Shade’s Children

Then the rope jerked and the sudden fear of a real fall gave him the impetus for the second half of the crossing, and in just a few seconds he was swinging on to the carpet in the new building. Where Ninde sat on the floor, looking surprised that she’d made it.

There seemed to be a brief argument on the other side, ending with Ella furiously swarming across the rope. She came far faster than Gold-Eye and had barely swung in when she was testing the knot at the end and yelling at Drum.

“Come on!”

Drum was the real test of the rope. He pushed himself off with slow deliberation, looking like a cable car on maximum load… and the rope stretched and sagged still further.

He was two thirds of the way across when the Ferrets came boiling up out of the broken trapdoor, moving together in a sinuous wave of spitting, hissing death. There were five of them, each as long as a car, but no wider round the middle than Gold-Eye or Ninde. Something between a snake and a stretched-out rat, with only their paw-hands evidence of human origin. That, and their clever minds.

Rearing up a safe distance from the edge (for not even an Overlord could make them face such a height) they hissed together, showing long mouths with their rows of tiny teeth – and the two sharp fangs at the front. Hollow fangs, for drinking blood. Human blood, if they could get it. Otherwise, they resorted to rats, cats and dogs… or each other.

The rope held.

“Right,” said Ella wearily as Drum swung into the room. “Let’s get six or seven floors higher up, in case they have another go before dawn. We could all do with a bit more sleep before we start back.”

VIDEO ARCHIVE INTERVIEW 1906 • GOLD-EYE

I am Gold-Eye.

Ninde is angry because Shade does this video now, without months’ wait. He not say why.

I remember Dorms. But not getting out. Petar and Jemmie took me.

Petar did something. Here. No scar like Ella, but no lump for monitor. It went away.

Peter said he was brother. My brother.

Older, bigger. His job to look for me. He said.

Jemmie was his friend.

Myrmidons took them. The window too small for Petar and Jemmie. Petar push me through. Shout to run, hide.

Wingers fly them away. I saw in the soon-to-be-now. The Meat Factory took them in.

No more Petar and Jemmie.

Only Gold-Eye. Running and hiding.

Like Petar said.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_a2747004-af25-5e3c-a8c2-e2f8d4da6e22)

Shade’s secret home was a submarine. Soon after the Change it had come away from its mooring and drifted in between two old, long, wooden finger wharves. Now the bow was wedged under the decking of one wharf and the stern trapped against the other. Sand had built up on the seaward side, locking it in place.

Shade’s children came and went via a torpedo tube in the bow, safely out of sight under the wharf. They could then wade between the piles up to a storm-water tunnel that led into the city’s network of drains.

The drains had the advantage of being hidden from Wingers, Trackers and Myrmidons, but it was always a gamble between two perils. Too much water in the tunnels meant a quick death by drowning – but a dry tunnel was nearly always infested with Ferrets. Even in their dormant stage during the day, they would still wake long enough to kill a careless human.

Gold-Eye, Ninde, Drum and Ella arrived under the wharf in midmorning. Exhausted from the night before and sodden from the neck, armpits or waist down (varying according to their height) from the drains, they were not pleased to see that the tide was high.

“The tube will be shut,” Ella said wearily. “We’ll have to wait a few hours for the tide to go down. It looks like it’s on the turn.”

“Wait where?” asked Ninde. Like the others, she was hugging the rim of the storm-water tunnel, the water cascading around her legs before swooping down the short drop into the sea.

“Here,” replied Ella. “Or we can swim out to the Sub and hang on. Stand or float. Your choice.”

“I’ll stand,” muttered Ninde, in a tone that hinted things should have been better organised.

They stood in miserable silence for another three hours. Gold-Eye almost fell at one point, his leg muscle suddenly cramping and giving way, but Drum pulled him back and pushed him upstream. After that, Gold-Eye just sat in the water, letting it wash around his shoulders and under his chin.

Finally Ella judged that the tide had receded enough for the torpedo tube to be accessible. She jumped down first, checked that the water came up only to her waist and signalled the others on.

The Submarine was much bigger than it had looked from the drain outfall. Its hull loomed up above Gold-Eye five or six times taller than Drum – a giant black cylinder that had forced itself under the wharf, twisting and warping the planks so that lines of sun shone through the gaps, falling on Gold-Eye’s upturned face and glittering across the sea.

Ella led them right up to the rounded nose of the Submarine, where four round hatches could be seen outlined in bright-yellow paint. Danger warnings and safety and maintenance procedures were stencil-typed next to them; flakes of rust around three of the hatches proclaimed that this maintenance had long been neglected.

The fourth hatch was rust free, and this was the one that Ella reached up to and knocked on with the hilt of her sword, creating a hollow, metallic boom that vibrated through the hull and into the water. Gold-Eye felt its buzz around his knees.

The knock was answered by a hiss of compressed air and the hatch slid open just a crack, a metallic tentacle suddenly springing out. Made up of hundreds of silver rings, it writhed in the air for a second, then turned so the end of the tentacle was facing them. A lens glittered there and Gold-Eye had the curious sensation that it was somehow looking at him.

“Don’t worry,” said Ella, noticing that he was unconsciously edging away. “It’s only one of Shade’s Eyes. He’s just checking to make sure we aren’t creatures.”

True to Ella’s explanation, the tentacle hovered in front of each of them in turn before wavering back to take another look at Gold-Eye. It looked at him from all sides before it seemed to be satisfied and withdrew back into the Sub.

After it disappeared, there was another burst of compressed air and the hatch slid completely open, revealing a narrow cylindrical passage, apparently lines with mattress foam.

Ella reached up into the passage and pulled down a heavy, knotted rope, letting it fall into the sea with a loud splash that sprayed everyone on the few places where they were still dry.

“Ella!” squealed Ninde, and even Drum seemed displeased, stepping back half a pace with a scowl momentarily passing across his face.

“Sorry,” apologised Ella. “Still, hot showers and clean clothes soon. Ninde, you can go first.”

Ninde needed no encouraging this time. Ignoring the knotted rope, she used Drum like a ladder, climbing up him and stepping off his shoulder as if he were a piece of furniture. Then she was wriggling her way down the tube and out of sight.

Gold-Eye was next, though he used the rope. He was surprised to find that the tube was wider than it looked from down below. He’d wondered how Drum would fit, but even his bulk would slip through all right – despite the thick padding that made it more comfortable to crawl along.

The tube ended in another hatch, which was closed. Gold-Eye hesitated for a moment, then knocked on it.

There were a few clanking sounds as the locking wheel spun; then it opened outward, revealing a large, well-lit chamber – and Ninde, wearing only her underwear and a large white towel wrapped turban-like around her head.

Gold-Eye stared, then blushed and looked down as Ninde said, “Haven’t you ever seen a girl in a bikini before?”

“Only pictures,” he croaked, sliding out of the tube and on to the floor. Trying not to look at Ninde’s body, he looked everywhere else, noting the towels hanging on hooks on one wall and various baskets and boxes lined up on the other.

“We leave our outside clothes here,” said Ninde. “Get a bit dry and then report to Shade before we shower and eat. Come on – get those wet rags off.”

“Nothing else on,” muttered Gold-Eye. He was confused. The sexes were segregated in the Dorms, except at meal time, and they always washed separately. Petar and Jemmie had washed together – and done other things as well – but that was all just a hazy memory of half-seen sounds and misremembered images. He didn’t know how he was supposed to behave.