by Glynn James
Fortunately, there was a gap between the boards and the fence, and anyone patrolling the top was far enough away, but he swore that some nights his legs had felt numb after guard duty, and that had to be something to do with the power running underneath.
He now saw only one guard making their way around the boards, slowly walking the perimeter, just like he had. They would walk it ten times, all the way around, before their shift was over.
Only one guard per post at one time. They always used to have two, but Jackson had sent three companies of security troopers back to the Inner Zone a few years before, all to cut his budget. The man was naive, but then no one had ever tried assaulting the base, so maybe Jackson wasn’t as naive as he thought. It didn’t matter. It would all backfire on him now, FirstMan thought.
If this goes to plan.
“Target is locked,” said Hyde. “I have a firm on the chip location, and it’s immobile, as we instructed.”
He’s probably asleep, thought FirstMan. And so, the waiting begins. FirstMan shifted to try and get comfortable.
Three hours later, he watched as the perimeter guard walked down the ramp and out of sight.
Change of watch, he thought, nodding. Double the number of troopers around the perimeter fence for the next few minutes.
He waited some more, until the new patrol climbed the ramp and started their long walk around the boards.
“Wake everyone up,” FirstMan said. “I want them all ready in ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” said one of the troopers nearby. The man signalled down to one of the Junkers below, and after watching several more head out to wake everyone up, he nodded at FirstMan.
“Situ on the drone,” said FirstMan.
“Drone is in place and ready to launch,” said Hyde. “Inbound time to launch will be fifteen minutes after your call.”
“Launch and begin inbound journey,” said FirstMan.
“Drone launched,” replied Hyde.
FirstMan looked through the viewfinder at the perimeter fence, and he traced along it until he spotted what he was looking for. One of the drone bays. There was a dozen of them across the base, but this one was the only one in view. He needed it to remain inactive. The guns were bad enough, but at the first sign of an assault, those drones would launch and it would all be over.
But if the missile is on target, those things will never wake up, he thought.
As the first hint of colour touched the horizon, moments before the dawning of a new day, FirstMan smiled. “All units move to your designated place and be ready to launch assault on my order.”
This is it, he thought. This is where it all begins.
PART SEVEN
Another man’s Gold
Waiting Room
Now…
Jack was whistling.
The absolute lack of noise or any other form of stimuli within the cell had begun to irritate him over the last hour. And there was that tune he’d heard Ryan humming. It was stuck in his head, now; it wouldn’t go away. The boy said he’d been taught it in his schooling lessons at the junk town, and he’d sung it to him. Even though Ryan had forgotten most of the words, it was enough, and now the tune was well and truly embedded.
It was occupying his mind, he told himself. Distracting him from the uncertainty of what was coming – or what should be coming but hadn’t started yet.
Jack looked around the room for the hundredth time. All it contained was the bed and a toilet with a small sink next to it. The cot was uncomfortable to lie on, and it wasn’t nearly large enough for him. But it was, he reminded himself, better than the hard floor.
And then there was the blue light above the door. Jack swore it stared at him. Always blue. Only once red, just as he had entered the room – delivered by the guards – and then only until the door hissed shut, sealing him in. It had been blue ever since.
From that moment, nothing had changed. The room had to be sound-proof, because there was no hint of noise from outside. He didn’t know how many hours had passed. There was no window to judge by – just the blue light.
Why can’t you just enjoy the silence? Enjoy the calm? Soon enough this place is going to be chaos, if FirstMan’s plan comes to fruition. This moment of quiet is probably the first you’ve had in weeks.
But that thought didn’t help at all, and if anything, it made it worse. He didn’t want the quiet of the detention block; he didn’t want to be at the facility at all. Out in the junklands was where he wanted to be. He’d even started thinking about prospecting for a nice location to build his own place out there. Maybe by the swamp, not far from old Haggerty’s place, or further out. There were places, like the industrial complex they had searched for the drone chips, that were relatively free from junk. There had to be an ideal spot out there.
If you can survive this, he thought. If this pulse missile doesn’t kill you, or you manage to avoid getting yourself shot during the attack, then maybe you can still do that.
FirstMan had said the building he was being held in would protect him from the missile, and he had no reason to believe otherwise. But something he hadn’t thought about was what the hell he was going to do when it all kicked off? Would he still be stuck in there? If he got out he’d be unarmed.
Better to sit tight and wait.
Jack’s stomach rumbled. How long had it been since he ate or drank anything? Hours. He’d swallowed the chip without eating first, and now he was regretting it.
Jack realised that he had stopped whistling. And now he thought of it, he’d stopped breathing as well. He was holding his breath. Why? He felt a prickling sensation run along his arms.
Like static electricity, he thought. What was that all about?
He frowned, and with that came another realisation. He was staring at the blue light, and not even a simple idle gaze. He was staring at it. Waiting for it to do something. He was convinced it was about to.
Then he was on the floor, hands scrambling to steady himself. Bright lights flashed across his eyes, distorting the room. His ears popped. There was a wave of something – was it heat? No, not heat – a shock wave of some sort of energy that his body struggled to comprehend.
He pushed himself up into a kneeling position and looked around. He reached forward, steadying himself against the wall, and looked back and found that it had been the bed that had moved, somehow bucking inwards and throwing him forward. The sheet that covered it was now tangled around his legs, and Jack could clearly see the metal of the bed had bent in the middle.
He tried to breathe and found there was no air. His lungs weren’t responding. He was about to panic when his body shook in a spasm that sent a shock down his back, air gushing painfully into his throat and filling his lungs.
The missile, that must be it, he told himself. It must have happened.
Then the blue light went out and he found himself in darkness for a few seconds. There was perfect quiet once more, but then the light was back on, flashing red.
And then there was a hissing sound from the door.
Last Call
Now
“When does your flight leave?” Lisa Markell asked. The image in front of her was low resolution video. Her mother and father sat in a waiting room. Around them were dozens of other people, all carrying hand luggage and looking both nervous and excited.
“In about an hour,” said her mother. “It’s all running on time.”
“No need to worry,” said her father.
Lisa smiled. She could tell that her mother was close to crying. This was a big leap for them, leaving to go to the New World, and worse, leaving Lisa and her brother behind.
“You promise me that you’ll get yourself a ticket as soon as possible,” her mother said in a wavering voice.
“Yes, Ma. I promise I’ll get one for me and Bob as soon as I can. Look, you’ll be in cryo for a few years. By the time you wake up, you’ll probably have a queue of messages from us telling you to look out for the next ship coming in
. We’ll already be on our way.”
“I know that,” her mother said. “I know but I can’t help but worry. Those tickets are expensive.”
Lisa leaned forward in the chair. “I told you. Another two duties and I’ll have the money. And if I manage to wrangle a promotion out of this, it will be even sooner. And anyway, Bob is already putting his own money aside. At this rate, I won’t even need to pay the full amount for both tickets, just enough to top his up.”
“I hope so, honey,” said her father.
“I expect by the time we get there you should have the apartment all ready for us,” said Lisa. “Have you any idea how—”
She stopped speaking as the screen went blank. The constant hum of power that was usually heard in the base cut out, and the lights went off. Lisa found herself sitting in darkness.
“What the hell?” she said aloud. It was then that she heard the screech of the alarm sirens outside, as they began to wail louder and louder in their protest.
An Unwelcome Gift
Now…
Governor Jackson paced ahead of his jittery assistant as they headed along the aisle in the vehicle maintenance bay. He’d ensured that E2 was given a permanent spot, under the pretence of making sure all vehicles were kept in their own bays in future, rather than selecting any of the ones available at any given time. It was a practical thing, he’d told the maintenance crews, and although they’d seemed puzzled with his choice, they wouldn’t argue with him. What it meant for them was probably more walking between jobs instead of having vehicles queued up in bays next to each other. They would now need to walk to where their next maintenance job was already parked, potentially all the way across hundreds of yards of bays.
Jackson, of course, cared little about the extra work he’d created for them. What he cared about was that it meant the vehicle he had an interest in was directly opposite the clearest CCTV camera in the building, and he could peep as much as he liked.
“Catch up,” Jackson said as he paced along the floor of the maintenance bay. His assistant jerked forward, awkwardly catching him up and obviously out of breath. They turned a corner and finally reached where the E2 vehicle was parked.
Jackson came to stop in front of the vehicle and peered up at the platform on top.
“Well?” he asked, glaring at Rogen, who just looked confused. “Get up there!”
Rogen hurried forward and clumsily climbed the metal rungs attached to the side of the vehicle. The man was sweating, and Jackson knew he disliked heights. Even though these vehicles were not as tall as a building, even being 10 feet up would put Rogen into a nervous state. But the man was more frightened of Jackson than his own phobias, and he managed to make his way to the hatch at the top.
Jackson grinned as he watched the man crawl nervously across the top of the carrier. There was a certain pleasure, he found, in the discomfort of others, and his assistant was a most wretched man who, in Jackson’s mind, deserved it.
There was a scraping noise, followed by clicks and then a cough.
“I’ve got it,” said Rogen. “Um. Oh.”
“What?” said Jackson.
Rogen coughed. “I don’t think this is quite what we were expecting.”
“What do you mean? What’s in there?” said Jackson.
“You may want to come and have a look for yourself,” said Rogen. “I don’t think I can touch it. It’s…well…awful.”
The idiot, thought Jackson. Can’t even carry down a package. He lumbered forward and climbed the steps, finding himself already sweating by the time he reached the last rung. He pulled his heavy bulk up onto the top of the vehicle and stepped onto the platform, striding quickly forward across the flat roof, scowling at Rogen, who stood off to the side of the open hatch, holding his nose.
“What?” asked Jackson.
Rogen shrugged and pointed at the open hatch.
Jackson looked down into the small compartment. Before his mind could register the object that he was looking at, the smell hit him. “What in hell’s name is that?” he said, cringing.
In the compartment, wrapped in a dirty rag, was the small body of something long dead. Fur stuck out at odd angles, and at the bottom of the rag a tail stuck out, curling back over the rag like a tiny snake.
“It ah…it looks like a dead rat, sir,” said Rogen.
“A dead…” Jackson’s face flushed bright red and he could feel his cheeks tighten. “Why the…” Then he frowned. “The impudent fools. How dare they do this? This is unacceptable. An insult. There will be consequences for this,” he said. Then, as he turned to head back to the ladder, his fists clenching and unclenching, all the lights in the building went out. Jackson was about to curse when he heard the warbling sound of the sirens outside.
It’s Happening
Now…
FirstMan leapt over a pile of discarded scrap and hit the ground running. The perimeter fence was now less than a hundred yards away, and although the spotlights that would normally be tracing across the open ground that he now ran across were no longer operational, he could still see clearly enough. It was not yet dawn, but a hint of sunlight edged over the horizon. Within the next half an hour, that orange glow, which silhouetted the entire facility ahead of him, would be blazingly bright.
Fifty yards, and he kept going. Beside him, keeping pace, was RightHand, and he could hear the footfalls of many others as they rushed across the open ground. He had ordered radio silence unless there was an emergency, otherwise he knew there would be a cacophony of chatter among the Junker groups. Since arriving at the facility, he’d known that communications shouldn’t be picked up, not with the dampener in place, but they were on open ground now and moving out of the dampener’s range. Most of the facility’s systems were down, but that didn’t mean that every radio in the complex was dead. Some would have survived the pulse.
As the fence loomed before him—ten yards, five yards, and then right in front of him—he became aware of the shrieking sirens inside the facility. Other than their constant wail, there was little other noise.
Surprise was still within their grasp. The facility guards would still be trying to pinpoint the problem and figure out what had triggered the alarms and killed the power. Those near the impact point would be stunned and confused. It would take several minutes before they figured out what was going on, and by then…
He slowed as he reached the fence and pulled out a set of heavy iron cutters. He took a single deep breath, looked briefly toward RightHand – who nodded – and clipped the first links on the fence.
No blast of power. No buzz. He was still alive.
“All teams, open it up,” he said into the radio as he rushed to cut the wire. One long line of cuts, all the way down to the ground, and then two cuts sideways, opened a hole as the weight of the chain links pulled the wound open. He heard others doing the same, hurriedly making holes in the mesh, then pulling it open to make an entrance wide enough to move back through, should the power come back on.
Then he moved through the gap, dropping the cutters and drawing his weapon. RightHand followed him, never more than a few steps behind, and behind him, other troopers started to move quietly but swiftly through the gap, flooding into the facility.
The sun had still barely shown its face, and darkness filled the spaces between buildings, and the invaders took advantage of it, moving into the shadows, keeping to the sides of buildings like a swarm of scurrying rats.
Over four hundred warriors from the junk tribes accompanied him on this assault – a number that would easily leave the defenders outnumbered by five to one. Only his men – all former facility troopers – carried firearms. Surprise was still their best tactic.
FirstMan moved along the side of one of the buildings, watching the shadows, doorways, and alleyways.
Why had Jagan never attempted an assault? The thought came to him without a warning, and with no reason. But now he wondered. The tall thug had controlled as many warriors as FirstMan d
id now. Maybe more, since FirstMan still hadn’t been able to unite the crag tribes – something that Jagan had managed to do. The perimeter fence with its drones and turrets, now powered down and useless, was a massive deterrent, true, but with a little ingenuity, Jagan could have done it. There were enough intelligent Junkers. He cast the thought aside. Not now. It was a question for another time.
FirstMan moved along the side of the building, edging toward the roadway. Soon most of the guards would be out of the buildings and searching for intruders, and he wanted this over as quickly as possible.
He tapped the communicator attached to his helmet. “All units ensure any firearms are switched over to concussion. I want as few casualties as possible. Repeat, switched to stun, only. We’re here to take over, not to slaughter.”
With that done, he stepped out from the side of the building, raised his own assault rifle, and aimed at three startled facility troopers just ten yards away, pulling the trigger multiple times in three sharp bursts.
Lights Out
Now…
Lisa stumbled forward in the darkness that engulfed her room. She felt her way to the door and turned to the left, reaching out to the rack on the wall.
Was there enough time to put her armour on? She didn’t think so. And besides, she wouldn’t find it all in the dark. Most of it would be lying strewn across the floor, where she had left it. She grabbed the handgun from its hook at the same time as she pulled on the handle of the door. It was heavier than usual, and she had to lean into it.
“Damn power-assisted door,” she cursed, but the door eventually pulled open and she was greeted by near darkness outside in the corridor. Only the red emergency lights highlighted the walls and floor. She stepped outside and started along the corridor.
It must just be a power cut, she thought. But that wouldn’t explain the noise coming from outside – a distant warbling of sirens – that she had heard prior to the lights going out. It had been enough for her to grab a gun before investigating.
