Coldbrook (Hammer)(21)

Vic braced himself on the ladder, and as he caught his breath he consulted the Palm Pilot. The best way past the barrier was around, not through it. As he plucked items from his tool belt, his satphone started chiming. He plucked it from his pocket and glanced at the screen: Jonah. He turned it off and set to work.

It took three minutes to create the necessary opening in the duct wall and start on the still-hot damper mechanism, and another two minutes to dismount the mechanism itself. Vic twisted and slid it out of sight on top of the damper, then squeezed through the gap. It was a tight fit. His tool belt caught and caused him a moment of panic, but then he was through. Two more to get past, and fifty feet of climbing in between. He hoped to be out of Coldbrook and into the cool night air within fifteen minutes.

He slid the mechanism back into place to block the opening, a fresh surge of guilt making him feel queasy again. And as he climbed, Coldbrook pulled at him, with its terrible gravity and the implications of what they had done there. He resisted, sweat running down his sides and teeth gritted against the pain in his arms and legs. He wasn’t used to physical exertion. They had a small gym down in the living quarters – a few treadmills and exercise bikes squeezed into an unused suite – but it was rare that he spent any time in there. Vic was naturally skinny, but that didn’t mean he was fit. He regretted his laziness now.

The second damper took longer to get past, and the third one longer still. Maybe it was exhaustion, or panic, but the head torch started slipping on his sweaty skin, and he dropped three screwdrivers back down the duct. He held on tightly to the fourth – it was his last. Drop that one and he’d have to climb back down to retrieve it . . . he was starting to fear that Coldbrook would never let him out. It had its claws in him, and Jonah had called him four more times. He was tempted to answer and find out exactly what was going on, but he had gained a momentum now. Jonah’s voice might be enough to change his mind. Ignorant old bastard, Vic thought, surprised at the affection he suddenly felt for the old man. He hoped Jonah was safe.

And Holly. But he was trying not to think of her, and when she did cross his mind it felt as though she was strangely far away.

As Vic climbed, he tried to ignore the fact that he was leaving an open route behind him. He shoved the mechanisms back into the openings he’d crawled through, though he could not secure them again from above. Jonah will lock it all down, he kept thinking, a mantra to persuade himself that security would be maintained. And he willingly let panic conceal the illogicality of that idea. What was ahead mattered more.

Reaching the head of the duct, he squatted on the small maintenance platform and started immediately to undo the access hatch that led outside, working quietly in case the compound guards were nearby. His nostrils stung with the acrid stink of melted metal and plastics, his hands shook from exertion, and for the last fifty rungs of the ladder he’d been desperate to breathe in the air outside the duct, a desperation that had grown the higher he climbed. He tried to calm himself, but as he scrambled out of the hatch and dropped into the cool night he sobbed.

The grass was damp and cool, the fresh air a gentle caress across his sweat-soaked clothing. Above Vic a thousand stars speckled the sky, all of them ancient history. To the east a smudge of light smeared the summits of the mountains as dawn began to break. The compound was quiet, motionless. He quickly flicked off his head torch, cursing his clumsiness, and ran crouching to the corner of a low supply building.

Does anyone up here even know what’s happening? he wondered. The only reason that they would not know was if Jonah was too busy to have informed them. Or if he was . . .

For a second Vic thought again of calling Jonah. But not yet. He wasn’t away yet. When he reached home and saw Lucy and Olivia, then he would allow himself that call.

Right now he had to run.





9


As Holly fled into the breach she thought of the man who had come through, and wondered whether he had been like her when he’d stepped past the threshold. She could see through – the dark valley, shadows of plants and boulders across the hillside, the red sky brightening as the sun slowly rose – but that didn’t mean it was as close as it seemed. Distance and direction were concepts that lost meaning in the science of the breach. It’s exactly where we are and a trillion light years away, Jonah had whispered once as they’d sat drinking and musing upon their efforts. Maybe now, she would be walking for ever.

And then she felt the breach’s clasp.

Holly would have gasped, had she still been breathing. Her legs moved and her arms swung by her sides, but it felt like the processes of her body were frozen in the moment. Her skin chilled, as if it had been exposed to an open freezer. Thoughts jumped and scattered, formed and shattered: perhaps this was how everyone felt at the moment of death.