Road to Abaddon

by Vincent Heeringa

2122 The Great Collapse. Global economy collapses; rise of armed bandits and mutant warlords

  2125-2129 Wars of the Landers (or ‘The Third War’)

  2127-2135 Creation of Nuevo Madrid, Aotearoa and other hydropolis cities

  2130 The Landers launch a terrorist war with the bombing of New Francisco

  2143 Consul Petreus Salvatore killed in a Sky London attack335

  — GLOSSARY —

  Aerotroplis A Metrician city built to hover in low-Earth orbit. The cities are: Sky London, Shanghai, Seychelle, New Moscow, Rio Nuevo, Nusaka, The Cape, Summer, Veddes

  Bit-vision Walk-through, high-resolution holofilms

  Bot Robot used for menial tasks, like serving drinks or cleaning up your messy room

  Butlerbot What every house needs

  Counter-Grav Metrician tek that allows large objects to float. It uses the Earth’s polarity to reverse gravity like two magnets repelling each other

  Feng Metrician swear word

  Gritz Lander swear word

  Holofilms Just like movies, except in holographic form (also called holovids)

  Holovision Projectors (or visions) that play holofilms

  Hoverpods Metrician aircraft, similar to helicopters, but powered by Counter-Grav

  Hydropolis Metrician island cities built on Earth’s main oceans. They are: New Francisco, Aotearoa, Nuevo Madrid, Madagascar

  Minibit Handheld tablet for typing and watching holographic text and graphics

  MMP Metricia Military Police

  Rushball Metricia’s most popular team sport; it’s a bit like rugby, handball, American football and basketball but with three teams

  Tek Advanced Metrician technology

  Scion Metricia’s secret service

  Scrip Rewritable plastic sheet for reading

  SubOrb Super-sonic hoverpod that can reach low-Earth orbit

  — RUSHBALL —

  Metricians are mad about rushball. It emerged from the Third War when the young Metrician army, determined to leave the past behind, invented a new game that combined the best of the world’s popular balls sports.

  Rushball is played by three teams of seven players on a triangular field, with goal posts on each corner. The posts consist of a hoop, three metres off the ground, and a rectangular net about the size of an ice hockey goal. The aim of the game is to score the most points by either slamming a ball through the hoop (5 points) or into the net (2 points). Players may throw and kick the balls in any direction, tackle only the players with the balls and block any other player with their bodies (but not with their hands or feet).

  A player may run with the ball for no more than 10 metres and hold possession for no more than five seconds. When a player makes a clean catch he or she is allowed 5 seconds to free-pass it or kick it.

  When a ball goes out of bounds, the team responsible for throwing it out choses who throws it back in. Certain players may not cross boundaries on the court (e.g.: a defender cannot cross the centre line). There are no limits to the number of subs.

  The games last 15 minutes per quarter. Penalties consist of free-pass or kick, goal-shoot and sending off, depending on the severity of the misdemeanour.

  At TS Academy there are seven teams: Viper, Scorpio, Condors, Hawks, Panther, Dragons and the Sharks.

  METRICIA SERIES

  BOOK TWO

  CHAPTER 1 - Retaliation

  “It’s still behind us!” shouted Jonah.

  The lights on the holoscreen flashed in close succession.

  The drone was gaining on them.

  “Okay, let’s surface. If we can’t outswim this thing then maybe we can outfly it.” said Gus. He sounded too calm for Jonah’s liking. Imminent obliteration by a Metrician drone sounded like something to shout about. Maybe even panic.

  Tria pulled the seatbelt tighter and bashed at the keypad in front of her. “Alright captain, get set to surface on my command: three, two … Wait! Incoming!”

  Suddenly the cockpit flashed. The faces of four teenagers were lit up as if on a movie set. Gus, the young captain with an unmistakable scar on his left cheek, gripped the joystick with such intensity his knuckles were white. Hugo, the curly-headed class-clown, sat upright, his eyes bright with gung-ho excitement. Tria, her thick red hair tied up in a crazy knot, hunched over the co-pilot’s controls. Jonah's eyes were fixed on the holoscreen, praying for the blip on their tail to disappear.

  The shockwave hit their submarine like a punch. Everything rattled and jerked. Somewhere downstairs a shelf collapsed, sending objects clattering across the metal floor. But the sub held together.

  “Ha! Missed again!” laughed Gus.

  “Okay, we’re clear to surface!” shouted Tria.

  Gus yanked the stick, forcing the bow of the sub up. The motors thundered. Pockets of air streaked across the windscreen. Everyone was thrown back into their seats.

  “Up, you little beauty. Up!” Gus’ arms trembled from the strain of holding the joystick.

  On Jonah’s screen the distance between the red lights grew and, for a moment, he thought that they might be clear. For two hours now, they had ducked and dived, dodging torpedoes and laser blasts, as a group of Metrician drones hunted them like sharks. Gus was a superb pilot, deftly tossing the craft between the debris of the bombed-out Atlantica and even turning the tables by shooting two drones with the sub’s little canon.

  “Two down, one to go,” he’d said confidently after the second hit. But the persistent third drone, the one red blip on Jonah’s screen, was a magnet, sticking to every twist and turn and pestering them with a barrage of lasers and the occasional heart-stopping torpedo.

  “Surely it must be running out of juice,” said Jonah.

  “Surely it must be running out of ammunition,” said Tria.

  “And surely it must be running out of targets!” said Hugo.

  It was vintage Hugo. He said out loud what no one could admit. He told people they were stupid when they obviously were. He laughed when it was impolite to be funny. Now he was stating the obvious: Atlantica, the northern base of the New Metrician Army and Jonah's new home, had been discovered and was being annihilated by Metrician missiles. It was probably already gone, along with many of their friends. They were alone, fleeing the last of the Metrician attackers.

  Jonah couldn’t bear thinking about it. Only a few hours ago, the four friends had stood in the blue light of Atlantica’s bridge, buoyed by victory. They’d witnessed, by satellite camera, footage of the destruction of Abaddon, the diabolical lab that manufactured mutant humans.

  Later in the same footage, they’d watched in amazement as the camera zoomed in to show a man scrambling over the building’s ruins. The timestamp showed it was two days later. The sun beat against his bare back and his feet kicked up dust on the broken concrete. The man was a mutant – his claw-like hand was a dead giveaway. How he’d survived was anyone’s guess. But it spurred hope. Hope that he was not alone. Hope that beneath the burned-out rocks and twisted wire there would be others. Hope that Nassim was still alive.

  Jonah was still watching the satellite replay when thumping started from above. Standing in the Atlantica bridge, in front of the large holoscreen, the four teenagers exchanged glances.

  “What was that?” asked Jonah.

  “That’s just the ships banging against the pier,” said Gus.

  “No, it’s different. Listen,” said Jonah.

  Tria tipped her head sideways, straining to hear. The thumps were getting more frequent. And louder. Then the room shuddered and the hologram pixelated for a moment.

  “It sounds like …” started Jonah.

  More thumps, harder now.

  Then sirens started. The circular control-room lights flashed from blue to red and the teenagers saw soldiers dashing to their stations.

  “I think we’re under attack,” said Jonah.

  “No kidding,” said Tria.

  "Feng it! Follow me!" shouted Gus.

  The young captain s
pun around and ran from the bridge towards a broad set of stairs. He led them down to reach a capacious hallway full of people bustling around a central console where screens lit up the faces of staff wearing headsets and ear phones. They were in the Comms Mez, Jonah recalled, the NMA communications centre that was probably now broadcasting news of the attack to NMA posts around the world. The room trembled with each distant thud.

  “C’mon!” yelled Gus.

  The four friends pushed through the throng of messengers and technicians until they reached a landing overlooking a huge cavern with a multi-coloured ceiling above, and a lagoon, far below. Sea water lapped against the sides of a wharf which had tied against it a motley flotilla of submarines. It was the NMA’s North Atlantic fleet.

  A line of stairs, carved into the side of the cavern, showed the way down and the four plunged headlong, taking two steps at a time. The stairs were a crazy-paving patchwork of plastic bits and pieces: old candy wrappers and bread bags, shopping baskets, drink bottles and forklift pallets fused altogether in a seamless mass. Formed over 160 years by the waste that circled inside the mighty Atlantic vortex, Atlantica was a floating trash island – a trashberg, as someone once quipped. It was perfect for Landers who wanted to escape their war-ravaged countries. And perfect for hiding a rebel military base.

  Until now.

  The plastic roof of Atlantica started to fall like a lolly-scramble, all multi-coloured and sliced along geometric lines. The sirens were being interrupted with loudspeakers shouting: Evacuate! Evacuate! Dozens of submariners were dashing to their boats.

  Gus paused at a second landing and waited for the others.

  “There,” he puffed, pointing at a narrow red sub, moored three boats from the far end. It had long, triangular wings and a short, fish-like tail poking out of the water. It could have been mistaken for a little missile.

  “Exocet – the flying sub,” Gus said with pride. “Let’s go!”

  The four flew down the stairs and across the pier, dodging ropes and stacks of ammunition being tossed into other craft. They reached the Exocet as the roof of the cavern started to crack in earnest, with large chunks of plastic now crashing into the lagoon. Waves pounded the wharf and the little sub bobbed up and down precariously.

  “Jonah, Hugo: get the mooring,” commanded Gus, pointing to the nylon threads that held the vessel to the wharf. “Tria, jump in and start her up. I’ll load the torpedoes!”

  With the athleticism of rushball players, Jonah and Hugo stepped aboard, unwound the ropes and threw them into the sea. No one’s coming back to get those, thought Jonah. Just then, a wave slammed the Exocet into the wharf, knocking Jonah off his feet. He would’ve fallen had Hugo not reached out and grabbed him by the belt.

  “Gotcha, bro,” he said and nodded at the hatch. “Let’s go.”

  The boys scrambled across the spine of the sub and threw themselves down the hatch just as daylight broke through a hole in the roof.

  Atlantica was collapsing.

  ◆◆◆

  On a holoscreen that curved entirely around her, Grace King watched the undersea trashberg emerge from the gloom of the Atlantic ocean. Tendrils dangled from its base like a plant, uprooted and dripping. Even from this distance she could see the island shedding fragments into the sea: chunks of plastic and machinery and bodies, floating. Ripples in the water suggested the place was getting a pounding.

  “Ignore the bodies,” she buzzed into the headsets of her fellow drone pilots. “Focus on anything that looks alive. Remember the drill: nothing survives.”

  Roger that, came the reply.

  Grace gently pushed her palm forward and sensors in the screen instructed her submarine to press on, closer to the fragmenting island. She was looking for runaway craft – boats or subs or even kayaks. Anything that could carry a traitor was fair game. Since surviving the assault on Abaddon her mission was simple. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It sounded biblical, it must right, she figured. Finding the NMA base was easy, once the source of the missile attack was identified. Located in the north Atlantic, near the old Arctic circle, the island of plastic was practically begging to be destroyed.

  “Revenge, eh?” mused General Kenrick, from his hospital bed when she called to visit. “Seems only fair. But it’s a dish best served cold. Use drones. We needn’t lose any humans on this garbage heap.”

  So, following a barrage of missiles fired from the sky cities of London and Shanghai, Grace led a team of deadly Barracudas, submarine drones armed with enough laser power to light an underwater barbecue. Approaching from deep below, the Barracudas formed an ever-tightening circle on Atlantica, ready to toast anything that moved within. Sure enough, within minutes of the aerial attack, NMA subs emerged like water rats. It was easy pickings for the drone pilots. Almost boring. Except it delivered for Grace the deep sense of satisfaction that only revenge can bring.

  She’d already destroyed three subs when an explosion from above shattered a large section of the island and washed the sea with plastic fragments. For a moment, her holoscreen became a kaleidoscope of coloured splinters, making it impossible to separate the escaping subs from the blocks of broken island.

  It was perfect timing for a small red submarine to sneak through the mess, indistinguishable from the jumble of coloured shapes. The sub drifted, cleverly tumbling with the tide to mimic the island flotsam. The craft would have escaped the watchful gaze of the Barracudas if it wasn’t for the tiny blast of a bilge pump blowing a mixture of air and water from its hold.

  “B-4. Did you just see what I saw, over?” buzzed Grace.

  Affirmative. I see a sub at …

  Just as B-4 responded, the rear engine of the sub flared and little craft shot out of the plastic soup like a rocket.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Grace. “Now there’s a thing! We want to play chase do we? I can oblige. B-4 and B-3 come with me. This should be fun.”

  Visit

  Facebook.com/MetriciaSeries

  or VincentHeeringa.com to get the latest news about the second book in the Metricia Series and see more art and stories about Jonah, Nassim, Huge-Oh and the rest of the gang!

  About the author

  Vincent Heeringa is an award-winning journalist and

  publisher and now executive director of communications company Anthem. He is a commentator on radio and television and a sought-after speaker for boring business events. He was once a maths teacher, a fact his family still find hard to believe. Vincent lives with his family in Auckland, New Zealand.

  Acknowledgments

  It takes a village to raise a book and I’ve been lucky to been part of a tolerant one. My wife Sarah listened patiently and encouraged me onwards, never once complaining about my teenage-style outbursts. When I started, my kids were young, now they’re adults. Thanks Levi, Toby, Theo and Willa for believing it could be done.

  Rose and Grant Bayldon, Simon Todd, Derek McCormack, Lorna Duley and Christina Partridge gave me advice as friends. Mike Bradstock, Nicola Legat, Stephen Stratford and Arthur Amon gave me advice as professionals. Brenda Laurent found all the typos. Sytze Woudsma and Sarah Heeringa did the graphic design. Christian Pearce did the amazing cover art. And Oscar lay dutifully at my feet keeping me awake with wafts of sulphuric fumes.