Free Mutant City by Steve Feasey Page A

up where he thought they might need the aid of the rope they’d brought along from the ruins of Brick’s former home.
    ‘Where’s Dotty?’
    The big man shrugged. ‘Hunting?’
    Rush scanned the landscape – a gloomy vista of tumbled, broken rock with the odd tussock of stiletto-grass here and there. It was unusual for her to leave them so early in the morning; she normally hunted at night. At least she would be starting the day with a full stomach. Who knew? Perhaps, after she’d gorged herself, she might bring something back for the two of them, though he wasn’t going to hold his breath on that one.
    Brick’s humming started again, punctuated this time by a tap-tap-tap of the stick on a rock.
    Rush fought the urge to tell the big man to shut up, and angrily began shoving their things in the knapsack. It occurred to him that maybe he should have left Brick back there in the hole. Maybe, in the long run, that would have been the best thing – for both of them. He’d asked himself time and again why such a big man had been shoved in the bolt-hole when he could have been better used to defend the place. And every time he came up with the same answer: because whoever had put him there must have known he was of no use in a crisis. That, no matter how big he was, he couldn’t be relied upon to help when danger struck.
    Rush shook his head. Like it or not, he was stuck with the big guy. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, setting off without so much as a backward look.
     
    ‘Are we nearly at the top yet?’ Brick asked for what seemed like the hundredth time that fateful morning.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Brick hungry.’
    ‘Rush hungry too.’ He winced. He was even beginning to talk like the dummy now. ‘Just shut up about food, will you?’ Except for some foul-tasting norgworms they’d managed to dig up and cook into a soup, neither of them had had anything to eat in nearly forty-eight hours.
    They were on a narrow rutted path that might have been made by animals of some kind. Rush was hoping they were mountain goats, and he salivated at the idea of killing and cooking one.
    ‘Rush grumpy today.’
    ‘Yeah? Well, Brick’s being a pain in the arse today. And if he wants to –’
    He came to halt. The route they’d been following dis­appeared up ahead, falling off the side of the mountain in what must have been a landslide. Now there was nothing but a sheer wall of rock that, even with the rope, would be impossible to climb. Rush swore under his breath and looked helplessly around him. Frustration gave way to despair and he was about to announce that they would have to turn back and pick another mountain when he saw the cascade of trailers hanging over a darker patch of the rock face. He walked over to it, pulling the curtain of plant matter aside to reveal a narrow fissure that could have been formed at the same time the mountain fractured and the path was lost. What was left was a high, thin corridor just wide enough for a person to go through. The light didn’t penetrate beyond the entrance, but when he shouted into the void, he could hear how far his voice travelled. He was suddenly aware of Brick standing by his side.
    ‘We’re going to have to see where this leads,’ Rush said, nodding into the gloomy passageway. ‘Of course, it might not go anywhere. If that’s the case, we’ll have to turn back. But having come this far, I don’t think we can leave without checking it out.’
    ‘Dark in there.’
    ‘We’ve got the torch.’
    ‘Still dark.’
    The boy rounded on the hulking figure next to him, his top lip drawn back in a snarl. ‘Well, I’m sorry about that! But take a look about you, Brick. There’s no other way for us right now. We either see where that leads –’ he jabbed a finger in the direction of the opening – ‘or we go back the way we came, where we know there’s no food, kiss goodbye to the time we’ve already spent getting this far and try another mountain that we hope doesn’t have