed the explosion. Now more than ever he hated this place and the terrible secrets rotting at its core. The prison was a festering sore, a diseased limb, and the only thing left for it was amputation. But not now – not while he and hundreds of others stood at the epicentre of what was about to be a monumental explosion.

He pumped the large handle as fast as he dared, raising the dual prongs of the forklift and the trolley into the air. The trickle of water slowed to a drip again, as the trolley fell level on the forklift's prongs, but Drake was taking no chances. If the crate was leaking at all that meant the mineral could be exposed to the air any second.

Drake pushed the forklift as hard as he could and the trolley began to move. His arms strained against the weight and his shoes almost slipped along the slick concrete of the platform. He grunted from the exertion but, finally, the wheels began to turn. Once he got it moving, the forklift picked up speed, even with the heavy load.

Soon he was almost jogging, muscles screaming, and teeth bared in a snarl of pure, raw effort.

Drake pushed the forklift towards the edge of the platform, under the swinging crane from the
Titan
overhead, and past the boxes of stores that had just been offloaded, as precious water continued to leak from the mineral crate. About two metres from the precipice Drake let the forklift go and fell to his knees, gasping from the strain. The speed he'd managed to reach kept the forklift rolling right over the edge of the platform, out into the open air and plummeting towards the dark, choppy waters below.

The crates fell.

Crawling on his hands and knees, Drake pulled himself to the edge and gazed over – just as the mineral
exploded
. A blinding flash of light lit up the Rig at dusk as if it were midday as a torrent of roaring flame burst up and over the edge of the southern platform. A wave of tremendous heat blew Drake back, sending him rolling across the platform like a ragdoll. He struck the rear wheel of the Seahawk and came to an abrupt stop.

The fountain of bright flame receded as the crates sank, but for a brief moment it licked at the entire frame of the southern platform. Although he couldn't see it, Drake imagined an orb of almost unquenchable white-hot fire sinking below the waves, lighting up the dark depths and perhaps burning for hours.

Fire that burns underwater …
Drake actually laughed – the first time in days. He looked himself over and patted his arms and legs, making sure he was still in one piece. His skin felt a touch burnt, like he'd been out in the sun too long, but other than that –

Brand pulled him up by his collar. The look on his face was blind fury.

‘Marcus, you let him go!' A shadow fell over Drake and Brand under the blades of the Seahawk. ‘Why did you do that, Mr Drake?' Warden Storm asked. He peered at Drake from under the brim of his Stetson, his expression just short of thunderous.

Drake licked his lips and swallowed. ‘Brand … Officer Brand … he said that it was going to explode. I didn't want to explode with it, sir.'

‘Come with me,' Storm said.

Brand grabbed him by the scruff of his collar again and dragged him through Processing, into Control, and up the stairs to the warden's office, following in the large man's wake. His tracker beeped to let him know he was out of bounds. Drake felt his eyebrows as they rose up through the tower, seeing if they were still there. He could smell burning feathers. That gout of flame had singed the hair off his arms.

‘Take a seat, Mr Drake,' Storm said. ‘That will be all, Officer Brand.'

‘Sir? He –'

‘Leave us, Marcus.'

Brand hesitated by the door. The warden stared at him over a pair of dark spectacles for a long moment. The door clicked shut behind him.

Drake and Warden Storm had a staring contest of their own after that. Sensing a great amount of danger in that stare, Drake tried not to fidget. He couldn't tell just how much trouble he was in. Storm's face was a mask of barely contained fury.

But fury at me? At Brand? Or because I sent his precious mineral back to the bottom of the sea?

Eventually, Storm looked away and reached beneath his desk. Drake heard a door open down there and the clink of glass bottles. Storm emerged from down the side of his desk and offered Drake a glistening bottle of Coca-Cola.

After four months at sea, with nothing but desalinated water and tepid apple juice, the sight of the sugary drink was, well, like water to a man dying of thirst.

‘Take it.'

Drake almost reached out for the soda. ‘No, thank you.'

Storm chuckled, a sound that made Drake think of skulls rattling on the ocean floor. ‘Today, Mr Drake, you have earned this treat. I doubt any of your fellow inmates, or even most of my guards, realise what you just did. You saved the Rig and the lives of everyone on site.'

Drake shrugged and, after a moment, accepted the Coke. He twisted off the cap and took a delicious sip. The fizzy bubbles rushed down his throat. First sip was always the best.

‘Why did that crate explode?' he asked, feigning ignorance.

‘Ah, well, it was carrying canisters of natural gas, I'm afraid.' The warden sighed. ‘For cooking, you know. If you hadn't done what you did, we would not be having this conversation right now.'

Liar
. Drake nodded along, as if that made sense, and took another sip of soda. Had this man tried to feed poor Doctor Lambros similar false tales?

The warden turned to his computer and tapped away at the keyboard. He hummed to himself and loosened his neck tie.

‘I was warned about you, William,' the warden said. ‘A special case. You were incarcerated in three facilities in the last eighteen months, and in each instance you managed to embarrass the Alliance. You were in Trennimax, in France. At the time the world's foremost secure juvenile facility. The Rig, as you know, holds that honour now. It took you just six weeks to escape through what was supposed to be a tunnel sealed during the Second World War. You unsealed it. One of the guards foolishly alerted you to its existence.' Storm laughed. ‘You may already know that my staff is much less forthcoming.'

Drake said nothing. He placed his half-drunk bottle of soda on the edge of the warden's desk.

‘Cedarwood was next, and you rigged a cart with wheels and used the train line down the mountain. Then Harronway, and no one knows how you did that. Care to share now?'

‘Front door. Unlocked.'

Storm sighed. ‘No it wasn't. But security is what it is, I guess. We can have the fanciest padlocks, the most up-to-date trackers, like the one you're wearing there. We can surround you with hundreds of miles of cold, dark ocean, but someone like you, rightly, sees all that as just tools of the system. And you don't play the system itself, William. No, no. You play its owner. You play the man.'

Storm gave Drake a predatory smile, as if he were about to sink his teeth into Drake's neck.

‘Every escape, every single one, has been successful for one key reason. You read people, don't you? You don't beat the locks, or the trackers, or the ocean. I imagine you've already found a way around some of my locks and maybe even my trackers, haven't you? No, don't tell me, it does not matter. Because you will never find a way through my people. Or, ultimately, through me. I know you, William Drake, I know you better than you know yourself. Would you like some advice? Do your time. Four years, seven months and twenty-five days from now you will leave the Rig a free man, into a world
vastly
changed for the better by the Alliance. You will have learnt a trade, a means to survive back in Britain as an honest, productive member of society. See this, my beautiful Rig, not as another prison sentence but as an opportunity.'