Fall

by Rod Rees

  Norma was aghast at what Moynahan was saying. ‘No way! If you think I’m going to hide while you guys fight for me then you’re very much mistaken.’

  ‘That’s an order!’ retorted Moynahan. ‘The SS are only attacking the Portal in order to kill you so it’s our duty to prevent that happening. You will occupy the Transfer Room, even if I have to tie you up to do it.’

  Such was the authority in Moynahan’s voice that for a moment Norma was struck dumb. Then she rallied. ‘You can’t order these guys to sacrifice themselves like this!’

  Moynahan laughed. ‘I didn’t, Miss Norma, we all voted on it and the result was unanimous: the SS are only gonna get to you through us.’

  ‘But I can’t just stand by while—’

  ‘As Comwade Moynahan has said,’ came a quiet voice from the entrance to the room and when Norma turned around she saw Shelley standing in the doorway, ‘we all deem it an honour to pwotect you fwom the evil of Heydwich.’ Shelley moved to the centre of the room. ‘Evewyone has a destiny, Norma … this is yours. You must go to the Weal World and confwont the evil there. If you wemain here and are destwoyed, if the light you have given to this world is extinguished, what then? All that will be left are the ashes of hope and believe me, Norma, no phoenix will rise from those ashes.’

  Desperately Norma looked about the room. ‘Josie … Burlesque … Odette … I can’t ask you to die for me.’

  ‘It’s something you gotta dig, Norma,’ answered Josephine. ‘You gotta allow us this chance to show that we have the moxie to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good. We Demi-Mondians are cats enslaved by our cowardice, unable to do anything as our world is, in the oh-so-eloquent words of Burlesque, turned to shit. We have become skilled at doing nothing.’ She smiled. ‘Then Norma Williams came to the Demi-Monde and she wasn’t frightened of anything or anyone. And now, Norma, the question is, do you have the courage to let others die for you?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘There are no buts, Mademoiselle Norma,’ said Odette. ‘We ’ave all spoken mostly fully on this subject très sérieux and ’ave agreed this is the thing we must do. Your life must be preserved.’ She looked to Burlesque. ‘Is this not mostly correct, my dearest Burlesque?’

  ‘You gotta go, Norma,’ said Burlesque quietly. ‘Everybody and his father’s bin trying to waste you so there must be a bloody good reason why yous gotta stay alive. You just get yerself down to that Transfer Room and leave the rest ov us to worry abart them SS bastards.’

  *

  ‘Incoming!’ yelled Moynahan over the scream of the artillery shells as they smashed into the walls of the Portal. ‘Burlesque … Odette … get down to the Transfer Room. Make sure Norma’s okay. The rest of you lock and load.’

  Burlesque waited a moment for a lull in the firing before making his move. The SS artillery had opened up an hour before dawn, firing at almost point-blank range from the cover of a ruined Sin-All-Gone a hundred yards from the Portal. There was nothing the Portal’s defenders could do about it except hunker down and hope that one of the shells didn’t have their name on it.

  There was a pause in the barrage. ‘Go!’ Burlesque squawked and together he and Odette raced down the corridor, dodging between the heaps of debris and the smashed furniture. They leapt over the barricade they’d built around the entrance to the stairs leading down to the Portal’s basement and settled themselves there, ready to greet the StormTroopers who would soon come calling.

  ‘You are of the uninjuredness, Mademoiselle Norma?’ Odette shouted down the stairwell.

  ‘I’m fine,’ came the answer up the stairs. ‘A bit deaf from the noise but otherwise okay. Look, why don’t you let me come up and help? This is ludicrous, me hiding down here and you and the other guys having to fight.’

  ‘This ’as been of the much discussed, Mademoiselle Norma, and it was agreed—’

  ‘Not by me it wasn’t!’

  ‘And it was agreed,’ Odette persisted, ‘that it was of the greatest of importances that you remain safe, and the mostly safe of all places is the Transfer Room. So there you must stay.’

  Odette gave Burlesque a sly wink. They were down to eleven defenders – two neoFights had been taken out by an artillery shell – and she knew as well as he did that the chance of them being able to hold out against five hundred SS StormTroopers was zero and falling.

  ‘That’s good advice, that is, Miss Norma,’ Burlesque shouted, ‘don’t yous worry abart nuffink. Everyfing’s really good up ’ere.’ He had to duck as a burst of machine-gun fire nearly took his head off. ‘Yus, we’s really givin’ these SS bastards wot for.’

  *

  Josephine Baker wiped a hand across her forehead. She had heard the phrase ‘the heat of battle’ before but this was ridiculous. The heat – and the noise – of the fighting were incredible and unrelenting. She pulled out her canteen. It was empty.

  ‘Hey, Harrison,’ she shouted to the cute cat working the minigun to her left, ‘you got any water left?’

  Harrison didn’t even pause from his shooting. ‘Sure have, Josie,’ he said as he passed her his water bottle.

  A grateful Josie took the flask and gulped down a mouthful of the stale water. Only a mouthful. Water was in short supply and the SS wouldn’t be giving them any chance to refill their canteens. But then the SS weren’t giving them much of a chance to do anything other than die.

  The SS StormTroopers had come at them just as the sun was rising, the muzzle flashes of their rifles illuminating the dawn’s half-light. Wave after wave of SS dashed themselves against the Portal’s walls, desperately trying to get close enough to throw grenades, and time after time the unrelenting fire laid down by the Portal’s defenders drove them back.

  ‘More ammo!’ screamed Harrison and Josie scrabbled down the rubble lining the bomb crater she and the boy were calling home and pulled one of the precious magazines out of the box lying at the bottom. Harrison slammed the drum of bullets into the minigun and began blasting again.

  ‘How many mags left?’

  ‘Just two.’

  ‘Shit.’

  Josie lifted her M-29 and started firing. She fired until the continual battering of the stock against her shoulder had ripped her SAE and left it a suppurating wound. Now every time she fired she was racked with agony.

  ‘Tell me something, Josie,’ yelled Harrison over the continual rat-tat-tat of his gun, ‘what do Demi-Mondian girls like you do on an evening … apart from killing StormTroopers, that is?’

  ‘Hey, Harrison, you hitting on me?’

  ‘Sure am.’

  Josie loosed off a burst of three rounds and watched two of the enemy somersault backwards. ‘Gotta say that I’m always ready to rip and roll with a good-looking cat like you, Harrison.’

  ‘Hot diggity dog, then it’s a date!’

  But even as Harrison was whooping, the minigun stopped firing.

  ‘Fuck, it’s jammed. It’s too hot. Don’t look, Josie, ’cos I’m gonna have to introduce you to Dr Dangerous.’ With that he stood up, pulled down the zip of his mud-stiff trousers and began to piss in the cooling jacket of his gun, the urine sizzling into steam as it hit the scorchingly hot metal. Harrison was just zipping his trousers back up when he took a shot to the head. He crumpled across his gun, stone dead.

  Josie didn’t have time to mourn. As soon as the minigun stopped, the StormTroopers took the chance to charge them again. There were simply too many of them to resist. She did her best, firing round after round into the black-uniformed ranks, firing until she had no more ammunition. And as they came over the barricade, she grabbed an entrenching spade and, wielding it as a makeshift axe, smashed it down at the SS, making them flinch back from her fury. She died as she had lived, defiant to the last.

  *

  ‘The SS have taken Eleazar Street, Rabbi Gelbfisz, and the HimPis are preparing to attack.’

  Schmuel Gelbfisz gave a weary nod. It was over. There were over a million people crammed into the Central
District, most of them women and children, and the fighters left to defend them were exhausted and without ammunition.

  ‘Ve must surrender,’ he said quietly.

  ‘What? But if we surrender they will slaughter us!’

  ‘Zhat is a possibility. But if we fight zhey vill also slaughter us. Zo I must put my faith in ABBA, Levi. I do not believe zhat He vould countenance zhe destruction of our people.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘No, now is zhe time of miracles. I vill go unt parley mit zhe Shvartses.’

  *

  Pobedonostsev beamed as he watched the delegation of nuJus stumble their way down the bomb-blasted street, their leader an old man wearing a disgustingly dirty black coat and holding a white flag in his hand.

  ‘As I expected, General, the nuJus have begun to surrender. Their race does not have the moral fibre – the backbone, if you prefer – to endure the deprivations associated with war. They are, in essence, weak, preferring to be slaughtered like cattle rather than to die like Men.’

  ‘How do you come to that conclusion, Grand Vizier?’

  ‘A superior race would have refused to countenance the ignominy of surrender. A superior race would have been unable to submit to such humiliation. It is a sign of their inferiority.’ He gave a shrug. ‘NuJus are strangers to honour and Machismo and that is why they are classified as UnderMentionables.’

  ‘Surely a more generous interpretation is that as they are civilised people they expect the same compassion from others that they would show themselves.’

  ‘You do not understand, General. Human kindness is a corrosive emotion. There can be no compassion granted to our enemies.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Salah-ad-Din quietly as the nuJu shuffled to a halt in front of him. ‘Good morning, Schmuel, I am glad to see you alive.’

  The old nuJu nodded a greeting. ‘I thank you, General, but I think you are generous mit your use of zhe word “good”. It is morning but I zuzpect it vill be a dark day.’

  ‘What have you got to say, nuJu?’ snapped Pobedonostsev.

  ‘It is zimple, Grand Vizier. Ve nuJus vill lay down our veapons if you vill undertake to grant mercy to our non-combatants … to our children, to our vomenfolk unt to zhe old unt zhe infirm. Ve appeal for mercy, trusting in zhe honourable nature of zhe Shades unt zheir generosity of spirit. I vould remind you zhat if ve nuJus vere zhe masters unt not zhe vanquished ve would display such mercy. I beg you in zhe name of ABBA to display zhe humanity I know resides in all men.’

  ‘Then, Rabbi, you will be disappointed,’ said Pobedonostsev. ‘This world will never be pure until the contamination of the nuJu race is expunged. Therefore there can be no mercy.’ He turned to Salah-ad-Din. ‘I would be grateful if you would give the order to fire.’

  Salah-ad-Din sighed. ‘As you wish, Grand Vizier.’ The general raised his hand and immediately the soldiers guarding the nuJus shouldered their rifles.

  ‘Fire!’

  The rifles blossomed smoke but rather than the nuJus falling it was the HimPerial Guard protecting the Grand Vizier who were the target for the bullets.

  A stunned Pobedonostsev whirled around on his heels to find the general pointing a revolver at his forehead. Shock had barely time to register on his face before Salah-ad-Din pulled the trigger.

  *

  ‘There has been a coup, Comrade General.’

  Von Sternberg dragged his attention away from the assault on the nuJus’ redoubt. ‘A coup? Where?’

  ‘Here, Comrade General, here in NoirVille,’ spluttered Major Ferris, the SS officer responsible for liaising with the Shades. ‘It seems that General Salah-ad-Din has taken over the running of NoirVille. Pobedonostsev is dead …’

  No great loss, decided von Sternberg. He’d had him earmarked for assassination anyway, once the ForthRight had taken over a NoirVille enervated by its war with the JAD.

  ‘… and has announced that henceforth HimPeror Xolandi will have a constitutional role in the running of NoirVille rather than an executive one.’

  An impatient von Sternberg turned back to his study of the attack. ‘We will discuss this later, Ferris: I have this nuJu redoubt to invest.’

  ‘That is why I have come, Comrade General. General Salah-ad-Din has declared an amnesty … all combatants have been ordered to lay down their weapons and to cease fire … including members of the SS.’

  That was when von Sternberg realised what had been nagging at the back of his mind for the last ten minutes. He’d been so wrapped up in directing the attack on the redoubt that the mortars being used to pound the nuJus had stopped firing had barely impinged on his consciousness. But now as he pricked his ears he realised that the guns were silent.

  ‘This message has been received from General Salah-ad-Din,’ and Major Ferris handed over the PigeonGram.

  Von Sternberg crumpled the message into a ball and tossed it into the gutter. Then he hauled out his pocket watch and checked the time. ‘Major. Take one hundred men and station them at the bottom of Eleazar Street. You are to fire on any Shades who come within one hundred yards of your position.’

  ‘But … but … that would be an act of war!’

  ‘My orders, Major, are to take that Portal and no Shade zadnik like Salah-ad-Din is going to stop me doing just that.’

  *

  There was a desperation about the second SS attack and the fighting was even more intense. For a moment it seemed that the ferocious fire the Portal’s defenders were able to lay down from their one remaining minigun would deter the attack, but once it had been taken out by a grenade, Shelley knew there was only ever to be one outcome. They had fought – and died – hard but gradually they’d been forced back, deeper into the Portal, towards their last redoubt, towards the armoured Transfer Room. The fighting became a swirling confusion with the Storm-Troopers frantically trying to clamber over the barricades and the defenders trying equally frantically to stop them.

  Shelley saw Moynahan fall, bayoneted in the back as he tried to wrench a rifle from a StormTrooper’s hands, and a wailing Maria die as she stood over his body yelling curses and firing a revolver at the oncoming horde.

  ‘Fall back to the basement,’ he heard Burlesque shouting, but even as Shelley turned to obey he was smashed in the back by a bullet. He dropped to his knees, desperately trying to resist the fog of death that was enveloping his mind. He dove a hand into his pocket and hauled out a piece of paper. ‘Odette … give this to … Norma.’ And then he died.

  *

  ‘Just yous and me now, Odette, me darling,’ said Burlesque as he shoved cartridges into his Bulldog. ‘It’s gone quiet up there, so I fink all ov our oppos is dogmeat.’

  Odette gazed up the stairs to the dawn’s light flooding in through the doorway leading to the basement and decided that Burlesque was correct. Now only the pair of them stood between the SS and Norma Williams. They had decided to make their last stand in the basement as positioned there the SS would only be able to come at them down the narrow stairs. ‘’Ow many rounds do you ’ave left, mon chéri?’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘And I ’ave only sept … nine. So we must fire with the utmost carefulness to ensure that it is the mostly many of these fuckers of the SS ’oo die with us.’ She turned to look towards the Transfer Room. ‘Mademoiselle Norma, ’ow are you?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I ’ave ’ere un cadeau from Percy Shelley. I think ’e loved you very much.’

  Odette gave Norma the piece of paper she’d been handed by Shelley and then kissed her on the cheek. ‘But now it is time for you to go into the Transfer Room and seal the door. You are the ones they want. You are the ones they must not take. Bonne chance in the Real World.’

  Norma hugged them both. ‘Please understand, if I survive and somehow make it to the Real World, my heart will always be here in the Demi-Monde. Thank you so very, very much.’

  Only when she was satisfied that Norma had done what she had asked and that the steel door of the Transfer Room was securely
locked did Odette turn to Burlesque. ‘I would be most grateful, mon chéri, if you would kiss me with the greatest of passion so that when I die, my last thought is of my most beloved Burlesque.’

  A tear trickled down Burlesque’s cheek, leaving a tramline in the dirt. ‘Be my pleasure, Odette. I love you so fucking much and I’ve ’ad the best time of me life running around the Demi-Monde wiv yous at me side.’

  They kissed, holding each other tight, trying to wring every piece of pleasure from their last seconds together, until a blast of a whistle from the top of the stairs signalled that the SS were about to attack.

  Two grenades bounced down the stairs, their detonation reverberating through the basement, but safe behind a wall, both Odette and Burlesque survived and were there ready to blast the StormTroopers as they tried to rush them. It was like shooting rats in a barrel. The StormTroopers might have been spraying bullets from their guns as they came down the stairs, but they were advancing into darkness, and being silhouetted by the light at the top of the stairwell, they made perfect targets. Soon there were six bodies clogging the stairs.

  That’s when the SS decided that more grenades were the answer. Ten of them.

  *

  Burlesque didn’t even see the grenade, but Odette did. She hurled herself over it, shielding him from its blast. For long seconds Burlesque was numb. Odette was dead. The woman he loved was dead. He couldn’t believe that anything had the power to destroy Odette. She had been his everything. A red mist came over his eyes. He slammed his remaining cartridges into his revolver, then staggered forward.

  ‘You fuckers!’ he screamed. ‘You rotten, stinking fuckers! Kill my Oddie would you? Then come on, try to kill me. I’ll make you fuckers pay.’ A StormTrooper appeared at the top of the stairs and Burlesque shot him in the guts. ‘Come on, come and let me kill you, you fuckers!’ Halfway up the stairs now he blasted a second and a third StormTrooper, taking a hit in his shoulder which he barely felt.

  He got to the top of the stairs and emerging into daylight found himself surrounded by awestruck StormTroopers. He began firing, screaming curses at them, tears streaming down his face, and even when the hammer fell on an empty chamber, he still advanced.