Torchwood: Exodus Code

either side, they tramped into the rocky jungle path.
    Gunfire erupted from the compound below.
    Eva stopped at the sound, but Cash urged her on.
    ‘Dana and Sam know what they’re doing. We need to keep moving, Eva.’
    Eva was glad she had been put in the lead a good few metres in front of Vlad because she was afraid that her own heightening sexual desire, which was getting more intense the higher they climbed, would put Vlad in more danger than the soldiers snapping at their heels. Eva was breathing heavily when they entered a clearing at the top of the canyon pass.
    The volleys of gunfire echoing from the compound below were almost continuous.
    ‘They must have breached the wall,’ yelled Cash. ‘Let’s go, people. Let’s get this done.’
    When they finally arrived at the deserted ruin of the Cuari village beneath the mountain’s plateau, the darkness had descended like a lid on the basin of the mountain only a few hundred metres above them.
    With the descending darkness came a change in Gaia that was startling. Her steps quickened, her breathing became less laboured. She shrugged off Eva and Isela and bounded towards the final leg of the canyon pass. Jack, on the other hand, was being dragged between Cash and Hollis. No one was speaking. Only the bursts of gunfire from the compound below punctuated their progress.
    The air in the clearing was rank with sulphur and ash. Jack tasted rotten meat and sour milk and ginger, the taste of the mountain. Then the gunfire ceased.
    ‘Cash!’ yelled Dana. ‘Anderson’s coming.’ Then her comms went silent.
    ‘Jack,’ said Cash, leaning him against the ruined wall of a brick cairn. ‘You’re going to have to do your best to go on without us. Hollis and I will hold this clearing for as long as we can.’
    Jack nodded, guessing what Cash was saying to him, but the words felt like water on his face, splashes of yellow wrapped in despair. Jack kept brushing his hands over his cheeks, nodding that he understood. When he looked at his hands, he saw that his tears were pink.
    Accepting Gaia’s offer of support, Jack linked his arm through hers. Then he turned and saluted Cash, who’d taken a position at the mouth of the canyon, tucking himself under the jungle’s canopy.
    ‘Remember,’ said Jack, choking the words out, ‘make their progress difficult, but don’t shoot to kill. They’re only following orders.’ Cash nodded and returned Jack’s salute.
    Jack winked and blew a kiss to Hollis, who caught it in his fist. With Vlad and Gwen tottering behind, they climbed the final metres to the basin of the sacred mountain.

72
    THE DARKNESS ENGULFED the rag-tag gang as soon as they emerged from the canyon pass and onto the plateau. Eva lost her footing and fell, tumbling off the path and into a tangle of trumpet trees bordering the steep ridge. Vlad abandoned Gwen and slithered down the hillside after her.
    ‘Are you OK?’
    She smiled, nodded and reluctantly broke free, scrambling to catch up with Jack, who was slumped a body’s length from the lip of the massive mountain basin. Eva could barely make out Isela up ahead already marking out their positions with a ceremonial feathered brush, the peak of her markings leading down into the mountain. Like her mother, the higher the motley crew had climbed, the more compliant Isela had become, the mountain’s sway over her as strong as it was over her mother. At this altitude, a thin sheen of ice coated the edges of the rocks surrounding the basin itself, the mountain etched in silver.
    ‘Jack, where’s Gaia?’ asked Eva
    Jack struggled to his knees, pulling the night-vision goggles he’d taken from one of the guards from his pocket. ‘Give these to Cash,’ he said to her. ‘He may need them.’
    Jack’s eyes were red-rimmed, bloodshot and he wanted nothing more than to have the cacophony of noise in his head be silent if only for one minute, one second, one beat of his pounding heart.
    ‘Jack!’ This time Eva screamed. ‘Where’s Gaia? We can’t lose her. Not now.’
    ‘She’s right there.’
    Eva heard a low growl and in terror dragged Jack from the edge of the basin against an outcropping of rocks as a mountain lion, a sleek black puma, pounced from the jungle landing next to Isela. The puma was bathed in a faint yellow light, transforming the plateau into a movie newsreel, the crew, Gwen and Jack, players on a sacrificial stage.
    ‘Oh my God,’ said Eva, backing away from Jack and closer to