Chapter Twenty-Seven

Moonwater

The passage was dark and narrow. Steel beams leaned across them in triangles, pointed up towards the city. Agloff tucked his shoulders in to pass them, while Thawn shuffled sideways, ducking to half his height. A blink of light welcomed them from the far end and Agloff asked why they could not use torches. Thawn said surprise was their only defence.

Agloff talked to himself. He counted off the numbers from chained signs that hung above them, as Lore had instructed.

‘4.7.7.12,’ he muttered. ‘4.7.7.13, 4.7.7.14.’ The others did the same, indistinct. The heavy air carried with it patterned mutters of their routes.

They reached 16 and Thawn had them stop. Agloff knew the tunnel forked left here, linked from the pipeline up to lowest level of the rail system by a single staircase. A coolness blasted down through a meshed gate and Thawn held it open. When they reached the top, Agloff saw that the path curved. Pairs of railway tracks extended in both directions, as they had through the flatlands. He saw now why they counted their steps. Every jerk in the route, each left, then right, appeared to fold them back on themselves, into seemingly identical tubular passages. None was distinct but for a shear in the line here, or a crack in the brickwork there.

He wondered if this place was built for the new colony the man from the billboard had created, or if they were the remnants of a more ancient city. How many civilisations had called this place their own? Winter was but the last, he supposed.

They reached the summit of another stairway and Agloff saw a ladder line the wall up to a manhole cover. The ground tremored momentarily, and they heard the chatter of an engine roll above them.

‘Stay close,’ Thawn said. ‘We’re surface-level.’

Memphis scoffed. ‘You expect us to wander off?’

‘Are you expecting Winter patrols?’ Oxford asked.

‘Not exactly. They rely on no one being able to find their way out, and aren’t used to people coming in. These tunnels are full of decoys.’ He pointed behind them and Agloff saw this tunnel had been bricked up halfway down his eyeline. Then he pointed to a door adjacent. Agloff pulled it back. The frame had just been drilled onto the bricks.

They pushed on, and Agloff pulled his knife from its sheath. The blade folded like a lip, engraved with writing he did not recognise. Thawn had passed one to each of them. He supposed he would have to use his soon. It was strange, to possess the means to kill another, and the conviction to do so. But he didn’t feel like a murderer.

After more wayward turns, the tunnel flattened and sloped down a wide staircase towards a stone wall that blocked the way ahead. An archway had been dug from underneath it. Arched windows were smashed in and whatever lay on was glazed in shadow.

‘We’re under the Cathedral now,’ Thawn announced. ‘Dead in the middle of the city.’ A grim silence surrounded them. He turned to Memphis and Merry. ‘Are you sure you know where you’ll be going?’

‘Yes,’ Memphis said. ‘It’s just the way we came.’

‘Things don’t look the same in both directions.’

‘I know the way,’ Lady proclaimed. She straightened her cap and spread her shoulders as if to assert herself. Thawn only cocked his head.

‘She’s a savant for this kind of stuff. Trust,’ Memphis said. ‘She memorised every star system from here to the Partizan for fun. We know what we’re doing.’ The girl grinned, flashed her knife across her fingers and stuffed it into her pocket.

Thawn looked down at Lady and Agloff thought he might have smiled. ‘Well, aren’t you a surprise.’

‘How do you know where we’re going?’ Agloff said. There was a hint of distrust in his voice and Thawn sighed.

‘Because I’ve done it before.’

Agloff stepped up from the slope. ‘You came to Eden? When?’

‘Three hundred years ago, to kill Jask. Clearly, I failed.’

‘Why?’

‘Wait,’ Oxford said, and Agloff saw thoughts turn through his mind. ‘Way back at Block Seventeen, when we found the maps, Ariea said Wilder disappeared off ‘em three hundred years ago.’ He moved closer to Thawn. ‘You know Jask. Jask knows you. All this time he’s waited for Agloff using Wilder as bait. Then you show up at Eden and, at the exact same time, Wilder disappears off all the maps. Why is that?’ He spoke softly, smiled.

Thawn’s helmet glanced in Agloff’s direction. ‘We should keep going.’

They obeyed and Oxford scoffed, slipping down the stairs to the stone archway. Was it coincidence, Agloff thought? Or had Thawn to do with why Jask wanted him? Thawn had said he loved Jask. Perhaps Agloff was only a way to Thawn. They were father and son, of course, if in blood only. But that didn’t explain Eron’s illness, he thought.

They funnelled through the archway and into a low room, composed of bricks like boulders. Uneven walls strained towards the surface under its weight and Agloff saw more windows with the glass smashed in. Thawn flashed a torch on his helmet. This place looked vaguely familiar. He saw rows of benches pattern towards low steps ahead, split by a wide aisle.

It was another church, he realised. Like Lore Wenderson’s. But this was far older. More than centuries, perhaps millennia. Agloff wondered if this place was once the surface and Winter’s new Eden had been built over it.

‘It’s like Lore’s,’ Merry said.

‘There was a convent here, thousands of years ago. A religious community of a few dozen. The Red Cathedral was built over it, centuries later. It was the centre of the Eden Colony.’

Thawn led them up. Where the altar should have been, a metal wall had been installed at the top of the pews, with a narrow door in the middle. It was unmarked, untouched even. The door stared at him and Agloff felt uncomfortable. Like they already knew he was here. Thawn raised a hand for them to halt, knocked a fist against the door. When no reply came, he hauled it open, warping the metal in his fingertips.

‘I don’t like how quiet everything is,’ Merry said.

‘Be grateful it is,’ replied Thawn. ‘I doubt even the pilgrims know this entrance exists.’

‘Why?’

‘Were Jask ever to fall victim to a coup, which, for a man of our age is not beyond possibility, it would help to have a way out they didn’t know about.’

Merry could think of no reply, but her unease looked no less satisfied.

They passed through and the room shimmered in a silvery glow. Tens of cylindrical tanks punctured down from the ceiling, encircling the church altar. Each bubbled and hummed. The liquid within looked viscous, almost solid. Whatever it was, it shone dully, like moonlight. It was a glow one might be forgiven for not spotting in anything but darkness. Agloff then turned to a wide vat bubbling in the corner, domed in glass. From it, a web of matted pipes spilled across the floor, feeding each tank from below where they were suspended just above the ground. The tanks then pumped upwards through the ceiling to the Cathedral itself.

‘What is this stuff?’ Oxford said, at once entranced and repulsed.

Thawn’s head dipped. ‘Moonwater.’

‘And what is moonwater?’

The stranger reached a hand to a tank, spread his fingers in its light. ‘It’s a preservative, for entire organisms. Whole colonies of mine and Jask’s order would ship out in this stuff, in stasis for years. To war, or a new world.’

‘Your order?’

‘Winter,’ he said, and Oxford flinched. ‘But from another time, from an ancient race. I am not the thing Jask created, I assure you.’ Thawn thought deeply. ‘He and I are of a race called the Sign of the Tondrus. Much like humanity, but we lived thousands of years ago. Winter was a church like any other. Like the people who came to this place. A military church founded on peace and order. When it fell, so long ago, he took that name and defiled it. He is not worthy of the name he wields over these people like a hammer.’

‘Military and peace don’t go together,’ Memphis quipped.

‘Your idealism is founded on ignorance. We were at war.’

‘So, these tanks are like the pods in the Underground?’ Agloff said quickly to diffuse the tension.

‘Yes. But cruder, less elegant. It forces you to stay alive, at all costs. You put someone in that, on point of death, it will keep you alive forever, just enough to stop you from dying. It feeds you, hydrates you. But you can’t move, or sleep, or speak.’

‘You mean you feel it?’ Merry stepped back, horror-stricken.

‘Every second. It is a living hell. Imagine being able to do nothing but think. Pure thought, without stimulation. Seconds feel like hours, hours like years and the years don’t ever end. You lose yourself.’

Agloff felt sick. He saw where this train of thought headed. ‘Is that what Jask is using to keep my brother alive?’

Thawn gave stiff nod. ‘If he is still alive, yes.’

Agloff wanted to surrender himself. How he had failed Eron, for this was a fate worse than death. How easily might they have traded places. How could Agloff ever complain about anything when the other half of himself was trapped in his own head, without a voice? What life had he? Agloff’s whines and dreams made him now feel like a spoilt child.

‘How do you know about this? You been inside it? You clearly lived a long time.’ Oxford snapped at Thawn.

‘No, but I have… experience with it. Enough to know no one deserves it.’

‘Jask does,’ Oxford said.

‘No.’

The back of the church pushed into a corridor. The bubbling of moonwater punctuated their steps, with more tanks lining their path. Then they gave way to oily grates, bordering a stone passage. The floor wheezed and hissed in puffs of steam and Agloff thought he could have been back at the Underground.

They reached a door marked “Lower Basement”. The stranger then pushed it open into the Red Cathedral.

Its basest floor was partitioned by a corridor that ran all the way to a staircase at its end, potted with brown doors, offices perhaps. Everything was an offish white, as if it were once sterile but standards had long since fallen. Stains potted tiled floors and walls. Trolley beds were wheeled and stacked down to one side and smothered in unwashed sheets. At last, they had lights, but they blinkered with an unsettling thrum. A sign on the wall served to guide them:

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

LOWER BASEMENT: Level 6

1: Observation

2: Wards 1-4

3: Intensive Operations

4: IT Ward 1

5: IT Ward 2

6: SP Laboratories 1-4

For other departments, see Upper Levels

‘SP?’ Agloff said.

‘Surgery and… paediatrics?’ mused Oxford.

‘No, Special Projects.’ Thawn pointed to a dust-veiled sign that swung above them, chained from one of the light fastenings.

Merry reached out a hand to a trolley and it gave under her weight, rasped down the corridor. ‘It’s quiet,’ she said then. ‘Whatever they were working on here, they stopped a long time ago. They gave up?’

‘Or found what they needed.’

Agloff’s heart beat through every sinew of his body. The emptiness didn’t settle him. Thawn led them, slow and careful. The doorway at the end of the corridor was a black oblong the way down. Agloff tried to focus on it, its outline blinking in and out of existence in the tremor of the lights. His eyes squirmed and he felt patterns smear his vision. Each of the brown doors they passed, Thawn gestured them against the wall, then kicked it in with a thud. Each burst from its hinges. Most were offices, licked clean, hollowed of any hint of what was being worked on here. There were no staff, or patients even.

What were they doing here?

The walls banged under the flow of moonwater above and below them. Agloff’s ears followed the sound, aching up through the building.

Then, a shout. Footsteps trilled ahead. Thawn motioned them behind a trolley, then to the knives he had given each of them. Agloff saw nothing. No one. His breath trapped in his throat. He clutched the blade in front of him, stared at it.

They know we’re coming. They know we’re here.

He poked his head up. A shadow glanced into one of the offices. The light within projected them onto the wall of the corridor. Then, another! Their shapes met at distorted angles. Voices exchanged between them.

Lady stood at once and cantered, dispossessed of her inhibitions.

‘It’s okay!’ she said.

The girl skipped down the corridor. Merry tried to scream but her throat caught. Thawn pushed Memphis to his knees, then followed her.

‘Girl!’ he whispered. ‘Dammit girl, get back here.’

His leaden footsteps followed at great strides.

‘Girl!’

Lady was undeterred. Agloff watched the shadows dance on the walls in strange movements. Lady chased their voices into silence. The shadows became still. The outline of Lady stopped in the arrow of light cut out from the doorway and vanished inside. Thawn’s gait turned to a run and the others sprinted afterwards.

No sooner had they started, they came to a deathly silence, and convened around the doorway. Uneven breaths filled the air.

Lady was knelt beside two girls, one of Agloff’s age or so, dressed in some kind of uniform, the other perhaps a fraction younger. The younger one was burrowed in layers of blankets as the elder sat beside her, a plate of bread and cheese between them.

‘I said it was okay!’ Lady exclaimed. ‘This place was all empty so if anyone was down her, it weren’t gon’ta be Winter people.’

Thawn scoffed. ‘Prescience indeed.’

Merry lowered to Lady, snapped the girl’s arms to her side. ‘Don’t do that again.’

‘But I was right!’ the girl protested.

Merry could only laugh limply. She stood, and their attention turned to the two girls. They retreated a fraction. It was then Agloff realised where they were. This room wasn’t an office like the others. Rows of high shelves stretched into darkness on all sides, each labelled and stacked with something. It was an archive or sorts, like the library at Backwater.

‘Who are you?’ Thawn said at the girls. He prodded his gun in their direction. They were unmoved.

The elder spoke. ‘I’m Minette, that’s Pela. Yourselves?’

‘How did you end up in here?’ Thawn pressed, ignoring them.

‘Pela got ill after she were taken I.T... I just help her out. Brings food.’

‘And what happens at I.T?’

Pela leaned forward. She was thin of face, paler than dawn. ‘I don’t know. They knock us out before. But I woke up like this.’ She leaned forward. Needle marks peppered her forearm, the surrounding skin purpled and swollen.

‘And you came down here.’ Thawn began to pace the room, passing glances to the patrolling shelves that fed into the darkness.

‘No one else does. Seemed safe,’ Minette said. Unlike her friend, she looked well-fed. Clean and healthy. ‘They an’t used here for a long time.’

‘Special Projects mean anything to you, Pela?’

‘It’s just a place to hide.’

‘Minette?’

‘Nossir. I’m just house staff.’

‘House staff?’

It caught Agloff’s attention as well. What little he had seen of Eden so far, he doubted there were many people of great importance here. Important enough to warrant having their every whim waited on anyway. It would serve any dictator to keep prospective backstabbers and successors beyond arm’s length.

Minette swallowed. ‘For Leader Jask,’ she said.

Thawn stepped across her, casting her in darkness. The others watched, paralysed. ‘You serve in Jask’s house staff?’

‘Yessir. I bring him his food.’ She flinched, awaited a strike. She was trained to it.

‘Have you seen a boy up there?’

‘A boy, sir?’

‘A child, looks about him,’ and nodded at Agloff. ‘In a tank of fluid perhaps.’

‘I know nothing about any boy. I bring the Master his food, from the kitchen to his hall. That’s it, sir.’

‘Wouldn’t anyone with access to Jask be under guard at the topmost spire. How did you get down here?’

‘There was… a commotion, sir.’

‘A commotion?’

Minette looked at Pela. ‘Yessir… I really don’t think I should say.’

The lights wavered and Thawn sighed. It was a heavy sigh, and the girl caught its meaning well enough.

‘A girl attacked Him. I don’t know, I never saw her before. But she hurt Him good. Seemed bad. Everyone was shouting, staff, pilgrims, all sorts. I just took my chance and stole a bag of stuff from the kitchens. Came straight here.’

Agloff bounded forwards. ‘Who was she?’ he begged.

‘I said I dunno.’

‘What about Jask? How is he?’

‘I don’t know! I’m just house staff.’ Minette sank into herself and knocked her head against Pela who looked up at them through wide eyes. Agloff’s breath shortened, heart hastened. He felt closer than he ever had to the terminus of his convictions. Ariea was up there, alive! And she had wounded Jask, if not killed him- maybe. Calm, he thought. He forced it upon himself. He could not become giddy, not yet.

‘Do you know anything about this place?’ Thawn said. He strode between two shelves and reached a hand into them. Whatever was within was tied by tubes of some sort. Thawn yanked and a pouch of liquid came free. He considered it.

It was blood.

‘Nossir.’

Thawn moved towards his followers and rolled the pouch through his fingers. Blueish lumps bopped to the surface of the liquid. ‘What does that look like to you?’ he said.

‘That’s…’ Merry started. ‘Are they all?’

‘Winged fever.’

‘What do you know about it?’ Oxford said.

‘Enough. It’s a disease of the blood. Causes rapid clotting and eventually heart and respiratory failure. Toss-up which kills you first.’

A label dangled from the pouch. Agloff pulled it towards him, read aloud:

‘Allhoa, Anya: Administered MC-Strain-34b. Subject exhibited typical left ventricular hypotrophy. Clot formation observed in the wall of the aortic valve. Blood oxygen saturation levels were heavily depleted. Symptomology consistent with previous subjects.’

‘Jask was infecting people with winged fever?’ Merry said, aghast.

Thawn pressed the pouch further, and Agloff saw that it was blackened slightly. ‘Note the discolouration. He’s been treating it with chemicals or some such.’

‘Trying to find a cure for my brother?’ said Agloff.

‘Would seem so.’

‘Why couldn’t he vaccinate him like he does the kids when they come Eden?’ Memphis asked. He shot a glance at Minette and Pela.

‘He had a long time to make one for the rest of the Colony Two. But vaccines are preventative. Eron was already infected, so Jask needed a cure. A transfusion of healthy blood.’

‘Why does he need Agloff then? Wouldn’t any donor do?’

‘You’re forgetting Eron is only half-human.’ Thawn’s head dipped. ‘Jask couldn’t risk trying it in case Eron’s body rejected the blood. He needs something closer. And Agloff is genetically identical.’

The eyes of the room turned on him.

‘Then what’s all this?’ Agloff bounded forward into the rows of shelves. Blood pouches ran as far as his eye could see into the back of the archive. The labels varied in name and reference number. But the semantics were all the same. On the back wall, Agloff saw x-rays stapled over a notice board. In every case, the subject’s bones exhibited growth in their hip, like some poison had taken over.

Thawn joined him. ‘If Jask couldn’t get to either of us to cure Eron, then he had to force a cure from elsewhere. Look.’ He pointed to the outlines of the peculiar growths. ‘He tried to transplant Eron’s bone marrow into human children, grow his healthy blood inside them. Synthesise it. Most of these are dated a long time ago.’ He pulled a file from one side and skimmed through it. ‘He was truly desperate.’

‘I’m guessing it didn’t go well.’

Thawn traced a finger over the board for annotations and scribbles. ‘Looks like the marrow was rejected or turned cancerous. This must be Special Projects; his cure for Eron.’

Agloff stared, felt the line of a tear roll down his cheek. He swallowed.

‘Are you… okay?’

He nodded. ‘Why me? Why Eron in the first place?’

‘I can’t know Jask’s mind, Agloff. But he failed. And isn’t it better this way?’

‘We failed. He’s in that moonwater. I just keep thinking it could be me up there.’

‘But it’s not. For Eron, there would have come a point his brain’s on tick-over. If it’s any consolation, I think he has already passed.’

‘You mean he’s gone mad.’

‘He’s just gone. I was never a father but if there is a part of me that wasn’t this, that loved him, I think he is free of his pain.’

Agloff looked to the side to hide his brokenness. This room was a million pieces of himself, torn from him without consent nor knowledge. It was here perhaps that he saw most clearly. In this place, he walked in Jask’s mind, and he felt his feet may never reach the bottom of his depravity. This was the end of his obsessions. How long Agloff had craved over Eron as Jask did. They were of the same will, and Agloff saw in a moment’s lucidity that he could chase this road no further, for he saw now where it ended.

Eron died a thousand lifetimes ago and Agloff was just inside his grave.

He rolled his lip under his teeth and managed to breathe deep. It shook as his body did, and the world glazed under shining eyes. So close had he felt, he now felt so far away.

But Ariea, he thought.

Always Ariea.

And a distant strength found him again.

Suddenly, their heads turned. A crash came from the direction of the corridor. Agloff heard Pela yelp. They filtered from the archives and into the light of the corridor where Minette had them both stood along the wall. Her hand was wrapped across her friend’s mouth and the food kicked out of sight.

Thawn gestured the rest of them to the other side.

Bodies spilled into the archive, three of them, scattering the light in vague shapes. They were in white coats, badges pinned to their pockets. Doctors or nurses, scientists perhaps. Thawn’s shadow crossed them. They lurched at the sight of the strangers, and concealed handguns jabbed the air.

‘Pela!’ a man yelled.

He ducked Thawn and grabbed the girl by her bruises. She wailed. Minette grabbed him, half-crouched. Her teeth sank into his arm and his howling was lost in the thrum of lights. ‘GET THEM! The alarm!’ He strained to stand and swatted Minette away with a stiff blow.

The others, two women, spread the width of the intruders, then pointed their guns forward. Thawn lanced a knife towards them. It ripped through one of the shelves, tipping it sideways. The doctors dived through a gap, emerged a second later with their guns now outstretched.

Before they could think to pull their triggers, there was a snap of gunfire and they jittered to the ground in blockish motions. Their chests bulged as they fought back death for the sake of a few more seconds. The surviving man wailed, panting in the doorway. At once, Thawn turned to him. None of the others thought to beg his mercy. There was a second snap of gunfire and the enemy fell askew in the doorway.

Minette then stood, cradling Pela’s head against her shoulder, and told her it was alright, that she would not be hurt again. She watched the life drain her torturer through cold, unblinking eyes.

‘You know them?’ Thawn said, collecting the doctors’ weapons.

‘They work upstairs, in Intensive Treatment,’ Minette said. ‘Probably here to take Pela back.’

‘I’m not going back,’ Pela said. Her head shook furiously.

‘It’ll be okay. We can get you out of here, of Eden,’ Merry said. She managed a half-smile. Her familiar effusiveness strained.

Minette met her with a piercing stare. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Aye, they can,’ Thawn said, nodding as he inspected the bodies. ‘How’d you think we got in? Tunnels under the city. They lead right to the outlying farmhouses.’

‘None gets out there except dumb luck,’ Minette said. ‘Those that do never last long.’

‘How do you think they’ll treat you now, house staff?’ said Thawn. ‘You exploited Jask’s injuries for personal gain, and criminal gain at that. You’d be lucky not to wind up in I.T. yourself… Minette.’

‘Worth a try isn’t it?’ Merry insisted. ‘And anything is better than upstairs. We have the way out memorised. You don’t want or deserve to serve Malvo Jask.’

Minette looked down at Pela, and they muttered something to each other, then the elder kissed her friend on the forehead. ‘We will go.’ She sighed. ‘If you got in, we can get out.’

Lady walked up to them and smiled. ‘I can show you the way.’

‘WE NEED TO GO!’ Agloff’s temper snapped, and he shot the room into silence. ‘Ariea is up there and we don’t know what they’re going to do to her if she hurt Jask. They could be getting her ready for… execution!’

‘Jask wouldn’t jeopardise you coming,’ Thawn said.

‘No? Wouldn’t he? There’s no way of us knowing if she is alive or dead, is there? So long as he knows I think there’s a chance… It doesn’t matter what he does to her then, does it, Thawn?’

Thawn stooped a little. Agloff seemed to command him in a way the others could not. ‘You should stay down here,’ he said to Merry and Memphis. ‘Oxford, Agloff and me will go up and send any stragglers down. Take it in turns, rotate through the tunnels in groups. One stays, one goes. If you’re sure about this.’

‘Sure as,’ Memphis said. ‘You give the bastards hell. I’ll take these two.’ He collected two weapons from Thawn and holstered one in the back of his trousers. The other, he passed to Merry. As he led them into the corridor, he paused at Agloff, raised a hand to his shoulder. ‘G’luck. It took me too long to trust you.’

Agloff said nothing.

Lady ran to his feet and her oversized sleeves swarmed his waist. Then she peeled back and looked at Agloff through saucer eyes.

‘See you kid.’ His mind felt too full and too empty to say more. He embraced Merry next and let her arms catch him. He held on for the world. He had not seen them as he should. For too long, they were half-glanced ghosts he thought fate had intersected him with. But now he saw that their paths ran parallel. At the end, he was proud to think them friends. Ariea was right that night at the dock in Wishbone. They would always have come for him, as they now did for her, for the children. He hoped he might repay the favour one day.

‘See you later,’ he said and watched them slip into the corridor, followed by Minette and Pela. Then, Agloff, Oxford and Thawn exchanged looks and Thawn prodded them each once to check the vigour of their guard-shields.

Content, he led them the other direction out the archive, and motioned to the staircase upwards.