Running, again.
Heart-thumping, throat-closing, hand-shaking – again, again, again.
To Thea it seemed she was always running in this nightmare place and never getting anywhere; even when she made it out as far as the lighthouse with Ethan she was flicked back to the Centre again: a counter in a hellish game of tiddlywinks.
There was a deep booming that reverberated in her chest, and the feeling of something pressing down on them, squeezing the floor and making it tremble.
‘What is that?’ Thea shouted to Rory.
Between them, they supported Rosie.
‘Clean-up’s started!’ he yelled back.
Scorched-earth policy had never been so true, Thea thought grimly as she tightened her grip across Rosie’s shoulders.
They hadn’t even had time to get boots. After the first explosion they had got Rosie out of bed and run from the room, heading back to the damaged cafeteria that Rory had led her through only about half an hour ago on the way to where he’d hidden Rosie.
It was the dark twin of the other sphere. The original fire had started somewhere near here and there were black smudges on the stainless steel and white walls. Surfaces had warped, and the sticky gloss that had so unnerved Thea was charred to an acrid toffee. However, now there was new damage from the recent explosions. The chairs and tables, which had been neatly arranged, were upended and had a fine layer of dirt on them, whilst the floor was littered with chunks of stone and a few bits of metal. Thea warily eyed the walkways above them.
This Client Bubble was where it had all started to go wrong. Thea remembered Rory telling her about the man who’d hallucinated that his teeth were falling out, and she imagined once again his bloody smile, the rattle of enamel in the palm of his hand.
Another boom made the floor undulate again and it was a sound that Thea felt in her body, deep in her rib cage. All three of them cringed, trying to keep moving when all they really wanted to do was hide.
Above them, the suspended walkways groaned.
Thea and Rory glanced at each other.
Then there was the terrible sound of tearing metal: the kind of thick, solid metal that should never tear. A walkway juddered as if a giant was jumping on it, shuddering violently until one of its welded joints split into ragged teeth, one end swinging down and spraying brittle chaos onto the floor below.
‘Run!’
Thea didn’t look up again. She looked ahead, her path to the door suddenly a computer game obstacle course of chair legs and falling danger.
She felt Rosie stumble and though she tried to keep a grip on her she couldn’t stop her from pitching forward, all three of them tumbling into a heap on the floor.
Despite the heat coming from somewhere, Rosie was pale and her lips mauve. A spreading blot of dark red was already beginning to bloom on the bandage covering her eye.
A crisscrossed square the size of a coffee table thudded into the floor about a metre away from Thea where it stuck, point deep. She whimpered and tugged at Rosie who planted her hands flat on the floor and tried to push herself up.
‘Rosie!’ Rory shouted, grabbing her under both armpits and hauling her up.
It was only a computer game, Thea told herself. One where, if a massive chunk of scorching walkway fell on her she would simply blip out on the screen and reappear safe and well back at the start. Dodge that chair leg, keep that grip on Rosie, jump that sizzling lump.
Then there was white. Snow.
Cold air hit her.
They were out and on their way to the green where they’d spent hours doing yoga and eating their lunches. Behind them, the Sleep Centre burned against a dimming, late afternoon sky. Had it really been only that morning that Thea had been dragged away from Ethan’s body? The previously undamaged Staff Bubble was now ablaze, the top curve of the golf ball completely caved in and the rest of it starting to warp and twist like melting marzipan. Thea, Rory and Rosie picked their way through smouldering debris and headed for the copse of trees on the way to the shore.
The three of them swerved a ruined bedstead that hissed in the snow, the heat searing Thea’s back.
‘Please,’ Rosie gasped, her legs crumpling.
‘No! We have to keep going.’ Rory yanked her up, her feet now dragging between them, leaving trails in the snow.
Tramlines, Thea thought. Like in that corridor.
She wished she could stop and look back at the building, just take a moment to watch it crumble and fall, fully take in each pop as the windows shattered, each bit of cladding a piece of skin peeling away.
Rosie drooped between them, a toy with her stuffing pulled out.
‘What are they – up there? Do you see them?’ Thea twisted to gaze into the sky, pointing up at the shapes she could see.
They looked like birds from a distance, dark, thin shapes hovering in the sky. But they weren’t, Thea realized with mounting terror. Birds didn’t hover over a burning building, they got the hell out of there before their wings singed and they plummeted to their death.
‘They’re not birds, are they?’ She turned to Rory who had paled, despite the effort of dragging Rosie around.
‘No,’ he said, ‘they’re not. They’re drones.’
‘Wait … they blew up the Centre by drone? Bombs are heavy, aren’t they?’ Thea frowned. ‘How can a little drone like that carry a bomb?’
‘I don’t think they can.’ Rory hurried her along, panting. ‘I think they’re just recording the demolition …’
Thea kept an eye on the sky. ‘Do you think they can see us?’ she said nervously.
‘Well, they will if we keep chatting out in the open like we’re having a bloody picnic. Move it!’
The old gift shop was nearest and, without needing to decide it amongst themselves, they ran for it. Thea half expected they would have to shoulder the door open, but the handle gave way without a fight and they skidded into the musty black, just as Thea was sure she saw one dark, bird-like shape angle itself away from the others and come straight for them.