city of anarchy
chapter nine
Beans knocked on the door to Secret Room Y with a torch in his other hand.
'Enter,' commanded a voice.
Beans entered and took a step back. The three Agents stood before him with extremely forbidding expressions, their features grotesquely illuminated by the light of the torches they held to their faces.
'What?' demanded Agent Avgi.
'Who is that?' asked Agent Yvonne.
'It's Beans,' announced Agent Sofia, shining the light on him. 'Even though analysts are not allowed in Secret Room Y.'
'Er,' said Beans, recovering. 'I bring news!' He brought the torchlight to his chin. 'Grave and terrible news. The back-up generator is fucked. All our systems are officially dead. Permanently,' he added. 'Forever.'
'And there's no chance we can move any of our computers to a new location?' asked Avgi.
Beans shook his head, the shadows shifting across his face. 'The power surge, or whatever it was, fried everything.'
Avgi tensed, and sought a coffee maker to smash. 'Didn't we ever get around to buying a new coffee maker, Agent Sofia?'
'We did not,' Sofia replied.
'Beans,' Avgi said with immense seriousness, and at the same time Beans felt as if he was being evaluated for breakability, 'does this mean that we have no way at all of picking up a signal?'
Beans looked at the Agents. 'What kind of signal?' he asked.
'The intern,' Sofia explained, 'has a tracker in his head.'
'The intern? What's he got to do with--'
Avgi waved the question irritably aside. 'The intern went with them. We don't know why, but at this point it doesn't matter. Assuming he's still alive, he could lead us straight to them. Can we find him?'
'Well,' he said, 'to pick up the signal we'd need to find the frequency. And to find the frequency we'd need a satellite navigation system. Ours is out of use...but...'
'But what?' Avgi prompted impatiently.
'If we could find another way to connect to the navigational satellite...I mean, we still have the software. It's all on disk. All we'd need to do is modify a satellite dish and hook it up to a working computer. I could even do that at home.'
'Then go home and get it set up,' Avgi ordered.
Beans nodded and turned to leave. Then he turned back. 'How was the party, Agent Yvonne?' he asked.
'Eventful,' Yvonne replied. 'Although not quite as eventful as here, I gather.'
'No loitering, Beans,' said Avgi. 'You two can catch up later. We need that signal now.'
The man stepped inside the room. 'I've never seen you before,' he said.
Hermes hesitated. 'Er,' he said. 'I haven't really been here before. That'll be why. I got brought in last minute. Boss said you were a man short.'
'Really?' said the man. 'Who're you standing in for?'
'No idea,' Hermes told him.
'What are you doing in here, then?' the man persisted. 'This room's off limits.'
'I was told to come on and check on her,' Hermes said.
'Who by?'
Hermes gripped the bedrail. 'Boss,' he answered.
The man raised his eyebrows. 'And how exactly did he manage to give you those orders, given that he's been in his box since we got back?'
'He...told me before we left?' tried Hermes.
The man looked doubtful.
'Look,' said Hermes. 'I'm just doing what I was told. You can check it with him yourself as soon as he...gets out of his box.' He attempted to walk calmly past him.
The man barred his way. 'What's your name?' he asked.
'Henry,' said Hermes. 'Yours?'
'Dan,' the man replied. 'I'll be keeping an eye on you, Henry.'
Hermes said nothing and allowed Dan to move out of his way. As Hermes walked away, Dan looked suspiciously into the room. He made a noise that sounded something like a sneer.
'Shouldn't be keeping her, in my opinion,' he said, mostly to himself. 'If she wakes up, she's just gonna be a liability, same as before.'
Without turning, Hermes said, 'He's going to save us all. You shouldn't question him.' And with that he escaped to the stairwell, trembling at his own gall.
The faintest daylight broke through the room's grubby little windows. When Dorz came in again, Holly had managed a doze. 'Is it breakfast time?' she asked blearily.
'Quiet,' Dorz hissed urgently. 'Russ has gone out. I need to show you something.'
Holly opened her eyes fully. 'What?' she murmured.
Dorz was hastily untying her bounds. 'Our side of the story,' he said. 'Russ is scared of showing you, but he's not thinking straight. Too intent on doing things his way.'
Holly got to her feet, watching him with interest.
'Come on,' he said. 'Into the kitchen.'
'My favourite place,' said Holly, allowing herself to be directed there once again.
'Sit down,' Dorz ordered, making his way over to the cupboards. He pulled out an old, small television that Holly had not noticed before and brought it to the edge of the countertop. He then connected up what appeared to be a camcorder.
'Did you ever actually get to go inside the Facility, Holly?' he asked, almost conversationally. 'When you delivered your package, I mean.'
'No,' said Holly. 'I had to give it to some men at the door,' she explained. 'They took it from there.'
'It's an impressive place, inside,' Dorz told her. 'The stuff of science fiction, just like the outside. Me and Russ went in the back way for a little look around. Couldn't for the life of us figure out what any of it was for, though.'
'So you blew it up anyway?' she asked.
Dorz sighed and rose from his tinkering. 'No,' he said shortly, and switched on the TV.
'...Did he see us?'
'Don't think so.'
On the screen was, at first, nothing but fuzzy darkness with the sound of heavy, cautious breathing. Then a corridor came shakily into view, nondescript in a metallic, spaceship sort of way: silver pipes and long, fluorescent lights ran along the curved arch of the ceiling, and the floor underfoot was of metal tiles. As they stepped, their footfalls resounded.
Holly saw Dorz emerge from the left, dressed all in black; evidently Russ was the one holding the camcorder. 'This way,' whispered the onscreen Dorz, gesturing right and following a luminous sign.
They appeared to make their way down identical corridors for some time. Holly glanced at the Dorz present in the room, but his eyes were fixed on the screen. She turned back.
Two automatic doors slid open and suddenly the corridor gave way to a massive, open space. Everything was dazzling and stainless steel. There were numerous balconies and railings and slopes to higher platforms. The predominant feature of the room was a circular platform raised above the rest in the centre, rigged with what looked like a very complicated control panel.
Russ turned the camera to view various indescribable machines, blinking away behind blue-tinted glass that skirted the edge of the room. Dorz had gone off in another direction to clamber up the platform.
'This is insane,' he could be heard to say. 'What the hell is it all for?'
'Not a clue,' Russ muttered, swinging the camcorder round to track him. After a while he said, 'Let's move on.'
Dorz reluctantly dropped back to the ground and jogged after him.
More corridors.
Then: 'Shit, Russ, look at this!'
The camera gaped at the next open space, even bigger and wider than the last. This one looked more like a laboratory. A myriad of tubes and wires ran along the floor like lumpy snakes to its centrepiece, a tank of murky liquid, reinforced with metal bars like a cage. The two of them began to approach the thing, carefully stepping over the root-like cables on the floor. As they got closer, there was a feeling of growing expectation for Holly as she sat in the kitchen and watched.
Holly thought she could make out an almost imperceptible shadow moving about in the tank. Again she glanced at Dorz for some kind of acknowledgement, but his attention remained on the screen's events.
When a siren went off and the laboratory was filled with flashing red light, Holly nearly jumped out of her seat.
The onscreen Dorz looked at Russ. 'They know we're here,' he said, his voice tinged with panic. His head turned as something thumped against the glass wall of the tank, but the camera did not turn to look with him.
'We need to leave,' warned Russ, as if the sirens were not indication enough. The camera dropped to a swinging view of the bejungled floor and the two of them hastened towards the nearest exit.
'Which way?' came Dorz's voice.
Holly did not find out, now offered only frantic noises and snatches of the Facility's metallic environment, although she thought she could make out what sounded like a long, deep, pitiful moan from somewhere nearby. Dorz and Russ eventually scrambled free of the Facility, as evidenced by a change from metal to earth and a shift in acoustics.
It struck Holly that they had been faced with apparently little or no resistance from security during their visit. She opened her mouth to point this out when there was a white flash and a terrifying noise that temporarily broke the camcorder's audio reception and caused a brief burst of static lines to flicker across the screen.
The escapees were thrown forwards and the camcorder was flung from their grasp, rolling to a stop a little further on-- but one of the two was sharp enough to pick it up and turn it to the Facility at the last moment. The angle was skewed, but the huge fireball that erupted from the top of the centre dome and shot straight up into the air was unmistakeable.
'What was that?' said one of them in an unusually high pitch, but the audio was so crackly that it was hard to tell which.
'Run!' screamed the other. 'Run, run, run!'
Then Dorz turned off the TV, cutting the drama short. 'And there you have it,' he said. 'It wasn't us.'
Holly stared at him. She found herself gripping the table. 'Why haven't you shown this to the police?' she asked.
'It wouldn't prove anything to them but the fact that we broke in that night,' Dorz replied. 'We can't risk it. And as a principle, I don't trust the police.'
'Are you out of your mind?' came a voice from the door.
Dorz looked up. 'Russ--' he began.
'You idiot!' Russ advanced towards him. 'You absolute idiot! What the hell do you think you're doing? Are you trying to get us caught? Didn't you listen to a single word I said, or is your skull just too thick to register? I mean, how moronic can you--'
An odd change in expression flashed across Dorz's face, and before Russ could finish his sentence, Dorz had matched his stride and was stood right up to his candle-flame shaped hair. He towered over the shorter man. His knuckles were white and the gun was gripped firmly in his hand, although the gun snout was pointed down.
'Let's get one thing straight,' he said. 'You are not, and you never were, in control of this operation. And I am done with you acting like you are! We're stuck in this situation and you haven't uttered one helpful word since you had the grand idea of kidnapping them in the first place! Now we're doing things my way. Understand? We're taking the only chance we've got to get out of this mess, your mess, and if you have anything else to say that's not going to be constructive, you can go shove it to the police. Now sit down and shut up, or I swear I will make you!'
Holly held her breath. She did not really know what to do with herself. Russ looked irate, but seemed too surprised to respond straight away. Instead he pulled back a chair with a drawn-out scrape and sat down, glaring darkly. 'Well?' he said eventually, through a gritted sneer. 'Now that you've got that off your chest, I suppose you have a fantastic plan?'
'Do this, Beans, do that, Beans, save the day, Beans. Without me, you're nothing!'
The encased computer disks in one hand, Beans shoved the key into its lock and pushed open his door. With a detour to the fridge to stuff his face with some makeshift breakfast, Beans wound his way through the cluttered nest that was his home until he arrived at his laptop. He placed one of the CDs in its tray and let it load.
'To the roof!' he declared. 'Come to Beans, my pretty dish, and we will make you the queen of all dishes!'
'Well, now we have Holly with us,' Dorz said, seating himself, 'we just have to figure out what we're actually going to do with the evidence.'
Russ sulked. His eyes followed Dorz's hand as it placed the gun on the table.
'So is your friend just as willing to co-operate?' Dorz asked Holly, in an attempt to fill the silence.
Holly hesitated. In truth, she wasn't certain: Angus could mess things up if he chose to panic, which he'd been very close to doing back in his chair. With a slight feeling of guilt, she decided, 'I think we should leave him tied up for now. He's probably going to need a little more persuading.
Russ' glaring eyes flickered in her direction and weighed in on the silence as it resumed.
Holly looked back at him. She barely resisted the urge to knock his glowering head against the table. 'I'm here to help you, Russ,' she said, looking as noble as she could. 'I don't know how I can prove that to you, but maybe...maybe I'll start by making some tea. Is that alright with you?'
She went to put the kettle on, thankful to leave the atmosphere around the table, though she felt Russ' eyes burning into her back.
Dorz began murmuring something to his gloomy companion. He was adopting a light, encouraging tone to try and lure Russ out of his dark hole, and it did not seem to be working.
Holly opened the cupboard above her head and sought clean mugs, half an ear still on their conversation. Then her hand fell across something cold and platic--a tube or cylinder of some sort--several of them. She carefully slid one forward to inspect it further: a syringe, full of clear, yellowish liquid.
Her fingers recoiled, her mind racing. If these were what she thought they were, having seen them used on herself not so very long ago, then Dorz and Russ had been extremely careless. She almost had to giggle, they were so evidently incompetent.
She hesitated, her fingers hovering.
'Holly, what are you doing?' Dorz called from the table.
Holly pushed back the syringes, grabbed some mugs and turned casually. 'You're running out of clean ones,' she said.
Dorz grunted. 'Well, seeing as you're being so helpful, you can clean the rest later,' he said, watching her pour the boiled water into the teapot.
Hermes was still looking around. He had been trying to avoid meeting the other men and risking another encounter like before. He knew that Dan would already be raising suspicion about him amongst the ranks.
Since the girl with the crazy hair, Hermes had found little else of interest. He had wandered up to the top floor and found more of the same. He thus began to contemplate the idea of getting out of the building while he still could and possibly reporting his findings to the Agents.
Once again he crept to the stairwell, peered down and cautiously descended while the way was clear. A few times he heard approaching voices and paused, but then they moved off in another direction or into one of the building's many rooms, and before long he had reached the bottom of the stairs and was preparing to sneak across the hallway to the exit.
'Oh no you don't,' Dan called after him. Hermes looked peevishly back at him to see that he was flanked by two of the others. They had obviously been waiting for him.
'I knew it,' Dan declared, smugly. 'I knew it! And now you're in a lot of trouble, Henry.'
'He wakes!'
Everybody turned. One of the men was stood in a doorway urgently flapping his arms. 'The Electric Man wakes!'
The men filed hurriedly into the room. Dan grabbed Hermes by the shoulders and nudged him roughly in their direction. 'Now you will witness something amazing,' he hissed.
They crowded into the room, around what appeared to be a coffee table. On the coffee table was, apparently, the box to which Dan had earlier referred, and Hermes also realised, the plastic one they had been carrying out of the building back at the Sir Tenebrous Tower.
Something inside the box clanked and a large metal dish was pushed out, which two men knelt to catch. Then there was some grumbling and two boilersuited arms appeared, gripping the sides of the box uncertainly. At length, a man rose up and rubbed his head. His blond hair stuck out in strange, static trajectories from his skull. 'Did we do it?' he said.
'Yes,' chorused all present.
'Good.' He squinted around, evidently having some trouble focusing on his surroundings. 'It wasn't pleasant, I know, but we are going to save the world.'
'Boss,' said Dan, pushing Hermes forward. 'We have a problem.'
The three Agents paced the entrance to the Tower like they were engaged in a funereal party game. The rules for two of them, it had been discovered, were to avoid Agent Avgi. 'Come on, come on...' she muttered.
Her phone buzzed. 'Yes?' she said into it.
'I'm done,' came Beans' voice. 'We're all set up and ready to go. The location is 57 Dregg Street.'
'Got it,' said Avgi. The three of them pushed out onto the street, where a convoy of cars was already waiting. The cars were all, of course, the Agents' own personal vehicles.
'We are go!' Avgi shouted into her watch. The Agents did not pause to ponder the grammar of this statement. They climbed into their vehicles and set off, thundering into action.
Dorz slurped his tea. 'Maybe we should give it to someone in the media,' he suggested. 'Get it out in the open. That way, everyone will be watching what the police are doing, so it'll be harder for them to just lock us away.'
Once again, there was an awkward silence.
'Although,' Dorz went on, 'that's probably being a bit optimistic about the police. No one would have the guts to stand up to them anyway. 'Specially with all those reporters disappearing. What d'you think, Russ? Holly?'
'I think you're an idiot,' said Russ. Then he grabbed the gun while Dorz's hands were still around his cup of tea. The three of them rose to their feet at the same time, Dorz knocking the mug over as he set it down and spilling the remnants of his drink. Russ had the gun pointed directly at his head.
'Russ?' Dorz raised his hands in a pacifying gesture.
'You don't know what the hell you're doing!' Russ spat. 'And your idiotic actions are going to get us caught! I don't think you realise the gravity of our situation, Dorz, and I'm not about to let you throw away my life in your foolish trust for this stupid girl! I say we kill 'em and run. It's the only way we can be sure!'
'Russ,' Dorz said, and took a step forward.
Russ held his finger by the trigger. 'You'll thank me for it when we get out of this, Dorz. As long as you don't make me put a bullet in your head first, because I will!'
'Russ...' Dorz stumbled forward and crashed to the ground. Russ stepped back, alarmed. 'What are you doing? Dorz? Get up!'
Dorz did not get up.
Russ glanced with sudden realisation at the spilt tea, and turned the gun on Holly. 'I fucking knew it,' he said.
'Look,' said Holly. 'I just want...'
Russ shook his head and sneered. 'You're dead, you are!' He pulled the trigger. The gunshot rang out and reverberated in the small space of the kitchen and the bullet embedded itself in the wall. Then everything went very quiet.
Holly let go of his arm and staggered back. She blinked slowly.
Russ looked crazed. Then his eyelids started to droop and he tried in vain to pull the needle out of his shoulder.
Holly sighed and watched him unsympathetically. 'I can't leave Eugene to get tortured while you two wring your pants forever over what to do next,' she told him, breaking the silence. 'It's nothing personal, Russ, although you did just try to kill me and I do dislike you quite a bit for that.'
She glanced once more at their prone bodies and then rushed to untie Angus, grabbing the gun and the camcorder on her way.
'What's going on?' Angus demanded. 'What was that noise? Did you kill them?'
'Sedated,' replied Holly. 'So we haven't got long. Sorry I kept you out of this, Angus, but I needed you out of the way.'
Angus got to his feet, looking no less bewildered.
Holly handed him the camcorder, running back to the kitchen and making hasty work of tying them to nearby furniture with the cord.
'Why have you given me this?' Angus said, examining the camcorder.
'It's evidence,' she replied. 'It's going to free Eugene.' She tightened the cord. 'I don't know how long this is going to hold them. We need to go now. You need to make a copy of that video. Make two. Make ten! Just don't lose it, whatever you do!'
'And where are you going?' he asked.
Holly straightened up. 'To the police,' she said. 'When you're done, head straight there. Let's go!'
The two of them darted for the exit and broke out into the emerging daylight. Holly shoved Angus in the right direction, then turned and sprinted the other way.