Life Goes On by Tayell, Frank (large ebook reader txt) 📗

of mining machines, and of diesel for the machines and the ships,” Adams said. “They alone are reasons for the sisters to return. Commissioner, was there any sign of the laboratory?”

“Not beneath the house,” Tess said. “And not in the town, but I can’t begin to guess how extensive those tunnels are.”

“Dr Smilovitz, if we return to shore, it would be to search for the laboratory. You understand the risks, and the potential benefits. Is it worth it?”

Leo looked down at the screen, still displaying the frozen image of the torturer about to begin work. He turned to the bridge window. Tess watched, as did everyone else on the bridge.

“No,” he finally said. “The lab could be here. If the locals believed their work had helped make Hell a reality, it would better explain the video they uploaded. But if they dug one tunnel, why not two? There could be more guards, more gas, and maybe more zoms. But if this was where the sisters developed it, when they came back, they would have destroyed the lab, and taken the research with them.”

“Commissioner? It was your investigation which brought us here.” Adams left the question half asked.

“I’d love to search it properly,” Tess said. “I want to know where the sisters went. But the risk is too great. You’re thinking of blowing the place up?”

“They have mining machines, they could excavate the tunnels,” Adams said. “We’ll destroy the runway, the pier, the above-ground fuel storage, and the mansion. They left that recording as a message to whoever came looking for them. It was a message to instil fear. Let them experience that feeling. Let them know we came. Let them think we are looking for them still. But we shall make for the canal and then return home. Let them live in fear, and let them die that way, too.”

It was a nice line, Tess thought, as she left the bridge. But it was a message for the crew. A way of making failure seem like a victory. They had failed. They hadn’t found, or destroyed, the lab. The cartel had escaped. Though they might destroy this supply cache, the sisters clearly had some other lair that was surely better equipped.

Her feet took her to the deck, where she went looking for shade, and found Zach, lurking near the stern.

“If you’re going to hang around out here, you’ll need a hat,” she said. “The sun’s fit to boil the ocean. You all right?”

“I’ve got logs for legs,” he said, bracing hands and feet against the rail, rocking back, stretching. “Yeah, that was intense.”

“It was a bit,” Tess said. “How are you doing with it all?”

“You mean after atomising a lady with a missile? Yeah, nah, I’m cool. I mean, you’re asking if it bothers me? She was trying to kill us, and she was one of the people who tried to take over Oz, right?”

“Defo,” Tess said. “We’ve got her on video. On that memory card. She was one of the torturers.”

“Cool. Cool,” Zach said, with an air of relief. “I didn’t mean to fire. I just had the bazooka in my hands. It was automatic, I guess.”

“You’ve got good instincts,” Tess said.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to do it again. I can’t believe Clyde jumped on a grenade. I didn’t think people did that in real life. I mean, I don’t think I’d ever do that.”

“Nor me,” Tess said.

“Is that something they train you for in the army?”

“I think that’s instinct, too,” Tess said.

“That woman, she was evil, right?”

“Absolutely. You saved me and Clyde, and probably the ship, too. One of those missiles could have done some serious damage.”

“Cool,” he said. He sighed. “Is it always like this?”

“Policing or war?”

“Both. I dunno. Yeah, I’m gonna be a librarian. Definitely. That stuff in the tunnel was weird, right? It’s like… it’s like what I would have bought if I’d been prepping for the end of the world.”

“Yeah, some of it would have been useful,” Tess said. “Not sure about the canoes, though.”

“No, like it’s not what you’d buy if you were super-rich.”

“The super-rich all bought bunkers in New Zealand,” Tess said. “Pretty sure none of them made it down there after the airspace was shut down.”

“Commander Tusitala says they had a plan to nationalise all the bunkers anyway,” Zach said. “She said it was a mega-bucks stealth-tax to cover the Kiwi disaster planning. All those places with solar panels and wind farms are perfect for refugee camps. She says you’ve got to be a particular kind of stupid to think money would help after a nuclear war.”

“A particular kind of arrogant,” Tess said.

“But the sisters weren’t,” Zach said. “They weren’t stupid. That woman, she bought canoes and bikes. Lots of them. But no petrol for her generator. Was she going to paddle through the desert? Or cycle? But the sisters bought guns. Lots of guns, and missiles, and explosives, because we found those in the house, too. No, they weren’t stupid.”

“They were scared,” Tess said.

“Seriously? Them?”

“They left that video. Not just the bodies, but the video, too, to make sure whoever came here knew exactly why those people were tortured.”

“That doesn’t sound like scared,” Zach said.

“Think about it. They struck deals with politicians who, later, started a nuclear war. The sisters knew those politicians would come after them, but that they’d send their armies. Or perhaps just their submarines.”

“Like that Russian one?”

“Yep. Or the British sub. Or they thought someone like Malcolm Baker would tell someone like Lignatiev, and they’d send a navy to destroy the evidence. That’s who the message was for, the Sir Malcolm Bakers of the world. Ultimately, that’s whom the sisters were terrified of. Nemesis. Destiny. And it’s who they’ll be thinking of every night until they die.”