Hurricane Heart

Hurricane

‘So what were you calling about?’ I asked.

‘Oh,’ said Carl. ‘Well, don’t get too excited just yet, but the Master’s officially cleared the area, and he says people are allowed in and out of the base again; you included.’

‘Really?’ I asked, my hopes lifting at finally getting back home.

‘But,’ Carl interjected purposefully, ‘he also advises that you don’t come back.’

I frowned, my tone business-like. ‘Why not?’

‘He wants you to stay with the kid.’

‘I know I’m supposed to stay with him,’ I argued, ‘but why can’t we both come back there?’

‘Because that will bring the Soulless down on us like hell,’ Carl explained. ‘Where you go, they follow. However, he has another idea. Probably in the next few hours, he’s going to send someone; possibly me; possibly someone else, out to meet you at...I think we’re going to agree Base Six, tonight, to chat about what’s going on and deliver some important information.’

‘That sounds better,’ I agreed, a little uncertain. ‘I want some contact with other Dreamers—oh, and can you bring out some more clothes, for both of us? But what’s so important that he can’t tell it to me over the phone?’

‘We don’t know how advanced the Soulless are, but they’re obviously following you,’ Carl said. ‘They might be tracking the phone lines as well. You say you’re in Olsztyn now?’

I glanced around, once again disappointed at the lack of signposts. There was one indicating a junction coming up, but it mentioned a town with a name I did not recognise; I would have no idea where it was in relation to Olsztyn.

‘Yeah, somewhere around there,’ I said vaguely.

‘Well, I think we might make it to Base Six by sometime during the night. You don’t mind not getting a lot of sleep tonight, do you?’

‘I’m used to it,’ I said. ‘I’m better than most at dealing with a lack of sleep.’

‘It’s just the rest of us that have to suffer it,’ I heard him mutter.

‘What?’ I asked, unsure whether he was making a joke or being serious. My only guess was that if he was being serious, he wouldn’t have dared say it.

‘Sorry,’ he said, sounding like a frightened mouse. ‘I was just having a laugh.’

‘Whatever,’ I said in the usual business-like tone. ‘See you whenever.’

‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

I ended the call and returned back down the verge to the car. Arjan was still waiting patiently inside, watching me hopefully as though he expected me to tell him what was going on. I turned the key in the ignition and stepped on the accelerator without a word. Base Six was quite a bit further south and west than we were now; we’d have to get a move on to make it there by nightfall.

‘What was that about?’ he was eventually forced to ask after several minutes of silence.

‘Nothing much,’ I said vaguely, unwilling to give too much away. I’d already announced a specific destination—and over the phone as well. That was hugely foolish. I had no idea what the Soulless were like at tracking, but they couldn’t be too bad. If they followed us there, we were stuck, so we just had to hope that the phrase ‘Base Six’ meant very little to them.

‘I’ll tell you now though; we’re going to be going quickly today,’ I said.

‘Why?’ Arjan asked with a groan.

‘Because we are,’ I said shortly. ‘We’ve got to get somewhere, and we’ve got to get there quickly—by night, and that’s not so easy. Every minute we waste sitting still is a minute closer that the Soulless come.’

‘But you can’t tell me where this important destination is,’ he confirmed.

‘No.’

We drove on in silence; on through the grey, indistinguishable Polish motorways. I had no idea where we were or where we were going; not really; only that I was heading south-west. Long hours passed in desperate boredom—I had never been a massive fan of driving; it was surprisingly stressful, no matter how good you were at it—and I was keen to get somewhere.

The highway began to clear as day turned into an early, yet dark, starless night, all light concealed behind the curtains of thick, heavy clouds, the slight hint of a watery moon just penetrating through, giving one lucky cloud a slight, ethereal glow. Headlights spun past us at dizzying speeds as we continued to roll across the countryside, passing by the myriads of lights of cities, glittering like a spider’s web under the sun, only in reality so much more sinister.

We turned off the highway and drove for about twenty minutes away from known civilisation, into the countryside and undercover of woods. It was after nine o’clock by the time we reached a suitable parking space, and I ushered Arjan out of the car and into the cold night, hastily gathering everything from the boot—ideally, we’d be able to exchange some clothes. I didn’t relish the idea of being out in the open, alone, at night, especially in somewhere as good for hiding in as the forest.

I glanced around, checking over my back every few seconds. I could see that it unnerved Arjan to see me afraid, but it was better to be safe than sorry, as the cliché went.

‘Quickly!’ I hissed in his ear as I picked up the pace through the trees. We passed the bottom of a small but rocky hill, proving that I was on the right track, and reached the unimpressive and fairly inconspicuous little concrete building without any further event.
I plugged in the code for the door to open, and pretty much shoved Arjan inside in my hurry, taking another glance back over my shoulder. I could see nothing and no one; for now.

‘Is it underground again?’ he asked. I heard a sudden clonk sound as he evidently bumped into one of the few items of furniture in here—a wooden table or something, by the sounds of it.

‘You alright there?’ I murmured, feeling across the wall until I found a switch, turning on a couple of dim wall lamps. Even though the grime on the windows looked like enough to keep any sort of light out, it was best to keep the lights low in the overground section of the building, just in case. The outbuildings were often used as refuges and hiding places.

Downstairs, it was the biggest place we’d seen yet. It opened out into a concrete room, a sitting area in the centre, and a sort of temporary partition wall leading into a kitchen space. Then, there was a curtain on the far side hiding a long corridor. I knew I’d been here once, but it was a couple of years ago, and after a while all the outbuildings began to look much the same.

Investigating the doors leading off of the corridor, I found the first two both to be bedrooms; one marginally more luxurious than the other. The one afterwards was a bathroom. The next one on the right had a code pad in the wall, which made me guess even before I opened it that it was an armoury and weaponry, and also stored rather a lot of drugs, from medicines and a first aid kit to the significantly more sinister tranquilisers, irritant gases and the omnipresent poison pills, in place for only the most extreme circumstances. The following room was some sort of interrogating room, with a table and a chair with straps to restrain the culprit, and a further stash or tranquilisers and other drugs, and the final room, also with a code pad, was a little prison cell with nothing but chains attached to the wall.

Of course, it went without saying that it was all dimly lit, and the floors, walls and ceilings were all dark, colourless concrete, with the exception of the bathroom which was tiled in the typical yellowing colour—seriously, who designed these places?

Not that I really cared, especially when I’d used them as a refuge from Soulless or government workers or just a place to stay overnight. They had beds and toilets and food stores—this one, in fact, was loaded with all sorts of things to eat, as though someone, most likely from the Krakow base, had stocked it up with fresh supplies in the last few days.

‘Help yourself to food if you like,’ I told Arjan, gesturing to the partition wall. He wandered in to investigate the kitchen, and was in there for a while as I began to flick through my phone in case of any texts that I’d missed. There were none, but hopefully that was good; it meant they were on time and on target.

I heard the microwave beeping in the kitchen, and Arjan returned a couple of minutes later with two plates of food taken from whatever was in the cupboards—mostly ready meals by the looks of it.

He offered one out to me.

‘I had no idea what you’d want, but there wasn’t actually a lot of choice,’ he said a little awkwardly.

‘Thanks,’ I said, genuinely surprised and grateful that he’d made something for me. For the first time in a long time, I realised I was hungry.

When I finished eating, I left the plates in the washing up bowl—I’d sort them out later, or possibly in the morning, and returned to the sitting area. Arjan had turned on the little, old fashioned TV and was trying to get a decent reception on a channel that was so fuzzy I couldn’t tell what it was. The screen cackled mockingly, and after several moments of trying to get it to work—this was evidently the English channel; the one that we could both easily understand—it was annoying me far too much with its taunting, and I stomped over and switched it off with a smack.

‘I nearly had it,’ Arjan said in a small voice.

‘No you didn’t,’ I replied harshly, sitting back down and plumping up the cushions.

There was a moment of silence once again, until I spoke.

‘Do you trust me?’

It was the question I had asked so often, and the one Arjan had never been sure of his response to.

‘Why?’ he asked, taking the defensive strategy.

I rolled my eyes, ‘yes or no? Trust is trust; regardless of the situation.’

He seemed to be contemplating for a while, clearly wondering where the conversation was going to go. I wasn’t planning on taking the answer very seriously, but evidently he was.

‘I guess,’ he eventually said uncertainly. ‘But it depends what in.’

‘Give me your hands.’

‘What?’ he asked, suddenly looking much more alive, and much more frightened. ‘No!’

‘That was an order, Arjan,’ I said; smooth, cold, as emotionless as ever.

‘No, please don’t,’ he said feebly. ‘I thought we were past all that.’ He looked at the rope I held in my hands, ready to tie around his wrists which he held in towards him, as though he could keep them from me.

‘We are,’ I said, ‘but we're getting visitors tonight, and they don’t know that. To them, you’re our prisoner, therefore you should be treated like one. It’s unlikely that they’ll treat you nicely, and they won’t give you any respect. Get used to it.’

He looked uncomfortable as he stood up and moved towards me, his head held high as he glanced down his nose at me. Even when I stood up, he was still significantly taller.

‘Please Arjan,’ I said, placing a hand softly on his shoulder, glancing up with my large, brown eyes. ‘For me.’

He did not speak or move, and kept his limbs completely limp as I took his wrists and pulled them round in front of him, tying the rope securely, but perhaps not as harshly as I would have once done it. He did not look happy, but he didn’t struggle or resist, and I counted this as a victory.