by H. J. Pang
“Do we have helmets on this thing?” yelled Greg over the din of the engine. “We could have been killed!”
“You have 418 troops looking for you, and you worry about dying in a road accident?” Wesley yelled back, his hair billowing crazily. “Get your priorities straight!”
Incense Master Sa Long stepped into the commune, his enforcers following close behind. He had insisted on handling this matter personally. As the son of the Dragon Head, second in command and Enforcer of the Labs, no one opposed him. The guards in the corridors knelt as he passed, and all voices hushed at his approach. They all knew his reputation throughout the city. To speak was to die, to be heard was to be silenced.
The past evening had been busy. Sa couldn’t believe that an outsider could sneak his way inside, and give five of the guards at the checkpoint the slip. Those fucking bodohs that called themselves guards were now basking away in the stockades on the roof. Some UV light would do them some good.
They didn’t find the interloping 25, despite a building-wide search. Sa hadn’t considered it much of an issue. Everyone knew there were those who tried to make their way into The Mountain to carve out a living. Life out there was harsh, and here they had the Dragons to protect them. Besides, it was better not to get the Dragon Head involved. Sa knew how his father was—easily worked up over nothing. As far as he was concerned, it was business as usual. Just like illegal immigrants before The Storm.
Then he was awoken in the middle of the night. Moonshine and two hours of sleep didn’t go hand-in-hand. A Blue Lantern had reported an intruder in the labs, despite the fact he had no reason to be fixing anything. Groggy and swearing, Sa had found part of the lab shot up, and the only reason the damage wasn’t any worse than it could have been was that he had had all lab guards equipped with hollow-point ammunition, projectiles with hollow cavities in place of an otherwise sharp tip, which reduced penetration through hard surfaces. Some of the lab equipment were scheduled to run experiments for the last few weeks, but the power shutoff had brought them all back to square one. To make matters worse, with some of the testing equipment toast, and one of his best researchers missing, progress on Project Evermore would be delayed. He had questioned the Blue Lantern and felt something was up. He intended to find out what that was.
“So none of you saw anything strange?” he asked. Commune 11 gathered before him, all with their hands behind their heads. No one spoke. They all knew it wouldn’t spare them. To get on with their lives was all they asked for.
The Blue Lantern, whom the men knew as Lantern, stood before the rest, his eyes nervous. Damn right he should be. What did he expect, a reward? It wasn’t called loyalty if you were paid for it. Besides, it was real suspicious, having been in the right place at the right time. Especially at one in the morning.
“You know why you’re here,” spoke Sa. He didn’t have to raise his voice; everyone heard him just fine.
Lantern looked confused. “The guys haven’t seen anything. I’ve already checked with them.”
“Do. Not. Test. Me,” said Sa. His voice was silent and deadly, carrying malice and fury. “It was long past the time of your duties when you made your report. An outsider should not have gone unnoticed for so long in our domain. Which leads me to believe you had been harbouring him. Maybe even now.”
“I would have reported him if so, Incense Master,” replied Lantern. “I’m sure the others would too.”
“Perhaps you grow weary of our hospitality?” asked Sa. “Perhaps you think your reward insufficient for a service so great? Or maybe a deal struck and unfulfilled?”
Lantern’s eyes flickered, and Sa nodded, satisfied.
“It has been a shitty day for me, and yet I still find myself awoken at one in the fucking morning,” continued Sa, his tattoos flexing as he paced. The 49ers behind him stared motionlessly. “But you would make it a lot better should you tell me everything you know about this intruder, along with his motivations. Do it now, or Commune 11 faces immediate extinction.”
“So ruthless, Sa, yet so ineffective,” spoke a voice. Sa and his men turned. Few had heard that voice, and even fewer had seen who it belonged to. As one, everyone in the commune, Incense Master, Red Pole, 49er or otherwise, dropped to their knees.
Flanked by guards in enclosed helmets and form-fitting ceramic armour, a slim figure strode in their midst, dressed in silk robes not unlike those worn by emperors, with numerous tiny dragons embroidered onto its surface. Its tailor would have said they totalled 418, but was long dead due to a flaw in the stitching. Despite long white hair and a beard that suggested wisdom and maturity, the newcomer’s eyes were hard and unyielding.
“Dragon Head!” Sa said. His knees trembled as they pressed against the ground. “You honour us with your pres—”
“Spare me the crap,” said Dragon Ho quietly, and a hush fell over once more. No one dared move, for the Dragon Head’s words were life and death. The Head of the 418, de facto ruler of all that was. His personal guard, the Dragon’s Teeth, also known as DT, fanned out among those gathered. Their gear and armour were designed in the pattern of red and black scales, such that one could almost mistake them for dragons themselves. And they might well be. Only the fiercest and most deadly made it into the Dragon Head’s inner circle.
Incense Master Sa was silent as the 418 leader looked dis-dainfully at his feet, as if the dirt would crawl up and consume him. As one of the most senior-ranking 418 leaders, he had carried out much of Dragon Ho’s bidding. When a knife went missing a while back, he had a whole commune put to the torch. Another commune was relocated to the ruins, so that the scorched surroundings reminded them of what awaited rulebreakers. A careless word could mean death, if Dragon Ho so wished it.
“Two years back, I was made aware of a mutiny in one of our Resource Centres,” continued Dragon Ho. “As such, I had personally requested you to keep your eyes open for any who may seek to undo our efforts. Efforts to build our civilisation back to its rightful place. And yet,”—here, Dragon Ho tilted his head just the slightest bit—“you failed to stop a lone intruder from breeching our walls. An intruder who had hours to bide his time and strike at our very core. Explain.”
Being in charge of overall security, Sa had thought he could keep that quiet. He’d deal with those snitches later. “I had a building-wide search performed, Dragon Head. We didn’t find him.”
“And you didn’t consider it a problem.” It wasn’t a question.
“We figured he had already left by then,” choked Sa. His throat was starting to tense up, and shivers ran down his spine. “I didn’t see a need to put everyone on high alert.”
“And yet an altercation took place,” whispered Dragon Ho, pacing before the gathered people. “Not in our stores, armouries or markets, but in our very labs!” He shouted the last part, turning on Sa. “Do you know what the labs mean to us, Sa? It’s not just valuable equipment that was destroyed, but a breach of our experimental security! All that could bring us to war with the Old Guard! Do you know what will happen if anyone outside The Mountain discovers what we are doing?”
Sa cowered under his leader’s tirade. “I’ll make it right, Dragon Head. I swear it as your son.”
“You’ve done enough,” replied his father. He drew his pistol and fired.
Sa didn’t know he had died, his skull fragmenting too quickly for him to register. Dragon Ho surveyed the mess before him, even as a guard wiped the blood off his shoes. He made a big show of blowing the smoke off the barrel of his customised .44 Magnum pistol before pointing it at everyone around him, the red dot of his laser sight dancing across 49ers and civilians alike. They trembled as the beam made contact.
“Let all those gathered know that none will be spared should they prove incompetent!” announced Dragon Ho. “Not my 49ers, nor my Red Poles. Not even the flesh of my blood. Only the strong survive!” A jerk of his head, and Sa’s corpse was dragged away. It would find good use as fertiliser in the hydroponic farms.
“Yes, Master Ho,” said a Dragon Tooth. Red scales on the upper half of his armour signified his rank as a DT Squad leader.
“I also want this 25 brought to the negotiation room,” said Dragon, his gaze falling on Lantern. “He will tell us everything he knows about our interloper, including all manner of facts about his entry.”
“I have no secrets!” exclaimed Lantern. At a command, two of the DTs fell upon him with truncheons, his whimpers dying quickly into silence.
Dragon Ho turned to DT Commander Huo, whose armour bore blue scales interspersed with red. Once a Red Pole, he had been commander of the DT for three years. Like a few of the 418, across his skin was tattooed the known names of his victims, along with the dates of major skirmishes. He had run out of space, however, and rumour had it that he wrote the additional names down on the scales of his ceramic armour.
“Prepare the men for war,” said Dragon Ho. “I want all combat-ready Red Poles in the discussion room an hour from now. Once the men move out, I want all wireless communications to and from The Mountain cut. Field communications remain as per normal.”
Huo nodded, not showing his surprise. “May I ask why, my Master?”
“Something tells me the intruder may have gotten help from The Mountain. This shall end. And before I forget, execute the guys who shot up my labs.”
BROKEN NATION
GREG NEVER EXPECTED to ride down one of the many highways in Singapore in a vehicle again. But then, there were so many things he hadn’t expected less than two weeks ago.
For one, he could hardly imagine making his way back to the home city he had left so long ago. Second, he didn’t expect to survive when pitted against what was now the most powerful force in Southeast Asia, or even the world. Whatever’s left of it.
And thirdly, who, even in their wildest dreams, could fathom riding in the sidecar of a fully-working motorbike, teeth chattering away with a kid beside him, driven by a member of a delusional cult? Who himself betrayed no emotion as pothole after pothole was surmounted by the humming wheels of a refurbished bike? Which itself seemed capable of crumbling at one push of its brakes?
But Greg had never expected to be free of the mines. And that’s saying something.
He recognised the stretch of highway they were now on, if it could be called that. For the first time in his life, Greg realised that despite the rusting hulks of what remained of roadside traffic, they hadn’t experienced a single traffic jam. He found himself laughing at the incredulity of it all. He had escaped with his life intact from a ruthless triad and a wacky horde, only to concern himself with traffic conditions? What a true Singaporean he had proven to be.
With the noise the motorbike was making, he had to wonder if anyone was watching, though Greg figured they would be hard pressed to keep up. But then, he knew better than to underestimate the 418.
“You doing okay?” yelled Wesley across the din of the motor. Greg had to look around to confirm it was the cultist speaking to him.
“Do I have a choice?” replied Greg. Only now did he realise his fingers were numb from gripping the handlebar before him. Guo Li seemed to fare similarly, burping every now and then, but having known kids first-hand, Greg knew he wouldn’t admit it.
“We could always stop for a break,” shrugged Wesley. “But we’re in unfamiliar territory, so I’ll prefer it if we make it across the AYE, at least. It’s been awhile since I’ve been through the area, and there’s no telling who could be waiting for us. There’re always bandits and scavengers to contend with.”
Greg wondered if the roar of the motorbike hadn’t already alerted the whole country to where they were. They had been on the road for the better part of forty minutes. In better times, they would have reached the city area by now, but broken roads and vehicle wreckages made traversing the roads a nightmare. The hard swerves and braking motions were all Greg could bear. He would rather be stuck in a broken-down MRT, if they still existed. But then, he wouldn’t be getting anywhere.
“What were you doing so far out?” Greg asked. “Surely the scavenging is easier nearer to the Sanctum?”
“The Admin required more solid-state memory for the intranet servers. They could barely keep up with the bandwidth required by our growing flock. I went on several expeditions to find some,” answered Wesley. He accorded Greg a grin. Of all the cultists, he was the most capable of human expression. But then, Wesley was a field operative.
“Where from? I thought the stores were all closed.”
“Up ahead to the right is Keppel Harbour,” replied Wesley, waving a hand towards the direction of the sea. Past the wind whipping in his eyes, Greg could see a field of shipping containers, waiting out their eternal vigil. Faded markings reminded all of the shipping empires that once existed, never to awaken again. Towering above the containers were the crooked skeletons of the cranes that handled them, a further reminder that nothing would ever be the same. Jin had once commented that the cranes looked much like four-legged dinosaurs, and now, they were. Long extinct and forgotten.
“Right after The Crash, or The Storm, as all you Offline call it, there was plenty of salvage here,” explained Wesley. “The shipping staff and guards left quickly, and it didn’t take long for other survivors to realise this was a one-stop source for whatever they needed. So many came here on a shopping trip, raiding what they could. Then the gangs came in and, well, you can imagine the bloodbath.” Wesley shrugged.
“Most of the imported food and water’s all gone now, but lots of stuff still remain,” continued Wesley. “Stuff nobody likes to carry, like furniture and washing machines. But one of the containers had server cabinets bound for Singapore Polytechnic! Made by Sun Microsystems too. A bunch of them were fried, but salvageable. The Administrator saw it as a sign that we were blessed.”
The bike veered suddenly, and for a moment, Greg thought Wesley had lost his concentration in the midst of his reminiscence. Then he saw it. A line of rusted road spikes, almost invisible in the years of dust on the road. The brakes of the bike screeched as Wesley spun the bike, and Guo Li let out a squeal. The vehicle jerked violently, and Greg felt himself thrown against the side of the sidecar.
Greg was amazed that the vehicle hadn’t flipped over, but the sidecar had helped its balance immensely. Despite being dazed, he saw that the vehicle had stopped short against a concrete barrier.
He stumbled quickly over the edge of the sidecar, landing hard on the tarmac. Spotting a concrete barrier some metres away, Greg dashed towards it, vaulting across at the last moment. The top of the concrete barrier erupted into a cloud of fragments, followed by a loud report. Guo Li yelled from within the sidecar.
“Sniper!” yelled Greg, even as his heart froze. He had forgotten all about the kid in his haste, but he couldn’t reach him now with a shooter out there.
“What’s happening?” whimpered Guo Li. “Are people shooting at us?”
“Stay where you are!” yelled Greg. He changed his position behind the barrier before peering out. They were on a pretty bare stretch of the highway, with little in the way of cover save for the roadside railings, though there were gaping holes in places. He couldn’t quite see where the shooter was coming from, though there were several candidates for a sniper’s nest. A tall pile of shipping containers. A shipping crane with its legs bent at a precarious angle. Even a building in the distance, though it was much too far for a gun of this calibre. From the damage it had done on the concrete, it had to be firing .338 Lapua at the most, but more likely 7.62 NATO. But what worried Greg the most was not the unseen enemy, but those he could see. Alerted by the sniper, or perhaps by another lookout, a group of six survivors were dashing up the flyover exit towards where they were, wielding an assortment of weapons. Greg dropped back to cover in time to avoid the next shot.
; “Greg, where’re you at?” called a voice, and Greg heaved a sigh in relief. Wesley was still alive, at the very least.
“Keep your head down! There’s a sniper about!” called Greg. “Have you found cover?”
“I’m crouched behind the bike. But that won’t stop a well-placed 7.62. I estimate the shot came from your two o’clock! You got a visual?”
“Not on the sniper, but there are some thugs coming up towards us.”
“Why am I not surprised. 418?”
“I can’t tell. They don’t seem like the type from The Mountain. No tattoos and guns,” answered Greg. He chanced a look out. “Do you think you can get a shot at the sniper? I’m kind of pinned down. From the speed of sound, I’m guessing he’s at maybe five hundred metres?”
“Too far. Our 5.56 rounds can’t do shit at that range. We’ll just be wasting ammo here.”
“If only we have some smoke grenades,” growled Greg. It was a simple enough tactic, when one had the right stuff. Pop some smoke into an area, and the sniper won’t be able to see anyone to shoot at. But a brotherhood of code-worshippers wasn’t exactly a well-stocked army, all things considered.
“Smoke … ” Wesley mused. “Greg, I need you to draw the sniper’s fire!”
“The fuck do you mean?” yelled Greg as another shot smashed into the concrete behind him, hard enough to jar his back pressed against it. Yep, definitely 7.62 NATO. The sniper must have thought it would go right through. With .338 Lapua it would have. Greg didn’t expect himself to panic—not here, not now, but already he could feel the symptoms. His hands shook as they gripped his glorified Nerf blaster, even as he wondered if he and the rest would ever make it out of this mess. It would be a fine thing if he survived the years in the mines, not to mention tangling with the 418, only to die from a shot delivered by some coward behind a scope. What was the point of it all? They were just two men against the unseen death.
