Fault Lines

by Mark Lingane

  PART 3

  63

  THE BATTERSEA POWER Station loomed against the dark city outline, the familiar neon now dead. The irony of hiding in a dead power station against an enemy that destroyed the power did not escape Hanson. People refused to leave the city, hiding among the broken buildings with any treasures they could salvage. Food was going to be a problem. It was a city, so nothing was going to grow there. Once the shops were empty, then what?

  Winter was coming. The Atlantic storms were going to be brutal, with no heat and only partial shelter. This first winter was going to be a tough one for a civilization that had grown soft on Internet shopping and climate-controlled environments that rarely changed more than a few degrees throughout the year.

  Millions had been killed in the attacks. And millions more would die over the winter. The old, the sick, the ones civilization looked after, none of them were going to make it. People were going to either survive or die. It was straight back to the Stone Age, and their enemies were dinosaurs.

  “We’re all going to die,” she muttered. She pulled a bottle of vodka from her jacket pocket and twisted the cap off; it cracked as she broke the seal. “And good riddance to us all.” She took a long swig.

  Her hands shook as she tried to spark the flint. It took several attempts, but she finally got a small flame. She sucked on the filter of the cigarette, cupping the end in her trembling hands until it glowed. Fireballs arced across the sky, each one representing a machine intent on annihilating the human race. She inhaled deeply then hid the cigarette behind her back.

  Hiding. That’s what they were best at now. They hid during the day and sneaked out under the cover of night, afraid to make a sound. They sat silent and alone, afraid of everything that moved, afraid of each other, of tomorrow. What was the point of a tomorrow if it wasn’t worth living, if it wasn’t worth planning for? Why find happiness, why find love? What did it matter to be a part of something?

  Without medical technology, Hanson was unable to have children. And what did that make her, less than human? She took several gulps from the bottle.

  “It’s a filthy habit,” Chambers said, his voice muted as he emerged from the shadows behind her. “It’ll age your skin and ruin your beauty.”

  She laughed and took another long drag without bothering to turn around. “Who do I need to look good for anymore? Why do I need to pluck my eyebrows, shave my legs or do any of that stuff anymore?”

  “When all this is over, we’ll need to repopulate the planet. There’ll be a time and place for looking good, at least with the lights on. On second thought, as you’ll be spending most of your time on your back with the lights off maybe it won’t be such a drawback.”

  “That’s hardly the spontaneous, romantic image you painted back in the hospital.”

  “We’ve all had to let a lot of things go.”

  “Yeah, all that clutter that we thought defined us, and now it’s just stuff that diminishes us.”

  “My brother had an ulcer,” Chambers said. “He still has. He doesn’t like giving anything away. Everyone in my family is a hoarder. Armageddon will be particularly challenging for us.”

  She smiled and took another puff. “You don’t have a brother.”

  “You didn’t keep anything apart from the fags?”

  “Nothing. What’s worth keeping? It’ll only remind me of the things and people I’ve lost. The future I can’t have anymore. Everything I was planning was for a world that doesn’t exist anymore. What’s the point of shiny trinkets?”

  “Not even photographs of family? I see you managed to loot a bottle shop.”

  She shrugged. “You want some? It’s all I’ve got, apart from scars. Did you keep anything?” She offered the bottle, but Chambers pushed it back to her.

  “I found some stuff,” he said. “My home hadn’t been totally blown up.”

  “I’d thought you’d be okay with things exploding, being from ordinance. Why did you quit?”

  “You’re kidding, right? You ever tried to defuse a bomb? Once you’ve done it, you don’t want to do it again.”

  “So you quit because you were afraid.”

  “I wasn’t afraid. My nan was.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

  “My nan was all I had. She said that thinking about me sitting down next to a bomb scared the life out of her. She said that every day when I walked out the door it broke her heart. She couldn’t take the fear. The fear that they’d come knocking one day and tell her I was dead. She’d already lost her son. I quit for her.”

  The night was peaceful. Only the occasional scream broke the silence. Hanson raised her cigarette and took another puff. The moonlight reflected off the gold ring on her finger. She still wore it, although it meant nothing. Every day she woke and felt like dying, her insides crumbling and her will to live diminishing.

  Losing Rod had been devastating. But not in the way she thought it would be. It had revealed that she was not as nice a person as she had believed herself to be. The apartment had gone. She had dug through the remains until her hands bled, searching for something, anything. All she found was the smashed remnants of the baby cot. She had sat on top of the pile of rubble that had once been her home and stared at the broken wood. For days she had been there, miraculously still alive when Chambers found her.

  She took another sip from the bottle and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “You know, I’m still sorry about … the stuff I said when you found me.”

  “Don’t think about it,” he replied. “You’d had a life-changing moment.”

  “We’d all had one,” she said. “Mine was no worse. I should’ve shown as much dignity as everyone else. Stiff upper lip and all that.”

  “Tracy, what happened to you?”

  “Nothing. This is me now; I love myself; screw everyone else.”

  “Why didn’t you stay in the military? What made you leave? Why are you running?”

  She thought back to the years of training, from cadet to officer, and that final year when it all went wrong.

  “I failed. That’s what happened. I failed. He spoke to his friends and told them I wasn’t ready. Said I’d never be good enough. So they failed me, and I left. Walked away because he betrayed me. He was my father. He was meant to protect me and guide me, and he just abandoned me. He never understood. No one does.”

  Chambers placed his hand on her shoulder. She felt that tumble in her stomach, the one she got every time he touched her, the only sensation intense enough to cut through the gray cloud of a survivalist life. She wiped away a tear.

  “Do you hear something?” Chambers said.

  “Just the sound of disillusionment, in perfect harmony with an unrelenting freight train of despair.”

  “Shh, I’m serious. I hear a … helicopter. A big one.”

  She pointed out over the river. “It’s a sitting target.”

  They squinted at the dark shadow against the night sky. Light flickered inside the passenger compartment.

  “Did someone just fall?” she said.

  The helicopter suddenly lit up, flashing like a beacon, then went dark. The thrashing blades were silenced and the craft began to descend.

  “It’s going to crash. What hit it?” Hanson said.

  “It won’t crash. The rotors are designed to bring it down safely. It looks like it’s heading for Battersea Park.”

  Something snapped inside of Hanson. She threw the cigarette to the ground and ran.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Chambers glanced around to see if his shout had attracted any attention, then ran after her.

  “We have to save them,” she shouted, sprinting across the power station parking lot.

  Chambers caught up to her within a dozen yards and grabbed her wrist. She swung her fist around, but he had learned. He blocked the wild punch and twisted her into an arm lock. She kicked out and the blow forced him to his knees. She ripped her arm out of the lock and sprinted away.
He jumped up and tackled her to the ground.

  “Get off me,” she screamed. “I have to go.”

  “Calm down, Tracy. It’s suicide.”

  “I don’t care. I need to save … something.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close as she struggled. She twisted and struggled, trying to break free. He tightened his grip on her until her strength ebbed away.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Take a few breaths.”

  She burst into tears. “What did I do?” she sobbed. “How could I have done that to Rod?”

  “You couldn’t save him.”

  “It’s not that I couldn’t save him … it was the doubt I felt about wanting to. I looked into my life and it was so hollow.”

  Hanson looked into his brown eyes, with the whites glowing against his perfect dark skin. She ran her fingers over his face, feeling the stubble on his chin, a man thrown back to a tougher time. Her head spun. Her emotions were screwing her up.

  “If I had a sister, I’d want her to be like you,” Chambers said.

  “Sister?”

  “That’s the best you can hope for. You’ve got no pride in your appearance, so you’re not going to appeal to anyone.”

  The helicopter thudded into the ground, the thump carrying through the still air. Chambers went quiet for a moment, his arms around her. Hanson closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest.

  “That helicopter,” she said. “It had power. Somehow it survived continual EM blasts. Don’t you find that odd? Surely it wasn’t a pre-electronic chopper.”

  “No, it was a Bell UH-1Y Venom. It came out in 2008, according to ‘Call of Duty 4’. What does it matter?”

  She stood and watched the smoke rising from the crash site, lost in thought. “Where was the helicopter hiding? And what else was hiding with it?”

  She darted toward the park, with Chambers following behind her. They ran through the tunnels under the railway tracks, crossed Queenstown Road, and entered the park perimeter. They paused within the ring of trees marking the edge of the park.

  “Keep an eye out,” he said. “The crash might’ve attracted scavengers or black-market traders.”

  They ran across the Millennium Arena to the tennis courts that had been ripped down. Chambers pointed over to the large parking lot dominating the center of the park. A flock of birds took off from the lake to their left, startling them. The parks had come alive with congregations of feral urban animals. Eyes reflecting the moonlight watched them run across the cracked tarmac toward the helicopter. As they approached, the blades, which had been turning slowly, came to a stop. The dark-green, near-black craft sat lifeless.

  Hanson crept in close while Chambers kept a lookout. Moonlight reflected off the lake through the trees to the south. Nothing moved.

  Hanson gasped. “Oh, my God, it’s Cally.” She lunged forward and grabbed the unconscious boy, checking his pulse and opening one eyelid. “He’s alive. We need to get him out of here.”

  Chambers glanced through the helicopter, checking the cockpit controls. But everything was dead. “Why was Cally in a military helicopter on his own?” he said. “Something odd’s going on here. Like, where’s the pilot?”

  “That doesn’t matter. We’ve got to get him to safety.” She rolled Cally forward and lifted him over her shoulder.

  A dozen flashlights swung through the night air from the river, sweeping over the ground. One flicked over them. There was a shout, followed by gunfire.

  “How did they know it was here?” Hanson said.

  “Everyone could see the helicopter. That’s the problem when you’re the only thing in the sky. Scavengers are observant and brutal. Keep your head down.”

  Hanson took a few steps before stumbling under Cally’s weight. Chambers appeared next to her and lifted him over to his own shoulder. The ground around them scattered as bullets sliced in. She ran ahead, searching through the park foliage. They halted at the edge of the lake, unsure of which way to go.

  The people behind them were spreading out; their torchlights were forming a fence.

  “Where are we going?” Chambers said.

  “We’re running away.”

  “At some point the ‘away’ will become less important and the ‘to’ a priority. Are you planning to hide?”

  They ducked around the trees, using the large trunks as shields between them and their pursuers. They dashed across Prince of Wales Drive into an alleyway between the grand residences that overlooked the park.

  Shouts could still be heard coming from behind them. Hanson rounded a corner; the alley opened onto a concealed parking lot. Abandoned cars were burned and smashed. A mews entrance opened out on the far side of the lot. They dashed toward the mews, but found the way barred by a metal gate. Hanson rattled the portcullis frantically. She turned and bumped into the back of Chambers. He was standing still, facing their pursuers, now close enough to recognize the uniforms as military. He didn’t know if it was worse than being caught by scavengers.

  The soldiers had them pinned down. The exits were blocked and they were closing in. Two soldiers stepped up. One kept his machine gun trained on Hanson and Chambers; the second reached for Cally.

  Chambers turned away. The soldier grabbed Cally, but Chambers pulled back. The first soldier swung his rifle toward Hanson and put the barrel against her head. Chambers sighed, and released his grip. The soldier clasped the boy and took him away.

  “What do we have here?” Hubbard said. He glared at them. “Possibly enemies of the state.” He nodded to the soldier beside him, who swung his rifle butt into Chambers’ temple. Chambers collapsed, clutching his head, out cold before he hit the ground. “Take them to the facility.”

  Two soldiers moved in and lifted Chambers onto a stretcher.

  Machine guns were following Hanson’s every move. She wanted to run screaming at them, take them all down, and then carry Chambers away, but the fairytale was impossible. She moved with the soldiers back to the river, where they stepped into small rubber boats and raced over to the northern bank.

  A bag was thrust over her head and she was bustled into the back of a truck. The truck barely made any noise as it moved, other than the crunching of the rubble under its tires. She could smell gas. There was another stop where something cumbersome was attached to the rear of the vehicle.

  The truck bounced and bumped its way for an hour. Then she was out, into a lift, marched down a long corridor, into a cell, and pushed onto a thin metal seat. The metal door slammed closed with a resounding clang.

  The bag was removed and she blinked in the dazzling electric light. The cell was small, with padded walls. Chambers was lying on the floor. She turned to address the one who had uncovered her.

  “Tracy Hanson. Just the person I was hoping to meet.”

  64

  “FIELD MARSHAL NORTON,” Hanson said.

  A familiar set of pages, now charred, thumped down on the bench. “We have much to talk about,” Norton said. “I’ve become a fan of your work.”

  She gave him a quizzical look.

  “I’d like to discuss your report.” He placed his hand on the thick wad of paper.

  “That thing only ever got me into trouble.”

  “Things are about to change. It’s probably the most important military document of our time.”

  After recent events, she couldn’t help but give herself a little smile.

  “You found one of the bombs?” he said.

  She nodded.

  “If we can detect them, we can neutralize the alien attacks. They want to fight, they’ll have to do it face to face.”

  “I’m guessing that’s why the military wanted Cally,” Hanson said.

  “The boy in the car?”

  She nodded. “He told me he can detect and emit electromagnetic pulses. That makes him either their number-one enemy or their greatest weapon.” Hanson felt unsure about revealing any further information about Cally’s abilities.

>   “We could use him to find the EM bombs,” Norton said.

  “He’s a child, not an object.”

  “I’m sorry. My thoughts are focused on different matters at the moment.”

  “Jeez, I hope the poor little guy is all right,” Hanson said. “We need to rescue him.”

  Chambers stirred on the floor beside Hanson, and sat up. “Where are we?” he said, rubbing his head. “Hey, there’s power here.” He looked up at Norton “Who is this guy?” he asked Hanson.

  “This is Field Marshal Norton,” Hanson replied. “Field Marshal, this is Reggie.”

  She watched them shake hands, an antiquated habit that refused to die. We shake hands to prove we have no weapons, she thought. We salute to do the same. All we know how to do is fight. It’s all we expect from each other.

  “We were expecting this invasion to happen at some point,” Norton said. “Except that we thought it would be Russia or some rogue nation. We’ve got a couple of huge underground, lead-lined bunkers full of weapons.”

  “And yet the aliens haven’t destroyed them,” Hanson said. “They’ve known about everything else, so you’d think they would’ve expected bunkers.”

  “Maybe they did,” Norton said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe they came for the fight, or to teach us a lesson. As a species, we humans like a good fight. Give us a handful of weapons and a bucketful of hope, and watch us rally.”

  “You don’t have much faith in human nature,” Hanson said.

  “Maybe that’s the problem,” Norton said. “Men like General Hubbard, the man who brought you here, see a solution they don’t understand to a problem they can’t comprehend, and it’s all so terrifying they can’t not do it.”

  “We need to get Cally out,” Hanson reiterated.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this,” Norton said, “but Cally is the answer to this war. One way or another, he’s the only solution. So, yes, we do need to get him out.”