by Lee Isserow
In his faux-unconscious state, Hayes let out a grumble as the magazine read as being out of high explosive rounds. 'Probably for the best', he imagined Kali saying, sarcastically. A stealthy exit was what he needed. The gun pulled back deeper into the storage room, Hayes targeting the window, and instructing the weapon to fly at full speed towards it. The handgun whipped through the air at the glass, and bounced off the reinforced porthole.
“Fuck it...” Hayes murmured, cycling the magazine to hollow points and activating silent mode. An extendable suppressor emerged from the barrel silently, pushing out three inches ahead of the sleek black curves. Nanos danced on the inner circumference, ready to suck in the sound and restrict light from the rounds' superheated gas. The shot lined up, Hayes fired at the glass, the weapon exhaling a short sharp breath as the trigger pulled itself.
The window cracked, but didn't shatter. “For fuck's sake...” he grumbled, firing off another two rounds. The glass took the rounds with a obstinate crunch. Hayes was getting fed up, and once again had the weapon fling itself at the window, this time bursting through with an unsatisfyingly soft crash. Shards tinkled to the floor as the weapon retreated upwards, lying on its side against the ceiling, in hope in might be concealed in plain sight, should anyone investigate. Hayes didn't let it hang around too long to find out, manoeuvring it through the corridors, trying to map the pathways and find where the hell he was being held captive.
The halls were a labyrinth. Even with the lens mapping every twist and turn, Hayes wondered how the hell he was meant to find his cell. The weapon finally came to an elevator and after a rotation to check nobody was in visible range, hit the call button. The gun navigated into the elevator and investigated the options. Twelve floors, marked by negative numbers rather than name, apart from the one at the very top marked as 'EDC'.
Hayes tried to think about it from their point of view, whoever his captors were. Would they keep a prisoner in a basement, or in whatever the floor was that had a name. 'C' could be 'cells'. It could also be 'central', 'core' or 'control'. If it were 'cells' then that was where he was. If it were any of the other options, perhaps they'd want him close to hand to their main hub, to interrogate him and use whatever intel he might have straight away. He nudged the 'EDC' button with the suppressor, and once again rose the weapon to the ceiling as the doors wheezed themselves closed and the elevator began its journey. The mechanical groans ceased as they came to the EDC floor. A soft shunt and robotic exhale as the doors murmured open.
Hayes waited a moment before letting the weapon move out of the metal box, the hall ahead busy with activity. When the coast was clear, he swiftly navigated the weapon to the ceiling and once again began mapping out the path, his stomach taking an uneasy turn as he saw just how many people were present in the facility. He had figured whoever took him was a small operation, but there were hundreds of people here, all sizes and shapes, races and languages. Some looked military, wearing black padded body armour. Others looked like scientists, in lab coats with pocket protectors. Then there were people who looked like they stepped out of a long forgotten past, or were on their way to live action roleplay, wearing dark hooded cloaks with pointy tips, others with sigils tattooed on their flesh. He had never seen anything like it. No covert agency he had been introduced to had this wide an array of costumed characters.
After a half-hour of building the map, he backtracked his way through to a corridor sealed by a doorway of steel bars. The gun slipped through a gap between the bars and made its way down the hall, turning at the doors on either side. Each of them looked identical. He manoeuvred the weapon to tap on the first door. No response. Then the second, which resulted in a cry of “Fuck off.” from the inhabitant. The third was silent, as was the fourth. As he tapped on the fifth, his nano-sonar rippled in response. He had found his cell.
Once again, there was a small glass window, which three rounds and a little bit of force easily shattered. As the gun floated towards him, he pulled his head from the table and greeted it with a smile. His beaming face displayed in the corner of his own vision. The weapon moved behind him, lining itself up with the bar between the cuffs.
'Oh Jesus fuck, what the hell do you think you're doing?' Kali asked, her words reverberating through his head with a tingle, a feeling that Hayes hadn't realised how much he missed.
“So you finally join the party, huh?” he said.
'Don't you dare shoot those cuffs. You're gonna blow your own fucking hands off.'
The gasps from the barrel punctuated her sentence, four rounds tearing through the bar, fragments of the bullets ripping into Hayes's hands.
“Sorry, did you say something?” he asked, grabbing the weapon from mid-air as the nanos did their best to find the fragments and absorb them or spit them back out of the wounds before sealing up the holes in his hands.
'Fucking idiot.' Kali exclaimed.
“Maybe don't leave me to my own devices next time?” Hayes said, as he made his way to the door.
'You're off the fucking grid, idiot.' she yelled. 'I had to waste all Goddamn day with techs, and yet more of a fucking day reprogramming the fucking console to be able to get comms back online.'
“Oh, yeah, because my day's been a fucking picnic...” he said, putting his left thumb to his mouth and digging an incisor deep into its fleshy mass.
'There's easier ways to do that...' Kali said, watching through his lens as he placed the bloody thumb on the biometric scanner, nanos convincing it that the print was recognised.
“You know what?” Hayes said, pulling the door open as the blood returned to the hole in his thumb, sealing itself in. “I'm doing remarkably well on my own so far. Got any intel I can actually use?”
'Been a little busy...' she said, watching him poke the weapon out of the hallway in both directions, its camera registering no sign of hostiles. 'Did you hear me? I said you're off the grid. You should be more fucking concerned.'
“I'll be concerned about that when I'm done being concerned about being held captive.” he said, making his way to the door of steel bars at the end of the corridor.
'Doesn't look like you're being held particularly securely.' Kali said, looking at a further biometric sensor on the door. 'Don't bite your thumb open again, like a fucking animal.' she added, pulling up analysis of the sensor.
“Don't need to...” he said, placing his thumb on the sensor. It read his biometric profile and the door unlocked.
'Snuck your profile on to their system?' Kali asked.
“Of course, have some fucking faith..” he said, peeking round the corner at the end of the hallway with the gun camera. “I'm not gonna bleed over something for no good reason.”
Hayes edged along the corridor, letting go of the weapon, which levitated over to his left hand, whilst he felt around the air with his right.
Kali thought it looked like he was groping the air for invisible breasts. 'The fuck are you doing?' she asked.
“Doc gave me dumb-plants,” he said. “They're picking up EM frequencies.”
Kali started analysing the metal embedded in his fingers, the nanos swimming around them and interacting as though they were any other, smarter mod. 'Neodymium?' she said.
“Yeah, that was it,” Hayes said, continuing down the corridor, following the path of the increasing magnetic fields. “Neodumbdedumb. Know anything about it?”
'It's an alloy,' she said, pulling up information on her screen. 'Used in a ton of mundane tech. No idea why it's reacting like it is.' she pulled a visualisation over his lens of the magnetic fields he was tracing in the air. 'You don't need to feel around like an idiot. Nanos are treating it like they do sonar.'
He withdrew his hand from the air with a huff, and pulled another gun from the holster at his hip. “I'll shoot twice as many fuckers then.” he said, his tone cantankerous and mulish, after being mocked by his op.
'I do rather wish you wouldn't.' said a voice in his head. Not Kali's. A man, his voice dry and oaken, words
acute and enunciated with an upper class British inflection. Tone calm, in control.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hayes asked.
'What?' Kali said.
'My name is Theodore Campbell, Mister Hayes, and you are in my facility.'
“Well, Ted, why don't you come out and say hello?”
'Who the fuck are you talking to?' Kali asked.
“Shut up Kali, men are talking.” he said, resulting in feedback whining across the inside of his skull.
'Tell me what the fuck is happening.' she insisted.
“'Nother voice in my head.” he explained. “Senior Asshat of this shithole, who's soon to have an unfortunately brief embrace with a bullet.”
'Maybe ask him what the fuck is going on before you shoot him...' Kali said.
“Yeah, let me just write that down in case I forget.” he shot back.
'If you're quite done talking to yourself,' Campbell said. 'Do please be so kind as to take a left up ahead.'
Hayes pulled up the map and looked at the path he was being led down. It was away from the source of the magnetic fields.
“Oh, sure.” said Hayes. “Just gimme a second to run some errands, and I'll head right back over for your ambush...” he took a right at the end of the corridor, following the fields, rather than the instructions.
'Mister Hayes, I assure you there is no ambush waiting for you. Have you not noticed the corridors have been cleared?' Hayes had noticed, and it was making him wonder how much of his escape had been orchestrated.
“All the better to riddle some poor fuck with holes without other casualties.” Hayes said, turning another corner, the fields gaining in strength with every further step forward.
'I did this in an attempt to discourage you from shooting any of my staff. And the two weapons you you appear to have ahead of you, tell me I made the correct call.'
“I ain't gonna shoot no-one who don't shoot first.”
'Was that a double or triple negative?' Kali asked, feeling like an observer at this moment, rather than operator.
“Triple.” Hayes said.
'So, you are going to shoot someone if they don't shoot at you?'
Hayes stopped at a set of double doors that appeared to be the source of the magnetic fields, and thought about what she said. Then he thought about what he said, and tried to make sense of his original statement. “Shut up.” he blurted, reaching for the biometric scanner at the door. It refused him access.
'Mister Hayes,' Campbell interjected. 'If you'd be so kind as to turn around and follow my instructions?'
“Ain't gonna happen.” Hayes said. “I'm not the best at being told what to do.”
'Fucking understatement...' Kali said, watching as he tried to gain access to the room again, the scanner still rejecting his biometric profile. 'It's not working, Hayes, let me have a go.'
“Knock yourself out.” he said, as she gestured at the screen, sending new orders through to his nanos. “It'd be a nice change, someone else being knocked out...” he grumbled.
'Let go of the guns and put a hand to each door.' she instructed. He relinquished grip of the weapons and they hung in the air, flanking him from the sides as he placed his palms on the doors. 'Redirect strength, turn your mods to eleven, I'm estimating this is going to require at least twenty-five pounds per square inch to do some damage.'
“Yeah, yeah. Enough talk, let's do this.”
She concentrated the nanos in his extremities, encouraging them to build magnetic fields to lock his hands to the doors and feet to the floor. 'Now.' she instructed. Hayes wrenched his hands apart, a crack forming between the doors as he heaved them apart an inch, then two. 'Keep going...' she said.
“You... keep fucking... going.” he spat, through gritted teeth and heavy breaths as he put every ounce of strength into pulling the doors apart. Three inches, then four.
'Pulling nanos from your right foot.' she said, freeing his foot, so he could place it in the gap of the door. Five inches, then six. 'Almost there...' she said, as the door was pulled seven inches apart, then eight. 'Left foot.' she said, as he shoved his other foot in the path of the door, balancing precariously with his feet ahead of him. The door's lock buckled under the pressure he was exerting, and gave in to the force, his fingers coming free of the surface as they slid into the walls. Hayes caught his balance and his breath, then lost the latter almost instantly.
“What the fuck?” he said. The sentiment was mirrored by Kali. Ahead of them was a small cylindrical room with a domed ceiling and concave floor.
'Is that a jump bay?' she asked, as he inspected it.
“A rudimentary one...” he said. “No room for more than maybe five or so at a time...”
'That's fucking impossible.' Kali said.
'Mister Hayes.' said Campbell. 'If you're quite done breaking and entering, and damaging my property, would you please be so kind as to turn back down the corridor?'
“Damn right.” said Hayes, backing out of the room, grabbing his weapons from mid-air and settling into a strut back on Campbell's path. “You got a lot of fucking questions to answer.”
'And I will do my best to answer them, I assure you.' Campbell said. 'Take a right up ahead, please.'
Hayes followed the instructions and came to a set of double doors, twice as wide as those for the jump bay, each emblazoned with a seal. Two concentric circles, the inner circle split five ways by a pointed star, a symbol at the centre of each segment. The door opened of its own accord before Hayes had a chance to read the words engraved in-between the two circles.
The room inside was taller than the corridor. Three storeys taller, and full of activity. At either side of the room, wrought iron spiral staircases went up three floors of ancient looking steel walkways. Each packed full of people at workstations, doors leading off to adjacent glass boxes that seemed to function as offices or briefing rooms. Larger, less populated workstations littered the ground floor of the hub. At the far wall, opposite the door, giant screens illuminated the room, monitoring cameras secreted in the corridors. At the centre, a large image of a feed of Hayes's back at the door. They had been watching him this whole time. Above the screens hung a wide LED panel, a timer ticking down the seconds, with just over six hours left to go.
“Mister Hayes.” said a voice to his side. He turned, weapons finding a target in their sights. A tall, thin man in his sixties looked down at him. Greyscale hair sitting neatly in a side parting, darker undulations of grey giving the impression that the greys might once have been black. Clear, bright green eyes shone out from deep, withered sockets of a face etched and desaturated by time. “I'd like to welcome to ENDAYS.” he said, with a warm smile. “Now if you don't mind putting those remarkable weapons of yours away, I believe we have a lot to talk about.”
Hayes looked Campbell up and down with suspicion. He had been captured before. Tortured, held hostage, and worse. But he had sure as hell never been allowed to roam free around an enemy compound, let alone be welcomed in such a fashion. “Fucking understatement of the year.”
7
6 hours to the end of the world.
Hayes had been sitting opposite Campbell for five minutes in complete silence. The room was a cube of glass to the far right of the hub, the large red LEDs of the clock ticking down were reflected across all the walls. Built to be certain that the countdown was visible from every angle inside. Campbell sat on the other side of a metal desk, a screen hanging in the air between the two, hovering inches above a foot-thick maglev strip that allowed it to be turned, swivelled, pushed back and forth. Hayes sat with his weapons drawn, held steadfastly in his lap, Campbell targeted, locked, should there be a reason to paint the walls of the cube as a Pollock of brain, blood and bone fragments.
'Don't be an arse.' Kali instructed, knowing he was probably about to be an arse.
“Nice place y'got here.” Hayes said, his tone thick with rancour and wry intent. “Security could do with an upgrade...”
Campbell sm
iled coldly, measuring up the man who sat across from him. “So I gather.” he said. “Or, perhaps we left your toy within reach, and allowed you to roam freely, as a test?” the older man queried, his eyebrows raising, furrowing ripples of skin towards his hairline.
“A test, huh?” Hayes asked, smile still lingering on his lips. “So what, I'm a prisoner? A lab rat running round your little maze?”
“Oh, not at all.”
“So, you won't mind if I just up and leave...” he said, rising to his feet.
“Actually, I would.” Campbell said, waiting a moment to gauge Hayes's reaction, then motioning with his eyes for him to return to his seat before continuing. “You are by no means a prisoner, but I cannot allow you back onto the streets at this present moment.”
“Kinda sounds like I'm a prisoner.” Hayes shot back. He thought for a moment, as the silence rose once again, then realised something was very wrong. “How do you know my name?” he asked.
“We overheard you and your colleague speaking to one another.” Campbell said.
“That's a really boring answer.” Hayes said. “I was hoping for something a little more, y'know, technical or espionagey.”
“Alas, some truths are more mundane than others.”
“Speaking of which...” Hayes said, quickly being interrupted by Kali.
'Don't you dare call them backward. Don't call them mundies, don't call them Neanderthals or hicks or... any other fucking name. You hear me?'
“You're a mundane world, at least on paper.” he chuckled to himself. Paper was in frequent use by mundane worlds. “What's with, y'know, not being mundane.”
“We maintain a tight grip on what technologies are allowed out for... public consumption.” Campbell said. “That might be why your superiors are assumedly under the impression that we are, how would you put it, 'backward mundy Neanderthal hicks'?” he said, quoting Kali.
