'I walked for days. My feet were sore and I rubbed up some awful blisters, then a man pulled up in one of them horseless buggies. The noise and the smell it made. He offered me a lift. He had heard on his… radiator, I think he called it. No, wait that's not right…'
'Radio,' said Linda.
'Yes, thank you Mistress Linda. He had heard on his radio that there were people alive in the city and that there was help to be had there. He was awful kind to me, fed me and looked after me, but he died soon after we arrived in Harrisburg. The plague took him too. I was mighty sad about this. I had no idea how to fend for myself in the city. I was scared all the time and people just kept dying. The corpses were rotting by the roadsides. The smell was everywhere.'
'They were bad times for us all,' said Cortez.
'I was captured by a gang of men. Scavs they called themselves. They sold me and several other poor girls to the Neo-Clergy. I thought I was safe in the hands of men of God, but their faith was nothing like the faith I knew. They kept me prisoner for a long while. Then one of them said I was too old to be used for my blood, even though I was a Red Indian. I do not understand what he meant though.'
'John-Paul Rohare Baptiste, the founder of the Neo-Clergy, is said to have stayed alive through transfusion,' said Greaves. 'That's when you take someone else's blood and put it in your body. He did this to children allegedly, thousands were taken.'
'Oh,' said Anna. 'Anyway, eventually they sold me to Mr Edwards. I don't know how long I was there. I went inside myself. I pretended that none of it was happening to me. It was not my body that was being violated and shamed. I was somewhere else. But so was Jesus. I prayed often to him, pleaded with him. Surely this was not the purpose he had in mind for me. Then you came for me. I thought you had come to kill me. That's what happened to the girls they were done with. But I was wrong. Then, just after the night that I spent with Mistress Linda on the hillside, Jesus came to me. Though I was fallen and shamed, he came to me like he came to Mary Magdalen. And finally he revealed his purpose.'
'Well we better not keep him waiting then,' said Linda and jumped behind the wheel. 'Next stop Torrington.'
'Are you sure you know the way?' Linda said. The damnable woman could not let any opportunity to question or undermine him go by. She was worse than his mother.
Greaves told himself again, he was above things like emotions. He let it wash over him. She was simply trying to cope with the obvious inferiority she felt in his presence. Many people acted that way around him. He had learned to live with it. It didn't bother him. Was an elephant bothered by the gnats that buzzed about its hide? No. So why should he be bothered by those whose intellect was beneath his? She was there for a purpose, that was all.
They were in a corridor in the City Hall and Police Department on 21st Avenue. Thankfully the whole building was deserted. Annoyingly it did not fit the layouts he had memorised. They had obviously changed it. They had to have changed it, he was never wrong, never.
'No wait,' he said. 'We should be over by the cells. Of course, damn these ridiculous bureaucrats, they've no idea how to draw up a simple building layout.' He knew that Linda and Anna were exchanging a look. Linda was trying to turn her against him, it was another one of her stupid little games. No matter though, when the time came, Anna would realise the truth and see everything he had done for her. How meticulously he had worked it all out. Then no amount of snide comments and vulgar put-downs would dampen her view of him.
She was going to save the world and he was going to make that happen. Only someone of his ability could do that. Then everyone would have to admit how exceptional he really was.
Greaves led them through the ruined offices that had once housed Torrington's finest. All that remained were the remnants of a few desks and some filing cabinets that had been wrenched open and set alight. Marvellous what humanity can do when it regresses into barbarism.
Beyond the offices and down a flight of stairs were the cells. They were dank and desolate. No-one had been near them for years, the air was stale and Greaves could see skeletons in two of them.
'I don't get it,' said Linda. 'If you're gonna spend billions of tax payers dollars on a super secret underground complex why would you put the entrance by a bunch of holding cells. I mean aren't you gonna be seen going in an out all the time, by the worst kind of people?'
Greaves sighed, how could he put this simply? 'This isn't an entrance. We're looking for an emergency exit. One that was seldom, if ever, used. They built two of them. One comes out in a remote location some distance away and the other comes out here in case they had to evacuate quickly. They didn't want to be seen coming out, they needed complete deniability, which meant they'd have to kill whoever saw them leaving. Who would you rather have them take out, a bunch of girl guides or a bunch of junkies and rapists?'
'Why didn't they just build the whole complex miles from anywhere?' Linda said. 'Then they could evacuate as much as they liked and no-one would see 'em.'
'I don't know,' said Greaves, he could feel himself losing control. He hated that. 'Did I build the complex? No. Am I from military intelligence? No! Why are you bothering me with your questions?'
''Cos it's fun. Wind him up and watch him go. Anyway, military intelligence, now there's a contradiction in terms.'
'Now it pains me to say this,' said Greaves. 'But for once I agree with you.'
'Steady on. Don't you have a pill for that?'
'I don't carry cyanide,' said Greaves. Anna smiled and Linda smirked, conceding defeat. Now that was a snappy comeback.
They were just around the corner from the cells, standing in front of a steel security door marked 'DANGER – HIGH VOLTAGE!' This was to keep away any nosey cell guards. Greaves started tapping the wall around the jamb.
'What you doing?' asked Linda.
'I'm checking for termites. What does it look like?'
'I dunno.' Linda shrugged.
Greaves found the hollow part of the wall. That's where the wires were. 'Cortez, why not make yourself useful and punch a hole in the wall here?'
Cortez spun round and held a finger to his lips, listening. Everyone was quiet.
Eventually Linda whispered. 'You hear something?'
'I'm not sure. Probably a rat, or some plaster falling. I better go look just to be sure.'
Cortez padded off back to the cells. Linda took the butt of her shotgun and knocked a hole in the plaster for Greaves. He reached in and pulled out the wires. Hopefully they would still have residual power in them, or he would have wasted a lot of time.
'If this is the exit,' said Linda. 'Why didn't we just go in by the entrance?'
'Just in case there's someone still in there,' said Greaves, cutting three wires and stripping the insulation. 'You can never be too cautious.'
Greaves twisted the copper of the three wires together in the right order, creating the feedback loop he needed. There was a sound of steel grating as the ancient door mechanism ground into life. The door moved with a jerk and swung open a couple of inches. Just wide enough to see the corridor beyond but not to squeeze through.
Linda chuckled. 'Well that was handy.'
Greaves lost his temper and punched the wall. He bruised two knuckles and yelped with pain. Luckily Cortez appeared and saved him from another of Linda's wisecracks.
'Couldn't see anything.' He said. 'What happened here?'
'The stinking door's jammed,' Greaves said, shaking his hand. 'We can't get through, we're going to have to force it.'
They all put their shoulders against the door and strained. Nothing happened for a moment, then finally it creaked and gave just a little. Then it stopped. They pushed and grunted some more but the thing wasn't moving.
'It's no use,' said Greaves. 'We'll just have to wriggle through this gap.'
There was a short corridor on the other side. Greaves tried the lights. They came on. Thank God there was still power. Now all they had to do was find some working PCs. Greaves was suddenly very excited. It had been so long since he'd had the pleasure of sitting in front of a computer. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed it. Oh to
