Laughing Wolf (15 page)

“You are in violation of Presidential Order 3214T566 that specifies all civilians, unless formally exempted, shall remain under strict quarantine. Failure to comply with this directive involves immediate detention of no less than thirty days.”

“Don't interfere,” Carolyn protested. “We're on important business.”

“You are in violation of Presidential Order 3214T566 …” the lead E.D. repeated, even as it closed in on the pair. A compartment opened and Felix watched as a stun-rod appeared: it could deliver 20,000 volts of electricity.

“They mean business,” he whispered. “We'd better return to the Nano-Center.”

“Remain where you are,” the drone insisted, as they took to their heels. It followed in pursuit and would have zapped them for sure if Carolyn hadn't performed a backwards flip, landed on its CPU and crushed it flat. Before the other drones reacted, she joined Felix and they hurried into the Center. To keep the E.D.s from pouring in, she kicked a locking panel and smashed its circuitry to pieces.

“That should hold them,” she said, as the drones let loose a siren and summoned reinforcements. “How do you propose we get to the depot?”

Felix stood there thinking. They couldn't be arrested. Being machines, the drones would carry out their orders and lock them away and therefore expose them to the plague. They had to reach the depot, but the question was how? In keeping with municipal code, there were no Portals inside the Nano-Center, and proceeding outside was out of the question, even if they took a different exit, as by now the drones would have the building surrounded. And they couldn't tunnel underground.…

Or could they?

“Follow me!” Felix cried, heading to a door, which led to a staircase. Just as he suspected, there were stairs going down as well as up. Descending them two steps at a time, the pair reached the basement and the entrance to a storage space. This is where piles of scrap lay waiting: exercise chairs, executive think-pods, memory tanks, data-tubes, janitorial probes, and other ancient devices, all of them slated at some point for recycling. Looking past this junk that just years before had been state of the art, Felix searched for a distinctive marker.

“Why are we here?” Carolyn asked.

“Ages ago there were these underground tunnels. They had these metal tracks that cars would run on and carry people to different points in the city. One line ran the length of Road 11, with stations at this intersection and where the depot now stands.”

“That's just an urban legend.”

“No, they really existed. And the authorities never filled them in because they thought they might be needed in a crisis. The entrance would be marked with an ‘S.'”

“There's an ‘S' over there,” she announced, motioning to her left.

“That's it!” he yelled. “What did I tell you?”

In a distant corner of that overcrowded space, beyond a stack of cortical implants, was a large “S” painted in fluorescent yellow. It was covered in dust and badly worn, but was visible still. Below it was a metal door.

Of course, it was locked. Felix was going to force it open, but Carolyn motioned to a box beside it. Blowing off a layer of dust, she uncovered a label on its plastic cover: “Break in the event of an emergency.”

“This is an emergency,” she mused, rapping the plastic with her knuckles. A moment later she extracted a key, which she inserted into a lock on the door. She manoeuvred it gingerly — the lock's pins were rusted — but a click rang out and the lock gave way.

They opened the door and stepped onto a stairwell that was set inside a vertical concrete shell. Glancing down, they guessed it was thirty metres high and, at its bottom, passed into the roof of a tunnel — the subway tunnel, or so Felix assumed. Before he could get a good look at the structure, he heard the E.D.'s vibrating in the distance. He closed the door — and cut their lighting off.

They descended the stairs, their footsteps echoing up and down its concrete hollows. The structure was old, slippery in places and, most alarming, jiggled at every step. They were glad when they reached its bottom without the metal collapsing.

“What now?” Carolyn asked. “It's pitch black in here.…”

Even as she spoke a fluorescent light came alive – it had been activated by their movements, no doubt. It triggered a series of other lights, ones that stretched off in both directions and illuminated the tunnel and its rusted tracks. They also disclosed a band of shadows that vanished swiftly into the tunnel's cracks, indignant that their privacy was under assault.

“Are those rats?” Carolyn asked.

“I think they are. I guess the Vermin Sentries don't patrol this far. Come on.”

Felix set off down the tunnel, following an arrow that pointed to “Union Station.” The going wasn't easy. There was a walkway to one side, but it was crumbled in places and required them to stick to the tracks. The problem here was that the wooden ties had rotted and provided them with little purchase for their feet. At the same time water was leaking in — there was the sound of dripping all about them — and some of it had gathered in substantial puddles. Thank goodness the third rail had no power running through it: Felix had listened closely and could hear no hum.

It was easier to walk single file. Felix was in front of Carolyn and listening idly to their footfall.

“Everyone's dead,” she said.

“I know.”

“Including my father.”

“I'm very sorry. I know how you feel.”

“That's the problem. I don't feel anything. It was just like this when my mother died. I was eight at the time and couldn't stop crying. That was when I underwent ERR. Maybe he was right.”

“Who was right?”

“The president, when he had his ERR reversed. He was right to die in a natural state. Although I don't understand his remark about God. His last words were … delirious.”

“Maybe that's the point.”

She might have added more, but the tunnel broadened and they passed into an open space. It was brightly lit and in good condition. The wall's blue tiles were intact, as was its red brick floor and aluminum ceiling. Even its lettering was legible: King Station.

“Union Station's next,” Felix said, pausing to survey the two subway platforms. The place was grimier than it had been two centuries before, but it was easy to imagine the commuters back then waiting impatiently for their train to approach.

“It's well preserved,” Carolyn commented, reading his thoughts.

“Yes. It's what the world will look like a thousand years from now: all dressed up with nowhere to go.”

“Let's keep moving.”

“Good idea.”

They continued walking. By now their feet were virtually sodden. At the same time their soles were aching because the tracks were uneven and pressed into their flesh. Still, they kept at it. Felix was imagining the men who'd constructed this tunnel, the work it had taken to blast through the rock and the expert engineering that had gone into the project. The president was right: when all was said and done humans were amazing. Not just the population that had travelled this subway, but the countless generations before them, the aboriginals who had crossed the Bering Strait, the Europeans who had come centuries later, the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, the Egyptians.… They had all known savagery and superstition, yet all of them without exception had contributed something to the human … drama.

A far-off drone interrupted his thoughts. Glancing back, he could see flashing lights behind them, at a distance of maybe five hundred metres. The E.D.s had discovered the door to the stairwell, descended the steps, and were hot on their trail.

“Let's run for it,” Felix murmured, picking up his pace.

Without answering, Carolyn followed suit. Spying a stretch of unbroken walkway, she leaped onto it and urged Felix to follow.

There was a sound of high-pitched beeping behind them: the E.D.'s' tracking devices had picked up their movements. They were four hundred metres away and closing in quickly.

“Halt!” a mechanical voice announced. “You are in violation of Presidential Order 3214T566 …”

“There's Union Station!” Felix cried, as the tracks curved left and disclosed another well-lit space before them.

There was a blast a couple of metres behind and the tunnel in their vicinity exploded with light. An E.D. had shot at them with its long-distance stunner. The track's curve had removed them from its line of fire, but the drones would soon catch up.

There. Ahead of them stood the start of a staircase, like the one they had descended near the Queen Street station. Carolyn quickly mounted the steps, with Felix following a few steps behind. Again the structure wobbled beneath them.

“We're halfway there,” cried Carolyn a minute later. Felix didn't answer. He was saving all his breath for the climb. He couldn't tell what was worse: his fiery lungs, his burning calves, or the feeling of dizziness as he spiralled upwards.

“Halt!” a voice echoed from below. The E.D.s were at the foot of the staircase. Felix heard a high-pitched whine, a sign they were ascending in pursuit of the pair. Thank goodness for the spiral: it would slow them down.

“I'm there!” Carolyn called, several metres above Felix. “And there's a box with a key! I'm working the door open.…”

“Halt!” a voice thundered from nearby. “You are in violation of Presidential Order 3214T566 …”

“Shut up!” Felix gasped. “You're just a machine!”

But this machine was moving in on him, with others close behind. It was three metres away, two and a half, two.… A whistle sang out as it charged its stunner and … “The door's open!” Carolyn yelled. “Watch it! It's right behind you!”

Felix could sense the E.D.'s presence — his hair was actually standing on end. He wasn't going to make it. He could sense its stun-rod was about to make contact.…

He dropped onto his chest. Jabbing backwards with his leg, he struck the lead drone behind him. The machine was lighter than he had expected and was knocked back several metres. It collided with the second E.D. and created something of a domino effect as each drone crashed into the one behind it.

Taking advantage of this mess, Felix barrelled past the door. When the barrier closed, and the lock re-engaged, he practically sobbed with relief.

His feeling of reprieve lasted all of a second. Mounted to a nearby wall was a screen featuring the president's last speech. The sight reminded them — as if they needed reminding — that they were the very last humans to wander the planet. Despite their exhaustion, they stood and stumbled forward.

Their mission was far from over.

Chapter Thirteen

“T
hermal reactor readings?”

“Normal.”

“Plasmic interphase?”

“Normal.”

“Temporal navigation signals?”

“All are above 1500 megahertz, except the one in delta sector.”

As Carolyn paused to make an adjustment, Felix glanced up from one of three screens before him and gazed outside a viewing port. After reaching the depot, they'd discovered lines of shuttles lying in “dry dock.” By moving cautiously, they'd managed to board one craft before the E.D.s had been able to “scope” them. Carolyn had a Class M license and, crippling the auto-drive, had piloted the craft to their destination. Within two hours of kicking the E.D. in the subway, they'd returned to the space station and the TPM.

“Are you alright?” Carolyn asked.

“Yes, of course,” he answered, his gaze still directed outside. The infinitude of space stared back at him, its immensity so breathtaking, yet inhumanly cold. This void would not have seemed so chilling had he been able to speak to his mother; unfortunately she'd left a tearful message on their Holo-port, explaining that their supplies were depleted and the colony was as good as doomed. This awful message was three months old.

“Continue with the check list,” he insisted, returning to the task in hand.

“Solar compression?”

“Normal.”

“Radiation shields?”

“Engaged.”

“Clavian vectors?”

“Optimal. Wait. Particle plane 2A7 should be altered point zero three degrees.”

“Portal exits?”

“Energy deposits have been placed in two hundred and fifteen temples.”

Not that they'd been able to relax. Their calculations had revealed the sun would reach a maximum output level within six-and-a-half hours of their arrival at the station; a delay would have required them to postpone another three days. Given the possibility of contracting the virus, they'd been forced to meet this very tight deadline.

That left them with the TPM. It was complex and beyond their operational skills. Luckily, upon entering its central chamber, they had spied a flashing Holo-port that had screened a message from General Manes. Besides providing them with detailed instructions — in the unlikely event that they should return and attempt a second temporal projection — he had left a final message for his daughter. This was delivered after he'd held a scanner to his temple and, following the president's example, neutralized his ERR.

“My dearest Carolyn,” he had said, speaking with an effort, “for reasons I never called into question, I have endured the reduction of my emotional range. As a result, while I've always watched your development with joy, I have never been able to say how much you meant to me. It has been expressed through countless gestures, of course, but the feelings were never set into words. Now, in my final moments, I want to state for the record that you, as well as your mother, have always been my sun and moon and stars and oxygen. If I have any regrets, besides the failure of our mission, it is that I can't address these words to you in person. Continue fighting if you're still alive and pretend that I'm with you, cheering you on.”