2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent)

by Robert Storey

  ‘Strike Hold, yes, of course! So, Colonel,’ the soldier said putting his cap back on, ‘what can I do for you this miserable day?’

  Samson gauged the man before him, a Sergeant Rogers according to his name tag; was he a rule breaker? No, but a rule bender – perhaps, he decided. ‘I need your help, Sergeant.’ He leaned in and lowered his voice, despite there being no one else present. ‘I’m on a covert, time critical mission and I need high end, high power ordnance to get the job done. I was told you might be the man to help me.’

  The sergeant blew his cheeks out with a puff of air. ‘Do you have any acquisition orders processed through the computer system?’

  Samson shook his head.

  Rogers sighed, his shoulders slumping. ‘Then, I’m afraid I can’t help you. Everything must go through the system these days. Long gone are the times when a senior officer could fill out a form on the fly.’

  ‘Is there really nothing you can do?’ Samson asked, thinking fast. ‘I have men stranded down in Mexico on a black op gone bad. The top brass have disavowed our excursion into the sovereign territory of another nation. I’m on my own and my men’s only chance of getting back over the border alive is down to me – down to this.’

  ‘I thought your armour looked high-tech; elite Special Forces?’ The sergeant searched Samson’s grubby attire for identifying marks.

  Samson nodded.

  ‘And your boys are stuck over the border?’

  Samson didn’t respond, holding the sergeant’s gaze in what he hoped was a look of needy desperation.

  ‘It’s not like we’re in peace time, is it?’ Rogers said, more to himself than to Samson, searching for a way around the problem and trying to justify such a move in his own mind. ‘We’re at Defcon 3 after all. Mitigating circumstances equate to special dispensation in my book. In fact—’ He moved away from the counter with his awkward gait and disappeared from sight, before reappearing a minute later with a crumpled form in his hand. ‘Voila!’ He banged the paperwork down on the desk in front of Samson, who looked at it with a critical eye.

  Rogers, a tad downcast that his efforts didn’t receive the accolade he believed they deserved, flattened out the paper with two hands and then rearranged it so it was perfectly aligned for Samson to read, giving it one last twitch so it was just so. Stepping back he gave Samson a grin, raised his eyebrows and flicked his eyes at the form.

  Samson held back his frustration, which had been mounting ever since their conversation had started. Pulling the pale green document towards him, he ran his eyes over the heading.

  E.A.R.

  Emergency Acquisition Request

  FORM AJ11

  ‘I’d forgotten about the old E.A.R. form,’ Sergeant Rogers said, ‘not sure how with a name like that, but there you go. Haven’t used one for – well – must be going on fifteen years now. Just fill it in and I can run it through the system later. Strictly speaking the AJ form series went defunct years back, but it can be explained away as an admin error. I’ll probably get a bawling out for it, but if it’s gonna save some of our boys, then it’s the least I can do.’

  Rogers handed Samson a pen, which he used to fill in the form with his falsified information and then passed it back for the sergeant to check over.

  ‘Excellent.’ Rogers put the document to one side. ‘So, Colonel, what did you have in mind?’

  ♦

  Half an hour passed and Samson had loaded up a mound of equipment on a trolley, including some old communication gear Rogers had found tucked away. According to the sergeant the coms kit was part of a much larger cache that had found its way into the ordnance lock-up instead of the warehouse used by the Quartermaster Corps at another base. It wasn’t top-of-the-range by any stretch of the imagination, but considering their circumstances the professor would have to make do.

  ‘Anti-vehicle mines, as ordered.’ Rogers banged down a heavy steel case onto the worktop. ‘These suckers will take out a tank no problem.’

  Samson surveyed the assembled boxes of ammo, Claymore mines and grenades. Picking up the latest case, he slipped it between a collection of miniature drones and a couple of MX4 assault rifles.

  ‘Have you got anything – bigger?’ Samson asked.

  Rogers looked at him for a moment. Lifting up a hinged part of the counter, the sergeant waddled out to join Samson in the front section of the room. Samson could now see the reason for the man’s abnormal movement; his left leg was a mechanical limb.

  Rogers caught his look and touched his artificial device with one hand. ‘Got it blown off in Argentina, back in 2023.’

  ‘Argentina was a cunt hair away from a janfu,’ Samson said, recollecting the conflict back when he was a captain in the Marine Corps. ‘The whole South American war was a fucking shit storm.’

  ‘More like a bum fuck nowhere prize clusterfuck,’ Rogers said. ‘Where were you deployed?’

  ‘All over, Brazil, Chile, Panama, Argentina.’

  Solemn, Rogers nodded as he too recalled long past memories of the conflict.

  ‘What’s with the leg? That thing looks like its thirty years old.’

  ‘Government overspend, or some such bullshit,’ Rogers said as he led Samson out of another door and to a flight of stairs, which he began to ascend with difficulty.

  Samson followed the slow progress of the man up to the first floor. ‘Sounds about right.’

  Rogers glanced back. ‘That’s the Big Green Dick at work, my friend.’

  Samson nodded in agreement; the notorious shortcomings of army administration was so entrenched in a soldier’s psyche it had been coined with its own phrase.

  Eventually, Samson was led to a caged section on the first floor, the faint odour of machine oil and gunpowder swimming on the edge of his perception. Rogers unlocked the area with a digital code and then, using a set of keys, opened it up so Samson could enter.

  ‘This is where we keep anything that has a little je ne sais quoi,’ Rogers said, while Samson looked around at the weaponry on display. ‘If it’s high-tech and high-powered you seek, then you’ll find it here.’

  Samson pulled a streamlined rifle from its brackets, turning it over in his hands and then bringing it up to his shoulder to take a look down its scope.

  ‘Latest beam weapon,’ Rogers said, ‘that will cut through walls, metals, even nano armour. It has limited ammo though, and a tendency to explode if a bullet penetrates its fuel cell.’

  ‘Explode?’

  ‘Yeah, when one of those babies goes up you don’t want to be holding it, or be within fifty yards. They go off like a small bomb.’

  Samson eyed the device. ‘Sounds like a liability.’

  ‘Not really.’ Rogers pointed to the underside of the stock. ‘The weak spot is underneath, which minimises the soldier’s exposure during combat.’

  Samson considered it for a moment, before handing Rogers the weapon. ‘I’ll take it.’

  What’s this? he wondered, moving off through to another section which was empty except for a ten foot tall crate, the wooden sides branded black with a single word: PROTOTYPE. Samson examined a hefty padlock on the front. ‘What’s in here?’ he asked, rattling the lock.

  ‘No idea, came in a month back. It’s due to be shipped onto Fort Bliss, destined for some classified project, no doubt.’

  ‘You don’t have the key?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Samson withdrew a heavy dagger from his utility belt.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to prise it open with that,’ Rogers said.

  Samson looked at him and then depressed a small button on the handle. A faint high pitched whine accompanied a thin orange glow that ran around the edge of the blade.

  Rogers looked amazed. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  Samson grinned and waited for the heat to build in the thermal knife. Once the cutting edge throbbed white hot, Samson pressed the blade against the side of the thick steel padlock. It bit deep into the metal, cutting i
t cleanly in two in a matter of seconds, the glowing red hot pieces falling to the ground with dull clunks. Sliding back three substantial chrome bolts, Samson prised away the front of the case and leaned it up against the wall on his right.

  ‘Fuck me sideways,’ Rogers said as Samson stood back to admire the container’s contents. ‘You said you wanted high end, Colonel; I think this qualifies don’t you?’

  Samson didn’t answer. He stared at the piece of hardware inside, trying to figure out what it was. At the side of the curiously shaped object, he spied a manual. Pulling it out from its plastic folder, he scanned through the pages. ‘Interesting, I’ll need a forklift to move this.’

  Rogers gave a nervous cough. ‘I’m sorry, Colonel, I don’t think I’ll be able to explain this thing going AWOL.’

  Samson turned to fix the sergeant with a penetrating stare, watching as his silent, passive assault wilted the man’s resolve. Rogers shifted to and fro, from his good foot to his artificial one. ‘I suppose I could turn a blind eye,’ he said, relenting.

  ‘Good man.’ Samson turned to replace the crate’s front panel for transport.

  ♦

  It wasn’t long before Samson was back down at the pick-up, putting the final items in the back of the cab, the professor still sitting patiently in the front.

  A persistent beeping, accompanied by a rotating orange lamp announced the arrival of the sergeant and the prototype weapon. Emerging from an aperture at the rear the loading bay, a forklift truck rolled up to the back of the truck and deposited the crate past the open tailgate. The weight was released, making the back of the vehicle’s suspension dip a few inches. Rogers then withdrew the forks and returned the small loader back from whence it had come. Samson, meanwhile, had pushed past some canvas sacks piled high at the side of the garage and retrieved a tarpaulin, which he lashed down over his newly acquired cargo. Satisfied everything was in order he went back to make sure his tracks were covered.

  ‘You want the CCTV disc?’ Rogers said.

  ‘It’s for the best,’ Samson told him, itching to get back on the road.

  Rogers shook his head at the folly he thought Samson was bringing upon himself. ‘All right, but I’ll have to write it down on the incident sheet, that it went walkabout. When they send someone round to break my balls over that prototype going missing, and they will, they’ll put two and two together and come up with you; I’ll have put your E.A.R. form through the system by then and your name will pop up like a gopher with a hot ass.’

  ‘Do what you have to do.’ Samson knew full well his information was bogus and he’d be long gone when that time came.

  Rogers handed over a disc. ‘I half wish I was going with you, Colonel,’ he said, a wistful look in his eye. ‘I hope you’re able to rescue your men, they’re lucky to have a CO willing to go out on a limb for them.’

  Samson nodded his thanks, shook the man’s hand and turned to walk away.

  ‘Terra Force?’ Rogers said, stopping Samson in tracks. ‘That’s a new one. And what’s USSB Steadfast when it’s at home?’

  Samson, looked down at his left shoulder, where the dirt he’d strategically placed over his insignias had wiped off, most likely when he’d sourced the tarp. He moved back to the counter. ‘Terra Force is the codename for Special Forces Subterranean Detachment.’

  ‘Subterranean Detachment?’ Rogers leaned forwards to peer at the exposed designs on Samson’s armour.

  ‘Yes, the army operates SFSD units throughout all the USSBs . We’re the future of modern warfare.’

  ‘The future, underground?’ Rogers sounded confused. ‘I can’t see that happening. And what’s a USSB?’

  ‘United States Subterranean Base; there are ten of them that I know of. They’re large underground complexes, cities, you might say. I was told they were built in preparation for the asteroid, AG5, but it seems they’re a lot more important than that.’

  ‘How so?’ Rogers said, fascinated by the information he was receiving.

  ‘I recently found out six more asteroids are following in the wake of AG5; they will destroy all life on this planet.’

  Rogers laughed, but his mirth faded away as Samson’s humourless expression remained unchanged.

  ‘You can’t be serious?’

  Samson nodded, his expression grave.

  ‘Why haven’t the government told anyone?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  Rogers stared down at the ground as he processed the information. ‘It does make sense, all these stories about water and food shortages in the news, martial law, the wars in other countries, the GMRC controlling everything—’ Rogers looked up at Samson in alarm. ‘I have to call my sister to warn her. What can I do? Where can we go? Where’s the nearest of these USSBs?’

  ‘There’s one in Dulce, New Mexico, but you don’t want to go there, believe me. Besides, you needn’t worry about all that now.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  Samson jabbed out a flat rigid hand into the veteran’s throat. Rogers doubled over, fighting for breath. Samson walked around the counter while the sergeant slipped to his knees, wheezing against his collapsed airway.

  Rogers looked up into Samson’s eyes, shocked and terrified by the unprovoked attack. Samson moved behind him and encircled his neck with his arms. With a quick, sharp twist, Samson broke his cervical spine, the bone and cartilage cracking as he did so. Samson held the body for some moments and then dropped it to the floor.

  ‘I liked you, Sergeant,’ Samson said to Rogers’ lifeless form, ‘but you gave me no choice.’

  Picking up the corpse, Samson stuffed it into a wooden crate at the back of the storeroom and clipped the lid back on to conceal the grizzly sight inside. Scooping up a nail gun he found nearby, Samson secured the crate further, knowing such a move would extend the time it took for Rogers’ body to be found by days, if not weeks. Moving fast now, he returned to the vehicle and the waiting professor.

  ‘You planning on starting a war, Colonel?’ the professor asked as he drove out and away from the ordnance warehouse.

  ‘The war never stopped,’ Samson plucked a few pills from his pouch and swallowed them with a practised ease, ‘and it never will.’

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Professor Steiner thought the colonel seemed more morose than normal as they left the city of St. George behind them. The truck given to them by Norroso was now laden with a veritable arsenal. Steiner could only guess at what Samson had in mind for it all; whatever it was it couldn’t be good, unless, of course, he planned to use it to help those in Steadfast. Somehow, however, Steiner doubted that was the case. The SFSD commander had been as good as his word, though; Steiner looked round at the aging communication devices bumping about on the back seats as the pick-up bounced over the uneven road surface. He believed they might be capable of breaking the GMRC’s encrypted feeds, gaining him access to the system that could prove crucial in reinstating himself on the council’s Directorate. Whether the kit was sophisticated enough to prevent Joiner from hunting him down first was another matter entirely.

  ‘So, where are we headed next?’ he asked, not expecting a meaningful answer.

  ‘Vegas.’

  ‘I didn’t take you for a gambler, Colonel.’

  ‘I need to see a man.’

  ‘About a dog?’ Steiner said, unable to resist the quip.

  ‘I need some more equipment.’

  Steiner, pleasantly surprised his questions seemed to be reaping some results, pressed ahead, knowing he might not find the colonel in such a receptive mood again. ‘Communication equipment?’ he asked in hope.

  ‘Computer hardware and software, I’m going to need you to hack a secure database.’

  At last, we’re getting somewhere, Steiner thought, about time, too. ‘What sort of database did you have in mind?’

  ‘The FBI.’

  ‘Right,’ Steiner said, unsure if he was capable of such a feat.

  ‘Will that be a problem?’ S
amson asked in concern. ‘I thought you were some kind of computer genius.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  Samson shot him a look of anger.

  ‘But,’ Steiner continued, regretting his first response, ‘I am pretty good.’

  ‘Stop shovelling that false modesty crap, can you do it or not?’

  ‘Yes, with the right tools, I should be able to.’ What the hell, Steiner thought to himself, I already need to break into the GMRC system, why not the FBI too? In for a penny, as they say. ‘May I ask what I will be doing inside their database?’

  ‘No!’

  Samson’s expression and body language warned Steiner to leave well enough alone. With the conversation as dead as a nail in its door, Steiner got comfortable as they followed the back roads once more, this time their destination the so-called entertainment capital of the world. Steiner had never been to the desert locked city before; he’d always seen it as a crass, vulgar place, full of debauchery and feeding off, and promoting, the baser, uglier traits of the human race. Greed, excess, gambling, lust, it certainly lived up to its self-proclaimed billing of Sin City. Steiner planned on keeping his head down when it came to Samson’s mysterious and ill-timed quest, he just prayed his disappointment in this regard wasn’t going to be assured.

  ♦

  Enormous hoardings pulsed with vibrant, three dimensional displays, advertising events and shows throughout the Las Vegas Strip and beyond. The cornucopia of hotels, casinos, arcades, theme parks and resorts dazzled and amazed, the fantastical architectural splendours weaving their web of beauty and creativity through a skyline built to shine, tempt and titillate on an unprecedented scale. Giant domes and enclosed avenues stretched out in all directions, overlooked by neon signs and sculptured landmarks, bringing with them an endless array of glitz and glamour.

  Professor Steiner stared out of his window at the streets, throbbing with revellers and traffic, the noise of thousands upon thousands of people and vehicles only outdone by the pounding music pouring out from almost every other building they passed. Samson stopped the car at a red light and pedestrians streamed across in front of them, coming in from all directions. Ahead, a hotel of immense proportions dominated the horizon. Spinning into the dark sky from its rooftop was a spectacular display of searchlights and lasers, their rays arcing up like the contrails of angels and sprites.