The Rig (19 page)

20

Fractures

Two days before the last rigball game of the season, and a few days before the first day of April, Drake sat up in the common room, flicking through the Alliance Systems newspaper,
The Crystal Globe
, thinking that Lucien Whitmore really loved the word ‘crystal', when he saw the
Titan
return yet again, sailing in over the western horizon towards the Rig's southern platform.

She's coming weekly now
.
Hell, twice a week
. A pathway on the spiderweb of escape patterns in his head lit up with cerulean-blue light. Drake followed the path, each strand a piece of the puzzle, and most of them held together only by what he
thought
Warden Storm would do once he set the plan in motion, and found that the light stretched all the way back to the mainland.

He gripped the paper hard enough to tear it in half. A bubble of excitement rose up from his stomach and into his throat.
All that's left is to … try.

The excitement soured at that thought, and felt a lot more like falling into a tank of mutant sharks. Still, Drake knew his time was close at hand.

Later that night, he told Irene and Tristan he wanted to get a better look at how they transported the crates and containers from below the eastern platform to the top of the southern platform for loading. So from their hideaway they moved up through the vents, level by level, until they reached the highest point of the eastern platform.

Exposed to the night air, the three of them huddled together for warmth, high above the sea. The sky was scattered with an impossible number of stars, and the moon, heading towards full, cast a pale light on the otherwise dark ocean. Below them was the open-aired bridge from the eastern to the southern platform that Drake had never used.

This was the way Brand had brought the Crystal-X crates the time Drake had cast them back into the sea.

Concealed between vents and Tubes, Drake and his friends spoke quietly, watching the Rig in the dark. At just after midnight, about ten thousand sparks of blue light began to swim under the water, between the pillars of the Rig's platforms, swaying back and forth in unison.

‘I've seen that before,' Drake whispered. ‘On my first night here. It's sea creatures, like a school of fish, or something, affected by the blue mineral.'

‘It's beautiful,' Irene said, and Tristan agreed. ‘Like the stars have fallen into the sea.' She sighed and put one of her arms around Drake's shoulders, and the other across Tristan's. ‘Funny what's brought us together, isn't it?'

Drake nodded slowly. ‘Something on your mind?'

‘You both showed me yours …' she whispered. ‘Do you want to know why I'm here on the Rig?'

Tristan looked between Irene and Drake. ‘It doesn't matter,' he said. ‘Irene, you don't have to –'

‘I killed my father,' she said.

Drake whistled low between his teeth.

‘Well …' she whispered. ‘My stepfather.'

Daddy's little girl,
Drake thought.
That's what Anderson called her that night
.
He was being cruel.

‘Irene, I …' Tristan frowned.

‘He wasn't a very nice person, my stepfather,' she said. Her eyes took on a shiny glaze, all the better to reflect the swirling blue light in the water below. One of the tears cut a silent track down her cheek. ‘He hurt me and, you know,
more
than hurt me. For years.'

Drake felt a quiet, lethal anger stirring in his gut. Tristan's mouth was set in a fierce, thin line.

‘Anyway,' Irene said, taking a deep breath. ‘One day I came home from school, and he was in the driveway working under his car. It was propped up with one of those automatic carjacks, you know. My mum was there, handing him tools, and she had a shiny new black eye and a split lip and just this, this
miserable
look on her face.' Irene shook her head. ‘And I just snapped.'

Irene took her arms from around Drake's and Tristan's shoulders and clapped her hands together. She looked between them both, naked fear and a harsh pride warring on her face. After a long moment, Drake took her arm and put it back around his shoulders. Tristan did the same.

‘You know,' Drake said, ‘the Alliance, all the police and lawyers, judges and juries … They always talk about how we chose to do what we did. How we made bad choices and have to live with them.' Drake shook his head. ‘But … sometimes, you know, there isn't a choice. The path doesn't lead to right or wrong. I was
always
going to steal that medicine for my mother. It wasn't a choice I even worried over. It was just the path I was on, because I … I love her.'

Tristan listened to his words solemnly and Irene pulled them both in a touch closer – sharing warmth against the cold night.

‘Ah, I don't know what I'm trying to say …' Drake muttered. ‘Just, we have to live on the path that
had
to be taken. And that … that doesn't make us bad people.'

For a time after that, Drake, Irene and Tristan sat in comfortable silence, simply watching the fallen blue stars far below darting back and forth under the surface of the ocean.

So enthralled by the light show, Drake almost missed the first shipment being transported across to the waiting crane of the
Titan
. Two small containers, about three metres high and five metres across – mini shipping containers – were being wheeled across to the southern platform.

Masked guards escorted the trolleys, pushed this time by crew from the
Titan
in orange overalls and hardhats. Brand directed the movement, of course, carrying a long baton of a flashlight to guide the way. The southern platform was abuzz with activity. Drake noted the Seahawk was missing, perhaps back on the mainland picking up more poor inmates the Alliance deemed worthy of the Rig.

For the next few hours, the crew and the guards brought up crates and containers – always two trolleys at a time – from down below the eastern platform. The
Titan
's crane picked up the cargo and Drake watched it disappear into the hold of the ship, gears spinning in his head.
If we could get onboard, then we …

‘We,' he said aloud, surprised. When had he started thinking in terms of ‘we'?

‘Eh?' Tristan whispered.

‘Nothing, mate, nothing.' His rough escape plan had a greater chance of success if he went alone. Drake knew that, he
knew
it, but a part of him, and not a small part, didn't like that idea any more.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, releasing a warm mist into the cool night air.

The sound of whirring motors cut through the quiet. The fleet of tiny speedboats emerged from the
Titan
and began doing laps of the cargo ship. He shook his head, having seen enough.

It had to be at least three or four in the morning by the time the guards stopped bringing cargo up through the eastern platform. Unwilling to risk the descent down to the hideaway when the platform was crawling with eyes, Drake, Irene and Tristan had to wait them out. After a few hours, just when Drake was beginning to think they'd have to chance it if they wanted to get back to their own platforms before dawn, the
Titan
's crane swung back over the ship and the crew reboarded. All the crates had been loaded for the night.

Just how much did they load?
Drake wondered. If it was all Crystal-X, and Drake had no clue what else it could be, then the mining down below had been stepped up significantly from those first few shipments he'd seen.
Tonnes and tonnes of the damn stuff …
What did the Alliance need with so much?

Back down in the hideaway half an hour later, Tristan yawned. ‘Did we learn anything useful tonight?'

Drake shook his head. Irene was staring at him strangely, biting her lip. ‘What?' he asked her.

‘
I think you've got some sort of plan
,' she said in a sudden rush. ‘An escape plan, and you don't want us to know! I see how you go quiet when we talk about it, Will. Tristan thinks the same, don't you?' Tristan opened and closed his mouth a few times like a goldfish, then settled on a nod. ‘See? Tell us, Will!'

‘I …' Drake sighed. ‘I don't know what you're talking about. You think I'd still be here if I had a way off?'

‘That's just it,' Irene said. ‘I don't think you would be. I think you'd leave us behind in a heartbeat if you could get away.'

Drake's temper flared. ‘And you wouldn't?'

‘I wouldn't leave my friends –'

‘That's crap,' Drake snapped. ‘Sorry, but it is. Do you think the same then?' He turned on Tristan.

A few weeks ago, Tristan would have cowered under Drake's glare. Now he held his ground and nodded. ‘I think you'd feel bad about it, Will, but I do think if you had the chance … you'd take it without us.'

Drake looked from Irene to Tristan and back again. ‘You two have been talking about me, then?'

‘Do you have a plan?' Tristan asked.

‘Just bits of one,' Drake admitted. ‘It all depends on if I've read Storm right, and what would happen if we got caught …' He shook his head. ‘Just bits of one.'

Irene shivered. ‘I don't know what kind of life I'll have away from the Rig – on the run from Alliance Systems, but we can't stay here, you must see that? The Rig will get us killed.' She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and squeezed softly. ‘Please, help me escape.'

Drake stared at her for a long moment and then shrugged her hand away. He thought of the fire at Cedarwood, of Aaron, who had trusted him and died for that trust. ‘Someone asked me to help them escape before, about a year ago … And I got him killed, Irene.' He stepped back with a snarl. ‘No! I won't. It's all just so … so … Look, we can plan, we could have the best plan in the world, but reality isn't so kind to my plans. Everything could fall apart, and you, or Tristan, could be hurt – or worse. I never want to deal with that again.'

Irene sniffed. ‘Even if it means being alone? On the run and alone?
And leaving us here?
'

‘You can't rely on others,' Drake said bitterly. He thought of what Alliance Medicare had promised his mother, and what they had delivered. A slow death wrapped in a blaze of painkillers when the medicine was there to treat her, sitting in large, cold warehouses. The nations of the world relied on the Alliance for so much, but they gave so little.
Look at what they're doing here!
Experimenting on the inmates, on forgotten kids, and
changing
them into something else. The ones that didn't go insane became killers to be recruited into the Alliance's own private military.

‘So that's it, is it?' Irene asked, crossing her arms and scowling. ‘Will Drake's on his own? Just fine by himself. Tell me, how's that worked out for you so far?'

‘I –'

‘You're a coward.' Irene thrust an indignant finger into his chest, hard enough to leave a bruise. ‘Do you actually enjoy acting so hard and indifferent to your friends? You're still a teenager, Will, so bloody act like it now and again!'

‘Irene,' Tristan said, clearing his throat. ‘Please …'

‘Leave it, Tristan.' Drake ran a hand back through his dark hair and shoved Irene back a step, away from him. ‘You're not my friend. I don't need friends. I've only been meeting here because you were useful exploring this place. I don't need you any more, Irene. You can
get lost
and find your own damn way off the Rig.'

21

Mothers

Two days later, in the afternoon of the final rigball game of the season, Drake found himself still fuming from his argument with Irene. Tristan had been sulking around their cell, trying to get Drake to come out at night and apologise, but he was having none of it.

Perhaps we could escape together
, he had found himself thinking, knee-deep in muck and grime in Tubes on Friday afternoon, the day before the game.
No, we'd never get away.

‘This is our game,' Mario said, still sporting a black eye and split lip from the previous week's game. ‘You feel that, Drake? That's victory, I can taste it.'

Handing out the racquets alongside the field, Tommy ruffled Mario's hair. ‘Nothing gets you down, does it, kid?'

‘Broccoli and sprout night does,' he said glumly. ‘But that is not tonight!'

Given the advantage Grey and his team had, Drake was sure they were in for another trouncing today, but it was the last chance he'd have to cause some damage. No matter what, Drake knew he wouldn't be here for the summer season of rigball games.

After watching the girls' matches, Drake strapped on his helmet and pads and stepped out onto the field, claiming his wing. Alan Grey stumbled onto the pitch, hulking and impressive. The helmet strapped to his head looked about two sizes too small, almost like a tiny hat sitting atop his hair. He grinned at Drake and smacked his racquet against his palm.

The guard-ref blew the air horn and the game was underway.

Since his first game, Drake had become a lot clearer on the rules of the sport and also how to play to the letter of those rules, bending them until they almost fractured. He ducked and weaved along the wing, moving in and out with Tommy and the lads, keeping the ball moving.

He took a lot of hits from Grey's team, hitting the concrete hard, but had learnt in the third game that staying down only got you trampled. Drake leapt to his feet as quick as he could after a hard check, racing after the ball.

The first half flew by, with Tommy's team not giving an inch – thanks in most part to Drake's fast footwork and Mario's complete aversion to self-preservation. The game was tied at nothing as they stumbled off the field for a quick break.

‘Is it just me?' Drake asked. ‘Or is Grey moving a lot slower?'

Emir, surprising them all, spoke in broken English, ‘He slow. He no good today. This good.'

‘Maybe he didn't take his medicine this morning …' Drake muttered, thinking of when he'd last seen Grey – or rather, not seen Grey.
Has he been getting the Crystal-X? Did they cut him off?

The break over, the teams switched sides, and Drake moved in close to Grey, courting a beating, to get a better look at the gargantuan boy. Grey smirked when he saw him hovering just out of reach of his racquet.

‘I'm coming for you,' he growled. His voice was deep but slow.

Drake wasn't sure, given the bright mid-afternoon light and the glare off the concrete, but he thought he saw twin stars of red light deep within Grey's eyes.
Not as bad as Anderson … but getting there.

As the second and final half of rigball for the winter season began, both teams delivered crushing blows, tossing the ball not always to a racquet but more at an opposing player's head. The crowd roared and cheered on the play, as the referee called foul upon foul.

With only a few minutes left to play, Grey knocked through Greg and Neil like a ball through bowling pins, sending them flying and shooting for goal.

Emir managed to catch the rigball in his glove and tossed it out to Tommy, who spun and ran for the other end of the field. Drake saw Grey take a massive leap forwards, and slam his racquet into Tommy's leg, knocking him off his feet and hard into the concrete. A collective wince shuddered through the crowd – that had been the hardest check of the game so far.

Up close, Drake had heard the bone snap. Tommy clutched at his ankle, rocking back and forth. Time out was called as Nurse Rose and the guards saw to him. Drake and the rest of the team hung around in a loose circle, watching him writhe.

‘That sounded nasty,' Mario said, wiping the sweat from his brow. ‘There's a few minutes left. How can we win a man down?'

‘A tie's better than anything else we've had this season,' Greg said.

‘I want the win,' Mario insisted.

‘So do I, mate.' Drake motioned them close. ‘So here's what we do …'

After Tommy was carted from the field, Drake's team were awarded the ball. He gave it to Neil from the quarter line in their half and ran up the wing. Mario was in place, as well, and Greg had his part to play.

The air horn blew and the clock continued to count down towards zero. According to the timer beneath the scoreboard, there were six minutes left of the half.
This'll be close …

Grey and his goons moved in on Drake's depleted team.

The next four minutes were a grudge match, pure and simple. Drake stayed out of most of it, keeping his wits about him, but the rest of the lads – as per the plan – took a bit of a beating. Mario was as impervious as always, but even Greg and Neil were soon sporting cuts on their cheeks and matching black eyes. Despite the onslaught, they managed to keep the score tied at nothing.

Drake kept his eye on the clock, and as the last two minutes began to count down, he whistled loudly. His teammates acknowledged the signal and moved into position. They'd been playing defensively for most of the half, but now was the time for Drake's play.

Mario dived in and seized the rigball from under Grey's arm. Like before, Grey was too big to see him coming from behind. With three seconds to pass, Mario hurled the ball downfield, away from their goal, to Neil. Neil caught it and dashed across midfield, passing to Greg.

That was the three passes they needed to score.

Drake had been climbing his wing and was ready for the ball when Greg tossed it his way. He made a dash for the goal, about six metres away, and raised the racquet to take a shot against the keeper, as Grey and his thugs moved in to intercept.

The crowd gasped.

Drake swung – and hurled the ball to Mario
across
goal.

‘I've got it!' Mario cried, and spun on the spot, lining up a shot.

Half of Grey's team peeled away after him, and the keeper moved out to intercept the small boy.

Only, he didn't have the ball. Drake lifted his racquet onto his shoulder, the rigball still clinging to his net, and took a run at goal himself. He had never crossed the ball to Mario, keeping it firmly magnetised in his own racquet. He had less than three seconds to take the shot, but that was all he needed.

Grey hadn't been fooled.

He split away from the pack chasing Mario and spun towards Drake, a snarl on his face, and took a huge stride towards him, less than two metres away.

Drake pulled his racquet back behind his head, took aim, and swung. As the racquet fell through the air, he released the rigball into the half of the net left un---defended by Grey's keeper, just as the massive boy himself reacted and reached for Drake.

The force of Drake's swing kept his racquet moving down, heavy and hard, and as Grey moved in close he smacked the bully across the face with all the force he could muster. Drake heard something snap, saw Grey's eyes flare crimson for just a second, then he spun like a top and hit the concrete hard. Blood dribbled from his mouth and his eyes rolled up into the back of his head.

The rigball, for its part, sailed into the net with three seconds left on the clock.

Drake had scored.

Drake had
won
.

The crowd erupted in a wave of shocked cheers that shook the platform, echoing into the clear skies and carrying away on the salty wind over the ocean, even as the air horn blew and called the end of the game.

‘You did it!' Tommy shouted from the sidelines, hopping up onto his good leg. ‘You silly buggers, you did it!'

The rest of Grey's team looked stunned by the unexpected goal and hovered around their fallen leader as Mario tackled Drake and kissed him on the forehead. ‘Knew you were good for something,' he said, laughing.

Drake remembered thinking during his first game that rigball was not about winning, but about power and dominance. He looked over at the guard box, at the warden and his guards behind the goal, and smirked. Winning was good, but he'd been right the first time, and he'd just taken some of that power and dominance away from those men and women – and Grey.

That was for Doctor Lambros
, he thought, and felt all that old frustration and anger bubble up inside of him, even as Greg and Neil slapped him on the back.
No, this is for Doctor Lambros …

Drake held his racquet up over his head victorious and acknowledged the cheering crowd. He did a slow lap of the field as Grey was carted away on a stretcher by the guards, his jaw hanging askew and bloody. Tommy and the lads cheered from the sidelines and tossed Drake the match-winning ball as he walked past. Most of the boys in the stands were on their feet and cheering as well. Taking his time, waiting for his moment, Drake strolled over and along in front of the girls' stands. He got quite a few wolf whistles and kisses blown his way.

Those made him grin. He didn't see Irene amidst the sea of red jumpsuits.

As he came around to the special box filled with guards, the staff of Control, and Warden Storm, he received a polite round of applause from about half of them. Brand sat next to Storm, on his left, with Doctor Elias on his right.

Drake smiled and Storm nodded at him. He pressed the trigger and reignited the current through his racquet.
Whose dumb idea was it to give magnetised racquets to us lot?
Drake remembered asking Tommy that question just two short months ago.

With little preamble, Drake tossed the ball up in the air and
smacked
it into the guard box using every ounce of strength in his arm. The small, heavy, magnetised ball hit Doctor Elias in the gut, bounced back to the nearest source – Drake's racquet – where he proceeded to send it right back into the box. His aim was as good as ever, and it clipped Brand on the ear.

The stands behind him, boys and girls, erupted in cheers as the guards dived for cover. Those stationed on duty around the edge of the playing field ran in, raising their rifles. Drake hurled his racquet into the box, aiming for Brand again, just as he was tackled by a furious-faced Stein. A hundred kilograms of angry guard slammed him into the ground, forcing the air from his lungs.

Worth it
, Drake thought, as the crowd erupted in renewed cheers.

He was manhandled from guard to guard, roughly, and ended up being dragged down through the platform by Brand and Stein, both of them pinning his arms to his back and almost carrying him along. His tracker buzzed angrily, chiding him for being off schedule. Drake laughed.

‘You won't think this is funny in a minute,' Brand promised, cold fury on his face.

They dragged him back to the western platform and down the tiered cellblock to the third level and the cell he shared with Tristan. Stein threw him against the floor and Brand stepped into the cell, cracking his knuckles.

‘Don't you have work to be doing, Officer Stein?' Brand asked casually.

‘You know I believe I do, Officer Brand.'

She smirked at Drake and left.

‘You've been pushing your luck since you got here, lad,' Brand snarled, and hurled Drake up against the sink in 36C. The moulded plastic dug into his back, sending pain shooting up his spine. ‘Get it through your head – you belong to the Alliance now, and for all that matters,
I
am the Alliance here.'

‘What happened to Doctor Lambros, Brand?' Drake asked, already knowing the awful truth. ‘Where did she go?' He balled his hand into a fist and delivered a powerful blow into Brand's face.

The mad guard took the punch, laughed, and spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor. ‘Everyone gets one free hit, lad.' Brand grabbed him by the collar. ‘How's your mother doing? Want to know if she's still alive? I know, Drake. Want to know how much
she suffered without you
?'

Brand drove his forehead into Drake's nose and his nasal bones snapped like twigs. A torrent of blood gushed from his nostrils and sprayed in a wild arc, as Drake tossed his head back with a cry and saw galaxies spinning in the cell.

‘Look at me, Drake!' Brand demanded. ‘You. Are. Mine. No one in this world gives two shits about you, lad.'

Brand punched him in the stomach – once, twice. Drake keeled over, gasping for breath. The Rig's number one guard didn't let him fall to his knees. He grabbed his shoulders and slammed his head against the steel frame of the bunk beds.

Dazed, his head spinning, Drake managed to stay on his feet. He saw two blurry versions of Brand take a step back.
Speaking of mothers …
‘If I …' Drake frowned. Blood flowed in rivulets into his mouth from his nose. The crimson mess dribbled down his chin as he spoke. ‘If I wanted a kiss, Brand, I would've asked
your
mother.'

Drake laughed, wincing through the pain. One of his ribs felt cracked.
When had that happened?
Brand laughed, too, and drew his ugly, black baton.

‘You know we should get you a spot in the common room on Saturday nights,' Brand said, and swiped the baton across Drake's face.

Star-studded pain exploded in Drake's head. He spun and tumbled along the length of the bunk beds and saw, vaguely, one of his teeth go flying from his mouth and hit the cool floors. His cheek hit the same floor a few seconds later.

‘Such a funny kid, aren't you? Should be a
comedian
!' Brand kicked him – hard – in the stomach with his steel-capped boot.

Drake was laughing and crying. Vicious pain tore at him from so many places that he felt almost euphoric, as his vision slipped away down a long, dark tunnel. He saw something crimson lying on the floor in front of him and tried to focus. He realised, after a moment, that it was his tooth.