Merely a Madness (3 page)

Daddy Kozlow is next. A single bullet enters his forehead and punches out the other side, and the big man falls backwards. Dirty water and blood splash Mullen's face. The horror of it pulses through his veins, and his vision blurs. Mullen doesn't even think. He shoves Hannah behind him, closes his eyes, waits for the bullet.

It doesn't come.

Hannah's breath hitches. “No, no, no!” she wails. “What did you do that for?”

Mullen opens his eyes. Arnou has lowered his gun. His expression is unreadable. Mullen has no idea what is going on, but his heart is racing so fast it feels like it might bolt out of his chest. Panic slithers up out of his belly, and infects his brain freezing him in place. He knows he should do something, but his body is too leaden and his brain feels like it's about to shut down.

The Earthling raises his eyebrows at her as if he doesn't understand the question. He asks one of his own instead. “Where are the others?”

“
John.
” Hannah comes out from behind Mullen and shakes her head slowly. She makes the name sound like a plea and a question all at the same time. “
John, please.
There are children.”

“So?”

“
Please
.”

For what seems like forever, Arnou simply stares at her, expressionless. Eventually, he shrugs. “Fine.”

Hannah doesn't say anything, just points behind her into the dark.

Thoughts about Hannah are banging and screaming in Mullen's brain, but even as they surface, he's locking them up tight behind a door in his mind marked
Do Not Ever Fucking Open
, and that door is going to stay
shut
.

Arnou says something to the other Earthlings in a language Mullen doesn't understand, then two of the men –
animals
– slosh past in the direction of the railway platform where the Boy Most Likely To Ask Stupid Questions and the remaining Kozlows are about to find their current nightmare morphing into an even bigger one.

Arnou turns to Mullen and holds out his hand. Mullen looks at it stupidly. The whole thing is too weird, too surreal, and even though Arnou doesn't appear to intend to shoot either of them right now, Mullen's heart is still galloping. He stares at the Earthling's dirt-encrusted fingernails, and the only thought that swims out of the fog of his mind is
I'm not shaking that.

Then he remembers that the man has a gun and clearly has no qualms about using it. Pride can take a back seat, thank you very much.

He's got his hand half way to Arnou when Hannah nudges him and whispers, “He wants your security key.”

Oh.
Mullen hands it over.

“And your passwords,” Arnou says.

Mullen knows he's supposed to say no, but the man has a gun. What other option does he have? He gives Arnou his passwords and codes. It's only after he does that he realises Arnou no longer has any reason to keep them alive.

Fortunately the thought doesn't seem to immediately occur to Arnou because the Earthling just nods and records Mullen's passwords on his own ancient handheld.

He nods again, without looking up, and one of the Earthlings –
oh God, what happened to its nose
– prods Mullen in the arm with his gun.

Hannah's cold hand slips into his, and together they slosh through the water after Arnou. Mullen tries not to think about the rotten-nosed creature with the gun splashing behind them, but finds it impossible to get the image out of his mind. The thing is so disgusting, and it has a
gun
.

His brain is slowly ticking back into gear. He's not dead. Hannah's not dead. But Amadi and Edward Kozlow are. Somewhere in the black and grime of the tunnel, the two of them are floating, lifeless, in a river of grimy water.

The only reason he can think that they are still alive is that John Arnou has taken a shine to Hannah. Everyone likes Hannah. No one likes Mullen. He should be dead.

It soon becomes apparent that people have been living in the tunnels. Sodden bedding and clothing is stacked on crates shoved against the walls, and piles of rubbish nudge at his calves. The inhabitants are missing.

His mind is still trying to slot everything together when they round another curve of tunnel, and the light from the lanterns falls onto another train platform. This one was never aimed at tourists. There are no steps leading up onto the platform, no twee archway doors or replica antique posters.

Everything is covered in mud and the ubiquitous black mould. Mullen hefts himself up onto the platform before reaching down to haul Hannah up.

The spiral stairs taking them to the surface are styled the same as the ones back at the tourist accommodation; but, like the platform, these are dirty and crusted with mould. Mullen doesn't let go of Hannah. They walk up hand-in-hand. He begins running out of breath half way up, and his calves ache, but the troglodyte behind him doesn't falter, so neither does he.

They get to the top and stumble outside. The world stinks of greasy smoke, and Mullen is aware of the sky overhead, huge and terrifying. He shudders, and keeps his eyes steadfastly ahead, refusing to look up.

The straight-ahead view isn't much better. The mud is swarming with Earthlings.
Where did they all come from?

They'd seen locals from the bus, but not like this. It's as if every one of the mud-covered brutes has emerged from their shacks and shanties, or crawled out from under them.

The bus must have driven through the gentrified portion of the makeshift city, because this place looks like a rubbish dump. Some of it is on fire.

The noise is incredible. The locals scream and shout, and bang whatever they are holding together. They jump up and down, twirl about, as if judgement day has come. And over there, three of them are –
oh my God, they can't be. Oh my God, that's just disgusting.

Despite himself, Mullen's eyes flicker upwards, away from the sight and towards the blue of the sky.

But it's no longer blue. It's gone weird. The sky is now a dirty yellow smudge. There are long streaks of red and black that make it seem as if the stars themselves have fallen.

Curls of smoke spiral up all over the horizon. There are fires everywhere, not just in this dump. Any one of them could be the Harbin-Beck mine. He can't get his bearings from that. Instead, he looks for the other landmark he knows: the Valadez space elevator. He searches the horizon, turns slowly in the mud, once, and then again.

The elevator is so big that even these vast palls of smoke couldn't obscure it. But it's gone. He remembers the shuddering and shaking in his dreams on the railway platform. Mullen cannot even begin to comprehend the firepower it would take to destroy the elevator in one night. His last small hope falls away and the emptiness of the truth sets in. This is not just a small, localised uprising or a few criminals hoping to rob the tourists.

The brute with the rotten nose pokes him in the back again. Mullen grips Hannah's hand like it's the last of his sanity. He glances over at her. She has said nothing since he handed over his passwords. Twenty minutes of silence from Hannah is either a miracle or the apocalypse.
Definitely the latter
, Mullen thinks. He's expecting her to be on the verge of tears again, but she's not. She's grinning wide as a shark, and her eyes are shining, taking in the bacchanalian antics all around.

Arnou and his brutes herd them through the mud and the rubble. Earthling children follow, singing and spitting. They look nothing like Martian children. These creatures are lanky, bony. This one's legs are malformed; that one has a dent in his skull like a bite out of an apple. If it weren't for the fact that half of them are naked, he wouldn't be able to tell one gender from another.

No matter what Hannah says, the Earthlings are definitely a different species now. She strides along beside him, ignoring the catcalling, even smiling back at them.

Mullen remembers thinking earlier that she might be insane. Sure,
he
feels like he's going crazy, but that's a natural reaction. This
…
this
euphoria,
the way she's beaming from ear to ear, it's nothing less than completely cracked.

When (
if
) they get back to Mars, he's going to have to … no, who is he kidding? He always knew he was in love with an insane woman. He's going to keep on ignoring it, the same way he always does.

Something about the destruction around them – the rubble, the ruins, the way everything is burning – is nagging at him. It's too much, but his thoughts keep skittering away from him whenever he tries to concentrate on anything other than the feel of Hannah's hand in his own.

They walk for over an hour. By the time they stop, Mullen's feet are soaked through his socks and boots. He's got blisters on both heels where his socks have been rubbing against wet skin.

They have reached an honest-to-God actual building made out of bricks and not sheet metal, cardboard, rubble, or spit. It's big – at least three stories high. There are bars on the windows. A razor-wire fence surrounds it. Two armed Earthlings stand guard at the gate. Guns have been illegal for everyone except mine security for centuries. Mullen wonders where they got them.

They are herded through corridors littered with dead guards. There's blood on the walls, fresh enough that it still glistens. Mullen averts his eyes, stares at nothing more than the floor in front of him. Earthlings open gates for them as they go, until they reach a final set of double-barred gates.

Behind the gates, groups of people huddle together in what appears to be the prison cafeteria, and they all have the same
what the hell just happened?
look on their faces that Mullen knows is plastered on his own.

Rotten-nose pokes him in the back with his gun again. Mullen really wishes he would stop doing that. He shuffles into the cafeteria.

Hannah doesn't follow. Mullen turns to see her smiling at Arnou as if she hadn't seen the man shoot two people in the face not two hours earlier.

'You too,' Arnou says.

'But—'

'It's just for now,' Arnou says. 'You'll be safer. Be patient.'Mullen walks forward and finds a spot where he can slide down against the wall, and shut his eyes hard.

Hannah's saying his name. He opens his eyes. He shakes his head over and over again, like he's a dog shaking after a swim.
Not listening.

He's about to put his fingers in his ears and sing loudly as if he were a child, but fortunately she just gives him a sad look and falls silent.

Mullen takes in two shuddering breaths, and somehow, miraculously, that does the trick. Everything floats away. Every sinking feeling. Every thought. He feels hollow, as if his insides have been scooped away, leaving nothing but empty space. It's not going to take much for him to tear apart completely and disintegrate into the wind blowing through the barred window opposite.

He concentrates on the ceiling. Despite the brick and a recent coat of paint, the damp has come through here too. It is blossoming on the ceiling – a pretty pattern of brown concentric circles against the white, and he thinks it's the loveliest thing he's seen since he's arrived, except Hannah of course. But he's not thinking about Hannah.

Instead, he stares out of the window and watches the smoke curl and swirl against the sky in imitation of the revellers below.

In the morning, his brain is functioning again, even if he wishes it wasn't. Hannah is asleep, slumped next to him, and drooling onto his shoulder. It feels so normal and so natural that he has no idea when she curled up next to him during the night, or when he sank his head onto the top of hers, or when he leaned over and tucked his hand into the curve of her waist under her jacket.

For a fleeting moment, before reality can intrude, he sinks in closer and breathes in the scent of her hair. But it smells like the mud and damp of this place.

His mind wants to take flight again, but he refuses to let it. Mullen untangles himself. Hannah murmurs something, but doesn't wake. Mullen's attention is drawn to the sound that woke him; the Earthling guard has unlocked the gate to let three of the brutes inside. Two hold a large bucket between them. The other follows with a box.

It's only when the box is upended onto one of the cafeteria tables, and spoons and plastic plates topple out, that Mullen realises that the reeking bucket is meant to contain food.

He hasn't eaten in over a day. He knows he is hungry because his stomach hurts. Still, the last thing he feels like doing is eating. Even proper food. And whatever is in the bucket, it isn't proper food.

Eat something,
the sensible part of his brain says.
Who knows when there'll be more? You need your strength.
Somehow, he can't bring himself to care. He stays where he is.

His eyes scan the room, stopping on a group of familiar figures huddled in the far corner: the remaining Kozlows and The Boy Whose Brother Was Shot In The Head.

The Kozlows are asleep. The Boy is awake. His eyes meet Mullen's, and Mullen realises immediately that The Boy knows his brother is dead. It is as much the misery in The Boy's eyes, as it is the way he's huddled up against Mrs Kozlow – as though he were ten years younger and clinging to the only adult he can find. Mullen feels a small, guilty flicker of relief that he doesn't have to be the one to tell them.

Hannah shifts against the wall, puts her head back on his shoulder, and mumbles something in her sleep.

Mullen freezes, and he just can't ignore it any more. He wants to. God, does he want to. He wants to sink back into the soft, marshmellowiness of his mind, into the part of him that's fascinated by damp stains and smoke spirals.

He can't. There's too much behind that door marked
Do Not Ever Fucking Open
. It comes spilling out whether he wants it to or not.

His security key, his passwords and codes. It's not low-level stuff. The Earthlings will be able to use it to unlock almost anything they want in the mines. Almost every security level Harbin-Beck has on Earth can now be bypassed. What a fortunate coincidence that the Earthlings had Mullen on Earth
now
. How fortunate for them that they somehow knew his identity. How fortunate that they knew he had his security key. How very fortunate.

Arnou had put his hand out in the tunnel without saying a word, and Hannah had known immediately what the Earthling had wanted from him. Maybe she'd just guessed, but Mullen knows Hannah. He knows the way her mind works. She should have been the one who thought Arnou wanted to shake hands.

All the politicking and campaigning – mine protests, saving the Valadez elevator (good luck with that), Earthling rights – he'd always known she wanted autonomy for the Earth. They'd had enough arguments about it, but he'd never thought she would be so
stupid
.

There's a tightness in his stomach. It's tied into a knot that may never come undone. His vision is blurry, and his chest hurts. He's shivering with something that feels like fever, but can’t be. He's not sure what he feels. Some of it is anger, some is sorrow. Mostly, it just hurts.

Mullen shifts away from her again, and this time Hannah wakes up. She twists towards him, and begins to smile. It washes away when she sees the look on his face.

“Sweetheart …” she says.

“Am I?”

“
Yes
. God, yes.”

He can't look at her, doesn't want to, but she cups his jaw in her slim fingers and turns his face to look at her. And it's
Hannah
, the same Hannah he's always loved, with her ridiculously green eyes, and the freckles he likes to kiss. The one who …

He can't help it. He has to ask. “Was it just about the codes?”

And then he sees the shock and hurt on her face, and he'd give the Earth, or even Mars, to take the question back. Then he remembers, and the part of him that is angry rises up without asking. “You lied to me. To
me.
”

“I didn't lie. I just didn't tell you,” she says, as if there's a difference. “Arnou said you can stay. Everyone else will get ransomed and sent home, but you'll be allowed to stay.”

“I don't want to stay! Are you insane? Why would we want to stay? This place is
wrong
. The people are
wrong
. Nobody sane would want to stay!”

“
I
want to stay,” she says softly. “I'm
going
to stay.”

He feels like he's been punched in the gut. It had never occurred to him that, whatever happened, they might not do it together.
She
might not want to do it together.

The rage washes out of him. “Hannah, be serious. This place … the dirt, and the filth. By God, the
people
. You won't have any sort of life here among these creatures.”

When she answers, her voice is so soft that he strains to hear. “You don't see them as people.”

They've had so many arguments over the years. He can't believe this is the one it's coming down to. He gestures out of the window. There are still a few of the brutes twirling about and shouting, but now most of them have just passed out in the mud. He doesn't know if it's from exhaustion or whatever local moonshine they've got round here, but these are animals that will drink or dance until they sink into filth. They're not people. Not really.

“Look at them,” he says. “It's kind of hard.”

“No. No, it's not,” she says. “It's not their fault they're like that. It's ours. We left them behind. We've exploited them for so long. They've had no other option, but they do now. Their lives can be better now. Away from Harbin-Beck. Away from the people who make them like this.”

“You mean people like me.”

“You know what I mean,” she says.

“Yes, I do.”

They both fall silent. He doesn't know what to say to change her mind. The sound of the gate clinking open distracts them both.

Arnou stands in the gateway. He beckons to Hannah and she gets to her feet, walks over to him. She stops in the doorway, then turns back.

“You can stay if you want. I do love you.”

And then she is gone. It's the last thing she ever says to him.