2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent)

by Robert Storey

  Turning away from the penetrating and unsettling gaze of his companion, Samson tried restarting the engine, which had cut out during its collision with the ground. He kept the key turned and the engine spluttered to life, aided by a push of the accelerator with his hand. Reversing as best he could with his contorted posture, Samson stuck the car in first gear and released the clutch. With the pick-up now rolling forward at a sedate and steady pace, he flipped the switch that the previous owner, the Apache Indian, Norroso, had custom-fitted to the flatbed. A whirring of gears raised the rear tray higher and higher, acting like a tip-up truck. At the critical angle of tilt, where the gravitational pull on the load became greater than the frictional resistance, a long wooden crate slid out past the open tailgate, hitting the tarmac and splintering open. Samson, his hand wrapped around a small transceiver he’d removed from his utility belt, thumb poised over the small button on top, floored the accelerator and then depressed the button.

  On the ground behind him, the black, cylindrical, stainless steel prototype device rested on the tarmac, its broken case lying shattered around it. On one side a power bar pulsed green confirming one hundred per cent capacity. Beneath this, in illuminated red lettering, two words:

  SYSTEM ARMED

  On receipt of the signal to activate, small charges propelled four separate spikes into the ground, a fifth charge jettisoning the top section of the weapon five hundred feet into the air.

  A flash of light and a pulse of energy swept through the pick-up and beyond as the tri-phase, electromagnetic pulse-bomb detonated. The dashboard lights flickered and died, the engine cutting out, its electronics failing. Samson twisted the ignition key once more, praying that its tough, antiquated circuitry had survived the EMP. The engine coughed and spluttered before purring back to life, the truck’s momentum jump-starting it. Sitting upright, he pulled the steering wheel hard to the right as complete darkness descended within a half-mile radius, the lights of buildings in the distance blinking out to join those already disabled at the epicentre of the silent blast. His visor already set for night-vision, Samson refrained from putting the headlights on as the sky rained aircrafts and drones from above.

  With every police car being electric and unshielded against EMPs, the entire LAPD police force had been immobilised. Only the National Guard operated with gasoline and their transport was static and would be unable to start; at least that was Samson’s theory.

  A helicopter smashed into the ground ahead and erupted into flame, its frame buckled and broken. Yanking up the handbrake, Samson slid the back end out to miss the carnage by inches. Gunning the accelerator, the Dodge Ram’s bored-out, seven litre engine roared in response. With everyone thrown into the pitch-black, Samson drove unimpeded at the weakest link in the ring of parked vehicles. The Dodge’s bull bars broke through the line, smashing aside two squad cars and catapulting him out into the street beyond, and freedom.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  A beeping sound made Steiner tear his gaze away from the final TV shots of what had looked like Samson setting off some sort of energy weapon. His eyes widened as the trace timer slipped past ten seconds.

  ‘Holy—’ Steiner’s heart rate skyrocketed as knee trembling, palpitation inducing panic set in.

  ‘Trace complete, Professor,’ the A.I. said, ‘the game is up. The chicken is cooked, the broth is boiled, the bread is buttered, the—’

  Steiner tore 152’s console from its socket and stuffed it into a satchel, along with anything else he could grab, before fleeing out of the door and rattling down the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him. Bursting out into the low-lit street, he paused to calm his mind, taking long, deep, slow breaths, despite the sound of approaching police sirens in the distance. Suppressing his emotions, he recalled the location the colonel had suggested for their rendezvous, the corner of Slauson Avenue and Port Road, three blocks away. But in what direction was that? In the heat of the moment he’d failed to consult a map and going the wrong way could prove disastrous.

  He could see the red and blue flashing lights now, a mile away, but he hadn’t made director general by being easily distracted. Sifting through his mental imagery of the final stages of his arrival into LA with Samson, he slowed his breathing further.

  There, he had it! The vestiges of a visual memory, a vision of a lamppost, attached to it a green sign with white letters reading —son Ave. It was the best he was going to get, a partial name, and he’d already started running to his left, happily in the opposite direction to those that hunted him down. Pulling out his baseball cap as he ran, Steiner pulled it onto his head before rounding a corner and disappearing into the endless night.

  ♦

  The cold air and brisk wind gnawed at Steiner’s hands and face while he waited in the shadows on Slauson Avenue. He’d been relieved to find his memory recall had been accurate and that the only Avenue in the area ending in the letters s, o and n had been the one he’d required; or at least that was how luck would have it, bringing him to his current location. A few blocks away a black helicopter hovered over the building he’d vacated only a few minutes before, like an immense raven delivering a ubiquitous portent of his ruination.

  Where is Samson? he asked himself. Did he escape or is he even now being questioned about my whereabouts? Perhaps he’d been killed, and was lying in a pool of his own blood inside the red pick-up, or he’d turn up being chased by all and sundry. Whatever the case, if the colonel hadn’t arrived in ten minutes Steiner would have to relocate and then start planning how he’d escape the city. Being on the run and alone, without any military support, would test him to his limits; just to remain free would be an immense challenge. Helping Steadfast would have to take a back seat until he could manoeuvre himself into a better position, preferably outside of the United States.

  Five more minutes passed before a set of headlights approached along Port Road, the rays of light growing stronger every second and the shadows from the surrounding foliage increasing in sharpness and density. Steiner moved back into the trees, dropped to his belly and wriggled under a bush. The vehicle stopped at the intersection, its electric engine inaudible. Steiner peeked out from beneath a low branch, his face pressed down against some damp leaves. From what he could tell the vehicle was a dark blue sedan, unmarked, with the potential of having an FBI agent at the wheel. He could ill afford to make the first move. If Samson was within, he’d need to instigate contact.

  The car door opened and the suspension lifted as someone got out. Steiner held his breath, trying to hide any hot vapour that could alert someone to his presence.

  ‘Stop hiding in the bushes,’ a curt voice said from out of the dark, ‘and get in.’

  Steiner scrambled out from his seemingly inadequate hiding place and ran over to the car as the colonel, still fully encased in his green and brown protective shell, returned to his seat. Clambering in, Steiner deposited his bag behind him and put on his seatbelt.

  ‘The streets are running alive with cops,’ Samson said to him, turning down a dark side street, ‘the FBI and National Guard, too; we need to hole-up until things calm down.’

  Steiner’s anger surfaced. ‘You planned this all along, didn’t you? The weapons you amassed on our way here were in preparation for this – this—’

  ‘I didn’t plan it. I planned for it, there’s a difference.’

  ‘Semantics from you, Colonel, is like asking a dying dog to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity, a distasteful lesson in absurdity.’

  Samson said nothing for a moment, perhaps trying to figure out if Steiner had insulted him or not. ‘I prepare for all eventualities,’ he said, driving them into a rundown industrial district of the city.

  ‘And fighting your way out of the FBI field office was one of them.’ Steiner’s tone was accusatory.

  Samson didn’t respond at all this time and Steiner wondered why he was even bothering to get the man to admit to his guilt; he was a remorseless shell, a stone cold kill
er.

  A couple more minutes passed with Steiner twitching in anxiety every time he saw a light in the sky. The police and FBI would be sending out every available asset they had in their hunt for Samson, his hostage and anyone connected to him – namely me, he thought – which meant the deployment of all available UAVs and any remaining helicopters. With this in mind, Steiner was more than happy when Samson drove them into a three storey derelict warehouse and stopped the car.

  ‘Get out,’ Samson said, leaving the car running and stepping out of the vehicle to stride around to the boot.

  Steiner, collecting his bag, followed him out into the dilapidated interior of an old twentieth century brick building, its roof hanging down in places, water dripping down into shallow pools beneath.

  With the boot lid up Steiner could hear a muffled voice emanating from within. Samson bent down and dragged out the FBI agent, lifting the hooded, trussed and squirming body up onto one of his shoulders. Leaving the boot open, the colonel carried his hostage through a maze of long unused offices, finally kicking open a rotting wooden door and heading down into a damp and uninviting pit of a cellar. With the lights on the colonel’s helmet ablaze, Steiner followed him down the worn steps. Dumping his captive on the floor, Samson disappeared back up the stairs, leaving Steiner in darkness until he switched on his computer phone. The colonel soon returned with a large satchel and some weapons, which he placed down before opening the bag up and withdrawing a lantern, its light shining out to illuminate the dank low-ceilinged room they now found themselves inhabiting.

  Steiner eyed the forlorn form of the government agent with pity. The woman’s smart blue suit was stained, torn and singed in numerous places.

  ‘So what’s the plan now?’ Steiner asked. ‘Are you planning on adding torture to your litany of crimes?’

  Samson didn’t respond, choosing instead to remove his helmet before picking the woman up like a sack of potatoes and dumping her down at the rear of the room, away from the light. If Steiner had felt guilty before, his shame intensified even further now. It wasn’t that he felt a woman’s life was worth more than a man’s, but he was old school and always felt more protective toward the fairer sex, even though, nowadays, this idea might be construed as politically incorrect by some, and even misogynistic by others.

  Delving back in his sack, Samson withdrew a power pack and plonked it down at Steiner’s feet.

  ‘Patch into the local police channels,’ Samson told him, ‘we need to know what they’re up to.’

  ‘Just like that,’ Steiner said. ‘I’m not a miracle worker.’

  ‘What’s the problem? You have power, you have your computers.’

  ‘I haven’t got any hard lines and that tiddly little battery isn’t going to power 152’s console or anything bigger than my computer phone.’ Steiner rummaged in his own rucksack to see what he’d managed to salvage in his rush to get out of the office. He had the A.I. console, a single quantum processor unit, a bundle of cables and some peripherals, and that was pretty much it. Nothing that could run off the battery Samson had provided, at least not in the capacity he would need to break into the encrypted transmissions while remaining undetected.

  Samson’s brow furrowed, his pale blue eyes fixing Steiner with an unreadable expression. Steiner wasn’t going to cave into pressure and returned the man’s gaze with a steady one of his own.

  ‘Just do what you can,’ Samson said, breaking the impasse. Retrieving his helmet, he returned to the stairs.

  ‘Where are you going now?’

  ‘To move the car; if it’s found, I don’t want it anywhere near us.’

  With Samson departed, a noise from the back of the room made Steiner glance apprehensively in its direction, the shape of the agent moving as she struggled against her restraints.

  Muttering to himself, Steiner tried his best to ignore her, concentrating instead on setting up a basic computer system with his computer phone’s fold out screen at its heart. Running an aerial lead up the stairs, he had an improvised workstation set up in six minutes, an old plastic crate he’d found nearby functioning nicely as a seat. While cracking the law enforcement networks was out, he was able to patch into local and national television broadcasts and soon had a couple of channels streaming side by side on his phone’s display. Having watched them for a few minutes, trawling through the various programmes on offer, his disquiet had increased exponentially, transforming into outright fear and desolation.

  Standing up, Steiner took off his glasses and stared into space, one hand on a hip, his thoughts dark and his emotions bleak. After what he’d just seen he was under no illusions as to the severity of the challenge they now faced and the veritable shit storm Samson had thrust them into. An unprecedented manhunt was underway. GMRC curfews had been brought forward by three hours; all serving police officers on leave had been recalled and the Governor of California had declared a state of emergency. One local channel reported that the assistant director in charge of the Bureau’s LA field office had been one of the casualties in Samson’s initial assault and that the FBI Director himself was flying in from Washington D.C. to assume command, accompanied by every available resource he had at his disposal. Samson had started a damn war and Steiner’s choice to stick by his side had backfired spectacularly. He realised, with the bitter irony of hindsight, that he would have been better off on his own trying to save those left behind in Steadfast.

  ‘Oh, Nathan,’ Steiner murmured, wishing his friend were there to console him, ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake.’

  ♦

  Samson had returned some time later, having hidden the vehicle to his satisfaction, and then left once more citing as his reason the fact that they would need food and clean water for the indeterminable duration of their stay. Steiner, his mood mirroring his oppressive and lacklustre surroundings, hardly acknowledged the colonel during his flying visit, opting to stay sunken in the mire of his mind.

  As time ticked by, Steiner switched off the computer to conserve energy and then glanced over to the area of the cellar, deep in shadow. In an effort to ease his psychological burdens, he picked up the lantern and walked across to the FBI agent. The noise of his approach made her face, covered by a rough linen sack, move almost comically as she strained to hear, or see, whoever – or whatever – drew near.

  Crouching down in front of her, the fluid in his ankles popping, Steiner reached out and pulled off the hood. The woman, in her mid to late twenties, blinked against the bright light before settling her eyes on Steiner’s own, their fear plain to see, their plea for mercy, heartbreaking. A large cut on her forehead had dried to a congealed mass, strands of her hair caught within it; Steiner extended his hand to move a cluster of the light brown locks away from her face. Shrinking from his touch, she protested pitifully, her voice still muffled by the crude cloth gag tied around her head.

  Steiner held up his hands. ‘It’s okay, I won’t hurt you. Here—’ he made a small gesture with his right hand before moving it to her mouth, ‘let me get that for you.’

  Pulling at the knot, Steiner worked it free until the strip of cloth fell away to her lap. ‘Better?’ he asked.

  The agent, her features broad and strong, her lips thin, spat out some remaining fibres and moistened her lips with her tongue. ‘Yes.’ She coughed, trying to clear her throat. ‘Thank you.’ Her anxious eyes darted around the room. ‘Where’s your friend?’

  Steiner noticed the tremor in her voice and gave her a comforting smile. ‘He’s not here. Don’t worry, I won’t let him hurt you.’

  She looked at him with scepticism. ‘No offence, but I don’t think you could prevent him doing anything.’

  ‘I have my ways,’ Steiner said. ‘In some aspects I’m as much a prisoner as you, of circumstance maybe, but a prisoner nonetheless.’

  The FBI agent considered him anew. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy just letting me go?’

  Steiner would have dearly loved to do so, but if he did, he risked comp
romising his position even further. If that is even possible, he thought, while considering his current state of disarray. I just can’t afford for anything else to go wrong, he decided, too many lives are at risk.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘as much I want to wash my hands of this – whatever this is – I can’t.’

  The resulting expression of defeat on her face was almost too much to bear. ‘I can loosen these for you, though,’ he said, by way of recompense, indicating the handcuffs, her hands appearing red and puffy from the pressure on her wrists.

  ‘Please.’ She held out her arms to him.

  Loosening each loop in turn, he adjusted the small levers that protruded from each side of the stainless steel device, noticing they’d left dark red marks where Samson had tightened them almost to the point of cutting off her circulation. When she rested her hands back into her lap, Steiner glimpsed her identity badge, still clipped to her breast pocket. Beneath the famous logo and her photo were the words Special Agent, and next to this her name, written in her own hand.

  ‘You’re Brett Taylor?’ he said, thrown off guard.

  Amazingly, she managed to muster a small smile. ‘I prefer Taylor. Were you expecting someone else?’

  ‘Sorry, I just assumed you were a man.’

  ‘Assumptions are the mother of all fuck ups, at least that’s what I’m told.’