Outpost

He sat on the bed next to Nikki. He took a key from round his neck and opened the box. Money. Notes rolled tight, held by rubber bands. Nail tucked cash into the inner pocket of his coat.

‘You could wipe your ass with it, I suppose,’ said Nikki. ‘Poker winnings?’

‘Fruits of entrepreneurial labour.’

Nail tipped the box into his lap. A spoon. Packets of hypodermics. A Ziploc bag of brown powder.

‘Didn’t know you had a hobby.’

‘It’s a six-month rotation. A person needs to chill now and again.’

‘And you go home with a triple pay cheque.’

‘Loose change. People go to Ghost for weed. They come to me if they want something a little stronger.’

Nail scraped frost from the shoulder of his coat and melted it in the spoon with a pinch of powder. He unwrapped a syringe and siphoned the fizzing liquid.

‘Want to forget yourself a while?’ asked Nail.

‘Yeah, there’s plenty I want to put from my mind.’

She took off her coat and rolled up the arm of her fleece. Nail rubbed the crook of her elbow with his thumb to raise a vein. He carefully inserted the needle beneath her skin and pressed the plunger. A wash of snuggling well-being. She smiled and sat back against the wall.

Nail took off his coat and rolled up the sleeve of his sweatshirt. He tied a shoelace tourniquet round his bicep and pumped his arm. He shot up.

He pulled Nikki close and hung his coat round both their shoulders. He stroked her hair.

They sat in the burned-out room and gazed at the stove, mesmerised by the ethereal blue flame.

Ghost crawled through the conduit. He jackknifed his body to squeeze round a junction. His belt-loop snagged on a bolt. He tried to twist free. Sudden, sweating claustrophobia. He pushed at the duct walls. He heard himself sob.

He stopped thrashing, closed his eyes and tried to compose himself.

‘Talk to me, Jane. Let me hear a voice.’

‘Just thinking. Rawlins didn’t want to lose himself. That’s what he told me. He didn’t want the disease to win. I suppose that’s what everyone says. That they’d drive off a cliff in a blaze of glory rather than waste away in a hospital bed.’

‘So what do you reckon? This disease.’

‘I read a book about the Manhattan Project. When they tested the first atom bomb in the desert, scientists wondered if the blast might set the atmosphere on fire. Maybe this was the same situation. They, the big, scary They, were toying with some kind of super-technology. Nanobots. Bio-weapon. Something so cutting-edge, so unstable, they put the lab in space to contain it in a vacuum. But something went wrong, something sudden and catastrophic, and chunks of debris dropped to earth like our friend in the capsule. ’

‘Sure. Why not?’

Ghost squirmed in the narrow space. He unhooked his belt- loop. He crawled forward on his elbows.

‘Feel like I’ve been wriggling around in here for hours.’

‘ Nothing?’

‘Nothing. The cable looks fine.’

‘Find a way out and head back to the powerhouse. We’ll take another look at the generator.’

Punch sat in the observation bubble. He cocooned himself in a sleeping bag and stared at the stars.

Footsteps from below. Crazy, dancing light approaching up the spiral stairs. Sian with an aluminium trunk under each arm and a Maglite clenched between her teeth.

‘One of the men on Raven is an electrician,’ said Sian. ‘If we can get him here, he can help.’

‘We don’t have power,’ said Punch. ‘We don’t have radar. If they take to the lifeboats they’ll drift right past us.’

Sian flipped the latches on each case.

‘A GPS kit and a radio. I found them downstairs. They run on lithium batteries. They’re charged.’

‘They won’t have much range.’

Sian contemplated the silhouettes of the gargantuan distillation towers, three great shadows that eclipsed the stars.

‘What if we got them up high?’

Ghost was overcome by a sudden wave of exhaustion. He rolled on to his side.

‘I feel like a fucking sewer rat.’

‘I spoke to the careers counsellor during my last year at school.

He asked me what I would do if I were the last person alive. If there were no social pressure, no one left to impress.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I’d mooch. I’d loaf. I’d sit on a riverbank and read books ’

Ghost reached in his pocket. He pulled out a yellow epinephrine hypodermic. He bit the cap off the hypo and injected his bicep.

‘You’re in charge now. You know that, right? I mean seriously. For real. With Rawlins gone you are the only authority left. The crew are your responsibility. They’ll expect you to have the Grand Plan.’

‘Is this your valedictory statement? Are you passing the torch?’

‘I can feel a breeze. There’s something up ahead.’

Ghost wormed his way along the conduit. A section of duct broke open when D Module fell from the refinery. He leaned over a jagged metal lip. Frayed cable swung in the ice wind. Far below him was the sea.

‘I think I found our problem.’ He coughed up phlegm. He retched. He vomited. ‘I’m turning round. I’m coming back.’

Jane helped Ghost limp to his room. She laid him on his bunk. He was pale and breathless. He shivered. She draped three coats over him.