Something caught Parry’s eye. ‘Major, behind you! The arm!’
The severed arm had transformed too, taking on precisely the same form, complete with the three deadly-looking claws at the extremity. It was too long for the stainless steel dish and had tipped it over, so the limb flopped onto the bench, like a dead fish.
‘Cut the current! Now!’ Parry yelled as the severed limb twitched beside the dish.
In his haste the MO dropped the probe. Stooping to retrieve it, he’d just straightened up when the Armagi transformed completely.
In the blink of an eye, it suddenly had three pairs of limbs branching from its thorax, like an enormous transparent arachnid. The limbs thrashed, tearing the leather constraints binding it to the gurney as if they were tissue paper.
The MO didn’t stand a chance as he regarded the creature with a stunned bewilderment.
His head came off with one short sweep of the Armagi’s forelimb. The three claws were as deadly as they looked.
Then it sprang from the gurney and hit the dividing window with a resounding clang. Its claws penetrated the tempered glass, deep enough that it could hang from the partition. Then it struck at the glass again, as if it knew it wouldn’t take long for it to break through.
‘Burn out!’ Parry yelled at the top of his lungs.
‘Burn out?’ the orderly stammered, frozen into inactivity by the huge spider’s head with compound eyes that were staring straight at him through the window.
Parry didn’t wait for the orderly, instead flipping up the cover on a panel under the intercom, and twisting the key in it. Then he slammed his palm against the large button beside the key.
The isolation chamber was instantly filled with a solid wall of fire. It was a safety feature installed to sterilise it in the instance of a mishap with a biological sample.
Parry and the orderly watched as the Armagi turned black, and fell back into the inferno.
‘Christ, oh Christ,’ the orderly was whimpering.
‘The severed arm was affected … even though the current was being applied to the Armagi’s body,’ Parry said.
The orderly could barely cope with what he’d just witnessed, let alone understand what Parry was trying to tell him. ‘But the Major …’ he gasped.
Parry seized him by the shoulders. ‘Pull yourself together, man. If there’s a similar form of communication between the Armagi themselves, then our specimen might just have compromised our location. There might be others on the way!’ He grabbed the radio from his belt. ‘EVAC!’ he yelled into it.
Chapter Two
‘I look a right wally in this,’ Will said, catching his reflection in a shop window as they laboured along in the intense heat, their Bergens stuffed with all the bedding and towels they’d helped themselves to.
‘Yes,’ Elliott replied absently, her nose buried in a map that she’d found on one of the Limiters.
‘Oh, thanks,’ Will muttered. He paused to adjust the canary-yellow hat with a floppy brim that Elliott had picked out for him in the department store.
‘No, I mean it looks just fine,’ she said. ‘It does the job and keeps the sun off your face … and, anyway, who’s going to see even if you do look like a willy?’
‘Wally,’ Will corrected her quickly, then surveyed the bodies in the street. ‘Can’t we go back to our base? This place gives me the creeps, and it’s just crazy to spend so long out when it’s so bloody hot.’
Elliott gave him a sympathetic nod, then dangled the map in front of him. ‘Okay, but I just want to check something first.’ She glanced at the map again before pointing straight ahead. ‘It’s this way.’
She strode off, not only laden down by her Bergen and long rifle, but carrying an additional two rifles she’d insisted on taking from the Limiters. For a moment, Will watched her go, and the way her hips swayed as she walked. She was growing up so quickly, and with her tanned skin and her long black hair, she’d never looked more beautiful. In the same way as the Styx seemed to be able to adapt to any environment they were in, Elliott was flourishing in their new home in the inner world.
And Will had her all to himself.
He allowed himself a smug smile, then the sweat running down the small of his back reminded him where he was. He wasn’t happy about spending any longer in the city than was absolutely necessary, but he always found it difficult not to let Elliott have her way.
Will happened to glance at what appeared to be a luxurious hotel judging by the canopy over the entrance. A flock of the most obnoxious-looking vultures was perching on the red-and-white striped awning, their mean little grey eyes intent on both him and Elliott. ‘You’re out of luck, boys – I’m not dead yet!’ Will yelled at the birds. Wiping his brow, he indicated Elliott up ahead. ‘Though if she has anything to do with it, I should stick around!’ he added.
There was no way that Elliott could have missed the comment, but she kept doggedly leading them both on. Soon they found themselves in an area with a different feel to it. There were no shops here, but rather austere terraces of five-storey buildings, many of which appeared to be offices or government departments from the engraved brass nameplates at their entrances.
As Will and Elliott progressed down yet another of these unremarkable streets, they both heard the tapping sound. The rhythm wasn’t regular, but as they drew to a halt and listened, it didn’t let up. In this eerie place, it was more than enough to put them on their guard.
As Elliott pointed up ahead, Will acknowledged with a single nod of the head. She was right that the sound seemed to be coming from their side of the street, although it was difficult to pinpoint precisely where as it reverberated off the buildings opposite. As Elliott silently cocked her rifle, edging cautiously along the pavement, Will kept his distance, his hands tight around his Sten.
Elliott reached the second-to-last building of the terrace, then crouched and brought her rifle up. Discarding his Bergen, Will had stepped off the pavement and into the road, where he was using the discarded vehicles as cover, all the time keeping an eye on the facade of the building. He realised how efficiently he and Elliott worked together; there was no need for them to speak as each knew instinctively what the other was going to do in any given situation. The first time Will had witnessed that level of empathy was as he’d watched Elliott and Drake out on patrol in the Deeps. Will suddenly thought of their friend, who had to have perished when the nuclear device exploded, and the pang of grief was so intense that it made him take a sharp breath.
As Elliott heard it and turned towards him, Will avoided her gaze. He took up position at the front of a car, then concentrated on the upper windows of the buildings where the sound seemed to be originating.
There was no sign of anybody there, but the tapping didn’t let up.
Just as Will expected her to, Elliott now moved from the pavement, stepping slowly backwards as she trained her scope on each window in turn. Will was covering her with his Sten when, all of a sudden, she stopped and gave a small chuckle.
‘What is it? What can you see?’ Will whispered.
‘Top floor, two windows in,’ she replied.
Squinting, Will located the sash window, then spotted the movement through the open section at the top. At that height the faintest of breezes was enough to ruffle the blind drawn halfway down the window. And it was the pull cord on the bottom of this blind which was swinging repeatedly against the window pane below. As Will watched, there was no doubt that it was the source of the tapping.
‘False alarm,’ he said. ‘It’s only the wind.’
They both relaxed and straightened up.
‘We’re seeing ghosts,’ Elliott said, as she ejected the round from the breech of her rifle to make it safe.
‘Well, what do you expect?’ Will replied with a shrug. ‘This place is enough to make anyone freak. They’re all dead – the New Germanians, the Styx, even the bushmen back in the jungle. All of them.’ He glanced disconsolately up at all the ranks of dust
y windows, then at the Sten in his hands. ‘I don’t know why we’re even bothering to bring weapons with us. There isn’t a single animal left that can hurt us. Apart from the fish, birds and the bloody flies, we’re all there is.’
Elliott cried out, but Will didn’t catch what she’d said.
‘What is it?’ Will gasped, only now noticing that she’d moved to the end of the street. He lost his hat as he broke into a run to catch up with her.
As he reached her at the corner, the huge plaza opened up before him, in its centre the government building constructed in the form of a colossal arch. He’d spotted the top of the arch on a previous expedition into the city, but had never been this close to it before.
In the roads that bordered and intersected the plaza, there were numerous crashed cars and lorries, while others had been driven up onto the pedestrian walkways and simply left there with their doors open. And then there were military vehicles and tanks dotted around the base of the arch that looked like they’d been abandoned in a hurry, their guns facing in random directions.
‘What’s the matter? What have you seen?’ Will asked.
She didn’t answer, simply pointing.
He followed her finger, making something out in the lee of one of the legs of the arch. It was sizeable, probably several hundred feet in height and, as he shielded his eyes from the sun, he realised it was a statue of some description.
‘You’ve got to be joking!’ he spluttered all of a sudden. ‘That can’t be who I think is!’
‘Oh, yes, it is. Have a closer look.’ Elliott passed Will her rifle so he could use the scope.
It was a huge statue of Tom Cox.
There he was, in all his glory, his nebulous outline fashioned in granite as black and pernicious as some giant rock waiting to hole a ship.
His hood was raised to his growth-infested forehead so the grotesque face and pupil-less eyes were on full view. What was worse was that the eyes had been carved from some form of limestone or lighter stone, so it really did resemble the traitorous renegade from the Deeps who had helped the Styx.
‘Tom bloody Cox,’ Will said through clenched teeth, as he recalled how the monster of a man had cut him on top of the pyramid, then threatened to remove his fingers one by one. The statue was a reminder that Will could have done without.
And Will wasn’t sure if he should be outraged or simply laugh because the sight of it was just so ludicrous.
Elliott was similarly affected. It had been nothing for her to shoot Cox down and kill him; whilst in his clutches she’d suffered indescribably until Drake had rescued her from the man – if ‘man’ was the right word. ‘That’s so sick that only she … they could have dreamt it up,’ Elliott said, spitting out the words as if they were poison in her mouth.
Will nodded because he knew better than anyone that Elliott was right – the Rebecca twins had been responsible for erecting the monument to Cox, merely because the fact that the fat Chancellor would have to look down at it every day from his official chambers had amused them.
‘If we can figure out how to work one of the tanks, we could use the statue for target practice,’ Will suggested, then ran a finger inside his shirt collar, which was soaked with sweat. ‘And if this is what you wanted us to see, can we go home now?’ he pleaded
‘I had no idea it was here,’ Elliott replied, then held up the map. ‘What’s unusual about this is the Limiters marked locations on it. They never do that – it was against their SOPs. And there seems to be something important marked not far from here.’
‘Really, who cares about what the Limiters did or why they did it?’ Will said, but not unpleasantly. ‘They’re all history now.’
Elliott fixed him with one of her looks.
Will let his shoulders droop. ‘Elliott, you talked me into coming to this horrible city for supplies and stuff we need. And now you want to go on a sightseeing trip. I didn’t sign up for this.’
‘What’s happened to you?’ Elliott said. ‘Remember when nobody could stop you sticking your nose into everything, because you were curious? You’ve really changed.’ She frowned. ‘What is it, Will? Are you getting old or something?’
Will humphed. ‘I am … not … getting … old,’ he enunciated slowly. ‘It’s just that this bloody sun is roasting me alive.’
‘A little bit of sun never hurt anyone,’ she said under her breath, then did an about turn and began to jog down the side of the plaza.
‘But I’m not just anyone. I’m an albino!’ Will called after her. ‘And don’t go running off again. I need to fetch my Bergen first!’
With the giant arch now behind them, they were making their way down one of the wide avenues that branched off from the central plaza like spokes radiating from the hub of a wheel.
Will began to sniff as he caught the faint smell of burning in the air. Then they entered a section of the thoroughfare where the wind was swirling black ash over the chalk-coloured surface of the road. This ash grew ever more dense until their boots were leaving tracks in it.
Neither of them saw fit to remark on this; some weeks before, they’d heard explosions and rushed to the top of the pyramid beside their camp. From there they’d watched thick yellow smoke billowing into the sky from a factory on the outskirts of the city, which had clearly overheated and gone up in flames. Spontaneous fires were commonplace in this inner world, where the unrelenting sun set whole swathes of the jungle ablaze almost on a daily basis. So there was no reason to believe that the same thing couldn’t happen in the middle of the city itself, particularly as it was completely unattended.
Will drew to a halt by the central reservation in the middle of the six-lane avenue, Elliott stopping beside him. ‘Goes a hell of a long way,’ she said, trying to see to the end.
Will was admiring the impressive facades of the buildings on the opposite side of the avenue. ‘They’d done so much here,’ he mumbled. He was suddenly struck by the dismal fate that had befallen the once thriving metropolis, built on the bare earth in less than seventy years. ‘You know this is just like a place in London that Dad used to take me some weekends. I think it was Kensington where the science and natural history museums are, but it was always so crowded with people and tourists,’ Will said, indicating the buildings that he’d been staring at. ‘I wonder if they’re museums too?’
Elliott shrugged. ‘Whatever they are, something important was going on in this area according to the Limiter map.’ A building further down from Will’s supposed museums caught her eye. ‘What do you think that place is?’
It was Will’s turn to shrug as he located the iron-framed building with large expanses of glass reflecting the sun. ‘Dunno. A damned big greenhouse?’ he suggested.
Unbeknownst to Will and Elliott, it was the tropical greenhouse where Vane had been impregnating New Germanians in their thousands before the plague had struck. Will peered over his shoulder at the parade of shops behind him, his gaze coming to rest on a boarded-up shop with the words MOST – Confiserie emblazoned above it in large gold letters. This didn’t mean anything to him, but the model of a giant bar of unwrapped chocolate hanging from a bracket did. ‘That must be a sweet shop,’ he decided, then chuckled sadly. ‘Museums and choccies – Dad’s two favourite things in life. He would’ve loved it here.’
‘That’s odd,’ Elliott murmured, not taking any notice of what Will was saying.
‘No, I think it really is a sweet shop,’ Will replied, already making a beeline towards it.
‘Odd that there are far fewer bodies in this stretch,’ Elliott said, raising her rifle so she could use the scope to check further down the avenue.
As Will reached the shop, he found that the main window was protected by lengths of timber nailed across it, although someone had had a go at an area towards the bottom. Here the planking had been prised off and the glass behind it stoved in. Will squatted down to peer inside, but couldn’t see anything much where the display of goods must have once been.
&nbs
p; As he stood up again, the soles of his boots crunched on boiled sweets all the colours of the rainbow, grinding them into the ash. ‘Someone got lucky,’ Will muttered under his breath. After weeks of eating little else but fish, his mouth watered at the prospect of finding something that came in its own packet.
Wondering if there was anything left inside, Will went to the door of the shop. To his surprise, as he turned the handle and pushed, it swung open before him. He didn’t stop to consider why it should be unlocked as he tore inside and was greeted with a view of a shadowy shop interior that was straight out of a different century.
On the shop counter of polished dark wood were chocolate truffles on silver platters, and stands of lollipops of all different colours. He examined one of these lollipops – it was quite unusual in that the top spun around on the stick as he flicked it with a finger. Stuffing it in his pocket, he turned his attention to the shelves beyond the counter, which housed numerous jars of wonderful-looking sweets. Bonbons, he read on one of the jars, and had put his Sten on the counter and was about to climb over to get to them when he happened to glance at the wall behind him. On the shelves there was the most amazing range of what looked like chocolate bars, box after box of them, and enough to keep someone supplied for a good few years.
‘The mother lode!’ Will laughed, rubbing his hands together in glee. Turning from the counter, he walked slowly beside the shelves as he helped himself to the different bars. He had no idea what was written on the wrappers, so began to tear them open to sample chunks. ‘Mint,’ he said to himself, as he tasted one bar with a picture of an iceberg on the packet. The bars were all rather soft from the heat, but he didn’t mind in the least.
‘This is too good to be true,’ Will said as he reached the end of the shelves and his gaze alighted on the crates of bottles stacked there. He picked one out that had a clear liquid in it and banged the bottle top down against the edge of the counter so it flipped off. The cap hardly had time to hit the floor before Will took a big swig of the fizzy contents.