Fighting Pax

“Boo gum!” she cried. “Boo gum!”

Grabbing the discarded stuffed bear, she laid it on its back with its legs in the air. Then, using the scissors, she mimed cutting it open.

“Boo gum!” she said gleefully, her eyes vanishing in her expansive grin.

“What was that?” Spencer asked, mystified.

“I think she’s just demonstrated an autopsy,” Gerald murmured faintly.

“Oh, well, that makes sense,” the boy said, not sure why the old man looked so afraid all of a sudden. “That’s what Choe’s going to do to the Shark, isn’t it? Although I’d have thought cause of death was pretty obvious, what with it happening right in front of you all.”

The old man made no response. He didn’t want to tell Spencer the doctor had used that word long before the Marshal had been shot. A ghastly chill crept along his spine and he shivered.

“I need to talk to Martin,” he said quickly. “We can’t stay here.”

Doctor Choe Soo-jin dismissed the stretcher-bearers and her technicians from the laboratory, which also served as an operating theatre, and put on a plastic apron.

The lab, like much of this base, wasn’t furnished with the most up-to-date equipment, but what it had still did the job efficiently. It was vaguely reminiscent of an old-fashioned, large and sinister kitchen and smelled sharply of antiseptic. Yellow tiles covered the walls, one of which was taken up by four great ceramic sinks. A blood analyser that looked more like a bulky photocopier stood in one corner and a cream-coloured refrigerator, showing signs of rust, occupied another. Cylinders of gas stood in a row like the artillery shells in the munitions section of the base. Electrophoresis apparatus, microscope, centrifuge, organ bath, steriliser and other instruments were stored neatly along two Formica counters, as if they were food appliances. Then there were metal trays containing surgical saws, serrated knives and scalpels, drill bits, retractors, clamps and rasps. Beneath the counters were built-in cupboards that housed the beakers, test tubes, flasks and Petri dishes. The glass-fronted cabinets fixed to the walls contained drugs, medicines and chemicals that were kept under lock and key.

Two stainless-steel examination tables, with leather restraints, were in the centre of the room. The body of Marshal Tark Hyun-ki occupied one of them; a cardboard box containing the remains of the spider creature he had shot near the demilitarised zone was on the other.

The doctor hooked a paper mask over her nose, mouth and ears. Her excitement caused her hands to tremble slightly. At last she would have a subject to study, in forensic detail. She needed an affected specimen such as this and she had never liked the man. He had been more than vocal in his scepticism of her competence and had insulted her more times than she cared to remember. Medicine was not considered a suitable occupation for women and she had worked and studied three times as hard as any man to get to where she was.

But there was no sense of triumph or acrimony involved as she looked forward to dissecting him. Her scientific hunger pushed any personal feeling aside. The Marshal was merely a resource now, an object to document and label. She was eager only to discover answers to this mystery. The power of that book simply had to change the biology. She had a theory about the hypothalamus that she was keen to explore, and other investigations would prove invaluable. She was glad also that the restriction had been lifted and she would presently be able to test those same theories on the English refugees.

Moving to the table, she lifted the blanket and extreme disappointment registered in her eyes. As a result of the gunshot wounds, there wasn’t a hypothalamus to examine. Letting the blanket fall once more, she looked up and her glance rested upon the cardboard box on the other table. Curiosity dispelled her frustration. The box had arrived in her absence and she approached it with interest.

A copy of the Newspaper of the Workers, Rodong Sinmun, covered the dead creature inside. Cautiously, Doctor Choe Soo-jin removed the paper and peered down.

Her surgical mask distorted as she inhaled sharply. The thing was unlike anything she had ever seen. It was the size of a small terrier and its eight spidery legs were wrapped in a tangle round a body covered in matted black fur. The repulsive face with its wide mouth, crammed full of sharp fangs, was upturned and the round, glassy eyes seemed to be staring straight at her. She couldn’t help shuddering and she wondered how it was possible – how could this have come from a book of children’s make-believe?

Her thoughts returned to the meeting and those introductory words the Marshal had read out. She recalled that they had sounded pleasant at the time. What was there to fear in them? A wide sea, dappled with silvery light, sparkled in her thoughts, giving way to a green land of thirteen rolling hills and, in the central plain, rising over a quiet, sleepy village, the turrets and high walls of a beautiful white castle.

Inside the vault, in the room adjacent to the lab, the wand of Malinda began to glimmer once more.

The doctor shook herself and her training regained control. She would record everything: tissue samples, blood, musculature, skeleton. This was a totally new species. A series of photographs would have to be taken before any examination could take place, however, and there simply wasn’t time for that at the moment.

Lifting the box and shying away from the pungent odour rising from the Doggy-Long-Legs within, she carried it to the fridge and deposited it inside. She would attend to this monster later. But first she had other experiments to conduct.

Pulling the mask under her chin, she went to the door and spoke to the guards outside.

“Bring one of the Western children,” she commanded, “immediately!”

The guards bowed smartly and hurried up the corridor.

Doctor Choe returned to the metal trays and began selecting the knives she would need, a razor to shave the child’s head – and a surgical saw.

5

GERALD HAD HASTENED out on to the terrace to find Martin. The thick fog had lifted a little and the bluish-grey blur of distant peaks could be glimpsed through the shifting vapour. Martin wasn’t wearing a coat. He’d been too wrapped up in his angry thoughts to feel the cold, but now it was beginning to bite. The dense mist drank up the noises of the base, distant voices sounded small and lonely and a truck departing down the rough mountain road was remote and strange. He was astonished to hear a helicopter landing on one of the pads. Even that sounded weirdly unreal and he found himself thinking it was a cretinous risk to fly in this sort of weather.

Gerald hurried past the female guard who was watching at the entrance and took his friend by the arm.

“We have to get out of here,” he told him urgently.

Martin looked at him in astonishment. “What’s happened now?” he asked.

“I know what that doctor is planning. She’s been impatient to do it since we arrived, the sadistic maniac.”

“Slow down. What are you on about?”

“Her argument with the Chief of the General Staff earlier: I understand what got her so irate. She’s done all the tests she can on us and found nothing.”

“So? We knew she wouldn’t find anything.”

“Exactly! Now she wants to take it further. She wants to have a go at some post-mortems. She wants to cut us up, to prove there’s a medical reason for the book not working on us. That’s what the restriction was: they wouldn’t let her.”

Martin almost laughed. “You’re imagining it. Look, it’s been a really bad day; we’re both strung out.”

“Martin! I’m serious. Don’t let your pig-headedness lead you into making another fatal mistake. Look what happened the last time. If you’d have believed Paul when he came to you, right at the beginning… well, that’s in the past, no use dredging it up again. What’s vital right now is we need to get out and quick, before that doctor gets all Sweeney Todd on us with her snickersnee. How long do you think the restriction is going to last after what happened to the Shark today? Those Generals have finally witnessed what that book can do, at close range, and they won’t want to be next. If they can turn on their own, like they did with that poor aide, they’re not going to give us a second’s thought.”

The other man began to listen. Gerald wasn’t one to panic unnecessarily. Throughout all of this he had been the solid foundation that Martin depended on, the one who had stopped him giving in to black despair, time and again, and kept him fighting. If Gerald Benning suspected something then, for him, that was as good as proof. He didn’t question his assessment of their situation again.

“OK…” Martin said. “But you’re forgetting two important things. There’s no way out of here. Even if there was, there’s nowhere to run to.”

“We’ll worry about that second little detail later,” the old man told him, brushing it aside as if it didn’t matter. “Our first priority is escape. I suggest we get the kids out here on the terrace and scramble down the mountain. It’s not as ludicrous as it sounds; it isn’t quite as steep over at the far end there. We might be able to make it to the valley and the shelter of the trees. It’s a bit too like The Inn of the Sixth Happiness for my liking, but there’s no other option.”

Martin spluttered. “What? I thought you meant steal a truck and smash our way out the main entrance. We’ll break our necks climbing down there; not only that, but there’s guards with machine guns stationed all round.”

“And in this fog they couldn’t see the cast of Show Boat promenading underneath their sentry posts. But it’s starting to thin so we don’t have much time.”

“Wait, you mean right now, this minute?”

“Absolutely. These military types aren’t going to mess about any longer. They’ll be more desperate to find this mythical vaccine than ever – and Lee was right: the power of the book has arrived. This place is done for. We’ve seen it time and again everywhere we’ve been. You know how fast it takes over.”

“But how? I mean… what about the guards here in the medical centre? We can’t get past them. They’re not going to let us bring the kids outside en masse. They’ll know we’re up to something.”

Gerald’s jaw tightened. “We could if we were armed, Martin,” he said bluntly. “They won’t be expecting that; we’d take them by surprise.”

“What? Guns! Are you… how are we going to get hold of them?”

“Quite easily. I’ve been thinking it might come to something like this for a long while. I know just where we can lay our hands on four rifles. We’re going to need weapons once we leave here anyway; there’s no knowing what we’ll encounter out there.”

“God, Gerald,” Martin breathed. “You’d have to be prepared to use them. Actually shoot someone.”

“I know. But the alternative is too horrendous to think about. In difficult times there are no easy choices. It’s them or the children, Martin.”

“They’re not kids any more, not after everything they’ve been through, everything they’ve seen. But yes… you’re right. So where are these rifles? Have you got them stashed away someplace? You’re amazing.”

The old man gave him a grim smile. “No,” he replied. “Four very generous guards are going to give them to us.”

“Sorry?”

“Our young friend Lee’s entourage. We’re going to snaffle their rifles.”

Martin finally understood. “No,” he said firmly. “That’s madness! He’ll never agree for one thing and, even if he did, we can’t trust him. You know what he’s going to do when he gets there!”

“We need those rifles, Martin. This is the only way. Lee is going to have to perform that special hoodoo he does and go into the world of that evil book, taking the souls, or whatever you want to call it, of his guards with him. What’s left behind of them here will fall down in a faint and all we have to do is relieve them of their weapons. It’s so simple, it’s frightening.”

“No, what’s frightening is what Lee intends to do once he gets there.”

“Let’s deal with one crisis at a time, shall we? What Lee does, or doesn’t do, will be up to him. I don’t believe he’s the vile scum you think he is.”

Martin could feel his temper rising again. “You don’t?” he hissed. “Really? That lout in there – that selfish, idle thug – is going to Mooncaster for one reason only: to do Austerly Fellows’ dirty work. He’s the one person in all creation with the power to kill the character called the Bad Shepherd who, according to Maggie and Spencer, is some warped manifestation of none other than Jesus flaming Christ! And you don’t think that lad is scum? He’s worse than that; he’s itching to be a second bloody Judas!”

“That isn’t the real reason he wants to go, Martin. He’s been torn apart by grief and horror. He wants to be reunited with that lovely girl. So no, I don’t think he’s scum. He’s just a person in pain.”

“Don’t give me that. He’s chucking the whole of humanity over for the sake of a dead chav who, from what I’ve heard, was so dumb she thought Jane Eyre was a cheap airline to Ibiza for hen parties – and that toerag is laughing in our faces about it.”

“Martin!” Gerald snapped angrily. “You disappoint me sometimes, you genuinely do. You can be such an elitist snob! Lee is the way he is because people like you made him that way, long before Jax happened. Outside of his family, Charm was the first person to reach out and love him for who he was – is it any wonder he’s so churned up about her? Neither you nor I met the girl, but she sounds magnificent. I know what’s really biting you; it’s what he said about Carol. I’ve told you before, she can’t help what’s happened to her. She’s a victim.”

“Is she? She knew what the book was capable of, yet she read it deliberately. She wanted to get turned. That’s what I can’t get out of my head and what eats me up inside. She wanted it.”

“She only did that so she could find Paul! Remember how distressed she was when he became the Jack of Diamonds and disappeared. She was beside herself; she had to find her son. Why is that so impossible to understand? She sacrificed her own identity, everything she was, for her child’s sake. That’s what every mother does. How can you hold that against her? She wasn’t to know she’d become the Labella character.”

“She didn’t have to do it. I would’ve found him.”

“And a fat load of good you were when you eventually did. But that was then and this is now and we need to act. We’ve got to persuade Lee to take those guards of his into Mooncaster. Whether you like it or not, he’s our one and only chance to get the rest of these kids out of here alive. We’re all dead if we don’t.”

“Then God help us.”

The water in the bucket had iced over. Maggie cracked through it with the handle of the mop then began swabbing the bloody traces from the floor. The young refugees were not given work to do, but they were expected to keep their areas clean. Sometimes they almost wished they did have some sort of duties to keep them busy, but they never found themselves missing the minchet harvesting they’d been forced to do back in the camp.

Maggie couldn’t understand why Lee hated Martin so much. OK, so he was a bit up himself, thought his opinions were more important than everyone else’s and slipped back into teacher mode too regularly, but hadn’t he been proven right all down the line? If the authorities back in England had taken him seriously at the start, the horror of Dancing Jax might have been averted.

Working her way down the corridor, she didn’t notice the guards sent by Doctor Choe emerge from around the far corner. The men stared at her and exchanged glances. That girl would do. One of them opened his mouth to call out when Spencer came from the refectory to join her.

“I’ll finish that off if you like,” he offered.

“Nah,” she said, thanking him with a smile. “I might as well do it now. Not as if I’m missing anything.”

“Gerald was a bit weird just now. Said we couldn’t stay here.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“I dunno. Something Nabi said spooked him.”

“Oh, blimey, what else has Lee been teaching her?”

Before Spencer could reply, the guards began to shout. The teenagers looked back at them in surprise. The men were pointing at Maggie and beckoning.

“What’s up with them?” the girl asked.

“They want you to clean their bit as well.”

“But we’re not allowed over there.”

“They just don’t want to have to do it themselves. It’s women’s work, you know.”

The guards became impatient and started to advance down the corridor towards them.

“Well, they can sod off,” Maggie declared through a phoney smile. “I’m not cleaning a floor I’m forbidden to walk on. The lazy, sexist buggers.”

Spencer took the mop and bucket from her. “I’ll go,” he said. “You find Gerald and see why he was so rattled.”

“All right, I’ll ask Nabi what she’s been saying first. She’s a right little madam that one. Her dad’s going to have his hands full when she gets older. Can’t see her being a party drone like her sister. She’ll probably be leading the revolution single-handed.”

“It wasn’t like that,” the boy tried to tell her. “It was to do with cutting up the Shark or something.” But Maggie had already breezed back into the refectory.

Spencer approached the guards, whistling a few bars of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme to himself. They seemed a bit put out that Maggie had gone and barked at one another.

“I can handle a mop,” he assured them when it looked like they were about to follow her into the refectory. “It’s not gender-specific you know.”

They regarded him for a moment then nodded and led him away. Spencer smiled to himself. With the rest of the world in chaos, it was almost funny, perhaps even comforting, to encounter this unyielding chauvinism.

A bitter draught blew down the stone steps that led to the terrace on the left. Spencer shivered and glanced in at the last door on the right before the corridor bent sharply. This was Lee’s room. He was slouched on his bed, glaring down at the steel cuffs on his wrists. When he was in that mood, he was best left alone if you didn’t want your head bitten off. Spencer had never been the most socially adept person. Even before the Jax phenomenon, he’d been a loner at school and at home. Back in the camp, Lee had been the first to stick up for him, and accepted him and his oddball devotion to that Stetson. Spencer had never forgotten that and, as he set the bucket down, he determined to brave the boy’s temper and go talk to him – as soon as the floor was clean. After all, even if he did get his head bitten off, it was no big deal; there was no hat to put on it.

But now the guards were shouting again.

“All right!” he said. “I’m doing it as fast as I can. What’s the hur—?”

Without warning, one of them snatched the mop away and threw it to the floor. The other covered the boy’s mouth with his hand. Crying out was impossible and there was no time to struggle. Startled and fearful, Spencer was dragged further into the prohibited area. Locked doors flashed by and he was hauled into the lab where Doctor Choe Soo-jin was waiting.

“On the table,” she ordered severely.

The guards slammed him on to the gleaming metal surface. He barely registered his surroundings, but he saw the body of the Marshal covered in the blanket and, suddenly, he understood why Gerald had been so alarmed. The shock of realisation was like a violent punch.

“You’re not serious!” he yelled when the guard uncovered his mouth and began fastening the restraints about his wrists. “You can’t do this! You’re crazy!”

Terrified, he began to yell at the top of his voice and twisted and kicked, hitting one of the men in the face. A brutal fist struck him in return and Spencer shouted even louder.

“This room soundproof,” the doctor said. “No one hear you.”

Spencer continued to fight frantically. They caught his right foot and strapped it down. Doctor Choe moved closer to check the strap was secure and he booted her in the shoulder with his left. The woman went reeling sideways. She crashed against the other table and fell across the Marshal’s corpse.

Springing back, she snapped at the guards and they hastily buckled the other foot down.

“Make final strap tight!” she commanded. “Then wait outside. I am not to be disturbed, by anyone or anything.”

The last restraint was pulled under Spencer’s chin and over his throat, almost strangling him and flattening his windpipe. He choked and gasped and his cries were crushed into desperate croaks.

The guards bowed smartly and left the lab. Spencer was pinned fast to the table. He could only turn his head around a fraction before the thick strap bit into his neck. Struggling for breath, he watched the doctor move in and out of his line of sight and heard the ring of metal against metal as she sorted through her instruments. When she crossed his vision again, she was holding a syringe.

“You can’t do this!” Spencer rasped, sweating in horror. “I’m not a specimen you can cut up and examine. When Martin finds out, he’ll tell the Chief of the General Staff. They’ll have you shot – you’re raving mad!”

Doctor Choe disappeared again as she moved to the drugs cabinet and unlocked it. He heard the door open and the clink of small bottles as she examined the labels.

Spencer wrenched and heaved on the straps. He contorted his hands and feet and tried to slip them free, but the restraints were too strong and tight. There was nothing he could do. He turned his face as far to one side as he could, only to find himself staring at his dead neighbour. The boy grimaced and peered through his spectacles at the macabre sight. When the doctor had fallen against it, she had displaced the Marshal’s arm and it was now hanging over the side. Tark the Shark was still clutching a green book in his hand. Even in death the Jaxers didn’t let go of it. His blood dotted the cover.

Spencer’s mind was racing. He couldn’t break free, he couldn’t call for help, what else could he do? What else? He remembered back in the camp, when he’d been at his lowest, and had wanted to run outside after curfew so the Punchinellos would shoot him. Marcus had saved him then and made him realise that you had to keep battling, you had to keep looking for chances – you never gave up. But what chances were there here? Unless someone came barging in to the rescue, he was done for.

“Was Chief who lift restriction,” the doctor’s voice informed him. “Martin Baxter, him only important for study. His brain should be most interesting. Reason for immunity must be found. Democratic People’s Republic depend on my skill to find answer. I must create vaccine.”

“Brain?” the boy gasped. “You want our brains? You really are sick in the head. It’s your brains what need bottling! You’re out of your ruddy skull!”

“Brain of subjects only first avenue of study,” she told him. “Other organs may also hold clue that is vital.”

“There is no cure, you silly cow! It’s not a disease. When are you going to start listening to us? It takes you over. It’s evil – full stop. You get possessed. There’s no vaccine for that.”

He heard her flat heels turn on the tiled floor and, moments later, she was leaning over him. The syringe was no longer empty and a bead of clear liquid glistened on the needle’s tip.

“Lethal injection?” he asked, almost hysterical with fear. “That’s just wonderful that is. You’re putting me down like Old Yeller!”

“No lethal,” she corrected coldly. “Enough barbiturate to induce sleep or coma only. Point three five gram for now. Lethal dose might damage brain.”

“Oh, gee, bless you. You’re not going to kill me until after you’ve scooped out my skull. That’s really considerate.”

Her hand reached for his face. She wasn’t going to inject straight into his head, was she? He flinched as much as the strap across his throat allowed. He closed his eyes, expecting to feel the needle’s sting, but Doctor Choe was only removing his glasses. He felt them pulled from his nose and heard them being set on the counter. Then her gloved fingers pushed the cuff of his overcoat up his forearm as she selected a vein beneath his pale, European skin.