Underground
underground
Born in Sydney in 1985, Chris Morphew
spent his childhood writing stories about
dinosaurs and time machines. More recently he
has written for the best-selling Zac Power series.
The Phoenix Files is his first series for young adults.
Chris Morphew
underground
The Phoenix Files: Underground
published in 2011 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street
Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.
A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.
Text copyright © 2011 Chris Morphew
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Design copyright © 2011 Hardie Grant Egmont
Design by Sandra Nobes
Typesetting by Ektavo
Printed in Australia by Griffin Press, an Accredited ISO AS/NZS 14001:2004 Environmental Management System printer.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
The paper this book is printed on is certified by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification scheme. Griffin Press holds PEFC chain of custody SGS â PEFC/COC-0594. PEFC promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forests.
To Phil and Meredith Doiner-Harding,
Happy Wedding!
Contents
T
HURSDAY
, J
UNE
25
49
DAYS
âLuke Hunter,' said the woman, horribly calm, arms folded across a dirty lab coat. âAt last. You have no idea how long we've waited for you to arrive.'
I looked up, hardly seeing her, eyes watering from the agony in my legs and the fluorescent lights beating down from the ceiling.
I pushed up from the floor, shaking, staring past her into the underground lair or whatever it was that we'd just crashed into. Sinks. Benches. Surgical equipment. Peter strapped to a rusting bed. Jordan clawing toward him.
Pain surged again from the suppressor in my back, dropping my legs out from under me. I cried out, face smashing into the lino, reigniting the nosebleed that Tank had given me back at the crater.
The woman in the lab coat glanced over her glasses at me, indifferent. She turned to her offsider, the spiky-haired maybe-20-year-old Eurasian guy who was apparently her son. âHim first,' she said, nudging me with her foot. âQuickly.'
She had one of those weirdly proper voices that sounded British but wasn't, like she'd be more at home at a country club than an underground death chamber.
Spiky-Haired Guy nodded and crouched down, grabbing me by the ankles. I tried to kick free, but â
Nothing. No response.
No!
I pleaded silently, panic ratcheting up again even through all the pain.
No, pleaseâ¦
I kicked harder â or tried to, anyway â but Shackleton's suppressor had done its job. My legs were no longer taking orders from my brain.
But I could still
feel
everything.
The woman bent down, clasping cold hands around my wrists.
âHey!
Let go of him!'
shouted Jordan from across the room, dragging herself up against the foot of Peter's bed with her one good arm. Still fighting.
The woman ignored her, locking eyes with Spiky-Haired Guy. âReady? One, two,
three
.'
I screamed, fire coursing through my legs as they hauled me up off the ground.
âJordan, get out! Now!' Peter begged. Like I was irrelevant, except as a distraction.
He was drowned out by Jordan's tortured groan as she slumped back to the floor, levelled by her own suppressor. She lay there gasping, face hidden in a mess of braids.
There was another bed across the room. The two lab coats lugged me toward it, sidestepping around Jordan's shaking body. The ground blurred under me. I coughed, spraying blood.
We were dead.
We might've escaped Calvin by coming down here, but it seemed like all we'd done was swap one set of psychopaths for another.
Pain surged through me again as they hoisted me up onto the bed. âPlease
â¦'
I murmured in the moment before they dropped me. âWhy are you â?'
I hit the mattress and a mouthful of lumpy pillow muffled the rest of my question. A hand pressed me into the bed and I heard a sound like a zipper as one of them pulled a strap down tight across the top of my legs. Two more straps came down over my ankles.
I twisted around, smearing blood across the pillow. Jordan was still on the floor, on her side now, hand out behind her, clawing through her backpack.
Spiky-Haired Guy turned to look at her.
âSTOP!' I shouted with all the energy I had left, dragging his attention back to me. âLet me go! Let â ARGH!'
Another wave of pain from the suppressor, even worse because I couldn't move properly. I gritted my teeth, writhing under the restraints.
âHold him still,' the woman ordered, and I felt Spiky-Haired Guy's weight come down on my back, pinning my arms to my sides. Another strap tightened across my shoulders.
I turned my head just in time to see a huge needle sweep across my field of vision.
âNo-no-no!' I said.
âWait!'
And then she was plunging it into me, digging into the small of my back, magnifying the pain all over again. I bit down on the pillow, screaming into it, almost throwing up, and then â
A slow, creeping numbness. Starting at the needlepoint and spreading out across my skin.
At first, my body couldn't even process what was happening. The pain had been so intense, so complete, that I'd almost forgotten what it was like to feel anything else. But then the numbness reached my legs, trickling downwards, melting the pain away. And for a minute, I stopped fighting and just collapsed into the bed, heart machine-gunning in my chest.
The woman pulled the needle out and Spiky-Haired Guy got off me. The anaesthetic kept creeping, rolling down to the ends of my toes. Panic rose in my throat. Because now my legs were
gone.
No feeling. No movement.
There was another groan from the floor. Jordan had shifted out of view, somewhere near the foot of my bed. Peter was straining against his straps, staring down at her.
Then a clatter of metal and the woman stepped back into my line of sight, armed with a glinting scalpel.
âNo!' I said, struggling against the straps across my body. âPlease â you don't â'
âSoren,' snapped the woman, and a second later her son was pinning me to the bed again.
He smacked me in the head, clumsy and awkward, like a kid. âShut your mouth
â Nngh!'
He jumped off me, swearing viciously.
I caught a glimpse of Jordan rolling away from him, a biro clutched in her left hand.
âFor goodness' sake,' the woman muttered. âDeal with her, would you?'