Metal Fatigue

by Sean Williams

  "I'm not sure," said O'Dell from below. "We can try moving it, if you like — although I wouldn't recommend it. It may look inactive, but it could be faking, playing dead. Even damaged, it's not defenceless."

  "Have you tried communicating with it?" asked Roads.

  "Yes. Still no response. Whatever it's doing, it isn't talking to us."

  "Maybe it's thinking," suggested Barney. "Trying to decide whether to give up."

  "Or not." Roads moved forward to stand at Barney's side. From so close, the Mole didn't look dangerous at all; just alien, incomprehensible. It was hard to believe that such an innocuous device had caused so much chaos in the last six weeks. "I won't relax until I see the damn thing in pieces."

  Before either of them could react, the Mole reappeared. An invisible force-field pushed Roads and Barney aside, spilling them bodily to the rusty metal several metres away.

  Roads rolled as he hit, grimacing as his broken arm tangled under him. They came to a halt together near the edge of the hole in the platform.

  "What the hell?" Barney muttered as she clambered to her feet. The RSD squad had turned their rifles on the expressionless Mole and fired several times.

  Barney and Roads joined the squad. Each bullet vanished into the holographic illusion with a faint fizzing noise, audible over the echo of the shot.

  "It must be draining power at an incredible rate to maintain that sort of field," said O'Dell via the cyberlink. "But why now? What does it stand to gain?"

  Roads tensed as the Mole took a step forward.

  "Any guesses, Phil?" asked Barney.

  "I don't know," Roads admitted. "But I don't like it."

  The Mole took another step, then began to change. The image blurred and swelled, ballooning into an upright lozenge two metres high. The light it cast was a deathly pearl-white, growing brighter by the second.

  "Martin?" prompted Roads.

  "I'm not sure, either," replied O'Dell. "I've never seen this sort of behaviour from any of the prototypes."

  "It must mean something."

  "True." O'Dell took a deep breath. "It's maximising its surface area, discharging its energy reserve at a dangerous rate. That could mean it's trying to overload its power supply."

  "Which means what?"

  "That the batteries will explode."

  "It's going to self-destruct?" Barney took a step backward, away from the pulsing lozenge.

  O'Dell hesitated. "You'd better get as far away as possible, just in case. Try to put as much metal between you and it as you can."

  "Will that help?"

  "Well, I've seen only one EPA malfunction before, and that destroyed a personnel carrier. The Mole has five ..."

  "Shit." Barney relayed the situation to the rest of the RSD officers on the platform, and told them to move away.

  "How long do we have?" Roads asked.

  "A couple of minutes. Your guess is as good as mine, I'm afraid. It depends on what the Mole hopes to achieve: complete annihilation of everything around it, or just enough damage caused to kill one person."

  "Me?" Roads edged across the platform. The Mole followed him as though joined by an invisible string.

  "Given a choice. I'd assume it's partly trying to erase all evidence that it ever existed, seeing it knows it's been discovered. If it can take you with it, all the better."

  Roads exhaled as the RSD squad filed down the ladderwell. This was one threat he'd be unable to fight his way out of. He had to pass on what he'd learnt about DeKurzak's long-term goals. "You'll have to do me a favour then Martin. I'm about to transmit another feed. It's not long. Just make sure Stedman sees it and passes it on to Mayor Packard, with the recording you've made of all this. Do it now, before we lose contact again."

  "But — "

  "Just send it. You can look at it later." Roads concentrated briefly, then sent O'Dell the recording he'd made of his last words to DeKurzak.

  "Phil?" Barney had waited until the last of the RSD squad was gone before turning to him. "After you. I'll bring Katiya."

  "No," he said. "It's your turn, remember?"

  "But you're hurt — "

  "Exactly." He took a step to his left, and the Mole echoed the movement again. "It's locked onto me. If I go now, you'll be trapped up here, above it. You go first, then Katiya. I'll come last, when it's safe to follow."

  Barney reluctantly obeyed; she knew the difference between good sense and blind heroics. "Don't wait too long," she called up at him as he watched her descend.

  He waved and turned to Katiya. The woman's face was streaked with tears; her eyes hardly saw him as he indicated the ladderwell.

  "Katiya?" He took her by the arm. "We have to leave now."

  "No. There's nothing to go back to."

  "Please, Katiya — for my sake. I'm not leaving here without you."

  "I don't want to be saved."

  Roads hesitated, caught between conflicting impulses. Did he have any right to force her to come with him? If she wanted to die, then that was her business, not his — especially now. There was little time for arguing.

  With one last look over his shoulder, Roads swung his pain-racked frame into the ladderwell and began to descend.

  The Mole, now a swollen, fuzzy sphere two metres across, followed. Roads heard the angry buzz grow louder as the Mole's power sources began to feel the strain. He tried to go faster, but was hampered by his broken arm.

  "How long now, Martin?" he asked as he descended.

  "I've spoken to the Cherubim team at base-camp. They reckon still a minute or two."

  "Right." The angry light from the sphere became blinding as Roads found his footing on the second ladder. His scalp and neck registered heat blazing from above. The sphere descended close behind.

  He reached the bottom of the ladder. To his left, the walkway stretched across the bridge. Below, he could see Barney and the squad; they had reached the first junction of the stairwell.

  He paused to catch his breath. The Mole settled onto a junction of cables not far away, burning like a furious sun. To have any chance of surviving, he had to find a way to go faster.

  "Martin?" Roads turned to look up the ladders to the top of the tower, not so very far away. "How will I know when it's too late to run?"

  "If the safety overrides are still functioning, you'll hear a warning," said O'Dell. "It sounds like a siren, but it only lasts one second. When you hear it, the power systems are about to fuse."

  "Good." Roads took one last look down, and then began to climb back upward.

  "Phil?"

  "Wish me luck, Martin," Roads muttered under his breath. As his good hand began to cramp, he added to himself: "God knows, I'm too old for this shit."

  Katiya looked up in surprise as Roads emerged back onto the platform, closely followed by the Mole. Strange shadows wavered in the night air as he clambered to his feet and limped to join her.

  "Take my hand," he instructed her.

  "What — "

  "Just take it!" Roads grabbed her left hand in his and dragged her toward the edge of the platform. "And when I say jump, do it!"

  Katiya looked from him to the empty space facing them, and tried to pull away. "No!"

  "We don't have time to argue, Katiya."

  "But — "

  A scream from behind them cut her off her in mid-sentence: the Mole's warning systems had been activated.

  Roads braced himself to step forward. "Jump!"

  He pushed himself off the platform with all of his strength, pitching himself into the air like an inelegant diver.

  Katiya, tugged by his hand, had no choice but to follow.

  Behind them, the Mole exploded. With a noise like the sky breaking open and a light so bright it dazzled Roads in the upper electromagnetic spectrum, the EPAs unloaded all their stored energy in one powerful blast.

  The shockwave pushed Roads forward and out into clear space. Katiya was wrenched from his grasp. Pieces of bridge rained after him, some glowing mol
ten-hot in low infra-red. He began to tumble end over end. A boiling cloud of smoke overtook him, blinding him for an instant in all wavelengths.

  When it cleared, he tried without success to relocate Katiya. Flailing wildly with his good arm and both legs, he oriented himself against the growing updraught, and hoped that she was doing the same. If she wasn't, then there was precious little he could do to help her. He had time only to worry about himself — and that time was rapidly running out.

  The cold, abyssal mass of water rose rapidly to engulf him. Fighting the giddy sensation of free-fall in his stomach, he assumed a rough diver's stance and judged his rotation against the passing microseconds. The fall wasn't as high as dives he'd performed during his training in the Army, but it was still risky. With his broken arm tucked firmly to his side, he closed his eyes and breathed one last gulp of air before giving himself over to the river's cold hand —

  — which struck like the fist of a vengeful god. His neck snapped backward and he spun out of control into the depths. Stunned, he could only flounder weakly for the surface as the breath rushed out of his lungs.

  Boiling rubble sank around him, burning him and making the water a mass of bubbles. Again, he thought he heard muffled screaming, but couldn't pinpoint the sound. He was surrounded by darkness — an icy, impenetrable hell from which he had little hope of escaping. His overcoat tried to drag him deeper, but he couldn't spare the time to take it off: he was already drowning.

  If he could discover which way was up, then he had a reasonable chance of making the surface. Bubbles go up, he told himself, trying to focus on survival training he had received almost seventy years ago. But his lungs were empty, and only dogged will kept his mouth closed against the water trying to get in.

  He called for Barney — for help — over the cyberlink, but there was no answer.

  Then his outstretched hand touched flesh: a foot, kicking wildly. He clutched at it, tugged with both hands. It kicked back at him, tried to free itself of his weight, but he pulled himself relentlessly upward.

  Katiya's eyes were wide and fearful when he drew level with her face; her head was still below water, not above the surface as part of him had hoped. Her last words drifted diagonally across her face, through her hair, and disappeared behind her.

  Up.

  Roads kicked himself in that direction, following the bubbles as well as he could with Katiya's forearm clutched in his one good hand. Oxygen-starved and exhausted as he was, he soon lost sight of the route to the surface, but he didn't let that bother him. He had no other option, now, than to hope he was heading in the right direction.

  His thoughts became sluggish, but they held on to one with surprising tenacity: he couldn't survive assassins, Cati and even the Mole, only to drown in a few metres of water.

  He began to feel distant from his body.

  Then a hand gripped his shoulder. With a feeling akin to vertigo, Roads was pulled abruptly upward. He kept his grip firm on Katiya's forearm as he rose, understanding even as consciousness slipped from him that they were being dragged to safety.

  The pressure on his chest and ears eased too rapidly, however, causing his respiratory reflex to kick in. Water gushed into his lungs despite his best efforts to keep his mouth shut. He writhed in agony, suddenly, irrationally, convinced that he was going to die within seconds of safety. Katiya slipped from his grasp and disappeared into the churning water. He struggled to find her again, but she had disappeared.

  Then the hand at his shoulder let him go, and he was alone. Blackness enfolded him again, and he fell downward, ever downward, into the immeasurable depths below. And if he ever hit the bottom, he never knew.

  POSTLUDE

  1:35 a.m.

  His fate was out of his hands. He was entirely at the mercy of gravity; there was nothing he could do either to arrest his downward plunge or to stop the river from striking him. He was falling, flying, fleeing ...

  And for one eternal moment, it felt like Freedom.

  AFTERMATH

  Friday, 21 September, 2096, 3:45 p.m.

  From the outside, it still looked like a warehouse. Its doors were rusted shut and its windows covered with boards. Its roof had seen worse weather and bore the rain with stoic indifference. An ugly black hole in one wall, where an explosion had recently ripped through brick and reinforced steel, had been curtained off with bright blue tarpaulins.

  Kennedy Polis had many such buildings, but only one with a khaki RUSAMC jeep and an armoured personnel carrier parked in front of it.

  "This is the place?" asked Martin O'Dell, peering through the rain-spattered window of the jeep. "Doesn't look like much."

  "That's what I thought," replied Barney. She glanced at the time on the sophisticated dash. "He told us to meet him here at four."

  "Then we'll be early." O'Dell swung open the door and stepped out into the blustery day. After a brief conversation with the driver of the personnel vehicle, instructing the squad to wait until he returned, he turned back to Barney. "Come on. You'll have to show me the way."

  She did so, down a flight of stairs between two buildings, then along a short lane to an open steel door. Inside the corridor, the air was humid and warm. Nothing searched them — none of the automated devices she had encountered the last time — and no-one asked for her weapon. The low counter where bouncers had waited to take ID was unoccupied. The only sign of life came from above: the lights were on.

  "Maybe we've missed him," she said.

  "He said he'd be here, didn't he?" said O'Dell. "Although it does seem a little quiet, I'll grant you that."

  O'Dell edged past the counter to the entrance to the bar. "If no-one's around, maybe we should help ourselves to a drink. I know I could use one."

  "Go for it." Barney took a deep breath and followed him inside.

  The bar was empty apart from furniture and a large wooden crate in the centre of the floor. Judging by the lack of mess, the room had been hastily cleaned before being evacuated, although the air still stank of years of cigarette smoke and spilled drinks. The bar must have closed in the middle of the previous night, an event possibly connected with the explosion that had knocked such a large hole in the building. Exactly how, though, was a mystery.

  Another one. She couldn't speak for the RUSAMC captain, but she was tired of debriefings and guesswork. Her only respite came when she was active, and all she really wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

  Finding no sign of life elsewhere, Barney crossed the room to study the crate. It stood a metre high, a metre wide and two metres long. When she tried shifting it, it scraped heavily along the floor. The lid was nailed firmly shut. A black stencil along one side pronounced: "MiMIC Industries, 30/8/40."

  "This is old," she said. "Whatever it is."

  O'Dell prowled restlessly behind the bar. "And the drinks are gone."

  "To be expected, if the bar is closing down." She stood up and wiped her hands. "This might be a test, a puzzle for us to figure out on our own. Or a trap."

  "I doubt it. More likely he's just playing with us." O'Dell's watch chimed the hour with a single beep. Out of patience, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted: "Hello? We're here!"

  "Yes, I can see that," said a voice from behind them. "There's no need to shout."

  Barney turned to locate the source of the voice and caught movement in the row of cubicles along the far wall. Something flickered on one of the tables: a ghostly image dancing in the gloom, well-defined despite the distance.

  "I told you four o'clock," said the head of Keith Morrow. "You're early."

  "Sorry," she said, forcing herself to relax. "Things have been a little disorganised back at the office."

  O'Dell stared at the hologram. "Is that him?" he whispered to Barney.

  "Yes." She couldn't help but smile at his discomfiture. Just days ago, she had felt the same.

  Stepping forward, she made the obligatory introductions: "Martin O'Dell, Keith Morrow."

>   "A pleasure," said the Head. Its angular features displayed a familiar crooked smile beneath a completely bald pate. "I'd shake your hand, Captain O'Dell, if I could."

  "Likewise." O'Dell eyed the hologram warily, his face a mask of guarded fascination.

  The trapdoor on the interior wall of the booth opened, revealing a bottle of vintage champagne and two long-stemmed crystal flutes.

  "Please," Morrow repeated. "On the house."

  Barney performed the honours, uncorking the bottle and pouring golden fluid into the glasses. Champagne of a twentieth-century vintage — the date on the label said 1976 — was to be treasured. A chance to sample such a delicacy might come only once in her lifetime.

  "Tasty," said O'Dell, nodding appreciatively. "I'm honoured."

  "As you should be." The Head regarded them both with an expression approaching envy. "Although I can simulate the taste of any wine with a fair degree of accuracy, nothing comes close to the real thing. I once knew people who would not have traded places with me, no matter what I offered them."

  "And I'd be one of them." O'Dell tipped his glass. "Still, I'm amazed. I had no idea such things as you would ever be possible."

  "They were, my boy, however briefly."

  Barney put down her half-empty glass, keen to forestall Morrow's boasting before it got out of control. "But we mere humans have our strengths, right? You yourself just suggested as much."

  "And your weaknesses." Morrow conceded her point with a wink. "I am trusting that the former will outweigh the latter, inasmuch as my future is concerned."

  O'Dell just smiled to himself, and took another sip.

  Barney could guess what he was thinking. Morrow had made the offer to turn himself in two hours earlier — a day and a half after the events on Patriot Bridge. In exchange for his surrender, he had demanded a fair trial before the Reunited States High Court in Philadelphia, plus a guarantee that he would not spend long periods disconnected from a power source.

  Barney had seen the footage of the conversation. Towards the end, immediately after rejecting an offer of clemency if he identified the group of nomads he had been dealing with outside the city, Morrow had protested O'Dell's description of their arrangement as a deal.