The Rig (18 page)

Drake ran a hand back through his hair and frowned. He'd heard that line before, somewhere.
Oh yes … from Doctor Lambros.

‘Well, son? What have you got to say?' Storm chortled, his massive belly heaving up and down like the endless swell of the sea. ‘Perhaps tell me what you read on my face just now.'

Drake licked his lips. ‘You … you believe that escape is impossible.'

‘Few things in this world are impossible, but so long as I'm captain of this ship, then yes, escape from the Rig is one of the few. Still planning on swimming back to the mainland?'

‘No,' Drake said, and suppressed a shudder. ‘I believe you about the sharks.'

‘Good lad. Don't waste the opportunity the Alliance has given you here.'

Drake let his shoulders slump, just a little. Humble. Defeated. ‘Thanks for the soda.'

Storm narrowed his eyes and glared at Drake, as if he were trying to read his mind. ‘Very well. I'll have Brand allow you the rest of the afternoon as free movement, give you a chance to rest and clean up before dinner.'

Drake heard the note of dismissal in the warden's voice. He stood and turned to leave.

‘Mr Drake, thank you again for what you did today.'

‘You're welcome, Warden Storm,' he replied, without turning back around. He worried the warden would see the smile he was trying to hide.

You're welcome, you murdering bastard.
He may not have done the deed himself, but he was as guilty as whoever had. As Drake left the warden's office, he felt a shiver of honest excitement and suppressed a small chuckle. After a four-month long staring contest, the Alliance had just blinked. The Rig had shown its hand and been found bluffing.
Play the man, indeed …

The murky beginnings of an escape plan began to form in Drake's head.

19

Calm Before the Storm

I'll need the rifle … that screwdriver … a torch, most likely.

For a brief moment in Storm's office, Drake had seen all the loose threads in his mind come together in an intricate, near-perfect pattern of escape. He saw all that he had learnt about the Rig over the last four months, from the
Titan
to the rotation of the guards, as a spiderweb of points that could, if he was strong and held true – if he stood against the Alliance once more – lead to freedom.

But it'll be life or death
, he thought, sitting in his bunk and staring at the ceiling that night after the explosion on the southern platform and his fizzy drink in Storm's office.
More than ever … but I'll be on my own.

Tristan snored quietly below.

As he played with the rough outline of the escape plan in his head, Drake's brow settled into a frown. The more he thought about it, the more he realised the chances of getting away unnoticed were less than zero.
It's a damned near certainty
.
But then the spiderweb has threads for that, too, doesn't it?
Drake thought on the rifle again, on the
Titan
and her fleet of speedboats, and on Warden Storm and the Seahawk. His frown became a satisfied smile.

‘Play the man,' he muttered and rolled over to sleep.

Rigball on Saturday was another crushing defeat at the hands of Grey and his gang of mineral-enhanced goons. At least Drake now knew why he couldn't knock the players down, or how they moved so fast. Working with Mario, he almost managed to score, but ended up with his nose scraped across the concrete for his trouble and Grey's gigantic knee pressed between his shoulder blades.

For a day or two later, if he looked down he could see a small scab on the end of his nose. It was tender to the touch.

Drake was enjoying a minor scrap of celebrity amongst the inmate population. Tommy and the lads had spread the story of how Drake had saved the Rig from a gas explosion, and even the guards seemed to give him a bit more leeway, given that he was in Warden Storm's good graces. The only guard that didn't change, of course, was Brand. If anything, Drake's quick thinking on the southern platform had soured the ex-Crystal Force soldier even further against Drake.

‘That one wouldn't pee on you if you were on fire,' Tristan remarked, scooping cold green beans onto his plate in the cafeteria Sunday lunchtime.

‘Think he'd be thankful I saved his life,' Drake muttered, wishing he hadn't. He was all but certain Marcus Brand had killed Doctor Lambros.

Knowing what he knew now, Drake committed as many hours of the day he could to plotting his escape. It came down to two options, really. The
Titan
or the Seahawk. The ship or the chopper. He had a few rough ideas on how to make it work, but they were all risky – far riskier than any of his previous escapes. Indeed, compared to what he had in mind, his previous escapes were like finding the back door unlocked and sneaking out when no one was looking.

Drake began exploring the Rig at night, mostly on his own, but every other night Tristan and Irene, or one of the two, would tag along with him. He couldn't think of a reasonable excuse not to bring them along, and if he was being honest, he was growing to enjoy their company.

Irene was funny and kind. More importantly, she had been exploring the Rig at night months before Drake had gotten his tracker off. He still didn't know why she was sentenced to the Rig, but that didn't matter as much as her knowledge of the vents and platforms. Tristan was the same kind of smart and useful. He had a keen sense of direction in his head and could navigate the vents and the warren of pipes and tubes on the eastern platform as if he were reading from a map.

They spent a lot of time in the old control room, talking by torchlight and even playing small games. Irene swiped a pack of cards from the girls' common room and taught them how to play poker. Drake was a natural but Tristan had a terrible poker face. He couldn't help but smile when a good hand came his way.

Every time they met, for the first two weeks after uncovering what lay beneath the Rig, they spoke of escape, of course. But neither Tristan nor Irene had anything much to contribute, and Drake didn't share the rough outline of his plan with them, his glimpse of a pattern he could exploit. He didn't know if it was workable at all, yet, and some of the aspects relied far too much on dumb luck falling his way.

No, when the time came, he would be escaping on his own – that much of the plan was certain – but he couldn't very well tell Irene or Tristan that.

Still, almost against his will, Drake found himself enjoying the time they spent together, particularly in the old control room hideaway, playing games and talking nonsense. He could almost pretend he wasn't in the bowels of a murderous prison built on a meteorite that, as Doctor Elias had said, was highly volatile and somewhat
alive
.

As March began to close in on April, and Drake began to close in on five months aboard the Rig, he found himself thinking that there was only so much exploration of the platforms he and his companions could do. He knew there was no magical vent stretching back to the mainland – although, given what was under the Rig, he wouldn't be too surprised if he did find one.

He guessed that Irene and Tristan were feeling the same, unvoiced frustration, as they began to spend more time at night simply hanging out, broaching the topic of escape only occasionally, in the control room hideaway. Having managed to scavenge a few more torches and a handful of pillows, the hideaway looked a touch more homely – if you could ignore the semi-automatic rifle leaning against the far wall. Tristan had used some of his stock of credits to purchase a whole bunch of treats from the vending machines, and they were currently using Smarties as betting chips in games of blackjack.

‘Twenty-one. Blackjack!' Drake said, and collected a dozen chocolate pieces. He was the dealer, Irene and Tristan his players, and he was cleaning up.

‘Well, I'm broke,' Irene said glumly. ‘Lend me a few chips, Michael?'

Tristan shook his head. ‘Sorry, ma'am. I'm just not that kind.'

Irene swiped a few of his Smarties and ate them before he could protest.

‘I think this game's about done anyway,' Drake said. The night was still young, having barely crept past midnight. ‘What do you want to do now?'

The thrill of sneaking out without trackers was wearing a bit thin, Drake thought, as it became clearer that the real prison was the hundreds of miles of cold ocean trapping them to the Rig.
But one night soon I'll have my chance …

‘Let's talk,' Irene said. She folded her legs up under herself and rested her hands in her lap. ‘We know what Drake's going to do when he gets out of here, back home to London, but what about you, Mike? Going to run all the way back to Australia?'

Tristan shrugged. ‘I've thought about it, but I honestly don't know. I mean, we don't really talk about it much, but we'd be living a life on the run, wouldn't we? Could we ever go home?'

Irene swatted his knee. ‘Oh, stop that. Let's pretend for a minute you could go anywhere, flying first class. Where would you go?'

‘Nearest Burger King,' Tristan said without hesitation. ‘Triple cheeseburger, thank you
very
much.'

‘I think I'd go with you,' Irene said and rolled her eyes.

‘What's your grand plan, then?' Tristan asked her.

‘Moraine Lake in Alberta. It's in Banff National Park up in the mountains. The water is so,
so
blue and surrounded by these huge trees and snowy peaks. I want to swim in that lake.'

‘You've been before?' Drake asked.

Irene shook her head. ‘No, never. I grew up in the next province over, in British Columbia near Vancouver. But I've seen pictures.' She glanced at Tristan. ‘We could get cheeseburgers on the way, I guess.'

‘It's a date,' he said, then considered what he'd just said, and blushed.

Irene swatted his knee again and smiled.

‘I think I'd just go back to school,' Drake said, surprising even himself. ‘Heh, how about that? I think I'd just want to go back to a normal life, before any of this happened.'

‘Boy, I can understand that,' Tristan muttered. ‘If I ever do get home, I'd probably work outside, seeing as how I'm not allowed to use computers, somewhere out in the sun with trees. Somewhere in the country, down south from Perth maybe, where I don't have to see, hear, or smell the ocean. Lot of vineyards down that way, I could get a job picking grapes, or something.'

‘I always wanted to be a blackberry farmer, growing up,' Drake said.

Irene snorted. ‘Oh bless, that's so cute. Why blackberries?'

‘Why not?' Drake chuckled and shook his head. ‘When I was younger, before my mum got too sick to really travel, we used to go out into the country and pick blackberries right off the plant. They grow wild all over the UK, you know? She'd make these fantastic pies with about a million kilos of sugar in the crust, stuffed with blackberries. And the jam, oh sweet gravy, the
jam
.'

‘That does sound nice.' Tristan cleaned his glasses on his sleeve. ‘But you'd probably get sick of blackberries after a while.'

‘I'm not sure I understood what you just said.'

Tristan chuckled. ‘So I'm working in a vineyard, Will's farming blackberries – although I'm not sure that's a thing, given that they grow everywhere – what about you, Irene? After you've swam in that lake, what then?'

Irene sighed. ‘Find a handsome man with a yacht and loads of cash and sail through the Mediterranean.'

‘Oh, sure,' Tristan laughed. ‘That sounds great.'

‘What's wrong with that?' she said.

Tristan waved her protests away. ‘Knowing you, you'd be bored inside the first hour. Sailing on yachts and eating fancy food, that's not you, Miss Finlay.'

For a moment Drake thought Irene would snap at him. Her face flickered through a range of different emotions, and seemed to settle on mildly confused. Irene stared at Tristan as if seeing him anew. The tiny smile on her face looked like a secret waiting to be shared.

The conversation drifted across midnight and into the early hours of the next day. Drake felt that the events of the last few weeks had forged a useful sort of friendship between the three of them.
Oh, so you're thinking of them as friends now?
They knew each other better in two short weeks than most people, in the outside world, knew each other after years. A small, nagging worry in the back of Drake's head wondered what would happen to these two if –
when –
he escaped on his own.

‘What about first kisses?' Irene asked, and giggled. ‘Tell me yours, Will.'

‘Oh, blimey. Mary. My first was Mary Mallory behind the bike shed at school,' Drake said, thinking back a few years. ‘We were thirteen. She was pretty.' He chuckled. ‘I wonder if she still goes there. I've no idea what goes on at home any more. How about you?'

‘Brian Salmon,' Irene said, and made little kissing sounds with her lips. ‘We were at Stanley Park on a school trip in downtown Vancouver. He picked me a flower.'

‘Did she say Salmon?' Drake asked, nudging Tristan. ‘She said Salmon, right?'

‘Oh shut it. He was cute and,' she almost blushed, ‘he could grow a moustache.'

Drake laughed until his sides hurt.

‘How about you, Michael?' Irene asked. ‘When was your first kiss?'

Tristan shrugged and looked away, embarrassed. ‘I've never actually … I was always busy at school and never, well, never really had any friends or anything.'

‘Really?' Irene blinked. ‘You're seventeen, aren't you? Well, that just won't do.'

She stepped forwards and grasped Tristan's head, a hand on each cheek, and pulled him close. Irene gave Tristan his first kiss – and she made it count. She pressed her mouth against his and Tristan gasped. His knees tried to buckle but he caught himself. Unsure what to do with his hands, Tristan waved them back and forth either side, no doubt signalling for help.

Drake burst out laughing again at the sight of him flailing.

‘There now,' Irene said, satisfied. She pinched his cheek and let him go.

Tristan fell back against the wall, stunned and confused. He let what had just happened sink in. Slowly but surely a dazed, beaming smile spread across his face. ‘Wow,' he said. ‘I … wow, Irene. Please do that again.'

Irene giggled and looked between Tristan and Drake. ‘Boys,' she said fondly, shaking her head.

Back on the western platform in his bed the next night, Tristan snoring happily below and dawn just a few short hours away, Drake thought back to that kiss with just a twinge of jealousy, and saw the exact moment the tiny, bespectacled boy in the bottom bunk had fallen in love with Irene Finlay.