1785940570 (S) by Justin Richards

Author:Justin Richards [Richards, Justin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473530416
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2015-12-09T19:00:00+00:00

XIV

No sooner had the latest wave of cheering and stamping died down, than the Caniforms were on them again, shackling Ash and Captain Lopez and marching them down from the platforms. They led them across the arena and through the third corridor, into another vast, almost cathedral-like space.

In the centre of this room there stood what looked like a colossal iron cauldron, in the side of which was an opening. The Caniforms marched them forward, undid their restraints, and pushed Ash and Captain Lopez through the door, closing it behind them with a sonorous clang. They were alone.

‘What is this place?’ asked the Captain.

‘How should I know?’ snapped Ash. She glowered at him and shook her head. ‘We’d be free now if it wasn’t for you. And Garcia would be alive.’

‘You think I came all this way to go home with nothing?’ said Lopez.

Ash looked around, searching for a way out. To one side of the chamber, its end suspended an unreachable height above the ground, was a ladder, leading up to an aperture in the ceiling. To either side of the ladder were two circular metal handles, like ships’ wheels.

‘Welcome to the Grand Finale!’ the voice of Piero came booming down from somewhere high above. ‘If you look up, you’ll see an outlet. In thirty seconds, water will start filling the tank. It takes the average human one hundred and fifteen seconds to climb the ladder, but only ninety seconds for the tank to fill with water. Each of those two valves will stop the flow in two minutes, but if both are turned at the same time, they will turn the water off in one.’

‘Mathematics,’ growled Captain Lopez. ‘I hate mathematics.’

‘No,’ said Ash. ‘This is more than that.’

‘Your time,’ said Piero. ‘Begins now!’

The metal ladder dropped down to their level with a sudden clang, and ice-cold water began cascading from the outlet above, splashing around them first in puddles, then rising up around their feet and then their ankles. Ash ran across the tank, and began turning one of the wheels.

‘We have to stop the water,’ she said. ‘Come on. Help me.’

Captain Lopez looked up at the aperture and then the ladder.

‘Hundred and fifteen seconds for the average human,’ he said. ‘I reckon I can make it in less.’

‘No!’ said Ash. ‘If we work together, we can cut the water off in a minute.’

‘Rather you than me,’ said the Captain, and hoisting himself up out of the rising water he began climbing the ladder.

For a moment, Ash paused. She could join him, climb up after him. They’d both drown, of course, but for her it would last only a moment before she’d revive. She could do that. After all, the Captain had doomed poor Garcia. They would be free now, if it wasn’t for him. But no. She couldn’t bring herself to do that, and so instead, she carried on turning the valve, working until her arms ached, and the water was above her chin, and then her

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