Furnace 3 - Death Sentence (17 page)

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

We stood in the middle of the control room for what seemed like forever, trying to collect our thoughts. Zee was kicking out at the surreal sculpture of melted equipment as though he could miraculously salvage something from the mess, but it was a lost cause.

‘What this place used to be?’ asked Bodie, staggering over a small hill of rubble and rock to get to the elevator. He bent down and tentatively stuck his head inside, squinting into the darkness beneath his feet.

‘Just a room,’ blurted Zee, looking at me uneasily. ‘Nothing special like.’

‘And this thing leads down to where the warden is?’ Bodie asked, removing his head and rattling the charred remains of the elevator gates.

‘Yeah,’ Zee and I confirmed together. I finished:‘The only way up or down from the lower levels.’

Bodie grinned, his teeth a flash of diamonds against the dark room.

‘Looks like the tables have turned,’ he said.‘You blew this baby up good and true, Alex. It ain’t going nowhere now.’ He stuck his head back into the darkness of the shaft, which reminded me of a lion’s mouth, and when he spoke next he was shouting. ‘Hey, warden, you hear me down there? You hear what we’s saying? You our prisoners now, we got the gates right here and you ain’t never getting back up. You hear?’

We all held our breath to listen for a reply, but the underbelly of the prison was too far below. It was satisfying to imagine the warden hearing Bodie’s words, though. I pictured him seething, foaming at the mouth as his frustration battled with his rage, taking it out on the poor suits who had suddenly found themselves fighting on the wrong side in a war that took no prisoners.

Ha, no prisoners
, I thought to myself, my burned face stinging as my lips curled into a smile.
That’s funny, Alex
.

For some reason the voice in my head made me think of Donovan, and the smile quickly vanished. I wished he was here, more than anything, more than I wished we could find a way out. He deserved to be here. And he’d have been so good in this fight, he’d have known exactly what to do. But he wasn’t. He was dead. I had killed him.

I felt the lump rising in my throat, so big that it was like a living thing trying to claw its way out of my windpipe. I made for the tunnel, not caring that I was tripping and slipping on the broken floor, just wanting to get out of the darkness, away from the smell of death.

‘Alex?’ Zee shouted after me. ‘You got a plan? Alex?’

I didn’t stop, lurching over the debris like Frankenstein’s monster as I struggled to get back into the yard. Only when I was out from the tunnel, the massive prison yard the closest thing I was going to get to fresh air, did I calm down.

I’m sorry, D
, I thought, then I said the same words aloud.

‘What?’ said Zee, who had followed me. ‘You say something? If you’ve gotta plan then you gotta tell me.’

‘No plan,’ I said.

‘We just keep working at the main elevator,’ came Bodie’s voice, echoing from the tunnel. He appeared moments later. ‘We get it open, and we find out how to make it work. You reckon we can blow the doors off with another can of gas?’

Both Zee and I shook our heads together.

‘Did you not have your eyes open in there?’ I said. ‘We use gas on the elevator then it’s stuck down here for good, and so are we.’

Bodie nodded, the cogs in his head practically visible through his eyes. After a moment or two he walked over to the elevator doors and scooped up a pickaxe that was leaning against them. Simon was standing there, nursing a burn on his giant arm from the explosion but otherwise fine. He was already holding his axe, examining several pale white marks on the steel doors, the only evidence that anyone had tried to break through.

‘Okay,’ Bodie said, resting the axe over his shoulder. The Skulls had gathered around him again, waiting for
their orders, a few Fifty-Niners and other kids too. ‘We’ll carry on working on the doors. Pug, Clay, Omar, you take the ammo we’ve got left and set up in there,’ he pointed back towards the tunnel. ‘Make sure nothing comes up from below.’

The three Skulls started collecting shotguns, ejecting cartridges from breeches. I watched with growing dismay as the pile of red shells reached seven then stopped. They split the ammo between them, leaving one shotgun with a single shell for Bodie before heading back through the vault door.

‘Alex, Zee, gonna need your help with the door,’ Bodie said.

‘Give me a minute or so,’ I replied. ‘Just got something I need to take care of.’

I walked off, Zee sticking to my side, the clang of picks on steel like a tuneless serenade marking our departure. Around us the inmates seemed to have calmed down, the explosion hammering home the fact that this had turned into something bad, something deadly. Most sat on the landings, legs dangling over the yard, watching the Skulls at work. Their attention turned to me as I passed beneath them, and every time I glanced up I saw firelight reflected in their eyes, like they were demons waiting to pounce.

‘Got something in mind?’ asked Zee. ‘Or did you just fancy a stroll?’

I didn’t answer, merely led the way around the outside of the huge yard towards the shower rooms. Ducking my head through the crack in the rock I saw
what I was looking for, a bundle of white against the red floor. I pulled off my jacket, wincing as my aching muscles protested.

‘No point in washing,’ commented Zee. ‘Things are just gonna get messy again.’

I breathed a laugh through my nose, too soft for Zee to hear, then unbuttoned my shirt.

‘Little privacy would be nice,’ I said. Zee didn’t move, his eyes on my chest as I threw the ruined uniform to the floor.

‘Holy …’ he started. ‘Alex, how are you still even walking?’

I looked down, saw the claw marks that had gouged three huge trails across my chest. Around them was a patchwork of scars, some still with stitches from my surgery, the skin barely able to contain the bulging flesh beneath. There were bruises too, so many that I looked like I’d been swimming in grape juice. Most were already starting to heal, turning an ugly shade of mottled yellow.

‘Nectar,’ I answered, prodding a gash that had opened up in my side and wondering how I’d got it. The wound was already sealed with a layer of clotted black blood, the poison hard at work saving my life. There couldn’t be much left in me now. ‘Got to be grateful to the warden for something, I guess.’

‘Yeah, that and your pecs, dude,’ said Zee. ‘Man, you look like a Mr Universe or something. Girls are gonna go wild for you when you get out of here.’

We both laughed softly. I flexed an arm, seeing my bicep swell to the size of a melon. It was impressive, yes,
but the sight of it made me feel like I was going to hurl again. That wasn’t my muscle under there, it was something age old and rotten stitched beneath my skin. Luckily Zee broke the tension by flexing his own arms. He looked like a rake holding two chopsticks.

‘Reckon I can pull some fitties with these too,’ he said, and this time our laughter surged across the room like running water. ‘Seriously though, Alex, what did the warden do to you?’

‘It’s complicated,’ I said, not even sure where to begin. ‘I don’t know what it is, I just know what it does. It makes me strong, Zee, gives me power I never ever imagined. But …’ Zee didn’t prompt me, waiting patiently for me to continue. ‘But the price you pay for that power is, I don’t know; you lose yourself, in anger,in hatred. The more it happens, the more of your personality is scratched away. If it happens too much then I’m going to end up an animal, like the rats, like Gary.’

Zee frowned, then started giggling. I looked up at him, not quite believing it.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Alex, what you’re telling me is that the warden turned you into the Incredible Hulk.’

‘What?’ I repeated, my voice an octave higher.

‘You no like me when I’m angry,’ Zee growled, and this time I laughed alongside him. ‘Hulk smash!’ He stomped around the room for a few seconds banging his hands on his chest like a gorilla, then calmed down, wiping the tears from his eyes. ‘You haven’t even told me why we’re standing in the showers.’

I turned away from Zee and removed my trousers, trying not to look at the scars that ran the length of my trunk-like legs.

‘Okay,’ said Zee. ‘Now I’m really worried …’

‘Just hang on a sec,’ I said, groaning like an old man as I bent down and rummaged through the pile. Most of the prison overalls were way too small for me, but after a bit of a hunt I found some that had been stretched thin by time. I slowly slotted my feet in, pulling the upper half over my back. It was tight around the arms, and when I moved it tore under both of my pits, but other than that it seemed to be fine.

‘Does my bum look big in this?’ I asked, giving Zee a clumsy twirl.

‘Your everything looks big in that,’ he answered. ‘You sure you want to trade that smart, comfortable suit for prison rags?’

‘Yeah, I’m sure.’ I picked up the suit, scrunching it into a ball. ‘I’m one of you, Zee, I’m a prisoner, not a blacksuit. They may have dressed me in someone else’s flesh, but they can’t make me wear the suit, not now.’

‘But what if you need it later on?’ he said. ‘Like a disguise or something.’

‘They know who I am. There’s no more pretending. And anyway, I’d rather die wearing the same uniform as you – as everyone – than spend another second in this.’

We stood for a moment, listening to droplets of water fall from the shower heads, suddenly aware of the immense blanket of quiet draped across the room.

‘You think we will?’ Zee said softly. ‘Die, I mean.’

‘I wouldn’t give us great odds,’ I replied. ‘But we made it this far, right?’

‘Right.’

‘And now there’s only a set of steel doors between us and freedom.’

‘Well, the elevator doors, yeah, plus the blacksuits beneath us and the guards up in the Black Fort. And the electrified fence and the gates, not to mention Alfred Furnace and whatever he brings to the party. Oh, and the police as well, if we ever do make it as far as the streets.’

‘Yeah, that too. But mainly just the doors.’

‘Speaking of which,’ Zee said, ‘we should probably go give them a hand.’

We walked out without another word, leaving the silence and stillness of the shower rooms behind us. This time I didn’t take the route around the outside of the yard but headed for the middle where the bonfire still blazed. I could feel its heat against my skin from thirty metres away, like invisible hands pushing me back. But I kept walking until the mound of burning sheets towered above me. It’s not like I could lose my eyebrows again.

I tossed the suit onto the fire, watching tongues of flame lick around it as if they were tasting to see what it was. Then a mouth seemed to open up in the inferno,swallowing the suit with a roar of satisfaction. I watched until there was nothing left but smoke. If only there was a way to destroy all evidence of the warden’s work so easily.

‘Burn in hell,’ I said, wishing I could have thought of something more original to say, and something more deserving to say it to. Then the heat became too much and I backed off, making for the elevator. It might have been my imagination but I thought the looks I got walking across the yard were softer – not so much friendlier as less hateful. I still looked like a blacksuit, but I’d chosen my colours. I was wearing prison stripes. I was one of them.

Simon was standing by the elevator talking to Zee, pickaxe in his giant hand and sweat pouring from him. He saw me coming and did a double take.

‘Nice kit,’ he said. ‘Although it could do with some TLC.’

I was looking down at the holes in my uniform, at the threads which snaked out from every seam, when I heard something power up above my head. I staggered back instinctively, everyone else doing the same, eyes glued to the huge monitor mounted above the elevator doors. The screen flickered on, a white Furnace logo rotating lazily on a black background. Then the image parted to reveal a sight that forced screams and shouts of distress across the prison.

‘It’s over,’ hissed the warden, his face immense, his eyes once again those lightless pits that promised an eternity of suffering, twin portals which seemed to bore right through me. ‘Make your choice now. Surrender the traitors, or you will all die.’

ULTIMATUM

‘Obedience is the difference between life, death and the other varieties of existence on offer here in Furnace,’ said the warden from the screen, repeating the same line I’d heard so many times before.

I studied his face, saw the bruise that had begun to creep over the bridge of his nose, collecting in the deep bags beneath his eyes. Another blemish stretched from his ear down to his shirt collar, presumably where Zee had kicked him. He looked battered, but there was no sign of weakness in his remorseless gaze, which seemed to flood the prison with a cold, invisible darkness.

‘Someone gave him a beating,’ said Bodie, his hushed voice about the only sound in the yard apart from the fire. He turned to me. ‘That you?’

‘Team work,’ I replied.

‘Nice,’ he said. ‘Got what was coming to him.’

‘Quiet!’ said the warden, the word almost screamed, sending everyone flying back some more. I remembered the bank of television monitors in the warden’s quarters, and the ones that had been mounted in the
control room. I scanned the wall before me until I saw it – a black eye in the rock between the elevator doors and the warden’s face, the camera he must have been watching us on.

‘This is my house,’ the warden went on. ‘And in my house a riot like this is punishable by
death
.’

That last word was a snake’s hiss, and it ushered in a wave of sobs and cries from the inmates around me. He seemed to smell their fear even through layers of rock, his nostrils flaring and his upper lip pulling back to reveal yellow teeth as big as tombstones on the monitor.

‘For the most part, I would be willing to forgive this infraction. I have been watching you, and I know who is responsible. Those who return to their cells and wait for my men to lock you in will not be punished. I am even prepared to pardon those who took part in the fire fight, on one condition.’

‘Here it comes,’ said Simon. He had shuffled to my side, drawing ranks against the inevitable.

I stared into the warden’s eyes, trying to remember how weak they had looked last time I’d met them – pale and watery and all too human. But all I could see now were black holes which caused the rest of the prison to disintegrate around them, sucking every trailing piece of matter into their soulless depths. As I watched, mesmerised, the warden’s voice seemed to split in two, causing another rush of vertigo that almost had me on the floor.

‘Bring me the three inmates who escaped from the
lower levels,’ said one voice, the main one, which blasted from hidden speakers around the screen. The other had no physical source. It seemed to come from the gaping abyss of the warden’s eyes, a sonic boom that ground itself into my brain.

How dare you
, it said, the force of the words making my vision flicker.
I gave you strength that you never
dreamed of possessing, power beyond your wildest dreams, and
this is how you repay me?

‘Alex Sawyer, Zee Hatcher and Simon Rojo-Flores. Bring me those three and consider your debt to me wiped clean,’ he went on. ‘Life will go on just as it did,and this mess will be forgotten.’

The other voice spoke at the same time, softer than the real one yet at the same time a million times louder.

Never have I felt so much disappointment, so much shame.
To throw everything I offered back in my face. I showed you
secrets that would turn the world on its head, and I promised
you a place in the fatherland to be unveiled.

‘What choice do you have?’ the warden’s lips moved with these words. ‘There is no way out of Furnace Penitentiary. Your attempts are futile, and if you persevere with them then I guarantee that you will all meet an agonising death.’

The crime you have committed here is unspeakable, and
unforgivable
, the voice was growing louder inside my skull, each syllable a knife edge.
There is no punishment
fit enough for a traitor like you, but believe me when I say
you will know all the pain of the world before you meet an
agonising death.

The warden’s real words and those in my head were perfectly timed so that the final phrase – ‘agonising death’ – seemed to resonate
through
me. I felt the strength in my legs fade, tried and failed to stay standing.

‘He cannot save you,’ bellowed the warden as I thumped down onto my knees. ‘Look at how weak he is. Neither one of you nor one of us. A coward, a traitor, a mutant, a
rat
, to be disposed of like trash.’

How does it feel when the power goes? How does it feel to
be the pathetic boy you once were? How does it feel knowing
that even when they trample you to death I will bring you
back for more pain, more suffering? Oh yes, death will not find
you here quickly.

Both Simon and Zee had their hands on my shoulders, their voices calling to me, but all I could feel was the warden’s poisonous probing in my brain, and all I could hear was his real voice on screen.

‘This will soon be over, and it is up to you to decide how it ends. Pick one path and all you will find is darkness. Choose the other and by lockdown tomorrow this will be but a distant memory.’ The warden leant into the screen, his eyes expanding until there was nothing but a hurricane of lightless night. ‘Leave their corpses by the elevator.’

The last few scraps of colour vanished from the monitor and it powered off. With it the pain from the warden’s voice burst from my head like a startled bird, leaving me with nothing but nausea. I shook it off, letting Simon and Zee help me to my feet.

Every single eye was looking our way. Bodie and his
Skulls still brandished their pickaxes, but they were no longer facing the elevator shaft. Instead they moved as one towards us.

‘Kill them!’ yelled a voice from somewhere overhead. It was taken up by others, becoming a wave of sound that was almost powerful enough to crush me by itself. Bodie stared at the crowd then looked at the Skull to his left, who shrugged.

‘Giving us immunity,’ the boy said. ‘Pretty generous, for the warden.’

‘And all we gotta do is flatline these three,’ added Bodie. ‘Seem like a fair deal to yous?’

‘Wait –’ I started, cut off by another round of cries from the inmates. Even past my fear I thought that this must have been what it was like in the Coliseum, being condemned to death by a jeering crowd. ‘Bodie,’ I tried again. ‘Come on.’

I imagined the warden watching events unfold on the screens in front of him, laughing as we were pounded into the rock. I was determined not to show fear, but I knew my expression was a mask of pure terror and there was nothing I could do to change it. Bodie was close enough now to strike, his knuckles almost white around the pickaxe handle. The Skulls and Fifty-Niners were moving around us, forming a ring of bodies, while others kids were trampling down the steps to get a closer view.

Or to join in when the slaughter started.

‘You want me to kill them?’ yelled Bodie, addressing the mob. There were a few more cries, but the inmates
seemed uncertain now. There was a madness in his eyes, one that must have scared them as much as it did me. ‘You want me to kill these three, the only ones who’ve had the guts to stand up to the warden? The ones who might just get us the hell out of here? You want me to kill them because he tells us to?’

This time the prison was silent.

‘And for what? So he can lock us all up again? So we can go back to spending every waking hour terrified of our own shadows, and lie awake at night waiting for the wheezers?’

‘The warden said –’ came a voice from somewhere behind me.

‘Yeah, the warden
said
,’ interrupted Bodie, loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘The warden
said
we’d die if we didn’t obey. He
said
that we had to kill them. He
said
a lot of things just now, but the fact is he’s saying stuff instead of doing stuff, and when have you ever known him to do that? He’s locked beneath our feet, him and his suits. Alex, Zee, Simon, they put him there, in the ground, and he ain’t getting back up anytime soon.’

This time the muttered words that emerged from the crowd were murmurs of agreement, and for the first time since the warden had vanished off screen I felt my body relax. Not much, but enough to let me breathe.

‘Yous all know the rules of the street,’ Bodie went on. ‘Well, those of yous who’re in here ’cos of the game, that is. Them that
say
are the ones who get ended by them that
play
. And the only ones who run their mouths off are them that don’t have no power left but their own voice.’

That streak of insanity was still visible in Bodie’s eyes, but now it reminded me of a preacher delivering a sermon, all fire and brimstone. And it was working. Those quiet chirrups of sound were growing into something more, a chorus of cheers building up around us.

‘I can’t promise that we’ll all get out of here. Hell, I can’t even promise that any of us will. But I know one thing for sure: we stand more of a chance staying alive by fighting to get outside than we do sitting in our cells waiting for the warden to pick us off one by one. So …’

He lifted his pick off his shoulder and held it up to my forehead.

‘You want me to do them, then you just say,’ he went on, and all of a sudden the prison fell quiet again. ‘Or you want to tell the warden where to stick his pardons and then get the hell out of here?’

The inmates erupted, cheering Bodie on as he turned and threw the pickaxe at the screen. It struck the corner, a giant crack snaking out across the glass. Without pausing, Bodie grabbed the shotgun that had been leaning against the elevator doors and aimed it towards the camera.

‘Screw you,’ I heard him say as he pulled the trigger, the black eye exploding outwards in a geyser of shrapnel and sparks. He tossed the empty weapon to the floor and walked up to us.

‘Thanks,’ I said, picturing the warden fuming in his chair as the monitor blacked out. ‘How the hell did you turn that round? I thought we were meat.’

‘Gift of the gab,’ he replied. ‘’Bout time I got to use my silver tongue for something in here.’

‘The warden is gonna be pissed as hell,’ said Zee. ‘We better get that elevator open fast.’

‘True that,’ said Bodie. ‘At least we know he’s scared. He’s shown his hand too early and it’s empty. He knows we’ve got a chance of climbing the shaft – he must do.’

‘Then let’s do it,’ said Zee.

I risked a quick look over my shoulder, wondering if there would still be inmates willing to shank me just to end the siege. There were hundreds of pairs of eyes looking my way but I didn’t see any with murder in them. Bodie’s speech had been good, the kind I wish I could have made. He’d united the boys of Furnace, they were with us now come victory or defeat, life or death.

Bodie, Zee and Simon were walking off but I raised a hand and stopped them in their tracks.

‘Just a minute,’ I said to Simon. ‘Don’t think you’re off the hook. I’ve got a question I need you to answer and I don’t want to hear any lies.’

Simon blanched, holding his hands up like he was frightened for his life. Zee and Bodie were both looking at me as if I’d gone mad, and I fixed Simon with a serious look for as long as I could hold it before bursting into laughter.

‘Rojo-Flores?’ I said. ‘What the hell kind of name is that?’