Underground (2 page)

‘NO!' roared Peter from across the room. ‘
Don't
touch her!'

Spiky-Haired Guy bent down to grab Jordan, then hesitated as a weird noise started buzzing out from the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling.

The split second was all Jordan needed. With a grunt, she swung herself toward him, smashing a fist into Spiky-Haired Guy's face. He drew back, and Jordan fell to the ground again, wincing at the still-bleeding gash Tank had left in her shoulder half an hour ago.

The woman strode over to help her son, pulling the cap off a metal tube that reminded me of the auto-injector pens my dad carried around for his anaphylaxis.

‘GET AWAY!' Peter's whole bed rattled violently as he raged against his restraints. ‘GET AWAY FROM HER!'

The lights buzzed again, and for a second they dimmed away altogether, throwing us into darkness.

‘I thought you fixed the generator,' said the woman.

‘I
did,
' said Spiky-Haired Guy as the lights brightened again.

He grabbed Jordan's forearms and pinned her on her back. Then he paused, staring down at her, like his brain had short-circuited or something. His thumbs brushed over her skin and I felt a whole different kind of sick.

Jordan jerked up and spat in his face.

‘Foolish girl,' the woman snapped, crouching next to her. ‘Do you think I don't know what they've put in you?'

‘LET HER GO!' Peter screamed, red-faced.

The lights buzzed louder, flickering on and off.

Jordan flailed around madly, but there was no movement below her waist. The woman took aim at Jordan's thigh with the pen thing.

‘Wait!' I shouted. ‘Please, just
wait
a minute!'

Peter roared again, not even words this time.

SMASH!

The lights exploded above our heads, plunging us into complete darkness. Shards of glass rained down on top of me.

‘What was that?' Spiky-Haired Guy shrieked.

I heard a shuffling sound, like someone feeling their way across the floor, then Jordan cried out again.

More rattling from Peter's bed.

‘Jordan!' I yelled.

A muffled groan, then nothing.

‘Sedate the others!' barked the woman's voice. ‘
Now!'

Footsteps darted across the room. There was a clattering sound – one of them running into something – then a tiny
click
. A torch beam flashed to life from somewhere behind me.

The beam swept over my body and I flinched, like it was going to cut me open.

Craning my neck, I saw Spiky-Haired Guy fumbling in the torchlight, ripping the cap off another metal pen.

I felt nothing as he jammed it into my thigh, but a sudden heaviness spread through me – through every part of me that could still feel, anyway – weighing me down into the bed. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to shake it off.

My head slumped back down against the pillow.

And then –

Chapter 2

T
HURSDAY
, J
UNE
25
49
DAYS

I woke up slowly, head pounding, nauseated.

I tried to stretch out my arms. They were still tied down, but –

Hang on.

The lights were back on again. I was sitting up, plastic cable ties pinning my ankles and wrists to a rickety metal chair.

Out of the laboratory. Alone in an empty room.

Although ‘room' was being kind of generous. This place looked more like a cave than anything that had been built on purpose. Only one of the four walls was even vertical. The other three were big, rippling messes of concrete with bits of wood and metal jutting out all over the place – like the room had started melting and then turned solid again.

There was a narrow, rusting door opposite me, in the one wall that was still intact. The door had a window in it – at least, I assumed there used to be glass there – which looked out on another room that seemed to be in no better shape than this one.

It was as though someone had tried to bury this whole place in concrete but done a really dodgy job of it. Or maybe changed their minds and tried to dig it out again.

‘Jordan!' I yelled. ‘JORDAN!'

No response.

‘PETER!' I tried.

Nothing.

My brain was powering up again. Just enough to let the panic back in. I pushed myself up as much as I could, straining against the cable ties. The old chair creaked under me but refused to give way. I heaved forward, wincing as the ties dug in to my arms and my – My legs.

I could feel them again. I could
move
them again.

I dropped back into the seat, mind tracing back through the chaos in the laboratory.

The woman, stooping to stab Jordan full of sedative.

Foolish girl. Do you think I don't know what they've
put in you?

And then it clicked. That was why the Co-operative hadn't been able to track Peter down here.

These people, whoever they were, had found a way to remove his suppressor. Or keep them from tracing it, at least. And now they'd done the same to mine.

But given that I was trapped underground and tied to a chair, I was guessing they weren't too concerned with looking out for
us
. They just didn't want the Cooperative to find
them
.

I went back to fighting the cable ties, twisting my arms against them, trying to snap them off, but all I managed to do was scrape a few layers of skin off my wrists.

I stopped to get my breath back, eyes down at my shoes. My ankles were strapped tight to the legs of the chair, but my feet were almost flat on the ground. If I could get up on my toes, I might be able to get across to one of those bits of shrapnel sticking out of the wall … I craned my neck, looking for something close.

A little way off to my left, I spotted the twisted remains of an old metal sign. Most of it was buried in the concrete, but in the corner I could make out what looked like a company logo: the words VATTEL COMPLEX, stamped next to an all-too-familiar black spiral shape. It was the same spiral that Mike, Cathryn and Tank had tattooed on their arms. The word
Vattel
seemed weirdly familiar too, but I couldn't put my finger on why.

Forget it,
I told myself. Right now, all that mattered was that the corner of that sign looked sharp enough to cut me free. If I could get to it. Probably sharp enough to slice my arm open too, if I didn't aim it right.

I settled back into the chair, psyching myself up. I rocked slowly back and forth, knowing I only had one chance to get on my feet. Push too far forward and I'd go right over with no way to break my fall.

You can do it,
I told myself.
You can do it.

Actually, you know what? Maybe you can't.

But you have no other plan, so get on with it.

I took a breath, clutching the arms of the chair, and threw myself forward.

The two back legs lifted off the ground. I rolled onto the balls of my feet. Staggered, finding my balance – Then lost it again and lurched forward, toppling in slow motion, slamming my knees against the concrete floor. The ground smashed into my nose as the chair fell, dragging me down onto my side. I lay there, tears streaming.

And it was only then that I saw the ancient-looking security camera gazing down at me from the corner of the ceiling.

I don't know how long I was lying there like that.

But it was long enough for the blood to clot up and block my nose. Long enough for me to realise there was no way I was ever getting up without help. Long enough to think that pneumonia was a definite possibility if I spent much longer on this freezing concrete.

Eventually, though, I heard footsteps in the room outside. Then the door clunked open.

It was Spiky-Haired Guy, out of his lab coat now, dragging another chair in behind him.

He crouched behind me and I flinched.

‘Calm down,' he said, hauling my chair upright. I grunted as the cable ties tore at my skin, and again as the four legs thudded back to the concrete.

Spiky-Haired Guy brought his chair over and sat down opposite me. He was dressed in a hoodie and jeans that were too new to have come from down here. Mike and his friends must have stolen them for him. Handy to have a few secret slaves to go shopping for you.

He leant forward, closer than necessary. Close enough for me to feel his breath on my face. For the first time, I noticed how unnaturally pale his skin was.

Guess they don't get a whole lot of sun down here.

I waited for him to back off, but he just hovered there in front of me, examining me, like I was some fascinating exhibit in a museum.

My fingers tightened around the arms of my chair.

‘Why are you doing this to us?'

He jumped back, like he'd forgotten I could talk, then quickly recovered himself. ‘You know why.'

Which was so ridiculously far from true that my brain couldn't even generate a response.

‘I'm Soren,' he said, stretching out a hand. It hung there for a second as he stared down at my bound arms. Then he shoved it back into the pocket of his hoodie and sat back, waiting for me to respond. Like he didn't already know exactly who I was.

His eyes twitched, flashing up at the camera. There was something weird about the way he moved. It was all quick, jerking motions. Like a caged animal. Which, if he really had been down here since before Phoenix was built, might not be too far from the truth.

He gave me a few more seconds, then spoke again. ‘All right, Luke –'

‘Can I have some water?' I asked, suddenly aware of how dry my throat was.

‘No,' said Soren automatically. But then his eyes flickered again, like he wasn't sure that was the right answer. ‘Okay. Okay, yes. But one glass. That's all.' He got up and left the room, pulling the door shut.

I closed my eyes, trying to get my head together.
He's just a person,
I thought.

These were the ‘overseers' that Mike, Cathryn and Tank had been following all this time? The way they'd been talking, it was like they thought there was something – I don't know –
supernatural
about them.

I waited, listening for Soren's return. But then I heard something else.

A muffled voice, coming from somewhere nearby.

‘JORDAN!' I shouted. ‘JOR–!'

‘Hey,
shut up!'
snapped Soren, reappearing behind the smashed window. He pushed the door open and returned to his seat, clutching a very murky glass of water.

I leant forward and he held the glass to my lips, tipping it toward me. It was gritty and tasted like metal, and he poured it down my throat way too fast. I coughed half of it back up again, splashing water down the front of my shirt.

‘Okay,' said Soren, putting the empty glass down on the floor. ‘Okay, now you're going to talk. I would like to know
exactly
what his plan is.'

His voice had the same too-proper edge as his mother's. But there was something else too. A kind of stiltedness, as though he'd learnt all the theory about how this ‘conversation' stuff was supposed to work, but hadn't actually tried it out until now. Which, again, possibly wasn't all that much of a stretch.

Soren folded his arms.

I looked back at him, head still throbbing like something was about to burst out of it. ‘Whose plan? Shackleton's?'

Soren's right hand blurred out and smacked me in the side of the head.

‘
Peter's
plan,' he spat, looking like two people for a second as my eyes struggled back into focus. ‘This weapon of yours. You're going to tell me where he's keeping it, and why you and your girlfriend –'

‘What? No, Tabitha is
Shackleton's
weapon! And we're trying to stop him, not – Hey, no-no-no, wait!' I shrank back as Soren brought his hand around again. ‘Just
wait,
okay? Listen to me.'

Soren paused mid-swing, considering. He lowered his arm.

‘Look,' I said, still bracing myself, ‘I know Cathryn told you guys that we were behind all this, but she's
wrong,
okay? That DVD she saw us watching – it was a test video that Shackleton
–'

‘Do you really believe that's why we brought you here?' said Soren. ‘Do you think we've only just now worked you three out?'

I shivered, the water he'd spilled down my front freezing cold against my skin.

No,
I realised. No, this went back way further than that.

On our way into this place, Jordan and I had stumbled onto a scene straight out of a serial killer movie: a whole wall crammed full of photos and articles and print-outs and maps, dating back almost two decades. All of it somehow connected to Jordan, Peter and me – a giant timeline of our lives.

Long before we knew Phoenix existed, before the town had even been built, Soren and his mum had been watching us.

‘He will turn on you,' Soren breathed, leaning forward again. ‘He does not deserve your loyalty.'