by Glynn James
A drone.
It was not much shorter than he was and maybe three metres across, perched upon a low concrete platform in the middle of the clearing. Next to it was a charging station and a covered alcove with a computer screen in it. Ryan didn’t know much about those, but both Jack and FirstMan had explained what they were. Some way to communicate with the drone, to tell it what to do.
He stood still, just looking at the thing for a minute or so before he noticed the thin wisp of smoke rising from the charging station.
The drone’s power source had been fried in the attack, Ryan thought. He thought back to when Jack was explaining it to him, and even though he had been angry at the time, and not really listening, he was surprised at how much he remembered. That was what the missile was meant to do. The electronics would be broken all over the facility, and that included this drone.
He walked round to the front of the drone and peered at what he thought was its face. It kind of even looked like a face, in an insect, bug-like way, with half a dozen camera lenses pointed out in different directions and a central dome that looked like a funny hat covering them.
He had expected wings. The drones flew, and he could see how they would do it with the jets sticking out at various angles, but the physical reality of the thing somehow didn’t match what he had seen in the sky when the missile was fired. It looked like it should be clumsy, rather than graceful and smooth in flight.
I wonder if it could carry a person? Ryan thought. Maybe. If it could hold the weight of a missile, maybe it could hold someone who wasn’t too big. Not too heavy. He imagined, for a moment, himself flying over the junk, holding onto the top of the drone, controlling it with some sort of steering stick like he had seen in abandoned vehicles.
A noise from one of the alleyways shook him from his strange daydream, and Ryan turned to see several of FirstMan’s Troopers passing by the other end of the alley. Then, briefly, he saw Jack run by.
He was about to call out, shout Jack’s name, but then thought better of it. He left the drone, and his daydream of flying, held the medical pack tightly, and started running along the alleyway.
Time to Leave
Now…
“We’re ready,” called Jackson. He crossed the SubTrans maintenance bay and headed over to the small Maintenance Trans. Rogen had finished loading the cases into the small compartment and stood a few feet away from the steps that led up to the cab. The man was fidgeting, and Lisa could see he was nervous to the point of nearly exploding.
She checked the entrance to the building one last time, then glanced at Hayley. The girl was frowning, not even looking in the direction of the doorway that she was supposed to be guarding, but she did look back at Lisa, nodding toward the large green box on the floor next to the Trans track, half way along the platform.
Hayley started toward the Trans, stopping at the steps next to Rogen, and they waited as Jackson hauled himself up the three metal steps and into the cab. Lisa looked back down at the building’s entrance, thought for a moment that she could hear voices out there, and backed toward the Trans.
“Sir, you’ve left one of your cases,” said Hayley, pointing toward the green box as Rogen stepped up onto the Trans. The gangly man was looking at the control box that would seal the door.
“Leave it,” said Jackson. “That stays.” He turned back to the controls of the Trans, flipped a few switches, and smiled when the vehicle hummed to life. “Officer Markell, if you would be so kind as to untether the Trans from the power feed.”
Lisa nodded and walked to the back of the Trans. Several thick cables were plugged into a large box built into the floor. She knelt and unplugged each cable, frowning when the first was automatically reeled in by the Maintenance Trans, the cable winding up into a box on the side of the vehicle until only the plug itself poked out of a hole in the chassis. It was after she had untethered the second cable, and it had also been reeled in, that she noticed the sound coming from the green box a dozen yards away.
Bleeping. Roughly every second or so. No, not roughly. The box was emitting a quiet bleep every single second exactly. She frowned and walked over to the box.
“Officer Markell, the box is to be left, and we all need to embark upon the Trans and leave right now,” Jackson said in his most commanding tone.
But Lisa looked down at the green box. There was a timer on the top, and the sides of the case had been pulled down. The timer read 7:52, then on the next beep 7:51
“Sir, what is this?” Lisa asked. “Is this what I think?”
A detonator, she thought. But to what?
“It is indeed what you are probably thinking it is,” said Jackson. “And before you step further out of line and ask, it is very necessary.”
Lisa turned back to the Trans. Hayley was standing on the steps now, and Lisa saw that Rogen was twitching frantically.
“If you are coming with us then we are leaving right now,” said Jackson. “Unless you wish to throw your life away on some foolish errand.”
Lisa started toward the Trans. “What do you mean, throw my life away? Just what kind of detonator is that? What are you doing?” She saw that Hayley was now slowly lowering her hand and reaching back to her rifle.
“This place must be neutralised,” said Jackson. “I have no choice. It must be unmanned when we return to reclaim it.”
“Unmanned?” asked Lisa. She glanced at the green box – a bomb, she thought. “What kind of explosive is that?”
The Trans hummed louder, and she saw Jackson now had his hand on the accelerator, ready to go.
“You can’t leave that here,” said Lisa. “You can’t just kill everybody. There are over a hundred Troopers – officers – over a thousand workers.”
“It is necessary,” said Jackson. “And I am not staying. Now, follow your orders!”
Lisa faltered, unable to get her head around what Jackson was willing to do. Something to knock out the facility, make it unusable by the enemy, maybe, but to neutralise everyone?
“I can’t do that,” Lisa said, raising her rifle. “I can’t let you blow this place up with everyone in it.”
At this, Jackson’s expression changed, his eyes squinting at her, glaring. He seemed to understand that he was no longer in control. She would stop him, she thought. She would make him disarm the bomb. And he now seemed to have realised it.
Jackson drew the handgun before Lisa could react. He was never armed, she thought. She had never seen him carry a weapon. But this was small, something that could easily be concealed, and as the man rammed his hand down on the accelerator, he fired wildly out of the door. Rogen was caught off balance as the Trans lurched forward, and he fell out of the door and tumbled down the steps, hitting the railing as he went. As the Trans sped up, heading away from them much quicker than Lisa had expected, Rogen fell onto the track.
Lisa fired at the Trans but then stopped. Hayley had been at the foot of the steps when the Trans had started moving, and while Rogen had tumbled out of the cab, she had stepped forward and grabbed the rail next to the door. She also nearly fell away as the Trans sped up, threatening to unbalance her, but she released her rifle and grabbed at the door with both hands.
Lisa aimed but couldn’t get a clear shot. Hayley was in the way as she and Jackson struggled in the entrance.
The Trans was almost at the tunnel now, and Lisa ran along the track, trying to catch up, but it was going too fast. There was the sharp crack of a gun going off once more, and Hayley fell from the cab. Jackson disappeared as he fell backward into the cab, and Lisa could only watch as the Trans vanished into the tunnel. A moment before it disappeared into the shadows of the tunnel, she aimed at the back panel, where the power supply would be—
Too late. The Trans was gone, as it gained full engine power and passed into the tunnel, speeding off into the darkness.
Lisa rushed along the platform towards the prone figure of Hayley. The girl had fallen from the cab and hit the tunnel archway as s
he fell. Even as Lisa approached she could clearly see that one of Hayley’s legs was bent at the wrong angle.
She crouched down and carefully rolled Hayley over. She cried out when she saw the large blast mark in the middle of Hayley’s chest, one that would prove fatal if she didn’t get medical attention.
“I’ll get help,” Lisa said, and went to stand, but Hayley grabbed her by the arm, shaking her head.
“What?” asked Lisa. “I need to get you a medic.”
“No time,” Hayley said, her voice strained. “The bomb.”
“Yes,” I’ll stop it. I’ll get Rogen to stop it. Then I’ll get you a medic.”
She ran along the platform toward where Rogen lay, stepped down onto the track, and hauled Jackson’s semi-conscious assistant onto the platform. She rolled him over and looked at his face. His eyes were glazed over.
“Rogen. How do we stop this damn bomb?”
Rogen’s eyes opened for a moment, and he tried to speak, but all that came out was a gush of blood that splattered down his front. His eyes went wide as he saw that he was just feet from the bomb, and he began to twitch. Lisa noticed something sharp and metal sticking out from his chest. A piece of the railing at the back of the Trans must have broken when he fell, and he had fallen onto it, impaling himself.
“Calm down,” said Lisa. “Tell me, if you can. We can stop it. Then I can get you some help.”
Rogen took a deep breath and cringed. “Tamper proof. Don’t know code,” he whispered before passing out again.
And Counting
Now…
Seven minutes and five seconds.
Seven minutes and four seconds.
Lisa blinked. Nearly a minute had passed since she had looked at the readout on the green box, and in that time two of the four people in the room had been wounded, possibly mortally, and the fourth was now nearly a mile away along the Trans, and she was hesitating.
Nearby, Rogen had already stopped breathing, but at the other end of the platform she could still see Hayley struggling to sit up, to stay conscious.
If I go and get a medic, the time will be up before I get back, and the bomb will go off. A bomb that, from Jackson’s brief description – and her own estimation of its size – would probably flatten the entire facility and possibly a large area of land outside of that.
There’s no way I can get Hayley out of here in time. No way I can get anyone out in time. There was also no way to deactivate the thing that she could see. If she tried the keypad, she knew it would probably set the thing off early. Tamper proof, Rogen had said. It would be rigged against someone meddling with it.
Nothing to be done. Nothing that could be done. There was no other Trans. She couldn’t send it off down the tunnel. The drones were all taken out, according to Jackson, all deactivated. They took ten minutes to reactivate. Not enough time.
Just as she considered the only option she may have, she heard the boots thudding on the platform and out in the hall. She spun around, turning one-eighty and raising her weapon, but she was nowhere near fast enough. Six armoured troopers were aiming at her and two more over at Hayley, and yet more came from behind them.
Lisa shook her head and lowered her weapon, and then she recognised two people. The nearest trooper was an officer, and the insignia on the front of his chest-plate designated him as the officer that should be in charge of her unit and several others, her superior. His armour was dusty and battered, like it had been through wars and not repaired. It had to be her predecessor. There was no mistaking the markings. And that explained a few things. That explained who was leading the invasion of the facility.
The second person she recognised only when he took off the Trooper helmet he was wearing. It was the only piece of combat armour that he wore. The rest of his clothing was ragged and dirty. A long jacket with dark jeans that had been repaired many times. The man she had released weeks before, whom she had recaptured just a day ago.
* * *
“Please, you need to drop your weapon,” Jack said, speaking before any of the Troopers could. He watched as the female officer lowered and then just dropped the weapon to the floor, all will seeming to leave her. Two of the Troopers approached her, and she slowly raised her arms. Jack looked quickly around the Trans building, noticing the injured people: the first another female Trooper – moving, barely – and the second an older man with a nasty looking spike of metal sticking out of his chest, who didn’t appear to be moving at all. “We need to get medics in here,” he said.
“No point,” Lisa said, pointing at the green box. “It’s too late. Nothing we can do. It will all be over in a few minutes.”
Everyone froze except for FirstMan, who raised his visor and frowned at her as he walked toward the box. “What do you mean?”
Lisa blinked, her mind unfocused. “It’s a bomb.”
“You set it?” FirstMan asked, his expression turning angry.
“No. Jackson did it,” Lisa said. She appeared to be coming out of shock, now, but Jack thought there was still a sense of resignation about her. “It’s tamper locked, I think.”
FirstMan crouched over the box. He shook his head. “Damn it. I knew he would have something like this.”
Jack walked over to where FirstMan stood, staring at the bomb, but then turned with several of the other troopers as footsteps echoed along the corridor. A small figure appeared at the corner, peering into the hall.
Ryan.
Fly Away
Now…
Ryan walked onto the platform and tried to take in everything around him. Jack was there, and safe, not dead or hurt as he had convinced himself that he would be. FirstMan was there as well, but RightHand was missing. A lot of Troopers stood around, their weapons mostly trained on a woman dressed in facility fatigues but unarmed.
He frowned as Jack rushed over to him. What was so dangerous about the woman that they all had to point guns a her?
“Ryan,” called Jack. “What the hell are you doing here?”
At hearing Jack’s voice, he ran to him and threw his arms around him.
“This is not good,” Jack said. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I thought you might be injured,” said Ryan.
“We have six minutes before this thing blows,” said FirstMan. “That’s not enough time to get out of range. Not for any of us.”
Ryan’s heart started thumping. “What does that mean?” he asked.
Jack sighed. “It’s a bomb, Ryan,” said Jack. “It’s going to go off if we can’t stop it.”
“Then we need to go,” said Ryan. “We need to run—”
“It’s too late. We won’t get far enough away,” said FirstMan, who looked at Lisa. “You know of no way to stop this thing? Switch it off?”
Lisa shook her head. “No. And neither do either of these,” she said indicating Rogen and Hayley. Jackson is the only one who knew, and he is on a Trans, down that tunnel, and probably miles from here by now.”
“Hyde,” called FirstMan. The Tech Trooper moved quickly to his side. “Any ideas?”
Hyde shook his head. “No. I know just by looking at it what type it is. They made them so you can’t rig them, can’t stop them unless you know the code. There’s no quick get out with it.” He looked along the Trans track. “And no other Trans to send it down the tunnel. I know I can’t stop it.”
“Can it be contained?” asked Jack. “Put in a strongbox or something to deaden the explosion?”
Hyde shook his head again, as he examined the box “It wouldn’t be enough. I recognise this. It’s used for mining, mostly, to blow out large areas of surface rock. And as a last resort to take out a facility like this. It’s meant to blow a five-kilometre radius to dust.” The man’s face turned pale.
“And we have just six minutes and twenty-five seconds to get away,” said FirstMan.
“I was going to put it in a vehicle and drive as fast as I could away,” said Lisa.
“That could work,” said Fir
stMan. “Jacobs, Allen, go and get the nearest fasted vehicle and be as quick as hell. We’ll get this thing onto a trolley and outside.”
“It’s tamper proofed,” said Hyde. “We jolt that thing too hard and it’ll go off. No way can it be driven out of this place with the roads like they are. We’d get to the perimeter if we’re lucky.”
Silence. No one spoke. Ryan felt dizzy. This was it. The end was rushing up to meet him and all he could think about was flying away on the drone. But the drones were dead. He knew that much. The one he had passed on his way through the facility had been fried. There was no drone to carry him away.
Then it came to him. No drones here, except the one that fired the missile. The one now sitting somewhere out in the junk. “What about the drone?” he blurted. Everyone turned to him, and Ryan felt uncomfortable.
“What?” asked FirstMan.
“All the drones were taken out,” said Lisa.
“No I mean the one used to fire the missile?” Ryan said.
Lisa Looked puzzled.
Too slow. Not enough time to explain everything, Ryan thought. I have to get a grip, tell them how I see it. Not me flying away on the drone. The bomb.
“If the bomb is tamper-whatever you said, and can’t be jolted, then can’t the drone pick it up? I saw it. Floats like a bird. It wouldn’t jolt it,” said Ryan. “It could fly it away.”
FirstMan looked confused as he tried to run the idea through his head. Then Ryan saw the very moment the man understood. His eyes registered hope.
“It could work,” said Hyde. “It could do it. I think. I’ll call the drone.”
“Do it,” said FirstMan. “Now, and fast, while we figure out how to hook it onto the drone” He turned to Ryan. “You’re a damn genius, kid,” said FirstMan.
“Will it get here fast enough?” asked Jack.
“On its way, already. ETA four minutes,” said Hyde. “It’ll be close, but as long as we get moving that thing out of here quickly, when it gets here we may stand a chance.”
Ryan looked around at the faces of the adults. Nearly everyone he knew was here. He hoped to whatever gods existed that the plan would work. Then, as everyone seemed to be rushing around, he noticed the woman at the other end of the platform. She was lying on the ground, and she looked stunned, maybe injured, but was still moving. He patted the medical pack on his chest and started jogging toward her.
