Adam Baker - Terminus

She gripped the twisted fender. She pulled herself over the hood and shone her flashlight into the buckled cab.

A bus driver. He was still lashed in position by his safety belt. Eyeless and mummified, like he died at the wheel and sat parked in the street for weeks before the bomb brought an office building down on his head.

She looked past the driver. She peered into the dark interior of the bus. Silt and shadow. Rows of empty seats. The roof had crumpled and bowed.

She trained her flashlight down the centre aisle and focused the beam on rubble beyond the rear window. Tumbled masonry seemed to form a crooked tunnel, a tight passageway that snaked into darkness.

‘I think I’ve found a way through.’

The IRT supervisor’s office.

Nariko towelled her hair with a bandana. She had a foil blanket draped round her shoulders.

‘This crevice. This worm hole. It is passable?’ asked Cloke.

‘Yeah. Pretty gnarly. A narrow sump. Doesn’t look too stable, but I reckon we could make it to the other side.’

‘A three-man team?’

‘Ideally.’

‘What about survivors, Captain?’ asked Tombes. ‘We have three diving suits and a limited supply of oxygen. How do we bring them back?’

‘We’ll find a way,’ said Nariko.

Cloke shook his head.

‘We’re here to retrieve research. Papers, disks, hard drives. That’s the priority. We scour the site, harvest whatever information we find, then leave. That kid we heard on the radio? Offer whatever help you can. But, ultimately, our job is to locate and rescue Ekks. We need him alive, long enough to tell us what he knows. Anyone else is a secondary concern.’

‘We’re a rescue squad,’ said Tombes. ‘We save lives. That’s what we do.’

‘We didn’t come here to save one life,’ said Cloke. ‘We came to save thousands. That’s the bottom line.’

‘Maybe I’m old school,’ said Tombes. ‘But there are people on the other side of that rock pile and they need help. Count me in.’

‘Damn right,’ said Nariko. ‘We help anyone we can.’

Cloke picked the Geiger counter from the table. Steady background crackle. He slowly swung the handset to point at Nariko’s chest. He switched the counter to silent so she wouldn’t have to hear Geiger clicks rise to a sputtering hiss, like frying bacon. He watched LCD digits. Escalation blur as the handset approached a hot source.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘I’ll be okay for the next few hours, right? Long enough to complete the mission?’

‘At your current level of exposure, you’ll get sick, but you’ll probably recover.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I wouldn’t lie to you.’

Donahue stood with Wade and Lupe at the foot of the entrance stairwell. She cradled the shotgun.

‘What time is it?’ asked Wade.

Donahue checked her watch.

‘Ten.’

‘In the morning?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Can’t tell day from night down here,’ said Lupe. She cocked her head and listened to the torrential roar. She held out her arm. ‘See? Goosebumps. Beautiful. I spent so long in segregation, cold is a luxury. Locked up all day. One hour of exercise on an indoor basketball court. They kept the heat way up. Reckoned it would keep the inmates placid or some shit. Make them dozy. Fuck Ridgeway. Soon as we get off this island, I’m heading north. Alaska. Canada. Some place with snow.’

Donahue looked up the stairwell to the street entrance. The Coke machine shook and rocked.

‘We should keep watch,’ she said. ‘If those bastards get down here, into the ticket hall, we’re in real trouble.’

Lupe shook out a Marlboro. She lit and passed it around. Donahue took a drag.

‘Fire department, huh?’ said Wade.

‘Yeah,’ said Donahue.

‘Running into the flames. You and your buddies.’

‘We’ve been down a few hallways.’

‘Bet you’ve seen some gnarly shit.’

Donahue took another drag on the cigarette. She coughed.

Lupe held up the matchbook. Juggs XXX Bar. She gestured to Galloway. He sat on the bench, dabbed his broken nose with tissue.

‘Classy son of a bitch.’

She blew rings.

‘You better keep a close watch on that guy,’ said Donahue. ‘Seriously. Better not turn your back. You broke his nose, took his gun, took his smokes. You folks all but cut off his dick. He won’t forget. Somewhere along the line, he’ll want payback.’

The lights flickered. They looked up at the fluted glass dome above their heads.

‘How long will the generator keep running?’ asked Lupe.

‘A gallon of gas gives us four hours’ light. A couple of refills should give us power for the duration.’

Donahue gestured towards Sicknote.

‘What’s the deal with that guy? Can we trust him?’

Sicknote crouched barefoot on the tiled floor, scratching patterns with a nugget of concrete. Fierce concentration.

Lupe shook her head.

‘Batshit crazy. He doesn’t belong in jail. He belongs in an asylum. Category J. In an honest world, if the prison system actually gave a shit, he’d be making macaroni art in the TV room of a sanatorium somewhere, drooling on psych meds. Look at him. Look at his eyes. Skull full of madness. Someone should shoot the poor bastard as a mercy.’

‘Maybe we should tie him up.’

‘Seems pretty placid right now. I’ll keep watch. We can lash him to a pillar if he starts to weird out.’

‘What was he doing at Bellevue?’

‘Ekks kept him in his Special Management Unit. Had him dosed on Haldol, Largactil, all kinds of shit. See that pink thing behind his right ear? Beneath his hair? An implant. It’s supposed to zap his brain each time he goes manic.’

‘Does it work?’

‘No.’

Lupe took a last drag on the cigarette and flicked it into shadows. The dying butt glowed like a hot coal.

Sicknote pricked blood from his thumb with a sliver of glass. He squeezed droplets, and smeared them across floor tiles. Broad strokes. He painted swirling astral bodies. He sat back once in a while, contemplated his work and composed his next addition. Orbital rings, moons and comet tails. And behind it all, the outline of a massive sun, a flaming aurora at the centre of the planetary alignment.

‘So what the hell is that supposed to be?’ asked Galloway.

‘The chasm between stars.’

‘The stars?’

Sicknote glanced around, made sure no one could overhear. He leaned close to Galloway like he was imparting a secret.

‘Did you know that atoms are basically an electrical charge? They aren’t made of anything. They are nothing. The basic building block of the universe, the primal substance, is Nothing.’ He pointed at blank tiles. ‘See? There are things, and there are spaces between things. That’s what I’m painting. The Howling Absence. The Terminal Truth. It speaks through me.’

Galloway shifted along the bench. ‘I’m not your nursemaid, all right? I’m not listening to your garbage all damn night.’

Sicknote pointed to the darkness of the platform stairwell.

‘There’s something in the tunnels. Can’t you feel it?’

‘Prowlers? The passageways are flooded. Nothing alive down there.’

‘No. There’s something else. Something blacker than black, colder than cold.’

‘Like what?’

‘This virus is smart. Probably shouldn’t call it a virus at all. People only use the term because it makes them feel better. Kid themselves they are up against a dumb germ, something they can beat with a pill. Those poor shambling folk out in the street? You think they’re the final stage? Think that’s the sum of its ambition? It wants more. A lot more. It’s going to tear down this world and build something new.’