The gunshot shattered Vain and Levene's transient contemplation. One of the firemen fell dead and Blyth Carson's voice suddenly dominated the environment.
"Hit the fucking deck guys, some 'ghetto-posse' boys have started shooting".
As the project staff took cover, Fray and Denison took control of the situation. Denison's voice became the most dominant.
"Stay down, project crew. That scum smelt our presence. Just keep away from the fire guys dousing the Designation entrances. Keep your fire trained on the two north-western high rises and don't worry - those guys are gonna be in for one fucking surprise in a couple of minutes!”
Vain fired back into the said buildings, and the collective MC project guns sent back traces made by bullet trajectories which added an almost aesthetic spectacle to the gun battle! Another firemen took a bullet in the shoulder, and Fray made sure security staff added more bulletproof cover to corral the fire fighters.
Two of the forty who had witnessed the Venison demonstration fell dead near Vain and Levene, with head shots that pumped blood on the snow. One of the dead had fallen with his head turned towards Levene and Vain. His dead face was mask like, having a frozen expression that was akin to the 'tragedy' muse in its appearance. It seemed to look straight into Levene's eyes.
The gunfire continued for ten minutes and then Mr Fray's surprise arrived on the scene.
Three armour-plated vehicles with rocket launcher rear sections sped past the MC staff and reversed towards the buildings that housed the ghetto posse. Then there ensued a synchronised intensive fire volley from the respective vehicles, and the lower stories of the buildings were all but totally destroyed.
Not content with this devastation, Fray gave the order for two of the vehicles to intermittently blast the upper sections of the structures with 'surface to air' type missiles. If the gun battle had been closely fought before the arrival of the vehicles, it was now a totally one-sided confrontation with no fire being returned toward the MC ranks. Internal explosions started to occur within the buildings, and when the MC project vehicles temporarily paused for realignment purposes, the first inhabitants emerged from the two buildings. Many had been severely cut by flying glass, some had been badly burned and a few had lost limbs in part or whole. There were a minority of posse members, but the overwhelming majority of individuals were not armed, some of them being families.
Fray then selected his next stratagem and raced into action. Leading a contingent of eight FBI centred MC project members, Fray charged toward the survivors of his blitzkrieg. He started to unload his machine pistol into the ranks of the former occupants and was assisted to a 'right hand man' level by a project member whom Vain had not seen before. In the midst of the chaos pertaining to this kind of situation, one individual didn't usually stand out, but Fray's accomplice was no ordinary project member.
The said individual was a giant of a man who wore a heavy-duty combat uniform. He was often ahead of Fray with regard to the massacre that was taking place, and after a short while he discarded his military style helmet as the opposition had been quelled.
This factor didn't stop the shootings though.
Denison started ushering the MC staff into a project transportation vehicle, which was in readiness for the evacuation of MC project staff. Designation J had been written off, but another site in Michigan had already been set up for such an eventuality. This would shortly be the new project base, and as Vain and Levene slumped into a double seat, both had a short time to survey the scene outside. Two things dominated Vain's memory-camera with regard to his final look at the battle zone.
The first was an image of the silver-haired Fray and his black second in command laughing as they surveyed a group of corpses and the second was an image of a child clambering over the dead body of it's mother, crying and touching her face.
Chicago had been a hell on earth.
SEVEN
The journey out of Chicago was undertaken at high speed, and the MC project ranks preserved a uniform silence due to the collective fatigue that had taken its toll on all staff. The hurried nature of the Designation J evacuation had meant that the project members were in varying states of dress, ranging from semi-naked like Levene to the immaculate attire of Denison. Vain wondered if the MC project leader ever slept. Gregory Vain's mind kept on replaying the key events pertaining to the night’s events and his thoughts were only interrupted when the sleeping Levene murmured in her uneasy slumber. Her words were not readily discernible, but her body language was occasionally suggestive in its execution with her hands reaching out for Vain, stroking his chest in the process. Vain didn't wake the woman, but he was glad the pair had located one of the vehicle's rear seats, because her posture would have incited rumours amongst some of their fellow project members.
The Michigan replacement Designation would be comparatively ambient after the claustrophobia that had characterised Designation J. Although project members would have preferred to leave in less frightening circumstances, tempers had begun to fray, and the transference was thus a blessing in disguise to a fair proportion of the MC project staff.
The Michigan site - Designation S, had been used by the MC project in a training period three years prior to the actual exploration work that they were now undertaking, and it was a favourable ground level venue.
The Designation had adjacent grounds, which the project members could utilise in their relaxation periods, and although Michigan was likely to have more snow than Chicago, most project members were going to put up with the elements in favour of venturing out on occasions. Thus, if Chicago had given incarceration, Michigan offered the potential for temporary 'escape.'
The MC project staff were going to be given two days to adjust to their new environment, and on the third day Denison and Fray were going to address the project ranks. Project staff were eager to know the causes of the Designation J fire and the scale of the casualties in the ensuing gun battle. These two issues would be clarified in the assembly on day three.
Every project member took full advantage of the two-day rest period and although Designation S had an excellent leisure complex built on to it's main section, extended sleep was the most preferable form of relaxation. The staff who took their places in the Assembly room on the third morning were thus more refreshed than they had been for some time, although the 'culled' project totality was evident in the number of chairs provided. Denison mounted the speaker's podium and commenced his address.
"Today, it is my sad duty to report the deaths of eleven Memory-Camera project staff and before I deal with the events of Chicago I want everyone to stand and pay homage to our lost friends, with a minute of silence”.
Denison checked his watch and bowed his head once all the assembled ranks were upstanding. The sixty seconds were observed in unanimous silence and then the group sat down again.
"Words are pale substitutes for lost friends, and although not all those who died would have been familiar to project staff, nine of them had sweated blood in the name of the MC project.
“It is true that five of the eleven never knew any specifics pertaining to our work, as they were rookie 'selection squad' members. It is true that they died in the sealed-confinement section of Designation J, and thus it is also true by extension that they were burnt alive for a cause they never really knew. Those five were due to be taken into full project confidence when the Chicago work had culminated, so all of them had the guts to be up to the macabre duties performed by the selection squads. They had nearly 'passed out' and their deaths are thus a great project loss as well as a personal loss.
“Some of you may wonder if locked confine approaches are really the correct way to house fringe project staff after this tragedy. Some may feel that this form of incarceration is barbaric, even Dark Age in its application, and some may feel that the deaths of these five young men takes the edge off our achievements. I say to you my friends - we were right to operate this form of separation. The project is bigger than anyon
e, and everyone is expendable, from myself to Mr Vain to fringe selection squad members. You see our project is going to save thousands of lives each year. When we reveal our findings to the global public people are going to be overwhelmed by what secrets the dead mind stores. There will still be a proportion of murders but most individuals are going to think twice because the cliché still applies - 'seeing is believing.'
“Until the time of revelation, the protection of information is our God, and hence those who are being tested for project suitability will remain on the periphery, locked away from those who know. Imagine what damage leaks to the media would do to our work. We can't take any chances with fringe staff and that, my friends, is why those five men died. We did, and will still do, the right thing. They were thus martyrs to project secrecy even though they died clothed in ignorance. I salute them".
Denison's words made sense to the project ranks in front of him. Even the selection squads who had been taken into full project confidence nodded in agreement with him on occasions. They had proved themselves, and as they sat amongst the full parameters of MC project staff they felt a collective pride. Denison continued.
"Six other project staff died that night in Chicago, and I honour four of them as professional staff members who will be hard to replace. Two of the four died in the Designation, and ghetto scum shot the other two when they surfaced. All these individuals had been handpicked for their medical and scientific brilliance, and their baptism into project awareness took place on the night of the Venison exploration. Their services of support for the fringe front line team had just reached completion and their relevance to the project cause will never be forgotten".
Diana Fearston bowed her head in sadness as Denison talked about the deaths of some of those who had helped train her. She had been particularly close to the two men that had fallen next to Levene and Vain in the Chicago gun battle. As the project leader spoke, her mind hung on to the dissolved friendships.
"You will have noticed that I hold the utmost respect for the project fatalities that I have talked about thus far, and I wish I had the same kind of feeling for the two other victims. The truth is that their deaths were brought about by their own misguided and thoughtless actions. We are well rid of them. David Turner and Heather Maddox were also members of the forty who were baptised upon witnessing the Venison display, but thankfully their support duties were less important than some of the aforementioned fatalities. They made the mistake of getting too close to each other, negating their professional responsibility in the process.
“Everyone felt the heat of Designation J. Everyone hated the close confines of the fucking place, but it seems that these two couldn't endure things like the rest of us. They had to do something about our choice of venue. They were our 'fire-starters'. Just how infantile can one get? Just because they didn't have an external venue like Designation B to mask their romance, they thought fire was the remedy! Self centred, petty juveniles - that's what those two became. They also killed other loyal project staff by their actions, and so I'm damn glad they went to the wrong evacuation point - it was poetic justice that their fire wiped them out! The idiots had been tracked on our close circuit cameras anyway, so their punishment for arson would have almost certainly resulted in their death. They did us a favour".
Vain and Levene had cast each other a glance when Denison had referred to close circuit surveillance.
"I'd like to pay my compliments to Mr Fray for the way he dealt with the ghetto posse who took us on. He and Jess Wheeler's small crack unit gave that scum the only mediator they really understand - the bullet. Plenty of 'em, come to think of it fellas - nice one!"
Denison continued to praise the efforts of Fray's crack unit response during the gun battle, and as his verbal address approached its closure he enquired as to whether there were any questions from the assembled MC project ranks. Usually there were none, as Leif Denison's oratory ability was so conclusive that he answered any points of query that his staff may have arrived with. On this occasion however, Gregory Vain did feel impelled to ask one question that he felt his project leader hadn't encompassed.
"I feel that the crack unit response in Chicago was rather zealous in its execution, Mr Denison. I saw families hit the deck in that encounter - unarmed mothers and fathers. Whilst I didn't see any children actually killed, I saw them clinging to their slain parents, and that was a factor that tarnished the strides we have made in our research, in my opinion. All of a sudden I felt we stopped being the 'good guys'; dropping down to the scum level of the ghetto posse we had engaged in the gunfight. I didn't see any blaze of glory once Mr Fray's rocket-launcher vehicles had put paid to the fighting, all I saw were a range of sitting duck, innocent targets getting gunned down. I feel the MC project staff are collectively owed an explanation concerning why our line of fire was directed at innocent people escaping the burning buildings. What the hell were we trying to prove here?”
"I think your line of argument suffers from melodramatic toning here, Gregory. In the heat of that moment our guys weren't aware who was actually hitting the deck. It was a simple them or us situation, and how could have Mr Fray and his charges have separated a posse member from a civilian? We all owe them a debt, our lives. We owe them everything. Rather than attack them for a misguided line of fire, we should applaud their efforts that night. Think about it Mr Vain, which would you rather be - a saint in a coffin or a 'leading light' MC project operator? We're still the 'good guys' to quote you Mr Vain, but we're human at the end of the day, and morality is way down in terms of importance when a gun battle is the event under scrutiny. The survival quest rightly stamped on any limp-wristed chivalrous ethics that night, and I'm damned glad it did too. You owe Mr Fray and his colleagues an apology Gregory, and when your moral indignation has subsided after you have re-examined your words in hindsight, I trust you will make that apology".
Jess Wheeler glared at Gregory Vain as the project congregation took their leave. As the two of them passed each other near the assembly room exit, Wheeler quietly muttered his resentment concerning Vain's speech.
"Nice one, Mr Vain! You can deal with any fucking bullets yourself next time, man!"
Vain had time to contemplate the comments of Denison and Wheeler during the remainder of the Michigan placement. His mind kept recalling the method by which his words were shot down. Denison had knocked the stuffing out of Vain in public, and Wheeler had applied the metaphorical killer blow in a more private fashion. Whilst Vain hadn't been won over by the two men as far as their opposing viewpoint was concerned, his defeat had felt total as the exchange had been witnessed by so many of his project peers. He was afraid that some of the assembled ranks would have been swayed by Denison's superior orator ability.
The exploration work at Michigan was more spasmodic than the frenetic supply of corpses that were evident in Chicago, and the outdoor placement of Designation S added an aesthetic quality to the relaxation periods. Vain occupied his time between explorations with vault extension preparatory research, front-line team interactions and walks in the pleasant Designation S grounds. On occasions Levene would accompany him, but since Denison's comments pertaining to team-based liaisons, the couple had reduced their paired - up contact. On the penultimate day of their American placement, Vain took a solitary walk around the grounds and encountered Blyth Carson, partaking in the same form of relaxation. Vain greeted his fellow project member warmly and asked about the whereabouts of his usual partner - Brynley Stowles.
"Hiya Blyth, good to see you. How come Brynley missed out on America - I thought he wouldn't have missed the American explorations for the world! Is he still London-based?”
"Yeah he's still in London Greg, and you're right, he was real cut up about missing out on the States. He's back in Designation B along with Mr Voight. They're both laser-formatting the English Explorations in readiness for when we 'let the world know.' It's his own fault, poor guy. Before his MOD work he worked in film packaging and distribution!
Talk about your past coming back to plague you!”
EIGHT
Brynley Stowles stubbed out his cigarette and proceeded to spill coffee over his bedside table. This careless act seemed to sum up the way he was feeling perfectly. Stowles, to put it mildly, was annoyed.
Most of his MC project colleagues had departed for Chicago four days ago, and he had been selected to remain in England to assist Mr Voight with the laser disc formatting of the initial explorations undertaken by Vain's team.
Stowles knew that his previous experience in the film distribution industry did mean he was ideal for such a task, but he was an individual who thrived on taking part in front line developments and he felt that exploration formatting was very 'backline' in comparison. Blyth Carson, his regular MC partner had gone to America, and Stowles was left to work in the small team headed by Voight. Whilst Stowles got on quite well with his section leader, he had never managed to really achieve the kind of bonding he and Carson shared. Voight was a very 'distant' project member with regard to his personality and as his expressionless eyes looked at a person during verbal interactions, it was difficult to ascertain if he was really thinking about the subject being discussed. Voight unnerved Stowles to a level.
Thirty Four Minutes DEAD Page 9
