The Night of the Triffids (39 page)

    An ancient sign on a wall read:
NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT - COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
Putting her fingers to her lips for silence, Marni moved lithe as a cat through the vast basements of the university. In the light of the lamp I glimpsed a boiler room with long-extinguished furnaces that sprouted networks of iron pipes.

    She paused for a moment, contemplating a set of gloomy corridors that appeared to run away into dark infinity. Ancient cables hung down like black vines, while heating pipes shrouded with cobwebs snaked along tunnels before abruptly turning off to burrow into walls.

    I felt Marni's hand on my sleeve and we moved off once more. We'd gone perhaps another hundred yards when she pointed to a stairwell. I climbed up after her to emerge into a derelict building where we passed doors bearing the names of long-dead university professors. A moment later we emerged onto a broad street flanked by high buildings. My cherished hope that I'd find myself on the clean sidewalks of the city vanished in an instant. Road surfaces here were as thick with detritus as those in Harlem. People in rags still hurried by, carrying bundles. A girl of around nine laboured to push a handcart piled high with animal skins that dripped blood. Once more shops and cafes had been given over to industrial use. Men and women worked furiously over lathes, metal presses, saws.

    I felt a thump on my side. Marni flashed me a warning look. Deliberately, she lowered her head as she walked along then glanced sideways at me to make sure that I'd adopted the same posture.

    A sign told me that we were on Amsterdam Avenue, a once prosperous street that ran north-south through Manhattan. Another junction sign indicated that we'd reached 114th Street, the next said 113th. Now the descending order of street numbers informed us that we were moving south, which meant we weren't much more than half an hour's walk from 102nd Street where the twenty-foot-high prison wall divided New York City in two. Reaching the wall was the easy part. Finding a way through would be another matter entirely.

    We passed a huge Gothic structure that could only have originally been a cathedral. Inside sat rows of the Blind. With great dexterity they all hammered at silvery pieces of metal. The noise from hundreds of people hammering was stupendous. It was all I could do to stop myself clamping my hands over my ears as we hurried by the open doorway.

    Now I saw that the flow of people carrying bundles or pushing handcarts all seemed to be converging on one point. I recalled what Rowena had said about warehouses at the 102nd Street Parallel being stocked by slaves by night and emptied by the city workers by day.

    Worryingly, there were also more policemen. True, most rode in cars or the boxy vans I'd seen before that were topped with perspex gun turrets. There were a few, however, on foot: these appeared to be on traffic duty. They directed human beasts of burden along certain paths to various collection points. A line of barefoot girls took it in turn to empty baskets of brightly coloured clothes-pegs into a large cart. I couldn't help but notice that two of the girls bore an uncanny resemblance to Kerris. Torrence's progeny dwelled in every city block - or so it appeared to me.

    While all this appeared to be their customary practice I sensed that tonight a change had been made to their routine.

    Standing by the cart were a pair of middle-aged women. Their clothes and smart shoes proclaimed in an instant that these ladies weren't normally resident in the ghetto. They were talking among themselves while watching the clothes-peg girls. Still walking with my head down I began to take a closer interest in what was happening there. The two women were making an assessment of the girls. Every now and again one of the women would single out a girl who'd be ordered to the edge of the road where a growing number of similarly chosen girls already stood. Girls not selected walked away with their now-empty baskets.

    A furtive glance along the street told me that this selection process was happening elsewhere. Pairs of men and women with clipboards moved along the workshops, carefully looking at the workers. Now and again a girl or woman would be called out and ordered to stand in a given place at the roadside. I noticed Marni too casting inquisitive glances from beneath her mane of red hair. Something was most definitely up. But what?

    For a moment I believed the choice of girls was arbitrary. But then I realized only the post-pubescent girls were being chosen. While women beyond their middle years were being passed over.

    Two words came into my mind.
Operation Avalanche.
So it had started. Torrence's medical people were selecting women of childbearing age (although some were only barely that). Torrence's race of superhumans would, I figured, be making its debut some nine months from now.

    My line of thought came to a sudden end.

    'Hey! Wait. You there. Redhead. Stand still, girl.' Marni obeyed. She kept her head down, her gaze fixed on the ground. I copied her submissive posture.
Good God,
I thought,
it only takes one of the women to notice the quality of my boots, then the game's up.
I cast a sidelong glance at a policeman standing on the street corner, hands on his hips, a shotgun slung across his back. All I could do was wait for the woman in her smart shoes to say what she had to say before we could move on.

    Curtly the woman snapped, 'Name and number?'

    Marni continued to gaze down at the ground.

    'Girl, I asked for your name and number.'

    I felt a sinking sensation. This wasn't going well.

    'Girl. Are you being insolent? If you are, you're-'

    'She's mute,' I said quickly, while making my voice sound as servile as possible. 'Her name is Marni.'

    'Yes?' The woman stood poised with her pen over the clipboard. 'And her number?'

    'Her number?' I repeated dimly. 'I don't-'

    'Oh, for goodness' sake, come here, girl.' The woman roughly grabbed a handful of Marni's hair and pulled her head up. She wrinkled her nose in distaste at Marni's scarred face. 'Oh, the ugly treatment, was it? Tongue as well? Open your mouth… yes. Well, we don't need you to have the use of your tongue or your face, do we, now?' The woman ticked a box on the sheet. 'Now turn round.' Roughly again, she grabbed the neckline of Marni's sweater and dragged it down, exposing her shoulder. 'Stand still, girl. I can't read it if you go bobbing about like that.'

    Now I saw a long set of figures tattooed on the back of Marni's shoulder.

    After copying the number onto her clipboard the woman indicated a cluster of girls at the side of the street. 'Go stand over there. Do not move until I tell you otherwise.'

    I began to follow Marni.

    'Hey,' called the woman. I turned to look at her. 'We've no use for you, big guy. Go about your business.'

    I looked down the street at the policeman. He wasn't looking this way yet, but I knew that he'd come quickly enough if the woman kicked up a fuss. Keeping my head down in the same servile way as those around me, I moved off up the street. As I did so, I glanced at Marni who'd gone to stand with the other girls. I mouthed
Wait.
She gave a nod.

    Just ahead of me a bus pulled up and started taking girls on board from another group. Quite obviously, it was picking up groups of girls all down the street. Now I didn't have the luxury of thinking through a clear plan of action.

    The moment I reached the sidewalk I doubled back towards Marni. If I lost her I doubted if I'd ever make it south into the city.

    By this time the woman with her clipboard was busy taking down the particulars of a girl with a handcart. I prayed she wouldn't look in my direction.

    I reached the knot of girls where Marni stood. Behind me the bus lumbered along the street, the engine sounding louder as it neared me. Without stopping I spoke to Marni.

    'Marni. Walk ahead of me. Keep walking naturally. But if I shout "Run" -
run
.'

    Nodding, she walked a few paces in front of me. Once more we kept our heads down.

    'Girl. I told you to wait!'

    The woman's indignant voice cut like a blade through the street sounds.

    On the corner the policeman looked round to see what was happening.

    'Officer!' shouted the woman. 'Stop the redhead!'

    The heavy-set man was quick on the uptake. He marched forward and grabbed Marni's elbow in his massive fist. 'You stay here until I find out what's going on,' he told Marni. 'And damn well stand still.' He didn't wait for her to acquiesce. With a vicious swipe of his hand he slapped her in the face, knocking her back on her heels. I closed the gap between myself and the policeman who was still holding on to Marni. She shook her head groggily. I saw a smear of blood on her lips.

    For a split second I looked round at the people nearby. I discounted one after another as possible sources of help until I saw an old lady with a burden of iron rods. In a reflex action I drew one of the rods from her basket and brought it down as hard as I could onto the policeman's head.

    He never even saw it coming. With a coughing grunt he toppled into the mud. Marni looked down at the felled man in dazed disbelief.

    Immediately I heard shouts, while the woman with the clipboard began a screaming fit that got shriller and shriller.

    'Come on!' I grabbed Marni's arm. 'Run!'

    We hared off down the street. Across the road another policeman shouted through the doorway of one of the square trucks. I saw the perspex turret on top of the vehicle revolve smoothly until the machine-gun barrel was pointing at us.

    'Faster!' I yelled. At that moment several rounds whined past my head. The wall alongside me suddenly appeared to fizz as bullets pulverized chunks of brick.

    The police gunner had fired high. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

    Panic turned the street into a seething, terrified mass of people who shouted, ran, spilt the contents of their baskets. In front of me a man writhed on the pavement, clutching his head where a ricochet had caught him.

    Marni scrambled through an open doorway. I followed. I found myself in a long room where the Blind had been making stuffed toy animals. Now, startled by the gunfire, they turned their heads, searching for the source of the sound.

    'Keep moving,' I called to Marni. 'There must be a back way out of here.'

    Once we were in the building, and out of sight, it would have been common sense for the gunner to hold his fire. He did not. He fired a burst through the open doorway. One of the toymakers fell back, his chest smouldering where an incendiary tracer bullet had ripped through his clothing. Workers shouted in panic before scrambling outside through the front doorway.

    The machine gun rattled furiously. I glanced back to see bullet-torn bodies falling into the gutter.

    Marni thought more clearly than me. Instead of dwelling on the tragedy she gave me a forceful shove towards the doorway at the back of the workshop.

    Not pausing now, I raced through a storeroom full of staring dolls' heads, then half tumbled out of a doorway into a rear alleyway where a dozen or so puzzled men and women walked with their bundles and handcarts. They'd heard the shooting but clearly didn't know what was happening or where the gunfire was coming from.

    With the speed of an athlete Marni raced ahead of me. Whatever the destination, whatever the outcome, all I could do was follow.

    

    

    

    'STOP!'

    We did no such thing. Before the officer who'd sprung up in front of us could bring his shotgun to bear we dodged down another alley.

    This wasn't a wise choice. For lumbering towards us came another armoured truck. The eyes of the driver blazed as he accelerated, bearing down on us. Marni was ready to run away from the vehicle but I urged her to run
towards
it. I gambled that the gunner in his turret on top of the truck wouldn't be able to depress the gun muzzle far enough to hit us if we were too close.

    The gun barked and a tracer round flew high enough over our heads to tell me that we were safe from the machine gun - at least, for the time being. The lumbering truck was another matter. It looked as if its driver had decided simply to run us down.

    'Climb over the fence,' I called to Marni. We both vaulted over as the truck loomed over us. A moment later we found ourselves in a walled garden that was full of milling goats.

    I glanced back; the perspex bubble of the gun turret stood higher than the fence. Once more it revolved smoothly to bring the gun to bear on us.

    Marni needed no urging. Like lightning she climbed the wall of the adjoining garden. I followed, dropping down into a mass of potato plants as bullets hungrily chewed the coping stones. We paused for breath while the gunner took the opportunity to blast the other side of the wall and test the thickness of the brickwork. No doubt he hoped the heavy machine-gun rounds would punch clear through and kill us both.

    Fortunately, some long-dead builder hadn't skimped. The wall held firm even though the bullets loosened a blizzard of mortar on our side. Marni looked at me and I nodded. We moved on, keeping as low as possible. Although I could no longer see it, I heard the police truck reversing along the alleyway as the turret gunner looked over walls and fences into the gardens for any sign of us. This time, however, we took care to remain out of sight. Using chicken coops, rabbit hutches and an assortment of bushes as cover we worked our way from garden to garden. If there were any of the tenement's residents about I didn't see them. They'd heard gunfire. Now they were keeping indoors until the trouble had passed.