Free Six Days by Philip Webb Page B

me grab Erin’s arm and charge after Peyto. Stealth’s out the window – we just leather it, not caring about our pounding feet. Peyto’s a fast runner and I have a job keeping up with him, but Erin’s slow. I keep dropping back to stay in touch with her, and she’s stumbling all over the shop. By now the soldiers are shouting – warnings maybe. But we don’t stop.
    The paving crumbles away into sludge, and all that’s between us and the river is craters and rubble heaps. Peyto’s bounding over the waste ground ahead, and in front of him I can see the water lit up from search beams. There ain’t nowhere to go. I’m cursing myself for going after him, when Erin struggles up to me.
    “What are you stopping for?” she cries.
    “We’ve got to get back to the streets. We can’t shake them off here!”
    “No, you don’t understand. Follow Peyto!”
    She lurches after him, practically cartwheeling into the bog. When I look back over my shoulder, I can see swinging flashlights and then a couple of gunshots crack out. I’m thinking,
They’re gonna shoot us down like rats
. I slither into the mud and it drags me down. And I know then I won’t even make it to the water. Erin’s just ahead, reaching out to help me. Then I see Peyto hold his flinder up high, and he’s saying something over and over again. It sounds like a chant.
    There’s a movement in the water, just a restless bubbling at first, but the skin of the river rises and parts, and out comes this big black shape, plowing up from the depths. I cry out, and all around me there’s these spurts of mud and I realize the soldiers are taking potshots from the road. But that seems like the least of our worries cos this huge humpbacked
thing
sends a wave slooshing up to our shoulders. But for the mud holding my legs, I’d have been swept away.
    I’m so scared I can’t even breathe.
    I figure it’s alive, the way it surges round in an arc between us and the bank, its bulk all slick and smooth like a giant fish. But then I hear gunfire bouncing off it.
    Thunk! Thunk!
    And suddenly a hole opens up and a searing light stabs into my eyes.

THE AEOLUS
    I t ain’t like we go through the hole of our own accord. It’s more like the thing tips us up and swallows us up in one go, mud and all. I tumble down in a heap with the others and lie there for a moment, not believing any of it, as my eyes get used to the glare. Above me, the hole closes up and we’re moving now, fast and downward. The walls are covered with machines and dials, and in the middle, there’s a ring of six padded seats. Sludge from the Thames slops about on the otherwise clean floor. Peyto and Erin are glued to a couple of screens flickering with diagrams and weird symbols.
    At last I go, “When I said, has anybody got a submarine, I was joking.”
    “Get into one of those chairs,” orders Peyto. “We’re going to launch in twenty-five seconds.”
    “
Launch?
Launch where?”
    “The
Aeolus
,” goes Erin, like that explains everything.
    “All right, I figure we had to get clear of them Vlads sharpish, I get that. And I ain’t even gonna ask how come you got a submarine. And how come you never mentioned it when we was risking our lives crossing the river in the first place. No problem. But for your information, I ain’t
launching
nowhere. You can just steer it back to the south bank where Wilbur is before the lad freaks out.”
    “Can’t do that,” goes Peyto. “Please, Cass, just sit in a chair and strap yourself in …”
    I slip-slide over to where he’s gawking at the screens.
    “You ain’t listening! My brother is standing on his tod, freezing his buns off, worrying himself half to death about us!”
    “I’m not in control! I can’t
steer
it anywhere!”
    Erin’s is the calmest head. “Cass, listen to me. We’re in an evac shuttle – it’s just an offspring vehicle.”
    I gape at her.
Evac shuttle?
It’s like someone’s opened this door to where Wilbur’s comics