The Final Hour
Jane jogged across the ice towards the island. She clumped in heavy boots. Crampon teeth bit into ice. Diesel sloshed in the SCUBA tanks strapped to her back.
She climbed the rocky shoreline. Gauntlet hands searched out niches and outcrops. She scrambled over the jumble of basalt boulders and hauled herself up on to the snow plateau of the island plain.
She headed for the burned-out hulk of the ship.
The blackened hull of the superliner was split in two. The interior of the ship was exposed like a picture book cut-away diagram. Bilge and plant equipment near the keel, then ascending layers of opulence. A dance floor, glitter ball swinging in the breeze. Padded treatment recliners hanging over a steel precipice. Charred staterooms.
The multiple blasts that ripped the ship apart had ejected debris across the snow. Twisted hull plates like jagged petals. Giant worm-lengths of air-con ducts.
Jane walked among cabin refuse. Cupboards, chairs and lamps. It was like someone set up home on the ice.
Jane stood in the shadow of the ship and looked up at the exposed rooms and stairways. Ragged bed sheets wafted in the breeze. Flakes of ash drifted from the wreck like black snow.
Quick inspection of the broken hulk. Nikki might anticipate a raiding party might come calling. She might vacate the bunker. Hide herself aboard Hyperion.
A hand gripped Jane's ankle. She looked down. An infected passenger half buried in snow. Jane pulled herself free. The frozen figure tried to stand. Legs missing from below the knee. She stamped on his head with a crampon boot. Skull-burst. Snow stained red.
The snow beside her bulged and split, and a second frosted figure struggled to its feet. The creature stumbled like a drunk. Jane kicked him over. He lay on his back, still struggling to walk like a toppled automaton.
Snow cracked and crumbled. A dozen passengers sitting up, struggling from the ice. Jane triggered the flamethrower. Slow pass, back and forth. Burning figures thrashed in the snow.
One last glance at Hyperion. The ship was too trashed, too burned-out to provide refuge. Nikki must still be in the bunker.
Jane jogged away from the ship, skirting spastic, flailing bodies. She swerved beds, wardrobes and chairs.
Sian climbed down from the crane and ran to the deck railing. Binoculars. She followed a thin, hairline track across the ice. A channel dug by Jane's crampons as she headed back to the island.
She took out her radio.
'Ghost? Ghost, do you copy? Come on, Gee. Where are you?'
She searched the rig. She ran room to room. She found Ghost in the canteen cold store. He had uncorked a bottle. He poured frothing champagne into a paper cup. She stood panting in the doorway.
'Well. On our way home,' he said. He held out a cup. 'You're probably not in a mood to celebrate. It's good champagne, though.'
'Where's your radio?'
'Why would I need to carry it? We're out of here.'
'Jane is heading back to the island. She's gone to find Punch.'
Sian and Ghost ran down the corridor. Ghost struggled to zip his coat.
'Why the fuck didn't you come and get me?'
'We couldn't find you. There wasn't time to wait.'
'How long has she been gone?'
'About ten minutes. She made it to the island. I lost sight of her once she reached the coast.'
'I'm going after her.'
'She said no. She said you would want to follow her, and she said no. She reckoned it would be easier on her own.'
'Fuck it. I'm going anyway.'
They ran across the deck. Ghost pulled on gauntlets. Sian handed him an axe.
'I'm not staying here alone.'
'We need someone to stay behind and operate the crane. You want to help? You want to be crucial? Stay in that cab. Watch for our flare, and be ready to lift us off the ice.'
Sian rotated the crane jib towards a gantry. Ghost stood on the walkway. He embraced the half-tonne hook as it swung towards him. He stepped on to the hook and wrapped an arm around the chain. He gave a thumbs up. Sian swung him over the railing. He looked down. Two-hundred-metre drop on to the ice. He gripped the chain hard.
Sian lowered the hook.
Rampart was ripping a gouge in the polar crust half a kilometre wide. The pristine snow field already scarred by a long wake of bubbling seawater and bobbing ice plates. The forward legs of the rig shunted a continual avalanche of ice-rubble ahead of them. Ghost would be lowered in front of churning snow and ice-boulders. He estimated he would have less than ten seconds to run clear or be pulverised and submerged.
The moment the hook touched down and dragged on the ice Ghost stepped clear and started to run. He fell. He had forgotten to buckle crampon teeth to his boots. He slipped and skidded as he tried to run clear of the advancing refinery. It was a waking nightmare. Trying to sprint, trying to cover ground, sliding on glass. He was eclipsed by shadow as the rig bore down on him. The roar of shattering ice was deafening. You've made a simple, stupid mistake, he thought, and it's going to kill you.
Moment of decision. Should he turn back and try to reach the hook? Or keep running and try to reach Jane?
He ran towards the island.
The ice beneath him began to crack and buckle. He hopscotched across tilting, bobbing plates. He threw himself clear of the approaching avalanche. He rolled and watched the massive gantries and girders of the refinery pass by high above him. A dream image. Towers and crenellations. A floating sky city.
He got to his feet and faced the island. He picked up his axe. He took two paces then the ice beneath him cracked and broke. He slid waist-deep into Arctic water. Sudden, heart-stopping cold. He scrabbled at the snow. Gauntiets grasped and raked, clawed for some kind of purchase.
Instinct saved him. The axe lay beside him. He reached, stretched until his fingertips snagged the shaft. He slammed the axe into the ice and hauled himself out of the sea. He lay shivering like an epileptic seizure.
He got to his feet. He still faced a choice. He could run to the island and try to help Jane. Hope vigorous movement would warm him up. Or he could radio Sian and get her to haul him back to the warmth and safety of Rampart.
'Get the job done,' he murmured.
He decided to head for the island. He couldn't pull the axe free so he left it behind.
Despite his predicament, despite his viciously tight bonds, Punch fell asleep. One moment he was leaning with his back to the cell wall, trying to stay awake, stay alert. Next moment he was sunk in dark dreams in which he screamed and squirmed as he was slowly crushed by strange machines.
He was jolted awake. Footsteps. Key turn. Nikki opened the door, grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him into the corridor. She hauled him down a tiled passageway.
Green walls. Flickering strip-lights.
'What the fuck are you doing?'
No reply. She didn't even look him in the eye.
The passage met a wide, ribbed tunnel, big enough for a subway train.
She tied him to a wall girder. She left a lamp burning on the tunnel floor. She left.
A man lay tied to the opposite wall of the tunnel. He was dressed in polar survival gear and bound hand and foot. Nail. Bruised face. Split lip. His right sleeve was ripped and bloody. White nylon stuffing spilled from the quilted fabric. A wound caused, Punch guessed, when he and Nail fought for possession of a shotgun.
Nail was lashed to the girder by rope tied round his chest. Punch couldn't tell if he was dead or alive.
Punch looked around. Raw rock buttressed by girders. At a guess, some kind of excavation tunnel. The bunker was half- built. Plenty of wide access passageways throughout the complex to get mine machinery below ground.
'Hey. Hey, Nail.'
No reply.
Punch squinted into darkness. Something round in the shadows, like a giant cannonball. An open hatch. The capsule. Soviet space debris. Fell to earth miles away. How did it get here? Did Hyperion passengers retrieve the object? Drag it across the ice? Could the mindless mutants be guided and controlled?
He whistled.
'Hey. Nail.'
Nothing.
Why leave them by the capsule? Did Nikki expect something to crawl out and feed? Ghost said he tossed a thermite grenade into the capsule interior. Nothing could have survived.
'Hey,' shouted Punch. 'Nail. Nail, you fuck.'
Nail slowly looked up. Exhausted, frightened eyes.
'What's going on?' asked Punch. 'What does she want?'
Nail looked him over, but didn't reply. His hands were bound in front of him, rather than behind his back.
He spat a fifty kopeck coin into his palm and started to sharpen it against the tunnel floor. There was a deep scratch in the concrete. He had been sharpening the coin for a while. Maybe he hid it in his mouth each time Nikki passed by.
'So what's the deal?' asked Punch. 'Is she going to eat us or what?'
Nail didn't reply. He continued to sharpen the coin.
'Guess it didn't work out. You and her.'
Nail tested the edge of the sharpened coin. He put the coin between his teeth and tried to tear open his wrist, quickly drew his arm back and forth across the crude blade.
'Dude, what the fuck are you doing?' demanded Punch.
Nail drew blood but couldn't reach an artery. Either the coin was too blunt or he didn't have the courage to kill himself. He let the coin drop to the ground. He leaned his forehead against the wall and sobbed.
'Talk to me,' said Punch. 'Say something, you dumb fuck. What the hell is going on? Has she got us lined up for dinner? Is that it?'
'Worse. Way worse.'
'Like what? What's on her mind?'
'I knew she was nuts. Talking to herself. But I had no idea. She's pure darkness. She's sicker, way sicker than those infected fucks. She's a black hole. Total anti-matter.'
'Is she infected? Does she have this disease?'
'No.'
'But they are here, aren't they?'
'She's got an army out there in the tunnels. I've heard them. I've seen them.' 'Get your shit together, Nail. How sharp is that coin? Can it cut rope?'
'No.'
'Throw it over here. I want to try, anyway.'
Nail threw the coin. It chimed and skittered across the tunnel floor. Punch hooked the coin with his boot and kicked it towards his hands. He fumbled with his fingers. He tried to saw the rope binding his wrists. Nail watched.
'So what's your name?' asked Punch. 'Your real name? It's not Nail. I know that much.'
'What does it matter?'
'I'm curious.'
'Dave. My name is David.'
'Why change it?'
'You never wanted to reboot your life? Start again from scratch?'
'Every hour of every day. Changing my name wouldn't help, though. So who was the real Nail Harper? What happened to him?'
'I honestly don't think that's any of your business.'
'What kind of army are we talking about? What's out there?'
'Passengers and crew from Hyperion. They follow Nikki. I don't know why.'
'What does she want from me? What is her plan?'
'You're bait. She wants to lure your friends from Rampart. Jane will come running to your rescue. Ghost will come too. Sian will tag along.'
'But what does Nikki want? Where is all this leading?'
'She wants to keep you all here. She says this is our new home.'
Punch sawed at the rope.
'You know what?' he said. 'Everyone gets tested. You never see it coming. But sooner or later the moment arrives and you have to account for yourself. Snivel like a bitch if you like, but I'm getting out of here.'
Ghost reached the island shore. Boulders and scree. He climbed fast as he could, trying to generate metabolic heat. He was slowly succumbing to hypothermia. Creeping numbness. Limbs weak and starting to stiffen.
He reached the bunker.
'Jane?' he called into the dark tunnel entrance. 'Jane, it's me.'
He took a flashlight from his pocket. Water behind the lens. Useless. He threw it aside.
The campfire was cold and dead. He piled more wood and slopped petrol from a jerry can. His hands shook. He poured too much gasoline. He struck a match anyway, and shielded his face from the flame-ball. Fire scorched the tunnel roof.
Ghost tried his radio. Waterlogged. Dead. He threw it aside.
He closed the bunker doors.
He didn't have time to dry his clothes. He poured water from his boots then held them directly in the flames. Water fizzed, boiled and steamed. He wrung his coat, balled it and held it in the fire until it smoked.
He dressed.
Ghost took a burning stick from the fire, held it above his head and set off down the dark tunnel mouth.
Sian left the cab to fetch a flask of coffee. Kill time, she told herself. Do something ordinary. Kid yourself everything is fine.
She boiled a kettle in the canteen kitchen. Silent corridors. Empty rooms. What if Jane and Ghost didn't make it back? Drifting for thousands of miles in the dark and derelict refinery. She was terrified of isolation.
She returned to the cab, unscrewed the Thermos and poured coffee. She let the metal mug warm her hands. The windows steamed up. She wiped away condensation. The island was receding. The wreck of Hyperion was a distant, ragged silhouette against the Arctic twilight.
She put her cup on the cab floor and uncapped binoculars. She looked south. She could clearly see the edge of the ice-field. The point where snow gave way to heavy black waves.
She estimated Jane, Ghost and Punch had less than three hours to make it back to Rampart before the refinery reached open sea and they were left behind. Sian took out her radio.
'Rampart to Jane, can you hear me, over? Jane, do you copy?' Static.
'Jane? Ghost? Can you hear me?'
Jane stood at the open doors of the bunker.
A weak voice: 'Jane, do you copy? Jane, do you copy, over?' Jane took out her radio. 'Sian? Sian, can you hear me?' Nothing but feedback. Weak LED. Dying batteries. The campfire was lit. She crouched and examined sticks of burning furniture. A recent fire. Someone was here moments ago.
She examined a discarded flashlight. It belonged to Ghost. Weeks ago, she had watched him bind it with duct tape to seal a crack in the case.
Ghost had travelled from the rig. He must have headed straight for the bunker and reached it ahead of her. 'Ghost?' No reply.
Jane aimed her flamethrower down the dark tunnel. Flame- roar. She glimpsed concrete walls receding deep underground. Jane checked her watch.
She shone her flashlight on the tunnel floor. Scuffed boot- prints led into shadows.
She hitched the flamethrower, gripped her flashlight and followed the footprints downward into the dark.