MoonFall (10 page)

As he sat alone in his corner of the canteen, eating a stew that was more grit than vegetable and drinking water the guards had probably spat in, Noah watched the other inmates, trying to work out his next move, or at least what he could learn that might give him an edge. Knowledge was power, Mama used to say, and that was why she’d never put him or Jeb or Pete through school. She didn’t want the authorities getting power over her sons by planting their sorts of knowledge into their heads. She wanted them to learn things that mattered, things that were real, and above all she taught them to keep learning.

So, Noah sat and watched. He was good at watching.

When he was a kid he’d had a dream that his father was some kind of spy. After all, he worked for the government, and whatever he did it was all very secretive. It took him away from home for weeks at a time, and when he returned he couldn’t talk about what he’d done. That was something he impressed on the Brennan boys time and again – Pa worked with secret things and it was important, but he couldn’t tell them about it.

Then he’d started reading thrillers, the same ones Pa kept on the shelves, and suddenly it all made sense. These secret agents and investigators, they were always traveling, always away from home, always doing things they couldn’t talk about. They had to be spies. Pa had to be a spy. And like so many impressionable kids, Noah wanted to be like the man in his life. So he wanted to be a spy.

He raced through all those thrillers, learning as much craft as he could from them. He practiced it around town, watching folks covertly, following them up the street until they caught sight of him and told him to buzz off. Then he got on the internet and read all about spy craft and secret agents. It turned out that some of what was in the books wasn’t quite right. In fact, it turned out that spying was mostly pretty boring, and the skills involved didn’t seem a whole lot like the ones his Pa had. Whereas space shuttle engineers and the guys who built monster trucks, they had the real exciting jobs. Maybe he’d work with engines.

Thus ended young Noah Brennan’s brief dreams of being a secret agent. But some of the skills stuck, and one of those was watching people, observing without drawing attention. He hunched over his stew and watched the canteen.

Blood Dog’s friends were looking twitchy. Their leader wasn’t with them and that was giving them a taste of what was to come. They eyed each other with suspicion, but showed downright hostility towards the wider world, a world that was closing in, not giving them the safe space they were used to with their boss around.

Jen seemed to be part of an Apollo town crew, like Blood Dog but not his gang. They’d dug in deepest in this defensive game of keeping heads down and weathering the day’s storm. The street thief who the patrol had brought round to the chain guards today, the one with the idiot look and the awkward limbs, was in among that crew, which told Noah something about Burns’ friend. She fit into the crime life of Apollo, but not the full-on thuggery of the town’s Blood Dogs. Why Burns would help even such a low level criminal was an intriguing question.

Noah finished his stew and pushed the bowl away then picked up an apple. On close inspection it was worm-eaten and old enough to have gotten on the dried out and wrinkled side. But food was still food, and no-one was going to throw him a can of beans or a leg of fresh roasted lamb. Besides, if it was good enough for worms it was good enough for him, right?

He took a bite, remembered that worms would eat dirt, but kept on chewing.

While he ate, he watched the folks at the next table over. These were among the ones he’d pegged as Dionites, with all the bare flesh and tattoos. It flickered across his mind that Blood Dog and Burns both had tattoos too, but that didn’t seem like much of a connection. Blood Dog’s were crude, angry things. Burns’ at least shared beauty with the pictures like these folks wore, but they lacked their smooth flow or focus on plants and animals. These folks had a real back to nature theme in their tats, lots of trees and free flying birds and coiling snakes.

Then it struck him, looking at a row of them, all hunched over and with their backs turned to him. The snakes weren’t just a theme, they were a pattern, a symbol, the thing to make them stand out. Though the designs were different – some coiled around trees, some rising to strike, some just draped over their skin – there was a snake on the right shoulder of every man and woman at that table.

His apple finished, Noah got up and walked around the other side of the Dionites on his way to return his tray. Sure enough, the folks along this side had snakes on their right shoulders too.

Now all he needed to do was find Burns and show her that he didn’t have the snake. It might not get him a get out of jail free, but at least it might get him out of the unanswerable questions, make a start on getting him released.

He put his tray on the counter and headed back towards his cell, humming a tune to himself.

That humming lasted as far as the cell door and the guard who stood there, key in hand, waiting to let Noah in. She looked grim as the prison walls.

“They giving us our own doorman now?” Noah asked, trying to keep his spirits up. But just seeing that tiny, cramped space, never mind the thought of being locked back inside, made his guts clench and his brain spin with dread.

“Shut up and get inside.” The guard opened the door, shoved him through and hurriedly swung the door shut again.

Looking back, Noah couldn’t help but notice that the rest of the cells were still open, the inmates not yet locked down for the night. He didn’t think that this extra security came on account of him, but it was sure going to mess with his state of mind.

Blood Dog stood in the corner of the cell, smashing his fist repeatedly against the same stretch of wall.

“Fuckers,” he growled. “Fuckers. Fuckers. Fuckers. Fuckers.”

Noah stepped over to the bunks as quietly as he could. He could hardly avoid being seen in a seven foot cell, but he could at least try not to disturb the lunatic who bit off other men’s ears and slit their throats with glass.

Remembering the importance of not upsetting his cellmate, he looked cautiously around for the bike magazine. It lay in the corner of the cell, shredded into tiny scraps. The sight of Blood Dog’s only comfort torn to pieces made Noah’s blood run cold. If someone had done that to piss the monster off, then it was bad news. If Blood Dog had done it himself then it was appalling.

“Think they can put me on trial?” Blood Dog said, his fist hitting the wall again. Dust danced from the concrete. “Think they can kill me, the mother-fuckers? Well that ain’t how it works, is it?”

When Noah stayed silent Blood Dog turned his eyes on him. The anger in those eyes made the blood pound in Noah’s ears.

“I said is it?” Blood Dog said.

“No sir,” Noah replied.

“Sir?’ Blood Dog said, stepping away from the wall. “Who you sir’ing? You trying to be funny again?”

“No,” Noah replied. “Nothing funny here.”

Never had he spoken a truer word.

“No one makes fun of me,” Blood Dog said. “No-one fucks with me. No-one kills me. You know why?”

Noah shook his head, sank onto his bunk and tried to back out of sight as Blood Dog approached.

“Cause I ain’t never found no-one I can’t fuck or kill,” Blood Dog replied. “Girls, guards, gangsters, funny motherfuckers in prison cells. Everyone gives it up to Blood Dog in the end, one way or another.”

Blood Dog tugged at his crotch as he stared down at Noah.

“Mother-fucking elders think they’re gonna kill me,” he continued. “Stand me up in front of some shitty-ass lawyer, spout some laws and charges, then string me up. But that ain’t gonna happen. They know it. I know it. This time tomorrow I’ll be back in my cell. And someday soon, when I get out of here, I’m gonna kill every last fucking elder.”

The room was closing in around Noah. His heart felt like it was being squeezed in a fist, pressure building, blood racing. He was trapped, surrounded on every side, concrete behind and to left and right, Blood Dog looming like a wall of flesh in the front of his vision.

“Won’t just be them though, wise guy.” Blood Dog looked down at him with an intensity Noah could only hope was hate. “Cause there ain’t nothing in the world I can’t kill or fuck.”

Footsteps were approaching along the walkway, footsteps and the rattle of keys. Noah’s breath was getting fast and shallow, his head spinning as the ceiling loomed down upon him, shadows closing in from every part of the room.

“Gonna kill those elders,” Blood Dog growled. “Gonna kill the guards. Gonna kill that bitch Burns who put me in this place. Question now is, what am I gonna do with you?”

Blood Dog grabbed Noah by the throat, lifted him up against the bunks. His hand tightened and Noah choked, gasping desperately for air. He looked down at Blood Dog’s mad eyes, felt his own hands and feet twitching as he fought to stay still, not to struggle, to stay calm for the guards who were coming. Weren’t they coming, hadn’t he heard them coming?

The moment stretched out like a shadow spreading across Noah’s world.

Then a metal club clanged against the bars and a key rattled in the lock.

“Put him down Blood Dog.” Burns stood in the doorway, club raised ready for trouble. She almost seemed to be smiling. “There’s a cell waiting for you down at the Council Chambers.”

Blood Dog’s hand disappeared from around Noah’s throat and he fell sprawling on the floor, panting for breath.

Burns slapped manacles shut around Blood Dog’s wrists and ankles, the chains cutting his strides to a slow shuffle. As he was led out the door he turned back to look at Noah.

“Fuck or kill,” Blood Dog said. “Your choice.”

As other guards led the prisoner away, Burns turned to lock the cell door. She looked down at Noah.

“You alright there?” she asked. “Need the infirmary?”

Noah shook his head.

“Fine,” he gasped. “Just need a minute.”

He tried to push himself manfully to his feet, failed, instead settled for what he hoped was a casual sprawl against the bottom bunk.

He doubted he was fooling anybody.

“He’ll be back for one more night,” Burns said. “Sure you don’t want to tell me something, get yourself a different cell?”

“I ain’t a Dionite,” Noah rasped, gathering his thoughts ready to explain.

She shook her head.

“Whatever.” And then she too was off.

Noah slid down to the floor, looking up at as much open space as the cell could hold, trying to get his breathing steady.

One more night.

Fuck or kill.

His whole body trembled in fear. He felt like he might break down crying, or burst out screaming like Iver.

He really, really needed to get out of this place.

C
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how long he lay on the cell floor, first trying to get some control over the whirl of panic in his mind, then—when that proved futile—giving in and letting it consume him. Sometimes you had to give in to the chaos to come out on the other side. Sometimes you had to live with the pain to heal.

And sometimes you just had to lie on the floor, in the dried out remains of your own old vomit, letting the thoughts fly by. Because if you didn’t, then those thoughts would batter you down.

Night had fallen by the time the thoughts settled and Noah once again found himself in control. The darkness probably helped – it was harder to feel oppressed by the close concrete walls when you couldn’t see them. That was one of the reasons he’d always liked the stars, they were so damn far away they became a sign of the vastness above him, an emptiness so broad he could never reach its limits. His Pa had bought him a star chart once, brought it back from one of his work trips, and talked excitedly about how certain he was that man would reach the stars someday. That dream was shot to shit now – mankind could barely wipe its own collective ass, never mind pull together the technology to get off of the ruined Earth. But that star chart had made Noah’s room feel bigger when he was a kid, just like the darkness made his cell feel bigger now.

He got up, stumbled over to the corner and took a piss in the cracked and grubby john. That at least was one discomfort he could relieve.

That done, it was time to come up with a plan. It didn’t need to be a good plan, not yet. Sometimes just having a plan and acting on it got you going, led towards working out the real plan. Sometimes those in between plans even worked out, though sometimes they just led to slightly scratched chains and no kind of progress.

“What we gonna do then?” He reached down, patted the empty air in his holster. He’d never noticed how much comfort he took in Bourne, how much saner he felt talking to the pistol than muttering to himself. If that was crazy then at least being crazy was better than being Blood Dog’s bitch.

Of course, the two might not be mutually exclusive if he didn’t work out some way clear of this mess.