Sniper Squad

by Meg Buchanan

  “Come with us.” Patsy grabbed his hand.

  “No.” Jack untangled his hand from his mother’s. “I might be able to do something to stop anything else happening. Just go and get Jacob and Ela away.”

  Patsy nodded. Now the boots were halfway up the stairs. They’d find the kitchen in seconds. “Haze,” he said.

  Chapter 20

  WHEN ALL THREE OF THEM were just ripples in the atmosphere, he pushed the backdoor open. “Mum, you and Fitzgerald go first.” He needed to be back in position in the next five minutes before anyone missed him and because he suspected that was about as long as his Com would still support the HazeApp.

  He gave Patsy and Fitzgerald a few seconds to get clear and could hear boots on the landing then took off down the outside steps.

  There were no shots, no sound of anyone tumbling down the stairs so Patsy and Fitzgerald must have got away. Fitzgerald would have a car somewhere. Even the police patrol car would do. All he had to do was get Ela and Jacob to safety. Then once this was over, they could regroup and plan what to do next.

  He took off. Now there was no need to go carefully. Every third building on the street was a blaze of lights. The sound of crashing and scream came out of most of them. Jack ran as fast as he could across the street into the alley beside the dairy, climbed the ladder and slid into position where he left the helmet, laser and coat. He got to them just as the warning light that the charge in his Com couldn’t support the HazeApp flashed. He threw himself to the ground as he Unhazed and saw Levi staring at him, open-mouthed.

  “What the fuck?” said Levi. From Levi’s reaction, it looked like the HazeApp was still top secret. “Are you going to tell me how you did that?” Levi breathed at him.

  He gave Levi a grin. Now he owed him too, so he might tell him about the App sometime.

  He pulled on his helmet and listened to Ryan giving orders. Nothing for him. No questions about why the hell he hadn’t been in position and done his job. He’d got away with it. Now he just had to delay the next action for long enough for Ela and Jacob to get to safety.

  He ignored Levi, and like the last ten minutes hadn’t happened, he lay down and scoped the Main Street. The lights were still on. MPs were coming out of buildings with people in their nighties and pyjamas at gunpoint looking shocked. They were herded onto the Cobra with only one group of VMPs. If they were shocked now, the nightmare would start for them in the next few hours.

  Vector wanted to know what they knew. Somehow, they’d find out, and these people had no value to Vector like the kids at the University had. Pretty soon Vector would know everything. They’d talk. Everyone would be betrayed. The Resistance was over. The end.

  The only good thing about it was almost nobody except Fitzgerald, Jacob, him and Ela knew about the Vault or where it was. He’d hold onto that.

  The Cobra took off and left most of the MPs standing, waiting in the now deserted street. Something else was happening.

  Then he heard the whomp, whomp, whomp of Mambas as they landed in the park. He turned enough to watch as they Unhazed on the football field. Twelve of them. They would have been too big to land in the main street. They were lit up now, and the wings lifted to open the doors.

  VTroopers poured out and down all the streets like river of tar, as far as he could see.

  Perhaps Vector weren’t just going after the Resistance. Perhaps they were clearing the whole town. Maybe the squad and the VectorMPs had been sent after the main targets, but now the VTroopers had arrived, everyone was being rounded up.

  He watched with Levi as more and more people emerged from the buildings and houses, along the roads and streets herded by the troopers. The population of the town slowly assembled in the main street, illuminated by the streetlights.

  Jack rested his forehead on the laser. With any luck by now Fitzgerald and Patsy had found a vehicle and were half-way to Jacobs. They’d assume Vector were covering all transmissions in the area so they wouldn’t use their Coms. They’d go there and make sure Ela and her grandfather were safe. He’d done everything he could. Now it was up to them.

  Down below, the Locals were being forced to line up in the main square. Now they’d got them all there, the VTroopers were doing their usual thing. Forming a perimeter around them.

  Then a couple of VectorMPs stepped forward, and the nightmare began even sooner than he had thought it would.

  A question, a shot, a body hit the ground. Another question, another shot, another body. It wouldn’t take Vector long to find out anything this lot knew.

  After an hour or so of being terrorised. The Locals were forced onto the waiting Mambas. A hundred bodies lay bleeding in the street. The Mambas Hazed leaving the town in darkness, silent and still.

  Back at the Outpost, Jack waited, powerless. He’d made the choice to come back. He could have taken off with Fitzgerald and Patsy but had decided not to. Now he was starting to doubt that decision. He was just one small cog in a huge machine and he’d had to watch a hundred townsfolk murdered and the rest loaded onto the Mambas and taken away. How could he even hope to make a difference?

  What really bought that home to him was when he arrived at the OutPost and StealthHover after StealthHover landed and each one spewed out hundreds of VTroopers.

  He suspected what he’d seen happen in town, had been re-enacted in every town within whatever radius those Mambas could fly in one night.

  It could be dozens of towns. And in other OutPosts in other parts of the country was this happening too? Was Vector rounding up all Locals?

  Where would they holding? A huge number of people to incarcerate. Was this the final crackdown? Was this really the end?

  But not in the way Jacob thought it was going to happen. It wasn’t the end because they had taken their country back and the Quarantine was no longer in force. It was the end because now the Administration had completely taken over the country and they no longer needed to pretend the Quarantine was to protect the Local population.

  He walked back to the small room he was barracked in. All he could do was bide his time. Wait until he knew more and then formulate a plan to prevent whatever.

  Maybe the worst had happened. Every Local in both in the City and in the Hinterland in detention or worse. No army left to fight with.

  Maybe Jacob would still be able to make his broadcast. But he had his doubts.

  

  Ela heard the vehicle pull up and Jacob heard unlock the front door. She got out of bed just in time to see Patsy and Fitzgerald climb out of the police car with grim expressions. Something had happened.

  “Very late to be visiting, my friend.” Jacob put the shotgun down just inside the door where it lived, stepped back to let Patsy and Fitzgerald inside then turned on the hall light.

  “We had an unexpected visitor too,” said Fitzgerald.

  “What’s happened?” They all walked down the passageway to the kitchen.

  “Jack woke us about half an hour ago and told us to get out, Vector was about the raid the place,” said Patsy.

  “Why?” asked Ela.

  “He said they’d identified all the Cell’s leaders and we were on the list.”

  “It looks like you got out.”

  Fitzgerald nodded and slumped into one of the chairs at the table. “Just. We could hear them breaking down the front doors while we were pulling on clothes. We made it out the back door as they were coming up the stairs.”

  Jacob looked puzzled. “How? Wasn’t anyone watching the back door.”

  Patsy shrugged. “They might have been, but they couldn’t see us.” She got her Com out of her pocket. “Have you seen this before?” She hit the Haze icon and shimmered into invisibility.

  “Impressive,” said Jacob. “I heard Vector had developed a personal cloaking device, but never seen it. That could come in handy.”

  Ela stared at the shimmering space behind Fitzgerald. Jack must still have Amon’s App too.

  Patsy reappeared and handed
her Com to Jacob. “I don’t know how Jack got it onto our Coms, but it didn’t look difficult, and only took a fraction of a second.

  Jacob studied the Com. “If we can work out how to do it, we might get that to everyone. What happened then?”

  “We got out, got to the police station. Picked up the car and came out here. Jack said to get you two to the Vault. He thinks in the morning; they’ll start raiding the farms now they’ve cleared the town.”

  “Cleared?” asked Jacob.

  Patsy nodded. “They weren’t just after the leaders. It looked like they had every person in town out in the square all lined up in tidy rows. We didn’t stop to watch.”

  “They did that at the University. All the kids lined up. They shot some of them,” said Ela.

  Fitzgerald nodded and abruptly ran his finger through his hair. “We heard shots as we were leaving. That might have been happening.”

  “No,” gasped Ela. “Why?”

  Jacob shrugged. “To create fear. People are easier to control if they are frightened.”

  Then she realised Jack wasn’t with them. “Where’s Jack?”

  “He went back.” Patsy sounded irritated. “He said he was more use on the inside.”

  “You should have made him come with you,” said Ela. “He’ll be in danger. Someone might know he warned you.”

  “We tried,” said Fitzgerald. “It was his decision. Now, you two need to get to the Vault.”

  Jacob shook his head. “No, I need to make that broadcast. We can’t wait any longer. Weneed to get word out there about what’s happening.”

  Patsy nodded. “Are Nick and Curly ready?”

  “Just waiting for us to give them the word. Then they’ll jam all Vector frequencies and open the lines to every media outlet in the world. We should be able to let everyone know before we’re shut down.”

  “Could we do it from the Vault,” asked Ela.

  Jacob shook his head again. “No, we have to do it from here. That’s the way Curly set it up.”

  “I’ll help,” said Fitzgerald. “But I think Patsy and Ela need to go to the Vault. If something goes wrong, I’d feel better if I knew they were safe.”

  “No,” said Patsy. “If you stay, I stay. We started this together. We’ll finish it together. Besides, there are things I could help with.”

  Fitzgerald nodded and then looked at Ela.

  “I’m staying too.” She picked up her Com and looked at the time. “You said the raids on the farms wouldn’t start until the morning. If morning starts at six o’clock, we have three hours left to mobilise the other Cradles and tell the world about Genus6.” Then she looked at Jacob. “Give me your Com and I’ll put the App on it.”

  Her grandfather’s eyebrows lifted a little as he handed the Com over.

  She waved Jacob’s Com over hers. “It was me who gave it to Jack.” After she’d seen the Connect flash and checked the App Icon was there, she handed it back. “If you don’t want to be seen, you have to plan ahead because you can’t stay Hazed for long.”

  Jacob put the Com back in his pocket. “I’ll keep that in mind. Now let’s get this rolling.”

  “How long will it take?” Ela asked as she followed Jacob, Patsy and Fitzgerald to the bedroom Jacob used as an office.

  “The message is recorded and ready, Curly presses a button, then I press one and it goes around the world.”

  Ela nodded. She doubted Curly would be pressing any buttons. His electronics gear seemed to be more sophisticated than that. All voice or movement activated. Jacob would be pressing buttons though it didn’t look like he’d updated anything for a while.

  She waited, holding her breath for Jacob to message Curly. If Jacob’s plan worked everything could change. She could be with Jack and Patsy would have her son back. It had to work.

  The message from Curly flashed up on the screen.

  Give me a moment. I’ll message when it’s all set.

  The four of them waited, staring at the screen.

  “Once it’s broadcast, you’ll come with us to the Vault, won’t you?” Ela asked Jacob as the screen remained blank.

  Jacob nodded. “Yes. I’ve delivered supplies. I thought it might be an idea to let the dust settle.”

  Another message from Curly flashed on the screen.

  Some hold up. Just working my way through it. Should be ready soon.

  Ela took Patsy’s hand. This was too important for anything to malfunction.

  We’ll wait, Jacob messaged back.

  “I hope it doesn’t take Curly much longer,” said Patsy. “We need time to get away.”

  Jacob nodded and watched the screen.

  Then it flashed again.

  New shields everywhere, came the message from Curly. It’s going to take time to push them aside.

  How long? Jacob messaged back.

  20 mins came straight back.

  Jacob put his elbows each side of the keyboard, chin on his fists and breathed out.

  Fitzgerald leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms and boots. “I guess we should have expected security to be beefed up. The Administration know something is about to happen and is fighting back.”

  Jacob nodded. “The three of you should go now. I can do this on my own. It’s Ela we need to protect. She’s our proof.”

  Ela shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  Jacob turned to Fitzgerald. “If she won’t go peacefully, pick her up and carry her.”

  Fitzgerald snorted. “We’ll give Curly his twenty minutes, then make the decision.”

  Chapter 21

  BACK AT THE OUTPOST, Jack couldn’t get to sleep. He had that twitchy feeling that things were about to explode, everyone should be safely in the Vault. There was nothing more he could do, but he knew something was wrong.

  Then the lights came on, and Leach came into the room.

  “Turn the bloody light off,” muttered Levi from the other bunk.

  “Everybody up,” ordered Leach. “We’ve got work to do.”

  Jack moved as quickly as the rest of them but managed a surreptitious look at his Com. Four thirty. This wasn’t morning. Plans must have changed.

  “You’ve got five minutes. Full combat gear. Then meet me outside on the HoverPad.” He turned abruptly and left the room.

  “What was that?” Levi started pulling on his compression suit. “I thought we got to sleep until morning.”

  The squad was moving fast, compression suit, boots, helmets, coats. Before the five minutes were up, they were out of the room and heading for the HoverPad at a run.

  Outside it was just the ten of them up and about. No mass of VTroopers. No StealthHovers loading ready to take off. This was different. It felt covert.

  Leach was in a hanger, empty except for him and their lasers. He must have got them brought from the armoury to save time.

  “Listen up.” Leach waved his hand at a VidScreen on the wall behind him. “It’s just us. We need to keep this quiet. We don’t want anyone alerted.” The Screen opened to a satellite picture of the area. Jack recognised the coordinates, and he’d seen those landmarks. He held his breath.

  Leach swiped at the picture, and it increased in size as it zeroed in on a cluster of buildings near the mountain.

  Yep, it was somewhere he knew all right. The target was Jacob’s farm.

  “This is a live feed from the satellite.” Leach touched a little cluster of four points of light in the house.

  Four points of light? Four heat signatures. There were still four people in Jacobs house? They should all be gone. Patsy, Fitzgerald, Ela and Jacob must still be there. What the fuck were they doing? They’d had heaps of time to get away.

  In a state of shock, he listened to Leach. “They’ve been trying to broadcast propaganda to world for the last fifteen minutes. So far, the shields have held up, but it’s our job to get to them and stop them before the shields fail.”

  “What are our orders?” asked Jeron.
>
  “Shoot to kill. These are dangerous people. They’re to be eliminated. Nobody leaves alive. Any other questions?”

  He had a second, maybe two to act before some of the best shots in the country were going to be armed. And then they were going to go and shoot Jacob, his mother, his mother’s partner and Ela.

  No way was he going to let that happen.

  He measured the distance between the crate with the lasers and where he was standing. Only Levi and Jeron were closer. He checked the others. Leach was armed, he had a pistol strapped to his hip, but that was more for decoration and a sign of rank than of any use.

  Anyway, it would take Leach time to get it out of the holster and shoot. Leach was fast, but he wasn’t expecting trouble. With any luck, the split second it took Leach to react would give him the time he needed.

  Jack mentally went through the steps he’d have to take to get hold of a laser, make it operational and then keep the squad at bay until he could leave. He didn’t want to shoot any of them. He liked them, but he would if he had to. On the plus side he thought it would take a while for any of them to decide to shoot him.

  Dive, grab, roll. Keep them covered while he stood up, then go for the door of the hangar. It wasn’t going to work. He needed a better plan.

  Leach sounded near the end of the briefing. If he was going to do this, he needed to get some of the squad on his side. He needed a couple of wingmen.

  “Right,” said Leach. He turned to Jack. “Check out the ordinance. Then we’ll take off.”

  Jack nodded. That worked right into his hands.

  He moved towards the crate sitting on the trolley. The rest of the squad stood at ease, watching and waiting. He’d call out the service number on the back of the laser, and they’d claim their one. They’d done it a million times during training.

  He picked up the first laser. As he straightened, he looked at the number on the back as if he was going to read it out, instead he slid the lever into firing permission, brought the stock up to his shoulder and aimed at Leach.