ten

As they stood there, trying to decide what their next move should be, the light in the room faded and then changed to yellow. Estelle immediately bundled her shadow under a nearby table, which had been pushed up against the door, and joined her there. Meanwhile, Mitchell crammed his long, lanky body into the shade provided by an overturned sofa. Sandor began pushing Carl towards the same piece of shelter, but by the time Carl reached it, he had already received several seconds of exposure. Sandor squeezed in next to him.

Estelle peered through the thicket of chair and table legs. Carl had his head down on his knees, showing only the dome of his bald cranium, with its tufts of gingery hair. His narrow shoulders were shaking.

“Is he OK?”

Carl said something muffled.

“What is it, Carl?” asked Sandor.

“Kill me,” whispered Carl. There was a harsh, grating quality to his voice.

“We’re not going to do that,” said Sandor. “We’re going to get you back to the Cave so you can bathe in some good-quality light.”

Estelle noticed that Sandor’s hand had moved to the gun in his underarm holster.

Carl’s breathing sounded strange.

Mitchell placed a hand on Carl’s arm. “You didn’t catch more than a few millirems, my friend. Not enough to affect you.”

Carl’s head rose. His tear-filled eyes were totally black. “Kill me!” he pleaded. As he spoke, Estelle noticed that his mouth bristled with sharp teeth.

A gunshot exploded in the confined space, and Carl’s head, now misshapen and mostly grey, slumped forwards.

“No!” cried Mitchell.

Sandor replaced his pistol.

Shadow-Estelle began to cry. She clutched at Estelle, who stroked her hair absently. Carl was gone – in the space of a heartbeat, his quiet, dignified presence was no more.

“Carl’s formula died with that shadow,” lamented Mitchell. “Now we’ll never know how to manufacture zeta-pro.”

“The formula was lost the moment he got exposed to those rays,” said Sandor.

There came a great howl from the corridor outside. A massive bang on the door rocked their furniture fortifications.

“We have to get out of here,” said Estelle.

Sandor slid himself out from under the sofa. Once back on his feet, he aimed his gun at the vent cover on the wall and fired. After three shots, and a shower of plaster dust, the cover dangled loose. Sandor limped back to the pile of furniture and extracted a chair, which he dragged to a position below the vent opening. Climbing onto the chair, he reached up and ripped away the damaged cover.

“Mitchell, pick up your coat and give it to Shadow-Estelle,” Sandor ordered. “She’ll need it to make the dash across the room.”

The morose professor plucked up his discarded white coat and passed it through the furniture legs to Estelle, who draped it over her shadow.

“Off you go, my dear,” she whispered to her.

The shrouded figure of Shadow-Estelle flitted like a ghost across the floor and then up and through the dark hole in the wall. Sandor barely had to help her on her way.

“You alright?” he asked after her.

“Yes, thank you,” her quiet voice echoed back.

“You next, Professor,” said Sandor.

“Shouldn’t I go?” queried Estelle, thinking that her shadow might want her close.

“We need the Prof near the front to show us the way,” said Sandor.

Outside the door, the Super Shadow howled, and the furniture pile wobbled under the impact of another crash. Spurred on by terror, Mitchell clambered out of his hiding place, leapt onto the chair and then scrambled head-first into the duct entrance. With his good hand, Sandor helped him slide in.

“You’ll have to help me up there, Es,” said Sandor.

She crawled out from under the table and stepped up onto the chair. Between her and Mitchell, they managed to lift Sandor through the gap.

Another explosive pummelling behind her made her turn in fright. She watched in horror as the left-hand door of the rec room rose clear off its hinges and then crashed down onto the furniture barricade.

The sight behind the door was hellish. Atkins’ Super Shadow seemed to fill the corridor – so big it had to crouch, with its head thrust forwards through the doorway, beneath its massive shoulders. The head was a horror: she recognised vestiges of Derek – the round face and receding hairline – but the grin, which had repulsed her even on its original owner, now split the face from ear to ear like a Halloween pumpkin head, displaying a thick forest of jagged, blood-smeared teeth. Its eyes stared at her like gleaming, jet-black stones.

The strength drained from her limbs, and she felt herself collapsing. Luckily, Sandor’s sinewy right arm caught her and hauled her up into the duct.

The space inside the square-sectioned duct was cramped – just a little wider than her shoulders. She used her hands and feet to slither along the smooth, frictionless metal interior, trying to keep up with Sandor’s retreating form. Behind her, the vent opening they had just come through darkened.

The thing was close! If it managed to get into the vent, it would all be over very quickly.

“Hurry, Sandor!” she called, as she pushed herself ever more urgently along.

Then something fluttered against her ankle. She felt a tug, and a sharp pain like knife points digging into her skin. Trying not to panic, she pushed her hands flat against the metal walls, levering herself forwards with all her might. But the force pulling her back was unrelenting. Her ankle was being squeezed as much as pulled, until it felt like it might break.

“Sandor!” she screamed.

He looked back. “Let go of the sides,” he shouted. “Let it take you!”

She stared at him, not wanting to believe what she was hearing. Her arm muscles cried out – she was using every ounce of her strength to resist. But her hands began squeaking against the duct walls as the Super Shadow slowly dragged her backwards. Behind her she saw the giant grinning jack-o-lantern head, which had somehow squeezed itself into the duct, mouth opening wider than seemed possible.

“Let go!” Sandor’s voice echoed, further away now.

She could no longer fight it. One of her hands momentarily slipped, and she felt herself being sucked backwards at terrifying speed. Then came the loudest noise she’d ever heard. It was like a thunderclap inside her head, and it made her ears scream. The searing pain in her ankle faded as, behind her, the Super Shadow’s head fell out of the pipe and the arm slid away after it.

Sandor reholstered his gun. He was speaking to her, but she couldn’t hear a thing.

“What?” she tried saying.

Eventually, she heard his voice, very faintly: “I’m sorry. With your hand in the way, I couldn’t get a clear shot... Now come on, before it recovers.”

They continued forwards, slithering along like a procession of caterpillars through the narrow duct. Estelle’s ankle felt sore, the bullet graze on her arm burned and her ears were ringing from the gunshot – but she was alive!

A dozen metres further on, they passed a second vent cover. Through its latticework, Estelle saw another room – a meeting room, to judge from the large table, chairs, notepads and presentation screen against one wall. The lighting in the room was normal. It was also normal in the next room they came to, which Estelle figured out before she got there, from the white light streaming through the holes in the mesh grille.

How did Barbara Wallace know to change the rec room lighting to zeta radiation, while leaving the others normal? Was she able to track their movements?

Mitchell stopped crawling when he came to this room. He stared into it, then exchanged some words with Sandor, which Estelle couldn’t hear because of the jangling in her head.

Eventually, Sandor turned and said to her: “Andreas Becker’s in there, with a couple of other blackshirts I recognise from the Cave. They look pretty scared. I don’t think they’ll harm us. We might be able to use their help. Do you think we should make ourselves known to them?”

Estelle was surprised and gratified to be asked her opinion for once. Sandor usually just did the first and most dangerous thing that came into his head.

“Yes,” she said after a moment’s reflection. “But be careful. We haven’t got Jethro to protect us any more.”

Sandor passed this advice onto Mitchell, who tapped on the grille and announced himself to the people in the room. Again, Estelle couldn’t hear what he said.

A few moments later, they were being helped down, one at a time, into the canteen.

Andreas and the other two blackshirts had bolted the canteen’s swing doors, and then strengthened their defences with an impressive barricade of upturned tables and benches.

The three men were dishevelled. They looked jumpy, and their eyes frequently darted towards the doors, as if expecting the monster to barge its way in at any moment.

“Captain…” began Mitchell.

But Andreas put up his hand. “Call me Becker. After everything that’s happened today, we’re dispensing with formalities.” With a glance at Mitchell, he added: “And we’re not taking orders from anyone either. It’s every man for himself.” He nodded towards the short, stockily built man to his left. “This is Corporal James Kaplan, better known as Kappo.”

“And I’m Private Edward Paskey – but everyone calls me Paz,” said the other man, who was tall and sandy haired with a freckled face.

“OK, how come you lot are here?” asked Mitchell.

“Things got pretty chaotic down in the Cave after you all left,” Becker said hollowly. “With Sandor and Jethro gone, the Shadow Army was effectively leaderless. I tried to keep order, but a couple of my men must have been in secret communication with Professor Wallace. Acting on her orders, they fostered dissent in the ranks. Pretty soon, the shadow soldiers had formed into rival factions. One of the factions took against the zeta-pro light. There was an almighty set-to, during which the light and our office got destroyed. I don’t think that was Wallace’s plan. I suppose she wanted the men to restore the zeta radiation, but it didn’t work out that way, and she may have lost as much as half her army as a result. Me, Kappo and Paz managed to escape the wreckage, but I reckon the rest of my unit copped it.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sandor quietly.

So even the lab-grown shadow soldiers were becoming uncontrollable, let alone the wild ones. Estelle was reminded of the story of Pandora’s Box, and, not for the first time, she wondered at the vanity and stupidity of humans, to believe they could bring such creatures into the world and then control them. She thought once more of the silent, deserted forest: the animals had known instinctively that something malevolent was about. And now that thing in its most horrifying manifestation – the Super Shadow – was here, inside the Facility, hunting them down.

“Who else is in the building besides us?” asked Sandor.

“We’ve seen lots of bodies,” said Paz. “You’re the only other living people we’ve seen – on this floor at least.”

“And there’s Barbara, of course,” said Mitchell.

“If you ask me, that Wallace woman has gone mad,” said Kappo.

Mitchell nodded solemnly. “She’s actually been crazy for the past five years, though I’ve tried to pretend to myself otherwise. She’s been mad ever since her husband and both her children died in a car crash.” His eyes clouded and his head shook at the memory. “Such a senseless waste of life! And while most people would grieve, she refused to. She just closed right up inside and carried on with her work. She never talks about it – almost acts as if it didn’t happen. She’s preserved her cottage absolutely as it was on the day of the accident. It’s as if her personal life has been frozen in space and time, and she exists now only as a scientist. It’s insane, because she’s denied a whole part of herself, and of course that sort of thing has consequences. There’s this unexpressed rage inside her. She hates the world, although you’ll never see her get angry. Instead, she makes deals with megalomaniac ex-soldiers to build shadow armies. And she kills anyone who opposes her.” He looked at each of the others in turn. “That’s what we’re dealing with: hatred, driven by cold, ruthless logic.”

“A sad story, and it explains a lot,” said Sandor. “But it doesn’t help us much in our immediate predicament. We need a plan to get ourselves out of here. I suggest that one of you fit lads get back into that ventilation system and head for the electrical room – knock out the power to the electrified fence. Then we all head for the roof and escape that way. Agreed?”

No one spoke.

“Volunteers, please form an orderly queue,” Sandor said disappointedly.

“What’s the matter?” he coaxed. “I’d do it myself if I had four functioning limbs.”

“The thing is,” said Becker slowly, “the electrical room is in the basement, which is now zeta irradiated and crawling with hungry shadow soldiers. Going down there would be a suicide mission.”

Sandor nodded to himself and flexed his jaw muscles. He looked reconciled to the defeat of his plan.

“Which brings us back to Barbara,” said Mitchell, with a pointed glance at Sandor. “As I’ve said all along, she’s the key to all this, not the shadows, not even the Super Shadow. If we can only defeat her, all our problems will be solved.” He explained to Becker, Paz and Kappo about the safe room behind Barbara’s office where he was sure she was currently hiding.

Paz, who in a former incarnation had been employed on the construction of the Facility, drew a sketch of the ground floor layout on a paper napkin. He traced a line with his finger to show the route of the ventilation ducts. “The pipe continues from here into the kitchen, then across the corridor and behind various storerooms and offices, before it turns a corner here, and we get to the armoury –”

Mitchell interrupted him. “We should stop there and pick up some explosives. Hopefully we’ll only need to threaten their use to encourage Barbara to open the door.”

“Nice idea, Professor,” said Paz, energised by the plan. “From there,” he continued, “we’ll need to climb a shaft to the rooftop AHU – that’s the air handling unit. We’ll have to smash our way through the filter, the heating coil and the fan. After that, it’s just a short distance to Professor Wallace’s office.”

Plan agreed, they climbed, one by one, back into the dark, claustrophobic vent. Paz went first, followed by Becker, Mitchell, Sandor, Kappo, Estelle and Shadow-Estelle.

“Spirit-Mother,” called Shadow-Estelle softly, once they were crawling.

“What is it?”

“You must save yourself. Not worry for me.”

“We’re all going to get through this, my dear. Including you.”

“I hope so,” murmured the girl. “Carl give me hope when he speak about pill I can take to keep me alive in daylight.”

“We’ll find a way,” Estelle assured her.

“But if we don’t,” persisted the shadow, “you not worry for me. I so happy just to know you and Carl and Sandor. I don’t mind for dying now.”

The duct widened after they turned a corner, and they could now crawl on their hands and knees. Through a vent cover in the floor of the duct, they saw they were passing above the kitchen. Kappo suddenly stopped, forcing Estelle and her shadow to do likewise.

“What is it?” she asked him, unable to see much past his bulk.

“Not sure,” he said. “Why have we stopped?” he asked Sandor.

The answer came back that Paz thought he’d heard a tapping sound up ahead. They remained where they were for a moment, all of them listening intently. Then the procession began to move once more.

They hadn’t crawled more than a few metres when they heard a low rumble. It might have been the metal joints of the ventilation duct groaning under their combined weight, except that it didn’t sound like that. It sounded like a deep, rumbling sigh.

Again, everyone stopped.

“I think it m-may be beneath us,” said Mitchell, his voice tight.

“In the kitchen?” whispered Becker. “How could it get in there? We barricaded the canteen.”

“Through the washroom next door,” said Paz.

“Quick!” hissed Mitchell. “Let’s get out of here.”

Estelle couldn’t see a thing in the gloom, but she imagined Mitchell pushing at Becker’s rear.

“No,” came Sandor’s voice. “If we move, it’ll hear us. We have to stay absolutely still… Es, is there any way your shadow can crawl very quietly back to that vent cover we just passed, and check if she can see anything?”

Estelle relayed the message, and her shadow slid silently on her tummy back to the grille, and peered through.

She shook her head. “I see no one.”

When this message had been passed on, the line began to move slowly forwards again.

A growl stopped them in their tracks. It was low and sustained, like the warning snarl of a giant guard dog.

“It’s in front of us,” howled Mitchell. “Ohhhh!! It’s in the pipe.” His panic echoed through the confined space. Kappo skidded backwards into Estelle, presumably pushed into reverse by the now hysterical Mitchell. “Let me out!” cried the Professor. “Get out of my way, you stupid people. It’s coming for us!” She caught a flash of the whites of Mitchell’s eyes. He looked mad with fear.

“Calm down, Professor!” shouted Sandor. “It’s not in the pipe. It’s below us.”

“It’s not below us. I’ve seen it!!! It’s in the pipe I tell you.”

“What can you see, Paz?” asked Becker.

“I’m not sure,” came the hesitant reply. “It may have been nothing.”

“Let me out of here! I can’t breathe!” sobbed Mitchell. But his cries were drowned out by a sudden immense hammering that shook the pipe. The hammering was accompanied by a tremendous, screaming howl.

“Get moving, Paz!” cried Sandor. “It knows we’re here!”

“No!” shrieked Mitchell. “We’re heading straight for it.”

The hammering and howling continued. There was no way of knowing which direction it was coming from.

“I think it behind us,” snivelled Shadow-Estelle. “I think it get me first!”

“It’s not behind us,” snapped Estelle, her own growing panic making her tetchy. “We just have to keep moving.”

But they weren’t moving.

Mitchell was refusing to budge, despite being pulled by Becker and pushed by Sandor.

They were going to die in a pipe because of one crazy man.

“I’m not going there, you idiots!” Mitchell cried.

Then Kappo said: “Shhhh!”

Everyone went quiet.

The hammering had stopped.

“Professor,” whispered Kappo calmly. “There’s nothing up ahead, I promise. A thing that size could not have got into this pipe. You just have to start crawling, one hand and one knee at a time. I promise you, nothing will happen.”

Estelle waited for Mitchell’s response, hoping Kappo’s calm voice had had the desired effect.

“That’s it, Professor. One hand… and one knee…”

A bulge arose in the metal floor beneath Kappo. He didn’t see it. Estelle tried to warn him, but before she could, the bulge became a hole, and zeta light pierced the darkness. The metal tore and a hand burst through. It plunged deep into Kappo’s muscular torso and grabbed at something inside him. It yanked downwards, and he flopped with a bang to the floor, sinking into the metal, warping it. Then his body was gone, and zeta yellow poured through a much bigger hole.

Estelle screamed and pulled at her hair. Sandor was shouting at her, but all she could see was the beast below them gorging itself on Kappo.

Sandor reached out across the gap, telling her to take his hand. She leaned forwards, tremblingly, feeling that at any moment she would crumble like a shadow in sunlight. Worse, she might fall into those blood-soaked jaws. Her mind had turned to jelly, but by forcing her eyes from the horror below, she eventually found the will to obey him. Taking his hand, she let him support her across the hole made by Kappo’s body. Shadow-Estelle, once more shrouded for protection in Mitchell’s voluminous white coat, swiftly followed her.

The next few minutes passed in a zombie-like blur. Estelle was vaguely aware of them moving steadily forwards through the ventilation duct. Mitchell must have become quieter – at least she didn’t hear any more from him.

Eventually they stopped again and a message came back from Paz that they had reached the armoury.

They waited in the cramped darkness for a few more minutes while Paz checked that the coast was clear. They emerged from the pipe one by one into a small room lined with racks and shelves of weapons and ammunition.

There was an atmosphere of clench-jawed determination. No one spoke much, being too affected by what had just happened. Estelle gradually emerged from her benumbed state. “Just continue with the plan,” she told herself. “Focus on the next step, and soon we’ll be out of here.” She looked disdainfully at Mitchell, seated on a chair, fist supporting his cheek, looking down, not meeting anyone’s eyes. Estelle wondered whether in the ocean of self-pity he was currently wallowing in, he might spare a thought for Kappo, and the part he’d played in the man’s death.

On the bottom shelf, Becker found a box filled with brown sticks of gelignite. He loaded half a dozen of them into a rucksack, along with an electric detonator – a small metal cylinder attached to a length of wire. Then his eye was drawn to the racks of high-powered rifles and shotguns. “While we’re here lads…” he murmured.

Becker, Sandor and Paz began considering what weaponry they might usefully purloin. Meanwhile, Estelle’s attention was attracted to the room’s door, which was ajar, offering a view into a short corridor. Off the corridor was another room – perhaps an office. Offices contained phones.

“Wait here,” she whispered to her shadow. “I won’t be long.”

She moved stealthily into the corridor and peered into the other room. It was, indeed, an office. There were two pictures on display: a framed photo on the desk showing a severe, plump-cheeked woman, and a large poster-sized monochrome image on the wall of a famous jazz saxophonist. From these clues, Estelle concluded that this must have been Derek’s office. She fervently hoped his Super Shadow didn’t possess a homing instinct. Near the photo on the desk lay a mobile phone. After listening for a moment and assuring herself that all was quiet, she stole into the office and picked up the phone. To her relief, it was working. The first number she tried was Aunt Lucy’s. She let it ring ten times before giving up. She toyed with the idea of calling the police, but decided that might just take too long, and she wasn’t certain she’d even be believed this time. So she called Dr Kirby, whose number she had luckily memorised.

“Helloo?” came his chirpy voice.

“Doctor Kirby, it’s Estelle.”

“Ah, helloo lassie. Ah’m on my way to ye now. Can ye tell me where ye are from Delhaven?”

Estelle recalled their madcap chase across the fields. There’d been a bit of south, but it had mainly been east.

“East,” she told him. “Head east into the forest and you should find it – it’s an ultra-modern building with white walls and tiny dark windows, surrounded by electrified fencing and a guardpost by the gate.”

“Where are ye right now? Are ye in the white building?”

“Yes, we’re under attack from this… Well, I can’t say it or you’ll think I’m madder than ever. But our plan is to move through the building’s ventilator ducts. We’re going to crawl through the air-conditioning unit on the roof to reach a safe room where the bad woman, Barbara, is hiding. We’re going to force her to end the lockdown so we can get out of here.”

“Goodness me, that all sounds mighty dangerous. Are ye sure –?”

“Call the police, Doctor. Tell them to send a helicopter to pick us up from the roof of the Facility. There’ll be six of us... I think that’ll be our only way out of here if we can’t switch off the fence. We’ll still try to reverse the lockdown in case the police refuse to help, but please do your best.”

“A helicopter! Ah, well, I’ll see what I can do, Estelle.”

She noticed Sandor looking at her from the doorway.

“I have to go now, Doctor. But please… call the police.”

“I will, don’t worry. And I’ll be seein’ ye very soon.”

She switched off the phone and looked up at Sandor.

“Well done you for finding a phone,” he said.

“I feel like going up to the roof right now and waiting for the helicopter,” she sighed. “Do we really have to confront that awful woman?”

“I think we do,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t trust your doctor, but I wonder if the police are going to think he’s been hoodwinked by a delusional patient… after what happened yesterday.”

She moved towards the door, planning to follow him back to the armoury, but Sandor remained where he was, looking intently at her.

“You OK Es?”

“No,” she said. His staring was making her feel vulnerable, like he wanted her to face up to stuff she really wasn’t capable of dealing with right now. Her shoulders slumped as she leaned against the door frame.

“That was horrible – back there,” he said.

“I know… I’m trying to blank it from my mind. Just move on, you know? Do the next thing on the list!” She hadn’t meant to sound angry. “I’m sorry,” she added with a half smile.

His own answering grin was made crooked by his swollen cheek and the bruise by the side of his mouth. Despite this, and the blackened eye, he looked weirdly handsome.

“Your face is quite a work of art, you know,” she told him.

“What? You mean like a Picasso?”

She giggled. “Yes, I’d say it would fetch about ten million at auction.”

“I’d say yours would fetch twenty,” Sandor said.

“I didn’t get beaten up to achieve this effect,” she joked. “I was born with it.” This banter was already making her feel a bit better, but Sandor didn’t look inclined to continue with it. He was still staring at her, but now he was looking serious, as if he was building up to saying something important. They were standing very close together in the doorway. She could smell his leather-and-gun-oil scent. “You know, Es. If we ever get out of here…”

“Yes?” Her heart slowed, and then began to beat again, loudly in her ears.

“I’d like it if we could spend a bit more… time together. You know, like we did in the old days.”

“I’d like that, too,” she heard herself say.

“Of course it wouldn’t be exactly the same.”

“Of course not.”

“I mean, we’re older, wiser.”

“Surely not wiser,” she grinned, aware that she was blushing like a beacon.

“Perhaps you could come down and see us in Edgebourne.”

“Sure!” And then she stopped. “Us?”

“Yeah. Me and Marie. Did I not mention her?”

“Marie?”

“My girlfriend.”

Everything stopped then. The flow of her blood was interrupted, like the scrape of a needle breaking into the music on an old-fashioned record player. That word girlfriend casually dropping from his lips – it made everything suddenly wilt inside her. He continued to talk – about “me and Marie”, how they met during military training and discovered a shared interest in “guns and stuff” and la-di-da-di-da – but she hardly heard him. How could she have been so stupid? A gorgeous guy – a soldier. What did she expect? That she could call him up after four years and he’d just fall into her arms? Of course that wasn’t why she’d called him, but so much had happened since then. There was this – she didn’t know what to call it – this beautiful tension between them. She could feel it. Couldn’t he?

“You OK, Es?”

She squeezed out a smile. “Yeah!”

“You’re cool about this?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Then the smile cracked. “Why the hell shouldn’t I be?”

“Hey, you guys!” It was Paz, leaning out of the door to the Armoury. “They’re all back in the vent. We’re only waiting for you.”

BANG!

The door to Derek’s office caved in as his Super Shadow burst into the room. Sandor pushed Estelle behind him and raised his shotgun. He blasted a hole in the creature’s neck, causing it to stagger backwards into some filing cabinets.

They rushed back into the armoury and hastily climbed through the hole and back into the duct. Estelle went first, then helped Sandor up. Paz was following them in when they heard another crash in the corridor just outside. The creature lurched in, its head sitting lopsidedly on its half-obliterated neck. Paz shot at it, but managed only to graze its shoulder.

The creature lashed out and grabbed his thigh.

Sandor tried to pull him up, but was no match for the monster’s strength.

“Come on!” he cried through gritted teeth, as his hold on Paz began to slip. If Sandor had had his other arm available, he could have attempted to fire at the creature. Estelle could only watch helplessly, being too far from the vent cover to offer any help. She saw the veins popping in Sandor’s temple, the desperate grimace, as Paz slowly slid from his grasp.

Mitchell’s panicky tones broke in from further up the pipe. “Let’s go!” he screeched. “He’s dead, isn’t he? If you stay there, you’ll be next!”

Paz fell, and, with a fading gasp, was gone.

Despairingly, Sandor reached for his gun, aimed and fired three times. From his look, Estelle knew he’d saved the last shot for Paz.

She tugged at him. “Come on,” she urged.

They began to move on through the duct, and Estelle tried, once more, to do the blanking out thing – just continue with the plan, she told herself. But it was getting harder. She’d seen Paz’s face as he was caught in the tug of war between Sandor and the monster. She’d seen the dread in his eyes, mingled with this little spark of hope, as he’d gazed up at Sandor. And she’d witnessed the gradual extinguishing of that spark as their limbs had slowly untwined.

A short distance on, the duct twisted sharply upwards. Becker called back: “This must be the shaft leading to the AHU.”

Small handholds in the shaft wall enabled them to ascend it. Lines of afternoon sunshine glimmered down from above. Estelle could smell the forest air. They were close to the roof. Shadow-Estelle, immediately above her, didn’t need warning of the dangers and quickly covered her head and body in the white coat.

Beyond Shadow-Estelle and Mitchell, Estelle could see Becker climbing into a cramped cube-shaped compartment.

“There’s an obstacle in front of me,” he called down. “It’s got horizontal lines. Looks like the back of a fridge.”

“That’s the heating coil,” said Mitchell. “We’ll just have to blast our way through it. And the cooling coil behind it.”

“OK, block your ears everyone.”

Becker donned some ear mufflers grabbed from his rucksack, then took aim with his shotgun and fired.

Estelle was ready for the noise this time, but it still felt like a firecracker going off next to her ear.

Becker tried to push back the singed edges of the hole he’d created, before swiftly withdrawing his scorched hand. Using his jacket sleeves, he made the hole wide enough to climb through. His blast had knocked through both air coils, allowing them access into a second compartment. Another blast from the shotgun dealt with the air filter, which left only the blower, which was seated in a drum inside a large slatted cage through which the rooftop and sky could be glimpsed.

“Fan’s not working,” Becker reported.

“Maybe Barbara switched it off,” speculated Mitchell. “Even so, we’ll still have to find some way past it.”

Becker cautiously placed a hand on one of the motionless blades. The blower suddenly erupted into noisy life. Estelle was spattered with blood. She heard Becker scream and clutch his hand. He cursed violently and protractedly, his eyes squeezed tight. Finally, pulling his injured hand out from under his arm, Estelle saw that about half of two of his fingers were missing, ground to mincemeat by the fan.

“How in the blue blazes did that happen?” Becker wanted to know. “Does that bitch know we’re up here or what?” He let forth a howl of pain and rage. With his good hand, he ripped off part of his shirt sleeve and wound it tightly around the blood-soaked stumps of his fingers.

“Everyone move to one side,” said Sandor, popping his head through the hole Becker had blasted earlier. Estelle pressed herself against one wall of the AHU and made sure her shadow did likewise. Sandor aimed his gun at the centre of the whirling blades. Another ear-splitting discharge, a smell of cordite and smoke, and the blades were stilled.

Becker kicked at the thing angrily. He kicked again and again, until the blower’s drum began to poke through the slatted wall on the far side of the cage. Soon it had been shoved far enough out to allow the party to move past it and into the shaft that lay directly below.

After a descent of five or six metres, the ductwork made another right-angled turn to the horizontal.

“This should lead us straight to Barbara’s office!” said Mitchell, excitement returning to his voice.

One by one, they got back onto their hands and knees and moved into the horizontal pipe. Just ten metres further on, they reached a dead end.

“We’re inside the wall of her office,” said Mitchell quietly, peering through the grille next to him. “Of course, the safe room isn’t on the main ventilation circuit – that would make it too accessible – so this is where our journey inside the building’s ventilation system ends.”

Estelle noticed a dark hole about eight inches wide to her left. “Where does this lead?” she asked.

“Oh, that connects the main circuit to a smaller one that runs through the central part of the building, ventilating the labs,” said Mitchell. “I’m sure it also connects to the safe room, but it’s of no use to us. Look how narrow it is… Right, who wants to be first out of here?” He began pushing at the ventilator cover.

“I can get through it,” said Shadow-Estelle timidly. She was pointing at the narrow duct. “If I make self very thin, can get through small long hole and go to bad lady’s room.”

Mitchell brightened at this suggestion. “Why, that’s true. I hadn’t thought of that.”

Estelle eyed the small aperture of the pipe with alarm. “It’ll be so tight and dark in there. What if you get stuck? And even if you make it, you’re no match for that woman.”

“She’ll have the advantage of surprise,” said Sandor. “And she’ll have a gun.”

“I don’t like it,” said Estelle, anxiously noting her shadow’s excited look. Leaning closer to Sandor, she whispered: “She told me earlier she didn’t mind dying. I’m worried about what might be motivating this.”

Sandor shook his head. “It sounds to me like a better plan than trying to smoke Barbara out with the threat of gelignite.” He turned to Shadow-Estelle. “You really think you can get through that hole?”

The girl nodded enthusiastically.

“You’re very brave.”

“I do it for you and Spirit-Mother.”

“You’re not to die for us, understand?” Sandor said sternly. “We want to see you again.”

“I want see you, too.”

Sandor turned to Estelle, and she nodded.

“This pipe will end in a T-junction,” Mitchell explained to Shadow-Estelle. He placed his hands in the shape of a T to show her what he meant. “When you get to the junction, you must turn right. Right! Understand?” Again, elaborate hand movements seemed to help, and she nodded her understanding. “Continue through the pipe for a bit longer, then turn right again at the next junction. OK?” He drew three sides of a square in the air to show her the basic route he wanted her to follow. “That will take you to above the safe room over there.” He pointed at the metal wall marking the duct’s dead end.

Sandor handed her a pistol and demonstrated the safety catch and trigger. “When you open the vent cover, point the gun at her and tell her to open the safe room door,” he told her. “Don’t listen to anything she says. She’ll try and persuade you to put the gun down. Don’t listen. Just keep the gun pointing at her until she opens the door.”

“And if she not open door?” Shadow-Estelle asked.

Sandor stared at her. “Then you’ll have to shoot her.”

Shadow-Estelle didn’t blink. “I hate to do that… But I do it if I must to.”

Estelle embraced her. “Take care, my dear. If you get lost or scared, don’t worry. Just come straight back. If you get stuck, call to us. We’ll hear you.”

Shadow-Estelle kissed her on the cheek, then slid herself into the tiny black hole. Her body seemed to flow into the pipe in a manner that was unlike anything solid or even liquid. It was more like vapour, except that she remained entirely opaque and separate from the surrounding air. In truth, she looked like nothing other than what she was: a three-dimensional shadow.

After Shadow-Estelle had departed, they waited a few more minutes in the pipe, ensuring that all was quiet outside, before descending. One by one, they climbed down onto a desk and then the floor of Barbara’s office. The four of them slid some heavy filing cabinets in front of the door, in case the Super Shadow decided to pay a visit during their wait for Barbara and Shadow-Estelle.

“The door to the safe room is behind there,” said Mitchell, pointing to a wall of shelves containing books, journals and box files. He crouched down and slid his hand beneath the bottom shelf. There was a small click, then he got back to his feet and pulled a handle on the right-hand side of the bookshelf unit. The hinged unit opened smoothly outwards to reveal a shiny metal door behind. It reminded Estelle of a bank vault entrance, complete with spoked wheel and combination lock in its centre.

The four of them stared at the door. “For all we know Barbara isn’t even in there,” said Estelle quietly.

“She’s in there,” said Mitchell confidently. “There’s no way she could have instituted the lockdown, changed the lighting and switched on that fan on the roof without being inside the Facility – and this is the only secure place in the building.”

“Is Shadow-Estelle there yet, do you reckon?” asked Becker.

“I would assume so,” answered Mitchell.

Estelle glanced at the ceiling, wondering where exactly her shadow was, and anxious for her safety. She was brave, but so very innocent. Did she really have a chance against that ruthless arch-manipulator Barbara Wallace?

They waited in silence, watching the door. Estelle had deliberately placed herself a good distance from Sandor, with the other two men between them. She did this because she was now feeling angry with him. She had no justification for this, besides a vague feeling that he might have led her on a little (he probably hadn’t), and that he could have shown a little more sensitivity in introducing the “me and Marie” thing.

After all they had been through, her jealousy seemed an extremely trivial concern, and she wondered why she couldn’t rise above it when faced with the life-or-death enormity of their current plight. She thought it might be a symptom of her damaged personality – the fact that she found rejection harder to accept than the likelihood of imminent death. How was it that she could deal with the existence of a Super Shadow – but not with a girl called Marie? She was sure Dr Kirby would have something to say about that. Dr Kirby! Would she ever even see him again? What she’d give right now for the sound of spinning chopper blades on the roof.

“This is taking too long,” said Sandor.

“I don’t like it,” Becker murmured.

“Let’s give it a little longer,” said Mitchell. “They’re probably talking.”

“They shouldn’t be talking,” said Sandor anxiously. “I told her, if Barbara doesn’t open that door, she should kill her.”

Another minute went by.

Mitchell strode up and knocked sharply on the metal door. “Barbara?” he said loudly. “Can you hear me?”

No response.

And then the wheel on the door began to turn. With a small hiss, the door opened. Inside the room was Shadow-Estelle.

She was alone.

“Where is she?” cried Mitchell, dashing in. The room contained a desk with a computer, a bed and a kitchenette, with a door to a tiny bathroom. Mitchell checked the bathroom before stamping his foot in frustration. “Where the devil is that woman?”

“The computer’s on,” said Sandor. “She probably only just left.” He turned to Shadow-Estelle. “Did you see anything?”

She shook her head. “It just like this when I come. I sorry for delay. I find it hard open door.”

“She must have known we were coming and got out while we were still up in the vent,” said Becker. “Just like she knew when we were in the AHU unit.” He glanced ruefully at his hand.

“And she knew we were in the rec room, too,” said Estelle. “That’s why she switched it to zeta light.”

“Are there motion sensors in the building?” asked Sandor.

Mitchell shook his head. “I drew the line at that,” he said. “Too intrusive.”

“Security cameras?”

“Only outside and in reception.”

“Somehow she knew where we were,” said Becker. He looked at the screen, as if expecting to see security camera images of other rooms in the building. The screen was blank except for six small boxes with a flashing cursor in the first one, and some green numbers in the top corner.

“Without Barbara, we can’t end the lockdown,” said Mitchell. “It’s still in force, so she must be somewhere in the building. We should split up and look for her.”

“That could be very dangerous with a Super Shadow on the loose.”

“I find this on desk,” said Shadow-Estelle, showing them an envelope. “It is for you, Spirit-Mother.” She handed it to Estelle, who saw it had her name handwritten on it. She ripped it open and extracted a single sheet of folded cream-coloured paper. The letter was written in a flowing, girlish script. She read it out to the others:

Hello Estelle,

Congratulations on getting this far, my dear. Despite all my efforts to kill you, you remain stubbornly alive. You are a survivor and no question. It’s simply too bad, despite your great talent for eluding death, that this is where you finally run out of road.

Let me take you back to the beginning – I’ll be brief, for as you’ll soon learn, there isn’t a lot of time. You were always a marked woman, Estelle. From the day you moved into that cottage next to the meadow, you were in our sights. We had been looking for a way of testing our shadow soldiers on a live target, to see how they fared in the field. And there you were, living alone in that isolated place – the perfect bait for our zeta-fortified warriors.

It was fortunate for us that your friend Sandor arrived just as things were getting interesting. Now we had two live targets for the price of one. It was a little problematic that he’d brought a car, but Derek Atkins dealt with that by stealing the battery.

What we hadn’t bargained for was your luck and ingenuity. Finding Carl Henrison was unfortunate. Happening on the Cave was even worse. And turning poor old Derek into a Super Shadow was just plain tiresome. Nevertheless, here you finally are, together with that coward and traitor, Robert Mitchell, just where I want you. And now there can be no escape.

You see, I’ve activated a time bomb. It’s a very big bomb, and should destroy the entire building. To deactivate it, you will need a six-letter code. I’ll be sporting and give you a clue. It’s the name of someone I lost. Mitchell might know who I’m referring to. But he had better be very sure of himself, because you only get one chance to enter the correct code. If you get it wrong – kaboom! By the way, the clock in the top right of the computer screen tells you how much time you have before it detonates.

Bon voyage, my little survivor. Let’s see if you can get out of this one.

Barbara Wallace

xxx

They all crowded round the computer screen. The numbers in the top corner were clicking steadily downwards:

02.56… 02.55… 02.54… 02.53

Estelle felt herself shaking. The letter fell from her hand. She wanted to run, but her feet were stuck like glue. Biting her lip, she looked at Sandor, desperate to hear that he had some clever scheme to get them out of this.

But Sandor, cursing under his breath, could offer no crumb of solace. He turned to Mitchell. “You said she lost a husband and a couple of kids. What were their names?”

Mitchell’s mouth was flapping open and shut like a fish as his eyes stared wildly at the flashing, ever decreasing, numbers in the corner of the screen. Sandor slapped the professor’s cheek, making him blink. But his eyes never left the numbers.

“Barry Wallace was her husband,” he croaked.

“Barry – that’s only five letters. What about the kids?”

“Th-the girl was… now let me see. Amber. No. Ambrosia. No no no. Am-Amelia. That was it.”

“OK. And the other one?”

“The boy also had a name starting with A. Now what was it? Um… Adrian. Yes, I’m pretty sure it was Adrian.”

Sandor sighed. “Two six-letter names. It’s a coin toss.”

“Look at this.” Becker was on his knees under the desk, tracing the route of a wire from the back of the computer. The wire disappeared through a hole in one corner of a removable floor tile.

“Be careful,” warned Sandor. “It may be booby-trapped.”

Becker inserted one of his undamaged fingers into the hole and raised the tile to reveal a metal floor about a metre below where they knelt. Within the metal floor was a hatch with bolts on it, currently standing open. Beneath the hatch was a long ladder, plunging some 20 metres to the floor of Derek’s basement chamber.

“So that’s how she made her escape,” gasped Sandor.

The wire plugged into the back of the computer trailed endlessly down the ladder.

“The bomb must be somewhere down there,” said Becker. “I know a little bit about bomb disposal, I might be able to defuse it.”

“There are shadow soldiers roaming around, and time is running out!” Sandor reminded him.

“I know,” breathed Becker, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. “And there’s always the chance I’ll cut the wrong wire. But the odds are still better than trying one of those codes – if you ask me!”

Estelle was still mesmerised by the screen.

02.04… 02.03… 02.02

“W-we’ve still got time to get to the roof,” she stammered, finding her voice at last. “The police will be here soon, with a helicopter. It’s our best chance!” She grabbed Sandor’s shoulder to make him look at her. “Please!” she cried.

“Adrian,” murmured Mitchell through dry lips. “I’m sure she would have chosen Adrian… Although on the other hand…”

01.56… 01.55… 01.54…