Fracture - A Window Overlooking the Universe

  Chapter Twenty-One - Labyrinth

  He was running. Feet pounding. Heart hammering. Sweat breaking out.

  'GRAEME! GRAEME!' he screamed. He swept the darkness with the torch. Beyond its beam everything was pitch black. All the lights had died. There was no sign of the marching men.

  'GRAEME!' He'd reached a fork. He stopped. Right. He went right.

  'GRAEME!' A crossroads. Right again.

  'GRAEME!' The corridor curved to the left.

  'GRAEME!' His voice was hurting, his throat raw.

  'GRAEME!' Another fork. He stopped. Left or right? He was panting. So unfit. He should have listened to Alizen. But he wasn't sweating anymore. He was cold. It was cold down here. Bitterly cold. Clouds of condensation billowed from his mouth. He was still wearing the flimsy undersuit and nothing else. He was shivering. Tentatively he moved forward. His foot skidded. Ice underfoot.

  He went left. He rounded a corner.

  A blazing daemon reared up in front of him. He gasped in shock then anger as he realised it was just the logo again, etched on a wall, picked out by the torch beam. That was the second time Graeme had done that to him.

  He trembled.

  He turned right. Then left. Then right again.

  It wasn't safe to run. It was so slippery. He moved on cautiously, slowly. Another junction. He stopped again. There was no sound except the crunching of ice beneath him. He glanced back. The passageway behind him split and multiplied. Which way had he come? He didn't know. He'd been so excited, high on adrenaline, buzzing from his little victory that he'd just run, exhilarated, revelling in his new freedom. Now that feeling was rapidly subsiding. What was he doing down here? Looking for Graeme. Graeme was probably a killer. And if he wasn't then someone else was. And whoever was doing this had some kind of power. Power over time. Power over reality. The Devil? He swallowed nervously, his heart thumping in his rib cage. He was scared now, really scared. He clutched the gun tightly.

  It went off. The noise at close quarters was deafening in that silence, terrifying. He jumped in surprise at the sound, at the recoil, the pistol flying out of his hand. His torch too tumbled from his clammy grip, falling to the floor. There was a tinny whimper as the bullet ricocheted off something then a loud clatter as the gun and torch hit the deck.

  The torch went out. Total darkness.

  The clatter echoed mockingly around him. It faded. What was that? Just in the final dying cadences he thought he heard something, someone laughing.

  He was on his knees, scrabbling desperately around in the ice for the torch. Primeval fear filled him. Not rational to be afraid of the dark? It was perfectly rational. He was at the mercy of whatever was lurking down here. What if he couldn't find it? What if it was broken? He'd never get out. He was petrified. Panting. Panicking. His hand brushed against something cylindrical. He snatched at it but it rolled away out of his grip. He dived for it, slamming into the floor in the darkness, another resounding, reverberating, deafening crash. His whole body was smarting, his bones jarred, knees and elbows grazed. But he had it. He had the torch. The sound echoed and died away. It was there again: laughter. No, he was imagining it. He prayed he was. He was clutching at the torch, feeling it all over. Where was it? Where was the switch? He found it, snapped it on.

  Nothing happened.

  He flicked it again, and again. The fear was all consuming.

  It came on.

  The beam flooded the passageway.

  In front of him two shadowy figures silently crossed the corridor, oblivious to him.

  The gun! Where was it?

  They were gone. Would they be coming back? If he looked for the gun he would be distracted, an easy target. Without it he was helpless. Quickly he rose to his feet, pointed the beam down onto the ground. There was no sign of it. He swung the torch. Its light suddenly seemed stronger, brighter, a double halo. He saw the gun.

  A hand grabbed his left arm. He yelped, jumped, dropping the torch again. Light was streaming over him. He couldn't turn to look, couldn't move. His arm had been twisted behind him. It was held in a vice-like grip. A gun barrel was digging into his back, just above the waistline.

  'Shut up! Don't move!' hissed a voice.

  Julia. He was so relieved. Or was he? 'What are you doing down here?' He blurted out. Was she with Graeme? With Peerman? Where was Alizen?

  'Looking for you!' It was only a whisper but he could hear the anger. 'What are you doing? Trying to get us all killed?'

  'They're down here. I saw them. They were just metres ahead, moments ago. Did you see them?'

  A tall, well-built figure clad in a blue undersuit stepped into his eye line. It carried a torch, a pistol. Fenton was enveloped in darkness again, the gun still pressed into his back, his arm still tightly held.

  'Be careful!' exclaimed Julia from behind him.

  Brozmam edged forward, his torch shining into the darkness, his gun pointing into the beam.

  There was no sign of the two figures. Brozmam scanned the corridor with the torch. It was completely empty. He moved forward cautiously, towards the junction.

  A hunchbacked figure whirled out of the darkness, a bulky handgun roaring, describing a flaming arc of light. Brozmam was right in its path. With superhuman speed he jerked backwards, away from the bullets, seemingly dancing out of range. He hurtled backwards as if pulled on strings like a horizontal marionette, arms and legs flailing stiffly, awkwardly. With a resounding crash he smashed into the wall. His torch fell from his hand as he slid down towards the ground. It was still lit when it hit the floor but it rolled, pointing uselessly away.

  Blackness. The firing was over.

  Julia violently pushed Fenton away. He sprawled forward, striking the frozen floor again, hard. Her torch snapped on. Fenton, spread-eagled on the cold ground, lifted his head. She was now crouched by the wall ahead of him, just before the opening the figure had emerged from. There was no sign of it now. She shone the torch in front of her, the gun in her other hand. Brozmam was lying prone and twisted in a heap on the floor. There was a big black stain on the wall above him, where he had hit. There was a bewildered expression on his face, in his blue eyes: surprise, sheer uncomprehending disbelief. Then his head lolled back and he was dead.

  Julia spun round pointing the torch and gun straight at Fenton, her eyes glistening.

  'DON'T MOVE!' she half screamed, her voice trembling, shocked, her head darting to the left, to the right, expecting trouble.

  Silence. Fenton didn't dare move a millimetre. She would kill him if he did. He had no doubt about it.

  'Didn't you see?' Her voice was calmer, more controlled but still choked with emotion. 'It was you. You shot him. You killed him. It was you!'