Adam Baker: Terminus

Rush of wellbeing. She breathed easy.

She slung the bag over her shoulder.

A protracted roar of gunfire from the hallway. Assault rifles cycling full-auto.

She hurried to the back of the room. She excavated Ekks. She pushed empty boxes aside and pawed through scattered paper.

Her vision suddenly dimmed. White mist descending like a curtain.

‘Oh Christ.’

She held her hand in front of her face. Fingers barely discernable through a cataract haze.

‘No. Not that.’

She held the wall for support and waited for her head to stop spinning.

She turned the flashlight and shone it into her eyes. The glow of the two-hundred lumen LED barely visible, like distant headlamps glimpsed through fog.

‘Anything but that.’

Prolonged machine gun roar. Someone expending a full belt of 5.56mm. Galloway cut down by the SWAT personnel he used to idolise.

She rubbed her eyes. Her vision began to clear.

‘Thank God.’

She blinked. She shook her head.

‘Come on. That’s it.’

She kicked through mounds of garbage. She bent and picked up the bomb. Still intact. Two patties of ammonium nitrate mashed against a small green oxygen cylinder.

She crouched beside Ekks. She lifted his arm and wedged the explosive beneath his hip. She lashed the bomb in place with duct tape, and checked the detonator was pushed firmly into the clay.

Boot steps outside the door. Chief’s voice:

‘Come on out. Let’s get this done.’

Lupe threw herself prone and covered her ears.

Machine gun scream. The crooked panels blocking the doorway blasted to splinters. The room filled with gun smoke and whirling wood chips. High velocity rounds sparking ironwork and embedding in brick.

Sudden silence.

Lupe sat up. Dust sneeze.

She pinched the time pencil with pliers, set the two-minute countdown running. Cupric chloride eating through the striker wire.

‘Say hi from me.’

She ran, grabbed the lip of the conduit and hauled herself inside.

A brilliant beam of a laser sight shafted through thick smoke. The Chief toppled the iron rack and entered the room. He checked aisles, checked corners.

He aimed into the conduit. The laser danced over cracked brickwork. A moment of hesitation, like he wanted to climb into the tunnel and pursue Lupe.

‘That’s right, bitch,’ he shouted. ‘Crawl away. Die with the rats.’

Bingham:

‘We’ve got Ekks, sir.’

‘Then let’s get out of here.’

They lifted Ekks and carried him to the hall. They kicked rubble aside and set him down.

The Chief crouched next to the stretcher.

‘Can you hear me? Doctor Ekks? You’re safe now. We have a helicopter on the roof. We’re going to fly you out of here. We have medical personnel on standby. We’ll flush your blood, begin the transfusion the moment we land. We’ll do everything in our power to save you.’

Chief turned to Bingham and Byrne.

‘Mask up. Let’s get him up top. Transfer him to the litter and get that drip running.’

Byrne pulled on his respirator and tightened the temple straps. He gripped the foot of the backboard, ready to lift.

Bingham unhitched the respirator from her belt and raised it to her face. She paused. ‘Hold on.’

She knelt beside Ekks. She studied the motionless face behind the visor.

‘Something’s not right.’

She pulled back his hood and peeled away the respirator. White, immobile flesh. She lifted an eyelid.

‘He’s dead. Been dead a while.’

‘Bitch,’ spat Chief. He massaged his temples. ‘Utter piece of shit.’ He took the hip flask from his pocket and drained it dry.

Bingham loosened the collar of the NBC suit. She exposed the tracheotomy wound. ‘They tried to keep him alive. Guess it didn’t work.’

‘Total waste of time,’ said Jefferson. ‘The whole trip. We’re done. Let’s go.’

Bingham got to her feet.

‘She said something about a notebook.’

‘Pure bullshit,’ said the Chief. ‘Never existed. Come on. We’re out of here.’

‘What about the body?’

‘He’s no good to me dead.’

Last glance at Ekks. Something beneath the dead man’s arm. Jefferson lifted the arm with the tip of his boot.

‘Oh Christ.’

Patties of explosive lashed to the backboard with duct tape.

Jefferson threw the empty flask aside and dropped to his knees.

He tore at the explosive, tried to rip it free. He pawed the slabs of clay, tried to locate the detonator and twist it from the putty.

‘Motherfu—’

Lupe helped Sicknote climb the platform steps.

Catastrophic blast damage. Smouldering rubble. The palatial elegance of Fenwick Street reduced to a soot-blackened grotto.

‘Sure you don’t want to come with me?’ asked Lupe. ‘I could use the company.’

He shook his head.

‘Think I might head to the roof. Take in the view.’

Lupe pulled an assault rifle from beneath bricks. She checked it over. Broken stock. Cracked grip. She tested the slide. Functional.

She heaved a chunk of rubble aside. Bingham, chest crushed, sightless eyes matted with grit. Lupe shook out Bingham’s shoulder pack. She pocketed a spare rifle magazine. She blew dust from the generator fuse.

‘Let’s crank up the power.’

They headed for the plant room.

Sicknote stood in the doorway. He leaned against the frame. He coughed and fought back vomit.

‘Getting bad, huh?’ said Lupe.

‘Yeah. How about you?’

‘Pretty rough.’

She squatted beside the generator. She screwed the fuse back in place. She wrenched the starter cable and set the machine running.

She put an arm round Sicknote’s shoulders and helped him cross the hall.

Her foot hit something hollow, something metal. A crushed hip flask.

The Chief lay beneath a girder. A barely recognisable mess of offal and NBC fabric.

‘Fucker.’

Sicknote pointed to the street level stairwell.

‘Over there. Something moved.’

Lupe climbed over bricks.

Twisted limbs knotted with metallic tumours.

Galloway.

A blackened hand clenched at the sound of her approach. Weak, spastic movements.

She kicked bricks aside. Cloke’s head split open by a bullet. Spilled brain tissue. Black eyes turned towards Lupe. Weak hiss.

‘What does it take to kill you bastards?’

She picked up a heavy lump of concrete. She raised the jagged block over her head.

‘Cloke, if you’re still in there, I’m sorry. This is the best I can do.’

She dropped the rock and pulped the creature’s head.

She turned away.

Sicknote was slumped against the ticket hall wall.

‘Hear that?’ he said. ‘Infected. Out in the alley. The gate is fucked. They’ll be heading down here in a minute or two. Don’t drag it out. Get going.’

Lupe helped him to the freight elevator. He leaned against the back wall.

They looked down at Donahue.

‘What a waste.’

Lupe shone her flashlight upwards through the splintered roof of the elevator. The shaft. Sheer, concrete walls. Cable and counterweights.

‘Sure you want to do this?’

‘Yeah, why not?’ He took the notebook from his pocket. He gave it to Lupe. ‘Get this to someone who can make sense of it.’

She tucked the notebook in her coat pocket.

‘Are you going to be okay up there?’

Sicknote held up a cyanide capsule.

‘I’ll be all right.’

Lupe stepped out of the elevator and pulled the gate closed. Rust-shriek. Slam.

‘Take it easy, brother.’

‘See you around.’

Lupe pressed Up. The elevator began its ascent. Rattle and grind. A last smile from Sicknote as he rode out of view.