Underground (3 page)

I turned my head, twisting away from him.

Soren grabbed the front of my shirt with both hands. ‘Tell me about Tobias.'

Who?

‘I thought we were talking about Peter,' I said.

Soren threw me against the chair, almost knocking me to the floor again. ‘WHERE IS HE?'

‘I don't know!' I said. ‘I don't know, okay? I don't even know who Tobias
is.'

Soren swung his arm wide, cracking me across the face with the back of his hand.

‘Stop!' I shouted. ‘Where is this coming from? Who told you we were –?'

I broke off. Soren's expression had shifted. He was looking at me like I'd just told him something important.

‘You really don't know what he's capable of, do you?' he murmured, only just loud enough for me to hear, and went back to staring at me like I was an inanimate object.

I shifted in my seat. My left leg was cramping up, but I could barely move it without the cable tie ripping further into my ankle.

My eyes drifted to the sign on the wall, and a memory surfaced in my brain. An article Jordan had read out from that fake
Time
magazine, about the original owner of the land Phoenix was built on.

‘Remi Vattel!' I said. ‘The woman out there – your mum – is she –?'

‘How do you know that name?' Soren demanded.

‘It was – we read about her in –' I hesitated.

Soren looked ready to take another swing. ‘Remi Vattel is dead,' he said.

And suddenly he was leaving. He grabbed the back of his chair and dragged it toward the door.

‘Wait!' I said. ‘Jordan and Peter – what have you done with them?'

‘They are fine,' said Soren.

‘But –'

‘
We're
not murderers, Luke.' He walked out, switching the lights off behind him.

F
RIDAY
, J
UNE
26
48
DAYS

For a while – hours, maybe – I sat there in the darkness, jumping at every creaking pipe and distant, echoing footstep. But I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I didn't see the light flashing around in the next room until it was right at my door.

There was a shuffling noise outside, and then a torch came glaring in through the window frame, catching me in the face. I groaned, squinting away from the sudden brightness.

The light disappeared for a second, and I heard the door swing open. A figure dashed toward me, almost invisible. The torch swept the room and I caught a glimpse of her face.

‘Jordan!'

‘Hey,' she whispered, crouching down next to my chair. ‘You ready to get out of here or what?'

Chapter 3

F
RIDAY
, J
UNE
26
48
DAYS

‘Are you all right?' I asked, trying to get a proper look at her. The torch flashed past her arm and I saw red rings around her wrist. ‘How did you get away?'

‘With this,' she said, holding up a tiny blade and getting to work on one of the cable ties. ‘From my pocket knife. I snapped it off and hid it when the lights went out.'

‘Hid it where?
'
I asked, lifting my arm as the first tie snapped free.

‘Under here,' said Jordan. She shone the torch up to her hair and held out a braid.

I stared at her. ‘You're incredible. You know that, right?'

‘You're welcome,' she said, cutting a second tie and moving down to my ankles.

‘Where's Peter?'

‘Don't know. Back at that lab place, maybe? It seemed like that was where they were keeping him.'

‘Yeah,' I said, feeling my right foot spring free. ‘Wherever that is.'

I brought my hands up to my face, testing it with my fingertips. Everything was swollen and stinging.

Jordan cut the last cable tie. She pocketed the blade and pulled me to my feet. ‘C'mon.'

‘Wait,' I said, feeling the ache in my legs. ‘What's our plan here?'

‘Find Peter and get out,' said Jordan impatiently.

‘Then what? We can't go home. Not after yesterday.'

‘We have to!' said Jordan. ‘We've been gone too long already. If my parents freak out about this …' ‘Yeah, but what about Calvin?' I said. Getting gunned down by the Chief of Security wasn't exactly a solution.

‘What about
them?'
said Jordan, throwing a hand out toward the doorway. ‘That Kara woman – she's –' ‘Kara?' I said. ‘The mum?'

‘Yeah. She didn't come to you?'

I shook my head. ‘I got the guy. Soren.'

‘Well, trust me,' said Jordan. ‘We don't want to mess with this woman.'

We don't want to mess with Calvin either
, I thought.

But then Jordan pulled me toward the door again and, as usual, I shoved my survival instinct aside and limped after her.

‘Besides,' said Jordan, ‘at least now we don't have the suppressors to worry about.'

I brushed a hand down over the small of my back and felt a neat row of stitches, confirming my suspicion from before. I was free. Finally free of it.

About time
something
went right for us.

We stepped out into the room I'd seen through the little window. Another half-destroyed cave-like place, twice as big as the one we'd just left. A worn-out leather couch sat against the wall opposite us. Next to it, a couple of safety helmets hung from a rusty pipe stabbing out from the concrete.

A hallway stretched out on either side of us. Nothing but darkness in both directions.

‘This way,' whispered Jordan, shifting off to our right.

‘How do you know?'

‘I don't. But I came from the other way and it's even more destroyed back there.'

We kept moving, Jordan shining the torch in front of us, lighting up more of the same misshapen concrete and debris. In a few places, a metal beam or a bit of pipe stretched clear across the corridor, lodged into the walls on both sides.

There were gaps in the walls too, with more rooms behind them, but most of the doors were half-buried in concrete. It was hard to tell whether this was an actual hallway we were walking down, or just a tunnel that had been cleared through all the rubble.

‘Have you ever seen
The Wizard of Oz?'
Jordan whispered.

‘Huh?' I said, almost tripping on a lump of concrete bulging up from the floor. ‘What, you think we should try clicking our heels together?'

‘Georgia's obsessed with it,' said Jordan. ‘There's this one scene that cracks her up every time. You know at the end, where Toto pulls back the curtain and they find out that the “Great and Powerful Oz” is really just some old guy pulling a bunch of levers? Georgia thinks it's the funniest thing in the world.'

‘Uh-huh,' I said. She probably had a point, but I was too busy watching the path ahead to get what it was.

Jordan gave me a look, like I was being difficult. ‘Somehow I don't think this is quite what Mike and the others have in mind when they picture their “overseers”.'

She froze. There was light up ahead. A dim, flickering glow, shining out from behind a door to our right. One of the few that still looked openable. Jordan switched off her torch and crept forward.

As we got closer, I could hear noises coming from inside the room. Bubbling water and a low, steady humming sound. Why were they so familiar?

Jordan paused at the door, listening. Then she reached out and pushed it open. I tensed, ready to run.

‘Huh,' said Jordan. ‘Anyone hungry?'

It was a pantry. At least, it was now. The room looked like it used to be another lab or something, but now all the shelves and benches were piled up with food. Mike and his friends had definitely been keeping busy.

Off to the side was the source of the light and the noise: rows of vegetables, suspended in plastic troughs filled with cloudy white liquid. Harsh lights beat down on them from above.

A hydroponics bay. Like a scaled-down version of the massive one that secretly provided Phoenix with all its fresh food.

‘This room isn't as messed up as the others,' Jordan said, moving through the shadows. ‘Whatever happened to this place, I think it happened back the way we came.'

‘We should keep going,' I said.

‘Hang on.' She scanned the wall ahead of her, then pulled a chocolate bar from one of the shelves. ‘You want one?'

‘Are you serious? Jordan, we need to –' I stopped in the doorway, watching her rip off the wrapper. Realising how hungry I was. ‘Actually – yes.'

Jordan chucked over a Mars bar, stuffed a couple more into her back pocket, and followed me out the door. She flicked the torch back on and we continued up the hallway, wolfing down the chocolate as we went.

After a few metres, the concrete tunnel straightened out into a proper hallway. The walls were still cracked and crumbling, but they were properly vertical now, and there was no more random junk poking out of them.

It looked like Jordan was right. The further we walked, the more intact everything seemed to be, which hopefully meant we were getting closer to the place where we'd come in.

‘Do you think it's just them down here?' I whispered through a mouthful of chocolate. ‘Just the two of them?'

She shrugged. ‘I think there
used
to be more. I mean, all these labs and stuff – It must have been, like, a research centre or something, right?'

‘I guess so,' I said. ‘So where did everybody go?'

Jordan shone the torch around, as though she was expecting the answer to be written up on the wall some-where. She turned to say something but then, suddenly, we were at the end of the hallway. There was another door in front of us, already open, leading into a little room with a row of sleeping computers along the wall. I tapped one of the keyboards and the screen flashed on. Camera footage of the place I'd just escaped from. The rest of the room was piled high with boxes, all taped up and numbered. And off to the left, through another open door –

‘Peter!' Jordan hissed.

Right where we'd left him, still stuck to the bed, still unconscious. Extra straps buckled over his arms and forehead.

We raced inside. There was a light stretching over the bed. I switched it on.

‘Peter!' said Jordan again, shaking him. ‘Peter, time to go!'

‘Wha– ?' he murmured. ‘No, don't – don't –' His eyes sprung open. ‘
Jordan!'

‘Shh!' she warned.

‘Sorry.' Peter blinked hard. ‘The entrance – There's a panel on the wall in the next room. I don't know what you press to get out, but –'

‘Right,' said Jordan, already on her way.

‘Check the cameras first!' I said, undoing the strap across Peter's forehead. ‘Make sure security isn't still up there.'

She ran back into the next room, where Kara and Soren had hooked into the Co-operative's security feeds.

‘Thanks,' said Peter, twisting around to watch Jordan as I freed his head.

‘No worries.'

‘I mean, I realise we're probably all still dead, but …'

‘Yeah.' I pulled back the strap from his chest. ‘Things haven't exactly improved while you've been down here.'

‘Calvin just walked into the security centre,' said Jordan, poking her head through the door. ‘No guards at the entrance either. I think we're okay.' She disappeared again.

‘Get my hands,' said Peter urgently.

‘Right.' I pried the strap off his right arm, then moved down to free his legs, leaving Peter to take care of the other arm himself. I leant across to look through the door, trying to see where Jordan – A harsh, electronic blare came rushing in from the hallway. An alarm.

Guess that means Jordan got the entrance open.

‘Hey!' said Peter urgently. ‘C'mon!'

I got back to work. Peter's other arm was loose by now. He sat up and we got stuck into the last two buckles on his legs.

More noise. Voices and running feet.

‘Ah, crap,' Peter muttered, glancing across at an unopened door behind us. One more pull and his left leg was undone.

Jordan came tearing into the room. ‘Need help?'

‘No. Go!' I said. ‘Got it covered!'

‘But –'

‘GO!' Peter shouted.

She turned back and sprinted for the stairs.

I saw Peter struggling with the last strap and reached out to help him. ‘No, I got it,' he said, shoving me away. He gave the buckle another jerk, and it finally came loose enough for him to –

Bang!

The door behind us flew open and Kara and Soren came rushing into the room, barefoot, dressed in matching pyjamas.

‘Stop!' Kara boomed.

‘No thanks,' said Peter, shuffling across the bed.

Soren leapt at me.

I ducked under his arms and ran for the surveillance room. Glancing back, I saw Kara reeling away as Peter threw a punch at her. He twisted around and sprung away from the bed.