The Grid 2 Read online

  Harry had told Talya how she’d like be buried – she’d always hated the idea of incineration. Could they give Harry her dying wish?

  It was too much to think about, there were other lives to try to save first. Talya apologized to Jena, and she could see how the ferocity of her attack had alarmed Dillon. Wiz was already at the apartment. He’d been just as upset about Harry and had helped Jena to make sure the body would stay cool for as long as possible.

  They were expecting Mitchell at any time. They desperately needed to regroup and make their plans. They were all aware of Lucy’s perilous situation, and even Jena had used her time to help get them ahead. She and Dillon had fetched water supplies and moved food from their own apartment. Wiz and Mitchell would be able to make a base there and stay hidden. Who knew how long they’d go undetected?

  Steps and heavy breathing were heard out in the corridor – it was Mitchell.

  ‘What’s all the blood doing on the staircase? Is everybody alright?’

  Wiz told him about Harry’s death. He looked unsettled. On Silk Road, death was not a regular occurrence, but in The Climbs you lived with it every day.

  Talya was quick to convene the group. There would be no time for mourning until Lucy and Joe were out safely. Wiz had already managed to start configuring the equipment, and he was making the final adjustments to an aerial which was hanging out of the apartment window.

  ‘Where are you up to, Wiz?’ she began.

  ‘It’s looking good. I’ve managed to hop a reliable signal from the sewer, across The City via a couple of tower blocks and onto the roof of Progressive Block. I’m as sure as I can be that nobody saw me – I don’t think I’d be speaking to you now if I had been seen.’

  Wiz hesitated, unsure whether to mention his encounter with the Centuria. He decided to wait a while before venturing this information.

  ‘We can now access and interrogate both data sources via the consoles in this room. You got some good kit, Mitchell. Thanks for that.’

  Wiz was feeling annoyed with Mitchell’s absence – he’d been left to do everything on his own overnight. But he contained his resentment, it was not the time to pick fights.

  ‘No problem,’ Mitchell replied, his cheeks colouring slightly.

  ‘The rig looks good, Wiz. We need to take a data stream each and begin extracting some useful information.’

  ‘I have a new job for one of you,’ Talya interjected. ‘Have either of you managed to speak to Hannah recently?’

  There were blank looks. Only Wiz spoke.

  ‘How did she get on in the contest? I’d forgotten all about it with everything that’s going on.’

  ‘She’s at Fortrillium now, she’s part of the team running this trial. She didn’t realize it’s Joe and Lucy in there – they don’t get to see the identities or images of the Justice Seekers.’

  ‘Can we talk to her? When is she off shift?’ asked Mitchell.

  ‘We can’t talk freely to her – they’re locked up in Fortrillium until the trial ends. I took a tour around the facility earlier today. They have to maintain the integrity of the trial so the entire thing is anonymous. She was horrified when she found out what was going on.’

  There was silence again – they all felt for Hannah, she was in a desperate situation.

  There was a sound from Talya’s WristCom. She was going to ignore it, but something compelled her to look. It was a message from Max Penner, with secure encryption.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ she said. ‘I need to look at this. This is good news – I think we’re in with a chance here. I’ve got a contact who’s as close to The Grid as we can get. I’m not going to go into the details right now, but there’s a WristCom in there, and there’s a chance we can get to it.

  Mitchell and Wiz, we need to take out a camera in The Grid. It’s the one that’s trained on Lucy right now.’

  She tried to keep speaking but needed to take a moment. She thought of Lucy in that dark, lonely cell with Schälen making his way in her direction. She tried to focus. There was nothing they could do for Lucy unless they held firm on the track they were on.

  ‘One of those data streams leads directly into Fortrillium. I want one of you to work on that. It has to be fast, my contact needs the camera taken out of action so he can send in the bots. If we can get to the WristCom, we can communicate with Joe and Lucy.’

  ‘We need to figure out where the external signal is coming from too,’ said Mitchell. ‘At the end of this trial, someone is going to try and finish off the Justice Seekers, and we need to be ready for that.’

  For a few seconds Mitchell forgot about his meeting with the President and he was back with his friends. He considered sharing what had happened but thought it better to keep it to himself. After all, nobody was in trouble, the President didn’t know all of the details.

  ‘How will we get them out, though, even if we can keep them alive?’

  Everybody was surprised to hear Jena speak.

  ‘I don’t know, Jena. I think the best we can hope for is to keep them alive and find out what Matt and Tom were on to before they died.’

  So many lives had been lost already, so many other lives were at risk, the challenge before them seemed too enormous.

  ‘What are you like on consoles, Dillon? Has Joe ever taught you what he knows?’

  Wiz looked at Dillon – they needed an extra pair of hands.

  ‘I’m okay,’ he replied. ‘I can help if you show me what to do.’

  ‘What about me? I want to help.’

  Jena spoke again. Wiz wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Joe’s mum speak before. She tended to nod or shake her head. She never volunteered conversation. Joe had told him and Mitchell that it wasn’t always that way. He remembered her as happy when he was a child. Before Matt was killed, that was.

  ‘You’re going to need to make sure that Mitchell, Wiz and Dillon can keep working, Jena. If I don’t have to think about you all, I can get on with my own battles. You need to keep the food and water supplies coming.

  I’d like you to try to find a place we can bury Harry when all of this is over. Do you think you can do that?’

  Jena nodded, then replied, ‘Yes, of course. There’s something else I need to tell you all.’

  Everybody in the room looked at her. They were seeing a side of her they’d never seen before, except for Talya, who was beginning to recall the Jena Parsons who’d been her friend on Silk Road not so many years before.

  Jena moved over to the mattress which had formed Harry’s bed. She pushed her hand underneath and felt around, pulling out something dark and metallic. It was a gun.

  ‘Where did that come from?’ asked Talya, amazed at what she was looking at. ‘That’s Centuria issue only, nobody has those.’

  ‘I’ve had it for a long time,’ Jena replied, ‘since just after Matt died. I vowed never to feel as defenceless as I did on that night when they took Matt away. I couldn’t do anything about it then, but if they ever come into my home again, I’ll kill them.’

  Talya recognized that hatred – she’d felt it herself since Tom’s disappearance. It seemed that Jena had been coping with things in her own way, but now this new rage would be useful.

  ‘Where did you get that from?’ asked Wiz.

  ‘It was Matt’s. We still had friends on Silk Road before they sent us to The Climbs – it was removed from the inventory of possessions after his death.’

  ‘Do you still have that contact at Fortrillium?’ asked Talya.

  ‘No, he’s dead now, the secret is safe. He died a long time ago – he was involved in a shoot-out in one of the tower blocks.’

  ‘So who’s going to take the weapon?’ asked Mitchell, who was both terrified and exhilarated by this turn of events.

  ‘It might have saved me carving up somebody’s hand if I’d had that,’ said Talya. ‘A decent weapon can be a useful thing to have. There’s no way I’ll get that through security; it needs to stay this side of the wall.


  Keep it here for now, Jena. You never know when you might need it. I hope you will never need it,’ she added, but Talya thought it unlikely the weapon would get through events unfired.

  ‘What about you?’ asked Jena. ‘What’s your plan?’

  ‘I’ve been summoned as Law Lord to be at the beginning of the next Mode this evening. I’ve got to be there for 20:00 hours, that’s why I’m hoping nothing much will change until then. We have just a couple of hours to move things on, so we need to get that WristCom to Joe and Lucy today if we can. Hannah will do what she can to help at her end, though I’m not sure what she can manage from Fortrillium – she has people breathing down her neck all the time.’

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ Wiz began. He seemed hesitant. ‘I have a WristCom. You can communicate with me now if Mitchell can set up a secure channel.’

  ‘You people are full of surprises!’ said Mitchell. ‘Where did that come from?’

  Wiz decided to stay quiet about his new Centuria contacts, he wasn’t sure what to make of it still. He thought that the less Talya knew the better, it might compromise her later.

  ‘Like Jena, I have my contacts,’ he smiled, hoping that would deflect the question. Nobody challenged any further, but it was clear he was hiding something.

  ‘Okay, let’s get to it!’ said Talya. ‘I’m back to Silk Road, let me know when we have a secure channel for the WristComs. The less I’m over in The Climbs, the better.’

  It felt good to be doing something. They were making progress, things were moving on.

  If they’d known that at that very moment Lucy was fighting for her life to fend off a killer, the mood of optimism might have not been so intense.

  Scent

  Damien Hunter was glued to the screen feed on his console. He hoped Talya Slater was looking at the same images as he was – it was pure entertainment. He had to hand it to the Gridders, this trial was shaping up to be a strong one.

  He’d been disappointed when there were only three Modes, as he’d hoped to draw things out a little longer. But his idea to throw Schälen into the mix at the last moment had been inspired. It was even better that the Gridders were using him so well; it had been an excellent move isolating Lucy, then allowing Schälen to break off from the primary group.

  Not only would the Justice Seekers be angry, frustrated, tired and vengeful by the time the main action started, but their judgement would be diminished too. That meant more kills.

  There was still Ascension to come at the end of the trial when the survivors would be slaughtered anyway, but this would be a spectacle everybody remembered.

  He’d softened when speaking to Talya in the corridor. She’d been his enemy for so long, he’d almost forgotten to think of her as a human being. Damien thought of his own family – he had to save them at any cost. Nobody’s children mattered more than his own, and if Talya Slater had to suffer more for him to reach his goal, then so be it.

  The Centurial was almost upon them, and whatever Delman was up to he’d be forced to make his move then. The data extracted via the equipment confiscated from Parsons and Slater was due at any time. He’d have a better idea what move to make next when that arrived.

  Hunter chuckled to himself as he watched Schälen becoming more and more frustrated on the screen. He only had to walk up a long passageway to get to Lucy, but whenever he stepped forward a wall would crash down in front of him and he’d be diverted around the labyrinth. To move forward, the Gridders were forcing him to take a detour every time. He could see Lucy – he was so close – but they wouldn’t let him get to her.

  Lucy was struggling to get free of her restraints – Schälen had had to improvise with those. She was tantalizingly close, and Damien could only imagine how gripping this was for everybody else watching on the screens.

  He’d been clear in his directives to the Gridders, though. However it ended for Parsons and Slater, it had to be slow, dramatic and painful. He needed to send out a strong message: traitors would not be tolerated under his rule. Parsons and Slater had conspired against The City. They would answer with their lives.

  He was distracted by an incoming message on his console. Reluctantly he clicked away from the feed just as Schälen had been frustrated once again in the tunnels of the labyrinth. He’d tried to run at Lucy, but his route had been blocked – once again – and he was now in a thunderous rage.

  The message was at the highest level of encryption. Hunter authenticated with DNA and the message opened. It was the full analysis from the activities in the sewers.

  He could see that Fortrillium security had been breached. They’d been looking for Matt Parsons’ files, and it appeared they’d found them too. That might have caused problems later, but it confirmed to Damien that he was right to send Joe and Lucy to The Grid: whatever they’d found out had to die with them.

  He sent off a memo to get Matt’s legacy storage area re-encrypted to prevent any further attempts to access it. With Parsons and Slater out of the way, he hoped the problem was contained.

  It was the second set of data that was far more interesting to him, this was entirely new. If he was correct, this would get him closer to whatever Delman was up to, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. With the Centurial almost upon them, he felt sure it would all come to a head very soon. He had to be ready to move fast, to save his family and get away from whatever was coming.

  The data confirmed what he’d suspected for some time. The President was in contact with somebody – or something – beyond the walls of The City. They were not alone. He’d always felt it to be unlikely.

  This was proof that there was more than Fortrillium, and it was a secret Delman didn’t want to share. Why would he keep that to himself? Hunter felt sure it had to do with the rumours of him walking out of The Grid – that was the link, but he couldn’t figure out what it all meant.

  Damien sent off a second message, this time authorizing 24/7 monitoring of the second feed. He wanted to know the minute there was new activity. If Delman spoke to somebody beyond The City’s walls, he needed to be the first to know.

  He could feel his family getting closer, and he imagined what it would feel like to hear their voices again, to laugh and chatter as they had done before. He yearned for the return of his wife and children, it was all he could think of. He wanted to feel human again.

  Damien cursed President Delman and all he’d done to make him suffer. But he’d have his revenge on the President. He could taste the blood on his lips now. When the Centurial came, whatever it was, Hunter would be ready. He would kill his rival and rescue his family, then The City would be his alone to rule.

  Arrest

  Julia Levett had more to lose than her friends Leo and Jody. She was typical of the people recruited to the Centuria. She had family and connections – Fortrillium could intimidate her at any time.

  She’d frequently wondered if it had been the right decision to throw her lot in with the resistance movement. It had happened slowly, though; she’d had to decide on the spur of the moment and she’d opted to save her friends.

  There wasn’t much Fortrillium missed, and she was amazed they’d managed to achieve so much without detection. However, with the security credentials to pass freely between Silk Road and The Climbs, Centuria were in the perfect position to assist the resistance.

  Everybody hated life in The City – they were all flies trapped in the spider’s web. The only difference for those on Silk Road was that they got housed and fed. They were all guilty of inaction, the will to fight had been knocked out of them years ago. She was too young to know when city residents had given up, but she figured there must have been a point at which Fortrillium had finally beaten them into submission.

  She’d felt as if she could make a difference in the Centuria. Naturally athletic and active, she’d been recruited early. She knew what they were capable of, she’d grown up seeing it all around her. Less so on Silk Road, of course, and she was shocked by the horro
rs she’d encountered the first time she stepped into The Grid.

  It was Hunter who’d turned her towards the resistance. She’d been on shift with Leo and Jody when he’d gone on one of his shooting sprees in The Climbs. She’d been a raw recruit at the time, new to that side of the wall.

  Hunter had ordered them to finish off the wounded he had maimed and incapacitated, leaving the Centuria to make sure there was nobody left to bear witness. It had been all Julia could do not to throw up. She fought to contain her horror until Hunter had left the scene.

  Their Quad Team leader was a man called Santo and he commanded them to finish off the wounded. Julia hadn’t known what to do. She wanted to scream and run. Leo had walked over to where Hunter had discarded his weapon on the ground. Casually he picked it up and shot Santo in the head.

  ‘You need to make a choice, Levett,’ he’d said, calm and in control.

  ‘Either you cover for us or you hand us in. If you cover for us, we can maybe save some lives and make a difference out here.’

  She’d been in shock, but Julia had no other choice. There was no way she could slaughter the shot residents bleeding out and crying with pain on the road in front of her.

  It was a decision she’d made in the moment. Only, when she’d thrown in her lot with Leo and Jody she’d never thought about the danger it would consistently place her in.

  Julia confirmed Leo’s story that one of the wounded had grabbed the discarded weapon and shot Santo before they could do anything to stop it. They’d cleared up Hunter’s mess alright, but the seven badly hurt residents had been taken to a safe place where they could be given medical attention. Generally, they’d just ‘disappear’, relocated around The Climbs in out-of-the-way locations where the rats would get to them. Julia didn’t know where they’d been taken, since Leo and Jody had kept her out of direct contact with the resistance. But three out of seven of the wounded had been saved. They’d helped three people live that day, and she knew it was her only choice.