The Bomb

 

Sian sat in Rawlins's office and hit the foghorn every twenty seconds. Massive funnels at each corner of the rig blasted a mournful, booming note. The funnels were surrounded by safety barriers and ear-guard warnings. A deep rumble resonated through the superstructure like an earth tremor.

 

Jane climbed into the platform lift. She dragged Punch's backpack on to the deck. She pressed Up. She collapsed against the railing and sank to her knees. Movement out of the corner of her eye. An infected man in a white tuxedo had gripped the platform lift as it began its ascent and was hauling himself over the railing.

Jane aimed the flamethrower and pulled the trigger. Dribble of fuel. No fire. The wind was too strong. The igniter flame wouldn't spark.

She aimed Punch's shotgun. Click of an empty chamber.

She struggled to her feet and backed away from the advancing man, holding the shotgun by the barrel and swinging it like a club.

 

Ghost sat in the observation bubble and watched the storm. He listened to Mahler.

'Hey, Gee: Sian's voice.

'Yeah?'

'They're coming up in the platform lift.'

 

Ghost waited in the south leg airlock. The airlock was a padded chamber lined with lockers and snow gear. A porthole in the door allowed Ghost to examine the underside of the refinery, the girders and pipework lashed by the gale. Floodlights strung beneath the rig glowed through the storm like a row of weak suns.

A yellow warning strobe above the airlock door began to revolve, accompanied by an insistent warning beep. The platform lift was active. Ghost watched through the porthole as the elevator cage drew level with the door. Two figures crusted in ice. One figure was wearing a tuxedo. He had a melted face.

Ghost grabbed a snowboot from the airlock floor. He hit Open and reeled from the sudden wind-blast. The lumbering mutant reached for Jane as she crouched exhausted and helpless on the platform deck. Ghost wore the snowboot on his hand like a boxing glove. He punched the infected man in the face. Repeated blows. He drove the man to the edge of the platform and kicked him over the railing. He threw the blood-spattered boot over the side.

He dragged Jane inside and hit Close. The door slid shut and the roar of the storm was silenced.

Jane shrugged off the flamethrower and slumped to her knees. Ghost pulled back her hood and tugged off her ski mask. Her skin was blue. Her eyelids drooped like she was half asleep.

'Jane,' shouted Ghost. 'Hey. Come on.' He gently slapped her face left and right. 'Come on, girl. Focus.'

She coughed back to life.

'Get the pack,' she said. 'It's out on the lift.'

Second blast of blizzard wind as Ghost retrieved the backpack. He emptied it on to the airlock floor. Explosives. Detonators. He examined the shoulder straps. They had been cut with a sharp blade.

Jane had dropped the shotgun. Quick inspection. Burned stock. Scorched metal. The gun beyond use.

He checked the breech. No shells. He sniffed the gun. Pepper smell of cordite. Recently fired.

Jane's eyes fluttered like she was struggling to stay awake. 'Jane? Can you hear me? Where the fuck is Punch?'

 

Ghost helped Jane to her room. He helped her strip and stood with her beneath the shower until she revived. She stood beneath a torrent of hot water and basked in the heat.

She got out, towelled and dressed.

'So we are down to three,' said Ghost.

'Nothing I could do,' said Jane. 'Nothing at all.'

'Nail?'

'He's turned that bunker into a fucking abattoir.'

'I hope he comes aboard. I really do. I'll make it slow. I'll make it last days.'

 

Jane took a mug of coffee to the observation bubble.

Sian was watching the blizzard scour the tanks and gantries of the refinery. She was weeping.

Jane put a hand on her shoulder.

'Easier if we just died,' said Sian. 'It would be better than this. A moment of fear, a moment of pain, then nothing. This is worse. This is slow torture.'

'Yeah.'

'Everyone I ever knew is dead. Family. Friends. But I had Punch. I was all right as long as I had Punch.'

'Yeah.'

'I've got nothing left. Absolutely nothing. Bit by bit it all got stripped away.' She gestured to the snowstorm. 'This place is hell. Barren. Sterile. It's like the universe has taken off its mask and we can see its true face.'

'Want to open a bottle of wine?' asked Jane, and immediately regretted the lame suggestion. Failing as a priest, failing as a friend. Absurd to think there was any consolation she could offer in the face of absolute despair, some combination of words that would make it all better.

She sat down.

A few nights ago, she and Ghost lay in bed and planned the future of the human race.

'If there are kids,' said Ghost, 'will you tell them about Jesus?'

'No,' said Jane. 'I'm happy to be the last Christian. If they come across a Bible I will tell them it's all fairy tales and nonsense.'

Jane put her arm round Sian's shoulder. They sat in the dark as the Arctic storm raged around them.

 

Jane visited Rawlins's office. She thumbed through the personnel files. Gary Punch. She snipped his picture from the front page of his file.

She took the picture to the improvised chapel she had established in one of the dormitory rooms. She taped the photograph to the memorial wall.

She sat and contemplated the mug shots.

Crew who left aboard oil supply vessel Spirit of Endeavour:

Rosie Smith.

Pete Baxter.

Ricki Coulby.

Edgar Bardock.

Frank Rawlins, first to succumb to the infection.

Dr Rye. Missing. Presumed suicide.

Ivan and Yakov. Both ripped apart aboard Hyperion.

Mal. Murdered.

Gus. Murdered and eaten.

Nail's picture lay on a chair. Jane didn't want to add him to the memorial wall. He didn't deserve it. No one would pray for him.

 

The canteen kitchen.

Sian sat morose on a bar stool while Ghost greased the damaged shotgun. He reassembled the weapon. He racked the slide. The mechanism jammed. He threw the gun down on the kitchen counter.

'Fucked. And Punch took all the ammunition.' Ghost took a cleaver from a drawer.

'Want to help me patrol?'

 

They walked the perimeter of the rig. Ghost brought the ruined shotgun. He swung it round his head and flung it far as he could. They watched it fall to the ice two hundred metres below. They looked towards the island.

'Nail can't stay out there for ever,' said Ghost. 'Nothing for him in that bunker. We've got food, heat, everything he needs. Sooner or later he'll try to make it aboard. I reckon he'll try to climb an anchor cable. Doubt he could make it, but he'll give it a shot.'

'What about Punch?' asked Sian. Jane hadn't told her about the cannibalised remains they found in the bunker. 'I don't think he's coming back.'

Ghost decided to give her a task, something to keep her occupied.

'Do me a favour. Disable the platform lift. Take out a fuse or something.'

 

Sian headed for the airlock. She opened the exterior door and walked out on to the platform. She could see infected passengers milling on the ice far below her. She reached for the platform controls. She hesitated, then pressed Down.

The lift descended the south leg of the refinery. Infected Hyperion passengers and crew looked up. They saw Sian descending to meet them, and stretched their arms to reach her.

She opened the railing gate and closed her eyes, ready to be torn apart.

The platform jolted to a halt. Sian fell to her knees. The lift rose. She looked up. Ghost high above her, leaning out of the airlock door.

He dragged Sian back inside the rig. He helped her to her feet.

'We'll pretend that didn't happen, all right?'

 

Jane sat with Ghost in the canteen. They emptied the backpack. They contemplated the stack of explosives and detonators on the table in front of them. Bricks of C4 wrapped in paper. DEMOLITION CHARGE Ml 12 WITH TAGGANT.

'Sian's probably right,' said Jane. 'We're kidding ourselves. We're not moving an inch. We are trapped here for ever. This place is our tomb.'

'I don't know about that.'

'This is the endgame. Nobody is coming to save us. We've got no ride home. If the cables don't drop, we're done.'

'My dad died of stomach cancer,' said Ghost. 'He had a car, an E-type Jag. He was restoring it in his garage. He worked hard even though he wouldn't get to drive it. I asked why he bothered. He said, "Never leave a job half done.'"

'I'm so tired.'

'We've got a plan. We've got things we can do, moves we can make. Still plenty of fight left.'

'Yeah,' sighed Jane. 'I suppose. But that's the problem. I can cope with despair. But hope keeps fucking me up.'

Ghost stood and began to stack the explosives into three separate piles.

'Come on,' he said. 'Get the job done.'

 

Ghost refilled the flamethrower. He used a SCUBA compressor to pump the tanks with diesel, and pressurise them with nitrogen.

They went outside and thawed the couplings. Jane fired a jet of flame at each giant lock pin. Ice liquefied and steamed, exposing metal.

Jane held the flashlight while Ghost rigged the explosives. He took off his gloves. He unwrapped C4. He slapped patties of explosive against the massive cable coupling, punched them with his fist, moulded them into a single tight mass. He pointed to a nearby wall.

'This is good. This should work well. We're boxed in. Nice, enclosed space. It should focus the concussion. Be a hell of a bang when it goes.'

He pressed blasting caps into the clay with his thumb before the explosive froze too hard to penetrate. They weatherproofed each charge with garbage bags.

'What do you want to use for detonation cord?' asked Jane.

'Strip some wire from a few extension leads. Nothing much to it. All we need is enough copper thread to carry a single six- volt pulse. Click. Bang.'

They returned to the canteen and spliced wire. Heaters. De- humidifiers. Computers. Cases prised open with a screwdriver. Flex stripped, coiled and stacked on a Formica tabletop.

'We need about two hundred and fifty metres for each charge. We'll run the cord to a central point. We have to blow all three charges at once. If we blow the cables one at a time the last rope will take the full weight of the rig. It will be under so much tension we'll never get the pin to release.'

'Right.'

'No screw-ups. No breaks in the wire. We get one shot at this. No second go.'

The storm cleared. They slung cable over their shoulders and headed outside.

Jane helped Ghost run wire from each explosive charge. They spooled flex along the walkways and metal steps. They taped the wires to girders and railings. The wires converged at the pump house, a cabin that housed monitor equipment for the three great distillation tanks.

They smashed a window and fed the cables inside. Ghost webbed the remaining windows with duct tape. Proof against the blast. He laid three pairs of ear-defenders on a desk.

One last inspection to check the charges were properly rigged and the detonator wire unbroken.

'Beautiful sky,' said Jane. She pulled back her hood and craned to see a dusting of stars. A delicate pink twilight to the east.

She looked out over the refinery. A crystal palace. White-on- white. Frosted steel. Cross-beams and scaffold towers dripping ice. Snow-dusted storage tanks. Crane jibs heavy with icicles. Every north-facing surface caked and glazed.

'Reckon Nail is lurking round here?' asked Jane.

'Keep a lookout for prints,' said Ghost. 'I doubt he could make it up the anchor cables, but he's desperate enough to try.' He lifted his boot and pointed at the sole. 'Zigzag tread, all right? Anything else is him.'

Ghost struggled to unscrew the cap of his hip flask with a gloved hand. He swigged.

'Back in a moment, all right?'

Ghost had spent the last hour thinking it through. This was their last chance of escape. If the anchor cables failed to detach they would be permanently marooned at the top of the world. In a few weeks the food and fuel would run out and they would be forced to choose between a knife-slash to the throat or a long walk in the snow. He pictured his body on a high gantry facing the sea. A grinning corpse cradling a blade. Maybe Jane's mummified cadaver would be beside him, holding his skeletal hand.

He walked to the corner of the rig. He took a fist of explosive from his pocket. He had kept a small lump of C4. A vague plan. If the anchor cables failed to detach, he could prepare a small charge and tape it beneath a table in the canteen. Cook a meal. Invite Jane and Sian to sit for dinner. Make it quick and clean. End it all mid-conversation.

He told himself not to be so stupid. He had spent so long facing down mortal terror he had made a fetish of death. He had been planning an elaborate demise instead of fighting to live. He added the nub of explosive to the main charge.

 

Jane fetched the initiators from the canteen. A black plastic case. Three initiators sitting snug in a foam bed. Each initiator was a pistol-grip with a red Fire button on top.

Jane tested batteries in a Maglite, to make sure they held a charge.

She slotted batteries into the butt of each grip.

 

Jane looked for Sian.

'I think she went outside,' said Ghost.

Airlock 52. A winking red corridor light. An alert that the exterior door had been left open.

Jane put on her coat and stepped outside. She saw Sian standing at the end of a walkway. She was leaning over a railing, looking down at the ice far below.

Weeks ago, when Jane was fat and hopeless, she had leaned over a similar section of railing and willed herself to jump into the sea. She wondered if Sian was, at that moment, thinking of flinging herself from the refinery. Sian leaned further forward.

'Hey,' said Jane, reaching for the only words that might cut through Sian's despair. 'Come on, girl. We need your help.'

 

They walked to the pump house. Ghost twisted wire round the terminals of each initiator.

'I taped up the windows,' he said. 'We should probably stand back from the glass. I'm not sure how big a bang this is going to be.'

They stood facing each other. 'Want to say a prayer?'

'No,' said Jane.

'Everybody ready?'

'Yeah.'

'Okay. Here we go. Three. Two. One.'