Against Gravity

"He's dead. We found this gas mask – that's what kept me alive."

Buddy eyed Kendrick uncertainly.

"It wasn't like that. He deliberately saved my life. Listen, I think we can get out of here. There's a way."

Kendrick pressed his hand and cheek against the great shield door that separated the lower levels from the Wards above. It buzzed with energy under his touch. He closed his eyes, hearing people shuffling and muttering behind him. He had to do this or they would lose all hope of survival.

He slid his hand across the door's surface. Something surged and shifted beneath his touch. A hollow rattle sounded from somewhere deep inside it – and he felt it shift.

"Now," he said, standing. "Push."

At first he thought he'd failed, as a dozen pairs of hands belonging to people weak from hunger and thirst pressed against unyielding metal. Then something internal gave and the door slid aside, fraction by fraction, its hinges squealing in protest. Kendrick pressed harder, feeling something else give. Shouts of exclamation rang out as the door moved freely now, swinging wide to reveal the long corridors and ascending stairwells beyond.

Free! Kendrick stared at the soft glow of electric lights in the distance. They were free.

It soon became clear that the Maze was under attack. As for its soldiers and scientific staff, they found several men, half out of their uniforms, gazing up at ceilings as though they could see through them to some point beyond. One man lay crumpled in a corner, his face glistening with some thread-like substance that glittered as though it was some rare and precious metal. His features were peaceful, and he appeared to be unaware of their approach.

Kendrick moved past him, caught up in a great flood of bodies. He twisted, staring as the soldier died, oblivious, under a hail of fists and stamping feet.

They found others, cowering in laboratories and offices, as the mob moved on, meeting no resistance. Many of the Maze's staff died during this exodus, beaten to death with anything that came to hand. Kendrick followed the inmates' example, unable and unwilling to resist the desire for vengeance.

One or two Labrats fell, shot by the few remaining guards. But the rest of the prisoners, caught up in a whirlwind of mindless rage, surged forward regardless, the soldiers dying under a torrent of blows.

A sound like muted, distant thunder came from somewhere yet higher up. They swarmed through the Wards in their hundreds, lifting men and women out of their beds where they found them alive, and leaving the corpses behind. They moved on more slowly now; they were becoming tired.

Finally they reached the surface level, staggering numbly up staircases and along corridors as the Maze staff – so very few of them now – fled at their approach, their yells of warning reverberating into the distance.

Kendrick moved on with the rest, always upwards, horrified by what he could now see of his own body in the brilliant electric light illuminating the upper levels. His clothing was reduced to less than rags, his scarred flesh smeared with blood and grime.

Gazing down a final passageway, he spotted natural sunlight streaming through a door at the far end. The ground rocked again beneath their feet and Kendrick knew that – at last – someone had come to rescue them.

26 October 2096 Los Angeles

Kendrick still dreamed of endless corridors.

Sometimes he burned with a strange silvery light. Other times he died, over and over again, the stiff black handle of a razor-sharp knife protruding from his chest, the pain unimaginable. He remembered dying in two different ways. He remembered ru

Kendrick opened his eyes to the broad grey blur of rotors slicing through the air above him. He lifted his head from the co-pilot's seat and gazed out and down to the landscape below.

Struggling upright, he could see smoke rising from campfires several hundred metres below. How long had he been asleep? He dragged his scattered thoughts together, and caught Buddy's eye when the other glanced briefly over.

Los Angeles, he remembered now. Buddy was taking them to Los Angeles.

He'd obviously been unconscious for most of the journey. He felt obscurely grateful for that. Now he was looking down on the reconstructed parts of the city. He was familiar with television footage of the ultra-modern spires, like shards of crystal rising quite literally from the ashes. But now that he was actually here, those occasional oases of light and technology appeared uncomfortably poignant amid so much unreclaimed devastation.

Stroking the back of one hand, Kendrick started tracing the new whorls and shapes underlying the skin, reflecting that since he'd made his way back to the sunlight McCowan had vanished from his senses.

A little while later another glance downwards revealed a huge encampment of tents spread far across a hill. Among them the symbol of the Red Cross was prominent. He suddenly thought of Hardenbrooke, and of what it must have been like to be here when the city was destroyed.

Soon they passed over a recognizably military encampment with trucks and jeeps standing in ordered rows, all painted in their camouflage colours.

As if reading his thoughts, Buddy smiled reassuringly. "Mexican Army. Remember, California is barely part of the US any more. Not that it'd be much of a prize anyway, since the economy and everything went tits-up after the nuke. Washington's got its hands full enough with breakaway republics, without worrying too much about who's left in charge of a bunch of ruins."

The helicopter ripped on through the sterile LA skies. Here and there, areas that had miraculously survived the devastation could be seen. But Kendrick was shocked at how much of the city was still in ruins after so many years.

Deserted five-lane freeways stretched in parallel lines towards the ocean and, as they dropped lower, Kendrick noticed scores of abandoned swimming pools scattered across the side of a hill, next to the ruins of expensive mansions. He vividly recalled detailed news footage of the Beverly Hills burning.

The pools themselves looked like half-revealed bones bleached white in the merciless heat of the sun. Elsewhere, what had once been boulevards full of expensive boutiques and fashionable galleries had been reduced to abandoned shanty-towns. Everywhere around them the palm trees grew wild.

As Buddy guided his aircraft towards the ground people gazed up at them from a wide expanse of unkempt grass that rose and dipped with artificial uniformity. Nearby stood a group of buildings, some half-demolished, some apparently built of random detritus, roofed over with sheets of corrugated metal. Some of the open land nearby had been tilled, and new crops grew on it in rows. It took a moment for Kendrick to realize that he was looking down on an erstwhile golf course. All around it the rusted skeletons of cars were scattered across the cracked tarmac.

Kendrick stepped out of the helicopter, the whine of its rotor blades dropping rapidly, and blinked in the bright Californian sunshine. The people he'd noticed earlier were moving towards them, dragging a huge green tarpaulin behind them. Buddy dropped down from the cockpit and ran towards them to grab one edge of it. Kendrick stood by as they hauled the tarpaulin over the 'copter.