Sniper Squad

by Meg Buchanan

  He couldn’t help himself, he flinched and stepped back, then tried to cover the reaction by going over to a cupboard and getting out a couple of mugs. “Did you say there was drinking chocolate in that tin in Coms room?” he asked.

  Ela looked puzzled but nodded. “I’ll go get it.”

  When she went out the door, Jack released the breath he’d been holding. How long did it take the effects of Abhor to wear off? Or did you have to take an antidote? He couldn’t stand being like this, and Ela had looked hurt again.

  Jeron and Levi surfaced from the bunkroom.

  Jack opened the cupboard with the sachets in. “Ela’s just gone to get the chocolate. Choose anything you want for breakfast.”

  The four of them settled at the table, but it felt more like a council of war than a cosy breakfast.

  Ela cradled her mug of chocolate. “Do we go outside to see what’s happened?”

  Jack nodded. “Then we make a plan.”

  She studied him. What was wrong? She hadn’t wanted to be alone last night. She’d wanted to sleep with him curled up around her like they used to.

  “What if nothing has happened?’ Levi sucked on his sachet. Some sort of cereal with a picture of an apricot on the outside.

  “Then you can go back to Leach, apologise for deserting and everything will go back to normal,” said Jack. His sachet pretended to be porridge and apple but whoever made it didn’t get the flavours right.

  “Yeah, right,” said Levi. “Either he’d kill me, or I’d finish up in Re-Education, and I wouldn’t be me anymore. Not that it’s made any difference to you. Most people come out of The Room like zombies.”

  “I’m tough,” said Jack.

  Ela looked at him. “Re-Education?” she asked.

  Levi opened his second sachet. “Somebody caught that little kiss on a Com.”

  Ela looked at Jack, shocked. “And they put you in Re-Education for that?”

  Jack nodded. “I was already on two strikes.”

  Now she knew why Jack was behaving so strangely. In a way it was a relief. He hadn’t got sick of her or forgotten her.

  Well, she knew a little bit about Abhor from her medical training. She’d read they’d injected adrenaline into the subjects of some tests they were doing, then exposed them to some sort of stimuli and the effects had reversed.

  When all this was over, she’d read up on Abhor, and fix him. “Before we go outside, we should check its safe.” Right now, they needed to find out what happened last night.

  Jack nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. If the CamFeeds still aren’t working, there are heat sensors on the keypad in the foyer. Jacob had them installed so he could check if anyone was in the clearing before he moved the rocks. We’ll check those.

  “What about radiation?” asked Jeron.

  “If they’ve dropped a nuclear bomb on us, I’d rather be dead anyway,” said Jack. “But I don’t think they will have. They still need to use the land to grow food to feed the kids Humicrib get the DNA from. It wouldn’t make sense.”

  “I can’t keep up,” said Jeron.

  “Then you’d better catch up fast, Natural.” said Ela. “Or you’re no use to us.”

  Jack stood beside Ela, Levi and Jeron. Outside the Vault was a world of destruction.

  He’d half known this is what would have happened but seeing it was still a shock. Nothing had escaped, the bush was just soot and carbon. The trunks of some of the bigger trees still stood, but they were burned black.

  Vector had destroyed everything. There didn’t seem to be Hovers, or DroneCams about. Nothing. No noise, no movement. It was like they were the only people left in the world.

  “Did the four-wheeler survive?” asked Jeron.

  Jack shook his head and pointed at the crumpled pile of plastic and metal between two tree trunks still standing. Just skeletons of their old selves.

  “I should have found a way to get it into the Vault.” He felt Ela holding his arm and steeled himself against shaking her off.

  From halfway up the mountain they could see right across Jacobs farm. For as far as they could see everything had been destroyed. Not just destroyed but burned to charcoal, like a flamethrower had been used to scorch the earth.

  How far could someone see if they were elevated and nothing interrupted their view? Twenty kilometres? Thirty kilometres?

  Vector had decimated the countryside to destroy the Resistance. The Administration still had all the young people in the City, so they’d still be able to Clone the babies, but they’d done this to make sure Jacob’s message of salvation never reached the rest of the world.

  “Nick was right,” breathed Ela. “He said the Administration would never give up without a fight. That’s why everything was in place to disable the City as soon as the message went out. But it didn’t happen. Now everything is destroyed.”

  Jack looked at her. “Disable the City, how?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Ela. “With a pulse like a solar flare, to knock out all electronics and communication, Curly said. That’s what we were doing when you saw me and Nick. We were putting in shields to protect essential services to places that couldn’t just stop.”

  “Like Humicrib and the Monorail?”

  Ela nodded. “We didn’t want people to die. We just wanted to stop the Administration from being able to hit back at the Cradles until the world believed us and was willing to protect us.”

  “That was meant to happen around the world?”

  Ela nodded.

  “But you don’t think it worked?”

  Ela shook her head. “Not here anyway. Maybe they didn’t activate it. Nick said the whole Base would be disabled and Vector wouldn’t be able to get the Hovers off the ground.”

  “It would do more than that,” said Jeron. “It’s a brilliant plan. Everything is run by electronics. The keypads that open doors everywhere would lock and stay locked. The armoury would be inaccessible. They wouldn’t be able to arm the troopers. Nobody would be able to get to the lasers. No navigation for anything, absolutely nothing would work.”

  “Okay,” said Jack. He hauled his Com out of his pocket and tried to make a Connect with Patsy. Nothing. No response. Not shields, not bouncing back, just nothing. He tried Jacob. The same thing. Nothing.

  “Is it working?” asked Ela.

  Jack shook his head. “You all try.”

  Ela, Jeron and Levi all tried different Connects.

  “Nothing,” said Jeron. “It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist.”

  Jack nodded. That’s what it felt like. He slid to Status. Usually the feed on Status just ran and ran. But not today. Nothing again.

  He put his Com back in his pocket. “Let’s get back inside and figure out what to do.”

  The others turned their Coms off and slowly and heavily moved back to the Vault. Jack followed them, now they had something to tell Nick. If they could get through to him. Then they’d get on the bikes and go see how far the destruction went.

  In the Coms room, the VidScreen took up the wall like an empty eye. No array, just a blank. Jack waved his arm at it in case it had been turned off but got no response.

  Ela sat on the chair in front of the screen. “Turn on,” she instructed. Maybe she thought something had interfered with the movement centre, but nothing changed. She pulled the keyboard closer and hit start. No response again.

  She turned back to the others, and Jack scratched his chin. It looked like there was no way of getting the message out there. And no way of getting any information on what they might be facing if they went exploring.

  “Right,” he said. “We can stay here and worry, or we can find out for ourselves. We’ve got three bikes.” He was tempted to suggest Ela should stay behind, but there was no way she would, so he didn’t bother. “Anyone want to stay here?” he asked instead.

  Ela, Jeron and Levi all shook their heads.

  “We should stay together,” said Jeron. “Safety in numbers.”<
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  “Yeah,” said Levi. “What’ll we need?”

  “Pack up some food.” It didn’t look like they’d be able to get hold of food or water once they’d left the Vault.

  Jeron and Levi took off.

  “What are we going to do?’ asked Ela.

  “Find the copy of Jacob Vid. If we can get the computer going enough, we’ll make a another copy, leave one here and take the other with us. If it was important enough for Jacob to die for, we’ll look after it for him.”

  “Do you really think he’s dead?”

  Jack nodded. Ela moved closer and put her head on his shoulder.

  He put his arms around her again for a moment. There was still that feeling of wanting to push her away, but he could control it now. Maybe the effects of the ReEducation would fade completely over the next few days, and he’d be able to remember why once he was willing to risk everything to keep her safe.

  “Come on,” he said gently. “Let’s find it and then get out of here. I need to know what’s happened.”

  Ela nodded, shuddered a little, and then straightened up. “Me too.” She started moving things on the desk again and looking under them.

  Jack looked around the room and tried to think like Jacob. Where would he hide something this important? It would be somewhere that made sense.

  He watched Ela searching. The most important thing in the world to Jacob was Ela. Then he remembered the small picture of her he’d seen in the living area. That would be where Jacob hid the file.

  “I think I know where it’ll be. Follow me.” He went to the living area and picked up the small digital frame. It had two USB ports. Both of them had memory sticks in them. Typical of Jacob to hide it in plain sight. Jack activated the first one, just pictures of Ela, but when he activated the second Jacob’s image appeared on the screen. It was the same broadcast Jacob had shown him when he visited.

  “Found it.” He stopped the broadcast. He didn’t need to watch it again. “Now we need a copy just in case.”

  They went back to the Com room, made the copy and put the original back in the frame. “Let’s go and find Jeron and Levi.”

  They checked the living areas and didn’t find his mates, so they went out into the main Vault. The lines of shelving stretched out like soldiers in front of them.

  “Do you think the Administration knew about Jacob’s plan?” Ela asked.

  “Maybe. The timing of this is a big coincidence if they didn’t.”

  “How would they have found out? Nobody knew about it except Jacob, Fitzgerald, Nick and Curly.”

  “And you and me,” said Jack. If the Administration did know about the plan, how much more did they know? Was his father in danger?

  He saw Jeron and Levi standing by the locked door at the end of the bay, with a couple of packs filled with stuff.

  “Let’s get going.” No way could he find out anything hiding here in the Vault. “We’ll lift the bikes out and go.”

  “What about the bike’s heat signatures being picked up? And Ela’s?” asked Jeron. “We’ll be the only moving objects for miles.”

  Jack thought about that for a moment. “The bikes should be right. The heat sensors don’t work that well during the day and there will still be hot spots around to make it even more confusing. Ela can have my coat again until we come up with something better.” It wasn’t the perfect solution, but it’d have to do.

  Jeron nodded. “Let’s do it then.”

  They lifted the three motorbikes out of the Vault, then Jack pulled the heavy steel door closed behind him. One day they’d need those seeds to reseed the land. He’d keep them safe.

  He climbed out of the foyer area and pulled on the lever that would move the rocks back into place then stood back and studied whether the Vault was still concealed.

  Their footprints showed in the soot and handprints and tyre tracks but the rocks themselves still looked permanent and not like they moved.

  “You three wheel the bikes out to the fence line. I’ll follow behind you and cover our tracks.” They had three bikes and three lasers between them, transport and arms, they’d survive.

  Ela, Jeron and Levi wheeled the bikes away between the skeletal tree trunks towards the twisted wire that was once a fence. Jack picked up a scorched branch that had somehow escaped being burned and brushed it over the rocks removing any sign they’d been there, and then walking backwards he erased the footprints and tyre tracks.

  Chapter 25

  THEY RODE BACK to Jacobs house. It would have been good if they could have kept the helmets, usually there was a constant stream of information and orders running through the feed.

  Ela rode pillion on his bike, and he could almost stand her being there and having her arms around his waist.

  As they got closer to Jacob’s house with the landscape burned black as far as he could see, Jack dreaded what they’d find when they got there.

  Finally, they reached what had been the orchard fence, and he pulled up by the charred gate. The trees, now blackened skeletons like the trees on the mountain, had been in leaf with apples still on some of them waiting to be picked.

  Worst of all, Jacob’s house was reduced to smoking rubble and half standing walls. the sheds piles of smouldering debris. Jacob’s tractor, just the frame now, held up a beam, the iron still attached. The ute stood there, a blackened cab and tray, the timber burned away.

  “Oh, God.” He felt Ela lean her forehead against his back. He couldn’t make himself get off the bike. He sat there, his feet on the ground balancing as Jeron and Levi pulled up beside him.

  “Fuck,” said Levi.

  “It’s all gone.” Jeron looked around at the sheds and house. Glasshouses just distorted frames with broken glass. Dog kennels burned, the run a tangled mass of wire netting.

  Jack could see the carcasses of Jacob’s dogs under the netting. They’d been trapped. He should have thought of letting them out before he left. Then they might have had a chance.

  Jack felt Ela straighten up and get off the bike. He flicked the stand down and climbed off too. “I’ll come with you,” he said to her.

  Levi and Jeron seemed too shocked to make any move.

  Jack and Ela walked to rubble that had been the house. Ela’s hand slid onto his. He held it tight. They went along the path to the back door. The porch had collapsed.

  “We’ll go around the front,” said Ela, and they walked hand in hand around the side of the house. The side veranda by the bedroom where Ela slept when she stayed was almost intact if you ignored the charring and smoke damage. But the smell of smoke and burned timber was overwhelming.

  Now Ela held onto his arm with her other hand as if she wanted to hide behind him. “Maybe Jacob got away,” she whispered.

  But as they reached the front of the house, they saw his body beside the steps up to the front veranda. His clothes scorched and his skin peeled back. The smell of cooked flesh rose up at them.

  “Oh, God.” Ela turned to him, and he put his arms around her and held her. He could see Jacob had been shot in the neck. He would have died straight away, before the fire got to him. About the only consolation.

  There was nothing he could do except hold Ela and comfort her. Hatred for the Administration overwhelmed him, they’d killed Jacob, and all he was trying to do was save the world.

  “We need to bury him,” said Ela.

  “Yeah, we’ll bury him.” He turned to Jeron. Finally, Levi and Jeron had prised themselves off the bikes. “See if you can find a couple of shovels that still have handles. They were stored in that shed.” He pointed at the pile of rubble with the tractor in amongst it.

  Levi followed Jeron to the shed. Even Levi had been shocked into silence.

  Ela pushed herself away from Jack and knelt beside Jacob’s body. She should have insisted Jacob went with them. She should never have left him here. Trying to get a message out to the world wasn’t worth dying for.

  She touched his old face. So familiar. He lo
oked peaceful. She let her hand run down his shirt.

  She looked at Jack kneeling beside her, waiting. Jack would help her finish what Jacob had started.

  “How could they do this to him?” she asked.

  Jack shrugged. He always knew the Administration was ruthless and would do anything to protect their profits. But this? How did destroying everything make sense?

  He stood up slowly. He had a war to win, and what they had to do was suddenly very clear.

  “Do Curly and Nick really think they can immobilise the City?”

  Ela stood too and nodded.

  “Do you know a way of getting into the City and how to contact them?”

  Ela nodded again. “There’s an old underground rail tunnel, its entrance is just past the Bombay Hills.”

  “And you can find it?”

  “Yes,” said Ela, and then she looked at Jeron and Levi coming back from the shed, carrying a couple of shovel blades. “But Nick’s going to kill us if he thinks we’ve told a couple of VTroopers where it is.”

  Jack studied his friends too. He trusted them, but was he willing to trust them with this secret?

  Jeron must have heard what Ela had said. He shrugged. “We’ve got as much to lose as you, Jack. We can’t go back now. You can trust us.”

  Jack nodded he’d trust them with his life. But he’d think about whether he’d trust them with any more secrets.

  Levi held up the shovel with no handle he was holding. “This was the best we could find.”

  Jack nodded. “They’ll do.”

  Once Jacob was buried, he dug shallow graves for the dogs too, he couldn’t just leave them to any scavengers that might have survived, Jack went back to the bikes. He got onto his and waited for Ela, Jeron and Levi to get sorted.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Before we head for this tunnel, we need to check out the town.”

  “I don’t know, Jack.” Ela was standing beside the bike, trying to arrange the coat to make it easier to get on. She looked doubtful. “Wouldn’t we be better to just go, and once we are in the City and safe, we could make plans from there.”