Legion Lost, page 17
I find it hard to believe that sworn enemies could sit and talk as easily as Malcolm and I are talking now.
“Very peacefully,” Malcolm answers. “Prudell has come to consider this place as a safe space for meetings.” The Highlander leans forward, his eyes taking on that slightly manic gleam. “But I think it’s time we changed all that.”
He points to the ceiling, and I find myself looking up into the airstream overhead. A wide grid covers the entrance to the dark recesses of the pipe.
“This ventilation shaft brings air up from a unit deep inside the mountain, next to my private quarters,” Malcolm explains. “When Prudell is here tomorrow, my room will be left unlocked. I keep a loaded, silver-tipped pistol in the bureau’s top drawer. It contains a single shot.”
I remember that pistol, and the feel of its icy barrel at my throat.
“It would be possible,” Malcolm continues, “for a small, slight soldier with a keen eye, to take that pistol and scale the inside of the ventilation shaft, all the way up to this spot right on top of us. That soldier would be totally undetectable.”
My throat runs dry at the suggestion in his tone.
“You’re saying that Prudell could be assassinated, whilst she’s sitting right here in front of you?” I ask.
Malcolm nods solemnly.
“There would only be room for one shot,” he explains, “because her men will all be watching me from the other side of this glass. The assassin would have to slip back down the vent fast, to vanish back into the crew below. The guards wouldn’t dare march down into the thick of my recruits to find one suspect—they’d be too outnumbered.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” I ask, fearing that I already know the answer.
Malcolm slips a piece of paper from his breast pocket, passing it to me across the table. I unfold it, finding a diagram of how the outer buildings connect to the ones inside the mountain. Below this are directions on how to find the vent room.
“Because you’re the first competent soldier I’ve met who’s small enough to fit inside the vent,” Malcolm says unapologetically.
There’s a silent moment between us as I stare at the diagram before me, marvelling at how easy the whole operation seems. The scrape of a chair gets my attention, and my eyes flicker up to see Malcolm leaning forward at the table again.
“I can see it,” he says slowly.
“See what?” I reply.
“The rage in you,” Malcolm answers. “I can see it in the way you clench your jaw every time I say that evil woman’s name. Whatever she’s done to wrong you, or your people, this is your chance to avenge them. I know you want that, Raja.”
I wish he were wrong, but there’s no point pretending he is. Every time I think of the Governor’s satisfied smile, flashes of Bhadrak’s body and Vinesh’s blind eyes soon follow. Even if I turn down Malcolm’s proposition right now, I don’t know how I’ll react tomorrow, when the woman who haunts my memories is right here, waiting for a bullet to land in her skull.
“Valkyrie,” I say.
Malcolm raises a silver brow.
“It’s the name of a System containment facility,” I explain. “Prudell has sent my family there, and I want them back. Can you help me make that possible?”
The Highland leader nods thoughtfully.
“I’ve not heard of Valkyrie, but I’ll find it. I always find what I’m looking for.”
“Fine,” I reply. “You help me, and I’ll . . . I’ll help you.”
Amid the tranquillity of the majestic, peaceful mountains, I strike my first deal of war.
*
That night, Stirling sleeps by my side again, and I’m rested enough to stay up and appreciate his slow breathing. Malcolm’s map stays with me in my trouser pocket, alongside Lucrece’s little diary. Under no circumstances am I to divulge my plan to anyone else. I wonder if Stirling would approve of Malcolm’s plan to rid the nation of Prudell for good. I bet he wouldn’t. In some of my sleepless moments, I’m not sure that I even approve of it myself.
Every time I think of holding that deadly pistol in my hands, a retching, sick shiver invades my gut. But one fleeting remembrance of all those who have died is all I need to get the fires of hatred for the System burning again. One blind moment of rage will be all that I need, like the shot I took at Briggs on the obstacle course. One impetuous squeeze of the trigger, and the System will begin to fall apart. One foul, unthinkable deed, and I can have my family back at last.
Eighteen
Before noon the next day, most of the Highlanders are called away to lunch, so as not to appear threatening upon Prudell’s arrival. We rejects stand and watch on the hillside as Malcolm takes a small, select group of soldiers up to the summit to prepare for the meeting. Delilah is bringing up the rear of this troupe, her silver mask glittering in the sunlight with every step she takes. Soon after they have vanished from view, a deafening sound blares out across the sky. Cutting through the clouds to the south of us, three white helicopters emerge. They curve on the wind in a triangular formation, tilting to and fro like giant birds of prey.
“Dat’s it,” Goddie says, his hands over his ears. “She’s arriving. We’ve got to go in now, right?”
Stirling nods, taking hold of Goddie’s wheelchair to turn him around.
“That’s right. I’ll find out what happened from Malcolm later. Come on, let’s get some lunch.”
“Food. Just the ticket for forgetting that there’s an evil dictator forty feet above us right now,” Apryl quips. “You coming, Raja?”
I realise that they have all started walking away, whilst my eyes have stayed fixed on the helicopters in the sky. I have never seen one for real before, and I marvel at the way they flutter like fragile things as they get closer to us. It looks like they’re going to settle on the flat roofs of the compound buildings that are higher up the mountainside. Prudell, the elusive figure whose government has punished my people, is so close that I can feel my skin prickling with nerves.
“Um, no,” I stammer, trying to stay in the conversation. “Not hungry, actually. I’m going to have a lie down instead.”
“You’re sure about that?” Stirling asks.
His brows are raised, and a strange moment passes between us as I see the old suspicion flaring in his gaze. I shake the paranoid feeling off, giving him a nod and my best fake yawn.
“I’m still really tired.”
I catch a look of deep disappointment in his features before he turns away, like he’s upset about more than just missing lunch with me, but I can’t dwell on that feeling. I have to put Stirling out of my head right now, as I wind my way back towards the compound. The helicopters are fluttering in to land overhead, and I have a mission to fulfil.
Malcolm Stryker’s map is as precise and accurate as the man himself, and it doesn’t take me long to fathom his instructions. I navigate from the outer buildings into deeper realms, through secluded passageways where yellow bulbs glow to replace the lack of natural light. The corridors are tight and full of shadows as I walk deeper into the mountain, leaving the sounds of nature behind as Malcolm’s quarters draw nearer. The door he has marked on the map is made of thick metal that’s painted black. I give it a tentative push.
Unlocked, just as he promised. For a bedchamber, it seems to me that Malcolm’s bed is the lowest priority in the room. It is flung into one far corner of the dark space, with greater precedence given to the various tables full of maps and schematics that litter the rest of the area. The whole space smacks of war, from the spare weapon parts stacked on chairs to the extra ammunition boxed almost ceiling high on the left-hand wall. When Malcolm lays his head down at night, I think that his dreams must be as brutal as his reality.
The grand bureau that he spoke of is practically antique. Its polished wooden surface stands out from the rest of the ragtag furniture, but its lower desk is covered with papers and information like everything else in the room. As I approach the tall structure, my eyes catch on some handwritten notes atop the pile. The page bears Malcolm’s rough script, with the word Reaver written several times over. I recognise the word, but it takes me a minute to place it. It’s from Lucrece’s diary. Reaver was the name of her father’s medical project, the one that the System overtook and put to an evil purpose. My hand travels to my back pocket instantly, where I feel the outline of the tiny diary, still safely tucked away.
There’s no time to explore Malcolm’s notes further. I reach for the bureau’s top drawer. My shaking fingers slide the panel open, a lump forming in my throat as I peer inside the cavity. The silver-tipped pistol is the one I’d expected, the same one that Malcolm had used to frighten me the first time we met. Pushing the fearful memory away, I lift the gun out of the velvet-lined drawer, feeling its considerable weight in my hands. All I know about guns is what I learned from Lucrece on our assessment day at the Legion, so I hope that Malcolm’s pistol is as ready-to-shoot as he claims.
With the powerful gun in hand, I slip back out of Malcolm’s room and into the cupboard beside it. Here, I can already hear the whirring of the ventilation system, and I locate a large, silver machine that matches the look of the pipes up on the mountainside. Someone has left four small screws lined up on top of the machine, and I soon see that they belong to a wall panel that’s been removed. A faint backdraft of cool air surrounds my face as I crouch down beside the opening in the shaft.
“Governor,” echoes a voice down the pipe. “Such a pleasure to have you in my neck of the woods once again.”
I can hear Malcolm. Even from this great depth, I realise that the ventilation pipe must act like a sort of amplifier for the conversations above. If anyone is speaking in Malcolm’s so-called fish tank, a listener could easily hear their discussion from within this tiny room.
“Mr Stryker, you’re curiously cordial today. Should I be concerned?”
The voice is high-pitched and dripping with sarcastic malice. I’ve only heard her speak once before, on the Legion’s introductory video, but every cruel and calculated inflection of this speaker is burned into my memory. I grip the pistol tighter, Prudell’s voice echoing in my ears as I begin my journey through the pipework.
“I’m in a good mood,” Malcolm answers, with his usual mocking joviality. “It’s not every day that I get hold of something valuable to you, Governor.”
It must be hot up on the mountainside today, because the air all around me is biting cold. It stiffens my limbs as I scramble up the first gradual gradient of the shaft. The dark passageway is almost as narrow as the earthen shaft I used to exit the Underground, back on the day when all this chaos began. If I had known then that it would take only a fortnight to turn me from a mild-mannered teenager into a rebel assassin, would I have chosen to go to prison with my family instead? I grit my teeth as I climb on. There’s no point worrying about past choices now. The gun in my hand is my here and now, and its bullet is my future.
“You know exactly how I feel about Commander Briggs, Mr Stryker,” Prudell hisses. “I’m more interested in what it is that you want this time.”
The vent winds upwards in a zig-zag shape, and there are lumps in the pipework where rocks from the mountain have shifted and pressed into its casing. I use these lumps like hand holds as the pipework gets steeper, willing my way to the surface. It is dark and enclosed like my old home used to be, but my time above the surface has given me a longing to see the light at the end of this tunnel. Even a shred of sunlight will let me know that I’m nearing the top.
“I want to know about the Reaver Project,” Malcolm says from above me. His voice is getting louder, and there’s a new layer of seriousness to his tone. “Are the Reavers on the moors the only ones you have, or are there more of them down south?”
My frozen limbs are growing weaker, but Prudell’s spiteful laughter spurs me on up the climb.
“Why should you be bothered about my Reavers?” she asks with an icy giggle. “They’re just my automated dustbin men, for hoovering up the corpses when my soldiers murder yours.”
She speaks of murder like it is a casual thing, as though the lives she has taken are little more than numbers on a chart.
“There’s more to it than that,” Malcolm insists. “Tell me, how many Reavers are there?”
“At least one to carry away the corpse of every filthy rebel on this mountain,” Prudell returns with a hiss. “You may have the upper hand as I sit here today, Mr Stryker, but we both know how your puny forces would fare on a level playing field.”
I’ve reached the steepest part of the vent, where a final vertical climb will see me reach the roof of Malcolm’s glass office. Sunlight glints above my head at last, prompting me on up the toughest part of the journey. Malcolm and Prudell are so loud and clear now that I feel as though I’m too close for comfort. I make the final part of the ascent as silently as I can, the pistol still clasped in my frozen right hand.
“Take me to see Briggs and the medic woman you’re holding,” Prudell demands.
“Not yet,” Malcolm replies. “There’s more I want to know. Tell me about Valkyrie.”
I lie flat in the uppermost part of the pipe, sliding forward inch by inch, until I can peer down into the space below me. At the table, Prudell’s perfectly coiffured hair shines likes a golden halo. I can’t see her face, but her fingernails are pristinely painted with black varnish, and her sharp suit barely has a speck of dust upon it. Malcolm is weathered and savage by comparison to the Governor. I can see his scarred fingers twitching as he awaits Prudell’s answer. He’s waiting for me too. He’s stalling Prudell with the mention of Valkyrie to give me time to fire.
“It’s just a prison for Undergrounders,” Prudell answers. I watch her slim shoulders give a little shrug. “Briggs has been so successful in raiding the Underground lately that we had to build a new facility to house the cattle, as it were.”
Despite the freezing cold air around me, Malcolm’s gun feels warm in my grip. Using both hands to keep myself steady, I slowly bring the silver tip of the pistol into line with the grid below me. The barrel nestles perfectly against one of the gaps, pointing down in a direct line towards the crown of the governor’s golden head. There’s no way she could survive a shot like this.
“You’ve been very productive with regard to the Underground lately,” Malcolm observes. “Why is that? New detection equipment perhaps, or some poor creature you’ve tortured to reveal information?”
Prudell merely nods.
“You know me, I’m all about the three Ts. Technology, torture, and tyranny,” she boasts. “In the last few years, we’ve only been able to nab a couple of surface scroungers every few months, but now I’ve collected over a thousand Undergrounders in just eight weeks. It was easy. We flushed them out like rats. They had so much faith that the earth would keep them safe. They had no idea what was coming to them. So foolish. So trusting.”
Just as Prudell is foolish and trusting right now, I suppose. Just as she has no idea that a girl from the Underground could end her life with one simple squeeze of the trigger. But fear has gripped me now, in this crucial moment when I wish it wouldn’t. My furious heart wrestles against the sick, quaking feeling that’s overcome me, a thousand questions racing through my head. Can I really do this? Can I become a killer right now? Can I stand the sight of Prudell’s exploded cranium, and know that it was me who brought such carnage to this beautiful mountainside today?
I think of Mrs Ghosh with her gun, and how unlikely it had seemed that she would pull that trigger on Bhadrak. If he is dead by her hand, then does it make me any better a person to murder that assassin’s superior? I know how it felt when Malcolm pointed this very gun at my throat, how I feared that all the possibilities of my future were about to be wiped out. Now, the same terrifying man would allow me to take Prudell’s future away. Frozen by my inner conflict, all I can do for a moment is listen.
“Except that the last tunnel’s occupants were forewarned,” Malcolm says below. “I hear you lost a lot of soldiers when that branch of the Underground fought back?”
Cold, salty tears form beneath my eyes as I wrestle with the conscience buried deep inside me.
“I had a suspicion that the sector had been tipped off,” Prudell explains. “That’s why I had Briggs send some of the Legion children in first. No sense wasting proper soldiers if there’s going to be a bloodbath, is there?”
The night of mourning raids my memory now. The visions of Reece and countless others haunt me, those faces that no longer exist because of Prudell’s heartless decision.
“So you knew?” Malcolm presses. “You knew that the Legion’s children would die there?”
“Oh, Malcolm,” Prudell soothes mockingly. “Those children are degenerates. They turn themselves in at the Legion for the prospect of a clean slate, but it isn’t a real future. None of them make it to twenty. My strategy ensures that.”
The red, blinding rage is back, setting fire to my heart with a flame that burns stronger than ever. The Legion is only a holding pen, using its children for military gain, until Prudell chooses a date for them to die. The pistol in my hands would take away the governor’s future. It is a future in which thousands more innocent people will die if I let her live. In the greater balance of things, ending the life of this truly evil soul would be a burden that I think I could live with. Closing one eye, I follow the gun’s line of sight, staring down at Prudell’s golden hair.
My hearts gives a leap as I pull hard on the trigger.
I close my eyes after the shot, expecting a backlash from the gun’s force, but nothing happens. There is only the click of an empty bullet chamber.
“What a peculiar noise,” Prudell muses. Thankfully, she does not look up into the vent.
I fumble with the pistol, pressing at it until I can get the chamber where the bullet should be to open. Empty. It must have been removed before I ever reached it in Malcolm’s bureau. The Highlander can’t have been responsible for this—someone must have learned of our deal and put a stop to it before it even began. A deep, regretful sigh comes from the office below, and I hear the scraping of a chair.
