Hordes of Doggerland Part 4

Arrival ... Departure ...
... Arrival ... Departure ...
These were the two words most common in the Constantine Wharfs. It was strange to walk through a hallway and not feel on edge, but down here only corpses and rocks remained amongst the destruction. One of CJ's many talents was to strip away what was and see into what had been. There were tunnels which once led to submersibles, junctions which once led to arrival pods, airlocks which once connected to submarines or boat-shafts in the days when this city was being prepped to be used properly as a means to escape nuclear war. If she squinted, she could almost glimpse the rush of people running to escape the scourge of the League. But now these walkways had all either been flooded by the sea or reduced to rubble. It occurred to CJ as she passed by that during the storming of Finchy's lair, the combined might of all of the League's armies sought to cut off any and all exit routes. But by doing so, she realised, they had quite frankly trapped themselves in. The Wharfs served as the central entrance and exit into the city and, with its facilities now rendered utterly unusable, there was no way for them to escape it and, although perhaps an advantage for the League of Iron, it made imagining another way back to the surface very difficult.
But somehow, she sensed that there had to be another way ...
CJ crossed a bridge between a set of blooded turbines and hurried through a series of vast abandoned hatchways into another spacious docking area. Anchors hung off the walls and over a small collection of pits which she had no doubt stretched right down into the Core. A damp heat rose up, smothering the wide cargo-hold in a dense aroma of fresh hog-roast. The thick mist of the room stung at her eyes and wet her skin like in a sauna. CJ covered her nose.
She noticed an underwater mountainside as it loomed through the cracked windows, and felt as if she was being watched. For a moment she thought she saw something move out there, out in the sea on the mountain's edge, a flicker, a glare of light, but when she came to look all was still. Even the fish dared not come down this far. The push of the ocean was too thick even for them. It reminded her of being out in space, back aboard the Chronos with Mapp, back with all of those ghosts and the vortex-dwellers. In a funny kind of way she wanted to be back there. Even a derelict in deep space was better than this. In Doggerland she felt as if she was drowning all of the time. Between her and land there were thousands of tonnes of water hungry to get at her. It was agonizing to think that she may be trapped here forever, and then there was that constant dripping. It was a reminder that the water was always getting through.
Ahead there was a small juncture where the hold fed another doorway, guarded by more fly-infested piles. CJ avoided venturing through them and found a way around into the next walkway. The shaft led down, which made her nervous, and then into a darker more open square. Another welcome sign ... How she loathed welcome signs. A couple of gardens lit up synthetically with plants fed by tubes as she stepped inside. A lack of maintenance on the Wharfs had allowed the weeds to outgrow their barriers and tangle up along the walls, creating a strange and neglected woodland. At least the smell of burning meat was gone. Actually, the mixture of plants and weeds gave the giant hold a rather delicate mother nature-y smell. Beyond the overgrowth stood a series of shutters and warehouses.
One of them reacted quickly to her presence. The shutter shook open.
CJ pulled out her wooden duplicate of Kazumi and headed towards the warehouse. Trust was something she shared with only one person down here, and said person was currently down in Shades Alley on a trail of unstoppable vengeance. Being exiled by the League didn't change anything. Finchy might have the means to help move things along faster for CJ, but in the end he was still one of them.

**

Elle was gone, having vanished into the darkness of Shades Alley. When ten minutes became thirty Susie decided to act. She followed in the direction of Scoldy and Nucks into the slums, and took note of what had been, much like her Cantina sister. Once this place might have been a beautiful bazaar, but a mixture of time and a lot of misuse had transformed the whole walkway into one long filthy muddle of collapsed stonework and smashed glass. From the view at the elevator Susie had quickly realised that the whole of Shades Alley was spread completely over one great causeway, nestled between two of Doggerland's largest buildings. The whole thing hung over a huge abyss. Fitting she thought. It's not really a part of the city. If it fell the city could function regardless. No wonder the League decided to dump its most redundant down here. But the inmates, as Elle had called them, had turned this prison into a home.
And Susie considered that she may have already caught word of the man responsible for their survival ... What was it Scoldy and Nucks had mentioned ... K-King?  
She kept to the shadows. The slums were empty but this was recent. Meat had been left to smoulder over fire; hot drinks had been left to cool on upturned tables. And up ahead, in the centre of the makeshift houses put together from bits and pieces of old crap, came a vicious chanting. The voices synchronised perfectly. They had been here a long time.
Susie crept between the abandoned streets and soon found the source.
The only way to describe it was an arena. Benches filled with beggars hung around a pitch of granite, which was barred off by thick walls of steel. The inmates sang like hooligans ready to lash out after a game. What wild madness had these poor men been reduced to?
A platform hung over the gravel ditch suspended by four long chains. On it there stood a large bearded man, covered in straps of leather and a vest of metal. He was old, early sixties possibly, but had a colossus of a body. It was painfully ripped. Susie couldn't tell what was scarring and what wasn't. She crawled up behind another wall of rubble, and watched.
The man waved his hand.
"Shut your holes!"
In one second the Shades Alley arena went completely silent. Only the rattle of chains and the shuffle of turning heads were left. The man walked the edge of the platform as it hung over them all superiorly. Susie had a feeling ..."Welcome back to the ring, my people," said King. "But today is a day like no other. We have a special fighter joining us all of the way from Celestial Heights. Some of you may even remember her!"
The gates of the arena screeched open and someone small was pushed through. Susie's heart dropped. She covered her mouth and, most frighteningly of all, could not look away. Any pity Susie may have had for these mad men was suddenly gone.
It was a woman, a bald scanty-clad woman, with her arms belted painfully to her back. They had been broken brutally out of shape and her hands flapped around behind her thighs uselessly. Her upper arms were blackened by blood loss and bruising. The woman collapsed to her knees and trembled before them, the inmates of Shades Alley. Her face was cut and swollen. Her legs, Susie tried not to notice, had been held apart by a pair of metal bonds.
"This," King continued hastily, "is One-Shoe Sammi. Remember her?"
First there were gasps, followed by a vengeful roar of applause. Dust rained down from the hatches as the whole walkway shook with cruel exhilaration. "That's right, my friends. She is one of them, one of four lords of Doggerland collectively known as the League of Iron." The very mention of their name sparked a reaction of people spitting and throwing things into the arena. One-Shoe Sammi cowered beneath them, unable to move her arms in defence. "I prayed and prayed that the day would come when we could take our apt reprisal on them, and now here she is. This is a sign, the beginning of a beautiful age. Her death here today will initiate a great change!" A cry of revenge dissolved into a cry of conquest as the crowd followed King's words to the letter. "She was delivered to us by the Iron Angels of the Bathory Courts. Once again the members of the League of Iron frivolously fight amongst themselves. But I believe we missed an opportunity when they brought down Finchy in the Wharfs. It's not something I intend on doing again."
"Please," a cry from the arena. The mob of Shades Alley shifted their attention to the woman. Susie watched as even King knelt down from his platform to listen more closely to her pleas. "I was ... betrayed!"
"Any alliance forged in the League is a fragile one, little girl," King rolled his pitiless eyes; "you should have sought to fortify your own section of the city instead of allying yourself with the bitch of the Bathory Courts."  
"But there is so much more at stake here!" Sammi squealed as she hopelessly tried to wring her arms out of their bonds. "There is a reason Bathory had me condemned to this place. She has in her custody–..."  
"–Enough," said King. He stood up and motioned to the gatekeeper below. "I know all there is to know about your world. Doggerland is failure, but I will unmake that. The baby Bathory holds is nothing but a spec against the window of our new world. It will be drowned with her."
Susie clenched her fists. It was moments like these she wished she still had access to Mapp's crossbow. From here she had a perfect shot of both of them.
Sammi twisted her wounded body around to face him. "But ... How can you know about her?"
King grinned. "You could say that I have friends in high places..." He waved to a box behind him where two people were sat, watching the action. There was a woman with an eye-patch and a sword and a man whose body was large and hulking, like a gorilla. They had been watching her intently the whole time. Susie made a record of their faces in her head, figuring that it would be important for later. It seemed that King wanted to start a revolt against the League of Iron and, although it may serve to her advantage, she sensed that the new lords of Doggerland would not simply let her and her baby go. The sudden rage in Sammi's eyes suggested that she recognised the both of them. "Traitors!"
King waved her silent.
"With your death I declare the beginning of a new era, one which will see the League of Iron toppled by their own servants. Prepare for a feast, brothers. Unleash the pack!"
Sammi quickly tried to crawl onto her feet as two of the four gates lifted. There was a howling, followed by a thud of bounding footsteps and a greedy scratching against chains. The woman buried her head in the sand and screamed for mercy.

**

It was like unearthing a hidden garden centre in the middle of a dark mausoleum. Flowers bloomed vibrantly under lamps as they hung off the high walls and followed CJ's descent. It was colder than out in the hold with the pits, but in a refreshing way. There was another door ahead covered in vines. She used the tip of her sword to carefully untangle what she could. For some reason she chose not to cut through the flora. Perhaps it was the inner pacifist in her; the faint voice which pointed out that, out of all of things living in this city, this plant life was the only thing which truly belonged.
The vines dropped away. The door opened to her touch.
The next room was once a stockroom as evident from the high shelves and the many supply crates. They had been shifted around as furniture for the residents, who were ignorant to her arrival. More men with stitch marks, more escapees from Celestial Heights ... She was surprised that she recognised one of them. It was the man with the fingers, the ones which weren't his, who had spoken to her briefly in the Blue Lagoon.
CJ felt cheated.
"You?"     
"Hello my lovely," said Finchy as he sat on a throne of crates, surrounded by others like himself. They finally looked up, half a dozen of them. "Glad you could join us."
"You're Finchy?" she said. "You were one of the League of Iron?"
Finchy stood and took a bow.
"Well that's disappointing."
He simply smiled and fell back into his seat. "Can't please 'em all."
CJ held the would-be Kazumi to one side and made sure that they could all see it. "You wanted something? I'm kind of in a hurry."
"Yes," he crossed his legs and leaned back. The others kept their gaze on CJ. It was obvious that they hadn't seen a newcomer to the Wharfs in a very long time. "It occurs to me that change is afoot in our great city. I want in."
"Let me guess, and I don't have to be telepathic for this one."
"Not that you can be," Finchy rolled his bottom lip. "I know that the maelstrom up there is affecting your powers in a bad way, lovely. Shame that. Could've used some of your expertise down here y'know."
CJ rolled her eyes miserably. "Alright, shut it. Something's happening up there in the streets. The League is splintered. You figure that because they think you're dead that it's the perfect time to score big and step in, staging a grand return. The people, the ones who have been here longest and have forgotten what life used to be like on the surface, will see the light and turn to you in the time of crisis, and with the population behind you you'll attack the major players left in control and conquer them into submission. Am I warm?"
He nodded and then held up an adamant finger. "Humid. But not all there."
"Heh."
Finchy closed his eyes. "Let me try something..."
She waited. Finchy didn't really seem to know what he was doing. But then suddenly a wave of information poured into CJ's head out of nowhere. The sensation wasn't painful, but it was certainly anomalous. She wondered if it had been like this for others over the years when she had stepped into their minds...
"Probably," Finchy answered without her asking. "Don't you think it's odd that the maelstrom limits your telepathy and has seemingly no effect on everyone else? I think that's odd. Don't you?" He turned to one of the others, who instantly concurred. "Definitely odd."
CJ stared. She had become deadly serious. She remembered how Mapp used to subdue her efforts to penetrate his mind. She imagined a giant duck bounding across a landscape, and felt Finchy's presence fall back.
"How did they do that?" she asked.
"The storm?"
"No," said CJ, "I mean how did they take my telepathy and share it out like some kind of poison?"
Finchy held out his arms and shrugged. "The Countess brought a great many technologies with her back from the future," he answered. "Including ... this little toy." He held up his right arm which, CJ only just noticed, was wrapped in a leathery wristband. Her eyes widened with timid curiosity.
"That's a ..."
"Teleporter," said Finchy.
She cocked her head. So that's how he managed to get down here without wading through the ruins of the Wharfs, she thought. "Teleporter. That's what I was going to say."
Finchy nodded. It wasn't a teleporter of course. What it was was something far more dangerous, not that he seemed to have any idea. It was like watching a caveman toy around with an AK-47. "Where did you get that?"
"Koch was ordered by the Countess to rewire it, during which time I nabbed it from his labs. That was shortly before the League exiled me and came down here to finish what they started. They did a bang-up job though. The Wharfs are in ruins. There's no going back for this place. That's why I need to get back upstairs and settle some old scores. You were right. The League, what's left of them, thinks I'm dead. With the current situation I think it's the perfect time to strike back." And then he put his fingers together and stared off into space. "Oh, the things I could do with this city. The Countess had it all wrong. She made such a mess. That's what happens when you don't stay on top of it. She's probably never loved anything in all of her life. The city has almost fallen into complete ruin under her absent-minded rule, but under my rule ... under my rule ..."
CJ was listening, however much it pained her, and agreed. Doggerland was built as a means to escape the end of the world. It should have represented the beauty of all life and all that could survive the very worst of human nature. "And what's my part in all of this?"
He leaned inwards. "You're going to the Core, right?"
"That's the plan."
Finchy grinned. "Well it's a good plan."
"Good."
"Blow it up."
"What?"
This time it was Finchy who cocked his head. "I want you to blow it up."
"Blow up the Vertigo Core?" CJ said, looking between Finchy and the would-be Kazumi. "Won't that...?"
"No."
"But..."
"The Vertigo Core once provided the city with limitless energy, true, but Doggerland was built to withstand the devastation of nuclear war. Right now the only thing that the two main generators are doing is gathering heat and dust. The Core serves as a HQ for Valculga's minions but he's currently trying to wrap his head around his new role in Celestial Heights. If you blow up the Core and destroy his men then he is powerless. My guys will take care of him and it's one less League member all around."
CJ couldn't hide her perplexity. "So wait," she said. "if the Core isn't what's powering the city..."
"It used to," he added. "But other forces have changed things. Can you not guess where the city draws its power from now?"
Suddenly, CJ could.
"The maelstrom..."
"Clever girl," he saluted her. "It's a swirling torrent of limitless tidal energy, providing the city with an unlimited supply of hydro-power."
"You do realise that that's the thing which is restricting my powers, right?" CJ frowned.
But Finchy merely nodded again. It didn't seem of consequence to him. "Which means you'll have to escape the city without them. I'm sure that you've got enough experience behind you to manage that, especially as a Cantina crewmember. Once you're far enough from the proximity of the storm your powers should return to you. You'll be home-free and Doggerland will be mine."
CJ considered this. "How do you know my powers will come back at all?"
"I told you. I shared brainwaves with the other League members when I was one of their number. I know all of their dirty little secrets."
She thought about it some more and was hesitant to believe him. He was a member of the League of Iron after all, possibly the most inhumane people on the planet, and must have done something to earn that honour. But it made sense what he was saying. She couldn't not try, but then there was a nagging feeling that she didn't really have a choice. Sometimes you just had to go with the flow and hope for the best. "Here," he said and then threw something to her. She caught it and studied it.  
"An explosive charge?"
"You'll need it. The generators are right next to each other. Place it between them and give yourself enough time to get out of there. The thing is small but the blast won't be, plus the minions will be all over you. They won't be after prisoners either. Valculga's not an idiot."
It all made sense. It did, but something about it all just didn't sit right. CJ stared at the explosive charge. She had used them before on missions with Mapp and Cow, and even with Dray in France, but it didn't make it any easier. "So once Valculga and Bathory are dead then you'll be the self-proclaimed ruler of Doggerland?"
Finchy sat back again with a certain confidence. The others looked between one another. Anxiety hung on the air but the plan was solid. "And then you'll be free to leave. You see the League of Iron serve the Countess, and she has a major vendetta against the Cantina crew. In her own time period, whenever that might be, your kind are galactic fugitives. But that's her problem. Personally I don't hold any grudge against you, or your captain, or your ship. But I have grown attached to this city. Should something happen to the surface of planet Earth this place will come in handy."   
Finchy's face dropped then, because CJ wasn't glaring anymore. She was smiling, just slightly, at his last remark. Someone wants to live pretty at the end of the world. Maybe Finchy had an idea about how that was going to happen. "And what about the Countess?"
"What about her?"
"Surely she won't let us go. She's got a vendetta after all."
"I'll deal with her."
"How?"
"A blunt instrument to the back of the head perhaps. What do you care? As long as she is gone it doesn't matter to you."
"Actually it does." CJ stepped forwards, right into the room. Several of Finchy's followers, those who had no doubt stuck with him through thick and thin, leapt off their crates and formed a perimeter. CJ may have come in peace but she had shown strength by managing to find them here. As far as they were concerned, she was still a threat.
"She started all of this. The League of Iron, they're just pets in the end, her pets. She put them in charge of the city to maintain it and control the population, whilst I'm sure she was off working on something far more devious. Do you know that none of them even know what she looks like? Not just the League, but the people. Koch, Bathory, Valculga, One-Shoe ... They're like the soldiers. They're Doggerland's frontline. But the Countess, she's the Queen Bee, and she's completely invisible. She's hidden herself somewhere in the city, and we all know that she's the one who is really pulling the strings."
"I'd wager she fancies herself above all of this petty squabbling between the League," Finchy accepted her argument without so much as a second glance. "That'll be her downfall if you ask me. I don't like being underestimated. It's dangerous for other people. The Countess had it wrong. She needs to be put down with the rest of them. Don't you think? If she had it her way, Susie's baby would be dead."
CJ sighed. At least that was true.
She shook her head. "But what about you? Do you even know what the Countess looks like?"
It struck a nerve. Finchy sat back and considered the response. He had planned for every other line in this conversation. Every other line ...
"I will once I have access to all of the League's resources," he said coldly. "Koch and One-Shoe Sammi are already down. Now all that's left is the other two. Bringing them down too will be easy enough so long as you don't screw up. Go to Core and contact your little friend through the communications array, and then blow up the generators. I'll have men in place in Celestial Heights to assassinate Valculga, and then we can infiltrate the Bathory Courts together with the might of the population behind us. Bathory won't stand a chance."
But CJ sniggered lightly. He made it sound so easy. "And nothing else stands in your way?"
Finchy smirked back at her. He did love a woman who challenged his authority. Those women made the world, and would probably even have a large part in whatever world followed. The Cantina was something of little concern to him. All he knew was that this one was smarter than she looked.
"Possibly," he finally added. "What do you know of the King of Shades Alley?"
CJ recalled bits. "I heard whispers in Blue Moon Street."
"He's worse than all of them," Finchy put his chin in his hands, "because out of everyone in Doggerland King is the only one who has nothing to lose. You see he's what us brightened folk like to call disillusioned. There's always one in every family. He has this wild belief that Doggerland belongs to the tortured, because he guides the tortured. Anyone who winds up in Shades Alley loses their mind overnight. They're truly savage and bound by no order. But King knows how to channel that. He knows how to play those people and twist them to a cause. The League of Iron should have flooded Shades Alley ages ago, but Koch liked to listen to their cries through the radio. It reminded him of his status. It gave him a false sense of security. If King finds a way out of that place, then we may have a big problem. He was put there for a reason."
"But who is he?" CJ watched as the others backed off to their crates under the very mention of King's name. "Another abducted person from the surface?"
"Aren't we all?" Finchy enlightened her. "King was one of the very first. His back story is an elusive one but from what I hear, he was here in the beginning. He was here when the Countess first appeared. It's that fact which I believe has kept alive for so long. That and, of course, the fact that he was one of us. Hell, King was the one who had me initiated."
"King was a member of the League of Iron?"
Finchy breathed in deeply. He almost looked regretful. "King was the one who started the League of Iron. He was the Countess's right-hand man."
"What happened then? Why was he exiled?"
"That's a great mystery," said Finchy grimly. "I wouldn't dwell on it."
CJ nodded, but only because she had pieced his little puzzle together. Finchy wasn't a complicated man although she sensed he liked to think that he was. She shook her head again, this time with disenchantment. "So that's how you'll bring down the Countess..."
He tapped his nose. "If anyone will be able to find her, it's King."

**  

The snow was so beautiful. It was during that hour after the first fall when the flakes took a moments rest. Anton was watching. It wasn't cold out. He was still getting used to changeable nature of an English autumn. It was August now and yet he still found himself waiting for summer.
Morning had come around soon enough. Cammi was still sleeping. That was about right. She had been up all night preparing the house for Edward's birthday. The living room hung with ribbons and presents. Eighteen-years-old. How the time has flown. It only seemed like yesterday when the little one was born. Edward, Anton smiled. An English name.  
Twenty so years had passed since Anton had last set foot in Paris on that fateful day when his people stormed the Bastille, and he had never once looked back. He had written to his mother during the first years of the revolution, but one day she just stopped replying, and Anton knew why. It didn't matter. His life was here now, with his wife and son. His mother would have known that. He would miss her but had grown used to living without her. In her last letter she spoke of illness and had told him not to weep. The life he had left there was now all behind him.
Or so he thought.
He wrapped himself in his fur coat and stepped out into the cool outdoors. Their hut lay on the outskirts of a small hamlet in the south east of England, surrounded by dense woodland along a small mountainside. He always liked to take long morning walks before Cammi woke. It was the only time he had to himself nowadays. So he strolled about half a mile or so, following the mountain to the furthest ridge. From it here he felt he could see the whole of England's south eastern corner. The sunrise crept out from under the distant fields of snow and stretched its rays far and wide. The sky was white.
"Subject 12," the sun spoke to him. "Can you hear me?"
Anton stared.
"Subject 12," it said again, "it's time to wake up."
Everything blurred. His past snapped away. Subject 12 awoke.
There was a large man standing over him in the interrogation chamber, with scars along his painted cheeks. He was wearing a bright red clown's wig, and was smiling. It was Valculga.
"Ah," he said. "Welcome back."
The interrogation room looked familiar. This is where he was brought during the first experiments. There were tubes feeding into his wrists as his body hung from a surgical platform. The professor was monitoring them closely. It was strange to watch a man so huge push up a pair of spectacles so small.
"Your condition is improving," he observed and marked something down on a chart. "Koch was right. Bathory should have had faith in this program."
Subject 12 dropped his head to one side.
"I...was...dreaming."
"You can speak," Valculga looked impressed. "Remarkable. Your blood work shows a definite alteration in your cells but your DNA has reacted actually rather positively. Makes a change, Subject 12. Koch lost seventeen fine specimens trying to get that one right. Looks to have been successful in the end though. Good on him. A shame he can't be here."
"Dreaming..." Subject 12 drooled all over his chest. Whatever drugs were being pumped into him seemed to be taking affect.
"Try not to speak. Your cells are trying to work."
He didn't know what that meant, but Subject 12 cooperated. Not that he had much choice in the matter. There was a sting in the air, a familiar smell. He sniffed, hard. Valculga watched.
"Susie..."
Valculga adjusted his glasses again. "Intriguing. That must be one of Wolfax's abilities seeping through. Other patients developed claws and hunger, but you seem to have developed his trained sense of smell. Tell me," he came closer, "have you managed to achieve any sort of telepathy yet?"
Subject 12 closed his eyes. "No," he lied, as he stepped out of his body and walked around the monstrous giant. Valculga continued to take notes. Subject 12 watched how lifeless his body had become as it rested on the slab, chained by the wrists and ankles. There was no escape in the material, but perhaps this way ... this way ...         
That name rang a bell. Wolfax ... A friend of CJ's perhaps? CJ ... She was telepathic too.
And she was here. Subject 12 could smell her.
And Susie. Susie was here, wherever here was.
And ... this room ... He looked over to an empty surgical bed. It was surrounded by mirrors. For a moment he thought he could see Susie, restrained with her legs far apart, crowded by doctors in masks. They pulled something out of her, and she was crying, and it was crying. There was blood.
And then it all flashed away.
"Subject 12?" Valculga prodded his body impatiently. "Stay awake please."
Subject 12 watched him and didn't feel a thing. He watched the head on his own body turn weakly to the other side, like a puppet. Valculga could have the body. It's all he wanted anyway, physical results, evolution in seconds, progress, change ...
Subject 12 didn't need the body anymore ...
He turned away and passed through the interrogation room door as if it were air. The hallway was a wreck thanks to Valculga's violent attack. Not that it mattered of course. The remains of Koch's soldiers littered the corridors of Celestial Heights and mutants, each as big as Valculga, guarded the doors and hatches. The tower was under lockdown. Subject 12 drifted past them like a ghost. He could feel the desperate pull of his body as it rested back in the interrogation room, but ignored it. Sleep had given him power, allowed his ... form ... to reach a heightened state of consciousness. Ideas filled his existence, concepts of power, theories on space, legends of time ... Koch's experiments had evolved him into something new. Everything he and his League of Iron had planned to do, to create the perfect soldier by splicing together DNA of Cantina crewmembers, had worked. It was he, Subject 12, and he was the only one.
"No," a voice dripped into existence, "God no. It's not right. You're not thinking..."
"What are you talking about?" He heard Valculga.
"It's not ... not right. You can't. You have to remember. This isn't who you are."
Subject 12 sensed Valculga's budding curiosity as it spread out from the tower.
"It's not right," said the voice. "Think ... Think of Cammi."
Subject 12 did.
Cammi ... Oh God, Cammi ... Cammi, what have they done to me?
All of those ideas, those concepts, those theories and legends ... None of them compared to just hearing her voice again. Subject 12 mapped out the entirety of Celestial Heights, wielding his new gift as a weapon against the leaders of this place, and then mapped out Doggerland.
CJ and Susie, he remembered. They're here. They can help me. They have a time machine. They have the Cantina.
They can get me home!
A second of blind excitement caused Subject 12 to swerve out through a wall, and out into the thick eternity of the ocean. He stopped, mindless, hypnotised by the darkness as it hung all around him. He drifted and drifted until the city was fully behind him and then turned to meet it. The spires stuck out amongst a rabble of block structures and those reduced to much less, but the city was still standing. A ring of bubbles circled the outskirts as if it were some sort of celestial body and, if this was the hidden universe under the sea, it may as well have been. It was evenly overpowering.
Subject 12 knew for an absolute fact as he stared down over Doggerland that he had never been in amongst the stars, but every cell in his new form protested otherwise. It stung. His fingers and toes, or whatever constituted for them, itched. His mind, whatever was there now instead of his mind, prickled. Everything alien and otherworldly about this place felt so familiar.
Doggerland, a shadow of needle-towers against the fog of the sea, was yearning. Subject 12 yielded.      
Susie was indisposed. She had other priorities and no time to share.
CJ did.
... The Vertigo Core ... That's where she was headed.
How Subject 12 knew, he had no idea, but did know. The knowledge came to him as smoothly as the school of fish which just passed by. He moved back towards the city, and knew exactly where to find her.

**

The pack was unleashed. Four wolves, four times the size, encircled One-Shoe as she cried in the middle of the arena. Susie didn't have to watch what happened next. She closed her eyes and turned away. The screaming only just got through to her, under the roar of the crowds.
Up above King had abandoned the platform. He was over in the spectators' box talking to his two mysterious associates from Celestial Heights. There was something about them, about the way they held themselves, which told Susie that their involvement with Shades Alley was something this city had never seen before. Perhaps King was right. Perhaps times were changing.
Either way she had to get over there. With Elle gone, Susie had no way of knowing the safest way through Shades Alley, but if those two were from the city above then maybe, just maybe, she could follow them back. Susie kept low and crept along the edge of the arena, behind the towers of benches as they loomed over the vicious entertainment below. It reminded her of that one visit to Rome, all of those years, when she had been forced to fight against Cow in the Coliseum. It all seemed like a bad dream now.  
She managed to skirt around the outside of the structure and finally wormed through a set of thin scaffolding, before climbing up into the spectators' box and hiding behind the nearest bench. By now King and the other two had disappeared into the adjoining room. Susie followed.
The room was lit up dimly with candles, and huge discoloured banners hung from the walls. Whatever words had once been knitted into them had long since faded away, although it reminded Susie of what she had seen up in the room with the two bodies on her journey to the elevator. The flags were remnants of what Doggerland was meant to be, not what it had become.
King was sat in a big chair on the far side of the room. The other two were stood across from him. There was a pause in the conversation when One-Shoe Sammi's fatal screams filled the room. King looked at his watch.
"Seven seconds," he remarked. "The dogs are getting slow. Might have to replace them."
"That can be arranged," spoke the woman with the eye patch, "once all of this business with Valculga is out of the way. The labs in Celestial Heights are vital to the city's future. Right now they're compromised."
"Agreed," said the gorilla-like man as he sat down and sharpened his axe in the candle light. "The premises should be returned to Koch immediately."
"I thought you told me that Koch had been killed in the assault?" asked King thoughtfully.
The woman smiled. "Death had never stopped him before."  
King sighed. "Loyal to the end eh?"
The other man nodded.
"That's a shame," said King. "Once we've dealt with Valculga and Bathory things will never be the same. If Koch does not abide by my laws then he, and all that follow him, will be made to suffer for it. Do you understand?"
The following silence said enough. The two warriors understood. "Good," he continued, "so tell me more about Koch's resurrection technology."
The woman stepped back and motioned for her accomplice to rise beside her. "All in due time."
The gorilla-man stood and put his axe away. "We should return to the upper levels," he said, "Valculga will grow suspicious if our bodies aren't found."
"Valculga's an idiot."
"Indeed."
Susie watched as the two made for another door beside King's makeshift throne, but the lord of Shades Alley waved them to a stop. "Remember you two, if I suspect any treachery ..." He made a throat-cutting motion. "... I shan't be as generous as Koch. I will find you."
The two exchanged glances, and then nodded back up to King as he dismissed them. "See you soon. Prepare the city above for my reckoning. Whole towers will fall."
"Yes King," and then both of them hurried out. Susie prepared to follow, keeping to the shadows, until King looked her dead in the eye. He raised his eyebrows. It wasn't in a surprised way, but rather in an And-now-to-you sort of way. Her heart dropped. He must have seen her come in or perhaps even as he stood over the arena. She pulled out her combat knife and stepped into the light.
King smiled. "Hello Susie."
"Tell me how to get to the Bathory Courts," she said, "or I'll cut your frakking head off."
He held out his arms. He had no weapons, no means of defence, and yet he was still smiling. "Go back through the slums and use the ventilation shafts. The inmates don't use them. They're superstitious; believe them to be infested with demons. Follow the pipes straight about two miles across the causeway and you'll be there in no time. I'll keep them all focused on the games."
Susie just stood there, disbelieving.
"The Countess sends her regards," King wiped his mouth clean, "now go. My absence from the arena makes them all so cranky. The elevator code is 1969. It's the year Doggerland was supposed to open to the general public."
Susie stepped around him slowly, and then followed in the direction of the two others. The door creaked to a close behind her.