Adam Baker: Terminus

‘Give me a drink, at least.’

Nariko crouched beside Lupe. She held bottled water to her lips. Lupe swigged.

‘So how about it?’ asked Nariko, gesturing to the cavernous shadows of the ticket hall. ‘Where is he? Where’s Doctor Ekks?’

Radio crackle. Cloke’s voice:

‘Anything?’

A light-dome on the ceiling flickered and glowed weak orange. A cluster of sodium bulbs behind an opaque bowl of leaded glass.

‘Yeah,’ said Nariko. ‘We’ve got light.’

She looked around the ticket hall. Palatial dereliction. Cracked tiles. Scuffed dirt. Broken glass. Arch spans draped with a delicate lacework of dust and webs. Ghosts of the jazz age. Plutocrats at the height of their reign. Astors, Morgans, Vanderbilts.

The superintendent’s office.

Nariko shook open a five borough street map and smoothed it over the table.

She blew to warm her hands. Steam breath. She was wearing her Nomex turnout coat, black with hi-viz trim, collar raised against the cold.

‘So where the hell is Ekks?’ asked Nariko. ‘He should be right here. We made brief contact just before the bomb dropped. There wasn’t time to organise an airlift. So we told them to stay below ground, get as deep as they could. Ride out the blast and wait for the rescue party.’

‘Doesn’t make sense,’ agreed Cloke. ‘There’s no way off the island.’

‘How about the Battery Tunnel?’ asked Nariko.

‘Battery. Holland. Almost certainly ruptured and flooded.’

‘The Marina?’

‘Forget it. Anyone with a yacht or sports fisher took off months ago. Packed a couple of suitcases and sailed south, soon as the outbreak began. Must have looked like a big-ass regatta, all those rich fucks heading for the Bahamas.’

‘What are their chances at street level?’ asked Nariko.

‘Nil,’ said Cloke. ‘Ekks and his team weren’t radiologists, but any fool would know time above ground without an NBC suit would be fatal. The streets are dusted with fallout. Strontium, caesium, all kinds of nasty shit. A steady ash-fall, settling on the rubble. If anyone walked north up 5th or Broadway towards the epicentre of the blast, they would be dead in minutes.

Ekks and his boys would know, instinctively, their only shot at survival would be to stay below ground, conserve food and water, and hope Mayday calls summoned a rescue party.

He should be right here. He’s got nowhere else to go.’

Lupe sat chained to the ticket hall pillar.

Galloway sprawled on the bench. He took a state correctional baseball cap from his pocket, flapped it open and set it on his head.

‘Wearing your old uniform. Aim to show me who’s boss, is that it?’

He didn’t reply. He took a soft pack of Marlboros from his pocket. He broke the seal, tore foil and shook out a smoke.

Lupe craned and examined the brand burned into the wooden stock of the Remington twelve–gauge.

‘Sing Sing. Yeah. I figured you were up river. Gun tower, or did you work the galleries?’

Galloway ignored her. He took a matchbook from his breast pocket and scratched a flame.

‘Like your moustache. Got that gay porn star thing going on.’

No response. He brushed ash from his uniform. Grey polyester. Pin holes for collar brass and a name badge. His stars and stripes shoulder patch was a fleck of brilliant primary colour among the shadows and dust of the ticket hall.

He wore a thick leather belt. Loops for chemical spray, radio and latex gloves. An empty holster that looked like it used to sheath a .38 revolver. A baton ring. A cuff pouch. Keys hung from a clip.

His boots were polished to a high gleam. He had rolled the short sleeves of his shirt to emphasise his biceps.

‘Bet you’re a big hit in the leather clubs. I can picture you, standing at the bar in your boots and chest harness, scoping the crowd. Picture it real easy.’

‘Bitch, you got a big mouth.’

Galloway stood. He kicked her in the side. He aimed for a low rib. Lupe grunted and twisted in pain.

‘You live with your mother, don’t you?’ said Lupe. ‘Shitty, train-rattle apartment somewhere. Bet you’ve still got a box of G.I. Joes under the bed. Bet you line them up and have little battles when no one else is around.’

Galloway shook a fresh cigarette from the pack. He lit it, and tossed the burning match in Lupe’s lap. She slapped out the flame with cuffed hands.

‘Don’t think you’ve quite grasped the new reality,’ he said. ‘No laws. Think about it. No Miranda, no recourse to appeal. Just you and me. Shit, I’m not even sure why we keep your tweaker ass alive. You’re a liability. A waste of food. Better off without you. Start the world over. Burn it clean. Let decent folk run the place for a change. You better hope no one puts it to a vote. Plenty of guys back at Ridgeway happy to pull the trigger. They’d draw lots for the privilege.’

Nariko emerged from the office. She sat on the bench beside Galloway.

She thumbed through the dossier. A thick bundle of mismatched documents pinned by brass brads. A picture of Ekks on the inside cover. A smudged scan of his driver’s license. An older guy. Fifties, sixties. Lean, silver hair. His face reduced to a pixel blur. Slavic bone structure. Thin lips. Eyes masked by shadow and printer grain.

She closed the dossier and threw it on the bench beside her.

‘Hey. Galloway. Give me your cuffs.’

‘What?’

‘The spare set on your belt.’

‘Why?’

‘For the gate.’

Nariko held out her hand.

Galloway reluctantly popped a belt pouch and slapped steel cuffs in her palm.

‘I got to talk to Lupe,’ said Nariko. ‘Give us five, all right?’

Galloway stared her down. Nariko met his gaze.

‘Yeah,’ said Lupe. ‘Let the grown-ups talk.’

The guard reluctantly stubbed his smoke, crossed the ticket hall and crouched by a distant wall. He sipped bottled water.

‘Maybe we better take it easy on the guy,’ said Lupe. ‘A correctional officer with nobody to correct. He’s got nothing and no one.’

She picked Galloway’s crushed cigarette from the floor. She examined the stub to see if it could be relit and smoked.

‘Where’s Ekks?’ asked Nariko.

‘Guess he took a walk.’

Nariko retuned her Motorola, checked for signal and held it up. The radio emitted a faint tocking sound, regular and metallic.

‘Hear that? That’s a live transmission. It’s coming from somewhere nearby, right now. Their comms equipment isn’t broadcasting a voice any more, but it’s still emitting a weak VHF signal on maritime one-two-one. It’s like someone is sat at the microphone with their finger on Transmit. The radio is down here, somewhere. It’s still active, still powered up, still singing in the dark.’

‘Who gives a shit?’ said Lupe. ‘Complete waste of time. Listen: Ekks might have been some big-shot brain surgeon, back in the day. He might have had his own parking space, set of golf clubs in the trunk, but I know a stone-cold psychopath when I see one. The look in his eye. I was down here for weeks. Me and three cons from Bellevue. We were guinea pigs. A tissue farm. Don’t let anyone tell you different. He dissected one guy. Kept his brain in a jar. I was next on the list. I’d be dead by now if I hadn’t escaped. Ekks was a sadist. He wasn’t engaged in research. He was torturing the shit out of people because there was no one left alive to stop him, because actions no longer had consequences. End of the world, see. A serial killer’s paradise. Cure? The guy was bullshitting you. Trying to stay alive, trying to get rescued. There is no antidote. This expedition is a bad joke.’