Tube Riders, The (3 page)

‘Junkyard. Told you it was strong. I think it used to be part of a guitar strap, something like that.’

‘And you painted it black?’

‘Yeah, you know.’ He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow at her. ‘To personalize it. Switch – that’s one of the other guys – got some friend of his to paint a dragon on his board. Kind of suits his personality.’

‘But,
black?
’ She touched his arm and smiled. ‘That’s like the opposite of your personality, Simon.’

‘Yeah, well,’ he grinned. ‘I guess I was in a mood or something at the time.’

She wrapped one of the leather straps around her wrist and tugged. ‘I bet this hurts.’

Simon pulled something out of his pocket and held it up. ‘Sometimes we wear these,’ he said. ‘It’s like a wrist guard.’ It looked like a tube of rubber, a thick bracelet. ‘It’s an insulator for a water pipe. It was Paul’s idea, before he stopped riding. You don’t
need
them, but if you ride regularly you get burns on your wrists from the straps, particularly if your timing isn’t all that great.’

‘And you just hang from the train?’

‘On most trains there is a rail that runs along the top of the carriage, just above the level of the door. It’s for water runoff, I think, so that the windows don’t get stained by dirty water.’

‘What if there’s no rail?’

He smiled. ‘We pull out. Otherwise we’d just slide off.’

‘Where does the water come from? There’s no rain in the Underground.’

‘Most of the trains run above and below ground. The network goes right out into the suburbs, and some of those trains run in the open air.’

Jess nodded, grinning. ‘Of course it does. I’m such a moron.’

Simon smiled back. ‘Anyway, as the train arrives, we start to run. It slows down as it comes into the station, but it’s still traveling about fifty miles an hour.’

‘Doesn’t it pull your arms off?’

‘Ah, you see, when the board catches the rail you slide a bit. It jerks, of course, but not as much as if you caught on a solid fixing. Sometimes the rails get rocks or dirt jammed in them, though. That can hurt.’ He grinned.

‘What happens if you miss?’

‘We don’t.’

‘Never?’

‘Not if you know what you’re doing.’ He hated lying to her. He’d missed once, early on. Like Dan this morning, he’d been lucky. He had suffered some bad bruising, but nothing serious. He remembered Clive, though, caught in the gap between the platform edge and the train. He’d been mangled, mashed up. They had tried to revive him, but just ended up with blood all over themselves. Marta and Clive had been a couple at the time, and Simon couldn’t believe she still came back after seeing that. There had been a definite darker look in her eyes after Clive’s death, as if whatever innocence she’d had left had been blown out of her. He had stayed away almost two weeks himself, but when he’d finally given in to the urge, he’d found them – Marta, Paul, and Switch – down there as if nothing had happened.

Clive had been given a traditional Tube Rider burial, laid across the tracks for the trains to claim. It was pretty gruesome, but that was the Tube Rider code. Clive had been a homeless runaway, he’d had no family, and taking his body to the police would have only created more questions.

‘And at the end of the platform you just jump off?’

‘Kind of. You brace your feet on the side of the train, push the board in and up, and kick back. We use old mattresses to land on, but if you know how, it’s possible to land on the platform and roll without hurting yourself.’
Much
, he didn’t add. It hurt like hell, you just didn’t break anything if you did it right.

‘I’m looking forward to it,’ she said.

‘If you’re careful you’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘It’s almost five. Your parents will be home soon.’

‘Okay,’ she said, standing up and smoothing out her clothes. As she led him out on to the landing and down the stairs, she said, ‘I’ll meet you in the market after your shift. You can take me then.’

He smiled. ‘I don’t want to go,’ he said. ‘I want to stay here with you.’

‘Yeah, whatever. Stop being such a sap.’ She punched his arm, but he saw a dewy look in her eyes. He swallowed, desperate not to get tearful in front of her. Every time he left her, he felt like he would never see her again.

‘You know,’ she said, pointing at the clawboard, tucked under his arm. ‘It’s a wonder no one ever gets suspicious of that thing. You carry it around everywhere like an advertisement above your head. “Look at me, I’m a Tube Rider”.’

He shrugged. ‘People just think it’s a kind of skateboard,’ he said.
Or a weapon
, he didn’t add. Enough people carried those. ‘No one really takes any notice of me, because I just look like a girly skater kid.’

She touched his arm. ‘Well, you just carry on not being noticed, and keep yourself safe for me.’

‘I’ll try.’

He kissed her and said goodbye. Jess tapped in a code on a keypad by the door to deactivate the front gate, and Simon headed down the path, glancing back every few feet to make sure she was still there.

‘Bye,’ he said again as he stepped out on to the road. ‘Be safe.’

She stepped forward. ‘Wait a second.’

‘What?’

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small silver box. She lifted it and pointed it at him.

Simon frowned. ‘Is that a–’

‘Digital camera? Yeah. I just want a picture of you to look at while you’re not with me.’

‘Where did you get it?’ He hadn’t seen one in years. You needed a license for any electronic product. That included televisions, computers, and mobile phones.

‘Dad gave it to me.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s government loot. Go on, smile.’

Simon had barely opened his mouth when Jess pressed a button and a little click sounded. She peered at a small screen on the back. ‘There. I’ll make you a copy.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, not really caring either way. ‘Anyway, you’d better get inside.’

She smiled and winked at him. As the door closed, Simon felt that familiar despair welling up in his throat. He turned away and gulped it down as he headed off along the street. Light rain still hung in the air beneath the grey sky, and he zipped up his jacket to the point where the zip got stuck on a broken tooth about halfway up. It was a long way back across London to the burnt-out ruin of a bedsit some shark was renting him now.

He wondered if inviting her to meet the other Tube Riders was a good idea. The first ride would get her hooked, and that would be his fault. He felt like a drug pusher – he knew what it would do to her, but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted her to share his life, but at the same time he knew it might destroy her.

The wind got up, ruffling his hair. He grimaced at the cold, pulled a beanie hat from his pocket and slipped it over his head. Then, with the clawboard tucked safely up under his arm, he headed off towards the cold little room he now called home.

Chapter Three

Huntsman

After leaving the others, Switch headed off across the park, cutting past the junk-filled pond and up the hill on the far side. One or two grim-faced couples eyed him warily, and he matched their glances with his own flicking stare until they turned away. Confrontation was his key to survival. Hide from people chasing you and eventually they would track you down. Face them, stand and fight, and you got them off your trail.

A couple of streets away he found a rundown fast food joint and bought a burger, which he ate back out on the street. In a bin he found an old newspaper from two days ago, but there was little of interest. Most of the news concerned crime within the city: murder, robbery, arson. The only mention of the world was from opinion columns that criticized the European Confederation’s trade blockades, and there was no mention of America at all. Switch had met a man once who’d been there, but as the man was begging for his life at the time Switch didn’t know if it was just a claim to still the knife or a true event. In any case, the promise of a ticket out of Mega Britain had not been enough to safeguard the man’s wallet. Switch had granted him his life, though; he wasn’t all bad.

He tossed the paper into the next bin he passed. He cared little for news; cared less for thoughts of revolution and rebellion. Once, as a kid, things had been different, but he’d made his peace now, found his ways to survive. Tube riding and enough money to keep him alive were all he needed.

After finishing his burger he headed back across the park, away from the shadow of the huge unfinished highway overpass. He tossed the wrapper into the pond and climbed the hill towards the old station entrance. He looked about for the others, but as he’d expected they’d all gone.
Good
. He smiled and went back inside.

Tube riding was all Switch cared about. He had no memory of his parents, and had lost his uncle William, the man who had brought him up, when government scumfucks had abducted Switch and dozens of other children from the streets of Bristol GUA for transportation to labour camps up north. That had been ten years ago, and his uncle was probably dead now, especially considering the line of work William had been in. Switch would never qualify for a travel permit to leave London GUA, and there was no other way out of the city.

He descended into the depths of St. Cannerwells, feeling the hum of the trains in the walls around him. He shivered and took a deep breath. Tube riding was like a drug. For the others it was identity, comradeship, union and all that other buddy-up shit, but for Switch it was all about the ride. Hanging off the side of the trains as they roared along the platform was like wanking on heroin times ten. He’d done everything, tried every real drug he could find, and nothing compared. Sex, too, was a pale comparison, but with his eye the only sluts he could get were paid for anyway, and money wasn’t something he had much of. Tube riding was free oblivion.

Down on the platform he let a couple of trains through before he made his move. There was an express train every hour at eighteen minutes past, and it was his dream to ride it. The commuter trains were fast, but the express
roared
. No one had ever ridden it, and Switch wanted to be the first. There was only one way to get on the express, though: practice.

He heard the building roar back in the tunnel and closed his eyes, tensing every muscle in his body. As the glow of the lights appeared, Switch’s eyes flicked open and he started into a sprint, much earlier than the others ever did. When the train shot out of the tunnel he was already in position, and he leapt for it, clawboard swinging high to catch the rail. As always, the yank on his arms as it caught made him grunt, but then he was on, feet braced on the side of the train. He had a second to glance in through the window, and saw a pair of scruffy teenagers opposite him, a boy and a girl, their heads close together.

First one, then the other looked up. Shock registered on their faces. One of them pointed and the other started to stand up, saying something Switch couldn’t hear over the roar of the wind.

He smiled, adjusted his grip just enough to give them the middle finger, and then he was off, kicking back and up, the clawboard coming free. The train moved away from him, accelerating even as he slowed, leaning back. The air wrapped around him, the mattresses coming up below him as he landed, feather-light, on his back.

He looked up from the mattresses to see them moving closer to the window, looking for him. He knew, though, that in the dark and amongst the reflections, he was already gone, a wraith vanished into the dim emergency lighting of a station no one knew existed. Later, when they told their friends, they’d struggle to recall exactly where they’d seen the ghostly figure. A few sightings were all that was needed to maintain the legend, but it was important to keep St. Cannerwells a secret, which was why they rarely rode during rush hour. There were too many people watching, too many who might remember.

Once, before those cross-jumping fuckwits had started to appear, they’d used several different stations, but most were too dangerous now. Had there been other Tube Riders, Switch would have welcomed an open turf war. But while Marta, sweet as she appeared, could be useful with pretty much any weapon she had to hand, Simon was just a pretty boy and Paul was a borderline fag. Neither would help in a fight. Switch had liked Dan’s attitude for the scrap even if he’d picked on the wrong guy, but he was a blip, over now. Back when there had been ten, fifteen of them, they could have fought, but while Switch could take one or two, there were rumours of people cross-jumping in their dozens.

Switch climbed up from the breakfall mattresses and glanced at the chalk marks on the platform edge. He’d made around twenty-eight feet, a pretty standard length. He always dismounted early the first couple of times, getting his range and timing right. He had gone up to fourteen feet safely. Twelve, still his record, had given him the twitch in his eye. Only one man – Marta’s brother, Leo – had dismounted under ten feet and lived.

He jogged back along the platform, eager for the next ride. During the day the trains ran every eight minutes so he didn’t have long to wait before he heard the roar back in the tunnel again.

This time he left his dismount length long like before, but when he kicked off, instead of tucking his arms in and falling backwards, he jerked the board around to the right, spinning his body through 180 degrees. The landing knocked a bit of the wind out of him, but he jumped up almost immediately, delighted with his success, and jogged back down the platform again, rubbing his sore stomach.

He did a couple more one-eighties to the right, then one to the left, against the flow of the train. This was more difficult, and he landed awkwardly, twisting his ankle a little.

He rubbed it for a while, watching a couple more trains pass. He didn’t care about the pain, only whether or not he could run quickly enough for the mount. The others didn’t know about the tricks he did, and one day he hoped to astound them with a stunning display of dismount moves. He wasn’t far off, but with an audience he’d have nerves to deal with too. And for his last move, he needed full concentration.

The back flip. He’d done it twice without hurting himself, but didn’t trust himself to pull it off in public. Still, it was the last thing he needed to make his repertoire complete.

He sprinted as the train roared out of the tunnel and leapt for it, clawboard stretching for the rail. He caught and braced himself against the side, peering in but without concentrating. Several people had seen him today, but he was thinking of his dismount too much to worry about cultivating their legend further.

He quickly realised this wasn’t a normal commuter train, though. A group of men in dark suits stood near the window with their backs to him, and he recognised them as the special police, the Department of Civil Affairs. They were the ones who made people disappear, who rounded up heretics and dissenters and pretty much anyone else they didn’t like. He had come across one of the bastards drunk once and had cut the guy up, carved the word “cunt” into his back and left him for dead. Whether the guy had survived or not, Switch didn’t know or care.

He was starting to think about an early dismount to avoid them seeing him, but then one moved slightly and through a gap in their bodies he saw a cloaked, hooded figure sitting down, facing him. Leather straps with metal chains threaded around them kept the figure’s arms at its sides. They were transporting a fugitive, it looked like, and he leaned closer to the window, trying to see the face under the hood, wondering wryly if he might recognise the man.

Then a roar over the top of the wind seemed to shake the window in front of his face. The cluster of DCA agents separated as though blown apart by the bound figure as it jerked into a standing position, straining against more bonds that held it down. To either side, more agents tried to restrain what was not a man but something else, something alien, something monstrous.

As the wolverine face roared at him again, its sharp teeth bared, Switch recoiled in shock and his feet lost their purchase.

‘Oh, fuck–’

For a second he hung loose from the side of the train, feet dangling just above the gaping hole between the train and the platform edge. He glanced forward and saw the end wall of the platform rushing towards him.

He looked back into the carriage and saw the thing trying to reach him, its bound hands shaking, its jaw snapping, a group of men trying to restrain it. He closed his eyes –

And his feet gripped. He kicked up blindly, falling backwards, not caring about his dismount, just wanting to be away from that snarling, menacing thing. He plummeted through the air, hearing the sound of the train cut off early, way too early, and then he landed hard, the mattresses catching him, the clawboard striking his temple as he failed to control its momentum. His forehead ached, but he was safe, he was off the train, he was away from that thing.

As the train vanished into the tunnel he rolled on to his side, dismayed to see blood dripping on to the mattresses. He untangled himself from the clawboard and wiped his face, holding a finger over the gash in his forehead to stem the bleeding. The pain barely registered as he looked up at the empty tunnel as though the beast might still come back for him. Despite the muggy heat in the station, he shivered.

So the rumours were true.

He remembered the furry, dog-like muzzle, the sharp, dripping teeth. He also remembered the metallic shine of wires protruding out of the creature’s neck, the sacking hood that covered the top of its head, its eyes. The eyes of a man, the face of a dog, the mind of a machine.

The Huntsmen were abroad.

Switch could only hope it was being transferred from one secure location to another. He knew the stories, everyone did. Into your house at night, stealing you from your bed, letting you live only if its orders said so, and even then only if it chose. Otherwise it was death: slow, fast, torturous or just plain painful, whatever its misfiring mind decided.

The Huntsmen had been gone for fifteen years, since the government last brought them into service to end a rebellion in the Manchester-Liverpool GUA. Switch had heard the horror stories of slaughters after dark, the malfunctioning Huntsmen rampaging, tearing apart whole communities irrespective of their political loyalties. The rebellion ended voluntarily to stop the killing. In return for laying down their arms, the government vowed to take the Huntsmen out of service, shut them down, and never again let them loose on the streets. The Huntsmen were a liability, the remnants of a scientific greatness and knowledge that Mega Britain had let fall into dereliction and decay. The Huntsmen were too dangerous, too unpredictable, and now almost uncontrollable.

There were rumours, of course. There were always rumours, but no confirmed sighting of a Huntsman had been made since the uprising.

Until now.

Switch picked up his clawboard and walked back up the platform. He’d planned to do a few more rides, but his enthusiasm was gone. Seeing that thing, that monster, straining at its bonds, wanting his blood, made him tremble. Switch feared no man, but there was no humanity left in the Huntsmen.

The knife appeared in his hand, and he turned it over, considering it, letting the light reflect off the sharpened blade. It was nothing if one of those things came after him. Nothing at all.

At the top of the old escalator Switch hauled up the shutter of one of the old newsstands. Behind the door, the light revealed a little den: a sleeping bag and a few blankets, a handful of torches, a small table. Switch went inside, switched on a battery lamp and pulled the shutter back down.

This was where he made his home. St. Cannerwells Underground station was the obvious choice: riding the trains was the only time he felt pleasure so it made sense to live close to what he loved. The others didn’t know, and he didn’t want them to. Part of him felt like a guard, protecting what was theirs, watching over it. Another part just felt at home underground, in the labyrinth of tunnels beneath London.

He pulled a can of cola out of a twenty-four pack he’d stolen off a delivery truck and popped it open. The carbonated water fizzed down his throat, stinging him, and he gulped most of it back before he felt any better.

In a bag on the table he found some tobacco and a small packet of pot. He rolled himself a joint and lay back on the blankets to smoke it. He’d removed one of the metal rungs near the top of the shutter to act as a chimney, and now the smoke drifted up and out into the station. As he reflected on what he’d seen, he realised his hands were shaking, and even the weed wouldn’t make them stop.