Doomsday, page 7
After a journey that took in many backstreets and more than a few hiding places along the way, the Gadge finally carried him into a huge square. Berrin had been here before, brought especially from Malig Tumora’s menagerie where he was being held prisoner. The ominous gates into that nightmare world stood on the far side of the square, sending a shudder through Berrin when he saw them.
But his eyes were quickly drawn to a structure that frightened him even more. From the centre of the square rose a formidable building, ten storeys high and faced with a shimmering black stone. The Obsidian. Inside it, Berrin knew, Malig Tumora was waiting for him.
The first time Berrin had entered this building, he’d met the original Malig Tumora, a man. He hadn’t been particularly tall or impressive. In fact, he’d seemed no different from the many grown-ups Berrin had seen die only an hour earlier. Yet there was a coldness about him that had chilled the blood, and he had passed that coldness into his greatest creation, a massive computer.
Now that man was dead and the evil that lurked inside the Obsidian was nothing but a machine. The computer that called itself Malig Tumora could think like a human being, and through the observation ball it could see and speak like a human being, but all human feeling was gone. Somehow that emptiness frightened Berrin more than death itself.
The Gadge dragged Berrin across the square towards the imposing double doors which were guarded by two of his comrades. Just before they passed inside, a movement on the roof ten storeys above caught Berrin’s eye and, looking up, he saw a team of Dfx hard at work. What were they up to? He had only a moment to take in the details but he was sure he recognised the equipment they were setting in place. It was one of the long booms used to spray the breeding sites and later inside the glasshouses. What use was it up there? Then Berrin was inside and he had more worrying things to think about than a spray boom mounted on the roof of the Obsidian.
He was dragged along a corridor and shoved inside a room filled with row after row of grey metal cabinets, each standing as high as a man. Because he had been here before Berrin knew that he was looking at the workings of an enormous computer. These banks of humming, blinking circuits covered most of the ground floor and the two floors above. Together, they made up his enemy, Malig Tumora.
‘Such evil should look more frightening,’ Berrin said out loud. He’d seen the other person in the room as soon as he’d entered, but he was in no hurry to speak to her. Cowering in the corner, miserable and crying, was a different and very human enemy. Kelsey.
‘What are you doing here?’ Berrin said in disgust. ‘I thought you’d be enjoying your reward for betraying us.’
‘There was no reward,’ she managed to say between sobs.
‘You mean you volunteered to spy on us?’
‘No, I mean Malig Tumora tricked me just as I tried to trick you.’
That didn’t surprise Berrin, but he didn’t waste any sympathy on Kelsey. If her betrayal had worked as it was supposed to, the Rats’ last chance to defeat Malig Tumora would have been destroyed.
Kelsey looked up through tear-stained eyes and saw the contempt in Berrin’s face. ‘Please try to understand,’ she said. ‘I had to do it.’
Berrin folded his arms coldly and turned aside.
‘No, listen,’ she urged. ‘A lot of what I told you was true. I was one of the children used to test those robot bombs. I didn’t know what they were for. Until they told me, I didn’t even know there were children living in the tunnels underground. I was just trying to stay alive. I survived longer than anyone else. The Gadges said I was brave and clever and if I helped them spy on you they would let me go back to my dormer. I said no, I didn’t want to cheat kids like me, who were just trying to survive, but days later they took me to a factory and showed me two grown-ups. The woman looked just like me. Then a strange shiny ball came to hover over their heads.’
‘The observation ball,’ said Berrin.
‘Yes. It spoke to me, said I was looking at my own mother and father. If I became Malig Tumora’s spy, then the three of us could live an easy life together when it was over. But if I said no, the Gadges would tear my parents apart right there in front of me.’
She shuddered at the memory and though he didn’t want to grant her any sympathy, Berrin grimaced at the scene her words made in his mind. He had been in her shoes once. It was the worst dilemma he had ever known.
It had come when he was in the menagerie, desperately trying to stay alive inside one of Malig Tumora’s fiendish mazes. To escape, he’d had to break through one remaining wall, but tied to that wall were his own mother and father. The only way to free himself was to kill them. Like Kelsey, he’d been so close to his parents that he could have touched them; and, like her, he’d held their lives in his hands. If the chance came to save them again, he only hoped it would be without Malig Tumora looking on through its heartless eye.
‘I’m sorry that I betrayed you, but I had to save them,’ Kelsey went on. ‘I would have done anything Malig Tumora asked, as long as my mother and father weren’t killed in that terrible way.’ Tears streamed down her cheeks. If Kelsey was making it all up, then she was a very good actor.
That was how Berrin had felt. It was the decision he had made. How could he remain so cold to her now?
There was something else that Berrin remembered about Kelsey. She had let him and Olanda hide from Gadger Red in the warehouse. A truly heartless spy wouldn’t have done that.
No, no, a voice said inside his head. What she did was unforgivable.
‘To save two people you were ready to let thousands stay as Malig Tumora’s slaves,’ he said coldly. He knew his words would hurt Kelsey but he couldn’t help himself. ‘You shouldn’t have trusted Malig Tumora.’
‘I know that now,’ she said. ‘Once Gadger Red got hold of the yellow drums, he laughed at me. He said Malig Tumora was never going to let me live happily with my parents. They stayed working at the factory and he sent me back to my dormer, where I just cried for the way I’d been tricked. But the next day he was back, roaring at me. What was in those drums, he shouted. Something had gone wrong and he blamed me. He was so angry I thought he was going to kill me.’
The door swept open and a high-pitched hum told them that the observation ball was entering among the rows of its own memory boards and processing units.
There it was, moving easily at head height, every centimetre of its curved surface gleaming silver as though it had just been polished. Although it was the wires and circuit boards surrounding him that made up Malig Tumora, Berrin had come to think of this shiny sphere as the embodiment of the enemy who had ruled the city so cruelly ever since it killed its own creator.
‘The-Gadge-who-brought-you-here-was-right,’ said Malig Tumora through the robotic voice of the observation ball. ‘Tell-Gadger-Red-to-join-me-here,’ it said through the doorway.
The Dfx waiting outside in the corridor lumbered off to obey. The observation ball went on: ‘You-have-been-recognised. You-are-Berrin. A-leader-among-the-children-who-have-defied-me-for-so-long.’
Berrin didn’t deny it. He was tired of hiding, of living as less than a human being. If he was going to die, then he would die proud of who he was.
‘We’ve beaten you. The purple flowers are all dead.’
‘So-they-are-thanks-to-this-girl,’ said Malig Tumora. ‘She-will-die-soon-enough-for-her-treachery.’
Kelsey gave a pathetic squeak, like a mouse tormented by a monstrous cat.
‘It wasn’t Kelsey who tricked you,’ said Berrin. ‘I switched the labels on the yellow drums. They weren’t filled with PFI. You sprayed your precious flowers with hydrochloric acid instead.’
Did a computer experience anger, Berrin wondered. Could kilometres of electric wire and tonnes of silicon and steel feel the searing heat of rage through every centimetre of its being in the way that human beings did? If so, Berrin’s admission would surely see him killed where he stood.
Moments passed in silence. Then the computer responded calmly, ‘Yes-I-had-the-drums-examined. I-know-what-killed-the-flowers.’
‘And if the flowers are dead, you can’t control the grown-ups any more,’ said Berrin even more defiantly. ‘You know that too, don’t you? Gadger Red must have told you what’s going on. All those people you had under your spell are free and they’re fighting back.’
‘You-are-right-about-that-too. There-is-fighting-throughout-the-city. The-Gadges-will-not-be-able-to-stop-them-all.’
Berrin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Victory was coming even faster than he’d hoped and, more than that, Malig Tumora seemed to be admitting defeat. Such thoughts threw him off balance and when the observation ball asked, ‘Do-the-humans-know-I-am-inside-this-building?’ Berrin answered without hesitating.
‘Yes, they know you’re here. I told them myself,’ he announced gleefully.
‘That-is-what-I-hoped,’ came the reply, leaving Berrin dumbfounded. An uneasy suspicion spread through him.
‘Why do you want them to know where you are? They’ll come after you. I heard how determined they are to destroy you.’
‘Let-them-come,’ said Malig Tumora through the observation ball. ‘Once-the-humans-have-surrounded-the-Obsidian-the-real-battle-will-begin. None-of-them-will-survive.’
THIRTEEN
Fungicoccus Seven
NONE WOULD SURVIVE! Berrin began to suspect that victory might not be as close as he’d imagined. He wanted to know what Malig Tumora meant by that ominous warning, but before he could risk a question, a throaty growl told him that a terrifying and far more unpredictable enemy was about to arrive.
A massive figure pushed his way into the room, three metres tall with a wolf’s snout boasting teeth as long as daggers and ten times as deadly. A long tail trailed behind, the rusty red of its fur extending along the creature’s spine halfway to his shoulders. At the sight of Berrin, backing away as far as he could manage, the beast’s deep-set eyes flared and the vicious talons at the tips of his fingers lengthened.
‘You again,’ snarled Gadger Red. ‘And just in time for dinner.’ Flicking his eyes to Kelsey he sneered, ‘Watch me eat him, girl, because you’re next.’
Berrin knew he would faint from terror if he kept looking at the slavering Gadge. He tore his eyes away and said to Malig Tumora, ‘Kelsey didn’t know about the acid in those drums. Let her go.’
‘Forget-the-girl. She-is-of-no-importance-now. You-are-here-for-another-purpose-entirely,’ Malig Tumora said in the monotonous voice of the shiny sphere. ‘What-weapons-do-the-humans-have-to-use-against-me? Speak-up. I-must-know-what-they-are-likely-to-do-before-my-plans-are-ready.’
The tank. Berrin had no idea what it was, only that he mustn’t breathe a word. He set his lips tightly and shook his head.
‘Gadger-persuade-him-to-help-us.’
A powerful arm took Berrin by the front of his shirt, lifting him from the ground. The Gadges’ leader opened his jaws wide and gripped Berrin’s head with the tips of his savage teeth. They punctured the skin and blood trickled slowly onto Berrin’s forehead and ears. The pain was terrible but still he said nothing.
Suddenly the pressure was released and Berrin was dropped to the ground. He struggled to stay on his feet, to stop himself from slumping straight to the floor.
‘I know this one. He’ll die before he’ll say a word,’ said Gadger Red with an odd note of admiration in his rasping voice. That hint of respect quickly vanished, replaced by the familiar grin of a ruthless enemy. ‘But there’s a way to make him tell us. Put him in with the other prisoners upstairs.’
The observation ball swept out of the small room with Gadger Red behind it. No sooner were they gone than a pair of Dfx appeared in the doorway.
‘This way,’ said one of them in the half-mumbled, half-grunted speech of their kind and pushed Berrin out into the corridor. Whatever fate lay in store for Kelsey, he wasn’t to share it, not yet.
The Dfx led the way, with Berrin behind him and a second Dfx forming a rear guard. In the narrow corridor there was no space to dash past either of the guards, and what hope did he have of escaping from the Obsidian anyway, Berrin thought. The building swarmed with anxious Gadges checking their machine guns and snarling unhappily at one another.
The Dfx herded Berrin into an elevator and took him to a higher floor. When the doors opened, the same procession formed up again and he was marched along corridors and around corners until the leading Dfx halted at a door no different from a dozen others they had passed. Keys jangled awkwardly before one found its way into the lock. ‘Inside,’ came the command.
Berrin stepped into a large room where the only light came from a window in the far wall. Two figures stood staring out of this window, but at the sound of the intrusion they began to turn. The door slammed behind Berrin and he turned himself, testing instinctively to be sure it was locked. He was still facing away from the other two prisoners when a woman’s voice said, ‘Berrin! Berrin, is it really you?’
With the rest of the room in gloomy shadow and the light behind the distant figures, he couldn’t see their faces. Their outlines told him that it was a man and a woman, but it was the woman’s voice that dared him to believe. His head became light and for a moment he worried that he would faint, not from the fear and pain that had almost sent him to the floor downstairs. This time, it was sheer joy.
‘Mother,’ he said tentatively.
And then the couple were rushing towards him. They had seen each other only twice that Berrin could remember, and only on the second occasion had his parents been free enough of the flowers’ scent to know who he was. But that was enough. They knew their son, just as he knew his parents. He stepped forward into the embrace of the two people he most wanted to be with in the entire world.
‘Berrin, oh Berrin,’ his father called, tears in his eyes. His mother didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She did a little of both as she hugged Berrin to her.
For the first time in his life Berrin felt the warmth of his mother’s body. His father pressed in as well, folding his arms around them both. Desperate words filled the room, words of longing and of love.
There was no sign of the purple flowers’ influence now, and as they held him close, Berrin’s parents were full of questions. Where had he been, how had he survived? Taking a deep breath, Berrin launched into the story of his life underground and of the battles he and the other Rats had fought to keep hope alive. He had told other grown-ups of these adventures only to find his stories dismissed as childish nonsense. But Berrin’s parents didn’t call him silly. They, more than anyone, seemed to understand the evil that Malig Tumora had brought upon the city. Then he told them about Ferdinand.
‘He’s alive,’ said Berrin’s father. ‘My brother, alive. I can’t believe it, after so long.’
It almost broke Berrin’s heart to tell them that his uncle might not live for much longer. ‘If we don’t dig him out from underground in a day or two, he’ll die.
‘Victory seems so close,’ Berrin went on, ‘yet Malig Tumora has some final plan, I’m sure of it.’
Berrin’s parents shared a solemn glance before his mother said, ‘The Fungicoccus Seven.’
‘What’s Fungicoccus Seven?’
They seemed reluctant to tell him at first, until another look at their son, at the grime that clogged his skin and the wiry muscle that spoke of his hardships, told them he was no ordinary boy to be protected from the harshest of truths.
‘It’s a kind of bacteria,’ his father said. ‘A deadly bacteria. Malig Tumora developed it many years ago, inside a special laboratory here in the Obsidian. For a man who could turn genetic engineering into a game, such a bacteria provided an irresistible challenge, even if it threatened his own life.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Berrin said. ‘What’s bacteria?’
‘Tiny organisms, too small to see.’
Berrin felt himself relax. ‘If they’re so small then they can’t do much harm, can they?’
‘You couldn’t be more wrong, Berrin. Bacteria can cause disease or kill, and the worst of the lot are highly contagious.’
Berrin shook his head to show that he didn’t know the word.
‘It means they can spread from animal to animal very quickly.’
‘And this Fungicoccus Seven is con … contig …’
‘Contagious,’ Berrin’s father repeated for him. ‘Yes, and it can kill within hours. There’s no cure, no way to fight it. If it gets free into the open air, it will kill everything that lives and breathes — human beings and animals alike — not just in the city, but across the whole world. When Malig Tumora realised how dangerous Fungicoccus Seven was, even he was frightened of it.’
‘He should have destroyed it,’ said Berrin’s mother.
‘But he didn’t, did he?’ Berrin said.
‘No,’ said his father. ‘He kept it frozen in a special canister instead, and locked away in a vault here in the Obsidian. But yesterday, when the Dfx brought us here, they led us past the area where it was kept secure. The seals on the vault were broken. Someone has been inside to get the canister.’
‘But why would Malig Tumora want to release such a deadly virus?’
‘Because he’s losing his control over the grown-ups,’ Berrin’s mother said.
‘But this will kill them all,’ Berrin cried.
‘Yes, but it won’t kill Malig Tumora. He’s no longer a human being. Bacteria can’t hurt a machine.’
‘But there’ll be no people left to do the work, only Gadges and Dfx and the other monsters he’s created.’
‘Not even those,’ said Berrin’s father. ‘Fungicoccus Seven attacks all living flesh; human, animal, it doesn’t matter.’
‘It’s madness,’ said Berrin.
‘Yes, madness has been our real enemy all these years. The human Malig Tumora had a disease of the mind: he had to dominate everything around him. When he made a computer to imitate him in every way, he passed that disease on. Now Malig Tumora the computer has only one aim: to be in total control of everything and everyone.’
