Tube Riders, The (32 page)

‘Carl, we have to get away, otherwise many people could die, including you. We need transport of some kind.’

‘We have a car, but Father took it out this morning. There aren’t any buses or anything, only the trains, but they don’t stop.’

‘Did Simon tell you how we were on the train?’

‘Yes, you hung.’ He pointed at the clawboards poking out of her bag. ‘With those things. He said they’re called clawboards.’

‘What’s wrong with Simon’s ankle?’ Jess asked. ‘Is it broken?’

‘No, Rhodes – that’s our doctor – said it’s just a sprain. He might be able to walk but he won’t be able to run.’

‘Shit.’ They had reached the back door. ‘He has to be able to run,’ Jess said. ‘He has to. He can’t get back on the train otherwise. It’s the only way!’

‘With that ankle, there’s no wa – wait! I know! I have just the thing!’

‘What?’

‘Get down into the woods. Go straight through the back garden, and keep going straight. There’s half a path, but if you lose it keep heading in the same direction. When you get to the ruined village, follow the remains of the road past the old post office. It leads to an old station.’

‘Thanks, but what about you?’

‘Wait for me there.’

Jess nodded. Carl’s eyes were bright, exhilarated, as though this were some wild storybook adventure. She wanted to tell him that this wasn’t a game, that people had and would soon die, when another terrible scream came from an outbuilding not far from them.

‘Bugger,’ Carl said. ‘That’s the cattle barn. Sounds like something’s in there with the cows. Best get going before it comes out.’

‘Huntsmen,’ Jess whispered, before she realised what she was saying.

‘You have Huntsmen after you? Are they even real?’ When Jess nodded he said, ‘Holy crap. What did you
do?
’

‘No time to explain. Thanks, Carl, for everything you’ve done.’

The sound of a car engine joined the commotion coming from the barn. Jess glanced up to see the vehicle swing around a gravel driveway at the side of the house and slide to a halt not far from them.

‘That’s my father,’ Carl said. ‘Perhaps he can help.’

Four doors opened, and a group of men climbed out. Two other cars pulled up behind the first and they heard another stopping around at the front of the house.

‘Hey! There they are! They’ve got my son!’

‘No, Father–’

One of the men cocked a shotgun. The first man shouted, ‘The girl’s got the boy! Take her first, we’ll question him later.’

‘Run!’ Carl hissed, pushing Jess towards a gap between the outbuildings and the house that opened out into a manicured garden. ‘Don’t stop until you get to that station!’

‘Simon, you’re going to have to forget about me carrying you,’ Jess said, slipping out from under his shoulder. ‘I’ll find us a place to rest, I promise.’

‘Stop, or we’ll shoot you dead like the city dogs you are!’

‘Father, no!’

The men started across the open driveway. To their left stood the house, to their right was the clutch of outbuildings. They’d taken no more than a couple of steps when the back door of the house broke open and Dreggo stumbled out, one hand on her forehead, the other clutching a crossbow.

#

Carl was quickly descending into a nightmare. He saw the woman’s weapon, and remembered the bolt Rhodes had taken out of Simon’s side. He pointed. ‘Shoot
her
, Father! Shoot the robot woman!’

One of the men raised his gun without hesitation. He fired at Dreggo, the bullet narrowly missing her as she swayed sideways and dropped to her knees. The bullet hit the stone wall near to the door.

‘Weston, we need the police!’ another man shouted.

Behind Carl, Jess and Simon were halfway across to the trees. He no longer had the cattle prod he’d used to stun Dreggo, and he felt naked without any kind of weapon. Dreggo was less than twenty feet away. If he didn’t move and no one shot her, she’d be on him in a few seconds. He stared, shocked, as Dreggo bared her teeth like some kind of animal. With her half metal face and the crossbow in her hand, she was like a cyborg she-devil out of a comic book. He couldn’t move.

Dreggo suddenly looked away. She glanced back towards the group of men, most of whom had taken cover behind their cars. Carl counted at least ten. He knew most of them; they were his father’s hunting companions, poker friends and a couple of farm hands. Most were good with a gun.

‘Huntsmen! To me!’ Dreggo screamed. A growl came in response, and something leapt up and over the barn gate and dashed towards them. Two others followed behind it. At first Carl thought they were very tall priests, in their brown robes with the hoods that covered their faces, and then he saw the twisted claws that should have been hands, heard the slavering growl of what sounded like dogs, saw the silver crossbows that hung at their waists.

‘Weston! We’ve got to get out of here!’

‘Shoot the devils!’

Carl loved his father, in a way. He’d suffered badly in the name of discipline over the years: regular split lips, the occasional black eye, and one particularly bad time he had lost a tooth. Yet, still, Roy was the only father Carl had ever known, and abusive monster though he sometimes was, Carl didn’t want him to see him die.

Tears filled Carl’s eyes as the Huntsmen leapt to the attack. The men lifted their guns and fired practically into the Huntsmen’s faces. One fell back, its face a mess of broken bone, blood and metal, but the other two kept on, charging into the midst of Carl’s father’s friends, their crossbows firing, their claws and their teeth ripping and tearing. Carl heard the screams of his father and the other men, saw their blood, watched them fall, watched them die.

He was transfixed for what felt like hours, but it was little more than a few seconds in real time. In that time, though, watching the one-sided slaughter, he knew that he had to run, or he too would die. He also knew that if he just headed for the woods after Jess and Simon, they would all die. He had something that could help them, something which could get Simon back on the train.

While Dreggo’s attention was fixed on her murdering Huntsmen, Carl slipped around behind her, ran around the side of the house, and pulled open the door to the basement.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Repression, Production

‘Man, Stevie, you don’t know how it makes me feel to see you again. It’s like there was this bulb inside just burning low, you know. Now it’s just flared up again, and I feel damn fine.’

‘You too, Unc.’ Switch sipped from the can of beer William had given him. It was a little old and tasted slightly sour, but it was still beer, a rarity. ‘I never thought I’d see you again.’

‘I never forgave myself, you know, for letting them take you.’

‘It wasn’t your fault, Unc. Shit happens, we both know it. But it all comes back around and this time it’s us ready with the shafting rod.’

William laughed. He brushed away tears and they clinked glasses. ‘I always thought I might see you again, Stevie,’ he said. ‘You just had too much to just give in. The system just couldn’t break you.’

‘And I ain’t about to give up yet.’

‘I’m amazed you still remembered where we hid out,’ William said. ‘You’ve been gone almost ten years.’

‘I’m amazed you were still here.’

‘We thought about moving, but the UMF didn’t have anywhere better to be. The DCA don’t have the same power here, and unless we made a move they wouldn’t spare the resources to search for us. We’ve mostly been stockpiling arms and extending our network. It’s only recently that we’ve engaged in any live action.’

‘What’s that you’re calling yourselves now?’

‘The UMF. The Underground Movement for Freedom. We felt we needed to put a name to it.’

‘The
umph
.’ Switch grinned. ‘I guess it has a ring.’

William grinned even wider than Switch had done. ‘Boy, you’re a hoot. We prefer the U-M-F, but whatever gets people going, I guess. You tell your friends about us?’

‘I only tell the others what they need to know. It’s safer that way. They get caught, there’s nothing they can say. Interrogators are paid to know when someone’s lying … and when someone’s not.’

‘Kid, you get more like me every day.’

They were sitting in the front row of the old theatre, a dark and dusty stage in front of them, lit only by a couple of bare bulbs hung against the back wall. The whole setting had an expectant feel to it, as though a troupe of dancers might suddenly burst out of the wings at any moment, though the layer of dust around Switch’s feet said that no one had used this theatre for entertainment in many years.

‘You scared, Stevie?’ William asked. ‘About the gate?’

Switch had been drilled on how the Tube Riders were getting out of Bristol. Ishael’s men had made their preparations and plans had been put into action. Within the next few hours, if things panned out as Ishael and William hoped, the Tube Riders would be out of the city and heading down towards Cornwall.

‘I’m fine, Unc. I’m more worried about you. If you attack the Huntsmen a lot of UMF men are going to die. And plus, I’ve only just found you again. You sure you can’t come with us?’

‘Stevie, man, my place is here. Just make sure you keep yourselves alive long enough for that information to get into the right hands, and I know we’ll see each other again.’

‘Why the fuck do you have to attack them? This isn’t a bunch of DCA clowns you’re going up against, this is the fucking Huntsmen. I love a good scrap, but Unc, I’ve seen what those motherfuckers can do.’

‘We attack on our own terms or they attack on theirs. Don’t worry about us. We have a few surprises up our sleeves, and even if they do break through, they’ll never find us. There are safe houses, sink holes. Places we can hide. They’re not looking for us, remember, they’re looking for
you
. We just need to give you and your friends a head start, and I hope that one day, when this government is on its fucking knees, that me and you can have more than just a couple of beers together.’

Switch looked away, frowning. ‘I don’t want to see you get hurt, Uncle.’

William grinned, displaying pale yellow teeth. ‘You won’t see it. With luck you’ll be long gone by the time the Huntsmen start feeding on me.’

‘Don’t fucking joke like that.’

William spread his hands. ‘Listen, don’t worry about me, kid. Stayed alive this long, haven’t I?’

‘I guess.’

They were silent for a while, sipping their beers, listening to the occasional creak and groan of the old wood of the theatre. Then, Switch said, ‘Unc, what’s behind that fence? When I was a kid it was completely off limits.’

William looked grim. ‘I wondered when you’d ask. We have a bit of time, I think. Let’s go take a walk, shall we?’

A few minutes later they emerged from a side door in a building a couple of hundred yards inside the fence. William ducked down behind a small wall and waved for Switch to join him.

Switch was amazed at the extent of the tunnel network William had led him through. Down through the rambling basement of the old theatre, Switch had seen where walls had been knocked though into sewage systems and then through again into other buildings. Some openings had been covered by hanging tarps or even doors, while others, especially those further away from the theatre, were barely disguised demolition jobs.

‘Look,’ William said, as they watched the two guards by the fence. ‘They don’t look particularly alert, but that’s because all they’re guarding is a little back road. The government has about forty percent of the city cordoned off, but without serious reconstruction work the best they could do was put up fences everywhere. They’re electrified, of course, but that wouldn’t stop anyone who really wanted to get in. Not that anyone wants to.’

William led them down a thin stairway beside the cathedral. They emerged on to the dockside.

‘Shouldn’t we be in disguise or something?’

William grinned, and Switch recognised the same adrenaline-fueled eyes that others saw in him. ‘Not if we don’t get seen.’

They walked along the dock beneath the shadow of an overhanging warehouse. The dusty, rusted and broken signs of clubs and bars long dead called to them from the shadows: Evolution, Club Crème, Lloyds, Walkabout, Café Underworld. Switch could only imagine the revelry that had taken place here in the years before the Governor and Mega Britain.

‘Okay, it begins over there.’ William pointed out across the water towards the far bank.

At first Switch couldn’t see anything. All that was over there was a row of warehouses and factories, smoke rising from the chimneys of some, lights flickering in the windows of others.

Then he realised. This was what his uncle had brought him to see.

Industry.

‘What do they make in there?’

‘Processed food. At the far side of the city there’s a gate where they bring in fresh produce from the GFAs. Vegetables and meat mostly, but they grow some amazing shit out there in greenhouses and the like. Strawberries, tomatoes, rice ...’ William licked his lips. ‘And they bring it in through the gate in trucks and in those factories they can everything up and make it taste like crap. Then it comes out for us to buy.’

Across the water a large garage door opened and a truck pulled out. It made a sharp turn near the water’s edge and then headed off around the side of the factory.

‘Where does all the metal come from to make the cans? Paul reckons they won’t import anything anymore.’

William nodded. ‘So they say. Up north they’ve opened up some of the old iron and steel mines, but I gather pickings are pretty thin. Most of it comes from decommissioned merchant ships.’

Switch nodded. He watched a group of people walking around the side of one of the factories, marching in an orderly fashion. He couldn’t help but feel a little impressed. All his life he’d grown up in the squalor and decay of London, where nothing seemed to work and anarchy ruled. He had expected the situation to be the same in Bristol, but from where he stood the factories looked like a model of economic success.

‘Looks good, don’t it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘The economic situation in the country isn’t nearly as bad as everyone says,’ William told him. ‘The government seized control of all the major companies. Those factories are government-owned, government-run. All the money from the food sales goes back in there. Or what that fucker doesn’t spend on his ridiculous space program does, at any rate. The factories run on bio-fuel or electricity.’

Switch nodded thoughtfully. ‘Why the hell does everyone hate what’s going on, then?’ he said. ‘Looks all fine and dandy from here.’

William pulled something from his pocket. Switch had seen one before. He’d swapped a knife for one, once, but he’d dropped it running away from a fight a few months later.

He lifted the eyeglass to his good eye.

‘Look at the people,’ William said.

It took a moment for Switch to focus the lens and then to find the far bank of the river. Once he had, he panned along the riverbank until he came to the first group of people walking along the front of one of the factories.

‘Shit, Unc, they’re chained to each other.’

‘This is what we fight against,’ William said quietly.

Switch steadied his gaze. Dozens of men and women, even some children, walked with shackles on their hands and feet, the chains linked to each other so that if one tried to escape, the rest would have to go too. Armed guards watched them.

‘Who are they?’

‘Criminals, street kids, other people the government didn’t like. Most, though, are surplus people from the GFAs. For the last forty years or so, since the Governor took power, the government has been making regular sweeps through the countryside, razing unwanted towns and putting the land into production under the ownership of landlords, usually the richest people from each area, those able to keep their families out of the factories with heavy bribes. A certain number of people were left behind to work the farms, and over time the communities started to build up again. But those that missed the initial cut, so to speak…’

William shook his head. ‘They live in here, behind the fences. Many of them are old now, kept here their whole lives, but the younger ones were allowed to have children, keep the supply fresh. But all of them – every man, woman and child over the age of eight – work in alternate twelve-hour shifts. The factories work day and night.’

‘Why don’t they take the people from the cities?’

‘Oh, I think they take some. But the city folk have more means, more fight. And they need people to buy the crap the factories churn out.’

‘Why the hell isn’t there an uprising?’

‘There have been many. But the government has shit going on somewhere, developing weapons, creatures like the Huntsmen. There are three types of people in this country, Stevie. The pampered, out in the GFAs. Their lives are so goddamn easy they were quite happy to forget about their missing friends, get on with raising their crops, riding horses, playing bridge and drinking beer on Friday fucking nights. Then there are those in there, ruled by an iron hand. I’ve watched people die from here, Stevie, just for talking out of turn.’

‘That’s fucked up.’

‘And then finally, there’s us. What you might call the general population. Scrapping and batting against the government who keep us down with gangs of trigger-happy police and the threat of the Huntsmen. Discontentment rules, Stevie. We spend so much time fighting each other that our potency as a group is lost. What the UMF is trying to do is pull those people together. It’s hard, boy, but it’s not impossible. People are starting to come around. They figure if they’re gonna die, they might as well do it for a decent reason.’

Switch took a couple of steps towards the river and squinted towards the far bank. As he turned away from the choppy waters, movement to his right caught his eye.

He dropped instinctively into a crouch and pushed back against the wall of the converted warehouse. William fell back beside him.

Switch glanced out. Two guards were moving slowly along the waterfront in their direction. They weren’t moving with any urgency but there was no way Switch and William could get all the way back to the path by the cathedral before they were spotted.

He pointed them out to William.

His uncle grimaced. ‘A patrol. We’d better get out of sight. This way.’

William led them back past the abandoned bars and clubs. He stopped by a door labeled Art Café and kicked it open. Switch followed him inside.

‘Get down, we’ll wait until they pass,’ William said. ‘They’re just a patrol, they’re not looking for us–’

The windows exploded in a deafening blaze of gunfire. Switch and William dived for cover.

‘You’re surrounded!’ someone shouted as the dust settled. ‘Give yourselves up and you will be returned to your stations with minimal penalty.’

‘Minimal penalty,’ William scoffed from the darkness behind a stack of old tables. ‘Those bastards.’

‘Wait here,’ Switch answered. He lowered himself to the ground and crawled along towards the middle of the room where a metal pillar rose about four feet up out of the ground, ending in a wider table top. Switch leaned back against it and risked a glance around.

Two heads appeared outside the broken window. They were wearing blue police helmets and shouldering heavy guns. From the way they squinted nervously into the dark it was clear that they couldn’t see anything inside.