The Bridge

by Simon Winstanley

  She clasped her wrist and attempted to keep her voice level, “How do you want to do this?”

  “Start it,” he called over his shoulder.

  It seemed he was addressing his accomplice because, somewhere in the shadow behind him, a starter motor coughed and an old car engine stirred into life.

  “I’m gonna light this,” he pointed to the trail of rags that led away from the workbench, “then I’m driving out of here. You can get to the laptop, or come after us. But not both.”

  Assessing the environment, she knew he was right. If she was lucky, she’d be able to leap the tarpaulin, grab the laptop and make it to the exit before the fire filled the workshop. By that time, they’d be long gone.

  The garage door clattered noisily open.

  “We’ve dumped our tech,” he said, “so once we go, there’ll be nothing for Archive to track. As far as they’re concerned, we were killed right here.”

  She hated the fact that she’d been outmanoeuvred. More than that, she hated the feeling of hate itself. Conflict, indecision, clouded thought - enemies of mental clarity that could be erased if she returned to Archive with the evidence.

  To gain her release, she’d have to lie about their deaths. Archive would never know of her deception but the imperfect duality tore at her.

  The justifying thought now arrived, this duality would be completely extinguished with the first, soothing vial of metathene.

  “Ready?” he held the lighter in the air and flicked the lid open.

  A small orange flame burned brightly.

  “For the good of Mankind,” she spoke the words of comfort.

  “I hope so,” he replied.

  The car engine revved.

  The lighter dropped.

  As adrenaline flooded her veins, the sound of her own heartbeat filled her ears. She felt her muscles tense, then the lighter hit the floor, igniting the rags.

  She didn’t recall starting to run, but the ground was now moving beneath her at speed. As she cleared the tarpaulin, the flames continued to spread out across the floor and made the vertical leap up the side of the workbench. The wall of fire rippled across the top of the bench but she extended her hands and grabbed the laptop, swinging it away from the approaching heat.

  She wasn’t in the clear yet though; the fire had continued to spread throughout the workshop.

  Acrid smoke was rolling upwards from the floor, obscuring the exit and heating every breath she took. The bench itself was now ablaze. Twisting on the spot, she sprinted toward the wall of smoke.

  Hot, grey confusion engulfed her; a brief moment that somehow seemed to last several seconds.

  She emerged from the smoke into the street.

  Dragging in lungful after lungful of gloriously cold air, every cell in her body screamed with the utter elation that she’d escaped death. As she continued to walk away from the building, the sensation didn’t subside. The inner turmoil wasn’t returning.

  Almost as an afterthought, she realised that the man and woman had escaped. As far as Archive would know, two people had been killed in the fire that was busy spreading through the building. All she’d have to do is present the laptop and tracking data.

  The thought provided no satisfaction.

  In fact, the thought of Archive and metathene no longer triggered any positive cues. She could remember the ego-morph calibration chair and the tight-fitting headband that Archive had used to condition her, but it no longer had any influence over her.

  Unaccountably, something had changed.

  She stared at the burning building and found herself struck by a thought. Where the thought came from she couldn’t be sure, but it was persistent: perhaps three identities had perished in the fire.

  The decorative shackle around her wrist was gone.

  She was no longer bound to Archive’s service.

  But they didn’t know that.

  Her sense of self-preservation flared brightly.

  If she made it to Calais, then there was still a chance that she could board the train that was bound for Archive’s survival village under Dover.

  Compartmentalisation had meant that she didn’t know the specifics of the USV3 entry method or even the exact layout, but she knew it existed. She already had the relevant clearance level, all she had to do was get herself there.

  DIRT

  Bradley’s family had given so much to Archive. Not the manual labour itself, he thought, but the countless billions that had been poured into the various endeavours over the decades. It was a source of continual frustration that people tended to overlook his benevolence and chose to focus on the brusquer side of his personality.

  Historically, his family had built its fortune from mining; literally digging up dirt to make a living. In later years, the digging of dirt had been more figurative; information and blackmail had often proved just as lucrative when it came to maintaining his family’s power.

  He continued turning Napier’s smartphone over in his hands.

  Napier had been in Archive long enough to build up whole armies of skeletons in closets. There must be so much more dirt inside the device, he thought.

  Turning away from the grey skies, he pushed the power button on the side of the phone. When it didn’t respond, he tried holding the button for several seconds.

  “Damn technology,” he muttered, but the phone refused to activate.

  It had been working just fine when he’d left the Andersen base, but now it was simply a fingerprint-streaked chunk of metal and glass. It was probably just out of power, he thought. When they reached USV3, he’d be able to find someone to charge it for him.

  “Then I can take a peek in that there closet o’ yours,” he spoke to the phone.

  “Excuse me, Sir?” the pilot’s voice returned, “I didn’t quite -”

  “Don’t matter,” he cut in, “Just hit the gas, I ain’t paying you by the hour.”

  “Sorry, Sir.”

  Bradley let out another sigh and, after wiping the smudge marks from the phone’s screen, returned it to his pocket.

  Apart from mild air turbulence, their flight seemed to continue as before; the grey sea inching by as the long minutes wore on. One thing was changing more rapidly though; beyond the window, the world was getting darker.

  NORTH

  Marcus kept watch from the front passenger seat; staring out into the darkness and checking the wing mirror for headlights. The buzz of adrenaline that had powered their flight from the defunct petrol station was long gone, but a heightened sense of anxiety had taken its place.

  All that lay ahead were miles of dark, monotonous road and his own imagination. None of the scenarios he pictured about their onward journey were particularly positive.

  The problem with having one single destination was that it reduced options severely. Every mile they covered took them one step closer to a point of no return. Eventually, the road north would run out.

  Archive had closed the main transit routes months ago in an attempt to ‘divert power to the needs of the communities’ but he suspected it had more to do with controlling population movement. The result was that the roads were now unlit and deserted. Even the checkpoints had been abandoned; after all, he thought, who would knowingly devote what little remained of their life to guarding empty roads? Anyone still on the surface now was either unfortunate, a hard survivalist, or simply insane enough to believe they had someplace better to go. Marcus couldn’t shake the thought that somehow he was all three.

  The other thought that kept returning was how fortunate they’d been to get this far. The workshop’s owners had obviously prepared for the eventuality of leaving Paris in a hurry; under the passenger seat of the car, they’d found a small collection of rations wrapped up inside some oily car-mechanic overalls.

  For some reason the owners hadn’t made it back to the workshop or, more likely, they were near an underground tunnel when the lunar disaster had unfolded. In a heartbeat they’d been forced to abandon every
thing they’d owned in favour of a place buried a few feet underground. Their loss however had been Marcus’ gain.

  He sat up straight and looked through the windscreen. It was difficult to tell, but there was a glimmer of grey in the road ahead.

  “D’you see that?” he squinted.

  Sabine leaned forward slightly and she frowned.

  “Point de contrôle?” she began easing her foot off the accelerator.

  Every checkpoint they’d passed so far had been derelict. Although the one ahead looked equally unattended, Marcus thought he’d seen a flicker of light from behind the wooden barrier arm. There should be no power out here.

  They continued to decelerate and the checkpoint became clearer. At one side of the barrier was a tiny, box-like guardhouse. During the peak of its use, it could only have sheltered two men.

  “Kill the lights,” Marcus continued to stare, but then realised that Sabine probably hadn’t understood. He turned and pointed to the stalk that extended from under the steering wheel, “Lights… the, er.”

  Sabine suddenly understood and switched off their headlights.

  He looked out through the windscreen again and willed his eyes to adapt faster to the ambient light. The car continued to slow. The patches of grey began resolving themselves into patterns. Shadows flitted across the guardhouse window and became the silhouettes of men; men who would probably stop at nothing to steal useful resources from unsuspecting drivers.

  “Go!” he shouted to Sabine, pointing straight ahead through the closed barrier.

  Certain words didn’t need translation; he heard Sabine stamp on the accelerator pedal. However the old vehicle was no sports car, it took several seconds to regain their speed; seconds that the men near the barrier were capitalising on.

  In a brief flare of flashlight, Marcus spotted one of the men wrangling a roll of rope. It was punctured at several places with sharp, bent nails. Presumably they’d now figured out that the car wasn’t going to stop and were scrambling to react to the situation. The next step would be to stretch the rope across the road and have the nails blow out their tyres. If that happened, he and Sabine were as good as dead.

  As the man struggled clear of the small guardhouse, the car hit the barrier. The timber beam didn’t splinter into pieces like Marcus had seen on countless television shows - it twisted on its hinge, jerked upwards and smacked into the windscreen. In the time it took Marcus to flinch, a thick fracture line shot through the glass. He felt the car swerve but Sabine wrestled it straight again. With engine revs still rising in pitch, he heard several things hitting the back of the car. He turned around just in time to see that the men had failed to deploy their improvised stinger, and were throwing rocks at them.

  Rocks, he thought. Civilisation was already reverting to wielding blunt instruments as a means of negotiation. He dreaded to think what would happen after the lunar shards actually hit. The urge to reach the Warren had never been stronger.

  He now realised that Sabine still had her foot pressed hard to the floor. If they wanted the engine to survive the trip, then they’d have to slow down again.

  “Sabine,” he gently mimed ‘slow down’ with his hands.

  Cautiously, she raised her foot and the engine whine dropped in pitch again.

  The encounter could have been worse, he thought, at least there’d been no gunfire. He knew he should check that the car was still intact though; a ruptured fuel line or even a stray nail had the ability to halt their progress. Still breathing hard, he attempted to tell her that they needed to stop.

  “We have to, er,” he tried to remember the words, “nous, er, arrete… ons?”

  Using Woods’ inhaler would have simplified the conversation, but he wanted to preserve the remaining doses for as long as possible.

  “Now?” she spoke in English.

  He was about to say yes, but then he saw a pair of headlights reflected in the wing mirror. Someone was on the road behind them.

  He hadn’t seen a vehicle anywhere near the barrier, but that didn’t mean a thing. In this newly unfolding world, the best way to protect your possessions was to conceal them. The men could simply have hidden their car behind one of the bushes that flanked the sides of the road.

  Marcus put himself in their position. They’d seen the age of their car, so they’d know if they were capable of pursuing it. The headlights behind him suggested that they owned a more powerful vehicle.

  The realisation hit him that they couldn’t outrun the threat. This was not the sort of problem that could be solved by brute force and acceleration. The exact opposite was needed. This was a situation that required stealth.

  In their favour was the fact that their headlights, and therefore taillights, were still off.

  Working against them was another problem; if they applied the brakes, then their rear lights would illuminate their current position.

  As calmly as he could, he got Sabine’s attention then tapped at her leg, further waving his hand to reinforce the idea of easing up on the accelerator pedal. Automatically she moved her foot towards the brakes.

  “No!” he shook his head.

  Her foot froze above the pedal and he checked behind them: the headlights were still there.

  A hundred yards ahead he could see there was a junction exit; a tightly-curving upward off-ramp that appeared to lead to another road.

  “Là,” he pointed.

  Sabine adjusted her hands on the wheel in preparation.

  They were still going too fast, but he knew they couldn’t risk slowing down yet: the headlights in the wing mirror were gaining on them. Soon, those in the pursuing car would be able to see them anyway.

  Keeping his eyes fixed on the mirror, he reached for the handbrake. Although not strictly designed to slow a vehicle travelling at speed, it would still do the job. It also wouldn’t trigger the rear brake lights.

  Sabine steered the car onto the ramp and he tensed his grip around the brake lever.

  As the headlights drew closer, he felt the ground swiftly rising under them. He slowly pulled up on the brake. At first there was no reaction but then a high-pitched squeal arrived. The car slowed but then they rounded the bend and he was flung to the side. Quickly shifting position, he grabbed the lever with both hands.

  “Hold on!” he pulled harder.

  The car slowed drastically. A squeal pierced the air, the speedometer needle plummeted to the left, and they shot round the bend onto a straight section of road. No longer in the direct line of sight of the pursuing car, he pointed at the foot brake.

  “Now!”

  Sabine pushed hard on the brakes and, hauling the car over to the side of the road, they came to a stop. Both of them turned to look through the rear windscreen.

  In a few seconds they’d know if they were still in danger.

  DRIVE

  Following her escape from the petrol station fire, she found emotions were now an overwhelming distraction. They simply weren’t something she was used to dealing with. It made her wonder how anyone could live like this; constantly being dragged between conflicting thoughts, rather than having the crystal clarity of a single goal.

  Yet she knew she wouldn’t want to give up her new mental freedom. For so long she’d been existing, rather than living. Before now, she hadn’t even considered how much time she’d squandered at the request of her employers.

  She rubbed at her empty wrist.

  An automatic response, she realised; a relic of the conditioning they’d put in place to control her. A control that had vanished in a smoke-filled instant.

  Still holding the laptop she’d rescued, she approached the Archive utility vehicle. The smashed windows suggested that it had already been raided for supplies. A quick glance inside confirmed that only a single, partially torn backpack remained; someone had obviously left in a hurry. Although the rear door had been wrenched open, it appeared that the fuel refill point inside the car hadn’t been discovered. She closed the door and muttered a wo
rd of thanks to the Archive designers who’d thought ahead and not fitted the vehicle with an external petrol cap.

  Checking the street was empty, she got into the car and closed the door. The broken windows made her feel less secure than usual, so she opened the glove compartment and stored the laptop; the one item that would give her a confirmed place within Archive’s USV.

  She put her smartphone next to the electronic ignition and, a second later, the car’s systems activated. At least her Archive transponder was still active. The GPS wasn’t receiving a signal, presumably because satellites were now beginning to fail. Navigation would be harder, but not impossible; she’d just have to keep a careful eye on her surroundings.

  She headed north and soon cleared the outskirts of the city. It seemed that the underground tunnels had fulfilled their purpose; very few individuals remained on the surface. She knew that the tunnels wouldn’t save the people, it had simply been another of Archive’s control mechanisms; a method of occupying the population with a futile task.

  The importance of reaching USV3 was suddenly very clear. She found herself checking the fuel gauge. With relief, she saw there was more than enough to reach the train.

  Mile after mile of empty road passed by. Given the movement restrictions that were in place, this wasn’t surprising though.

  Caught in her headlights she saw an Archive checkpoint ahead. The barrier was missing and she could see two men stretching a stinger across the road.

  Ideally she didn’t want to stop and present her ego-morph’s travel credentials, so she triggered the car’s red and blue flashing lights. Hopefully they’d recognise an Archive vehicle and retract the tyre-bursting deterrent.

  As she got closer, she realised they were making no attempt to clear the obstruction. In fact they were standing on either side of the road and waiting for her.

  Experiencing a genuinely new emotion, she felt a cold ripple spread up her spine; an irrational clash of helplessness and anxiety of the unknown.