Legion Lost (24 page)

Malcolm
Stryker’s map is as precise and accurate as the man himself, and it doesn’t
take me long to fathom his instructions. I navigate from the outer buildings
into deeper realms, through secluded passageways where yellow bulbs glow to
replace the lack of natural light. The corridors are tight and full of shadows
as I walk deeper into the mountain, leaving the sounds of nature behind as
Malcolm’s quarters draw nearer. The door he has marked on the map is made of
thick metal that’s painted black. I give it a tentative push.

Unlocked,
just as he promised. For a bedchamber, it seems to me that Malcolm’s bed is the
lowest priority in the room. It is flung into one far corner of the dark space,
with greater precedence given to the various tables full of maps and schematics
that litter the rest of the area. The whole space smacks of war, from the spare
weapon parts stacked on chairs to the extra ammunition boxed almost ceiling
high on the left-hand wall. When Malcolm lays his head down at night, I think
that his dreams must be as brutal as his reality.

The
grand bureau that he spoke of is practically antique. Its polished wooden
surface stands out from the rest of the ragtag furniture, but its lower desk is
covered with papers and information like everything else in the room. As I
approach the tall structure, my eyes catch on some handwritten notes atop the
pile. The page bears Malcolm’s rough script, with the word
Reaver
written
several times over. I recognise the word, but it takes me a minute to place it.
It’s from Lucrece’s diary. Reaver was the name of her father’s medical project,
the one that the System overtook and put to an evil purpose. My hand travels to
my back pocket instantly, where I feel the outline of the tiny diary, still
safely tucked away.

There’s
no time to explore Malcolm’s notes further. I reach for the bureau’s top
drawer. My shaking fingers slide the panel open, a lump forming in my throat as
I peer inside the cavity. The silver-tipped pistol is the one I’d expected, the
same one that Malcolm had used to frighten me the first time we met. Pushing
the fearful memory away, I lift the gun out of the velvet-lined drawer, feeling
its considerable weight in my hands. All I know about guns is what I learned
from Lucrece on our assessment day at the Legion, so I hope that Malcolm’s
pistol is as ready-to-shoot as he claims.

With
the powerful gun in hand, I slip back out of Malcolm’s room and into the
cupboard beside it. Here, I can already hear the whirring of the ventilation
system, and I locate a large, silver machine that matches the look of the pipes
up on the mountainside. Someone has left four small screws lined up on top of the
machine, and I soon see that they belong to a wall panel that’s been removed. A
faint backdraft of cool air surrounds my face as I crouch down beside the
opening in the shaft.

“Governor,”
echoes a voice down the pipe. “Such a pleasure to have you in my neck of the
woods once again.”

I
can hear Malcolm. Even from this great depth, I realise that the ventilation
pipe must act like a sort of amplifier for the conversations above. If anyone
is speaking in Malcolm’s so-called fish tank, a listener could easily hear
their discussion from within this tiny room.

“Mr
Stryker, you’re curiously cordial today. Should I be concerned?”

The
voice is high-pitched and dripping with sarcastic malice. I’ve only heard her
speak once before, on the Legion’s introductory video, but every cruel and
calculated inflection of this speaker is burned into my memory. I grip the
pistol tighter, Prudell’s voice echoing in my ears as I begin my journey
through the pipework.

“I’m
in a good mood,” Malcolm answers, with his usual mocking joviality. “It’s not
every day that I get hold of something valuable to you, Governor.”

It
must be hot up on the mountainside today, because the air all around me is
biting cold. It stiffens my limbs as I scramble up the first gradual gradient
of the shaft. The dark passageway is almost as narrow as the earthen shaft I
used to exit the Underground, back on the day when all this chaos began. If I
had known then that it would take only a fortnight to turn me from a
mild-mannered teenager into a rebel assassin, would I have chosen to go to
prison with my family instead? I grit my teeth as I climb on. There’s no point
worrying about past choices now. The gun in my hand is my here and now, and its
bullet is my future.

“You
know exactly how I feel about Commander Briggs, Mr Stryker,” Prudell hisses.
“I’m more interested in what it is that
you
want this time.”

The
vent winds upwards in a zig-zag shape, and there are lumps in the pipework
where rocks from the mountain have shifted and pressed into its casing. I use
these lumps like hand holds as the pipework gets steeper, willing my way to the
surface. It is dark and enclosed like my old home used to be, but my time above
the surface has given me a longing to see the light at the end of this tunnel.
Even a shred of sunlight will let me know that I’m nearing the top.

“I
want to know about the Reaver Project,” Malcolm says from above me. His voice
is getting louder, and there’s a new layer of seriousness to his tone. “Are the
Reavers on the moors the only ones you have, or are there more of them down
south?”

My
frozen limbs are growing weaker, but Prudell’s spiteful laughter spurs me on up
the climb.

“Why
should you be bothered about my Reavers?” she asks with an icy giggle. “They’re
just my automated dustbin men, for hoovering up the corpses when my soldiers
murder yours.”

She
speaks of murder like it is a casual thing, as though the lives she has taken
are little more than numbers on a chart.

“There’s
more to it than that,” Malcolm insists. “Tell me, how many Reavers are there?”

“At
least one to carry away the corpse of every filthy rebel on this mountain,”
Prudell returns with a hiss. “You may have the upper hand as I sit here today,
Mr Stryker, but we both know how your puny forces would fare on a level playing
field.”

I’ve
reached the steepest part of the vent, where a final vertical climb will see me
reach the roof of Malcolm’s glass office. Sunlight glints above my head at
last, prompting me on up the toughest part of the journey. Malcolm and Prudell
are so loud and clear now that I feel as though I’m too close for comfort. I
make the final part of the ascent as silently as I can, the pistol still
clasped in my frozen right hand.

“Take
me to see Briggs and the medic woman you’re holding,” Prudell demands.

“Not
yet,” Malcolm replies. “There’s more I want to know. Tell me about Valkyrie.”

I
lie flat in the uppermost part of the pipe, sliding forward inch by inch, until
I can peer down into the space below me. At the table, Prudell’s perfectly
coiffured hair shines likes a golden halo. I can’t see her face, but her
fingernails are pristinely painted with black varnish, and her sharp suit
barely has a speck of dust upon it. Malcolm is weathered and savage by
comparison to the Governor. I can see his scarred fingers twitching as he
awaits Prudell’s answer. He’s waiting for me too. He’s stalling Prudell with
the mention of Valkyrie to give me time to fire.

“It’s
just a prison for Undergrounders,” Prudell answers. I watch her slim shoulders
give a little shrug. “Briggs has been so successful in raiding the Underground
lately that we had to build a new facility to house the cattle, as it were.”

Despite
the freezing cold air around me, Malcolm’s gun feels warm in my grip. Using
both hands to keep myself steady, I slowly bring the silver tip of the pistol
into line with the grid below me. The barrel nestles perfectly against one of
the gaps, pointing down in a direct line towards the crown of the governor’s
golden head. There’s no way she could survive a shot like this.

“You’ve
been very productive with regard to the Underground lately,” Malcolm observes.
“Why is that? New detection equipment perhaps, or some poor creature you’ve
tortured to reveal information?”

Prudell
merely nods.

“You
know me, I’m all about the three Ts. Technology, torture, and tyranny,” she
boasts. “In the last few years, we’ve only been able to nab a couple of surface
scroungers every few months, but now I’ve collected over a thousand
Undergrounders in just eight weeks. It was easy. We flushed them out like rats.
They had so much faith that the earth would keep them safe. They had no idea
what was coming to them. So foolish. So trusting.”

Just
as Prudell is foolish and trusting right now, I suppose. Just as she has no
idea that a girl from the Underground could end her life with one simple
squeeze of the trigger. But fear has gripped me now, in this crucial moment
when I wish it wouldn’t. My furious heart wrestles against the sick, quaking
feeling that’s overcome me, a thousand questions racing through my head. Can I
really do this? Can I become a killer right now? Can I stand the sight of
Prudell’s exploded cranium, and know that it was me who brought such carnage to
this beautiful mountainside today?

I
think of Mrs Ghosh with her gun, and how unlikely it had seemed that she would pull
that trigger on Bhadrak. If he is dead by her hand, then does it make me any
better a person to murder that assassin’s superior? I know how it felt when
Malcolm pointed this very gun at my throat, how I feared that all the possibilities
of my future were about to be wiped out. Now, the same terrifying man would
allow me to take Prudell’s future away. Frozen by my inner conflict, all I can
do for a moment is listen.

“Except
that the last tunnel’s occupants were forewarned,” Malcolm says below. “I hear
you lost a lot of soldiers when that branch of the Underground fought back?”

Cold,
salty tears form beneath my eyes as I wrestle with the conscience buried deep
inside me.

“I
had a suspicion that the sector had been tipped off,” Prudell explains. “That’s
why I had Briggs send some of the Legion children in first. No sense wasting
proper soldiers if there’s going to be a bloodbath, is there?”

The
night of mourning raids my memory now. The visions of Reece and countless
others haunt me, those faces that no longer exist because of Prudell’s
heartless decision.

“So
you knew?” Malcolm presses. “You knew that the Legion’s children would die
there?”

“Oh,
Malcolm,” Prudell soothes mockingly. “Those children are degenerates. They turn
themselves in at the Legion for the prospect of a clean slate, but it isn’t a
real future. None of them make it to twenty. My strategy ensures that.”

The
red, blinding rage is back, setting fire to my heart with a flame that burns
stronger than ever. The Legion is only a holding pen, using its children for
military gain, until Prudell chooses a date for them to die. The pistol in my
hands would take away the governor’s future. It is a future in which thousands
more innocent people will die if I let her live. In the greater balance of
things, ending the life of this truly evil soul would be a burden that I think
I could live with. Closing one eye, I follow the gun’s line of sight, staring
down at Prudell’s golden hair.

My
hearts gives a leap as I pull hard on the trigger.

I
close my eyes after the shot, expecting a backlash from the gun’s force, but
nothing happens. There is only the click of an empty bullet chamber.

“What
a peculiar noise,” Prudell muses. Thankfully, she does not look up into the
vent.

I
fumble with the pistol, pressing at it until I can get the chamber where the
bullet should be to open. Empty. It must have been removed before I ever
reached it in Malcolm’s bureau. The Highlander can’t have been responsible for
this—someone must have learned of our deal and put a stop to it before it even
began. A deep, regretful sigh comes from the office below, and I hear the
scraping of a chair.

“I’ll
take you to the captives now,” Malcolm concedes, his disappointment audible.

“Lovely,”
Prudell mocks. “Although, I do
so
enjoy our little chats.”

Once
the pair have left the fish tank, I slide back down the cold pipework. The
descent down into the mountain is far speedier than the climb was, and all the
way down I feel the plummeting sensation deep in my stomach. I cling to the
empty gun, guilt running in my veins that makes me feel cold and shivery
despite the sweat now coating my skin. It’s not just the guilt of letting Malcolm
down that plagues me. There is also the realisation that, had the pistol been
loaded, I would be a murderer right now. Despite condemning Prudell for her
casual attitude toward killing, I would have stooped to her level to put an end
to her tyrannical reign.

I
slide feetfirst out of the ventilation shaft, landing on the hot, solid floor
of the dark little cupboard. I throw the pistol aside to rub my frozen, aching
hands, and it clatters for a moment before it hits something with a soft thud.
Blinking the tears from my eyes, I can see that the pistol has connected with
someone’s shoe.

“I
can’t believe you tried to do it,” Stirling says.

He
is holding a single, shining bullet in his palm. I use the air conditioning
unit to drag my aching body upright, ashamed of myself as I see the look of
disappointment in his eyes.