by P. G. Burns
Reuben has been watching quite contently up until he hears that last statement. He looks at Simeon, confused and angry, but the smile on Simeon’s face cuts him dead. So many thoughts are running through Simeon’s mind but mainly he is relieved that the human champion managed to escape. He wonders how this has happened, though, as they obviously did not follow the plan. If they had, no one would have suspected that Shane had survived the explosion, never mind hold him and Robert responsible for it, making them the most famous people in Britain right now. Then how did he allow the prison Governor to slip through his hands? Human kindness? Simeon ponders that the change of plan was probably a result of Shane’s reluctance to kill Leo. Amitiel had expressed her concern in this matter. Good old Leo. Simeon has mixed feelings about the survival of his friend, happy he may still be alive but also concerned. Simeon does not know if these issues are signs of weakness on Shane’s behalf or perhaps signs of strength. Either way, he cannot help him now. His beautiful plan to give them new IDs and have both of them transported to a safe place is in tatters. Still, at least they got out. He looks at Reuben who is still struggling to work out how his perfect plan went so wrong and now Simeon is the one who laughs uncontrollably.
Shane fairly competently navigates the helicopter through the English countryside; the army was a good source of a true variety of skills. They have a hair-raising five minutes while Shane hovers only ten feet off the ground and tells Robert to throw the Governor out into the field.
“Are you fucked-up or somink?” the small black guy shouts at him, still brandishing his sub-machine gun.
“What do you want me to do? Kill the guy for no reason?” replies Shane.
“No, I want you to kill him for a very good reason: he’s the only guy who can tell the world that you are out and on the run!”
“Well, I won’t kill him,” frowns Shane. “I am not going to start killing innocent people, not for you or Leo or this Simeon dude I’ve never met. I don’t kill people just for the sake of it or to protect my own hide, okay?”
Chamuel looks at Leo then Robert. “So, this is the great white hope? Man we is all fucked!” Chamuel is still sulking as Shane contemplates their next move.
“We best land soon,” shouts Robert over the din. “We don’t want air traffic to trace us once Byrne spills the beans.” Shane nods in agreement and sets the craft down with a jolt in a field full of cows. Chamuel wrinkles his nose. “If I get cow shit on these trainers there is going to be trouble, yo hear me?” Shane looks at Leo and Robert. “Does he ever shut up?” The two men respond together. “No.”
The Pitts 2146
For two hours Chamuel has been using his large repertoire of late-twentieth-century popular culture to entertain his fellow travelling companion. His main objective is to get her mind off the unfortunate loss of Adam. So far, he thinks it is going rather well.
Ember has no idea what the man she is travelling with is going on about but from his heavy laughter at the end of each anecdote she assumes he is trying to be funny. She has never heard of Mr Bean or Samuel L. Jackson and what he is doing puffing out his cheeks and saying some crap about the Godfather heaven knows. Not that she is even listening. All she can think about is Adam.
“Look, where are we going?” asks Ember when Chamuel pauses in between impressions.
“Patience, you must have my young Padawan,” says Chamuel in his best Yoda impression.
Ember stops.
Noticing her clenched fists, Chamuel stops too. “I am sorry, truly I am. Everything that has happened to you lately must seem totally bizarre and pretty damn scary to boot, but I promise you it will all become clear soon. It will still be scary but at least you will know why. For now I can explain the first part of the mission if you think it would help?”
Ember bristles at the word “mission”. Surely one had to accept a mission before being expected to complete it. She shakes her head in disbelief. “Just tell me where we’re going.”
“We have to get to the Hispanic part of the city. Fortunately these sewers service the whole of the Megatropolis above and there is a gateway ahead that I am hoping the authorities will not be monitoring.”
“What is in the Hispanic sector? Is there a safe house there or something?”
“There is no safe place for you now,” Chamuel says apologetically. “If the Host is aware of who you are then he will willingly tear his own beloved city to shreds to find you. Believe me, he has a track record in such things. We can only hope to stay one step ahead of him. To do that we need to see what is on this disc and to do that we need to find someone with an old-fashioned DVD player. I know a guy who knows a guy…”
“Don’t we need vaccinations to enter that area? We are taught that there are rampant issues with disease in this sector. Plus our chips won’t work…” Ember looks down at her redundant device. “Oh yeah.”
Chamuel laughs. “Okay, we have a long journey ahead of us, so why don’t we conduct a small investigation into what utter fucking rubbish you were taught in school.”
Ember feels pleased for the first time in hours. Always keen to impress people with her knowledge, Ember decides she will join in this conversation. “Finally, a chance to prove my worth,” she thinks; no longer will she be seen as the foolish spoiled brat. She knows this stuff, and she knows what actually happened, rather than some of the crap that other kids were taught. She silently thanks her father for taking the time to educate her properly.
“Well, to be honest I learned more out of school than in,” she tells Chamuel.
“That’s good and what is your chosen specialist subject?”
“Er, history is my favourite subject, well… I suppose specialising in pre-rapture.”
“Okay, you have the next ten minutes to answer questions on events prior to the rapture. I will give you a starter for ten. Who was the leader of the Diabolicals?
“Ffft, that’s a bit easy. Shane Mills.”
“When was the first mention of the Diabolicals in the media?”
“Mmm, that would be around two or three years after the prison break. They led an Islamic terrorist group into Cyprus, capturing British army bases. The news reporters there nicknamed them the Diabolicals because of the slaughter and carnage they caused to the beautiful island and its people.”
“Okay. When did the Host first appear to the world and in what form?”
“Easy peasy. The miracle of Juarez was the first report of the Messiah’s return.”
“Go on.”
“An American news reporter witnessed the miracle during a visit to Mexico. He saw a holy man preaching peace on the border town of Ciudad Juarez. The local drug cartel had taken objection to his preaching and the large following he had. The reporter claimed that he saw the man being dragged off the steps of the church and taken to a square where he was to be publicly executed in front of his followers. The leader of the bandits pointed his gun into the Host’s face and pulled the trigger but nothing happened. He then took a second gun from one of his men and checked it was working before pointing it at the Host and pulling the trigger. Once more, nothing happened. The Host was said to be praying for the man’s forgiveness while this all went on. He smiled each time the guns failed to fire and blessed them. After five or six attempts some of the bandits began to kneel and pray. Eventually the leader also kneeled and prayed, crying while he did. The Host wiped away his tears and told him, ‘From today you will be my envoy for peace. Go to your people and tell them this war is over. They must be ready to fight in another and this time, they will fight for God.’”
“Wrong.”
“Excuse me! That is exactly what happened.” Ember stares at Chamuel, determined to prove she is right. “Trust me, I have read everything there is to read about the coming of the Host and how he saved the world from destruction.”
“Wrong.”
If he is trying to antagonise her, it is certainly working. Ember squeezes her
hands into fists. “Oh, this is stupid. Are you just going you say ‘wrong’ to every answer I give? And, I am sorry, but what would you know? I mean you’re not much older than me and you’re black… by which I mean you don’t get the right education because you’re not Aryan… Oh, you know what I mean.”
“You think because I am black and I didn’t have access to all them fancy books that I don’t know anything?”
“Well no, but you don’t know everything…”
“Wrong.”
“Whatever.” Ember can feel her rebellious inner teenager rising to the surface and is on the verge of letting it loose on this idiot. Her education is the one tool she has and now this guy is saying everything she knows is wrong? Feelings of anger and fear of the unknown bubble in her tummy. “There you go again, you just keep saying wrong without saying why.”
“The books are wrong,” shrugs Chamuel. “Yes, there was a miracle at Juarez but Reuben Lupas, the pretend Host, was nowhere near there when it did happen. The whole thing is a twist on the truth and you need to swot up on the truth real quick. I see I will have to educate you. Anyway we are here.”
“Where? I can’t see anything?”
Chamuel takes a small cube from his jacket and it independently rises from his hand. A beam of light emanates from it and soon Ember can see what looks like a huge steel door at least ten metres high with a mass of bars and locks criss-crossing its dimensions.
“What is that?”
“That is the only exit out of the Pitts that the Mackies won’t expect us to leave by.”
Ember can see why they wouldn’t be expected to leave this way. Several gun drones sit on top of the gate, all prepped to fire. In a fit of sass she points to them, waiting for Chamuel’s response.
“Well sure, it looks like we are not supposed to go this way. You would have thought that there would have been a sign,” he says jokingly, much to Ember’s annoyance. She decides Chamuel is the fool and it’s him who needs educating, not her.
“Those things are gun drones,” she says sagely. “They activate by sensor. There must be an e-line or something that sets them off if passed. We have got to go back, and carefully.”
“You’re not wrong,” says Chamuel. “Well not about the e-line, anyway. Only problem is we already passed it, back there when you was busy with the made-up history.”
“What!?” Ember looks up to see the six drones rumble out of their holsters and take off towards them. She hears a volley of shots and instinctively ducks, covering her head. The shots continue as she huddles, sure of a quick, messy death. But she doesn’t die. Instead she can see that the cube floats between them and the drones, the light coming from it cascading down around them. The bullets stop dead on hitting the light and seem to be suspended in mid-air.
“The miracle of Subterrainia! Where’s a reporter when you need one?”
This time his joking doesn’t annoy her as she stands up amazed and in awe. Exhausted of ammunition the guns have stopped. The small cube averts its attention to the large metal gateway. The cube moves around the service of the door emitting digital clicks. Ember watches in fascination as the large bolts and locks slide and turn one after each other until the door stands unlocked.
“Are you ready, Ember Jones, to Live’ la Vida Loca?” Chamuel attempts a few steps of flamenco then with a grand gesture, motions for her to step through.
The lake at the end of the east pipe
Adam feels his lungs are about to burst. He is powerless to resist the strong arm that holds him as he is dragged further and further into the dark depths, which he now accepts will be his grave. Too traumatised to even be scared he simply submits to his fate, allowing the darkness in as he feels life ebb away. Not the most unpleasant feeling he has ever experienced, he has to admit, as the veil of death seems to bring with it a feeling of peace and tranquillity.
“WAKE UP MAN! For fuck’s sake! Lisalotte, I think you killed him!”
“Excuse me? I saved his life! Those stupid monkeys are starving. He would have been ripped to shreds and chewed like a piece of bark!”
Adam can hear voices. He feels as if someone is standing on his chest and he dare not open his eyes. Then a hard push on his solar plexus forces him to jump up as he heaves and evacuates what seems like a gallon of soiled water.
“See. He’s fine.”
Adam sits up. He looks around and makes out a heavy-set man with an unkempt beard sitting next to a small but shapely female with long dark hair and not many clothes on.
“Who are you? Where am I?”
“You’re okay, you’re safe. Well, you are for now. I am Nelson and this is Lisalotte. She was the one who pulled you under to save you from the Humanzees.”
Adam looks at the tiny slip of a girl and considers contradicting that this girl was the creature that overpowered him so easily and pulled him down through the lake, but then a glance at her back reveals what he can only describe as a shallow shark-like fin.
She gives him a stern look before addressing him.
“The words you’re looking for are ‘thank you’.”
He colours, embarrassed. “Thank you.” He then looks at the man. “Did you say Nelson? You don’t mean Alex Nelson?”
Adam doesn’t need an answer as he notices the rota blade attached to the man’s arm that replaces his severed hand. Even under all the hair he recognises the face of one of the most wanted criminals in Jinn City; a man accused of murder, theft and high treason and the leader of a band of terrorists known as the Sons of Abraham.
Not many know the truth. Nelson was actually born and bred in the Caucasian section of the city. He grew up just on the wrong side of Utopia Gardens and his father was a respected clerk who worked in the Temple as a quantity surveyor. On Nelson’s twelfth birthday he waited for his father to come home to see what present he was getting but by nightfall he still hadn’t come and when he heard his mother’s tears, Nelson realised something was wrong.
He never saw his father again and the family received no explanation for his disappearance. Nelson soon learned that this was the norm and questions should not be asked. He watched as his mother grew sicker and sicker, suffering from a broken heart and the frustration of never knowing what had happened to the man she loved. It took her four years to wilt from a strong beautiful woman to a frail shell of herself. Only on her deathbed did she dare utter defiance against the establishment that had taken her love away and had not even seen fit to mention why.
“Why? Why did they take him? Where is my love?” she cried as she lay dying in the small living room of the apartment. She had tried to stay strong for her son but the pain was too much and to be held in such low regard as not to even deserve an explanation of what had happened was the worst pain of all. She actually envied the wives whose husbands were publicly executed for poor performance or attitudes. At least they had anger and sorrow. At least they had the truth and not false hope. Mrs Nelson died a painful death. Not physically painful but mentally unbearable.
Nelson hated the regime for what they had done to him and his parents and how insignificant he was to them. He made up his mind that one day they would regret their actions and more, their inactions. Nelson managed to hide his hate and, while posing as a loyal citizen, joined the external guard, or J soldiers as they were better known. These were the brutal troops that patrolled the city to round up and kill any non-chipped renegades and even the odd Humanzee or other mutation who dared to leave the Pitts.
It took four years of watching and partaking in the murder of thousands of innocents before Nelson got his chance to escape and form the Sons of Abraham. It was during an operation into the Oriental District that his sixty-strong company of J soldiers were ambushed by a large group of raiders who had been forced up from the Pitts by hunger. The attacking group outnumbered the J soldiers six to one but they were only armed with stones and makeshift bows and spears against some of the best weapons technology had created. In less than an hour ninety per cent of
the raiders were captured. The J soldiers did not actually take prisoners and Captain Andrew Page was no exception. He lined them all up and instructed his most accomplished machine gunner to first take their knees out, let them bleed for a while, and then kill them. Nelson had looked down the sights of the XXX53 as the two hundred-plus survivors lined up, mostly disfigured, all wretched and often mutated. He felt total empathy with their plight and had waited a long time for this opportunity. He noticed that between him and them was the remaining external guard, including his captain. They were all looking forward, expectant of the imminent entertainment, with their backs to Nelson’s gun. A slight twinge of guilt at shooting his comrades in the back was soon overridden as his mother’s dying words sounded through his head.
Nelson cut through the fifty-six men like a knife through butter. They all fell to the floor, bodies in pieces with no time to ask why, just time to die. Now he had to worry about the men and women who he had five minutes earlier been battling. They looked at the bodies in amazement, grateful but confused. Nelson walked away from the XXX53 and addressed the ragtag group.
“I am Alex Nelson. I am an enemy of the state and I wish to join your militia.”
The men and women did not even know they were militia. They thought they were just hungry people tired of dying a slow death. Now they were alive and, thanks to this Alex Nelson, they were armed and dangerous. But that didn’t mean they trusted him. His next act, however, confirmed his commitment as he took the machete he had sharpened every day from his belt and, kneeling down, placed his left hand on a tree stump. The confused men and woman watched in strange fascination as with one swoop he lopped off his own left hand. He had fallen then, the pain and shock pulsing through his body, but he pulled out a bottle of white spirit and poured it over the stump, confirming this was a planned act. Not only did this extraordinary act ally him to this mutilated band of brothers but it also set him free from the hated regime by removing his chip. Alex bonded the group of misfits together and was soon accepted as their leader. Survival and the odd triumph had given them hope. Under Nelson’s guidance they became a hardy group and a force to be reckoned with. High-profile robberies and kidnappings had secured them plenty of food. They grew their arsenal of weapons with every raid and although many lives were lost, a steady line of inhabitants from the Pitts tried to join the SOA.
